Harvey Kubernik

at Santa Monica Press said, do what you want. And I think there were two or three emails or a couple of notes, but no intrusion. And it helped that he was an LA native as well. And it really speaks deep to me because I got to stretch back and really chronicle something from nineteen fifty six to nineteen seventy two. Kind of my wingspan from like age six

to twenty one. I mean, that's a pretty seminal time period for all of us, and it's still remains my most potent title and the one that people ask me to autograph the most about.

the rhythm and blues stations and some jazz stations. I didn't know who the people were, but my parents were so sinatraed out and Tommy dorseyed out and into Julie London. It was always on because there were middle of the road radio stations in this town with big wattage, and so I just heard this music. But I was drawn to kind of the R and B music because it was loud and raucous, and there were horns. I didn't know what brass or horns meant, but I recognized after

three four five there were rotation songs. I didn't know you could play a song more than once on the radio back then. I didn't know there were playlists or whatever. But it it was very It was de penetration.

the baseball games. At this point there were transistors. But I certainly remember becoming addicted when the Beatles broke really in January of sixty four. So what was your experience.

that my parents embraced rock and roll in music. They didn't keep me away from it. But the fifties, and this is the other thing you mentioned baseball. Initially the middle of the road radio stations were on places like MPC or KFI, which stands for Farmer Information, so you'd

listen to baseball. And then there weren't pregame and postgame shows back then that much, so you'd have that station on waiting for baseball, vinskull A, Jerry Doggett, but you'd have two hours before and two hours after, and the disc jockeys were sometimes in the booth or at the games, so it all kind of collided. But I mean I started collecting records. I started looking at records at Wallack's

Music City in nineteen fifty eight and fifty nine. I didn't have funds to buy them at age eight or nine. But I did buy for sixty nine cents Hailey mails Let's Get Together because I saw the parent trap. Now, did I know it was done at Sunset Sound with Twoty Camarada. Did I know any of that stuff? No? All I know is she was a pretty girl. She didn't look like the girls in my school. She also

talked funny. But on the record Let's Get Together, I thought it was an American girl with blonde hair and that. But it wasn't hitting me as hard as buying the Coasters. At the same time shopping for clothes search and I

bought the Coasters. There were no albums then. Really I bought the Coasters records literally the same time, and I decided, well, why don't I have one foot in pop and R and B. Then they had this thing called race music that they kept mentioning, here's something from the race department. I didn't even know what it meant. But the music

had comedy and tension and drama and multi voices. I couldn't quite grasp all the lyrics the way I grabbed now and somehow that devotional art that I put my shelf self through brought me to people like Meaningly and Stoller. This was unfathomable to me, So it was planted early. And then, by the way, in late sixty I heard Jane Deine and the Beach Boys on the radio because they're on the AM Ray, They're on KFWB, they're on

car La. And then I went to see the Beach Boys in nineteen sixty two in Culver City at a record store. It was kind of a SOCCP. I now realized they were lip syncing, there were no amps, they were holding the guitars wearing penaltons. I just thought, wow, this is really cool. So I was already in the rock and roll scheme dream before the Beatles showed up and then the big bang. My parents were devoted. And I'm sure you watched it to the Jack Parr Show.

World War two. I kind of felt, this is really good. And remember I was also hooked on the Oscar Levant show. But Oscar Levant, which was filmed out here, he didn't have rock and roll music people on. But I remember I was so beach boyed out. And yes I did surf, but I had a five foot limit and a nine to six con board. We have at My daughter Randy saw this music, this group attracting a lot of attention in London on our trip there. I'd like you to

see it or something like that. I saw that clip. Now, I didn't know it was called some other guy. I didn't, but I saw that, and I'm eleven. I walked downstairs.

And what I did is I took my Beach Boy fan club button and I put it in a safe and I sort of defected to the Beatles temporarily. Then in February sixty four, I heard they were coming to town. It's not the Ed Sullivan Show. I read that there was some kind of they were going to be in town or some television event. I couldn't get it.

a studio. Go ahead, just be home by eight o'clock at night. You know, there was always the deal. You can stay up till eight, and you could stay up till ten when you're sixteen, and you could stay out till midnight when you were eighteen. I saw that show, I thought they were there in person. First of all, it's the longest Beatle set that they ever did. Did I know that the Beach Boys and Leslie Gore taped

their segments? I believe in a studio in Burbank. No, there was Leslie Gore, there was the Beach Boys, but the Beatle thing. And then I went to a department store and I bought the album on VJ, and I went to Walllex Music City and there were people lined up. We waited till they cracked the thing up because there were shipments coming up the street from Capitol Records.

and a skateboard ride from Wallax Music City. But I had gone to Wallax Music City in the late fifties. They had six or eight preview booths. You could take a record that had demonstration marked on it, a white label, not an acetate. The labels would have testers. You could go into a listening booth and you could play a record. And I remember playing albums not forty fives. My brother and I heard Jan and Dean's Command Performance album my record.

Well there it blew my fucking mind. Like Jannandeine. I mean, these guys that I that were on like something called Liberty Records, or they were on this Story label. Because I was kind of I knew it I was reading the kif WB hitline the Carely Beat. I was on it, which is why I never could even get through the law school application. It just didn't work for me. So Wallax Music City, you'd go up there with your friends.

I was talking to Mickey Dolans about this because he worked for a summer in sixty three behind the counter at Wallax Music City.

who I still talk to, longboarder surfer. This is a little later, when the Hair album came out and the Vanilla Fudgie album came out, with the Psychedelic and some Hendrix albums came out. He would go to the listening booths because he was going to Hollywood Professional School pretty much down the street. Because I knew the Hollywood professional people, Peggy lipped in the guys from the sun Rays. Peter

would do a one hitter. I'm outing you, Peter. He'd have a joint, he'd take a big hit and he'd hold it for like three minutes because he was a surfer with good lung power. And then he'd put on our experience and then he would just inhale. We'd look at the booth and you'd see this smoke in his booth, and then he'd quickly opened it up, you know, and it was it was you would go there. Well, I was going there once a week for twenty five thirty years, not every day and every night.

of a male That's not true. There were women listening to Bobby Rydell and all that stuff, but when the Beatles showed up, we couldn't get near the listening booths anymore because there were three or four girls in five or six both booths listening to the Beatles Interview album, which were press conferences being mashed together. The world had changed.

You could hear about b Milcha Reid and the good guys. I regret I never heard this guy that my New York friends that have all moved here told me, Boy you had really did? Was his name Dan Ingram?

not have a radio or a TV deal. And then Bill Drake comes to town and also on that channel was Michael of Michael Scotland Yard, Mikechael Jackson, who you probably knew, and he was like k Sea for years. He was he he had a South African accent. I don't think he was English. But all of a sudden he's kind of gone, and Chick Hern is gone, and all of a sudden we're unveiling Boss Radio, and then all of a sudden there's there's Don Steele, real Don Steele.

