Gil Friesen’s biography based mostly on three author interviews with Friesen and two with Jerry Moss. Description of Friesen’s house is from author observation, details from Friesen himself, and Giovannini, Joseph, “Modernism Revisited: A Pair of Additions Elevate a 1953 Los Angeles House,” Architectural Digest, July 2003, pp.
114–121, 171.
archaic American network of mom-and-pop distributors: From Dannen, Hit Men, pp.
63–64.
“There was a period of time at A&M there”: Author interview with Al Cafaro.
“They’re the most exciting innovation”: From Pond, Steve, “Gil Friesen: The
President of A&M Records Talks About the Issues Confronting the Music Business,”
Rolling Stone, December 17, 1987, pp. 103–106.
$1.45 million purchase price and $4.9 million in additional value: From Los Angeles County Assessor’s Office.
“The business grew pretty dramatically”: Author interview with Bob Buziak.
Barbra Streisand deal: From Cox, Meg, “Sony Corp. Is Said Near to Signing New Streisand Deal,” Wall Street Journal, May 12, 1992, p. A1. Michael Jackson deal:
From Fabrikant, Geraldine, “Sony Music’s Mr. Big Spender,” New York Times, December 1, 1991, p. A1. ZZ Top deal: From Cox, Meg, “ZZ Top Negotiates RCA Records Deal for Up to $40 Million—Deal with Bertelsmann Unit Would Include 5 Records from Trio in Their Early 40s,” Wall Street Journal, June 17, 1992, p. B2.
Janet Jackson deal: From Walker, Michael, “It’s as Easy as SBK: SBK Records Takes Unknowns and Spends Big to Make Them Known. (Hey, It Worked with Wilson Phillips and Vanilla Ice),” Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1991, p. 6.
“People would say, ‘How can you do that to the companies?’”: Author interview with Donald S. Passman.
Video costs and “An average budget for me was maybe close to $1 million”: Author interview with Dave Meyers, 2005.
There is a scene: From Lee, Tommy, Mick Mars, Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, and Neil Strauss, The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), pp. 224–225.
Wilson Phillips was spending $7,000 on hair and makeup: From Goodman, Fred,
“Wilson Phillips: The Crash,” Entertainment Weekly, November 27, 1992, pp. 40–42.
$500,000 advance, as well as personal details about Charles Koppelman: From Walker, Los Angeles Times, p. 6.
“CDs were selling like crazy”: Author interview with Charles Koppelman.
Wilson Phillips’s budget: Author interview with Arma Andon.
“You’ve got to understand”: Ibid.
Koppelman’s $50 million buyout: Lichtman, Irv, “Koppelman Among Top Exec Departures: EMI Music Overhauls Its N. American Operations,” Billboard, June 7, 1997, p. 1.
“I spent money!”: Author interview with Michael Alago.
“They’re bastions of indie rock”: Author interview with Debbie Southwood-Smith.
“The all-vinyl business had its ups and downs”: Author interview with Bob Merlis.
Yetnikoff, Tisch, and “the Evil Dwarf”: From Nathan, Sony, p. 172.
“When Larry got in” and “[Tisch] thought the business relied too much”: Author interview with George Vradenburg.
Yetnikoff’s idea for Sony to buy CBS: From Nathan, Sony, p. 172; Yetnikoff, Howling at the Moon, pp. 209, 240.
“The noncreative side” and Schulhof background: Author interview with Michael Schulhof.
“Whatever you discussed with [Schulhof]”: From Nathan, Sony, p. 170. Ohga
answered some email questions for this book but would not agree to a full interview.
“I called Morita at home”: Author interview with Michael Schulhof. Mayfair Regis and Bill Paley detail as well as MiniDisc/DAT theory: From Nathan, Sony, pp. 173–174.
“He said, ‘If the company was worth $2 billion yesterday’”: Author interview with Michael Schulhof. “Install me as Super Czar and make me superrich”: From
Yetnikoff, Howling at the Moon, p. 209.
Thomas D. Mottola biography: From Anson, Robert Sam, “Tommy Boy: Even by the Standards of the Wild and Wooly Music Industry, Tommy Mottola, Chairman of the
$5.9 Billion Sony Music Entertainment, Plays by His Own Rules,” Vanity Fair, December 1996, pp. 288–294, 313–314.
“Al was a Harvard MBA”: Author interview with Bob Sherwood.
Jon Landau and Bruce Springsteen detail: From Griffin, Nancy, and Kim Masters, Hit
& Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), pp. 289–291.
“Once they blow me out, Walter’s vulnerable”: Author interview with Frank Dileo.
$25 million settlement: From Griffin and Masters, Hit & Run, p. 290.
