Ron Stone

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today is Ron Stone. I've been there at
the birth of rock and roll. Still a manager today, Ron,
Great to have you hi. How are you okay? How
did you meet David geffin? How did I meet David Geffen? Okay?
So well. The precursor to that is that I grew

(00:30):
up in the Bronx with Elliott Roberts. Wait, wait, you
knew Elliott Roberts. I've known him since I was eleven
years old. How did you meet you know, the dearly
departed Elliott when he was Elliot Rabinowitz, that's right, and
when I was somebody else also, I don't think so
oh I was really Won't were you? I thought you
were lived Stone? Jewish name. No, No, I made up Okay,

(00:53):
there there's a lot of things here. I made up
the name Stone because I was when I was in
law school, I was modeling to pay for to pay
for law schools. So they changed my name to Stone.
And you're not going to tell us what your original
name was. No, the police will get me. Okay, this
protection program like about that one time? I didn't really
know that anyway. So Elliot and I, um, we used

(01:15):
to hang out on Fordham Road in the Bronx in
a in an ice cream parlor called Jaan's. Okay cream
any good? I don't know. We never went an uh
so uh And you know we would stand on the
corner and sing old rock and roll songs. And let's
start there. What'd your father do for a living? Your mother?
My father was a shoe salesman and a Russian immigrant,

(01:38):
and my mother worked at some place in the garment district.
And how many kids in the so called Stone family?
I think I have an older brother. Is he still
with us? I have no idea. Well, I haven't spoken
to him for twenty five years. Did you have an argument?
He kind of dropped you get me into trouble? He

(01:58):
kind of dropped my there on me. You know, she
was living in New York and they got into a
big bruhaha, and he shipped her out to California and
she was in her eighties and I took care of
her until she was ninety four when she passed away. Okay,
So you also haven't spoken to him since then? Okay,
that's by your choice or his choice mine. Okay, So

(02:20):
you meet Elliott Rabinowitch. You're hanging out at the ice
cream parlor. Yes, and then you know I I went
to law school and Elliot and I went. I thought
you dropped out of law school. I didn't say I finished.
Did finished? Where did you go to college? I went
to in New Jersey, to Fairly Dickinson University, or they
called it fairly ridiculous. I was not going to say

(02:42):
that I lived in the Bronx. They made fun of
me for going to college in the first place. Okay,
but I don't really know where it is in New Jersey,
New Jersey, Okay, So you lived at home. I lived
in the city and I went by motorcycle across the
Brooklyn Bridge for three years in fucking winter. Like what
kind of motorcycle Honda for fifty was? And did you

(03:04):
ever dump it? You ever had an accident twice and
any injury? No? I broke the motorcycle. Okay, well, at
least not you. Okay, So you're going to, uh, what's
your Josie to Fairly Dickinson and then you're gonna go
to law school. Yes, continue, So I went to Brooklyn
Law School for about a year and they objected to
the fact that the one I didn't I didn't wear

(03:26):
the attire that was required. Well, what year are we in?
Sixty five? Okay? So way to college? Okay, so the
revolution has already happened. So yes, And I've discovered psychedelic
drugs at exactly the wrong time in my life. So
I was my wife was working and putting me through.

(03:47):
I was married at that point. For well, I know
you've been married how many? How long? Fifty four years?
And how old were you when you got married? Twenty one?
And how old was she? Nineteen? How long did you
know each other before you got married? Three years? So
you met her when she was in high school and
you just started college? Yes, And and she lived in

(04:08):
Los Angeles and I lived in New York, and I
fell in love with her the first time I saw
her drive up in her nine powder blue Chevy convertible
with the white top and white leather. Okay, Since she
lived in l A. And we know each other, how
did you intersect with her? How did you actually meet her?
She was the first girl I ever met in California? Okay,

(04:28):
what were you doing in California? I came out to
buy drugs to pay for my way in college, okay,
and you mess in those days. In those days, this
is the truth. We we'd drive out, we'd fill up
our trunk for you know, to two point two uh
uh pounds of pounds of Mexican marijuana. We'd fill up

(04:50):
the trunk. And by the way, I never got high
in high school or college because I was an athlete.
I was a pole vaulter. But my neighborhood, what is
your highest height? Actually I was four inches below the
the world record at one point, I was fifteen six.
Fifteen six, that's pretty good. In high school, that was
that with fiberglass poles. No see, I had. I had

(05:14):
such an incredible coach that he thought it was a
fad that was not gonna last. So when I was
doing fifteen six, there was a guy and I was
just in school of my freshman year at Fairley Dickinson. Way.
That's how I got into Fairley Dickinson because I got
in on a scholarship because paul vaulters are really rare,

(05:36):
you know. And did you continue to pull vault at
Fairley Dickinson. Yeah, until I broke a wrist in an ankle,
and then they got rid of my scholarship. Then I
actually had to work. That's how I ended up going
to California. Okay, let's just stop there for a second.
Fifth and confusing, isn't it not at all? Fifteen six?
That's really fucking high for a metal poll. Yes, and

(05:56):
it was, you know, in those days, it was like
a gymnastic event. And it was an upper body event
more than it was speed and and and agility, because
when you bend that fiberglass pole, you kind of shoot
yourself over the pole sixt ft. So you're not getting
much higher than that no matter what you do, unless
you put your hands at the very edge and then

(06:17):
you okay, what were you falling into? The God? This
is why I hurt myself. Sawdust three ft of sawdust.
But by the end of the meat, after twenty people
had done, it was packed like a concrete Okay. It
was dangerous, Okay, so you would drive out. You didn't
smoke marijuana, didn't do drugs in high school? Did you

(06:40):
not drugs in California before you did them? Yes? So
who is the guy who said, hey, let's go do this? Okay?
I had a friend in the Bronx is his name was?
He called him read he was. He and his brother
were called the Venero Brothers, and we lived in the Bronx,
which you know was of a middle class. Half the

(07:01):
people in our name we were Italian, Irish and Jewish,
and the Italians were all mobbed up like they were
they were lower echelon. There was a middle like Johnny
what was that name? God, there was that mafia movie
about the low level people. Wasn't keep going on anyway,

(07:22):
So this was this was like the mafia middle class.
You know they were not anyway. So um Red and
I went out to California the first time and intentionally
to buy drugs. Weren't you a little anxious about the law? No?
I was too stupid. And whose car was it? My

(07:44):
favorite car I ever owned? Nine Mercury black convertible. And
now the classic thing with dope runners is the car
breaks down or there's a tail light out. Did you
check all that stuff to make sure you wouldn't get
stopped at the car? For seventy five I didn't want
to look too closely. Okay, wait wait, wait, so okay,

(08:05):
but after the first couple of trips, we realized we
could fly back and forth. Fill up the suitcase put
it on the plane because there was no security in
the nineteen sixty to sixty three whatever it was, anyway,
and the whole theory was if it didn't come down
with everybody else's luggage home, never happened. How many runs

(08:26):
did you make? That's six? Okay? And who was the connection?
My pal read so he knew somebody here his family, okay.
And did you have any anxiety or it was always good?
I was too stupid to have anxiety just to go back.
How long did it take you to drive back and forth?
Three days? Three days in each direction? Exactly? Okay, your

(08:48):
quasi going to law school? You're dressing? No, no, no.
This is when I was in college, and that's when
I met my wife, which is what this story is
supposed to be about. We went it was hot, and
we went to the four star movie theater on Wilshire Boulevard,
which at that time was a first run movie theater.
Remind me that the one that La Siennaca it was
near La Siennaca's on Wilshire. Yeah, yeah, okay, because there

(09:10):
were a couple of she was she was the girl
in the little uniform in the booth. Well really, and
she was fucking adorable. I thought you said you saw
her in a Chevy. Well that's when I knew where
I was in love with her. Okay, I met her
in the book. So she's taken the tickets. She's from
l A. Yes, she's actually from Detroit. She's been out
there since she was a teenager. Okay. So you see

(09:33):
her and you we have the gifted gap. And I
asked her out and she says, yes, I was cute, Okay,
she was adorable. Okay. And so we had a long
distance romance for about four years, and how I'd go
back and forth, and then one time she came to
New York and I just wouldn't let her go home.
We got married. How hard did you have to convince her?

(09:55):
She was very too hard. She was wondering when I
would get around to it. Okay. And then as a
solid success story. But going back, you're going to law school.
What did they expect you to dress like? Well, they
dress code at Brooklyn Law School. There was a dress code. Absolutely,
you had to dress like a lawyer if you wanted
to be a lawyer. That you're a dressed like one
jacket and tie, white shirt and everything I wore a

(10:18):
fur vest and I drove my motorcycle and I tied
my motorcycle. I chained my motorcycle up to the to
the railing, the to the building. So I didn't really
last that long. I made it through the first year.
And so how did it literally end? They said please
go away? And were you cool with that? I didn't

(10:39):
know what the funk was going on. I was I
was getting high, and you know, I was really unprepared
to be a lawyer. Okay at the time, because it's
starting to burge in. Were you into the music? And
when I when I was like twelve fourteen, you know,
we were listening to like the the O J's and
you know, very R and B and very you know,

(11:01):
we thought we were really hip when we would go
down to street to the to the record store they
sold forty five and we'd buy all these you know,
R and B bands and R and B singers and
stuff and Elliott and I, you know, and Okay, so
it was you and Eli. Eli was still in New York.
What was he doing it? Was he a trapped talent agent? Yet? No,
well he he ended up at William Morrison. That's where Okay,

(11:24):
the essence of the story. That's where he met David Geffen. Okay,
but before we get there, you were what was he doing,
since he can't tell you're the vehicle for a story today,
what was he doing before he got the job at
w O M A uh, failing out of three different colleges, okay,
and then he landed at the mail room at William
Morrison some active absolute desperation. Okay. Who got him the gig?

