Tony Visconti moved to tears over industry’s grim future

Melbourne-based music journalist Bianca O’Neill is on-ground at the 30th annual South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival (SXSW)in Austin. In the review below O’Neill details theOpening Keynote Address bylegendary producer Tony Visconti.

At his SXSW keynote this morning in Austin(Thursday 17 March), lauded producer and one-time A&R executiveTony Visconti was moved to such a dramatic display of emotion, that even this jaded industry kid wiped away a tear. Until, that is, some of us wondered if it was all a cunning ploy to sell more covers of his upcoming fictional novel ’The Universe’. But more on that later.

After all, Visconti knew what we were all here for: collecting verbal Bowie memorabilia.

Starting with a short narrativeof his musical childhood, Visconti recounted the influence that his Brooklyn-based Italian parents had on his future in the music industry:“Did you ever wonder where the echo came from?,” he asked the audience, after explaining that he’d listen to their records on repeat.“That’s what got me into music.”

He meandered through a few anecdotes abouthis first job in A&R, then as a house producer, before making his way to London – after Phil Spector turned the job down.“I know I’m rambling on,” he admitted to the audience.“I’ll get to the point where I met David Bowie.”

He did. “One day I was asked to meet someone – David Platt said he wanted my opinion and that I ’seemed to be an expert with the weirder type of artists’.So I listened to it and I liked it… 19-year-old David Bowie was waiting in the next room. We got on great, we started talking about music – we liked theunderground in San Francisco, we loved The Thugz, we loved The Velvet Underground. We were kin, we were brothers.”

“I was a very idealistic, young hippie in those days, and when I heard Space Oddity I revolted. I said ’What a cheap shot this is David – I mean,it’s like writing a commercial’… I didn’t see that this was his breakthrough song, I didn’t see it. I said ’I don’t want to do it, just on principal’… I was really belting him.He went, [dejected] ’oh, ok.’”

The label insisted on Bowie releasing the single, so Viscontipassed the production work onto his desk mate, GusDudgeon. “David comes back to me and goes, ’Well, we got that out of the way, let’s move onto the album.’ I was like, ‘What, you still want to work with me?’ And he said yes. So we went on to make the album.” It was, of course, the history making1969 self-titled album, later renamed Space Oddity.

“I could go on, I’ve worked with the best British talent there is. I’vemade a great album with Morrissey. I made about 14 albums with Bowie. I made his last one, I made Black Star with him. I’ve had a really charmed life – I worked my butt off, it didn’t come easy.”

A few more stories later, with the Bowie monkey off his chest, Visconti took the opportunity to use the SXSW podium to opineon the state of the record industry in 2016.“I have some things I want to say about the music industry. I think there’s a downward spiral happening at the moment, where singles all sound the same. Sales aren’t that great, people are streaming – and if you get 20 million streams you make about enough for a nice steak dinner.”

“Consider me the ghost of Christmas future. I wrote a book a couple of years ago…What I really want to say was that I lived in the best of times. I would get butterflies in my stomach when I brought home an album.”

At this point, Visconti delved into a 20-minute reading of an excerpt of that book, set in the future, about a music executive who discovers breathtaking,raw musical talent in desolate tunnels ofthe subway. After being denied the ability to sign the new artist, he falls into a state of depression– he is, after all, only a smallplayer in a global record company called ’The Universe’ who only signs packaged pop stars to single song deals based on a lottery draw. Read into that what you will…

Visconti ended his narrative with the A&R executive, drugged up, disillusioned, andmoved by the uselessness of it all, ending his life. It was at this point that Visconti dramatically broke down, wiping away tears as he battled through the final lines, and threw his papers down onto the podium in a show of passion. “It could go this way. All the signs are there,” he told the audience. “You don’t have to be a psychic to be a prophet.”

It was, fittingly, a ‘drop mic’ moment – and, hopefully, his grim, fictional future of the music industry isn’t. Only time will tell.