A little known fact about MTV Networks (originally called Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment Company, a second little known fact) was that its original strategy called for the eventual launch of ten networks. They thought about games and sports, in addition to music, movies, and kids; their fourth one was to be shopping. As the company’s creative director, my team went to work in the Spring of 1982.
Before Home Shopping Network there was to be ShopAmerica, the world’s first all shoppping TV channel. After all, the half owner of the company was American Express; that’s why they invested in cable television, after all.
There are a lot of network development levels that are too boring to go into (and the minute HSN launched it was clear how our strategy would have failed), but since I’ve always loved working on logos and branding I hung onto our attempts for ShopAmerica. George Lois and my mentor, Dale Pon, art directed for their agency LPG/Pon.
MTV got Sonicnet in the middle of another transaction they thought would be more important. But as the internet heated up in the business world’s consciousness, Sonicnet.com became something they thought to pay attention to. Which meant that, as president of MTV Networks Online, I was trying to help make the thing successful.
MTV had also acquited a then-unique personalized radio application. Coupled with Sonicnet, we decided an ad campaign would supercharge the site, something large media folks like us thought was necessary. It wasn’t.
Sisqo, kd lang, Moby, Johnny Resnick, Don Henley, Beenie Man, Sheryl Crow
Over a few objections, I hired my brilliant, challenging mentor Dale Pon to create our campaign. Dale had done our the iconic “I Want My MTV” for me in the early 1980s and constantly proved himself to be the most creative and effective media ad man in America. The stunningly talented director Tim Newman was already on my online staff (after turning his back on a career that included some of the greatest music videos of all time), so he was tapped to shoot the spots.
Gang Starr, SheDaisy, Blink 182, Moby, Charlotte Church, Ruff Ryders, Eve, Sting
You can see for yourself that Dale knew how conceive big ideas to bring out the best from stars, and, he really knew how to reach for the stars (like Isaac Hayes, James Brown, Joshua Bell, Jewel, Pat Metheny, Sheryl Crow, Beenie Man, Gang Starr, Faith Hill, Lindsey Buckingham, Don Henley, Al Jarreau, Alice Cooper, Blink 182, Kenny Wayne Shephard, Bon Jovi, Buck Cherry, Charlotte Church, Christina Acquilera, Dwight Yoakam, The Ruff Ryders, Eve, Johnny Resnick (The Goo Goo Dolls), kd lang, Buck Cherry, Kelis, Lindsey Buckingham, Melissa Etheridge, Moby, Seal, Sisqo, Static X, SheDaisy, Hillary Hahn, Charlotte Church, Yo Yo Ma, and Sting.)
James Brown, Christina Acquilera, Sting, Yo Yo Ma, Dwight Yoakam, Isaac Hayes, Sheryl Crow, Blink 182
This campaign, like every other one I’d worked on with Dale over the decades, was a hoot. One of the best things to come out of my one year in the corporate internets.
At the time, it seemed like a horrible mistake. And like mistakes sometimes can, it led to a new, uncharted, wonderful life.
It was the beginning of the peaking of “the internet” 1.0, which, honestly, I wanted nothing to do with “the internet.” I liked email, I liked Amazon.com. But I also liked the career I had staked out producing cartoons and media consulting. I was 48 years old, gotten married again, had a couple of kids. And felt like I’d finally settled into to doing something pretty well. I didn’t really want to start over with something new, no matter how exciting. Really.
However, to make a long story short, I succumbed. In 1999, after seven years in Los Angeles, my family and I moved to New York, and I became the president of MTV Networks Online, which included MTV.com and Nick.com. Joining a constantly innovating media as part of an established media company —no matter how fresh they may have been back in the day— was exactly the wrong way to go. And “go” I did. Within a year I was back to producing and consulting. But, I’d never be the same again —the whole world wouldn’t be— and, at least I got a head start on all of my old media pals.
But, great things came out of the experience. For instance, the campaign for MTV’s website Sonicnet.com (which I’ll write about elsewhere). I got some new friendships, especially my partnership with engineer/thinker Emil Rensing (which eventually led to us foundingNext New Networks). Most importantly, I gained a new perspective on everything media, right into the belly of the beast of the new I tried to avoid. My innate curiosity paid off once again.
The real start of a work life in media (my original plan had been to be a chemist) was falling in love when The Beatles hit America in February 1964.
Like almost everyone else I taught myself guitar and started a band with my best friend, singer extraordinaire Rodney Johnson, and Phil Courtemanche. By the 10th grade I’d switch to organ (and instrument I could actually play) and Rodney and I had joined forces with Phil Alexander on vocals and guitar, Ray Frisby on drums and vocals, and Brian North on bass. We were basically a cover band specializing in soul and pop hits of the day.
