1. Mumford & Sons "Babel"
Sales this week: 599,915
Debut
The revolution has begun! And it will not be televised!
You've waited a long time, ever since 1999, when Napster reared its ugly head until a year later when everybody found out about it and shortly thereafter when everybody else got a high speed connection to play. We've heard the doomsayers prognosticate, music is finished, but as the Carpenters so eloquently sang, we've only just begun.
Credit Daniel Glass. Someone without a private plane who shows up in more places than Coran Capshaw, who has one. Wanna learn a rock and roll lesson? Daniel started out as a DJ, at Regine's! Do you even know what Regine's is/was? If not, you're blowing it. Music is all about history and influences, read up.
And skipping a few chapters he was then a promo guy at Chrysalis. Ditto at SBK, ultimately morphing into head of EMI. And then he went to work for Doug Morris at Universal. Then indie. Then with Danny Goldberg he ran Artemis, until that ran out of steam. And now he's triumphant, when his hair has finally turned gray but he can still run a marathon. And you expect to be successful before your pubes grow in? And what is success? One and done? If you want to last in this business, you're gonna have tons of ups and downs. It's about character as much as skills. Can you build relationships, learn the game, adjust to change, continue to risk?
But to give Daniel all the credit would be missing the point. Because we all know it comes down to the music. And that's where Mumford shines.
They don't dance. They don't wear designer clothing. They don't do beer commercials. They underplay and undercharge. They do everything the complainers say you cannot.
And then they blow up the chart.
The big story has been that the album was available on Spotify yet still sold a ton. That's missing the point. If you think digital sales are the future, you're still watching TV on a cathode ray tube. It's not only music that's in the cloud, everything's on demand all the time. Ever notice that laptop storage is getting smaller? You used to want a big hard drive, now you just want a modicum of speedy flash.
But Daniel and Mumford have it right. In truth, this number is irrelevant. It's all about mindshare. Being available. For far too long the music business has been like a carnival. Pay first, get screwed second. You've got to trust your audience. You've got to be available. If you think being on Spotify hurts your sales, you're completely missing the point.
But this is not about Spotify. This is about music. That sounds nothing like the Dr. Luke/Max Martin fake drum Top Forty drivel. Turns out there's a huge market for an alterna-sound. Before the Net, if you couldn't sign to a major label and get on the radio or TV, you were finished. Now MTV is not about music and if radio were so powerful, a different album would have racked up these sales.
This is only the beginning. Careers are now in the hands of the audience. That's who spread the word on Mumford. It wasn't a top-down media campaign, but a grass roots thing. People bought the album because they needed to belong, it was a badge of honor. Remember that, when you defined yourself based on musicians?
How can you define yourself by someone who's beholden to corporations and puts music second?
You can't.
Which is why music has been heading for the dumper.
But no longer...
("Babel" is the biggest SoundScan chart debut of the year. One out of ten Spotify users played a song from the album in its initial week, for a total of 8 million streams, a record.)
2. Green Day "Uno!"
Sales this week: 138,686
Debut
You can't say there wasn't enough publicity. We've been hearing about the three albums for more than three months and Billie Joe's meltdown at the iHeartRadio Festival got major press, as did his subsequent entry into rehab.
But none of that has anything to do with music.
If you want to sell records, if you want people to listen to your music on Spotify, you must focus on the tunes first. Green Day was so busy being on Broadway that they lost their audience's focus. People were no longer hungry for what came next.
Let this be a lesson to you. If you're a musician, focus on music, forget the rest!
3. No Doubt "Push & Shove"
Sales this week: 114,911
Debut
They're an oldies act!
Wow, isn't that scary. Gwen Stefani's not even that old.
They waited too long. Gwen's now your mother, not your friend.
This is the modern world. Create all the time, have music in the marketplace all the time. Isn't that what Kanye does?
17. Bob Dylan "Tempest"
Sales this week: 19,198
Percentage change: -46
Weeks on: 3
Cume: 164,781
Bob's on Spotify.
This is an anemic cume. We live in a country of 300 million, 165,000 is like the number of kids in detention at any given time. That's the modern music business. The media cares, the audience does not. Which is why you have to make it easy for the audience. That's why you've got to be on Spotify, that's why you've got to do everything new.
If you're only in it for the money, wait for the turning point, when everybody else is already in, like Zeppelin and the Beatles did with iTunes. But those bands are dead. If you're alive, you've got to catch the wave and ride the curl. Otherwise, people forget you, and there's nothing worse than that.
20. Carly Rae Jepsen "Kiss"
Sales this week: 16,084
Percentage change: -65
Weeks on: 2
Cume: 61,771
She's a singles act! There never should have been an album, and if there was, it should have come out when the single was hot, even if it was a compilation of goose farts, people don't buy the albums of these one hit wonders based on quality, they're sheer impulse items for nagging kids who know no better.
Why'd she waste her time with an album?
She should only be focusing on hit singles.
And so should you.
Because if Carly Rae Jepsen can be ignored, after having the hottest track of the summer, you're not even on the radar screen.
24. Justin Bieber "Believe"
Sales this week: 14,869
Percentage change: -6
Weeks on: 15
Cume: 902,145
Mumford's bigger than Bieber! Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
But the reason I'm writing this is I just can't believe there's no traction about Bieber scalping his own tickets. The audience is busy hating Ticketmaster and the media won't pick up on the story.
David Carr! You brought down the "Tribune" brass with one front page "New York Times" story... Can you do one on ticketing?
Then again, it's the "Tribune" brass that fired the execs. Who has power over the acts?
No one but the fans.
And the fans don't want to believe their heroes are guilty, because then they've truly got nothing to believe in. No politicians, no bankers... They're just broke chumps.
That's what artists are... Repositories for hopes and dreams. Take your mission very seriously.
Justin Bieber, despite all his protestations, is not.
And in case you missed the story, once again, it's here:
"Documents Show 'Bieber Is Scalping His Own Tickets": http://bit.ly/Qg3fQ5
29. Matchbox Twenty "North"
Sales this week: 13.254
Percentage change: -29
Weeks on: 4
Cume: 154,990
Why?
If you're a radio band, you only need a single.
Otherwise, you're a touring band.
Do I really think Matchbox Twenty is gonna grind it out doing 250 dates a year, not only this year, but next?
Of course not.
The album, which is actually good, was a circle jerk. Led by the band, the producer and the label. They didn't know what better to do. It's like Microsoft rewriting Office for desktops and ignoring tablets.
Once upon a time, artists were on the cutting edge. They were leaders. In tech, you snooze for six months and you're history. In music, you take a multi-year vacation and come back doing the same old thing and expect it to work. Ridiculous!
78. Aimee Mann "Charmer"
Sales this week: 4,702
Percentage change: -63
Weeks on: 2
Cume: 17,536
Maybe she's just not that good.
I love "Voices Carry," and "That's Just What You Are" from her solo career thereafter. But despite all the press hosannas, she doesn't have a motivated fanbase. This is not Bonnie Raitt, who goes indie and her audience comes out in even greater numbers.
Oh, don't get your knickers in a twist. She's talented and lovable. But my point is in the new game, if you're not spectacularly great, you can barely make a living. I'm just pointing out the truth.
148. Richie Sambora "Aftermath Of The Low"
Sales this week: 2,927
Percentage change: +16
Weeks on: 2
Cume: 5,442
This is almost too sad to comment.
You wake up one day and you realize no one cares anymore. They see you as a memory, they just want to hear the old hits, you're a nostalgia item.
__________________________________
__________________________________
Don't e-mail me and ask what your favorite band did. The only reason I wrote this is because of Mumford's spectacular number. It's an illustration that everything you thought you knew is wrong.
I'm fearful of Universal's negotiating power with digital services, I am not afraid of their dominance of new music. Because they're playing by an old metric, with far too many zeroes. They don't realize it's all about grass roots and getting lucky. If you're chasing a hit, give up before you start.
