By Joal Ryan Thu May 25, 6:02 PM ET

Ian Copeland served in Vietnam, dated
Courteney Cox and served up hot tuna melts in Beverly Hills. In between, he helped give rise to no less than a new musical wave known as new wave.
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Copeland, the agent and promoter who worked with R.E.M., the Bangles, the Go-Gos, Squeeze, and the Police, featuring younger brother
Stewart Copeland on drums, and many more, died Tuesday of melanoma at his Los Angeles home. He was 57.

In addition to Stewart Copeland, Ian Copeland's survivors include older brother Miles Copeland, the music impresario and founder of the influential I.R.S. label.

On the message boards for Backstage Cafe, the 90210 eatery that Copeland ran and held court at in recent years, there were posts credited to both Miles and Stewart Copeland.

"It is hard to believe [he is gone], but he had an exciting life and was grateful for it," read a Wednesday post credited to Miles Copeland. "...He was loved by so many. He will be greatly missed."

In a message credited to Stewart Copeland, it was noted that Ian Copeland's final weeks "were peaceful and serene, surrounded by his family."

"I am devastated beyond words," the post said.

Born in
Syria to a
CIA agent father, Ian Copeland spent much of his wonder years in the Middle East, biographical accounts said. In the 1960s, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, and headed off to war.

"When I was in the monsoon rains of Vietnam, I didn't think anything could be worse," Copeland once said, as recounted in Thursday's Los Angeles Times. "Since then, I've been in boardroom meetings where I would have traded for that foxhole."

Copeland began negotiating music industry minefields in the early 1970s when, as a booking agent in London, he was credited with elevating Average White Band, they of the funky instrumental "Pick up the Pieces," to hit-maker status.

Back in the States in the mid-1970s, Copeland dived into Southern rock, setting up tours for the likes of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Charlie Daniels Band.

His signature moment came in the late 1970s when, in the Times' estimation, he "created the club circuit," finding gigs for acts such as Squeeze in venues where disco balls previously spun.

As the founder of Frontier Booking International (
FBI), Copeland proved a reliable tipster for Miles Copeland's I.R.S. Among the Ian Copeland acts signed to new-wave friendly I.R.S.: R.E.M., the Go-Gos, the Bangles and the Police, which Miles also managed.

Owing to Stewart Copeland's Police, Miles Copeland's I.R.S. and Ian Copeland's FBI, the Hollywood Reporter dubbed the siblings the music world's "law enforcement clan."

In 1995, Ian Copeland said of his company's moniker to People: "If you say the FBI's on the phone, people are going to take that call."

Other bands Ian Copeland counted among his clients: the B-52's, the Ramones, the Cure and the Smiths. After the Police turned in their badges, Ian Copeland continued to work with the gone-solo Sting.

In 2001, he told the Tucson Citizen in 2005, he decided to call it a music career "after one last Sting tour." But Copeland couldn't stay out of the game for long. In 2004, he fell for the sound of a trio of teenagers known as the Dares, and became their manager.

"I honestly believe they could be as big, or even bigger than any band I've ever worked with in my life," Copeland told the San Francisco Herald.

According to a Dares Website, the band is currently recording its first full-length album.

Copeland chronicled his adventures in the 1995 memoir, Wild Thing, which the Times once noted, contained "plenty of pictures of his ex-girlfriend Courteney Cox."

To People in 1995, Stewart Copeland said Ian, the lowest-profile of the Copeland brothers, could have commanded the rock-star spotlight. "But instead of shouting to a sea of faces," Stewart Copeland said, "he'd much rather sit at the dinner table and regale everybody personally."

wow thats sad and suprising to hear.

he lived a heck of a life though and helped bring some great music to the world, so i give him much props and wish him a peacful journey to his next gig...