Richard Gottehrer

Richard Gottehrer is a songwriter, artist, producer, label owner and tech entrepreneur. "My Boyfriend's Back," "I Want Candy," "Sorrow," Sire Records, Blondie, Robert Gordon, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Marshall Crenshaw, the Go-Go's, the Orchard...need I say more?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob Left That's podcast. My
guest today is a singer, a songwriter, a producer, a technologist. Yes,
I'm speaking to the one and only Richard Godderer. Richard, Well,
given what it took to get this started, I would
take technologist out of it. Although you did start the

(00:30):
orchard and we'll get there. Uh. So, how you're handling COVID, Richard,
pretty good? Uh, I'm recognizing birds. I have squirrels that
are personal friends. Now we left the city. We have
an apartment in New York and when the Orchard and

(00:50):
Sony closed, uh probably marched twelve. I came up to
the house, which is a bit outside of the city,
and uh we've been here of a sense, but I
have gone back to the apartment a few times and uh,
you see it's it's kind of strange. But now it's

(01:10):
gotten pretty much back to normal. The Upper West Side
is full of people. What's what's missing, though, is Midtown
that's quiet. You go down Fifth Avenue, will come up
Park of Madison and you really see, um see that
that it might be an issue for businesses, uh, for

(01:32):
rental of those big spaces, the office space is going forward.
It might be a problem. You know. Well, hey, you
know we're still recovering. It looks like it's going to
get words over the winter. But let's go with you.
How did you and your two partners? Right? I want candy? Uh,
you want to hear that story. It's it's quite absolutely

(01:53):
it's quite a good story. Actually, well let's let's go
to this first before I want Candy. We put out, Um,
we put out a a single on the legendary Swan
Records Swanted licensed of course, great record. Okay, wait, we

(02:13):
just stop there for a second because I don't think
I know everything there. Swan of course put out she
loves You, the Beatles album She Loves You Freddie Cannon. Okay,
so what was Swan Records? Who owned that? Um? Two
guys that I think we're in partnership with, um, Dick Clark.

(02:34):
Let's get it that way. We in those days you
could have partnerships in the media, um sort of um
and okay. So we had written songs that were uh
minor hits for Freddie Cannon. One called What's going to
Happen When Summer's Done. It was a follow up to

(02:54):
Passage Park. So we knew the people there, so we
had this track we had done with the Angels, and
they just didn't want to do it. But it was
a Scott track, a version of I think it was
a Joe Stafford song. A little love that slowly grows
and grows, not one that comes to that's all I

(03:16):
want from you. Well we did it. A little love,
love that slowly it goes, It goes, you know, like
a stop. And in the middle Bob Feldman goes, Oh,
little louve that slowly grows, it grows, you know, with
a fake British accent, just for a joke. We put
the record out nowhere, nowhere does it show any activity

(03:40):
until we get a phone call from a guy in
Virginia Beach, Virginia, a disc jockey, I still remember his name.
It was Gene Loving and he said, if you guys
could come down here and play a show at the Colosseum.
Of course we were like stoned out producers. We didn't
know anything about that. Um I could make this record

(04:02):
number one. Well, when someone says number one, you jump.
Number ten, you don't jump. Number five, you crawl. Number
one you jump. So we pack up a crew. We
have adventures going down to Virginia Beach with triving with

(04:23):
three cars and these banging African hair drums that I played. UM.
We pull into the radio station, say Jean, we're here.
He says, what do you mean you're here? Everybody's out
at the airport waiting for you to come in. We

(04:43):
pulled them you were Australian because we couldn't pass for British.
And we go to the airport. We get on a
small two engine plane and the taxis down to the
UM airport entrance and there are kids with teddy bears
and jelly beans. Virginia Beach welcomes Australia, Strange loves. So

(05:05):
we get up on stage stone out of our minds,
banging the drums and the song we played was a
version of Bo Diddley Boom boom boom boom boom on
the drums. Um. People are screaming. You know, it was

(05:26):
just amazing. We get done, We drive back to UH.
We drive back to New York, but before we do, UH,
we stopped. UH. We go out that night with I
think it was the mayor or, the town counselor, and okay,

(05:47):
I guess this is all right for for your podcast.
It's it's not really racist. And we're sitting there and
it's a bottle club because you couldn't by liquor in
Virginia at that time, and it was little bottles and
we're drinking and he said, as the house it all

(06:10):
being down in Australia, great, mate, write you all, write
you all, and going like for faith Australian accents, and
he says, yeah, I'm so glad you boys are here.
I get some of them New York Jews coming down
here and and we're going write you all. Mate. Australia

(06:31):
is the same, you know, and got at it there
as like as we could. Um go back to New
York and we meet I'm at heart again and I'm
it is um hanging out uh with um with some
girls of our age that we hung out with. So

(06:54):
he just says, your kids are great, you as are great.
You you should come and use my studio. So we
pack up we go to the Atlantic Studios because by
this time the success of my boyfriend's back had changed
because now the Beatles, the Stones, the Kings though, they're
all coming in and as Australians we take our drums

(07:17):
to the Atlantic studios. Brue, Wait, does i'm it think
you're Australian? No, No, I don't know what he thought.
I mean he could have thought anything, right, I mean
I might I think thought whatever he wanted to think,
you know. So we go back there and we record
a great version of Bo Diddley, but not not taking up,

(07:41):
but it's our beat, the boom boom, because the strange
was beat was enormous and at that time you had
to cut an ascetate, and we cut the acetate at
his studios. He says, my god, Cherry Wex has got
to hear us, brings us in and we didn't really
ain't know Jerry Max. Nobody was legendary by that time,

(08:03):
you know, where the Memphis sessions and everything, and vowie,
Jerry's gonna listen to us and Ahmed and we're twenty
by then, we were twenty four maybe, and it was
still kids and puts the thing on and the first
thing years bowed and Luba babe, and the next thing
to hear is Ahmed, get these fucking kids out of

(08:26):
here before I kill him. And we're shocked. We don't
know what to do, and we just leave. Am It
comes running after us and says, uh no, no, he
gets funny sometimes like that. But you go and see
our friend Bert Burns, who we just started a label

(08:48):
with Bang B A n G which stood for Bert
ahmed Nessui Cherry and a publishing company was Web four uh,
meaning we've for them. Um, we go to see Bird,
Hey listen to it. He says, yeah, yeah, I know, Jerry.

(09:09):
He sees a couple of kids from Brooklyn and the Bronx,
and he's an R and B purist. He doesn't want
to hear you doing that. But what we could do,
the beat that you created is so amazing. We could
structure a song around that beat. Hence we've started writing

(09:32):
the song. And he said, let's get a title. I
remember saying, well, what about that book that's been banned
at softcore porn candy written by Terry Southern. Well it
turned out to be perfect because the other book that

(09:53):
can that Terry Southern wrote that I know is famous
is Doctor Strange Love. Hence, there we were. We were
the Strange Loves went in did the song we wrote
together with Burt, the three of us and Bert, Bob Felman,
Jerry Golstein, myself, Bert Burns went to bell sound, made

(10:15):
this layer drum and and like self sync over and
over again. Our voices kept bouncing him to make a
big sound, and Bert came up with the guitar lick,
which is very much like a famous song called what

(10:36):
was it called? It was Anna by Sylvano mcganno. And
I remember the guitar player that played in his name
was Everett Boxdale. And we got done with the record
and you think you're done. It's a four track recording, right,
Well not with neurotic people like us. Because we were

(11:00):
going to be superstar producers. We start mixing it over
and over again. Four track It took us. We went
to uh what was the Columbia Record studios. We spent
four days mixing it, editing it, and then went real

(11:21):
to real machine to machine and added reverb on top
of it, and hence came the strange love sound. And
that's the story of I Want Candy. Um it's a
long story, I know, but no, no, okay, So you
finished the record. Does everyone think it's going to be
a hit? Um? Yeah, I do, I think so. I
think Burt loved it. UM put it out. I'm trying

(11:45):
to think, yeah, um it came out pretty quickly after
we finished it. In those days, you didn't have to
plan for much. As quick as you could press it,
you could get it out. UM. And I'm trying to
think where it started. UM. I know it was huge
number one in Chicago and probably now that got higher

(12:07):
than nine or so on the charts. But its impact
was great, UM, and it led us to go on tour. Okay,
before we get there, it was obviously come back two
decades later with bow wow Wow. My question is do
you get paid on I Want Candy? Oh? Yeah, we

(12:28):
we get paid very well and I Want Candy. Say,
but at this late date, do you still have an
interest in that song? Oh? Yes? As writers? UM. The
interesting thing that I could UM, I could share with
listeners who are in the business. UH. Fifty six years

(12:50):
after the initial copyright signing with a publishing company, rights
revert back to the writers by copyright law. The writers
then have an opportunity to do what they want with it,
keep it, publish it themselves, resell it to the publishing

(13:12):
company that added UM, or sell it to other individuals.
Or are people out there buying copyrights and and writers
royalties UM and spending tremendous amounts of money for it.
We took advantage of that and re UM sold UM

(13:36):
both My Boyfriends Back and I Want Candy two, UM
sony a TV Music again and they paid handsfully for
it without mentioning numbers. It was significant. You maintain your
writer's share? What you are you do? Yeah? We main
We maintained our writer's shist. Now, you could also sell

(13:59):
those writer chairs if one wanted to. I don't have to,
and I don't really want to at the moment, but
who knows what life where death brings us? Okay, very
very specifically, did you license to them or did you
literally sell the songs out right? No? You you resign

(14:24):
with them as the publishers UM. But they have to
pay for it at this point because they're there or
other successful songs. They people do the same thing with
UM and we maintain they they account to us for
writers royalties are writers share? So in a sense in

(14:45):
that instance, you're you're selling signing away UM of the
basic amount of money that comes in UM, and it
was it was worth it, know, But the Bow Wow
Row record and then what's his name, UM, Aaron Carter? Yeah? UM,

(15:12):
but the song itself. It's what's interesting about it is
when you see something that's fifty and sixty fifty years
old or almost sixty years um and you said cross generations,
and it's the same with my boyfriends back. It's almost
not logical, but there's something that's eternal about about those

(15:38):
the simplicity of them. They be filled. Basically, you could
go to his cvs and there's pumpkins and dogs that
you could buy, and you press and it goes, I'm
a candy or or a rich or something like that.
You know, or you could you could buy on the internet. Uh,

(16:04):
the Hess truck that comes back every Christmas. Uh and
goes the Hess trucks back and it's got the most
amazing thing. So commercials UTIs in movies. These are things
we never considered where we're kids writing these songs. Another
one I'd bring up as far as commercials, which is

(16:25):
interesting of course it to me, it's mind boggling. So
if you watch regular television, it's full of commercials for um,
not narcotics, but drugs you could buy for diabetes, for this,
and on comes a commercial for a diabetes medication. We

(16:49):
got the beat, We got the beat, and I'm thinking,
what what a punk girl group that sank? We got
the beat? You know, it's not my song, it's it's
Charlotte's song. Uh. But when you hear that, it just
it just tells you that songs, that the song is

(17:13):
a thing that's most valuable about this business. Okay, So
where were you? Where are you? Were you born? Whould
you grow up? I grew up in the Bronx. And
what did your father mother do for a living? Oh?
My father and mother had various jobs. But the one
thing when I was going to junior high school they
had which was amazing. They had a bakery. They don't

(17:39):
know what they knew about it, but it was a
wholesale bakery where they've brought things in. But in the back,
in the back, they had three bakers, some old Russian
German guy you know who take me in the back
and say it was my first experience as a very
young kid. Do you know girls are very cool? Did you?

