MANY WORLDS (Novenber 2000)

In my CD player
"Joy of Molybdenum" Trey Gunn
Yes Bootleg (given to me by a listener)
"OK Computer" Radiohead
"Kind of Blue" (Remastered) Miles Davis

Reading
"Satan: His Psychotherapy and Cure by the Unfortunate Dr. Kessler" "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" Salman Rushdie
WIRED Magazine

Latest Thoughts
These last two years have been truly trying. My relationship of 13 years ended, I started a new one, I moved twice and my record label morphed into 4 different labels and then dropped me, but not before screwing with my head and causing some real damage.

Let me tell you a little about the Samson Music thing...

Samson Music signed a band called "Jango". Around the same time, their Soundtrack label procured the "Blair Witch Project" soundtrack. They both had been achieving a certain amount of success. Enough so, that Samson's focus was thrown into pushing them hard and heavy.....maybe a little at the expense of Douglas September and myself. Although to be honest, there never was any concerted effort on my behalf because no one really knew WHAT to do for me at any given moment. There were some attempts at brain-storming and a few actual steps in a direction, but things would always fail and fizzle. I lost any hope of having a real tour for "Many Worlds" or a good publicist. I figured so much time was passing, it probably would be better to start the next album.

Then Samson hired a new person. This person was to be the head of marketing and they were very excited about it. She was young and motivated as all hell and exactly what Samson thought they needed. I met her in '99? (it's tough to remember). I liked her. She seemed very appalled at the lack of focus applied to my career. She seemed to be on my side.

After time, it became more and more clear that the man who signed me would no longer be in charge of any of the record label issues. He was slowly becoming the head buyer and president of all of Gold Circle's enterprises. That's the parent company. It was time for him to appoint a new "head" of the label. Samson turned into a "smooth Jazz" label. Then the man who ran the soundtrack label was appointed the head of the new rock label (the name of which I still don't know).

During this time of change, I was in direct contact with this new marketing expert. After claiming to have attended one of my live shows, she made it very clear to me that my songwriting was substandard and stale. What she ACTUALLY said was ".....in ten years-worth of albums, I could hear NO growth whatsoever". Now, I wasn't crushed by this. I found it morbidly refreshing. I wanted to believe at the time, that I could be open to criticism and grow from it. So I pressed her for specifics. Having claimed to be a songwriter as well, I figured she could tell me where my faults were. She couldn't. She kept promising to make a list and email it to me, but it never happened. Soon thereafter, she relinquished her position as head of marketing and did Internet work for them on a freelance basis. My contact with her was done. So....now there's no head of marketing again? What about my career? What the **** do I do now? What the **** do I do with the "helpful" info she gave me concerning my mediocrity? I was desperate to know why I wasn't good enough by myself.......in the long run, this did me in. It made me impotent for quite some time.

The new head of their rock label happened to be good friends with that woman and they saw eye to eye on Happy Rhodes........."talented girl, but not really top-10 material....she should have someone write FOR her". Fine. I wasn't open to anyone writing FOR me, but I was open to the idea of co-writing. Rock-boy liked that idea. So he began to seek out writers with whom he felt I would be well matched. He sent me a few artists who I moderately liked. Then for whatever reason, they couldn't be procured. End of effort. Once again, an entire stream of thought was dropped like an anvil on Wile E. Coyote's head.

All the while, I had been trying new things with my songwriting. Trying to get edgier, sometimes even straighter and simpler.....trying different vocal styles and such. But the new president just didn't like any of it. Well, I wasn't daunted. I firmly believed that I could come up with something that both he AND I liked. I never got the chance.

While I was visiting relatives down South, I got a message on my voice mail. It was HIM. He said in a gruff, brief way....."Happy?........yeah...listen...it's *****. Give me a call as soon as you hear this..BEEP" Being a responsible idiot, I got on my cell phone and called immediately. That was it - the death call. Happy Rhodes is no longer on Samson Music. You just don't fit in any more and we don't know how to make that happen. Sorry and best wishes.

I wasn't shocked but I was IN shock. I think I honestly believed that they would always keep trying to help me find my path.

In the end, the same man who signed me, saved me. He made sure that I was treated very well indeed. We both agreed that the split would be the best thing for me. But I was incredibly damaged during that time. Samson dropping me wasn't nearly as harmful as the critique of my abilites. I so wanted to be open to whatever might help my career.....but I wasn't prepared for that answer to be "don't write your own songs anymore". It's all I know. I mean, the only reason I ever started writing was because it gave me a world in which I could survive. The outside world was painful and dangerous. And the killer is that I NEVER wanted to do anything unless I could do it really WELL. Now someone was telling me that I was not accomplishing that. It made me question whether I should be doing music at all. Through this time I thought very seriously about packing it in and starting a different career.

I may be starting to heal now. But it opened such an array of psychological issues for me that I will never be the same. And I suppose that is what growth is really about. I will keep doing music for now. It still moves me. I don't really know why sometimes, but it does. And though I may not do it as well as others, I still do IT better than I do waiting tables.