The Industry From The Artist’s Point of View

Moderator: Ed Bicknell, Damage Management Ltd.
Dick Dale, King of the Surf Guitar
Kevin Cronin, REO Speedwagon

Not only was this panel a first in the history of the CIC, but the identities of the participating artists had to be one of the best-kept secrets this side of the Concert Industry Awards. For those who could stand the suspense, the wait was worth it.

Dick Dale, the undisputed King of the Surf Guitar, is an original – and an originator – in the world of rock ‘n’ roll. His career spans six decades, and he’s seen it all and then some.

REO Speedwagon’s Kevin Cronin is a road survivor whose band was among the top-selling acts in the 1980s.
He’s kept his career alive and kicking, thank you very much, long after the album sales came down from the stratosphere.

Moderator Ed Bicknell was the ringmaster who provided the group’s glue in ribald fashion, cutting off rambling comments with a machine that emitted a, shall we say, distinctive noise. He managed Dire Straits in the band’s heyday and has worked with virtually everybody who’s anybody from the other side of the Pond.

Dale told how he got his start in music by collecting Coke bottles, cashing them in and buying a plastic ukelele by mail order. Cronin thought he could meet choir girls as an altar boy in his church. Then he found out what it would mean to be a “future priest” and picked up the guitar instead. Bicknell joked, sort of, that he got into music “to get pussy.”

A lot has changed since then, and the trio regaled the room with tales both nostalgic and cautionary.

“You don’t get into this for the fucking money,” Bicknell said. “I never thought about the business end. It was fun. I got kicked out of Average White Band for not being Scots. Then I sold 127 million albums with Dire Straits. You can’t do that today.”

Cronin chimed in, “You can only plan on being a starving musician. It’s a one-way trip to the poor house. Don’t quit the day job and stay in school.”

Record company execs earned a generous heaping of scorn from all three.

“I have always been insulated from record company executives by having good management, “ Cronin said. “You have to ignore them; I’ve been turned down by all of them. Clive Davis told me to ‘get a real job.’ One told me to scrap ‘Keep On Loving You.’”

Bicknell told of one record exec who, while trying to woo Dire Straits, offered the band a plate of joints over lunch, not knowing they were vehemently anti-drug. He didn’t get the signing.

Dale keeps his distance by keeping his own business affairs in house – his own.

“I own all of my own companies,” he said, injecting a heavy dose of philosophy. “I own my own publishing, I own my own label, I get my own royalties.”

He has no use for business hangers on: “They’re all full of B.S. When you end a gig, leave. Music is a window, not the world. To be at the top, you have to have no other life.”

Ah, speaking of hangers-on: “Know when to get rid of your bodyguards,” Cronin advised.

“It’s about perceivability,” Dale fumed, “for some people to be seen with lots of autograph seekers and bodyguards.”

Bicknell took the beef a step further.

“Today’s artists are very dependent,” he explained. “They can’t do anything for themselves. They’re performing vegetables.”

But not all.

“I ran into Elvis Costello once – saw him paying his own bill with his own credit card in a hotel lobby. He called his own cab. Wow. Now they all have entourages.”

The entourage tops a long list of career no-nos offered by Bicknell.

“Do not allow legal or record company people on the tour bus. Big record deals for baby bands can destroy them; that’s the greed in the industry. There’s no job security for managers. Artist wives and girlfriends are to be avoided. AOL Time Warner destroyed Warner Bros. Mo Ostin got sacked and they fucked Gerald Levin.

“And never, never work for people whose music you don’t love.”

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