(11:48):
Do you remember? No? I don't actually, but somebody must
have because he couldn't get that job. But it was
you know that in those days, William Morris was the
Tiffany Agency and your entree was the mail room. And
if you survived that six months in the mail room,
then they sent you on a journey for the next
two years, working for all the different people in all

(12:08):
the different disciplines you know, TV, film music. In the
same era w William Morris and New York Uh liber
and Crebs were both of the William wore did you
know them at that era? But but the third the
third party to this triumphant was it was Elliott and
me and jeff Wald, Jeff Wald, the Helen Ready Jeff Wald,

(12:31):
that's right, and By the way, I always thought Jeff
was the greatest manager in the history of the music
business because he made Helen Ready a huge success, and
if you think about it for a minute, that's the
fucking hardest job in the world. He was notorious for
having an explosive personality. Yes, he was out of his

(12:52):
fucking mind. He still is, by the way, right. But
he did some stuff after he left Helen Ready and
they got to war. He was working on a couple
of things. He had a couple of he was in
the news. I can't remember. It's like he might he
managed Mike Tyson for a while. Okay, so it was
the triumphrate. You're now out of law school. What happens
to you? So my wife doesn't want to be since

(13:13):
I flunked out of law school, she didn't want to
work to keep me in law school. So and she
wanted to go back to California. She did not like
living in New York. So we went back to California
and I rented. I rented a storefront next to the Troubador,
about four or five doors down from the Troubador um
on on Santa Monica, Bulevard. Just to be clear, towards

(13:35):
the Beverly hillside of the Hollywood side. Here's DOHENI, here's
the Santa Monica, the Troubadors in the middle of the block,
three four doors down, and I'm opening a clothing store.
We're you going to get the inventory. Well part of
the story, okay. So in the East Village there was

(13:56):
a clothing store called Limbo, where it was like the
hit the hip place to be and this they saw,
you know, re recycled leather jackets and you know, jeans
and T shirts and you know, the uniform of the day.
And I befriended them, and I went to California and
I found the storefront and they filled the store up

(14:18):
for me. But there was four doors down from the Troubador.
There's no foot traffic, so the only time we did
business was when the Troubadoor was open. So we would
be opened during the day, but you know, we would
get rich ladies from Beverly Hills slumming, but the Troubador
crowd was marked crowd. And I met David Crosby there

(14:42):
and we would sit and play chess and smoke pot
while the shows were going on, and we became really
good friends and um, and then Elliott was working for
a company called chart Off Winkler. They a big movie company. Well,
they became a big movie company. The first movie they
did was, Uh, they shoot horses, don't they? But before

(15:02):
that they managed comedians. Oh really, I didn't know that.
And Elliott was an apprentice and the sorcerer's apprentice in
so many ways and anyway, but he came, you know,
he saw Joanie Mitchell in Toronto, and um, what year
we do I remember? No? No, No, it's interesting because

(15:24):
this would have to be sixty six, sixty seven, sixty
eight around that time. Carecause David Crosby still in the Birds. No,
he had just been thrown out and he was living
in a van and in my store, okay, and you
met him literally how he came in the store. You know,
the store was designed to attract him, you know. And

(15:48):
the counterculture that was burgeoning at that Okay, they had
we had the recent movie, the Cameron Chrome movie directed
by another guy named eludes me right at this point.
Have you seen that about Laurel Canyon. No, No, that's
one movie, the David Crosby movie. No, I haven't yet.
You should see it. It's really good. But the funny

(16:10):
thing about it is at the very end, Cameron Crow
plays an interview from like the sixties says, uh, it's
not about fame, It's about your friends. And then Cameron says,
you have any friends now? And he goes no, So
how difficult was he a guy? Was he back then?
I loved him. We hit it off right away. He
had the best part I'd ever smoked in my life. Okay,

(16:32):
but but but did he have any other friends other
than you? Yeah? He did, actually, Mama Cass and a
few other pole you know, yes he did. He was
not he was not the raving lunatic he turned into
the Kuran. He was very charming and very sweet and
and he still is to this day, except he's managed
to destroy every relationship he's ever had. Was the last

(16:53):
time you ever connected with him? When they were doing
this film? Actually he played in Steamboats Steamboat Springs. You
now live in Colorado? Yeah, And I drove over and
we hung out for the day, and I saw a
show and I listened to the new music, and I thought,
you know, he's making great music. You know, well, as
I say, he's continuing to make it when everybody else

(17:13):
gave up, but you have the store. Become friendly with
Crosby right playing chess? Is he a good jazz player?
Not particularly? Would you beat him? I didn't try really hard.
He won a couple of times. I had to keep
him engaged because if I kicked his ass every time,
we wouldn't have ended up friends. And I knew who
he was, and I was very impressed by the fact

(17:35):
that I was a big Birds fan, and you know,
so I was just in heaven and Jimmy Fadden, Jimmy Fadden,
Jimmy from the Nitty Gritty mc fadden was it Fatten?
I think it's Fadden anyway, So he was. He was
actually the first connection that I made to the music
business because, um, the store was called the Great Linoleum

(17:57):
Clothing Experiment. I think it was a hippie extravaganza anyway.
So he helped me tear up the linoleum that was
on the floor because I wanted to lay a wood floor. Yeah,
of course, because it's called sixty So so we called
it the Great Linoleum Clothing Experiment, which was kind of
what was going on. So, by the way, if he

(18:17):
helped you, how did you meet him? He wandered, he
I had a storefront. I think I had my motorcycle
in the window, you know, and I would have clothes
thrown over it. Every once in a while people will
come and ask me to buy the motorcycle. No, the
clothes that were hanging on the motorcycle and they were
just dirty laundry, you know. So I thought, I'm onto something.
Where are you living at the time? Um on Lookout Mountain?

(18:40):
How did you get that place? It was a rental
for thirty three Lookout? Would you pay to remember? Two
hundred sixty? So he got the store. You know, Jimmy
helped Jimmy. If it's in fattened, yeah, I know. But
there are different people who grow up trying to which
one it is. Okay, Well continue, so let's go what goes? Okay?
So Elliott kind of gets into the music business. The

(19:05):
Elliott is now in Los Angeles. Oh no, No, he's
in New York and he's and he's discovered Joanie and
now he's coming out to California a lot, okay, And
he's staying in my house and eating my food and
rowing my car and you know, and um he he

(19:26):
signs Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. Those are his two clients.
And how did he get uh Neil Young. I think
because of Joanie or vice versa. Not exactly sure. I
wasn't privy to the intimacies there, but he ends up
with both of them. And keep in mind that the
Buffalo Springfield had just broken up, and the prospect of
Neil as a solo artist doesn't mean much, didn't didn't

(19:49):
impress anybody. And Joanie was, however, brilliant um nowhere. Yeah,
but my contribution to this thing was I got to
Elliott to hire David Crosby to produce Joanie's first half. Really,
that's how it happened. Well that and and then they
became boy boyfriends. Okay, well a little bit slower. Elliott comes,

(20:09):
he's living at your house. He signs these people. I
think he already had had them both, but he was
coming out and staying in my house, okay. And and
there's no money involved. Keep in mind, neither one of
them and we're making any money. And he was still
working for Chartiff Winkler until they realized he wasn't doing
anything except these two clients. And they said, you know, okay,

(20:29):
see you later. Punk anyway, so um we started. He
asked me to get involved because I was friends with
David and and Joanie, and these were our friends more
than how are you friends with Joanie because of Elliott? Okay?
So she would come to town too, yeah, okay, yeah,
and and she was making a record with David and

(20:50):
so he asked you to get involved, like in the
management business. Okay, like give up your story, get involved
or do a couple of things. Well, there was an overlap,
and I didn't leave the store. I had four at
that time. I had one in Berkeley, one in Galita,
in Santa Barbara, one in uh San Diego, and one
in l A. I was a hippie entrepreneur. So you

(21:12):
were making money. Obviously, I was paying my bills. Keep
in mind, you know a brand new BMW entry level
six hundred, which I bought thirty ducks brand new. You
know what's happened is we've lost the decimal point over
the years. That's absolutely true. More than a decimal void. Well, no,

(21:33):
that's about it. The entry level being now it is
about thirty three, right, So yeah, decimal point. But by
the way, in all things, we lost the decimal point.
I had a two thousand two. I'd still be driving
that car if I had it today. My favorite car ever,
I would say to you my sixteen hundred. Even though
it was underpowered and it was a box, right, I
loved it. You could see out of every side that

(21:56):
it was like the broad coffee Maker of cars exactly
never nothing ever went wrong. So actually had a lot
of trouble with mine, but I drove it for two
almost two hundred thousand miles. Okay, So Elliott convinces you
to come and help him because it's starting to be
a business. He signs Joani to Warner Brothers, and he

(22:17):
signs Neil to Warner Brothers, and they're making their first albums.
Just let me ask you based on my interactions with
Joni Mitchell, and I know you continue to have interactions
with her. She is very difficult interpersonally, and I would
find like if I said, oh, I was driving here
to eat for a Hamburger, she would say, well, you

