I Am Michael Alago: Breathing Music. Signing Metallica. Beating Death.

I Am Michael Alago: Breathing Music. Signing Metallica. Beating Death.

I Am Michael Alago: Breathing Music. Signing Metallica. Beating Death.

I Am Michael Alago: Breathing Music. Signing Metallica. Beating Death.

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Overview

Record label executive, photographer, and author, Michael Alago takes readers through this amazing journey that is his life. Alago grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in a large, spirited, and devoted Puerto Rican family. Through his early passion for music, art, theater, and photography, he soon found himself rubbing elbows with many downtown NYC scene makers, from Stiv Bators to Jean Michel Basquiat, Cherry Vanilla and Wayne County to Deborah Harry and Robert Mapplethorpe. As an underage teenager going to Max's Kansas City, CBGB, and various art galleries, Alago also began running The Dead Boys fan club. A few years later, he became the assistant music director for legendary nightclubs the Ritz and the Red Parrot. At age twenty-four, he began a storied career as an A&R executive at Elektra Records that started with signing Metallica in the summer of 1984, changing the entire landscape of rock 'n' roll and heavy metal. Alago continued to work in A&R for both Palm Pictures and Geffen Records. He was thrilled to executive-produce albums by Cyndi Lauper, Public Image Ltd, White Zombie, and Nina Simone. In the late 1980s, he was diagnosed with HIV, which manifested into full-blown AIDS ten years later. He survived to continue his music career, but in 2005, he left music to pursue his other love: photography. Alago went on to publish three bestselling books: Rough Gods, Brutal Truth, and Beautiful Imperfections with German-based publisher Bruno Gmünder. He has since overcome his longtime addiction to drugs and alcohol. In his clean and sober life, he has reconnected with his family, continues to be a working photographer as well as record producer, and only through the grace of his 12-Step program is he able to live this big, beautiful life. In 2017, a documentary directed by Drew Stone and produced by Michael Alex on Alago's wildly successful career in music was released in theaters and on Netflix, entitled Who the Fuck Is That Guy? The Fabulous Journey of Michael Alago.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781617137259
Publisher: Backbeat
Publication date: 03/25/2020
Pages: 304
Sales rank: 1,039,408
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Passionate about music, art, and literature, legendary music executive and published photographer Michael Alago is the quintessential New Yorker with an “only in New York” career. Alago is known for his extraordinary work with Metallica, White Zombie, John Lydon, Cyndi Lauper, and Nina Simone.

Table of Contents

Foreword ix

Introduction xi

1 Brooklyn 1

2 Vulnerable 11

3 Music. Art. Theatre 17

4 Patti 23

5 A New Family 29

6 Black & White 33

7 10½ Inches 37

8 Florida. Boston. New York. 39

9 All This And More 43

10 Multiple Exposure 51

11 The Ritz 55

12 War Zone 63

13 Red Parrot 67

14 Elektra Records 71

15 American Dreamer 77

16 Game Changer 79

17 Metallica 83

18 Force To Be Reckoned With 87

19 That Metal Guy 91

20 HIV Anonymous 95

21 Fat And Felt 99

22 Humanity 103

23 The Perfect Moment 111

24 Rolling the Dice 121

25 Hazelden 131

26 A Single Woman 141

27 I Dreamed I Drank a Nightmare 161

28 American Psycho 171

29 Prison Mates 175

30 No More Mr. Record Executive 181

31 Sober Not Sober 191

32 Memphis Blues 199

33 Never Fall In Love With a Hooker 205

34 Rough Gods 213

35 Who The Fuck Is That Guy? 219

36 Blanche 223

37 Gratitude 229

Acknowledgments 233

Notes 239

Index 251

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