If your life is a record, how does it track? Like vinyl, it's got a specific beginning and a definite end. How the tonearm makes its inevitable rendezvous with the label is kinda up to you! Requests?
Thanks so much, Amy! Mad props, again, to Chris for the original idea and his invite, and to Andy for prodding relentlessly to get me off my "I-don't-wannas" so gently yet so persistently!
Really enjoyed reading more about your background. We have some of the exact same 60s experiences -- the travel-sized record player, Bozo, the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, the Monkees, the Grass Roots. It all took me right back to that exciting and wonderful time. I love that Monkees button!
Thanks, Ellen....it was really fun, once I got past the initial reluctance! But, Chris's idea, and Andy's gentle prodding was all I needed, I guess, to get off my virtual butt! Yep, 'twas a magical time we grew up in, and it's for the younger gen that I love putting what I've amassed, FR&B, down for them to enjoy...today and into the future!
Fun read, Brad! I don't think I've ever heard a better description of the obsession(s) we share than this:
"I realize now that I was mesmerized by the marriage of the sound on the record to the publicity machine that seemed to accompany my favorite artists . . . I wanted to be immersed, somehow, in that machine!!"
Great! Thanks, Hugh....I was anxiously awaiting your response! I knew you'd relate!! Yeah, that's the only reason I moved to L.A. in '80. I didn't know WHAT I wanted to do there, but I knew if I was gonna be "in the record biz," I had to go to IT (and, I don't mean the clown in the storm drain)!
Along with being given a tour of the old Chaplin movie lot (home of A&M Records at the time...near the corner of Sunset and La Brea) by an employee I had somehow come to meet his acquaintance before I moved, I also got all dressed up (no later than '81, I reckon), and, after a cold-call phone appointment, walked into Scotti Bros. Records (distributed by Atlantic/WEA), and had an interview. I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT I WANTED TO DO, and he had to have sensed that, but, it was like, "just anything....something!" I had all the dreams and "I wanna"s, but really no "adult"/business way of going about it!
I figured Scotti Bros was small enough; I wouldn't seem so over-matched (as if I had gone into CBS, RCA, or Warner Bros., say). I knew Scott Baio was on the roster, and with what I grew up with (pop music and the teen mags), I felt I could be on the team that understood that, and could help make it happen. But, how the hell do I convince that guy behind the desk? I didn't know. I guess it's OK to dream, and I glad I did it. I wish, though, that I had rolled some bigger dice, and gone, say, to Warners or an A&M, just to be able to say I REALLY gave it a shot. I think, overall, I "stayed in my lane"...my comfort zone, and had fun, and did a bang-up job where I ended up!
It was great to read the deeper stories of some moments in your life that I knew about on a more surface level. And the ones that were completely new to me. It’s a bit of a condensed music memoir, with the sort of detail I’d never be able to access for my own life. I suppose I do a similar thing with EW&SL, but many of the specifics are fuzzy. I suppose I pick the less fuzzy ones to hide that fact! Maybe it’s like an onion, when I peel back the layers it makes me cry. Wait that’s the wrong metaphor. Or simile. Now that you’ve written this, you have the outline for the upcoming Brad Kyle book! You can sell it on your ‘Stack!
Thanks, Steve.....great to hear all this! Again, mad props to Chris for the original idea, and, always Andy for right proper inspiration and motivation to "tell my story." I'm rather loathe to do that ("hey, dig MY butt!"), which is why so much of FR&B is so lovingly about others' musical treks (see Stephen Michael Schwartz's incredibly revealing 20 articles, and the light-shining I so love to do on and for our Tune Tag guests!), it took a lot to get me to pull this together, but I'm glad I did!
All of which adds to why I love your output so much, because you do what I either can't, or just simply don't....share your life happenings (#1), and second, you so creatively and cleverly meld/merge your moments with songs that either meant something to you at the time, or encapsulate your events so perfectly!
I'd love to gather many of the articles on FR&B and just compile a book with those! They all kind of represent the lesser-heard side of rock history. No more needs to be written about all the billion-sellers that radio played incessantly....I think we now know everything that's worth knowing!
Who we DON'T know about (and their music) are the no less talented artists whom radio deigned NOT to give airtime to, and thus, record buyers had no idea those artists even had a record out! But, I had access to their promos; in the first week of an album release, as radio stations across the country were deciding NOT to play this or that, I was playing the grooves off MY copies! That access and knowledge (and "exposing" these brilliant artists for the first time, for many....like Stephen, and so many more) shouldn't (and, now, won't) go to waste.