(18:02):
If you want to, if you want to see what
it feels like, riget press on the dough here, it's
just like the beautiful girl's breast. So are you talking?
This is free bam mitzvah, Right, you're talking like ten
years old, right, And I, oh wow, and so so

(18:23):
I remember this ship. It's really stupid. But these things,
these things lead to other things. And I would be
serious now it's not that it leads to the experience
of the breast, but but things that people tell you
um lead to other things that you don't think you're

(18:47):
gonna pay dividends. It's like when when we were doing
I Want Candy and other things. I was in the studio.
I get kind of weird in those days in the
studio and the drama. Herbie Lavell was his name, a
brilliant drummer who worked with us all the time, comes
over and said, Richard, uh, you don't look so good.

(19:07):
Are you having fun? And I said, yeah, sure, and
he said I don't think so. He said, but let
me tell you something. This is about fun. If you're
not enjoying it, get out and do something else, you know.
I never forgot that, you know, And and it made
me think of something else. I mean, you want to
go in that line? Another thing I never forgot. Two

(19:30):
things Alan Freed. Alan Freed is where I first heard
rock and roll kid Transistor Radio, the same kid that
was touching the dough and uh, doing this stuff, and
two things I remember that kept me into business. He
played a ricket called Hearts made of Stone. Hearts made

(19:53):
of stone, You don't have a brave drake, And then
I said no, no, no no no no no no
no no no no no no no no no. Everybody knows.
And then he takes the record off and says, the
first ten people took call up and tell me how
many times they said no. So I never forgot that.

(20:18):
And the other thing about Alan Freed. He plays his
record that was great, and then he goes, kids, that
sounds great, right, waits a second and then goes, it
will never be a hit. It doesn't have a sacks break.
I remember that you could. So what I remembered is okay,

(20:39):
maybe not a sacks break, maybe not a guitar break,
maybe a rap maybe something else. He meant it wasn't finished.
And the last thing, that's the most touching thing. And
it's strange because I talked to Paul Simon once about
it and he wrote a song about it. Um and um.

(21:00):
He had the same experience. Uh, you're listening to radio
transistor radio and your pill you're in junior high school
or freshman high school, so you're anywhere between thirteen and fifteen,
right and on the radio comes. I looked at the clock,
at the face on the wall, and and maybe it

(21:24):
was that could have been pledging by love. And the
whole thing goes and all of a sudden, he said, kids,
we're gonna have three minutes of silence. The radio is
gonna go dead. Johnny As is dead. And you're just
fucking shocked. You're shocked, you're mesmerized. You're just sitting there.

(21:49):
And the next thing you hear is whoever my dollar? Hello?
It YouTube. You hear his voice, and that made me
stay in the business. That may get into the business,
but made me stay. I remember it. I remember it
when I get down and when I think, you know,

(22:10):
I can't do that. You know what I remember is
that that these are things you you that have impact
and effect the other things you do. And that's what
makes the music come to life, or that's what made
music come to life for me. Remembering all this stuff. Uh,

(22:33):
it's just the little things people tell you, not the
big moments, the little things. Okay, you're going to school,
good student, life of the party, isolated, What kind of
kid were you? Um, yeah, I was. I used to
have a band recalled ourselves as Sultan's a Swing after

(22:54):
the Benny Goodman, and we would play mostly at the
y m h A. But what made our band great
was now, remember this is nineteen fifty something. We had
a saxophone. I played the piano, but eventually got vibes
because I wanted to stand in the front, So I

(23:14):
played the keyboards. And we had a drummer, a trumpet player,
and a guitar player. This is when rockabilly would just
come in. You know, rockabilly was in, but in New
York it wasn't guitar driven. So we had a guitar
player and we would play and uh, I played high

(23:36):
school dances. We'd played the Catskill Mountains, you know that
kind of thing. Uh, cocka lanes, bungalow colonies. Let's go
back before that. Was there music in the house. Yes,
I was trained as a classical piano player. My mother insisted,
like old Jewish mothers, you get a lessons, absolutely, get up,

(24:02):
you get a profession, and you're five years old. You
played a piano. Absolutely yeah. But they got an old
Russian teacher and i'd be playing God forbid I hit
a wrong note. I don't know about you. She had
a ruler every time I hit ayno duck smack. So

(24:24):
I gave up. I sort of gave up a classgow.
I started listening to if all things, if you could
believe it, Glenn Miller, Um, uh, Benny Goodman when he
had what's his name Lionel not Lionel Hampton, and uh
Teddy got his name now, um the piano playing, and

(24:48):
I think, I'm not sure. I think Big Joe, Big
Joe Burner. But one of them used to sing some
real serious blues and I got into the blues and
they did some sort of Saint His blues, and I
learned to play boogie piano and play that stuff. And
that led me to um to, to thinking I could

(25:09):
do this and understanding the concept of the blues and
writing songs. So when Elvis Presley happened, I liked him.
But the one I really liked was Jerry Lee Jerry
Lee Lewis. So as a kid, I'm popping away and
I decide, after great bowls of Fire, I could write

(25:32):
songs like that. So I write this song called I'm
on Fire and it was a cool song. Help I'll
help Mr Fireman please. I'm a burning from my head
to my knees. I'm a flame with such a burning desire.
Of course, had no idea what desire was. I'm like
a flaming cup. I'm gonna burning up. Yeah, I'm on fire. Okay,

(25:58):
I write the song of sixty fifteen and forget about it. Bob,
Jerry and I we shared everything, so we threw our
songs together. And after my boyfriend's back, which was on
Smash um uh, we get invited to a conference because

(26:18):
people wanted to meet us because Smash was the label.
Get there, they say, you know you got any songs
for Jerry Lewis he We just signed him as and
he's making he's going country, but we want to do
his last rock and roll out a few songs. Sure,

(26:42):
he was there. I played him myself. I played him
by the piano. I'm on fire. He does it, it
comes out. It's one of the main songs in the movie. Uh,
Jerry Lee Rik Boles of fire. Uh, and he became.
I's a hit of course in England and a minor

(27:02):
hit here. Okay, but you're in you're in school. Are
you a popular kid, or you're a good student. I
was an average student. Um, but I had no choice.
I couldn't start in the music business. Yet I had
to go to college. So I was able to pass

(27:23):
through whatever it is uh s A T S. And
I was accepted to a school called a Delphi. It's
a garden city, Long Island. And but I go there
and I'm done with all this rock and roll garbage.
I've listening to jazz. I'm going to be an educated guy,

(27:45):
and uh this stuff is it is for kids. M
uh So again, I'm still an average student. Um, but
I did all right in university in some class. So
you graduate. I graduate from high school, UM named William
Howard Taft and that was in the Bronx. Okay, but

(28:09):
then you go to a Delphi. Did you graduate from
a Delphi? I did graduate from a DOLPHI and I
went on to Brooklyn Law School because golf a bit,
I would never profession um. But the problem was that
I still wanted to write songs. So on the way

(28:31):
coming down on the D train from the Bronx, there
were stops at Seventh Avenue fifty second Street, and you
could get off where you could keep going and circle
around to Brooklyn and get out and go to the school. Well,
I started going to Brooklyn Law School, and I went

(28:54):
for about a year, but only half of the time
did I attend classes because I would get off the
train at seventh Avenue, which was fifty Street, fifty one Street,
N Street, the Brill Building six fifty Broadway. UM the

(29:14):
place where young songwriter. Young songwriters were gathering with old songwriters.
But just like today, the independent record companies, publishing companies,
we're looking for young people between eighteen and twenty two,

(29:36):
sixteen and twenty two, that's where Carol King, Jerry Goffrid
A Barry Man, Cynthia uh, Howie Greenfield, Neil Sadaka. If
all these names mean anything to anybody anymore, I know,
but I'm just saying you'd be surprised. Who doesn't you know? Uh?

(29:58):
How about the name Fleet with Mac all of a
sudden come on right? Or the Beatles for that matter.
So so started there and started writing songs with the
two guys, Bob and Jerry. How did you meet Bob? Yeah,

(30:20):
I was sitting outside of a publisher's office trying to
see this particular publisher. His name was not Jackie Gail
or something Gail. It was not King Cole's publishing company.
And they were waiting there too, and we were kept
reading an inordinate amount of time. UH So we said,
what do you do? What do you do? Oh? I

(30:41):
write songs. I write songs. Hey, you want to try
to write something together? Being that started a lifelong partnership.
While we do not work together any longer and haven't
for um nearly fifty years. The two companies we started

(31:04):
uh F G G Productions, which produced the McCoy's I
Want Candy, My Boyfriend's Back, and lots of other things,
and a publishing company that has the songs that we
didn't give to other publishers like this all the Strangelove's
album which has Nighttime and the song that is so

(31:30):
important to us because it was recorded by David Bowie, Sorrow,
and and many other songs. Still exists. UH still collects
revenue which we share, and our partnership is still a
three way partnership. Uh and this is fifty years on,

(31:50):
even though we don't do other things together. Okay, was
the first success My Boyfriends Back? The first big success
is My Boyfriend's Back, The first record that got on
the radio and the charts was We wrote for a

(32:13):
small um publishing record company called bell Tone. On bell
Tone was an artist that had a number one record
called Bobby Lewis I'm tosson and turn and well in
our wisdom and then our brilliance. A year later we

(32:35):
wrote for him My Baby's Got Me toss In and
turn In again back in the summer of the sixty one.
Got on the charts, well maybe number eighty at most,
but that was our experience on the charts, and then

(32:56):
we started writing better and better in songs. There's a
doop song called what Time is It? By the Ji
five That's a classic song. Uh, that's something I would
recommend to people anytime. And then eventually we left that
arrangement we had. We were picked up by a guy

(33:17):
named Wes Farrell who worked for a company named Roosevelt Music,
and we were given a little room in a piano
and we sat there and wrote songs and he would
take them to people. That's how I met Dion. We
wrote songs for Freddie Cannon. We wrote songs for Bobby V.

(33:37):
Bobby V was a wonderful singer um uh, a huge
star teen idol in a certain and probably UH late
fifties or early sixties, UM and UH. It led to
other things and one other song that we wrote that
was recorded by the legendary Jerry Butler UH called given

(34:02):
Up on Love, which I forget about but when I
go to London, if I would go to Liverpool, if
I would go to Liverpool or Manchester, it's legendary, along
with a song called the Drifter by Ray Pollard Northern Soul.