And speaking of starting... Begin with the audience. I'm not saying you can't woodshed at home, recording up a storm. I'm just saying if you want to have a growing career, see the landscape through the audience's eyes.
They're overwhelmed. Media is a sea of garbage. Except for young people and old execs, the radio/retail/press game is ignored. People have been burned too many times.
Assuming you're good, and for the umpteenth time I will say you're probably not, Aimee Mann and Richie Sambora could compose circles around you in their sleep and they can't get arrested, what you're looking for is a reaction. If you've got none, go back to the drawing board. If you play your music for someone and they don't start jumping up and down, clamoring for more, you didn't get it right. Not in a commercial sense. And by commercial I mean earning enough to eat. You wanna do it in private, think it's great, be my guest. But unless you're suddenly consumed by rabid fans asking for more, either give up or get ready for a very long journey.
That's what you want. People so rabid to hear it that they spread it. That's what broke Mumford. It wasn't their tweeting or social networking, it was the honesty of their music and message, in a phony world, their fans couldn't stop spreading the word.
But to follow Mumford you have to give up everything you know. You've got to stop going on singing shows. You've got to stop angling for a major label record deal. You've got to stop haranguing gatekeepers to give you a chance. It's only you and your music, in a world that doesn't need it. We need food and water, we don't need your music, it's a luxury item. But can you somehow make it necessary? Can it stand alone?
Advertising doesn't sell ice cream, it's the experience itself. It's just so damn good... Let me tell you about Phish Food, mmm, with chocolate and marshmallow and little chocolate goldfish... You see what I'm doing? I'm salivating, I'm trying to convince you to try it, not because I'm being paid by Ben & Jerry's but because I want you too to experience the joy. And then I want to be in a club of like-minded people with you. That's the music game.
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Friday 5 October 2012
Rhinofy-Lonely Too Long
Is there a better record than "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore"?
All anybody remembers about the Young Rascals' debut is "Good Lovin'," but that was an afterthought in my book, a trifle compared to "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore."
"YeeaAAAHHHH!"
The track started out quiet and then EXPLODED out of the speakers, whether it be the one in your dashboard or the two of your newly-purchased stereo, a compact that fit together in one big box.
"I admit you got the biggest brown eyes
And you know how to part your lips to tantalize..."
Kissing, right?
That's not what they told me at summer camp. When this record came out oral sex was anathema in my book, how disgusting. Ah, but with maturity comes insight that evaded you before puberty raised its beautiful head. Ha!
And what makes "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" so great is not only that exploding intro and Eddie Brigati vocal, but the anthemic chorus and the sweet bridge....
"I love you, I love you, I do girl
But you ain't gonna cheat on me
I need you, I need you, I do girl
Choose, is it him or me"
"Is it him or ME?!!" That's what the assembled multitude sang in the background. I mean come on, choose, I'm a rock star, singing my heart out, am I really gonna be denied?
You wonder why we picked up guitars? We wanted that power! When no one had that capacity or dominance, not athletes, bankers or politicians... Musicians were at the tippity-top of the food chain.
But the Rascals, then "Young," did not write "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore," hell, the only original on the debut was "Do You Feel It," written by Felix Cavaliere and Gene Cornish, not that anybody knew unless they read the credits, since the band made all the songs their own.
Then came the follow-up, "Collections," which was a completely different story. It was laden with originals. All good, but none as fantastic as "Lonely Too Long."
Oh, the opener, "What Is The Reason," is a killer. Not to mention "Love Is A Beautiful Thing," and the band's cover of "Too Many Fish In The Sea." But the killer, the one that stands out today, is "Lonely Too Long," it's the one I sing to myself, even more than "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out Anymore," hell, I woke up with it in my head today.
Wanna know what makes the track? THE ORGAN SOLO!
A few notes are banged out on the piano, and then entering from a back door, oozing out onto the dance floor, is this soulful sound that gets your juices flowing, makes your hormones rage. Let's take nothing away from Booker T., but Felix Cavaliere belongs in the keyboard pantheon too!
Hell, prior to "Collections" we thought Eddie was the leader of the band, that everybody else supported him. But beginning with "Collections," Felix moved front and center too, it wasn't long before we realized he was a GENIUS!
"I've been lonely too long
I've been lonely too long"
What did I know about loneliness? Heartache? The need for the human touch?
It's not like I was not infected by "Lonely Too Long" from the beginning, but like a fine wine, I only realized its greatness after it breathed and I aged. Wow, the passion, the frustration, the hope, the desire...it's all embodied in this less than three minute track. Back then bands didn't need to go on endlessly, they didn't need seventy minutes to tell their story on a CD, in just a handful of minutes they could express it all!
And let's not forget the horn part. Kinda like the harp in the Beach Boys' "Catch A Wave," musicians back then did not see a need to reject their elders, they embraced their education, they used all the tools at their disposal to titillate, romance and indoctrinate the listeners, their fans.
And that's what I was, a fan.
The Young Rascals have been written out of rock and roll history. Billy Joel is the big act from Long Island. But the Rascals had one of those storied runs that was so bright, however brief, that it cannot be denied. They had hit after hit. And they could play them. I know, because I went to the show. That's what all those nights at the bar will teach you.
And right now Little Steven, curator of everything that once was, is raising money on Kickstarter for production of a Rascals show in Port Chester in December. He's only asking for a hundred grand, but he's still tens of thousands short. Because oldsters are clueless, barely computer-literate, never mind knowledgeable about Kickstarter, and the young 'uns wearing their pants around their asses have never heard this music, which is truly about soul.
So I'm helping to get the message out, because it's my duty to keep this music alive. Which was not solely of a time or place, but is truly forever...if you hear it!
If you never have, click to experience the magic.
If you've forgotten, let me bring you back.
If you never forgot, can I get a HELL YEAH?!!
Spotify playlist: http://spoti.fi/p6HcZ8
The Rascals "Once Upon A Dream" Reunion Shows: http://kck.st/RYqWcj
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All anybody remembers about the Young Rascals' debut is "Good Lovin'," but that was an afterthought in my book, a trifle compared to "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore."
"YeeaAAAHHHH!"
The track started out quiet and then EXPLODED out of the speakers, whether it be the one in your dashboard or the two of your newly-purchased stereo, a compact that fit together in one big box.
"I admit you got the biggest brown eyes
And you know how to part your lips to tantalize..."
Kissing, right?
That's not what they told me at summer camp. When this record came out oral sex was anathema in my book, how disgusting. Ah, but with maturity comes insight that evaded you before puberty raised its beautiful head. Ha!
And what makes "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" so great is not only that exploding intro and Eddie Brigati vocal, but the anthemic chorus and the sweet bridge....
"I love you, I love you, I do girl
But you ain't gonna cheat on me
I need you, I need you, I do girl
Choose, is it him or me"
"Is it him or ME?!!" That's what the assembled multitude sang in the background. I mean come on, choose, I'm a rock star, singing my heart out, am I really gonna be denied?
You wonder why we picked up guitars? We wanted that power! When no one had that capacity or dominance, not athletes, bankers or politicians... Musicians were at the tippity-top of the food chain.
But the Rascals, then "Young," did not write "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore," hell, the only original on the debut was "Do You Feel It," written by Felix Cavaliere and Gene Cornish, not that anybody knew unless they read the credits, since the band made all the songs their own.
Then came the follow-up, "Collections," which was a completely different story. It was laden with originals. All good, but none as fantastic as "Lonely Too Long."
Oh, the opener, "What Is The Reason," is a killer. Not to mention "Love Is A Beautiful Thing," and the band's cover of "Too Many Fish In The Sea." But the killer, the one that stands out today, is "Lonely Too Long," it's the one I sing to myself, even more than "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out Anymore," hell, I woke up with it in my head today.
Wanna know what makes the track? THE ORGAN SOLO!
A few notes are banged out on the piano, and then entering from a back door, oozing out onto the dance floor, is this soulful sound that gets your juices flowing, makes your hormones rage. Let's take nothing away from Booker T., but Felix Cavaliere belongs in the keyboard pantheon too!
