Ron Stone

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, 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 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, 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

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 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 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 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

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. 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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? 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 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 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, 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, 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? 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

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, 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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

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 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? 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 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

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 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, 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, 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 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

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, 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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. 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 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 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

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, 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. 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 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 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 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. 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. 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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, 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?

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 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 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,

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, 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. 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, 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

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, 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 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 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

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 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. 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 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

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. 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, 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,

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 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 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. 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 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. 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 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. 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, 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 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 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, 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. 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 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 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.

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. 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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?

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 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 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 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. 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, 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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, 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.

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 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, 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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. 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 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, 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 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. 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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

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 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 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

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 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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, 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. 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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, 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 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

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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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

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 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 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

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 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

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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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

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 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, 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 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, 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. 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 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 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, 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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, 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 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, 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.