(22:37):
know you left, what road did you take? And then
I said, I want to talk about the hamburger? Says no,
why do you not want to talk now? Isn't that her? No,
She's just one of the sweetest people. I've ever known,
and and she and I've been since then till now.
I mean, I you know, she's had a terrible illness
and my son and I, how can I tell you

(22:58):
a story? Okay, here's a good story. My son who
Joanie loves, which sons you have, Yeah, because he plays guitar,
and she taught him how to play guitar when he
was eight years old. And of course she taught him
open tuning, which she's famous for, yes, which you know
doesn't translate to anybody else's course, so he had to

(23:19):
actually learn the guitar later on. But she loved him,
and you know he still loves him. So we go
to visit her recently, I would say, within the past
six or seven months, and she's doing great. I mean, okay,
so she back now, she's still doing physical therapy, and
she still has a caretaker looking after her. But she's

(23:39):
up and about. Mind is fine, her mind, it's fine.
Because I just got email from Cameron crow today. He's
got his almost famous musical. Yeah, he said, Joanie went
for Opening Night. I haven't. Can I make a left
turn here? Of course I met Cameron Crowe when he
was fifteen years old and he was a stringer for

(23:59):
Rollings Don't and I set up an interview with him
with David Crosby David's boat in the marina. Cameron calls
me he can't get Dick because he doesn't have a
car and he doesn't have a license. Okay, and I'm
thinking to myself, I think I've made a terrible era here.
I drive him out to the interview and that's the
first time they meet. Okay, let's go back to Joanie.

(24:23):
So I had told my wife a story. You know,
I early on before Joanie became up, got up on
the radar, and she may not have even made the
first record yet. We did a tour of colleges in
the Northeast, you know, Swathmore and you know, all the
Ivy League schools, and she was she had a reputation

(24:44):
and you know, a hundred two hundred people in college campus.
So it was her and I in a rental car
and we would drive around. So you really spend time
with her. Yeah, we listen, I'm telling you. She okay,
I believe you. You know, like we grew up together, right, Okay,
I mean seriously, she was in her early twenties. I
was probably twenty three you were married. Did you fall

(25:04):
in love with her too? Well, she was exquisite, you know.
But I've actually been in love with the same woman
for fifty four years. And I love Joanie, and I
love Ricky, and I love Bonnie and all the women
that have been in my life. And I think the
best credit I bring to all of those relationships is
that I've been married for this with this really special
person my whole life. Okay, let's go back and telling

(25:26):
a story about recently. I'm in the car I'm in
so I'm in the well, there's the precursor story. You're
in the car in the Northeast tour, right, and I
get pulled over by a Massachusetts State Police on on
the mass Turnpike and he says get out of the car,
and I said, can't. And it's mid of midwinter. He
says get out of the car. And I get out,

(25:47):
and I have no pants on because Jone Jonie is
sewing up the sea the seam of my pants right split.
So she's in the car sewing up my pants and
he's making me get out and it's freezing out. So
I get out of car and he cracks up okay,
and I know I'm not going to get a ticket.

(26:08):
And he looks in and he sees Joanie, who is
really kind of stunning in her twenties. She was, I mean,
she glowed, you know, So he wants her number. Okay, well,
let's my eyes are bugged out, keep going, all right.
So so I say to him, well, you know, I'm
trying to find this college down the road, and he
gives me a police escort to the college in exchange

(26:30):
for meeting Joanie and talking to her and everything, which
is how it worked out. And she did that. Yeah,
of course she didn't. She didn't want me to get
a ticket, right anyway, So skip ahead forty some years. Um,
my son Noah and I my son is in his
late forties. Anyway, So we're at Joonie's house. We're making

(26:56):
a call, you know, just tell her, right we you know,
we still love her, and we're happy to see how
much progress she's made. And she's just charming and wonderful.
So I go to the bathroom and Noah tells her
he wants he wants to write a story about me
or do a biography about me. She says, oh oh,
and also my wife never believed this story. Okay, this

(27:18):
is that's the punch, right, all right. My wife always
thought this story was bullshit. Okay. So I go to
the bathroom and Joanie Noah's my son is talking to
Joanie and Joanie says to him, you know, he's telling
her he wants to do this story about me. She says, oh,
that's great. Then I can tell the story about him
and there's no passion. So let's listen. It's always true, right.

(27:39):
So so forty five years later I expected an apology
from my wife, which I got. Okay, let's go back.
So you have four stores, and when Elliott says how
long did your overlap doing both before he gave up
the stores, well, I had a fifth story. I had
one called Maxfield Blue, which was next door to the
Great Linoleum, which became max Field, which was very spectaculum.

(28:01):
The guy who did it as James his purse James
is his son, not his name anyway, So he went
on with, uh, continue the business. But I got out
of it because the store in Berkeley got bombed, fire

(28:21):
bombed or a tear gas bomb. Because during the riot
at the Berkeley, the whole bunch of kids ended up
in my store. So they shot um tear guests into
the store, and you really can't sell clothes that smelled
in the tear guests, you know, So that one crushed
and then um one of my partners in. There was

(28:42):
a lot of drugs going on in the taste, and
I kind of saw maybe I should consider Elliott's a
real alternative to what I'm doing. Right, So I ended
up well, we we went into an office across the
street from Electra Records on Lasiana cu Okay, right before
you get there, did you sell the stores or walk away? Um?
I gave them away? Okay? Where was Electric Records? Then

(29:12):
on Las Annica? Where on Las Annica south of Santa
Monica Boulevard by a half a block on the on
the east side of right, Okay, okay, and okay, So
then what was it called that that Electra? No, No,
you're the management company. Lookout. There was a lookout right
to begin with, because Jonie lived on lookout right, Elliott

(29:32):
lived on Lookout David Blue do you remember day? Of
course he lived on lookout and I lived on Lookout. So,
being the imaginative, clever people that we were, we thought
lookout anyway, So we took a one room office opposite
Electra Records and UM in a building called the Clear
Thoughts Building. Okay, And underneath our office, which was one

(29:56):
room underneath us, was a woman who made leather goods
and she was um, Jim Morrison's girlfriend, beautiful girl with
red hair, and so he would hang out there and
and then um, this is another story. Gary Burden who
just passed away, and Henry Dilts and I would have

(30:18):
breakfast at the There was a motel on the corner
of La ciannaka the northwest corner. It was part of
a chabby motel. He's about Dukes. Dukes. Of course I
was stalling until I figured out. So so we would
have breakfast at Duke's and Jim would he lived in

(30:41):
that hotel, so he would come down with a six
pack of beer while we had breakfast, and by the
time we were done with breakfast, he would be done
with his six cans of beer. And across the street,
Bill Siddons had the recording studio called the Upside Down Studio.
So within the space of these three blocks was the
doors and eventually Crosby Stills and Nash and Joni Mitchell

(31:05):
and Neil Young all within that corner. Wow. Okay, so
you opened the management company. What it's Neil Young and
Joni Mitchell? Okay, and what's the next step. The next
step is um David Crosby and Steven Stills and and

(31:27):
Graham Nash get together, I think at Mama Cass's house
and they meet each other for the first time. And
this is happening serendipitously as management involved. No not but
but they Jonie was living in the house that I
ended up living in for twenty seven years. She was
my landlord for years. Seriously, I would give you the address,

(31:48):
but forget it. Yeah. But so I moved from up
the street to Jonie's house, which was a very cool
little cottage. I think she bought for like thirty five
thou dollars in cash, and then with her first big
check from Warner Brothers, she bought a house in bel
Air where she still lives. And I lived in that
house for seven Is that the legendary our house? Yes see?

(32:11):
And I objected to that because Graham and her lived
there for two years and I lived there for twenty seven.
So here's whose house wasn't Okay? So they get together
at Mama Casses. They sing and and then they end
up in Joni's living room. When when it really when
they realized they got something okay, And obviously because of

(32:33):
Joanie and Graham and David, there's a lot going on there,
you know, a lot of sexual energy, you know, because
David was her boyfriend for a while. Now Graham's her boyfriend,
you know. Anyway, so Elliot and I became like the
the default position, so we got involved. And then after

(32:55):
they made the first record, you know, m Amad wanted
the you know, well, this is I was gonna ask you.
Everybody's on a different label. This is where David Geffen.
So this is where David. David was the agent for
at a place called Ashley Famous, the precursor to all
the rock and roll agencies. So the way, so he left,

(33:19):
Uh when did you live leave? William Morris? Somewhere in
the midst of all of this, you know, my wife
said to me, I really have to get the chronological
order to this, but I don't really remember, you know
what I mean? And if I wrote my memoir it
would probably be a mess. Because it's a mess. It's okay,

(33:39):
So David is the agent for now, David is the
agent for Janie Neil and now for Crosby Stills and Nash. Okay,
what about but he's still working with Laura Nero. Well, yeah,
that's that was his things had nothing to do with us.
And by the way, Laura grew up in and Elliott
and and Jeff Walls neighborhood. She was in the house.

