Rod Stewart (#11) - Evan’s 111 Artists
AOL Music in the Daily News ‘04
“Do You Think I’m Sexy” was so weird at first. I knew Rod as a rocker from radio, but here he was doing disco, kinda, but not really. But it was still really good. Cool hair, stage presence, and swagger, a memorable voice, and amazing songs. Love Rod.
One summer I was home from school and working at the car wash on Rt. 18. At this time, Rod was not very relevant, but hey, he was “classic.” Eric, John Massoni, and Rob Raich were up for the excursion to Atlantic City. The show was outside in a parking lot!
Later that eve he was at a gambling table behind a velvet rope, and he asked me to call a number… I could barely answer—haha, I was star-struck!
We produced an AOL Music Live performance with Rod from the Apollo in NYC in ’04. Like most shows, we had a lot of industry, fans of course, and some porn stars, thanks to Scott Richman. Pretty sure that connection came from a project a photographer friend we met through Lou Reed had recently concluded. It was actually really cool, and the opening—just another night in NYC for us at that point—he photographed people naked and then clothed, the gallery displayed them side by side, and the porn stars seemed much more at ease naked.
AOL Music Live with Rod Stewart at the Apollo in ’04. I never worked directly with Clive Davis, but he was omnipresent throughout my BMG, AOL, and iHeart days.
Usually we did our AOL Live shows downtown at Webster Hall (formerly called The Ritz, where I first saw the Ramones in ’86). Going uptown to the historic Apollo Theater for our own production was next-level.
Luli was real young and Diane was home with her, but my mom was up from Florida, so she joined.
This was my last live show at AOL Music.
A month or so later I left my core crew—Bill, Kevin, Scott, Mike, Jared.
Prior to AOL, we worked together at BMG corporate, where we helped bring the company into the digital fray. Then we joined the world’s largest media company, the newly combined AOL Time Warner, where we created AOL Music, amassing a massive audience utilizing digital technologies, many of which were way ahead of their time.
Kevin had been President of Tech and CMO at BMG Worldwide. When our CEO Strauss left, Kevin jumped to AOL and eventually brought us all with him—truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create something incredibly meaningful… and we did just that.
It was a fascinating and exhilarating time in media. We launched 100+ First Listens and had the biggest artists in the world come play live and in studios for us, which we then made available on demand (aka: streaming). This was 2004—it was all brand new!
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“Dad, you always say this song is a F*CKING MASTERPIECE… make a list.”
Some Rod masterpieces are listed below, and more on my 1k+ song Spotify Playlist — Evan’s 111 Artists
Gasoline Alley, Handbags and Gladrags, You Wear It Well, Maggie May, Every Picture Tells A Story, Tonight’s The Night, Ooh La La and Stay With Me (The Faces)
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A typical day after work back in Montclair in ’04 with my little Luli and Edie (my Amazon parrot I bought in AZ when I was 22.