(34:24):
We have a tendency to forget our heritage in this country.
Thank god, it's kept alive by places like that. What
we look at soul music today is vastly different UM
than what was intended at soul music. And it's kept

(34:44):
alive in UM in London, so so that part of
it's great. And then eventually we hooked up with someone
else who got us signed to April Blackwood. April Blackwood
eventually became um UH owned by Sony Columbia Sony CBS,
which eventually sold to Sony to Sony, and we wrote

(35:09):
My Boyfriend's Back for them, and the contract for that
was on one they didn't even know. The people didn't
even know what it was going to become. Because there
were two other songs on the same contract. Right, I forgot.
But so anyway, the story about Boyfriend's Back is, we
do it with these girls that we knew. We had

(35:29):
written a song for them before, but we knew them
and we really want to get deeply into production. Um.
And we wrote My Boyfriend's Back, showed it to the
publisher and he said, this is perfect for the Charrell's
Well he said, no, no, it's going to be for

(35:51):
the Angels and we're going to produce it. Oh no,
we lost our job, our office, everything because we wouldn't
we wouldn't show it to the sharelle as we went out.
We ran out and did the record ourselves. Um, but
if you listen to it, he thought it would go
after Well. I met him on a Sunday, do ruh day,

(36:14):
Run day, Run day, my Boyfriend's Back, and you're gonna
be in trouble. Hey la, hey la, call a response.
R and B Church stuff that we knew nothing about
Jewish kids from the Bronx. But I guess the soul
crushed over somewhere and we understood it. And we we
went out and with our own money produced My Boyfriend's

(36:37):
Back and then how did you get the label for it? Ah? Oh,
this is big facts you're drawing out of me. Um,
what we got. The way we got the label is
we had an office and we were becoming known as
writers and people hanging around the scene, and um, they

(36:59):
would stop been to a little office that we rented.
We had a tiny office in six fifty Broadway, and
this guy came in. His name was Doug Moody and
he was a promotion man from Mercury Records. Mercury of
sub label was Smash, the label that had a number

(37:20):
of hits beside that, beside this, and he he has
my boyfriend's back. He says, what do you got kids
that kind of thing? What do you got? Oh, we
got this. We played for him. He says, don't show
this to anybody else. He says, I we'll take this
record to Chicago with me. I'll be back here in

(37:40):
one week. If I can't offer you a deal, you
could do anything you want. Okay. So we wait a week.
He comes back and says, we wanted what do you
want for it? We set something that was an exorbitant
price for the time, ten thousand dollars. You know, nobody
what ten tho dollars, you know, don't give you the

(38:01):
give you the ten tho dollars, pay you a reasonably
high royalty, and we license it to Smash comes out.
I think four weeks later it's number one. It's just
it was just one of those miraculous things. It was

(38:22):
a it was a really special record for its time.
It's still a special record. It's it's but but it's
it's amazing that it it crossed generations. Absolutely, it's still
it's still magical. Yeah. So after that we become producers
and we we get going and we UM. We start

(38:47):
producing a lot of girl groups. UM. We produced a
number of things. We used to work at really special studios.
We had our musician crew, we used UM and I'm
trying to think what else sold. We had deals people

(39:09):
were paying us to make records and stuff, but that
wasn't good enough for us. We start our own label.
So we start our label and it's called Stork Records
S T O r K. And we were being clever.
Stalk delivers the hits underneath every male group. The label

(39:33):
was blue. Female group the label was Okay Pink. So
we put this record out and I'll just tell you that.
It's another thing I learned that I carry with me
as a message. We we get um, we get on
radio stations that that you never thought you get on

(39:57):
throughout the Northeast, which is where you used to break
the kind of music pop music, Hertford, New Haven, Albany,
Schenected he Rochester. Um, and if you were big enough
to Buffalo. We eventually got friends in Buffalo, which I'll
lead to another story. And we get a phone call. Hey,

(40:19):
get over here. This is Moish moist, Morris Levy. I
want to see you. I want that record, okay, And
go over there, and there's a guy sitting outside, you know,
dressed and dark like this goes like that. Come in.

(40:41):
We go in and and I never forgot this either.
And he said, um, I want that record make a
big hit. What do you want for it? They said,
you know, ten percent and ten dollars? He says, hey,
that's too much money, you know, But I'll tell you what.

(41:06):
I'll give you a deal. I'll sign a contract with
you for ten percent and ten thousand dollars. But you
know what you're gonna get. You're gonna get six and
five thousand dollars. Shake my hand and you got a deal.
And he opens his pocket like that and lays a

(41:29):
water cash on the table. He says, don't be a schmuck.
Take the money. No way. We didn't want that. We
we said thank you very much, Marris, no insult. But
we got other office sort of money. He says, you
had my word, you would have gotten it. Now. I

(41:51):
don't know if that's true or not, but what I
carried with me is when you negotiate something, you talk
about it before end, and you agree on what it is.
And if you can't honorably agree, what you sign is
only gonna be fucking Donald trump land, you know, So

(42:12):
if you can't tell the truth to begin with, So
he would have given us because honor well, I I
suspect honnor was more important to him than the written word.
You know. Okay, So tell me about Burt Burns. Bert Burns, um, oh, saint,

(42:33):
I don't get us to another hit record. Bert Burns
was a great character. He's a great songwriter. He came
he came from the Bronx as well. He had a deep,
deep love of Latin music, so he had a feel
for it. So that's why when you hear twist and
shout or hang on Sloopy. It's that Guahira tree thing.

(42:56):
Don't don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't doom doom,
doom doom, don't do don't, don't, don't don't do you know?
And and and he put that. They say he was
in Cuba, that he helped run guns to Castro. I
don't know those legends. I have no idea. But he
he wrote great, great R and B songs, he had

(43:18):
a feeling in wrote for Solomon Berg, Wilson Pikett, and
of course the original recording of um Um Piece of
My Heart, Um, great Van Morris and stuff. And we
had done I Want Candy with him. So now we

(43:39):
go back to the strange loves who go out on tour.
But tour was a tour manager that drove our car.
I Hank Banking drums and the three of us and
whatever band was there. We would say, well, you know, Hank,
you know, you know, um, I want candy. We could

(44:00):
do time as on my side, and we could do
uh this other song that we learned from the Vibrations,
hang on Sloopy. Well, it turned out Bert and West
Farrell wrote, hang on Sloopy. Uh. So we're going across
the country and we were terrible, absolutely stoned all the time,

(44:21):
just having a great time doing three songs. And we
get the Dick Clock Show in Tulsa. It's in the
auditorium and the Dave Clock five is the headline act.
And they were to me, they were to me they
were my beatles. I liked them better for my taste
at them at that moment. Get off the stage after

(44:45):
we played it, and he said, oh, you know, maybe
we've been running the table and we could go back.
I think it would be great for Dave Clock to
record that song as our next single. Well, we don't
know what to do because we are ready recorded the
track for the Strange Loves album that hadn't been released yet.

(45:06):
We're driving back and our next show is like Blumbus.
We check into hotel as a Strange Loves and we
go to the show. There's a band playing of kids.
The drummer wasn't big enough to sit and play the drums.
He was sure it was. He had to stand and play.

(45:30):
The guitar player was brilliant, and and they played our songs.
People who were screaming, we lock Rick where you want Rick?
And I thought they recognized me, but of course they
recognized me. They were talking about Rick Zinga, who became
Rick Derringer. So as producers, we say, you want to

(45:54):
make a record kids, and and we go to see
their parents. We have inner at the house. They follow
us with their parents to New York. They sign a
production deal with f GG Productions, uh and U or
band Records, I remember, and um. We take him in

(46:14):
the studio and they sing over the track that we
have already recorded, which has all the strange laws doubled
and tripled drums on them. But the guitar solo was
Rick and I said, Rick, wait, just say before you
play it, let's give it to him right now. Well

(46:36):
you know where that comes from, Bob Louie Louis. That's
what he says right before the guitar solo, which is
another three chord song. So I thought, oh, that'll be cool.
And he plays this great guitar solo and hang us
Sloopy comes out? Does it come out yet? We finish it,
we master it, we get it perfect. Where's Burke Burns? Oh?

(47:01):
He went on holiday. He's at grossing gous. We go
drive up to the cat Skills to grossing, goes find
out where he is. He's in the dining room eating.
We get the people at the desk to give us
a broken turntable. We go in and drag him out

(47:24):
of the dressing room, take him to a room with
the turntable and play Hang On Sloopy. It's the first
time he heard the McCoy's version. He goes and nuts
wants to put it out right away. We we agree,
and it's because we've been friends with Bank Records, practically
founded with him when I want candy and it comes out.

(47:47):
But there's competition. The competition is there's a record, a
Canadian record by a band called Little Caesar and the
Consoles that comes out. It's on the charts, but we're
gonna beat it. What are we going to do? So
they hire Independent Promotion and that's how I met s

(48:11):
war Stein. Okay, what was Seymour's role on the Hang
On Slooping? Independent Promotion? Well, I didn't know that. That's
just that's a factory. Though Seymour was a promotion person.
He came from Billboard and new The tricks of the
charts is to put it gently. Um he understood it,

(48:38):
and um he was able to have some influence and
eventually um the bank record past um the Little Caesar
and the Consoles. It actually was a better record, but
it did take some um friendly persuasion. Um. Okay, okay,

(49:03):
so you have two more hits with the Strange Loves? Okay,
I want canned? Uh nighttime and Carolyn, how do you
how does the Strange Loves end? Well? Uh, the Strange
Loves ended when the three of us split up as
a team. Um. Well what was the causation of that? Uh?

(49:26):
I just think it was time to move on? You
know I had met Seymour. We have been talking about
going into a production company together Jerry. Jerry wanted to
move to California. UM. I think uh that it's sort
of it's a good question of of why it ended.

(49:47):
The interesting think about the Strange those days. I never
wanted to be a performer. Uh. We were invited to
play the apollo. Um I I didn't want to do it.
We were invited by Eddie Barkley through ahm it because
remember Atlantic, i'med Bert, I'm at Jesuit Jerry were banging.

(50:12):
So they were involved in it. So we were invited
to play the Olympia in Paris, which I mean, if
it came to me today, I would have done it,
But then I I didn't want to. And you got
to remember that's me singing nighttime. That's literally me doing

(50:34):
my best Mick Jagger, you know, And I think that's
what drew it to an end. We didn't perform, we
stopped writing together, and it might have been time to
move on, you know. Okay, So you start a company
with uh Seymour. It's sire because it's ther two names,

(50:55):
and what is the mission at that point? Oh, it's
production company. It wasn't a record label yet. There was
a production company, and we got a deal, um uh
to produce records for Epic Records, Slash Date Records and
Um I was into R and B at the time.

