RIP Seymour Stein

Rock & roll record company legend Seymour Stein has died at 90. It's kind of weird for a fan to even know a music executive's name, but as far back as I've loved The Ramones he's always been part of their story, starting with signing the band to Sire and giving them $6,400 to record their culture-shifting debut album.

One night that year [1975] Linda Stein came home from a downtown Manhattan dive raving about a new band. The bar was called CBGB and the group was the Ramones. Auditioning the band the next day, Mr. Stein was amazed if bemused by the band’s blistering take on 1960s bubble-gum rock; he later described the Ramones’ sound as the Beach Boys put through a meat grinder.

I remember some interview on an old VHS tape from 35 years ago with him being amused to tell the story of checking in with The Ramones on the first afternoon of recording and Johnny Ramone being irked they'd "only" recorded 6 songs; Stein shaking his head with wonder "...if only ALL bands worked like The Ramones...".

I can't remember a time I didn't know the name "Seymour Stein".

He also signed my SECOND favorite band to Sire, The Replacements. He quickly lost his handle on them and probably didn't have the same warm & fuzzy memories as he did with some others, but at least he did try to meet them at their own game:

On the day of the party, the band ventured to a Goodwill near Beale Street and outfitted themselves in deafeningly loud plaid suits, fat ties, and misshapen homburgs. But their label head one-upped them. “Seymour arrived in Memphis off a plane from Paris,” said producer Jim Dickinson. “He was wearing a tuxedo jacket with little Playboy bunnies all embossed over it… I don’t think he’d been asleep in a week. The first words out of his mouth were ‘Where’s the coke?’” 

AND as for his actual music bona fides, he's responsible for one of my favorite songs on Pleased to Meet Me making it onto the record:

Stein did take A&R Michael Hill and Westerberg aside to tell them the album needed another track, since it was only twenty-eight minutes long, prompting the adding of “Valentine” to the running order.

He had great ears and was colorful & fun and the perfect record man of his era.

Thanks and goodbye, Seymour.