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WORK TITLE: Siren Song
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 4/18/1942
WEBSITE:
CITY: New York
STATE: NY
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born April 18, 1942, in Brooklyn, NY; married; wife’s name Linda (divorced); children: two daughters.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Music company executive. King Records, Cincinnati, OH, intern; Sire Records, co-founder, 1966, and chairman; Warner Bros. Records, vice president.
AWARDS:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 2005, lifetime-achievement; Songwriters Hall of Fame, Richmond Hitmaker Award, 2016.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Music company executive Seymour Stein is credited for pioneering the punk/new wave movement. A Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee for lifetime-achievement, Stein and record producer Richard Gottehrer co-founded Sire Records in 1966, and Stein now serves as its chairman. With Stein as an influential signer and promoter, Sire Records signed such acts as the Ramones, Talking Heads, Pretenders, and Madonna. Stein is also vice president of Warner Bros. Records.
In 2018, Stein published his memoir, Siren Song: My Life in Music, with cowriter Gareth Murphy. Lauded as the greatest living record man, Stein describes his sixty years in the music business traveling the world searching for the next big sound. Signing new talent that have become legends, such as Madonna, Lou Reed, Seal, The Cure, and others, Stein and his clients have appeared in all the major venues, like Billboard, Tin Pan Alley, the British Invasion, CBGB, and Studio 54. In his autobiography, Stein described how he interned for two summers at King Records to learn every function of a record company. He recounts anecdotes, personal profiles, the history of song in America and the pop music scene, as well as low points like backstabbing record executives, hiding his homosexuality, and the violent death of his wife, Linda.
The book is “A sometimes-gritty, sometimes-charming memoir that pays tribute to the American recording industry,” according to a Kirkus Reviews critic. In a review in Booklist, David Pitt observed: “This is a fun book, full of behind-the-music-scenes stories and personal anecdotes” that encompass the spirit of the 1970s, ’80s, and beyond. A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that insider revelations of the byzantine record industry can bog down the story, but Stein is excellent when discussing his music discoveries. The reviewer added: “Stein wonderfully captures his obsessive love for the bruising music business and introducing music-lovers to new bands.”
Jesse Dorris explained in an article online at the New Yorker Online why Stein decided to write his memoir: “What he’s up to, he tells me, is his own kind of evangelism. ‘I want to see a continuation of the music business, and the point I want to drive home is: start young.’” On the Houston Press Online, Bob Ruggiero remarked: “He has an ego, and it shows up in these pages. But his love for music and addiction to the hunt for new sounds, new bands, and new tunes is infectious.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 1, 2018, review of Siren Song: My Life in Music, p. 56.
Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2018, review of Siren Song.
Publishers Weekly, March 26, 2018, review of Siren Song, p. 106.
ONLINE
Houston Press Online, http://www.houstonpress.com/ (June 7, 2018 ), Bob Ruggiero, review of Siren Song.
New Yorker Online, https://www.newyorker.com/ (June 13, 2018), Jesse Dorris, author interview.
SEYMOUR STEIN is the co-founder and chairman of Sire Records, as well as a Vice President of Warner Bros. Records. Sire Records, which he founded in 1966, was the pioneer of New Wave music. Stein was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 under the lifetime-achievement category. He lives in New York City.
Seymour Stein
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Seymour Stein
Born
April 18, 1942 (age 76)
Brooklyn, New York
Occupation
Entrepreneur
Music executive
Spouse(s)
Linda S. Stein (divorced)
Children
2
Awards
Member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Seymour Stein (born 18 April 1942[1]) is an entrepreneur in the music industry. His first job was as an intern at King Records in Cincinnati, Ohio (the Birthplace of Rock N' Roll) then he took on a clerk position for Billboard magazine in 1958. Stein is a Vice President of Warner Bros. Records and a co-founder of Sire Records.[2][3]
Contents [hide]
1
Music career
2
Legacy
3
Personal life
4
See also
5
References
6
External links
Music career[edit]
As a high school student, Stein interned a couple of summers (1957–58) at King Records in Cincinnati. In 1961, he worked 2 years for King Records.[4]
In 1966, Stein and record producer Richard Gottehrer founded Sire Productions, which led to the formation of Sire Records, the label under which he signed pioneer artists such as the Ramones and Talking Heads in 1975, the Pretenders in 1980 and Madonna in 1982. Other acts signed by Sire include The Replacements (band), Depeche Mode, The Smiths, The Cure, Ice-T, The Undertones and Echo & the Bunnymen.