(51:19):
That's what I wanted to do. So we made some
really we did a deep Clock record. We did a
record by an artist called Guitark Prussia. UM it's a
version of a great I'm sure if it's Allen Wolf
or uh somebody a little Jimmy, but it's called going

(51:39):
Down Slow. And we did a bunch of R and
B stuff. They came out. They were really pretty good,
but it wasn't really getting anywhere. And Seymour, through past relationships,
had a had a relationship with a wreck job but
one stop distributor uh in upstate um, Massachusetts, uh uh

(52:07):
Rhode Island, and he was interested to going into the
business and putting up a little money. And he got
us a deal with London Records and formed a record
company which we called Sire. So. The mission it Sire
initially was we didn't have a lot of money, so

(52:28):
maybe we could mirror uh early a lecturer of Van
God you do low cost of folk uh, you know,
records that can be done acoustically do not cost a
lot of money and um. So so we started doing

(52:50):
that and we put out a few records. And one
record we put out uh was by an artist named
she was a television personality, Broadway audit celebrity, Phyllis Newman.
Phillis Newman was married to a man named Adolph Greene

(53:10):
who was an amazing legendary Broadway um um a songwriter.
And we we did the record because Danny's wife, it
was his money, uh, loved Phillis Newman. She said, why
don't you make a record with her. So I tried
to make this pop rock record with her. It was

(53:32):
a really cool record, and I wrote a song called
World of Music, which is uh, is really a good song.
So so we we put it out. Nothing happens with it,
and Danny sort of fizzles and says, you know, kids,
you take the label yourself. I'm going to go back
to what I was doing. They do that, and we

(53:54):
need content. Well, here's where we get into things that
get really interesting. Remember as a producer, I learned to
make records on mono machines, two track machines. Everything was
done on four track. Then it became twelve eight track,
twelve track six and you have to adjust. Technology dictates

(54:19):
the changes. Technology was rearing its head right at that moment. Again,
we were experiencing in America, UM a shift from a
M to F M. So I would call that technology.
That's a wind change for the business. UM. Sire decided, well,

(54:45):
albums not singles, albums um. So we started traveling to Europe.
And when we go to Europe, we go to the
UK labels export divisions. Now they were making albums in
the UK, but there are American counterparts, meaning Capitol Records

(55:10):
would only put out the records that already were hits.
That's why they didn't put the Beatles out right away.
I mean it took three records with other companies for
them to catch onto the Beatles. Well, we went over
there and said to these export division people, well, we're
Sire Records. We have a label. Uh, you know Seymour

(55:33):
because of his relationship, but so and so and you
know me because of the hits. I won't carey and
my boyfriend's back, and we'll put out your records on
a label and we could license it from them for nothing,
for zero. But a fun thing is that in order
to endear ourselves, because as when you come to visit

(55:57):
somebody's home, you bring a gift. Um I had in
the past with F G G. With our records, when
I wanted to hear what the master sounded like, we
would pack them in a box that contained a New
York Jewish cheesecake and send it to w K BW

(56:21):
and Buffalo, which was a fifty thoud watch station. Now,
they wouldn't guarantee to play our record forever, but they
would say, guys, we're going to play your ascetate at
five o'clock on such and such a day. It was
just a matter of you're in what it would sound
like on a radio? Okay? So I translated that and

(56:42):
I set to Seymore. Why don't we just bring cheesecake
when we go over? So we would bring a dozen
New York Jewish cheesecakes and dry ice, and we get
on a plane and we go over to England teas
export divisions and we would give them, uh, cheesecakes. Every

(57:04):
time we came back, they would say, hey, do you
bring the cheesecake? Oh? We say sure, what do you
got for us? And we would pick up really great
bits of music. That's how we got the Climax Blues Band.
We got a group called Barkley James Harvest. We got like,
oh my god, tons of things. We even had a
Cliff Richard record. We had these records that came over

(57:28):
that we brought over. And because we had albums as
an independent label, most smaller independence didn't have album content.
So entire entire sides of Climax Blues Band, Barkley James Harves,
and our first big hit record, a group called Focus.

(57:49):
They had a number one number one song all around
the world called Hocus Pocus. Are you familiar with that?
Of course they're the instrumental everybody knows Hocus Focus well no,
not everybody but but and the guy yodels in it.
So that was our first huge record, but that didn't

(58:12):
happen on London. We weren't selling enough records and London
dropped us and we got picked up by Tony Martell
and uh and it was Paramount at the time, and
and we moved over there. So the label grew and

(58:34):
we started having, you know, a big presence on FM
radio and an alternative label, and we we continued, we
we became friendly. The reason the reason we had Hocus Buccus.
We we got the first album from a Dutch uh event.

(58:55):
We went to UM and the first album didn't sell
very much and that was throughout London distribution. When we
moved over to Famous Music, which was Paramount, we um
uh we uh that's crazy um. We we started getting

(59:19):
much more attention and we got a much better deal there,
so we were able to begin putting out must have
been tapes and cassettes. Um. But it was even early
days then things were things were changing. And the thing
that I remember is they were charging the same packaging

(59:41):
deduction for things they didn't have to package. That was
a big record business thing. Um. But we were rolling.
We're putting out tons of material stuff. We were licensing
for nothing from overseas UM and um. And then we
were um. We had Hocus Focus, We had the second

(01:00:04):
album which was Focused Focused three UM, and we had
um uh, Let's see what else do we We had
a number of really great things, but none of them
sold as much as that. And each of the boys,
Jan Ackerman and tyslin Lear had solo albums out. So
at one time we had five albums on the cash

(01:00:26):
Box chart because that was cash Fox was and Billboard,
UM and Record World um uh at the same time.
So we were rolling. But let me backtrack for one second.
When we put out the first Focus album that didn't
sell through our London Records version of Sire, Seymour was

(01:00:51):
in England and he was I don't know. He went
to he went to to the deck of studios and
and met a guy named Mike Vernon. Mike Vernon was
a talented producer who um produced ten years after Savoy Brown,

(01:01:12):
and he was producing an album with a blues artist
called Champion Jack Dupree and Champion Jack refused to continue
singing unless he was given some renumeration in the moment,
and Michael had no money, but see what helped him out,

(01:01:35):
and so so Champion Jack recorded and we met Michael
that way. We asked, Michael, you know what is this
You're recording Champion Jack? He said, well, that's not for Decca.
My brother and I have a little blues label where
we're preserving the legend of the blues by recording old

(01:01:57):
blues artists. We're finding them very is I mean legendary people, um,
Jack Dupree and stuff. So what's your label called Blue
Horizon um and Um. We said, oh, you know, we
have an independent label too, and he says, you know,

(01:02:17):
we don't. We don't know how to do this. We
don't know how to do that. Were you guys come
in and help. So we came up with a chunk
of money, which in terms of their life at the
moment was substantial but really wasn't stantial, and we bought
half of Blue Horizon. So now we have Sire Records
and half of Blue Horizon, and we're trying to get

(01:02:43):
uh American Epic, which was Columbia Sony at the time
it wasn't Sony. Then Columbia UH two put out these
old blues records, but they're not and all of a
sudden they say, oh, you know, maybe we'll do some
white British flues artists, the original Fleet with Mac, Peter

(01:03:08):
Green's Sleep with Mac, and Out of Nowhere Albatross, which
goes number one all over Europe. Well, naturally to want
to put out in the United States Chicken Shack, who's
the lead singer of Chicken Chack, Christine McVeigh perfect, perfect, Perfect,

(01:03:29):
Christine Perfect. So so they put out that becomes a hit.
Duster bro Duster Duster, Bennett Um and a lot of
white British blues artists, so it becomes a significant label
within the British blues scene. UM richest brother. One day

(01:03:53):
UH had an arrangement with the manager of Fleetwood Mac,
but he wasn't an honorable man like Maurice Levy. Richard
inadvertently forgot to pick up the option. Fleetwood Mac was gone.

(01:04:15):
They left eventually. Um eventually Chicken Shack stopped selling as well.
Of course, they had that number one British record, a
version of I'd Rather Go Blind with Christine singing um
and she eventually with Mick joined a reformed Fleetwood Mac

(01:04:42):
because the Fleetwood pot was Mick Fleetwood, you know, and
the Mac was John MCVIEE. Okay, how does it end
with you? And see more than how do you want
to walk? From Sire? Yeah? We start, we God, it

(01:05:02):
was like it went as far as ninety six. Um.
I I think the way it ended was we just started.
I just wanted to get more into producing and trying
to find things in a different way. And the story
goes that we both were got married during the term

(01:05:26):
and the two women really were not getting getting along
at all, and I think Sea Boy's wife was a
little bit more aggressive about it, and you know, these
things happen and and no hard feelings. Um, we separated,

(01:05:48):
and uh, I wasn't sure what I was gonna do,
just hanging around see what. By the way, while we
were there, we had signed the Ramones and he didn't
cover it in the podcast, I'm sure, but I'll bring
it up. Miles Copeland. Miles Copeland managed renaissance that we

(01:06:10):
had on Sire that managed Buck Climax blues band right
and someone else, and um, the ones that had the
twin guitar leads. Um. Oh god, they were great. They
were hugef M band and they played harmonic twin guitar leads,

(01:06:32):
harmonic leads. Uh, wishbone ash right of course. So we
haven't dinner together one night, all of us, and he said,
I'm taking all my bands off of your label if
you continue with this punk shit. It's embarrassing. Wow. Though
he didn't tell that story, No, he wouldn't tell it.

(01:06:53):
He probably didn't tell the fact that did he tell
the story about the go goes where he Uh? When
I delivered the record to him, he threatened to kill me. Uh,
you know, because he says he's a black belt I
mean literally, not literally. Uh. And I had to pay
for the completion of the record myself. He did tell
you tell me that. He said, I ruined the punk

(01:07:14):
I ruined a great punk band. So it shows you.
So okay, So the ramones. So go back to the
sire um. So he started to ramon. So afterwards I
come back. I'm I'm living in luxury in my apartment.
I'm having a nice time doing nothing, wondering do I
need this ship again? Why don't I just go back

(01:07:36):
and finished law school. You know, Um, by this time,
I think it would have been almost time when Zoe,
my daughter was born, in nineteen seventy seven. No, so
this was seventy s So, Um what happens is um,

(01:07:57):
Craig Leon who worked for me at sire I think
left as well. And he was talking to someone I
admit um when we were interested in New York dolls.
His name was Marty Thou. Marty Thou was interesting guy. Um,

(01:08:18):
and he came up and said, you know you're sitting
up here, You're not doing anything. Why don't you come down.
I'm telling you something's happening to display cb GPS. So um,
all right, you know it's lower reside. But of course
I remember that when I was a kid, if you
came and went to New York City, my mother would

(01:08:39):
yell because if they go down to the lower resite
to what your treat to buy bogging suits, of course
roll up the windows. So I went down there, you know,
and and I'm go in and it it's amazing. I mean,
just you see this scene of disassociated people that are

(01:09:06):
brought together by by this uh funky environment and doing
music that is a reaction too extreme contemporary not even
pop but disco and jam music and um, I wouldn't

(01:09:29):
say metal, but but doing it in a refreshingly almost
amateurish way. Uh. And that's not a derogatory term. I
mean it in this assarians um strong way. And Patty
Smith played there, um Um Television came out of there,

(01:09:52):
and they got signed because they were buzzing. Big Waters,
which was a creative company, UH signed them. And and
so I go down there, and I'm hanging out, and
I think, Okay, what I'm gonna do because I'm this
producer by now, I'm practically a veteran, but I'm I'm
thirty five years old. I'm a veteran, you know, I'm

(01:10:16):
so what I'm gonna do is put together a composite
album of all the bands there. I'm gonna add my
production skills to it and make them and then put
the album out and then get individual production deals for
all of them. Nice idea. Start talking to him, So

(01:10:37):
I'm talking to your talking heads. I'm not interested in that,
and they weren't yet. And this is the time of
um Uh Psycho Killer, which to me I love more
than anything. I always love Psycho Killer. Um. But they
did say something. They said, you know who would be
good for your album? She had this great little voice.

