Rock shock

>> Bill Flanagan's A&R gets inside the cut-throat music business

by JULIET WATERS

Steve Albini once said in a interview in the magazine Punk Planet that "there is the very rare occasion where a band ends up on a major label and is done well by it and doesn't change their personality. Those occasions are so rare that you can equate them with meteorites crashing into houses. They are celestially rare. They're not even geologically rare. They're not even as common as volcanoes. They're on the order of mass extinctions from comets landing on the planet."

In other words, it's extremely unlikely that a feminist collective of black butch lesbians would rise through the ranks of a major label, and change the history of music forever, all while retaining their integrity and publishing rights. And in a novel as brutally realistic as Bill Flanagan's A&R, it really feels like a stretch.

As a senior VP of VH1, Flanagan has a true insider's knowledge of the music industry. As a writer, he's surprisingly good. When one thinks about the unlikelihood of someone so high-placed in the biz writing this well, one's almost ready to believe in other cosmic possibilities. A&R is a dark and funny soul journey through the last few years of the music industry. It's a must read for anyone who wants a career there. And it'll be a good read for anyone who's already crossed the line.

Jim Cantone is a rarity: an A&R (Artist & Repertoire) guy who still cares. A&R reps, for those who don't know, are the people labels hire to nurture talent. Or, depending on who's describing them, the minions labels hire to fuck over the musicians. They look, act, and talk like people who love music, because they usually once were. Directors of college music stations, music editors of alternative weeklies, former receptionists with good ears. In time they usually become people who care more about the perks of their job: mini-bars, expense accounts, fat salaries. Things that will not be maintained by empowering artists.

Jim, however, has maintained his integrity by staying at the fictional indie label, Feast Records. For the last year he's been grooming the afore-mentioned up-and-coming alternative band Jerusalem. What he's starting to admit to himself, at 30, is that Feast's owner, the legendary British wheeler and dealer, Barney Whippet, is jut a shyster with a smaller budget. Tired of Barney's bullshit, he decides to accept a job with massive corporation WorldWide Records. As Jim sees it, WorldWide is the only major label with even a modicum of soul left, if only because of its legendary owner "Wild" Bill DeGaul.

"Jim appreciated the older guys who had gotten in out of love. They might be pirates, they might be reprobates, they might have picked the pockets of poor bluesmen and ignorant English kids, but at least they were dedicated to music. The MBAs and Hollywood lawyers who began infiltrating the industry in the eighties did not care if they were selling records, deodorant, or breakfast cereal."

It's a sad statement, not just about the music industry, but about our times, that just loving music is considered a virtue in itself (not to mention a small consolation to the musicians who've been ripped off). But A&R is definitely an industry person's take on the history of recording. The bar for ethical behaviour is set pretty low. Still, as such, it's commendably honest about what a mercenary world this is.

Sharp dialogue, great anecdotes, excellent minor characters, a strong sense of rock's global and historical sweep, A&R has everything a solid, entertaining novel should have. What it lacks is the courage of its cynicism. In the words of one reviewer, "as his exuberant plot twists and turns, Flanagan stumbles by injecting his sense of cosmic justice, as if righting in literature the wrongs he has witnessed in life." A&R has all the potential of being a dark, epic, satire. Instead it's practically science fiction. :

A&R by Bill Flanagan, Random House, pb, 352pp, $19.95