There's Sam Riddle. There's eighteen songs being played in the hour with such fluidity and copper tone ads and teen dances and no interviews that and you're thirteen, fourteen years old. Kg J was sort of like the Sea Party because it had great black I mean, there were billboards of the original jocks. That's what they look like. It was like always six white guys were like pompadours, but the music and they also kh Jane Carrolla did this. Dick

Mortland was the program director there. They had an alliance with the regional music. They were in bed with them, maybe promoting shows or doing exclusives, or people from gold Star Recording Studios who were running up there with acetates of a morning session of Sunny and chare to break it worldwide or have the first debut. And so you were surrounded by carle KFWB. I of course had two transistor radios on my bike. It was a schwin stingray.

I'd want an each dial, but I didn't have a third radio to go hear KGFJ or KD or the R and B stuff. So that's what I listened to late at night. And then around sixty five or sixty six, Wolfman Jack arrives through XCRB. That's a border radio thing, but I had fifty thousand watts from chew La Vista, San Diego area. He was playing different music than everybody. Plus it was a shtick when there was howling and nobody had headphones. You were just trapped by this stuff.

two to sixty three seasons. The Rams are here, The Olympic Auditorium is buzzing. We're watching teams like the Lakers play the Boston Celtics and the finals. And even though you don't only see one game a week on television, LA is getting all this attention that used to be pretty New York and East Coast centric. And then the whole enchilada busted open. The Dodgers win the championship in fifty nine against the Chicago White Sox. It just brings

media attention. When you're a local team, and they're playing rock and roll songs at rallies and all that. But in sixty three the Dodgers swept the Yankees in the World Series, and all of a sudden, LA is really under the microscope. So I think all kinds of disc jockeys then start transferring here, relocating. There's English accents, there's Lord Tim and Tommy Vance. There's like British people on the radio. What do you mean Sam Riddle has gone

to another station? B Mitchell Reid is, Where's he? After kV BB, he goes on to KPBCEE. All of a sudden, there's so many new outlets and voices. I lost track of some of this stuff, but I was in and with it. It was you know, it was it was deep.

slight backstory. From nineteen sixty two to nineteen seventy two, my mother worked for Columbia Pictures in Gower Gulch as a secretary stenographer, but in sixty five to sixty eight. She worked for Raybert Productions.

she also typed some of the scripts. I'm at the two press conferences, and sixty five sixty six. Really I'm at the preview house with my family seeing the pilot, which wasn't very funny. They had to recut it and do some dances. But you know, I'm meeting people sixty six, sixty seven, sixty eight in the commissary. And remember I had an after school job in junior high and especially high school, so I couldn't go every day and hang out. I even couldn't go weekly. But I it was also

about one hundred yards from Wallax Music City. So my deal was I'm going to Wallax Music City. Then I'm doing a four hour hang to watch a few episodes or an episode, and then three weeks later maybe something. But you're running into Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson pre easy writer, Hey kid, how you doing? Have a milkshake? In the It was I can't even call it a commissary, it was a canteen. And I can't say I remain friends with them, but for decades I say, kid, hey, hell does s I mean you?

name it. They're prominently displayed in my adventures. I just thought the music was fantastic, and then you get to meet Paul Williams a songwriter, or Harry Nilsen maybe he was still working at the bank. I'm not sure, but you get to meet these people because I didn't do the math, but I know there were all kinds of people involved in these records. It just wasn't like I thought the Beatles did it all with mel Evans turning

the drum set around. So it was very important hanging out beyond the monkeys, being able to say hello to Kerry Grant and this kind of stuff. I wasn't starstrupp. I didn't ask for autographs, but I just felt I was in Hollywood when the studio system is kind of breaking up and rock and rolling soundtracks. I went to the head premiere. I remember that Elliot Mintz was there too, broadcasting or something. But it was just it was what

we did. Plus everything was so collaborative. Then people from other studios would send you a soundtrack of the sound of music or something like that. Everybody seemed to be in this game. There seemed to be about three hundred people in the trip instead of three thousand or thirty thousand or three hundred thousand like now Small World. A lot of gnashing together and there weren't a lot of

twenty four hour restaurants. There was the Hollywood Ranch Market, which was our savior, where you could get oh god, Jan Henderson used to eat chicken gizzards there that I couldn't do that. I like the turkey leg stuff. But you'd go there after rock and roll concerts, like at the Kaleidoscope, which was our short lived kind of Fillmore East and sixty seven to sixty eight. It's all there, and then you'd hitch hik homb nobody had a car.

Everybody was cool. It was just wonderful. And then, thank god, things like age restrictions started lifting. I could go to the Whiskey Go Go in nineteen sixty seven or sixty eight. Really it was eighteen instead of twenty one. I didn't drink liquor, and I also looked fourteen. I think I was the only person at Fairfax Hi without a fake ID. My mother said, no smoking, no fake ID, no beer drinking.

I said, okay, I'm with it. I think I told her I smoked pot in nineteen sixty nine, and you're allowed to do it once.

sixty had eighty dollars. I could go to the Frigate Record store on Third and Crescent Heights, and then friends of mine that had a car would occasionally take me down to downtown La almost Watts to Dolphins of Hollywood record store or Flash Records, and they had all this interesting what we now call ll R and B and soul music. I was going to two concerts or clubs a week from sixty five to seventy to eighty twice a week concerts. They were affordable three dollars and fifty cents.

I went to six of the thirteen Shrine Exhibition Hall concerts that Pinnacle Productions put on sixty late sixty seven to sixty eight into early sixty nine maybe, and you spent three and a half dollars. The girl gave you change out of the cigar box, and you'd walk in there and another grover hand you a piece of bazooka bubblegum. You'd see the Vanilla five, you'd see Richie Havens. So, but I also was going to baseball games and sporting events. So I had the budget for maybe two concerts or

club things, and maybe a sports event. But I should also say three hundred yards from Fairfax High which was on Melrows and Fairfax was the Ashgrove Club, So that was sometimes two dollars and fifty cents plus. We had hip school teachers for field trips. They would take us into the ash Grove and it had no there was no age limit, and you could see Muddy Waters, you could see Albert King, you could say hello to them. It was mostly folk and blues stuff. Occasionally there was

a rock deck. I saw Taj Mahall with Jesse Davis in sixty eight or nine. But that was quite an education. I mean, I never knew there was an ethno musicology department at UCLA. I probably had have majored in it. I never even thought about those things, but it was certainly in my dna. I didn't want to be in a band. I was in a band for three weeks in nineteen sixty five as a drummer and a surf group called the Riptides. It just didn't work out. The

guitar player had a big ego or something. I said, I'll just be a librarian and a collector and groove on the music in the back of my mind. A couple of girls of email me recently and said, why didn't you ever become the DG that we wanted.