(01:10:57):
Did you ever hear blunding? I said, right, yeah, but
I'm gonna go talk to them sometime too. They left.
I talked to a bunch of other people. No one
really wanted to be on the album. UM. So I
go down one night and Hilly comes over to me.
Hilly Crystal, the guy who owns the place, and he says,

(01:11:22):
there's someone here who wants to meet you. I think
this band wants to be on this album you're talking about.
So he introduces me to Debbie and she's standing there
and she starts talking to me, says, we'd really like
to be part of this. I said, well, you know, Debbie,
I don't really take anybody. I gotta hear you play

(01:11:43):
in an environment that I can not here, but an
environment that I can relate to. So I set up
studio rehearsal studio, which I would always do because any
band I produced, I would never do it until they
played for me in front of me so I could
or what it was I could contribute or not contribute. Um.

(01:12:04):
They walked in, they started playing. I smiled from the
first minute for the next hour. Uh. Every song was great,
their intensity, their ability uh to execute what they wanted
to execute wasn't there yet in many cases, but what

(01:12:25):
they wanted to execute was and it was apparent they
could do it, you know. Uh, but no one else
was really looking at them because they thought these people
care well gets you know. I thought they were great
and her voice was sensational. So I agreed to do it,

(01:12:46):
not just do it, but signed her to Instant Records
and we went ahead and who the albums came out
on Private Stock. What was Instant Records. Instant Records is
my production company called Instant Records Original O Maudi and uh,
and it still exists today. I'll tell you about it.
I put records out through the Orchard on Instant but
as a record label, so Instant Records is. It was

(01:13:09):
a production company, and um, I did fifty fifty deals
the way things should be done today, you know, not
royalty deals with the production and I didn't make any
money unless the artists made money, which I thought was fair. Um.
But I then needed to license it to a record company,
and Marty knew a promotion man at Private Stock, and

(01:13:32):
for a while Marty and I were partners in it,
and then I eventually brought them out. Um but um,
when I brought them to Private Stock, it was not
an album yet. It was a single and the first
single was sex Offender, but they wouldn't put it out

(01:13:53):
because radio could not play anything with the words sex
in it. Look at the world today and ask what
what's going on? You know what I mean, it's we're
totally different. So so we put out So we changed
it to x Offender, which I think is a better title. Anyway,

(01:14:14):
I think I came up with it, didn't come up
with it, So so he put that out and it
doesn't get anywhere here, but it starts attracting attention in
the UK because punk was beginning to take off. It
Just to be technical for a second, did Private Stock
release it in the UK? Or who released it in

(01:14:35):
the UK? Yeah? It was released on private Stock. It
was released on Private Stock. I was de facto managing them,
but I wanted to get rid of it and find
a manager for them. Um Uh, it was Private Stock
was distributed by E M I in in the UK. Then,

(01:14:55):
so it started getting a little buzz and I think
they even might have gone over there and done some
sort of touring because punk was starting to get a
buzz um. And when we came back, they we we
started talking about the possibility of doing more more songs

(01:15:15):
and doing an album, and I had to talk to
the person who was in charge of the company. His
name was Larry U. Tall. He was a very well
known old school record guy. He uh Amy Bell. He
he had been involved in lots of hits in it
in the old sense, and he had this label and

(01:15:38):
on it among other people, he had huge hit with
Frankie Valley. So he says, okay, Richard, if you could
do the record cheap, everything I did was cheap. That
that's the first rule. Don't waste money, do it within
a structure, and try to be reasonable about it. You

(01:16:02):
don't buy your way to success. Let success um come
from come from creating and um. So so I set
up a showcase for him and he brings with him
to cb GBS Frankie Valley and we're sitting there Frankie

(01:16:23):
and Larry doesn't know what he's gonna say, and Frankie
leans over and he says, hey, this is great, Larry,
you should do this, and and he says okay, and
I think he gave me a fifteen thousand dollar dollar
budgets some something ridiculously inexpensive, and we recorded where I

(01:16:46):
like to I'd like to record at that time. It
was a studio above Radio City Music Hall. It was
built its true. You took the elevator as you came
in the stage door entrance, and you would go with
half naked rockets and the studio was on like the

(01:17:08):
eighth floor, and they would be standing there at your
talking to him and stuff. And it was built as
a room for Tuscanedy. When NBC wanted to bring him
over to conduct the NBC Symphony Orchestra. He said, not
unless you get me a space that I could rehearse

(01:17:29):
full volume. So there we were, this monstrous room with
a great drum sound, a small studio with a twelve
recording board and twelve track machine, eight and twelve track machine.
I'd have to look up what it's called. I forgot
for the moment. A great engineer UH named Rob Stoner,

(01:17:51):
and it was a Rob Stoner. It was Rob Freeman.
Rob Stoner was a bass flare I used later who
played with Dylan and and played with me for Robert
Gordon Um and Um. We recorded the album there and
on the album there was a couple of other songs,
and I got Ellie Greenwich to sing out a few

(01:18:14):
songs with her. And there was one song that came out.
When the album came out. The first album, it got
good press, didn't sell here, but in the UK it
started really to buzz up. But in Australia there was
one song. It was called It's called in the Flesh,

(01:18:36):
and it's a ballad and she's Debbie's walking around the
Lower east Side and she meets you and boy, I
like you. I can't wait to see you in the flesh.
H boom. It gets up within the top five in
Australia and all of a sudden, while it didn't sell
anywhere else in the world, you look at that and say,

(01:18:57):
wait a minute, something's happening, okay, And and from there
they start getting there I go again. Yeah, starts getting
more and more attention, right, um and um. The album
comes out, does well and they asked for a second album,

(01:19:17):
and the second album we do, and we do with
a cover on it that Debbie wanted to do, and
the song was the old Randy and Rainbows hit De
Nise oh, Danny Scooby doo, I'm in love with you,
But she does it, changes it to Danny. She changed

(01:19:38):
it d E N I A s and she sings
the song you know uh, and then in the middle
does a singing version of a French verse, singing it
in French, but it's phonetic French and Debbie speak. I
thought it was amazing. It's the record. It was fantastic, Okay.

(01:20:03):
Right at that point, I had hooked him up with
somebody that then became their manager. He wanted to get
him off private stock. Is this shop? Is this shep
or somebody before she Shep? Is a great story, but
that comes a little later. His name was Peter Um God,

(01:20:25):
I can't I remember his last name. It'll come to me,
but I forgot it. But took them and he did.
He was a different kind of character, but he took
them around the world at the at the appropriate time,
I mean to East Asia, took them to places. Um
you know. They didn't like him in the end, but

(01:20:46):
he did some good for them and then some bad.
But the point is he wanted a matter of my contract.
He wanted a matter so he got Chris Less two
pay with at that time was quite a bit of
money to buy a band that hadn't sold yet. But

(01:21:07):
they saw the potential and they paid an enormous amount
of money to private stock, and they got this record,
and they paid decent amount of money to me, and
they still continue to pay me for the production and
publishing share on those records. So I have no regrets,
and I'm happy that Blondie went on to two great things.

(01:21:29):
And they got um the commander Mike Chapman to say
command because apparently used to wear a commanders that. You're right,
that's what they called them. Um. And he did wonderful
things and and that's great and I wish them am.
They're always the best. Um. But when Terry Ellis, who

(01:21:51):
was a Francophile, got the got the track, he called
me up. He says, Richard, this will never work. This
isn't French. People laugh at us, I said Terry. I
hope he doesn't feel. I'm not taking anything bad about Terry.
I love him. He's he was a great guy. And
Chris right also great guys, um and great record people. Um.

(01:22:16):
Now I sound like Donald Trump may get excuses for people,
but um um, so he said, I don't care what
it costs. Let me give you. I said, well, it's
got a cost like three to five thousand dollars. I
gotta remix it put a voice, and he says, I
don't care, you do it. I I want this done right.

(01:22:37):
I went back into the studio, she got a French
tutor went in, saying the middle section only in French again.
But I had done that mix by hand. I raised
reverbs and twiddled things as it was going, and I
couldn't get it again. And total recall didn't really work

(01:22:59):
because these were finger raises, you know, and it wasn't
just that it just didn't feel or sound the same.
So he finally said, okay, I get it. Let's just
put it out and see what happens. And it goes
to number one across Europe. And then there was another one,
Always Touched by Your Presence Here that goes again top five,

(01:23:21):
and Blondie explodes all across Europe, around the rest of
the world and in Europe, but not in the United States,
and starts selling in the United States. And it's not
until the next album and Heart of Glass that really
um really blows it up, and then they get they

(01:23:42):
get everywhere. Okay, become a monstrous success. Well they leave
that manager and need another manager. So where do they go? Um?
They were. One of the people that followed them all
the time was a guy named Toby name us who
has known h well all the time. You know, I'm okay.

(01:24:04):
He was working at a live management and UM Chef
Gordon was managing of course, uh many people, Alice of course,
um the woman who just passed UM well, a number
of people, the Luther of course, uh the and and

(01:24:24):
Teddy Pendergrass um, amongst a lot of other people that
he was involved with. And they go there and I
don't think they He was a guy who really um
um worked. It was a smart negotiating manager, but it

(01:24:46):
was live acts that was his thing, and they didn't
really want to do that. They were to make records,
hang out, get stone, you know, you know, be cool. Uh.
Being on the road is not easy, and it isn't
so so they're there and one day I'm making a record.
And it's a good story because one day I'm making

(01:25:09):
a record UM in California and it was with Gina Shock.
I did an album of the drummer of the Go Goes.
So that was must have been by then. Uh, and
I'm in California and the engineers um wife calls Jeffrey

(01:25:32):
and says, oh, you know, um, my friend asked something
that that Richard might want to do, you know. And
it's a vague story, but um it was chef's personal assistant. Uh.
Her name was Anita, and she um, she told uh

(01:25:56):
the engineer's wife to tell me that she has uh
these gold records for the first two albums that keep
getting shipped there. They're cluttering her office. I might want
him before she throws them away because they're really not
blundy things, or gives them away. So yeah, I said sure.

(01:26:16):
So I don't know what they were trying to do,
but she said, um, um okay, Well I was having
dinner with Anita, uh that night. Why don't you and
Richard come after work after the studio. Go there and
there's Anita mm hmm looks looks nice. We start eating, talking,

(01:26:41):
drinking wine. Kannak Uh wind up going on top of
mulholland uh kissing in the car. A police car comes
comes behind us with a siren says, take your business else,
square buddy, I said, well, I got a bottle I've

(01:27:05):
such a corny fuck. I got a bottle of champagne
in my room. We go back to my room. We've
been together ever since thirty years. If it wasn't for Blundy,
I never would have met the best women I know,
someone I love and uh and I hope I'm with

(01:27:27):
for the rest of my life. You know, Okay, what
what happened with the first marriage? Oh Uh that was
the difficult marriage from beginning to end. The best thing
that came out of it, um um was that uh
my daughters, Zoe, our daughter Zoe was born in nine seven. Um.

