Customer Reviews

The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, and Springsteen and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Comm erce

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this book because I was mildly interested but before long I was sucked into the tale about how the money talked louder than any musician's ability.

This is story of how several clever people took the talent-driven music of the mid to late sixties and gradually turned this into a money-driven enterprise where all the artist needed to do was keep the gullible public into believing that "it's all about the music, man!"

The book covers some of the major players like Bruce Springsteen's manager, Jon Landau, and record mogul David Geffen, along with the artists they were involved with like Dylan, Neil Young, the Eagles, and plenty more. The book shows how the industry evolved from Warner Brothers execs (in WB blazers) signing the Grateful Dead (and being scared to death of being given LSD) - to the CBS policy of the mid-eighties of taking acts that the company wanted to succeed and have them make a few low-selling albums and play live gigs so they would have more credibility with record buyers.

The execs were every bit as exotic as the artists they represented, and thought nothing about double-dipping their clients' earnings even though they were already assured of millions. I was astounded to learn that at the height of the Eagles' success they went out on tour and got NINETY-SEVEN AND A HALF PERCENT of the receipts, leaving the venue with just two and half percent.

Essential reading for anyone interested in the music industry, especially people trying to break into the scene. Check your integrity at the door, because it will just be an impediment otherwise.

You don't have to be a raving fire 'n brimstone type to lament the passing of the "good old days" of rock. You just have to switch on your radio now and hear songs that were once anthems being used to hawk jeans, beer, bank cards, etc. and if that doesn't make you even a little indignant, you're either too young to remember or too embalmed to give a damn. Fred Goodman's book is a good accounting of some of the other nails in rock's coffin, the forces of the entertainment business who saw gold in them thar hills. Yeah, I know, I know---how foolish, how naive to think that rock could be anything BUT a commodity, as with any other form of popular entertainment. Perhaps so, but naivete is what started rock off in the first place, the idea that boundaries were made to be broken and that not all rebels join the herd in the end. I'm still playing my Dylan albums, though, and if the lustre has worn off the man's image somewhat as time has gone by, it doesn't change the fact that Dylan---and Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen and Joni Mitchell and even Glenn Frey and Don Henley---still made a large body of music that mattered then and matters now. But the old image of rock as "music of the people" or whatever, that's gone the way of all flesh.

If you have ever winced at the rapid co-opting of 60's and early 70's rock music by big business and/or mercenary musicians, if you have ever gritted your teeth at paying $15+ for a CD and then wondered who gets your money, if you ever hoped that there was once something culturally meaningful in the rock scene and wondered what happened, then this book will provide many answers. Two things made this book difficult for me: 1) Goodman lays out details and names names with such frequency I could have used a glossary listing of the major players cynically manipulating the burgeoning cultural shifts of the "summer of love" from radio to underground newspapers to rock venues 2) the machinations of many of the artists and most of their managers illustrate such a sad, greedy side of humanity. Everyone who gets rich--really, really, really rich--does it by successfully, often ruthlessly, exploiting consumer willingness to pay for rock and roll product. The organist of Springsteen's E Street band, Danny Federici, sums up one of their mega-tours this way: "We started out as a band, which turned into a super, giant corporate money-making machine." And that about sums up the last 40 years of rock and roll. My advice: read this book, then seek out all of the really great musicians (and CD labels) out there who haven't been sucked up into mega-marketing campaigns, corporate sponsored tours, and manufacturing soundtracks for multinational companies.

I found Goodman's book eminently readable, and at times difficult to put down...yet, when I took a step back at the end, there was less there than it seemed. One big problem...from reading the Notes, it becomes clear that none of the "main" characters in this book...that is, Geffen, Landau, Springsteen, Dylan, Grossman, or Young, actually spoke to Goodman. Which means that our insights into them are being filtered, not only by Goodman, but by the people Goodman did talk to...many of whom carry some grudges. Yes, it's likely that these grudges are well earned, and believe me, I have no sympathy for Jon Landau or David Geffen, and yes, there is a printed trail that follows them, but the book suffers from the absence of their voices is a problem. In the case of Springsteen, it's less than fair (and I'm not a fan). Goodman also jumps around too much, and leaves several threads dangling...the LA performers all disappear as soon as they split with Geffen. And, he buries one of the most compelling stories in the book...the meteoric rise and fall of Peter Frampton.

The year of Springsteen's commercial peak, 1985, Dylan's quoted by Goodman: "If you want to defeat your enemy, sing his song." (351-2) This narrative history by Goodman does not, as some previous readers appear to have expected, give you in-depth studies of the music or the lives of Springsteen, Dylan, Neil Young, although these three singers share the subtitle with Geffen. It's about the business, not the music itself.