Such was Stein's influence in signing and promoting the new wave genre of music that he is sometimes credited with coming up with the name as an alternative to the term punk, which he found derogative. The term had previously been used to refer to the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s.
Stein remains the President of Sire Records and is also Vice President of Warner Bros. Records with which he has had a marketing and distribution deal from 1976 to 1994 and again since April 2003. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 14, 2005, under the lifetime-achievement category. On June 9, 2016, Stein has been honored with the Richmond Hitmaker Award at the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Legacy[edit]
Stein is the subject of an eponymous song by the Scottish musical group Belle and Sebastian. He was the winner of a Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Dance Music Awards in 2010. Ice-T wrote about Stein in his autobiography, stating: "He's cut from that cloth of the old-time music executives like Clive Davis, but he's way more eccentric... Just a little more bizarre, a bit more avant-garde, more of an edgy cat."[5] He wrote that Seymour Stein would never edit Ice-T's musical output but would sometimes express concerns (e.g. he was against homophobia in rap).[5]
Personal life[edit]
Stein was formerly married to the late music promoter and real estate executive Linda Stein; together, the couple had two daughters before they divorced, on amicable terms, in the late 1970s.[6] Stein has never remarried. One of his children is Mandy Stein. He revealed he was gay in 2017 [7] Stein published his autobiography, Siren Song: My Life in Music, in 2018. [8]
Seymour Stein, the Legendary Producer Who Signed Madonna, Is Selling Dozens of Pre-Raphaelite Works at Sotheby’s
He used his wealth earned from discovering Madonna and the Ramones to buy Symbolist and Pre-Raphaelite artworks.
Henri Neuendorf, June 29, 2018
Seymour Stein with madonna in 1996. Photo: courtesy of Sotheby's.
The legendary record producer Seymour Stein, known for unearthing musical talents such as Madonna, the Ramones, the Talking Heads, and Depeche Mode, is selling a chunk of his art collection at Sotheby’s Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art auction next month.
Although Stein developed a reputation for spotting fresh talent throughout his career in the music industry (he coined the phrase “New Wave music”), the focus of his art collection looks to the past, encompassing high-profile Symbolist and Pre-Raphaelite artworks.
John William Waterhouse The Siren (1900) Photo: courtesy of Sotheby’s.
After amassing his collection over decades, he’s now putting 27 paintings and works on paper under the hammer. “I thought many times of opening a gallery to sell off most of what I purchased, for in truth I had bought enough to fill several homes,” he told Sotheby’s when he sold an even more sizeable portion of his collection—250 works—with the house in 2003. He added that his busy schedule forced him to sell select pieces at auction instead.
Citing his recently published book, Siren Song: My Life in Music, the Telegraph reported that the 76-year-old started collecting in his early twenties when he worked for Polydor records, which signed acts including The Who, the Bee Gees, and Jimi Hendrix. During his breaks, he started to explore Sotheby’s nearby showroom on London’s Bond Street and occasionally bought inexpensive Chinese porcelain and Art Deco furniture.
“Antiques seemed like a natural partner for records,” he wrote. “You had to learn genres, meet dealers, spot details, figure out value, and above all, find the treasures.”
Simeon Solomon, Bacchus (1867). Photo: courtesy of Sotheby’s.
In 1982, he signed Madonna, and her meteoric success made him enough money to buy John William Waterhouse’s The Siren (1900) (est. £1 million–1.5 million or $1.3 million–2 million), a highlight of Stein’s collection, and the highest-estimated lot in the upcoming sale. The work depicts a mythical mermaid whose beauty was so said to be stunning that it would mesmerize shipwrecked sailors and cause them to drown.
Other standout works include seven pieces by Simeon Soloman, led by the artist’s Bacchus (1867) (est. £60,000–80,000 or $79,000–105,000); five works by Edward Burne Jones, led by Study for The Valiant Knight (1888) (est. £30,000–50,000 or $40,000–66,000); Ford Madox Brown’s Elijah and the Widow (1864) (est. £60,000–80,000 or $79,000–105,000); and Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s The Return of Tibullus to Delia (1851) (est. £40,000–60,000 or $53,000–79,000).
