“˜A&R’ brings out business, pleasure of rock ‘n’ roll

By Brent Hopkins

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

The rock ‘n’ roll business presents an odd dichotomy
within itself.

On one hand, it’s rock ‘n’ roll ““ big
cars, trips to Rio, hit singles and all that glitz you see on
“Behind the Music.” In terms of coolness, not much can
beat it.

On the other hand, though, it’s business ““
calculators, obnoxious guys in bad suits and stock market quotes.
It’s what your parents tell you to study in college when
you’ve taken too many creative writing classes and
they’re worried about you getting a real job. In terms of
coolness, pretty much everything beats it.

So when you hear the premise of Bill Flanagan’s novel,
“A&R,” an informative look at the management side
of music, it’s hard to wonder why anyone would bother penning
a 342-page missive on the subject. Well, whatever Flanagan’s
reasons were for writing about artists and repertoire businessmen,
(those guys perpetually looking to shove music into niche markets
and make millions), he wrote an incredibly good book.

Given the somewhat dry, superficial nature of the subject,
Flanagan does a masterful job of making it a compelling read. The
characters have depth, the plot cruises along at a comfortable pace
and, heck, the cover art is pretty cool too.

The text centers principally on Jim Cantone, a rising young
A&R (artists and repertoire) man struggling to fit into the odd
scene of WorldWide Records. He’s the true music junkie, the
one who loves bands for their character more than their
marketability. Unfortunately, as a businessman, he’s also got
to make money with those same bands, which doesn’t always
line up with what his emotions would dictate.

Cantone bounces off two main players: Wild Bill DeGaul, the
screwball CEO of WorldWide who epitomizes all the gaudy, flashy
things you’d expect from a rock executive; and JB Booth, his
scheming second-in-command. This triumvirate bounces its way across
the globe, desperately trying to keep the WorldWide empire
together.

All the scenes with DeGaul on hand are pure pleasure to read.
His attempts to live up to his none-too-subtle name can be a little
too ridiculous at times ““ most readers could probably do
without learning those pills that “saved my life in Uganda in
the seventies. They seal your every orifice with cement.”
Most of the time, however, he’s fun to have along for the
ride.

Booth presents a more balanced character, and Flanagan deserves
a good deal of credit for not making him a totally one-sided jerk.
While DeGaul’s underling is an out-and-out conniver, no
doubt, the background details that formed him give his character
interesting substance. An ex-marine with a shark’s sense for
business, he makes a good counterpart for DeGaul’s outlandish
personality.

Watching Cantone negotiate his way through the music biz is
interesting. While he starts out as a naive farm boy, wearing
combat boots and thrift-store fashions to work, he quickly learns
how to stomp with the big dogs. Readers may cringe a little when he
shucks his boots for loafers without socks, but they’ll enjoy
following him through all the twists and turns of getting a band
into the Top 40.

Flanagan’s real coup de grace is his ability to make a
strange, intricate world into one that the average reader can
understand. The complexities of international entertainment
aren’t so confusing, after Flanagan works his way through
them. For once, you don’t have to be a part of the old
boys’ club that is the music industry to figure out how it
works.

The scary thing is once you’ve read about 100 pages into
it, you start thinking like the businessmen do. You agree with
Booth when he lambasts Cantone for trying to make a record that no
one will buy, just because it’s got good music. You start
thinking about the bottom line, rather than the music, and until
the book nears its climax, all the entertainers seem like sniveling
punks rather than artists. It’s a little frightening to think
that even the most diehard music fans can be converted like this,
so maybe Flanagan’s just a little too good as a writer.

This is not to say that “A&R” doesn’t have
its faults ““ Cantone is just too relentlessly nice,
throughout (kind of like Clark Kent, only better). And while the
overall conclusion of the story is satisfying, its final scene is
too much like something out of a children’s movie to blend
well with the otherwise serious plot.

Overall, the book is more than worthwhile. Hey, according to the
jacket notes, even Lou Reed liked it. And if the dour, sullen guy
behind “Heroin” and “Walk on the Wild Side”
describes something as “laugh-out-loud funny,” it must
be at least mildly entertaining.