'' 'Dan, do you find the road to be an emotionally cold place?'Įditors at The Times Book Review selected the best fiction and nonfiction titles of the year. At the group's first McDonald's stop on its first tour, Slichter is surprised to find his bandmates and their sound man sitting at three separate tables eating in silence. Initially, he is scared and alienated by the road. ''At 32, I imagined I was the oldest tenderfoot in the history of rock 'n' roll.'' Slichter is the rookie in the band, the other two members having been in another popular Minneapolis band, Trip Shakespeare. If the members of Semisonic indulged in any stereotypical rock-star debauchery, Slichter ignores it, focusing instead on the sometimes exciting but often banal and soul-sullying work of becoming a rock star. The only trashed hotel room he mentions was trashed by another MCA band during a music industry schmoozefest, and Slichter's attitude about it is one of annoyance, because it nearly resulted in all the MCA bands, including Semisonic, being evicted from the hotel. Slichter tells no tales of group sex, cocaine or TV's tossed off balconies into swimming pools. Before leaving college, Munson learned enough Mandarin to be able to converse with two Chinese journalists backstage at the Grammy Awards, a feat probably never duplicated at that gathering. Semisonic is an unusual band: a trio made up of two Harvard graduates - Slichter and the lead singer, guitarist and songwriter Dan Wilson - and a college dropout, the bassist John Munson. Slichter's book, ''So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star,'' is an unusual rock memoir. Also, after recording and promoting two albums, Semisonic had accumulated millions of dollars of debt, an amount from which mere platinum sales couldn't begin to extricate the group. Success in the music business is relative not only to your own expectations but also to those of your record label - and Semisonic's label, MCA, had expected multiplatinum sales. His sadness is not a twisted form of egomania he has practical reasons for it. Slichter is saddened because he knows the CD - despite the breakout hit ''Closing Time'' - will never go multiplatinum. And so our hero, Jacob Slichter, drummer for the Minneapolis power-pop band Semisonic, finds himself deeply saddened when presented with a platinum record, signifying sales of over a million copies of Semisonic's second album, ''Feeling Strangely Fine'' (1998). Even the biggest could be bigger, especially if they aren't as big as they used to be. $21.95.ĪT the junction of commerce and art, no one is ever big enough.
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