Seymour Stein book "Siren Song" includes The Smiths

Johnny/Morrissey on cover!

Siren Song: My Life in Music Hardcover – June 12, 2018 - Amazon
by Seymour Stein (Author), Gareth Murphy (Author)

Description:

The autobiography of America’s greatest living record man: the founder of Sire Records and spotter of rock talent from the Ramones to Madonna.

Seymour Stein is America's greatest living record man. Not only has he signed and nurtured more important artists than anyone alive, now sixty years in the game, he's still the hippest label head, travelling the globe in search of the next big thing.

Since the late fifties, he's been wherever it's happening: Billboard, Tin Pan Alley, The British Invasion, CBGB, Studio 54, Danceteria, the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, the CD crash. Along that winding path, he discovered and broke out a skyline full of stars: Madonna, The Ramones, Talking Heads, Depeche Mode, Madonna, The Smiths, The Cure, Ice-T, Lou Reed, Seal, and many others.

Brimming with hilarious scenes and character portraits, Siren Song’s wider narrative is about modernity in motion, and the slow acceptance of diversity in America – thanks largely to daring pop music. Including both the high and low points in his life, Siren Song touches on everything from his discovery of Madonna to his wife Linda Stein's violent death.

Ask anyone in the music business, Seymour Stein is a legend. Sung from the heart, Siren Song will etch his story in stone.

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From Stein's book (and used as a source by The New York Post under the title:
That time Dee Dee Ramone tried to seduce a music mogul):
"There was one afternoon when the craziness of our marriage knocked on our front door. Linda was running off to catch a plane, for once leaving me alone in the Central Park apartment. Minutes after she rolled her suitcase out the front door, the buzzer rang. I thought Linda had forgotten something—but it wasn’t Linda. Had it been anyone other than Dee Dee Ramone, you’d have thought it was just somebody in the neighborhood dropping by to say hello. But Dee Dee was the last person you’d associate with innocent coincidences. I just knew he’d been hiding on the street until Linda got into her cab. After all, she was his manager. He probably knew where she was flying, when, why, and on which airline.
He appeared at the door with a filthy, horny face I barely recognized. He moved into the hallway and pulled a cigarette slowly from his packet. Like a diva in a 1950s movie, he placed it slowly in his pouting lips and reached his neck forward, signaling for a light. Mortified, I pulled a lighter from the hall table and flicked. He sucked on the flame and gently blew his first puff of smoke in my face. He then walked past me into the bedroom where Linda and I shared our brief, tumultuous marriage. In the most improbable striptease I’ve ever witnessed, Dee Dee peeled off his hallmark Ramones uniform. First the little T-shirt and then the sneakers and shredded jeans. He then lay on the bed naked like some eunuch in a Renaissance painting. His eyes and body position said it all: Take me whatever way you want. I’m your bitch.
Dee Dee was a long story of drugs and delinquency. He was more insane than any of us, so far gone in fact that he’d already reached the point of no return where you don’t even care what anyone thinks. I’d heard he did some prostitution on the side, but I’d never quite believed it. I’d met all his girlfriends. I thought I knew Dee Dee. I’d watched him onstage a hundred times, thrashing his bass like a good little Ramone. What bothered me wasn’t that I happened to be his label boss; I just couldn’t stomach how feminine he’d become. I like my men masculine. For a prostitute, Dee Dee obviously hadn’t progressed very far up from public toilets. Had he just been himself, he’d maybe have gotten whatever he was looking for, which I can only guess was money.
“Just a second. I’ll fix us a drink,” I told him and made a dash for the kitchen, wondering what the f*** I was going to do. While making noise with ice cubes, I picked up the phone and dialed a special number that would make the phone ring back. I placed the receiver gently back on the cradle, which set off every phone in the apartment. I ran into the living room, where Dee Dee could hear me through the bedroom door. “What?” I shouted into the dead telephone line. “No. I don’t see any fog … well, there’s none here.” It was one of my finest acting performances. “Oh, okay. See you in a bit,” I said and hung up. Looking panicked, I told Dee Dee that Linda had turned back because fog had shut down the airport. He had to get dressed and go.
A white lie got me out of a tight corner. He probably sensed he’d been fobbed off, because he never tried that stunt again. Not that Dee Dee was the type of person who wasted time on regret or shame. As for me, my little secret was obviously no longer such a secret anymore, and even I was starting not to care that everybody knew I was gay. As I was about to discover, the thing about repressed sexuality is that it’s not necessarily physical desire that’ll lure you out of the closet but something far stronger."