Instead, this study focuses on such men as the managers and handlers who prospered along with their clients: Dylan's Albert Grossman, Springsteen's Jon Landau, Dee Anthony with Peter Frampton and Humble Pie, Irv Azoff vs. Geffen with the Eagles, and of course Geffen himself as the main character throughout, morphing from agent and advisor to owner of a label with Young and the Eagles and CSNY & Joni Mitchell and Nirvana and dozens of other artists. I found many of the blow-by-blow deal making accounts necessary but rather dull. It's difficult, on the other hand, to provide a thorough treatment of the business that makes music without such details. So, some readers may be engrossed by the complex litigation around Mike Appel vs. Springsteen and Landau, or how Grossman played off the industry differently than Geffen. The author shows his talent in charting the rise of the capitalist behemoth that crushed the fragile naivete of the counterculture. "The shark entered the lagoon"-- as Ned Doheny puts it. Geffen comes to L.A. as the 1970s begin, and the business overtakes the music.

The Eagles and then the Boss, in different poses and for different reasons, appear to be the prime motivators here for getting from coffeehouses and bars to arenas and mansions in Malibu or Beverly Hills. Fitting too that first Dylan left for SoCal and later Springsteen, and how this happened while the songwriters attempted to keep their bohemian aura or streetwise cred proves certainly an instructive tale for any rock fan or ambitious musician. The anecdote of how the Grateful Dead backed down from their expletive that they had insisted be an album title--once they found from WB's Joe Smith that it would not be stocked at Sears-- turns into a marvelous fable about the purported hippie self-righteousness vs. their desire to cash in on their attitude against the Man.

In such comparisons between the late-60s folk-rock Boston clubs that spawned Elektra and Asylum Records and the CBS-Warner battles that characterized the mid-80s stadium sellout scene, Goodman indeed displays his strengths. John Sinclair had been always a footnote to me, but his story, and that of Landau and Lennon and the MC5 became a welcome look into the clash of ideals and the marketplace. The role of not only Landau but Dave Marsh and others at Rolling Stone, however, could have been expanded even more at the cutting of some financial detail, for it made me wonder what Goodman, credited on the dust jacket as a "former Rolling Stone editor," might have been holding back from what needed to be more fully told-- perhaps he's saving it for another book?

Also, to my disappointment, a tale not told fully here as also skimped on in later books. (I have also reviewed on Amazon and my blog Michael Walker's "Laurel Canyon" and Barney Hoskyns' "Hotel California" about this same period; the lapse also enters Hoskyns' earlier history of L.A. pop music, "Waiting for the Sun") Goodman should have covered more into the 1970s the ethos, half-cynical, half-affectionate, that Stan Cornyn appears from Goodman's account to have pioneered at WB Records. I still recall the clever marketing ads to get you to buy "Schlagers"!" and other WB-label cheapo compilations on the inner sleeves of that label's releases in the early '70s.

However, Goodman-- whether discussing the savvy of Geffen, the drive of the Eagles, the abandonment of Sinclair, the reasons why Jackson Browne made his management choices or how payola did and did not differ from an Atlantic A&R rep with a few joints for the d.j.'s he visited with new records-- remains scrupulously fair to all involved. He balances damning recollections of those betrayed with other quotes or editorial insights into why the decisions to move from clubs to arenas had to be made, partially to offset the enormous expenses such lesser entities as Humble Pie had generated on tour and in excess.

Goodman's own bias--one understandable and well-supported with much primary evidence-- against those who manipulated the artists or their earlier supporters when times were rough, or his own explanation of why Landau sought to make rock music criticism more serious, plays well into the trajectory he marks of the shift to the mansion on the hill from "But the Man Can't Bust Our Music." His deadpan recital of such infamous Columbia ads in 1968 issues of RS I found hilarious. The move from sincere folkies at the Boston Tea Party to cocaine cowboys at Doug Weston's Troubadour to the pandering of "Born in the U.S.A" may after a few hundred examples turn rather obvious. Still, it's a tale well worth telling. This book should be rewarding reading for those as interested in the "starmaking machinery behind the popular songs" (Mitchell's lyric in "A Free Man in Paris" about Geffen is oddly missing from the narrative) as hearing the songs themselves.

If you like Jon Landau after reading this book, there could be something wrong with you. Not only did he have a hand in producing one of the most egregiously muted rock records of all time (the MC5's Back in the USA), he was a definitive driving force behind the corporate side of music. He's not the only slimey piece of work involved in this book, there are many.
There's no question that Landau made a lot of money for a lot of people (including himself), as did all the 'buisnessmen' in this book, the problem I have is that they cannot be considered music fans. If they are at all, it's a distant second to their love of money. A good book that's worth reading.

