THE KING OF N E W YO R K DELUXE met SEYMOUR STEIN Early last December we received a call at the Record Shop from a Gentleman who wanted to commend us on what he thought to be a ‘great looking record shop’. This, i’m delighted to say, is not necessarily a rare occurrence as we quite often have people calling up or writing to us to say what a nice time they had at the shop whist passing through town. This particular morning the caller stood out however as he was phoning from New York. The elderly (his words not mine) gentleman had just seen us on the news and wanted to get in touch to say that he liked what we had to say and wanted to encourage us on the efforts we were putting in. Perhaps I should hold have started the story there. My shop had recently appeared on the Al Jazeera TV network, you see the town where we’re based was in full swing with a civil campaign to protest the opening of a Costa Coffee franchise, not to mention providing some austerity measures to avoid decline of our high street. I had been a talking head and the bit was one of that days rolling news items. I forget what I said exactly but it must have resonated particularly as it provoked an international call of good will. Seymour Stein had picked up the hone in his New York office and given us a call. No secretary, no PA, just the vice president of Sire and Warner Bros. Records on the phone because he thought we should know that what we’re doing is important. My kind of guy. After a couple missed phone calls we finally struck up conversation and have remained in touch since, sporadically talking about Calypso records. On a recent trip to his London office (he was in the UK in part to be presented as a LIPA Companion by Paul McCartney during the Institute’s graduation ceremony) Seymour took the time out to catch up with me and talk about record shops, records, and most importantly about the people who buy them. How important to sire’s early success were independent record shops? Record shops were always important to me, even as a kid. Syd Nathan of King Records, my greatest mentor, taught me early on that it was that last sale over the counter that really mattered; not how many records you pressed, not how many records you shipped out to distributors, and not how many records the distributor put in the stores. Rough Trade in particular was very important. Thankfully, they’re still going strong. In a way they were like an auxiliary A&R department for Sire. If they heard something and liked it, or thought I’d like it, they’d put it aside for me. They would also play me the new Rough Trade releases. Good people! They were very helpful. Incredibly so! Were there any stores who might still be around who were particular early supporters of the Sire label. I know Bleecker Bob’s was around till pretty recently. I knew Bleecker Bob very well. He had a partner called Broadway Al. The original store was near the corner of Bleeker and Broadway. That’s how they got their names. Bob was pretty crazy. Unfortunately, he had a massive stroke more than 10 years ago now, and never fully recovered. I was reading an article about you in Billboard Magazine (2012) where you noted that “39 of the 41 nominees on the first ballot for induction into the
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame started their careers on indie labels.” - Do you feel that Independent record stores play a part in supporting the development or artists? Absolutely! The people who started and ran independent record labels were out in the street, and the street is where it all begins. When I was a kid it was R&B labels Atlantic, King, Chess, Imperial, VeeJay, Gee/Rama, Aladdin, Modern, Duke, Herald; Sun in the Rockabilly field; on the pop side the best indie labels were Liberty, Cadence, A&M, Kapp Era, Cameo/ Parkway, Jamie, Dore, and of course Phil Spector’s Philles label; all pioneers helping to fan the flames of what was to become Rock and Roll. It’s thanks to them that Rock and Roll still reigns supreme. In those days, just about all record shops were independent as well. And the best of them stocked all the great indie labels. The first chain store I liked was Tower, a store like no other. I can remember my first experience. I was in San Francisco riding the cable car headed for Fisherman’s Wharf. In the distance, I could see a group of people my age or younger queuing and heading in the same direction. I didn’t know what all the commotion was, so I jumped off the cable and walked over. When I saw Tower, with all those boxes stacked up, displays, and all the categories, I thought I had died and went to heaven. Russ Solomon and Tower Records: revolutionary and fucking amazing.
I guess it was Rough Trade that had the greatest effect on me though. I owe a great deal to Geoff Travis and the people in that store. One day I was in Rough Trade, and I see this guy putting records on a shelf. It was Daniel Miller. We introduced ourselves. He had just put out his first record “T.V.O.D.” and “Warm Leatherette” by The Normal. I told him I liked the record, and licensed it for the United States right there in the shop. Then I made a deal for his second record, an album by Silicon Teens. Both artists were actually Daniel himself. Several months later, early one morning I read in Melody Maker or NME that Daniel had signed a real band, Depeche Mode. I knew it had to be good, I just put on my clothes, grabbed my passport, got a taxi to the airport, and bought a ticket on the Concorde which was quite expensive. I knew if Daniel signed it they had to be great. I had a small office in Covent Garden at the time. I called them, and Paul McNally met me at the airport. We drove up to Basildon, I saw Depeche Mode play, and made a deal to sign them on the spot. Martin Mills, Geoff, Daniel, and a few others were at the forefront of the second wave of indie labels in Britain, as well as Factory in Manchester, Tony Wilson’s label. The first generation were people like Chris Blackwell at Island, Chris Wright and Terry Ellis at Chrysalis, and Richard Branson at Virgin. Before that time, there was only one real indie that could even compete with the UK majors. That was Pye Records, and they had a roster that included The Kinks, The Searchers, Donovan, and Petula Clark. When I first