Once upon a time, I worked in the movie business.

I fell into it.  First, as an attorney, then working for Charles Band, an independent producer, who made many films, all on a shoestring.  How do you make a movie?  I know how.  First and foremost, you start.

That’s how you got into the entertainment business way back when.  You started.  You went to gigs, met people, networked, went to UCLA Extension and took any job to get into the game.  I know, I know, there were people like Joel Silver, who came to L.A. believing the industry deserved them, but the rest of us were just trying to find a toehold, just trying to be INVOLVED!

You could do it in New York, but really you had to be in L.A.  There was no Internet, no YouTube, no Pro Tools, you had to lift yourself up physically and come to the west coast and hang out.  Ask Irving Azoff, ask all those other famous names.  You had to leave your comfort zone, and try to make it on a wing and a prayer.

And in case you didn’t know, the entertainment business is full of shit.  Endless meetings with castles built in the air which collapse as soon as you walk out the door.  Although it takes you a few years to realize this.

And somehow I found myself in Lionel Conway’s office on Sunset Boulevard back in the mid-eighties.  Oh, he’ll never remember.  But back then anybody in the film business could get a meeting with anybody in the music business.  The thought of getting your track in a film…

And Lionel’s talking to me and my sidekick like we’re legit, like we’re really gonna pay to put any of his songs in a movie, and then…he insists on playing us something.

This is a fate worse than death.  Sitting there silently as a publisher, an act, any purveyor plays you music.  They want you to jump up and down, do cartwheels, tell them the track is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and you just want to leave.

The funny thing is, most people say the music IS the greatest thing since sliced bread, the two parties bullshitting each other over the desk.  That’s STILL the entertainment business.  Tell ’em it’s great and snicker on the way out.

But this song Lionel played us, it was FANTASTIC!

Sometimes I’d like to quit you
And find somebody who don’t know me quite as well
Yeah like a gypsy, she would be my jewel
Spend my days in a lovin’ spell

But it wasn’t the verses, it was the GUITAR SOUND!  And the CHORUS!

Lionel pushed the button on the tape machine and it was like a chainsaw started ripping up the speakers.  You know that perfect rock sound, that alienates your parents, but feels so good?  This was IT!
And the chorus…

Isn’t it enough that I still love you?
Isn’t it enough to make you stay?
Don’t make me suffer, baby
Don’t throw it all away

Actually, you may know this song.  A few years later, Patty Smyth had an MTV hit with "Isn’t It Enough".  But the track had the character of a party anthem and she oversang.  Didn’t ruin it, but the magic of the Danny Wilde original was buried.

Yes, Danny Wilde, that guy in the Rembrandts, the one who sang the theme song to that Jennifer Aniston sitcom, "Friends".

Hell, they didn’t even write it, and it ruined their career overnight.  Which is why when your manager/label/publisher tells you to take an opportunity and it doesn’t feel right, you shouldn’t.

But by time Mr. Wilde had his one big hit, he’d been at it for two decades.  In bands, then solo and then back with Phil Solem and…

We were trying to make it on the business side.  And across the fence were musicians, who also came to L.A., clerked in record stores, waited tables, fixed electronics, all for a chance to make music at night, get a deal and MAKE IT!

Great Buildings, Danny’s previous band, issued a record on Columbia.  But it didn’t hit.  But he didn’t go to law school, didn’t get an MBA, he didn’t go straight, he continued to woodshed and came up with "The Boyfriend".

That’s the name of the album containing "Isn’t It Enough".  Two years after I heard it in Lionel Conway’s office, it was released.  On Island.  Before the label was sold by Chris Blackwell to Universal, before it fronted rap records, back when it was still a scrappy indie.

And I played that vinyl record through and through, over and over again, until it turned gray.

That’s what happens when you overplay a disc.

But I couldn’t buy another one.  A friend sent me a cassette.  But there was never ever a CD.  One of my great thrills of the Napster era was stealing the MP3s.  The cassette I made from my record had no highs, the pressure pad on the factory cassette had fallen off, now I had unbreakable copies.

"Isn’t It Enough" is the best song on "The Boyfriend", but it’s not the only good one.  The second cut, "Body To Body", has even a fuller riff, enough to throw a crowd of thousands into a frenzy.  And I have a special place in my heart for "He Can Have You"…

Well he can have you, ’cause I don’t want you
What do I need with a girl who’s only gonna make me cry?
Well he can have you, yeah he deserves you
All I want is a lover who will satisfy me

Note the undertone.  He really wants her.  Emotionally.  But she tortured him.  Intellectually he knows he’s done. Can the little head obey the big one?

Today it’s different.  The content of the song is secondary to…making it.  Fame eclipses music.  Andy Warhol is bigger than Bob Dylan.  It’s about your fifteen minutes.  Even if they occur early in your life and the rest of your days are a vast wasteland.
And the reason I’m writing all this is because I was on an MP3 blog and I saw a reference to the Rembrandts, which made me wonder what Danny Wilde was up to, which led me to his Website, where you can download "The Boyfriend" for free!  Better than that, the MP3s ARE STRAIGHT FROM THE MASTER TAPE!  "Isn’t It Enough" breathes in a way it has not since that hot summer afternoon in Lionel Conway’s Hollywood office.

So go to: Danny Wilde – The Boyfriend

If you’re on a Mac, you download the tracks by holding down the Option key and selecting Download Linked File from the submenu (after, of course, clicking your mouse on the rip-rate you prefer…)

And when the music pours out of your speakers, you’ll know how it used to be.  Before sampling was king, when you needed to know how to play the guitar, when you practiced and practiced, trying to reach the zeitgeist.

And when you did, you might still not pass through the filter.  Still, "Isn’t It Enough" got MTV play, Danny Wilde’s got a coterie of fans, who smile every time they hear "The Boyfriend", like me.