David Enthoven was an interesting man. He discovered and/or managed King Crimson, Marc Bolan, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Roxy Music.
In the early days their records were licensed to Island but in the 70s Enthoven, together with his partner John Gaydon, founded the great EG record label which became home to Eno, Crimson, Roxy and others.
After drug and drink problems Enthovan dropped out of sight in the mid-70s and EG was sold to Virgin. He re-emerged in the 80s as manager of, er, Robbie Williams.
David Enthoven died this week aged 72.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/aug/12/david-enthoven-obituary?CMP=share_btn_fb
David Enthoven. Remember him this way.
http://i.imgur.com/4pmMPiz.jpg
Hey conch where do you buy these tiles with the funky album covers. In doing the bathroom and a set of blues tiles would be nice
I know you like them JW. I got them from Rock ‘n’ Tiles R Us (prop. Stephen Tiler)
Didn’t he record Tessellation Blues
Come On In My Tiled Kitchen Splashback?
If you polish it too much and then cunningly invite your enemies round does it become a Killing Floor?
You’ll find yourself knocked Out on the Tiles.
Nothing I like more than to invite friends around for an evening of Grout Rock
I prefer vinly flooring.
Maybe I’m Unglazed
I met him a couple of times around then – he was a friend of one of my flatmates. Had no idea he was so distinguished – I remember him saying he was in the music business, but so did a lot of people back then. Reminds me of the old New Yorker cartoon about writing a novel: “I’m in the music business.” “Neither am I.”
Nice story Mike.
I met him backstage at Chris Difford’s first solo gig (after Squeeze & after alcoholism), at a venue in Docklands. Diff was absolutely bricking it and had assembled an all-star band including Francis Dunnery and Boo Hewerdine on guitars, and Aimee Mann’s mix engineer out front (I can’t remember her name but she was lovely, and we swapped venue PA horror stories over dinner).
David was a genuinely lovely chap, quite the opposite of the music manager cliché. I didn’t realise who he was until Boo told me – it wasn’t long after Robbie Williams’ £80M deal with EMI.
Diff, Boo, David & I listened to a dance remix of one of Boo’s recent folk songs – yes, really – done (for a laugh) by my pal Richard. David suggested we press it onto 12″ vinyl and hit the clubs. Boo reckoned 40-something was a bit old to become a dance music star.
While Boo was onstage doing the support slot, I asked David to manage him. Boo was managerless at the time, with me as his gofer/soundman, but I was struggling to hold down a full-time job as well.
“Boo doesn’t need me, and I’ve got my hands full with Rob” was his answer.
There were some nice bottled beers on the backstage rider. Diff was dry and Boo was on the Pinot Grigio. “Steve – stuff those in your pockets, or they’ll only go to waste – and we don’t want the cleaners getting pissed” was the last thing I heard David say. I had one in the car as we drove home up the M11.
I might have another one today. To absent friends.
I think that’s a better story! 🙂
Every time I hear that fellow’s name my brain turns it into ‘Hugh Boowerdine’. I wonder why anyonme would choose to call themselves Boo? weird.
An old schooldays nickname that stuck, derived from boo-hoo(werdine).
Has a better ring to it than Marcus Hewardine as a stage name.
I once promoted a secret warm-up gig in Cambridge for Boo’s new trio (Rob W Jackson on guitar and Rosalie Deighton on vocals) as Hugh Boowerdine.
Not quite a Bingo Hand Job in the decryption challenge round, was it?
Very sad to hear this. I met him regularly the last decade I was in London. Very affable, very cheery, unaffected bloke. He helped a great many people.
I was very late in hearing Warm Jets by Eno and, when I next met David, I mentioned I was surprised how commercial and poppy it was. David agreed and told me he’d tried, unsuccessfully, to convince Eno to release at least one more album in this vein to try to garner some pop success.
Finally, when he scored hugely on the back of the EMI-Robbie deal, he disbursed a sizeable chunk of the money he received to his office staff. I also knew his accountant and he retired immediately, having received, IIRC, in the region of half a million pounds from David.
Great label, great music man, great guy.
Great tales both from Ian and Fenton