Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftstats Podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is writer and music historian Harvey Kubernick. Harvey,
Speaker 1: good to have you on the podcast.
Speaker 2: Delighted to be here, Bob or Robert.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've written nineteen books. Which one is your favorite?
Speaker 2: It's I'm not one of those people. Oh the songs
Speaker 2: are like my children. No, there's one book that has
Speaker 2: penetrated the difference deep into me, and it's the one
Speaker 2: I'm asked the most about. It's a book called Turn
Speaker 2: Up the Radio Rock pop ' Roll in Los Angeles
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty six to nineteen seventy two, partially because it's
Speaker 2: a big coffee table book with color, black and white
Speaker 2: and illustrations. And it was the book that was the
Speaker 2: most joyous to do because the publisher and the editor
Speaker 2: at Santa Monica Press said, do what you want. And
Speaker 2: I think there were two or three emails or a
Speaker 2: couple of notes, but no intrusion. And it helped that
Speaker 2: he was an LA native as well. And it really
Speaker 2: speaks deep to me because I got to stretch back
Speaker 2: and really chronicle something from nineteen fifty six to nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy two. Kind of my wingspan from like age six
Speaker 2: to twenty one. I mean, that's a pretty seminal time
Speaker 2: period for all of us, and it's still remains my
Speaker 2: most potent title and the one that people ask me
Speaker 2: to autograph the most about.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're born in fifty one, so you're five or
Speaker 1: six years old. Were you listening to the radio at
Speaker 1: that point? Oh? Yeah.
Speaker 2: By nineteen fifty six, I'm like almost six, the radio
Speaker 2: was blaring. I mean there wasn't even a transistor radio then.
Speaker 2: It was on my parents' kitchen table in downtown Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: I was going to Colisseum Street Elementary School and we
Speaker 2: had a black and white Philco television, but the radio
Speaker 2: was always on stations like KMPC and a lot of
Speaker 2: the rhythm and blues stations and some jazz stations. I
Speaker 2: didn't know who the people were, but my parents were
Speaker 2: so sinatraed out and Tommy dorseyed out and into Julie London.
Speaker 2: It was always on because there were middle of the
Speaker 2: road radio stations in this town with big wattage, and
Speaker 2: so I just heard this music. But I was drawn
Speaker 2: to kind of the R and B music because it
Speaker 2: was loud and raucous, and there were horns. I didn't
Speaker 2: know what brass or horns meant, but I recognized after
Speaker 2: three four five there were rotation songs. I didn't know
Speaker 2: you could play a song more than once on the
Speaker 2: radio back then. I didn't know there were playlists or whatever.
Speaker 2: But it it was very It was de penetration.
Speaker 1: Okay. I remember my own introduction, and I'm two years
Speaker 1: younger than you, not that we're both not old at
Speaker 1: this particular point in time, however, young at heart. And
Speaker 1: first I remember buying cartoon records like Rough and Ready,
Speaker 1: who were on the television. Then at the turn of
Speaker 1: the decade to the sixties, that's when the folk boom
Speaker 1: was happening. I remember my mother buying if I had
Speaker 1: a hammer, Peter, Paul and Mary, I would listen to
Speaker 1: the baseball games. At this point there were transistors. But
Speaker 1: I certainly remember becoming addicted when the Beatles broke really
Speaker 1: in January of sixty four. So what was your experience.
Speaker 2: I have to tell you, the two years that i'm
Speaker 2: older than you on feels like ten years as far
Speaker 2: as you know, legacy archive, catalog and just library action.
Speaker 2: Because I knew a world of the Beatles for five,
Speaker 2: six or seven years. I mean I went with my
Speaker 2: parents at about age nine to the Pomona Affair to see
Speaker 2: Spike Jones, which well eventually led me to Zappa. But
Speaker 2: you know, I did see Elvis on the ed Selvan Show.
Speaker 2: Oh you got to see this wacky guy Harvey. I
Speaker 2: didn't really know what was going on, but I saw
Speaker 2: that my parents embraced rock and roll in music. They
Speaker 2: didn't keep me away from it. But the fifties, and
Speaker 2: this is the other thing you mentioned baseball. Initially the
Speaker 2: middle of the road radio stations were on places like
Speaker 2: MPC or KFI, which stands for Farmer Information, so you'd
Speaker 2: listen to baseball. And then there weren't pregame and postgame
Speaker 2: shows back then that much, so you'd have that station
Speaker 2: on waiting for baseball, vinskull A, Jerry Doggett, but you'd
Speaker 2: have two hours before and two hours after, and the
Speaker 2: disc jockeys were sometimes in the booth or at the games,
Speaker 2: so it all kind of collided. But I mean I
Speaker 2: started collecting records. I started looking at records at Wallack's
Speaker 2: Music City in nineteen fifty eight and fifty nine. I
Speaker 2: didn't have funds to buy them at age eight or nine.
Speaker 2: But I did buy for sixty nine cents Hailey mails
Speaker 2: Let's Get Together because I saw the parent trap. Now,
Speaker 2: did I know it was done at Sunset Sound with
Speaker 2: Twoty Camarada. Did I know any of that stuff? No?
Speaker 2: All I know is she was a pretty girl. She
Speaker 2: didn't look like the girls in my school. She also
Speaker 2: talked funny. But on the record Let's Get Together, I
Speaker 2: thought it was an American girl with blonde hair and that.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't hitting me as hard as buying the Coasters.
Speaker 2: At the same time shopping for clothes search and I
Speaker 2: bought the Coasters. There were no albums then. Really I
Speaker 2: bought the Coasters records literally the same time, and I decided, well,
Speaker 2: why don't I have one foot in pop and R
Speaker 2: and B. Then they had this thing called race music
Speaker 2: that they kept mentioning, here's something from the race department.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know what it meant. But the music
Speaker 2: had comedy and tension and drama and multi voices. I
Speaker 2: couldn't quite grasp all the lyrics the way I grabbed
Speaker 2: now and somehow that devotional art that I put my
Speaker 2: shelf self through brought me to people like Meaningly and Stoller.
Speaker 2: This was unfathomable to me, So it was planted early.
Speaker 2: And then, by the way, in late sixty I heard
Speaker 2: Jane Deine and the Beach Boys on the radio because
Speaker 2: they're on the AM Ray, They're on KFWB, they're on
Speaker 2: car La. And then I went to see the Beach
Speaker 2: Boys in nineteen sixty two in Culver City at a
Speaker 2: record store. It was kind of a SOCCP. I now
Speaker 2: realized they were lip syncing, there were no amps, they
Speaker 2: were holding the guitars wearing penaltons. I just thought, wow,
Speaker 2: this is really cool. So I was already in the
Speaker 2: rock and roll scheme dream before the Beatles showed up
Speaker 2: and then the big bang. My parents were devoted. And
Speaker 2: I'm sure you watched it to the Jack Parr Show.
Speaker 1: Of course.
Speaker 3: Wait, you're just gonna tell me that on that Friday night. Yeah,
Speaker 3: got the video. Most people don't even know that exists.
Speaker 3: You're talking to Harvey Kybrinic. I got two witnesses. We
Speaker 3: didn't call them on the phone right now. Bob Kushner
Speaker 3: is one of them. So I was watching Jack Parr
Speaker 3: because I liked, you know, Arthur Treacher and I like
Speaker 3: seeing Judy Garland and Morgan Mason and all these people on,
Speaker 3: and James Mason, and I liked his demeanor and he'd
Speaker 3: been in World War Two, where my father was in
Speaker 3: World War two. I kind of felt, this is really good.
Speaker 3: And remember I was also hooked on the Oscar Levant show.
Speaker 3: But Oscar Levant, which was filmed out here, he didn't
Speaker 3: have rock and roll music people on. But I remember
Speaker 3: I was so beach boyed out. And yes I did surf,
Speaker 3: but I had a five foot limit and a nine
Speaker 3: to six con board. We have at My daughter Randy
Speaker 3: saw this music, this group attracting a lot of attention
Speaker 3: in London on our trip there. I'd like you to
Speaker 3: see it or something like that. I saw that clip. Now,
Speaker 3: I didn't know it was called some other guy. I didn't,
Speaker 3: but I saw that, and I'm eleven. I walked downstairs.
Speaker 2: And I threw out my brill cream and I combed
Speaker 2: my hair down, and my mother said, you're going to
Speaker 2: the barber tomorrow. I said, it's the same hair. I
Speaker 2: just comed it down. She said, what happened to you?
Speaker 2: Are you hanging out with hood libs or something? I
Speaker 2: said no, And there's no VCR there's no repeat. I said,
Speaker 2: I just I heard a new music. I something happened
Speaker 2: on And we also we were all pretty bummed out
Speaker 2: in the winter of nineteen sixty three because of the
Speaker 2: John F. Kennedy murder. It was just a good light.
Speaker 2: And what I did is I took my Beach Boy
Speaker 2: fan club button and I put it in a safe
Speaker 2: and I sort of defected to the Beatles temporarily. Then
Speaker 2: in February sixty four, I heard they were coming to town.
Speaker 2: It's not the Ed Sullivan Show. I read that there
Speaker 2: was some kind of they were going to be in
Speaker 2: town or some television event. I couldn't get it.
Speaker 1: And my bar.
Speaker 2: Mitzvah was end of February nineteen sixty four. And I
Speaker 2: got some early bonds earlier or some gifts, and my
Speaker 2: parents said, well, some mails arrived for you. There was
Speaker 2: like money there and I said, I'm taking some of
Speaker 2: that money and I'm buying a ticket to go to
Speaker 2: the Wilshure Theater on Wiltshire in Losi, Aanaga because the
Speaker 2: Beatles are going to be there. They're not going to
Speaker 2: be there, Harvey, I said, they're going to be there.
Speaker 2: He said, oh, it's probably something that they're doing in
Speaker 2: a studio. Go ahead, just be home by eight o'clock
Speaker 2: at night. You know, there was always the deal. You
Speaker 2: can stay up till eight, and you could stay up
Speaker 2: till ten when you're sixteen, and you could stay out
Speaker 2: till midnight when you were eighteen. I saw that show,
Speaker 2: I thought they were there in person. First of all,
Speaker 2: it's the longest Beatle set that they ever did. Did
Speaker 2: I know that the Beach Boys and Leslie Gore taped
Speaker 2: their segments? I believe in a studio in Burbank. No,
Speaker 2: there was Leslie Gore, there was the Beach Boys, but
Speaker 2: the Beatle thing. And then I went to a department
Speaker 2: store and I bought the album on VJ, and I
Speaker 2: went to Walllex Music City and there were people lined up.
Speaker 2: We waited till they cracked the thing up because there
Speaker 2: were shipments coming up the street from Capitol Records.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: That's one of the reasons I'm here today.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to Wallicks Music City. I grew
Speaker 1: up on the East Coast. I didn't come to l
Speaker 1: permanently until I was twenty one. The story was always
Speaker 1: you could preview the Records in a booth. Was that true?
Speaker 2: It's so true. I was talking to Rus Titelman, who
Speaker 2: you know obviously about this. I'm living in West Hollywood,
Speaker 2: going to Junior High, and of course sixty six to
Speaker 2: sixty nine, I'm going to Fairfax High School. You notice
Speaker 2: I never hide my age or do any of that stuff.
Speaker 2: I will tell you specific stuff. So I am in
Speaker 2: Hollywood sixty six to sixty nine, but I'm also in
Speaker 2: Junior High in the area. I made a bike ride
Speaker 2: and a skateboard ride from Wallax Music City. But I
Speaker 2: had gone to Wallax Music City in the late fifties.
Speaker 2: They had six or eight preview booths. You could take
Speaker 2: a record that had demonstration marked on it, a white label,
Speaker 2: not an acetate. The labels would have testers. You could
Speaker 2: go into a listening booth and you could play a record.
Speaker 2: And I remember playing albums not forty fives. My brother
Speaker 2: and I heard Jan and Dean's Command Performance album my record.
Speaker 2: Well there it blew my fucking mind. Like Jannandeine. I mean,
Speaker 2: these guys that I that were on like something called
Speaker 2: Liberty Records, or they were on this Story label. Because
Speaker 2: I was kind of I knew it I was reading
Speaker 2: the kif WB hitline the Carely Beat. I was on it,
Speaker 2: which is why I never could even get through the
Speaker 2: law school application. It just didn't work for me. So
Speaker 2: Wallax Music City, you'd go up there with your friends.
Speaker 2: I was talking to Mickey Dolans about this because he
Speaker 2: worked for a summer in sixty three behind the counter
Speaker 2: at Wallax Music City.
Speaker 1: After he was already circus boy.
Speaker 2: No yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's before Monkeys and before
Speaker 2: he did episodic television. And I said, you were behind
Speaker 2: the counter, but I know you. I didn't really know him,
Speaker 2: but he said yeah. Bobby Darren came in and I said,
Speaker 2: what about those listening booths, Mackey, wasn't it cool to
Speaker 2: play the records? He said, well, you're to buy them
Speaker 2: after and I said, yeah, but my friend Peter Piper,
Speaker 2: who I still talk to, longboarder surfer. This is a
Speaker 2: little later, when the Hair album came out and the
Speaker 2: Vanilla Fudgie album came out, with the Psychedelic and some
Speaker 2: Hendrix albums came out. He would go to the listening
Speaker 2: booths because he was going to Hollywood Professional School pretty
Speaker 2: much down the street. Because I knew the Hollywood professional people,
Speaker 2: Peggy lipped in the guys from the sun Rays. Peter
Speaker 2: would do a one hitter. I'm outing you, Peter. He'd
Speaker 2: have a joint, he'd take a big hit and he'd
Speaker 2: hold it for like three minutes because he was a
Speaker 2: surfer with good lung power. And then he'd put on
Speaker 2: our experience and then he would just inhale. We'd look
Speaker 2: at the booth and you'd see this smoke in his booth,
Speaker 2: and then he'd quickly opened it up, you know, and
Speaker 2: it was it was you would go there. Well, I
Speaker 2: was going there once a week for twenty five thirty years,
Speaker 2: not every day and every night.
Speaker 1: Okay. One thing you've informed me of that I never
Speaker 1: knew previously is these were not records from the stock.
Speaker 1: They were demonstration records. How long could you listen? And
Speaker 1: how many records could you listen to before a clerk
Speaker 1: said get the hell out of here?
Speaker 2: I do know one thing. There was some sign that
Speaker 2: said three or six albums limit. I remember that you
Speaker 2: could spend an hour if you wanted, but there were
Speaker 2: people lined up to also listen. And sometimes I mean
Speaker 2: I remember when the Beatles album shipped and I'm talking
Speaker 2: about the Beatles story some double interview album. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah yeah. Gary Usher was involved putting that together. Every
Speaker 2: booth was stacked. All of a sudden, girls started showing
Speaker 2: up in the listening booths. You know, it was kind
Speaker 2: of a male That's not true. There were women listening
Speaker 2: to Bobby Rydell and all that stuff, but when the
Speaker 2: Beatles showed up, we couldn't get near the listening booths
Speaker 2: anymore because there were three or four girls in five
Speaker 2: or six both booths listening to the Beatles Interview album,
Speaker 2: which were press conferences being mashed together. The world had changed.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back generally, pull the lens back, because
Speaker 1: I know the New York radio market and I know
Speaker 1: certain things about LA, but I didn't experience You talked
Speaker 1: about KRLA. Okay, and then you there's KHJ, there's b
Speaker 1: Mitchell Reid. What was Top forty radio like and how
Speaker 1: did it evolve into the FMSUND.
