Once again it was to be pipeline time, and The Fog Machine was pumping full ahead. It's The Fogger's function to divert logical inquiry and make you think that it's only some shortcoming of your own that accounts for the fact that NOTHING MAKES SENSE at the record company. Example One: In a normal business a product can't be sold to the public unless the public knows that the product exsists. In the music business this goal is achieved through publicity, advertising, promotional materials (posters), videos, and radio airplay. The record
company has to do these things so that John Q. Consumer knows that the product-your record-exists. When the record company doesn't do any of these things, whose responsibility is it when nobody buys the record? The artist's, of course. Why? Because NOTHING MAKES SENSE and THE ARTIST IS ALWAYS TO BLAME.

 Example Two: It makes sense to produce a  good record for a relatively small amount of money so that the record  will generate a return profit and the record company will have incentive to promote the product even more. Right? Wrong. When I suggested this to and A&R man at Capitol Records, he pitched foward into his soup. "My God," he stammered, "don't let anyone at the label hear you say that!" Why? Because you were too frugal. Unless you spend a million dollars making a record, the company won't feel compelled to promote it. Having created a masterpiece isn't enough incentive, and they won't know it's a masterpiece unless it costs a fortune. Put another way, they won't perform unless their job is threatened. The incentive is fear, and now things start to make sense.

So you have to "set up the record," and to do that your manager has to "work the label." This means he has to somehow extort commitments from the different department directors so that they'll kick in the promotion. Then at the right moment your manager has to coordinate the departments for a full-frontal assault.

A little while before our second major label release it was becoming apparent that we might not be a priority. One time we contacted the Hollywood A&R department to ask if we could send promotional video to the company's annual convention. First, we had to convince the secretary we were really on the label. Then we were told (exasperated voice) that any promotional video would be innapropriate because "this year we are only concentrating on the big winners, the
home runs."

Trouble began even before our album came out of the box. The record company's art department appropriated creative control over the packaging (the record cover). The results were preposterous, and theband was extremely agitated. Our manager pleaded with us not to "alienate the label." Meanwhile, he was too busy promoting big rock concerts and tractor-pulls to work the label on our behalf. And our big-time booking agency was doing a crack job of booking the band into clubs we'd played for years--and for about half of our usual guaranteed fee.  Once we had go on strike at show time and renegotiate with the club owner inside of a truck while an angry mob pelted our one-man road crew with debris.

The strike was on February 21, 1986. Our new record was  released two weeks later to "critical acclaim." Good press is better than bad, or none at all, but I've since discovered that terms like "Critically Acclaimed" (CA) and "Legendary" (L) often form one side of the following equation:

                          CA + L = No $

The radio airplay patterns were typically confusing. The big radio stations in Boston and Denver played the record, but The Good Guys at the big radio station in our hometown wouldn't touch it. Of course, not everything was terrible on the home front. The Atlanta chapter of a national organization presented up with the rock group category award for 1986. The awards ceremony was sponsored by a real estate firm. In our acceptance speech we expressed gratitude for the trophy but hinted that a house would have been nicer. No one was amused.

It gradually becomes clear that the full-frontal assault the  manager was supposed to have coordinated has turned into Pickett's Charge. The phone calls stop being returned, even from friends like The Artist Relations Director, a nice man who's supposed to help you smooth out problems with the hierarchy. The toll-free number of the label mysteriously changes and no one seems to have the new one. Right around this time you get hit with The Star Question: Someone at the record company-usually the A&R person-asks," Do you really want to be a star?" This is when you should know you're in serious trouble because somebody at the label has expressed doubts in a meeting about the band's "star quality." The irony about this is that the person in the meeting was probably talking about some other artist, but your A&R person is so paranoid he thought the guy was talking about you.
    

"Do you really want to be a star?" To which you respond, being naively flattered, "Yes, of course. Please push the button." Only your idea of being a star is something quite different from the record company's. Your idea is chatting on the Dick Cavett Show about poetry and politics. The problem with this particualr star fantasy is that Dick Cavett hasn't had a show in fifteen years.

Along with The Star Question comes The Big Euphemism. The S.Q. fades away, but The Big Euphemism haunts you forever. What is The Big E.? Well, The Fog Machine is really cranking, and you can't see anything. So you start asking questions about this department's "sincerity" and that department's "commitment." They start calling you paranoid. Soon, when the dirigible bursts into flames, you'll realize that "paranoid" is The Big Euphemism for "Extremely Correct."

By the time you understand The Big Euphemism it's way too late. You'll be driving in circles around New England in July trying to find out whether or not you're playing some super-hip industry function in New York for which the record company said they'd pay, only nobody calls back to let you know one way or the other. So you head south and then you're standing in the twisted girders of a phone booth at Howard Johnson's not far from Gettysburg and someone tells you that you're a loss to be casually cut. That's when you realize you've been remarginalized. Certain people will soon trot out the word "bitter" and apply it to you, and you haven't even opened your mouth yet. When you do open your mouth you discover that the word "bitter" is just one more Big Euphemism for "Extremely Correct."

By then you've already driven back home where they've hung a banner at the city limits that says WELCOME TO THE REAL THING, BABY! and you watch an outer-space movie and pour down twelve inches of Old Repeater that at length has no effect but you still feel better that you have in 750 days, and you go to sleep for neither the first nor the last Sunday morning as the sun comes up over America's Pop Republic.

Time to raise the periscope, and questions and answers as well. I see a tree falling in the wilderness. No one is there to hear it. Is there a sound? Answer: Yes.

Question: If America is a level playing field, why am I always rolling downhill? Answer: Because I can't stop.

A few years ago I walked into an antique jewelry shop on the outskirts of town. The saleswoman recognized me, walked up, and said, "Thanks."   

"You're certainly welcome," I said,"but I haven't bought anything yet."
    

She explained. Her family had owned a farm somewhere in Tennessee. Her dream had been to return after she received her college degree and establish the farm as an art therapy center for disturbed children. The previous summer, though, the mortgage on the farm had been foreclosed. Everything was to be auctioned off, including, of course, her dream. All she could do was sit on the front porch of the farmhouse every day and, while a century left her piece by piece, listen to music on her headphone set.
    

"Your album," said the saleswoman, "was the only hope I had, and was the only thing that got me through."

I put my sunglasses on and bought a red ceramic bracelet from China that had caught my eye. Then I walked outside into a storm of motes in a wide shaft of August light.  What does this mean? Everything. And everything else means nothing.


--PRESENT TENSE
Rock & Roll and Culture
Edited by Anthony DeCurtis
copyright 1992 Duke University Press
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
The text of this book was originally published without index or the present preface as volume 90, number 4 of the South Atlantic Quarterly


JEFF CALDER has been a singer and songwriter with the Atlanta based rock band the Swimming Pool Q's since 1978. The Q's have recorded five albums, including the most recent World War Two Point Five [at the time of this publication] (Capitol Records, 1989.) He also performs with the group the Supreme Court. He has written for newspapers and small publications. The present piece is excerpted from his critical autobiography, I Posed with the Gods.

ANTHONY DeCURTIS is a writer and Senior Features Editor at Rolling Stone, where he oversees the record review section, and the pop music critic for Weekend All Things Considered on National Public Radio. He coedited The Rolling Stone Album Guide, both scheduled for publication in the fall of 1992. His essay accompanying the Eric Clapton retrospective, Crossroads, won the 1998 Grammy Award in the "Best Album Notes" category. He holds a Ph.D. in American literature and has taught at Indiana University and Emory University.