Almost Famous: The Cruelty of the Music Business 

I can’t imagine how much great music is just “shelved” somewhere and how many great bands were ruined because of labels.

Rick is certainly a musical black belt, but also a master story-teller.

A familiar story. My son was in a band in 2008, all in their teens and at music school. They were really on to something, great musicians, awesome original songs and an amazing young lady on vocals. The school, as always, invited UK label reps to come and review its talent - my son's band rehearsed like crazy, then gave a flawless presentation to the besuited ones. A week later one label privately approached the singer, offered her £10K NOT to record with the band (or anyone else), but to sit tight while they decided how to launch her solo career. She was eighteen - she took the money. It got ugly, the band fell apart, good friends fell out for keeps. Upshot: none of them got a damn thing, including the singer (aside from the 10K...) The 'moment' had been there, the luck had been there, the time was right... and a coupla dreary guys in suits killed it dead.

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.” ― Hunter S. Thompson

The music industry reminds me of a story that my father always told me about a shoe company in Australia. The owner had a gut feeling that he could greatly expand his market to the Fiji Islands. So, not wanting to lose his number one salesman, he sent his number two guy to Fiji to try and sell his line of shoes. The salesman called the owner in a couple of weeks and said “..send me a ticket home, they don’t wear shoes here in Fiji”. The owner sent him a ticket and he returned. A few months later the owner decided that he was going to give it one last shot but this time he decided to take a bigger risk and sent his number one salesman to Fiji. A couple of weeks later he got a call from his number one guy....wow, they don’t wear shoes here in Fiji, send my wife and kids, we’ll be here for the next few years, we’re gonna make a fortune!! In my opinion the record industry is full of number two guys

This story hits close to home. Minus the Cameron Crowe Clive Davis names this is exactly what happened to my band after we signed to RCA records in the early 80s.

Thanks for the story. Reminds me of my days back in the music biz.

This happened to me 4 times from the late 60’s to the late 80’s. 4 great bands. Albums were done. Then it just -- went away. 4 times. It’s hurt so badly. You go from being on top to being nothing. I couldn’t get past the secretary at Warner bros suddenly. Suddenly I was nothing. You go from this great high to this Way Low low. I was at a Party where I was hanging out with Eric Clapton. Two days later -- nothing. It was painful cause so many A@R people lied to us so much. I ended up working clubs and teaching guitar for the rest of my life. I’ve had a great life as a working musician and I have no regrets. But I often how different my life would have been lol.

She has a special voice, a producer's voice. No matter what you put into the mix, her voice is what you notice. Sometimes you can be too good, and that's the reason you don't make it. Just think of how many well-established, influential performers that she makes sound average.

It's so strange that the artform I love is controlled by a business that I hate.

The side of this story involving the A&R guy reminded me of an episode from my own past. I was doing session work, mostly as a woodwind player (saxes, flutes) and went to a studio to be part of a jingle production for a high-end client. I waited in the control room while the rhythm section (piano, bass, guitar, drums) started recording. These guys were all top-tier session players and they did the first take letter-perfect. Now, the advertising agency who booked the session had sent a "producer" to oversee the session. This was fairly common practice, mainly so the musicians wouldn't pad their hourly rate by dragging their heels. The producer on this session was a young wanker who was really full of himself but didn't have a clue what happens in a recording studio, or much knowledge of music in general. He gets on the talk-back mic and says "guys, that was really good, really good, but I'm not hearing magic; we need to have magic in this, please give me some magic". The musicians do an eye roll but whatever, they're getting paid. They run it again, perfectly, and the same thing happens - the "producer" is not hearing "magic" and wants there to be "magic" in it. They run it again with the same results. Finally, they've had enough and on the fourth take at 0:30 of the 1 minute piece, the drummer reaches up, pulls down his overhead mic, and says "Abra-fucking-cadabra", then pushes the mic back up and finishes the take. Well..... there's your "magic"! The producer slunk out as we all laughed ourselves silly.

