Rock On (13 page)

The big guy we've been waiting on shows up. Co-Man, who aside from being a co-something is the cohead of A&R. Like a day's magic hour that is neither quite twilight or dusk, Co-Man is magic-age; not thirty, not forty, not fifty; simply high-energy, clean-cut, well groomed, exfoliated, moisturized, braced and energized by a good herbal toning and revitalizing tonic — and dressed pointedly casual in a T-shirt and jeans that somehow still indicate a premium price point befitting of the seven-figure income.

Suddenly everyone is animated; everyone one is flipping through the papers in front of them; faces are alive instead of dormant; the little bored people on the video screen are smiling and adjusting their seats, as if they're characters in a video game that has finally been reset; the instant burst of life catches me by surprise and leads to the mild confusion of suddenly feeling invigorated and hopeful. The meeting starts. Mostly the first round is dedicated to the usual business of the
A&R department: Who are you listening to that you like? How are their club shows selling? Are they selling a lot of merchandise at their shows? Are any other labels looking at them? Has anyone else here heard them? And after enough of that, the big guy holds up the handout of the idea. The idea!

The idea, I should tell you at this point, is not rocket science. It's basically a proposal for a new type of contract that would be used to sign developing artists to a digital deal on online-release-only terms. In short, it would let the label release a band's work digitally for a smaller advance than the standard contract, and secure the rights to first refusal when it comes to releasing it in other formats such as CDs, soundtracks, and so on, if the songs do well in an online release. And without boring you to death, basically the big thing about it is that even though we're talking about an online-only release, there's a way that the idea keeps a foot in traditional retail outlets. And traditional retail outlets are eroding as I type this, and there are points in the execution of this online-only idea that address staying in touch with the consumer as they migrate away from standard retail. The other big thing about it is that it has this way of approaching the label's back catalog in the marketing of developing artists. And frankly, I'm not so sure why I'm being so vague about describing it to you, because if I'm fired tomorrow, there are fifty handouts left here in this building with every detail about how the idea works, fifty handouts printed up and plagued with phrases like “Consumers migrating from brick-and-mortar retail and looking for options aside from the iTunes Music Store” are all written out and sitting in front of everyone. I call this little digital label Buzz Share, which, yes, is pretty much the lamest name ever.

Co-Man introduces me and this time I do bigger nods to the people in front of me, and a full-size wave to the people on screen.

“Okay, so I know I sent this to everyone kind of last-minute, I think there's something here. I think it's an idea we should be investigating, but I want to know what you guys think about it.”

Holy God! A bicoastal Greek chorus of things like this:

“Yeah, we should definitely be moving in this direction. I like the thinking behind this. I would use it.”

“We should be looking at this. I'm not sure exactly how we start to implement it, but it's something we should be trying.”

Goddamn, I wish this guy could hold up everything I've ever said, done, thought, or written so I could just bathe in the kind of instant validation he commands. Anything he holds up in front of the camera is praised.

“Here's a speeding ticket Dan from marketing got when he was nineteen. He was going eighty-five in a forty-five, plus passing two vehicles on the right. I think he was on to something with his thinking, but I want to know what you guys think,” the big guy might say. And then the people in the meeting and on the screen would shine a new light on this incident, and they'd baptize me with praise:

“I love it. I don't see it as reckless driving. I see it as
ambitious
driving.”

“I like his thinking here. Using the shoulder of the highway to pass is inventive.”

Then he'd hold up the next item for everyone to see: “Here's a Polaroid that a security officer took of him unconscious in
a job interview he blew back when he still drank and partied. He literally passed out in the middle of the interview after an all-nighter of excess and not being able to find the right combination of various stimulants and gin to take the edge off completely that morning.” And again, I would sit being redeemed by their replies:

“Some people would've call him a derelict for passing out in a job interview, but I can't help but see this as the ability to shift the paradigm of the interview process. I like his thinking here.”

Someone else might speak up, “Whose fault is it that he's asleep? That's the question I would ask. He wasn't being engaged, and I think that falls on the shoulders of the company interviewing him.”

After the requisite amount of employees agreeing and championing the idea, the big guy introduces a small devil's advocate point.

He says something to effect of: “Well, it's not a hands-down perfect idea. One big thing we'll need to talk about, we'll need to figure out, is who runs this, because it would kind of be a new division. Is it a separate department or is it folded into New Media?”

Uh oh . . . Angry New Media Chick keyed in on that little phrase and is stirring in her seat like she's ready to launch. She stirs again, Co-Man looks her way, and she sends the first warhead my way:

“Look, you can't come in here making more work for my department! You're basically saying our Web site has no role in [words, words, words, words, words]. You can't just decide you [more words, coupled with awkward angry rant about
needing to take responsibility for my ideas, etc. Words, words, various angry faces.].”

“No . . . I'm not saying . . . I think the Web site is great. I'm not even talking about that. This would be a totally separate thing. I mean. No. I like . . . I mean . . . your department is awesome. Or.”

Thinking:
Jesus, did Co-Man set me up for this slaughter just to get Vallerie to quit asking him about my idea or something
?

There are two people representing the media department — her and this guy who's boisterous and also angry, albeit in a more innocent, less aggressive, more “Keiffer Sutherland character who really wants to stress that he's not happy” kind of way. Anyway, they both make great money, and it seems like anytime they think they're going to have to do more than maintain the company site they start screaming dot-com words that the senior vice president co-people don't understand. And they've got an awesome corner on things, since we're talking about a place where anyone above middle management has to yell to their assistants for help with something as technical as, say, an e-mail attachment. So, yeah, it's totally taking-candy-from-babies time. Anyway, I've seen Angry New Media Chick and Loud Man do this before.

