Another raise of the eyebrows by Larry. “I believe that somebody over at National is overthinking things a bit.”
“Perhaps,” Mick allowed, “but they are very insistent upon these suggestions.”
He gave a little shake of the head and an eye roll. “I’ll make it happen. Is there anything else?”
“There is,” Mick said. “There is to be no mention that Kingsley and Valdez have gone independent. Most of the listeners won’t even know what that means anyway, but for those that do, just let them go on thinking that a major label is behind the albums until they buy the CD and see the KVA logo.”
“What is the point of that?” Larry asked.
“National does not want Kingsley and Valdez to be associated with each other. They want the general public to assume that these two albums have absolutely nothing to do with each other.”
“What about when people buy the CDs and see the KVA label on both? Surely, if National thinks these things are going to appeal to a broad spectrum of the demographic, there will be people who buy both, right? Won’t that clue them in?”
“Not your average music consumer,” Larry said. “If anyone notices the KVA label at all, they’ll just assume it’s another record company out of LA. They’ll have no way of knowing that Valdez and Kingsley are the only two artists on the label.”
“I suppose,” Larry said.
“Your jocks, however, might notice something like that. That’s fine and dandy as long as they keep those speculations and suppositions off the air. No mention of KVA Records on air. No pondering of the relationship between Kingsley and Valdez.”
“Just what is that relationship anyway?” Larry had to ask. “Are they boning each other?”
“Undoubtedly,” Mick said, “but that stays privileged information. National would be very upset if one of your jocks started spouting off about it.”
“I will see to it that they are instructed to avoid any on-air speculations,” Larry promised. “What are you going to do about the independent stations though? My word doesn’t cut any shit with them.”
“Don’t worry about the indies,” Mick said. “You will not be held in any way accountable for what they do or say or play. Not under your control.”
Larry nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. “Is there anything else?”
“Not at this time,” Mick told him. “Once the initial promos start to chart, however, I’ll have more suggestions about what to release next and how to promote it.”
“I can’t wait to hear them,” Larry said, hardly even bothering to sound sincere.
Larry Justice did not listen to either CD. He did not actually care what they sounded like. It was not his job to care about that. Instead, he dictated a memo to his secretary that laid out the specific instructions on the suggestion form, adding a little language that made it very clear that the instructions were to be followed exactly (particularly those dealing with the speculation about KVA Records and the Kingsley-Valdez connection). This memorandum was then faxed to every CRCC station that would be playing either or both of the soon-to-be-released cuts.
The faxes, which were each addressed by name to the program directors of the stations in question and marked CONFIDENTIAL in bold lettering, went out before the close of business that day. In most cases, they were sitting in the program director’s inbox the next morning. The program directors read the memo and then compiled memos of their own that would be sent to their DJs. As of yet, however, none of the stations even had a copy of either CD. This was deliberate. The promotion instructions had to be received, understood, and acknowledged before anyone had actual access to the music.
Twenty-four hours later, the CDs began to arrive. They came in boxes shipped from National Records’ manufacturing facility in Indianapolis, Indiana, stuffed in among more than two dozen other new release CDs from other artists old and new, corporate and independent, who had music that would be released on Tuesday, July 14, 1992. In most cases the program directors had already received their promotional instructions on how/when/what to play from each one. This was a routine aspect of the business of radio in the United States.
The program director at KPID in Los Angeles was Ron Jenkins, a fifty year old UCLA alumni with a master’s degree in communications with a minor in business. Ron had been in the radio biz for more than thirty years, starting out spinning vinyl on the night shift at the UCLA station and working his way steadily up the ladder. He had enjoyed his life a lot more when he had actually been the power behind what KPID played on the air—back before CRCC had come to town and acquired the station (as the term went) from the independent owners in 1987—but he made a lot more money these days being a corporate lackey. Though he found the instructions regarding the Jake Kingsley and Celia Valdez releases to be a bit overbearing and odd, he nevertheless composed his memos and even had a mandatory meeting with all of his DJs to make sure they all understood the instructions regarding these particular releases. Once he was satisfied that they did, he made note of the length of play of each tune and then got together with his staff to start working on plugging the airplay times and frequency into the schedule. Ron Jenkins did not listen to the CDs either. Being involved in the business of music had long since destroyed his ability to enjoy simply listening to it.
The actual first employee of CRCC in the southern California market to hear anything on either CD was Frank Terrell, aka Freaky Frankie, the flamboyant KPID DJ who played music for the LA basin during the six to ten morning commute slot. At 5:30 AM on Monday, July 6th, the first commute day after the holiday weekend, he was in his booth going over the day’s playlist and organizing the CDs he would need preparatory to starting his show. He saw that both Struggle and Easy were to be played several times during his shift, always at the end of a set, just before the commercial breaks. Having been at the meeting last Friday, he knew it would be his responsibility to announce the artist name before cutting away to those commercials. He was quite aware that this was all shameless promotion for a record company’s releases, promotion that National Records had bought and paid for, but he was unoffended by this. He had been in radio long enough to know the realities.
Curious, he grabbed the Celia Valdez CD from the hopper before him and took a look at it. He gave an appreciative nod as he saw the side profile of Valdez on the cover. Nice fucking tits, he thought, licking his lips a little. I wonder if she’s going to show up here for some promo at some point? That was certainly not outside the realm of possibility. Maybe I could accidentally cop a feel of one of those hogans if she stops by? Definitely something to think about. He could ask her to pose for a picture with him, put his arm around her for the shot, and maybe his hand could just creep around a bit onto the side boob. The plan had some merits.
He pondered the idea of groping Celia Valdez for a few more minutes and then decided to see what all the fuss was about. He popped open the CD case and put the disc into the number two of his three CD slots. He put his headphones on and heard the sound of Linda Fong, the late night DJ who was sitting in the next booth over, getting ready to start her final set, announcing that the next song would be Friday I’m in Love, the first of eighteen spins it would receive on KPID today. With a quick flip of a switch, the headphones went silent, cutting off The Cure before they could even get started. He looked at the back of the CD case and saw that The Struggle was the first cut. He took one quick look to make sure his output switch was set to headphones only instead of transmit, and then started it playing.