Photo: Steve Latham.

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Notes From Jen Trynin

I've been working, on and off, for the past three years on a book about my experiences in the music business. I'm going to call it "Everything I'm Cracked Up to Be" or "How to Fail in the Music Business and Still Walk Away with a Million Dollars" or "Sleeping My Way to the Top (and I Do Mean Sleeping)."

It was 1994, the days of Pearl Jam and Nirvana, used corduroys, and T-shirts with strange logos. It was post-Liz Phair, mid-Courtney Love, and just shy of Alanis Morissette. After seven long years of slogging it out in the Boston music scene, I suddenly became the object of one of the most heated major label bidding wars of the year. One day I was playing opening slots at local clubs; the next I was "taking meetings" with the heads of every major label I'd ever heard of. One minute I was a waitressing-desktop-publisher, dropping knives and deleting commas; the next I was signed to Warner Bros. Records, on the radio, on TV, in Rolling Stone, and on the cover of Billboard magazine. My future was set, they told me. I was about to become a big star. But that didn't happen.

The book I'm working on is the story of what did happen during my brief life in the music business: my success and subsequent failure, and why I left after three short years. This isn't a music biz "kiss-and-tell" book. It's just a story about a girl who got what she asked for.

What you're hearing here on Transom is an edited excerpt from my story.

Photo: Danny Clinch.

About Jen Trynin

Jen received her degree in creative writing from Oberlin College. She then embarked on a career in Rock'N'Roll, releasing two records on Warner Bros. (Cockamamie and Gun Shy Trigger Happy) which culminated in a near collision with full-on Rock Super Stardom. After taking some time off, she's currently playing guitar in the rock band Loveless and has recently returned to writing prose. Her short story "Pants on Fire" appears in the Spring 2001 edition of the Charles River Review and she has read two of her essays on WBUR/NPR's "Here and Now." Jen is also working hard on a memoir of her wacky days in the music business. A native of New Jersey, Jen now lives in the Boston area.

Related Links

Jen Trynin's Website: www.jentrynin.com
Learn more about Jen Trynin. You can listen to and/or buy her music here.

Loveless: www.lvls.com
The Website for Loveless, a band Jen currently plays with.

EarFull: www.earfull.org
A Boston music/reading event where writers take turns reading stories on the same stage with rockers playing energetically and somehow manage to hold everyone's attention.

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