I told her that my favorite best-of title was Bo Diddley’s Hippest Sides.
“Soul Coughing’s Hippest Sides!”
There’s a kitschy-beatnik connection people make with Soul Coughing; I’m not crazy about it.
“But it’s a great title,” she said. “Soul Coughing’s Hippest Sides.”
That’s not how I want the songs framed.
I got a FedEx: cover mock-ups for Soul Coughing’s Hippest Sides.
There was also a Polaroid with her face blurred out.
I was dreading her calls. I got migraines.
All record companies are manipulative. The most pressure I’ve ever experienced came from this person at this groovy reissue company.
She always deflected my assertions with but I’m an artist, too.
“Which did you like best?”
These are my songs. I don’t want them contextualized like that.
Long pause. I could hear rage snowballing.
“They’re my songs, too!” she snapped.
I went into a fugue state: trembling.
I said—weakly—that this was really unprofessional.
She gasped, deeply offended.
Professional? But she’s an artist, too.
What I wish I said is: Get the fuck away from my art. If you want to be an artist, make art.
I got a FedEx of a new mock-up. The back cover was a band picture: the bar code had been put over my face.