Poorman’s 15 Minutes of Fame: Tony Valentino (The Standells, Lead Guitarist, Founding Member)

“Promoting unfortunately, these days, you know, it’s not like in the sixties when you used to walk into Capitol Records and you used to get a deal, you know, record deal. Those days are gone. You know? The record company is gone. It’s just so much. It’s all Internet work right now, artist by artist. We all have to, you know, write the music and then promote the music, And it’s, like, so crazy to do that, but, it takes it away from working with the music to concentrate on finishing music, and then you have to concentrate on calling or sending the song out to this and that. You know? So it’s really hard these days, but, we have to keep on playing that rock and roll, you know, whatever it takes. [What year did you start in music?] Oh, when I came from Italy, in the sixties.” — Tony Valentino (Lead Guitarist, Founding Member, The Standells)