Promotion Man Podcast

Promotion Man Podcast

Fred Meyers shares his stories and adventures from his days at Warner Bros Records and Virgin Records and his relationships with some of the most influential bands that Fred worked with from the very beginning.

Episodes

October 25, 2021 48 mins
Bill Schnee is an internationally renowned producer, engineer, and mix master. He has received over 135 gold and platinum records and more than 50 Top 20 singles that run the gamut from Barbara Streisand to The Jacksons, Rod Stewart, Steely Dan and Whitney Houston to Dire Straits.

Bill Schnee's new book is titled Chairman at the Board and is available now he shares fantastic stories about Three Dog Night, Huey Lewis & the News, The ...
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This week's episode is with Bill Pfordrescher who worked with many bands and record labels but for me and Bill we met because of Ambrosia when they were signed to Warner Bros Records.

"Biggest part of me" "Thats How Much I feel" were to become huge hits for WB and I was instrumental in promoting those songs first and then the rest of my associates at WB helped take them all the way.

Bill, has wonderful stories about TOOL, Kenny Wayne...
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Probably one of LA LLoyd's & my favorite episode to date because you might not know his name but he positively affected your life because he was the manager for people like Alice Cooper, Blondie, Groucho Marx, George Clinton, Luther Vandross, Anne Murray, Kenny Loggins, Rick James, Gary Wright, Teddy Pendergrass and many, many more.

Mike Myers directed Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon, a documentary on Shep's life, featuring M...
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June 28, 2021 38 mins
Alice Cooper continues to reinvent himself and continues to produce fantastic music and in this interview we talk about Bread Crumbs the EP and Detroit Stories the Album with amazing players like Wayne Kramer of MC5, Johnny "Bee" Badanjek of Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels & Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad fame. 

Alice talks about having dinner Elton John & Bernie Taupin and they reminisced about playing in Detroit back in the d...
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This has become one of my new favorite episodes with Jack Forsythe who went from radio to Record World (Industry trade magazine) to VP of Chrysalis Records. 

Jack is a fabulous storyteller so we kept bouncing from one band to another but you will hear stories about Pat Benatar who was called the kamikaze of love to Huey Lewis & the News, Billy Idol, and his shenanigans, and of course Blondie. 

Jack's stories were so good we will have...
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This week's episode is about Robert Duncan who worked at Creem Magazine. Robert's adventures start with a skinny Bruce Springsteen asking Robert to meet him in Cleveland and they tour the city of Cleveland in a beat-up car of Robert's friend with Bruce sitting between them in the backseat leaning over to talk. 

Robert has fascinating stories of David Bowie & Iggy Pop, Taking a private jet with Keith Richards & Rod Wood for the New B...
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May 22, 2021 41 mins
Thomas Weschler is a rock n roll photographer in Detroit and has taken over 38,000 pictures. In this episode Thomas tells us how he started by taking a picture of the Beatles off of his parent's black & white TV and selling them at school.

From Jimmy Page to Diana Ross when Thomas took a picture with Gene Simmons of KISS without makeup to Aretha Franklin, The Who where he tells a great story of selling his guitar to Pete Townshend t...
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Danny Zelisko is a concert promoter for the Phoenix & Las Vegas marketplace. Having started his career in the mid 70's Danny has been with the biggest rock stars and sports figures and even the best comics of our generation. In Danny Zelisko's book ALL EXCESS he shares intimate stories that will make you laugh and grab your chin with a "holy cow" expression. To try to list everyone in his book would take an hour so the highlights a...
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Paul Fishkin tells us how he met Stevie Nicks at the Warner Bros Records meetings in Alcapulco in 77 and Stevie had the Rumors album advance on cassette and asked George Harrison & Paul Fishkin if they wanted to come up to her hotel room and give it a listen !!

Paul formed Modern Records with a partner and Stevie signed as a partner and recording artist for her solo work. 

We also learn how "Stop Dragging my Heart" made her debut alb...
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Tommy Nast gives us an awesome interview after he went from radio in the Northeast to Los Angeles as a partner in a trade magazine called Album Network. Album Network had enabled Tommy to befriend label executives and rock stars alike and here he tells us so many fascinating stories. Hold on to the sides!!