(01:27:51):
I think I'm trying to think. I think when you
went in labor when Zoe was born, I was into
studio with Robert Gordon. It was called Plaza Sound. That
was the studio, and Uh, I rushed out. I had
to get out and uh and get to the uh

(01:28:12):
at the studio, not at the first marriage. You know,
like and some of us aren't ready, whether it's me
or the other person, or we could blame anybody or anything.
But sometimes things don't work and so have that ended.
Before you met Anita, it was in the process of ending.

(01:28:33):
We were separated and going through what was a difficult
divorce because it involved property and money and that's always
that's always difficult and uh um. But it was made
up by um, um, by the fact that I met Anita. UM.

(01:28:55):
And I could say that I've made money from BLONDI.
Over the years, I've gotten credit for being somebody who
discovered Blundie. But in the end, the real boggin and
the whole deal. Anita, Okay, I'll give you. I don't
have any way stories. So Anita and I she she's

(01:29:17):
already overworked the chaps. And I have this huge apartment
in New York, and I'm moving to l A. And
we're doing bike coastal every two weeks and um, and
we decide that Anita will move to New York and
we'll live together. Um and and we do. And by

(01:29:39):
then it's like nineteen eighties six or eighty seven. Yeah,
it's eighty seven right this night seven and and um,
which we start going to events together. And I'm thinking,
you know, I I was raised where you grow out

(01:30:05):
of the home where people are married. I'm not saying
that that not just living together and sharing life is
not it's not the way to go. But that was
an old old timer in that regard, I guess, and
it was fine, We're doing good. But I thought about it.
I kept thinking about it. So we want dinner. I

(01:30:27):
think it was the Rocketbroll Hall of Fame when they're
at the World off right where where um uh and
so again, music play such a vital part in my life.
We're at the we're at the World off the Rocketbroll
Hall of Fame, and we're sitting around the table and

(01:30:48):
we're drinking wine and we get done with the white
wine that serving the next food, and Anita says, could
you give me another glass of white wine? I said, sure,
I ton a way to Could you bring me a
glass some white wine? Uh? And uh, I'll have the red.
And he says, Mr, they're onto the red. So I said, really,

(01:31:10):
you're onto the red. Bring her a glass of white wine.
He says, I can't. I can only bring a bottle.
So I said, okay, bring her a bottle. So I says,
missus is the voldolf. That's a hundred and twenty dollars
in years, a lot of ready. It's a bringer a
bottle of white wine. So he says, Mr, it's not

(01:31:30):
in my business. Is that your girlfriend or your wife.
So I said, okay, it's my girlfriend. He says, I
know it. No, and they schmuck enough a bottle of
wine for his wife. So so I looked at a
deader and I said, how about it, let's get married.

(01:31:54):
Crazy story, let's shift gears. Tell me about the Marshall
Crunshaw record. Oh a great record. No, that's the best
record he ever did. Phenomenal. Yes, Um, a great record
because he was a great songwriter. UH understood the type

(01:32:14):
of music he was doing. And so I get called
to do the record. I think he heard. He was
into it because he heard maybe the first Robert Gordon record.
You know, I had Robert and Link ray so and
he had his brother was a drummer and there was

(01:32:35):
a bass player. Was it Mark? Yeah? And um no
it wasn't Marcked. That's another thing. But anyway, Um, I
got called by Waters to do the record, and they
just loved his demos, which are absolutely great. We went
in and I know Marshall. I'm not saying this in

(01:32:56):
any derogatory sense, but we did the record twice because
Marsha wanted to do it exactly like his demos, and
I just went along with it. And and I just
knew it didn't feel right, but I went along with it,
and then we listened to it back and I remember
Marsha and I sitting there together. It was at the

(01:33:18):
record plant at that time, and I was sitting there
with him and just looked over to him and he said, uh,
not so good. Not so good, you know, because I
was responsible to water is also, you know, And that's
the thing. When you produce records for record companies. You're
responsible to them because they're paying for it, but you're

(01:33:40):
also responsible to the artist, and you always have to
pay that respect and responsibility to the artist. That's who
in the end you work for. Um. He said, what
could I do? I said, well, it's not hard. We're
like halfway there. You want to go for it again?

(01:34:00):
And he said sure, And we went back and we
took a lot of what was his concepts, but but
brought them less from let's create it as if it
was done in nineteen fifty, but let's create it as
if it's done in which is slightly more modern, but
not as modern as two thousand twenty one, you know.

(01:34:24):
So so the record came out and I forget which
one was the first single, but it got into the
top forty but didn't really break through. Everybody loved the record.
So I went out to Want as a head of
promotion and I said, what's up here? You know, it's
just crossing this barrier. And he said the other thing.

(01:34:44):
I never forget that you never believe from anybody in
the record business when they tell it to you, Richard,
this is great. We're gonna get it the next time.
There is no next time. If you got it going
get it, going at it the next time. The record
is appreciated across um the board of people that really

(01:35:09):
loved that kind of music and love music, and it's
a great it's a great record, but um it reached
only a limited um um a limited audience. But you
could go across the world and talk to people and
they'll ask me about that. The other record they asked

(01:35:31):
me about is U is um um blank Generation, which
is kind of really crazy. Tell us about that, Well,
that's Richard Hell. The Voidoids were um uh, Mark Bell
who became Macky Ramon, Ivan Krowll, and Bob he was brilliant,

(01:35:56):
Bob crying, brilliant, uh A Raddick sort of just played
strange things. And the record was blank Generation, not my generation,
No blank generation. Okay, I thought you said, my generation
is the houthong no blank generation, which was the definition

(01:36:22):
perhaps of that generation. Right absolutely. I thought it was
going to be the anthem for the generation. So we
go in to record it and Richard it's a poet,
a writer and has a unique voice in style. He
was the bass player and he played a little Mustang bass.

(01:36:46):
He tried to intentionally um garble the words to be cool,
but he was a true punk at that moment. He
was the one that tore his T shirts that said
you make me that uh more safety pins that Malcolm
McLaren when he put together the Sex Pistols modeled things

(01:37:07):
after um and I saw Richard at CBGB's and he
was the other one in addition to Blundie and Robert
Gordon that I signed to Instant and we made the
one album and that one I put together um UH
and put out through Sire, through Seymour and Sire because

(01:37:31):
he was doing punk uh. Other record companies I was
trying to deal with were not yet interested in punk music.
So we put that out. Nothing big happen for it,
but it's legendary within the guitar players circle, and I
once did something to talk where I met a band

(01:37:54):
in Finland. They didn't care about me. They just wanted
me to sign in their vinyl copy of Blank Generation.
And last year I get a call from UM some
people we distribute through the Orchard and they come to visit.

(01:38:17):
It's Third Man Records. Third Man, of course, is the
label that's owned Red Label Record store, UM Mastering Facility
studio owned by Jack White. So this is now. The
original version of Blank Generation was done at Electric Lady Land.

(01:38:42):
The second version that came out, the original version ever
came out. Second version was done at Plaza Sound because
that's where I like to sound better. Okay, the people
from Jack White's label come in and they introduced them
to me because I'm the founder of the Orchard, and
everybody wants to meet the founder. I you know, I'm

(01:39:02):
the mascott and to put it nicely and um um.
They started talking to me and they said, oh you know, uh,
we're going to do something with this so on Blank Generation.
I said, really, you know that I produced that with

(01:39:24):
with Richard Uh. And they said, did you do that
an Electric Lady And I said yeah. The original version
that was never released, as he on the part of
the album was done an Electric Lady and um um,
I just went on and did it elsewhere again. They said, Wow,

(01:39:46):
we were invited by Spotify to do a special show
of that they're putting together that will come from Electric
Lady and it will be about songs that were recorded
at Electric Lady Land over the years, and the artist

(01:40:08):
is to pick the song and Jack pick Blank Generation.
Would you like to come down beat him and uh
and see it? So I did. I came down and
met him, and Jack did a version of Blank Generation,
which didn't come out through Spotify. He put it out
on his own YouTube channel. But of all the things

(01:40:30):
he could have chosen, including Jimmy Hendrix, which I guess
there's a lot to try to duplicate, he chose Blank Generation, Uh,
which is really an amazing tribute to the song, not
to me, but the song. And then if anybody ever
saw him, I guess three weeks ago from the time

(01:40:52):
you and I are talking, if you've seen him when
he channeled Eddie Van Halen on Saturday Night Live, you
know rock and roll is I mean, that was beyond real.
It's in fact, it was real, and uh, it's something
that's really lost today. And and uh, it's great that

(01:41:13):
he um he continues to do things like that and
believes in it. And it's great that we do Orchard
are involved with people like him. Okay, so tell us
about the Go Goes. The Go Goes. The Go Goes is.
Miles Copeland calls me and by now he's talking to
me and and says, you know, I got this band

(01:41:36):
I'd like you to do. Um. There was another one
he wanted me do I turn down for some obscure reason,
Squeeze turned it down. I didn't do I should have
done it because they were great and this all oriented.
I would have loved him. But the Go Goes UM.
So he tells me who they are and I said

(01:41:58):
Moles and Blondie of uh, which is probably why they're interested.
My boyfriend's back other girl groups. You know, I'd rather
I'd rather move on and do some other things. So
he says not, he's a really great and I said no.

(01:42:18):
So he he's their manager. A woman named ginger Kenzoneri,
who is um literally their biggest proponent at the time,
calls me and says, listen, Richard, we really would love
you to be involved in this. I just know you'd
be right. Um um. So she said, they're playing at

(01:42:40):
Lobe Student Center. For some reason, they got a gig
at Lobe Student Center. Um. Maybe because within the college
radio circuit um we got the beat and the stiff
recordings were being played because they were played on k rock,
you know out in l A um A k k

(01:43:04):
R K far s. Yeah. And so he said, could
you please just come, you have to do anything, just
stand in the audience. Saw them play live, and it
was like that experience of seeing Blondie. Uh. Belinda was
a great performer. Jane and the other girls danced around.
Gina was a brilliant drummer. Um. Just Cathy could play

(01:43:28):
the bass, you know. And they sang and the songs
were great. And again that's what you do things for.
You do them for the songs, or at least I do,
not just the image. And their image was great. So
I decided to go ahead and do it. I said, yes,
I went and met the girls. I said, if if

(01:43:48):
they get along with me, that's great, I said, but
you know, I work in New York and they were
happy to get out of l A. You come to
New York and get put up in hotel rooms and
party and do what hell they did after the studio,
And again my budgets next to nothing. I don't even
know what it was. It could have been fifteen twenty

(01:44:10):
dollars that include hotel and everything. So he expected me
to get a cheap punk record done. And I started
doing it that way. But with the go goes, what
I did was and I started doing it with everybody.
For a while, I would hire a even though Gina
was a great drummer, I'd hire a drum tuner, and

(01:44:30):
after every few songs, I'd changed the skins so the
drums would sound a certain way. Um, and I got
the same guy. His name was Already Smith, and he
rented vintage amplifiers and guitars, and I wouldn't let them
play their own guitars. So every the sound of the

