Jackson Browne [© Jay Blakesberg]

The Dream Gig

By Bucks Burnett

Let me tell you how to get a job with a major record label. It's easier than you think.

First, start a fan club of some kind; I chose to honor Mr. Ed, the talking horse. I then published a newsletter for the MR ED FAN CLUB called The Horse's Mouth. And by publish, I mean use an actual typewriter; type a story onto a piece of paper and draw a logo for the top part of the newsletter, and make xerox copies. Not color copies, but ordinary black and white copies. One or two pages will do. This is how I did it in the early '80's.

Next, mail a copy of the newsletter to your very favorite record company, the one you would actually work for if you could work for any record company in the world. Do not, under any circumstance, mail the newsletter to other record labels, not even your second favorite, because that would be a disloyalty to your favorite label. And it could result in you being hired by the second favorite instead of the favorite.

You must also do one additional thing, and this is the important part; do not tell the record company that they are your favorite, or that you would like to work for them. Don't even enclose a cover letter. Just send the newsletter to the address on the back of one of their album covers, and then forget that you sent it. Go back to your other job, if you have one, and just do what you would normally do, as if the thought of being hired by the label had never occurred to you. Because actually, you never even thought of getting hired by the label. Just send them the newsletter because they are a cool record label.

About two years later, a vice president of the record company will call you unexpectedly, and offer you a job in their writing department. At that point, you either say yes or no.

I said yes, in 1985, to a man named Pete Johnson, Vice President of Creative Services at Warner Bros. Records in Burbank, California. He asked if they could fly me out for a couple of weeks, rent me a car, put me in a nice hotel, and pay me $500 a week to write ad copy for them. It sounded like a pretty good deal, and they were my favorite record company, and I had just that very day lost my job, so I really couldn't think of a good reason to say no.

So on the day of Live Aid in July 1985, I watched Status Quo begin the festivities on my television set in Dallas, and then left for the airport. About 8 hours later, I walked into the bar of a fancy hotel in Los Angeles. Live Aid was on the TV there, too. Long concert. I ordered myself a drink and wondered if that guy in front of me in line at the car rental agency was John Fogerty; he certainly looked like John Fogerty.

The next day I drove my rental car to Warner Bros. Records. A beautiful woman named Linda Forman came down to the lobby to greet me and said, "Bucks, it's so nice to meet you. Let's get you introduced." We went up some stairs and she took me to Pete Johnson's office. A very cool 1970's "everything made of wood" type of office. Pete and his office looked like an outtake from the TV series "Courtship Of Eddie's Father." "Hi, Pete. Nice to meet you." Pete just stared at me a minute and then spoke.

"Nice attire. Grey pants and matching suit jacket, company t-shirt, very nice. I think this is going to work out." I was wearing a King Crimson t-shirt promoting their 1981 Warner Bros. album Discipline. Because it looked good with the suit. "Here's the deal, Bucks. I want you to enjoy yourself today. You are not to do a bit of work; Linda will take you around and introduce you to everyone, you can set up your office. Just enjoy yourself." Spent the day meeting good looking people in good moods. Two-hour lunch. Pastries, posters, a friendly buzz. Nice. Wondered if I could write an ad.

The next day, I found out. Pete asked me to write an ad for a debut single by Jack Wagner, a popular soap opera star they'd just signed. I wrote the ad, and sketched out how it might look. Pete said, "You can do thumbnails, too? This is great, a writer who can also draw. Now I want you to write a story for our Word Of Mouth newsletter, for another new artist, Chris Isaak. Call his manager and get some details." Pete liked the story. I liked Pete, and I liked Warner Bros., and I didn't believe Pete when he said, "You're not going to last here. You're not built to write ads. But let's enjoy it for awhile." I thought Pete was nuts. Quit THIS job?

Two weeks later, I was starting to be afraid of Kathy Guild. She was the very sweet girl who would each day walk into my office and hand me my ad assignments. I would stare at each ad order and wonder how I would summon the words to express the amazing quality of the album and the artist. The same brain that had to come up with those words was also thinking, "We both know it's not amazing, don't we." It was not a compromise, it was ad copy. Ad copy is not evil, and it is not a sell-out. It is an ad, and it needs to be written. Nicely. So after a few dozen ads about uninteresting records, I began to feel the pinch. If I stayed, I would write a thousand more ads. If I left, I would return to the low life of a record store salesman I had left behind. For ten years, I had told record store customers my honest opinion; get this one, not that one. Now my job was "get them all, while they last." A slow grind for a fast mind.

But the good parts were great. I worked with some of the friendliest, coolest people I will ever know. People like Kathleen Lotz, Linda Forman, Jim Wagner, and Pete Johnson. Who cares what they did, they were just cool folk. People who loved music, and we all knew we were at the best label in the world, Warner Bros. Records, the label that still loved music. A little glossier and groomed than the '60's and '70's Warner Bros. (Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa), but still the coolest gig on the planet.