And just to add to the discussion:
Morrissey in GQ magazine, 2005:
"GQ: “Were you in love with Johnny Marr?”
M: “Sexually? Absolutely not. There was a love and it was mutual and equal but it wasn’t physical or sexual. There are lots of people post-Smiths who would like to make some dramatic homosexual story. There never was one. It’s often said that Johnny rescued me but he was also bobbing about in his own lifeboat"

Regards,
FWD.
To quote someone else whose sex life was much discussed: 'Well he would say that, wouldn't he?'

EDIT: I was referring to the Moz quote, not the Seymour Stein story!
 
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This is just antique old gay man thinking from the 1930s. closet mostley. Wishful thinking at best.
 
Nothing we didn't already know, but fascinating nonetheless to hear it described in such plain terms, from first hand experience.
Didn't Marr get thick one time when asked if they broke up because of unrequited love, and he said something along the lines of "for Morrissey to have made any advances would have been stepping over the line', and then seemed to say "to blame the break-up of The Smiths on something like that is disrespectful to The Smiths". So it's hard to know. Could Moz's ire over Johnny playing with other artists have come from personal jealousy rather than professional jealousy? We'll never know.
 
Didn't Marr get thick one time when asked if they broke up because of unrequited love, and he said something along the lines of "for Morrissey to have made any advances would have been stepping over the line', and then seemed to say "to blame the break-up of The Smiths on something like that is disrespectful to The Smiths". So it's hard to know. Could Moz's ire over Johnny playing with other artists have come from personal jealousy rather than professional jealousy? We'll never know.
Yes, I think I remember reading/hearing something like that from Johnny. I took it as a 'Look, for the last time, I didn't shag him, okay?' kind of exasperated clarification. Personally, I don't doubt Morrissey loved him deeply - it's all there in the photos and the songs (I Won't Share You, I Want the one I Can't Have, to name the most blatant two). He even admitted 'Angel, Angel, Down We Go' was about Johnny. Who the hell calls their former bandmate 'Angel' unless they're romantically yearning? I just found it interesting to have Stein's take on it, since he was there, observing the behaviour and body language at first hand.
 
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Both Seymour and Linda were super gay. FFS since forever, there was a point where every act on Sire was gay. He would break into a sweat when he say a dude.
And yeah, he loves 'masculine men' LOL
:rofl:
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Didn't Marr get thick one time when asked if they broke up because of unrequited love, and he said something along the lines of "for Morrissey to have made any advances would have been stepping over the line', and then seemed to say "to blame the break-up of The Smiths on something like that is disrespectful to The Smiths". So it's hard to know. Could Moz's ire over Johnny playing with other artists have come from personal jealousy rather than professional jealousy? We'll never know.

There is, however, another version of the story which I've heard enough times over the years to make me think it is more than a rumor. That the breakdown was personal, not professional. That, essentially, Morrissey was in love with you. That he told you, in those typical handwritten notes left at your house that you must choose between him and your wife Angie. That the notes were even written in bottles and tossed over your wall. (When I put this to Johnny, he doesn't sigh or give any sign of surprise)

Johnny: "Morrissey never said 'It can't be you and Angie' to me. All the way through that time with Morrissey, I felt like the luckiest guy in the world. I was playing great guitar in a great band with people I love, a partner I love and the girl I love, and it's all working. Morrissey and I had a super-intense, close relationship, as close as it can get without being physical. It helped make the band. He sent me correspondence all the time, and the notes were always amusing, but I've never heard the bottles-over-walls theory. I know he wanted our relationship to be very close, but for him to have crossed a line with me would have been a serious misjudgment. For it to be suspected that I would have left my own band for a reason like that would be a complete insult to me and the work I put in."
 
