Larry Anthony Weir (born April 11, 1952) is an American songwriter, composer, producer, promoter and managing editor of New Music Weekly magazine. Weir is best known for songs in the musical Teen Witch (1989), which has become an annual Halloween tradition on several television networks.
Early life
Namesake to his father, Larry Weir is the eldest of nine children born to Larry and Maria Weir. Weir's father was an architect/builder and Maria is a teacher and classical pianist.
In 1967, Weir was influenced by composers, Burt Bacharach, Jimmy Webb and the Beatles. A guitar player and singer, Weir recruited his brother Tom and sister Maria to form The Royal Enterprise and had a San Diego area radio hit with one of his earliest compositions, "Boy It's All In Your Head" in 1968.
In 1970, the Weir family moved to Oxnard, California with Weir attending his senior year at Oxnard High School and attended two years at Ventura College. At this time, Tom, Maria and Larry founded Ventura County Youth Experimental Theatre featuring three of Weir's original musicals, "Island" (1971), "Hobos Jungle" (1972) and "House On Crossroad Alley" (1973).
The entire family participated in the Ventura theatre productions, with Larry Sr. involved in set design and construction, other family responsibilities included: choreography, casting, costumes, direction and music composition for these fully orchestrated theatre productions.[1]
The Weirz
By 1975, the Weir family was again living in San Diego County area (Bonsall, California), the band included all nine of the Weir siblings and was now called The Weirz. The San Diego radio station, KGB-FM included the Weirz song, "Gypsies From Bonsall" on the KGB HomeGrown III LP album on side one, track number four.[2]
All nine of the musicians are brothers and sisters. Guitarist and composer Larry, the gray-beard at 23 moans, "No one can believe that we're one family." But it's true, and here they are (take a deep breath first): Maria, 22; Estelle, 21; Tom, 20; Pixie, 18; Cathy, 17; Theresa, 15; Mike, 13; and Joan 11. "Gypsies From Bonsall" is kinda autobiographical," admits Larry. "We travel to gigs in a van and a wagon--mobile gypsies. But we have our own studio at the farm where we live. You might call us a new breed of family band."
"Gypsies From Bonsall", a song about a band wearing out their welcome and moving on, received generous airplay on KGB-FM in 1975. After releasing a self-titled album, the family moved to Woodland Hills, California to be closer to the recording industry.[3] Headlining at the Starwood, the Troubadour, the Whisky a Go Go and other Los Angeles venues, Larry and Michael also concentrated on a promotional campaign for the band, Michael (Michael Damian Weir) began signing promotional letters as Michael Damian, which later became his stage name. At a performance at The Troubador, Michael was recognized from a 1981 appearance on American Bandstand, Michael was approached and agreed to play the part of a struggling singer (Danny Romalotti) on the daytime television series, The Young and the Restless.[4] Weir also found an outlet for his songwriting, writing and arranging many of the songs that Michael Damian would perform on the television show.[1]
The move to Woodland Hills also had a profound effect on the neighbors, on in particular was Eric Avery the son of Brian Avery who played the role of Carl Smith in the movie The Graduate. Eric Avery went on to become the bass player for Jane's Addiction, while his sister, Rebecca Avery, followed a career in acting.[5]
Eric Avery: The Weirz inspired me to play music because they had all these instruments lying around, I was twelve years old. It was like having a musical playground literally next door. There were three different horn players, a drummer, a bass player, guitar vibes, any instrument you could think of all in this big house. I think I started on drums. One sister, Maria, was the bass player. I remember distinctly the way her amp looked. It was like the classic kind of Ampeg stack and I remember her plucking like an open E and it just rumbled to my core.
—Brendan Mullen, "Whores: An Oral Biography of Perry Farrell And Jane's Addiction"
In 1981, Michael Damian (Weir), hit the Billboard Hot 100 at #69 with Eric Carmen's "She Did It", and signed a record deal with CBS records Canada in 1983. The CBS deal produced two albums:
Love is a Mystery (1984, Columbia, PCC-90710, produced by Larry, Tom and Michael Damian Weir)
Michael Damian (1986, CBS Direct, DMB1-080, produced by Larry and Tom Weir)
"She's in a Different World" and "What Are You Looking For", were hit singles from each album respectively, producing tours with the Weirz as the opening act. Michael Damian's cover of, David Essex' song, Rock On reached the #1 position on the Billboard magazine Hot 100 chart in 1989.