Speaker 2: Because I had the luxury we'll call it, of listening
Speaker 2: to the radio in the late fifties. I even think
Speaker 2: Tennessee Ernie Ford was on camp See when I first
Speaker 2: heard it, or he had just departed. But there were
Speaker 2: some big disc jockeys Johnny Magnus, Dick Whittington. You heard this.
Speaker 2: I mean FWB was a jazz station at about nineteen
Speaker 2: teen fifty eight. B Mitchell Reid was on U. B
Speaker 2: Mitchell Reed was a jazz teja for well, first of all,
Speaker 2: he was a better, more jazz guy than people. He
Speaker 2: was there at KIWB.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: It was a jazz station with some Mr. Laning Sinatra
Speaker 2: gave him a watch one time, thanking him for playing Weathers.
Speaker 2: I remember him showing me that, and then he departed us.
Speaker 2: I was almost gonna sit shiva. What do you mean
Speaker 2: he's not on there? Where's b Mitchell Red? I didn't
Speaker 2: know he flew the coop and went back to WMCA
Speaker 2: with that good guy stuff and all that. And you know,
Speaker 2: because I was reading sixteen magazine when Glorias S. Davers
Speaker 2: jumped in, you could kind of track Dick beyond you DJ.
Speaker 2: You could hear about b Milcha Reid and the good guys.
Speaker 2: I regret I never heard this guy that my New
Speaker 2: York friends that have all moved here told me, Boy
Speaker 2: you had really did? Was his name Dan Ingram?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Of course was he good?
Speaker 1: He was good? But you have to know that it
Speaker 1: was really a superstar lineup on WAB Scott Scott Muni's No.
Speaker 1: It went from dann Ingrams in the morning. Suddenly I
Speaker 1: forgot it was in the afternoon. Then came cousin Brucey,
Speaker 1: then came Scott Muni. Okay, so it was a murderer's row.
Speaker 1: There was ten ten wins in WMCA for those who
Speaker 1: were really hip, but most of the listening was done
Speaker 1: on WABC to the flip format.
Speaker 2: In the seventies, I'll tell you when things really changed
Speaker 2: this town. So car La KFWV went kind of color
Speaker 2: radio with Chuck Lord sixty they were playing the Richie
Speaker 2: Vallens people. Wink Martindale was on the channel that was
Speaker 2: rock and roll. But then Cara La, I think they
Speaker 2: were birthed in nineteen sixty, but they were actually involved
Speaker 2: putting on teen dances, and I'll use the word they
Speaker 2: had a slightly more adventurous playlist. Now they were playing
Speaker 2: deep cuts or albums.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: KIFWB, I think was really pretty rotation oriented. Top forty.
Speaker 2: You heard a lot of the same records over and over.
Speaker 2: But Caro La had hit bound stuff or just sneak peets.
Speaker 2: It Peaks. Something was happening there, but the Big Bang happened.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was April nineteen sixty five. Bill Drake decides
Speaker 2: or it gets involved with changing kh J into this
Speaker 2: top thirty outlet. And kg J had had broadcast The
Speaker 2: Lakers from like sixty one to sixty five. The Lakers
Speaker 2: when they came to town in sixty sixty one did
Speaker 2: not have a radio or a TV deal. And then
Speaker 2: Bill Drake comes to town and also on that channel
Speaker 2: was Michael of Michael Scotland Yard, Mikechael Jackson, who you
Speaker 2: probably knew, and he was like k Sea for years.
Speaker 2: He was he he had a South African accent. I
Speaker 2: don't think he was English. But all of a sudden
Speaker 2: he's kind of gone, and Chick Hern is gone, and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden we're unveiling Boss Radio, and then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden there's there's Don Steele, real Don Steele.
Speaker 2: There's Sam Riddle. There's eighteen songs being played in the
Speaker 2: hour with such fluidity and copper tone ads and teen
Speaker 2: dances and no interviews that and you're thirteen, fourteen years old.
Speaker 2: Kg J was sort of like the Sea Party because
Speaker 2: it had great black I mean, there were billboards of
Speaker 2: the original jocks. That's what they look like. It was
Speaker 2: like always six white guys were like pompadours, but the
Speaker 2: music and they also kh Jane Carrolla did this. Dick
Speaker 2: Mortland was the program director there. They had an alliance
Speaker 2: with the regional music. They were in bed with them,
Speaker 2: maybe promoting shows or doing exclusives, or people from gold
Speaker 2: Star Recording Studios who were running up there with acetates
Speaker 2: of a morning session of Sunny and chare to break
Speaker 2: it worldwide or have the first debut. And so you
Speaker 2: were surrounded by carle KFWB. I of course had two
Speaker 2: transistor radios on my bike. It was a schwin stingray.
Speaker 2: I'd want an each dial, but I didn't have a
Speaker 2: third radio to go hear KGFJ or KD or the
Speaker 2: R and B stuff. So that's what I listened to
Speaker 2: late at night. And then around sixty five or sixty six,
Speaker 2: Wolfman Jack arrives through XCRB. That's a border radio thing,
Speaker 2: but I had fifty thousand watts from chew La Vista,
Speaker 2: San Diego area. He was playing different music than everybody.
Speaker 2: Plus it was a shtick when there was howling and
Speaker 2: nobody had headphones. You were just trapped by this stuff.
Speaker 1: But you know it was not.
Speaker 2: It just felt that they were our guides or they
Speaker 2: got us through our homework. And then, of course you
Speaker 2: always had the Dodgers, and then the Angels had come
Speaker 2: to town in nineteen sixty one. And also it's an era
Speaker 2: in the sixties. And when I bring this up, New
Speaker 2: Yorkers just shake their heads and go, you're right. What
Speaker 2: happens is the Lakers come to town in sixty the
Speaker 2: Dodgers come to town in nineteen fifty eight. UCLA wins
Speaker 2: their first ten championships of twelve starting in the sixty
Speaker 2: two to sixty three seasons. The Rams are here, The
Speaker 2: Olympic Auditorium is buzzing. We're watching teams like the Lakers
Speaker 2: play the Boston Celtics and the finals. And even though
Speaker 2: you don't only see one game a week on television,
Speaker 2: LA is getting all this attention that used to be
Speaker 2: pretty New York and East Coast centric. And then the
Speaker 2: whole enchilada busted open. The Dodgers win the championship in
Speaker 2: fifty nine against the Chicago White Sox. It just brings
Speaker 2: media attention. When you're a local team, and they're playing
Speaker 2: rock and roll songs at rallies and all that. But
Speaker 2: in sixty three the Dodgers swept the Yankees in the
Speaker 2: World Series, and all of a sudden, LA is really
Speaker 2: under the microscope. So I think all kinds of disc
Speaker 2: jockeys then start transferring here, relocating. There's English accents, there's
Speaker 2: Lord Tim and Tommy Vance. There's like British people on
Speaker 2: the radio. What do you mean Sam Riddle has gone
Speaker 2: to another station? B Mitchell Reid is, Where's he? After
Speaker 2: kV BB, he goes on to KPBCEE. All of a sudden,
Speaker 2: there's so many new outlets and voices. I lost track
Speaker 2: of some of this stuff, but I was in and
Speaker 2: with it. It was you know, it was it was deep.
Speaker 1: Okay, certainly I lived through this era California was everything?
Speaker 1: Was this just your environment or did you feel that
Speaker 1: it was all happening around you?
Speaker 2: I knew one thing I had advantage over some people.
Speaker 2: I think because my parents moved here from Chicago in
Speaker 2: nineteen forty seven. They're from the Midwest. I met New
Speaker 2: Yorkers and people from Chicago or relatives coming from out
Speaker 2: of town. I knew there was other worlds out there,
Speaker 2: But I knew what the power of this music. I mean,
Speaker 2: I met you maybe in two thousand and four. Didn't
Speaker 2: you tell me the Beach Boys were one of the
Speaker 2: reasons you moved here.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say one of the reasons. I would say
Speaker 1: the reason.
Speaker 2: I remember you telling me, and you weren't hiding your
Speaker 2: loyalty and devotion to them. And I also know you're
Speaker 2: one of those guys who obviously probably went to law
Speaker 2: school here instead of the deal back east, and then
Speaker 2: you move out here to make a living or something. Right,
Speaker 2: Did you go to law school out here?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? Okay.
Speaker 2: So the thing is, you were so proud of the
Speaker 2: magnetic pool of I get around and stuff. I remember
Speaker 2: that conversation, you know, because you were just so upfront
Speaker 2: of what the pool of that music did to you.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know it would start that kind of migration,
Speaker 2: but I just knew something was happening. And I can't
Speaker 2: avoid this. But you also need to know this a
Speaker 2: slight backstory. From nineteen sixty two to nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 2: my mother worked for Columbia Pictures in Gower Gulch as
Speaker 2: a secretary stenographer, but in sixty five to sixty eight.
Speaker 2: She worked for Raybert Productions.
Speaker 1: Wow, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: Well, if I ever got a chance to write some
Speaker 2: winer notes on Monkeys' albums, I'd roll that all out.
Speaker 2: But you know, I asked a couple times and somebody said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, you don't really know the monkeys. I said, okay,
Speaker 2: I just did write a Monkey's Book of five hundred
Speaker 2: pages with my brother Kenneth, Gary Strobel and Henry Doltson's photograph.
Speaker 2: So I met sixty seven. So my mother worked for
Speaker 2: Raybert Productions. I was at the Monkey's press conference, and
Speaker 2: she also typed some of the scripts. I'm at the
Speaker 2: two press conferences, and sixty five sixty six. Really I'm
Speaker 2: at the preview house with my family seeing the pilot,
Speaker 2: which wasn't very funny. They had to recut it and
Speaker 2: do some dances. But you know, I'm meeting people sixty six,
Speaker 2: sixty seven, sixty eight in the commissary. And remember I
Speaker 2: had an after school job in junior high and especially
Speaker 2: high school, so I couldn't go every day and hang out.
Speaker 2: I even couldn't go weekly. But I it was also
Speaker 2: about one hundred yards from Wallax Music City. So my
Speaker 2: deal was I'm going to Wallax Music City. Then I'm
Speaker 2: doing a four hour hang to watch a few episodes
Speaker 2: or an episode, and then three weeks later maybe something.
Speaker 2: But you're running into Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson pre
Speaker 2: easy writer, Hey kid, how you doing? Have a milkshake?
Speaker 2: In the It was I can't even call it a commissary,
Speaker 2: it was a canteen. And I can't say I remain
Speaker 2: friends with them, but for decades I say, kid, hey,
Speaker 2: hell does s I mean you?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: It was just fascinating watching the phonetic energy of the monkeys.
Speaker 2: And I also got to peek in or bring some
Speaker 2: sheet music up the RCA studio where they recorded right
Speaker 2: adjacent to Walllex Music City. I didn't know all the specifics,
Speaker 2: but it was just great to kind of not learn
Speaker 2: about the business, but to hold an acetate or could
Speaker 2: you use the Xerox machine for the sheet music of
Speaker 2: I'm a Believer. All this stuff is happening, which is
Speaker 2: why the monkeys, especially turn up the radio and you
Speaker 2: name it. They're prominently displayed in my adventures. I just
Speaker 2: thought the music was fantastic, and then you get to
Speaker 2: meet Paul Williams a songwriter, or Harry Nilsen maybe he
Speaker 2: was still working at the bank. I'm not sure, but
Speaker 2: you get to meet these people because I didn't do
Speaker 2: the math, but I know there were all kinds of
Speaker 2: people involved in these records. It just wasn't like I
Speaker 2: thought the Beatles did it all with mel Evans turning
Speaker 2: the drum set around. So it was very important hanging
Speaker 2: out beyond the monkeys, being able to say hello to
Speaker 2: Kerry Grant and this kind of stuff. I wasn't starstrupp.
Speaker 2: I didn't ask for autographs, but I just felt I
Speaker 2: was in Hollywood when the studio system is kind of
Speaker 2: breaking up and rock and rolling soundtracks. I went to
Speaker 2: the head premiere. I remember that Elliot Mintz was there too,
Speaker 2: broadcasting or something. But it was just it was what
Speaker 2: we did. Plus everything was so collaborative. Then people from
Speaker 2: other studios would send you a soundtrack of the sound
Speaker 2: of music or something like that. Everybody seemed to be
Speaker 2: in this game. There seemed to be about three hundred
Speaker 2: people in the trip instead of three thousand or thirty
Speaker 2: thousand or three hundred thousand like now Small World. A
Speaker 2: lot of gnashing together and there weren't a lot of
Speaker 2: twenty four hour restaurants. There was the Hollywood Ranch Market,
Speaker 2: which was our savior, where you could get oh god,
Speaker 2: Jan Henderson used to eat chicken gizzards there that I
Speaker 2: couldn't do that. I like the turkey leg stuff. But
Speaker 2: you'd go there after rock and roll concerts, like at
Speaker 2: the Kaleidoscope, which was our short lived kind of Fillmore
Speaker 2: East and sixty seven to sixty eight. It's all there,
Speaker 2: and then you'd hitch hik homb nobody had a car.
Speaker 2: Everybody was cool. It was just wonderful. And then, thank god,
Speaker 2: things like age restrictions started lifting. I could go to
Speaker 2: the Whiskey Go Go in nineteen sixty seven or sixty eight.
Speaker 2: Really it was eighteen instead of twenty one. I didn't
Speaker 2: drink liquor, and I also looked fourteen. I think I
Speaker 2: was the only person at Fairfax Hi without a fake ID.
Speaker 2: My mother said, no smoking, no fake ID, no beer drinking.
Speaker 2: I said, okay, I'm with it. I think I told
Speaker 2: her I smoked pot in nineteen sixty nine, and you're
Speaker 2: allowed to do it once.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're in high school, your mother's working for ray Bert,
Speaker 1: you go to Wallack's Music City. Has music taken over
Speaker 1: your life? Or you know, are you a regular high
Speaker 1: school student and this is just your interest and are
Speaker 1: you going to shows?
Speaker 2: At this point, I was a little bit possessed, but
Speaker 2: I wasn't obsessed because I had a twenty hour a
Speaker 2: week after school job Monday, Wednesday and Friday at Clinton
Speaker 2: laboratories like Lebryan and Pico. So I was diligent that
Speaker 2: I had to go to high school and have this job,
Speaker 2: but I had income for shows and records. I had
Speaker 2: sixty had eighty dollars. I could go to the Frigate
Speaker 2: Record store on Third and Crescent Heights, and then friends
Speaker 2: of mine that had a car would occasionally take me
Speaker 2: down to downtown La almost Watts to Dolphins of Hollywood
Speaker 2: record store or Flash Records, and they had all this
Speaker 2: interesting what we now call ll R and B and
Speaker 2: soul music. I was going to two concerts or clubs
Speaker 2: a week from sixty five to seventy to eighty twice
Speaker 2: a week concerts. They were affordable three dollars and fifty cents.
