Feb. 14, 1976: Record promo men Bruce Moser and Barry Lyons

 

In which we meet a couple guys who went on to become major movers in the music industry. 

Feb. 14. 1976 

'Superfans Get New Hits Played on Radio

AS A RULE, record promotion men don’t have to display any more basic qualities than any other soldiers of fortune do.

          All they have to be is totally dedicated and totally cynical at the same time – an attitude that’s best developed via a career in radio.

          So the first time I laid eyes on Bruce Moser 18 months ago in a ticket line at Artpark, I wondered whether he’d cut it.

          The guy’s too nice, I suspected. Altogether too innocent and young – he was 23 then – to be out there battling on the front lines of the music biz.

          He certainly didn’t fit the rule. No radio experience, aside from listening to it. Bruce’s main qualification is that he’s a fan. No, not just a fan – a superfan.

          He’d been a singer with a group called The Restless. He’d collected more than 1,000 albums and kept a scrapbook of every rock concert he’d attended since 1965.

          His attic bedroom on Buffalo’s East Side is papered with countless pictures of his favorites – Beatles, Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell (lots of Joni Mitchell), Linda Ronstadt, Neil Young and Jim Morrison, among others.

          After he got his degree in history from UB, he did what any self-respecting superfan would do.

          He found the biggest pile of records in Western New York – giant Transcontinent Record Sales in West Seneca – and went to work there, loading them on trucks.

          The step from warehouse man to promo man came because Bruce is not one to let a gripe go undeclared.

          He took his complaints to Transcontinent president Leonard Silver, who looked him over and pegged him for bigger things.

* * *

SO BRUCE got a company station wagon with 100,000 miles on it, a corner of the warehouse for a desk, an ever-swelling pile of deejay record samples, a phone, a territory from here to Utica and eight record companies to work for.

          Currently, there’s Amherst (Transcontinent’s own label), Arista, Buddah, Casablanca, Lifesong, 20th Century and United Artists, all of whom contract with Transcontinent instead of sending their own men out like the biggest companies.

          “After all,” Bruce shrugs, “somebody’s got to get the hits on the radio.”

          That’s the job, basically. Bruce pays weekly visits to major stations here and in Rochester (less often to Syracuse, Utica and Erie, Pa.) to give out free copies and try to convince program directors to play them.

          Which isn’t easy. Some weeks as many as 100 singles come out and radio stations generally add only two or three records to their playlists.

* * *

OFTEN THE success or failure of a record depends on whether a promo man can get it played and the promo man gets blamed if he can’t.

          Bruce says he’s heard every one of the excuses on the Top 40 Reasons Why We Can’t Play It list beside his desk. Nevertheless, his enthusiasm and persistence have worked small wonders.

          He got Eric Andersen onto local Top 10 lists last year, broke the Bay City Rollers here ahead of the rest of the country, established Ambrosia and Crack The Sky as local progressive favorites and Supertramp as a local sensation.

          That’s not all. Whenever someone like Melissa Manchester, Dan Hill or Charlie Daniels is in town, Bruce hustles them around to the stations to meet deejays and do interviews, all of which helps their records.

          Daniels gave Bruce a gold record for making Buffalo the first Northern city to pick up on his “Fire on the Mountain” album.

          For local-grown Andersen, Bruce arranged for a key to the city from Mayor Makowski.

* * *

OFTEN, SIDEKICK Barry Lyons rides along.

          Barry’s been in the music business since he was 4. His father, a record distributor here in the ‘50s, runs Midtown Record Stores, a 22-outlet chain that stretches from Cleveland to Albany.

          “I made up grab bags for him when I was 8,” Barry says. “I got a penny a grab bag. My record was one day when I made $8.48.”

          Barry got a degree in cinematography from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and came back to records – clerking in Sattler’s record department on Broadway.

          “I was clerk for three days,” he says, “and then they made me manager. It was run like a retail store.

          “You did your own ordering. I managed that record department for two long years. Ooooh, how did I do it?”

          From there he went to Transcontinent, where he was in charge of merchandising and distributing.

          Essentially, Bruce gets the records played and Barry gets them into the stores.

* * *

THESE DAYS Barry’s handing national marketing and merchandising for Transcontinent’s fledgling Amherst label, which also includes DJM Records from England.

          Barry’s a superfan too, generally a more vehement one than Bruce.

          He’s not quick to forgive a bad word about his raves (notably the Dudes) or a slight of DJM’s current rock release – ex-Fleetwood Mac member Danny Kirwan’s “Second Chapter.”

          “My ultimate interest … well, I’m a fan more than anything else,” Barry says. “To boil it down, I heard rock ‘n roll and I lost control.”

          “Me too,” says Bruce. “Say there’s somebody you’ve been a fan of for 10 years and you get a chance to help them and meet and work with them. That’s what makes it all worthwhile for me.”

* * * * *

IN THE ILLUSTRATION: Barry Lyons, left, and Bruce Moser, center, sing promotional praises of Danny Kirwan’s “Second Chapter” album to WYSL music director Harv Moore. It took a while, but the station added Kirwan’s single, “Ram Jam City,” to its playlist. Artist here is probably the late great Dick Bradley, who had just joined The News around this time.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: Bruce Moser is a beloved figure in Buffalo musical circles. Eccentric and irrepressible, he partnered with another Transcontinent colleague, Doug Dombrowski, to start an independent record promo service in 1978. They called it Could Be Wild Promotions, after Bruce’s favorite catchphrase, and their chaotic office on Elmwood Avenue in Allentown became a mecca for musicians and superfans alike, myself included.

          Bruce and Doug found their groove in promoting to the FM rock stations on “the Thruway chain” from Boston to Cleveland. They elevated the fortunes of numerous artists – the Cars, Bryan Adams, Rush, Melissa Etheridge and, most notably, U2, which they touted from the very beginning. Bono became a close friend of Bruce. Bruce was inducted into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame in 2006. Semi-retired in the 2010s after a heart attack, he died in 2020.

          Barry Lyons went on to work for record labels that mostly favored the kinds of music he loves. Beginning in 1978, it was Elektra/Asylum, where he was Midwest regional promotion man, based in Chicago. At I.R.S. Records, where he went in 1987, he was VP of promotion until it got acquired. As he noted in an interview a couple years ago, “R.E.M. left and so did I.”

Onward to a couple years with Irving Azoff’s Giant Records, where he was VP of rock promotion. Then four years at Polygram, running the rock departments, first at Polydor, then at Island. In 2000, he started something called Rent A Label to provide services to artists and managers operating outside the major label sphere. Currently based in the Los Angeles area, his office is in Santa Monica.