Rock On

by Dan Kennedy

  SEATTLE (UPI) — Early-morning pedestrians had to wonder: Who was the man making monkey sounds and throwing food scraps from a paper sack at passerby early Tuesday morning in downtown Tacoma? The primate impersonator was none other than legendary Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose, apparently blowing off some steam after a long night of partying that started when the band completed its concert at the Tacoma Dome the prior evening. Authorities said Rose’s actions were largely perceived as harmless and even entertaining by early-morning foot traffic, that is until the rocker-turned-monkey-man started threatening to bite people. Tacoma resident Clyde Drew said, “It was kind of funny at first. He would make monkey sounds and run around in little circles and it was kind of a little game, you had to get past him on the sidewalk before he could turn around and throw food at you from the sack that he was holding.” Drew went on to say that the fun and games ended when Rose threatened to bite him and several other passersby. After sobering up, Mr. Rose agreed to pay a fine of $4,000 and commented, “I don’t know what to say about this one. I don’t know . . . we finished the show, I was backstage having a few beers with the guys, and I just thought to myself, ‘This [expletive] town needs a little visit from Mr. Monkey Rose and they’re gonna get one before the night’s over.’” This week’s concert at the Tacoma Dome concludes the western U.S. leg of their world tour and the band will now head to New York and then London, where the European portion of their tour will commence.

  THE MOST IMPORTANT THING BETWEEN WRITER AND EDITOR IS OPEN COMMUNICATION

  From: A. Fusco

  To: Dan Kennedy

  Subject: Re: Manuscript?

  When can I expect manuscript? Been a while.

  — A.

  From: Dan Kennedy

  To: A. Fusco

  Subject: Re: Manuscript?

  Threw it in river.

  Plan to pay back advance with gift certificates to something called Linens and Things from American Express Rewards program.

  TITLES FOR THIS BOOK THAT WERE DISCARDED AFTER FRIENDS SAID THEY SOUNDED MORE LIKE MORRISSEY SONGS THAN BOOK TITLES

  We Sit in Expensive Chairs, Guessing What Might Fascinate You

  Aim for the Iceberg and Speed Up

  Do Not Disturb Nero

  How We Are Rocking So Slowly

  THE AUTHOR WISHES TO THANK THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE

  William Russell Kennedy and Lori Ann Kennedy for getting me here to earth and everything after. Maria Lilja for creative direction and humor and, and, and. Trish Kennedy for hanging out ever since my luckiest December, and Jerry Gonzaga for making us all laugh so damn hard and learn so much. Susanne Lilja, Hans Hjelmqvist — and the Stockholm, Katrineholm, and Vauxholm contingencies! Antonia Fusco and everyone at Algonquin. Jim Levine, Daniel Greenberg, Arielle Eckstut, and everyone at Levine Greenberg. Kassie Evashevski, Vicky Germaise, Lee Stimmel, James Lopez, Sara, Chip, Lou, Misty, Jill Kaplan, Phil Botti, David Burrier . . . all the good apples. Sabrina, your visit was a highlight in the best of ways.

  John Warner, Jennifer Traig, Suzanne Kleid, and all at Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Wholphin, and 826 Valencia in San Francisco.

  Raha Naddaf, David Stevenson, John Murphy, Eric Ahlquist, Ben and Janine, Joshua Wolf Shenk, Cameron and Sheri and King, Loren Victory, Nat and Marcy, Michael Belli, George Dawes Green, Gary Baseman, Lea Thau, Jenifer Hixson, Catherine Burns, Sarah Austin Jenness, Chris Stamey, Whitney Pastorek, Todd Hanson, Beth Lisick, Graham Hill, Kim Ludlow, Jerry Stahl, Jason Gordon, Ian Faith, Kevin Sampsell, Barb Klansnic Scot and Kerry Armstrong, Meirav Devash, Stephen Smith, Juan Carlos Restrepo, Billy Burke, Amy Maguire, Jesse Parry, Freak Storm, Jeff Freiert, Mark Katz, Dave Statman, Artie Fufkin at Polymer, Doug Pepper, Dave Massey, Johnny Suede, Del Rae McLain-Evans, Ethan Watters, Joe “Smoke Gobbler” Ryder, Tom Mara at KEXP in Seattle, the Foors — Paul, Linda, Hunter, Jake, Chloe. Sam Chapin and Brian Syrdal, Harris Bloom, Adam Wade, Chris Wilson at a camp someplace past Forrest Ranch maybe, Kevin Smokler, John Atkins, Roman Mars, Chef Peter Morrison of Moxy and always from Chez Shea, and Shaun O’Dell and Jeff Anderson, both of whom I’ve spent too much time missing. And what of Dan Holloway? Hello? You there, Holloway?

  CREDITS

  Recorded in New York, London, Los Angeles, Stockholm, British Virgin Islands, Montana, Colorado, and Chico, California.

