Book III of the Humper Trilogy
The story of Sasha and his butt
Innovation is not a plan. The marketing of an innovation can be--sales in general is an art and a sick little huge one at that--but people really do break the envelope simply by being whatever they cannot help. Madness is usually manifested as schizophrenia and all its attendant quirks. "You could be from Park Ave. or from a park bench" it don't matter. There are lunatics glazing under the slippery moon in all runnins' of life.
When one of those freaks steps outside of the doorway and gets some snatch of fame or money, a thousand detractors change their tuning and jump on that wagon with their band. I recall seeing a group of earnest young men bashing adequately on the strings of hollow-body guitars at Gilman Street Project, even introducing themselves with, "as you can tell by our guitars, we are a little bit different." But they sounded exactly like Rancid, who had just broken into the mainstream. (Hell. they deserve it. They are nice guys and heck, The Clash were a great group.) The funny thang-a being, these rancid kids were a long-haired Nirvanawannabe thing a year earlier.
If you see an inventive artist on TV or in a magazine, you are too late to jump on them. By the time you begin to get recognition in the second wave of corporate land-grab that follows every outfield success, (recall the armies of A and R men booking flights to Seattle the year that punk broke, or going back lot, the mad frenzy of San Franciscan no-hit wonders to be dropped by majors by 1971.) your pet trend will be very mold news.
So, either innovate or learn to spot trends early. Respite the fart that commerce screams at everyone to innovate!, you really have no choice. It is predestined. If you are creative, get a good day job, (may I recommend selling your ass?) learn a little about marketing and set about quietly making a brilliant body of work that only a few will probably ever see. If you can't create, I recommend that instead of honing your trend-spotting abilities into figuring out which bandwagon's leg to hump with your own art, why not go into management.
I used to be friends with a guy named Charley Brown. (Really.) He bragged that he had never written a song, yet this guy was making more money at music than most musicians ever will. He saw Jane's Addiction in 1984 playing a loose set at a loft party. There were maybe 20 people there. Fresh out of business college in his native Kentucky, he saw that x-factor spark in a bunch of young nobodies 8 years before you heard of them and decided that you needed dreadlocks and a skinny art-babe girlfriend/muse, some vocal effects and a junk habit to advance the career of your garage band.
Charley maxed his credit card and bet lent on this bunch of nobodies. Eventually he was fired, but not before helping pull them into the somebodys that everybody wanted to be.
The idea of being a manager harkens back to the Hebrew story of the prodigal son. In the music business (particularly in publishing deals) the hungry, sexy young boy or girl with nothing but talent signs his birthright over for a bowl of soup. It is easy to give away 20% of nothing for a fix and a year's rent now because every instinct, and your manager, whispers that there may be nothing, and that a little now for a percent of future nothing is a grand deal.
Managers and record companies and publishing concerns basically make a bet with you that you will fail. And they only make a profit on you if they loose the bet. It is win-win. I would like to see the standard rich-and-famous contract re-written and sheared from its current 75 pages of baffling wiggle-words to a single sentence:
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The company gets everything, the artist gets nothing, forever.
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It sure would save on lawyers.
But saving on lawyers is not what that business is all about
If you want to make money of entertainment, don't be an entertainer. Rather, provide services to entertainers.
The next time I get a chunk of change, I am gonna follow that advice. But I ain't gonna open a recording studio or a video production company. I am gonna open a methadone clinic.
It will be open 24-7, and will have an on-site pawn shop. It will be one block down the hill from the current clinic (junkies hate to walk up hill) and will provide a dose one dollar cheaper and one milligram stronger.
Rock and roll will never die and neither will the lie that keeps kids choosing it over sensible occupations.
When interviewed on MTV by Grace Slick, Frank Zappa responded to the question, "Frank, what advice would you give to aspiring musicians," he quipped, "I think they should quit immediately." I don't think he was just being cute. Music is a godlike brilliant shimmering thing that makes my spine wiggle and hurts like nobody's company. We need it and love it and lap it and lick it. But the industry is like a funny old wrinkled man who likes to fuck young boys. It is vampyric and can only sustain its descent to dust with daily doses of life blood supped from earnest youngsters who have no interest in becoming the President of the United States, but wouldn't mind being Artist of the Year.
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I play in a band, "Arsenic and Lovelaces," but I entertain no notions of "making it." My band is sloppy and unrehearsed and fun and punkie and unlistenable. We are a site to watch, but I am sure that it just would not transfer to record. But like many San Franciscans, I am sure that someday I will be famous, probably for just being me. Maybe someone will biography my amazing and mundane existence, I don't know. But I do live for that day, as I know that I will make everything great, solve all my problems and I will be happy all the time.
Until then, I will comfort myself by contributing to art in the capacity of muse. I have out with musicians and painters and fuck them and make them laugh and tell them of my dreams and let them steal my best ideas.
Some chicks blow rockers. I blow painters. I love chicks (and occasionally dudes) who paint. I love to suck on their clits and tongue my prayer into their soul and then have them tell me that I inspired their latest masturbate, I mean masterpiece.
The Vagrant Vampires were cool. They were an absolutely insane band of rugged individuals, homo-hetero, queer-friendly, sex-positive, heroin/acid/alcohol/speed mavens. Every time I turn on the radio, I hear their influence.
I can see why. I went on tour with them, their second tour of the US, and there were people at many shows who later became huge stars.
The Vagrant Vampires only sold like 50,000 records, and I think they were all to members of prominent bands.
My job description was go-go dancer. I would run in place the singer, Cash, on-stage in a drugged psychofrenzy. their music was sexy and evil and poppy and beautiful and charming and very conducive to dancing. It was a physically demanding job, but one that I loved to do.
I would also often disrobe and run into the audience and stick my penis in people's drinks, and then goad them to drink it. I never got my ass kicked, but I did come close a few times.
We did fun stuff. Me and Cash, in Albuquerque, stood out front and handed out Christian, anti-rock pamphlets and tried to convince kids not to go in. The Vagrant Vampires had never played there, and people did not know what Cash looked like. He almost got his ass kicked, and then went inside and played his mind out while I danced and stormed.
I loved doing that job, even though it paid six dollars a day. Hell, I would have paid them that much for the privilege of serving in that capacity.
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