Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-10-11 21:54 by exilestones.

Quote
exilestones

If that’s SF Saturday, I’m pretty sure I’m the 32nd guy on the left.
Thanks for the BAM memories

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Munichhilton

Quote
exilestones

If that’s SF Saturday, I’m pretty sure I’m the 32nd guy on the left.
Thanks for the BAM memories

Cool shirt!

That was one of the best articles to ever come out of that local music rag, Bay Area Music (BAM for short). For years it was a give away hardly worth the price but every once in a while, BAM! (npi), they would print something monumental.

jb

I can't get enough of the reviews from back then. Really cool and nostalgic.

Tempe Was Part of The Rolling Stones' History 38 Years Ago
SERENE DOMINIC | AUGUST 22, 2019 |


Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones perform in 1981 at ASU (Arizona State University)


The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band had been at it for nearly 20 years.
They reinvented themselves without self-destructing or sliding into
irrelevancy. Let's Spend the Night Together, the 1983 concert film directed by
Hal Ashby, marked this transitional period in the band's timeline. Tempe was a
part of it. Over half the movie is from the December 13, 1981, show at Sun
Devil Stadium.

With The Rolling Stones returning to Phoenix for the first time since 2006, it
would be a good time to collate what everyone remembers from that day. People
remember all sorts of crazy things almost four decades later.

Here is an approximation of what happened before and after the show to start
you up.

(Editor’s note: Some quotes have been condensed and edited for brevity and
clarity.)



Spectators look down on Sun Devil Stadium as the Rolling Stones perform
during their concert on Dec. 13, 1981

Please Let Me Go!

There was so much excitement whipped up by the Stones that even underage fans
wanted to go. In one case, a mom and her twin sons camped outside all night
outside of Rolling Stone Records at Tower Plaza to get tickets when they went
on sale.

My brother, Stefan, and I were in grade school, but really wanted to go. We
figured it was a once-in-a-lifetime event as the Stones probably wouldn't be
around that much longer and seeing them now would be a big deal years from now.
However, my mom thought we were too little to go, so she offered to tag along.
My mom had been to a Beatles concert in '63, so we knew were in good hands!

So, we had to camp out for tickets because that is how it was done back then
for really big-name musical acts. A tumultuous, sleepless night on hard cement
followed, but we all felt like released hostage survivors when it was all said
and done. It was pretty festive, but wouldn't want to do it again.

Disappointing there were so many like-minded ticket scalpers outside Sun Devil
Stadium on the big day. I remember one guy had a stack of about 100 and was
looking pretty desperate to unload. At that point, sleeping outside all night
began to look like a complete waste of time. — Alexander Pietrzak, attendee


A man offered my mother cocaine and she politely declined. The tickets were
$17.25, a scandalous price at that time. — Stefan Youngs, attendee

We got a great place in the stadium, but when the concert started everyone
stood up and pushed forward. I had to hang on to the twins by their coats so we
wouldn't get separated and had to work our way further back so that they could
see. It was an amazing experience they and I have never forgotten!
— Lee Wright, mother and attendee



The following year, we somehow got passes to see the Hal Ashby documentary at
Harkins Camelview 5. Since I knew exactly where we had been standing and that
my mom had very blonde Marilyn Monroe hair, it was actually fairly easy to
spot us a number of times up on the big screen.
— Alexander Pietrzak


Concertgoers use binoculars to peek at the stage during the Rolling Stones
sold-out show at Tempe's Sun Devil Stadium on Dec. 13, 1981.
THE REPUBLIC

I camped out all night with friends at Gammage to buy tickets. I was 15 years
old at that show. Nosebleed seats ... had a buddy sell his ticket on the way
to the show for more than he paid for it to a church trying to convert him. He
went to their church for a couple of hours, then walked back to the stadium.
Bought a better ticket for a lower price from a scalper. Then told me that God
wanted him to have a better seat.
— Larry Mac, future radio personality and attendee



1981: Singer/songwriter Joe Ely poses with his band in 1981.
(Photo by Janette Beckman)

If You Start Me Up I'll Never Stop (Booing)!