Detail about Yetnikoff’s fall, including Ohga quote and “Count my money”: From Yetnikoff, Howling at the Moon, pp. 260–261.
“He was riding that job for all it was worth”: Confidential source. Aerosmith, Mariah Carey, and mansion spending: From Anson, Vanity Fair, pp. 314–316.
“The eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room”: Author interview with Bob Sherwood.
Michael Jackson called…Schulhof: From Anson, Vanity Fair, p. 315; confirmed by Schulhof.
This was unacceptable: From Fabrikant, New York Times, December 1, 1991, p. A1. “I wouldn’t sign a rock act with Sony if my life depended on it”: From Philips, Chuck,
“Charting Sony Music’s Future; for Tommy Mottola (Yes, the One Married to Mariah Carey), the Next Step Is to Take the No. 2 Firm to the Top,” Los Angeles Times, May 5, 1996, p. 1.
“Nobody likes to overspend”: Author interview with Michael Schulhof.
Mottola’s personal expenses and “famiglia”: From Eaton, Phoebe, “Tommy Mottola Faces the Music,” New York, March 3, 2003, p. 42. “These guys were very aggressive”:
Author interview with Jeff Ayeroff.
“I didn’t look at the financials”: Author interview with Michael Goldstone.
“a real oligarchy”: From Eaton, Phoebe, New York, p. 42. “They wanted to move Columbia”: Author interview with Bob Sherwood.
“Mo loved talent magnets”: From Cornyn, Stan, Exploding, p. 272.
“He trusted my instincts”: Author interview with Michael Alago.
Steve Ross biography, as well as Warner–Seven Arts deal and Sinatra’s role in it:
From Bruck, Master of the Game, pp. 48–57.
“There were many people there in key positions”: Author interview with Jorge Hinojosa.
“At Time Warner, the record company was, cash on cash, the best business in the company”: Author interview with Michael Fuchs. Financial details of Time Warner merger: From Bruck, Master of the Game, pp. 246–272, and Cornyn, Exploding, p.
345.
“It was a pretty benign place”: Author interview with Jeff Gold.
“the fucking ‘Cop Killer’ fuse gets lit”: Author interview with Jorge Hinojosa.
Time Warner picketers and Charlton Heston: From Cornyn, Exploding, pp. 366–368.
Details about Ice-T presenting Warner executives with Home Invasion and leaving the label via letter: Author interview with Jorge Hinojosa.
“balanced and coherent”: From Hames, William, Time, May 3, 1993, p. 81.
“No one ever replaced”: Author interview with Danny Goldberg.
“To observers, it was like tacking a happy ending”: From Cornyn, Exploding, pp.
394–395, 402–415.
“When I got there”: Author interview with Michael Fuchs.
“[Warner Music] couldn’t take the heat”: Author interview with Roger Ames.
“Big advances were starting to be more of a key fix” and detail about David Fine:
Author interview with Jerry Moss.
“We had the opportunity to get fresh new repertoire in the company”: Author interview with Jan Cook.
Moss-Friesen feud: Author interviews with Jerry Moss, Gil Friesen, Al Cafaro, and several confidential sources. “From my perspective, Gil was a terrific leader”: Author interview with Cafaro.
Friesen resigned under pressure: From Shiver, Jube, Jr., “A&M President Resigns After 25 Years,” Los Angeles Times, April 3, 1990, p. 3.
“We had a different philosophical approach” and “All of a sudden I had a new boss”:
Author interviews with Jerry Moss.
“As far as I know, the board at Seagram”: Author interview with Edgar Bronfman Jr.
Alain Levy and the film business: Author interviews with Jan Cook and Al Cafaro.
“Levy took the position”: Author interview with Cafaro.
“I don’t think [Boonstra] had Alain Levy much in the loop”: Confidential source.
“We were certainly taken by surprise” and other Jan Cook quotes: Author interview.
“They swallowed up my company, and I was gone”: Author interview with Mark Kates.
“These are record men like the old days”: Author interview with Bob Buziak.
Big Music’s Big Mistakes, Part 2: Independent Radio Promotion
“social exchanges between friends are not payola”: From Dannen, Hit Men, p. 45.
Background on DiSipio: Ibid., pp. 197–199.
Labels spent $40 million a year on independent promoters, 30 percent of pretax profits: Ibid., p. 15.
Dick Asher’s Floyd experiment: Ibid., pp. 3–11.
“I wasn’t a whistleblower”: Author interview with Dick Asher.
NBC Nightly News report detail and Yetnikoff’s reaction: From Dannen, Hit Men, pp.
272–278.
“I’m not saying no indie [radio promoter] ever did anything wrong” and schmooze detail: From Lombardi, John, “King of the Schmooze,” Esquire, November 1986, p.
128.
