Chicago
PERKS
“You get to be waist deep in creating your own record collection. I’ve been a music geek since I was 15, and what better way to live that? I set my own hours. If I have a bit of an ‘Irish flu’ one morning, I can come in later. It’s casual Monday through Friday. It’s allowed me to delay an adult lifestyle and shirk any real responsibility.”
PAINS
“The sad irony is that I listen to music less than at any
time in my life since I was 15. All day I’m staring at
spreadsheets, putting together ad plans, or a thousand
other things that are tangential to the actual music.
I work six days a week. A lot of the artists stay at my
house. One time an artist didn’t know the pilot light
was out in my stove and put a frozen pizza in, turned
the gas on, and took a nap. I came home, and if I’d had
birds, they would’ve been dead. You’re living it, and
that’s a good way to end up institutionalized.”
PAY
Miami
PERKS
“You get to enjoy a life that the normal person wouldn’t
be able to afford, at no cost and no expense to you. I
fly first-class and stay in five-star hotels every where in
the world. The gratification of the job is: I make people
do right. Just like the police, I’m not going to allow
a bad person to treat someone bad who shouldn’t be
treated bad. I carry a gun and a knife, but I don’t need
a weapon to take someone down.”
PAINS
“The public perception and the actual job are two dif-
ferent things. It’s not a party for me when I’m working.
Anyone can be a threat. You don’t eat with your client,
because the most vulnerable time is when your client
is eating or sleeping. You don’t really have a personal
life. If your client wants to stay out 20 hours a day, then
you do, too. It’s also about protecting my reputation.
Nobody’s going to hurt you or kill you on my watch,
but if they do, that means I don’t work any where else.”
PAY
Northeast
PERKS
“You get to go to a lot of shows free and go backstage
and meet the bands. We’re not movie stars, TV stars,
or even as famous as local newscasters, but there are
occasions where we’re recognized when we’re out
in public, and it’s a nice ego boost. And we all wear
free T-shirts. Go to any radio station any day of the
week, and I guarantee the guy on the air is wearing
something that’s free.”
PAINS
“We have a playlist, and we have to stick to it for
business’ sake. The songs we’re scheduling are proven
winners. It’s very tempting for some DJs to play some-
thing deep off an album they loved from 1990, but the
chances that the masses like that song are pretty slim.”
PAY
Los Angeles
PERKS
“It’s exciting to know I can move 20 people through
airports around the world. I advance the tech stuff,
deal with the travel agent, book the hotels. When I’m on
tour reading my son’s blog, I think, ‘Fuck, I always miss
everything.’ But when I’m home, I start to get antsy. I’ll
get an e-mail that says, ‘Hey, we’re about to go out, and
the dates are Singapore, Taiwan, Moscow, and Istanbul.’
My friends have been to maybe one of those places.”
PAINS
“We fly in the day before the show, get in at three in the
afternoon, and the next day plan the show all day. We
finish at 9:3 0 that night and leave at 10 A. M. the next day
to go do the same thing. So you never see the places, and
that can be frustrating. One of the biggest annoyances is
getting bands to do interviews. I’ll say, ‘ You guys want
to do some phoners tomorrow?’ They’ll grumble. And
then they don’t answer their phones or they forget.”
New York City
PERKS
“Free music. Free shows. During CMJ, the marketing
companies will throw those ‘ Thank you, bloggers!’
parties with open bars. What I like about my blog is that
it’s like having my guts spewed out there every where.
The first time a major label issued a press release with a
pull quote from my blog? That was weird. But I thought,
‘Okay, there are people listening. It’s not just my mom.’”
PAINS
“It’s over whelming. It’s here and now, and time is of the
essence. I’ll see Brooklyn Vegan at a show and just know
he’s going to post something around 10: 30 A.M. So I’ll go
home, upload some things, and try to post on my blog
by 11: 30 that night. At a festival, it can get exhausting.
I’ve had to program my body to deal with it. And the
comments on my blog take some getting used to. The
first really nasty one I got was from some kid in the
U. K., and he didn’t even spell ‘music’ right.”
New Jersey
PERKS
“I’ve been exposed to the whole world of music lovers
and have met many interesting people both online
and off. The ability to listen to and sample all types of
music, at any volume I choose, while I work. Turning
the ‘going green’ lip service of the record companies into
practical action by occasionally recycling their promo-
tional discs and thus keeping them from landfills.”
PAINS
“Dealing with the greed and arbitrary policy decisions
of powerful sites, eBay in particular. Daily witnessing
of the absolute garbage the modern music industry
has bestowed on the public. The physical gathering
of the product and the listing and order-fulfillment
processes can be both physically draining and tedious.
It’s a 24/7 type of job, and some customers actually seem to think I live in my computer.”
References:
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