I remember being frustrated that the opening acts were not the "big name" bands
we had hoped for (namely The Clash). George Thorogood and Joe Ely were what we got.
— Alexander Pietrzak, attendee

The crowd chased Joe off after only a few songs. He was great, but the crowd
was having none of it. George fared a lot better. We stayed up late the night
before because we were making our own custom concert T-shirts to wear to the
show, which was awesome. Stadium shows in Tempe just weren't that common in
those days. It all seems quaint and nostalgic now. — Dave Insley, future lead
singer of Dave Insley's Careless Smokers and attendee

Bill Graham was the tour promoter for the Stones then. I had had just started
doing arena shows the year before, but had been promoting shows since 1977.

Bill and I were friendly, and I went to him and said, "Are you gonna do show
announcements today?" He said, "Of course." So I said, "Would you mind giving
a little pop for my Devo show at Veterans Memorial Coliseum coming up?" He
said, "Sure, no problem." He was excited that he had something local to talk
about. He went up there and said Devo and got the biggest boo I ever heard for
a show announcement. Maybe they hated that Devo version of "Satisfaction,"
because they did destroy that one pretty good. Bill was amazed. He said,
"Where I come from, Devo is a pretty big band." And I said, "Not in front of these cowboys."
— Danny Zelisko, concert promoter and attendee




Spread Out the Oil!

This tour marked a turning point in corporate sponsorship when Jovan Musk paid
$1 million to the band to put its company name on tickets and merch.

James Vail, a 26-year-old account executive, engineered the agreement. "Jovan's
image matches the Stones' almost identically," he reasoned. "They're young,
aggressive, their products are controversial, innovative."

This tour and film also marked the beginning of the Benetton Stones. The band
were decked out in primary colors. Bill Wyman couldn't even blend into the
background wearing a canary yellow suit. This garish transformation would reach
its I-can't bear-to-look zenith with the covers of Dirty Work and She's the
Boss, Jagger's solo effort.



The tour was so hyped up we even sent away for a Jovan tour poster in People
magazine. I remember it was very pastel related, a lot of abstract art, too,
like a big, horrible pink skateboard that looks like it was painted by a
monkey. It was hideous. — Eric Braverman, future founder of Heavy Metal
Television and attendee

One backstage attendee brings up a curious sighting. She swears she and a
friend saw Andy Warhol getting in a white van and driving off, not even staying
to watch the show.

We were backstage because we knew someone who worked that concert. My friend
and looked at each other, and we’re both in shock about Warhol. It was one of
those moments when you questioned if that really happened. We found out later
he designed the artwork and stage. We were more excited about him than seeing
The Rolling Stones walking around. — Jamie Ferrari, attendee

Everything written about the tour credits a Japanese designer, Kazuhide
Yamazaki,, with the stage and tour artwork. Warhol's published diaries have
him in New York watching Apocalypse Now on TV the night of the show. The night
before, he'd been to dinner with Bianca and Jade Jagger. Maybe working with
Bianca's ex was verboten and he didn't want his involvement known. And there's
not a whole lot about Yamazaki online beyond some prints he made in the early
'80s. So, has anyone has ever actually seen Andy Warhol and Kazuhide Yamazaki
in the same room?


Run Like the Wind at Double Speed!

In Gimme Shelter, the Stones lurched into a chilled-down version of "Under My
Thumb," the only time that Jagger ordered an audience to sit down. Infamously,
the songs ended with Meredith Hunter, a black man in a lime green suit,
pulling out a revolver and aiming it at the stage before being stabbed to death
by Hell’s Angels.

Here, the group make the track the show opener and somewhat to its 1966 album
Got LIVE If You Want It! speed. What you lack in the screams of teenage girls
and the chair smashing of teenage boys, the Stones more than made up for with
hundreds of balloons in primary colors. And a pink stage!

Jagger and Richards were not getting along at this point, so you don't see any
of the iconic Glimmer Twins sharing the mic. It's as if the elaborate stage
ramps were designed to keep the duo as far away from each other as possible.

I had obstructed-view tickets. Last-minute promoters/venue moved the stage
back, and my obstructed-view seats became very near front row. I was a naive
young man. Not well versed in rock 'n' roll. From the second Keith came out, I
was blown away, mesmerized the entire concert.
— Lawrence Zubia, future singer of The Pistoleros and attendee

Mick must have run five miles or more throughout the show. Ronnie and Keith
were their usual selves, acting like they were having the time of their lives,
which was awesome to see. — Mike G. Murphy, future singer and attendee


Some drunk kid in the seats behind us threw up on my friend's back.
— Jo Dina, attendee


I'll Take You Places That You've Nevah, Nevah See!

