Ep. 43 Carl Michelakos (16th & Bway, MCA Distribution, Bayside Distribution)
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“This is the worst handwriting I’ve ever seen” is a pretty common refrain this week’s guest has heard throughout his career in the music business. His standard reply was “Are you hiring me for my handwriting or are you hiring me for my music knowledge?” After you listen to this episode, you’ll agree that Carl Michelakos was continually hired for his dizzyingly precise music expertise. His recall of songs, artists, dates and chart positions is downright academic.

Carl started with Tower Records in 1968, but was shopping in the record department of Tower Drug Store in 1957. Though he always bought 45 rpm singles at other stores around town (“If I could afford it, I bought it"), on his first visit to Tower he bought Elvis Presley’s debut album, his first purchase of an LP. He got the job at Tower after spending a year meeting weekly with KXOA DJ Tony King. King was recording Carl's extensive 45 collection to have a better playlist than the other radio stations in town. Tony King told him he had an interview with Rick Briare at 16th & Broadway in Sacramento because “You belong in the music business”.

Seven years with Tower, Carl considered himself a “lifer”. Until an opportunity he had been promised was pulled at the last minute. Shortly thereafter MCA Records came calling. Carl spent 25 years with MCA first servicing all the Tower stores in Northern California where they let him write his own orders. Gigs and promotions in Denver and Atlanta followed.

After MCA and Polygram merged, Carl got a call from Stan Goman and Mark Viducich, telling him “We want you to come back home”. Soon after Carl returned to Bayside, the Tower-owned distribution company. Carl headed up Bayside Special Products and later worked on cultivating outside accounts to grow Bayside’s business until the end in 2006.

Carl also talks to us about the genius of Russ Solomon, having Stan Goman work for him on assignment for a short while, using his position & influence as Singles Buyer to manipulate the charts, the “Dutch Boy” who kept asking him for a job and why Ral Donner (who?) was his favorite rock & roll act of all time. Throughout you will be amazed at Carl’s recall of names, dates, chart positions, song titles and the many people he hired and fired.