Show #180 Seymour Stein/Sire Records Tribute June 10, 2023

 

Dedicated to Mighty Idy and the great Seymour Stein

 

Mighty Idy- DMZ DMZ (following Hocus Pocus- Focus s/t)

Shake Some Action- The Flamin' Groovies Shake Some Action

Cretin Hop- The Ramones Rocket To Russia 

Blank Generation- Richard Hell & The Voidoids Blank Generation 

3rd Generation Nation- Dead Boys We Have Come For Your Children 

All For The Love Of Rock & Roll- Tuff Darts! Tuff Darts! 

Murder City Nights- Radio Birdman Radios Appear 

Jump Boys- The Undertones The Undertones 

Flying Saucer Attack- The Rezillos Can't Stand the Rezillos 

Private Affair- The Saints Eternally Yours 

^Pop Muzik- M s/t

Ça Plane Pour Moi- Plastic Bertrand Ça Plane Pour Moi 

Bed and Breakfast Man- Madness One Step Beyond 

Rock 'N' Roll- Gruppo Sportivo Mistakes 

Tattooed Love Boys- The Pretenders Pretenders 

One Way World- Secret Affair Glory Boys 

Mirror in the Bathroom- English Beat I Just Can't Stop It

Alex Chilton- The Replacements Pleased To Meet Me 

This Charming Man- The Smiths The Smiths

Head Gone Astray- The Soup Dragons Hang Ten 

Trampoline- Greenberry Woods Rapple Dapple 

Seems So- The Apples in stereo Tone Soul Evolution 

Style It Takes- Lou Reed & John Cale Songs For Drella 

Thought I'd Seen Everything- Richard X. Heyman Hey Man! 

>Don't Look Back- The Remains Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era - 1965-1968 

This Kind Of Music- Jonathan Richman Jonathan Sings! 

You're The Best- The Paley Brothers The Paley Brothers 

Untouched (excerpt)- The Veronicas Untouched 

Wanna-Be Angel- Foxy Shazam Foxy Shazam 

Seymour Stein- Belle & Sebastian The Boy With The Arab Strap

 

^Power Pop Peak:  #1 Billboard Hot 100 11/3/79

 

ALL SacroSet[s]:  Sire Records

 

>Power Pop Prototype:  1966 (Sire Nuggets reissue 1976)

 

As I first mentioned back in the post for Show #87 which explores my musical journey initially guided by my Cousin Rich, a major turning point came after he saw The Ramones on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert on October 22, 1977.  I blame my early morning Boston Globe paper route (Rich delivered the afternoon paper Patriot Ledger) for my konking out after Saturday Night Live that night which stings because having suffered through my share of lackluster Pablo Cruise and Emerson Lake & Palmer appearances on Rock Concert I had NEVER seen anything as mindblowing as this Ramones set:

 

 

I remember Rich excitedly talking the following day about this new band that were loud, funny and unlike anything he had seen before.  (Rich and I were musically advanced for our ages, 13 and 12 respectively, but not so much that we'd heard The Ramones' punk rock forebears The Stooges.)  On my next trip to the record store, probably Sears at the Hanover Mall, I first became acquainted with the work of the legendary Seymour Stein through my purchase of The Ramones' Rocket To Russia, to this day my favorite of the bands' 14 studio albums.

 

Richard Gottehrer on the left.

Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer founded Sire Records in 1966 after meeting in Manhattan's fabled Brill Building. Stein came from the industry side having worked at Billboard and several small labels while Gottehrer was a songwriter, producer and had been a member of The Strangeloves of "I Want Candy" fame.  For the first few years Sire, the name taken from an amalgam of its founders' first names, focused on licensing UK and European releases in the US.   The label's first hit came in 1973 with "Hocus Pocus" by Dutch prog rock band Focus- the instrumental at the top of this week's show.  By the mid-70's Richard Gottehrer was missing the studio and amicably left the label, going on to produce numerous AKG artists like like Blondie, Marshall Crenshaw, The Bongos, Robert Gordon, The Fleshtones and The Go-Go's.

Gottehrer & Go-Go's

 

Seymour Stein, now wholly in charge of Sire, embarked on a slate of signings that changed rock & roll forever.  After The Ramones, he signed their fellow CBGB scenesters Talking Heads, Dead Boys and Richard Hell & The Voidoids (the latter produced by his former partner Richard Gottehrer).  I love these records (well not Talking Heads so much) but just as much I love the one and done bands Stein signed like Tuff Darts and Boston legends DMZ (who give us tonight's dedication song "Mighty Idy").  That was the thing about Stein, he trusted his ears and money was secondary.  If a band had good songs and could bring it in a packed, sweaty club, Stein would figure out a way to capture them on vinyl- finances be damned.  Seriously, in the disco era what other label would've signed Tuff Darts and DMZ?!?

