The most common piece of advice has been: “Just get in. Any way you can.” This is frustrating because I figured that part out a long time ago—it’s a small and incestuous business. The “how” question is the difficult one. Most of the industry people I have spoken with have said something along the lines of “Well, the music industry is imploding. You’re doing all the right things, but there aren’t really jobs to speak of. Best of luck to you.” I have tried not to let this kind of response get me down, but I’ll admit that it was starting to wear on me.

And, just when my enthusiasm was beginning to wane, I got the reinforcement I needed to keep going. After six months of banging on the door to The Music Business, I’ve finally cracked it open.

No, I haven’t waltzed in yet. This is real life, after all. But the wheels are in motion for me to move forward. I got an internship working for an Artist Management company, and the company is run by a man whose career I admire and aspire to emulate. He’s been in the industry a long time and manages the estates of some of my favorite Seventies Rock icons (Janis Joplin and The Doors, to name drop and name two). I wasn’t planning on being selective; I just needed to “get in”. But I could not have asked for a more perfect opportunity.

The hard part isn’t over. I still have to demonstrate my value to this man taking a chance on me, and I still have a lot to learn. But I’ve been given a shot. So, for now, I can stop searching for my way in and start focusing on proving that I belong.

My energy was low from the night before, but I insisted on going to the R Bar. I had two things in mind: 1. I hoped for more of the night before as far as veteran surprise appearances go, and 2. I hoped to take advantage of a small venue and get to know anyone involved in the show in any capacity.

So, I dragged my tired body off the couch and to the R Bar. I whispered the password to the man behind the little speakeasy-style eye door and was ushered in. I tried my best to exude confidence, but it’s not always easy to fly solo in a room full of hipsters. After awkwardly sauntering over to the bar and ordering something to protect me from the sting of Gothic judgment, I took a step back and assessed the room to identify the important people. I spotted men with cameras and decided to befriend them. I chatted with the staff, rubbed elbows with the crowd, and waited for the show to go on.

Charly Coombes and The New Breed took the stage and took the crowd by storm. Kiefer Southerland showed up, and every man in the room turned into a babbling puddle of superfan mush. I lost them for awhile and watched them ogle over Jack Bauer. He was digging CCNB, so they played a bit more. It took me awhile, but I finally figured out who the man with the band was and worked my way into his attention span.

I introduced myself as a writer interested in management. For whatever reason, he took a liking to me and, by the end of the night, I had an invite to join the band in San Diego the following day. Given that this sort of encounter and opportunity is what I came to LA for and exactly why I made the effort to come to the show, I jumped all over it. At this point, I was not thinking. I was just going, doing and running on coffee and adrenaline. So, I leapt into the open window and booked it to San Diego.

The plan was for me to go down, see a show, get an interview with the boys and learn a few things about managing from someone in those shoes. It felt too good to be true but also too good to question…

I moved to Los Angeles with the intention of meeting people in the industry. I’m trying to cast a wide net, so I’m making efforts to make connections at every level, from musicians and roadies to high-level executives. There are, of course, many ways to network. Lunches, conferences, small shows and personal meetings are all worthy pursuits, and these pursuits have exposed me to some fascinating characters…some delightful, some dreadful. This particular story is one of promises and pretense and a peek into life between shows and behind the scenes. It is also evidence of how one encounter can snowball into something completely unforeseen. I am leaving out or changing the names of the individuals involved to save people from embarrassment or unwanted associations.

The story begins on a Thursday. A musician friend of mine and I decided to check out Taylor Hawkins’ new band at The Viper Room. We went primarily to see the drummer, having little knowledge and moderate expectations regarding the rest of the show. Taylor was taking his sweet time, but we were pleasantly surprised by the showcase as it was shaping up. I was exposed to a poppy and punky local band called All Day Sucker and an engaging and appealing British band called Charly Coombes and The New Breed. (More on the latter later.)

Then we spotted Dave Grohl. I did everything in my power to act cool but failed miserably. Mr. Grohl hung out on the floor with the crowd for a bit then disappeared behind stage, and we knew we were in for something good.

The curtain opened, and Grohl was joined by All Day Sucker, Charly Coombes and The New Breed and Rami Jaffee, among others, and a star studded jam session ensued. Taylor was absent but, at this point, nobody remembered he was supposed to be there in the first place.