I remember when they were building West La College and I walked in there and I said, I want to go here when you're finished. Well, all you have to do is I have a two point OGPA or be age eighteen and you can enroll. And I said, well, I want to enroll right now. But it was just about six bungalows and I said, I want to go here, but also I need to find a job. I need to go see concerts and buy records. Well, they're building a library over here. Why don't you go talk to

the construction site. I walked in there and said, I'm going to go to this school. I want to work at this library. And they said, we're actually looking for a student for the library. Would you like a job. Myself and my friend Bob Sherman from Fairfax High each got fifteen or twenty hour jobs, so you can go to class, go to the library. But I was like stocking shelf. But I was making sure Downbeat rolling Stone Ebony ramparts were stocked in the magazine section. And then

i'm I have a student afirment. I graduate with an AA degree. Well, you got to go to college, you got to finish up what There was one requirement. I had to find a school where I could still hear KOs FM or the FM radio or some of the AM radio stations at night. San Diego was one hundred and thirty miles and some of the you could still pick up some of the radio stations. And I followed the San Diego State football team, and I said, you know, just maybe I should go down to San Diego. I

have a surfboard. I could have gone to Valley State. You could even have gone to UCLA. They welcomed you then. So I went to San Diego State. It was a fantastic path horrible experience because every weekend I would hitchhike back or if I got a car or something, and come back home Friday afternoon till Sunday night. It just

wasn't working for me. But I graduated. That's how I ended up in San Diego, and I would listen to kpe HE or IFM and see some great concerts down there, because luckily I didn't know the routing of rock and roll then that if you played in Santa Monica or the Fabulous Forum, you would include a San Diego date. So I got to see traffic at Fairport Convention in Mose Allison at Funky Quarters, or Mark Allman on the campus at San Diego State. It made my world operational.

year and a half. So I have this degree in sociology and health and literature, and I thought, well, maybe I'll think about being a probation officer or something. Maybe I'll do something like that. I didn't want to be a teacher. There was always this little thing in the back of my mind. I didn't even know what a record label really was until seventy one. Maybe I'll do this and it'll lead to something else. Well what happened in nineteen seventy two, under the direction of doctor James L.

we gonna do? Well, may invite Iggy Pop or Danny Sugarman, who knew some of the doors, or Carolyn Hester who records out. I picked her up at a Greyhound station. I remember that Sharon Lawrence, who worked with Al Cooper Sounds at the South label and Elton John for many years. People in the industry I would like they would find us initially, but the game changer was a guy named Grayland, landed at RCA Records at seventy two, called me in

the dorm at Sarah Hall. I was probably listening to the doors and said, I'm very I went to USC. I'm very proud of what you're doing. On the seriousness of what you're doing. You have a librarian aspect, and you know you're looking at this the future of the music being preserved. We're going to start doing a series of monthly students and people being involved in seminars at RCA studio. Why don't you come. There's also tuna sandwich lunches on Saturday, and you go there and this I

mean you'll like the irony. Of course, there are no accidents. As Andrew lou Goldham says, I walk in there and there's Henry Mancini, who I practiced. Leland lived at the rc studio. Must have done twenty albums for the label. Harvey, this is Henry Mancini. Hello, Henry, call me hand. Are you a musician? Not really, he said, we'll stick around. I'm going to be here and jose Felisano's gonna come by next month. You mean you could fucking meet these people?

I said, there's a lot of people involved. Since everybody wants to talk to those same people, I'm going to go into areas where the people are always sitting alone or nobody wants to talk to them. It's like talking to the eighth laker off the bench instead of the stars. So the RC seminars were very important, and I said, I think I can do some writing. I know I can talk to people. And it all kind of started there.

Then I have to tell you in nineteen seventy four, February, I go to see Bob Dylan and the Band at the Forum. Bob Sherman's with me. We are seated next to Henry Mancini. I don't think Chris Man singing at the show. Hi, mister Mancini called me, Hank, I met you, Yeah, yeah, and but would have. And I said, you know, I want to say something to you. I mean, never see

you again anytime I see you do. Some of these interviews in Life magazine or Downbeat, you talk about how you love the group Cream and some of this music. You're the only guy over forty that doesn't say weird stuff about long haired people. You like rock. He said, well, I got my kids tickets for the Monoli Pop Festival. You were there. I got them tickets and I said wow. And he said do you like classical music? And I said, oh no, I don't do that. He said, well why not?

I said, I think part of it was in junior high. Miss Molloy used to say, young man Andre Previn used to sit where you sat are sitting. I just couldn't groove with it. And then he said, well, maybe one decade you'll get into classical music. But it was a big lens. It was a tunnel that you could go to record companies. They'd hand you albums. And then I started writing for things like the Hollywood Press fifteen dollars, thank you, Justin Pierce. Then I'd call up the La Free Press John Carpenter.

journalism career. I never could write for the school newspaper. I got rejected from the San Diego State Daily AZTEC. Of course, now they're sending letters asking for you know, money, with Marion Ross and Art Linkoln and all their extinct you know alumni. I'm now like listed, you know, like distinguished alumni. You weren't very helpful people. You're not getting a check. But I realized, I think I can talk to musicians, even though I can't really play an instrument.

Interviewed Brian Auger for LA Free Press. Went to England in seventy five, and I said I'd like to do some articles for Melody Maker, which had a readership of a million a week. And Ray Coleman and some sequently and editor Richard Williams, who I still dialogue with, said send us some stuff. And I was writing weekly the LA column in Melody Makers seventy five to eighty one in nineteen seventy into seventy seven. The phone rings, It's

Denny Rosenkrantz working at MCA Records. I really like the way you've scouted bands because I went to see like the Dickies at the Whiskey wrote about it, and Derek Green from the A and M label, I think, flew in and signed them. And Danny Rosenkrantz was noticing that I was touting people before it was fashionable. I just would catch them.

called the Whalers then. I don't want any emails. I saw Denny at the Roxy. I kind of was introduced to him when Springsteen played the rox Syne at seventy five, and then we went to the I saw him at the Santa Monica Civy show Springsteen in seventy six, and I didn't really know well, but I would run into him and our mutual friend Russ Reagan at a restaurant called ting Ho which was on Hollywood in Highland, and he said said, why don't you come join the label?

I said, I'm there and I did eleven and a half months there and I think I really delivered. Their history has proven me right.

thanked you on the album. I go thank you, because I was giving some initial early print to some of these people. I said, listen, he had done a Golden Earring record for MCA, and he maybe had worked on a Returner Forever record. And he said, I'm a record producer. I've just seen Tom Pitty at the bottom Line. I need to work with him. And I said, it's funny.

I'm having a meeting this week with all the people at MCA because MCA has bought ABC Records, and I was doing some interesting concepts about bringing in people to write some liner notes. I did a little bit of work with John Hyatt on the Slugline album. I brought in a drummer. My friend Andy Bruce produced it. John Van Hamersfield did the front cover, and I lobbied for Jimmy to be considered to be a producer. Obviously the

engineer comes with it. For Tom Pitty, who was looking actually with his manager, Tony Demicciatti's who I knew as early as nineteen seventy five when he worked for Conk Records and he'd come to town and I knew him, and I dialogue with him, and then I said to him, I went up to his house in Nichols Canyon. I said, I'd like to recommend you need to really meet and work with Jimmy Ivan. He gets a really crisp sound. Listen to the Southside Johnny Record. I flew to New

York to Jimmy's apartment. I was introduced to the DJ, Carrol Miller was her name. Then I had a meeting with Jimmy at the Sunset Marquee and I was initially greeted by some of my fellow workers. Oh, Harvey, he's just an engineer, I said, But the engineers are now becoming producers too, I you know. Denny Rosenkrantz liked the idea. Tony Demitchari thought it was interesting. I never heard anything after that. I was let go by MCA at the eleven and a month mark, not just me, a big

one hundred people layoff. And then three weeks later I open up Record World or cash box and I see like a signing photo of like Tom Petty MCA. Maybe Jimmy's in the photo were mentioned. Okay, that felt good.

