The gay former music executive who signed Metallica spills his guts in a new memoir. Michael Alago has always taken good notes. Growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., the wide-eyed gay Puerto Rican perennially carried a copy of The Village Voice . It was his bible, and he used it to navigate around the city as bubbling punk and heavy metal scenes were starting to flourish. In the 1970s, the young visionary spent his nights at clubs, at metal concerts, or hobnobbing with bands like The Damned, Dead Boys, or Cherry Vanilla, and began journaling about his experiences. Decades of introspection lead Alago to write his new autobiography, I Am Michael Alago: Breathing Music, Signing Metallica, and Beating Death . A 2017 film about his life, Who the Fuck Is That Guy? The Fabulous Journey of Michael Alago , is streaming on Netflix. In both projects, Alago documents his unconventional life, his 25-year career as a musical executive — including how he signed bands like Metallica and White Zombie — and his friendships with some of music’s most eccentric personalities: Nina Simone, Lars Ulrich, Cyndi Lauper, Patti Smith, and Rob Zombie. “I was never a young person who was in […]
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