(01:44:53):
instruments become layered differently as you change the text, the
sound of the sound because differently as change the instruments
and the textures change. So we had all of that. Uh.
And I started hearing that as I rehearse it, focus
on different parts, that the song sound even better and

(01:45:16):
more commercial. And I start thinking, what a minute, I'm
not just gonna pull the plug now. I called and
asked for more money. They said no, So I said,
fuck it, I'll just I'll just it's not going to
break me to pay another uh seven. It only was
like about bucks in the end, but that's the equivalent

(01:45:39):
of maybe, um fifty dollars today, you know. So I finished.
I paid the studio bills and everything at the end.
Um the girls. What I learned from the girls was
it was amazing. I mean again, I'm a provincial guy

(01:46:00):
coming from UH family like I am in the Bronx.
I think guys are the ones that go out looking
for booty. No girls go out looking for booty. And
I mean I came in one day and it's like
pornography on the control room board. And they're funny. I
mean not not in a scene way, but in a

(01:46:23):
at all. This is who we are, and it was
who they were and they and they were great girls,
all of them. So so I learned other things from
them and uh and I try to learn from everybody
I work with. UM and UM I UM. They wanted
to go back to l A by now. Oh and

(01:46:44):
when it go it came to doing we got the
Beat because I loved all lips the sealed. I thought
that was number one, absolutely well one thing. If someone
out there who listens to this wants to pay a
ten menin they let. One of the reasons they left

(01:47:04):
was I decided in the middle where Jane goes, hush
my dolly, don't you cry right, that it needed a
tambourine that crossed the speakers and went hush y dog.
But it had to go. I spent two to three

(01:47:29):
hours a studio time sitting with a sambourine and going
and as it crossed the speakers, So it had to
have an exact certain length. And I only wanted it
played so that you felt the organic value of it.
So I could have been as crazy as my chapman

(01:47:50):
in those ways, but in a good way crazy. So
when I came back to them after that, I said, Okay,
that's done. Now that's great. Now we gotta we gotta
do we got to beat. What do you mean we
got to beat? We can't do. We got the beat,
it's already done. I said, well, really, how much did

(01:48:14):
it sell? And I looked up and he said it said,
it's all about forty thousand, which was amazing. In l A,
there was a punk classic. I said, yeah, but there's
forty million people. There's forty million people, you know, Um,
we could reach all of them. So I had to
talk of it to do. And we got the beat

(01:48:36):
and then we I put Gina in in the um
tape room, which had volumeous echo, and we doubled the drums.
You know, I said, well, first of all, slowed the
damn thing down because that's the wrong kind of beat.
So I got it slower, doubled up the drums, and

(01:48:58):
I thought I had an amazing record, but thought all
if the sealed was going to blow everybody out of
the water. So goes they go home. I stay with
Rob and remix the record, and to me, I wanted
it clean and sort of pop, but I thought it

(01:49:21):
still had that edge. But it was right, you want
to put it that way. It was it was something
that was made to sound good on the radio. Okay,
if you had a stereo, might sound good, might not
sound good, but it would sound good anyway. But it
was made to sound for the radio. Sent it out
to them, I got like, oh my god, you know

(01:49:44):
you're not getting your extra money back. If I were there,
i'd kill you, but not literally kill me, but like anger.
For six months, they didn't talk to me. Uh, and
they tell this story. It's not like I don't hold
it against him. And then I went out there when
we had a party at the Zoo Trump Studios to
celebrate number one album, and then everybody said, well, you know,

(01:50:08):
it's not that bad, but next time, we want like
a heavy record. Okay, um, heavy record, M you know,
we'll try. But they weren't a heavy group, and for
a while they denied the the commercial part of themselves.

(01:50:32):
But it's um, it's too bad. But they were terrific.
They all the great people. Um and um, the music
was fantastic. Let's just focus on our lips are sealed
in that particular case. How much was the raw song
and you couldn't fuck it up? And how much was
the recording and production of the song that made it
a hit. Well, remember they're playing all their own instruments,

(01:50:56):
so there's no ringers except me hitting the tambourine. Right. Um,
the song was great, their approach to it was great,
and I realized how great it was once we you know,
you would go into a rehearsal setting. You wouldn't go
into the studio and just do it. So as I

(01:51:16):
worked with them and made sure that each instrument did exactly,
you know, what they were supposed to do, it took shape.
But it couldn't take shape. You can't make an arrangement
and a great recording of a crappy song. So the

(01:51:36):
song had to be great. And Cathy says something, uh,
it's either in a book or in something else, because
she said, well, what should I do in the base?
I said, listen, don't screw around, just follow the bass drump.
Whatever the bass drum does, you do. Then you've got
a heavy bottom, so then there's a lot of space.
So then the guitargoes check, check, just one little thing.

(01:52:00):
And then Charlotte, who had a good sense of a
lead quality, could play a picking thing. So when you
put all that together, it just has this rolling beat
and then the I wouldn't even say the mellow knits,
but the melodious tone of Belinda's voice just floats over it.

(01:52:24):
And what you have is um is something unique. Okay,
so we get that and and this I heard that,
and I'll give him all the credit. When it came
to promoting it. I R S had was an independent
label and had a limited uh, a limited budget um

(01:52:52):
to do things, but they could do it in an
independent way. So they sent out the promotion man um,
Michael Plan, Michael Plan, yep. And he went to Jersey
to see a man named cal Rudman who listened to
it and said, this could be a hit, but you

(01:53:13):
know what it takes, and what it would have taken
might have been seventy dollars or fifty dollars. And Michael
had no way of going back and asking for that. Um.
He went on the road and drove through what I
told you about earlier in our conversation. The Northeast walked

(01:53:39):
into the stations himself old school and said, you gotta
play this record. You gotta listen and say whatever he did,
he got them to play it, and it started to break.
And in those days you could break things regionally, and
from that region, next region, next region, next region. Bang,

(01:54:01):
it explodes and and then the album begins to have value.
And then we got the beat, and then you have what,
on the face of it is a major artist. Okay,
So tell us about the creation of the orchard, the

(01:54:24):
creation of the orchard. Well, I won't even tell you
what the orchard is now because it's mind boggling, but
we could get to that. The creation of the orchard
is a great story because to me, when I talked
to people about it, remember we started talking about my
boyfriend's back. My boyfriend's back. I'm on fire going to

(01:54:44):
the Brill Building. To me, it's one straight progression, you know,
I started in this game. It's a it doesn't sound
like a blur, but it is a blur. It goes
room and one day I find myself. I could get

(01:55:04):
a few production gigs. I could stop doing what I'm doing,
but life charges me the way I live, so I
have to afford to live in it. So I have
to continue and do some stuff. And someone tells me
a friend at e m I um Um Records as

(01:55:27):
A as a secretary who said, Richard, I know you
like this kind of rock music. You know I saw
this girl. The manager is really cool and this girl
is is wild on stage. You should go and see her.
So I call the manager. I arranged to go to
see them. The name of the group is Scrub and

(01:55:48):
I meet the manager and I go down to where
is Pseudo offices and I don't know what second, I
forget what section of town. It was in the twenties,
and um, his name is Scott Cohen. And they said, okay,
I think I could get a deal for them. Let's
do some rehearsing, we'll do some recording. We record them,

(01:56:10):
we try to get a deal, doesn't work out, but
we start talking and we become friends. We form a
label to put out music. It's called Soul three, but
not Soulful, but Soul three, Third Planet from the Sun, okay,
soul free. We started putting out uh singles albums, and

(01:56:35):
we have a small office and it's on the lowery
side on Orchard Street, UM, and it's a storefront. And
what happens is we we engage a bunch of interns
because we have no money, but we did have enough
for a couple of full computers. And they're going on

(01:57:00):
line to UH, I don't what we're um, it's not
even broadband then, and they're going online and they're searching
and they find there are people like we have a group,
and they say, oh, you like heavy metal, you'll like this, Okay,

(01:57:26):
and then we pick up some people, but we see
there are two record stores, c D Now and Music Boulevard. Now,
most people don't know this part of the Archer story
because everybody thinks just this is how you do it overnight.
So I contact them and I said, we'd like you

(01:57:50):
to carry Soul Freeze label because we need more exposure.
And we figured this is when you could essentially the
order online. But you're ordering mail order. The only technology
is you're doing it through a computer, okay, and then
the physical product comes to you. And they're telling me, well,

(01:58:11):
I'm sorry, we can't do that. So I said, well,
that's not a good answer. Why can't you do it?
And they told me they can't do it because they
were quote virtual fronts. They the backhand when they said
they had two fifty thousand titles, they didn't have during
the fifty titles. The titles lived at a place in Sacramento,

(01:58:36):
California called Valley Media. Valley was the largest one stop
uh supplier of music in the country, Barney Barney Cohen.
They went public valued at a billion dollars and then
went bankrupt the following year. Okay, I mean okay, so

(01:59:00):
Scott and I, who by now are experienced in this crap,
are our good friends and partners, and we had started
a company. We came up with the idea of a
company called The Orchard that could distribute independent music that's
not available through those two stores because they don't exist

(01:59:27):
at Valley. So we call up, we get somebody to
get us an appointment, and we go out to make
our pitch to Valley. Why we at the Orchard should
be there's a flier of independent content. So go out there.

(01:59:47):
At this point, we don't have one independent art, we
have nothing signed. We have the name the Orchard. We
know what we're gonna do. Go to Valley. I sit there,
I go through the whole thing about future, this is
gonna look everything. We get a tour of their of
their warehouse and everything. They look. They looked totally disinterested,

(02:00:10):
and then they started talking to me about what you
just did. Blundie. The go goes my boyfriend's back. I
tell them stories and they look over and say, Richard,
you're one of us. We're going to do this with you.
But the tick is you've got to take our adsignment product.

(02:00:30):
By then I knew what that meant, and I said,
you mean all the people that bug the hell out
of you. But don't sell anything. I tell you what
we'll do that provided you make us your exclusive distributor
of independent music. I thought about it for a minute
or two, and they said, yes, We get on the plane,

(02:00:53):
go back to New York, go to the basement of
our tenement storefronts and start building a small replica of
values of of what we thought was valleys um warehouse,
because we were going to begin receiving a flood of

(02:01:17):
c d s right So they start coming in and
we start taking orders and start delivering them too, back
out to Valley, who then delivers them when an order
comes in on the Internet, through any the two of
their sites and eventually Amazon UM. When we developed a

(02:01:40):
contract for the Independence to sign with us, since we
were the way in, we added a clause that was
in fairness. It was a clause that we'd be happy
to explain that you also grant us the right to
store and deliver your music digitally. People. Some people asked

(02:02:01):
what that was, and we explained it to them that
there was this vague notion that was going to happen.
Uh and the others. UM said sure, if you, however,
you distribute it as long as I'm music reaches people,
and that was the goal of what we established at
the Orchard, and everybody signed it. Very few places there

(02:02:24):
was no broadband at the time. Broadband happened UH, people
go download things. Along comes Apple Music iTunes. UM. The
Orchard exists with about a hundred and fifty thousand titles
by then, so we become a large supplier to UM

(02:02:47):
two iTunes UH and then other places come along and
at that time we take in investment. The investors did
a good job in funding the expansion from independent artists
only two independent labels, and Scott and I prior to
that would take trips around the world everywhere on my

(02:03:10):
own money. That that really almost bankrupted me. But I
believed in it UM and we would go to conferences.
We would meet people like yourself, Jim Griffin. Um. You know,
I saw people speak and thought she I could do that,
you know, and not in a bad way, but to

(02:03:32):
say there's something happening here that really isn't very clear
yet as a as a song says, but it's out there,
and we got to be at the forefront of it,
and we kept taking in more and more. We would
go to talks and give lectures about the demise of
the c D, the demise of Final and UM. We

(02:03:55):
would literally get booed, get things thrown at us, you know,
I mean we were we were like really outliers. But
as it continued to grow, I learned what being a
CEO meant, which eventually I had to give up because
the investors put in their own CEO who was quite competent.