The auction is just the latest sale of property from Stein’s collection. In addition to the works sold at Sotheby’s in 2003, the producer hawked about 2,400 pieces at Guernsey’s auctioneers in New Jersey in 2015 and 174 pieces at Rago’s auctioneers in New Jersey earlier this year.
Stein, Seymour: SIREN SONG
Kirkus Reviews. (Apr. 15, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Stein, Seymour SIREN SONG St. Martin's (Adult Nonfiction) $28.99 6, 12 ISBN: 978-1-250-08101-8
A memoir detailing the 1966 founding of Sire Records and the author's journey through six decades in the music industry discovering talent like the Talking Heads, the Ramones, Madonna, and many others.
Of all the great music men who emerged from the 1960s record industry--from the Ertegun brothers of Atlantic Records to Warner's Mo Ostin, Morris Levy, Jerry Wexler, and Berry Gordy--Stein has one of the most nuanced stories. As the author explains, from his late teens, he knew music was his destiny: "I'd lie on my bed, studying the small print on the sleeves: King, Apollo, Mercury, Aladdin, Excelsior, Atlantic, Miracle, Sun, Chess, Vee-Jay, Modern...all these castles and flags from across the land." After a couple of years working at Billboard magazine, learning the charts and grooming himself as a music journalist, Stein landed with Syd Nathan, the recording legend and founder of King Records, who showed him the "shellac in his veins." Why merely write about music when you can be making music history--and real money? Convinced, Stein packed it up and did two summer internships with Nathan in Cincinnati, where he learned every function of the King empire. Within years, the author had earned lots of money and enough experience to co-found his own label, Sire Records. With Sire, he spent the next couple of decades signing major acts--e.g., Madonna, Depeche Mode, Echo and the Bunnymen--and became a pioneer of the new wave, punk, and post-punk genres along the way. Intertwined with behind-the-scenes tales of mayhem and craziness of the 1970s and '80s, Stein weaves down-to-earth storytelling about his Jewish upbringing in 1950s Brooklyn and his childhood fascination with Coney Island and how it stoked his young imagination, leading to his future life in music.
A sometimes-gritty, sometimes-charming memoir that pays tribute to the American recording industry.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Stein, Seymour: SIREN SONG." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Apr. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A534375044/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=0b9f6af2. Accessed 30 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A534375044
Siren Song: My Life in Music
David Pitt
Booklist. 114.17 (May 1, 2018): p56+.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
Siren Song: My Life in Music.
By Seymour Stein and Gareth Murphy.
June 2018. 352p. St. Martin's, $28.99 (9781250081018). 781.64092.
The Ramones. The Pretenders. Madonna. The Talking Heads. The Cure. Echo and the Bunnymen. It's quite possible we might never have heard these (and many other) now-famous musical groups if it had not been for Stein, who caught their acts when they were just starting out and saw in them the kind of raw talent that could be shaped, nurtured, and turned into something special. Stein, the entrepreneur who is generally credited as being the man who launched the punk/new wave movement (on his own label, Sire Records), recounts his life story in this entertainingly written, conversational book. This is a fun book, full of behind-the-music-scenes stories and personal anecdotes that capture the rockin' spirit of the 1970s, '80s, and beyond. Coauthor Murphy is the author of Cowboys and Indies (2014), a history of the record industry, making him a good choice to help tell Stein's captivating life story.--David Pitt
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Pitt, David. "Siren Song: My Life in Music." Booklist, 1 May 2018, p. 56+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A539647344/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=fb8e2310. Accessed 30 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A539647344
Siren Song: My Life in Music
Publishers Weekly. 265.13 (Mar. 26, 2018): p106.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Siren Song: My Life in Music
Seymour Stein, with Gareth Murphy. St. Martin's, $28.98 (352p) ISBN 978-1-250-08101-8
