So I’m sitting in Cliff’s office and he starts waxing RHAPSODIC about the
Kaiser Chiefs song.<\/p>\n
Talk to anybody at a label these days.\u00c2\u00a0 They all say the same thing, it’s no
FUN!\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of camaraderie and good times there’s an atmosphere of fear and
nary a week goes by without another lifelong friend disappearing.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s
depressing.\u00c2\u00a0 But in the management world…<\/p>\n
Not the Sanctuary Management world.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s a public company.\u00c2\u00a0 The managers
are insulated from the vagaries of the business, they’re paid a salary, they’re
not rock and roll RENEGADES!\u00c2\u00a0 But Q Prime operates like a seventies
powerhouse.\u00c2\u00a0 It all depends on the ACTS, whether they’re hitting, whether they’re
HAPPENING!<\/p>\n
We’re having a conclave in Marc’s office.\u00c2\u00a0 Tony’s showing me the
Leppard\/Bryan Adams ticket counts.\u00c2\u00a0 And a priceless e-mail from the rock critic from the "Oregonian".\u00c2\u00a0 When asked if he wants to do an interview with Bryan, Marty Hughley said, "Personally, I’d rather chug Drano."\u00c2\u00a0 Now I actually like Bryan, I
like hanging with him AND his music, but you’ve got to appreciate Marty’s style,
that old rock and roll spirit, burning bridges with IMPUNITY!<\/p>\n
And then Marc’s pulling up the downloads SoundScan.\u00c2\u00a0 God, there are tracks
doing north of 500,000 files.\u00c2\u00a0 And to think that they wouldn’t have sold even a
FRACTION of this number of physical, antiquated discs.<\/p>\n
And Gayle pops in for a reading.\u00c2\u00a0 Exactly WHO are they referring to on
hitsdailydouble who A&R’ed the Green Day album.\u00c2\u00a0 Do they even HAVE an A&R person?\u00c2\u00a0 Is Rob Cavallo paying them, or is he angling for a new job?<\/p>\n
THIS is the heart of the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 People who still CARE!\u00c2\u00a0 And know
that the laughs come with the TERRITORY!<\/p>\n
After lunch, I got into it with Cliff.\u00c2\u00a0 Now I know that Cliff goes home every
day at 5:30 to be with his family, but I didn’t know that he still BELIEVES!\u00c2\u00a0
He’s addicted to Ethel.\u00c2\u00a0 He loves hearing the new bands.\u00c2\u00a0 He LIVES for Arcade
Fire.\u00c2\u00a0 He turned his KIDS on to the act.<\/p>\n
Concomitantly we discussed the distant arcane.\u00c2\u00a0 I got a whole make on Art
Fein, whom I ran into at Harold Bronson’s house when we watched that documentary on the Z Channel.\u00c2\u00a0 Seemingly every person I mentioned, mainstream or peripheral, Cliff had communicated with recently, he was a repository of the only thing that matters in this business, INFORMATION!<\/p>\n
And while he was on the phone, I picked up the calls for him of people I
knew.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is always hilarious.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean sitting in Cliff’s office and picking up
the phone and giving a head spin to Lee Abrams.<\/p>\n
Oh, this is a personal trip.\u00c2\u00a0 A rendezvous for my little sister’s fiftieth
birthday.\u00c2\u00a0 To all who e-mailed, I’m sorry I can’t get together with you.\u00c2\u00a0 I was
planning on staying into next week, but my shrink has got prostate cancer and
I want to go back and get in the final sessions before he disappears and goes
under the knife.\u00c2\u00a0 And I told Hugh Surratt if I was still awake I would stop by
RCA and hear the new David Gray album.\u00c2\u00a0 But I never made it.\u00c2\u00a0 I got hung up,
I spent the whole day at Q Prime.\u00c2\u00a0 You would have too.\u00c2\u00a0 There was a pulse.\u00c2\u00a0
Not a heavy pulse, rather a WHAT THE FUCK pulse.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re doing it our way, who
gives a fuck what the system tells us to do, we’re executing, we’re having fun,
and it’s WORKING FOR US!\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no corporation, no policy, just individuals
running their own fiefs in support of making bands the biggest in the world.<\/p>\n
And after loading up on swag to give to my sister, a pink Shania Twain hat to
wear in her new convertible, a Metallica tanktop, other assorted chazerai, I
took to the street.<\/p>\n
By this time it was no longer raining.\u00c2\u00a0 It was too cool for May, but walking
the street, it was undeniable.\u00c2\u00a0 Something was happening.\u00c2\u00a0 LIFE!\u00c2\u00a0 Both the rich
and the poor, dwarfed by the Morgan Stanley electronic ticker-tape, the
endless stream of food and electronics emporiums.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a Vegas buffet, but the
food had nutritional value, and, as much as you ate, you could never get full.\u00c2\u00a0
And as I walked the streets back to my hotel, what I noticed most was the
headphones,\u00c2\u00a0 The white headphones.\u00c2\u00a0 Attached to dangling white cords.<\/p>\n
Nobody walks in L.A.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s hard to really FEEL iPod culture.<\/p>\n
And it’s not like everybody in New York has an Apple player, but of those
attached to electronic devices, I’d put the Apple market share at ninety percent.
\u00c2\u00a0But it’s more than that, there was a way the white-corded people walked, a
way they held themselves, like they were hip, like they were COOL!\u00c2\u00a0 It’s kind
of like having a new BMW 3-series, any new, up-to-the-minute product, only this
one is relatively cheap, this one is COOL!<\/p>\n
Make no mistake, the iPod is the best portable music player.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s killing
the competition.\u00c2\u00a0 Just look at Creative stock for illustration.\u00c2\u00a0 But as
intuitive as the interface is, as seamless as the iTunes software is, it’s really
about those white headphones, being a member of the CLUB!\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, for as low as a
hundred bucks, you can join the elite.\u00c2\u00a0 And, like a Benz, an iPod never loses
its cachet.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just too perfect, it’s an Eames chair, not an Aeron, it’s
TIMELESS!\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody wants one.\u00c2\u00a0 And everybody’s gonna get one.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t worry,
Nokia and Samsung are gonna make no inroads into the market with their mobile
devices.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t have the signature headphones!\u00c2\u00a0 God, if the Motorola iTunes
phone comes with white headphones, it’s going to dominate.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, people don’t
want to listen to music on their mobile phones, not in the present
iterations.\u00c2\u00a0 They want iPods.\u00c2\u00a0 Just walk the streets of Manhattan, it will all come
clear. <\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So I’m sitting in Cliff’s office and he starts waxing RHAPSODIC about the Kaiser Chiefs song. Talk to anybody at a label these days.\u00c2\u00a0 They all say the same thing, it’s no FUN!\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of camaraderie and good times there’s an atmosphere of fear and nary a week goes by without another lifelong friend disappearing.\u00c2\u00a0 […]<\/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-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-t","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","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=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}