The lines for the girls' bathroom were so long that some of us brave rebel
girls used the men's bathrooms. That was unheard of then. I am pretty sure
attending ASU football games, I tried that and was quickly escorted out for such behavior!
— Linn Norgaard, attendee

I worked for Bill Graham. One thing with Bill is you multitasked. I did
backstage security, grid work. That particular show, I was in charge of the
paint crew. Here's what we did: We took Legend City's estern town and moved it
backstage and set it up. We painted it with the Tattoo You vibe of that tour.
When you do that show, it would take a week to set up. Bill would pick
different themes with every location and this show's Western backstage area
was for the band, friends, and celebs. Everyone on the show was dressed in
Western garb. The Stones didn't do a soundcheck. They didn't need it. They
came in the night before they played soccer in the stadium. One thing the
Stones would do is they would meet the crew. They'd high-five you and whatnot.
Bill encouraged that. — Mike Odle, then-musician with The Nervous and part o
Bill Graham Presents local crew

My friend Jeff had a backstage pass from his friend Mark who was the
coordinator for all the medical staff. He remembers sitting at the 50-yard line
at 11:30 p.m. (the night before) with a pair of field glasses watching a limo
pull into the field and Mick and Keith getting out with two black supermodels
and someone who looked like Bill Graham. Another thing he remembers is that
the show took a long time to start because Mick was wasted and they had to
Narcan him.

— Maggie Keane, future muralist and friend of attendee


The Honky Tonk Women!

Estimates vary, but there were anywhere from 80 to 100 girls selected from ASU
to dress up like saloon whores and floozies. If you look closely, one of them
is Jerry Hall, Mick's then-girlfriend of several years. There's one memorable
bit during "Honky Tonk Women" when Hall throws a pile of fake money at Jagger.
He walks by and doesn’t even look at her.


I do remember that Mick ignored her. It seemed like she was there to keep him away from the dancers.
— Jamie Ferrari, attendee


I was a Honky Tonk Woman. We had to audition in the ASU gymnasium, basically
just stand there and then turn around and be fitted for a costume. I was stage
left, in a fuchsia pink dress with platinum hair done up high and had a lot of
purple eye shadow. We were kept backstage for the show and I got my picture
taken with Mick on the buggy. — Dori Stevens, Honky Tonk Woman and attendee


The girls had a four-hour layover because they had to wait through Joe Ely,
George Thorogood and The Destroyers, and then the Stones. So they were milling
about, so we got them a couple of kegs and brought them backstage. We had a
jail backstage, and Mick went in the jail and the girls took pictures and
video with him and whatnot. But the girls started getting a buzz; some of the
girls couldn't make it up the stairs to get on stage because they'd been
drinking that beer for four hours.
— Mike Odle, Bill Graham Presents crew

I seem to remember seeing vodka and Quaaludes backstage. I drank beer.
— Dori Stevens


Partying with the band.Dori Stevens



You Make a Grown Man Cry!

Before setting off $100,000 in fireworks, the show concluded with an encore of
"Jumpin' Jack Flash" featuring Jagger in a cherry-picker tossing out flower
petals, because that's what one does in any crossfire hurricane.

I looked up, and he was about 10 feet from me. I thought, "Wow, he sure looks
old." Of course, I was 16 at the time, and anyone over 40 was ancient to me.
— Lisa Kelley, attendee



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2020-10-20 02:14 by exilestones.

Joe Ely shots ..cool... Fanks exile



ROCKMAN

PONTIAC





Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2020-11-06 00:35 by exilestones.

PONTIAC






The Rolling Stones made no local appearance during their two-day gig in
Pontiac’s Silverdome, but one member of their entourage took advantage of the
opportunity to pick up some musical advice from famed blues singer Sippie
Wallace of Detroit and U-M music professor Jim Dapogny Tuesday.

Dapogny, an expert on blues and jazz, has been playing piano for Sippie in many
of her appearances lately.

Pianist Ian Stewart, touring with the Stones, called Sippie’s manager and asked
to meet the pair and hear some of their recent work. The meeting turned into a
three-hour jam session, Dapogny said.

“He listened to some of our tapes, and Sippie played and sang for him,” said
Dapogny. “Then he asked me to show him some piano licks he’d heard on the
tapes, and we traded ideas back and forth.”


Sippie with John Mayall: [www.youtube.com] "Uncommon to see Mick Taylor with a Fender"






Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-11-06 02:32 by exilestones.

