ROCK ON: AN OFFICE POWER BALLAD

When New York writer Dan Kennedy is hired by a major record label, he thinks he's chanced upon a dream job in the world of full-blown gonzo rock and roll excess that has pockmarked his dreams ever since he was a suburban Southern California teen. The sobering reality: he's basically walked into a nine-to-five world that's equal parts Spinal Tap and The Office—and he's just in time for mass layoffs, artists being cut from contracts, and sales hitting an all-time low.

But in these tame and dying days of the record business, Kennedy's twisted wit offers up the absurd, funny, and oddly heart-breaking story of a stranger in a strange land. In an irresistibly weird way, it seems he has shown up at exactly the right time.

"Hilariously spot-on. Neither Kennedy nor the music business will ever be the same."—The New York Times Book Review, Michael Azerrad

"A delirious evocation of the love/hate relationship virtually my whole generation has had with the music industry. The rest of us may have dreamed it, but Dan Kennedy actually lived it out in the trenches. The results aren't pretty, but luckily for him, and us, they are hilarious."—Todd Hanson, editor of The Onion: America's Finest News Source

"Dan Kennedy is a very funny human-being and a very funny writer and this is a very funny book. It's also quite subtly wise about the absurdity of life and the dreams we cook up." —Jonathan Ames, author of Wake Up, Sir!

"Dan Kennedy is the laugh-out-loud Proust of American post-youth strivers. In Rock On he cements his status as master of the hysterical inner monologue, laying bare the music biz with an effortless, beyond-hip immediacy that is impossible to resist."—Jerry Stahl, author of I, Fatty

"Seeing the world through Kennedy is like smoking some magical drug that makes everything hilarious in ways that cannot be explained. The death of rock and roll should be heartbreaking. But when living it through Kenndy's eyes, it becomes the funniest thing that's ever happened."
—Scot Armstrong, screenwriter, Old School