 

Ramones, Iggy, Seymour & Linda Stein (she saw The Ramones first)

 

Signing NYC artists was just the beginning for Stein.  After The Ramones he went on a tear, licensing fantastic bands from around the world for US release, a few of whom we played tonight:

 

Australia:  The Saints, Radio Birdman

Ireland:  Undertones  

Scotland:  The Rezillos

The Netherlands:  Gruppo Sportivo
 

 

Starting in the mid-70's, Sire also released a treasure trove of double album compilations of 60's artists whose music was largely out of print.  Sire's reissue of the legendary Nuggets compilation was cited as an inspiration to numerous bands in the US and England.  Never being a Beatles or Stones fan, I had largely written off the 60's but Nuggets, lovingly compiled in 1972 by future Patti Smith Group guitarist Lenny Kaye, blew my mind- so many great songs by bands I had never heard of.  Likewise the Sire Vintage Years compilations from The Troggs and Pretty Things- amazing music that I never would have heard were it not for Seymour Stein. 

 

To Stein it was all just rock & roll yet in the late 70's one of the consistent barriers he faced was getting his bands, many of whom the music press were calling "punk," played on FM radio in the US.  His solution was to try to make "New Wave" happen instead.  Needless to say, it didn't work as within a year "New Wave" would be more associated with groups like The Cars before being completely co-opted in the MTV era by bands like Duran Duran and Flock of Seagulls.  The Dead Boys New Wave?  That was never going to happen.

 

 

 

I've no doubt that when scouring Max's Kansas City, CBGB, The Mudd Club and the like for new talent in the late 70's that Stein came across synthpunk pioneers Suicide.  Perhaps seeing some common ground with 70's prog bands on Sire, Stein became an early proponent of synth-driven pop, releasing records by The Normal and Silicon Teens.  Again, his ears served him well as the label's first #1 record was 1979's "Pop Muzik" by M, with Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" following in 1981.  Perhaps the biggest artist in the genre, Depeche Mode, would release their first record on the label in 1984.

Sire started the 80's by releasing The Pretenders' self-titled first album, in my opinion, one of the greatest debuts in rock & roll history.  Stein had gone to London to see the band and signed them before they even had a name.  He also signed and released the US debuts of UK ska mainstays Madness and English Beat as well as British Mod revivalists Secret Affair.  Sire 80's signings also included The Smiths, The Cure and Echo & The Bunnymen yet in terms of sheer commercial  impact no artist on the label would ever surpass Madonna who joined the label in 1983, signed by Stein from his hospital bed while he was undergoing treatment for a heart condition.  Madonna was a game-changer for Sire selling hundreds of millions of records and posting 29 of the label's top 50 hits over the course of its history.

      

Stein (far left) and The Replacements

In 1985 Stein signed The Replacements, one of my favorite bands at the time.  Coming full circle, Tommy Ramone (under his real name Tommy Erdelyi) produced the record, called Tim, a difficult task as the band had already started down the road of self-sabotage/fear of success that would be their downfall a few years later (outlined in the blog post for Show #178).  Sire passed on hair metal in late 80's and grunge in early 90's, instead signing a diverse array of artists like Dinosaur Jr, Ministry, Belly, Ice T and Uncle Tupelo, all likely underwritten by Madonna's stellar sales.  Like all labels, Sire's fortunes were upended by the internet in the 2000's though it did manage to sign groups like The Veronica's from Australia and Cincinnati glam rockers Foxy Shazam.

 

Foxy Shazam

 

Sire was only an independent label from 1966 to 1978, when it was purchased outright by Warner Brothers.  Yet with Seymour Stein at the helm it still felt like an indie.  Just look at tonight's show for proof- The Paley Brothers, Jonathan Richman, Richard X. Heyman?  I'd bet Sire was the only major label that would even take a meeting with them let alone release their records.  Even while he was a VP at Warner Brothers and President of Elektra, Stein managed to put out cool records on Sire by groups like Greenberry Woods and The Apples in stereo.

 

Seymour Stein died on April 2, 2023 at the age of 80.  He published his autobiography in 2018, the year he left Sire Records after 51 years with the label.  I have yet to read Siren Song: My Life In Music but I've no doubt it has some amazing stories.  Just researching this blog post I've heared a couple of doozies, like Stein's narrow escape from Dee Dee Ramone's attempted seduction.  Another shocking finding in my research is I couldn't find a single instance of ANYONE saying a bad word about Seymour Stein.   The Internet is built on character assassination yet Stein appears to escape unscathed.

 

I'll let the man himself finish this post in an excerpt from a 2018 interview he gave Terry Gross on NPR:

GROSS:  Seymour Stein, welcome back to Fresh Air.  In your book, you write, "I'm a hitman, a record business entrepreneur. What I'm not is a producer like Phil Spector or Quincy Jones. I can't play any instrument. I can't operate a studio. My exact job description is A&R, artist and repertoire, the old showbusiness term for talent hunting." How do you think not being a musician has been both a shortcoming and an advantage for you?

STEIN: Well, I think that for me it's been somewhat of an advantage because what I listen to first and foremost are the songs. And I always feel that an artist as a performer can always get better and usually does. The same thing with a musician - they usually get stronger, you know, as it goes along. But the songs have to be great from the very beginning, and that's what I've always looked for in all the different categories and fields of music that I've signed artists in. It's always been the songs.

RIP Seymour Stein 4/18/42- 4/2/23. 

There will never be another like him.

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ALL KINDSA GIRLS #180 SIRE RECORDS SPECIAL