Speaker 2: I went to six of the thirteen Shrine Exhibition Hall
Speaker 2: concerts that Pinnacle Productions put on sixty late sixty seven
Speaker 2: to sixty eight into early sixty nine maybe, and you
Speaker 2: spent three and a half dollars. The girl gave you
Speaker 2: change out of the cigar box, and you'd walk in
Speaker 2: there and another grover hand you a piece of bazooka bubblegum.
Speaker 2: You'd see the Vanilla five, you'd see Richie Havens. So,
Speaker 2: but I also was going to baseball games and sporting events.
Speaker 2: So I had the budget for maybe two concerts or
Speaker 2: club things, and maybe a sports event. But I should
Speaker 2: also say three hundred yards from Fairfax High which was
Speaker 2: on Melrows and Fairfax was the Ashgrove Club, So that
Speaker 2: was sometimes two dollars and fifty cents plus. We had
Speaker 2: hip school teachers for field trips. They would take us
Speaker 2: into the ash Grove and it had no there was
Speaker 2: no age limit, and you could see Muddy Waters, you
Speaker 2: could see Albert King, you could say hello to them.
Speaker 2: It was mostly folk and blues stuff. Occasionally there was
Speaker 2: a rock deck. I saw Taj Mahall with Jesse Davis
Speaker 2: in sixty eight or nine. But that was quite an education.
Speaker 2: I mean, I never knew there was an ethno musicology
Speaker 2: department at UCLA. I probably had have majored in it.
Speaker 2: I never even thought about those things, but it was
Speaker 2: certainly in my dna. I didn't want to be in
Speaker 2: a band. I was in a band for three weeks
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty five as a drummer and a surf
Speaker 2: group called the Riptides. It just didn't work out. The
Speaker 2: guitar player had a big ego or something. I said,
Speaker 2: I'll just be a librarian and a collector and groove
Speaker 2: on the music in the back of my mind. A
Speaker 2: couple of girls of email me recently and said, why
Speaker 2: didn't you ever become the DG that we wanted.
Speaker 1: You to be?
Speaker 2: And I said, I didn't know the right people. I
Speaker 2: didn't even have the funds for audition tapes. I didn't
Speaker 2: know anything. But here I am now, so thank you.
Speaker 1: Okay, how did you end up going to San Diego
Speaker 1: for school? And for those of us who live in
Speaker 1: southern California, it's really a different mentality, even though it's
Speaker 1: not that far away.
Speaker 2: There was one requirement regarding college. Harvey Kubernick, with a
Speaker 2: two point one GPA, with the Vietnam War raging on,
Speaker 2: has to make a decision, Oh, I can get a
Speaker 2: student to ferm it. If I go to West La
Speaker 2: Junior College or LACC. I went to both. Okay, you
Speaker 2: can go to school for six dollars and fifty cents.
Speaker 2: And if I go to West La College, I'm five
Speaker 2: miles away from the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium and there's concerts.
Speaker 2: But it meant a lot to me up to it's important.
Speaker 2: I remember when they were building West La College and
Speaker 2: I walked in there and I said, I want to
Speaker 2: go here when you're finished. Well, all you have to
Speaker 2: do is I have a two point OGPA or be
Speaker 2: age eighteen and you can enroll. And I said, well,
Speaker 2: I want to enroll right now. But it was just
Speaker 2: about six bungalows and I said, I want to go here,
Speaker 2: but also I need to find a job. I need
Speaker 2: to go see concerts and buy records. Well, they're building
Speaker 2: a library over here. Why don't you go talk to
Speaker 2: the construction site. I walked in there and said, I'm
Speaker 2: going to go to this school. I want to work
Speaker 2: at this library. And they said, we're actually looking for
Speaker 2: a student for the library. Would you like a job.
Speaker 2: Myself and my friend Bob Sherman from Fairfax High each
Speaker 2: got fifteen or twenty hour jobs, so you can go
Speaker 2: to class, go to the library. But I was like
Speaker 2: stocking shelf. But I was making sure Downbeat rolling Stone
Speaker 2: Ebony ramparts were stocked in the magazine section. And then
Speaker 2: i'm I have a student afirment. I graduate with an
Speaker 2: AA degree. Well, you got to go to college, you
Speaker 2: got to finish up what There was one requirement. I
Speaker 2: had to find a school where I could still hear
Speaker 2: KOs FM or the FM radio or some of the
Speaker 2: AM radio stations at night. San Diego was one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty miles and some of the you could still
Speaker 2: pick up some of the radio stations. And I followed
Speaker 2: the San Diego State football team, and I said, you know,
Speaker 2: just maybe I should go down to San Diego. I
Speaker 2: have a surfboard. I could have gone to Valley State.
Speaker 2: You could even have gone to UCLA. They welcomed you then.
Speaker 2: So I went to San Diego State. It was a
Speaker 2: fantastic path horrible experience because every weekend I would hitchhike
Speaker 2: back or if I got a car or something, and
Speaker 2: come back home Friday afternoon till Sunday night. It just
Speaker 2: wasn't working for me. But I graduated. That's how I
Speaker 2: ended up in San Diego, and I would listen to
Speaker 2: kpe HE or IFM and see some great concerts down there,
Speaker 2: because luckily I didn't know the routing of rock and
Speaker 2: roll then that if you played in Santa Monica or
Speaker 2: the Fabulous Forum, you would include a San Diego date.
Speaker 2: So I got to see traffic at Fairport Convention in
Speaker 2: Mose Allison at Funky Quarters, or Mark Allman on the
Speaker 2: campus at San Diego State. It made my world operational.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you graduate from college, then what.
Speaker 2: Well. I got a degree in health, literature and sociology,
Speaker 2: some cock and Amy experimental thing which was sort of
Speaker 2: evolved out of the Hero experiment or something. You could
Speaker 2: pick three upper division things and it's your own major.
Speaker 2: And I said, okay, I wanted I was. My major
Speaker 2: was library science, but I didn't get accepted to the
Speaker 2: library science program, so they said, why don't you be
Speaker 2: a special major. It's going to be the hip thing
Speaker 2: in the future. I think it was discontinued after a
Speaker 2: year and a half. So I have this degree in
Speaker 2: sociology and health and literature, and I thought, well, maybe
Speaker 2: I'll think about being a probation officer or something. Maybe
Speaker 2: I'll do something like that. I didn't want to be
Speaker 2: a teacher. There was always this little thing in the
Speaker 2: back of my mind. I didn't even know what a
Speaker 2: record label really was until seventy one. Maybe I'll do
Speaker 2: this and it'll lead to something else. Well what happened
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy two, under the direction of doctor James L.
Speaker 1: Wheeler.
Speaker 2: He started I was almost like the teaching assistant who
Speaker 2: I was. I helped build the curriculum. I had a
Speaker 2: conversation with him and I said, this rock and roll.
Speaker 2: He was a Dylan fanatic and a lyric freak. I said,
Speaker 2: we dialogue. He said, let's start an upper division, fully
Speaker 2: accredited rock and roll literature class for full credits. And
Speaker 2: the paperwork was done and all that, and all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, Okay, it's been sanctioned. A story ran in
Speaker 2: Billboard on it. All of a sudden, Okay, what are
Speaker 2: we gonna do? Well, may invite Iggy Pop or Danny Sugarman,
Speaker 2: who knew some of the doors, or Carolyn Hester who
Speaker 2: records out. I picked her up at a Greyhound station.
Speaker 2: I remember that Sharon Lawrence, who worked with Al Cooper
Speaker 2: Sounds at the South label and Elton John for many years.
Speaker 2: People in the industry I would like they would find
Speaker 2: us initially, but the game changer was a guy named Grayland,
Speaker 2: landed at RCA Records at seventy two, called me in
Speaker 2: the dorm at Sarah Hall. I was probably listening to
Speaker 2: the doors and said, I'm very I went to USC.
Speaker 2: I'm very proud of what you're doing. On the seriousness
Speaker 2: of what you're doing. You have a librarian aspect, and
Speaker 2: you know you're looking at this the future of the
Speaker 2: music being preserved. We're going to start doing a series
Speaker 2: of monthly students and people being involved in seminars at
Speaker 2: RCA studio. Why don't you come. There's also tuna sandwich
Speaker 2: lunches on Saturday, and you go there and this I
Speaker 2: mean you'll like the irony. Of course, there are no accidents.
Speaker 2: As Andrew lou Goldham says, I walk in there and
Speaker 2: there's Henry Mancini, who I practiced. Leland lived at the
Speaker 2: rc studio. Must have done twenty albums for the label. Harvey,
Speaker 2: this is Henry Mancini. Hello, Henry, call me hand. Are
Speaker 2: you a musician? Not really, he said, we'll stick around.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be here and jose Felisano's gonna come
Speaker 2: by next month. You mean you could fucking meet these people?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: But it was it showed me I should be involved.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be maybe a writer. I didn't want
Speaker 2: to be a music critic. I didn't want to write
Speaker 2: record reviews. I wanted to see how the music was made.
Speaker 2: And instead of focusing on the lead singer or the
Speaker 2: pretty girl in a band, I'd seek out the engineer
Speaker 2: in the back room people. I inherit because I learned
Speaker 2: that from my mother watching her type monkey scripts. She
Speaker 2: also typed monkey scripts for Banyan, a TV show. Robert Forrester,
Speaker 2: I said, there's a lot of people involved. Since everybody
Speaker 2: wants to talk to those same people, I'm going to
Speaker 2: go into areas where the people are always sitting alone
Speaker 2: or nobody wants to talk to them. It's like talking
Speaker 2: to the eighth laker off the bench instead of the stars.
Speaker 2: So the RC seminars were very important, and I said,
Speaker 2: I think I can do some writing. I know I
Speaker 2: can talk to people. And it all kind of started there.
Speaker 2: Then I have to tell you in nineteen seventy four, February,
Speaker 2: I go to see Bob Dylan and the Band at
Speaker 2: the Forum. Bob Sherman's with me. We are seated next
Speaker 2: to Henry Mancini. I don't think Chris Man singing at
Speaker 2: the show. Hi, mister Mancini called me, Hank, I met you, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and but would have. And I said, you know, I
Speaker 2: want to say something to you. I mean, never see
Speaker 2: you again anytime I see you do. Some of these
Speaker 2: interviews in Life magazine or Downbeat, you talk about how
Speaker 2: you love the group Cream and some of this music.
Speaker 2: You're the only guy over forty that doesn't say weird
Speaker 2: stuff about long haired people. You like rock. He said, well,
Speaker 2: I got my kids tickets for the Monoli Pop Festival.
Speaker 2: You were there. I got them tickets and I said wow.
Speaker 2: And he said do you like classical music? And I said,
Speaker 2: oh no, I don't do that. He said, well why not?
Speaker 2: I said, I think part of it was in junior high.
Speaker 2: Miss Molloy used to say, young man Andre Previn used
Speaker 2: to sit where you sat are sitting. I just couldn't
Speaker 2: groove with it. And then he said, well, maybe one
Speaker 2: decade you'll get into classical music. But it was a
Speaker 2: big lens. It was a tunnel that you could go
Speaker 2: to record companies. They'd hand you albums. And then I
Speaker 2: started writing for things like the Hollywood Press fifteen dollars,
Speaker 2: thank you, Justin Pierce. Then I'd call up the La
Speaker 2: Free Press John Carpenter.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm just personally interested. What was Justin Pierce doing? Then?
Speaker 2: Justin Pierce was the amusing editor of the Hollywood Press
Speaker 2: before he went to work for Norman Winner for about
Speaker 2: eight years, and then he went to law school after that.
Speaker 2: In fact, to this day, he's serving as an advisor
Speaker 2: for me. It just I keep friends a long time.
Speaker 2: I'm still friends with four people from elementary school, three
Speaker 2: from junior high, five from high school, but nobody from
Speaker 2: San Diego State.
Speaker 1: So how do you end up getting a job as
Speaker 1: an A and R guide? MCA.
Speaker 2: I don't think the world works this way anymore.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: I was writing for Melody Maker. I went to England
Speaker 2: in seventy five and said I want to write, and
Speaker 2: I was constantly hearing you can't write, you have no
Speaker 2: communication skills. I never used that energy as revenge or
Speaker 2: any of that stuff. Mother said, revenge is a wasted emotion.
Speaker 2: You can kind of do a lot of things. You
Speaker 2: know how to talk, you're fucking yenta, but you know
Speaker 2: you have to be able to put that stuff on
Speaker 2: the page. And I said, well, I never got a
Speaker 2: journalism career. I never could write for the school newspaper.
Speaker 2: I got rejected from the San Diego State Daily AZTEC.
Speaker 2: Of course, now they're sending letters asking for you know, money,
Speaker 2: with Marion Ross and Art Linkoln and all their extinct
Speaker 2: you know alumni. I'm now like listed, you know, like
Speaker 2: distinguished alumni. You weren't very helpful people. You're not getting
Speaker 2: a check. But I realized, I think I can talk
Speaker 2: to musicians, even though I can't really play an instrument.
Speaker 2: Interviewed Brian Auger for LA Free Press. Went to England
Speaker 2: in seventy five, and I said I'd like to do
Speaker 2: some articles for Melody Maker, which had a readership of
Speaker 2: a million a week. And Ray Coleman and some sequently
Speaker 2: and editor Richard Williams, who I still dialogue with, said
Speaker 2: send us some stuff. And I was writing weekly the
Speaker 2: LA column in Melody Makers seventy five to eighty one
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy into seventy seven. The phone rings, It's
Speaker 2: Denny Rosenkrantz working at MCA Records. I really like the
Speaker 2: way you've scouted bands because I went to see like
Speaker 2: the Dickies at the Whiskey wrote about it, and Derek
Speaker 2: Green from the A and M label, I think, flew
Speaker 2: in and signed them. And Danny Rosenkrantz was noticing that
Speaker 2: I was touting people before it was fashionable. I just
Speaker 2: would catch them.
Speaker 1: Come on, I.
Speaker 2: Could be a talent scout. I never knocked on a door.
Speaker 2: And he said, how would you like to work for
Speaker 2: him Records? And I said, yes, what do I do?
Speaker 2: He said, find people to sign. I said, I think
Speaker 2: I can do that. He said, well, let's give you
Speaker 2: a year to see what you can do. So kids,
Speaker 2: you used to be able to get jobs without connections,
Speaker 2: nepotism and all the cronyism and all the other stuff.
Speaker 2: This thing, honestly. I also ran into Denny at a
Speaker 2: Bob Marley and the Whalers show. I'm sorry they were
Speaker 2: called the Whalers then. I don't want any emails. I
Speaker 2: saw Denny at the Roxy. I kind of was introduced
Speaker 2: to him when Springsteen played the rox Syne at seventy five,
Speaker 2: and then we went to the I saw him at
Speaker 2: the Santa Monica Civy show Springsteen in seventy six, and
Speaker 2: I didn't really know well, but I would run into
Speaker 2: him and our mutual friend Russ Reagan at a restaurant
Speaker 2: called ting Ho which was on Hollywood in Highland, and
Speaker 2: he said said, why don't you come join the label?