AT HEATHROW AIRPORT is Bill Wyman going from Nice to the
Rolling Stones tour rehearsals at Long View farm.
August 10, 1981

17
1983 MERCHANDISE



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-11-28 00:01 by exilestones.

Rolling Stone Mick Jagger and girlfriend Jerry Hall leaving
Heathrow for Barbados, incognito, smiling and
travelling under the names of Mr and Mrs Vincent.
821219

Probably flying Tourist class, to remain "incognito", you know.

Thats also why they are posing at the gate.

jb

LOUISVILLE 1981


Mick Taylor and Alvin Lee in concert at the Louisville Gardens, Louisville, Kentucky



12-09-81 photos by M Conen

You might think Keith could afford a nice shirt for the stage.

And those pics of Alvin Lee crack me up. Hadn't thought about that guy in ages. Liked their early albums and I had one KBFH tape of him post-Christianity (I think it was) that totally smoked though he wasn't totally tearing it up on guitar. Kind of surprisingly toned down, and I liked it. Few times I saw Ten Years After live I kind of thought it was pretty dreadful. It was obvious all those guys thought a lot of themselves and I think it was the bass player who just made me anxious watching him jerking around all the time. He still managed to lay down a nice line though.

jb

Stones Tour Pays Off
Group grosses $50 million from three-month tour

By KURT LODER AND STEVE POND







The Rolling Stones‘ 1981 U.S. tour was more than just an artistic triumph. It was also a spectacular financial coup — the headiest windfall in rock & roll history. In its aftermath, Mick Jagger stands revealed as a master career strategist of the first order — the toughest, shrewdest businessman to emerge on the entertainment scene since Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra. Some supporting facts:

Ticket sales: More than 2 million people paid at least fifteen dollars apiece to see the Stones over the course of the twelve-week tour. The Stones’ cut of this approximately $34 million gross is reliably estimated to have ranged from seventy-two percent to as high as ninety percent, depending on the venue. Say $25 million to $30 million.

Merchandising: Sales of Rolling Stones T-shirts, jerseys, bumperstickers, badges and tour programs constituted a separate bonanza in themselves. Midway through the tour, it was widely estimated that merchandising sales were averaging one T-shirt (ten dollars) per customer — a gross of more than $20 million. Toward tour’s end, however, at least one regional promoter insisted that the final figure would be double that. The Stones’ share — reckoned to be twenty-five percent — could thus be as much as $10 million.

Record sales: The Stones’ tour gave a considerable boost to what was already the group’s strongest album in years. It was expected that by year’s end Tattoo You would have sold a total of 3 million copies in the U.S. alone; figuring that the Stones command a very high royalty rate — perhaps as much as $1.50 per album — this would add $4.5 million to the group’s income (exclusive of song-writing royalties, which accrue solely to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards). In this context, revenues from the two singles released so far from the album, and two past albums that have reentered the charts, seem like small change. Looming larger would be publishing royalties. In the Stones case, these will run about four cents per song — forty cents per album — for a total of $1,200,000.

Video: The Stones’ Hampton Coliseum concert was scheduled to be broadcast live to cable-television subscribers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Phoenix, Dallas, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Ann Arbor, Boston and Miami. A half-million people were expected to pay ten dollars apiece for the pleasure of watching, yielding a gross profit of $5 million. At press time, the Stones’ percentage of this venture was unknown, but their immediate profit would only be preliminary, as the tape of the show seems certain to become a cable-TV staple, and probably a hot draw on the midnight-screening circuit.

Tour sponsorship: Jovan, Inc., a major perfume manufacturer, gave the Stones “several million dollars” to help offset production costs and, it was said, to underwrite small-theater gigs that the group would otherwise have had to play at a loss. (Only one such intimate gig occurred, though — at the 4000-seat Fox Theatre in Atlanta.) In return for this upfront largesse, Jovan received permission to create and sell its own Stones tour poster at fragrance counters around the country, the right to have the company’s name printed on concert tickets and a large block of those tickets with which to run radio giveaways in each concert market. (According to Jovan’s advertising director, David Miller, the Stones’ audience now includes two distinct generations, ranging in age from midteens to midthirties. The radio tie-ins, he said, were particularly valuable in reaching the younger end of that spectrum, “fifteen, sixteen — people who are just starting to think about wearing fragrances.”) Estimates of Jovan’s promotional donation to the Stones have ranged up to $4 million.

