Power.
That's what the artists used to have. That's what they're leaving on the table. It's as if Napster was started by the Fortune 500, in order to divert artists from their true calling, delineating the human condition and wielding the sheer numbers of their audience to exact change.
In other words, if you don't think kids stopped the war in Vietnam, if you don't think they were aided in this process by musicians, then you're purchasing the right wing canard that the sixties never happened.
I know, I know, I'm late to this series.
But that's the Internet age. Wherein everything is thrown against the wall and very little sticks but that which does lasts forever.
In other words, if you're all about the first week SoundScan numbers, the initial blitz of publicity, then you're missing the point. Completely. You're focusing on the here and now, and in the connected era, we're only concerned with that which lasts.
My favorite part is when the twenty five year veteran congressman walks from the education bill he fathered because he just can't handle the process. That's the story of America, everybody wants the riches but nobody's willing to do the work, the heavy lifting, that which makes you sweat and grunt when nobody's paying attention. Yes, if you can't get YouTube clicks for it, nobody wants to do it. But those winning tomorrow are building their resumes off the radar screen today, because nobody pays attention to you when you're on the way up, only when you've hit the top of the totem pole.
Sure, money is power. But if you pursue it and it only...you end up with your bank or your corporation or your daddy's business, paying lobbyists to ensure your future, when the real power lies with those who put up roadblocks in your way.
In other words, you can learn a lot about the game by watching "House Of Cards." Just like Mike Ovitz educated his troops with Sun Tzu's "Art Of War." If you don't study the game, you can never win. But Ovitz made a mistake, he tried to be bigger than he was, someone he was not groomed to be. Ovitz was an operator who specialized in extracting spoils from the manufacturers of entertainment. Put him in as number two on the other side of the aisle and not only does he fail, he's forgotten. Because it's not what's in front of you that will kill you, but what's behind. While you're playing to your "fans," everybody you screwed on the way up is out to get you, it's the way of the game.
And "House Of Cards" is no "Sopranos." It's one-dimensional. It's about the story of power, not nuance. Sure, there's some evidence of the human condition, but really it's a cold, hard look at the sausage factory. Almost too scary to watch. You think you want to screw Robin Wright, because you've seen her visage on TV, but she's a cold-hearted bitch.
In the show that is. She's a great actress. She can play vulnerable in "Forrest Gump" and heartless here.
But the truth is if you want to succeed you've got to be manipulative.
Unless you're an artist. An artist floats above the fray. His manager and agent can make deals, but the artist must be above it. Because once you owe, you're part of the game. And if it's about winning and losing, you're missing the point.
It's about surviving.
That's the difference between those who still have jobs in the music business and those who've been cast aside.
It's a skill.
And it emanates from power.
And you think you know the game because you read the trade magazines.
You've got no idea.
P.S. Buzz. Don't be afraid to shoot your wad all at once if what you're proffering is a 10. There are almost no 10's around.
P.P.S. As Kevin Spacey said, Netflix killed P2P with "House Of Cards." With all of it available instantly, why bother to steal when Netflix is so damn cheap to begin with and if you really need to beat the system you can borrow a friend's password.
P.P.P.S. We're seeing a change in the nature of storytelling. Used to be TV series were strung over such a long period of time that it was hard to maintain continuity, and two hour movies were king. Now movies have sacrificed story for explosions and these new extended dramas are king. People are hungry for story. He who delivers it wins. That's the power of entertainment.
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Saturday 10 August 2013
Observations
DELAYED GRATIFICATION
In the era of instant, it's about the complete opposite. You want it now, but in order for it to last you've got to wait to start, to gain experience, and you've got to keep at it with no obvious chance of success in sight.
So elite college grads go for safety, soul-draining, high-paying jobs on Wall Street, and the poor want instant acclaim. And it's only the lifers who last.
If you've got nothing to say, no one's gonna want to hear it, at least not for long.
YOU DON'T WANT WHAT YOU THINK YOU DO
Not only are the odds of winning the lottery long, in order to have a million dollars to spend each year, you've got to win seventy five.
This article in the "New York Times" breaks it down:
http://nyti.ms/13MwPDy
What you want is freedom. And if you can't gain it by winning the lottery, maybe money isn't the answer.
Now I'm not saying money isn't important, having not enough will make you think about it all day and will ruin your life. But freedom is charting your own course, being able to do what you want, and that's rarely about cash.
DON'T EQUATE PRESS WITH SUCCESS
There's a story in the newspaper about a live stage version of the movie "Point Break." I'm sure the actors and creators are congratulating themselves. But few people will ever see the production. And there will be very little money. So I hope they're doing it for the fun of it, because there's not that much more. Oh, you could get noticed by producer bigwigs and move up the food chain, but this is the bane of indie movie producers. You make something meaningful and then you want to make "Iron Man"?
MOVIES
Have left the public conversation. That's what's killing everything but the blockbusters. Used to be you had to go see the flicks so you could discuss them at parties. For all the publicity about "Blue Jasmine," nowhere I go is anybody talking about it. It appears it's a press story, kind of like Steve Martin and Edie Brickell's banjo folk tour.
People talk about television because it's accessible.