Rick,I don't know if you'll ever read this,but this crap is what kept me out of the "Music Business" and kept me, utterly without regret,a Zoo Night watchman for thirty years. I led a lower-middle class life with a job that fit me like a hand in glove. My animals turned me into a Buddhist,and I pursued Art and Music with no commercial concerns. It is up to the Fates now whether or not my works outlive me. This is not to say I'm not in admiration of your achievements (your guitar collection is awesome),but life is bigger than anything we can conceive of. 🕯️

Let's take a moment to appreciate the real hero here, Ken. The guy bugged Rick for three months until he listened to the band xD

"Almost Famous" shows exactly the way the music scene was in 1973 when I was 15 going on 16. Yes, I lived it, and it was truly an awesome time to be alive. Thank you Cameron Crowe.

Rick is a treasure for using his platform to share things like this.

It happened to a guy I grew up with. His band eventually got to open for some very big names, but he was never allowed to make it to the top. It was too bad - they were a great band.

This is exactly why all those independant labels were popping up in the 80'd and 90's. Bands at that time knew that signing to a major was a death sentence for your band.

I feel for you guys who came THIS close. I really do. In other videos I made mention of my 7 years in radio and how I learned a lot about the music biz. Like, a lot. But the one thing I learned, aside from having your own publishing and label (to keep your masters), you need to have someone in your corner who can lead you into the minefield and isn't afraid to get dirty. And it's not unheard of if a band's manager uses their hands and speaks calmly to make sure a balloon head like that A&R guy left the band alone and exited stage left from the control room. And side-note: Anyone can be a A&R rep - all you have to do is be able to fog a mirror. But seriously. What would that guy do? Go cry to Clive? The label signed the same deal. Are they gonna back out of that nice advance and studio time they gave the band? Nope. Those songwriters? They do that for a living, and that's fine but - no . "Sorry, we have our songs. Songs you like. Songs we like. Now get the fuck out or we're gonna file for bankruptcy and sign elsewhere," is what I would say. All in all it's about protecting what you have before you start letting people poke their fingers in your pie, and having someone in your corner who isn't afraid to tell someone to go pound sand. A band is a family - manager included. And to protect that family it's perfectly fine to swat a fly with a sledgehammer.

As a small musician/artist you always dream about being signed etc., but then you realize all the shady stuff and begin to feel thankful that social media gives you an opportunity to be who you are. Thank you for this story Rick and to all my fellow musicians: never give up and I wish you nothing but best!

I'm sure this sort of thing has happened a million times, but it reminded me immediately of Lone Justice: genre busting band built around the astonishing talent of a young female vocalist captures the imagination of the entire industry, signs a record deal and immediately has everything that made them great sucked out of them by the idiots at the label. Lone Justice was around 1985, this story is about 2005. I wonder what great artists are being destroyed as we speak.

I would be willing to bet that this is one of ricks most popular videos because demographically speaking a high percentage of his viewers are musicians who have experienced similar scenarios

In their Rock n Roll HOF acceptance speech Bono thanked Chris Blackwell of Island Records for having the faith in U2 to allow them to get past their sophomore album to make War and so on. He cautioned that without that faith there would have been no U2 as we know them and that says a lot. Thankfully Island Records didn’t let it turn into just an industry of cool…Almost Famous is amongst my very favorite movies ever.