Stein's anecdote-packed memoir tells of his life as a music executive, in what is an entertaining ride though music history. Born into a blue-collar Brooklyn Jewish family in 1942, Stein showed an early passion for record hunting and an obsessive interest in Billboard chart-watching. With a hustler's determination while still a teenager, he wangled his interests into a job with Syd Nathan, whose King label was one of the great indie record labels in the pre-conglomerate era. After proving himself as a crack A&R manager with good ears, Stein cofounded his own independent label, Sire, which launched a long list of prominent acts of the 1970s and '80s, including Aztec Camera, the Cult, the Cure, Lou Reed, and the Smiths. Stein's insider accounts of byzantine record deals and corporate knife-fighting can bog down the narrative, but his true passion burns brightly when discussing his music discoveries and recounting tales of being blown away by the Ramones, having a "blinding obsession" with signing the Talking Heads, getting on the Concorde to check out a group called Depeche Mode, and being pressured for a deal by a pushy club kid named Madonna. Stein wonderfully captures his obsessive love for the bruising music business and introducing music-lovers to new bands--and not going deaf or broke in the process. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Siren Song: My Life in Music." Publishers Weekly, 26 Mar. 2018, p. 106. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A532997182/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=68482ede. Accessed 30 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A532997182
Seymour Stein’s “Siren Song” Recounts a Career Co-Starring Madonna, the Ramones, Talking Heads, and the Smiths
By Jesse DorrisJune 13, 2018
Seymour Stein with David Byrne, of Talking Heads, and Madonna at a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, in New York City, in 1996.Photograph by Kevin Mazur / Getty
“I’ve heard hundreds of thousands of records,” Seymour Stein says on the phone from Athens, where the seventy-five-year-old co-founder and president of Sire Records and vice-president of Warner Bros. Records is on a working vacation, en route to a music-industry festival in Cannes. His estimate may be too low. Stein signed the Ramones, Talking Heads, and Madonna, and brought to American shores a canon of indie music: the Smiths, the Cure, Depeche Mode, the Beat, Echo and the Bunnymen, Soft Cell. “I just put it out because it’s a great record,” he says.
What makes a great record? “A great song.”
And what makes a great song? “I’ll just tell you,” he says, with a sigh, “that the only answer to the question can be found in a song written by Rodgers and Hammerstein. It’s from ‘South Pacific’ and the name of the song is ‘Some Enchanted Evening.’ But forget the name of the song. The line goes, and I don’t mean to insult you with this, but the line is, ‘Fools give you reasons, wise men never try.’ O.K.?”
So, why write a memoir? “I was asked.”
As was Grace Jones, who wrote a miracle of a memoir, called “I’ll Never Write My Memoirs,” in which she persuasively locates the genesis of her genius inside hurricanes of evangelical Christianity, physical and psychological abuse, and twentieth-century art, while only deepening the mystery of her music. Carrie Brownstein and Viv Albertine both wrote thrilling memorials to under-respected scenes (riot grrrl and post-punk, respectively) that explicate what they were fighting for, and at what cost. In Stein’s new memoir, “Siren Song,” he does little of any of this. What he’s up to, he tells me, is his own kind of evangelism. “I want to see a continuation of the music business, and the point I want to drive home is: start young.”
Born Seymour Steinbigle in 1942, with a hole in his heart, in the center of Jewish Brooklyn, he couldn’t get early R. & B. stormers like Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That a Shame” and Joe Turner’s “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” out of his head. As a teen-ager, he began selling ice cream on Coney Island for record money, telling anyone who’d listen that someday he’d work in the music industry. “The first step in any teen-age ambition is to fake the persona you wish to become; the next is believing it yourself,” he writes.
In 1961, Syd Nathan of King Records offered Seymour a job in A. & R.—if he’d change his name. “Look, kid, do yourself a favor and put Steinbigle out of its misery,” Stein recalls him saying. “If you’re serious about the music business, you need a name. We’re all just names.”
“After equipping me with my new persona,” he writes, “Syd sent me out on the road for ten days with James Brown. This wasn’t the first time I’d met a star, but it was probably the first time I got to see what it takes to build a world-class legend . . . My god, I watched poor James Brown try so hard he almost tore himself a birth canal.”