As long as I'm still breathing, and can compose a cogent, lucid sentence, we'll march on!😁
That was a great walk through music history. I too miss the record chains and the interaction with radio and the disk jockeys. I grew up driving around listening to WLS in Chicago or KOMA in Oklahoma City. Great stuff.
Thanks, Daniel! It was a fun, almost Wild West feel, although we can only really see that in our rear-view! There's some fun stuff I reveal in the radio articles I linked in the piece, including having a "phone fan" I'd become friends with over the phone a few times, come and spend a couple hours in the control room with me during my shift! Couldn't do THAT these days (even in a 7-midnight shift)!
What a fantastic life restrospective. Thank you for the kind words, but this is all of your own making. I’m really glad we all get to experience a couple of highlights from your life through music. And can I just say, even when you’re talking about your life, you take the time to explain, add context and essentially provide music industry instruction to us mortals 😂 You’re a legend!
Great read, you've led a real interesting life! Is it a common thing for radio stations to be housed in hotels? WSM (home of the Grand Ole Opry) is housed in a hotel as well. Either way, reading the parts about Cactus and Music+ made me glad I got to experience places like Tower and Media Play. I doubt there will be anything like that again, but I'm glad I got to see it when they were still a thing.
Thanks, Adam......I think this was a way to stand back and appreciate (in public, I guess) the truly fascinating life I was fortunate and blessed to have lived! I think my previous reticence has stemmed from my "oh, no one's gonna care about that!" knee-jerk, as well as my general reluctance to (here, anyway) say, "Hey! Looka me!" But, thanks to readers like you, who've been so gosh-darn open and genuine in their appreciation of me, what I do/what I've done, etc, I finally felt like this all was worth putting down on paper!
And, that's the only reason I started FR&B in the first place: To create my little corner of rock history, as I've seen it, for future generations! I'm far closer to Side 2's lead-out groove than ever, and while I still have the long-term memory intact, and am still able to form a lucid sentence......well, here ya go!
As for your record store experiences.....I haven't batted this around to others, but I wonder: Do ANY new-only record stores exist, or are they all, now, requisite used-record stores, and oh, we just happen to sell some new (read: re-issues, colored vinyl re-packages, etc) records over here, as well? You definitely caught, I think, the last of a dying breed...the new-release record stores!
Excellent concept for an article (biography via soundtrack?) and execution, Brad. This has me wanting to do the same thing for myself— not necessarily to publish, or even write it, but it sounds like it'd be fun to reminisce about the music intertwined with my own personal history. If nothing else, it's an excuse to revisit some tunes that I may not have heard in a long time.
I never worked in a record store, but I did work at a Borders in Lawrence, KS, which was right down the block from Liberty Hall, one of the better music venues in the city, and an outstanding indie film theater. I'm sure it wasn't quite the same as your retail experience, but your stories about meeting Randy Rhoads and Peter Bonerz got me thinking about my own celebrity run-ins. (No offense to Rick Springfield, but I grew up a metal kid in the '80s watching Newhart reruns, so the other two hit differently for me.) I didn't have very many, but I did get to meet Saul Williams when he did a reading at the store, and the big one for me was the time Henry Rollins wandered over to look at DVDs before he played a show at Liberty Hall. I'm way taller than him, by the way, for whatever it's worth, though he had obviously spent more time in the weight room than me. Very nice guy though. About a year before we met, my now ex-wife, who also worked at the store, met the Brazilian metal band Sepultura, when they stopped in to get coffee before a show. Thirteen-year-old me would have lost his mind during that encounter, but she described them as very polite and soft-spoken. Anyway, I feel like I'm starting to ramble a bit, so let me wrap up by congratulating you again on a fantastic piece, and thanks for inspiring me to take a stroll down memory lane myself.
Thanks so much, Patrick! Mad props to Chris Bro for the original concept and personal invite! But, much like turning "Baton" into "Tune Tag," I'm a sucker for a riveting and grabbing title! Such is the positive side of OCD-Lite! So, "My Phonographic Memory" satisfies my love of wordplay (thanks, Dad!) with an attention-grabbing title.
I heartily encourage you to follow through with one of your own, even if you don't publish it! But, I would also encourage you to publish it here, without regard to your "regular" subject matter! Your readers/fans, I think, would love to discover what informed your life, musically, growing up!
I just discovered who Saul Williams is! He's been here to Austin for SXSW at least once (2008), the same year he did his "Niggy Tardust" tour....brilliant!😂
Cool story about Henry Rollins....almost seems like the most outrageous (media/publicity) an image a "star" has, the nicest and most likeable they are! That was certainly true when I met Iggy in '78, and really, all the "out-there" personalities I've had the pleasure of meeting (Dead Boys, Pistols, etc).