The Weirz signed with Curb Records in 1983, first releasing singles in Europe, followed by a single, "Imagination", which led to American Bandstand and Dance Fever appearances in the United States.[6][7][8] The Weirz played their last tour in 1987, as the opening act for the Canadian release of the Michael Damian album.
With Michael Damian Weir as a regular on The Young and the Restless, Weir was writing songs for Damian to perform as an artist and also as the Danny Romalotti character on the television show. In a Los Angeles Times interview, Damian explains the dynamics, "My character was a starving singer who was working as a waiter--which was what I was doing at the time," he recalled. "As my recording career developed, so did my role on 'The Young and the Restless.' When Michael Damian had a No. 1 single, so did Danny Romalotti."[1]
Larry Weir and Tom Weir teamed up with Michael Parnell to score 34 episodes of the 1991-93 television show, Dangerous Curves, starring Lisa Cutter and Michael Michele.[14][15]
Weir Brothers Recording Studios
The Weir Brothers Recording Studios is added to the musical credits in the late 1980s and early 1990s.[16] Some of the titles written or co-written by Larry and with Weir family members producing, and performing at Weir Brothers Recording Studios are:
National Record Promotions (NRP), is service company that provides acceptance testing for new music in secondary radio markets. Modeled after the Gavin report, record labels and independent artists employ the service to gather regional analytic data for their songs, side by side with the top ranking hits of the day. In 2011, Real II Reel Productions named National Record Promotions, "... the #1 independent record promoter in the country ..."[22]
In 1998, New Music Weekly magazine was created in partnership with promoter Paul Loggins, the owner of Spins Tracking System. New Music Weekly is a trade magazine that digests music industry news and evaluates Spins Tracking System data from some 400 National subscriber radio stations.[23]
In the mid-1990s, Weir found that music production and radio promotion tasks overlap and that he had become adept in both functions. Weir had found that some promoters were less than truthful about accomplishing their contract obligations. In 1995, Weir created National Record Promotion (NRP), a streamlined promotional service for musicians and labels who may not have dedicated promotional staff. Weir and co-owner Masika Swaim, have a personal relationship with NRP subscriber radio stations, contacting each radio station by telephone on a weekly basis. Ultimately, the critique of the promoted music is determined by the radio professionals and listener feedback, which drives the "spin" count of a promoted song. Requests from listeners, acceptance by programming managers and disc-jockeys will likely improve the number of spins per week. Feedback, in terms of number of spins and comparative chart positions, is reported back to the artist or label by the Spins Tracking System. Songs with outstanding audience appeal, as determined by the number of spins or rapid elevations in chart rankings, are noted in New Music Weekly magazine regardless to the artist's choice of promoters.[24]
One perceived limitation of modern radio promotion, is that some radio stations are located in small radio markets. In most cases, large-market radio stations (Top 40) are run from pre-programmed lists and music rotation decisions occur at a distant corporate offices.[25] In effect, radio stations with rigid programming formats provide little insight into listener preference and determining marketability of new music.
^ ab"Back Cover". KGB HOMEGROWN III (Vinyl LP). Various. San Diego, California: KDB Radio. 1975.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
^"American Bandstand 146:86 Michael Damian". Season Number 34 Episode Number 146 AB 86. 15 Feb 1986. Retrieved 20 July 2012. Michael Damian performs "I Engineer" on American Bandstand. The Singer then talks about his career and how he went from music to television and now splits his time between the two. Michael then performs "What Are You Looking For" as his family plays in the band for him.
^"Episode Detail: Dance Fever". TV Guide. Retrieved 20 July 2012. The Weirz sing "Person to Person." Judges: Peter Noone, Martha Smith and Desi Arnaz Jr.
^"The Weirz". Imagination. Mike Curb Records MGM (L33-1144). Retrieved 15 July 2012.
^Widran, Jonathan. "Heartland Entertainment: About us". National Record Promotion. Heartlandent.com. Retrieved 2 August 2012. Upon contracting a project, Weir and Swain sit down and discuss strategies and formats, and come up with the best places to target. Not surprisingly, they have greater success pushing non-major label product in the smaller markets where programmers tend to be more ambitious and open-minded to good material, regardless of the clout of the record company.
^Keith, Michael C. (2010). "3 Programming". The Radio Station(PDF) (Eighth ed.). USA: Elsevier. p. 96. ISBN978-0-240-81186-4. Retrieved 2 November 2013. Radio clusters may consist of as many as eight stations. In this situation, one individual is usually assigned to perform the function of general supervisor of all cluster programming, and each of the stations within the cluster has a designated PD, who reports to this person – typically referred to as the director of operations.
