INTERVIEW
Meet the old boss With a background that included booking Led Zeppelin and compering for Madness, Paul Conroy was probably prepared for pretty much anything that his stint as UK boss of Virgin – during the label’s golden age – had to throw at him. Which was just as well...
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wice in his career Paul Conroy accepted a senior role at a famous, maverick UK record label, and twice, before he’d really mastered the photocopier, he was left thinking, What the…? The first time was at Stiff Records, in 1978, when co-founder Jake Riviera persuaded him to become General Manager. Within months, Riviera had left – his volatile relationship with business partner Dave Robinson was never going to reach any landmark anniversaries – taking Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe with him. The second time was at Virgin in 1992, when, as part of a management delegation that included Richard Branson, Simon Draper and Jon Webster, he found himself forced to play the non-speaking role of de facto Darth Vader while Luke, Han and Chewy told the rebel alliance that they’d all been sold to the evil Empire – in this production appearing under the name EMI. In both cases, however, the ominous beginnings were followed by happy and healthy stints packed with hits and adventures. Before Riviera tempted him over to recorded music, he had been a booking agent. Before that, aged 17, he’d worked with Led Zeppelin. Sort of. “I left school, with very few O-levels, having sat them quite a few times, and I went to do my A-levels at Ewell Tech in Surrey. I became the social secretary for the college and the second gig, I booked was a band called the New Yardbirds. In fact, on the Friday before the gig, their manager called and told me they’d changed their name to Led Zeppelin.”
After single-handedly breaking the biggest heavy rock act of the ‘70s, the plan was to go into teaching. But, after the first year at training college, he dropped out and became a booking agent, working first for Terry King Associates, and then, after a brief spell at Red Bus, he launched Charisma Artists, for the Charisma label, founded by Tony Stratton-Smith, who he’d actually met in his ‘pre-Zeppelin’ days. “The first band I booked as social secretary, the one before the New Yardbirds, was The Nice, on the 28th of
management and I was going to go back to university as a mature student. “Then I get a call from Jake saying, ‘Dave Robinson and I want to have lunch with you at the Newborn Cafe in Westbourne Grove.’ They offered me the job of general manager at Stiff. They’d put out about five or six singles by then, but they needed somebody organised to go in, because Jake was more interested in throwing cider bottles through the window. They needed a safe pair of hands, basically. Jake knew me, but I was very wary of Dave Robinson. I think the words ‘dodgy Irishman’ came to mind. “I accepted the job because I had so much respect for Jake, in all honesty; he was a true marketing genius. But, of course, before long he was gone. It was never going to last between him and Dave, they were chalk and cheese. We needed the glaziers on more than one occasion.” Despite feeling somewhat abandoned, Conroy soon settled into the label’s anarchic culture and similarly disorganised West London offices. He recalls: “Stiff was basically 32 Alexander Street, where we all worked out of two or three rooms. When we got bigger, we got 28 Alexander Street as well, and we had to have a thing called ‘Accounts’; can you believe that? “I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Stiff. I went with Elvis [Costello] busking through his Pignose amp, outside the Sony International convention, when it was held in London, because we wanted them to sign him for America. “That ended with me having to go and get Elvis out of West End Central’s police station [the police had been called by an anonymous caller with a distinct Irish
“Jake (Riviera) and Dave (Robinson) were chalk and cheese. We needed glaziers on more than one occasion.” September, 1968, for £150. And that was my first meeting with their manager, Tony Stratton-Smith.” It was whilst working at Charisma Artists that he started taking on a lot of the big pub rock bands of the early/mid ‘70s, including Kilburn and the High Roads, Dr Feelgood and Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers. A major player and born chancer within the scene was Riviera, who recommended Conroy manage a Southend band called The Kursaal Flyers. “I did that for a couple of years. We had Little Does She Know, which was a massive hit, we headlined at the Roundhouse (with The Clash at the bottom of the bill), and we toured with The Flying Burrito Brothers, but it was tough, and it was ultimately a bit disappointing. So, in the end I left
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