by Mark E. Waterbury

     Can you imagine having your sight set on a career, and your first two encounters with that career are a situation with several people trying to screw you over, followed by what could be the worst job you could possibly fathom? John Awarski may not have imagined it but he certainly lived it. His extreme passion for music and how he utilized those early tribulations as learning blocks to further his career is a stoic example for anyone who wants to pursue the often twisted and full of potholes music business path.

     Living nearly his entire life in the Cleveland area, John had originally been one of those many kids who was so enamored by the Beatles that he tried to be a musician. Performing in school orchestra, playing drums and singing and being in your typical youthful rock bands was fun for John, but he soon found that the performing side of music just wasn't quite for him. "I knew deep down at the time that I just wasn't going to be a musician," John muses. "But I wanted to be around music in some way, shape or form." John attended college at Kent State University pursuing a degree in telecommunications. Because of that study choice and his love for music, he went to work for the school's radio station, eventually being promoted to station manager. "I was sort of gravitating towards the entertainment industry. And working with college radio really gave me the introduction to the business side of music. Seeing the major label people and others really gave me an entrance into it and let me know how the record biz was working." In his senior year at Kent State, John's infant music business career got a boost in a series of strange events from, of all people, Paul McCartney. One of his professors gave him an assignment to put together a proposal for a project to work with a person, company or group, and to send that proposal to that entity as basically an exercise in how to write proposals. Since John was such a big Beatles fan, he sent his proposal involving radio promotion in the Cleveland area to Paul McCartney, who was in the early days of his successful solo career. "I sent it off figuring I would never hear from him. I mean, he must get a million things like that a day! But about six weeks later, I got a letter from MPR Communications, who was Paul's publicist. The note said that Paul loved my idea and to go and do it. And I was wondering, now what the f**k do I do? So I called them and asked them basically that, and they said Paul thought it was a cool idea and maybe I could learn something about the music business as I did it." From his work at the radio station, John knew the local rep at Capitol Records, and he turned to him for help. The local promotions people were very good to deal with, but the national reps were incredulous that some college kid had permission to do a promotion for Paul McCartney! They even tried to take it away from John, but Paul's people were adamant about letting John do it. That is when John learned about one of the downsides of the music business. "I learned a lot about back-stabbing, scams and people trying to take advantage of you. Some radio people in Cleveland tried to take the promotion away from me and take credit for it themselves. A music director even wanted to take the promotional prize, which was a vacation to London to attend a concert and meet Paul for himself and his girlfriend. And it got to a point where I just didn't feel good about doing it and decided I wanted to pull the plug because I thought they were trying to take advantage of both Paul and I. But through it all, the McCartney people stood by me and backed me up when I pulled it. That gave me the best direction at that point in my life. It was a great insight of the business I was about to enter."

     With that episode behind him, John put out feelers to music folks he had met in the Cleveland area, which hooked him up with Bill Green, branch manager of MCA Records. Bill did not have a job for John at MCA, but did have another opportunity for him, saying that he wanted John to learn the business from the ground up. So he got him a job at a warehouse, not a particularly glamorous job, but since he needed any job, John took it. "I won't mention the name of the company, but it was probably the worst place I have ever worked for in my entire life," John admits. "It was the pits; they treated their employees like dirt. And after four months I had it, and then I ran into Bill Green. He asked my how it was going, and I said I wanted to kill him, that this was the worst place in the entire world. And he said, good, because he wanted me to work in the worst place in the music business, and now I could come work for him." Bill Green, who has since passed away, became John's mentor, starting him as the warehouse manager so he could learn every aspect of the music business from ground up. "He wanted me to learn how to move a record from point A to point B. And he helped me learn so many aspects of the business and all the facets of them. How to make everyone's job, no matter how small become an integral part of the big machine, so that I would hopefully never do what those guys at that previous company did to their employees and forget how important the guy in the loading dock is to the whole picture. And how important everyone in the whole machine is to the general good of the company."

- Next month, we will continue John Awarski's story; taking a look at his days with Action Music, and also providing you with his insights and suggestions for up and coming musicians and bands.