Talk:Tony Defries

Notability/NPOV
Well, that´s too funny - this is not an objective article at all, but sounds rather like a PR-campaign for DeFries himself. Look at the history of this entry and you will find

"DeFries clearly wrote this entry himself[...]"

I doubt that wikipedia is the right place for articles like this. At least not if you´re looking for information.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.48.21.4 (talk • contribs) 14 August 2008‎


 * Subject seems to be notable, having managed Bowie, Mott the Hoople and Iggy Pop. I'm rewriting in neutral terms. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:41, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * There should definitely be an article about MainMan, however you assess them - creative chaos or looney bin - it was a highly influential company for a few years. I recognize it's really hard in this case to come up with anything that would seem fully objective and certified by WP standards. /Strausszek (talk) 00:34, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

In support of the claim that this article is not objective,according to recent biographies,this is the view of David Bowie:

"One reason for his restlessness, extreme even by his standards, had come in New York at the end of July, when he learned the real nature of his financial relationship with Defries. As Trynka writes, Bowie ‘believed he was a partner in MainMan’, the management company Defries had built around him. ‘In reality, he was an employee.’ He wanted out, but couldn’t extricate himself entirely: MainMan owned the masters of all the recordings he’d made to date, and Defries was entitled to hefty royalties, in perpetuity, on everything Bowie made until their contract expired in 1982. So he wasn’t free of Defries, but perversely the ongoing constraints of his contractual obligations to his ex-manager – at the crudest level, his wish not to make money for MainMan – gave him a new sense of artistic freedom, the recklessness that comes of believing you have nothing to lose."

from LRB (London Review of Books) So Ordinary so Glamorous - March 2012 I'm not an experienced editor, maybe someone can add this viewpoint to the published page — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.76.46.25 (talk) 06:26, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Redirect
This article can't even get the name right. And I can't be arsed to create a page called "Tony DeFries", and redirect "Tony Defries" to "Tony DeFries". So feel free to do that in my stead, someone ... anyone. Cheers (an ardent Bowie fan). Ref (chew) (do) 05:53, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

NPOV
The article remains a pretty airbrushed account of DeFries and his life. His notability largely comes from his huge bustup with Bowie, and this is barely mentioned. I know this is a BLP and we need to take care, but this should be covered if we are going to retain a DeFries article at all. --Ef80 (talk) 17:46, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This article was rewritten by and is now a hagiography full of WP:PEACOCKery and no mention of anything negative. Spike &#39;em (talk) 18:26, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Spelling of name
There seems to be some confusion over whether or not to capitalize the F in "defries." The BBC does. The New York Times does currently. But back in 1986, they didn't. The closest thing I can find to an official website is this LinkedIn profile. Based on that, it seems like he prefers it uncapitalized. So, I will move the article to "Tony Defries." If someone has a more definitive source for the spelling—liner notes, legal documents, company website—please feel free to change it back. -- GentlemanGhost  (converse)  01:18, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

info box
in the info box, the subject is described as: "technologist material science quantum physics researcher"

there is no evidence in the article to suggest that he has ever studied anything by way of a technical/scientific disciplne, only that he has funded or directed some research. can we fix this, one way or t'other, please?

duncanrmi (talk) 21:16, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Biased puff piece
This article reads like it was written by the guy himself, it heavily airbrushes the MainMan years and his conflicts with Bowie which led to a rancorous split between them in 1975 and Bowie taking charge of his own career. Bowie felt that Defries was practically embezzling the income he generated for MainMan (and that the manager was trying to pose as the real artist), under the cover of a contract Bowie had signed without really understanding the fine print, simply on the strength of his personal bond with Defries around 1970/71. George Tremlett's biography Bowie: Living on the Brink (one of the best biographies of this elusive artist) and Tony Zanetta's Stardust (a key source for the MainMan years; Zanetta was one of very few people who had access to both men at the time) give a completely different view of the economic and artistic circumstances around the split. 188.150.64.57 (talk) 08:27, 2 March 2024 (UTC)