  Produced by Sir David Walter “Knobs” Thomas IV Engineered by Tim “Frankenstein’s Tax Man” Kell Assisted by Lim “Nickname” Nyphuk Mixed and mastered by Antonia Fusco at Algonquin Books, 225 Varick Street, New York, New York.

  Beats and string arrangements: Antonia Fusco, Maria Lilja, Ben Whitten, Nat Whitten Road crew: Kip, Slug, Mammy, and Rendang (Mascot: Taco) Legal: Stern, Frank, White & Smug. Ambassador of Fixing Everything at Any Point: Daniel Greenberg Booking in North America: There is no booking agent for live appearances North America

  Booking in Europe: One of these is missing from the picture as well REALLYSMALLTALK.COM HAS BEEN A SECRET SOCIETY SINCE 2002

  This book was written to be read LOUD, so CRANK IT UP!

  Questions Designed To Provoke Light Discussion Of Death,

  Money, Love, Loneliness And Pop Music

  A READING GROUP GUIDE FOR

  Rock On: An Office Power Ballad

  by Dan Kennedy

  1. What is it that makes Dan Kennedy (untraditionally) handsome, interesting, an outdoor type, a good listener/nondrinker/nonsmoker? Female members of discussion group should break off into pairs and discuss.

  2. How did you feel after reading Rock On and then discussing question number one and basically admitting that you would probably fall in love with Dan Kennedy if his current girlfriend reads this book, realizes he can’t hold a job, and subsequently dumps him? For this one you simply e-mail your answer and contact information to dskmail@earthlink.net.

  3. Do you know that these questions were written by a professional and not by Dan Kennedy and therefore aren’t inappropriate or odd in that regard? Discuss.

  4. Have you ever felt like you had to set yourself aside, almost became someone else, in order to succeed in an office environment? And did it leave you longing to simply get back to being the person you recall setting aside, the person who used to feel certain ways about the world outside and notice small details like, say, the way the light became perfect in your house when the windows were a little bit dirty and diffusing the morning sun? Where did the real you go? Is it all just part of growing up? Is the world a place that requires a certain amount of discipline and effort from one who expects to continually see the small details and romance in the little day-to-day stuff, much less be inspired by it? Wait . . . what was the question again?

  5. If you had to pick just three thousand MP3s to be stuck on a desert island with, what would those three thousand songs be? And give a reason why you chose each particular one when you read the titles of the songs to the discussion group.

  6. As people, we veer so oddly between thinking it’s too late for the likes of us and then in the next moment thinking we’re at the beginning of it all. The answer to this one: True.

  7. Okay, let’s see . . . Would you consider starting a band late in life? Why is the act of playing music taken with such an ambitious careerist forethought by most people? Granted, it gets kind of sad when it’s people, say, Dan Kennedy’s age (dskmail@earthlink.net), drunk on sensible wine at a dinner party and someone decides, “Hey let’s have a jam session and drink more wine!” But what would the crime be in forming a decent band at, for example, age thirty or forty or . . . ? Really, is that a crime? (Last part of question is rhetorical.)

  8. In Rock On the new boss who was promoted to head of the department wore sunglasses in the morning marketing meeting. What’s the most sort-of grossly and sadly ego-driven behavior you recall from a former boss at a day job?

  9. Would you consider listening to the album Engine by American Music Club? Terrific. But be careful, it’s kind of heavy, but it’s almost funny how heavy and sad it gets. Don’t ta
ke it too seriously, but, man, what a beautiful album from way back. Is it wrong to advocate albums that came out eighteen years ago? (Correct answer: No, it is nothing to be embarrassed about. Don’t worry.)

  10. There is more love and money in the world than you could ever imagine. There was a nature show once where this guy found a bluff in New Mexico where these snakes were mating. Swear to god, no exaggeration, there were easily a couple hundred thousand snakes in just the one little patch of the bluff that he was standing next to. They were stacked, like, four feet deep. Who could even imagine that many snakes, even if someone told you they had seen that many? Anyway, don’t you think that’s the way it is with love and money, too? Seriously, don’t you think so? You know, like, there’s so much of it and one just has to find it? This has nothing to do with the book, but, honestly, there must be an unbelievable amount of abundance in this world that we can’t even imagine. Discuss this idea, but get back to talking about Rock On by Dan Kennedy at some point.

  11. Damn. It’s late. Is this all just crazy talk? It feels like, “Will it be weird now after this?”

  12. Book groups and book clubs are important, though. Anything besides going to the office, coming home, going to the office, coming home, is an important use of time. It’s amazing how little effort it takes to enrich our day-to-day lives. Read a book and schedule a time to meet and discuss it, and you’re ahead of, like, 80 percent of the populace in terms of mental stimulation. Um . . . let’s see here, right . . . we need a question in this one. Okay, so: What was one thing you, uh, liked about the ending of Rock On? Break into pairs and discuss.

