Straight Up with Straight
By Record World
LOS ANGELES – With its third LP release just reaching the market and after seven months of life, Straight Records is on the way to proving its newly evolved formula for record manufacturing and sales.
With today’s mass of new product appearing on a daily basis, Straight, formed as a subsidiary of Bizarre Inc., a venture undertaken by Frank Zappa, Herb Cohen and Neil Reshen, has already established three new artists and three steadily selling LPs. The company is now releasing four new LPs bringing its catalog to nine items.
This success pattern is credited by the company to its operational concepts in the areas of selecting and recording artists and designing promotional aids. The key in the sales area is its ideas in planning and implementing programs combining all elements including the record itself, promotion, publicity, advertising, visual merchandising aids, personal contact on all local as well as national levels and honesty.
The label is operated on a day-to-day basis by a corps of five executives in the areas of sales, promotion and publicity with product supervision falling directly under the attention of Frank Zappa who has been so instrumental in the revolution of pop music. Business manager Reshen and VP Cohen represent the label with in the industry in regard to its business dealings with other labels, talent managers, international dealings, etc.
All Under 30
The five-man exec staff, all under 30, is comprised of Bud Hayden, Director of Sales and Promotion; Rick Bolsom, Director of Public Relations; National Promotion Director Allan McDougall; West Coast Publicity Chief Jon Gordon and Art Director John Williams.
The Straight staff calls their company Renaissance Records with one eye to the present and another to the future.
Straight’s concept of presenting unusual but interesting artists is carried over into the sales and promotional techniques used by the staff to sell these artists. Hayden emphasizes that “Our people are chosen for their ability to present this concept as it becomes fact in our records.”
Whereas most often new independents gear to the singles or specialty LP area in order to establish themselves, Straight is LP-oriented in the area of progressive product in cluding straight rock, bizarre underground, comedy and social commentary.
It is the structure of the company that allows this unusual approach to be used.
The executive staff works under the principles of total internal communication; freedom of opinion; acceptance of ideas and guaranteed execution of plans and promises.
At this moment, Straight’s first blitz operation is taking place in the Washington area. An exceptional sales pattern affecting the label’s Captain Beefheart “Trout Mask Replica LP” was reported by the company’s distributor in the City, Schwartz Brothers. The LP was outselling other items in the Straight release which were themselves performing according to projected patterns. This despite the fact that the Beefheart LP was not getting as I much air-time in that city as other Straight product.
A program for testing the Beefheart market in Washington was devised by Sales Manager Hayden and with the coordination of the promotion and p.r. departments Straight arranged for a special two-hour show on the music of Captain Beefheart over station WHFS-FM Bethesda, Md. This in cluded the Straight double LP as well as previously available Beefheart product (via Blue Thumb Records’ Don Graham) and a lengthy interview with the Captain included in the anthology. The airtime was supported by paid advertising in the Washington underground paper Quicksilver Times along with the promotion of the new LP as a subscription incentive in the paper.
Schwartz Brothers created in-store advertising supporting the promotion and the Washington area press was reserviced with new and timely publicity material on Beefheart and his unique approach to music. Sales manager Hayden projects that the promotion could well quadruple the already substantial sales of the set in the Capitol area.
Since its debut with one single and one LP (Alice Cooper’s “Pretties for You”), Straight has issued two additional LPs, “Trout Mask Replica” by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, and “Farewell Aldebaran,” by Judy Henske and Jerry Yester. Following these were two new LPs, “Lord Buckley” and the original soundtrack from “Naked Angels.”
Scheduled in November are two LPs featuring Jeff Simmons, who composed the score for “Naked Angels,” in his debut set; Penrod in their first outing and the G.T.O.’s first album.
November at Straight is also Tim Buckley month, with all stops being pulled out for his “Blue Afternoon” LP.
Straight will continue in the ’70s the plans laid down during the past year. A second Captain Beefheart and a second Alice Cooper album are already scheduled for early in the year. Several additional LPs of a unique nature are being promised for release during the first quarter of 1970.