I’m a believer.<\/p>\n
Does your heart palpitate when you’re in the same room as a rock star?<\/p>\n
God, I read every line of the rock press, so to be hanging with these people
makes me tingle.\u00c2\u00a0 Makes me feel like asking a girl on a date.\u00c2\u00a0 Back when I was
in high school and if I got rejected I thought I was going to DIE!<\/p>\n
I bought Chris Blackwell’s first hit, Millie Small’s "My Boy Lollipop".\u00c2\u00a0 All
these years later, to be confronted with the human being who released this
record…\u00c2\u00a0 You see it’s not just music to me, it’s not just a record, it’s LIFE
ITSELF!<\/p>\n
And that’s what it is to Chris.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s just living it.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what true stars
possess.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not a put-on, they have an innate charisma.\u00c2\u00a0 They live their
life in this style without trying.\u00c2\u00a0 While the rest of us try to cope with our
awkwardness.\u00c2\u00a0 There are people who feel they’re BORN to be in this business.\u00c2\u00a0
That they’re entitled to hang with these icons.\u00c2\u00a0 I am not one of them.\u00c2\u00a0 Because
deep down inside I’m a fan.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m down in the pit, looking up.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m in my
bedroom fantasizing that if I just have access my life will work.<\/p>\n
Oh, the panel was good.\u00c2\u00a0 Chris said the main criterion for being an
independent was to be UNEMPLOYABLE!<\/p>\n
Richard Russell spoke of how the business was completely different.\u00c2\u00a0 Because
of the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 It was no longer hard to FIND talent, the question was just
whether to SIGN IT!<\/p>\n
Alan McGee talked about staffing up Creation to almost unmanageable
proportions when Oasis hit.<\/p>\n
And Tony…\u00c2\u00a0 He’s Mr. Anecdote anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 But he told one story I hadn’t heard
before.\u00c2\u00a0 How the initial Factory records were financed by his inheritance.\u00c2\u00a0
He’d received 12,000 pounds after his mother died.\u00c2\u00a0 He left it untouched for
three years, and then he invested 5,000 in two tracks, and then, when that money
came back, he invested the whole 12,000.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s an independent.<\/p>\n
An independent doesn’t do it for the money, but the music.<\/p>\n
The moderator, Webbo, who was a long term employee at Virgin, told of Richard
Branson courting Elvis Costello.\u00c2\u00a0 After being wined and dined Elvis asked
Richard to name one track off his previous album.\u00c2\u00a0 When Sir Richard couldn’t,
Elvis stood up and stormed out.<\/p>\n
Richard Branson knew how to grow a business, but he didn’t know shit about
music.<\/p>\n
The people who know something about music are starting to rule again.<\/p>\n
Chris talked about not being a multinational.\u00c2\u00a0 About investing for years with
no guarantee of return.\u00c2\u00a0 Creating enough records so that the act could get
its own divider card in the bin.<\/p>\n
Alan spoke of financing his first records with his salary from British Rail.<\/p>\n
These were not people with MBAs plotting return on investment.\u00c2\u00a0 They just
BELIEVED!\u00c2\u00a0 That what they had was SO good that if they could just get it out
there other people would think so too.<\/p>\n
They’re operating with a different paradigm.\u00c2\u00a0 After the panel I asked Chris
what he thought of endorsements and fashion spreads and movie placements.\u00c2\u00a0 He
responded that he thought they were terrible.\u00c2\u00a0 That they removed all the
MYSTERY!<\/p>\n
These guys know the truth.<\/p>\n
Whatever truth the guys at the majors might have known they’ve forgotten.\u00c2\u00a0
They believe their system is a sound one, as it’s eroding beneath them.<\/p>\n
And then, standing in the lobby.\u00c2\u00a0 Conversing with Richard and Chris, I ran
out of words.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, they were the ones who were DOING IT!<\/p>\n
So I decided to do the one thing I can do.\u00c2\u00a0 To race upstairs and talk to you.<\/p>\n
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I’m a believer. Does your heart palpitate when you’re in the same room as a rock star? God, I read every line of the rock press, so to be hanging with these people makes me tingle.\u00c2\u00a0 Makes me feel like asking a girl on a date.\u00c2\u00a0 Back when I was in high school and if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-2T","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}