K records book

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The publishing company I work for has been given a proposal by Calvin Johnson to do a retrospective book about K records detailing everyone who has worked with K and interesting facts about the artists and the label.

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)

Pretty please!

cybele, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I would actively shun such a book and whichever publisher put it out :)

Tom, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Johnson will revise history. This will be more contrived than Britney's autobiography.

Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i would think it would do well, at least in the relative sense of the book publishing world, because a) many people who are into k records are the indie collector type, and b) to put it bluntly, 'college radio' translates into 'more likely to read.'

maura, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

would've done better 5 yrs ago & will not do better 5 yrs from now

fritz, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I dont know, Fritz. I think the K records fans of the late 80s/early 90s are now at the crucial stage where basically they've given up developing aesthetically (inna pop sense) but don't want to admit it yet

- 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.

Tom, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tom, that's an interesting point. Maybe all pop movements with philosophies as rigidly defined as that of K records' are just a matter of "pretending to be right for 6 months" anyway - or being perceived as being right by 1,000 people or something similar? In any case, I'd agree that K's time is past.

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.)

fritz, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Okay:

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.

cybele, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Dear me, now even people in their thirties are old and irrelevant. Could someone tell me where the nearest Woolworth's is? Apparently, my only hope is to slum it out there.

Top 40 Killed My Dog, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well a "ton of cash" isn't the point, yeah. But you need to demonstrate that you won't LOSE a ton, presumably, or that the book is a thing of beauty and a joy forevah anyway.

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.

Tom, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

What I meant was that I recall Johnston being known for making some shady businessdeals, and the usual angry artists & soforth. So obviously you'll get his vision of the K story & how GRATE it was. Unbalanced != bad, tho.

Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I would guess that the average person in their early-30s is less interested and feels less connected to pop music than the average person in their early-20s, yeah. This isn't true of all individuals - but I doubt that it applies less to the subgroup 'K records fans' than to the general population.

Tom, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Wow, I'm so daft. I thought 'relevance' meant that people actually something important or urgent to say. I can't wait to inform my granma about the 'relevance' and trendiness of her Columbia House membership! That's so revolutionary! It really makes me think!

Pretty Wife, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

'Relevance' in that sense exists but it exists for the listener, not in a band or record. And if you're hearing what K Records (or anyone else) have to say then whether you think its urgent and important depends very much on the context you hear it in. And age is a part of that, like lots of other things.

Tom, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Aw, what a cop-out. Stand up and FITE!

I don't like about 80% of what they put out, like about 10%, and love maybe another 5-10%. I do take exception to the unsubstantiated 'information' about C. Johnson above - perhaps it's true, perhaps not, but maybe he just has the wrong politics or something. In any case, it should surely apply to Candace Peterson as well, should it not?

And what you say about people in their thirties isn't true. I know plenty of kids in their twenties who find the radio abhorrent and who listen to a whole bunch of bad punk rock.

B. Faith, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Why is explaining what you mean a cop-out? Whatever fight you're interested in having about K, I'm not.

Tom, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

More clarifying: "Bad punk music" and "the radio" are two subsets of that wider thing "pop music" for me - I'm not saying 20somethings like what's on the radio, obviously lots of them don't.

Tom, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Alasdair spent his entire career at Bloomsbury (home of Potter) trying to get them to publish a book on Arthur Lee and Love. Needless to say, he wasn't persuasive enough. But surely there's a market for it! I can't believe that there isn't one out in some form somewhere.

marianna, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Didn't Mojo mag just put out a short book on Arthur Lee?

fritz, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Wasn't Heavenly on K records? Don't people always like them?

Nude Spock, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That makes four publishing folks on IL*.

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)

I think the book would be interesting. I like K a lot back in the late 80s/early 90s, i wasn't really a fanatic about the label (or any label), but they had an attractive ethos. It was all the good things about punk rock without all the bad, macho, straightedge crap that dominated the punk rock scene. And of course it has an honesty absent from 100% of what was played on the radio then or now

g, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I will be first in line for a Teenbeat book, but only if it features color plates of all the pretty record covers. I'm a good deal less interested in a K book.

dan, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

three years pass...
So whatever happened with this?

mike a, Tuesday, 26 April 2005 19:24 (twenty years ago)

I'd rather read a spy novel written by Ian Svenonious, though.

The Sensational Sulk (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 19:32 (twenty years ago)

Oddly enough, K is going through one of their most interesting phases now, relatively speaking.. mainly as a reissue label. The Blackouts, Treepeople, and some other non-obvious bands I can't think of right now.

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)

Also, this Blackouts reissue now connects K records, Wax Trax! Records (the label that put out their sole EP back in 1985), Ministry, and now R.E.M. -- Bill Rieflin is the Northwest musical Kevin Bacon.

donut debonair (donut), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 19:49 (twenty years ago)

publish a jenna jameson followup instead, pleeeeease!

Jabberwocky (Jabberwocky), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 19:58 (twenty years ago)

Calvin is still working on this book from time to time.

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)

little wings - one of the twenty best bands in the world ever

Roger Fidelity (Roger Fidelity), Wednesday, 27 April 2005 00:27 (twenty years ago)

Roger, do you have any information about the show Little Wings played at ATP? I know that Will Oldham joined them to sing a few songs but I just heard that Mike Watt did too, and I heard nothing about this!

Kevin Erickson, Wednesday, 27 April 2005 01:42 (twenty years ago)

wow shit hadn't heard that!

i like bonnie but ugh death knell huh?

Roger Fidelity (Roger Fidelity), Wednesday, 27 April 2005 02:09 (twenty years ago)


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