(34:00):
They were on the street with about four different, five
different you know, five story, six story apartment houses. And
she was the crazy one who never left her house
and played piano all day, you know. But you didn't
know her back then, I admit her. But she was weird,
you know. Okay, Okay, so you get David is the
manager for all these individual acts. How do you work? No,

(34:23):
the agent? He was the agent. But as the Crosby
Stills in Nash thing kind of congealed. He realized that
we were making and he was only making ten, but
you were splitting into seven and a half. I was
a junior partner. I didn't I was the Bob Cratchett
at the end of the table. Okay, we did you

(34:43):
have a piece or just salary? I'm not sure which,
but I think I got a piece but it wasn't
much because you gotta keep in mind, we weren't making
any money, right, I mean, you know, Jony, you know,
didn't make a whole lot of money. Neal didn't make
a whole lot of money. They were going, they were
making first record solo records. I mean, we were you know,

(35:04):
I made more money with the clothing business that the
first two years of our management company. Did you ever think, Hey,
I'm gonna stop doing this? No? I was having so
much fun, really, I you know, the clothing business was
like a business. This was like playtime, you know, and
we would you know, we'd smoke, all right, and we
were just having such a good time. Plus these are

(35:26):
the people that were in our lives, you know. Of
course they were not just clients, they were our friends.
And it was just magic. I mean magic. Okay. So
David's the agent and you're talking about am okay. So
so I'm not sure which came first, but but at
one point David basically negotiated a deal with Columbia with

(35:47):
with Columbia with what's his fucking name was before Clive,
No way, before Clive um funk I forgot it. Anyway,
this is why I can't write my memoir. I can't
remember any Golden Soon was no, no, no, it was
it was a a rabbinical name. But we were okay,
and then okay, and with Mo you get you get

(36:08):
Neil Young involved. Okay. But but but Ahmed and and
Mo were good, good enough friends that that part of
the equation was not a problem. And by the way,
Neil wanted to be on reprise because at that time
the only other artists that was on reprise was Frank Sinatra.
So when he made a solo deal at Warners, that's
he was on reprise. So but Stephen was in Ahmed's

(36:30):
mind the star he you know, he thought he was
the creative force around Buffalo. Of course, yes, but he
was the creative force around um Buffalo Springfield and and
he probably was. I mean he wrote the you know
Something's happening here, which for what it's worth, for what
it's worth. Yeah, anyway, so David basically worked out at deal.

(36:55):
Why can't I remember this guy's name? Anyway, at the
end of the day, they all ended up on Atlantic. Okay,
we did not know how Okay, did you have to
pay Columbia Record? I have no idea, but David did that.
David did that, okay, which when we knew we were
in the presence of somebody's special because he was dealing

(37:16):
with these record company presidents and he was pushing them around.
And he's this little guy and at that time he's
got to be in his same age as me, mid twenties.
But he was a monster, you know what I mean,
not a bad monster, our monster, you know. And he
was fucking great. Next thing, we knew Crosby Stills Nash
and made this record. It came out to have a

(37:38):
great story about the cover. Henry Dilts remember from our
previous conversation. He goes to take the picture for the
Crosby Stills Nash first album, and he finds this couch
by this abandoned building next to the to the car
wash on Santa Monica Boulevard. Okay, so he takes this picture.

(38:00):
Next day we see all the pictures this is. So
the couch was in front of the house. This is
the cover of the album, right, It's an abandoned building
with an abandoned couch, and and Henry deals with his
kind of insightful thing. Anyway, it takes this picture and
he brings it back and it's not Crosby, Stills and Nash. Right,

(38:20):
they're not in that order. They're not in that order.
I noticed that when I bought the record. Okay, so
we send them back the next day, you know, put
them in the right orders. Great cover, but maybe it
should be Crosby Stills on Nash and he goes back.
The building's gone. The day after we took these pictures,

(38:41):
they demolished the building. So we said, okay, fuck, let's
just now another thing, which you may or may not remember.
That cover had a special texture. Remember the story of that.
It just wasn't uh okay, but that was that was
Gary Burden. He managed to make every package that he
did more expensive of and more interesting. Okay, that'll get

(39:03):
us ultimately to deja vu. But do you know that
the record is gonna be an absolute monster? No, we
know it's going to be successful, but we have no idea.
It was earth chattering. I mean, we we knew we
had something, that the fucking record was great, and even

(39:23):
before it got to the to the end, we knew
something really special was happening, you know, but we had
no idea. But the record comes out and it doesn't
make a splash at first takes about six or eight months. Now,
you also told me that the key was television. Yes,
David Geffen, Okay, rock and roll bands are not on television.

(39:47):
He has this idea that we're gonna call him a
supergroup and they're gonna do all these television shows. So
they did all these television shows, even Tom Tom Slider,
No no, no, no no, the singer from England, Tom Jones,
Tom Jones. Tom Jones has a show and they do

(40:07):
They get to do two songs, and one of the
songs they get to do is I'm gonna almost cut
my hair to Crosby and Tom Jones sings lead on
the song. Wow, that's where it's something today. Well you
gotta find it on it, but there it is. So
you know, five shows later, you know they're they're huge.

(40:29):
I mean, you know everybody's going in this direction. And
David took us in that direction against all logic. Television. Okay,
when did David stop being an agent and get involved?
Somewhere in the midst of this story, more to the
beginning than the end of this story, we were talking

(40:50):
about the ten versus the fifteen. Yeah, it occurred to him.
We were making more, and um, we were going to
make more, and so he wanted to be part of
the management. Plus, to be honest, he understood what we
had probably a beat before us. Okay, and once he comes,
he moves to California. Now he's already in in California.

(41:12):
Actually famous was based on in your Office, No no, no.
Then we had Then we got a real office which
was where on Sunset Boulevard, and it was owned by
Hoagy Carmichael. You're talking about, No, no, the cluster of
right building, the ones that that were ultimately Geffen Records,

(41:38):
right by the Jaguar dealership Rex Block East East. But
we started out with the upstairs of that first building,
right okay, which had like four or five officers, and
above us Hogy Carmichael, who owned the building, was living
and he would we would see him come down to
go to the mailbox in his pajamas and his and

(42:01):
his uh bathrobe, and he would say things like I
love the fucking the publishing business. So okay, Now that
does at that point Hoagi owns the building? Yes, once
David comes, does that change the dynamic of the business.
We started to grow very quickly. We started to sign
lots of clients. He um, he works out a deal

(42:24):
with Ahmed to start Asylum Records. We managed all the
acts on Asylum and he was playing he was playing
three dimensional uh Monopoly, and Elliot and I were in
the music business. Okay. Now in that era, let's slow
down from it. At some point, Irving Asoff comes to
work for the company. Okay. Irving is living in Champlain, Illinois,

(42:49):
and he's booking um Ario speed James Gang. Okay, so
David sees some real potential. So he comes into the
office and he and I share in office. He's like
on the other end of the thing, and um they
didn't want the James Gang, and they didn't want Rio Speedwagon.

(43:12):
They wanted him to book Joanie and Neil and Crosby Stills,
Nation and Young. Oh there's another part to this, Crosby
Stills Young part. How that got connected. Well, let's finish
the Irving set back to Irving was in my office
at the other end, and you know, he was um
and and and during this period of time, we kind

(43:33):
of put the Eagles together as we're trying to create
another supergroup, you know. And we did these rehearsals in
the in the Troubadour. And at one time we had
four acoustic guitar players. We had j D Souther, Jackson Brown,
Um Bernie Letton was a genuine musician guitar player, and

(43:59):
then Um and and Glenn, so that wasn't gonna work,
and and and and we got we got involved with
Glenn and Don because they were the backup band for
Linda and j D was dating Linda, so and we
would all end up with Lucy Zell Adobe. You know,
it just it was so fucking organic, it was amazing.

(44:21):
So the when the Eagles actually get down to four players, um,
I take them up to um to um Aspen and
there was a club at the base of the mountain.
In fact, I had this conversation with Don not so
long ago, because I thought it was the bell the
belly up yea, but it was called the double Diamond.

(44:42):
That knows the different name before that but in the
same rule. Yes, okay. So so I had this conversation
and Don Don corrected me because Don likes to correct me. No,
I love him too, by the way, you know, only
you know, here's here's the problem with the Jonis and
the Neils and all of these people you meet them
for ten minutes, you see a slice of who they are.

(45:02):
You have no idea who they are, so whatever emotional
connection you made in that ten minutes, you make this
judgment about who they are. But you know, okay, but
you really knew them, but okay, so okay. I go
to ask them because I needed to put them in
a place for like two weeks, two or three or
four shows a night, and I took them to ask

(45:23):
me so I could go skiing. There was the only
reason we picked this club and askment. They would do
four shows a night, for seven days a week for
two weeks. It was like the theory I had in
my brain was that they this was gonna be their Hamburg, Germany.
And I like the Beatles, yes, so so I you know,
I would ski most of the day and then I

(45:44):
would sit there and about the second show, which was
about nine o'clock, I would fall over and fall asleep,
and I would miss the last two shows every night.
But I had a great time, and did the audience
like them? Well, you know, they started out nobody who
exactly so so they'd be you know, twenty people, third night,
forty people. End of the first week packed By the

(46:08):
next week, people were waiting in line to get in
and they didn't know who they were. I didn't care.
Did they call themselves Eagles at that point? No, No,
they They may have by the end of this. But
what happened during that two weeks since they became a band,
They really became a band that Hamburg formula worked. And

(46:30):
did they get along back then? Yeah, well they were
in heaven. You gotta remember, when you start out on
this journey, you're so happy that you're playing music and
people like it, and you've got this thing going. The
personalities don't matter as you start to become more successful.
Personalities are what you're left with when when the program

(46:52):
is in place, now you start to say, wait a minute,
who is that fucking guy? Okay, so how does Irving
figure into this? Okay? So Irving is working in the
office and he's booking Joanie and Neil and you know,
and and and he takes Um, his accountant, Um John
Barrack sets him up down the street to manage Ario

(47:13):
Speedwagon and James Gang and Dan Fogelberg because he doesn't
want to let go of them, and David and Elliott
didn't want him and didn't want those clients. So down
the street from us was you know John who really
sweet guy an today, Yeah, working with Journey and other people.