This is one reason why I love and respect Prince so much. He changed his name to an unpronouncable sign and succeeded in getting out of a major record label with Warner Brothers. I played professionally for decades. I have had a booking agent break up one of my bands because he wanted to keep our female lead singer on his top circuit when we were just starting to think about recording. It's very difficult for an artist to maintain some control over their art when some control freaks with a lot of money have signed a contract with your band. I love to play music live and record.I am a singer and a songwriter. But I would rather just hit it small than hit it big. Unless it was under the right circumstances. I'm sure that if a major label wanted to sign with a band I was in, I would refuse to negotiate without an attorney. And through the process of negotiating, I would probably get kicked out of the band for not kissing ass. This story about i9 breaks my heart. They did all the work to get where they were. And all it took was one idiot to destroy everything they had worked for. It's not that I don't have any respect for authority, or that I am incapable of taking constructive criticism. I will take a job and do as I'm told. But if I create a project with a group of individuals who bust their asses in order to build a following, then I don't want one guy who owns a record company, or a booking agency to destroy everything we have worked for.

Before I was a photographer, I was a professional musician playing rhythm guitar (6 12 acoustic & electric) in many bands before I joined a band back in the late '80's, and we became 'almost famous.' Don't even get me started on record labels back them. We toured all over the U.S. & opening for some of the biggest hair bands of the day. We performed in front of thousands of people at each venue. We had one tour bus for the entire band and all our gear, compared to the 'headliners' who had multiple tour buses and huge trucks transporting their gear. By the way, our tour bus was vintage '70's age, but we love it anyway. It was our home away from home. We constantly heard "Don't worry, the record label is picking up the tab!" And the young idiots we were, we believed them. In fact, we were picking up the tab. All of our profits were paying for hotels, food, transportation (our bus) and anything else we needed while on tour. In the end, we made nothing, but the record company still made money off of us. By summer of '93, the pressure finally got to us. We did our final show on July 10, 1993 in Salt Lake City, Utah. But the writing was on the wall. We, like many other hard rock / heavy metal bands, blamed Nirvana. Times were changing and grunge was coming in & our style of music was no longer in style. It was a lot of hard work, lots of pressure to write songs that could play on the radio, and tour to promote these songs, but the kids weren't showing up in the numbers like they used too. Dylan said it best: "Times, they are a changing." It took 15 years and a TV actress friend of mine to get me playing not only guitar again, but in front of people. I am not a "great" guitar player, but I hang out at my local Guitar Center for a couple of hours on a Saturday, playing one of their acoustic guitars. To some of the other guitar players around, I get them excited, one guy had chills listening to me, and they all want to play along with me. I've even had little kids watching me play "Hear Comes the Sun" and singing along with me. How they know the song, beats me, but it still warms my heart. By the way, that band I was in, we played all original music. And to this day, I have not played one of our songs since July 1993. I just don't want to. Maybe one day I will...

I just love how you promote the little people out there who really deserve it. You're one of the people I'm unlikely to ever meet in real life, but I consider you a true mentor.

Oh Jo! I’m loving the photo montage ❤ So lovely and inspiring in these difficult times. Makes me teary-eyed every week!

I love Rick's talent before the camera. He comes across so relaxed and personable, that I start to forget that I'm just an unknown fan, listing to a recorded video, and become mesmerized into thinking that Rick is relaying a story to me personally. Few people in this world have such an amazing ability. What a guy!!!

Almost famous is still one of my favorite movies. Makes me feel nostalgia for a time period I didn't even live through lol.

I’ve been through this stuff myself, Rick. Don’t know who you can trust, or who you can depend on. Wish we would’ve had you as our production manager. All the best.

Definitely in my top ten movies. The part where he says I need to go home and Kate Hudson says you are home makes me super emotional every time. I just wish for a life like that on the road with my friends

I always feel so bad for Ricks housekeeping staff, imagine having to sweep up all these names he’s dropped on the floor after each episode.

This story is a perfect example of why it's so important for musicians to go the self-publishing route and create as much exposure for themselves on social media as possible. BRvid, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. You can't trust the industry because it's all corporate run and artistically vacant.

This really a sad but enlightening story. Thank you for sharing, sir Rick.

Rick, you are a legend, a gentleman, and a true mentor.

