Lauder was briefly with Island Records, signing U2 in March 1980 and offering Buzzcocks frontman Pete Shelley a solo record deal. He was ahead of the game in other ways too; pioneering a more creative way of marketing and promoting records and revolutionising the way catalogue was organised and presented. He became known for setting up Brassneck Publicity in 1980, one of the most successful independent PR companies over the next 30 years.

With all this in mind, UK record industry veteran Andrew Lauder’s memoir is not necessarily one for those who prefer these things to teem with improbable tales of incredible narcotic excess. In 1969 United Artists rebuffed Chrysalis Records’ attempt to poach Lauder, and gave him greater control.At that point I knew the album we had was definitely a dead duck because two thirds of the recordings weren’t good enough and it was a different band anyway, so even Dave Edmunds’ tracks were now redundant. I’d already put Lemmy in touch with American artist Joe Petagno who’d done artwork for Dr Feelgoods’ Malpractice and Joe came up with the first version of the now familiar skull logo. Initially noted for his adventurous signings of bands as diverse as Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Can, Hawkwind and Brinsley Schwarz to Liberty Records and United Artists Records in the 1960s and 70s, he went on to form numerous independent labels including Radar Records, F-Beat Records and Demon Music Group. the soundman to make it louder and louder until at one point I felt a stab of pain in my head and yelped.

He’d been in the Four Pennies – just about the antithesis of Motorhead – and was now an engineer/producer at Rockfield. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page.

Soon after, we signed the Flamin’ Groovies and some other oddball bands, things that did fairly well without really hitting the charts. Lee Brackstone, publisher, acquired world English-language rights to Happy Trails: Andrew Lauder’s Charmed Life and High Times in the Record Business, co-written by Mick Houghton, directly from the authors, for publication on 27th April 2023 in hardback, trade paperback, e-book and audio, with a foreword by Richard Williams. He also has significant experience advising banks and sponsors on the hedging aspects of financings (infrastructure and leveraged finance), including deal contingent hedging, as well as workouts of derivatives portfolios in distressed scenarios. He was ahead of the game in other ways, too; pioneering a more creative way of marketing and promoting records and revolutionising the way catalogue was organised and presented.