(47:34):
Lives up north, Okay, so continue there. So like less
than a year, right, and the first Eagles record comes
out and there there well, I went on tour with Neil.
We did a Canadian tour and the and the Eagles
were the opening act and they were fucking great. They

(47:57):
were just great. And hell was in the throngs of
of Danny Witten from Crazy Horse and Bruce Barry o'deine
and he wrote this tonight, Tonight's the night. Then they
went into the s I R And recorded this whole
thing and he kind of purged his demons. So he
came out of there feeling really good. But the record

(48:21):
was what he was, a big success. No, but there's
a there are a couple of songs on that record,
the Needle and the Damage Done is Wanted, the belt Needle,
the Damage Done is on is on the Heart of
is on Harvest next the next record after that. But
he wrote it in there anyway, so you know, they
were you know, they were out of tune and there

(48:41):
were lots of imperfections. But he didn't care. But but
Harvest came out before that. Yes, but it might have
been recorded. But continue, Okay, wait wait, So Harvest was
this huge hit after which these two tragic events happened.
He went in and recorded this, right. He also went
on tour and played all origin little material. What no,
I'm telling you a story. So so we went out

(49:05):
on tour in Canada was the precursor to the American tour,
which was supposed to be the Harvest tour. Okay, So
in Canada he plays Tonight's Tonight from beginning to end,
and people getting antsie, you know, and he says to them,
if you just hang in there with me, I'll play
stuff you've heard before. So we get to the end

(49:27):
of the album and he would start it over again. Yes,
legendary story. And people left. They left because they were
buying tickets to hear the Harvest. By the time we
got to America, Elliott and David put their foot down
and said this is not going to work. So then

(49:48):
he did the Harvest. Okay did he was? He consciously
aware of the fact that this would be negative for
his career. Neil has never cared about his career. Do
you care about money. He was doing fine. Okay, so anyway,
but but yes he did care. Okay, So Barrick is

(50:09):
down the street. The Eagles open in Canada. You're telling
me that's the Irving story. Okay, So the Eagles are
still within uh what's now called Geff and Roberts management.
You knows, my name was not on Okay, So I was,
like I said, I was down the end of the hall.
That was the Bob Cratchett you know. Anyway, Um, but

(50:32):
I was on that tour in Canada, and the Eagles
opened up and they kicked ass, and then Neil did
this challenge to his audience, how much can you take?
You know? He found out. So by the time they
got to America. So somewhere by the end of that tour, Um,
Irving calls up and and he's on the road with

(50:53):
the Eagles and the road manager. No, no, just on
as a management saying. I was not the manager either. Okay,
we had actual road manager because we didn't know what
the funk we would do, you know, you know, we
were there to collect the money and make sure that
the band didn't call Elliott and David. You know that
there was somebody right anyway, So, um, so Elliot gets

(51:18):
this call from Irving, and to this day, I don't
know if he was serious or it was a joke.
He's on the phone and Irving is telling him he's
leaving and he's taking the Eagles, and Elliott goes, who
are the Eagles? Really? I think he was joking. I'd
like to think he was joking when Elliott was strown
a lot, so it could have been. Okay, And did

(51:40):
it go down that smoothly? Did Elliot didn't give a ship? Look,
you have to understand, the Eagles were making five or
six thousand dollars a night, and that summer we had
Crosby Stills, Nash and Young Ad on tour, you know,
playing stadiums okay, and we had Joni Mitchell out on tour,
and we we were just flying so high and and
the Eagles were basically a baby band. Okay. Anybody else

(52:01):
in the stable at that point, oh fuck yeah, there's
lots of people, you know, okay, but my my my
range of vision was okay. So at some point Asylum
record starts up and there's the Jackson Brown album, that
the Doheny album, the j D saw the album, but

(52:24):
the three big albums on Asylum Records was Joe Joe Gunn,
Jackson Brown, and Joni Mitchell. And there was this moment
in the first nine months of that enterprise where we
had three top five records at the same time. Okay,
at what point does David say, I'm out of here?

(52:45):
He says to to Ahmed, he said, um, I want
this as my label, and Ahmed comes up with this
idea about marrying a side them to Electra okay, and
having David run both of them. So David goes over

(53:06):
and Elliott and I had the management company, although I
did work over at a lecture for about six months
because David wanted to find out everything that was to
find out about everybody. So I went over. There is
like a plant, you know, Okay, you're making any money now.
I was making good money all the way through. Once
it started hit. They took care of you know, well
that I didn't. You know, David has I don't know

(53:29):
ten billion dollars, certainly billions. I don't have that right,
so maybe I didn't get taken care of as well
as I should have. Okay, So David moves on and
you're there with Elliott yeah. Well, first I go over
to Electure. For about six months, I was in the
artist development and basically I came to the conclusion that
they didn't really understand that you're supposed to actually work

(53:52):
for the artist and not the artists work for you.
I was very unhappy. I went back to the management company.
So now it's just me and l IT and now
it's Lookout Management. It goes back to Lookout Management. Okay.
At what point do you move on from Lookout Management? Um?
I don't know. Maybe I did twelve years total, and
I just thought, you know, I could do this by myself.

(54:16):
It took me about three years to figure out. I
really I didn't know what the funk I was doing, Okay,
but what was the incentive? Was Danny Goldberg say hey,
let's do this. Danny came a few years later. Okay,
So you leave and you call it what? Um, what
do I call it? Lookout? Okay? And Elliott Elliot Roberts, No, no, Elliott,

(54:37):
it was Lookout. I don't remember what I called it. Okay,
who are your acts? Um? I had mostly publishing and
you know, and um I had Lonnie Hall, her Malfort's wife.
Some really weird ship, you know. But then I, you know,
Danny and I both were pursuing Bonnie Raid, and instead
of banging our heads together, we decided, okay, let's do

(54:59):
the US together. He had an office at A at
A and M Records, and I was working with Lonnie
and Herb. I did a tour with Herb in South America.
You know, I I was doing fine, okay, But so
there was no thought I shouldn't have left Elliott. I
shouldn't have left Elliott, but I, you know, of course
I didn't. I didn't have a plan. You know, It's

(55:22):
not like I was I was scoping out my ascension,
you know. I just was going with the flow. Okay.
So you hook up with Danny and it's Bonnie before
he and Belinda Carlisle okay. And he's he's already done
with twentieth Century Fox okay. And and he's got a

(55:42):
record company at AT A and M, and his act
is Um Cochrane. What I wish I had a rocket launcher,
Bruce Coobert, Bruce Comber. Anyway, so okay, he's got Bruce
Cockburn and and he's also put out a record with
Stevin Nick. Right. That was with what's his name from Woodstock,

(56:03):
Paul Fish. Okay, but that labels there they separate. Yeah,
and at this point Danny's out of that label, right, Okay,
how does he get? Blinda Carlisle, I get? How do
you get? So? When I worked with David and Elliott,
the Go Gos came to see me and they wanted
us to manage them. And they were sucked up. I

(56:24):
mean they were just sucked up, drunk, disorderly high, whatever
it was. I wanted nothing to do with them. Two
years later, Belinda and Charlotte come and visit me and
say they want me because I turned them down because
they were sucked up. They got sober and they sought
me out. So I ended up managing this was This

(56:47):
is when the Go Goes are essentially finished. They put
out their two albums. Okay, Belinda as a solo artist. Again.
I thought one of my best jobs as a manager
because Belinda was not a great singer. And I'm being kind, okay,
and um we made huge success for her. Now you
got sued on Heaven is a Place on Earth? Remember

(57:10):
that one of the songs. There was a big lawsuit.
But she didn't write that song. I know, I know
the people who did write it. So the producer, um
I forgot his name. God, he's a great producer. Anyway,
he wrote the song and so he had some trouble
with that, but it didn't affect us. Okay. So she
was very happy with the situation she had. She was thrilled.

(57:30):
Are you kidding? We had two or three huge hits.
Um I got, um, I got what's the actress's name
that was in Woody Allen's movie? Uh, Diane Keat. I
got Dane Keaton to direct her first video. How did
you get make that happen? I asked? How did you
know her? Yeah? I had met her. How did you
know Diane Keaton? I don't remember. How did I know

(57:51):
Kevin Pollock? I don't okay who we were hanging with
earlier before the podcast began. But okay, so now it's
Bonnie Ray. What year are we in? But it's years
before she has her breakthrough? Okay, I take her on.
Um she's on Warner Brothers. They want to dump her. Okay.
She's made nine records for them, right, none of them

(58:14):
commercially successful. One of them she had a song that
run Runaway that did well and then they wanted more
of that, and she really she didn't get the program,
you know, it wasn't she funked up at the time too.
She was drinking, you know, she thought of herself as
a blue singer, and she thought, you know that that
bottle of m what's the the bourbon or something that

(58:42):
Jack Dan she thought that was part of the program,
you know. And she was a bit overweight and um,
and she was kind of miserable, you know, her situation
at Warner Brothers. She had we delivered a record to
extricate her, and then I took her over to I
don't think they put that they even put that record
out at that time, not so as you notice, but
they did because they had a contractual obligation. Nine Lives

(59:05):
was the name of that record. Yeah, with total stiff,
yes without When she left Warner Brothers, did you already
have the Deally capital? So I had her playing clubs,
in fact, the night of the Grammys. Um, she I
had her playing little clubs to clubs because that's all
she could sell her redeveloping her No, that's where she was,

(59:26):
you know. And she sent me a picture of the
bathroom at this club in Buffalo, which was the literal
interpretation of a ship hole. Okay. She sends me this
picture and she says, how could you do this to me? Okay?
And it crushed me because I didn't want to do
that to her. So I kind of redoubled my efforts.

