White Knights and Red Herrings- 5/10/06

A female friend of mine once asked, "Where is MY White Knight?"

What a dangerous question... In a world with a 60% divorce rate... at least an unrealistic question. The White Knight is such a powerful metaphor. He is personified by Sir Lancelot (in a non-Spamalot sort of way)... pure of heart, strong of body, and singular in purpose. He will ride in on his white charger and whisk the damsel in distress away from danger.

Let's extract the metaphor from the fairy tale into reality for a brief moment. The psychology behind this archetype is that when you're completely helpless, a hero will appear with power greater than your own and save you from danger.

What a crock!

The world is a hard, cold, unforgiving place where acts of kindness are stars... little points of light against the great black void of violence, greed, robbery and indecency that we call humanity. My advice to the damsel in distress would be a six-week women's self defense course and a can of pepper spray. Dialing 911 in certain towns might not even get the cops there on time. I wouldn't hold my breath for Sir Lancelot.

Ladies, the White Knight for you could be meeting the single, handsome millionaire of your dreams on Eharmony.com. Let's face it, he may be George Clooney-handsome right now, living in a McMansion, and have answered all of Eharmony's six hundred personality match questions 100% correctly. However, in about four months, he's going to start farting in bed. That's about when his Prince Charming crown melts right off his head and it's gut check time! Hey! Where'd that armor go, and when did the horse become a donkey with bad gas?

Don't feel singled out, female readers. The White Knight has trampled all of us with his horse. It ain't just about dating.

For musicians trying to do the "I'm going to be a big rock star!" thing, the White Knight and his Holy Grail could be likened to the infamous, and seldom realized, 'record deal' or 'getting signed.' If I had a dollar for every time the hundreds of musicians I have met while on tour and playing clubs who had said, "When we get signed..."

Croikey! Signed to what? An indentured servant's contract?

But, we've all chased after it... The record deal! The Holy Grail! And who better to deliver the Holy Grail unto us lowly musicians but the A&R guy/girl! The White Knight! He, with his golden ears and magic quill pen, will mysteriously hear the magic of our music and sprinkle pixie dust out onto a contract of finest parchment... And we'll be rich! And we'll be on VH-1 (in between reality shows)! And we'll be... um... suing... because the company sold lots of our CD's... and... um... cooked the books.... and... um... didn't pay us... and um... we're still working at the Chick Fillet... and um... people keep asking us, "What the $#@$#%$ happened to your album?" So much for Sir Lancelot.

We might as well call the White Knight what it is... a Red Herring! It is something that misdirects your focus from the right course to off course. Period. Now, I'm not saying that there are no saviors in the world. I'm saying there is no panacea (universal cure) for our problems. I've learned this the hard way in my career doing this music thing.

Friday's Child has always been Indie. We did it ourselves. Made the albums, booked the tours, found our audience, got our albums to that audience... rinse and repeat. We've played some dives, where you'd be afraid to wear plumber's clothes for fear of getting them dirty, and we've played festival stages and major venues. Either way, we did it ourselves.

Other than getting sick and recuperating in 2003 (see my first blog, Quitting is Not an Option), I have only had a few periods in my Friday's Child journey where the momentum stalled or stuttered. In every instance, we had 'finally encountered that White Knight who was going to help us find The Holy Grail... I mean... the record deal.' Let's see, there was the management team we had with big pedigree and big contacts. They also, combined, consumed more alcohol in one sitting than all the patrons of The Molly Wee on St. Patrick's Day. Then, there was the major entertainment law firm who took a cash retainer from us to 'shop a deal.' What they did was train a junior attorney on our money. I don't think they actually mailed one package out. They called us a lot, and kept us on the phone long enough to send a bill. I could go on, but why bother?

Very recently, I almost made that mistake again. Then, it occurred to me, "Stop the madness!" The depressed Easter Bunny in the old Bugs Bunny cartoon said it best, "If you want anything done, you have to do it yourself..."

Now, don't be discouraged! I'm not saying there are no good deals... or even bad ones that still get you where you need to be. To quote "Field of Dreams," "If you build it, they will come." If you go out of your own way to do whatever it is you do to the best of your ability, then eventually, someone will notice. Period.

I'll loosely quote Sun Tzu's "The Art of War," 'Know your enemy and know yourself, and in 1000 battles you'll never be in peril. Know yourself, but not your enemy, and the outcome is uncertain. Know neither the enemy, nor yourself, and you will surely fail.'

Another metaphor... but a good one. The enemy is not necessarily the enemy. It is can also be interpreted as the target or objective.

For example, you're a Salsa musician. You're a great Salsa musician. You write phenomenal Salsa tunes. You know it. That's good. Now, shopping a record deal in Nashville means you know yourself, but not your enemy. Outcome is uncertain.

Now, let's build on that. You're a Salsa musician. You're a great Salsa musician, but you sing like a choir of tortured alley cats. However, you refuse to hire a better singer, and you're still shopping your record deal in Nashville. Well, you know the old joke. How do you get a songwriter off your porch in Nashville? Pay for the pizza. Better get your pizza delivery chops honed, because failure is certain.

One step further. You're a tone-deaf salsa musician that plays great, sings like crap, but writes great tunes. So, you go out and hire an absolutely beautiful Salsa singer who moves like Shakira. Then, you record a kickass salsa album, burn a lot of mp3s, and hire a kid to spend all day finding Salsa fans on myspace.com and make friends of them. Your stuff is SO hot, that every Salsa fan on the Internet starts pirating your tunes. That pisses you off, but it gets your stuff out to a worldwide market... Meanwhile, in the lair of the evil record company, some college intern who is paid to monitor how many friends Latin bands have on their myspace page notices that your cup is spilling over in that department.

Here's where it gets tricky. The label contacts your manager... who is your sister faking an English accent... and wants to discuss signing you to their expanding Latin division. You get a lawyer. They offer you 30 cents per unit, net net, to be split among your eight-piece band, a paltry advance at 20% interest, and want your publishing. You realize that you could make more money if you sold a T-shirt to each of your myspace friends. You make a prototype shirt. Take orders for 50K of them at $20 per shirt. You net $900K dollars and split that with your band. Triumph! You knew your enemy. You knew yourself... AND YOU RECOGNIZED THAT THIS POTENTIAL WHITE KNIGHT WAS A RED HERRING... OR IN THIS CASE, A TROJAN HORSE.

Punch line. You say no to the label. Continue to sell more stuff, and they come back with an $80 million dollar offer. You sign it. Everyone's ego gets out of hand. You break up. You each have enough money to spend five years naked in your Malibu house. Then, you do a Bands Re-united on VH-1 and get paid more money to reprise your salad days.

I'm just being silly. The point is, sitting on your dead ass an waiting for someone else to take YOUR future in his/her hands is a sure-fire way to fail in achieving your goals. "Well, I'd be the biggest star in the world, if only I had gotten my big break!" A convenient excuse.

Same goes for finding a mate, or any other vital life decision. It's not going to be perfect. Don't let the commercials sell you that. In fact, at times, it may just plain suck. That goes for your marriage, your law career, or your men's softball league. I don't care what it is, sometimes it's an uphill climb with a caribou on your back. You'd better love it, whatever it is, because sometimes it hurts. In the end, like Lotto, you've got to be in it to win it. It's the people who just refuse to stay down when hit that scare the bejeezus out of the 'enemy.' They usually win by attrition.

'Nuff of my yappin'! Ciao for now.

TW