Stein eventually set up his own label, Sire, for which he reissued the essential psych compilation “Nuggets,” almost signed Fleetwood Mac, and did in fact sign the Dutch band Focus, whose 1971 single “Hocus Pocus” was a massive international smash, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that it’s a prog rondo involving yodelling, a flautist, an accordion, and the proto-beatboxing Appalachian vocal technique called eefing. In 1975, Stein saw the Ramones rehearse and signed them after they slammed through eighteen songs in twenty minutes. “This was the filthiest sugar and the sugariest filth,” he writes. He first saw Talking Heads when the band opened for the Ramones at CBGB’s, and the chase was on. Two years later, he writes, “I had four high-risk albums in the pipeline: “Talking Heads: 77,” “Rocket to Russia” by the Ramones, “Young Loud and Snotty” by the Dead Boys, and “Blank Generation” by Richard Hell & the Voidoids.” Each one is a classic.
London was also teeming with astonishing bands as the post-punk and new-wave scenes dawned, and Sire signed the best of it. Not unrelatedly, the city’s streets and offices teemed with gay men. “In New York’s music business, it was always ‘Did you know he’s Jewish?’ ” he writes, “whereas in London, it was ‘Did you know he’s queer?’ ” Stein, who’d had his share of sexual experiences with men, also had a wife and kids. Linda Stein was, by all accounts, one tough broad: she somehow managed to co-manage the Ramones for years, did much of the glad-handing and socializing that Stein’s career required, and stayed with him in full knowledge of his inclinations—until, he recounts, he fell in love with a closeted man who Linda also got into bed in a bout of what he calls “sex-revenge bullying.” (He and Linda divorced, somehow amicably, and she went on to become a real-estate agent to the stars, portrayed by Sylvia Miles in Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street,” before, tragically, her personal assistant beat her to death in 2007.)
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Stein is candid and kind to Linda in his memoir, but is otherwise unhesitant to settle scores, mainly with the former Warner Bros. C.E.O. Mo Ostin. He fills pages with Ostin’s various machinations and industrial subterfuge, bringing to mind the repetitive retaliations that sunk his one-time star Morrissey’s “Autobiography.” Young people might be romanced by the anecdotes about cocaine and the Concorde, but they won’t find clues about what one actually does in the music industry. What was it like, in the early nineteen-nineties, to launch My Bloody Valentine’s troubled masterpiece “Loveless,” or the weirdo-beardo electronic work of Aphex Twin? Stein’s career is so accomplished that some stories inevitably get left out, but the ones he puts in aren’t always illuminative. (“I come here to think and work on my lyrics,” is all he reports Chrissie Hynde, rock’s greatest loudmouth, telling him of the secluded London rooftops she favored.)
The teen-age Stein who faked it to make it grew up to be uncloseted but unforthcoming about his adult romantic life. He’s downright cruel when discussing a night when Dee Dee Ramone propositioned him. “His eyes and body position said it all: Take me whatever way you want. I’m your bitch . . . What bothered me wasn’t that I happened to be his label boss; I just couldn’t stomach how feminine he’d become. I like my men masculine.”
On the phone from Greece, Stein said “Fire away!” when I began talking about his contributions to gay culture. But he dismissed any examination: “Being gay is one of the most normal things about me.” As a child, he writes, “Homosexuality was not something people would suspect, not even us dirty-mouthed Brooklyn brats. Even for me, it was buried so deep, I truly believed that if I ignored it long enough, it might go away, like the hiccups or a door-to-door-salesman . . . My secret probably caused me isolation, but I can’t say that anything specific hurt or that I suffered. It was only when the music began flowing through me that I could feel something medicinal happening.”
Music is medicine. Hospitalized in 1982—the hole in his heart was infected—Stein listened on a Walkman to a Madonna demo from the producer Mark Kamins. “As penicillin dripped into my heart,” he writes, “I’m sure I was going nuts in that little room.” From his bed, he called Kamins, a hairdresser, and a nurse to help him take a shower. That night, at Lenox Hill Hospital, Madonna signed to Sire. “I certainly thought she’d have a long career,” Stein tells me, “and I think she’s still got some mileage to go. I make mistakes all the time in business and in my personal life, but she’s fucking smart.”
