Mark Lipsitz, the longtime label supervisor of Bar/None Information, died yesterday (July 5), in response to the label. “Mark was a fierce artist advocate and championed the music he found, pushing everybody he knew to be the most effective musician and the most effective particular person they could possibly be,” Bar/None Information wrote in a press release on Instagram. “The music trade is shedding a coach, an envoy, and an ally. However Mark created friendships and networks of individuals that might by no means thrive as they do with out his affect. The work he leaves behind will enrich us all eternally.” Lipsitz was 61.
In 1986, Bar/None Information was based in Hoboken, New Jersey, by the hands of Tom Prendergast, a former pirate radio DJ and live performance booker. After Glenn Morrow of Rage to Reside grew to become a associate within the label, Prendergast ultimately left and Morrow tapped Lipsitz to spearhead Bar/None’s advertising in 2001. Because the years handed, Lipsitz took on all method of roles on the label, from suggesting bands price signing to serving to artists navigate the daunting music panorama, because the roster grew to incorporate Large Star’s Alex Chilton, the Feelies, Ezra Furman, Tindersticks, the Entrance Bottoms, Diners, Pardoner, and dozens extra.
Rocky O’Reilly, previously of the Northern Irish duo Oppenheimer, instructed The Hudson Reporter in 2015 that Lipsitz didn’t simply assist him discover a broader viewers internationally as soon as signed to Bar/None, however to foster the drive wanted to take advantage of out of life. “One phrase I heard from Mark early on, and plenty of instances after, was ‘proactivity breeds proactivity,’” he recalled. “I wouldn’t be doing any of this if Bar/None hadn’t picked our demo from a field and referred to as me up filled with ardour, pleasure, and perception.”
Previous to becoming a member of Bar/None, Lipsitz additionally labored at Razor & Tie with acts like Continental Drifters and Dar Williams, in addition to Seed Information by way of Atlantic and Necessary Relativity. Lipsitz typically took a hands-on strategy to working with and selling bands at every label, with artists routinely talking fondly of him in interviews through the years relating to his passionate strategy to serving to them develop.
One of the crucial beloved acts that Lipsitz found and helped champion to realize extra recognition was Ivy, the cult Nineteen Nineties indie-pop trio that includes the late Adam Schlesinger, Andy Chase, and Dominique Durand. Lipsitz took the band beneath his wing in 1994, helped Schlesinger get Fountains of Wayne signed to Atlantic, and welcomed Ivy again to Bar/None following Schlesinger’s dying and the invention of beforehand unreleased Ivy music.