(59:47):
And um, when she got the four Grammys. The night
of the four Grams and we're standing backstage, she's got
her shoes off and we're waiting for the limousine. I
said to her, you know what pushed us over the top,
that club in Buffalo. Okay, So now she's off off
Warner Brothers. Okay, so we do We do the Milwaukee

(01:00:08):
Blues Fest. I have Bonnie on one end of the
park and the Summer Fest. Summer Fest, so Bonnie at
one end of the park and they have Blinda at
the other end of the park and we all hang
out and Charlotte and Belinda get on Bonnie's case about,
you know, getting sober, and they fucking drag her to
an AA meeting and they get her fucking paying attention,

(01:00:32):
and then she starts to kind of realized that she's
got to if she wants to survive, she has to
kind of reorient her vision of the world, and she
gets sober, and she loses weight and she gets healthy
and then we make nick of time. Okay. In the interim,
during that period of time, Joe Smith moves from Warner

(01:00:53):
Brothers to Capitol, Right, that's my question. Was him or
Bourbon because he brings Burman there too. Yeah, but it
was Joe Smith and and Tim Divine and um and
who was the head of A and R who's now
at Concord. Oh God, I'm so bad with name. What's
his name? Okay? So I take him Divine out to

(01:01:15):
the to the club and Trincus right to see Bonnie. Right,
you know, Bonnie there was never any doubt of her talent.
It was her lifestyle that interfered with her career. She
oh she could. I mean, she has perfect pitch. I'm
part of my sales pitch was I would say to

(01:01:35):
people that she was the number one female slide guitar
player in the world, not that there's a big club there.
There wasn't. It was a legitimate position, right, Okay, it
was part of my sales pitch. So you know, I
convinced Joe Smith to give us basically an entry level

(01:01:55):
deal for like a hundred and twenty five thou dollars
when other people are getting half a million, okay, And
I get Don was. Don Was did one song with
Bonnie for a Disney album for UM called stay Awake,
where she sings the lullaby that Dumbo's mom sings the
Dumbo and she sounds breathtaking. And Don Was never produced

(01:02:19):
anything except was not was, And I asked Don if
he would produce Bonnie, and I said, here's the budget,
not one fucking pennymore, all in your fee, everything, And
he makes nick of Time for like a hundred and
twenty six thou dollars. Okay. Now, Bonnie wrote Nick of
Time two songs on that right, What was the other

(01:02:41):
one she wrote? Uh? I forgot okay. But but Nick
of Time was not the big hit I know it was.
It was a John uh John Hyatt song. Um fuck
they I know. There are so many hits after that. Okay.
So we had three hits off that record, right, and
the record sold eight million copies. And here's my moment

(01:03:04):
of clarity and my genius. I had one moment of
genius in my entire fucking career. Okay. I convinced Joe
Smith we put out the record in like October. They
have thirteen releases in that quarter. Her priority was number thirteen. Okay,
fourth quarter, that's when record companies make all their money, right,

(01:03:24):
But she was not getting in. But I got um.
I got Dennis Quaid to be in her video. Dennis
was dating a friend of my wife's and uh and
and so I convinced. And also he's a big bondy
rate anyway, So Dennis is in the video and it

(01:03:47):
blows up on v H one. At that time, that's
that was your path. So all of a sudden nick
of time is starting to go up the priorities for
capital do you want me to wait for? Okay? So
the by the end of the year, we sold about
three hundred maybe four, somewhere between three hundred and four

(01:04:08):
hundred thousand, and and Danny and I thought we won
the fucking lottery. Okay, it was huge success. And then
she gets all these nominations. So in January I go
into Joe Smith and I say it to Joe, there's
no chance she's going to Yeah, okay, so you're going

(01:04:29):
to Joe Smith and I convince him that she's not
going to win any Grammys. But our marketing strategy should
be four time nominated because she got all those nominations.
So we did end caps in the stores, and we
did these displays, and we did this whole campaign. Did
those cell records. Let me don't get ahead of me, okay.

(01:04:50):
So this was all in the anticipation of the Grammys,
and I convinced them to spend like a hundred thousand,
which was an enormous amount of on Annie rate. Basically,
what I was asking him to do was take the
profit on the three or four hundred thousand records we
sold and reinvested in this scheme I had, you know,
so if I was wrong, you made no money. If

(01:05:13):
I was right, we'd make more money. So she wins
the four Grammys. It's one of the best nights I
ever had. Danny and I were fucking crying in the
theater and um and before the last one, which was
Record of the Year, the big one, Bonnie's halfway out
the door because she's convinced. She's got her shoes in
her hand, and she's got the other three Grammys, and

(01:05:34):
this is as good as life is ever going to get.
And then she wins the other one. She's on the
front page or at least on the entertainment section in
every newspaper in America, holding four Grammys. She was the
star of the Grammys. Now all those end caps that
have been sitting there for two weeks, we're out selling Madonna. Okay.

(01:05:55):
We sold two and a half million records in the
next five weeks. Getting the product in the stores that
was also probably a problem. Well, there were there were
lots of times where the shipments were behind the orders.
But give Capital credit, they hustled their ass off. They

(01:06:18):
but you keep in mind, for the marketing program that
we had set up for the nominations, we had stocked
those stores, so we had about a two week delay,
so they had about five six days to keep the
place stocked. But we were fucking kicking s anyway, Okay,
at what point does Danny then jump to Atlantic Records. Well,

(01:06:40):
we're down the line some you know. You know, Dan
and I were together for eleven or twelve years. We
had John Silver come into the company, We got the
Beastie Boys, and we had Nirvana, and we had all
of this great stuff. We had clients that were and
who were you in charge over? How did it work there?
When I was in charge of John and John was
in charge of the day Today on the Beastie Boys

(01:07:01):
and and Nirvana. But you know when they went to
South America and they went to Europe, I went along,
you know, so you were there when Nirvana blew up? Yeah?
What was that? Like? That was the most fun I've
ever had in the music business. First of all, I
loved them. I thought this was the most exciting band
I had ever seen. I mean every time he performed.

(01:07:23):
So here's how here's how it happened. Before the record
came out, Sonic Youth took them on tour for like,
I don't know, fifty or a hundred shows, and they
fucking kicked Ask the first record they made on sub Pop,
this bleach really sucked. Okay did they make that record?
When they made that record, were you managing them already? No? No,
I didn't think so. But um, what was the bass

(01:07:45):
player current, Chris nova Stella? No, no, no. In Sonic Youth, Um,
Mary took Keim Gordon and here the tall guy. Yeah,
like I said, this is this is why I'm never
going to get this on paper anyway. He said, this
is going to be the next big thing. And he

(01:08:05):
was right. He was right about Dinosaur Jr. He was
right about the Breeders. He was he was kind of
our in house and our guys. Okay, so did you
have Dinosaur Jr. And the Breeders too? Okay, so as
well as like four or five other kind of punky bands. Okay.
And then Nirvana just blows up literally overnight. No, it was,

(01:08:26):
you know, everyone's an overnight sensation. It just takes a
couple of years. They opened for Sonic Youth for a
year before they made never Mind. Okay, then they made
never Mind, and we're working, you know, the precursor to that.
And this is John Silver's moment of fucking clarity. The
record comes out and he gets all the independent stores

(01:08:49):
in America to only sell Nirvana record one night, like
Saturday night, put out speakers, you know, all the mom
and pop stores and at that time they were five
thousands of okay, y, and we sell I don't know,
a hundred thousand records in like the weekend that the
record comes out Monday morning, then the number one selling

(01:09:09):
record in America and radio has never heard the record.
This was John Silver's moment of genius. Okay, but every
kid in America had become aware of them because they
were out on tour with Sonic Youth and they were
like this underground conversation that was going on. So there
was an anticipation for this record and then it delivered,

(01:09:32):
you know. Okay, So now now radio is catching up.
So I would I would be on the phone kind
of working my my promotion people and everything. And there
were radio stations that say, why am I playing this record?
And I would say, well, check the sales in your city.
It's the number one selling record and use in your city,
maybe you should consider it. And then they would listen

(01:09:52):
to teen Spirit and say, I can't play this fucking record.
I said, if you don't, everyone else will. And you
you know. So with in three weeks, the record blew
up so big the record company could not keep up.
They sold out every copy. There was a two to
three week delay on this record, and instead of crushing
the record, it created a demand for the record that

(01:10:15):
I've never seen. Okay. Also, the video had a big,
guess part in that success. But the video came like
when we went to radio. You got to remember that
success actually already happened. The the the beat between the success,
the Monday morning sales numbers from John's Midnight Madness Scheme

(01:10:38):
already hit the marketplace. The kids knew it was a hit.
Radio was just catching up, and then the video came
and that's when things went okay. And then Danny decides
to leave what kind of emotional spaces I leave you in? Well,
you know, you interviewed, you interviewed Danny. Danny didn't know

(01:11:00):
I existed, or apparently in his book or in anything,
there's a there's this space between him and reality. And
I guess the only way I'm ever going to get
the credit in that situation I deserve is to write
my book and leave his name out, which maybe I will. Okay, Um,
it's called Gold Mountain at this point, right, tell us