I ask Stein which of those hundreds of thousands of songs matter to him most. “Believe it or not, it’s ‘Le Marseillaise.’ If you take ‘God Save the Queen’ ”—and for a moment I’m unsure if he means the royal or Sex Pistols version—“it’s not meant to be inspirational. It’s meant to be devotional. But ‘Le Marseillaise’ is a battle cry.” Under Stein’s watch, Sire released countless battle cries—calls to arms for generations of kids who picked up instruments, or internships, or a pen. But, as “Siren Song” can’t dispute, technology and global capitalism have just about killed the music industry, and youthful fervor for the perfect song won’t save it.
Sire Records Honcho Tells Tales of Ramones, Talking Heads, Pretenders, and Madonna!
Bob Ruggiero | June 7, 2018 | 5:00am
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Siren Song: My Life in Music
By Seymour Stein with Gareth Murphy
352 pp.
$28.99
St. Martin’s Press
As co-founder of Sire Records in 1966 – and still active in the industry today – Seymour Stein has seen a lot. Just a partial list of artists he’s discovered, scouted, signed, championed, or exposed to U.S. audiences includes The Ramones, Talking Heads, Madonna, the Pretenders, the Replacements, Ice-T, the Cure, the Cult, k.d. lang, Madness, The English Beat, the Barenaked Ladies, and more.
Book cover by St. Martin's Press
In the record biz, Stein was something of a bridge between the cigar-chomping, payola paying, questionable financial practices old school record men of the ‘40s-‘60s (Syd Nathan, Morris Levy, George Goldner, Ahmet Ertegun) and the newer breed of more business-minded successors (Mo Ostin, Dave Geffen, Clive Davis). All make appearances here, especially King Records’ Nathan, Stein’s first and most important mentor. And the book paints a great portrait of the workings of the music industry of that era.
Throughout, Stein is frank about his sexuality. Attracted to men since his teens, he nonetheless married a former teacher who wanted a higher level of life. Linda Stein was a loud, brassy, wild woman who would end up co-managing the Ramones and partied as hard with coke, booze, and pot as her husband. Stein admits their parenting was negligent, their two daughters basically raised by nannies.
Constant fighting, money arguments, and Seymour’s acceptance of his sexuality drove them to divorce, and there’s definitely some razor-edged score-settling here. Tragically, Linda Stein – who had transformed herself into a realtor to the stars – was brutally bludgeoned to death by an embezzling assistant in her own apartment in 2007.
The books is chock full of rock star anecdotes – and not always about music. Elton John shows up at the Steins for Thanksgiving dinner, with John Lennon appearing just in time for dessert. Dee Dee Ramone barges into Stein’s apartment, strips naked in his bedroom, then tells Stein to do what he wants with him (freaked out, Stein declined). Stein is transfixed by oddball group Talking Heads at CBGB’s, though he and the rest of the band walk on eggshells around frontman David Byrne. Madonna shows up in his hospital room saying “Take me, I’m yours!” as she discusses a contract with the prone label boss.
EXPAND
Seymour Stein (top, left, looking down) at a party with (bottom row) Linda Stein, David Bowie, and Dee Dee Ramone.
Photo by Bob Gruen/Courtesy of St. Martin's Press
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SHOW ME HOW
And, as if to show how far Stein would go to nab a hot act before a rival, in the wee hours of one morning, he was reading about a hot new synth-based band in an English music paper that was already several weeks old. A few hours later, was on a Concorde flight across the Atlantic.
That evening found himself in a dingy suburban nightclub in Essex where he met the teenaged members of said band were changing into their stage clothes in a stairwell (there was no dressing room) before playing to about 200 punters. And that’s how Sire Records got the distribution rights in America for Depeche Mode.
As the ‘90s unfold, the hit acts start to dissipate. He carps much about Warner head honcho Mo Ostin and complains about his treatment after the larger company acquired Sire outright, yet Stein willingly signed agreements and contracts with the larger label. The latter part of the book is filled with tales of backstabbing record executives in more recent times.
But at age 75, Seymour Stein still runs Sire and is a VP at Warner Brothers, probably still on the lookout for the next hot act. Belle and Sebastian paid tribute to him with their song “Seymour Stein, and he’s been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He has an ego, and it shows up in these pages. But his love for music and addiction to the hunt for new sounds, new bands, and new tunes is infectious.