I like the story. One person who remained unnamed who I felt deserves some credit is your assistant who kept pestering you to listen to that tape of I Nine. I mean, they picked the winner and persisted in putting out the good word about the band. So my hat's off to you, nameless assistant of discerning taste and champion of the deserving musical under dog!

It is so sad to see how many bands and artist have been mismanaged and pushed to loss their identities. Wishing them all the best.

NEVER leave a Rick Beato video, story, before the ending. It ALWAYS pays off.

One of the stories pervasive in my head. John Fogerty got sued for sounding like himself and was in artist jail for years. Great to see you in Chicago at Park West, Rick. Thank you for all you do merely enlightening anything and everything music from your perspective. You deserve the audience that has grown to millions I see.

Great story Rick! It's crazy how artists and bands don't have to do 1/10 of this because of social media. They find someone who generates clicks and prop them up. I also think it's much harder for them to get away with this bullshit because the labels need the artists more than the artists need the labels now.

I've mostly been a sideman throughout my 30+ year career. I've been a part of some great bands to see them meddled with and their art diluted by label people who clearly have no idea what they're talking about.

This actually happened to me and the band I sang for. I wasn’t going to work with strangers and this was years ago, I wanted to work with my band. It was awful for all of us

What a crazy story...Really cool of Rick to still support the artists of the group

Dude, Rick, I'm loving the couple "story time with uncle rick" things. The brutal one about your boy Johnny D, and now this. It's awesome. I would love a series of these. You've been in the biz for so long, I'm sure you have a million amazing stories. I'll bet you think you haven't done anything super interesting, but I'm sure you have had lunches cooler than most people whole life. Thank you for sharing, I'm definitely checking out I9? Eye9? I'll figure it out.

Another amazing story, I never heard of this group, but when her voice gave me the chills I knew right away how great she was

Rick is such a good storyteller.

Great story, Mark. And really sad. The cuts from the I Nine incarnation were wonderful. Dunno what it is, but I've never heard a rock/pop/folk song where the decision to put a cello into it made it worse. And Ms. Kiegan's voice is amazing. Wish them all luck going forward, and I'll keep an ear out.

Great discussion. I have a similar story. My band got a record deal in 1998, made a great album, then the label dropped us less than a year later, mainly based on miscommunication and bad management. We never recovered...

Fascinating. As someone who played in bands in the 90s and was signed briefly to a deal only to see it fall apart, I can tell you that this story has been repeated many, many times over the years. Frank Zappa was right; labels (and the records they produced) were better when the old suits were in charge, because they knew they didn't know anything about the "new music" and let the artists alone. So long as they made money, they didn't care. Once the hipsters took over in the 70s, though, they thought they knew better and tried to dabble in it, which ruined many a great band.

Wow, that was quite a story! It's unfortunate how much good music probably never saw the light of day because of situations like that or how many artists lost their chance to make a living of off their work. On the positive side, it's nice to hear how things have actually improved in time for once (e.g. artists being able to put out their own work to the masses without BS gate keeping).

This is amazing. I got chills all over me. Hope to hear more of them.

As a former artist manager (and musician prior), this story was absolute fantasy candy, until the ending which I didn't quite see coming. But for you to be the catalyst of that kind of feeding frenzy for a band, with the kind of heavies you were talking to.... I mean, wow, just WOW.

Ong this was awesome!! Great storytelling! Hate it for the band though… it is always better to hold on to your creative autonomy!

Thank you so much for sharing this story. I feel like it’s many people’s story during the 90s. I was in a similar situation and the music kept getting worse as the label sent bandleader to co-write with all these famous songwriters. Bitter pill!

Years ago I decided to avoid the music industry like a plague. The downside: I’ll never “make it.” The upside: I can do literally whatever I want musically for literally however long it gives me pleasure to do it, or until I’m no longer here. I have yet to regret that decision.

Thank you so much for sharing your music related stories. Your unique perspective has given you a bridge from how the music industry has evolved from the 70’s to today. So what about you? What are your future plans in music? What would you like to accomplish in this new paradigm in music?

