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Monday, July 27, 2009
BUZZ WEXLER is a lean, mean, nipped and tucked, narcissistic music promoter at the top of her career.
Hedonistic, Niravax popping, sexually exploitative finder and creator of urban music bands like the Spam Javelins and Lime-Twist she is suddenly demoted to World Music – "the Mojave Desert of Comet Audio," for who she works. Sent on the tour with the Bulgarian harmony singing Gorni Grannies, Buzz bucks against the audacity of being moved from the pedestal where she shaped grunge aesthetic by the time she was 30.
"Not me Dave, I do cutting edge not cutting corn. Hip-Hop not crones," she tells her boss. Now in her early 40s, she is past her sell-by-date in an ageist industry. Self described as "a fully loaded awesome babe," her nomination for a Lifetime Achievement Award, adds insult to injury, highlighting her years and defying devotion to surgical enhancement.
Born to unexciting middle aged parents in Troy Hill, Pittsburgh, and christened Beryl she was fired to escape mundanity, checking out the Greyhound routes when she was just 12. At 16 she hit New York, became Buzz and headed for the vibrant PR music business in London where she found, promoted and created trends.
Life on the road with the Gorni Grannies presents it challenges. Instead of tantrum throwing, hotel wreckers Buzz has to deal with the kleptomaniac Kichka and Dora for whom it has to be organised to talk to her pet sheep on the phone. The title’s eponymous Lubka is a feisty opinionated character whose sagacity surprisingly impacts upon the self-gratifying PR guru and the two become unlikely friends. Buzz learns to knit, swops the Vodka for Peach Rakia, begins to confide honestly and admits that she likes their music.
A fast-paced funny narrative and a good satire of the music business.
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