But also at MCA, because I knew Tom Petty not just from singing at clubs, I invited him to a Carl Perkins party I put together for Jet Records when I was doing some work for Jet Records and interested him to Carl Perkins and realized what a record nut he was and how much he loved Los Angeles, And I said, you know, I'm going to meet Del Shannon. I think there has to be something where the new people work with the old people.

deal got put together. It came out subsequently, subsequently on Al Corey's Network Records label. By credit on the back of it is Organic Catalyst. So I think I was doing some very Oh let me tell you another thing. If it means something. The first person, Russ Reagan said to me, don't sign your friends. Okay. He had run UNI Records that became MCA Records. Don't give your friends record deals your last three weeks. But I have a friend who's in a really good band named the Nac

Bruce Gary. I hang out with him. He went to taft t Hi. This band. I've just seen them at the Starwood. I've seen them in Redondo Beach, at Sweetwater In you want to hit records, I've got the group. Quit trying to sign your friends, Okay. So I kind

of watched the next thing happen. But I will say Doug Figer and Bruce invited me to the My Sharona recording session ironically at MCA Whitney Studios, and I watched my showIn ar I was given a platinum album by the group for My Sharona, and I wrote about them a bit a melody maker, but I just thought hits

well done. So I look back at that world of MCA, I just kind of thought, well, somebody will hire me again at record labels to do the same thing, and it just didn't quite work out, and so the writing thing became maybe the priority. So when I see Jimmy Ivy in Every three four or five years at a function or some you know, screening or something. He's always very accommodating, hugs great. I saw him at Patty Smith at the Roxy and he said, I'm really happy you're

doing these books. My daughter would like to really get a copy of your Lennard Cohen books. I sent it to him at Apple, and you know I take pride in that. And I will say one thing. Until Warren Zanes put out his book on Tom Petty, which I was interviewed for, you don't really see the Harvey Kubernick small connection in the in the parade. But I will say in twenty fourteen, when I was doing Turn Up the Radio, I said to Tony Demitriotti's who I remained in contact with, will Tom write the forward.

And it continues today because forty years later, Dan Burgoyce calls me and said, this looks like there's a Del Shannon documentary that's going to be done. It won't be done until you're involved. And I said, oh, you know, meet my quote, I'll go on screen. He said, oh no, no, you are needed to be in production. Can you be the consulting producer and help out on the writing? I said, I'm in. So these things have paid some dividends later.

But I will say my dad was a stockbroker from age forty to eighty six, and I knew that seeds and plantation sometimes take a long time to come to fruition. So that's my MCA story. I could bore you with bands I tried to sign or brought them tails up there. I thought Martha was magical. It just, you know, the company wasn't set up. I think for me and some of the things I wanted to do. I want to have Fagan and Becker write liner notes on the Jazz Impulse stuff.

three hundred dollars a month or something. You could kind of live there. Plus I also want to say another thing, the luxury of nineteen seventy two to nineteen eighty of press parties. There were at least two or three a week. There was food at Chasin's, there was food at the brad Scaler. There was nash you could eat and I'd have to eat the next day, so I wasn't co

dependent on fast food and stuff like that. And the RCATH went on for about a year and a half and grayland Landon, I never knew what the word mentor met. He just saw something in me that I had. Again, I'm coming from a library record collector world. But the writing was kind of run on sentences and sloppy. But he knew the information was so different. He said, one time, meet jose Feliciano. Justin and I and Pierce came to the recording session. You need to know that George Tipton,

or Rick Gerard or Al Schmid or Richie Schmidt. Who are these people? They're the engineers. Make sure to meet the engineers. They're really important. Try to get their name out there. And I will say, for the first five or ten years of my journalism career, if you didn't call it career, it was just an expedition. The exception of the Jimmy ive In feature. When I would quote engineers, nine out of ten times the editors would cut the engineers out of the article. Sometimes there was word counts,

space problems. They weren't sexy. I was told that, But there's no really vibe about them. I just went I went deeper into engineer stuff, and so the RC seminars were very important because you could hear god. I went to a press party there the company playback of the Elvis and Hawaii show Wow, and then Graylan, somebody from a record company, bad Mouth made a Graylan, and Graylan called me at home. He said, I'm beginning to know you. You you're not the kind of guy that would take

somebody's girlfriend. I said, no, I'm just happy if there's a girl near me. And he said, I've got two tickets for you and Justin Pierce for Elvis Presley seventy two. I said wow. My parents went to Vegas to see him, and my mother said, take down that Mick Jagger poster. Elvis Presley is the most handsome devill I've ever seen.

I remember that. And every word out of Colonel was the word promotion, marketing, and merchandise. I was hearing these terms marketing and merchandise and standalone items and billboards. I didn't know what was going on, but I was grasping. There's machines behind the music people. There's teams. I knew there was William Morris, Marshall Burrell, who I knew started the rock division at William Morris and signed the Beach Boys.

I knew about agents. I didn't know there were all these other people int of alignments had my mind blown in seventy two on the Elvis Show, Sam in seventy three saw five or six times and Graylon really he just helped out because as this guy was bad mouthing me comically, I should say, some of the record label publicists weren't calling me back anymore. Or I wasn't getting the I wasn't getting the records in the mail. Wow, what's going on here? But he said, let's have lunch

every six months. I think you're going to be around for a while. He ever, I didn't really need that big push. Looking back, I did need that big push. It was Tim Harden. I look for a reason to believe, and he said, you got to work on the writing. But what you get out of our artists is so different. I said. He said, you know what's good about you. You don't hate disco music. I said no. He said, would you like to interview the Hughes Corporation who have

a hit with Rock the Boat. Nobody will talk to them because your other rock people don't want something to do with disco. They think it's phony and mechanical. I said, I'm there and I just liked. And then I got invited to Donna Summers. Neil Bogart's people called. I went to the Donna Summers listening party where she was introduced in Beverly Hills, and then I got an assignment from melody maker Barry White was going to England. This is maybe seventy six. Do you want to meet Barry White? Yes.