So, get crackin', buddy! Track us your phonographic memories!
Thanks, Linda.....you're so kind! We can add Daddy's love of wordplay, puns, and just plain sense of humor to all those promos he brought home that I'm eternally grateful for! I learned about one female singer sometime before junior high, when Dad brought this one to the dinner table: "Shall we eat aboard the yacht or Dinah Shore?"
My other humor-in-writing influences were Fran Lebowitz and Barry Hansen, and his early-'70s writings in Warner Bros. Records' weekly promo "Circulars." Sometime in the '70s, Fran once wrote, "Your right to wear a lime green leisure suit ends where it meets my eye!" She was a stand-up comedian in book form!
I'm glad there was nothing or nobody who kept me (or shamed me) from hanging up teen mag pin-ups on my bedroom wall as a 5th grader (1966 or so) thru early junior-higher! I loved listening to their music, and if my favorite artists just happened to be relatively attractive, mostly male, and have full-color pages in those mags, I'm glad I grew up enjoying their music with "them" surrounding me in my sanctuary! Later on, my winking nod to those days has led me to chuckle that I used to be a teenage girl!!😁👍I can live with that!😉
In a broader sense, I realize now that I was mesmerized by the marriage of the sound on the record to the publicity machine that seemed to accompany my favorite artists with those magazines, sometimes movies, and even TV, and hearing them on the radio! I wanted to be immersed, somehow, in that machine!!
To that end (and bringing all the above to fruition), meeting (thru FR&B) Stephen Michael Schwartz (a 1974 album on RCA Records at age 20...which I had at that time, and 19 and in radio!) and hearing his '70s/record biz/Hollywood inside scoops has been a dream come true, and his presence and 20 articles here are the backbone of FR&B, no question!
Readers, if you'd like an extension of the feel of this "My Phonographic Memory," please check out Stephen's generous outpouring of record biz anecdotes and experiences you'll hear nowhere else, with rare song demos, rare photos from his personal collection, and amazing peeks behind the record biz!
My friend, this was a gift to be able to walk down Memorex tape lane. Love it!
Thanks so much, Amy! Mad props, again, to Chris for the original idea and his invite, and to Andy for prodding relentlessly to get me off my "I-don't-wannas" so gently yet so persistently!
Really enjoyed reading more about your background. We have some of the exact same 60s experiences -- the travel-sized record player, Bozo, the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, the Monkees, the Grass Roots. It all took me right back to that exciting and wonderful time. I love that Monkees button!
Thanks, Ellen....it was really fun, once I got past the initial reluctance! But, Chris's idea, and Andy's gentle prodding was all I needed, I guess, to get off my virtual butt! Yep, 'twas a magical time we grew up in, and it's for the younger gen that I love putting what I've amassed, FR&B, down for them to enjoy...today and into the future!
Really enjoyed these highlights and reminiscences Brad!
Fun read, Brad! I don't think I've ever heard a better description of the obsession(s) we share than this:
"I realize now that I was mesmerized by the marriage of the sound on the record to the publicity machine that seemed to accompany my favorite artists . . . I wanted to be immersed, somehow, in that machine!!"
Thank you!
Great! Thanks, Hugh....I was anxiously awaiting your response! I knew you'd relate!! Yeah, that's the only reason I moved to L.A. in '80. I didn't know WHAT I wanted to do there, but I knew if I was gonna be "in the record biz," I had to go to IT (and, I don't mean the clown in the storm drain)!
Along with being given a tour of the old Chaplin movie lot (home of A&M Records at the time...near the corner of Sunset and La Brea) by an employee I had somehow come to meet his acquaintance before I moved, I also got all dressed up (no later than '81, I reckon), and, after a cold-call phone appointment, walked into Scotti Bros. Records (distributed by Atlantic/WEA), and had an interview. I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT I WANTED TO DO, and he had to have sensed that, but, it was like, "just anything....something!" I had all the dreams and "I wanna"s, but really no "adult"/business way of going about it!
I figured Scotti Bros was small enough; I wouldn't seem so over-matched (as if I had gone into CBS, RCA, or Warner Bros., say). I knew Scott Baio was on the roster, and with what I grew up with (pop music and the teen mags), I felt I could be on the team that understood that, and could help make it happen. But, how the hell do I convince that guy behind the desk? I didn't know. I guess it's OK to dream, and I glad I did it. I wish, though, that I had rolled some bigger dice, and gone, say, to Warners or an A&M, just to be able to say I REALLY gave it a shot. I think, overall, I "stayed in my lane"...my comfort zone, and had fun, and did a bang-up job where I ended up!
