One of the best things about being David Bowie’s publicist for 21 years was the trust his team had in me. Whenever I would suggest musicians and celebrities to be invited to his shows and meet him backstage, they always greenlit my ideas. Of course I always got to meet those special people when I set up the photo (a very nice perk of the job), usually snapped by the great guys Kevin Mazur and Lester Cohen.

Back in December 2003, Bowie performed at Madison Square Garden on his “Reality” tour for what turned out to be his last concert there. Since I was a big fan of Interpol, I invited them to the show—and it was wonderful to see their eyes absolutely light up when I met them at their seats and led them backstage to meet the master. ⚡️ Also there that magical night was David Byrne, Jude Law, and Lenny Kravitz.

Back in November 1994, Sandra Bernhard (a client at Levine Schneider PR) headlined the prestigious Pantages Theater in Hollywood. My friend and former associate Tresa Redburn and I wanted to make the show extra buzz-worthy, so we invited John Doe of X and Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction, knowing that a photo of them with Sandra would be “gold.”

And what an honor it was to set up the photo backstage that night, showing three of the most original voices ever to emerge from Los Angeles—all in one frame. 🖼️ ⚡️

The following year, X would become clients of MSO in its first year of operation (for the band’s 1995 live acoustic  “Unclogged” album), while Jane’s were a client at both Levine Schneider (1990’s “Ritual de lo Habitual” album) and MSO (for their final studio album in 2011, “The Great Escape Artist”).

Woke up today and felt like spinning Korn. I noticed (at one of the streaming platforms) that a 20th anniversary edition of their “See You On The Other Side” album was released last Friday. It triggered many terrific memories of working with the guys.

At MSO PR (the pre-SRO PR company), Marcee Rondan, Kristine Ashton-Magnuson, and I organized a graveside press conference (playing off the album’s title) at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, for which the band arrived fittingly in a hearse.

At the celebrity-studded party at the cemetery later that night, Axl Rose made his first public appearance in many years, which helped garner the event an extra bump of publicity.

I remember walking up to Axl and saying, “Hi Mr. Rose, I’m the publicist for the band and they know you are here. May I take you back to meet them, and if you are OK with it, we have a photographer on hand who would like to take a few photos of you with the guys?”

Axl was very gracious. I think by addressing him as “Mr. Rose,” he felt he was being treated with the right amount of respect. He wound up posing for many photos including this one with KORN’s Munky. 📸 by Getty Images.

Mitch

Green Day released their sixth album ‘Warning’ album 25 years ago this month. Here they are in Mitch Schneider’s Mack Daddy Caddy during the album’s sessions in Hollywood for that album. Mitch is driving and the photographer is in the front seat,  shooting the band for a Guitar World feature that my associate Amanda Cagan and I set. This framed photograph hangs proudly in Mitch’s office. It’s a magical “capture” that zeroes in on the different personalities of Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tre Cool. 

Tom Waits’ terrific fifth album ‘Foreign Affairs’ was released on this day (September 13) in 1977. I reviewed it for the monthly Crawdaddy (it was one of the many plum assignments that editor Jon Pareles gave me).

Back then, I was 21 and living at my folks’ house in the Bronx. I would lock myself up in their basement (when I wasn’t going to shows) and listen to test pressings of albums that were assigned to me to review.

It was always a nerve-racking experience to review albums because you hoped and prayed you would  “get it right“ and do a great album justice. There was of course no Internet back then so you couldn’t read, and perhaps be influenced by, what other writers may have been saying about a particular album ahead of its release. You were pretty much on your own when it came to forming an opinion.

Years later, in 1999 at MSO PR, I handled the PR, along with my friend and former associate Tresa Redburn, for Waits’ deeply moving “Mule Variations” album. That was a fantastic full circle moment for me. 

When you worked as a publicist for Ozzy Osbourne, you had his full attention + respect.

Whenever I saw Ozzy, the first thing he would say was, “Show me pictures of your daughter.” That’s who he was. And I’ll always remember when Ozzy and Sharon gifted Sorrell Schneider with stock in Disney when she was born.

📌 Thank you Stephanie Cabral for sending along this photo you captured of me talking to Ozzy—with Sharon and my partner Marcee Rondan in the frame—outside the Hollywood Palladium at a pop-up promo event for Ozzfest in 2017.

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30 years ago today, Dwight Yoakam’s thrilling “Dwight Live”album was released. Mitch Schneider had the honor of doing the album’s PR with Tresa Redburn at MSO (now SRO).

Mitch and Tresa were both flown by Dwight’s team to the Warfield in San Francisco where the album was recorded in 1994 during his lengthy tour for his triple platinum 1993 album “This Time.” Mitch and Tresa also publicized that album in the Levine/Schneider PR days.

For modern country music, it still doesn’t  get better than Dwight.

Going through some of my old articles recently, I came across this one that appeared in the Long Island bi-weekly “Good Times” way back in 1975: a review of the Johnny Thunders-fronted Heartbreakers, who had formed that year, at CBGB. They wouldn’t release an album until 1977.

I was invited to the show by former Demons member Walter Lure, whom I met at the home of fellow Bronx buddies Annette and Larry Everston.  Walter told me that he had just joined a band with Johnny Thunders, formerly of the New York Dolls, who I had seen in 1972 at Mercer Arts Center on their way up.

Looking back on the Heartbreakers show, this was my first exposure to music that started to be called “punk.” At 19 years old, I was spooked by the show’s dark vibes, which the article illustrates. As much as I had trouble wrapping my teenage head around the gig, which featured Richard Hell before he would depart the band, I was also excited by the music I heard. (Embarrassingly, I misspelled Johnny’s last name throughout the piece.)