Speaker 2: I said, I'm there and I did eleven and a
Speaker 2: half months there and I think I really delivered. Their
Speaker 2: history has proven me right.
Speaker 1: Oh who did you sign or what'd you do? That
Speaker 1: history has proven you were correct. Well.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy five, I met a young engineer named
Speaker 2: Jimmy Iveen and did a full page story on him
Speaker 2: and Melody Maker, and he was he wanted to be
Speaker 2: a record producer, not just an engineer, and he invited
Speaker 2: me to actually it was the Springsteen people invited me
Speaker 2: to see all the shows that the Roxy show. Jimmy
Speaker 2: was in the booth of the truck. I knew he
Speaker 2: had talent, and so in seventy eight I get a
Speaker 2: call from Jimmy Iveen and he said, I've just done
Speaker 2: the south Side Johnny album with Stephen van Zant. We
Speaker 2: thanked you on the album. I go thank you, because
Speaker 2: I was giving some initial early print to some of
Speaker 2: these people. I said, listen, he had done a Golden
Speaker 2: Earring record for MCA, and he maybe had worked on
Speaker 2: a Returner Forever record. And he said, I'm a record producer.
Speaker 2: I've just seen Tom Pitty at the bottom Line. I
Speaker 2: need to work with him. And I said, it's funny.
Speaker 2: I'm having a meeting this week with all the people
Speaker 2: at MCA because MCA has bought ABC Records, and I
Speaker 2: was doing some interesting concepts about bringing in people to
Speaker 2: write some liner notes. I did a little bit of
Speaker 2: work with John Hyatt on the Slugline album. I brought
Speaker 2: in a drummer. My friend Andy Bruce produced it. John
Speaker 2: Van Hamersfield did the front cover, and I lobbied for
Speaker 2: Jimmy to be considered to be a producer. Obviously the
Speaker 2: engineer comes with it. For Tom Pitty, who was looking
Speaker 2: actually with his manager, Tony Demicciatti's who I knew as
Speaker 2: early as nineteen seventy five when he worked for Conk
Speaker 2: Records and he'd come to town and I knew him, and
Speaker 2: I dialogue with him, and then I said to him,
Speaker 2: I went up to his house in Nichols Canyon. I said,
Speaker 2: I'd like to recommend you need to really meet and
Speaker 2: work with Jimmy Ivan. He gets a really crisp sound.
Speaker 2: Listen to the Southside Johnny Record. I flew to New
Speaker 2: York to Jimmy's apartment. I was introduced to the DJ,
Speaker 2: Carrol Miller was her name. Then I had a meeting
Speaker 2: with Jimmy at the Sunset Marquee and I was initially
Speaker 2: greeted by some of my fellow workers. Oh, Harvey, he's
Speaker 2: just an engineer, I said, But the engineers are now
Speaker 2: becoming producers too, I you know. Denny Rosenkrantz liked the idea.
Speaker 2: Tony Demitchari thought it was interesting. I never heard anything
Speaker 2: after that. I was let go by MCA at the
Speaker 2: eleven and a month mark, not just me, a big
Speaker 2: one hundred people layoff. And then three weeks later I
Speaker 2: open up Record World or cash box and I see
Speaker 2: like a signing photo of like Tom Petty MCA. Maybe
Speaker 2: Jimmy's in the photo were mentioned. Okay, that felt good.
Speaker 2: But also at MCA, because I knew Tom Petty not
Speaker 2: just from singing at clubs, I invited him to a
Speaker 2: Carl Perkins party I put together for Jet Records when
Speaker 2: I was doing some work for Jet Records and interested
Speaker 2: him to Carl Perkins and realized what a record nut
Speaker 2: he was and how much he loved Los Angeles, And
Speaker 2: I said, you know, I'm going to meet Del Shannon.
Speaker 2: I think there has to be something where the new
Speaker 2: people work with the old people.
Speaker 1: I have this I.
Speaker 2: Don't even want to say vision or idea. It wasn't
Speaker 2: like that. I love Del Shannon. I saw him at
Speaker 2: the Roxy in seventy five with the Robs backing him.
Speaker 2: He can still deliver, he can still sing. He just
Speaker 2: needs some songs and people to work with. And he
Speaker 2: still can go to the Philippines in Ireland and do
Speaker 2: all of it. And I set up a meeting at
Speaker 2: Bug Music on Hollywood to Highland with Dan Burgoye, who
Speaker 2: was Dell's manager, And there's Tom meet Dell, and that
Speaker 2: deal got put together. It came out subsequently, subsequently on
Speaker 2: Al Corey's Network Records label. By credit on the back
Speaker 2: of it is Organic Catalyst. So I think I was
Speaker 2: doing some very Oh let me tell you another thing.
Speaker 2: If it means something. The first person, Russ Reagan said
Speaker 2: to me, don't sign your friends. Okay. He had run
Speaker 2: UNI Records that became MCA Records. Don't give your friends
Speaker 2: record deals your last three weeks. But I have a
Speaker 2: friend who's in a really good band named the Nac
Speaker 2: Bruce Gary. I hang out with him. He went to
Speaker 2: taft t Hi. This band. I've just seen them at
Speaker 2: the Starwood. I've seen them in Redondo Beach, at Sweetwater
Speaker 2: In you want to hit records, I've got the group.
Speaker 2: Quit trying to sign your friends, Okay. So I kind
Speaker 2: of watched the next thing happen. But I will say
Speaker 2: Doug Figer and Bruce invited me to the My Sharona
Speaker 2: recording session ironically at MCA Whitney Studios, and I watched
Speaker 2: my showIn ar I was given a platinum album by
Speaker 2: the group for My Sharona, and I wrote about them
Speaker 2: a bit a melody maker, but I just thought hits
Speaker 2: well done. So I look back at that world of MCA,
Speaker 2: I just kind of thought, well, somebody will hire me
Speaker 2: again at record labels to do the same thing, and
Speaker 2: it just didn't quite work out, and so the writing
Speaker 2: thing became maybe the priority. So when I see Jimmy
Speaker 2: Ivy in Every three four or five years at a
Speaker 2: function or some you know, screening or something. He's always
Speaker 2: very accommodating, hugs great. I saw him at Patty Smith
Speaker 2: at the Roxy and he said, I'm really happy you're
Speaker 2: doing these books. My daughter would like to really get
Speaker 2: a copy of your Lennard Cohen books. I sent it
Speaker 2: to him at Apple, and you know I take pride
Speaker 2: in that. And I will say one thing. Until Warren
Speaker 2: Zanes put out his book on Tom Petty, which I
Speaker 2: was interviewed for, you don't really see the Harvey Kubernick
Speaker 2: small connection in the in the parade. But I will
Speaker 2: say in twenty fourteen, when I was doing Turn Up
Speaker 2: the Radio, I said to Tony Demitriotti's who I remained
Speaker 2: in contact with, will Tom write the forward.
Speaker 1: To my book?
Speaker 2: I know what shin dig and all these TV shows
Speaker 2: means to him. He said, I'll run up by Tom.
Speaker 2: Days later. Tom would love to do it, huge intro,
Speaker 2: name on the front cover, gorgeous essay. And that's meant
Speaker 2: a lot to me, because books get discovered over decades
Speaker 2: and years. I need to know you knew Tom Petty,
Speaker 2: and so the pity people start buying the book just
Speaker 2: because Tom wrote an intro in website. People we call them.
Speaker 2: So that is my connection to Tom and Jimmy and Del Shannon.
Speaker 2: And it continues today because forty years later, Dan Burgoyce
Speaker 2: calls me and said, this looks like there's a Del
Speaker 2: Shannon documentary that's going to be done. It won't be
Speaker 2: done until you're involved. And I said, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: meet my quote, I'll go on screen. He said, oh no, no,
Speaker 2: you are needed to be in production. Can you be
Speaker 2: the consulting producer and help out on the writing? I said,
Speaker 2: I'm in. So these things have paid some dividends later.
Speaker 2: But I will say my dad was a stockbroker from
Speaker 2: age forty to eighty six, and I knew that seeds
Speaker 2: and plantation sometimes take a long time to come to fruition.
Speaker 2: So that's my MCA story. I could bore you with
Speaker 2: bands I tried to sign or brought them tails up there.
Speaker 2: I thought Martha was magical. It just, you know, the
Speaker 2: company wasn't set up. I think for me and some
Speaker 2: of the things I wanted to do. I want to
Speaker 2: have Fagan and Becker write liner notes on the Jazz
Speaker 2: Impulse stuff.
Speaker 1: Did I know?
Speaker 2: I said, it makes sense. They're on ABC Records. They're
Speaker 2: jazz people. All jazz doesn't sell, Okay, it won't happen.
Speaker 2: So that's the MCA world pre ume.
Speaker 1: Okay. So prior to MCA, you're writing for Melody Maker.
Speaker 1: Is writing your only job or do you have to
Speaker 1: have a day job to support yourself?
Speaker 2: I was writing. I was writing for Crowdaddy magazine. I
Speaker 2: did a cover story in seventy six on Robbie Robertson
Speaker 2: and I went to the Last Waltz. I started writing
Speaker 2: for Sounds magazine. Anywhere there was ten, fifteen or twenty
Speaker 2: five dollars to be made. I don't I never got
Speaker 2: in Rolling Stone, that's been fifty years, not interesting, not interested.
Speaker 2: Enough money could trickle in because I think rent, and
Speaker 2: we're going back to the mid seventies might have been
Speaker 2: three hundred dollars a month or something. You could kind
Speaker 2: of live there. Plus I also want to say another thing,
Speaker 2: the luxury of nineteen seventy two to nineteen eighty of
Speaker 2: press parties. There were at least two or three a week.
Speaker 2: There was food at Chasin's, there was food at the
Speaker 2: brad Scaler. There was nash you could eat and I'd
Speaker 2: have to eat the next day, so I wasn't co
Speaker 2: dependent on fast food and stuff like that. And the
Speaker 2: RCATH went on for about a year and a half
Speaker 2: and grayland Landon, I never knew what the word mentor met.
Speaker 2: He just saw something in me that I had. Again,
Speaker 2: I'm coming from a library record collector world. But the
Speaker 2: writing was kind of run on sentences and sloppy. But
Speaker 2: he knew the information was so different. He said, one time,
Speaker 2: meet jose Feliciano. Justin and I and Pierce came to
Speaker 2: the recording session. You need to know that George Tipton,
Speaker 2: or Rick Gerard or Al Schmid or Richie Schmidt. Who
Speaker 2: are these people? They're the engineers. Make sure to meet
Speaker 2: the engineers. They're really important. Try to get their name
Speaker 2: out there. And I will say, for the first five
Speaker 2: or ten years of my journalism career, if you didn't
Speaker 2: call it career, it was just an expedition. The exception
Speaker 2: of the Jimmy ive In feature. When I would quote engineers,
Speaker 2: nine out of ten times the editors would cut the
Speaker 2: engineers out of the article. Sometimes there was word counts,
Speaker 2: space problems. They weren't sexy. I was told that, But
Speaker 2: there's no really vibe about them. I just went I
Speaker 2: went deeper into engineer stuff, and so the RC seminars
Speaker 2: were very important because you could hear god. I went
Speaker 2: to a press party there the company playback of the
Speaker 2: Elvis and Hawaii show Wow, and then Graylan, somebody from
Speaker 2: a record company, bad Mouth made a Graylan, and Graylan
Speaker 2: called me at home. He said, I'm beginning to know
Speaker 2: you. You you're not the kind of guy that would take
Speaker 2: somebody's girlfriend. I said, no, I'm just happy if there's
Speaker 2: a girl near me. And he said, I've got two
Speaker 2: tickets for you and Justin Pierce for Elvis Presley seventy two.
Speaker 2: I said wow. My parents went to Vegas to see him,
Speaker 2: and my mother said, take down that Mick Jagger poster.
Speaker 2: Elvis Presley is the most handsome devill I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: My parents love.
Speaker 2: I said, well, I saw it was Presley in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy at the Forum. I took three buses to get there,
Speaker 2: and he said, I knew you love Elvis Presley. Pick
Speaker 2: up your tickets. Don't tell anybody, but if you come
Speaker 2: around five point thirty, you'll be able to say hello
Speaker 2: to Colonel Parker. I said, really, you mean, there's like
Speaker 2: his manager, right, yeah, I wait there, the Colonel comes
Speaker 2: out of the elevator in a cane. Hello, we made
Speaker 2: him blah blah blah. He was going to the ranch market.
Speaker 2: I remember that. And every word out of Colonel was
Speaker 2: the word promotion, marketing, and merchandise. I was hearing these
Speaker 2: terms marketing and merchandise and standalone items and billboards. I
Speaker 2: didn't know what was going on, but I was grasping.
Speaker 2: There's machines behind the music people. There's teams. I knew
Speaker 2: there was William Morris, Marshall Burrell, who I knew started
Speaker 2: the rock division at William Morris and signed the Beach Boys.
Speaker 2: I knew about agents. I didn't know there were all
Speaker 2: these other people int of alignments had my mind blown
Speaker 2: in seventy two on the Elvis Show, Sam in seventy
Speaker 2: three saw five or six times and Graylon really he
Speaker 2: just helped out because as this guy was bad mouthing
Speaker 2: me comically, I should say, some of the record label
Speaker 2: publicists weren't calling me back anymore. Or I wasn't getting
Speaker 2: the I wasn't getting the records in the mail. Wow,
Speaker 2: what's going on here? But he said, let's have lunch
Speaker 2: every six months. I think you're going to be around
Speaker 2: for a while. He ever, I didn't really need that
Speaker 2: big push. Looking back, I did need that big push.
Speaker 2: It was Tim Harden. I look for a reason to believe,
Speaker 2: and he said, you got to work on the writing.
Speaker 2: But what you get out of our artists is so different.
Speaker 2: I said. He said, you know what's good about you.
Speaker 2: You don't hate disco music. I said no. He said,
Speaker 2: would you like to interview the Hughes Corporation who have
Speaker 2: a hit with Rock the Boat. Nobody will talk to
Speaker 2: them because your other rock people don't want something to
Speaker 2: do with disco. They think it's phony and mechanical. I said,
Speaker 2: I'm there and I just liked. And then I got
Speaker 2: invited to Donna Summers. Neil Bogart's people called. I went
Speaker 2: to the Donna Summers listening party where she was introduced
Speaker 2: in Beverly Hills, and then I got an assignment from
Speaker 2: melody maker Barry White was going to England. This is
Speaker 2: maybe seventy six. Do you want to meet Barry White? Yes.
Speaker 2: I didn't have a problem with women wearing spandis dance.
