Former Music Industry Executive Enjoys ‘Second Act’ as Art Dealer and Author

New memoir ‘No Big Deal’ offers peek behind the curtain during last days of the record business

BUFFALO, NY, USA, August 26, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In the early 2000s, as digital platforms took over the record-distribution industry, Dean Brownrout found his music business career ending. His 25-year run culminated with him helming a group of independent record labels in New York City. With New York also reeling from 9/11, Brownrout decided to move back to his hometown of Buffalo, NY.

Now, with a perspective over two decades post–music business, Brownrout has written a humorous and nostalgic memoir. “No Big Deal: Chasing the indie music dream in the last days of the record business” will be released October 1, 2024, on Guernica Editions.

The story interweaves a “can you go home again?” theme with Brownrout’s entrepreneurial adventures.

Once back in Buffalo in 2002, he discovered the rich history of the region’s visual art. That led to a new career as an art dealer. Over the next 20 years, Brownrout worked with important artists with connections to the area. One of his most successful relationships has been with the estate of Hollis Frampton, the influential avant-garde filmmaker, photographer, writer, and digital art pioneer.

Brownrout represents Frampton’s photographic print work and has facilitated Frampton gallery shows in New York City, London, Zurich, and Vienna. In addition, he was behind acquisitions of Frampton’s photographs by the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Carnegie Museum of Art.

In “No Big Deal,” Brownrout retraces his arc, beginning with leaving Buffalo in 1983 for New York City. He was 21 and determined to continue the music-business career he had begun as an enterprising teenage concert promoter. If you haven’t heard of Brownrout, you’re not alone. However, from 1983 to the early 2000s, he progressed from road manager and agent to forming (and losing) his own record labels, one of which ended up a subsidiary of one of the country’s largest telecom companies—without ever having a hit record.

Two revelations from his book: As a talent agent, he booked a pre-major-label Metallica into New York’s Roseland Ballroom for a seminal 1984 show; it led to their signing to Elektra Records. He also signed the now multi-platinum Goo Goo Dolls to their first recording agreement and released their debut album.

Brownrout’s tragicomic recollections of this period—as LPs were morphing into CDs, and the internet loomed—offer a bird’s-eye view into the transformational cultural era. And of course, no show business memoir is complete without appearances by the Rolling Stones, Beastie Boys, Bob Dylan, Grace Jones, models, actors, and countless fringe characters and luminaries. Ira Robbins, the highly regarded author, founder of “Trouser Press” magazine, and editor of the essential “Trouser Press Record Guides,” provides the foreword.

The book has already earned music industry praise: Francis Macdonald, of BMX Bandits and Teenage Fanclub says, “It made me nostalgic for the pre-internet record industry.” John Lay, former co-manager of Squeeze and Jools Holland calls "No Big Deal," “an honest, unvarnished portrayal of the independent record business at the end of the 20th century, and a well-told personal tale that manages to steer away from showbiz cliches.” And Robert Singerman, former manager of The Smithereens, and former agent to R.E.M. and the Violent Femmes succinctly summarized his reaction to the book: “It's a Big Deal, for sure.”

"No Big Deal” is available for pre-order through Amazon and other traditional book outlets.

###

Author site: nobigdeal.info
info@deanbrownrout.com

Guernica Editions: guernicaeditions.com
Publicity & marketing: Anna van Valkenburg
annavanvalkenburg@guernicaeditions.com

PUB. DATE: October 1, 2024
PAGES: 178
PRICE: $18.95 us/$22.95 cad
ISBN: 978-1-77183-909-9

No Big Deal by Dean Brownrout
Guernica Editions
info@deanbrownrout.com
Visit us on social media:
Facebook
Instagram