Executive: “Maybe we can figure out a way to make part of our site basically. . . .”

ANMC: “Impossible! Back-end architecture! Cookies and lasers! Server-side technology!”

LM will join in, too: “Yeah! What she said! Plus, I mean, I would have to see if what you're asking for is even feasible!”

Executive: “Uh . . . okay.”

Then you walk by Loud Man's office fifteen minutes later and he's kicking back, has five Instant Message windows open on his computer, his feet resting on one of the skateboards that litter his office, one of his corporate groupies hanging out on the couch reading a magazine or playing a video game.

I quickly try to address these concerns of the project falling on the New Media Department's shoulders.

Co-Man kind of looks over at them like, “Well?”

They start the rant of dot-com terminology to defend their department from undertaking additional endeavors, let alone developing ideas that will lead to an increased workflow. Eyes glaze over. Terminology ricochets off the walls.

Jesus, fine. We get it. It can't be done
.

They carry on a bit longer, and I totally lay back, unable to defend. I'm killed by this mildly hysterical woman and her angry man-friend who have mastered the aggressive boardroom shtick that I will never learn to do. I feel myself going down, quiet and no longer interested in my idea as much as I'm interested in how this small, angry man can kick my ass so thoroughly. How do adults respond to this stuff in an office environment? Can I hit him?

Part of me is thinking that if the copresident likes the idea so much, I don't need to fight these New Media thugs trying to remain in their stream of steady checks and fattening lunches, do I?

The dust dies down; there are a few things left on the department's meeting agenda. I think Co-Man ends my segment by saying something to the effect of, “Okay, well . . . we'll kind of see how . . . yeah . . . good. So, next order of business.”

After a few rounds of who's listening to what, the TV screen
switches off, the people in Los Angeles fade away, and it feels like I disappear as well. We all file out, and I walk down the hall past those gold and platinum records again, this time feeling a little bit like an aged Beavis or Butt-head, thinking, “Uh, having a big idea, like, sucks or something.”

First off, in all fairness to Jewel: if I grew up without running water, an indoor bathroom, or television, only to then spend my formative years living in a van and bathing in public fountains so I could make some spare change by yodeling in coffeehouses — or whatever her story is — I would sell Schick one of my songs to advertise their new razor with. Period. And frankly, I wouldn't stop at letting Schick pay me seven figures to use my song as the soundtrack to their estimated forty-million-dollar ad campaign. I'd take things a step further, personally. I'd offer to paint the CEO's summerhouse for a fair price. I'd ask if the president of Schick's kids listened to my records. If the answer was yes, I'd be like, “Sweet, they'll freak when you bring home the shirt I'm wearing. It's the one I wore on the cover of the CD
and
in the video. Five grand, and you're a hero, Dad, come on. Right now. Make a move, or I'll just eBay it for more like eight grand.” And I'd be peeling the shirt off of my back quicker than you can say “I'll never have to eat dented cans of shoplifted beans in my van again.” Having said that, if I'd spent the last decade selling out tours behind twenty-five million records sold worldwide, I'd like to believe I'd think twice before letting Schick Corporation use one of my songs as an anthem for a women's razor.

But in today's sales and marketing meeting we're told that Jewel's working on a song for the upcoming album
0304
and that the song, “Intuition,” bears the same name as this women's razor that Schick is bringing to market.

Little Loud Man from New Media pounces up from the middle left region of the conference table and commandeers the Dr. Evil huge-ass high-tech tabletop touch-screen audio/video command center. The speakers at the end of the room come to life. A little intro and beat and the first verse hits. Here's what Jewel starts to tell us in the song: She's basically telling us that she's a simple girl and that she's kind of stuck in this high-tech digital world. And she's saying she's really trying to understand what she describes as all of the powers — or people in charge — that rule this land.

(Okay, easy on the Phil Hartman Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer “I'm confused by your modern world” act, sister. You just worked with your label and management to corner yet another check equal to the Gross National Product of some of the countries your last six world tours swept you through, so, you kind of understand power.)

The song finds its groove. Aging Suburban Classic Rock Guy bobs his head as if he can't get enough of this one. A handful of aspiring co-somethings bob their heads as well and smile at each other. Anyone in the room who knows the irony of a song about not selling out being used to sell razors displays a perfect professional poker face. I, on the other hand, am most likely doing the thing where I stifle disbelief and then start getting paranoid that I totally don't understand what's going on and that it's showing on my face, and then I get paranoid that you can get cancer this way. I'm not sure what to use to tap to the beat, so I just fold my stupid long arms across my
stomach. I don't know where to look, either, so I squint my eyes shut hard and try to focus on the song. An intern is kind enough to tap me on the shoulder and discreetly ask me if I am “having problems.”

Jewel hits the chorus and tells us that we need to follow our hearts and follow our intuition and then kind of repeats that we only need follow our hearts, “Just follow your heart, baby,” she sings out. The song is basically saying all this stuff about not giving into the insane waves of advertising and greed that are shoved at us all day long. But I still don't get it and feel like when I was little and they said they were going to have to hold me back a grade unless I got with the program. So, I'm really trying to get with the program. But, she just licensed this song about following your heart and not selling out for use in one of the biggest ad campaigns of the year.
Wait, maybe I'm dead and this is one of those old Disney comedies where I slowly start to realize I'm dead and nobody can see me except a child? And it's, like, a hundred years in the future and licensing folk singers' songs about not selling out for use in a forty-million-dollar ad campaign for razors makes sense to everyone in the future?

I look around the room for any sign of somebody willing to clue me in so I can enjoy the meeting, too: the usual suspects are bobbing politely to the beat; a pair of daydreaming eyes is suddenly averted when I look right at them; one guy is politely drumming on the edge of the table with the stylus from his Palm Pilot.