(01:11:22):
how that name comes together. He had a company in
New York, um called Gold Something, you know. And I
didn't give a shot at okay, you know, And and
I lived on Lookout Mountain, so it's close enough for me,
you know. Anyway, So you know, there was a moment
in time where we ended up with thirty or forty
clients and we were doing amazing, And there was a

(01:11:45):
moment where we had three top five albums. We had
Bonnie rate a lot of miles with that blue Velbot velvet. Yeah,
she was a piece of work anyway, Um and I
forgot the one might have been Vanovana was like number
four or five. Bonnie was like number two and a

(01:12:05):
lot of minds. Actually, just to stop on Bonnie. I
prefer the album after that as good as Nick and
time as luck of the drawing better better, because what
happened is she and Don kind of connected in a
very amazing creative way. Don was one of the best
producers money can buy, just great. Most producers would argue

(01:12:28):
with the client or say it has to be this way,
and Bonnie was very for both and very energetic and
you know, a strong woman and he would say something softly,
so she had to be quiet to hear. And that's
how it all worked. And okay, so how does Danny leave? Well,

(01:12:50):
I think, um, uh, you know, Danny was always a
record company guy, and he had a h He was
a press agent to me for LEDs up Planets at
a White Swan Swans and then um and I think
he worked at Atlantic for a period of time. Or
Um was the guy who ended up running everything. Doug Barris,

(01:13:12):
Doug Marris. Okay, So Doug saw him as great potential.
So Doug offered him a job at Atlantic Records, which
he took with the understanding that at some point he
would become head of Atlantic. But then the job at
Warner Brothers opened up and he went over to Warner
Brothers to run Warner Brothers. Well forgetting Danny, because we

(01:13:32):
know Danny's story. When he walks to Atlantic, he's a
out on the management thing, and he sells his share
to Michael Cole. Okay, So now I'm okay, wait, wait,
just to be clear, since we're going this deep, how
who has how much? Why does he sell his fifty

(01:13:53):
to Michael Cole? Because Michael Cole was going to give it,
gave him a lot of money, I would assume. Yes,
So now in partners with Michael Cole, which is not
a tragedy because, to be honest, you know, as much
as I love Dandy, not the greatest manager in the world,
a great pr person and also kind of a visionary.
He could see further ahead on what's going on than

(01:14:15):
I could because I was my head was down, you
know what I mean. Let me ask you if Cole
paid that much for fifty Did you think of selling
they're fifty to now? It never occurred to me, and
I wouldn't have done it anyway. What would I do right, Okay,
just to get one paiday, continue to do the job, okay,
but as coal and an active partner. No, that's what
was appealing. You know. He had Molson beer money, and

(01:14:39):
he had a merchandising company, and we signed this contract
and basically this, you know, I would have to go
to Toronto and project what we were going to earn
over the next six months. And I would go there
and say, I don't know what the funk we're going
to do in the next six months. Maybe we could
do this, maybe we could do that, Maybe you know,

(01:15:00):
make this much, or maybe we won't make anything. It's
the fucking management business. The client says, I don't feel
like going on on tour. You know, what are you
gonna do? Right? It's not the fucking beer business, you know.
So there was some conflict there. So and and also
the truxt of it was I think Michael made the
investment in the management business to to enhance the merchandising business.

(01:15:23):
But part of my deal with him was that if
we were going to use. I forgot the name of
that company that he had, the merchantman with Norman. Yeah, anyway, anyway,
whatever the name it, the merchant you see what's brain damage?
And we got the story. Okay. So so there was
a clause in the contract that said that if we

(01:15:44):
signed any of our clients to the Norman Perry's company.
No something like that, I know. But anyway, so if
if we signed the client to the merch company, they
would have to give us a blow market deal because
we can't a double dip. Okay. So within six months
they're putting pressure on us to sign the accent at

(01:16:06):
a full rate today. And I said, well, you've got
a choice. You could either take the commission or you
could make the money on the merge. But you can't
do both. And that was the kiss of death for them,
because he had to answer to this board of directors
with guys with suits and ties. I had never experienced
this in my life. Goodbye, Oh. Irving brought his half.

(01:16:28):
So I was partners with Irving for a blink. Irving,
John silv and I the best name for any management
company ever, A's off Stone and silver right. I got that,
asked partners. How long did that last? Six months? Okay?
But if Irving paid for it, and he was and

(01:16:49):
he was a passive partner, what did he end up
with when it blew up? He's probably still mad at
me for this. We bought him out and it had
to do with the axes before taxes dollars or after
taxes dollars. And he thought I screwed him. I said,
you know, you're you're supposed to be a big macha.
You're supposed to have accountants and lawyers. Didn't they take

(01:17:11):
care of you? This is not my fault, you know.
So did he end up losing money or just not?
He just didn't didn't make the thought he was gonna make. Okay,
So it breaks up and goes three ways, right, So
and and John took the occasion to go off on
his own. And I had Bonnie Rate and Tracy Chapman
and the kind of the older, more established artists. Tom

(01:17:32):
Cochrane from Canada was huge success. I had a bunch
of artists, but they were my generation, or at least
within shouting distance of my generation. And John took Nirvana
was gone at that point, and we had no idea
that that um food fighters would end up being Dave
Grohl would be such a big We knew Dave Grohl

(01:17:54):
could sing. We had no idea he had that star quality,
and he does, by the way, right. Also one of
the nicest people in the business. Just a doll. Okay,
I'll tell you. I'll tell you. The first thing he
did with the big, first, big Nirvana check. Everybody else
was buying houses and cars and doing all this things.
He bought his mom the house Hamish a kid. Well,

(01:18:18):
I don't have anything to say. I've seen him in
Canada with his mother's mother wrote a book about the
mothers of rockers. Okay, so you have your acts. At
what point do you have an operation in Nashville? Well,
Bert Stein was Bert Stein who runs the Nashville office.
Danny Burton and I started the company early on. Bert

(01:18:39):
went to Nashville. I don't know why. And he has
a whole cadre of clients and we're still kind of
in business in a quasi partnership. Okay. So ultimately Oaks
Silva goes his own way. You're left with these acts.
So then what happens for you? I worked my a
off for the next ten twenty years you know, and

(01:19:01):
then how does it end with these acts? Some of them? Well,
I mean I managed Bonnie Rate for seventeen years. Okay,
there was a moment in time when she understood she
was never going to make any more money per night
or per year above what she was making. So if
she wanted to make her net money, then everybody had

(01:19:21):
to get less. So she gave me a list, and
I went to the accountant, to the agency, to everybody.
I didn't realize I was on that list. And at
the end of that I said, no, I couldn't. I couldn't. Well,
we'll work for reduced rate. Well, I wouldn't because I
have all these other clients and if I do it
for you, then my business is fucked. But she was

(01:19:43):
such a We had a sunset arrangement, so she paid me,
you know, reduced right over a period of time, which
was the best three years of my relationship with her,
because I started to love her because I would get
checks and never have to work. And who else were
you working with at that point, Tracy Chapman, I mean,
I don't know did you? Were you? When Chapman had

(01:20:04):
her comeback hit? That was me? That's I'm the comeback,
kid man. You know she had the first hit, Fast Card.
She did out a hit for a long time, wait
fast Car. Elliott was her manager, okay, and we were
not together. She sold five million copies, then the second
record did about half that, and then I think there
was a third record, I believe so, which sold less

(01:20:24):
than five and my I wooed her for a very
long period of time because I had to overcome the
fact that Elliott was my best friend and she was
angry at him. But within a year I kind of
got her around, and the first record we put out
was a New Beginning, which did actually better than Fast Car.

(01:20:45):
Right that that song was other than she didn't write it,
but it was she did. She did, Yes, she did.
So it was an old blues shuffle exactly, um um um.
I forgot the name of the song, okay, okay. So
so she had done that song when she was a
busker in Harvard Square and she would do it in

(01:21:06):
her show every night. It was just just throwaway, little
blue shuffle, give me one reason, okay. And David Kirshenbaum
was the producer, of course, and I convinced the two
of them that they had to record that song okay,
because in her show it was a show stealer, because

(01:21:26):
because it was different than all the other songs, it
was a little blue shuffle. Everyone assumed I forgot the
blues guy who recorded the song after her. Everybody like,
within two years, I forgot his Chicago blues guy, old
buddy guy he recorded the song. Everybody assumed he wrote

(01:21:47):
the song. But she wrote the song and he covered it. Okay, Uh,
did you did you go on Wikipedia? Because if you,
if you went through the list of all the clients,
I could actually remember who I meant it. No, No,
I didn't go through because I know you, uh whatever.
So then you know, one would from the outside would

(01:22:09):
think that you made a lot of money in that era.
I may have. Do you still have that money? No,
that's not a chance. Where did that money go? You know?
I there was a time where I had I was
supporting five households. I had my wife's mother who was
in her eighties and nineties, and I had my mother
who's in the eighties and nineties, and I had my

(01:22:30):
two sons and me. And it doesn't last as long.
And also somewhere when when when um the the napster
rat Napster. So let I tell you a great Napster story.
If you want to hear it, well, finish your thought

(01:22:52):
then we'll get to the great Okay. So, you know, slowly,
over a twenty twenty year period, the income from record
royalties and publishing is steadily going down, and the touring business,
because my clients are a little bit older, is not
going up. It's if I'm doing a good job. I'm

