A veteran of the promotion world, having clocked in time at companies such as Geffen, RCA and Maverick, Dennis Blair is no stranger to working true and sometimes challenging Modern Rock records to some tough programming crowds, and delivering the goods. Today he continues to excel with projects such as Flobots, Rehab, Billy Boy On Poison and a new Godsmack record all making inroads at Alternative.
Dennis Blair
A veteran of the promotion world, having clocked in time at companies such as Geffen, RCA and Maverick, Dennis Blair is no stranger to working true and sometimes challenging Modern Rock records to some tough programming crowds, and delivering the goods.
Today he continues to excel with projects such as Anberlin, Flobots, Rehab, Billy Boy On Poison and a new Godsmack record all making inroads at Alternative.
We recently caught up with Blair and picked his brain about his career, his mentors and the realities of radio promotion in 2009.
eQB presents excerpts from the July FMQB magazine Modern Rock Up Close with VP of Alternative Promotion for Universal Republic Records, Dennis Blair
“To be able to run a department for a lean, mean and forward thinking label like Republic, and to be able to work with Joel Klaiman, Monte and Avery Lipman, it was an easy choice to make [to come to Universal Republic].
“Not to sound like a cliché’, but we have some pretty good ears over here. Some of the “left-of-center” records… are what makes Universal Republic special. Monte, Avery and Tom MacKay are like mad scientists at times in finding and identifying hits early. It takes a minute to understand the run-and-shoot type offense they run here, but when you get it, it works pretty well. They find them, and our job is to get them heard and exposed fast. We like to pride ourselves in breaking those different than norm sounds.”
“Flobots “Handlebars” was a special record to work. In just five weeks we had that record sitting at the top of the Modern Rock chart. I don’t think a record has climbed that fast in almost 11 years, since Semisonic’s ‘Closing Time’…Anberlin’s major label debut “Feel Good Drag” was at first considered an Emo band, yet eight months later, it became the #1 song at Modern Rock radio – a monster research record still.”
“I have had a lot of fun working some great bands. From the early days at Geffen, it was nuts!! Weezer, Hole, Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses, Counting Crows, the list goes on. RCA was also very special. To be able to work the first three Kings of Leon records, and to see them break this big is amazing. Foo Fighters and Velvet Revolver, The Strokes, My Morning Jacket, such good music.”
“My first job in the business was at Geffen Records as Ed Rosenblatt’s assistant. That was quite an experience to see all that as a 21 year-old-kid, his first job out of college. I was also lucky enough to work for Alan Oreman and Warren Christensen in the Geffen Rock Department. I can’t say enough or even quantify the amount of learning that job has had on my road so far. I also had the pleasure of working with Ted Volk at Geffen at that time, and a couple years later I would work for him at Maverick as Sr .Dr of Rock and Alt formats. And currently, working with Joel has been one of the biggest learning experiences of my career.”
“Everyone from the top down gets their hands dirty doing anything we can for our artists. What our field staff does on a daily basis, and having only six of them for the entire nation is testament to all their hard work and tenacity. It has been an honor to be here.”
“Unfortunately, there are a lot less of us [promotion executives] around anymore due to the state of the industry. That being said, it enables us all to have our hands in almost every facet of the business. There are no more pure promotion people anymore. We all do radio, marketing, retail…it’s all encompassing.”
“Every year it gets harder and harder to get your records exposed and to find the next wave of fans for your music. Radio is dealing with their own challenges as do we on the label side. This is an exciting time for new music, it’s just going to take that one “idea” where it will all connect and we can all be happy bringing new music to the masses again.”
** QB Content by Mike Bacon **