Early Bill Scull history: Author interviews with Bill Scull, Craig Diable, and Tim Hurst. “He’s always doing promotion, no matter what it is”: Author interview with Diable.
Disipio quickly disappeared: From Dannen, Hit Men, p. 290, and Philips, Chuck, “Is It Lucky Timing?” Los Angeles Times, July 6, 2007, p. E-1.
“I thought, ‘There’s no independent promotion person in Cincinnati’”: Author interview with Scull.
“an earnest, non-blustery, teetotaling family man”: From Kot, Greg, “Arranged by Jeff McClusky: As an Independent Record Promoter, He Makes Friends So He Can Make Hits,” Chicago Tribune, November 28, 1999, p. 10. McClusky contacting attorneys and likening the business to grocery stores: Author interview with Jeff McClusky.
Clear Channel, Citadel, and Cumulus owned 60 percent: From Boehlert, Eric, “Pay for Play: Why Does Radio Suck? Because Most Stations Play Only the Songs the Record Companies Pay Them To. And Things Are Going to Get Worse,” Salon, March 14, 2001 (60 percent), and Manning, Jason, “Revolutions in Radio,” PBS Online News
Hour, May 4, 2005 (top three companies).
Cumulus’ $1 million deal with McClusky: From Boehlert, Salon, March 14, 2001, and Cumulus Media Inc. 10-K Securities and Exchange Commission filing, March 31, 2003.
Bill McGathy’s $3.25 million bid: From Boehlert, Eric, “The ‘Bootylicious’ Gambit:
Can a Hot New Single from Destiny’s Child Help Columbia Records Crack the Indie Promoters’ Control of Pop Radio?” Salon, June 5, 2001.
“Drugs and hookers are out; detailed invoices are in”: From Boehlert, Salon, March 14, 2001.
take as much as $300 million: From Kot, Greg, “We Haven’t Seen the Last of Pay-for- Play,” Chicago Tribune, April 13, 2003, p. 1.
McClusky paying for Backstreet Boys tickets out of his own pocket: From Kot, Greg, Chicago Tribune, November 28, 1999.
It was not uncommon for: Author interview with Bill Scull. DiSipio making $27 million: This estimate comes from a quote by Danny Davis, the longtime label
promotion man who’d worked for Casablanca and Motown. Davis said to singer Al Martino, who played Johnny Fontane in The Godfather: “What do you figure he’s got, Al? Joe [Isgro] tells me he’s got $17 million.” Al Martino says, “Danny, add ten to it”
(Dannen, Hit Men, p. 198).
“From the mid-’80s to the late ’90s, the labels were really, as we say, ‘donkey strong’”: Author interview with Scull.
“Probably [labels’] biggest expense was indie promotion”: Author interview with Tim Hurst.
Big Music’s Big Mistakes, Part 3: Digital Audio Tape
$270 billion a year: From Haring, Bruce, “Trade Groups Sound Renewed Piracy Alarm: Issue Warnings on Korea, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia,” Billboard, December 2, 1989, p. 4.
Raid in Bell, California: From Thackrey, Ted Jr., “Printing Shop Raid Yields Bogus Record Labels,” Los Angeles Times, July 30, 1985, p. 2.
$1,000 to $1,500 costs for early DAT players: From Takiff, Jonathan, “DAT Units to Arrive Sooner Than Expected,” Knight-Ridder Newspapers wire service, published in Chicago Tribune, February 6, 1987, p. 78.
“They proceeded to claim that DAT”: Author interview with John Briesch.
the “Maneuver in Vancouver”: From Takiff, Chicago Tribune, February 6, 1987.
Other description of this meeting, including “the Japanese” walking out, from author interview with Joe Smith.
Background on Serial Copy Management System: From Hunt, Dennis, “How Digital- Recording Pact Will Affect Consumers: The Royalty Accord Won’t Raise Prices Soon, If at All, But It Will Lead to Introduction of New Software, a Major Factor in the
Acceptance of the New Format,” Los Angeles Times, July 22, 1991, p. 8, as well as author interviews with Marc Finer, John Briesch, and Mark Viken.
Sammy Cahn and publishers’ lawsuit: From Pollack, Andrew, “Music Publishers’ Suit Reopens DAT Question,” New York Times News Service, published in Chicago
Tribune, July 29, 1990, p. 10D.
“We killed the DAT machine”: Author interview with Joe Smith.
Audio Home Recording Act: Author interviews with Jim Burger, David Leibowitz, and Marc Finer.
“I said, ‘Here’s the deal’”: Author interview with Burger.
“They blew it”: Author interview with Finer.
Albums on the Hill description: Author interview with Andy Schneidkraut.
“It was like a knife in my back”: Ibid.
“It was clear that the computer companies”: Author interview with Steve Gottlieb.