Before I tell you why I left, let me tell you why it was hard to leave. Lunches with John Fogerty, and yes it was him in that car rental line. T Bone Burnett in the lobby one day, the B-52's on the stairway after that. Writing ads for Little Creatures for Talking Heads, my favorite band after Led Zeppelin crashed. The Hollywood sign out my car window, bumping into Jackson Browne at a Mexican food place. In the 70's, I had thought, "If I ever met Jackson Browne, I bet he would be a cool dude." In '85, I found out I was right. Jackson Browne is a COOL DUDE.

I really got to hate the creative process, writing ads for mediocre soundtracks to really bad movies which were filmed to prop up the soundtrack. Get my drift? That Hollywood sign started looking like hollow wood. Pete kept extending my stay. Things were going quite well. I loved Warner Bros., and everybody there, except for the people I merely liked. The average wait time for lunch with a friend was about 3 weeks. "I love tacos - let's look at September."

My brain was starting to hurt. I sat in on meetings where I actually learned the predetermined fate of artists -- "Let's not promote them -- they're too small." Huh? And for weeks, I had been asking about a small unmarked door in the main hallway. "Nothing." "Off limits." "Umm, don't go in there." So one day, I went through that door. It was a small cramped room full of catalogues. Sales figures, up to date, for every album ever released on Warner Bros. I grabbed a thick one marked B. I looked up sales figures for my hero, T Bone Burnett, who had been dropped from the label a few months after being named Songwriter Of The Year by Rolling Stone. "This can't be right." They were too small. Way way way too small. I shut that book and got the hell out of there. No wonder I was told to stay out. It was a room full of the truth.

One of the last ads I wrote was for Neil Young's country album on Geffen Records, Old Ways. A good day in my office was having Kathy hand me an ad order for an artist I really liked, so I was glad to take this one on. Put the paper in the typewriter, and stared. "Old Ways: The New Neil Young." It ran as a full page in Billboard, and I must admit I was proud.

The week the ad ran, I was at a party, at a big house full of big people. I forget the occasion. I was looking for someone to talk to. Behind me, a guy said to a friend, "Did you see the new Neil Young ad in Billboard?" "Yes! It's amazing." "The New Neil Young. Perfect, because he IS always the new Neil Young." They got it. They got my ad. I turned around and said, "I wrote that ad!" They smiled and we shook hands. It was a very surreal moment, one I cherish. What were the odds of ever hearing that? Amazing. And then I realized I missed Texas. No, I didn't miss Texas, I missed L.A., because I'd been living there 6 months and still couldn't find it. It was a small moment that turned my fate. I realized I didn't want to go to parties where people discussed trade ads, ads designed to sell records to people who sell records. What about the people who BUY records?

A week later Pete called me into his office. He told me that I had been freelance long enough, and asked me to consider coming on staff. I told Pete that I wasn't sure, and he said it was getting to be time to make a choice. Something in me told me to stay. But I told him that I would go home, to Texas. Back to record stores, less money, and parties where people listened to the records instead of raving about the ads. Part of me wanted to stay, and part of me didn't want to turn into a label guy, like the one I had just met who didn't go see Dylan because "he's not on the label."

I've wondered a million times if I made the right choice. I worked in record stores for 20 more years, even had one of my own for awhile. Now I'm looking for clues in a changing world.

One night at Pete Johnson's house, in 1985, I heard a CD for the first time. He handed me the disc, and said, "Take a good look, Bucks; this is the future. These things will replace the LP." And they did. And lately, we hear rumblings of LP sales increasing, while CD sales plummet and DVD sales start to dip. The Future's in the lost and found.

Up in my attic last month, I found a cheap briefcase with a white Warner Bros. logo on it. I think Jim Wagner gave it to me about the tenth time he saw me carrying things around in a plastic bag. On my last day at the gig, Jim called me into his office, and told me he would miss me, because in a building full of important people who seemed to be very impressed with themselves and their surroundings, I carried myself like none of it mattered. "You really don't seem like you need any of this, and I wish more people had your attitude," Jim said. He told me he loved me, gave me a hug, and wished me luck. That moment defined the very highest aspect of what it can and should mean to work at a record company. Remember when the music mattered most? Well, the people mattered even more. Jim Wagner taught me that.

Next time you're in a music store (look it up in Wikipedia), pick up a CD; any CD. Look for the record company logo. It's typically found near the barcode and the FBI warning logo, and it's always about 1/10th the size of those two things, like an afterthought, a formality. Record company logos used to be big, and proud. Like they mattered.

I like the white WB on my briefcase. I cleaned it off and put it in a better place downstairs. The combination lock is rusted and the case won't even open anymore. There's something in there. CD's, music stores, record labels; all on the endangered list. What will I do if they all go away? I'll start another fan club, and write another newsletter, and mail it to someone, somewhere...but not to my second favorite. No way. Maybe Pete will call. Again.