It was utterly delicious. The show was ending, and I was already aching for more. I felt insatiable, and part of this was that I so strongly wanted to be part of it. Being an audience member was wonderful but not enough. There was an announcement that the first two bands would be heading to a dive bar the following night, and I saw this as opportunity to work my way in. I didn’t know how exactly or where I would fit, but I was certain I would figure something out. I had the will and I would find a way. And here is where the real story begins. Stay tuned.

The rules are different here, and I’m learning as I go. I seek insight from authorities and follow their lead, but I often feel like I’m playing with etiquette boundaries. Persistence, almost to the point of irritation, is necessary. But one must carefully walk the line between persistent and pushy. This is about building relationships after all.

I’ve always been driven, but this degree of relentlessness took some getting used to. I grew up in the south, where people generally err on the side of restraint. Restraint gets you nowhere in Hollywood. Speak up, and get to the point, or fall through the cracks. Nobody is going to wait while you beat around the bush. And nobody is going to remember you unless you make yourself unforgettable. So, in order to get a foot in the door, you need to plant yourself outside of it and bang bang bang until it breaks. Then, when it does, try to enter as gracefully as you can, act like you belong and make yourself indispensable.

I’m doing my best and, after a tireless month of knocking, the door is finally beginning to crack. LA Times likes Beat and suggested I pitch freelance ideas to them. And I may have an interview at a certain live events promotion company in the upcoming weeks. I haven’t made it inside yet, but I’m going to keep banging on that door, as politely as I can, until it finally breaks. And then I can make my entrance.

I don’t really want to be The Enemy. Quite the opposite, in fact. My real aspiration, as alluded to in Bumping Into Geniuses, is to be in a position to advocate for the artists and their integrity. I realize this is idealistic. As someone coming into this business from the outside, my viewpoint is either fresh or naive, depending on who’s judging. But I’m allowed that in the beginning. That’s what makes new endeavors exciting.

So, for now, I’ll assume I can help musicians get what they want and what they deserve. The more I learn about the industry, the more aware I become of just how prevalent the erosion of the artist’s intention is. Music gets picked apart, produced and regurgitated as something vaguely resembling what the musician presented initially. More hands enter the pot, and everyone wants a say. Money gets unevenly divvied up. It goes on and on.

When this happens to, say, a Britney Spears, who isn’t so much an artist as a puppet, this is just fine…in fact, for the sake of the listeners, it’s good. It’s also a situation where the artists are the producers rather than the ‘singers’, and they get to showcase their own creativity. But that’s a whole different subject. When this happens to a musician who comes into a record label with great music and comes out of it with a synthetic, sterilized version of his original vision and intention, this is a tragedy.

Cue the music and allow me to enter here. I’ll see what I can do, and we’ll see how it goes.

In fact, I’d unknowingly been trying to follow Goldberg’s career path before I even knew who he was. Now, as I read it, the book is validating my seemingly lofty assumption that I can turn my position as a starving journalist with a geeky obsession with music and musicians into a career as a legitimate, successful music industry executive and artists’ advocate. Goldberg went from being a rock critic to doing PR for Led Zeppelin to running Atlantic Records. Who’s to say I can’t do something like that?

The book’s title comes from Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun’s answer to how to make it in the music business: keep walking around until you bump into a genius. He was obviously simplifying things, but a running theme of the book is the absence of a formula when nurturing a career in music. In the beginning of the book, Goldberg quotes the legendary Atlantic Records president Jerry Wexler (who, incidentally, also began his career as a journalist) in reference to music industry secrets. “First of all, there aren’t any secrets. And second of all, if there were any secrets, we wouldn’t tell them.” This was before Goldberg had begun his own admirable career. And, in hindsight, Goldberg himself says, “What few secrets there were could not be of any help to anyone else. But there were stories.”

So, what can I learn from these men? I can glean confidence from their stories and appreciate my own. And I can hope that if I keep walking in the right direction, I’ll eventually position myself at the right place at the right time and bump into a few geniuses myself.

The most compelling contrast was between the two bands in the middle. Both are rock bands signed under independent labels. Both are rapidly gaining popularity and acclaim and, as such, were invited to South By Southwest last year. Both have spent much of the last year touring internationally. Beyond that, the two groups have very little in common.

