Comics with Joel the naive A&R guy | Bassist Wanted

Tell me what I want to hear

JOEL: The song is fresh; it's hip. But it still has those great Malady hooks.
BART: You know what I want to hear, Joel. Tell me.

JOEL: And Kevin's lyrics are really solid. He's coming from a real emotional place now. People will feel this one.
BART: Joel... come on, Joel. Tell me what I want to hear.

JOEL: (sigh) And yes, there will be titties in the video....
BART: JACKPOT!

Notes from the label

BART: I don't know what it means, Joel, because it's a word I just made up, but I'll be damned if this label puts out music with that level of splumpf on it!! So fix it!!

JOEL: I... (sigh) yeah, yes, sure. It's... it's fixed.
BART: Good.

JOEL: A-and that's... "s-p-l-..."?
BART: I don't know how to spell it, Joel!!!

Album leakage

BART: The album leaked!? Who leaked it!? Sue 'em, Joel! Squeeze 'em 'til it hurts!
JOEL: Once the files are out there, sir, it's nearly impossible to tell who leaked them.

BART: Then who's downloading it? Sue them! Drain the bastards dry!!
JOEL: Eh, with these newer P2P file sharing networks... that's pretty hard to track.

BART: Well, God damn it, Joel....

BART: Can we just sue the Internet in general then?
JOEL: Legal's looking into it, sir....

Contract fine print

JANOS: Wait, Joel, this contract says we have to change the name of the band.
JOEL: Yes, but you get to choose the name from the list on pg. 13, I fought for that....

DUSTIN: And we lose all rights to all our songs and recordings!
JOEL: You're better off. Believe me. Free from the shackles of "rights"!

JANOS: Wait, we get zero royalties?!
JOEL: Well... yes, but you're missing the big picture....

RAVI: It says I have to: "Stop being Indian."
JOEL: Yes, the label is giving Ravi the opportunity to explore other cultures....

Big fan at a record label

JOEL: Hi, this is Joel Dever with Hancock Records. Is this Stony from the Humble Bees?
STONY: (silent)

JOEL: Wow, can I just say, I am such a big fan, my first kiss was actually in the backseat of a Jetta listening to "She's a L'il Kinda Mine".

JOEL: Ha, yeah, the biggest... so... anyway....

JOEL: I'm sort of calling to inform you that my label's filing a cease and desist order against you guys....

The Wrong Approach

BART: Joel, it occurs to me... I'm always looking for bands who're similar to existing popular bands. Maybe... it's the
wrong approach.

JOEL: Sir! I've felt this way for years! We need bands that sound
different! New sounds! We-
BART: What? No. No, what we need is more accurate copies.

BART: We need human clones, Joel.

JOEL: Come... come again, sir?
BART: Look, here's a number of a guy I know down at GeniTECH....

Cloning is not instantaneous

DR. CARY: Hancock Records wants GeniTECH to do what exactly?
JOEL: Well, my boss, he... this'll sound silly, he wants to make clones of current popular bands.

DR. CARY: Ha ha, well, Mr. Dever, I appreciate your boss's ambition, but human cloning is a new science, and for starters, it's not instantaneous.

DR. CARY: Even if I were to make a clone today, it wouldn't be a mature adult for 18 years. We simply don't have the capability to do what you're describing.

JOEL: Of course, sorry to waste your time, I--
DR. CARY: What we do have are fully grown clones of every popular band from 1983 to 1985. Come, I'll show you....

Just needed a bit of DNA

DR. CARY: To clone these bands from the 80's, all we needed was a bit of their DNA. And it's never hard to find pieces of the world's most popular bands.

DR. CARY: Foreigner, for example, was recreated from hair grabbed by crazed groupies. The Cars from dandruff left on skinny ties. Gary Numan from dried saliva on moog keyboards.

JOEL: That's incredible.
DR. CARY: Incredible... and true.

JOEL: You're telling me Foreigner had "crazed groupies"?
DR. CARY: Yes, Joel, in 1985, we... we all wanted to know what love was....

Clone Gameroom

DR. CARY: Here they are, clones of every band with a Billboard Top 10 hit between 1983 and 1985.
JOEL: Wow....

DR. CARY: There's the clone of Bananarama, the clone of Wham!, the clone of Wang Chung.
JOEL: Ooo, and a clone of Roland Gift of Fine Young Cannibals!

DR. CARY: No, no, that actually is Roland. He's Todd's friend and he needed a place to crash for a month.
JOEL: Oh.
ROLAND GIFT: Hey.

ROLAND GIFT: Good thing! Doo doo doo doo doo, good thing!
DR. CARY: Roland! No! What'd I tell you about busking in here! Just ignore him, I'm sorry....

No Beatle Cloning

DR. CARY: Sadly, soon after the project began, we lost a lot of funding, so later bands like the Pixies and Nirvana were never cloned.

JOEL: But what about older bands? Like the Beatles? Why not clone the most successful rock band of all time?

JOEL: I guess back then you thought those bands would be just as successful.
DR. CARY: Well, there were also legal issues.

DR. CARY: Michael Jackson owns the rights to the Beatles DNA...
JEFF LYNNE: I was the fifth Beatle!
JOEL: Hey! A clone of Jeff Lynne!