It was great to read the deeper stories of some moments in your life that I knew about on a more surface level. And the ones that were completely new to me. It’s a bit of a condensed music memoir, with the sort of detail I’d never be able to access for my own life. I suppose I do a similar thing with EW&SL, but many of the specifics are fuzzy. I suppose I pick the less fuzzy ones to hide that fact! Maybe it’s like an onion, when I peel back the layers it makes me cry. Wait that’s the wrong metaphor. Or simile. Now that you’ve written this, you have the outline for the upcoming Brad Kyle book! You can sell it on your ‘Stack!
Thanks, Steve.....great to hear all this! Again, mad props to Chris for the original idea, and, always Andy for right proper inspiration and motivation to "tell my story." I'm rather loathe to do that ("hey, dig MY butt!"), which is why so much of FR&B is so lovingly about others' musical treks (see Stephen Michael Schwartz's incredibly revealing 20 articles, and the light-shining I so love to do on and for our Tune Tag guests!), it took a lot to get me to pull this together, but I'm glad I did!
All of which adds to why I love your output so much, because you do what I either can't, or just simply don't....share your life happenings (#1), and second, you so creatively and cleverly meld/merge your moments with songs that either meant something to you at the time, or encapsulate your events so perfectly!
I'd love to gather many of the articles on FR&B and just compile a book with those! They all kind of represent the lesser-heard side of rock history. No more needs to be written about all the billion-sellers that radio played incessantly....I think we now know everything that's worth knowing!
Who we DON'T know about (and their music) are the no less talented artists whom radio deigned NOT to give airtime to, and thus, record buyers had no idea those artists even had a record out! But, I had access to their promos; in the first week of an album release, as radio stations across the country were deciding NOT to play this or that, I was playing the grooves off MY copies! That access and knowledge (and "exposing" these brilliant artists for the first time, for many....like Stephen, and so many more) shouldn't (and, now, won't) go to waste.
As long as I'm still breathing, and can compose a cogent, lucid sentence, we'll march on!😁
That was a great walk through music history. I too miss the record chains and the interaction with radio and the disk jockeys. I grew up driving around listening to WLS in Chicago or KOMA in Oklahoma City. Great stuff.
Thanks, Daniel! It was a fun, almost Wild West feel, although we can only really see that in our rear-view! There's some fun stuff I reveal in the radio articles I linked in the piece, including having a "phone fan" I'd become friends with over the phone a few times, come and spend a couple hours in the control room with me during my shift! Couldn't do THAT these days (even in a 7-midnight shift)!
WLS and KOMA were both two of the biggies!
What a fantastic life restrospective. Thank you for the kind words, but this is all of your own making. I’m really glad we all get to experience a couple of highlights from your life through music. And can I just say, even when you’re talking about your life, you take the time to explain, add context and essentially provide music industry instruction to us mortals 😂 You’re a legend!
Thanks, Andy....I appreciate your detailed explanation of why you like what you like! That helps moving forward! "Us mortals"😂That was good!💪😁👍
Well… had to be said, and when did you see me shy away from saying stuff? Maybe in another life. CERTAINLY not in this one 😂😂😂
Great read, you've led a real interesting life! Is it a common thing for radio stations to be housed in hotels? WSM (home of the Grand Ole Opry) is housed in a hotel as well. Either way, reading the parts about Cactus and Music+ made me glad I got to experience places like Tower and Media Play. I doubt there will be anything like that again, but I'm glad I got to see it when they were still a thing.
Thanks, Adam......I think this was a way to stand back and appreciate (in public, I guess) the truly fascinating life I was fortunate and blessed to have lived! I think my previous reticence has stemmed from my "oh, no one's gonna care about that!" knee-jerk, as well as my general reluctance to (here, anyway) say, "Hey! Looka me!" But, thanks to readers like you, who've been so gosh-darn open and genuine in their appreciation of me, what I do/what I've done, etc, I finally felt like this all was worth putting down on paper!
And, that's the only reason I started FR&B in the first place: To create my little corner of rock history, as I've seen it, for future generations! I'm far closer to Side 2's lead-out groove than ever, and while I still have the long-term memory intact, and am still able to form a lucid sentence......well, here ya go!
As for your record store experiences.....I haven't batted this around to others, but I wonder: Do ANY new-only record stores exist, or are they all, now, requisite used-record stores, and oh, we just happen to sell some new (read: re-issues, colored vinyl re-packages, etc) records over here, as well? You definitely caught, I think, the last of a dying breed...the new-release record stores!