The final tally: a possible gross of more than $50 million.

The key word here, of course, is “gross.” Tour expenses were unusually high. Promoter Bill Graham’s Raindrop Productions provided the Stones with state-of-the-art sound and lighting, as well as two custom-designed outdoor stages, a remarkable rotating indoor stage and a cumbersome, hydraulically powered cherry picker to swing Jagger out over the crowd during “Jumping Jack Flash.” Hotel and food bills for the Stones’ tour crew — sixty-eight people for the outdoor gigs, fifty-two inside — were also expensive. And the tab for the rented jet that carried the group and its entourage around the country — a 103-passenger Boeing 727 redesigned into a fifty-three-seat “executive configuration,” complete with built-in bars and couches — was said to total $500,000.



And though the Stones saved money by booking locally available bands in each region (rather than carrying one or two groups around with them), those acts still had to be paid. (Not much, however: James Brown, scheduled to open the New York City concerts, canceled out on the day of the first show after the Stones failed to come up with what he considered a dignified amount of dough.)

And then, of course, there is the Internal Revenue Service. Even after the inevitable tax bite, though — something that the Stones must by now be expert at minimizing — the founding members of the group must have walked away from the tour as multimillionaires once again. In the case of Jagger and Richards, the final tally would be even higher. (As for Ron Wood, the group’s happy-go-lucky — emphasis on lucky — slide guitarist, it’s doubtful that after only six years onboard he would merit a full stake in rock’s longest-running money-making machine.)

Clearly, the Stones tour was as much about money as about art — which is not to denigrate either aspect of such an astonishing achievement in their twentieth year. But artistic acclaim is nothing new for the Stones; what was new in 1981 was Mick Jagger’s obvious total control. After burning through some of the canniest management talent in the music business — Marshall Chess, Earl McGrath and Peter Rudge — Jagger has come out totally on top. No tour detail, however minute, escaped his appraising eye, from the number of T-shirts hawked outside the halls to the granting of press tickets and backstage passes at each stop on the tour. Even Bill Graham, the volatile take-charge promoter, apparently worked strictly for Mick, and one detected the singer’s budget consciousness in the generally spartan state of the tour’s backstage buffets (cold cuts, not caviar), and in the refusal that was politely conveyed to one promoter who inquired whether the band wanted its dressing rooms to be stocked with champagne.



If there were any considerations that Jagger — once a promising student at the London School of Economics — couldn’t handle, he turned to his personal financial adviser, Prince Rupert Loewenstein. Jagger supposedly met Loewenstein at a party in London five years ago, when the Englishman was still a private investment banker with the firm of Leopold Joseph and Sons. Today, it’s reported that Loewenstein handles just one account — the Rolling Stones — for a reported ten percent commission. Through Promotone B.V., the Holland-based holding company set up for the group, he has reportedly channeled their ever-accumulating capital into Japanese fish factories and other diverse enterprises. Taxwise, he has apparently made clear to them the wisdom of maintaining primary domiciles in the South of France or the U.S. (or, in Richards’ case, Jamaica).

What all of this high-level financial positioning means is respectability with a vengeance. After twenty years as the bad boys of rock, the Stones are no longer boys and are hardly “bad” by the punk standards they themselves once set. It is a tribute to Jagger’s genius for manipulation that the media so eagerly embraced the band’s new, nonthreatening image. It did seem odd, at first. Gone were the fabled sex-and-drug orgies of yore; instead, there were the Stones celebrating Bill Wyman’s birthday in Orlando, Florida, by renting out a boat at Disney World for the night. In San Francisco, with Mayor Dianne Feinstein beaming by his side, Jagger genially solicited donations for the repair of the city’s deteriorating cable-car system. And Herb Caen, the San Francisco Chronicle columnist, spotted former hotel wreckers Jagger, Richards and Charlie Watts dining out at the exclusive Ernie’s Restaurant, eating “varied pâtés and soufflés,” talking to the maitre d’ in French and paying their $866 tab with a flick of Mick’s American Express card. When the tour hit Houston, Mick passed up a visit to Gilley’s, the renowned suburban honky-tonk; but with Texas-bred girlfriend Jerry Hall in tow, he made a beeline for a party for Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos.