First, I spoke with Dan Taylor and Chris Ellul of The Heavy, a British rock band that has an impressive understanding of an array of genres from Chicago Blues to Brooklyn Hip Hop, and this comes across in their music (for more about the band, see my Beat review). Accommodating with logistics and thoughtful in their responses; from a journalist’s perspective, they could not have been easier to interview. I also had the pleasure of chatting with the band after the show, off the record, and from a personal perspective, they were interesting, polite and grounded. They aren’t aspiring to be rock stars; rather, they’re aspiring to make great music.

Two days later, I spoke with Meric Long and Keaton Snyder of The Dodos. Musically, they are quite a fascinating group, employing unique instruments and creating unusual fusions of genres (the drummer has a background in both Metal and African drumming). But to interview them was a bit of a chore. Long set the tone early on when asked about the band’s sound.

“We made a big chart of various popular genres, and we threw darts. And one landed on butt rock, another one landed on gay singer songwriter bullshit…” he mumbled while filing his nails. The interview proceeded in a similar vein and, while I was eventually able to extract a few nuggets of information that fans might care to hear, their instructions for me to “make some shit up,” left me with a sour taste in my mouth. Since fabrication is not my job, you can read what they did have to say about their music on an upcoming entry of Beat.

As I mentioned in Becoming The Enemy, I had a slightly intimidating but efficient interview with Jack White, one of today’s biggest rock stars. While the interview was hard to get and strictly timed, White was present for every one of those 15 minutes. Attentive, thoughtful, pensive and articulate, I got what I wanted and then some. He takes his work and his position as a star seriously and, even if I represent something he doesn’t like, he’s aware of the role of the press and was courteous enough to let me do my job.

These people speak to their fans primarily through music, but they also speak to them through the press. It’s not by accident that someone like Jack White has lasted as long as he has. He is, of course, exceptionally talented. But his work ethic, pragmatism and charm certainly contribute to his sustainability. The latter is, in my eyes, what distinguishes the stars. So, it will be interesting to see, of the two groups in the middle, which one might rise to the top.



The relationship between the musicians and the people who write about them is strange. The writers write about the music because they love it. The musicians hate the writers because they criticize it. This tenuous relationship has existed for decades. Led Zeppelin famously refused to give interviews. Jack White’s new video for “I Cut Like A Buffalo” features a shadow of a man with a tag on his hat. The tag has the word “press” change to “terrorist.” Now, that’s a bit extreme isn’t it?

Jason Lee’s character says in the movie, “We play for the fans, not the critics.” Okay, but the critics are the fans. Arguably the most ardent fans because they effectively invest their life in the music, criticizing to provoke the artist and stimulate creativity. And the musicians need the writers. They feed off The Enemy, as evidenced by, in the movie, the band’s excitement about making the cover of Rolling Stone. Or, as evidenced by, in life, people like Jack White posing on the cover of Rolling Stone. Twice.

I interviewed White earlier this month. He was gracious, articulate and thoughtful and went through the interview like a true pro. I was thrilled with the content (and you can listen to the interview on an upcoming House Of Blues Radio Hour). But getting him in a room for that interview was no easy feat. I had to be vetted pretty thoroughly before he agreed to do it and, even after he had agreed, his Road Manager did little to hide how he felt about the inconvenience of my 15 minutes.

Considering how much this artist and his music means to me; considering the fact that he is my favorite musician and listening to The White Stripes essentially changed my life and shaped my perspective on music, the fact that he might view me as The Enemy was heartbreaking. I walked away from that interview trembling, torn between elation at a dream come true and despondence about who I was to this hero of mine.

Lester Bangs, famous journalist in real life and character played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the movie, was adamant about the incongruity of rock journalism and friendship with rock stars, arguing that they would make you feel cool only to further their career, but if you cater to them, you ultimately hurt them by making it too easy, destroying the art of rock and roll. So, to be a good rock journalist, according to Bangs, one has to “be honest and unmerciful.” And become okay with them seeing you as The Enemy.

One way I’m working my way in is through journalistic endeavors. I’ve been doing interviews for both the radio show I now work for (House of Blues Radio Hour) and for my musings-on-music blog (Beat). An affinity for musical analysis makes this the most natural start. It comes with both exciting highlights disheartening revelations. The highlights include an interview with Jack White, so stay tuned. I’ll recap those and, hopefully, have many more stories to tell as I go along. For more purely music musings, check out my other blog,  Beat.