I didn't have a problem with women wearing spandis dance. I didn't never try to colude my Disco World is I love the thraw Vicky Sue Robinson. I love the I just liked the music because it was loud and it could bring me to studios like RCA United Sunset, and you could also talk to the engineers and the producers about well. Elvis was just in two days ago doing pre records on a you know what. PAINK Crawford was the guy's name, and engineer Leslie Crawford was his daughter.

people a week, Crowdaddy magazine, it's really respected. There are people that are going to invest in me. I'm going to bring them into my own world and not care about fawning over somebody or meeting somebody or why does this lead to? And I met Barry White. There's some people in life where you meet and you feel you've known them your whole life. And I said, I know a lot about you Berry White. Well, what do you know? I said, Oh, I know that because I read a

couple articles. I know that you were involved with Bob and Earl's Harlem Shuffle and Arranging. I know you were the drummer of Jackie Lee's do the Duck at least the road Drummer. I know that you made an album on Delphi Records and you did an amazing version of in the Ghetto. He said, let's do this interview at my home in Encino, and uh, I've got a movie theater there. He said, really? He said, do you like science fiction movies? I said, I'm the King of the

Twilight Zone. He said, oh, I'm going to be playing Invaders from Mars today. Will you watch Invaders from Mars? He said, I know you dig Hillary Brook in that movie. I said, I know that movie backwards and forward. But can we do an interview for Melody Baker? After? He said yeah, but will you also come to my recording session? Can't get enough of your love at MCA, Whitney, I said, what, I don't even have to think about this stuff. I walked there and I recognize a guy named Don Peak

kind of knew who he was from the Hollywood Ranch Market. Wait, that's the guy from the Hollywood Ranch Market. He's actually a guitar player. Harvey, do you know wal Wall Watson? No? Wow. I watched that session and I remember they ordered ribs in and had so much sauce on it you could like carve your initials at the back of the ribs on the sauce because Barry like Nash and it was incredible.

So Barry, I was so thankful for the introduction to him and a few other hangs over ten years, because he had quote struggled for maybe ten years to cut a record under his own name, or get his work out there, or done little things for indie labels under other names. But he was Barry White. And even though my friends, oh, it's just disco music, Don Peaks said, you know, it's love music. It's not disco music.

I'm going to talk to these people. Now. The disco thing dried up pretty quick and your punk rock came in. We were both at the Whiskey and seventy seven for Elvis Costello's debut and did Johnny Cougar open? No, okay, there was a local band I forgot who opened, so that was good, and I said, what can I really like this Elvis Costello. I'm aware of all that energy at Stiff Records. I have to give this guy an album. I have a feeling he really likes the International Submarine

Band and stuff like that. I handed him a rare vinyl of that album, which he could never find in England. He was so thankful he ended up writing a liner notes for I think a double gram Parsons reissue on Reprise, And over the years I've got to talk to him and interviewed him for Musician magazine. So some of this journey starts not because I'm determined I'm going to do it. I often will eat the food nobody else wanted to taste. And I also wanted to bring the people, the readers.

This is pre Internet. I wanted to bring the people with me. I just thought there was a little bit of obligation. Springsten talks about we're all in this together and not free until everybody's free. But I knew, because I developed a friendship with Steve van zandt going back to seventy five, that you just don't report. You have to bring people into the action and bring something different and new. And I think I do that either with

other people's interviews or visuals or finding the photos. Again, it's my librarian skills that I have access to collect pictures and tune DEXes that augment the narrative that I put out there.

car dependent. This is even pre pandemic. And I like the idea of renting a car for a weekend and then being landlocked during the week and doing the twenty hours of writing, revision editing, phone interviews. It just it was the best way to get my action out there.

Will you come to the show, And I'd say no more freebies? No, no, well you want to hire you. The world changed when the Internet arrived in the late nineties. Why did it change my old catalog from all my articles seventy three to ninety eight, all of a sudden are available, people are and all of a sudden box sets. It's post CD reissues. These all these new products are coming out of old music. But new bands would seek me out or an R consultancy. I did some of

that because the MCA credit was on my resume. I'm not even in LinkedIn. I It's just people find me. Or I was still going to music or book events or still I was always on record company and film and TV lists, and a lot of the work was organic. The first book deal was in two thousand and four, thirty five hundred dollars advance. Wow, you mean a real book here, Yeah, we want to do a book with you, University of Mexico Press. We want to do a second

book with you. I think I can. I could keep this going because I saw the Internet, and I saw the music that that people thought didn't have longevity maybe a decade or two. It was going to have a fifty year career. I didn't know it would turn into what it's turned into. But Russ Reagan said in the eighties, one day you'll be able to go to a concert and leave with a recording from it. And I had people like Russ Reagan and a few other people that would check in with me and said stick with it, kid.

I said, well, I'm fifty years old. Now there's no book deal, but I can't get an agent. But I'm not going to be And then Patty Smith and I did an interview. She said, don't give anybody a sob story. Said, no, I'm not going to bitch. How the way things work out, it could be better. I believe I'm doing a service.

I believe something is it's devotional art, and that maybe what I write might introduce five, ten, fifty, or one hundred people to the Mamas and Papas, or the music of East La or the group's spirit or God forbid, will you find out about Lauren Nero already and I realized that was happening when I would meet people. Oh my god. Me and my boyfriend bought this out by Blah Batye Black because we read it about something you did years ago. Thank you. That stuff was just it

was like getting a booster shot. It's some saying. It really pushed me forward. The book started happening.

Ed Carriff. My brother Kenneth and I did a book on Guy Webster, the photographer, and I'm currently involved in a music documentary on the history of LA recording studios with the focus on gold Star Studios, where I'm like a writer involved in the interviews, writing the questions, and co producing. These are fee based jobs. It's all working. And yes, I have a car, you know.

getting better. That's I'm not on an oldies tour doing Medley's and fifty five minutes sets. I'm doing three hour shows now better than ever. Read what's out there? Now? I know it. But I say to myself, well, maybe I have a story coming out in Ugly Things magazine. I'm not getting paid for it, but it's a group I want people to know about Spirit Okay, But I know that my byline might generate some ads to the magazine. Like my work with Record Collector News, which I'm on

retainer and I head of editorial. I know that I'm supporting outlets. It does come back to you and Da Penny Baker told me many years ago when I interviewed him for Monterey Pop Monera International Pop Book that Lou Adler and I were involved with with my brother, he said, magical thing happened. Magical things happen when you take the money off the table. He was talking about Binoie Pop becoming nonprofit. So not all the writing gigs are fee based. Endeavors.

The karma and the dividends come back when somebody says I it happened. Last week an email from France just read something about the Mamas and Papa's. You danced on American Bandstand when.

it's a daily check in it's babysitting. You can't you know, I said. I said this to Chris Daro. I said, there's no dating this summer. My brother's going to China. I have to monitor my mother. And he said, you're so lucky. My dad made ninety eight. I said, she's my Jewish girlfriend for a while. I got it. So she's doing well until three months ago, not feeling well. Subsequently, there's been there were two hard they go, they rush her to UCLA. They go, hey, kids, here's the story.

There's no word. Thread on her tires, in her heart, calcium deposits. She's all, she's ninety nine. You can do nothing and see where it goes. Or we could get her a valve. He huddled. My mother said, let's go for it. Valve operation, then complications, then pacemaker put in works fine, here are A month later, she went to Ross dress for lesson, got her hair done last week. So what has happened? All energy is to help my brother and her and be on call twenty four hours.

I may sound like a small excuse, but it's the super priority.

team work involved, what it takes. I don't know if I was capable of going there, but you know, there's opportunities out there. But right now, I never thought this avalanche of work would show up. In the last four or five years. I planned on none of this. So it's like every day. I'm sure you get these emails. If they meet you your quote. You might go to France and here it is. It's not every day, but there's a request every day. Because what's happened. People are

discovering well, Vinyose outsold Mono records. People are finding my work. The funny thing about this, and I don't know if this has ever happened to you on your podcast. I got a few comical, disturbing emails saying, mister Kubernick, you're such a good writer, why do you steal other people's interviews from other places? And I didn't answer, they do

not happen a second or third time. But there was a contact number, and I emailed this person who actually saw me read the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and I said, I don't steal anybody's stuff. You said, well, it's impossible for you to have quote Johnny Cash from nineteen seventy five. I just read something you write about Johnny Cash. I said, I did those interviews, and I was, what, No, that's not true. They're my interviews.

