I was MESMERIZED!<\/p>\n
Unlike U.S. conventions, everybody at In The City goes to the panels.\u00c2\u00a0 I learned this last year when I was wandering around the halls of the hotel wondering where everybody WAS!\u00c2\u00a0 And then I peeked into a meeting room looking for Richard and found it PACKED!<\/p>\n
So this year I planned.\u00c2\u00a0 I scoped the schedule.\u00c2\u00a0 I started out at the "MPod The New iPod" panel.<\/p>\n
For such an exciting sphere it’s amazing how boring the people who work in it are.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not much different from those selling industrial products.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no PASSION!<\/p>\n
Oh, the moderator, Steve Mayall, said some interesting things.\u00c2\u00a0 Like how in the hell do we expect music to take off on mobiles when everybody HATES their provider!\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t want to give the providers MORE money, they want to give them LESS!<\/p>\n
And I was going to hang around for Ralph Simon’s speech, but there was a break, so I sauntered downstairs for Jeff Fenster’s presentation.<\/p>\n
It was supposed to have started half an hour before, but the room was empty.<\/p>\n
So I dropped in on the urban managers panel, even though I’m the whitest guy on the planet.<\/p>\n
But, when that finished, the moderator said to drop in on Jeff’s panel, so I gave it one more shot.\u00c2\u00a0 I went down to the Alexandra Suite.\u00c2\u00a0 And Jeff was there.<\/p>\n
Being interviewed by this guy who was affable, but seemed only barely familiar with Jeff’s work.\u00c2\u00a0 And, in MOMENTS I wanted the questioner to shut up, I didn’t want him to interrupt Jeff, for he was spewing GOLD!<\/p>\n
We’re just white Jewish boys from the suburbs.\u00c2\u00a0 Who got hooked on records.\u00c2\u00a0 Who lived our lives at the record store, who needed to be CLOSER!<\/p>\n
And it’s oh so hard to get close.<\/p>\n
Jeff started out as a lawyer.\u00c2\u00a0 At least that’s what I garnered, after all, I missed the first few moments.<\/p>\n
But then Tom Zutaut offered him a job as an A&R man.\u00c2\u00a0 And David Geffen approved.<\/p>\n
Oh, to the minimal audience in attendance, it sounded rote.\u00c2\u00a0 But you could tell by the gleam in Jeff’s eye, the way he chuckled almost sotto voce, this was the turning point in his life, when the velvet rope dropped and he was allowed to pass to the other side.\u00c2\u00a0 He was let into the CLUB!<\/p>\n
That’s where we all want to be.\u00c2\u00a0 Not for the money, not for the fame, but to be closer to the MUSIC!<\/p>\n
Things went topsy-turvy in the Tommy Mottola era.\u00c2\u00a0 The press reported on all these fucks making bucks.\u00c2\u00a0 As if THEY were the artists.\u00c2\u00a0 Make no mistake, the people on the OTHER side of the mic, THEY’RE the artists.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s THEM that we want to know about.<\/p>\n
Jeff was a vessel.\u00c2\u00a0 Through which I could hear the stories, of what happened on the INSIDE!<\/p>\n
He found Jermaine Dupri when the producer was fifteen.\u00c2\u00a0 Geffen could have had his publishing for $75,000, but they would only go to fifty.\u00c2\u00a0 In a year EMI ponied up a mil, and it was STILL a bargain.\u00c2\u00a0 Jeff realized then, sometimes you’ve got to be entrepreneurial, sometimes you’ve got to cough up the dough YOURSELF!<\/p>\n
And when David Geffen decided he didn’t want to be in the urban business, which ultimately killed Geffen Records, albeit after he had sold it to MCA, Jeff jumped ship.\u00c2\u00a0 To the place where A Tribe Called Quest ended up, after Jeff let them go after their development deal with Geffen.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, Jeff went to JIVE!<\/p>\n
Home of Billy Ocean.\u00c2\u00a0 Home of CLIVE CALDER!<\/p>\n
Why does nobody talk about THIS Clive anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 The greatest businessman in the history of the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 Makes David Geffen look like a rube.\u00c2\u00a0 A guy who ran his company to the top and executed a buyout clause that allowed him to pocket in excess of $2 billion.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, he could have bought WARNER BROTHERS for what he got for his little company of hit artists.<\/p>\n
Oh, they might have had A Tribe Called Quest.\u00c2\u00a0 But then they had the Backstreet Boys, ‘N Sync and Britney.\u00c2\u00a0 God, looked so easy at the time, like they were the New York Yankees, paying their way to a monopoly on the championship, but that’s not how it happened AT ALL!<\/p>\n
