Used to be a number one record.  You wanted that ceremony, with all the label geeks and your manager, where you were presented gold and platinum plaques, which you paid for, demonstrating your success.  But do you really want to be Lady GaGa?  Beholden to Perez Hilton?  A creature of the media?  Or would you […]

Jim Messina left, Richie Furay jumped ship for momentary success with J.D. Souther and Chris Hillman, and Messina and Furay’s replacements, Timothy B. Schmit and Paul Cotton, carried on with original members Rusty Young and George Grantham to a new label, never to have success until Timothy B. jumped ship too and a band that […]

My favorite promoter is Don Strasburg.  He doesn’t care about the label, none of the traditional metrics L.A. insiders triangulate, he’s into artist development, the desire of people to see a band and the increase that results.  If you want to know who’s up and coming, or who is not truly dead, get ahold of […]

Rob Light Told me he wanted to make Jeff Beck iconic.  He had a whole plan, which he delineated. What struck me was this was the head of CAA, not MCA, or EMI, Sony or WB.  That’s what labels used to do, make stars.  They had a whole team, sharing the goal of pushing the […]