Author: David Kronemyer

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About David Kronemyer

Mr. David Kronemyer started his career in the music business playing 12-string electric guitar in a folk rock band. Lacking sufficient talent to continue as a performer he began to manage bands and promote shows. He formerly was Vice President of Capitol Records and Senior Vice President of Atlantic Records. Segueing to the movie business he became President of Gold Circle Films and then President of Cerberus Films. He currently is producing records and directing independent movies, none of which have much commercial potential.

Posts by David Kronemyer:

What Likely Happened to the Royalties from ‘Sugar Man’

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The 2012 movie “Searching for Sugar Man” belatedly made a minor star out of the musician Sixto Diaz Rodriguez. Its basic premise is that somehow his records became hits in South Africa but everybody thought he was dead, so they went looking for him. In fact, he was alive all along in Detroit, pursuing a modest career as a day laborer. Rodriguez was signed to the independent label Sussex Records.

Listening in Colors: Lydia Purple

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MuseWire COLUMN: Lydia Purple is one of those songs that, for me, encapsulate an era. It is evocative and redolent of the late 1960s. Like a latter-day time traveler, I cannot listen to it without being magically transported back to another world, another moment in space and time. The iconic version was performed by the […]

Back to the Byrds House: Eight Miles High

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MuseWire COLUMN: “Eight Miles High” is one of the greatest songs of all time. It influenced me significantly and from what I can discern from multiple sources had major social-cultural impact also. It doesn’t help that I idolize the Byrds and McGuinn is one of my musical heroes. There are different versions of the song’s […]

Getting the Right Guitar Tone – version 113.5

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MuseWire COLUMN: It’s a rainy day in Southern California so I decided to fool around with one of the things I like doing best … experimenting with guitar sounds. I must confess I used to be pretty promiscuous with tonal experimentation. I went through your EL34s, 6L6 and KT66 power tubes, your Amperex, Mullard, Telefunken […]

Deconstructing the Doors

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MuseWire COLUMN: When did the Doors’ records start going downhill? The answer to this question is shortly after their third record, however, the band’s incipient tendency to write bad songs is evident as early as their first, as I will explain. The problem mainly has to do with the band’s inclination to attempt to integrate […]

Sun Ra and the Meaning of Being

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Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: African-American spirituality has been expressed in a profound tradition of music dating back to the first days of slavery in the United States. One of the consistent lyrical themes of this genre is the temporality of life, its transience and impermanence, the problem of evil, and the promise of a better world to come.

Rash of Tuba Thefts Plagues Los Angeles

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MuseWire COLUMN: The Los Angeles Times recently has carried several stories about a series of tuba thefts that have plagued local area high schools, colleges, bands, orchestras and other performing aggregations. A quick www search reveals that L.A. is not the only jurisdiction victimized by this spate of thievery. On further review it turns out […]

On the Front Lines at NAMM 2012

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MuseWire COLUMN: For immediate dispatch from the wild and wooly frontier south of Disneyland – after a decade of resisting the blandishments and imprecations of colleagues I finally re-attended this year’s NAMM convention (Jan. 19-22, 2012). NAMM of course stands for the National Association of Music Merchandisers. Its annual soiree is held at the Anaheim […]

Dancing at the Sundance Film Festival

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MuseWire COLUMN: The Sundance Film Festival begins today (January 19th) in Park City, Utah, and runs for an exhausting 10 days through January 29th. When I was an executive in the independent film business I attended Sundance regularly. I’ll never forget the frisson of excitement I experienced when a film I financed and produced – […]

Wikipedia Shuts Itself Down (for a Day)

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Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Somehow the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia managed to get backed into a political corner where it had to shut itself down for a day (January 18th) in order to demonstrate solidarity with those protesting proposed legislation to restrict the prerogatives of web site owners.

Deconstructing Pop Culture: CEMA Distribution – A Brief History

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MuseWire COLUMN: Part of a continuing series on the history of Capitol-EMI Music. One of the themes I pursued with Bhaskar Menon (then head of EMI Music) in the early 1980s was the logic of forming a separate distribution company that would operate autonomously (but in close coordination with) Capitol-EMI’s labels. “It makes complete sense […]

Deconstructing Pop Culture: Virgin Records

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MuseWire COLUMN: At the end of the previous post in this series we left the Koppelman regime “in full affect.” It was a truism that at Capitol-EMI during the late 1980s – early 1990s, every six months or so something dramatic would happen (this maxim still pertains). Thus, even as Koppelman came to dominate the […]

