What I need is to know what the support for a book like this would be. Please take the time to comment ASAP so I can use this as part of my presentation to the head of our acquisitions team!
― cybele, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― Tom, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― maura, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― fritz, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
- Or rather, pop is now at the crucial stage (the 7-year itch) where K drops out of history for a while and so the people who still identify themselves/their youths with it have to confront their own popcult irrelevance.
whichever, now is the time to hit them with an expensive book which will let them pretend they were right for another 6 months.
We need little sects of pop puritans or radical extremists every so often who try and overlay some moral framework on pop if just to get people thinking about it. Like all moralizers about art, they are eventually discredited in the eyes of the masses but retain a coterie of cultists and later are lionized as "ahead of their time" in inevitable revivals. K had some good ideas, but the music was secondary to the ideas. The big problem with the "Everybody Should Start A Band!" ethos is that actually Hardly Anybody Should Start A Band.
(In any case, a K book might do better now than 5 yrs ago because its target market might have a little more coin than they did then.)
Why is it that y'all assume that the goal here is to make a ton of cash? Publishing, especially in Canada, is not the most lucrative of jobs. You really have to do it because you love it.
I don't know about someone "revising" history in a "contrived" way, I just think that any book that details connections between artists would be interesting to me.
All of this input is really useful though...keep it coming.
― Top 40 Killed My Dog, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
Fritz - yes! Pop movements are often about pretending you're right. And just because K wasn't right doesn't mean anyone else was either.
― Pretty Wife, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― B. Faith, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― marianna, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― Nude Spock, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
Cybele: the Shield Around the K documentary did remarkably well, from what I could see -- in part because Johnson went around pushing it at film festivals and selling it at his own shows. So there is enough of a market to make a short print run feasible. The questions are: (a) has that market been sated by the film?, (b) was the film's success based on the content, or on the rare videos and live footage it contained, which the book will not?, and (c) is that market large enough to make for a print run large enough to keep the price reasonable? When it comes to a book that would sell better in a record store than a book store, minute pricing differences can make a huge difference in sales.
Also, quite importantly, recall that Calvin, K, and Beat Happening occupy space in Azerrad's widely-reviewed book, meaning that, in theory, loads of people who are interested in reading about music have just learned a little bit about the man and the label. If you're trying to give this a hard pitch and get it published, that's your hook right there. Try and find sales figures for the Azerrad -- they should be sizeable enough to look impressive at a smaller press.
Hope that's helpful.
― Nitsuh, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― g, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― dan, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― mike a, Tuesday, 26 April 2005 19:24 (twenty years ago)
― The Sensational Sulk (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 19:32 (twenty years ago)
That Duck Hunt 7" from 1991 was a pre-cursor to jungle! I think a lot of input from Steve Fisk in the early days is sorely missing in K records discussions in general. Calvin should also just DJ more. He's been a record geek since his high school days (he introduced many folks to On-U sound label stuff in the states, for starters).. he surely has an insanely great record collection.
― donut debonair (donut), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 19:48 (twenty years ago)
― donut debonair (donut), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 19:49 (twenty years ago)
― Jabberwocky (Jabberwocky), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 19:58 (twenty years ago)
Calvin does some great DJ tours and sells some great mixtapes of his impossible to find 45s.
the thing i am most excited for is his new solo album. best songs he's ever written.
― Kevin Erickson, Tuesday, 26 April 2005 20:58 (twenty years ago)
― Roger Fidelity (Roger Fidelity), Wednesday, 27 April 2005 00:27 (twenty years ago)
― Kevin Erickson, Wednesday, 27 April 2005 01:42 (twenty years ago)
i like bonnie but ugh death knell huh?
― Roger Fidelity (Roger Fidelity), Wednesday, 27 April 2005 02:09 (twenty years ago)