As an “insider” (read: one of the people crazy enough to still work in the music industry), I tend to notice the bizarre portrayals of “our kind” in the movies. There are some weird ones and I know I am leaving a LOT out, but a few have come to mind recently that are either funny, stupid, or wholly inaccurate. Enjoy my first foray into list making. There’s no real order here, all I did was save the best for last. Whoo-yeah.
Character: Raji
Title: “Artist Management”, Carousel Records
Film: Be Cool
“Be Cool” might be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Not because its about the music business and its wrong, but because it is so, so aggressively unfunny. I could go on forever about what a piece of shite this movie is.
Vince Vaughn plays Raji, a flossy, loudmouth manager (manging the buttery Christina Milian) who thinks he is black. This is obviously a cartoon portrayal of a scurvy scheister music biz dickhead, so its a little unfair to nitpick about this being “unrealistic”, but the only people I have seen wear silk pants, fur coats with matching hats, and gay bodyguards are the artists themselves. Management people are usually pretty cool, if not stressed as hell because they have to maintain things like “standards” and “integrity”, while Raji is a complete boner who gets physically and metaphorically bitch slapped every step of the way.
I hate this movie.
Quote: That ridiculous friggin’ laugh.
Character: “The Man Who Pays People to Sing Into His Can” (played by Steven Root)
Title: Label/Studio/Radio Station Owner (???)
Film: O, Brother Where Art Thou?
This guy is definitely a music businessman. He knows what people like (“I’m lookin for some old timey material, you see people can’t get enough of it!”) so he finds talent and pays them (“ten dolla a piece!) to play their music while he records. He then plays their music all over the radio. Pretty decent business model, and Steven Root is the (weird, old, blind )MAN. (Parenthesis).
Bonus: The fact that no one in this scene can pronounce the word “Accompaniment”.
Character: “Pete” (Played by Paul Rudd)
Title: Random A&R Guy
Film: Knocked Up
This is probably the most accurate portrayal of a modern-day music business professional I’ve seen. Pete wears Tom Waits t-Shirts and goes out all of the time to check out new bands, which makes him an A&R guy (the ‘holy grail’ of Music Industry jobs). Its accurate because the fact that Pete works in the music business is understated, and the character seems to realize that yeah, the job might have some sweet perks (mushroom hookups from the Black Crowes, anyone?), but its still a damn job, and we all need those to feed the kids.
The only discrepancy I can see is that Pete doesn’t have a drinking problem, which I would if I had to go out to shows every night.
Quote: Gah, I couldn’t find one, all I found was Paul Rudd talking about the “Steely Dan” exchange in the movie.
I play a guy in the music business, and we had no idea where everything went, and I was saying that a band like Steely Dan could never get signed today and they’d never get any radio play – and he says, ‘That’s because Steely Dan sucks.’ And we get into this whole thing like ‘no, Steely Dan is amazing, the early Steely Dan,’ and you [Seth Rogen] said something like ‘I don’t think you’d get into a Steely Dan concert without wine and cheese. If you ever catch me listening to Steely Dan, you could cut my head off with a Spiro Gyra record.’
Character: “Burt”
Title: Studio Owner
Film: Boogie Nights
This is just awesome…Dirk Diggler and Reed Rothchild (perfectly played by John C. Reilly) are strung out of their minds, trying to get the master tapes to the horseshit they just recorded so they can get a record deal, get more money, and buy more drugs. Burt’s only role here is to tell them to fuck off, but Rothchild’s confusion over Burt’s “industry jargon” (YP’s and MP’s) is absolutely hilarious.
Quote: “That’s not an MP, that’s a YP”
Character: Dennis Hope (Played by Jimmy Fallon)
Title: Big Time Tour Manager, Parade Pisser.
Film: Almost Famous
This dude comes in and starts shitting all over the bands “business as usual” attitude. He represents the new thinking in the music business – he knows everything that can possibly done to save/make them money, and he is unapologetic about doing it…he’s basically Guy Hands. Plus he keeps saying, “respectfully”.