As head of A&R Jeff flew to Cleveland to hear the Backstreet Boys at a MADD dinner.\u00c2\u00a0 He got tipped by a guy he’d tried to hire from another label.\u00c2\u00a0 The guy wouldn’t leave his old home, for the company was going to sign an act that was going to be MONSTROUS!<\/p>\n
But after a month, that company passed.\u00c2\u00a0 And this guy tipped Jeff.<\/p>\n
The publishing guy who went with Jeff to Ohio told Clive there was nothing there.\u00c2\u00a0 But these teenagers with pure voices, dancing in front of a seven piece band, Jeff felt they had something.<\/p>\n
God, to think that Lou Pearlman invested all that money on a HUNCH!\u00c2\u00a0 THAT’S the music business I love.<\/p>\n
And a guy in the Jive office suggested hooking them up with Max Martin.\u00c2\u00a0 And the rest is history.<\/p>\n
And then came Britney.<\/p>\n
Jeff got a cassette from a lawyer, along with a composite photo card.<\/p>\n
The cassette was of Britney singing to a track written for Toni Braxton.\u00c2\u00a0 It was in the wrong key.\u00c2\u00a0 But Jeff HEARD something.<\/p>\n
And one of the pictures on the composite card.\u00c2\u00a0 Of Britney sitting on a blanket stroking a dog.\u00c2\u00a0 Jeff suddenly knew her innocence would appeal to young girls and OLD MEN!<\/p>\n
He flew her to New York.<\/p>\n
He’d never seen anything like it before.\u00c2\u00a0 The sheer AMBITION!\u00c2\u00a0 This wasn’t a mother pushing her daughter, this kid WANTED IT!<\/p>\n
So he put her together with Max Martin.\u00c2\u00a0 To check the fit.\u00c2\u00a0 He left them in his office while he went out to lunch, and when he came back, hours later, the two were STILL AT IT!<\/p>\n
They made a deal.<\/p>\n
At first a development deal.<\/p>\n
But when Max cut the demo with Britney, they inked an album contract.<\/p>\n
You see Max had this song he’d written for TLC.\u00c2\u00a0 But Dallas Austin controlled TLC, he didn’t want to use it.\u00c2\u00a0 Dallas’ people said to let the producer use the track for ANOTHER of his projects.\u00c2\u00a0 But Max said NO!\u00c2\u00a0 It was for TLC and TLC-only.\u00c2\u00a0 The composition sat on the shelf for over a year.\u00c2\u00a0 Until he met Britney.<\/p>\n
When Jeff heard the demo of "…Baby One More Time", he knew he had a hit record.<\/p>\n
But it wasn’t until he saw the rough cut of the video that he knew he was going to sell MILLIONS of records.<\/p>\n
One video director pitched an idea with Transformers.<\/p>\n
This was against Jeff’s policy.\u00c2\u00a0 The first video should represent the ARTIST!<\/p>\n
And then Britney piped up.\u00c2\u00a0 She had this idea.\u00c2\u00a0 Of wearing a Catholic girl’s school uniform.\u00c2\u00a0 Of being impatient to get out of class and when the bell rings getting up and dancing in the HALL!<\/p>\n
Oh, I could see it.\u00c2\u00a0 You remember.\u00c2\u00a0 Britney in the hall SHAKING HER TITS!\u00c2\u00a0 I was palpitating just hearing the story.<\/p>\n
These are the stories we want to hear.\u00c2\u00a0 About the artists, the music.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t want to know what clubs they were at, but how the music was made, how they became STARS!<\/p>\n
And that’s what Jeff’s looking for.\u00c2\u00a0 Songs and stars.<\/p>\n
Didn’t used to be this way.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sure when Warner Brothers signed Randy Newman, Ry Cooder and Bonnie Raitt thirty five years ago they didn’t project they’d be stars.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, the company was signing MUSICIANS!<\/p>\n
Jeff and his brethren are dinosaurs.\u00c2\u00a0 Combing the earth looking for that rare specimen they can blow up!\u00c2\u00a0 Take into the stratosphere.<\/p>\n
That business will always exist.\u00c2\u00a0 But it will be a sliver of the landscape, not the whole enchilada.\u00c2\u00a0 It will be expensive and derided.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re going to an era of thousands of cult acts, all with their followings.<\/p>\n
But listening to Jeff today I realized it all came down to the music.\u00c2\u00a0 All this talk about distribution models.\u00c2\u00a0 All these words about Warner’s stock price.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re almost irrelevant, they pale in comparison to the music.\u00c2\u00a0 Clive Calder proved it.\u00c2\u00a0 With a tight fist he went on to control the world and exit at the top of his game.\u00c2\u00a0 Jeff Fenster was privileged to be there for the ascension, to participate.\u00c2\u00a0 Today I was lucky enough to hear about it.\u00c2\u00a0 Made this jaded old fuck a believer once again.<\/p>\n
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