Speaker 2: I didn't never try to colude my Disco World is
Speaker 2: I love the thraw Vicky Sue Robinson. I love the
Speaker 2: I just liked the music because it was loud and
Speaker 2: it could bring me to studios like RCA United Sunset,
Speaker 2: and you could also talk to the engineers and the
Speaker 2: producers about well. Elvis was just in two days ago
Speaker 2: doing pre records on a you know what. PAINK Crawford
Speaker 2: was the guy's name, and engineer Leslie Crawford was his daughter.
Speaker 1: Remember that.
Speaker 2: And I go to meet Barry White. You know, there's
Speaker 2: some people you connect with and like Arry White is
Speaker 2: the closing chapter, and I turn up the radio book again.
Speaker 2: I wasn't in competition with people. I was in collaboration.
Speaker 2: That's why if you investigate my work or books. I'm
Speaker 2: a big believer in the multi voice narrative, other people
Speaker 2: coming in. I'm like John Ford with his stock company.
Speaker 2: Plus I like bringing people into the action. I realize,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm writing for Melody Maker, that's a million
Speaker 2: people a week, Crowdaddy magazine, it's really respected. There are
Speaker 2: people that are going to invest in me. I'm going
Speaker 2: to bring them into my own world and not care
Speaker 2: about fawning over somebody or meeting somebody or why does
Speaker 2: this lead to? And I met Barry White. There's some
Speaker 2: people in life where you meet and you feel you've
Speaker 2: known them your whole life. And I said, I know
Speaker 2: a lot about you Berry White. Well, what do you know?
Speaker 2: I said, Oh, I know that because I read a
Speaker 2: couple articles. I know that you were involved with Bob
Speaker 2: and Earl's Harlem Shuffle and Arranging. I know you were
Speaker 2: the drummer of Jackie Lee's do the Duck at least
Speaker 2: the road Drummer. I know that you made an album
Speaker 2: on Delphi Records and you did an amazing version of
Speaker 2: in the Ghetto. He said, let's do this interview at
Speaker 2: my home in Encino, and uh, I've got a movie
Speaker 2: theater there. He said, really? He said, do you like
Speaker 2: science fiction movies? I said, I'm the King of the
Speaker 2: Twilight Zone. He said, oh, I'm going to be playing
Speaker 2: Invaders from Mars today. Will you watch Invaders from Mars?
Speaker 2: He said, I know you dig Hillary Brook in that movie.
Speaker 2: I said, I know that movie backwards and forward. But
Speaker 2: can we do an interview for Melody Baker? After? He
Speaker 2: said yeah, but will you also come to my recording session?
Speaker 2: Can't get enough of your love at MCA, Whitney, I said, what,
Speaker 2: I don't even have to think about this stuff. I
Speaker 2: walked there and I recognize a guy named Don Peak
Speaker 2: kind of knew who he was from the Hollywood Ranch Market. Wait,
Speaker 2: that's the guy from the Hollywood Ranch Market. He's actually
Speaker 2: a guitar player. Harvey, do you know wal Wall Watson? No? Wow.
Speaker 2: I watched that session and I remember they ordered ribs
Speaker 2: in and had so much sauce on it you could
Speaker 2: like carve your initials at the back of the ribs
Speaker 2: on the sauce because Barry like Nash and it was incredible.
Speaker 2: So Barry, I was so thankful for the introduction to
Speaker 2: him and a few other hangs over ten years, because
Speaker 2: he had quote struggled for maybe ten years to cut
Speaker 2: a record under his own name, or get his work
Speaker 2: out there, or done little things for indie labels under
Speaker 2: other names. But he was Barry White. And even though
Speaker 2: my friends, oh, it's just disco music, Don Peaks said,
Speaker 2: you know, it's love music. It's not disco music.
Speaker 4: Listen to Gene Page's charts.
Speaker 2: Charts. Harvey, you think you're cool because you know the
Speaker 2: name of an engineer. You need to know about the
Speaker 2: role of the arranger, well, I know, you know Don
Speaker 2: Costa and Gordon Jenkins that Sinatra. He said, the arrangers
Speaker 2: are the secret sauce. So I kind of watched this
Speaker 2: session and I said, I'm sticking in this business. I
Speaker 2: don't know where it's gonna go. I'm going to keep
Speaker 2: writing and if nobody else wants to talk to these people,
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk to these people. Now. The disco
Speaker 2: thing dried up pretty quick and your punk rock came in.
Speaker 2: We were both at the Whiskey and seventy seven for
Speaker 2: Elvis Costello's debut and did Johnny Cougar open? No, okay,
Speaker 2: there was a local band I forgot who opened, so
Speaker 2: that was good, and I said, what can I really
Speaker 2: like this Elvis Costello. I'm aware of all that energy
Speaker 2: at Stiff Records. I have to give this guy an album.
Speaker 2: I have a feeling he really likes the International Submarine
Speaker 2: Band and stuff like that. I handed him a rare
Speaker 2: vinyl of that album, which he could never find in England.
Speaker 2: He was so thankful he ended up writing a liner
Speaker 2: notes for I think a double gram Parsons reissue on Reprise,
Speaker 2: And over the years I've got to talk to him
Speaker 2: and interviewed him for Musician magazine. So some of this
Speaker 2: journey starts not because I'm determined I'm going to do it.
Speaker 2: I often will eat the food nobody else wanted to taste.
Speaker 2: And I also wanted to bring the people, the readers.
Speaker 2: This is pre Internet. I wanted to bring the people
Speaker 2: with me. I just thought there was a little bit
Speaker 2: of obligation. Springsten talks about we're all in this together
Speaker 2: and not free until everybody's free. But I knew, because
Speaker 2: I developed a friendship with Steve van zandt going back
Speaker 2: to seventy five, that you just don't report. You have
Speaker 2: to bring people into the action and bring something different
Speaker 2: and new. And I think I do that either with
Speaker 2: other people's interviews or visuals or finding the photos. Again,
Speaker 2: it's my librarian skills that I have access to collect
Speaker 2: pictures and tune DEXes that augment the narrative that I
Speaker 2: put out there.
Speaker 1: Okay, in your fifty year career other than MCA, did
Speaker 1: you ever have to get a day job? Also, how
Speaker 1: did the economics work? The last time we discussed this,
Speaker 1: which is not recently, you were living in the San
Speaker 1: Fernando Valley. You did not own a car, you rented
Speaker 1: a car when you needed one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I started renting cars for rite off purposes and transportation.
Speaker 2: Part of that was I was either on the cusp
Speaker 2: of always getting a company car from a company or
Speaker 2: something that would fall through. So I said, well, I
Speaker 2: fix this car. In three weeks, I'm going to have
Speaker 2: a new job with the company car. And so I
Speaker 2: made myself do a lot of walking and not be
Speaker 2: car dependent. This is even pre pandemic. And I like
Speaker 2: the idea of renting a car for a weekend and
Speaker 2: then being landlocked during the week and doing the twenty
Speaker 2: hours of writing, revision editing, phone interviews. It just it
Speaker 2: was the best way to get my action out there.
Speaker 1: Okay, you talk about these jobs, potential jobs with a
Speaker 1: company car. So have you survived all these years since
Speaker 1: MCA on your writing alone or have you had to
Speaker 1: supplement it with outside income.
Speaker 2: I've had to do some outside income income streams, but
Speaker 2: ninety five percent of them are music related. For example,
Speaker 2: I started I started writing bios for record labels and bands,
Speaker 2: and I would get a fee because they liked my writing.
Speaker 2: It was music related, and I got to also veer
Speaker 2: away from the oldies music in the classic rock world.
Speaker 2: I got to new bands that grew up reading me,
Speaker 2: say hey, I have a band, will you work with us?
Speaker 2: Will you write a press release or you write a bio?
Speaker 2: Will you come to the show, And I'd say no
Speaker 2: more freebies? No, no, well you want to hire you.
Speaker 2: The world changed when the Internet arrived in the late nineties.
Speaker 2: Why did it change my old catalog from all my
Speaker 2: articles seventy three to ninety eight, all of a sudden
Speaker 2: are available, people are and all of a sudden box sets.
Speaker 2: It's post CD reissues. These all these new products are
Speaker 2: coming out of old music. But new bands would seek
Speaker 2: me out or an R consultancy. I did some of
Speaker 2: that because the MCA credit was on my resume. I'm
Speaker 2: not even in LinkedIn. I It's just people find me.
Speaker 2: Or I was still going to music or book events
Speaker 2: or still I was always on record company and film
Speaker 2: and TV lists, and a lot of the work was organic.
Speaker 2: The first book deal was in two thousand and four,
Speaker 2: thirty five hundred dollars advance. Wow, you mean a real
Speaker 2: book here, Yeah, we want to do a book with you,
Speaker 2: University of Mexico Press. We want to do a second
Speaker 2: book with you. I think I can. I could keep
Speaker 2: this going because I saw the Internet, and I saw
Speaker 2: the music that that people thought didn't have longevity maybe
Speaker 2: a decade or two. It was going to have a
Speaker 2: fifty year career. I didn't know it would turn into
Speaker 2: what it's turned into. But Russ Reagan said in the eighties,
Speaker 2: one day you'll be able to go to a concert
Speaker 2: and leave with a recording from it. And I had
Speaker 2: people like Russ Reagan and a few other people that
Speaker 2: would check in with me and said stick with it, kid.
Speaker 2: I said, well, I'm fifty years old. Now there's no
Speaker 2: book deal, but I can't get an agent. But I'm
Speaker 2: not going to be And then Patty Smith and I
Speaker 2: did an interview. She said, don't give anybody a sob story. Said, no,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to bitch. How the way things work out,
Speaker 2: it could be better. I believe I'm doing a service.
Speaker 2: I believe something is it's devotional art, and that maybe
Speaker 2: what I write might introduce five, ten, fifty, or one
Speaker 2: hundred people to the Mamas and Papas, or the music
Speaker 2: of East La or the group's spirit or God forbid,
Speaker 2: will you find out about Lauren Nero already and I
Speaker 2: realized that was happening when I would meet people. Oh
Speaker 2: my god. Me and my boyfriend bought this out by
Speaker 2: Blah Batye Black because we read it about something you
Speaker 2: did years ago. Thank you. That stuff was just it
Speaker 2: was like getting a booster shot. It's some saying. It
Speaker 2: really pushed me forward. The book started happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're in your seventies. You could die tomorrow, you
Speaker 1: could live another thirty years. How do you plan to
Speaker 1: support yourself as you continue? If you have any savings,
Speaker 1: you've inherited any money.
Speaker 2: Well, what has happened in the last twelve or fourteen years.
Speaker 2: The world of music documentaries has really happened, and I've
Speaker 2: been asked to be in them, and not just on screen,
Speaker 2: but actually production consultancy. Money comes in the mail, direct deposit.
Speaker 2: Working on documentaries all the time. You also about to
Speaker 2: sign another book deal for a book on the photographer
Speaker 2: Ed Carriff. My brother Kenneth and I did a book
Speaker 2: on Guy Webster, the photographer, and I'm currently involved in
Speaker 2: a music documentary on the history of LA recording studios
Speaker 2: with the focus on gold Star Studios, where I'm like
Speaker 2: a writer involved in the interviews, writing the questions, and
Speaker 2: co producing. These are fee based jobs. It's all working.
Speaker 2: And yes, I have a car, you know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, wait, you'll have a car. You have a
Speaker 1: car now, yeah yeah, so when did you get a car?
Speaker 2: Very recently? And it's just but the walking. I got
Speaker 2: to lose thirty five pounds over a couple of years,
Speaker 2: and I do my editing in my head walking and
Speaker 2: then I come back and it gets done. This is
Speaker 2: twenty hour a day stuff for me because I'm not
Speaker 2: a natural writer, but I somehow feel the cloud or
Speaker 2: the endorsement of many people around me that check in
Speaker 2: with me or want me to continue. And it's just really,
Speaker 2: you know, it just really feels like and my writing's
Speaker 2: getting better. That's I'm not on an oldies tour doing
Speaker 2: Medley's and fifty five minutes sets. I'm doing three hour
Speaker 2: shows now better than ever. Read what's out there? Now?
Speaker 2: I know it. But I say to myself, well, maybe
Speaker 2: I have a story coming out in Ugly Things magazine.
Speaker 2: I'm not getting paid for it, but it's a group
Speaker 2: I want people to know about Spirit Okay, But I
Speaker 2: know that my byline might generate some ads to the magazine.
Speaker 2: Like my work with Record Collector News, which I'm on
Speaker 2: retainer and I head of editorial. I know that I'm
Speaker 2: supporting outlets. It does come back to you and Da
Speaker 2: Penny Baker told me many years ago when I interviewed
Speaker 2: him for Monterey Pop Monera International Pop Book that Lou
Speaker 2: Adler and I were involved with with my brother, he said,
Speaker 2: magical thing happened. Magical things happen when you take the
Speaker 2: money off the table. He was talking about Binoie Pop
Speaker 2: becoming nonprofit. So not all the writing gigs are fee based. Endeavors.
Speaker 2: The karma and the dividends come back when somebody says
Speaker 2: I it happened. Last week an email from France just
Speaker 2: read something about the Mamas and Papa's. You danced on
Speaker 2: American Bandstand when.
Speaker 1: They were there?
Speaker 2: Yes, I was, Yes I did. We're doing a documentary
Speaker 2: for Rarte Television France and Germany on the Mamas and
Speaker 2: Papa's We fly to town. I said, what's the fee,
Speaker 2: what's the credit? I'm there. It's happening weekly and every
Speaker 2: other week the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: Okay, Harvey. One other thing we've talked about romance, But
Speaker 1: now we're the public. You know, you've lived seventy odd years.
Speaker 1: What about romance in your own life?
Speaker 2: Very interesting question, I'm and I hope this asn't saden.
Speaker 2: You didn't you just lose your mother recently.
Speaker 1: Well about fifteen months ago? Whatever?
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, I am blessed to have a ninety nine
Speaker 2: year old Alta Cocker Jewish mother.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's start there. Let's just say that Harvey
Speaker 2: and Kenneth Kubernick have kind of been in al To
Speaker 2: Cocker daycare when my dad made it to ninety two
Speaker 2: and a half.
Speaker 1: He died in two thousand and your parents always stuck.
Speaker 2: Together, sixty eight years together, there's no My parents started
Speaker 2: in nineteen forty seven to nineteen fifty two owning a
Speaker 2: dry cleaner in downtown LA, where laundry was fifteen cents
Speaker 2: a pound. My dad sold encyclopedia, sold swimming pools, and
Speaker 2: at age forty he took a test to be a stockbroker.
Speaker 2: Then the thing really popped. But what I'm saying is
Speaker 2: the last few years, when you have a widowed mother
Speaker 2: at ninety three, all hands on deck. She's in great health. Still,
Speaker 2: it's a daily check in it's babysitting. You can't you know,
Speaker 2: I said. I said this to Chris Daro. I said,
Speaker 2: there's no dating this summer. My brother's going to China.
Speaker 2: I have to monitor my mother. And he said, you're
Speaker 2: so lucky. My dad made ninety eight. I said, she's
Speaker 2: my Jewish girlfriend for a while. I got it. So
Speaker 2: she's doing well until three months ago, not feeling well. Subsequently,
Speaker 2: there's been there were two hard they go, they rush
Speaker 2: her to UCLA. They go, hey, kids, here's the story.
