Free The Book of Drugs by Mike Doughty Page A

The band is important, the sound is important.
    He was a rich, tan fool. But he was right.
    There had been an awkward pause in the show, for the sampler player to load sounds onto the tiny hard drive of his sampler. “You should tell jokes or something there,” he said irritatedly.
    I heard that he appeared in Bob Dylan’s Don’t Look Back; he was the bespectacled student whom Dylan goaded, “Why should I get to know you, maaaaan? ” The bespectacled possible-future-label president: “Why, because I’m a very good person!”
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    I went back to the band, agog, and told them.
    â€œWhy didn’t you invite us?” they asked.
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    Slaw became just a weekly Soul Coughing show. I had posters made, with a slogan I meant to emulate The Who’s inspired descriptive phrase “Maximum R&B.” It was “Deep Slacker Jazz.” The manager of the venue, CB’s Gallery—CBGB had annexed the stores flanking it, making one a pizza parlor and the other a gallery/performance space—knew this junkie guy who put up posters for her. I gave him a stack of posters and some cash.
    The bass player came in the next week complaining he never saw posters. Fine, I said. Here’s the posters—you put them up. For the next show, there were even fewer posters. The bass player had hired the very same junkie guy, on the same manager’s recommendation.
    â€œI see my posters all over the place!” he said, outraged, when I brought it up.

    I divvied up more responsibilities; the sampler player agreed to advance a show. When we got there, there was an art opening; the place was jammed; there was no way to do a sound check.
    â€œI can’t believe this,” said the sampler player, showing a glimpse of the juddering rage under his frightened surface.
    Huh? I said. This is your fault!
    â€œMy fault?!”
    Yeah, I said. That’s what ‘Call them up and ask if everything’s OK for us to show up at 4’ means.
    The drummer refused any other duties. “I play the drums, that’s enough, G,” he snorted. But soon, in what I took to be a sign of surprisingly deepening engagement, he started arranging the rental of a supplemental speaker—just one, a big subwoofer, that’s all we could afford—every week. Two sketchy-looking dudes would come in a hatchback, load the thing into the club, and I’d pay them $100.
    Eventually I figured out that the drummer had set it up so the only thing in that subwoofer was his kick drum.
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    People from labels kept coming. We got a lawyer. His assistant called up and left on the answering machine a sprawling guest list of A&R execs, which we ignored. Admission was $4, who could kvetch? The lawyer called up, apoplectic. “These people need to feel important, ” he said.
    We went, all of us together, to offices and had magnificent lunches. There were certain business-y phrases that every exec at every label used. “At the end of the day,” and “bring to the table.” “It’s about———at the end of the day.” “———is what———brings to the table.” “At the end of the day, it’s———that we bring to the table.”

    We went to meet the head of Columbia Records—Jeff Buckley’s cherished Sony—at his office. He looked like a longshoreman in beige Armani.
    â€œGENTLEMEN!” the president of Columbia yelled. “YOU—CAN DO—ANYTHING!—YOU WANT!—ON—COLUMBIA!—RECORDS!” This must’ve been his pitch to artist-y type artists. Even as many of us yearned for corporate love, it was barefacedly uncool to want to be on a major label.
    â€œISN’T THAT RIGHT, MICKEY!”
    â€œThat’s right, Johnny!” smarmed a henchman.
    â€œYou look like serious young men!” Johnny yelled. “Look behind you!”
    We turned to see a monumental