As far as I'm concerned, Squatch & Friends is the greatest fluke in the history of music. And I should know: I'm their manager. Oh, I'm not complaining, I'm really glad to have them as clients. I mean, who wouldn't be? -- it's a great money-making band with some very strong songs in their repertoire, maybe the hottest thing going on since The Beatles, and those kids have wonderfully appealing personalities. I mean, the lead singer is a multi-talented Bigfoot for godssake, all four of those girls are so beautiful they could sell anything, even the Indian guy has become an icon to his race! That band is a gift from the gods! But honest truth? They're just amateurs who got a lucky break. Me too, I'd never been in charge of a monster success like S&F, it's a runaway train! It's both amazing and scary, and I'm finding myself in competition against some very unethical and ruthless sharks who want to gobble them up--and me--and run away with all the profits, instead of allowing it to finance the Nokhon Nation. I mean, think how many new bands of young people are out there, trying to get started, trying to make a name--or hell, make a living. Many of them are quite talented: they develop a good sound, they play lots of gigs, they get some fans. Then they might spend years doing tours to make a name, or self-produce two or three albums of music that never quite hit the top charts. How many bands can do what S&F have done so effortlessly? One live concert as a warm-up band to Chrome Pie, recorded by accident, and it goes all the way to the Tops of the Pops worldwide. The girls become movie stars, the Bigfoot becomes an ambassador for the Nokhon Nation, they're on MTV, they're on YouTube, Facebook, everywhere all at once. There's talk of a movie--several documentaries. Action figures. All from one "lucky" concert. Okay, they really delivered; it was a "magical" concert. The kids tell me it's Bigfoot Magic; that a Nokhon Shaman turned them on. I believe them. But it seems their mojo brujo has taken off to the Himalayas on some kind of mission, so he's out of the mix for now. Now it's going on half a year since the Live Concert album and there's no new album yet. Come ON, you guys, we need to strike while the iron is HOT! The market is so ripe for their next one, the world is waiting. I'M waiting. Of course, a next album could be a fiasco--that definitely happens sometimes. You can't count of being as lucky as they were the first time, there were just so many things that coincided, stars lined up, magic mojo going on, fate, destiny, miracles and whatnot. Adam says he doesn't have any new songs ready for recording. I suggested doing some covers, but they don't want to do that. Or rather, Adam's VISION doesn't allow for that. Same with hiring a song writer, they want it all to be their OWN magic, like last time, songs falling on them like manna from heaven. But they spend too much time working on that Nokhon Nation to do any new music. I'd write some songs myself, but discovered that I can't. What if Adam can't do it again? Shit! The thing is, when we started out I got them the gig because I thought the Singing Sasquatch thing was a great gimmick-- and they did sound good. I'm sure there were other managers who would have been interested in them, but I had a connection because I knew Adam's dad, Arthur Forest, from our days at Western Washington State College in Bellingham. They had no manager. Of course, nobody could have expected them to go viral like that. I had about four and a half other hobby bands I was trying to promote, all small-time non-professional, each one worse than the next. I never made any money, although I was hoping there would be. I guess my being a band manager was mostly a hobby. In those days it was just me doing the managing; making phone calls, arranging transportation. Sometimes my wife Marsha would help out, if she believed in the band, which she did sometimes. My twin pre-teen daughters liked to pass the hat, stuff like that (they were becoming interested in boys, some of the musicians were not much older than themselves). They thought it was cool when I started negotiating with Adam and his band, him being already so famous and all. Now, a few months later, I have a staff of thirty and it's not enough. There are ten girls just answering telephones, but of course, I have to personally discuss all the various offers and deals coming in before I can relay them to Adam or the girls. And it's not just music any more: there are various books being suggested, a constant stream of bigfoot movie treatments, personal appearances requested, and way too many concerts begging to be booked-- the entire media gambit all at once and all the time. But my main interest has always been the music. Besides which, most of the stuff we have to process or read or listen to the pitch for is not serious-- in other words, there's not necessarily any money in it. And a staff of 30 people is expensive-- not to mention the 56% of all profits going into the Nokhon Nation project-- so we need to generate some revenue or we'll eventually have to start laying people off. But we'll need all those people when the next album pops up. If one ever does. So, memo to the gods of music: kindly dispatch us an even more successful new album, thank you.
Okay, it's not a new album, but it's still progress. The Rose Bowl Concert is going to happen. Scheduled for Sunday the 12th of October. The band has declined so many offers that I was afraid they'd get a bad name in the music business, but this will be pretty big. So much bigger than the Seattle concert that I hope the kids don't freak out and get cold feet. The Rose Bowl is a big arena for big extravaganzas and they're only 4 kids with acoustic instruments. Still, they've become so famous that everybody wants to see them live, and the audience already knows what they're going to get, so it might just fly. But it would be nice if they could develop some new material-- even just one new song that could go Number One Top of the Pops for a while, that would refresh their popularity until the next album shows up. I'm greedy, I know. Not for me, for them: I want them to succeed like nobody ever before-- and they're sort of halfway there. The planned music videos will help, of course, although they'll be arriving a little late in the game-- maybe half a year after their big breakthrough. Then again, if the videos are any good the images will sell: sexy Sasquatches, our movie-starlets. Studio time with both Wassabi and Argent are confirmed for after the Rose Bowl, while the whole band will be in LA anyway. Ideally, the band should go on a road tour from there-- Las Vegas, Kansas City, Houston, the East Coast, but they're talking about taking a month off instead. Okay, sure, they've been busy with the NNP, but the band is the bread and butter of all this. They need to buckle down for a while, not go on vacation. Some of them are talking about a month in Mexico. Although I've just received an interesting invitation from the Program Manager of the National Auditorium in Mexico City...
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