In which I waste hours finding old articles about Steve
Jan 11, 2022 6:11:23 GMT
Post by Los Narcosatanicos on Jan 11, 2022 6:11:23 GMT
One hobby I picked up during the pandemic was looking for potentially forgotten history on news databases I have access to with my library card. I already had subscriptions to some of the big newspaper sites that target people who are trying to do genealogy work, but the news databases are a different world While they have some overlap, particularly with Newspapers.com, they have all sorts of magazines and trade publications that you can't find elsewhere. ProQuest, in particular, is especially juicy because it has great search features as well as actual scans of a lot of the publications (sometimes from original printings, sometimes from microfilm, and sometimes from both, strangely); it also has plenty of music-themed magazines and entertainment industry trade publications. (My Blonstein avatar is from a 1998 Billboard item about DCC, for example.)
Anyway, the other day, I figured that with the wide selection of relevant publications, I might as well try doing some Steve Hoffman-related searches for kicks. Getting some interesting results was what led to me finding out that this dear forum had been revived years ago and I never noticed. All told, I realized that this could be a fun exercise in time-wasting: Using a continuing thread to catalog as many Hoofy press clippings from over the years as possible, primarily with the goal of finding tall tales and/or contemporaneous articles that counter his version of his luxurious life story. If it's not Steve spinning a yarn or some kind of contradictory bullshit, I won't waste your time with it.
In the little bit of digging I've done so far, one thing is clear: Until DCC launches and he starts working there, there's nothing about him that would suggest he was doing any mastering work. All of the MCA coverage where he's referenced frames him as an A&R guy specializing in reissues. Also, it's interesting to read the '80s-'90s articles about the audiophile reissue market and realize just how much it grew out of very specific problems that became less of an issue as time went on. (Especially using tapes EQed for cutting old vinyl on early mainstream CDs.)
With that out of the way, though, let's start with a tall tale. This one comes from an article about DCC in the October 31, 2000 (spooky!) edition of the Los Angeles Daily News, which you can read on Joni Mitchell's official website because her site appears to catalog thousands of articles that mention her, even if it's in passing like in this one. Anyway, it's mostly pretty mundane, but this happens about a third of the way through the article (emphasis mine):
Initially, it took some convincing in the executive suites. If you were the head of a record company, would you lend your master tape of, say, the Eagles' "Hotel California" to someone who wanted to "make it sound better"?
But Hoffman was well-established. After college and various radio gigs, he had landed at MCA Records, where he, as he puts it, "mucked around" in the catalog putting together compilations and reissues of acts like Buddy Holly.
"I went to Tower one day and bought $5,000 worth of CDs -- every great album ever made -- and we sat down and listened to them, and there was big room for improvement," Hoffman said. "We thought if we could just get the majors to understand that we're not impinging on their sales. They could still sell theirs for the usual amount, and we could sell to the audiophile."
When the CD came along in the mid-'80s, the labels were slow to realize the potential. To them, the compact disc was an off-shoot of vinyl, and rather than issue classic albums from the vaults, they focused on new music.
"So we went about trying to license stuff that they wouldn't get around to for at least five years," Hoffman said. "I mean, Capitol wasn't going to get around to Nat King Cole while they're converting their top acts (to CD). Then, when everyone started getting into the act by 1992, we decided to make CDs that sounded better than anybody else's by licensing full albums from the majors and lavishing time and attention on them."
A quick time-limited and geographically-limited search to find newspaper ads shows that Tower Records locations in Los Angeles were charging $12.99 for most CDs in 1986. Which means that Steve was claiming that he walked into Tower Records one day in the mid-1980s and bought roughly 385 CDs of "every great album ever made" to study as some kind of weird proof of concept for catalog titles deserving audiophile CD reissues. And this included "every great album ever made" despite his beloved Beatles having nothing available on CD at the time in the U.S. (And, IIRC, nothing worldwide beyond the "Black Triangle" Abbey Road.)
FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS' worth of CDs. In one trip to Tower Records. In 1986. Sure.
Anyway, the other day, I figured that with the wide selection of relevant publications, I might as well try doing some Steve Hoffman-related searches for kicks. Getting some interesting results was what led to me finding out that this dear forum had been revived years ago and I never noticed. All told, I realized that this could be a fun exercise in time-wasting: Using a continuing thread to catalog as many Hoofy press clippings from over the years as possible, primarily with the goal of finding tall tales and/or contemporaneous articles that counter his version of his luxurious life story. If it's not Steve spinning a yarn or some kind of contradictory bullshit, I won't waste your time with it.
In the little bit of digging I've done so far, one thing is clear: Until DCC launches and he starts working there, there's nothing about him that would suggest he was doing any mastering work. All of the MCA coverage where he's referenced frames him as an A&R guy specializing in reissues. Also, it's interesting to read the '80s-'90s articles about the audiophile reissue market and realize just how much it grew out of very specific problems that became less of an issue as time went on. (Especially using tapes EQed for cutting old vinyl on early mainstream CDs.)
With that out of the way, though, let's start with a tall tale. This one comes from an article about DCC in the October 31, 2000 (spooky!) edition of the Los Angeles Daily News, which you can read on Joni Mitchell's official website because her site appears to catalog thousands of articles that mention her, even if it's in passing like in this one. Anyway, it's mostly pretty mundane, but this happens about a third of the way through the article (emphasis mine):
Initially, it took some convincing in the executive suites. If you were the head of a record company, would you lend your master tape of, say, the Eagles' "Hotel California" to someone who wanted to "make it sound better"?
But Hoffman was well-established. After college and various radio gigs, he had landed at MCA Records, where he, as he puts it, "mucked around" in the catalog putting together compilations and reissues of acts like Buddy Holly.
"I went to Tower one day and bought $5,000 worth of CDs -- every great album ever made -- and we sat down and listened to them, and there was big room for improvement," Hoffman said. "We thought if we could just get the majors to understand that we're not impinging on their sales. They could still sell theirs for the usual amount, and we could sell to the audiophile."
When the CD came along in the mid-'80s, the labels were slow to realize the potential. To them, the compact disc was an off-shoot of vinyl, and rather than issue classic albums from the vaults, they focused on new music.
"So we went about trying to license stuff that they wouldn't get around to for at least five years," Hoffman said. "I mean, Capitol wasn't going to get around to Nat King Cole while they're converting their top acts (to CD). Then, when everyone started getting into the act by 1992, we decided to make CDs that sounded better than anybody else's by licensing full albums from the majors and lavishing time and attention on them."
A quick time-limited and geographically-limited search to find newspaper ads shows that Tower Records locations in Los Angeles were charging $12.99 for most CDs in 1986. Which means that Steve was claiming that he walked into Tower Records one day in the mid-1980s and bought roughly 385 CDs of "every great album ever made" to study as some kind of weird proof of concept for catalog titles deserving audiophile CD reissues. And this included "every great album ever made" despite his beloved Beatles having nothing available on CD at the time in the U.S. (And, IIRC, nothing worldwide beyond the "Black Triangle" Abbey Road.)
FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS' worth of CDs. In one trip to Tower Records. In 1986. Sure.