(01:23:13):
maintaining you know so, and and you know and I
had Also I went from Bonnie to Tracy to Ricky
Lee Jones and I The interesting thing is Bonnie Joni Mitchell,
Ricky Lee Jones, and my mom we're all born November

(01:23:33):
eight or nine. That's pretty amazing. But tell your Napster story. Okay.
So I'm the keynote speaker at Music BIG's two thousand
in Berkeley, California. Because I'm I'm kicking ass, you know.
So I'm the keynote speaker. I do my whole spiel.
And this attorney, um god, he was killed driving his

(01:23:56):
riding his bicycle on Milton Owen milt Owen O l
I n um he was. He was the attorney for
the kid that started napstin Okay. See takes me and
sits me down in front of the computer and he
shows me this. He said, this is gonna fucking just

(01:24:16):
be the greatest thing that ever happened. And I got
up from that seat thinking, we are so fucked. We
are just fucked if this happens. So, Um, Hillary Rosen
is head of the r I A A. So I
call her up and I say, listen, I gotta explain
what's about to happen to everyone here. At that time

(01:24:37):
there were twelve record companies, and you know I either
met with all of them individually or in some cases
three or four at a time. Um, what's his name
from Elektra was now No, no, no, no, the guy
who originated the Elector come back to me exactly, and

(01:24:59):
he became the technical advisor for the Warner Brothers groups,
much at that point was one of the three biggest. Anyway,
he got it and no one else got it. And
Milt was prepared to sell the format and the thing
for five million dollars. And I said this twelve record companies,

(01:25:22):
I said, you know, we're talking four thousand dollars apiece.
We should buy this because it is in fact gonna
funk your business in a way that you have no
idea what's coming. Okay. So they had all these excuses.
First of all, they didn't believe me. Second of all,
no matter how much I showed them what this was
and what the future looked like, like, I said, what

(01:25:44):
what was his name? Anyway? He used to have a
private airline thing in Hawaii. When he retired, he had
a um fuck and his brother and his brother ran
Jackals Jackals who was technologically the exactly the only one
who understood what was coming, okay, And they didn't listen

(01:26:04):
to him either. There were all these reasons that they
couldn't buy it, collectively, anti trust whatever I said, So, okay,
one of you buy it. You know, we're talking five
million dollars here. No, it's too much money. This is
just the waste of sucking money. You know, at that time,
records were like four or five thousand dollars apiece, and
you make ten or fifteen or twenty hoping that two

(01:26:26):
or three of them would be Okay, I said this,
if you invest in this format nothing but money. If
you don't figure out how to monetize it, it will
bury you. Okay. So I went back to Milton. He said,
how about three we could have bought it. We could
have bought Napster for less than three three million. That's

(01:26:47):
how much they spent in legal fees to kill it. Yeah,
and then they hired me as a consultant. And I
did this whole campaign of about um um um respecting copyrights.
And it happened at a time where I couldn't hire
um actors because there was a strike. So I had

(01:27:08):
to create this thing that didn't work. No, that's for sure,
because there was you know, I wanted when it worked
no matter what. Oh no, it would have worked if
if I had all the artists that were going to
be impact. Well that's you know, we can debate past
history for whatever. So why not you moved to Colorado,
That's where I see you most nothing, You don't come
back to l A. Why not call it a day, relax,

(01:27:30):
enjoy your aging rand children, because I don't want to
modify my lifestyle and I would have to if I retired. Okay,
So what so how much do you travel with the
acts at this point? Almost never? Okay. I mean I
came into l A for a meeting with one of
my clients, but I don't go on the road. Maybe

(01:27:52):
I'll show up in London if I have other business,
other reasons. Okay, So who you know? Is there anybody
who's actually working for you or you hire to have?
I have, uh, Peter Wark who's kind of my partner,
and he works out of Montreal and I work out
of Vail, and we make believe that he's a New
York and nom in l A. Now you call my office,

(01:28:15):
you call my office number. It's an l A number. Right.
Did you say you also have an operation in the valley.
That's yeah, but no one's in there. There's an answering
machine that forwards the calls. I'm in the I'm in
the Witness Protective Okay. So it's not a it's not
an answering machine in the old fashioned sense. I understand.

(01:28:35):
It's a service that fowards the So you think you're
calling an office in Los Angeles and they put you
through to my office and I'm sitting with my feet
up and looking out at the mountains in Colorado. Okay,
So Ricky Lee Jones is taking up a lot of
your time. What else is your time spent on toime? Well,
I have disband in Austin called Fastball, who I Love

(01:28:57):
had a big hit about twenty years ago. Nineties. Yeah, Um,
don't ask me. What kind of business can they do today? Well,
you know they do reasonably good business. The nineties has
kind of Um. They went out on tour with Ever
Clear and you know they do package tour. Yeah, they
do great. And they're just putting out a new record

(01:29:17):
right now as we speak. And um, and then you
know I did. I worked with um with Ray Davies
for a number of years, but he's kind of kind
of gotten quiet the past two years. Okay, so is he?
Is he? Play? Ever gonna be the musical that was
successful in London? Ever going to open in New York? Well,

(01:29:39):
you know they were planning on opening it when Hamilton
When Hamilton's came out, that sucked all the oxygen out
of the room. So the answer is, I don't know. Okay,
Kinks Ever get back together? Got? I been involved with
Ray for almost eight years hoping this would be the case.
And I don't think so. And not because Ray wouldn't

(01:30:01):
do it, because Dave won't do it. They have any money. No,
when we ever see would you ever see? Will you
ever see Ray on stage again. Um, yeah, probably, but
he doesn't want to get on a plane. He doesn't
want to go on tour. My only chance for the
Kings to get back together is if I could have
a show in London where they do one show and

(01:30:21):
I broadcast it to a thousand venues as a hologram. Okay,
having been in the business for all these decades and
having seen the transition to digital, what do you foresee
for the business coming down the pike. Well, there's going
to be another wave of technology. Really, what do you predict? No,
I didn't you know. I didn't think Spotify was gonna

(01:30:45):
suck the world over. I mean, you know, it's so
interesting that the record companies have managed to monetize every
technological change to the detriment of the artist. If you
think about it, the major companies who have all the
content makes deals with Spotify, and they get these huge
advances to give them blanket licenses. They don't share that

(01:31:07):
with the artist. The artists gets they said, well Warner
said they were, But who the hell knows? Really, I
must have missed that her statement because I have never
seen one. Okay, but but Spotify pays some absurd like
point zero zero zero. It depends whatever. It's not literally
a penny rate, but it's a division. It ends up
being that. Yeah, well it comes free. That's for a

(01:31:28):
free stream of paid streams a little bit more. But okay,
just as a ballpark figure, a million streams makes the
artist about six thousand dollars. That's if they own their
own publishing and they have a good record deal. Well,
it's a little bit higher than that, but forgetting that.
You know, certainly, if you have what we call a
heritage artist, it's it's limited on streaming. But okay, so

(01:31:51):
in any of them. But they're trying, they're trying to
open up other avenues exactly. But keep in mind that
the one thing I the only solace there is is
that the life expectancy of a stream on on Spotify
or or Apple wherever, it basically lasts forever and you
get paid. So by the time you're ninety you might

(01:32:13):
actually make some money. Absolutely, Rod, this has been so great,
and we never got past the fucking seventies. Man, No,
we did a little bit, a little bit, you know,
on some level, the people this the definitive story has
never been written. Okay, you've had their story from maybe
ten thousand feet. But what I like you, what you're

(01:32:34):
saying is we didn't know what the funk were hanging.
We were friends. Listen. I said this to Elliott. Unfortunately
Elliott pasted it was you know, I've known Elliott sixties
and odd years. We were in business, and inspite of that,
I still loved him, you know, because I would have
arguments with him where he would say, I can't do that,
that's business, and then he would ask me to do

(01:32:56):
something as a friend. So when he wanted something, we
would have as the friends, and when he didn't want
to do something, he couldn't you know that the economics
don't work? And where does this leave you with Geffen? Well,
you know, I speak to him and see him occasionally,
and I'm always amazed that he actually knows what's going
on in my life. And um, I think he actually
cares and there are very few people in his life

(01:33:18):
that are not trying to get anything from him. So
I think our relationship is unique. And is he ever
give you any advice? Uh? So we had a client
um when this kid um god o Jared Wilkins so manages. Uh.

(01:33:39):
There was a Broadway show called um Um Spring Awakening,
of course, yes, and the guy wrote the music, Duncan Cheek.
Duncan Cheek was Jared's client and um so the play
played in Los Angeles and I put I brought David
down because I wanted him to help me make a movie. Okay, son,

(01:34:00):
David took Duncan the side and told him, don't ever
make a fucking movie, you know, just keep it as
a play. Just they'll suck it up. And he liked
stuck a pin in my balloon because I want the
big payoff for us was going to be the movie.
And do you think he was right? Who the funk knows?
I don't know. Okay, one more thing. When we started

(01:34:24):
out in the business, we thought we were fucking geniuses. Okay,
about five or six years into the process, we realized
that we were the luckiest fucking people who have ever
met in your life. Five more years I actually figured
out and I feel like I'm a real professional. But
it took me ten years. Well that's something to contemplate,

(01:34:45):
is I'm sitting here, Rob, thanks so much for being
on the podcast. Thank you once again. That's ron A
k a Stone straight from the Bronx, Here to Hollywood.
He made it and he's still in the game. Thank you.

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Bob Lefsetz

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