AUSTIN, Tx. (Top40 Charts) - Arguably,
Courtney Love's Q&A panel with
Los Angeles Times' Chuck Phillips was one of the best performances at this year's South by Southwest
Music Festival in Austin, Texas.
Love - musician, actor, artist activist, and mother ? - entertained the standing room only crowd at the Austin Convention Center on Saturday (March 16) with her usual sharp wit, disheveled look (replete with cigarette in hand in the non-smoking building), and now-famous rambling, yet utterly fascinating, music industry war stories.
Her main goal of the day was to detail her elaborate lawsuit against the Universal Music Group and help people see what is wrong with the business. So, what is wrong with it? -- the lack of a seven-year statute, questionable accounting, lack of healthcare, no pensions, legal conflicts of interest, and all of the problems caused by the consolidation of the industry.
Comparing herself to actress Olivia de Havilland (who sued and won a landmark lawsuit against the film industry in 1945), she stressed the need for an artists union, claiming that big name artists such as Bono (whom she called a "manipulative lovely Irishman," more manipulative than herself, she added), Bruce Springsteen, and Elton John have all sworn their future support.
Speaking of support, Love stated that one of her biggest regrets was not joining Pearl Jam's fight against Ticketmaster. Love said, "I was in no condition to help at that point. I'm sitting there with a needle in my arm and I noticed this. And I saw those guys in front of Congress being made fools of. And they were right about Ticketmaster."
She also told a story about how Universal/Interscope executives didn't want to spend the money necessary to market U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind. Love explained, "They didn't want to spend more than 70 cents a record. The U2 record was going to cost two to three dollars to market; every upper level artist is going to cost that. The band's manager went into the office and got a president into a headlock ... maybe someone was dipped out the window. I don't know what happened, but that day something changed. It takes money to make money if you're a mid-to-high level career artist or a baby band. End of story. If it weren't for this guy sticking up for his band, All That You Can't Leave Behind could've been a flop."
She even addressed her own credibility as an artist rights spokesperson. "One lawyer said, 'I could win this case if I had a more sympathetic artist.' Hey guess what? I can talk about sex and drugs. I can talk about the time I fucked a girl. I can talk about injectables. You can't do that with LeAnn Rimes, so I am the sympathetic artist! I can say whatever the hell I want because [she leans into the audience] don't tell anyone in America, but I used to have a drug problem."
In addition to the serious aspects of the lawsuit, Love leveled several sensational accusations at label execs behaving badly. Much of what came out of her mouth had the deliciously trashy quality of good tabloid headlines (That exec wears a toupee! I saw him do an eight ball! That was a prostitute I went to high school with!).
While Love did succeed in spelling out what is wrong with the business, she often forgot the alphabet on the way. Veering off the path of any cohesive thought pattern, she routinely sidetracked herself with various celebrity anecdotes and minor history lessons. Phillips had to constantly rein her in to get her back on topic. Numerous times she began to discuss the Dixie Chicks lawsuit against Sony over bogus accounting practices, and then lost the thread completely.
By the end of the interview, Love did share some news about her upcoming album. She is working with Linda Perry of 4 Non Blondes fame, who has also recently worked with Pink and Christina Aguilera. But don't expect any TRL-ready pop from Love. She claims that her new material is reminiscent of '60s garage rock and she's ready to give the current crop of bands riding that revival a run for their money.
"I'll put those little Strokes in their place," she added.