Speaker 2: There's no word. Thread on her tires, in her heart,
Speaker 2: calcium deposits. She's all, she's ninety nine. You can do
Speaker 2: nothing and see where it goes. Or we could get
Speaker 2: her a valve. He huddled. My mother said, let's go
Speaker 2: for it. Valve operation, then complications, then pacemaker put in
Speaker 2: works fine, here are A month later, she went to
Speaker 2: Ross dress for lesson, got her hair done last week.
Speaker 2: So what has happened? All energy is to help my
Speaker 2: brother and her and be on call twenty four hours.
Speaker 2: I may sound like a small excuse, but it's the
Speaker 2: super priority.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess what I'm really asking is, I know
Speaker 1: you haven't been married. Does the nature of the work
Speaker 1: or the nature of the economics of the work make
Speaker 1: it that you never got married, you know, because we
Speaker 1: all know we sacrifice it all for rock and roll.
Speaker 1: So what's it been like for you?
Speaker 2: I really like women. I have a date I think
Speaker 2: for the Ringo concert at the Greek Theater, and maybe
Speaker 2: another woman for the Elvis Costello concert, because I tell
Speaker 2: everybody I need to have some fun in June. It's
Speaker 2: all cleared, got back up, people to monitor. My mother
Speaker 2: have to produce this stuff six weeks in advance, and
Speaker 2: no alimony, no child's support. Would people say, why are
Speaker 2: you still doing this? I saw my parents have such
Speaker 2: a strong marriage. I just kind of I saw the
Speaker 2: team work involved, what it takes. I don't know if
Speaker 2: I was capable of going there, but you know, there's
Speaker 2: opportunities out there. But right now, I never thought this
Speaker 2: avalanche of work would show up. In the last four
Speaker 2: or five years. I planned on none of this. So
Speaker 2: it's like every day. I'm sure you get these emails.
Speaker 2: If they meet you your quote. You might go to
Speaker 2: France and here it is. It's not every day, but
Speaker 2: there's a request every day. Because what's happened. People are
Speaker 2: discovering well, Vinyose outsold Mono records. People are finding my work.
Speaker 2: The funny thing about this, and I don't know if
Speaker 2: this has ever happened to you on your podcast. I
Speaker 2: got a few comical, disturbing emails saying, mister Kubernick, you're
Speaker 2: such a good writer, why do you steal other people's
Speaker 2: interviews from other places? And I didn't answer, they do
Speaker 2: not happen a second or third time. But there was
Speaker 2: a contact number, and I emailed this person who actually
Speaker 2: saw me read the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Speaker 2: in Cleveland, and I said, I don't steal anybody's stuff.
Speaker 2: You said, well, it's impossible for you to have quote
Speaker 2: Johnny Cash from nineteen seventy five. I just read something
Speaker 2: you write about Johnny Cash. I said, I did those interviews,
Speaker 2: and I was, what, No, that's not true. They're my interviews.
Speaker 2: So I had a dialogue. I had a meeting with
Speaker 2: a couple of poets, Jim Doctor, James Cushing and Harry Northup.
Speaker 2: And then I emailed a journalist you might know him,
Speaker 2: author Mark Myers from the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, fantastic guy,
Speaker 2: great author, bio books.
Speaker 1: And I said, Mark Myers, the brother and he's from Canada.
Speaker 1: Of Mike Myer.
Speaker 2: No, now this is Mark. Mark Myers just writes a
Speaker 2: lot of articles, does jazz Jazz Wax has a couple
Speaker 2: of beautiful books on the history of concerts. I said,
Speaker 2: I need to ask you a question. I'm people are
Speaker 2: I've got a bunch of emails for them. People think
Speaker 2: that I'm kyping other stuff because I go. Johnny Cash said,
Speaker 2: and blah blahah. He said, you need to claim this stuff.
Speaker 2: But I said, the narrative gets disrupted if I start writing.
Speaker 2: Johnny Cash told me in nineteen seventy interview for the
Speaker 2: now defunct Melody Maker, and he said, you're going to
Speaker 2: have to do those things because today's people, he said,
Speaker 2: you look fifty. They just assume you never knew Johnny Cash.
Speaker 2: Here you are in twenty twenty three, and you're talking
Speaker 2: about a nineteen seventy five interview. I said, I did
Speaker 2: the interview. Here it is. He's so, what has happened.
Speaker 2: I've had to put blobbidy blot told me. David Ruffin
Speaker 2: told me in a nineteen seventy six interview. Robbie Robertson
Speaker 2: explained in an Interviewer and dialogue I conducted with him.
Speaker 2: It irks me, but I'm doing that now and we're
Speaker 2: not getting those emails anymore. And I guess I might
Speaker 2: be the Bald Eagle or somebody that I was, you know,
Speaker 2: But you know, I wish somebody would say Johnny Cash
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy five, I go, yeah, nobody gave a fuck
Speaker 2: about Johnny Cash. I got him at a Christian bookseller's
Speaker 2: convention in Anaheim, and I said, to also tell you
Speaker 2: the truth, I have the same birthday as Johnny Cash.
Speaker 2: I wanted to meet and talk to Johnny Cash. I
Speaker 2: saw him twenty times over the years, and it's very
Speaker 2: deep and personal to me. So now I think people
Speaker 2: realize and these platforms like you doing this today or
Speaker 2: being on coast to coast, people realized there is a
Speaker 2: fifty year thing going on here. He really did interview
Speaker 2: these people, and it's often blues or Motown people or
Speaker 2: icons like Johnny Cash. I never knew there'd be afterlife
Speaker 2: in this stuff. Rick Rubin and I had a couple
Speaker 2: of conversations. I interviewed him for a book. I said, Rick,
Speaker 2: I was down with Johnny before you got the gig,
Speaker 2: And I said, same birthday. And he said, I'm right
Speaker 2: next to you, fellow pisces. Boom clicked. So that's not
Speaker 2: an obstacle. It's just I believe in the oral, a
Speaker 2: lot of oral history, and I'm watching some By the way,
Speaker 2: I've had some things optioned for potential development for TV shows.
Speaker 2: That's been an income stream. But because I understand Hollywood
Speaker 2: a little bit and met and studied with Ramdas, he
Speaker 2: told me, well, be here in aw book. You probably
Speaker 2: looked at it at your college. Do not get psychically
Speaker 2: addicted to outcome. So when the development person calls or
Speaker 2: the studio person calls for the zoom call about optioning,
Speaker 2: and I have a couple of people with me, I
Speaker 2: will go through it. I like the experience. I like
Speaker 2: the corn showder at the IVY. I like going through
Speaker 2: some of his stuff. Ninety eight percent of the time,
Speaker 2: it doesn't go any further than the first step. But
Speaker 2: it's income. But the thing is, I know that I'm
Speaker 2: a cinematic writer. I'm born in Hollywood overlooking the Hollywood
Speaker 2: one on one Freeway on Sunset and Alvarado. I am
Speaker 2: a child of Hollywood, and I knew it can translate
Speaker 2: to screen and we're just watching where it goes. You
Speaker 2: can't plan any things anymore. But things seem to be
Speaker 2: working out. But then again, the biggest mitzvah when and
Speaker 2: maybe you've been through this and some of your people
Speaker 2: have been through this when the doctor comes out of
Speaker 2: the meets you in the waiting room, when you got
Speaker 2: a ninety nine year old on the table twice in
Speaker 2: three weeks and says, it's looking really good. That feeling
Speaker 2: is worth ten dates with playboy bunnies.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, not only do you interview people, you maintain
Speaker 1: relationships with us with them. You talked about your relationship
Speaker 1: and interview with Barry White. Tell us about a couple more.
Speaker 2: Rule number one ask bring something to the table immediately,
Speaker 2: so you don't say the same stuff as everybody else.
Speaker 2: And maybe because I've been living out on the perimeter,
Speaker 2: like the door songs Morrison mentioned, we are stone out
Speaker 2: in the perimeter. I'm not writing on assignment most of
Speaker 2: the time for magazines. It's sort of my Bukowski training.
Speaker 2: You write it and you throw it out there and
Speaker 2: it lands. I knew him at the post office. I
Speaker 2: knew him from the mid seventies. You put it out
Speaker 2: there and see where it lands. What I like the
Speaker 2: luxury of being on staff at one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: grand year or something at a trade Sure, I would
Speaker 2: like that pressure to see if I could do it. It
Speaker 2: hasn't happened yet. The friendships, so I always knew ask
Speaker 2: a first question nobody has ever asked. It does dent?
Speaker 2: It causes a dent. I remember meeting Burton come in
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy four. I will love the guests who
Speaker 2: And I said, why don't you tell me about that
Speaker 2: television show you used to do in Canada in the
Speaker 2: sixties where you did a lot of cover versions. I said,
Speaker 2: how do you know about that? And I said, well,
Speaker 2: I just I know it's part of your history because
Speaker 2: I know people in Canada that used to watch you
Speaker 2: before you ever kind of came to the States. That
Speaker 2: kicked off a friendship that still exists fifty years later.
Speaker 2: I interviewed Raymond Zeric in nineteen seventy four at Mercury
Speaker 2: Records when he had his solo album out. I loved
Speaker 2: the doors I saw the original band. I was so
Speaker 2: excited to meet somebody in the doors I didn't ask
Speaker 2: for I never did the autograph thing until way later,
Speaker 2: and I said to Ray, you went to UCLA when
Speaker 2: the UCLA Bruins were the basketball champs. Did you play basketball?
Speaker 2: And he said did I play basketball? And I was
Speaker 2: getting my economics degree from de gaul to Paul, I
Speaker 2: played basketball, and he said, you know when the doors played,
Speaker 2: I'd always get mad when the promoter said time to
Speaker 2: play a set. I go, and Ray we go. But
Speaker 2: UCLA is on a run. But because I made a
Speaker 2: basketball impression on raymn xeric and then years later I
Speaker 2: introduced him to coach John Robert Wooden, these things get birthed. Also,
Speaker 2: This is pre I never was a tabloid guy. I'd
Speaker 2: ask questions. Okay, Bruce Botnik engineered your records, tell me
Speaker 2: about Sunset sound, tell me about the tape stock, tell
Speaker 2: me about the Sandheiser microphones. I sort of had some
Speaker 2: of that stuff that was just different than him plugging
Speaker 2: an album or having to talk about Jim dying in Paris.
Speaker 2: Every interview and these, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 2: they start referring you to people. I mean, I've listen,
Speaker 2: I've interviewed Keith Richards. You know, these things make impressions.
Speaker 2: So when you run into these people five or eight
Speaker 2: or twelve years later, they will walk across the room, Hey, mate,
Speaker 2: how's it?
Speaker 1: Do you know?
Speaker 2: That kind of stuff means a lot to me. I'm,
Speaker 2: you know, sadly as we get older, we're losing people.
Speaker 2: But then I could say, well, I'm keeping them alive
Speaker 2: in the work I'm doing. I mean, I have twenty
Speaker 2: books out, and I must be thanked. I don't know
Speaker 2: somebody's tracking this for me. I think I'm thanked in
Speaker 2: two hundred and thirty eight other books. And now there's
Speaker 2: a new little thing happening, which I'm cool with. Will
Speaker 2: you write blurbs for my first novel? Will you write
Speaker 2: a blurbunk testimony on the back cover? And I said, yes,
Speaker 2: but don't stick me in indie bookland exclusively. If Simon
Speaker 2: and Schuster kind of people show up and want me
Speaker 2: to write something on Leonard Cohen. Okay, I want to
Speaker 2: have a foot in the corporate world, and I want
Speaker 2: to have a foot with the first timer. Every week,
Speaker 2: David Kessel said, I have my first book coming out,
Speaker 2: will you give me a quote on the back cover? Yes,
Speaker 2: these things start happening, and no, I don't feel for them.
Speaker 2: And then another thing is started happening where people are
Speaker 2: asking me to write some letters of endorsement so that
Speaker 2: you go to graduate school. And I said, I couldn't
Speaker 2: get into these places myself. Why would you even ask me?
Speaker 2: But doctor James Cushing, a professor literatary English professor, said,
Speaker 2: you do these things because you never know how it
Speaker 2: will get the other person forward. I said, on probably
Speaker 2: never see the other person again, or maybe ten or
Speaker 2: twenty years. He said, don't even think about it. You
Speaker 2: are he said, don't you remember when you never had
Speaker 2: a book where you got turned down three hundred times,
Speaker 2: or record labels for a year, maybe weren't really taking
Speaker 2: your calls. Look what's going on? I said, Okay, where's
Speaker 2: the next person who needs a blurb? Here? And I
Speaker 2: know it's helping people. I'm a prices. It helps people,
Speaker 2: and I want to bring people on the ride with me.
Speaker 2: I know it sounds kind of hippyish. I'm from Hollywood,
Speaker 2: but you say I didn't have to reinvent myself in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: I didn't come to Hollywood to make it. I'm born
Speaker 2: in Hollywood. So I'm showing a real different kind of Hollywood,
Speaker 2: which is support and collaboration and maybe possibility. All I
Speaker 2: know is it's working.
Speaker 1: Okay. You introduced me to Andrew lou Goldham, you continue
Speaker 1: to have contact. How did you meet and maintain a
Speaker 1: relationship with Andrew Wow?
Speaker 2: I will say namastay grateful for his presence in my life.
Speaker 2: When I got those first Rolling Stones albums, I didn't
Speaker 2: want to be Mick Jagger or be in a band.
Speaker 2: I liked the stuff on the back cover. I never
Speaker 2: really knew they were called liner notes. I think they
Speaker 2: were called jacket information. I said, this guy, the guy,
Speaker 2: this guy is like producing. I kind of know what
Speaker 2: a record producer is. This guy the writing is like
Speaker 2: Anthony Burgess and Clockwork Orange or something. It's vibrant. I
Speaker 2: did a term paper on his liner notes on aftermath
Speaker 2: or something in high school. I know that I never
Speaker 2: thought i'd meet him.
Speaker 1: I probably could have.
Speaker 2: I went to New York when he was producing groups
Speaker 2: on RC like the Werewolves. I don't do those things.
Speaker 2: But I I thanked him on a couple of my articles,
Speaker 2: maybe made a dedication to him because his interviews were
Speaker 2: so fascinating, because he saw the big picture, and also
Speaker 2: he did something very bold. I don't think we'd see
Speaker 2: today even in England out of his own pocket. He
Speaker 2: would take ads out in like magazines like Disc and
Speaker 2: teut things like Pet Sounds when he didn't even have
Speaker 2: a piece of the action. That's really cool. So in
Speaker 2: two thousand I go to see Brian Wilson do Pet
Speaker 2: Sounds at the Hollywood Bawl. Yes, I know, Brian. Did
Speaker 2: I know I would do the liner notes in two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight for the Pet Sounds fortieth anniversary tour?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: Did I ever know? I do the liner notes for
Speaker 2: the Elvis Presley forty edition of the of the Comeback
Speaker 2: Special that was the fulfillment to graylen Land. And forty
Speaker 2: years later I wrote about Elvis Presley and got a
Speaker 2: nice check. When you do box set liner notes, that's
Speaker 2: a car Okay. I go to see Brian Wilson and
Speaker 2: I'm sitting next in a box with Henry Dilts and
Speaker 2: my friend David Wolf who who I met in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty two, who I'm seeing next week at a Johnny
Speaker 2: Rivers show. And I'm sitting there ready the lights are
Speaker 2: going down, and I'm not a backdoor Johnny guy. I'm
Speaker 2: very happy to see Brian because I'm watching this victory
Speaker 2: because I've seen Brian up and down through the sixties
Speaker 2: and the seventies, the houses I've been there. I'm happy
Speaker 2: Brian Wilson is going to do Pet Sounds with the Wonderments.