Excellent concept for an article (biography via soundtrack?) and execution, Brad. This has me wanting to do the same thing for myself— not necessarily to publish, or even write it, but it sounds like it'd be fun to reminisce about the music intertwined with my own personal history. If nothing else, it's an excuse to revisit some tunes that I may not have heard in a long time.
I never worked in a record store, but I did work at a Borders in Lawrence, KS, which was right down the block from Liberty Hall, one of the better music venues in the city, and an outstanding indie film theater. I'm sure it wasn't quite the same as your retail experience, but your stories about meeting Randy Rhoads and Peter Bonerz got me thinking about my own celebrity run-ins. (No offense to Rick Springfield, but I grew up a metal kid in the '80s watching Newhart reruns, so the other two hit differently for me.) I didn't have very many, but I did get to meet Saul Williams when he did a reading at the store, and the big one for me was the time Henry Rollins wandered over to look at DVDs before he played a show at Liberty Hall. I'm way taller than him, by the way, for whatever it's worth, though he had obviously spent more time in the weight room than me. Very nice guy though. About a year before we met, my now ex-wife, who also worked at the store, met the Brazilian metal band Sepultura, when they stopped in to get coffee before a show. Thirteen-year-old me would have lost his mind during that encounter, but she described them as very polite and soft-spoken. Anyway, I feel like I'm starting to ramble a bit, so let me wrap up by congratulating you again on a fantastic piece, and thanks for inspiring me to take a stroll down memory lane myself.
Thanks so much, Patrick! Mad props to Chris Bro for the original concept and personal invite! But, much like turning "Baton" into "Tune Tag," I'm a sucker for a riveting and grabbing title! Such is the positive side of OCD-Lite! So, "My Phonographic Memory" satisfies my love of wordplay (thanks, Dad!) with an attention-grabbing title.
I heartily encourage you to follow through with one of your own, even if you don't publish it! But, I would also encourage you to publish it here, without regard to your "regular" subject matter! Your readers/fans, I think, would love to discover what informed your life, musically, growing up!
I just discovered who Saul Williams is! He's been here to Austin for SXSW at least once (2008), the same year he did his "Niggy Tardust" tour....brilliant!😂
Cool story about Henry Rollins....almost seems like the most outrageous (media/publicity) an image a "star" has, the nicest and most likeable they are! That was certainly true when I met Iggy in '78, and really, all the "out-there" personalities I've had the pleasure of meeting (Dead Boys, Pistols, etc).
So, get crackin', buddy! Track us your phonographic memories!
Thanks, Linda.....you're so kind! We can add Daddy's love of wordplay, puns, and just plain sense of humor to all those promos he brought home that I'm eternally grateful for! I learned about one female singer sometime before junior high, when Dad brought this one to the dinner table: "Shall we eat aboard the yacht or Dinah Shore?"
My other humor-in-writing influences were Fran Lebowitz and Barry Hansen, and his early-'70s writings in Warner Bros. Records' weekly promo "Circulars." Sometime in the '70s, Fran once wrote, "Your right to wear a lime green leisure suit ends where it meets my eye!" She was a stand-up comedian in book form!
I'm glad there was nothing or nobody who kept me (or shamed me) from hanging up teen mag pin-ups on my bedroom wall as a 5th grader (1966 or so) thru early junior-higher! I loved listening to their music, and if my favorite artists just happened to be relatively attractive, mostly male, and have full-color pages in those mags, I'm glad I grew up enjoying their music with "them" surrounding me in my sanctuary! Later on, my winking nod to those days has led me to chuckle that I used to be a teenage girl!!😁👍I can live with that!😉
In a broader sense, I realize now that I was mesmerized by the marriage of the sound on the record to the publicity machine that seemed to accompany my favorite artists with those magazines, sometimes movies, and even TV, and hearing them on the radio! I wanted to be immersed, somehow, in that machine!!
To that end (and bringing all the above to fruition), meeting (thru FR&B) Stephen Michael Schwartz (a 1974 album on RCA Records at age 20...which I had at that time, and 19 and in radio!) and hearing his '70s/record biz/Hollywood inside scoops has been a dream come true, and his presence and 20 articles here are the backbone of FR&B, no question!
Readers, if you'd like an extension of the feel of this "My Phonographic Memory," please check out Stephen's generous outpouring of record biz anecdotes and experiences you'll hear nowhere else, with rare song demos, rare photos from his personal collection, and amazing peeks behind the record biz!
https://bradkyle.substack.com/t/stephen-michael-schwartz
Thanks again, Linda! I'm so glad you "get" me, and I'm thrilled you're FRONT ROW & BACKSTAGE!