COLUMN: Capitol-EMI in the Late 1980s – Early 1990s

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MuseWire COLUMN: The history of Capitol-EMI in the late 1980s – early 1990s is one of constant turmoil and upheaval. Management devised, attempted to implement, and then discarded different strategies as it tried to respond to the dynamics and exigencies of a rapidly-changing market for the origination and delivery of recorded music. A. Joe Smith […]

The Billboard Top 200 – What it Really Means

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COLUMN: For some time Billboard Magazine published a “Top 200” chart, which purported to identify the 200 best-selling records in the country. It used a variety of methodologies over time to comprise this data. Initially it relied on “store reports” from a limited (“small-n”) sample of retail record stores, together with feedback from local radio stations ….

Capitol Records under Bhaskar Menon

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COLUMN: In April 1971 Joseph Lockwood (then chairman of EMI) fired Stanley Gortikov as president of Capitol Industries and Sal Iannucci as president of Capitol Records. As Lockwood expressed in EMI's 1971 annual report, there was “evidence of ineffective management and lack of strong cost controls. … For some years the company had enjoyed a […]

The Last Days of United Artists Records (with Comments on the Thirteen Colonies Syndrome and the Masterpiece Theater Effect)

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COLUMN: I thought it might be interesting to recapitulate the last days of United Artists Music and Records Group, Inc. (“UAR”) and the circumstances under which Capitol Industries-EMI, Inc. (“Capitol”) acquired it. The information set forth in this note is based on my personal knowledge of what happened and my independent analysis of events; an […]

Capitol-EMI’s Early Management – with Comments on Moral Hazard and the Fading Diva Syndrome

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COLUMN: Johnny Mercer was Capitol’s first president. Glen Wallichs succeeded Mercer in 1947. Alan Livingston succeeded Wallichs in 1961. One of Livingston’s main accomplishments was creating the cartoon character Bozo the Clown. Livingston got fired in July 1968 and was succeeded by Stanley Gortikov. Gortikov also succeeded Wallichs as president of Capitol Industries in 1969. […]

The Early History of Capitol Records

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COLUMN: Johnny Mercer, Glen Wallichs and Buddy DeSylva founded Capitol Records, Inc. in 1942. For a history of Capitol see Grein, P. (1992) Capitol Records – Fiftieth Anniversary 1942 – 1992. Mercer initially capitalized the company with $25,000 (later reports credit both Mercer and DeSylva with contributing to Capitol’s initial financing, but in the total […]

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Deconstructing Pop Culture: Which would You Rather Own – Warner Music Group, Warner Bros. Studio, or maybe neither?

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COLUMN: It always is entertaining to look at Warner Bros.' financial results. Throughout its various permutations and incarnations it has remained a diversified entertainment conglomerate with interests in both music and films. It always has been subject to the financial reporting requirements of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, which has tended to make its […]

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Deconstructing Pop Culture: 10 Tips for the Hollywood Executive

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COLUMN: Busy savoring that new, close-in parking spot? Well you'd better read this if you want to hang on to it. Hollywood long has been known for its cunning business tactics, callous ruthlessness, cutthroat entrepreneurialism and all-around gleeful back-stabbing. OK, Sammy Glick gained the world but lost his soul, so what else is new? No […]

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Deconstructing Pop Culture: Why Do People in the Movie Business Look Down on People in the Record Business?

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COLUMN: People in the movie business historically view people in the record business as some kind of inferior beings. Just ask David Geffen when he became Vice-Chairman of Warner Bros. Pictures after a successful career as head of Elektra/Asylum Records. As described in Tom King's book “The Operator”: “Geffen, who had succeeded stellarly at everything […]

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Deconstructing Pop Culture: How Many Records Did the Beatles Actually Sell?

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COLUMN: The Fab Four once again is in the news with the announcement that remastered versions of their catalog will be available in September 2009 (source: Allan Kozinn, “Beatles Fans Await Re-Releases,” New York Times, April 8, 2009). The Beatles were Capitol Records’ most famous recording artists. Although their mercurial career spanned but a few […]

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Deconstructing Pop Culture: Record Sales and Theatrical Box Office

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COLUMN: The Recording Industry Association of America (“RIAA”) is the trade association for the U.S. record industry. The Motion Picture Association of America (“MPAA”) is the trade association for the U.S. film industry. One of their pretend jobs is to compile and disseminate statistics pertinent to each of their respective businesses. Their favorite hobby, however, […]