‘It’s just… a group of artists such as yourselves don’t want to be worrying about where the next gig is coming from. You want to be free to explore your art.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Ben.
‘This venue,’ Tony gestured around him. ‘She is beautiful, but she is not so big, no? I want to make you bigger than The Turret.’ He caught Ben glancing up at him and laughed. ‘Not in that way – it would take a long time on the rack. No, I want to take you out and show you to the world.’
‘You mean a tour?’ Ben’s eyes flashed.
‘Quite so. Across the continents of the world. I will make you gods in nations that haven’t even heard of religion.’
A smile began to spread across Ben’s face. Nutter, who hadn’t really followed the conversation, took this as a good sign and smiled also.
‘Then it is agreed?’ asked Tony, but the tone of his voice suggested it wasn’t a yes-no situation. Vid and Keys exchanged worried glances. Only Riff appeared impassive in the face of the development.
16
The history of managers is a murky one. Since the offices emblazoned with the legend agents to the stars and their inhabitants rarely display a date of establishment, it is hard to know how long the office has existed.
And there are few historical antecedents on which to draw for enlightenment. It isn’t recorded whether Blondel, singing for his supper as he searched the courts of Europe for Richard the Lionheart, had a manager bargaining for the choicest meals in return for ten percent of his takings.
Of course, it has to be said that we don’t know much about such early artistes in other regards either. For all we know the lyrics to Ma joie me semont may have been sold to a music publisher that subsequently sold its entire catalogue to a theatrical company, who wouldn’t separate the properties so that Blondel could buy his song back and instead secretly sold the entire catalogue to Blondel’s new friend and protégé, whom he had just instructed about the wonders of buying and selling publishing rights. There’s no legal record, but so much of history is lost to… well history that we cannot assume it never existed. What we can assume is that, had Blondel’s story run along those well-known lines, an agent would undoubtedly have been involved somewhere.
Perhaps. Perhaps not. Whatever the situation in blood-soaked Merrie Europe, the modern music industry is unquestionably more complex, more difficult, and more cutthroat9. A good manager is a critical element of the success of any band with its eye or eyes10 on the big-time. Everybody needs somebody to handle the dirty business with handshakes, money or cricket bat as appropriate.
Probably the most successful manager, certainly the most successful self-publicist11, was Brent Hatpin, manager of psychedelic rock band The Relocation, whose first single Sleeping in Abject Terror received the spirited review of ‘The Worst Noise of All Time’ from the Tarazed Music Gazette and ‘Slightly worse than the sound of chronic flatulence’ from Tarazed’s slightly less distinguished competitor Melody Mangler.
Hatpin was a man not with an eye for success, so much as an eye for desperation. He knew he could take any bunch of clowns and turn them into blue and green minstrels12. Spotting an ideal opportunity to manage the dismayed musicians, Hatpin persuaded the group to leave the promotion of their follow up single to him.
His approach to the promotion was unusual, to say the least: he had declarations of war drawn up and sent to all the major countries on Tarazed. On the back of each declaration was a picture of a smiling face and the caption ‘Fooled you: this is just to promote The Relocation’s new single Soggy Horticulture - available on single, cassette and 16-track from next week.’
It took a protracted legal battle to prevent the members of the band, who were blissfully unaware of their manager’s actions, from receiving the full penalty of the law for the stunt: they barely managed to escape the court with their lives. Although they were ultimately allowed to retain their right to breathe, they did lose all royalties for the song itself in perpetuity. It is unclear whether this was taken before or after Hatpin’s management fee.
Writing the whole episode off as a lesson in being too trusting, the band fired Hatpin and attempted to use their new-found notoriety to help make some money from their next single. Unfortunately, due to the legendarily slow postal service of the land of Teryaki, two years later the band found themselves served with a further lawsuit by that country’s government and forced to surrender all of their earnings for the forseeable future. The basis for that suit was that the word horticulture was, in the Teryaki language, the rudest insult imaginable.
