goodnight, wherever you are

“I was a child! A CHIIIIILD!” I said at some point Friday night, laughing in response to a story about some absurd responsibility I’d inexplicably been given at my first job. And I was, kinda: From the ages of 20-25, I worked first as an intern, then as a production manager, and then as head of marketing at a tiny indie label called spinART. I started working there a week before 9/11, watching the world change before all of our eyes while I dutifully ran for the Staten Island ferry every morning after class. For the first three years, I juggled work and school at the same time. I went to shows with my Greek textbook and I took night classes in grad school so I could be at the office all day, soaking in everything I could about how the music business worked and trying to learn on the fly how to make things happen with no budget and no staff.

For five years, I worked in an office with five dudes 10+ years older than me, a bunch of music nerds of varying stages of awkward. I can’t think of a weirder and more formative experience for starting one’s career: In that office (first on Staten Island, then in Dumbo), I learned how to navigate egos and hard conversations. I learned how to dodge bill collectors and secure ad space on sites and in magazines I hadn’t paid in months. (I still don’t feel bad, Pitchfork! I’d do it again!) I got to write press releases, a thing that I felt was exciting because I was young. I, a philosophy major, learned how to write and read contracts and how to do royalty accounting. At the age of 23, for some reason, they let me recruit and sign a band myself. And when, in the middle of that album’s production, I came down with a life-threatening illness and spent three months in the hospital, they led the charge in fundraising and in making sure that my family was taken care of.

In those five years, I learned a lot about the people I worked with, because it is impossible to spend five days a week in one room with five dudes for five years and not have them become a huge part of your life.

Earlier this week, I found out that the company’s co-founder, Joel Morowitz, had passed away. It was an unexpected punch to the gut that immediately brought me back to the corner desk in the office at 20 Jay Street. My brain was instantly 23 again, and Joel was making fun of me for putting Tori Amos on the stereo too many times, teaching me how to use Quark and Photoshop to make banner ads, bickering with Brendan about power pop, letting me sort through his giant stack of demos when I was bored.

Robert Schneider from the Apples in stereo said it best:

Joel was the ears and the heart of the label; his partner Jeff was the brains and the money guy. The rest of us adjusted like waves to their yin and yang, in the process becoming a tight-knit group of people who knew each other’s mannerisms and go-to bar stories and relationships like we knew our own. When I got the news yesterday, I texted Chris and Brendan immediately: in our older age, we see each other rarely, but I have never stopped thinking of them as my big brothers.

We got together at one of our favorite bars to remember Joel and all of his particular quirks (he always needed to do everything just his way, he was obsessed with production and recording gear, he never met a deadline he didn’t ignore.) “You know,” I said, “after I was sick and I couldn’t walk to the train station on my own yet, he picked me up every single morning and drove me to the office.”

“Really?” said Brendan. “I honestly did not know that.”

I remember it vividly because he hadn’t made it an option that I could refuse. He didn’t want to make me feel bad or weak. He just told me the time he was going to pick me up, and he kept doing it until I was strong enough to get to work on my own. That was Joel: He just wanted to be a nice, good person, and to bring good music into the world, and to collect all the gear he possibly could and help other people get access to that gear so they could also bring good music into the world. And he wanted to do it with as little attention to himself as humanly possible.

I hadn’t talked to Joel in years, and I regret that now. There was no reason for it: It’s hard to keep in touch with people sometimes when you don’t see them everyday, and he, even more so than I, was a notorious loner. Everyone who knew him adored him, but he also just wanted to be left alone to his own devices.

Friday night, we toasted to him and looked up at the sky each time; I don’t really believe in heaven, but if there is one, Joel is there. And if there’s not, it’s still nice to think of people you love hanging out among the stars, telling each other about their favorite records and trading audiophile secrets. And I think he’d be happy to know that Chris and Brendan and I were together, telling stories about Cinerama tours and marketing budgets and bands we all took too many chances on.

There is no recipe in this post, because I could not tell you a single time that I cooked in my early 20s. It was $1.50 for a bagel with peanut butter at the deli down the block from the office; $1 for a large coffee; 50 cents for a Nutty Buddy I’d split with my friend Chris as we took afternoon walks. Dinners were $3 tacos at San Loco or $5 plates at DoJo or free pizza at the Crocodile Lounge or whatever someone older than me was willing to pay for at dinner before a show.

There is however this playlist, a very small sampling of some of the love and energy that Joel put into the world and that the rest of us did our damndest to get that world to pay attention to.

Listen To This Shit: spinART Records 1991 - 2007