Hope represents the voice of the music business folks who talk about “new directions” (there’s a lot of those in these tough times). He’s nerdy, slightly un-hip, he’s smart as hell, and he can talk a blue streak. He has great ideas that will bring about success but he’s seen as a pushy threat to the band’s inefficient “status quo”. Thus, he gets no love…that, and Jimmy Fallon is just hard to watch.
Quote: “I didn’t invent the rainy day, man. I just own the best umbrella”
Character: Chris Brander (Played by Ryan Reynolds)
Title: SVP, RedBulb Records
Film: Just Friends
He was a fat guy with self-esteem issues. Then he ran screaming from Jersey to LA, lost a shitload of weight, and ended up as the SVP for the non-existent ‘Red Bulb Records’. He wears a suit to work, he’s pretty well put together and he does nothing but bang models.
This portrayal of the ‘music industry guy’ (or ‘MIG’, as my good friend Fubz calls it) is very idealistic and a little off… for a lot of reasons.
First, record labels aren’t staffed by nothing but knockout models…its not an episode of ‘Entourage’ every day all day. Most of the girls who work for labels are very pretty, but not pretty in the “Dress/High Heels” way, but pretty in the “Can talk for hours about the influence of Bomb
Squad productions while drinking whiskey like a Wisconsin bowhunter” way. Which makes them very attractive.
Second, all the SVP’s I know are pretty laid back older guys who have been in the business for a long time. They all have cool clothes (bordering on obnoxious ‘skater dad’ styles), great stories, pictures of them in multiple ‘heydays’, wife, kids, and nice places to live on Long Island. Don’t get me wrong though, these guys were not always tame, in fact they most definitely spent those ‘hey’ days stumbling around, fried out of their minds, slip-n-sliding across oily naked interns.
However, Brander seems to be a huge mix of all of these things…the title of a big boss with the mating habits of a low-level scrub….so maybe I was wrong calling this inaccurate, or maybe I am just a wholesale hater of this (fictional) man’s success. Yup, that’s it.
Quote: “Well then you call Arista and you have them move the release date to coincide with the MTV launch. Alright I know you can do this for me baby.” This makes no fucking sense whatsoever…that’s another trend among these portrayals…to make these guys spit out weird nonsensical jargon about “release dates”, “contracts”, and “percentages”.
Bonus: His boss is played by the amazing Steven Root, second time as a MIG on this list.
Character: Ahmet Ertegun (Played by Curtis Armstrong)
Title: Founder, Atlantic Records
Film: Ray
One of only two “actual people” on this list, Ahmet Ertegun, from what I can tell, personified all that was classy and great about the music business. Which is why its amazing that the guy who played “Booger” from Revenge of the Nerds was tapped to play him. However, Curtis Armstrong’s portrayal of Ahmet seems to be an accurate “old-school” representation of a music business legend. Ahmet ran Atlantic Records in the days where the industry was unchallenged in its business practices. Very clear lines were drawn – you sign artists, have them record records, sell the records, turn a profit or lose out. This was long before any kind of bootlegging existed, this is the “golden age” that every old head in the music business is currently stuck in. That, and 1993.
Quote:
Ray: What if I want to go to another company? There’s a guy out there right now that’s willing to pay me seven cents a record. Can you do that?
Ahmet: Man, I could promise you fifteen cents a record but you won’t get it. Anymore than he’ll pay you seven. What I will do is promise you five cents a record and pay you five cents a record. You think pennies, Mr. Charles, you get pennies. You think dollars, you get dollars.
Ray: I like the way you put things together. Omelet, you’re alright with me.
Ahmet: Ahmet.
Bonus: Ray calls him Omelet!!! BAHAHAHA!
Character: Artie Fufkin (Played by Paul Shaffer)
Title: Midwest Promotions Rep, Polymer Records
Film: This is Spinal Tap
In This is Spinal Tap, Artie Fufkin was the Midwest promotions rep for Polymer Records, (‘Polymer’ essentially means ‘plastic’) assigned to promote Spinal Tap’s music in the Chicago and Cleveland area. Fufkin is a crowd pleasing moron with an awesome combover/mustache combo who takes the time to introduce himself to every last person in the band’s hotel room, including the random groupies and camera crew.
