In 1982 everyone in Georgia thought the music business was located in New York City because the B-52's struck gold there back in 1979. We always got the gray granite brush-off, but this time the reception was warmer because of our more "mature" demo tape. The New York A&R people were still noncommital, being notoriously uncertain about what might be
good. They require support from other A&R people to help them confirm what's good. In the end, those who liked our demo had good things to say about it to their equally indecisive West Coast counterparts-sowing the seed, so to speak, for the next jaunt-partially justifying the next
month's credit card balance. Now it was time to go West.
    I floated some checks and flew to L.A. where I stayed with a friend who had just gotten a big job with a major label. I spent the  next week driving around town in a rental car to the record companies and acting like I knew what I was doing. Pretending to be a manager wasn't too hard since everyone in California is pretending to be something. The feeling at the West Coast major label companies seemed much looser that in New York. Everybody was trying to come off as "just folks." Some people were enthusiastic about the demo tape ("heard some good things"), a pleasant change from the usual Manhattan chill. When I wasn't trying to impress them that I, too, was just folks and avoiding any real discussion as to the merits of my band, I was hanging
around the record company with my friend.
    The first thing I noticed about the record company was the large number of expensive, exotic motor vehicles on the lot. I assumed these plutomobiles belonged to the label's famous recording artists, but then I discovered they belonged to the guys who just worked there.
There was a rumor that the monster who headed the Radio Promotion Department had been given a Rolls Royce by Kenny Rogers as a tip. The more I hung around the more I realized that record executives think they are the stars. The point was made for me six years later when I
opened a copy of Billboard and caught a full-page advertisement for the movie Field of Dreams starring Kevin Costner. Only it wasn't an ad for Field of Dreams, it was a duplicate ad announcing the installation of the new president of Capitol Records, with his head in the place of Costners.
    The A&R staff outside the field of hustle knew what I was doing in L.A., liked the demo tape, and never made me feel like someone toting a resume of lies. They stayed in touch with me after I returned home, and when we booked some gigs and got some wigs to fly in from
other labels, they said that they would send someone, too.
    Two labels flying in wasn't enough to constitute a "bidding war," but it did provide some incentive. The last thing you want in a bidding war-even a fake one-is for someone to put up a white flag, so I felt it was my responsibility to hint at other "interest." The hints were completely unconvincing, but that didn't stop the two A&R chiefs from flying into Raleigh, North Carolina, on January 27, 1984, to see the band perform in what formerly had been a tractor showroom
and now a nightspot called the Culture Club. Later that night one of the two A&R men said, "Let's make records." "Let's," we said.
    The Means had come to The End.
    Meanwhile, the American Express bill has arrived in the mail,  but that's the least of your troubles. Now you're faced with decisions you've never had to make before, and they have to be made all at once. You've secured The Record Deal, but the real problems have just begun.
You've become a human ping-pong ball to be batted between the record company, the attorney, the manager, the friends. Once the word gets out on the deal, people yo thought were friends in the local music community stab you in the back. Hometown writers who were "behind the
band" now really get behind the band-with sharpened knives. A half- drunk jackass gets in your face and says,"You need to get back to doing what you were doing before people were telling you what to do!" It's quite an adventure, all the same. You have to rely on your instincts
because nothing that's happened before prepares yu for this. In show biz the past is never prologue, and the future unfolds as a series of non sequiturs ad infinitum. Overnight you've gone from being a dead-beat in a rock group to being "a serious artist with a career."
    Which brings me to The Attorney. It can't just be any old  attorney. It has to be a Music Business Attorney (M.B.A.). In Hollywood there are many M.B.A.'s. In the hinterland, however, the attorney who can deal with the filed teeth at a record company is a rarity. When you finally find one, remember-he's working for you (and since he has an idiot for a boss, you'll probably end up working for him). Your first mistake is to act responsibly and listen to hours of legal discussions about percentage points, royalty rates, and film deals. None of this means anything unless you sell a bunch of records, and then you can holler "renegotiate!" If you don't sell a bunch of records it doesn't matter because you're going to get "dropped." Getting dropped hangs like a dagger over your head night and day. The kinds of commitments an artist really needs built into a recording contract aren't going to happen unless the artist is "established" or
has a huge buzz factor. So what you should say to your new attorney is, "Listen, I don't want to hear about it. Just get as much money as you can and forge my signature." The one thing of value he tells you is, "The record company is your enemy," but you won't understand this
because the record company people seem so nice and "artist-oriented" and want to spend all their spare time "developing" you.
    Once you have the attorney in the bag you need to choose The Producer. There aren't many of them out there, and there's always a scheduling conflict. There's no science to this, but it helps to understand what a producer really is: he's the guy who acts as if he's "into the project," and he usually is-for about ten to twenty-five grand. There's a lot of big talk about finding someone who "can take you to the next step." Oh yeah, and he has to have a "track record," meaning some success with a prior release. With the money in your recording budget you're not going to get the heavy hitter with the multi-platnum wall and-trust me on this-you wouldn't want to be around him anyway.
    Finding the right producer who can handle the budget, the  recording console, and the five mental cases in the band is not easy. Eventually you have to settle on the person with whom you feel comfortable personally and artistically. We decided to make our album with the staff producer who had signed the band to the label. He brought in as coproducer an up-and-coming hotshot engineer from New York City who has since produced some very successful records.
We began "pre-production" in April 1984, spending two weeks in our rehearsal space-the basement of a bar. Then in May we spent thirty days recording at a twenty-four track studio in Atlanta. Our producer kept us calm while the coproducer got down in the trenches. Making an
album can sometimes be painful, but we learned valuable lessons about the way records are made. We brought the project in under budget, took the remaining money, paid off some debts (The Anti-Mogul), and bought a van.
    Getting this far without a real manager was a little unusual. The day after our album was completed our producer began prodding us about it. He knew what was in store for us at the label. There's some sense to this course of action (getting a real manager) since it's
impossible for a band member to take care of managerial responsibilites while touring to "support a record." Record companies don't like "dealing with the artist." The hard cases who run the label make a practice of referring to artists as though they were items for sale
in a produce market. They can't make cracks about an artist's complexion or dimensions if they're "dealing with the artist." They can say anything they want to a real manager, though, in an effort to avoid cutting a check. We flew around and finally found a real manager, so the label's accountant could tell us through him, "I just don't hear any hits."