So I had a dialogue. I had a meeting with a couple of poets, Jim Doctor, James Cushing and Harry Northup. And then I emailed a journalist you might know him, author Mark Myers from the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, fantastic guy, great author, bio books.

Johnny Cash told me in nineteen seventy interview for the now defunct Melody Maker, and he said, you're going to have to do those things because today's people, he said, you look fifty. They just assume you never knew Johnny Cash. Here you are in twenty twenty three, and you're talking about a nineteen seventy five interview. I said, I did the interview. Here it is. He's so, what has happened. I've had to put blobbidy blot told me. David Ruffin

told me in a nineteen seventy six interview. Robbie Robertson explained in an Interviewer and dialogue I conducted with him. It irks me, but I'm doing that now and we're not getting those emails anymore. And I guess I might be the Bald Eagle or somebody that I was, you know, But you know, I wish somebody would say Johnny Cash nineteen seventy five, I go, yeah, nobody gave a fuck

about Johnny Cash. I got him at a Christian bookseller's convention in Anaheim, and I said, to also tell you the truth, I have the same birthday as Johnny Cash. I wanted to meet and talk to Johnny Cash. I saw him twenty times over the years, and it's very deep and personal to me. So now I think people realize and these platforms like you doing this today or being on coast to coast, people realized there is a

fifty year thing going on here. He really did interview these people, and it's often blues or Motown people or icons like Johnny Cash. I never knew there'd be afterlife in this stuff. Rick Rubin and I had a couple of conversations. I interviewed him for a book. I said, Rick, I was down with Johnny before you got the gig, And I said, same birthday. And he said, I'm right next to you, fellow pisces. Boom clicked. So that's not

an obstacle. It's just I believe in the oral, a lot of oral history, and I'm watching some By the way, I've had some things optioned for potential development for TV shows. That's been an income stream. But because I understand Hollywood a little bit and met and studied with Ramdas, he told me, well, be here in aw book. You probably looked at it at your college. Do not get psychically

addicted to outcome. So when the development person calls or the studio person calls for the zoom call about optioning, and I have a couple of people with me, I will go through it. I like the experience. I like the corn showder at the IVY. I like going through some of his stuff. Ninety eight percent of the time, it doesn't go any further than the first step. But it's income. But the thing is, I know that I'm a cinematic writer. I'm born in Hollywood overlooking the Hollywood

one on one Freeway on Sunset and Alvarado. I am a child of Hollywood, and I knew it can translate to screen and we're just watching where it goes. You can't plan any things anymore. But things seem to be working out. But then again, the biggest mitzvah when and maybe you've been through this and some of your people have been through this when the doctor comes out of the meets you in the waiting room, when you got a ninety nine year old on the table twice in

three weeks and says, it's looking really good. That feeling is worth ten dates with playboy bunnies.

there and see where it lands. What I like the luxury of being on staff at one hundred and fifty grand year or something at a trade Sure, I would like that pressure to see if I could do it. It hasn't happened yet. The friendships, so I always knew ask a first question nobody has ever asked. It does dent? It causes a dent. I remember meeting Burton come in

in nineteen seventy four. I will love the guests who And I said, why don't you tell me about that television show you used to do in Canada in the sixties where you did a lot of cover versions. I said, how do you know about that? And I said, well, I just I know it's part of your history because I know people in Canada that used to watch you before you ever kind of came to the States. That kicked off a friendship that still exists fifty years later.

I interviewed Raymond Zeric in nineteen seventy four at Mercury Records when he had his solo album out. I loved the doors I saw the original band. I was so excited to meet somebody in the doors I didn't ask for I never did the autograph thing until way later, and I said to Ray, you went to UCLA when the UCLA Bruins were the basketball champs. Did you play basketball?

And he said did I play basketball? And I was getting my economics degree from de gaul to Paul, I played basketball, and he said, you know when the doors played, I'd always get mad when the promoter said time to play a set. I go, and Ray we go. But UCLA is on a run. But because I made a basketball impression on raymn xeric and then years later I introduced him to coach John Robert Wooden, these things get birthed. Also, This is pre I never was a tabloid guy. I'd

ask questions. Okay, Bruce Botnik engineered your records, tell me about Sunset sound, tell me about the tape stock, tell me about the Sandheiser microphones. I sort of had some of that stuff that was just different than him plugging an album or having to talk about Jim dying in Paris. Every interview and these, and then all of a sudden they start referring you to people. I mean, I've listen, I've interviewed Keith Richards. You know, these things make impressions.

So when you run into these people five or eight or twelve years later, they will walk across the room, Hey, mate, how's it?

a blurbunk testimony on the back cover? And I said, yes, but don't stick me in indie bookland exclusively. If Simon and Schuster kind of people show up and want me to write something on Leonard Cohen. Okay, I want to have a foot in the corporate world, and I want to have a foot with the first timer. Every week, David Kessel said, I have my first book coming out, will you give me a quote on the back cover? Yes, these things start happening, and no, I don't feel for them.

And then another thing is started happening where people are asking me to write some letters of endorsement so that you go to graduate school. And I said, I couldn't get into these places myself. Why would you even ask me? But doctor James Cushing, a professor literatary English professor, said, you do these things because you never know how it will get the other person forward. I said, on probably never see the other person again, or maybe ten or

twenty years. He said, don't even think about it. You are he said, don't you remember when you never had a book where you got turned down three hundred times, or record labels for a year, maybe weren't really taking your calls. Look what's going on? I said, Okay, where's the next person who needs a blurb? Here? And I know it's helping people. I'm a prices. It helps people, and I want to bring people on the ride with me.

I know it sounds kind of hippyish. I'm from Hollywood, but you say I didn't have to reinvent myself in Hollywood. I didn't come to Hollywood to make it. I'm born in Hollywood. So I'm showing a real different kind of Hollywood, which is support and collaboration and maybe possibility. All I know is it's working.

