August 24th – The thing is, when you read this,
you have to understand that I’m not a tub-thumping evangelist, but the thing
you do need to remember is that, in it’s benign sense, you have to know your
enemy.
In no other field of employment are the words;
If you think it’s too
good to be true…then it probably is.
more applicable than the music/entertainment business, and
there are three things that guide and drive it.
Sex.
Power.
Money.
“What about the talent,
Peter?”
Nope. Surplus to requirements.
‘Talent is the last
thing I need or want’
as a very highly-placed recording exec once told me.
Talent can be manufactured, gifted, created, grafted on,
shaved off…take it from me, A&R people really do think they are the movers
and shakers of the ents business…but people such as Simon Cowell are only the
power they are in the music industry because we let him be: Us. We dance to his
Pied Piper tune, to the music and stars
he produces out of the hat containing a collection of easily manipulated,
money-making wannabes, because…? Because, in the main we’re too lazy to search
out our own; too impatient to let talent and ability grow and improve. Living
in this Lottery-Winner society we want stardom, our idols and its rewards to
arrive instantly, and by our giving our passive, lazy, soap-filled, proxy
vote, we’ve let him and others like him become the arbiter of our personal
taste. Yes, there are some decent folk in the game but even back in the so-called laid-back 60’s and on there were,
have been, are and will always be shysters flying by the base of their scrotum
through the lines of hopefuls and would-be stars,
dick in one hand, rolled-up ten-dollar bill and mirror in the other chanting;
I can make you a star!
and there’ll always be sufficient foolish fish in the barrel
who believe the lie of the hook and
gloss over the words of the Canadian band, Rush;
So much style without
substance, so much stuff without style.
Let’s break it down:
Sex: Management want sex, thrills, fame
by association. They don’t have the talent, good looks or personality to do it or
attract it for themselves but do have a talent to promote those that do. I’ve
seen it regularly, working in theatre as I do, when the money men come into the
venture (and it is still invariably men) with the majority of their brain cells
in their cock, sniffing out the birds, boys, booze and bundles of cash with
their bravado statements and use of street-slang how the game changes and the
dice get rebalanced.
Power: There’s always going to be a level
of gangsterism in the business, and by that I don’t mean Al Capone stuff
(although it has been known on more than one occasion) but a more sinister kind
of coercion. Back in the 60’s/70’s the threat of broken legs or burned-out
businesses if such-and-such a band wasn’t booked (or was booked) had a certain
level of currency when agents were working to promote their act/s in the face
of stiff competition. Today, these same people use their power in a different
way. Now it’s schmoozing, trips away, offers of sex (any deviation catered for)
and drugs, wads of cash…these things have always been used of course; it’s just
that now they’re coupled with more lasting, more subtle bribes. Things like support for a cause (either social or
political) or changing the position of
decision-making cartels or creating a
positive spin on contentious issues or proposals
through ‘star support’…and that, unfortunately and in some ways, includes ‘charidee’.
Money: Money talks. Opens doors. Oils
wheels. Greases palms. Buys drugs. Pays Payola. Bribes the weak. Pays off the
strong. Funds attention. Covers mistakes. Ties a tourniquet round truth. Turns
shit into talent.
These are just the three main things that turn the heads of even
the most battle-hardened performers and their entourage. It’s hard sometimes to
spot the charlatan and react to it with the move it deserves; a swift knee to
the groin and the beating of a hasty retreat: not always so, as we shall see.
If I know the above and you know it and, supposedly, everyone
else in the business knows it then how come, time after time (Kim Carnes… excellent) how come people
get suckered into situations or follow a route even when the signs are all
screaming;
Turn again, Tosser?
I mean, even if you are totally new to the business and you’re
asked by someone you’d never met to come to their office in the city because they’d seen you on stage, or had read
something you’d written, or heard something you’d recorded at home and put up
on YouTube, and they were sure they
could make you a star, make you millions, make you as important as the date of
the second coming and then, when you got to this office in the city you found
it was semi in Dagenham, complete with stained lace curtains and a smell of stale
urine and dead cat pervading the rooms, and in one of which was a battered
school desk behind which was a guy in string vest and braces looking like
something one of those deceased felines had dragged in…well, you’d think;
This isn’t going to be my
direct route to the West End
And scuttle the fuck out of there, wouldn’t you?
OK, so what, then, if you were a hardened pro, knew all the
tricks, had been round the track sufficient times to wear a trench; what then?
On this day in 1967 (6 years after their first number one, so
not exactly new to the game) The Beatles went to London to meet the Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi aka ‘The Giggling Guru’. Here was a man from an Indian religious order
who preached a life of simplicity, humility and the pursuit of truth over
treasure-trove, of a space in ones life for meditation and close contemplation
of the self, of poverty and chastity…and so where do you think they’d meet?
Wrong. They meet him at the Park Lane
Hilton, of course. The reported value of the Maharishi's
organization has ranged from the millions to billions of U.S. dollars and, in
2008, the organization had assets of about $300 million…so this is proof of his
and the organisation’s frugal lifestyle and charitable outlook; so to all
concerned, even battle-hardened stars, the very idea that such a union could or
would end badly is totally unforeseeable… totally… yup, totally…
Of course it’s not that simple, but when you have one faith
leader saying from the austere confines of the Park
Lane Hilton with acolytes and room service buzzing around him/her;
We cannot
take away the economic aspects of the movement…even though my message concerns
the non-economic fulfilment of life. If initiations were free we could not
cover the overhead for spreading the movement throughout the world
and then another saying from the side of the
road with the dust and flies buzzing round him/her;
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go
therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that
I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age
Well, who y’ gonna choose?
Both of them purport to living
the life they preach and ask you to believe the honesty of their doctrine and
what they have will be yours... Well, who y’ gonna choose?
Me? I’d believe neither ‘cos I’m
an atheistic old curmudgeon but, if push came to shove, I’d side with the one who
promised a profit for my Friday prayers, cynical old fuck that I am.
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