But the media fell right into line. A full-page color photo in Life showed Jagger jogging down a country road with an intent, dedicated-professional look on his tanned face. He even agreed to sit for a TV session with gossip columnist Rona Barrett. And in the Los Angeles Times, a relaxed, healthy Keith Richards said he’d think about doing an antidrug commercial “if I could figure out the right way to do it.” In the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Ken Tucker devoted two pages to explaining the band’s old bad-boy image. “I just thought it would be worthwhile to remind people that the Stones used to be controversial,” he said.

There were some minor demurrals: Time published a two-page spread on why not to see the Stones; an L.A. television reporter petulantly complained that the press was more restricted at the band’s Memorial Coliseum show than at any other time he could remember (he then proceeded to announce the hotel at which the Stones were staying); and the Chicago Tribune told its readers how to locate the Stones, listing their favorite hangouts and even Mick Jagger’s scheduled dentist appointment. By and large, though, the message from the media was clear: you can come home now, boys, all is forgiven.

To the fans who snatched up every single ticket for every single concert, the Stones had done nothing that would call for amends, but they were happy to have the band back nonetheless. With the death of John Lennon (and, earlier, Keith Moon of the Who) and the collapse of Led Zeppelin, the Stones were left holding the field as the last of the big Sixties acts still creatively intact. And who knew what tragic news the next several years might bring? “See them now” was an operative impulse throughout the tour. (For those unable to do so this time around, a tour movie, directed by Hal Ashby and shot largely at the Stones’ concerts at Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and Sun Devil Stadium in Phoenix, should be out before next summer. Ashby, who directed Harold and Maude and Shampoo, hopes to release the film in a seventy-millimeter, six-track-stereo format, which would make it the most elaborate rock & roll movie since Woodstock — and, given its commercial potential in Europe, where the Stones haven’t played for years, perhaps the most profitable, as well.)

So what did it all mean? The Rolling Stones have embraced total respectability — they seem to exist on a plush, parallel universe all their own. But they have reached a point where they can consider branching out in whatever directions they desire. For Charlie Watts, this could mean something as innocuous as recording with a good-time jam band like Rocket 88 and not worrying about how it might reflect on the Stones. For Bill Wyman, miffed after years of disregard for his songwriting talents, it means composing film scores and recording more solo albums. And for Mick Jagger, obviously uncomfortable at being perceived as an aging rock star, it may mean making it — at long last — in movies.



Whether or not Jagger — or any major rock star — is capable of the convincing intimacy required of a screen actor remains to be seen. His past film roles in Performance and Ned Kelly offered few clues, and his last attempt, in Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo — for which he spent three very trying months in the Peruvian jungle — was all for nought, as the film was never completed. (“He was so disappointed, poor bloke,” said Keith Richards.) But now Jagger has gotten serious: he’s purchased the screen rights to Gore Vidal’s novel Kalki, has commissioned Vidal to write a screenplay and hopes to begin filming the movie (under old pal Hal Ashby’s direction) within the next eighteen months. One suspects that, at this point in his life, the film’s success may mean more to him than all the Rolling Stones tours to come.

That there will be more Stones tours seems all but certain. For one thing, Keith Richards is unlikely to retire into some dainty dotage or otherwise hang up his rock & roll shoes. For another, the money is now too big to turn down — one of the many illuminations provided by the Stones’ 1981 U.S. outing. A man who knows this well is Jay Coleman, president of Rockbill, Inc., the company that put the Stones together with Jovan and has arranged similar deals between Charlie Daniels and Skoal tobacco, and the Marshall Tucker Band and Ron Rico rum. The Stones’ hookup with a multimillion-dollar corporation like Jovan and the band’s new, acceptably adult image gladden Coleman’s heart.

“There are advertising people my own age now who understand that music isn’t something that is far to the left or that wants to bring down the government or any of that,” he says. “They understand that it’s a positive thing. On the other hand, you’ve got the artists, who finally are no longer fearful of recognizing the fact that music is a business. And they’re not out there waving a flag against the Vietnam War, and so for them to associate themselves with a company doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody’s gonna think they’ve sold out.

“Rock & roll and Madison Avenue,” Coleman says with a gratified sigh. “Their paths are finally crossing.”

This is a story from the January 21, 1982 issue of Rolling Stone.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-12-26 01:24 by exilestones.

Quote
exilestones
17
1983 MERCHANDISE

I had one of those hanging from my rear view mirror

the shoot 'em dead, brainbell jangler!