Anthony Burgess and Clockwork Orange or something. It's vibrant. I did a term paper on his liner notes on aftermath or something in high school. I know that I never thought i'd meet him.

a piece of the action. That's really cool. So in two thousand I go to see Brian Wilson do Pet Sounds at the Hollywood Bawl. Yes, I know, Brian. Did I know I would do the liner notes in two thousand and eight for the Pet Sounds fortieth anniversary tour?

going down, and I'm not a backdoor Johnny guy. I'm very happy to see Brian because I'm watching this victory because I've seen Brian up and down through the sixties and the seventies, the houses I've been there. I'm happy Brian Wilson is going to do Pet Sounds with the Wonderments.

interview you. I'm so delighted to hear it because I know that you took out an ad in disc magazine worshiping Pet Sounds the way he did it for other records on occasion and he said, do you know Lou Adler? I said, not just hi, how are you? And he said, get a hold of lou Adler. I'm in town and we'll have a dialogue. I said, okay, got him on the phone past the acid test. I think we were talking about Sweet Smell of Success movies. It was all it was movies and Lulu and Donovan and you know,

English stuff. And he said, okay, let's do an interview. And I did an interview with him for Discoveries magazine and then he said here's my email in Bogata, Columbia. And I said, wow, Andrew Louke Goldham, I'm dialoguing. There must be something going on. I could call it a psychic tap on the back. But also it was my reward for supporting Brian Wilson helping David Leaf on his book in nineteen seventy eight. I was seeing the rewards

coming in. I didn't have an agenda. And I interviewed Andrew and he said, well, keep in touch, mate, and we just developed a correspondence. But then every six months or something i'd write something and he'd go, well done, lad, like he's the headmaster in England. I never had any of that kind of stuff. Well done lad, he said,

nice one. You dropped in and he said wow. He said, I like your writing, and then he said and I said, I can't wait to read your biography Stone, and I talked to him about it, and then he called me on the phone and he said, would you come to Santa Monica for dinner? And I said, I will, but I'm going out with a girl and we have a weekend thing happening. But I'm telling her I'm going to meet Andrew lou Goldham. And he goes, if she's a cool woman, she'll understand. And she said, I don't know

who he is. Did you say he worked with the Rolling Stones? Said I'll see on Young Kipper or something. And so I went to have dinner with him and he said I like your writing. I said, oh, I just don't say that because we're becoming friends. He said, no, it's choppy at times, but the information that the messages well done. I said, thank you. And then he said,

I'm doing Stone too a second volume. I need a writer in town who really understands Hollywood, because, as you know, I did the Stones record sixty four to sixty seven at RCA Studios on Sunset Boulevard and he said, he said, look I could get somebody from a label or somebody who writes for Time or Newsweek, but you know where Ivar is and I know you've been in that room at RCA, I said, safe Lusiano Henry Mancini. He said,

you know the studios. You need to tell me and especially the readers, what it's like to be a teenager sixty four to seventy in town and take us into the environment. And he said, by the way, don't look at the movie, become the movie. And I ended up having eight pages in his book, which I think is on Simon and Schuster. It led to some other interviews jobs, close calls. But the thing is, I am an Assigmon

and Schuster book. I get a chance to tell everybody about AM radio and hearing the Stones and this pre FM radio thing. And then we became good friends, to the point he's in town and I said, I have an extra couple tickets for Ringo at the Greek. I'm going with a couple people and he said, can I come along? I said, can you come along? You can sit in the front seat. We went out out of a pizza dinner with my friend doctor Cushing and a lawn friend who I think you know from years ago.

I walk in there to the Greek Theater and I go, there's Bob left Sits and there's Peter Frampton and I said, you need to beat Bob left Sits before Peter Frampton. Oh no, here's the sad part. He said, Harvey, I've already knew worked and helped Peter Frampton long before Bob left Sits. I said, well, let's meet them both, and I introduced you and then he wrote something really funny, said normally gods don't walk on earth or you had

a funny riff. And then he sent me an email and it said thank you because he has manners.

it was a slow eighty eight to ninety two. The VA took care of him. I'm not complaining. The name game is to keep the mother going for ten years. And he said, I want you to know something. You don't have to call me if you need help, and God forbid, don't go to some grievance counsel. I said, no, I'm not doing any of that. He said, you can find your parents or the deceased people anywhere you look if you focus on it. I said wow. And he said you're also carrying on your dad's mission. I said, well,

I never became a stockbroker. He said, you're working and selling your catalog, aren't you. Yeah, there's some sink rites and all kinds of stuff coming in. He said, you are a stockbroker. And he's just he's fabulous. My brother and I when he comes to town twice a year, mandatory dinner or lunch with me and my brother. Sometimes it's just him and I. I know his family. I

can't tell you the support he's given me. He just shows up at the right time with the right email, like I won't get a TV gig, And then four seconds later I check my emails, what's the next shot, kid? And all of a sudden, I'm not moaning about losing a TV writing job. I just he's right there, just his name on the screen. So that's my Andrew lou Oldhams story. It's just fantastic records he produced. And he's also taught me a bit more. He said, value your independence.

I said, well, I have an internal team working with me. It never worked out where there were managers and agents and glam squads and for higher publicists supporting my scene. And he said, young man, look at the freedom you have waiting then instead of waiting for the committee to vote on everything, I go yeah. Laura Niro and I had that same conversation too. I knew her last ten years of her life, which I had a picture of her in my place.

are your parents' name? And I said, well, my father is Marshall and my mother is Hilda. And she starts giggling and she says, well my mother is named Gilda, so we can have Gilda in Hilda. And she says, I live in Danberry, Connecticut. I think that what she said. There's no internet. Then here's my phone number. You can call me. She said, we're not doing an interview. No, she said, I could tell you're different than these managers that are knocking on my door. And I had to

escape from the Michi gosse of the music business. She could talk Yiddish, and I said, are you Jewish? She said, the top half is Italian, but the bottom half is Jewish. And then all of a sudden I had a call with her, and then I didn't. I'd see her when she'd come to town. Mccabs. I never bothered her. I was happy for the one off. My friend Nancy Ritchant brought her a Tuna Fish Sandwich at that same Santa

Monica Civic Auditorium show. Because her publishing company, I think was called Tuna Fish Music and the Laura I used to call them the Laura Girls. She was I was a first album freak, and I appreciated Eli and I liked her. I just I felt this connection with her. And then in the nineties I get a call one night, Harvey, this is Gilda's daughter. I got Laura and Nero and two friends over and she said, you don't when guy says and he's there's a girl there, you don't have

to impress us. I said, listen, Laura Niro's on the phone. Why don't you guys like smoke a joint or something? And I need to talk to her, which we here are you interviewing her? No, we don't have that trip going on. We had like a three hour talk and she said, I'm trying to record. I'm looking for an independent label. I've just recorded maybe for Cypress Records. I think that was a label or was going to she'd and I said, oh, I you know, and she and

she said, aren't you so lucky? You don't have agents and managers and people telling you what to do. I said, well, I'd like to have some of that, and she said, no, you're not supposed to. I said no, the advances would be so much bigger, the other jobs would be happening. I don't like rep I think myself when the money call comes in or the lawyer email, turning it over to my lawyer and then I get his bill. This stuff is depleting me. She said, you'll realize you're lucky

one day. But I'm calling you for a reason.

