Dan Kennedy reads Rock On at Quimby’s!

Friday, February 15th, 7:00 PM
FREE

McSweeney’s contributor Dan Kennedy will read from his book, Rock On: An Office Power Ballad — an absurd, funny, and outrageous take on his stint as Creative Marketing Director at Atlantic Records.

How do you land a sweet six-figure marketing gig at the hallowed record label known for launching acts like Led Zeppelin and Stone Temple Pilots? Wait, before you answer, we’ll also throw in a plush office, a hip assistant, an expense account, and free Starbucks coffee. For all of this you have to have a rock-and-roll resume like Dan Kennedy’s.

*Dressed up as a member of Kiss every Halloween
*Memorized Led Zeppelin IV by the age of ten
*Fronted a lip-synch band in junior high
*Played drums in an almost all-girl band
*Was employed as a college DJ as a college drop-out
*Worked at a record store

So when he’s hired by a major label Dan Kennedy thinks he has landed a pass to the secret kingdom of rock and roll. The problem is, he’s basically walked into an episode of The Office. Whether he’s creating an ad campaign celebrating 25 years of love songs by Phil Collins or trying to grasp the rationale behind cross-promoting a ladies’ razor with Jewel’s new single about not selling out, Kennedy’s in way over his head. And from the looks of those sitting around the boardroom, he’s not alone.

Cameos by aging pop stars, dinosaur music-biz kingpins, hip-hop thugs, Iggy Pop, and others amp up a hilarious power ballad to rock and roll, office life, and all the working stiffs who’ve done their damndest to hide from human resources when the ax falls.

A regular contributor to McSweeney’s and host of the popular Moth StorySLAM in New York, DAN KENNEDY is the author of the widely acclaimed Loser Goes First. His work has appeared in GQ; Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney’s Humor Category; Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney’s Book of Lists; and other publications.

“Dan Kennedy’s book is a delightful and delirious evocation of the love/hate relationship virtually my whole generation (and several before and after, come to think of it) have had with the music industry basically our whole lives. The difference is that the rest of us may have dreamed it, but Kennedy actually lived it out, in the ugliest trenches of the never-ending battle between commerce and rock and roll, and lived to tell the tale. The results aren’t pretty, but luckily for him, and us, they are hilarious.”
– Todd Hanson, Headwriter of the The Onion