David Beeching and Jay Coleman (r) of Rockbill

Founded as Rockbill by Jay Coleman, the man credited with
pioneering the marriage of corporate America with pop/rock music, EMCI has
produced a three-decade long string of hits. Jay Coleman and his company
Rockbill, Jovan Fragrances launched the first corporate sponsorship of a major
rock tour.

Coleman is hardly a household name. But the rock superstars that his New York
music marketing firm Rockbill has linked up with Pepsi-Cola certainly are. He
placed Michael Jackson at Pepsi’s doorstep. He brought Lionel Richie to Pepsi
at the peak of the singer’s career. And it was Coleman who, last summer,
persuaded Pepsi to sign on with rapper M. C. Hammer and it all started with
the Rolling Stones in 1981.

In 1981 Rockbill made a major breakthrough when it arranged Jovan Perfumes’
sponsorship of The Rolling Stones’ U.S. tour. The idea of sponsorship became
“respectable,” says 33-year-old Coleman, because of the band’s prominence.
Since that highly lucrative marriage, singers Daryl Hall and John Oates have
posed for Canada Dry soft drinks, The Who said farewell under the aegis of
Schlitz and Molson breweries, and guitarist Eric Clapton toured the United
States sponsored by Camel cigarettes. In Canada, Vancouver’s Loverboy promoted
a new model of a Nissan-Datsun sports car in 1982, and last summer Molson
experimented by sponsoring rock concerts.

In its role of matchmaker, Rockbill provides the medium for the association or
endorsement. The lowest form of what Coleman calls “a good corporate tie-in”
consists of some sponsor identification on a concert program that doubles as
a poster, on tickets and on other advertising material. More direct
endorsement involves a “hands on” relationship with the product and a
promotional role for the performer in radio spots and public appearances. For
Hall and Oates’s $2.2-million Canada Dry deal, the soft drink’s name appeared
on all of their 1983 tour merchandise jackets, T-shirts, posters and programs.
As well, the performers had to make themselves available throughout the tour
as dinner dates for contest winners and appear in a promotional poster holding
cans of Canada Dry ginger ale.

.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2021-01-03 02:49 by exilestones.

CONTINUED FROM ABOVE POST

Stones roll from the covered Kingdome to the open air
By Clay Eals

Dow Constantine remembers it well. Our King County executive was a 19-year-old
University of Washington sophomore when he saw the Rolling Stones’ sixth show
in Seattle, on Oct. 14, 1981, the first night of back-to-back concerts. Among
71,000 packing the Kingdome, he was down front in what was crudely called “the
pit.” The Greg Kihn Band opened, followed by the J. Geils Band. The Stones
took the stage at 10:55 p.m. and finished about 1 a.m.

This milieu radiates from our atmospheric “Then” image, captured by Mike
Siegel, in one of his first photos for The Seattle Times. Constantine stands
near left, eying the wilder youths to his side. His subdued expression speaks
volumes.

“Near the stage, the crowd was pretty aggressive,” he recalls. “You had to
stand your ground against the force of thousands pushing to get closer.” He
adds, with no little irony, “We thought it was the last time we would get a
chance to see the Stones because they were so old.”

The Oct. 14 and 15, 1981, shows also hosted scores of overdose cases, along
with a deeper tragedy. A 16-year-old girl died when she lost her balance and
fell backward 50 feet from the outside 200-level ramp onto a landing. Most
fans, and probably the Stones, didn’t learn of the death until after the Oct.
15 show. It was the first fatality in the Kingdome’s then-five-year history.

While no one inside felt moisture from the sky, as always there was — beyond
the haze and the substitution of rumbling echo for sound — the disquieting
feeling, in spite of the stadium’s enormity, of being trapped by the absence of
sky.

That was no deterrent for Constantine, a lifelong music fanatic who graduated
from grade-school trombonist to arts and music champion as an adult. He
nurtured his obsession by volunteering in 1981 at the campus radio station,
KCMU (now KEXP), eventually snagging plum DJ shifts.

Fast-forward nearly 38 years, and we find Constantine once more in the front
row at a Stones show, their 12th in Seattle, this time on the Kingdome’s
footprint at open-air CenturyLink Field. “No pushing and shoving,” he says.
“Very much an all-ages, good-vibe, bring-the-grandkids crowd.”

The Kingdome may have lasted only 24 years, but the Stones — and Constantine —
roll on.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-12-30 13:23 by exilestones.