  13. There’s this Nappy Roots lyric that goes, “Peanut butter, string beans, what’s fucking with that?” Sorry for the profanity, but that has got to be one of my favorite rap lyrics of all time. Is profanity necessary in expressing oneself? Would this lyric be nearly as fun, entertaining, sincere, without profanity? Like, would you rather it were left as is, or changed to one of the following:

  A) Peanut butter, string beans, who’s to say these foods are wrong in any way?

  B) Peanut butter, string beans, hoorah.

  C) Peanut butter, string beans (silence).

  Also by Dan Kennedy

  Loser Goes First

  Published by

  Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

  Post Office Box 2225

  Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

  a division of

  Workman Publishing

  225 Varick Street

  New York, New York 10014

  © 2008 by Dan Kennedy. All rights reserved.

  Lyrics on page vii from “Bastards of Young,” words and music by Paul Westerberg, © 1995 WB Music Corp. and NAH Music. All rights administered by WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.

  Lyrics on pages 152–54 from “To Love You More,” by David Foster and Junior Miles, © 1995, 1996 by One Four Three Music and Boozetunes. Rights for One Four Three Music administered by Peermusic, Ltd. Rights for Boozetunes administered by WB Music Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Peermusic, Ltd., and Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

  eISBN-13: 9781565126497

  Praise for ROCK ON

  “Imagine a love child born of The Office and High Fidelity. With Knocked Up as the slacker godfather. . . . [An] amazingly funny yet perceptive look at rock music and big corporations in crisis.”

  —USA Today

  “Fast-moving and darkly funny, Rock On should be a chart-topper.”

  —People, four stars

  “A succession of gently mordant vignettes, with hilariously spot-on asides about media image-making, music-biz hierarchies and sensitive singer-songwriters. . . . Like Walter Mitty in reverse, Kennedy constantly retreats from an absurd corporate environment—equal parts tyranny, vanity and fecklessness—into neurotic internal-reality checks even funnier than the folly all around him. . . . Neither Kennedy nor the music business will ever be the same.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Scathingly funny.”

  —The Onion A.V. Club

  “Pitch-perfect. . . . A brilliant, hysterical and insightful look at what happens when truly creative people try to blend into a Banana Republicized mediocracy. . . . The author makes it clear, in laugh-out-loud fashion, that the lid was shut on the coffin of music business dreams some time ago, we’ve just delayed the burial.”

  —New York Post

  “Very funny.”

  —GQ

  “His story is a crash course, a cautionary tale, and a hilarious riff on what happens when you come face to face with your fantasies—and it turns out they blow. Kennedy, ever the optimist, finds humor in awkward exchanges and uptight boardrooms and sentiment in an increasingly sterilized industry. It’s the book one dreams of writing.”

  —Daily Candy

  “The decline of the major labels has inspired plenty of rancor, but Kennedy uses it as the basis for a hilarious—and damning—insider’s memoir about how the suits managed to scuttle the ship and pad their expense accounts.”

  —Wired

  “Kennedy’s got the guts to reveal our collective internal monologue. . . . If he weren’t so self-deprecating, Kennedy might come off as a jerk. But he’s just as hard on himself and, besides, he’s funny. Super funny.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Effing hilarious. The book is not just laugh-out-loud funny; its snort-audibly-on-the-subway funny.”

  —Time Out New York

  “Dan Kennedy chronicles how his fantasy is fulfilled, albeit cruelly, as an office drone at a record label. His workplace boasts all the dysfunction of The Office, except it’s the real deal. Sycophantic underlings jockey for position, psychotic bigwigs condescend, Kennedy’s soul slowly withers—and we laugh, as he describes it all with satirical playfulness.”

  —Fast Company

  “Dan Kennedy tells all in his keenly observed, laugh-out-loud funny, insider’s view of the music biz.”

  —The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

  “A hugely enjoyable read.”

  —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  “You’ll laugh, you’ll rock, you’ll turn up the volume on your iPod. You’ll remember your first job. You’ll wonder if you ever grew up. And you’ll be glad Dan Kennedy is out there somewhere, rocking on, living the dream.”

  —New Orleans Times-Picayune

  “Riotously funny. . . . Kennedy’s running commentary is hysterical, and his thoughtful inner monologue makes this a page-turner, more than a few times inducing laugh-out-loud moments followed by a whisper of ‘That’s sooo my office.’. . . A hilarious and enjoyable read that belongs on the bookshelf of every fan of the self-deprecating hipster memoir.”

  —Denver Rocky Mountain News

  “Kennedy tars and feathers these yes-men (and women) with his sharp reportage. But there’s still a degree of respect, a benefit of the doubt, for the creatively dead bottom-liners. . . . Rock On is less of a gripefest and more of a tragicomedy. . . . It turns out that Kennedy can’t save rock ’n’ roll after all, but he’ll make you laugh pretty hard.”

  —The Oregonian

  “His feverish interior monologue smacks you over the head, shoving you forward, often latching onto something so alarmingly funny you must suddenly brake to appreciate the author’s skill.”

  —SF Weekly