Hell, prior to "Collections" we thought Eddie was the leader of the band, that everybody else supported him. But beginning with "Collections," Felix moved front and center too, it wasn't long before we realized he was a GENIUS!
"I've been lonely too long
I've been lonely too long"
What did I know about loneliness? Heartache? The need for the human touch?
It's not like I was not infected by "Lonely Too Long" from the beginning, but like a fine wine, I only realized its greatness after it breathed and I aged. Wow, the passion, the frustration, the hope, the desire...it's all embodied in this less than three minute track. Back then bands didn't need to go on endlessly, they didn't need seventy minutes to tell their story on a CD, in just a handful of minutes they could express it all!
And let's not forget the horn part. Kinda like the harp in the Beach Boys' "Catch A Wave," musicians back then did not see a need to reject their elders, they embraced their education, they used all the tools at their disposal to titillate, romance and indoctrinate the listeners, their fans.
And that's what I was, a fan.
The Young Rascals have been written out of rock and roll history. Billy Joel is the big act from Long Island. But the Rascals had one of those storied runs that was so bright, however brief, that it cannot be denied. They had hit after hit. And they could play them. I know, because I went to the show. That's what all those nights at the bar will teach you.
And right now Little Steven, curator of everything that once was, is raising money on Kickstarter for production of a Rascals show in Port Chester in December. He's only asking for a hundred grand, but he's still tens of thousands short. Because oldsters are clueless, barely computer-literate, never mind knowledgeable about Kickstarter, and the young 'uns wearing their pants around their asses have never heard this music, which is truly about soul.
So I'm helping to get the message out, because it's my duty to keep this music alive. Which was not solely of a time or place, but is truly forever...if you hear it!
If you never have, click to experience the magic.
If you've forgotten, let me bring you back.
If you never forgot, can I get a HELL YEAH?!!
Spotify playlist: http://spoti.fi/p6HcZ8
The Rascals "Once Upon A Dream" Reunion Shows: http://kck.st/RYqWcj
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Thursday 4 October 2012
Pamela Hurley
I didn't learn much in college.
But I learned a whole hell of a lot in high school, it made me who I am.
Now let me clarify that a bit. I did learn a lot in college. Just very little in class. Taught by professors who'd rather be somewhere else, pursuing glory in the world of their peers instead of slumming with the lowly students. It was almost all lectures all the time, and to say it was boring would be an understatement. But high school, those teachers were good!
Well, some of them. Very few of them. But they made up for all the losers.
Let's go back to my freshman year. I'm blocking the name of my Algebra teacher. He was a nice enough guy, he went to Middlebury himself, but the class was so dry that I sat in the back of the room cracking jokes with my friend Russell from the projects, and completely missed the essence of the subject. Yup, I was doing Algebra by trial and error. X + 3 = 5? I got it, it's 2! But when the numbers turned into fractions I could no longer come up with the answers, this teacher sent home a progress report that I was near failing and my parents flipped out. That's how it was in the sixties, if your kid screwed up it was not the administration's fault, but your progeny's. Hell, I'd rather face the principal any day of the week as opposed to my parents.
They made me sit in the front row. I had to go for after class help. I barely squeezed by.
But the following year, for Geometry, I had Mrs. Spitalny. Who let us shoot water pistols in class, who let us throw snowballs, and I got an A+. I kid you not. No one could believe it, my old buddies taking the subject with my old teacher figured I was cheating, or grading was on a severe curve. But the following year, I had Mrs. Spitalny again, for Algebra II, and not only did I get an A+, I was one of only two students (both taught by Mrs. Spitalny) who got all forty questions right on the standardized test at the end of the year, the one all the students in my school took.
Then I had a different math teacher in my senior year and barely eked out a B.
Teachers count.
And I can count, because I had Mrs. Spitalny.
But the teacher I want to talk about here is Pamela Hurley. Mrs. Hurley. She was married to this hunk who showed up at school every once in a while. He accompanied us on field trips. She was twenty six, she had us reading Ferlinghetti.
Do they even teach Ferlinghetti anymore? Probably not in Texas. There's no test on Ferlinghetti, there's no race to the top. His poetry is about stimulating your brain as opposed to getting you ahead on the test.
And I remember Mrs. Hurley had the "Time" article about "Alice's Restaurant" pinned to her bulletin board. And we went to New York to see "MacBird" and to see Janis Ian on Friday night, at what was then called Philharmonic Hall, now known as Avery Fisher Hall, in Lincoln Center.
And she drove a limo. A fifteen year old faded black Cadillac. She gave me a ride home one day, even though it was against the rules.
And if it sounds like I was the teacher's pet and had a crush on Mrs. Hurley, you've got it wrong. Judd was the pet. And Mrs. Hurley had her unlovable side. When she would suddenly get strict. But I remember telling her that spring that her class was getting boring, it wasn't as cool as it used to be. In today's militaristic educational system, you can't talk back, not with substance. There's no heart, no soul.
But Mrs. Hurley was not the one who taught me to write. Oh, I remember performing in her classroom, reading Edgar Allan Poe by candlelight, but the teacher who taught me how to write was Mr. Harrity, in AP English, senior year. He'd just come back from sabbatical, he'd learned this new writing technique. Every day, for the first five minutes of class, we had to write, and if we ran out of things to say, we had to repeat the previous three words ad infinitum. That's how I can type so fast, spit it out so quickly. You have to become one with the words, you have to let it flow. Once you self-edit, you lose it. As for all those people saying writing is rewriting...I feel sorry for them. Rewriting is so painful. And oftentimes, the more you change, the more you lose the essence. It's about getting it right the first time. When you're truly inspired. Capturing lightning in a bottle.
Not that Mr. Harrity taught me how to type. That was an elective I took. Thank god, especially in this computer era.
And Mr. Harrity truly didn't teach me how to write. I believe that's innate. You can go to the Iowa workshop, you can go to Breadloaf, but either you're a writer or you're not. Mr. Harrity just gave me a technique. He opened a door I could go through to find who I truly was.
Which flipped the people at Middlebury out. My creative writing teacher was agape. The prep schoolers in my seminar treated me like a pariah. No one had read Tom Wolfe, the New Journalism was already over, but at Middlebury it never happened. Hell, I'm more successful than John Clagett, who wrote bad sea stories no one read, ever was. That was my teacher.
Like I said. I learned almost nothing in college. You want to ignore most of your teachers. They want to eradicate your essence, not liberate it. If you're learning the rules, you're screwed, success in the arts is about questioning authority, doing it your way!
And Andrew Warde was just a public high school in Fairfield, Connecticut. Back when there was still enough money to pay for mimeo. Mmm, remember smelling that? Rich people drove Cadillacs. There was no such thing as NetJet. We were all in it together. You could create your own destiny.
But those days are through.
Hell, income inequality sucks. Broken homes affect kids emotionally. I remember Blaine, at Middlebury, his parents broke up first semester and Blaine promptly flunked out. The administration felt sorry for him, let him back the second semester, despite his not having finished the work of the first, but it didn't matter, he never appeared on campus again after that spring. Oh, one time he came sliding through, years later, with all that extra weight he'd gained freshman year still intact.
We've got so many problems.
But first and foremost we need to tackle education. We need more money for schools. For not only teachers, but instruments. For music, for everything that's not on the standardized test.
And the reason I'm writing all this is because of an e-mail I received today. Regarding Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I'll print it below. It brought me back to Mrs. Hurley's class.
At least I've got that memory.
Most people don't.
-------
From: Brad Parker
Re: Turn The Page
When I finished my album, "Days Of Poetry." I was in the Bay Area and went to City Lights. I was with my wife and daughter and told them I was going to leave a copy for Lawrence Ferlinghetti. They just shook their heads and laughed. The guy behind the counter looked at me incredulously and said everyone wants to do that. Then I told him a story about how I met Ferlinghetti in LA at a reading he gave at LACMA.