What a brilliant and terrible story. Found you via Justin Hawkins - what an incredible channel

There was an interview with the fabulous Haley Reinhart not that long ago and as I remember she was saying she'd had "good" offers but was turning them down as wanted and control and direction which they didn't give her, so releases her own lower key (and I'm sure less well promoted) stuff. This video of course brings that to mind. Sheryl crow had a first album that wasn't even released I think she was pushed into doing stuff she didn't want to do (it's on the internet now as you'd expect).

I was fixed and entranced by this story Rick, great and sad and just a unique tale of events. Cheers to you and I9. Crazy stuff

Back in the early '70s, Dave Loggins ("Pieces of April" and "Please Come to Boston") told me literally the same story about his experience with a Label.

Even The Beatles had problems like this, and from the one person we'd least expect it: Brian Epstein. Epstein came to the studio one day with one of his boyfriends. The Beatles were on the other side of the glass recording. Brian pressed the intercom button and started to tell them what they should do with the song. Within twenty seconds John Lennon screamed. 'Shut the fuck up Brian. We do the music. You count the money.' Epstein literally jolted backwards like he'd been hit with an electric shock and he never dared make any more suggestions ever again. You have to be very aggressive to go where you want to go in this world.

Totally get this, we had a similar arrangement with EMI in the 80s. Development deal and management and A&R squabbling over involvement…all came to nothing in the end after so much initial excitement. I now realize that talent is only one element…so many things need to align all at once for a band to make it, and even then, the shelf life of all but the very top bands is limited to 3 to 4 albums, if their even that fortunate. Probably easier now if your a good live band to build your own following and promote yourself and keep control with social media platforms and digital downloads but you have to know how to get the exposure I suppose.

This is just one of the many reasons I love what Rick does! Terrific story about that I was not familiar with! After listening to a few songs can't wait to dive in deeper! Whether it is I Nine or Heavy is the King !

Rick, you're the best! Please don't ever stop! Your videos and knowledge and expert musicianship keep me going! Thank you, brother!

I just bought “Heavy Weighs the King - A Star in the Sky” and lovin’ it. Everyone should do the same to support these artists. Amazing.

Late to the party, yep, that's me to a T. lol Just had to thank you Rick for the amazing insight in this storied series of what turns out to be truly unfortunate events. How tragic! So much excitement and sheer joy over the deserved commercial recognition of an AMAZING band's artistry and raw undeniable talent, only to be stranded by the halfwit sabotage of another useless moving piece, another needless corporate wheel spoke, in the redundancy rich record label machine.

You’re a great storyteller, Rick!

just think about the groups that never had a hit on the charts but everybody knows them ! we all know who they are and are so glad that we got to grow up with them playing on the soundtracks to our lives !

Courtney Hadwin is releasing her first original single this Feb 2023 as an independent artist. She was an AGT finalist in 2018 age 14. Its called 'Breakable' .

Fantastic story! Such a fan of ALMOST FAMOUS and EDDIE’s ATTIC, was so pleased to hear it loop back around and connect.

This story rings so true. I was supposed to be a Rock Star, I even bought all the stuff.

In high school I was in a band that recorded one record. I quit soon after that. We need to support our local musicians and live venues in our areas. And we need to build a support system for artists that includes medical care and retirement. In many of the more advanced countries, artists are paid by the state to create. No small task, so we need to get to work. Time is short.

The all-too familiar story. My first psychology PhD proposal in 1998 was to study the effect of label organisational culture on the creativity and well-being of signed artists. A board member at EMI, himself a psychologist said, "That is a fantastic idea but you will never get through the door". I never did. It's heart-breaking what has happened to so many fine artists.

Rick so love your down to earthness and totally agree with you. I've seen it happen personally to a friends band and literally almost overnight destroyed completely what these guys all worked and strived for. And samething the only hope is to keep moving forward in new projects to hopefully one day find away back to one another again under a new name and a new bag of tricks(tracks) I wish for them and ex members I Nine the best of success and happiness on there own terms with artistic freedom doing what they love and were ment to do in this lifetime!