After he fucks up an in-store autograph signing, “I fucked up the timing”, he bends over and begs the band to kick him straight in the ass, “kick this ass, for a man!” Fufkin was later fired for sexual harassment, and while Spinal Tap never held a grudge against him, Artie must have been left with a bad taste in his mouth, “”The kids really – Spinal Tap – were a bunch of cocksuckers, between you and me, because they would not enable a guy like me to do my job – to do what I had to do to get a record played in a town like Chicago.”
The best part about this portrayal is the overly friendly networking attitude that sometimes has to come out. Hobnobbin’, rubbing elbows, and schmoozing are all necessary, but they are no replacement for substance, Artie.
Quote: “Hi, Artie Fufkin, Polymer Records.”
Character: Tony Wilson (Played by Steve Coogan)
Title: Founder, Factory Records
Film: 24 Hour Party People
This is it. The Daniel Friggin’ Plainview of music business guys. Steve Coogan plays Tony Wilson, Manchester TV presenter turned label founder. Through his label, Factory Records, Wilson launched the careers of huge bands like Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays. The sounds they created as a label may have also spawned what became ‘Rave’ culture.
Wilson here is portrayed as a smart-ass prick who is hilariously aware of his own greatness. The real Tony Wilson (R.I.P.) didn’t quite agree with Coogan’s portrayal of him, he said that Coogan played him too funny, where the real Wilson was more of an unmitigated asshole who frequently treated people like shit.
That’s the beauty of this portrayal, that the film chose to “print the legend” and not “print the truth”. Music, the music business and the culture around gets wrapped up in so much wonderful lore and mythology. So the film’s director included everything, the facts and the great rumours that made the facts so much more interesting. Coogan portrays Tony Wilson the legend, a status he deserved whether he liked it or not. He’s Bill Brasky, in an industry that already has so many.
Quotes (there are way too many good ones so I put way too many up):
Tony Wilson (Referencing his ‘contract’ with Joy Division, written in his own blood): Factory Records are not actually a company. We are an experiment in human nature. You’re labouring under the misapprehension that we actually have a deal with, er, with our, our bands. That we have any kind of a contract, er, at all, and I’m afraid we, er, we don’t because that’s, er, that’s the sum total of the paperwork to do with Factory Records, deal with, er, their various bands.
Tony Wilson: And tonight something equally epoch-making is taking place. See? They’re applauding the DJ. Not the music, not the musician, not the creator, but the medium. This is it. The birth of rave culture. The beatification of the beat. The dance age. This is the moment when even the white man starts dancing. Welcome to Manchester.
Tony Wilson: Most of all, I love Manchester. The crumbling warehouses, the railway arches, the cheap abundant drugs. That’s w
hat did it in the end. Not the money, not the music, not even the guns. That is my heroic flaw: my excess of civic pride.
Tony Wilson (As Martin Hannett tries to light him on fire): I am not a lump of hash. I’m in charge of Factory Records. I think.
God (As Tony Wilson): It’s a pity you didn’t sign the Smiths, but you were right about Mick Hucknell. His music’s rubbish, and he’s a ginger.
Tony Wilson: Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does.
BONUS – The Best of Tony Wilson in 24 Hour Party People (A little long and NSFW, but awesome)
DOUBLE BONUS: I met this man, and I blew it so thoroughly that I now consider myself a legend by proxy.
TRIPLE BONUS ROUND:
“The Great World of Sound”
I’ve never seen this movie, but the music business as pyramid scheme-y scam??? Awesome. This could be a scathing indictment of the business as a whole, but I bet its tackling something a little bigger. Anyway, its about the music business and it looks awesome, so I’m including it here despite the fact that I have never seen it.
Thats it for now. Check back for a possible sequel. Back to work!