It was about 12 years ago and I took my wife and 2 daughters even though we did not have tickets. I met the woman in charge who was busy rebuffing the crowd demanding to be let in. I told her I knew how she felt since I had worked for Bill Graham for years in the Bay Area. She liked the girls and let us in at the very end. We got in the elevator and in came Lawrence and his entourage. I told him my first book of poetry was "A Coney Island Of The Mind." and that the girls first book of poetry was the same one. He grinned and said hello and asked them about that. Saida said it was her birthday and this was the best gift. He had a bouquet of flowers given to him by the museum and he gave it to her. He then took us to sit on the front row. It was wonderful. So, after I told the counter guy my story he said, well that's different, told me to write it on a paper book bag and put the CD in and he would see what he could do but no promises.
When I got home to LA, Lawrence had written me an email. He thanked me for putting poetry to music and creating songs, the highest form of poetry. I wrote to him to say that now I had completed the circle of inspiration and joined the ranks of the Radical Poets.
You keep the spirit alive Bob that we all rode on for so many years and still can if we are awake, vigilant and guided by our true voice in music above all else and for all others…
Keep up the good words my friend…
further…
Brad
p.s. I love that Seger song...
-------
P.S. I've found my summer camp girlfriends, so many of the people I grew up with, online. But I've yet to find Pamela Hurley. I think she's a teacher in Davie, Florida. But that might not be her. Googling is difficult with such a common Irish name.
P.P.S. Seeing the front cover of "A Coney Island Of The Mind" on the Wikipedia page brings me right back to 1967: http://bit.ly/Ul2FUZ
P.P.P.S. Do you know the last seven seconds of "Society's Child"? The keyboard explosion? It's an encapsulation of the sixties, frenzied, untamable, without limits. The decade was about taking chances, expanding your mind. There's nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, it's the bedrock of life. Once upon a time there was an era when money was not king, when becoming a fully-realized person was the goal in life. Not a single person I went to college with had a meeting with a corporate recruiter. We wanted to graduate and experience life, not containment.
"Society's Child": Spotify- http://spoti.fi/SB49qU
"Society's Child": YouTube- http://bit.ly/AHfsl
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But I learned a whole hell of a lot in high school, it made me who I am.
Now let me clarify that a bit. I did learn a lot in college. Just very little in class. Taught by professors who'd rather be somewhere else, pursuing glory in the world of their peers instead of slumming with the lowly students. It was almost all lectures all the time, and to say it was boring would be an understatement. But high school, those teachers were good!
Well, some of them. Very few of them. But they made up for all the losers.
Let's go back to my freshman year. I'm blocking the name of my Algebra teacher. He was a nice enough guy, he went to Middlebury himself, but the class was so dry that I sat in the back of the room cracking jokes with my friend Russell from the projects, and completely missed the essence of the subject. Yup, I was doing Algebra by trial and error. X + 3 = 5? I got it, it's 2! But when the numbers turned into fractions I could no longer come up with the answers, this teacher sent home a progress report that I was near failing and my parents flipped out. That's how it was in the sixties, if your kid screwed up it was not the administration's fault, but your progeny's. Hell, I'd rather face the principal any day of the week as opposed to my parents.
They made me sit in the front row. I had to go for after class help. I barely squeezed by.
But the following year, for Geometry, I had Mrs. Spitalny. Who let us shoot water pistols in class, who let us throw snowballs, and I got an A+. I kid you not. No one could believe it, my old buddies taking the subject with my old teacher figured I was cheating, or grading was on a severe curve. But the following year, I had Mrs. Spitalny again, for Algebra II, and not only did I get an A+, I was one of only two students (both taught by Mrs. Spitalny) who got all forty questions right on the standardized test at the end of the year, the one all the students in my school took.
Then I had a different math teacher in my senior year and barely eked out a B.
Teachers count.
And I can count, because I had Mrs. Spitalny.
But the teacher I want to talk about here is Pamela Hurley. Mrs. Hurley. She was married to this hunk who showed up at school every once in a while. He accompanied us on field trips. She was twenty six, she had us reading Ferlinghetti.
Do they even teach Ferlinghetti anymore? Probably not in Texas. There's no test on Ferlinghetti, there's no race to the top. His poetry is about stimulating your brain as opposed to getting you ahead on the test.
And I remember Mrs. Hurley had the "Time" article about "Alice's Restaurant" pinned to her bulletin board. And we went to New York to see "MacBird" and to see Janis Ian on Friday night, at what was then called Philharmonic Hall, now known as Avery Fisher Hall, in Lincoln Center.
And she drove a limo. A fifteen year old faded black Cadillac. She gave me a ride home one day, even though it was against the rules.
And if it sounds like I was the teacher's pet and had a crush on Mrs. Hurley, you've got it wrong. Judd was the pet. And Mrs. Hurley had her unlovable side. When she would suddenly get strict. But I remember telling her that spring that her class was getting boring, it wasn't as cool as it used to be. In today's militaristic educational system, you can't talk back, not with substance. There's no heart, no soul.
But Mrs. Hurley was not the one who taught me to write. Oh, I remember performing in her classroom, reading Edgar Allan Poe by candlelight, but the teacher who taught me how to write was Mr. Harrity, in AP English, senior year. He'd just come back from sabbatical, he'd learned this new writing technique. Every day, for the first five minutes of class, we had to write, and if we ran out of things to say, we had to repeat the previous three words ad infinitum. That's how I can type so fast, spit it out so quickly. You have to become one with the words, you have to let it flow. Once you self-edit, you lose it. As for all those people saying writing is rewriting...I feel sorry for them. Rewriting is so painful. And oftentimes, the more you change, the more you lose the essence. It's about getting it right the first time. When you're truly inspired. Capturing lightning in a bottle.
Not that Mr. Harrity taught me how to type. That was an elective I took. Thank god, especially in this computer era.
And Mr. Harrity truly didn't teach me how to write. I believe that's innate. You can go to the Iowa workshop, you can go to Breadloaf, but either you're a writer or you're not. Mr. Harrity just gave me a technique. He opened a door I could go through to find who I truly was.
Which flipped the people at Middlebury out. My creative writing teacher was agape. The prep schoolers in my seminar treated me like a pariah. No one had read Tom Wolfe, the New Journalism was already over, but at Middlebury it never happened. Hell, I'm more successful than John Clagett, who wrote bad sea stories no one read, ever was. That was my teacher.
Like I said. I learned almost nothing in college. You want to ignore most of your teachers. They want to eradicate your essence, not liberate it. If you're learning the rules, you're screwed, success in the arts is about questioning authority, doing it your way!
And Andrew Warde was just a public high school in Fairfield, Connecticut. Back when there was still enough money to pay for mimeo. Mmm, remember smelling that? Rich people drove Cadillacs. There was no such thing as NetJet. We were all in it together. You could create your own destiny.
But those days are through.
Hell, income inequality sucks. Broken homes affect kids emotionally. I remember Blaine, at Middlebury, his parents broke up first semester and Blaine promptly flunked out. The administration felt sorry for him, let him back the second semester, despite his not having finished the work of the first, but it didn't matter, he never appeared on campus again after that spring. Oh, one time he came sliding through, years later, with all that extra weight he'd gained freshman year still intact.
We've got so many problems.
But first and foremost we need to tackle education. We need more money for schools. For not only teachers, but instruments. For music, for everything that's not on the standardized test.
And the reason I'm writing all this is because of an e-mail I received today. Regarding Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I'll print it below. It brought me back to Mrs. Hurley's class.
At least I've got that memory.
Most people don't.
-------
From: Brad Parker
Re: Turn The Page
When I finished my album, "Days Of Poetry." I was in the Bay Area and went to City Lights. I was with my wife and daughter and told them I was going to leave a copy for Lawrence Ferlinghetti. They just shook their heads and laughed. The guy behind the counter looked at me incredulously and said everyone wants to do that. Then I told him a story about how I met Ferlinghetti in LA at a reading he gave at LACMA.