This is unbelievable. The amount of energy put into grabbing something that it's amazing, and just destroy it!!

Not the first time I hear a story like that. I think it's not only the record labels, but also mid and lower level producers and studio owners that also "sign" talent and milk them dry for their songs and ideas. What I always wonder is: Why the heck do bands sign contracts that allow artistic control to be surrendered to the label or some A&R guy? Didn't they get some legal advice? Or is this the dictated conditions of any contract, no fine print can be changed? Some part is missing for me.

I just came across this channel recently and it is quite addictive. Whether listening to overlooked music or recalling moments from a storied career, Rick always gives credit where credit is due and has an infectious enthusiasm that serves as the perfect delivery service for new music and points of view. This video was excellent.

I hope artists are learning to demand a contract that lets them be their own artists, record their own music, and without giving up copyrights or creative control of their work. I wonder how many bands have been ruined that would have been better off walking away from contracts and just being independent.

What a scary story....Never in my career as a major label A&R executive would I meddle with a band like that although, I did see it happen all the time..on a side note, my very first position in A&R was working for Clive Davis who I found unable to understand any sort of music except manufactured pop...oh well

Wow. I was about to watch a movie but instead, I listened to this quite sad story and just hung to it all the way through. I'm amazed by the way you tell things. Thank you for this.

im a music fanatic and ive been to many bars and nightclubs and heard so many groups that i thought were great but so many of them were just out to make a couple bucks and faded away and were happy playing covers , what a shame working in a factory by day and playing great music at night in some bar - what a shame it is knowing how many great musicians are out there and nobody will ever know them ! but most of them werent looking for fame they were just happt to be playing ! youve got to raise your glass to so many of these unsung heros to just be keepingthe music alive !

If there was ever a single, simple reason to self produce and promote on independent labels, this is it! It's also the reason I smile every time I hear about the mainstream label industry dying!

Right off the top of my head I can think of 2 bands that got screwed over (no doubt there are many, many more)... during the 90's grunge label feeding frenzy that was so well documented in Hype!... The Fluid (from Denver, CO) and TAD.

I sang in a band in the 80s. Every major in the UK fought to sign us. We had at least 4 international hits... they said. Well, 1 and a half years and a cartload of industry politics late we got dropped. Everyone was astonished. We were devastated. But hey, that's life and it happens a lot it appears.

Hey Rick, I Nine actually toured with my band, HURT (we were signed to Capitol). They opened up for us for a while on tour. I'm not sure what year it was (probably somewhere around 2007-2008 I think), but I remember watching them every night and Carmen was amazing.

This story is probably a common story in the business I'm sure. I am reminded of a tragic casualty of the record business by the name of Kevin Gilbert. He was even writing an album based on the subject matter when he died and his friends posthumously finished the album and put it out. It is called the Shaming of the True. In particular, the song Suit Fugue. Amazing. The music business really chewed this guy up and spit him out and he was really, really good.

Another home run for me on this channel. I’m sitting here listening to the soundtrack to Elizabethtown and enjoying the hell out of it with this amazing singer and this amazing band. I wish I could find music by them under their new name but they are not coming up in Amazon. Damn shame.

Interesting story and I believe this has happened to many, many artists. Hopefully this is all behind us.

Incredible story; I have seen the wrong agent or management wreck a perfectly good band, even on a local or regional scale. I Nine seemed to be miles ahead, on both talent and work ethic, and it still played out this way.

