What the egghead of pop taught me
When I was a young man, I had the luxury of working for Brian Eno. Watching a documentary on Roxy Music the other night, I was struck by just how much my approach to pretty much everything bore Brian’s influence.
I went to university in York (England), studying music. Not the greatest career move at a time when the UK was at the bottom of Thatcher’s second major recession. But I didn’t care. It was what I needed to do.
The music dept at York was the perfect set-up for a job with Eno. It was like a weird throwback to the 60s - all early music and 60s experimentalism. Steve Reich, LaMonte Young, Ligeti were the soundtrack to my time there. And Brian Eno and his associates, Harold Budd, John Cale, Gavin Bryers and Jon Hassell. So when, stuck in a dead-end job at the PRS, the chance to run Brian’s publishing company came up, I leapt at it. Within a year I was in managing his management company as well. Sweet.
