Labelobit: Miriam Bienstock

Miriam Bienstock, one of the co-founders of Atlantic Records, has died.

In the early days of the label, Ahmet Ertegun scouted talent; Bienstock's then-husband Herb Abramson looked after the recording. Miriam did everything else, as the New York Times explains:

“I must tell you, Miriam was an important person in keeping discipline at Atlantic Records, and keeping everything on the up-and-up,” Mr. Ertegun, who died in 2006, said in an interview with Billboard magazine in 1997. “She ran the office, and none of us was inclined to run the office. She is unheralded, unrecognized, but if we hadn’t had her in those developing years, the company would have folded. She also had very good taste in music.”

Bienstock sold out of Atlantic in 1964; before the label was absorbed by Warners. Before this, she'd divorced Herb and remarried Freddy Bienstock. Post-Atlantic, she turned her attention to theatre and investing.

Miriam Bienstock was 92; she died March 21st in Manhattan.

Hard Fi accuse Led Zep of being cash machine

Steven Kemp - drummer with Hard Fi - has moaned about the cost of Led Zeppelin tickets:

"Paying over £100 for a ticket is a joke. Why should you pay so much money for it? These rock 'n' roll dinosaurs are coming out for one last pay cheque."

Now, we've never believed that 'all drummers are stupid', but Kemp might have wanted to think before shooting his mouth off. What with the money from the gig going to the Ahmet Ertegun Education fund, and the band stressing that it was the memory of their former mentor which brought them out of retirement, while there is much about the ticketing process for the event that is open to question, suggesting it's some sort of big pay day makes Kemp look a little cheap.