The music labels have turned art into dollar signs. So music from true competent artists gets ruined. It’s what has turned off a ton of truly amazing artists

True story this: Back in the early 2000's i was in an indie band from Manchester (UK), we were the support act for Ian Brown. also did some supports for Happy Mondays. Well we got offered a development deal from parlophone records, on one condition, The A&R guy wanted us to sack the singer and replace him with a vocalist of his choice. The problem was, our singer was my Brother. So you can imagine what that conversation was like. Our rehearsal room was the top floor of a huge mill in Ancoats Manchester, And the A&R guy turned up to a rehearsal...Well my brother had him half dangling from the fire escape, with a good 60ft drop down, pretty sure he pissed his pants. We never got the development deal. I do still wonder what the other singer he had in mind was like though :) The End.

I remember hearing stories about a Pittsburgh band called "Iron City House Rockers", saying in recording their album "Love's So Tough" on MCA, they more or less lost control over production, because Mick Ronson and Ian Hunter kept telling them how the songs "should" sound. There was a lot of cocaine use too during those sessions, so maybe things were going south regardless.

I heard a 4 piece band playing in a basement garage back in 1967. They were magnificent. In less than one hour the crowd swelled from about 20 people to at least 300 from the surrounding neighborhood. The police were called to “Break up the hippies.” A near riot ensued. Finally the music was stopped and the crowd dispersed. 50 years later I was at a get together with my older brother in attendance. We were sitting at the bar listening to the house band squeak through a few tunes when my older brother says “ I was at a basement party back in our old neighborhood, probably around 1966 or 67. When I heard this amazing band.” I mentioned that I was there also and YES! They were great. I hope they made it to the big leagues. Long live RNR!

That's a GREAT story and so relevant! Loved hearing it, thanks for sharing.

Was hoping for some cool insight into the movie, its one of my favorites of all time. This was a cool story though and oh so familiar. Happened with a friend and I who wrote an EP. Indie label wanted to sign us and had us work with a producer who has worked with Blink and a ton of other pop punk bands. His vision for our sound was a very cookie cutter pop punk sound you hear everywhere. It sounded ready for the radio but lost the energy and the rawness from what we had recorded ourselves. Ended up turning it down, producer and label thought we were crazy but ah well. Thats how it goes sometimes.

Beats me that a record label signs a band because they love what it's doing, and then proceeds to turn the band into something else entirely. It's like buying a Gibson Les Paul because you love the look and the sound, and then taking out the humbuckers, sticking in one single coil at the neck while leaving the bridge an empty route, replacing the fingerboard with maple, bypassing the tone controls and spraying the body a different colour. WTF did yo buy a Les Paul for in the first place?

Whoa... just finding this video. I'm one of the dozen or so people who liked the movie Elizabethtown, although that enjoyment was mostly based on the music. The I Nine song was definitely a standout track in the film and on the OST album (perhaps because cousin Jesse sings a line in the movie itself). Never knew the back story of the band, nor did I know Rick had a connection to it!

OMG this I Nine band is incredible. I see why you all recognized something great. The HWTK stuff sounds awesome, too. I worked in record distribution for 20 years, and I met so many dumbass label guys (mostly sales and AR) with terrible taste in, and no sense for, good music. Got their jobs for all the wrong reasons. Not all of 'em, but many.

Amazing story, sir. Yeah, sometimes getting a deal is not what it should be. Especially when the AR guy hijacked the music. Sad but yes I hope they find success. They do sound pretty stellar.

Literally took what could have been one of the greatest bands of a generation and completely gutted them. This truly heartbreakingly sad

My own horror story involves Columbia/Epic records - my first pro band was signed to Epic after turning down offers from Polydor, Electra, and Verve. Big Mistake - they fired our producer, cut our promo budget, and basically buried our album (which turned out pretty well for a first effort). All because we had been signed by Pete Wexler, the pres of Epic. When he had a falling out with Clive Davis, he was fired from Epic and all of his projects got the deep freeze treatment. The band was a prog rock band called Amedeus, the Album "The Show has Started," was released on Epic in 1971, produced by Richard Perry (spared no expense). Ended up in the cut-out bins at Tower Records.