Many of the more successful bands have started their careers with a manager who was only just starting his own at the same time. Although this has the disadvantage of working with someone who may lack the necessary experience, it usually ensures that the band has the manager’s full attention and isn’t just another name on the client list. For a band with little enough prospect of finding the stairway to the gents let alone the stars, there is often little choice other than to accept the help of the first wealthy but inexperienced eccentric who offers them the chance to make it. That is, of course, assuming that all the band members understand the phrase to have the same definition…
‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ yelled Ben irritably. ‘Here we are being offered the chance of our lives and you’re telling me you don’t want it.’
‘I’m not saying I don’t want it,’ snapped Vid. ‘I’m saying that I can’t take it.’
‘Too right you can’t.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I mean it’s just excuse after excuse with you. What’s the matter, you think dives like Café Igneous are your limit?’
‘You’ve certainly changed your tune. I seem to remember you hiding behind the amplifier on our first gig.’
‘That was for effect.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Guys,’ Keys boosted his voice so as to interrupt. Silence descended. ‘Look,’ said Keys in quieter tones, ‘what Vid is trying to say is that we don’t have the same freedom you have. We’re not free agents – we’re property.’
‘So? What they’ll do if you steal yourself? Lock you up?’
‘More likely melt us down,’ said Vid.
‘Look,’ said Ben. ‘It’s a risk. I mean, we all take risks, don’t we? Riff’s property as well, but you don’t see him objecting.’ The subject of this statement remained stoically impassive. ‘Sometimes you have to take a risk if you want to get somewhere in life.’
‘We don’t have lives.’
‘Then what have you got to lose? Do you think Nutter wants to spend the rest of eternity being hit around the head until some robot comes along and knocks it off? Do you think Riff wants to spend his life playing nothing but scales on a pile of old instruments just so that the occasional visitor can hear what they sound like? And what about you? Do you want to sell crap to idiots forever?’
Keys shrugged. ‘It’s a job. And it’s not as if I could sell myself, is it?’
‘Why not?’ snapped Ben. ‘What does it take to buy a robot? Perhaps I should get Tony to buy you out. That would solve the problem, wouldn’t it?’
‘Why would he do that?’ said Vid. ‘We’re not cheap, you know. If complex positronic robots cost as little as you suggest, everybody would have robo-valets and robo-servants, robo-bottom wipers – you name it. Even those tinny little robots which can just about clean up after you cost more than the average person takes home in a month.’
‘And you think Tony couldn’t afford it? If he sees potential in you he’ll buy you. He’s a sound businessman. And a nice bloke.’
There was a sound remarkably like a snort from across the room. Ben turned to look at Riff. ‘What?’ he challenged him.
‘Nothing,’ said Riff. ‘Just pretend I didn’t say anything.’
‘No,’ said Ben. ‘Come on, what’s your problem. Don’t tell me you want to stay in that museum.’
‘It’s j
ust the way you’re talking about Ombreggiati as if you’ve known him for years,’ said Riff. ‘You’ve seen him once and he’s already won you over.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh he’s a good businessman, alright, is Tony,’ said Riff. He leaned back on the wall nonchalantly. ‘He’s made some money and you’re right – he probably could afford to buy us all. The thing you’re missing is that rich men don’t get to be rich by burning money. If he thought that he had to pay a fortune before he could even start to get money from us, he’d go and get a bunch of humans and make them into a band.’
‘Why humans? Is that supposed to be a slur?’
‘Of course not. It’s just that humans are cheaper: if you feed them and tell them that they’re famous, they’ll work for next to nothing. Did you wonder why Tony already knew Nutter and I?’
‘I thought it was just that you two had arrived earlier than I did.’
‘Oh no,’ said Riff. ‘I told you I didn’t know him, remember – I didn’t realise that we were dealing with Tony until we got here, but we go way back. He tried to ruin my owner’s estate before she died so that he could use her dog food plant to dispose of, shall we say, old business transactions. He’s the one who bought out an old failed supermarket, turned the robot packers into boxers and then reopened the place as an entertainment venue. In the end he had to sell it when he’d fixed one fight too many