She played my father's Yeah. She said, I'll get you in and she said, oh that's great. She said, you don't need tickets. I go oh yeah, yeah, I need a ticket or two. I'd like to take a girl. And she said, oh, no, you're coming to the sound check. I want to introduce you to my friend Maria and my girls. What she said, you're one of us, You're you are you know you're not like the New Yorkers at the record labels said no, and I would see

her anytime she came to town. I brought her food. I didn't badger her, and we just had But then all of a sudden, the phone start. There were no calls returned. I waited a week or two, no call, left another voicemail, HI, this is Laura. No callback. Started getting a little scared. Waited another month, no callback, and my friend Rosemary said, there's some medical shit going down here. It happens to us women. I said, okay, I'm not gonna badger call

anybody at the Village voice. I'll just see how it plays, and then she left the physical planet. I thank her in my books. I know I probably had eight, ten, twelve encounters with her, but that Gilda Hilda thing, which I'm telling for the first time. I was interviewed for one book by her by a guy named Mark shipper, but it never came out. I'm not in the Michelle

Court book on Laura Niro. But to this day, if there's a reissue or that double album Best Of where they finally put out that film, or e show that you went to. Somebody at Columbia knew the history and said, well, they actually called me on the phone when people used to talk to people on the phone. Hi, this is Randy Hacker, Columbia. The publicist said, Harvey, there's a Laura Narro live at Fillmore East coming out. I know you thanked her in your books and you must have known her.

Can we send you in advance? And then it was groovy and then you wrote about it, and I know that show blew your fucking mind, and I kind of felt I'm carrying Laura Niro forward. There'll be ten people who may hear this. They may buy the First Songs album, they might buy Eli or secretly kids check out the record with Lebelle. I mean I know something you put her, You plant her name, and some people go down the rabbit hole. She means a lot to me. I wasn't

in love with her. There was no romantic stuff. It was the poet person that I thought was right there with Bob Dylan always and but you know, she we would talk about food and stuff like that. It was it was just it was really a pleasure to talk to somebody, you know, that had kind of a New York accent too, and it was these were late night calls and my whole day would be better the next day. I used to get that when I'd hear from Raymond Zeric or Brian Wilson used to call a lot if

there was you know, and they would. I always felt, this is beyond a gig. These are people that I now have fifty year relations with. This is half century stuff. And a lot of these people they're either five, ten, twelve years older than me. They're kind of leaving the planet. And I told Andrew le Goldham, you know, I guess I'm becoming the messenger. I'm going to go with that because I could either get bummed out, reinvent myself, walk

away from my history, or thoroughly embrace it. And the young bands and the young punk rock people, whether it be Man's Body, whether it be a Panglobu group called Tea, they're finding me because we like a lot of the same music, and I interviewed Bert Backerak with Elvis Costello in nineteen ninety for Musician magazine. Did I know there'd be an Elvis Costello Bert box set that came out a month ago? And that Bert would leave the planet

and all of a sudden. When you are connected with these people, you inherit their fan clubs, their followers, or you run into them at Farmer's Market or at Musso and Franks. But I don't do social media Twitter. I'm probably going to be embracing that a bit more. But they just have the greatest things. Also, I had a friendship with Leonard Cohen Moore of an acquaintanceship with him. I did three long interviews with him in the seventies,

seventy four, seventy six, seventy eight. I'd actually meet him at some restaurants. I went to both of his houses in LA When he said, I'm living in Brentwood. Do you know if there's a deli? I said yeah, And he said, I've been to Canters, I've been to the place on Sunset and Crescent Heights which just closed. Is there a deli that has smoked fish, smoked meat? I said, what is smoked meat. I said, I'm a deli guy. Won't eat tom or anything. He said, find deli and

we will eat. And I took him to Jerry's or Juniors on Pico in Westwood, I think it was called Juniors, And every six months i'd get that phone call. I'd write about him. Subsequently, I'm quoted in five Leonard Cohen books, and then he just was an advice person. I will tell you this. In nineteen seventy four, I called it Columbia Records. I'd like to interview Justin Pearson. I want

to interview Leonard Cohene for the Hollywood Press. Well, he's doing tenor and news that day he's playing the Troubadour. Will put you on the troubad Or guess list? What I don't have to pay? Yeah, you'll be in the rope in section. Okay, we'll try to get you the interview. You know, he's got ten interviews. Judy Painter calls back with Charlie Copeland. Leonard would love to talk to you. To gents, there's just one problem, I said, what's the problem?

He said, he hasked to do a passport renewal at the Canadian Embassy. Will you join him in a limousine ride. I said, that's the problem. He said he felt he should ask first. You might be busy that afternoon. I said, we're going to the Canadian embassy with you do the interview. I had my homework down. I knew who the producers were. They said, very good, let's go to the embassy. We were bonding and I said, mister Cohn, no, the name is Leonard. Can I ask you a question. I know

you have a couple of kids. I know you're thirty five, you're kind of old. You go out with a lot of women and write about them. How do you how do you get married or how do you keep a relationship going? Because what's the secret? And he turns to me and justin in the limousine riot and he says, relationships are complicated.

he's really an authority. He's dedicated his entire life to this for us, as he says, So, Harvey, thanks for doing the work.

it was a hadassa meeting or something. You don't understand. I moved here because a yeah, people all the way had Okay, that music from the West Coast, it was the music. Maybe it was the sunshine. Who knows, and you're a snow person, but you wave that flag so huge for the Beach Boys. It helped define your life. Isn't that amazing?

all this anti California stuff. They have no idea what they're missing to this day, Yes, real estate is expensive, yes traffic is bad, but as I would normally say, I could talk about negative things about southern California all day long, but there's nowhere I'd rather live. Every As you know, everybody in the music business has to come through at least once a year.

a snow day is like in school? I said, what the fuck is a snow day? He said, you can't leave the house. They you, I know what a small day is. Did they have snow days in Vermont and all that Connecticut?

one day, that's cool, then it rains another. Go, what's up with this? You know? I have people that say, oh, yeah, the summer in New York. Every weekend it rained. You know, it was like, you know, you make plans to go somewhere, play tenniss something outside of the summer in California, weather is not the issue. It's happening.

it's living history. And just to close it out, what people don't realize the difference between East Coast and West Coast. Let's say East Coast and Los Angeles. In the East Coast, where you went to college? Who your parents are? Very important Los Angeles, the most important thing is what kind of car you drive. That's just phony enough for me. No one's sitting there talking about my parents, no one's asking me where I went to school. Everybody's on an

even playing field. And when it comes to LA. In Hollywood, people are so narcissistic. They don't give a shit about you. They're not in your business. I can be. I feel free and this is the only place. Never mind I go on a politics whatever. People have no idea how great it is here. I mean I could testify ad infinitum and the people first and foremost. LA is a shitty tourist town. It's a lifestyle town. You know, it's not about going and say yay, go to the beach,

go to the Capitol records tower. The people will leave are the people who came with dreams and just can't handle that their dreams of fame didn't happen. But as you say, if you spend the time and you feel I mean, you hear long enough, the world is not that big. You meet the right people but you but it takes a long time. But it's a lifetime thing.

the work with Patsy Patsy Kline. He said, well, thank you, and I said, I have a music business question to ask you, and it's kind of a book business question. What do you need? Son? I said, it doesn't work on logic getting deals. There's agents. I don't know if talent is it five percent one percent? It seems like the game is kind of rigged. And he said. I said,

I'm not really asking for advice or help. I just would like a little clarification because I know they ran you out of Nashville to Austin your hair bothered people. You had to be a songwriter, you had to do all kinds of things that didn't happen for you until a little later. I think that's going to happen for me. And he said, Son, Lena, tell you one thing, you have to outlast everybody.