Talk:Steve Sesnick

Comments
Although an article on the Velvet Underground's manager is welcome and long overdue, this will not do. It contains factual inaccuracies (Sesnick was their manager, not their record producer, to name but one, and a very elementary inaccuracy at that), some of which I have corrected, and statements that are very POV ("[unref'd characterization redacted]", "[unref'd characterization redacted]", "[unref'd characterization redacted]") without further amplification. Furthermore, it states nothing beyond the bare basics, that he was the manager of the band and that he was a source of controversy. -- Curt Woyte 11:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. The article does have a hostile feel towards Sesnick.


 * Nonetheless, the statement "the band failed with Reed" is considered to be true by most VU fans. [citation needed] The only post-Reed album, 'Squeeze' is rejected by almost all Velvet Underground fans.


 * But it should be noted that The Velvet Underground released an album and a box set after Reed's departure, rendering the band failing to be somewhat untrue.


 * W. Ashwood Kavanna: I resent being referred to in this article as a "local" promoter, when, in fact, I was a "national" promoter presenting shows across New England, upstate New York and the mid-west. Steve was very diligent in pursuing me for bookings and I liked him. The poster that emerged in 2007 was at the "Whitney" (NYC) not the Guggenheim Museum, in an exhibition entitled "Summer of Love" and took place July 3-6, 1967 on Cape Cod, (Higgens Crawl Road in West Yarmouth, Mass). Andy came up to sit in, shaking a tamborine; so it is not true that he "severed all relationship" with the band after he left. An electrical power blackout occurred on July 3rd across the Cape, interrupting the concert and a riot ensued. The opening bands were The Ones and The J. Geils Blues Band (then calling themselves, The Hallucinations). Their [redacted] at that time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.190.203.185 (talk) 14:13, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Should he be listed in the [redacted] category? From what I've heard, [egregious gossip redacted] and according to [a person], he [redacted] and was a [redacted], but what I don't understand is why Lou Reed didn't fire him after his true colors came to light. I don't see why Doug should be blamed for breaking up the group, because as I understand it, he never intended for "Squeeze" to be released under The Velvet Underground moniker. Looking back, a better choice of manager for The Velvets post-Warhol might have been Albert Grossman (who managed Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul & Mary), Jeff Wald (who was married to Helen Reddy and managed her, Chicago, Peter Cetera and Crosby, Stills & Nash) or Simon & Garfunkel's manager Mort Lewis and they should've done a background check on Sesnick. I know that [a person] and [another person] called Sesnick a [redacted] in different interviews and Lou described him as a [redacted], so it obviously indicates that [redacted]. They should've gone with Brian Epstein had he lived, Robert Stigwood or even Peter Jenner.


 * PS Is the Steve Sesnick involved in golf the same guy who managed The Velvets?61.69.217.3 (talk) 07:27, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yup. Do you have suggestions to improve the article, or do you just want to gossip and speculate about who should have managed the Velvets. Herostratus (talk) 23:36, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Is he deceased?
Title. Anybody know? I can't find anything about it on Google. The article says "was", but that's fairly ambiguous. Klayman55 (talk) 02:45, 26 February 2021 (UTC)Klayman55
 * AFAIK he's still on the right side of the ground. He was in 2012 for sure. Herostratus (talk) 23:36, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Major rewrite
I expanded and rewrote the article. I tried hard to remove material that implied that Sesnick was any kind of villain. I gather that some people think so, but it's the music business and everybody has an ego and everyone is going to make enemies. And the Velvets and that whole scene seem especially catty. I did leave in a direct quote from Lou Reed where he blames Sesnick for something. I think that's pretty much it. And that's just Reed's opinion. I actually kind of cherry-picked Doug Yule's interview for neutral-sounding material. You could make Yule sound more negative, but its a BLP so we want to err on the side of being kind, and the source for Yule's interview is a little sketchy, and I wouldn't want to use it support any negative info.

A number of the refs are pretty sketchy for a BLP... I personally have reasonable confidence in them, but according WP:RS rule they don't make it. Since I was careful to not ref anything negative to them, my hair is not on fire about. But if someone wants to remove the material, enh, go ahead I guess.

BUT there are better sources for this material in books I think. I'm kind of done with this article for now, but if you're unhappy with the refs, rather than deleting the material it'd better go pawing thru google books and digging up refs there.

(May I remind people that you can't go around saying "I heard this guy was a _____" without a ref. This applies to talk pages as well as articles, if its vilification. No no no no. I had to redact some material (technically should be oversighted), and don't do that. It's OK to say "Smith called Jones an embezzler (here's the ref)" but not "I read somewhere that Smith called Jones an embezzler". If it's negative, and you can't be troubled to dig up and lay down the ref --even for a talk page -- maybe don't say it, or at any rate use circumspect and vague language. Herostratus (talk) 23:36, 20 April 2021 (UTC)