(02:04:19):
He was great. Uh he's now the head of UM
UM of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Greg shoal Um. The
investors UM also encouraged us in every way to continue
to grow and bring in more and more content UM

(02:04:40):
going on. UM and UM the orchard continued as we
brought in more and more labels of substance to UM
increase its revenue, begin to supply not only download sites UH,
but digital streaming s UM, and begin to supply everywhere

(02:05:04):
music is available in any form as long as the
people were legitimate and we're paying the artist. UM. It's
always important that the most important is that the independent
artists be served. So then we keep expanding in other
areas to where we're now in I imagine fifty different

(02:05:28):
um UM countries, UM even even Nigeria, South Africa um.
We used to be a mkimo fossil um um um
and go all across Asia um and music of in
every language um irregardless of its commerciality. So um. When

(02:05:57):
we started taking music in from India, we'd find it
it's sell in another part of the world. Is someone
saying in a different language. It didn't matter to me.
The idea was music from every every bit of music
from anywhere can sell somewhere to someone anywhere. And it's

(02:06:20):
not even a matter of selling, it's a matter of
exchanging the culture. You know. I used to give talks
and say there are three things you know, uh, music, foods,
sex and religion. We're all happy to take sex. Religion
I could take or do without. Um. Food we share

(02:06:42):
food as a cultural thing. Music and they are It's
a universal language if we if we appreciate that part
of each other, we don't have to worry about knocking
down buildings or blowing peach up or or you understand
people and music is what breaks down a barrier and

(02:07:04):
then out of nowhere along comes well done, very well.
Mind you a group of young kids who are very
great looking, dance sing in South Korean and you could
be a French kid, a Dutch kid, a German kid,
and you are learning the Korean language phonetically man. That

(02:07:27):
speaks to everything I have a dreamed of for the Orchard,
and it's a And as miracles go, we also uh
participants in distributing them, and we work with them and
not we don't do anything with the music, of course.
But okay, while you were building this business, the history

(02:07:48):
of the Internet is companies who were too early or
too late or killed by other companies. So while you
were building, did you have did you have competition you
were dealing with. Yeah, we had a bit of competition.
But the interesting thing about the Orchard is, I'll go
back to everything we've said in this whole conversation is

(02:08:10):
if you imagine a company like the Orchard, it stands
one ft in the past, one ft in the present.
We have to live and stretching far into the future.
So the fact that we provided a service that was
functional in the present while we developed the future, much

(02:08:31):
like Apple by the way, Okay, other companies that didn't
do that would fall by the wayside. You you have
to be prepared for the future when it comes. So
if you're not existing in a realistic way in the present.
And also you've got to be lucky. Let's let's not
minimize things. Yeah, there were there were other companies, but

(02:08:55):
the other companies basically glommed onto what it was that
you were doing. But fortunately for us at the moment,
the big companies didn't, so there was room where you
could do this. Sony they got involved later on in it, okay,

(02:09:16):
but but most big companies were happy to let us
exist because they didn't want to make waves, um with
the retailers, because if you start dealing in digital at
the same time where the messages we're going to get
rid of what you're doing, it hurts the business as

(02:09:37):
it is. You know. That's why when like MP three
dot com came along, you know, the industry you've talked
about it could have embraced this stuff a lot earlier.
Even Spotify wasn't embraced immediately. Um Apple was embraced immediately
as a download place because essentially they would aint too people,

(02:10:00):
We've got a billion dollars in the bank, and we're
gonna we're gonna sell these downloads of your music for
exactly the same price that you're selling it in these
record stores. So made sense. Okay, So but ultimately the orchard,
you and your investors sold the orchard. Yes, tell us

(02:10:23):
about that. UM again, why I can't remember. I didn't
even want to bother look it up. But why I
can't remember the company that UM Sony had bought. But
the investors made a deal with Sony where they rolled
that other company into they were doing very well, UM,

(02:10:49):
he'll come to me in a minute, and rolled it in.
So it increased our our revenue and our market share,
uh greatly, UM in the independent sector. And UM and
a change for that. Uh. They took a seat on
the board and they UM a position in the company

(02:11:11):
and with an option at a certain point in a
certain multiple I imagine, to buy the rest of it.
And UM that point was reached and UH the investors
took advantage of it and sold the remaining shares to
UM Sony, which was on the board for three to

(02:11:35):
five years anyway, UM uh prior to that, and on
the face of it, as an independent company that really
feels or as an individual that really feels independent, you
begin to think, WHOA, that's the kind of place that
I was totally against. You know what's going on here?

(02:12:00):
But and I made that point when I when I
did give a talk or welcoming talk to the Impalla
was the other yeah, Impalla. So when I gave it,
when I gave a talk to them, a welcoming talk,
that they're now yet because they were merged into the Orchard,
not the other way around. UM. But then I began

(02:12:25):
to realize and to see what a great company Sony
really is. And I'm not going to extoll the virtues
um because I have to. I don't. I don't really
carry the way. It's that they understood what the Orchard
was about. They understood, UM, that that indispendent spirit was important.

(02:12:47):
And while you have to adhere to things that are corporate,
at the same time, what they did was allowed the
company to function the way it always funct and they
allowed the CEO to continue to remain the CEO, and
the CEO they brod. I'll tell you their names. Brad Nathan,

(02:13:12):
who grew up inside of the Orchard and has been
there fifteen seventeen years and learned from the bottom up
and is a great CEO. And Colleen Tys, who's the
CEO chief operating officer, who Brad identified and found working elsewhere.

(02:13:33):
I think she was working out of a d A
and uh in in London. UH. And she worked for
us in London and then moved back here. She is American. UM.
These are two great people who understand how to work
within a corporate setting but also appreciate and understand the

(02:13:54):
value of independence and and and that's a great thing.
And it led to the setting up of our um
of read, which was Sony Read, which was their quote
independent distribution ARM rolled right into the orchard. They could
have done the other thing, but they realized the orchard

(02:14:17):
is significant. Do the orchard means something? And and without
flowing up, how important to you what it is? UM?
Studying an autist services division where we now take individual
artists and are able to give them the opportunity to

(02:14:38):
for them to develop themselves within it, performing back end
services on their behalf. UH. Where we're able now because
of the relationship of Sony and the understanding of these
people to take people like BTS and expand help them
expand further to to could within the Latin world where

(02:15:02):
we're we're placed with doing some work part of Daddy
Yankees work Ozuma um bad Bunny UM people that reach
millions in tens of millions of people that we can
now be involved in, while at the same time not

(02:15:26):
ignoring the lowest level of the independent artists, because our
technology department continues to develop ways that these artists and
labels can work and get information on a daily basis
without having to be dependent necessarily on anyone else. So,

(02:15:51):
when it comes down to it, I'm proud of everything
the orchard has become. And it's like some people, I
I now worked there. I still have a couple more
years to go there and maybe the rest of my
uh time in this business. And I have my own
instant records that I distribute through there. Okay, But to me,

(02:16:14):
it's one run from my boyfriend's back. All the years,
all the groups. We didn't even cover all of them,
the banging of the tambourine, the discovery of the internet. Uh, technology, Uh,
where's it going? What's the future? Should I download music?

(02:16:34):
Do I need to own anything? The truth is we
don't need to own anything. Priests, God should provide food
for everyone. It's your pride, housing for everyone. Okay, the
rest of it. If you get rich, you deserve it,
if you work hard for it. But that's not. That's
not the goal. That's not what that's not what the

(02:16:55):
heir should bring us. You know, we we we make music,
we give people something, you know, we've given something to remember.
And that's what I believe do what it stands for.
And I'll say one last thing about Sony. They might
not want to hear it, but just think they think
about ask somebody about how did you develop a company

(02:17:16):
like that in nine Where did it come from? What
made you people so great? You know? And when you
got that answer, I have to ask. The history of
the last twenty years is littered with people who are
successful in the traditional record business and then had these

(02:17:37):
huge windfalls in tech that far outstripped the income from
their other endeavors. In your particular case, I know that
Scott is completely out. In your particular case, did you
do well in the ultimate sale of the Orchard? I
did well. I didn't do boom, but I did well.

(02:17:59):
Uh uh. I'm proud to continue to be part of it.
And what exactly what exactly is your role today? My
role is I would say one of them is talking
to people like you. But I would say goodwill, I
would say I have a title that's a chief creative officer.

(02:18:20):
But I have to create the things that I want
them to be creative for. Uh. I we we built
a studio. We actually have a recording studio that I built.
I I'm the person who's in charge of it. It's
it's managed by our chief engineer, Alonzo August, who has

(02:18:44):
now become a good friend. We're we're able to demonstrate
to people. And I guess that's why that's why I'm
still here, is that where through me, we're able to
demonstrate to people that music is really a source of
what we stand for. Um. We used to be in

(02:19:05):
the film business. We're not, I would say media music.
We now entered a publishing arrangement with Sony a TV,
but it's all music. Our offices are our own offices,
their Orchard offices, not Sony offices. That we we believe
in this, we do it differently. We we they independent

(02:19:29):
music and I've never been anything but independent. The first
time I got a salary was when somebody bought the Orchard,
and I get a salary now. But I still to
imagine imagine living your entire life without getting a salary,
but not being poor, you know. Wow? And I'm proud

(02:19:51):
to get my salary now. It's one of the bonuses
that I got from the sale. Yes, that's true. And
Scott now works for a competitor and he's trying to
bring them into the future. General good luck bring him
into the future. Well, Richard, you certainly brought us from
the past to today. I only wish I could have

(02:20:11):
gone deeper on some of these things. Uh, we certainly
run along, but I certainly know that people are interested.
Thanks so much for relating your history and your insight.
Really great. Well, Bob, I'll talk to you any time
to bring it back, bring you back to it, or
you can call me back. And when I do interviews
and say things, just like when I do a printed interview,

(02:20:34):
I actually just speak as as as you do. I
do not uh edit my words, you know when I'm
saying myself. So I don't know if I said anything
that might be offensive or it might be misleading, but
there's no intention. It's always like to just try to
tell the truth and make people understand that. Uh, this

(02:20:58):
business that we're in is business, but it's music and
it's it's just it's just wonderful that I could be
who I am now. At this age and gone through
that whole journey and and just look back on and
then say wow and definitely wow. Thanks so much, Richard.

(02:21:24):
Till next time. This is Bob left sex