Tommy tells us stories about Offspring, Ozzy Osborne, Van Halen, and their manager Ed Leffler, a new up-and-coming band we love ...
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Murray Nagel was with Warner Bros Records for most of his adult life starting in his mid 20's before WEA distribution was formed. Murray's career spanned decades and he worked with the biggest bands during his music career like Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, Doobie Bros, Prince, Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, James Taylor, Madonna, Rod Stewart, U2, Roxy Music and many many more. 

Murray tells us that he was there...
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Harold Childs is a well-respected record label executive who took the time to talk with us about his time with RCA Records, A&M Records, Warner Bros Records through him being President of Quest Records Quincy Jones label. We talk about Nazareth, Police, Bryan Adams, Peter Frampton, Joe Jackson, Supertramp and more.

 
Recommended Music:
Nazareth: "Love Hurts"
Peter Frampton: "Baby I Love Your Ways"
Police: "Roxanne"
Joe Jackson: "Is she r...
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Paul Fishkin worked at the famed Bearsville Records label when the roster had Todd Rundgren and Foghat among many others. This episode goes back to those days at the beginning of both bands careers and we find out the the song "We Got to Get You a Woman" was written for Paul because he and Todd where roommates!!!  This is episode 1 of 2 because Paul went on to start the record label Modern Records where he had bands like Poe and a ...
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January 17, 2021 27 mins
U2, when they first came to America their very first radio airplay, their very first radio interview and one of their first club dates was in Austin and in Houston, TX. U2 ended up being one of the most popular lithic rock 'n' roll bands ever selling! Close to 200 million albums worldwide, that should pretty much do it! 


Recommended Music:
U2: ”Vertigo”
U2: “Desire”
U2: “I Will Follow”
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November 1, 2020 32 mins
LA Lloyd and I were thrilled to interview Jon Anderson the leader of YES on this week's episode.  Jon has a new album out called 1,000 Hands and it's a beautiful piece of work with guests on the Album like Billy Cobham, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, Jean-Luc Ponty, Steve Howe, Alan White, Chris Squire, Steve Morse, Chick Corea, and Zap Mama. We talk about the making of "Owner of a Lonely Heart" which went to #1, "Starship Trooper" a...
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October 11, 2020 42 mins
We had a wonderful interview with JW Williams who started his career with Lone Wolf Productions who were ZZ Top's management company and was with them for 30 years. The stories he tells and the reminiscing is fantastic.  What was JW's reaction when he first heard "Pearl Necklace" and other crazy stories?If you love ZZ Top you will love this episode!


Recommended Music:
ZZ Top: “Brown Sugar”
ZZ Top: “La Grange”
ZZ Top: “I’m Bad I'm Natio...
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September 21, 2020 54 mins
Fred and LA Lloyd welcome Alex Valentine. Alex went from major market radio to Promotion Man and has some incredible stories. Just a few days on the job, he accidentally opens a bathroom door too quickly only to find Kenny Chesney on the other side on the floor. Alex talks about the incredible work ethic of an unknown talent named Taylor Swift. Sir George Martin, Beatles producer, gets the last laugh on Alex at a Paul McCartney con...
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LA Lloyd and Fred finally convince longtime record promotion extraordinaire Patti Martin to an interview and she tells funny stories about Tom Petty, actually the Heartbreakers and a shopping spree in a record store when she first started her job.  Then a hilarious story about a mountain of a man radio programmer and two small rockers from Australia named Malcom and Angus of a band called AC/DC. Do rock stars really spend exorbitan...
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As the boys are recording for the Promotion Man Radio Show which debuts Sunday Sept 6th at 6-7pm on KLBJ-FM (and you can stream it KLBJFM.com) they realize they are short 8 minutes on episode #2 Van Halen. So we catch them finishing that and moving into radio show episode #4 which is about Fred tripping on shrooms with a "special" friend. Which now brings up the podcast "Learning to Fly" where Jeff Carrol takes Pink Floyd up on a h...
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LA and Fred had so much fun with Ted Cohen the first time around and they knew they just scratched the surface with Ted. And the listeners loved Teddy too!! It is the most downloaded episode after the Alice Cooper interview!So Part 2 Ted tells us about Alice Cooper, Robert Palmer, ZZ Top, Pretenders, David Lee Roth, Prince."Ted.. Who was the craziest band you were with? Van Halen? Fleetwood Mac?" 


Recommended Music:
Alice Cooper: "I ...
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