Dan Kennedy is a cool guy

Dan, if you were googling your name and found this, we need to talk dude. Email me.

So this guy Dan Kennedy wrote a book called "Rock On: An Office Power Ballad". The book takes place around 2002, when Dan got a job working for a major record label. One that I work with/for also. It's hilarious and basically encapsulates most of my thinking during the short downhill ride I've had here.

As a newbie in this world, you can't help but think that the music business is all strippers and blow. You picture the days when guys in suits shot the shit with Jimmy Page over whiskey and water on a Wednesday afternoon. You picture a floor full of spirited people, speaking their minds about the one topic they all share a love for: music. You picture all of this, for whatever reason, maybe you heard stories, saw a movie, or read a book that painted that picture for you.

The reality is, well...a lot different. More hilarious, stupider, and really ridiculous, and silly, and a whole shitload of other adjectives to describe absurdity.

The reality is that the music business is a slow moving, slow thinking, foolish animal run by egotistical has-beens and staffed by extremely intelligent young people who hold a valuable connection to the culture of music. A connection whose value goes unrecognized. The young are underpaid, the old are fattened and out of touch.

And that says nothing about the current state of things. Labels are crumbling, especially the majors. They didn't just miss "the" boat, they missed the boat, the dingy, the liferaft, and the friendly Tortoise who floated by and offered to lend a hand. The misfires on the end of the major music business did exactly what misfires do - either nothing happens, or they blow up in your face, removing noses to spite the rest of the business. These missteps (more "mis" prefixes please) are also hilariously misguided.

That's what Dan wrote most about, the ridiculous and absurd misadventures of record label executives. His position in the book is of a guy right at the verge of it all coming down, right before the label went public, right before the first major bloodbath of firings and lay-offs. He got canned, like so many others, around 2004 and the point of his book is that he came and went at the right times, when the spirit was flickering and the glow was fading. Bubbles bursting, etc...I could go on, but won't.

Well Dan, I'm still here man, and somehow, somehow, it got even worse. I too entered this business all idealistic about it, only to realize that 1) its just a damn office job and 2) no one really knows what the hell they are doing here 3) to constantly compromise your own ideas/opinions is almost necessary to survive here.

Case in point: I was out last night at a label event. These happen often but not as often as you'd think anymore. Budget shit. Anyway, one of our labels is rolling out a boy band. That's right, a boy band. Straight up Nsyncing ship here, New Kids on the Crack Rock. The formula for this band is basic and unchanged.

So we all went out last night to see this spectacle, to check out the new boy band put together by an A&R who has an unbelievable amount of credibility in the boy band field, because, well, he was in one. A big one. And this A&R guy is basically the coolest fucking guy you could ever meet.

I'm sitting there, and I realize (as Dan Kennedy often did) that I was expected to quiet my inner snarky guy, clam up the hipster bullshit, and kick the robots from MST3000 out of the theater. My real opinions of this music could not show through among 40 of my co-workers. I was expected to blandly nod my head and say things like "I could see how the kids could really get into this."

I know half of the other people in the room also thought it was ridiculous, but being that A&R guy who set this up is cool as fuck, and he has experience. He has experience loving and being a part of the kind of music that I only have experience hating and talking shit about. He was better suited for the job, so I rode for his cause.

As they dance and jumped and pointed and lip-synced, I realized that that's the weird thing about the music business, you end up riding for causes that you normally wouldn't even lower the kickstand for. Causes and sounds and ideas that are so ridiculous, but "doing ridiculous shit" is basically in your job description if you work at a major. The difference is either you buy into it (Dan's VP of marketing who wore sunglasses in conferences) or knuckle up, do your work so you can eventually start your own shit (me, most other assistants).

The fact is, this boy band will probably be successful, at LEAST with the Miley Cyrus/Jonah Brothers set, and they're the only damn people who buy records anymore anyway. So it was a good move and I'm not going to knock my A&R friend for having that foresight. I am just going to be honest about how I feel about it, like after the show, when I met their manager.

"What did you think of the show?"
"Honestly, It wasn't my type of music. I didn't like it, but my opinion doesn't really matter because it's not FOR me, there's people out there that would love this shit"
"Yeah that's what we're going for"
"Oh, you work with them?"
"I'm their manager."
"Oh nice, yeah man. They do everything right to be a boy band, its solid, digestible pop music and that's what it should be."

Bland as that sounds, that's probably the most direct exchange that guy had all night, I'm sure there were so many others in there who would just tell him how "fucking awesome" their performance was, or something. He got it too, he understood what he was selling and had no delusions about his role.

Anyway, I hadn't had one of those moments in this business in a long time. Deep in the trenches of the farthest reaches of weirdness I realized that Dan Kennedy was right in his book, and that there is a thin line between compromising your ideals and staying true to the business you believe in.

You hear that music business?? Even after all the bullshit you've thrown at me, I still vaguely defended one of your boy bands. You hear that goddamn you? You still have me in your ranks, and faithfully so. Part of the few, the proud, the soon to be unemployed. So quit fucking with us and give us our just desserts, or else we will turn our backs and walk the fuck out, taking every bit of swag and all the free Cd's we can carry.

Ah, who are we kidding, we're not going anywhere until you fire us. We don't have any skills...what are we going to do? Learn how to arc weld?

Love,
Guy Hands' Left Hand

Check out The Onion AV Club's interview with Dan Kennedy here. Good stuff.