Dan Kennedy's Rock On

There is a moment described by author Dan Kennedy in his brilliant music biz memoir Rock On that reminds me of an almost-surreal experience from my own jaded past.

Back in the early-90s, before the worldwide web had become this endless string of billboards and rest stops on the much-vaunted “Information Superhighway,” and only freaks and geeks knew of its existence, the Reverend was asked by a friend to sit in on an important Music Row meeting. The guys behind IUMA – the Internet Underground Music Archive, an earnest early attempt at bringing music online – had come to Nashville to speak with recording industry movers-and-shakers about their grand idea.

The IUMA guy’s presentation was geared towards the person who was, at the time, the manager of the biggest country music star on the planet, although there were label folks and other industry types present. They attempted to explain the basic mechanics of the web 1.0, hyping the medium’s potential as a way for artists to take their music directly to the audience. Sadly, although the IUMA concept sparked this scribe’s imagination, it challenged the staid conservatism of Music Row’s old guard: the idea of the web as anything that that the country music industry needed to worry about was dismissed by some and endlessly ridiculed by others.

By the end of the ‘90s, the major record labels would see their dominance under assault by the new digital technology, as everything from the worldwide web and Napster to mp3 files and peer-to-peer networking would create cultural changes that would rock the industry from the top floors down to the foundation. In Rock On, Kennedy sadly describes the one great idea that he had during his brief but tumultuous tenure in the recording industry.

In a big corporate meeting, Kennedy pitched the idea of a “digital only” artist contract, essentially the launching of an online label for developing artists that would allow their music to be heard at a significantly lower cost to the label than a traditional record deal. If enough of a buzz grew around an artist, along with the demand for a physical product (i.e. CD), the label retained the right to release an album through the usual distribution chain and retailers.

It was a fine idea that Kennedy had, brilliant really, and one that has since been built upon with varying levels of success by folks like Magnatune, and even experimented with by major labels like Universal. In Kennedy’s story, however, his idea suffers the slings-and-arrows of bureaucratic turf wars as pea-brained corporate managers defend their departments against a perceived increase in workload, but are too self-involved and insecure to allow anyone else in the organization to pick up the idea and run with it.

It is to Kennedy’s credit that he can write about such a magnificent, flaming defeat with humor instead of crawling into a corner in the fetal position with a bottle of Johnny Walker Red. So it goes throughout Rock On, Kennedy’s hilarious and all-too-sadly-familiar memoir of his experience in the recording industry. Hired as a marketing manager – “Director of Creative Development,” actually – for Atlantic Records, lifelong music lover Kennedy thought that he’d landed his rock-n-roll dream job. Instead, what he found was an insulated society that had its own language and its own style of office politics in an odd corporate culture where the achievements of decades past often allowed one to skate through the present with a corner office and (high) six-figure salary.

In short, Rock On is a document of the waning fortunes of the recording industry in the 21st century, Kennedy witnessing firsthand the dying throes of the entertainment giant that was the Warner Music Group. Hired by Atlantic Records on the basis of a single television commercial that he had put together for Motown, Kennedy had virtually no background in the music biz and little actual office experience to draw upon as he attempted to maneuver the corridors of power and intrigue. Throughout the carnival ride that was his eighteen months at Atlantic, Kennedy remembers humorous tales of his run-ins with artists like rapper Fat Joe, the Darkness and Duran Duran.

Along the way, Kennedy sweats his first corporate assignment – an ad campaign to promote 25 years of Phil Collins’ love songs – and later projects, such as a head-scratching cross-promotion by singer Jewel with a razor company that featured a song about not selling out. Hmmm… The events surrounding a Fat Joe commercial video shoot are a hoot, and Kennedy’s story about his creation of a radio public service announcement with the Donnas is priceless. Kennedy attends an Iggy & the Stooges performance and experiences a spiritual epiphany, and he chaperones a visiting Chinese student around town with wit and patience.

Kennedy keeps his chin up and his spirits high throughout these pages, even as he hides in his office and tries to figure out what he should be doing to earn his pay. The author’s self-effacing humor is the structure on which the stories in Rock On are built, Kennedy a talented writer with a gift for phrasing and a penchant for whimsy. Flights of fancy such as “My Six-Point System For Saving The Record Industry” or “A Field Guide To A Few Of The Species I’ve Spotted Here In The Office” are funny, yes, but also insightful and pointedly direct.

Rock On is a quick read, and entertaining as hell for anybody that loves music and wants a glimpse behind the curtain at the wild and wacky world of the recording industry. After sharing Dan Kennedy’s memories, you’ll recognize why the industry is in as bad a shape as it is…still, the spectacle makes for a fine book. (Algonquin Books)

(Click on the book cover to buy Rock On from Amazon.com)