It was about 12 years ago and I took my wife and 2 daughters even though we did not have tickets. I met the woman in charge who was busy rebuffing the crowd demanding to be let in. I told her I knew how she felt since I had worked for Bill Graham for years in the Bay Area. She liked the girls and let us in at the very end. We got in the elevator and in came Lawrence and his entourage. I told him my first book of poetry was "A Coney Island Of The Mind." and that the girls first book of poetry was the same one. He grinned and said hello and asked them about that. Saida said it was her birthday and this was the best gift. He had a bouquet of flowers given to him by the museum and he gave it to her. He then took us to sit on the front row. It was wonderful. So, after I told the counter guy my story he said, well that's different, told me to write it on a paper book bag and put the CD in and he would see what he could do but no promises.
When I got home to LA, Lawrence had written me an email. He thanked me for putting poetry to music and creating songs, the highest form of poetry. I wrote to him to say that now I had completed the circle of inspiration and joined the ranks of the Radical Poets.
You keep the spirit alive Bob that we all rode on for so many years and still can if we are awake, vigilant and guided by our true voice in music above all else and for all others…
Keep up the good words my friend…
further…
Brad
p.s. I love that Seger song...
-------
P.S. I've found my summer camp girlfriends, so many of the people I grew up with, online. But I've yet to find Pamela Hurley. I think she's a teacher in Davie, Florida. But that might not be her. Googling is difficult with such a common Irish name.
P.P.S. Seeing the front cover of "A Coney Island Of The Mind" on the Wikipedia page brings me right back to 1967: http://bit.ly/Ul2FUZ
P.P.P.S. Do you know the last seven seconds of "Society's Child"? The keyboard explosion? It's an encapsulation of the sixties, frenzied, untamable, without limits. The decade was about taking chances, expanding your mind. There's nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, it's the bedrock of life. Once upon a time there was an era when money was not king, when becoming a fully-realized person was the goal in life. Not a single person I went to college with had a meeting with a corporate recruiter. We wanted to graduate and experience life, not containment.
"Society's Child": Spotify- http://spoti.fi/SB49qU
"Society's Child": YouTube- http://bit.ly/AHfsl
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When Love Takes Over
I saw David Guetta standing on a street corner in Ibiza ignored by the teeming masses streaming right by him to enter Pacha, where long after midnight he'd "spin records" and have the assembled multitude dancing with their arms in the air, thrilled just to be alive.
I was in Colorado. I didn't plan not to write. But decompressing is so tough that once you do it you don't want to get back on the train, your insides protest, you want to live a life of relaxation, outside the maelstrom. My greatest thrill was reading a book, "In The Garden Of Beasts", by Erik Larson, who wrote "The Devil In The White City." It was about Nazi Germany. It took me outside my life, of this world where we're bombarded with incoming to the point where we lose our reference points, our focus, what's important. Do we have to read our entire Twitter feed? If we don't keep up, will we fall hopelessly behind, out of touch, never to recover?
I don't know.
We live in an information society. And you can't play if you know nothing. That's what's interesting about the disinformation campaign they call the election. It assumes people are ignorant, which couldn't be further from the truth. Assuming they're paying attention to begin with.
And I'm not playing in the Top Forty world. I know the names, but I don't tune in the stations. I don't want to waste that much time with bad music. There's only twenty four hours in a day. Do I really want to be able to debate the (de)merits of these nitwits? Do you really feel better when you find out I'm clueless? Do you feel superior when you read "People,' "InTouch," and "Us" and know who these people are?
That game is done. We no longer live in one big cohesive society. And if feeling good about yourself is based on being able to look down your nose at those uninformed about your tiny little niche, I feel sorry for you. Trade in those black jeans and enter the twenty first century, where we're all on an endless search for fulfillment and are glad to find stimulation wherever we find it, like in a YouTube video.
Yes, that's where I heard "When Love Takes Over."
I can't even remember the clip, it had nothing to do with music, just some random citizen lifting a copyrighted track to enhance her little video production. Make no mistake, the key to the future is liberation, anybody trying to hold the populace back is making a mistake. Let the gays get married, let those women get abortions, join the parade, engage in the giant smorgasbord known as life. Don't judge, just experience. The greatest thing that can happen to a creator is having his work get remixed, go viral, and the copyright police have been putting up futile roadblocks against this for over a decade now. To what effect? Recorded music sales keep dropping and revenues keep going down, this is a recipe for success? Liberate the music! The creators and the licensors must get down in the pit with the listeners, they must join together in harmony, hell, isn't that what music provides?
The story is this is a three year old track. I'm going to be inundated with a tsunami of shit, all the hipsters wondering where I've been. I could fight back, citing the lack of Top Forty success, but that's not the point, "When Love Takes Over" is a phenomenal track!
Remember Kraftwerk? Purveyors of a novelty cut who were discarded and then picked back up as trailblazing paragons? Hell, they wrote an album "Computer World" more than a decade before the average person could tell you the difference between Apple and Microsoft. Remember disco? That pulsing sound that encroached upon corporate rock that had to be killed by mullet-wearing, self-satisfied white boys? Well, Kraftwerk and disco mashed up has resulted in a sound that is now triumphing throughout the world, the music corporately-labeled EDM.
Yes, electronic dance music has been around for decades. But only when the edifice known as the corporate music industrial complex started to crumble could it emerge triumphant. The kids are rejecting the pabulum. The major label dash for cash left them out. And with the means of exhibition and distribution in their hands, they've latched on to a sound that is an aural drug that infects your body without injection, that has you jumping up and down in sheer joy.
In other words, if you can't hear "When Love Takes Over," you're DEAD!
Guetta's been doing it for decades. He didn't get in the press and bitch he wasn't rich enough, he didn't give up and go to graduate school, go to work for Lazard Freres. He hung in until his time arrived.
And as his star ascended, not only fans flocked to him, but artists too. Kelly Rowland asked if she could write lyrics to his track, and the result is "When Love Takes Over."
I don't know about you, but I got no satisfaction from watching last night's debate. Because it wasn't. Just a bunch of talking points batted back and forth.
And I'm sick of reading about the wealthy. As if you're worthless if you don't drive a Benz, if you can't overbid for an apartment in Manhattan.
Once upon a time, all we cared about was music. Because it was the only honest art form, the only place we could go for refuge, that was sans the b.s. But now most mainstream music has gone the way of the rest of the country, an endless struggle to get ahead, push the rest of us down and leave us behind. Whereas, music, when done right, brings us all TOGETHER!
"It's complicated, it always is
That's just the way it goes
Feels like I've waited so long for this
I wonder if it shows"
I gave up caring for music. I'd rather watch HBO than hear Grizzly Bear bitch they're not on the radio. Huh? It's because you don't play music most people want to hear! I won't judge it, but just because a magazine writes about it, that does not mean it's mainstream. Then I hear a cut like "When Love Takes Over" and I'm a teenager once again, all I want to do is listen to it, over and over again, for hours straight, I can't wait to wake up and play it again!
"Head underwater, now I can't breathe
It never felt so good
'Cause I can feel it coming over me
I wouldn't stop it if I could"
Feeling good. Do you feel good when you're run off the road by a person texting while driving an Escalade that would kill you if it hit you? In a world where the entitled parade their superiority, bitch that they fought for their riches and deserve them? No, you feel good when a serum enters your body and squeezes all the b.s. out, like "When Love Takes Over."
"When love takes over, yeah
You know you can't deny
When love takes over, yeah
'Cause something's here tonight"
You've got two choices. You can leave the club, saying this is not music, or join in, jump on the dance floor and let go! All the great things in life come when you let go. Isn't that the essence of sex?
"Give me a reason, I gotta know
Do you feel it too
Can't you see me here on overload"
I feel like a Mexican jumping bean. Or Peter Wolf in that video. I'm bouncing around the house, like a cartoon. That's the power of music.
These deejays are antiheroes. It's not about them, but their work. Doesn't matter what they wear, just whether they can get you to move, to feel the joy.
If you can't feel the joy in "When Love Takes Over," I feel sorry for you.