Mansion on the Hill purports to tell the story of how rock music became absorbed by the moneymen and in the process lost its meaning, but it succeeds only intermittently. Goodman has done a superb job of gathering anecdotes and facts (especially considering he never spoke to any of the principals) but he hasn't fully shaped them into a coherent thesis, so that this reads more like a collection of interesting stories rather than a seamless whole. But what stories! Peter Frampton's story is one of the most memorable, especially because even at the height of his success he comes off as little more than an innocent bystander to his own downfall. The evisceration of Jon Landau as a relentlessly greedy careerist will startle many Springsteen fans (and lead some to think that Bruce may have simply traded one shark-Mike Appel- for another). Dave Marsh isn't spared either-his shilling of artists that he has some personal or professional stake in undercuts his claim on integrity. (It's kind of sad when David Geffen, of all people, isn't the most venal or opportunistic person in the book.) If Goodman were to construct a more cohesive argument (and prune some unecessary sections) this book would rate 5 stars. As it stands, it's the kind of the book that is best dipped in and out of rather than read from start to finish.

My motivation for purchasing this book was my belief, based on other reviews, that it would present some new unbiased insights into the work of my favorite artist Bruce Springsteen and add some balance to the what I've read over the years from the Dave Marsh and Jon Landau propaganda machine. Although it did provide this, unfortunately (for me), very little of the book was actually devoted to Springsteen and the other artists mentioned in the title. The book is more a history of the record industry, chronicling its rise from its roots in the underground music scene of the mid to late sixties, to it's present form as multi-national conglomerates. It presents the story as a morality tale of a sixties paradise lost and it's consumption by the dark forces of capitalism .

The author while having researched his material very well, brings some biases into his work, typical of his generation. These biases become glaringly obvious when reading the book. One of these is his implication that someone like Springsteen, because he has maintained a consistently high level of commercial success over the years, is a sell-out, and a manufactured creation of his manager. Whereas someone like Neil Young, because he hasn't been ashamed to release some real crap, is an artist of integrity, who won't give in to crass commercialism, by always giving his fans music that they will actually enjoy.

I will agree with the author to some extent, that Jon Landau as manager and producer has had a huge influence on Springsteen. However, by using this to tear down the integrity of the artist himself, he better be prepared to do the same to the Beatles, The Stones and Elvis, all of whom had managers and/or producers that influenced them and pushed their work and careers in directions they would not have gone in, on their own.

If you, like the author, finds the business deals, managers and record company executives more fascinating than the artists themselves, then you'll probably enjoy this book. If however you're like me, and are more interested in the music and the musicians themselves, you'll find yourself skipping over large portions of the book in order to get to the more interesting parts on the MC5, Dylan, Young and Springsteen.

People under 30 might not realize that rock, as an artistic creation, and money, as the all-powerful motivator, were once totally separate things. Goodman's book tells a story of how the music and the money collided and fused together. My favorite part is the story of Springsteen and how he was an artist with conviction until he gave way to releasing contrived hits like "Hungry Heart" and "Dancing in the Dark." As a fan, I could never see Bruce in the same way after that period. And the story behind how it happened is fascinating. My only criticism of the book is that it doesn't seem to be "THE" definitive history of rock and commerce, just handpicked pieces of narrative chosen because they support Goodman's thesis. But it is a worldview that I happen to agree with, so that's probably why I liked the book so much.--Evan Schwart

In the words of Bob Dylan, one of the main artists highlighted in this book, we can see exactly what is meant when he says "money doesn't talk - it swears". This book illustrates graphically how a musical form that began as a rebellious and riotous yawp against numbing conformity and blandness, was co-opted almost entirely by the powers-that-be. From the idealistic beginnings of the 60's folk boom to the frantic money grabbing of the 90's corporate recording industry mergers, we can watch the power and financial stakes growing. Amidst all of the down-and-dirty money deals, Goodman shows us several high-visibility "musical artists"(primarily Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Bruce Springsteen) as they walk the tightrope between integrity and the marketplace. As the book makes perfectly clear, it is nearly impossible for the artist to maintain any kind of purity or innocence when dealing with the juggernaut of big business. Those artists unable to protect their interests or find someone to do it for them, are quickly chewed up and spit out by the music industry in the constant "dog-eat-dog" race to find the next money-maker. Goodman tells several somewhat sordid tales of managers and agents all doing battle to come out on top, often at the expense of the artists they are supposedly representing. I found this book incredibly helpful in understanding what it really took to get any kind of "honest, truthful music" into the marketplace in the last 30 or 40 years. And I feel it is a glowing testament to the artists who managed to actually "say something" with their music, while they danced (like Shiva) on the skulls of financial moguls and corporate robber-barons.