Rodney named the group (he named our first trio The Evil Lords; he had a knack, you know?). Notice the “K” (like the Byrds, you know?). Since he was the lead singer, he tried to take top billing for a minute; it didn’t take.
I loved every aspect of being in a band. The freedom, the fun, the music. I liked booking gigs, and figuring out the best equipment to use that we could afford. Most of all I liked putting together the sound. Producingrecordings became my next logical step.
I’ve been starting companies since I was a kid, some of them successes and many of them failures. (The first serious one was in 1970, the blues and jazz record label Oblivion Records with my great friend and partner Tom Pomposello [and, for a bit, Dick Pennington]; it was a classic creative success and business bust.) I’ve been through music recording, television production, advertising, and food journalism. Yes, even underground comics and chocolate bars.
Rounding the corner at 50 years old I promised myself (and more importantly my wife, my most incisive and prettiest business advisor) to focus on my cartoon business which had been taking off with its first big hit. Mostly, I’ve stuck to that priority. (“Mostly” because, as a long time media executive, I treated our cartoons in the broader context of media which led us, like everyone else, into the internet.) Right now, I’ve got a direct interest in four companies.
Frederator Studios started in 1998, right after I left Hanna-Barbera; we’ve been producing cartoons ever since. As of 2009, we’ve made 14 television series, four TV movies, two internet series, and over 200 cartoon shorts. Our first feature film is about to begin production. Our blogs and internet TV network were the first of their kind in the media business. Cartoons are fun.
In 2007, I founded the media company Next New Networks; right now it’s America’s most successful independent internet TV company. At first with my partner Emil Rensing, and then with co-founders Herb Scannell, Tim Shey, and Jed Simmons, we’re on our way to launching 101 online TV networks, for specialized communities ranging from automotive to fashion to entertainment.
Sawhorse Media are young New York based content innovators, who are already on their way to great success with the Shorty Awards, Newsgroper, and Musebin. I’m proud to be their first investor and board member.
Founder David Karp started at Frederator as a 14 year old intern, and then participated in his first successful business at 16, engineering a pioneering Web 2.0 busniess. At 19 he imagined and engineered Channel Frederator for us (which led me to the path of forming Next New Networks). A year later he had innovated once again with the amazing social media platform tumblr. Once again, I’m an angel investor and board member.
Alan Goodman and I met at WKCR-FM, our college radio station, in 1970; we’ve been the greatest of friends and collaborators ever since. We tagged team each other on personal work projects for the next 10 years, and Alan was the person I turned to for guidance the night I made the decision to turn away from record production and move into cable TV. Six months later Alan joined me at MTV Networks.
For three years we helped turn the television world upside down and then we’d had enough. In April 1983 we booked the corporate life and set up Fred/Alan, Inc. (figuring all of our clients would have to be old to get the joke). At the start we thought the company would produce TV shows and movies; in fact the precipitating event that caused us to quit our jobs was a deal to make a music video show for The Playboy Channel.
The First TV Branding Company But the thing that capapulted Fred/Alan was what turned out to be our innovative network branding work for MTV; no one had really thought about television the same way before. In quick succession we were able to develop and launch all the key MTV networks (Nickelodeon, VH-1: Video Hits One, HA! The TV Comedy Network, Comedy Central); and we virtually invented Nick-at-Nite, the very first oldies network). Most successfully, Fred/Alan was able to take Nickelodeon from worst to first in the ratings within six months and established their brand around the world (Alan and I have separately maintained relationships with Nick ever since).
Fred/Alan morphed into a full service advertising agency, adding media buying, print production, and account management to our creative and strategic capabilities. It was the first agency to brand itself as a demographically specialized company.
In 1989 we moved back into television series, setting up Chauncey Street Productions with our old friend Albie Hecht, and went on to produce hundreds of TV episodes for A&E, AMC, CBS, Comedy Central/HA!, MTV, Nickelodeon, and others.
But after a while we couldn’t take it anymore. Our branding approaches had become commodified as our more motivated former employees, the clients we had trained, and every graphic design firm all became media branding experts. We were turning down lucrative offers to buy the company since we knew it would require years more of servitude.
After many years together, Alan married my sister Elena in early 1992, and in February we announced the closing of Fred/Alan. Albie bought Chauncey Street, and Alan went on to become a successful writer/producer.
Willis Jackson single handedly pulled me away from the avant garde and towards the soulful, bluesy expression of jazz that was popular in the African-American neighborhoods of mid-century America. He didn’t try to, he didn’t mean to, he didn’t want to, it was just that he was so damn good.