Speaker 4: And David Leaf walks by me because he's going to
Speaker 4: be there, mm hm, and I kind of casually say, hey,
Speaker 4: what's the back stage seem like, because this is the
Speaker 4: one time I'm not backstage at a Brian Wilson show
Speaker 4: that pony up and see, you know, box seats up front.
Speaker 2: And he said, oh, Lou Adler's here, and Andrew Luke
Speaker 2: Golden is here. I said what he said? Yeah, And
Speaker 2: he said that's him walking in the row in front
Speaker 2: of you to the box seat. The lights are going down,
Speaker 2: and I go to tap him on the shoulder and
Speaker 2: I said, mister Oldham, my name is Harvey Kubernick. I'm
Speaker 2: a big fan of your work. I would like to
Speaker 2: interview you. I'm so delighted to hear it because I
Speaker 2: know that you took out an ad in disc magazine
Speaker 2: worshiping Pet Sounds the way he did it for other
Speaker 2: records on occasion and he said, do you know Lou Adler?
Speaker 2: I said, not just hi, how are you? And he said,
Speaker 2: get a hold of lou Adler. I'm in town and
Speaker 2: we'll have a dialogue. I said, okay, got him on
Speaker 2: the phone past the acid test. I think we were
Speaker 2: talking about Sweet Smell of Success movies. It was all
Speaker 2: it was movies and Lulu and Donovan and you know,
Speaker 2: English stuff. And he said, okay, let's do an interview.
Speaker 2: And I did an interview with him for Discoveries magazine
Speaker 2: and then he said here's my email in Bogata, Columbia.
Speaker 2: And I said, wow, Andrew Louke Goldham, I'm dialoguing. There
Speaker 2: must be something going on. I could call it a
Speaker 2: psychic tap on the back. But also it was my
Speaker 2: reward for supporting Brian Wilson helping David Leaf on his
Speaker 2: book in nineteen seventy eight. I was seeing the rewards
Speaker 2: coming in. I didn't have an agenda. And I interviewed
Speaker 2: Andrew and he said, well, keep in touch, mate, and
Speaker 2: we just developed a correspondence. But then every six months
Speaker 2: or something i'd write something and he'd go, well done, lad,
Speaker 2: like he's the headmaster in England. I never had any
Speaker 2: of that kind of stuff. Well done lad, he said,
Speaker 2: nice one. You dropped in and he said wow. He said,
Speaker 2: I like your writing, and then he said and I said,
Speaker 2: I can't wait to read your biography Stone, and I
Speaker 2: talked to him about it, and then he called me
Speaker 2: on the phone and he said, would you come to
Speaker 2: Santa Monica for dinner? And I said, I will, but
Speaker 2: I'm going out with a girl and we have a
Speaker 2: weekend thing happening. But I'm telling her I'm going to
Speaker 2: meet Andrew lou Goldham. And he goes, if she's a
Speaker 2: cool woman, she'll understand. And she said, I don't know
Speaker 2: who he is. Did you say he worked with the
Speaker 2: Rolling Stones? Said I'll see on Young Kipper or something.
Speaker 2: And so I went to have dinner with him and
Speaker 2: he said I like your writing. I said, oh, I
Speaker 2: just don't say that because we're becoming friends. He said, no,
Speaker 2: it's choppy at times, but the information that the messages
Speaker 2: well done. I said, thank you. And then he said,
Speaker 2: I'm doing Stone too a second volume. I need a
Speaker 2: writer in town who really understands Hollywood, because, as you know,
Speaker 2: I did the Stones record sixty four to sixty seven
Speaker 2: at RCA Studios on Sunset Boulevard and he said, he said,
Speaker 2: look I could get somebody from a label or somebody
Speaker 2: who writes for Time or Newsweek, but you know where
Speaker 2: Ivar is and I know you've been in that room
Speaker 2: at RCA, I said, safe Lusiano Henry Mancini. He said,
Speaker 2: you know the studios. You need to tell me and
Speaker 2: especially the readers, what it's like to be a teenager
Speaker 2: sixty four to seventy in town and take us into
Speaker 2: the environment. And he said, by the way, don't look
Speaker 2: at the movie, become the movie. And I ended up
Speaker 2: having eight pages in his book, which I think is
Speaker 2: on Simon and Schuster. It led to some other interviews jobs,
Speaker 2: close calls. But the thing is, I am an Assigmon
Speaker 2: and Schuster book. I get a chance to tell everybody
Speaker 2: about AM radio and hearing the Stones and this pre
Speaker 2: FM radio thing. And then we became good friends, to
Speaker 2: the point he's in town and I said, I have
Speaker 2: an extra couple tickets for Ringo at the Greek. I'm
Speaker 2: going with a couple people and he said, can I
Speaker 2: come along? I said, can you come along? You can
Speaker 2: sit in the front seat. We went out out of
Speaker 2: a pizza dinner with my friend doctor Cushing and a
Speaker 2: lawn friend who I think you know from years ago.
Speaker 2: I walk in there to the Greek Theater and I go,
Speaker 2: there's Bob left Sits and there's Peter Frampton and I said,
Speaker 2: you need to beat Bob left Sits before Peter Frampton.
Speaker 2: Oh no, here's the sad part. He said, Harvey, I've
Speaker 2: already knew worked and helped Peter Frampton long before Bob
Speaker 2: left Sits. I said, well, let's meet them both, and
Speaker 2: I introduced you and then he wrote something really funny,
Speaker 2: said normally gods don't walk on earth or you had
Speaker 2: a funny riff. And then he sent me an email
Speaker 2: and it said thank you because he has manners.
Speaker 1: And then.
Speaker 2: He said your friend lefts It says coming to Bogata, Columbia.
Speaker 4: Did you go there ten years ago or yeah? And
Speaker 4: I said really, he said yeah, he's coming to town.
Speaker 4: I said, he said thank you. He said this is
Speaker 4: what we do for people. And I said, he just.
Speaker 2: Happened to be standing with this woman named Felice at
Speaker 2: the entrance. What if you weren't there? And then Andrews said,
Speaker 2: what are you going to learn? There are no accidents?
Speaker 2: And I will say he deeply. When my dad died
Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen, and I'm not complaining. Ninety two, but
Speaker 2: Andrew never met his father. Andrew's mother was pregnant from
Speaker 2: a guy, a World War two guy that was shot
Speaker 2: down in the war, so he never physically met his father.
Speaker 2: And he said, I heard your father, do I go. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was a slow eighty eight to ninety two. The
Speaker 2: VA took care of him. I'm not complaining. The name
Speaker 2: game is to keep the mother going for ten years.
Speaker 2: And he said, I want you to know something. You
Speaker 2: don't have to call me if you need help, and
Speaker 2: God forbid, don't go to some grievance counsel. I said, no,
Speaker 2: I'm not doing any of that. He said, you can
Speaker 2: find your parents or the deceased people anywhere you look
Speaker 2: if you focus on it. I said wow. And he
Speaker 2: said you're also carrying on your dad's mission. I said, well,
Speaker 2: I never became a stockbroker. He said, you're working and
Speaker 2: selling your catalog, aren't you. Yeah, there's some sink rites
Speaker 2: and all kinds of stuff coming in. He said, you
Speaker 2: are a stockbroker. And he's just he's fabulous. My brother
Speaker 2: and I when he comes to town twice a year,
Speaker 2: mandatory dinner or lunch with me and my brother. Sometimes
Speaker 2: it's just him and I. I know his family. I
Speaker 2: can't tell you the support he's given me. He just
Speaker 2: shows up at the right time with the right email,
Speaker 2: like I won't get a TV gig, And then four
Speaker 2: seconds later I check my emails, what's the next shot, kid?
Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, I'm not moaning about losing
Speaker 2: a TV writing job. I just he's right there, just
Speaker 2: his name on the screen. So that's my Andrew lou
Speaker 2: Oldhams story. It's just fantastic records he produced. And he's
Speaker 2: also taught me a bit more. He said, value your independence.
Speaker 2: I said, well, I have an internal team working with me.
Speaker 2: It never worked out where there were managers and agents
Speaker 2: and glam squads and for higher publicists supporting my scene.
Speaker 2: And he said, young man, look at the freedom you
Speaker 2: have waiting then instead of waiting for the committee to
Speaker 2: vote on everything, I go yeah. Laura Niro and I
Speaker 2: had that same conversation too. I knew her last ten
Speaker 2: years of her life, which I had a picture of
Speaker 2: her in my place.
Speaker 1: Okay, that was when you know she made a comeback
Speaker 1: album on Columbia. She wouldn't go on SNL because she
Speaker 1: wasn't happy with her appearance and she sort of faded away.
Speaker 1: How did you end up connecting with her in that
Speaker 1: period of her life?
Speaker 2: In nineteen remember, I'd always engineer when I could. I'd
Speaker 2: interview the producer or the engineer when I could. Everybody
Speaker 2: wanted the lead singer. I'll go talk to John Densmore,
Speaker 2: the drummer of the Doors. He's in the band. In
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six, I interviewed Bob Crue, who was hot
Speaker 2: on the charts. Frankie Valley Swear to God, my Eyes
Speaker 2: Adore You co writing stuff. Also had a big hit
Speaker 2: with Lady Marmalade.
Speaker 1: He co wrote it.
Speaker 2: He said, would you like to go? He said, Laura
Speaker 2: Narrow's coming to town, an old friend of mine.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah.
Speaker 2: I tried to get tickets for the Santa Monica Civic,
Speaker 2: but I wasn't going to go to a ticket broker
Speaker 2: and pay ten dollars. And he said, why don't you
Speaker 2: come with me and you'll meet Laura. I said what
Speaker 2: he said? Yeah? You know, I knew a lot of
Speaker 2: the session musicians that were on her early albums. One
Speaker 2: on Verve. I said, I'm driving let's go. Oh. I
Speaker 2: go to the Santa Manka Civic and I'm introduced to
Speaker 2: Laura Enio. Hello, and she said, what's your name, Harvey Kubernick.
Speaker 2: I have all your records and she said, and what
Speaker 2: are your parents' name? And I said, well, my father
Speaker 2: is Marshall and my mother is Hilda. And she starts
Speaker 2: giggling and she says, well my mother is named Gilda,
Speaker 2: so we can have Gilda in Hilda. And she says,
Speaker 2: I live in Danberry, Connecticut. I think that what she said.
Speaker 2: There's no internet. Then here's my phone number. You can
Speaker 2: call me. She said, we're not doing an interview. No,
Speaker 2: she said, I could tell you're different than these managers
Speaker 2: that are knocking on my door. And I had to
Speaker 2: escape from the Michi gosse of the music business. She
Speaker 2: could talk Yiddish, and I said, are you Jewish? She said,
Speaker 2: the top half is Italian, but the bottom half is Jewish.
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden I had a call
Speaker 2: with her, and then I didn't. I'd see her when
Speaker 2: she'd come to town. Mccabs. I never bothered her. I
Speaker 2: was happy for the one off. My friend Nancy Ritchant
Speaker 2: brought her a Tuna Fish Sandwich at that same Santa
Speaker 2: Monica Civic Auditorium show. Because her publishing company, I think
Speaker 2: was called Tuna Fish Music and the Laura I used
Speaker 2: to call them the Laura Girls. She was I was
Speaker 2: a first album freak, and I appreciated Eli and I
Speaker 2: liked her. I just I felt this connection with her.
Speaker 2: And then in the nineties I get a call one night, Harvey,
Speaker 2: this is Gilda's daughter. I got Laura and Nero and
Speaker 2: two friends over and she said, you don't when guy
Speaker 2: says and he's there's a girl there, you don't have
Speaker 2: to impress us. I said, listen, Laura Niro's on the phone.
Speaker 2: Why don't you guys like smoke a joint or something?
Speaker 2: And I need to talk to her, which we here
Speaker 2: are you interviewing her? No, we don't have that trip
Speaker 2: going on. We had like a three hour talk and
Speaker 2: she said, I'm trying to record. I'm looking for an
Speaker 2: independent label. I've just recorded maybe for Cypress Records. I
Speaker 2: think that was a label or was going to she'd
Speaker 2: and I said, oh, I you know, and she and
Speaker 2: she said, aren't you so lucky? You don't have agents
Speaker 2: and managers and people telling you what to do. I said, well,
Speaker 2: I'd like to have some of that, and she said, no,
Speaker 2: you're not supposed to. I said no, the advances would
Speaker 2: be so much bigger, the other jobs would be happening.
Speaker 2: I don't like rep I think myself when the money
Speaker 2: call comes in or the lawyer email, turning it over
Speaker 2: to my lawyer and then I get his bill. This
Speaker 2: stuff is depleting me. She said, you'll realize you're lucky
Speaker 2: one day. But I'm calling you for a reason.
Speaker 1: So what's that.
Speaker 2: I'm starting to record at home. I need a record
Speaker 2: label and I just need some help. And I just
Speaker 2: kind of figured you'd know some people. I said, yeah.
Speaker 2: I said, well, why don't you talk to Larry King,
Speaker 2: the main buyer, her manager, Tower Records on Sunset. He
Speaker 2: will connect you to some of the independent labels you're
Speaker 2: looking for. She said, that is so nice of you.
Speaker 2: I said what I said, I want nothing from this,
Speaker 2: but if you come to the Caves or that venue
Speaker 2: in Santa Monica. There was a theater in Santa Monica.
Speaker 2: She played my father's Yeah. She said, I'll get you
Speaker 2: in and she said, oh that's great. She said, you
Speaker 2: don't need tickets. I go oh yeah, yeah, I need
Speaker 2: a ticket or two. I'd like to take a girl.
Speaker 2: And she said, oh, no, you're coming to the sound check.
Speaker 2: I want to introduce you to my friend Maria and
Speaker 2: my girls. What she said, you're one of us, You're
Speaker 2: you are you know you're not like the New Yorkers
Speaker 2: at the record labels said no, and I would see
Speaker 2: her anytime she came to town. I brought her food. I
Speaker 2: didn't badger her, and we just had But then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, the phone start. There were no calls returned.
Speaker 2: I waited a week or two, no call, left another voicemail, HI,
Speaker 2: this is Laura. No callback. Started getting a little scared.
