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. They all say the same thing, it's no FUN! Instead of camaraderie and good times there's an atmosphere of fear and nary a week goes by without another lifelong friend disappearing. It's depressing. But in the management world...
Not the Sanctuary Management world. That's a public company. The managers are insulated from the vagaries of the business, they're paid a salary, they're not rock and roll RENEGADES! But Q Prime operates like a seventies powerhouse. It all depends on the ACTS, whether they're hitting, whether they're HAPPENING!
We're having a conclave in Marc's office. Tony's showing me the Leppard/Bryan Adams ticket counts. And a priceless e-mail from the rock critic from the "Oregonian". When asked if he wants to do an interview with Bryan, Marty Hughley said, "Personally, I'd rather chug Drano." 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!
And then Marc's pulling up the downloads SoundScan. God, there are tracks doing north of 500,000 files. And to think that they wouldn't have sold even a FRACTION of this number of physical, antiquated discs.
And Gayle pops in for a reading. Exactly WHO are they referring to on hitsdailydouble who A&R'ed the Green Day album. Do they even HAVE an A&R person? Is Rob Cavallo paying them, or is he angling for a new job?
THIS is the heart of the music business. People who still CARE! And know that the laughs come with the TERRITORY!
After lunch, I got into it with Cliff. 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! He's addicted to Ethel. He loves hearing the new bands. He LIVES for Arcade Fire. He turned his KIDS on to the act.
Concomitantly we discussed the distant arcane. 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. 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!
And while he was on the phone, I picked up the calls for him of people I knew. Which is always hilarious. I mean sitting in Cliff's office and picking up the phone and giving a head spin to Lee Abrams.
Oh, this is a personal trip. A rendezvous for my little sister's fiftieth birthday. To all who e-mailed, I'm sorry I can't get together with you. 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. And I told Hugh Surratt if I was still awake I would stop by RCA and hear the new David Gray album. But I never made it. I got hung up, I spent the whole day at Q Prime. You would have too. There was a pulse. Not a heavy pulse, rather a WHAT THE FUCK pulse. 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! There's no corporation, no policy, just individuals running their own fiefs in support of making bands the biggest in the world.
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.
By this time it was no longer raining. It was too cool for May, but walking the street, it was undeniable. Something was happening. LIFE! Both the rich and the poor, dwarfed by the Morgan Stanley electronic ticker-tape, the endless stream of food and electronics emporiums. It was a Vegas buffet, but the food had nutritional value, and, as much as you ate, you could never get full. And as I walked the streets back to my hotel, what I noticed most was the headphones, The white headphones. Attached to dangling white cords.
Nobody walks in L.A. It's hard to really FEEL iPod culture.
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. But 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! 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!
Make no mistake, the iPod is the best portable music player. It's killing the competition. Just look at Creative stock for illustration. 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! Yup, for as low as a hundred bucks, you can join the elite. And, like a Benz, an iPod never loses its cachet. It's just too perfect, it's an Eames chair, not an Aeron, it's TIMELESS! Everybody wants one. And everybody's gonna get one. Don't worry, Nokia and Samsung are gonna make no inroads into the market with their mobile devices. They don't have the signature headphones! God, if the Motorola iTunes phone comes with white headphones, it's going to dominate. Still, people don't want to listen to music on their mobile phones, not in the present iterations. They want iPods. Just walk the streets of Manhattan, it will all come clear.
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