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areuonsomething.com In a galaxy far far away back in the 1970's and 1980's, Leon Tsilis and Ray D'Ariano met at a party thrown by Leon Russell in Memphis. They were both young record promotion men who would go on to become music biz executives. During that time they worked with and contributed to the success of The Who, Cher, Kiss, Tanya Tucker, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Golden Earring, Olivia Newton John, The Village People, Loretta Lynn, The Fixx, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Oak Ridge Boys, Wishbone Ash, Neil Sedaka, Merle Haggard, Chubby Checker, Elton John and many more. For the first time in over 30 years of friendship they are telling the tales and spilling their guts. Volume 1: Don't Let Your Meatloaf Ray: Thanks for that newsletter you sent. R: Ok, and they used it because this edition is a tribute to James. L: Yeah, and what, they were listening to Skynyrd? L: We got their records played. We were on the road with them. There are a hundred stories. R: What about the night the boys held you out the window in a New York City hotel? L: Ah, you mean the Plaza incident. It was more like they were trying to push me out the window. Too much Champagne and too many pain killers set them off. It did happen! R: Well, like I said I never went to see them with any of the new lineups, but for the last decade, every March I've gone to The Beacon Theater for The Allman Brothers Band. One night while I was there it hit me that Skynyrd did the same thing the Allman's did. It's not the original band, but the tradition lives on. L: That's the whole thing. R: Right, so then I went out and got caught up on Skynyrd CD's and DVD's and stuff. They are great! L: Of course, it's not the band we worked with back in the 70's, but it has evolved into this solid group that's on the road today. You still have Billy and Gary kicking ass every night. R: Road warriors. L: And Street Survivors. R: There was this great moment in the "Vicious Cycle" concert where Johnnie does a duet with Ronnie up on the screen. I think it's "Traveling Man." R: (laughs) You're right. I didn't think of that. On the DVD Johnnie is doing some announcements between songs and he messes up a little, and then he says something like , "It's ok folks, even Elvis messed up on stage sometimes." Editors Note: The members of Abba are not portrayed in the musical. The play is an original story in which the Abba Hits are used.
Back to the conversation: L: "Bat Out Of Hell" makes sense. It already is a rock opera. Meatloaf's been doing this Broadway musical on the road for the last 30 years. L: You need Meatloaf in the show. R: He comes from a theatrical background anyway. L: Looking back on it now, MCA really did have some good acts. It's just that they more or less became secret projects. What I mean is, the label did not want to spend any money to break or promote its new acts or signings. Groups like the B.E. Taylor Band who had an amazing record "Never Hold Back" or Donnie Iris, Point Blank, The Grass Roots all fell into the bottomless pit of despair once signed to MCA. We had one band on the label named Fair Warning who wrote and recorded "She Don't Know Me." Great song, but MCA in those days couldn't break a plate much less a new artist. I took the song and re-recorded it with the new Grass Roots. Hell, they even performed it on American Bandstand the week of release. We gave the record to the MCA Promotion department where it ended up as another Stiff. In other words the record never garnered any airplay. In my heart of hearts I knew that son was a hit. A year later a new artist on Polydor Records by the name of Bon Jovi recorded it, using the same arrangement, and has a top ten hit. R: That's how it was back then, without the corporate push you went nowhere. Today, you don't need a record company. I was talking with Richie Havens and he said make your own CD and put it on the internet for the whole world to hear. L: Internet and technology changed everything. When the digital age arrived back in 83 with the advent of the CD, the record companies saw this as a way to get everyone to re-buy their record collections on CD. And for a couple of years business was booming to the labels as people were doing just that, throwing out their old scratched up vinyl records and replaced them with the latest and greatest in CD technology. The labels in essence were selling their master recordings to the general public. Then came along the computer revolution and CD ripping software, CD burners, MP3 files, the internet and file sharing web sites. Whew! In other words, the greed of the major labels in trying to turn a profit by jacking up the prices of a CD and reselling their catalog has come full circle and is now biting them in the ass, as the consumer no longer needs to pay for the music. All they need is a computer, fast internet connection and some good Peer to Peer software to ascertain all the free music they could ever imagine. The music industry is on its last legs. R: It's the 2000's and the old music biz is over. In the 70's and 80's we tried to get great music exposed to the public. Now they spend their time suing the public. L: Yep, that's the only recourse that they have, but in the end all they are doing is alienating the music buyer and beating a dead horse one more time. By the way did you pass on anything that became a hit? R: They sent me to Central Park once to see the unsigned B-52's. The crowd loved them and they put on an exciting show, but I thought MCA, you know, the people in charge at that time, no way were they going to understand "Rock Lobster," so I suggested we pass. L: Hey, like you said, they might not have made it on MCA. R: Combination of music and promotion that's what you needed in the 70's. I remember you were high on The FIXX. I mean they were a great group, good as Tears For Fears and the groups that were happening at that time. L: The FIXX, great band! I remember when the "Shuttered Room" album first crossed my desk. The band was already signed to MCA in the UK and had been in release for about 8 months over there. It had enjoyed some moderate success, but our bright international department in the US did not deem it to be a credible release for the United States. I went to Bob Siner and more or less begged him to let me release the album in the US. I will agree it was a little to Euro at the time, but after contacting the label in the UK, I was able to substitute some tracks with 'B' sides of their singles which had more appeal to an American audience. Not only did they send me the singles I requested, but they also sent me a video of the band performing "Stand or Fall." Holy crap, what a great video! At that time MCA did not have one video on MTV, due to the fact that the brass at MCA did not believe in spending huge amounts of money on videos that would only be seen on cable television. Boy were these rocket scientists wrong. Armed with the new album and video I flew to New York to attend the CMJ Convention. MCA had a hospitality suite where DJ's were boozed up and hyped on all the new releases that the label was promoting. The standout was the "Stand or Fall" video. Nobody had ever seen anything like it before. It wasn't some cheesy production like most of the music videos of the time, but a full blown production. One of the attendees, and I wish I could remember her name, was a rep from MTV. She told me that I should hand deliver it to their offices the next day and she guaranteed me that it would garner some serious airtime. I did and the rest is history. By the way, at the time I was putting this whole project together, which the international department called "Leon's Folly," I was informed that the band was going to be dropped by MCA in the UK due to poor sales. Well, the success of the video on MTV and the airplay that was garnered on the new wave radio stations after the release of the album in the states more or less forced the label to pick up their option. Good thing they did as their next album was "Reach The Beach" and contained the monster hit "Saved by Zero." The only thing that pisses me off to this day is that no one from the band's management or group ever called, wrote or telegrammed a thank you to me. R: No, if it failed it would have been your fault, but when a record is a hit it's all their doing. Just show biz bullshit. Anyway, every record company passed on acts that made it. Everybody passed on The Beatles. L: How'd you like to be the guy who passed on The Beatles? R: There were a bunch of them. I don't feel so bad about The B-52's. L: Don't sweat it; they probably did better where they ended up. |