Throw away your preconceptions. Stop worrying about people watching, being judged. Put on this music and throw off your inhibitions.
It'll do you good.
P.S. Wanna be like me? Then pull up this Spotify playlist and go on a 54 minute journey, hearing the same cut, in slightly different versions, revel in the sound. That's remix culture. Taking what's there and stretching it, expanding it, turning it into something different. Yes, this is me. I can listen to the same cut for hours straight!
http://spoti.fi/REuqUE
P.P.S. "A rant about Grizzly Bear and writing with an audience in mind": http://bit.ly/U7v3K2
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I was in Colorado. I didn't plan not to write. But decompressing is so tough that once you do it you don't want to get back on the train, your insides protest, you want to live a life of relaxation, outside the maelstrom. My greatest thrill was reading a book, "In The Garden Of Beasts", by Erik Larson, who wrote "The Devil In The White City." It was about Nazi Germany. It took me outside my life, of this world where we're bombarded with incoming to the point where we lose our reference points, our focus, what's important. Do we have to read our entire Twitter feed? If we don't keep up, will we fall hopelessly behind, out of touch, never to recover?
I don't know.
We live in an information society. And you can't play if you know nothing. That's what's interesting about the disinformation campaign they call the election. It assumes people are ignorant, which couldn't be further from the truth. Assuming they're paying attention to begin with.
And I'm not playing in the Top Forty world. I know the names, but I don't tune in the stations. I don't want to waste that much time with bad music. There's only twenty four hours in a day. Do I really want to be able to debate the (de)merits of these nitwits? Do you really feel better when you find out I'm clueless? Do you feel superior when you read "People,' "InTouch," and "Us" and know who these people are?
That game is done. We no longer live in one big cohesive society. And if feeling good about yourself is based on being able to look down your nose at those uninformed about your tiny little niche, I feel sorry for you. Trade in those black jeans and enter the twenty first century, where we're all on an endless search for fulfillment and are glad to find stimulation wherever we find it, like in a YouTube video.
Yes, that's where I heard "When Love Takes Over."
I can't even remember the clip, it had nothing to do with music, just some random citizen lifting a copyrighted track to enhance her little video production. Make no mistake, the key to the future is liberation, anybody trying to hold the populace back is making a mistake. Let the gays get married, let those women get abortions, join the parade, engage in the giant smorgasbord known as life. Don't judge, just experience. The greatest thing that can happen to a creator is having his work get remixed, go viral, and the copyright police have been putting up futile roadblocks against this for over a decade now. To what effect? Recorded music sales keep dropping and revenues keep going down, this is a recipe for success? Liberate the music! The creators and the licensors must get down in the pit with the listeners, they must join together in harmony, hell, isn't that what music provides?
The story is this is a three year old track. I'm going to be inundated with a tsunami of shit, all the hipsters wondering where I've been. I could fight back, citing the lack of Top Forty success, but that's not the point, "When Love Takes Over" is a phenomenal track!
Remember Kraftwerk? Purveyors of a novelty cut who were discarded and then picked back up as trailblazing paragons? Hell, they wrote an album "Computer World" more than a decade before the average person could tell you the difference between Apple and Microsoft. Remember disco? That pulsing sound that encroached upon corporate rock that had to be killed by mullet-wearing, self-satisfied white boys? Well, Kraftwerk and disco mashed up has resulted in a sound that is now triumphing throughout the world, the music corporately-labeled EDM.
Yes, electronic dance music has been around for decades. But only when the edifice known as the corporate music industrial complex started to crumble could it emerge triumphant. The kids are rejecting the pabulum. The major label dash for cash left them out. And with the means of exhibition and distribution in their hands, they've latched on to a sound that is an aural drug that infects your body without injection, that has you jumping up and down in sheer joy.
In other words, if you can't hear "When Love Takes Over," you're DEAD!
Guetta's been doing it for decades. He didn't get in the press and bitch he wasn't rich enough, he didn't give up and go to graduate school, go to work for Lazard Freres. He hung in until his time arrived.
And as his star ascended, not only fans flocked to him, but artists too. Kelly Rowland asked if she could write lyrics to his track, and the result is "When Love Takes Over."
I don't know about you, but I got no satisfaction from watching last night's debate. Because it wasn't. Just a bunch of talking points batted back and forth.
And I'm sick of reading about the wealthy. As if you're worthless if you don't drive a Benz, if you can't overbid for an apartment in Manhattan.
Once upon a time, all we cared about was music. Because it was the only honest art form, the only place we could go for refuge, that was sans the b.s. But now most mainstream music has gone the way of the rest of the country, an endless struggle to get ahead, push the rest of us down and leave us behind. Whereas, music, when done right, brings us all TOGETHER!
"It's complicated, it always is
That's just the way it goes
Feels like I've waited so long for this
I wonder if it shows"
I gave up caring for music. I'd rather watch HBO than hear Grizzly Bear bitch they're not on the radio. Huh? It's because you don't play music most people want to hear! I won't judge it, but just because a magazine writes about it, that does not mean it's mainstream. Then I hear a cut like "When Love Takes Over" and I'm a teenager once again, all I want to do is listen to it, over and over again, for hours straight, I can't wait to wake up and play it again!
"Head underwater, now I can't breathe
It never felt so good
'Cause I can feel it coming over me
I wouldn't stop it if I could"
Feeling good. Do you feel good when you're run off the road by a person texting while driving an Escalade that would kill you if it hit you? In a world where the entitled parade their superiority, bitch that they fought for their riches and deserve them? No, you feel good when a serum enters your body and squeezes all the b.s. out, like "When Love Takes Over."
"When love takes over, yeah
You know you can't deny
When love takes over, yeah
'Cause something's here tonight"
You've got two choices. You can leave the club, saying this is not music, or join in, jump on the dance floor and let go! All the great things in life come when you let go. Isn't that the essence of sex?
"Give me a reason, I gotta know
Do you feel it too
Can't you see me here on overload"
I feel like a Mexican jumping bean. Or Peter Wolf in that video. I'm bouncing around the house, like a cartoon. That's the power of music.
These deejays are antiheroes. It's not about them, but their work. Doesn't matter what they wear, just whether they can get you to move, to feel the joy.
If you can't feel the joy in "When Love Takes Over," I feel sorry for you.
Throw away your preconceptions. Stop worrying about people watching, being judged. Put on this music and throw off your inhibitions.
It'll do you good.
P.S. Wanna be like me? Then pull up this Spotify playlist and go on a 54 minute journey, hearing the same cut, in slightly different versions, revel in the sound. That's remix culture. Taking what's there and stretching it, expanding it, turning it into something different. Yes, this is me. I can listen to the same cut for hours straight!
http://spoti.fi/REuqUE
P.P.S. "A rant about Grizzly Bear and writing with an audience in mind": http://bit.ly/U7v3K2
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Tuesday 2 October 2012
Turn The Page
It's hard to believe Bob Seger used to be one of the biggest stars in America. He's faded into obscurity, because his manager believes the past is better than the future, you can't download almost any of his material legally online, some albums have never come out on CD, it's like they're standing on ceremony, waiting for the past to return when nothing of the sort is ever going to happen. It's like camping outside your old high school, expecting your crush to emerge from the front door into your arms, looking exactly like they did decades before. If you can't put one foot in front of another, at one point you're going to be left behind. Like Bob Seger.
And the problem with Seger is that at first he was too hard-edged for the chicks and then he totally catered to them. At the tail end of his run it was all ballads all the time, whereas he began as a rocker. With some local success, but known only to fans. Hell, I didn't even hear "Get Out Of Denver" until he finally broke through, with his double album, "Live Bullet."
Now at this point I wasn't a total newbie. I was enamored of the title track from the "Beautiful Loser" LP. Do you know that one? It got a bit of airplay. The live take is a bit better. But the original, sans audience participation, has got this hermetically sealed quality that is so enamoring...it's like it's not for everybody, just you.
Like the original studio version of "Turn The Page."