There is, however, another version of the story which I've heard enough times over the years to make me think it is more than a rumor. That the breakdown was personal, not professional. That, essentially, Morrissey was in love with you. That he told you, in those typical handwritten notes left at your house that you must choose between him and your wife Angie. That the notes were even written in bottles and tossed over your wall. (When I put this to Johnny, he doesn't sigh or give any sign of surprise)

Johnny: "Morrissey never said 'It can't be you and Angie' to me. All the way through that time with Morrissey, I felt like the luckiest guy in the world. I was playing great guitar in a great band with people I love, a partner I love and the girl I love, and it's all working. Morrissey and I had a super-intense, close relationship, as close as it can get without being physical. It helped make the band. He sent me correspondence all the time, and the notes were always amusing, but I've never heard the bottles-over-walls theory. I know he wanted our relationship to be very close, but for him to have crossed a line with me would have been a serious misjudgment. For it to be suspected that I would have left my own band for a reason like that would be a complete insult to me and the work I put in."

Very Dramatic!:drama:
He cant just say NO he has to do the :drama: thing to the max!
Thas our Drama J :laughing:
 
Great photo. I remember it well. They had a loving friendship for a while which soured on Johnnys end.
Even though Johnny knew he was going to bail happily through the Strangeways recordings I know he regretted it a week after telling everyone he was leaving but he couldnt go back on it. Foolish pride. He was young. Mark my word. I know all. Later you sexy beasts.

1. This is not a shock - at all - because back in the day Johnny was telling everyone this !

2. And he couldn't because Morrissey had already moved on, had sorted out the shit that JM had left them all in - WITH EMI - and was quickly in the studio recording new stuff. Quickly before lawyers pounced on them ALL to collect oh around £5million or thereabouts.....

3. I actually think Morrissey then made the UK Top 10 Singles Chart immediately after leaving The Smiths and Drummer Boy behind.

Hazard
x
 
You know, the best thing about this is that a friend of mine recently went to Seymour Stein's House becayse he had organised a House Sale. Seymour had collected a great deal of memoriabilia over the years and he was looking to get rid of some of these items. He had placed hundreds of valuable items on display, both inside and outside his LA home, for close friends and colleagues to bid for. Some furniture was on the drive too. It was a great day aparently plus it never rained - these things are amusing to us Brits !

Hazard
x
 
Stein's words are revealing - but from John Porter and Joe Moss onwards, to Stephen Street, Johnny Rogan and Jo Slee, the line of people in or around the Smiths camp who were of the same feeling is endless.

Morrissey's situation was plainer than the nose on his face. He wrote about it, arranged the photoshoots - at times it was baldly obvious even from the outside, surely. When you've read the lyrics to "Angel, Angel"... All I can think is that it must be difficult to handle a friendship where one party feels that level of emotion and the other one is married and unable to tear themselves in half. In the end you would HAVE to choose, because you can't have a best friend who treats you like a spouse. It's not sustainable.

To his credit, Johnny has responded to questions about this with dignity and a certain protectiveness over the years - he's never made light of it. I am glad that the seems to be enough respect left between the two of them to do that, at least.
 
Why has my response to an earlier discussion been moved into this separate, dead thread so that it appears to have no context? More relevant to what exactly?
 
I thought your reply was to the previous post that was promoted as a separate article. It's been moved back to the original thread.

Why has my response to an earlier discussion been moved into this separate, dead thread so that it appears to have no context? More relevant to what exactly?
 
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