I'm in Austin, Texas, for South by Southwest 2002. I'm posting this from my Wi-Fi'd laptop from a corner booth in LoveJoy's Tap Room (On Naches right above Sixth). See, I just bumped into an old friend of mine and I wanted to tell you about it.
I was making notes on the daily showcase grid in the Austin Chronicle for a battle plan for this evening. I knew I wanted to see Victim's Family at Room 710 later on, but, before that I thought I'd hang out here. And then, I stopped dead.
Over my glass I recognized Clivus Multrum playing pool. I hadn't seen him since SXSW 2000. He lost his game of nineball. Clivus caught my eye as he vigorously shook the hand of the woman who just beat him at pool. He immediately rushed over to me. Clivus is a sociopath.
"Dude! I Hacked your blog!" Clivus said, mocking me as he slid into the booth.
"Jesus. That's how you say hello after two years?" If you knew Clivus, you wouldn't be surprised.
Like any old pals, we briefed each other on our physical, financial, and social situations. Neither of us were matinee idols. Clivus was richer than Midas, Milken, and Ken Lay combined. Yet the fact that Clivus was crazy gave me the edge in the social skills department. We were even, but who's counting, right?
"So what are you working on these days," I asked the former psychotic production intern/bass player turned eccentric powermonger millionaire.
"Oh, I'm back in the music business now, pal. The company's called Clivus Multrum Records. Making a fortune. Well, I'm making another one, that is!"
I'm reminded that his eyes get all glittery when he talks about himself. And that he frightens me.
"Great name. Are any of your artists showcasing here at South by Southwest?"
"No, there are no artists."
"Not even you?"
"Nope."
"Well did you bring any CDs?"
"Nope. There aren't any CDs. Anymore." He smiled at me. I shivered.
"Clivus. Please tell me what you're talking about."
"Nope. It's a secret. I signed one of them NRA things, you know, that said I couldn't talk about it. Especially with pinko blabbermouth reporters! Haw haw!"
"Uh huh. How about a drink?"
Back in SXSW 2000 Clivus and I had parted ways because we disagreed about which clubs to go to one night. I had wanted to go to Antones to see Los Lobos; Clivus had wanted to go to thirty-two clubs in a special sequence so that his GPS receiver would draw a giant, city-sized "W" in honor of George W. Bush.
After a several drinks I asked, "No, really, tell me about this new company. I've heard em all at this point. What is it? Enhanced multimedia distributed networking? GNU Public License cassingles? God, please don't say 'it has something to do with Web Services...' I can't hear that crap again," I muttered.
"Hell no," He said. "None o' that horse feathers. We make records."
"You don't mean..."
"Yep...long playing vinyl record albums. I got the idea from MusicNet and PressPlay. You know? How they suck?"
Clivus then proceeded to tell me how he'd made his most recent gigantic fortune: as soon as he saw the major label's idea of music sharing, he went to each member of the WEBUS cartel, that's his name for the five major labels, Warner/AOL, EMI, Bertelsmann, Universal, and Sony. He quietly bought their LP manufacturing facilities. All of them. Then he turned around and made his pitch right back to them.
"I said, 'I love you sons o' bitches, but you know less about musical enjoyment than Dick Nixon's frozen head!' Then I told 'em how their MusicNet/PressPlay fiasco had taught 200 million teeny boppers why they should never, ever spend one plumb nickel of their plentiful disposable income on a CD ever again in their lives. Then I brought up MTV..."
"Oh good god," I said. I noticed that my eyes started to hurt looking at Clivus' smile.
"Towards the end there I showed them the numbers from my extensive research. Actually, it was just C|Net's download page, but they didn't know about it. You know the one that shows how Morpheus and Kazaa are being downloaded by 11 million people every week now? And I had a deal! They're just gonna switch us all back. They switched us to CDs in what? A year? They can throw that humongous danged marketing contraption o' theirs in reverse, and voila! as the Frenchmen say! No more CDs! Hell, the stores still have the bins."
"No way, Clivus, don't say that. Not even as a joke," I said. "I mean, people won't stand for it. The news media..." I was stuttering.
"Those are the same people who think market analysts are journalists, right?"
He finished his whiskey.
"Remember that ol' panel we went to in 2000? Where those artsy fartsy electronica fellas were bragging about releasing only analog stuff? Like music boxes and picture disks and crap? Well, they gave me the idea. You can't rip a normal sounding CD off of vinyl worth a squirrel's turd. And if you don't think you'll buy what my boys want you to buy. Well, then...But really, don't tell nobody. I like the cut of your jib, son, and I'd hate to see you get, you know, in trouble. Thanks for the drinks!"
And with that he got up. He was about to leave, and then he leaned in close to me.
"No offense, but folks don't take what you say very seriously. Have a good time watching all them bands!"
So that's what happened when I bumped into Clivus Multrum at SXSW 02. Have a good time everybody.