Now that one, almost no one's heard.
But I heard it when it was released. Well, shortly thereafter, when I plucked "Back In '72" from the cutout bin at Sam Goody in Westport, Connecticut. Isn't it funny that we can remember not only the vinyl albums we own, and I've still got mine, I never cashed them in during the CD craze, but where we bought them! And I've written about Seger's cover of "The Stealer" on that album, hell, I even did a whole podcast on that record, which was originally released by Warner Brothers, on its Reprise subsidiary, but still, most people have never heard the original "Turn The Page."
I'm gonna rectify that right now.
Through the magic of YouTube, which has become our national radio service, whilst the labels were whac-a-moling everybody trying to get up and running legally, the Google service slipped through the back door, you can hear the original "Turn The Page," and you should.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaxjUUdGdH8
It's not the Metallica take. It's not the legendary live take. It's just a rendition by a guy barely known outside Detroit telling the story of being an itinerant musician. As if everybody who picked up an axe was bound to become instantly wealthy, or wash out just as fast. The truth is you start off excited, you keep doing it, and you're not sure where you're headed, you're just on the endless road.
That's what "Turn The Page" is all about. And the original studio version is even more haunting than the later heavily played live take.
It's almost creepy. With no success on the horizon, with only his wits to keep him warm at night, Bob's telling his tale. They say to write what you know, that's what Bob has done here. Listen to the studio version of "Turn The Page" and you'll no longer want to be a rock star. Because really, it's pretty boring. Despite all the tabloid hoopla, it's endless travel with little sleep with the same band of brothers you love and hate just like the ones you're related to by blood.
Most people are not cut out for this. The hatred, the abuse, the zombie-like feeling as you go through the motions even though you've lost sight of the destination. That's how you know you're a lifer, when you've given up hope, when you realize you're just a journeyman, that you're lucky people are paying to see you, even if after trying to close them each and every night you don't always succeed.
The studio take is like a phone call from your old buddy from college, the one who dropped out. Filling you in, not bragging, because there's nothing to brag about.
Everybody wants to be somebody else. They think if they were just beautiful, thin or rich everything would work. But all these attributes come with a price. Beautiful will get you in the door, but it does not ensure you'll be taken seriously. Money's good too, but it won't keep you warm at night. No, the goal of this life is to become who you truly are. An original. Whether it be a teacher, plumber or rock star. You can't be everything, nor would you want to be. Not everybody's cut out to be a rock star. Hell, not everybody's cut out to be a musician. But if you've got no choice, you soldier on. Ripped off, dependent upon managers and agents you're not even sure are on your side. Forward. Further.
It's all embodied in this one damn song.
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And the problem with Seger is that at first he was too hard-edged for the chicks and then he totally catered to them. At the tail end of his run it was all ballads all the time, whereas he began as a rocker. With some local success, but known only to fans. Hell, I didn't even hear "Get Out Of Denver" until he finally broke through, with his double album, "Live Bullet."
Now at this point I wasn't a total newbie. I was enamored of the title track from the "Beautiful Loser" LP. Do you know that one? It got a bit of airplay. The live take is a bit better. But the original, sans audience participation, has got this hermetically sealed quality that is so enamoring...it's like it's not for everybody, just you.
Like the original studio version of "Turn The Page."
Now that one, almost no one's heard.
But I heard it when it was released. Well, shortly thereafter, when I plucked "Back In '72" from the cutout bin at Sam Goody in Westport, Connecticut. Isn't it funny that we can remember not only the vinyl albums we own, and I've still got mine, I never cashed them in during the CD craze, but where we bought them! And I've written about Seger's cover of "The Stealer" on that album, hell, I even did a whole podcast on that record, which was originally released by Warner Brothers, on its Reprise subsidiary, but still, most people have never heard the original "Turn The Page."
I'm gonna rectify that right now.
Through the magic of YouTube, which has become our national radio service, whilst the labels were whac-a-moling everybody trying to get up and running legally, the Google service slipped through the back door, you can hear the original "Turn The Page," and you should.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaxjUUdGdH8
It's not the Metallica take. It's not the legendary live take. It's just a rendition by a guy barely known outside Detroit telling the story of being an itinerant musician. As if everybody who picked up an axe was bound to become instantly wealthy, or wash out just as fast. The truth is you start off excited, you keep doing it, and you're not sure where you're headed, you're just on the endless road.
That's what "Turn The Page" is all about. And the original studio version is even more haunting than the later heavily played live take.
It's almost creepy. With no success on the horizon, with only his wits to keep him warm at night, Bob's telling his tale. They say to write what you know, that's what Bob has done here. Listen to the studio version of "Turn The Page" and you'll no longer want to be a rock star. Because really, it's pretty boring. Despite all the tabloid hoopla, it's endless travel with little sleep with the same band of brothers you love and hate just like the ones you're related to by blood.
Most people are not cut out for this. The hatred, the abuse, the zombie-like feeling as you go through the motions even though you've lost sight of the destination. That's how you know you're a lifer, when you've given up hope, when you realize you're just a journeyman, that you're lucky people are paying to see you, even if after trying to close them each and every night you don't always succeed.
The studio take is like a phone call from your old buddy from college, the one who dropped out. Filling you in, not bragging, because there's nothing to brag about.
Everybody wants to be somebody else. They think if they were just beautiful, thin or rich everything would work. But all these attributes come with a price. Beautiful will get you in the door, but it does not ensure you'll be taken seriously. Money's good too, but it won't keep you warm at night. No, the goal of this life is to become who you truly are. An original. Whether it be a teacher, plumber or rock star. You can't be everything, nor would you want to be. Not everybody's cut out to be a rock star. Hell, not everybody's cut out to be a musician. But if you've got no choice, you soldier on. Ripped off, dependent upon managers and agents you're not even sure are on your side. Forward. Further.
It's all embodied in this one damn song.
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Monday 1 October 2012
Tom Rush's Video
http://bit.ly/Rw7lTX
The problem is Amanda Palmer! Don't you get it? A scrappy young 'un who understands the new technology is ripping off her brethren, all the classically-trained musicians who've got no idea who she is who were thinking about strolling down to her gigs to play for free.
Don't you get it? This is exactly how the wealthy want it. Us fighting us. While they count their billions in private. Yes, billions.
You can't make a billion making music.
You can make a billion creating a music service. Just ask the guys at Spotify. But at least Spotify's on the right side... The right side you say? Spotify is ruining the business, crippling my royalty account, those Swedes must be stopped!
Just like progress. Musicians abhor it. They want a world in which CDs cost $13 and you have to buy 'em to hear them. While you're at it, why don't you charge for YouTube and e-mail, why not monetize everything you've come to know as free?
Wait a second. I'm getting too deep for you. I want to make my point.
Amanda Palmer is not the enemy. The bankers and the super-rich are! We've been sold such a bill of goods that most people have no idea of the truth. They want their taxes lowered when they don't pay any. They're against health care even though they've got no insurance. Did you see that the life expectancy of poor people is going down in the U.S?
Yup, if you're a poor musician, you're gonna die young. That's the world we live in.
And the "New York Times" can't stop it. Money can't stop it. The only thing that can stop it is music.
Yup, while the business is focused on television singing competitions, with "stars" hosting for the cash, as if Britney Spears ever had a cogent thing to say about anything, the media is all wrapped up in whether Lady Gaga gained weight or not.
Last time I checked, music was something you heard. What difference does it make what she looks like? And Adele has proven the calorie-challenged can succeed despite what the body police have to say.
But one thing Gaga has not done, she has not gone on record about the inequality in our economic system.
Now she's focused on bullying, I'm only singling her out because she's got so much power.
How about that nitwit Taylor Swift. Even though she's leaving Nashville behind, she still has the mentality. That you say nothing against rednecks, that you support the Republican line. As if all country music fans were rich!
But that's one thing the extreme right and the extreme left have in common. Anger. And they should be united instead of carping at each other.
We just ain't got enough. Romney doesn't care about poor people and Obama is beholden to the bankers. It's not good on either side.
