Rock band novel goes `Nowhere'

The music business is a gritty and commercial place to work.

That would be the somewhat skewed message perceived from Jon Baird's "Songs From Nowhere Near the Heart," a novel that takes a satirical look at two bands touring together.

Baird, who also wrote "Day Job" and is a member of the band Seventeen - the name of one of the fictional bands in "Nowhere" - gives the reader a twisted peek into the music industry and how bands really "make it."

Baird constructs an interesting, but semibelievable, scenario where managers and band members seek to destroy each other through a series of manipulative ploys, but at the end all that matters is commercial self-interest, which can be achieved by any means.

The story begins when the first band, Seventeen, start a managerial pre-planned riot while performing in Providence and thus losing "musical" member Neil Ramsthaller, who theatrically quits the band, but is promptly offered a big contract from another band, managed by Annika Guttkuhn.

Guttkuhn is the protÇgÇ of Seventeen's manager, Deedee. The front man for Seventeen, Don, is more than a bit mentally unstable and helps construct an elaborately sick plan with Guttkuhn to manipulate Neil's band, Limna, into a grotesque stardom.

Don only decides to do this after Neil comes to him elated at being given the contract that Seventeen had been working for, while Guttkuhn only wants Limna to succeed so she can insert her own nefarious plans.

The two bands end up touring together - an unlikely scenario - and the progression of Limna's insane cult following and complete commercial thrill seeking comes to a head at their last, and largest, stop in Florida.

Baird makes it pretty clear throughout the book that it's the managers running the show and manipulating everything from the press to online message boards. It's a dirty, underhanded way of doing things that should only come as a surprise to the most naãve test subjects.

The members of the bands just roll along through, with Seventeen just hoping to break even and get a contract from a larger label, while Limna hopes to be the biggest thing since Marilyn Manson.

Stylistically, Baird is confusing with his different narrative chapters, switching first person accounts from Guttkuhn to Don to Ross, Don's brother and bassist for Seventeen, to random industry people and bouncers at clubs. It's effective in places, but not so much in others.

Baird's characters, however, range from completely normal to complete nutcases - Neil and Guttkuhn being the looniest. Even Marilyn Manson has a method to his madness, but Neil just leaves the reader bewildered that anyone could be so gullible and idiotic.

Although the entire book climbs toward the peak in Florida, Baird's ending is such a sad anticlimax that it was almost frustrating to have to read all 300 pages just to know what was pretty much obvious from the beginning - the music business is just as manipulative and corrupt as any other corporate industry.

Another annoying aspect of the novel was that it seemed to be just additional promotion for the real band, Seventeen. In fact, a promotional demo of Seventeen's Bikini Pie Fight is attached to the back cover.

The book, however, wasn't a complete loss. It was very entertaining in many aspects, but it fell too short to make a true satirical statement.