Speaker 2: Waited another month, no callback, and my friend Rosemary said,
Speaker 2: there's some medical shit going down here. It happens to
Speaker 2: us women. I said, okay, I'm not gonna badger call
Speaker 2: anybody at the Village voice. I'll just see how it plays,
Speaker 2: and then she left the physical planet. I thank her
Speaker 2: in my books. I know I probably had eight, ten,
Speaker 2: twelve encounters with her, but that Gilda Hilda thing, which
Speaker 2: I'm telling for the first time. I was interviewed for
Speaker 2: one book by her by a guy named Mark shipper,
Speaker 2: but it never came out. I'm not in the Michelle
Speaker 2: Court book on Laura Niro. But to this day, if
Speaker 2: there's a reissue or that double album Best Of where
Speaker 2: they finally put out that film, or e show that
Speaker 2: you went to. Somebody at Columbia knew the history and said, well,
Speaker 2: they actually called me on the phone when people used
Speaker 2: to talk to people on the phone. Hi, this is
Speaker 2: Randy Hacker, Columbia. The publicist said, Harvey, there's a Laura
Speaker 2: Narro live at Fillmore East coming out. I know you
Speaker 2: thanked her in your books and you must have known her.
Speaker 2: Can we send you in advance? And then it was
Speaker 2: groovy and then you wrote about it, and I know
Speaker 2: that show blew your fucking mind, and I kind of
Speaker 2: felt I'm carrying Laura Niro forward. There'll be ten people
Speaker 2: who may hear this. They may buy the First Songs album,
Speaker 2: they might buy Eli or secretly kids check out the
Speaker 2: record with Lebelle. I mean I know something you put her,
Speaker 2: You plant her name, and some people go down the
Speaker 2: rabbit hole. She means a lot to me. I wasn't
Speaker 2: in love with her. There was no romantic stuff. It
Speaker 2: was the poet person that I thought was right there
Speaker 2: with Bob Dylan always and but you know, she we
Speaker 2: would talk about food and stuff like that. It was
Speaker 2: it was just it was really a pleasure to talk
Speaker 2: to somebody, you know, that had kind of a New
Speaker 2: York accent too, and it was these were late night
Speaker 2: calls and my whole day would be better the next day.
Speaker 2: I used to get that when I'd hear from Raymond
Speaker 2: Zeric or Brian Wilson used to call a lot if
Speaker 2: there was you know, and they would. I always felt,
Speaker 2: this is beyond a gig. These are people that I
Speaker 2: now have fifty year relations with. This is half century stuff.
Speaker 2: And a lot of these people they're either five, ten,
Speaker 2: twelve years older than me. They're kind of leaving the planet.
Speaker 2: And I told Andrew le Goldham, you know, I guess
Speaker 2: I'm becoming the messenger. I'm going to go with that
Speaker 2: because I could either get bummed out, reinvent myself, walk
Speaker 2: away from my history, or thoroughly embrace it. And the
Speaker 2: young bands and the young punk rock people, whether it
Speaker 2: be Man's Body, whether it be a Panglobu group called Tea,
Speaker 2: they're finding me because we like a lot of the
Speaker 2: same music, and I interviewed Bert Backerak with Elvis Costello
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety for Musician magazine. Did I know there'd
Speaker 2: be an Elvis Costello Bert box set that came out
Speaker 2: a month ago? And that Bert would leave the planet
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden. When you are connected with
Speaker 2: these people, you inherit their fan clubs, their followers, or
Speaker 2: you run into them at Farmer's Market or at Musso
Speaker 2: and Franks. But I don't do social media Twitter. I'm
Speaker 2: probably going to be embracing that a bit more. But
Speaker 2: they just have the greatest things. Also, I had a
Speaker 2: friendship with Leonard Cohen Moore of an acquaintanceship with him.
Speaker 2: I did three long interviews with him in the seventies,
Speaker 2: seventy four, seventy six, seventy eight. I'd actually meet him
Speaker 2: at some restaurants. I went to both of his houses
Speaker 2: in LA When he said, I'm living in Brentwood. Do
Speaker 2: you know if there's a deli? I said yeah, And
Speaker 2: he said, I've been to Canters, I've been to the
Speaker 2: place on Sunset and Crescent Heights which just closed. Is
Speaker 2: there a deli that has smoked fish, smoked meat? I said,
Speaker 2: what is smoked meat. I said, I'm a deli guy.
Speaker 2: Won't eat tom or anything. He said, find deli and
Speaker 2: we will eat. And I took him to Jerry's or
Speaker 2: Juniors on Pico in Westwood, I think it was called Juniors,
Speaker 2: And every six months i'd get that phone call. I'd
Speaker 2: write about him. Subsequently, I'm quoted in five Leonard Cohen books,
Speaker 2: and then he just was an advice person. I will
Speaker 2: tell you this. In nineteen seventy four, I called it
Speaker 2: Columbia Records. I'd like to interview Justin Pearson. I want
Speaker 2: to interview Leonard Cohene for the Hollywood Press. Well, he's
Speaker 2: doing tenor and news that day he's playing the Troubadour.
Speaker 2: Will put you on the troubad Or guess list? What
Speaker 2: I don't have to pay? Yeah, you'll be in the
Speaker 2: rope in section. Okay, we'll try to get you the interview.
Speaker 2: You know, he's got ten interviews. Judy Painter calls back
Speaker 2: with Charlie Copeland. Leonard would love to talk to you.
Speaker 2: To gents, there's just one problem, I said, what's the problem?
Speaker 2: He said, he hasked to do a passport renewal at
Speaker 2: the Canadian Embassy. Will you join him in a limousine ride.
Speaker 2: I said, that's the problem. He said he felt he
Speaker 2: should ask first. You might be busy that afternoon. I said,
Speaker 2: we're going to the Canadian embassy with you do the interview.
Speaker 2: I had my homework down. I knew who the producers were.
Speaker 2: They said, very good, let's go to the embassy. We
Speaker 2: were bonding and I said, mister Cohn, no, the name
Speaker 2: is Leonard. Can I ask you a question. I know
Speaker 2: you have a couple of kids. I know you're thirty five,
Speaker 2: you're kind of old. You go out with a lot
Speaker 2: of women and write about them. How do you how
Speaker 2: do you get married or how do you keep a
Speaker 2: relationship going? Because what's the secret? And he turns to
Speaker 2: me and justin in the limousine riot and he says,
Speaker 2: relationships are complicated.
Speaker 1: You know we're going to leave it on that how
Speaker 1: to say relationship, by the way, as you couldn't note
Speaker 1: that wisdom. We obviously could go on for hours more,
Speaker 1: but we've come to the end of the time we have. Harvey.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you so much for doing the podcast.
Speaker 2: It's been a pure pleasure. You know, we go back
Speaker 2: a while and you know you've seen the growth of
Speaker 2: music docs. You've seen all the transitions. It's very educational
Speaker 2: reading the newsletter.
Speaker 1: But I was right.
Speaker 2: You went to law school out here, you you couldn't
Speaker 2: wait to get to the beach. True or false?
Speaker 1: No, true, I took a couple of years off before
Speaker 1: I went to law school. That's my own personal story
Speaker 1: for another time. But I will say I used to
Speaker 1: hear from Harvey. Harvey would always say, if I wrote
Speaker 1: about Linda Ronstadt, it's really Chris Darrow. Chris Darrow is
Speaker 1: the person that really, you know, there were some bubbs
Speaker 1: in the road earlier before we actually met face to face,
Speaker 1: but as you can tell by Harvey's memory, you know
Speaker 1: he's really an authority. He's dedicated his entire life to
Speaker 1: this for us, as he says, So, Harvey, thanks for
Speaker 1: doing the work.
Speaker 2: I appreciate everything. And I really have a great team
Speaker 2: of people around me now, like Chris Alpert and so
Speaker 2: many people and people like Justin Pears are still on
Speaker 2: the team, and I kind of feel we're all going
Speaker 2: toward a common cause. And I'm just delighted to do
Speaker 2: this podcast because we got to talk about music. But
Speaker 2: I will I'll end it with this When I brought
Speaker 2: up the Beach Boys to you, you weren't sheepish or apologetic.
Speaker 2: When I first met you, you raised your hand like
Speaker 2: it was a hadassa meeting or something. You don't understand.
Speaker 2: I moved here because a yeah, people all the way
Speaker 2: had Okay, that music from the West Coast, it was
Speaker 2: the music. Maybe it was the sunshine. Who knows, and
Speaker 2: you're a snow person, but you wave that flag so
Speaker 2: huge for the Beach Boys. It helped define your life.
Speaker 2: Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 1: You know you're living in California and this was before
Speaker 1: all the tax incentives, so every TV show, every movie
Speaker 1: was made in LA. There was the southern California surf sound.
Speaker 1: Let's okay, I remember one. I came to California in
Speaker 1: sixty six, but I remember coming to California in seventy
Speaker 1: three and literally crossing the line from Nevada to California
Speaker 1: in Lake Tahoe and say, it just felt different. And
Speaker 1: at this late date, it just cracks me up. With
Speaker 1: all this anti California stuff. They have no idea what
Speaker 1: they're missing to this day, Yes, real estate is expensive,
Speaker 1: yes traffic is bad, but as I would normally say,
Speaker 1: I could talk about negative things about southern California all
Speaker 1: day long, but there's nowhere I'd rather live. Every As
Speaker 1: you know, everybody in the music business has to come
Speaker 1: through at least once a year.
Speaker 2: So, by the way, I'd have a different life for
Speaker 2: career if I relocated to New York and then went
Speaker 2: to Paris. Some of those options have been on the table.
Speaker 2: Answer this one thing, because I'd like to get the
Speaker 2: question answer for me. This is Gary Strobel, who I
Speaker 2: work with. He's my archive is, he's Henry Dilton's photo library,
Speaker 2: and he's from Cicero, Illinois, one of Chicago. I said,
Speaker 2: why did you move here? And he said the monkeys
Speaker 2: were done here? And also, you have no idea what
Speaker 2: a snow day is like in school? I said, what
Speaker 2: the fuck is a snow day? He said, you can't
Speaker 2: leave the house. They you, I know what a small
Speaker 2: day is. Did they have snow days in Vermont and
Speaker 2: all that Connecticut?
Speaker 1: They absolutely had snow days. We'd turn on a transistor
Speaker 1: in Connecticut and they would list all the towns. Then
Speaker 1: my understanding was they did it via Facebook. Now, as
Speaker 1: a result of COVID, they say there may never be
Speaker 1: snow days again. However, you know, there are certain things
Speaker 1: in the East Coast. We play board games, not as
Speaker 1: big a thing here because it's rain and the snow. Okay,
Speaker 1: I like the weather here. That is not why I moved.
Speaker 1: Having said that, whenever you go somewhere else it rains
Speaker 1: one day, that's cool, then it rains another. Go, what's
Speaker 1: up with this? You know? I have people that say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: the summer in New York. Every weekend it rained. You know,
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, you make plans to go somewhere,
Speaker 1: play tenniss something outside of the summer in California, weather
Speaker 1: is not the issue. It's happening.
Speaker 2: I I'm just so glad that you like the Jan
Speaker 2: and Dene Command Performance Album.
Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait wait, we can go on about this day.
Speaker 2: That I'm glad. Listen.
Speaker 1: The Jan and Dene Command Performance Album was the first
Speaker 1: Jan and Dean album I bought, and I after that,
Speaker 1: I bought Ride the Wild Surf and other ones. But
Speaker 1: I played that so much the record turned gray and
Speaker 1: I had to use masking tape around the corners and
Speaker 1: I still have it. Man. And then you know, I
Speaker 1: heard from the guy who's now in Nashville, who promoted
Speaker 1: the concert.
Speaker 2: That were Fred Mail. Yeah, yeah, Fred Vail.
Speaker 1: Right, that was the shit. I can still hear the horns,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh dead Man's curve. Not to mention
Speaker 1: the fact, you know, when you come to LA, all
Speaker 1: these things you've been hearing forever come alive. You know,
Speaker 1: not only Pico and Support, but Elmonte Legion Stadium. Doheeny?
Speaker 1: You know, we know Dahiti, but when you know on
Speaker 1: the East Coast you have no reference Dohini. And then
Speaker 1: the beaches trestles also, you know, doheiny again. It's like
Speaker 1: it's living history. And just to close it out, what
Speaker 1: people don't realize the difference between East Coast and West Coast.
Speaker 1: Let's say East Coast and Los Angeles. In the East Coast,
Speaker 1: where you went to college? Who your parents are? Very
Speaker 1: important Los Angeles, the most important thing is what kind
Speaker 1: of car you drive. That's just phony enough for me.
Speaker 1: No one's sitting there talking about my parents, no one's
Speaker 1: asking me where I went to school. Everybody's on an
Speaker 1: even playing field. And when it comes to LA. In Hollywood,
Speaker 1: people are so narcissistic. They don't give a shit about you.
Speaker 1: They're not in your business. I can be. I feel
Speaker 1: free and this is the only place. Never mind I
Speaker 1: go on a politics whatever. People have no idea how
Speaker 1: great it is here. I mean I could testify ad
Speaker 1: infinitum and the people first and foremost. LA is a
Speaker 1: shitty tourist town. It's a lifestyle town. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not about going and say yay, go to the beach,
Speaker 1: go to the Capitol records tower. The people will leave
Speaker 1: are the people who came with dreams and just can't
Speaker 1: handle that their dreams of fame didn't happen. But as
Speaker 1: you say, if you spend the time and you feel
Speaker 1: I mean, you hear long enough, the world is not
Speaker 1: that big. You meet the right people but you but
Speaker 1: it takes a long time. But it's a lifetime thing.
Speaker 2: And I should I saw. I'll close it with this
Speaker 2: because it just ties it all in. About twenty years ago,
Speaker 2: I saw Willie Nelson at the Wiltern Theater. I was
Speaker 2: introduced to him backstage. I said, Willie, can I have
Speaker 2: a couple of minutes of your time? He said, sure, son,
Speaker 2: what do you need? I said, thank you for always
Speaker 2: mentioning Ray Price. Oh he's in my band, I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: But I also know he did your first song, you
Speaker 2: sure did, and I said, I'm and thank you for
Speaker 2: the work with Patsy Patsy Kline. He said, well, thank you,
Speaker 2: and I said, I have a music business question to
Speaker 2: ask you, and it's kind of a book business question.
Speaker 2: What do you need? Son? I said, it doesn't work
Speaker 2: on logic getting deals. There's agents. I don't know if
Speaker 2: talent is it five percent one percent? It seems like
Speaker 2: the game is kind of rigged. And he said. I said,
Speaker 2: I'm not really asking for advice or help. I just
Speaker 2: would like a little clarification because I know they ran
Speaker 2: you out of Nashville to Austin your hair bothered people.
Speaker 2: You had to be a songwriter, you had to do
Speaker 2: all kinds of things that didn't happen for you until
Speaker 2: a little later. I think that's going to happen for me.
Speaker 2: And he said, Son, Lena, tell you one thing, you
Speaker 2: have to outlast everybody.
Speaker 1: I'm that nobody, being Harvey. It's been great talking to you.
Speaker 1: Until next time. This is Bob Left Sets