But the media and the moneyed interests have us grasping for each other's throats. While everybody with traction tries to screw those below and climb the ladder.
Did you see Phil Williams's expose on Justin Bieber? The Beeb scalps his own tickets. Do you see a brouhaha? No, because in this winner-take-all society no one stands up for the downtrodden and we put our faith in faux artists when there are no real ones to go around.
Now Tom Rush is a septuagenarian. He comes from an era when musicians stood up for what was right, not what paid the most. I've got no idea if his video will go viral.
But you, the public, determine this. You, the public, made "Gangnam Style" a household term. We are not beholden to radio, we are not beholden to bankers, we've got the power, that's what the Internet is all about, we need to USE IT!
How about a competition for the best protest song. Hell, they can be right or left, I don't care. Sunlight on the subject helps us all.
If you want to make it, you've got to make a difference.
That's what's wrong with our phoney-baloney society today. Not welfare moms and Medicare matrons, but wimpy automatons who think their job is just to get along.
Now I'm gonna piss you off. All you wannabes recording protest songs in your basement. If you can't write and you can't sing, you're never gonna make it.
In order to succeed, you've got to be fantastic!
Even Bob Dylan is not that good anymore. Heard anything about "Tempest" recently?
Even Taylor Swift's paean to the past is fading.
No, that's how you can tell if something is great, it STICKS!
Like the Yankees and the Lakers.
Then again, those leagues are limited, anyone can play in music.
And with everybody playing, we end up with two camps, the untalented and the sheep. Both abhorrent.
But in between are the geniuses.
Prince, Don Henley, Elton John... Where are you today?
Not that you have to be old to have any power. It's just that the old people remember when music could change the world...
Bono? If you're all about saving the world, can't you write a song about it? Release it without worrying whether radio will play it?
Ah, but Bono's sold out. He's a venture capitalist now.
He followed the money.
There's nothing wrong with money.
But you've got to put art first.
Art hasn't been number one since AOL burgeoned and the Internet blew up in 1995. We've been following the technologists ever since. As if you could eat an iPhone, as if it could keep you warm at night.
We've got a crisis all right. It's an artistic crisis. Movies are crap and so is most music.
Oh, don't e-mail me about this and that band, if they were really that good, they'd have gone viral, and they haven't.
Did you know that "Gangnam Style" was subversive? A put-down of a culture?
Where's Jay-Z's rap video where's he's putting down the wealthy culture? Oh, that's right, those are his friends now, he can't make fun of them.
But Jay-Z is just a figurehead for Barclays Center.
It's Ratner and the Russian dude who really count. The people who promised housing but got their arena first.
Tom Rush is doing his part... What are you doing?
"Documents Show 'Bieber Is Scalping His Own Tickets": http://bit.ly/Qg3fQ5
"Leon Cooperman and Relative Wealth": http://bit.ly/SUbaET
"Life Spans Shrink for Least-Educated Whites in the U.S.": http://nyti.ms/OLLPGy
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The problem is Amanda Palmer! Don't you get it? A scrappy young 'un who understands the new technology is ripping off her brethren, all the classically-trained musicians who've got no idea who she is who were thinking about strolling down to her gigs to play for free.
Don't you get it? This is exactly how the wealthy want it. Us fighting us. While they count their billions in private. Yes, billions.
You can't make a billion making music.
You can make a billion creating a music service. Just ask the guys at Spotify. But at least Spotify's on the right side... The right side you say? Spotify is ruining the business, crippling my royalty account, those Swedes must be stopped!
Just like progress. Musicians abhor it. They want a world in which CDs cost $13 and you have to buy 'em to hear them. While you're at it, why don't you charge for YouTube and e-mail, why not monetize everything you've come to know as free?
Wait a second. I'm getting too deep for you. I want to make my point.
Amanda Palmer is not the enemy. The bankers and the super-rich are! We've been sold such a bill of goods that most people have no idea of the truth. They want their taxes lowered when they don't pay any. They're against health care even though they've got no insurance. Did you see that the life expectancy of poor people is going down in the U.S?
Yup, if you're a poor musician, you're gonna die young. That's the world we live in.
And the "New York Times" can't stop it. Money can't stop it. The only thing that can stop it is music.
Yup, while the business is focused on television singing competitions, with "stars" hosting for the cash, as if Britney Spears ever had a cogent thing to say about anything, the media is all wrapped up in whether Lady Gaga gained weight or not.
Last time I checked, music was something you heard. What difference does it make what she looks like? And Adele has proven the calorie-challenged can succeed despite what the body police have to say.
But one thing Gaga has not done, she has not gone on record about the inequality in our economic system.
Now she's focused on bullying, I'm only singling her out because she's got so much power.
How about that nitwit Taylor Swift. Even though she's leaving Nashville behind, she still has the mentality. That you say nothing against rednecks, that you support the Republican line. As if all country music fans were rich!
But that's one thing the extreme right and the extreme left have in common. Anger. And they should be united instead of carping at each other.
We just ain't got enough. Romney doesn't care about poor people and Obama is beholden to the bankers. It's not good on either side.
But the media and the moneyed interests have us grasping for each other's throats. While everybody with traction tries to screw those below and climb the ladder.
Did you see Phil Williams's expose on Justin Bieber? The Beeb scalps his own tickets. Do you see a brouhaha? No, because in this winner-take-all society no one stands up for the downtrodden and we put our faith in faux artists when there are no real ones to go around.
Now Tom Rush is a septuagenarian. He comes from an era when musicians stood up for what was right, not what paid the most. I've got no idea if his video will go viral.
But you, the public, determine this. You, the public, made "Gangnam Style" a household term. We are not beholden to radio, we are not beholden to bankers, we've got the power, that's what the Internet is all about, we need to USE IT!
How about a competition for the best protest song. Hell, they can be right or left, I don't care. Sunlight on the subject helps us all.
If you want to make it, you've got to make a difference.
That's what's wrong with our phoney-baloney society today. Not welfare moms and Medicare matrons, but wimpy automatons who think their job is just to get along.
Now I'm gonna piss you off. All you wannabes recording protest songs in your basement. If you can't write and you can't sing, you're never gonna make it.
In order to succeed, you've got to be fantastic!
Even Bob Dylan is not that good anymore. Heard anything about "Tempest" recently?
Even Taylor Swift's paean to the past is fading.
No, that's how you can tell if something is great, it STICKS!
Like the Yankees and the Lakers.
Then again, those leagues are limited, anyone can play in music.
And with everybody playing, we end up with two camps, the untalented and the sheep. Both abhorrent.
But in between are the geniuses.
Prince, Don Henley, Elton John... Where are you today?
Not that you have to be old to have any power. It's just that the old people remember when music could change the world...
Bono? If you're all about saving the world, can't you write a song about it? Release it without worrying whether radio will play it?
Ah, but Bono's sold out. He's a venture capitalist now.
He followed the money.
There's nothing wrong with money.
But you've got to put art first.
Art hasn't been number one since AOL burgeoned and the Internet blew up in 1995. We've been following the technologists ever since. As if you could eat an iPhone, as if it could keep you warm at night.
We've got a crisis all right. It's an artistic crisis. Movies are crap and so is most music.
Oh, don't e-mail me about this and that band, if they were really that good, they'd have gone viral, and they haven't.
Did you know that "Gangnam Style" was subversive? A put-down of a culture?
Where's Jay-Z's rap video where's he's putting down the wealthy culture? Oh, that's right, those are his friends now, he can't make fun of them.
But Jay-Z is just a figurehead for Barclays Center.
It's Ratner and the Russian dude who really count. The people who promised housing but got their arena first.
Tom Rush is doing his part... What are you doing?
"Documents Show 'Bieber Is Scalping His Own Tickets": http://bit.ly/Qg3fQ5
"Leon Cooperman and Relative Wealth": http://bit.ly/SUbaET
"Life Spans Shrink for Least-Educated Whites in the U.S.": http://nyti.ms/OLLPGy
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