In 1977, less a producer than a ‘recording supervisor’ (my credit on Single Action) I arrived at our first session together (In The Alley), and my first session for Muse Records, with virtually no information on what we were recording or who was playing. Willis was tough and a little paranoid and had no idea what to make of the skinny suburban white guy from the record company. He didn’t want to talk to me unless he had too and so I barely knew what was happening minute to minute during the six hour session. Until that day I’d never heard any of his music (it wasn’t cool enough within the jazzbo circles I traveled in) and when I looked into the studio I thought I’d been time warped into the 1950s: five African Americans 20 years older than me in conked processes and starched white shirts and ties. They hit the first tune and Willis looked up at me and asked if they had enough to fill the record, knowing full well he didn’t; he started packing his horn up to psyche me out. By the end of five tunes I told him we were eight minutes short; he revved up a blues and kept it going until I faded it to make the length.
By the end of the six hour session I’d stopped making fun (in my head) of the tenor saxophone/organ based soul jazz, and realized why it spoke to so many millions of people. It wasn’t an intellectual exercise but a human one. They were playing songs that people knew and loved, with a feeling that anyone could understand. I was late to the party, but it wouldn’t be over for me even 30 years later.
Mike was first hand proof that talent, planning, vision, drive, hard work, and sheer force of will could combine to accomplish dreams beyond anyone’s expectations. He didn’t have any particular interest, I think, in showing me much of anything really, but he was an incredible role model, trying to keep his family’s heads above water, struggling against all odds to be viable fringe artists in a highly commercial world. It was a time in my life that would never be repeated, and one that made a huge difference to me.
Mike would probably recoil at the whole idea of mentorship —by now, we’re probably more like friends or something— but I don’t know what else to call it. He was already a young legend in avant-garde jazz when, as a naive 18 year old, I crashed my first professional recording session he was producing, his then wife Carla Bley’s “Escalator Over the Hill,” He patiently figured I was a friend of one of the superstar orchestra’s if he even noticed my presence. I went on to play their records on college radio, and then he and Carla trusted me right out of school to work at their innovative artist record distribution service (itself an outgrowth of their incredible, idealistic collective, the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra, JCOA). I wasn’t too impressed with the job I did, but a few years later Mike asked me to be the sound man and assistant roadie on Carla’s first big band tours. It was an unforgetable experience not only for the music, but for the pride with which Mike managed the unruly, artistic bunch they’d gathered. I repayed them after a year by ducking out days before our first European tour (a real loss on my part), but it didn’t stop us from staying friendly for the 30 years since.
Thanks Mike, you made a real difference in my struggle to become a professional adult.
…… It wouldn’t be right to talk about Mike without mentioning some of his stunning work. His music isn’t for everyone (on his website he quotes one reviewer saying “’Silence’ is possibly the least listenable record I have ever heard”) and requires a dedicated listener, but the rewards are great. Aside from his playing and composing, Mike was no slouch as a producer either. He always knew to not only get the very best musicians, but that it didn’t hurt if they had name value for sales (check out Robert Wyatt, Jack Bruce, Don Cherry, Jack DeJohnette, Pharoh Sanders, Cecil Taylor, and Don Preston, among many others). Here’s a few worth checking out:
I got a call in 1977 from trumpeter, composer, Carla Bley major domo Mike Mantler, asking whether I’d be interested in going on the road for the first tour of The Carla Bley Band as sound man and back-up tour manager. Mike single handedly ran the whole shebang, but one man could only do so much. Since he’d be playing in the band, someone needed to do the rest during the shows. I’d known Carla and Mike for much of the decade and we’d already worked well together at their non-profit New Music Distribution Service. Carla was an clearly an extraordinary composer (her “Ida Lupino” continues to be a favorite of mine in almost every interpretation), an irrepressible personality, and probably a great bandleader. Besides, they were offering me the most money I’d ever made.
I’d always wanted a road gig, but the closest I’d ever gotten was turning down the Blue Öyster Cult (mine was never really a rock’n’roll personality), so I had a hoot. Over a few tours I got to work daily with musicians as great and diverse as Roswell Rudd, Terry Adams, Don Preston, Blue Gene Tyranny, Philip Wilson, George Lewis, and Gary Windo. Never too crazy, never too normal, it was an unbeatable experience to tour North America before I quick-turned into media full time.
Prepping for our first European Tour I commissioned a tour T-shirt from my high school friend, designer Mark Larson. As they were coming off the press and we were heading up to Woodstock for rehearsal, my freelance radio boss Dale Pon called and demanded I move with him to Los Angeles to re-launch a radio station. Over a three hour period he cajoled and screamed and persuaded me to change the rest of my life. I hated to miss the shows, and Mike and Carla were none too happy with me, but the future beckoned.
When I thought I might make a living as a record producer I kept obsessive track of my sessions, hoping they’d add up to a career. When I morphed into a television producer, I forgot just about everything. I’ve tried to recreate my record life here, but I’ll update it as I remember more. (Just click the linkable titles, and you’ll be able to play the entire records.)
![Sonicnet.com [logo]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3568/3368603333_d4cb2fc1a4.jpg)