Music doesn't last because it's too accessible. Your track can be trumped by another with a click.
We're all grazers looking for something superior and spending more time in transit than at our desired location.
MOBILE PHONES
Are mature. It doesn't matter whether you use Android or Apple, they both do the same thing. They've become commoditized. Future breakthroughs will not be in mobile phones but in another, heretofore unseen area. In other words, if your phone has LTE, you may not need to upgrade for years. Which is kind of what killed computers. You had to have the latest and greatest chip and more RAM to utilize the new applications, and now what you own is good enough and you'd rather not spend the money.
If you're still excited by mobile phones, you probably can talk for an hour on bathtubs.
INFORMATION OVERLOAD
I wish I were born yesterday, so this present, cacophonous world, was all I knew. A baby boomer didn't realize three networks and needing to go to the theatre to see a movie were restrictions. We liked cable and VCRs, but now we're stuck, lamenting the passage of the good old days, the seventies movies and the seventies records. And we want to be hip and glom on to what's new, but we just don't know how to play. How do you make sense of a world with endless choices?
SUMMER
Is highly-anticipated and then it wanes.
All the good thinking is done in the fall, after we've gotten our ya-yas out. When the days get shorter and the nights get cooler and we don a sweater and spend time indoors, reading, watching...
MONEY IS FORGOTTEN
David Geffen did an interview in "Fortune." It's behind a paywall, so it got no traction. But the most interesting thing he said was how Bill Paley had been forgotten. Everybody with money has been forgotten. So enjoy it while you're here, because there will be no lasting monument, unless you give your alma mater a hundred million and then students will know nothing but your name, they'll have no idea what you did.
Art can last. But very little of it does.
http://cnnmon.ie/15hFYDt
IT'S 2013
And they still don't call it the "teens." I don't know what they're waiting for. But it's almost fifteen years since the beginning of the new millennium. Classic rock music is even further behind us in the rearview mirror. Today's youngsters don't remember the eighties, never mind the seventies.
AL COURY
He died this week.
The most vaunted record exec in the seventies, absolutely unknown today. He was the guy behind the success of "Saturday Night Fever." Some of those songs remain in the public consciousness, he does not.
GETTING OLDER
You can't remember who's alive or dead. So much time has passed that your memory is clouded, if it can be penetrated at all. But they say those who let go of the past live longer, let that be your prescription.
CONVENTIONAL WISDOM KILLS
It killed the L.A. "Times." The publication looked at the circulation numbers, thought they told the truth. Whereas the reading public suddenly realized there was nothing left in the newspaper and gave up.
Same deal with Bieber. Don't look at grosses, it's perception that matters. Everyone believes he's lost control, he's already done.
GOING ON THE ROAD
You've got to love it. Otherwise it's an endless grind.
Ask yourself... Do you want to spend months a year wasting time traveling to play the same damn songs again and again? Sure, the Dead stretched out, and Dylan remakes his tunes, but many acts cannot afford to do this, people want to hear the hits.
So when the techies say to forgo recording revenue and make it up on the road... Do you really want to do this?
Ask yourself before you go down the pike of a music career.
SIR KEN ROBINSON
This guy is a star. He lived in his niche until he got lucky, with a TED talk.
We're all looking to get lucky. If you keep doing it, you've got more opportunity to succeed. It's always the one thing you don't really want to do, that you think will be a waste of time, that breaks you through.
The record companies of the late sixties and seventies didn't ask you for a single, they just gave you money and hoped to get lucky. Oh, they picked people they believed in, but they steered clear of the creative process.
And it's all about the creative process.
Sir Ken comes out with some gems in this article:
http://bit.ly/16ovZLX
Like:
"It's important to note, especially for parents, that there just isn't a straight line between what you do at school and what you go on to do. I argue in my new book it's like being on the ocean. You keep correcting your course according to things that happen to you. And we end up writing a resume, which makes it look like it was a plan. There was a study by a professor at Duke University looking at the degree majors for leaders in 500 companies in Silicon Valley. Forty percent were in math, science, or engineering, but 60% were in the arts and humanities."
And:
"The continuum, as I see it, starts with imagination. It's the most extraordinary set of powers that we take for granted: the ability to bring into mind the things that aren't present. It's why we are so different from the rest of life on earth. That's why we're sitting in a beautiful building, drinking from these cups. Because human beings make things. We create things. We don't live in the world directly; we live in a world of ideas and of concepts and theories and ideologies."
But what's most interesting is Sir Ken is not selling t-shirts or coffee mugs, he's not trying to capitalize on his fame, waiting for a Fortune 500 company to break him big. No, this is who he is.
Be happy with who you are.
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In the era of instant, it's about the complete opposite. You want it now, but in order for it to last you've got to wait to start, to gain experience, and you've got to keep at it with no obvious chance of success in sight.
So elite college grads go for safety, soul-draining, high-paying jobs on Wall Street, and the poor want instant acclaim. And it's only the lifers who last.
If you've got nothing to say, no one's gonna want to hear it, at least not for long.
YOU DON'T WANT WHAT YOU THINK YOU DO
Not only are the odds of winning the lottery long, in order to have a million dollars to spend each year, you've got to win seventy five.
This article in the "New York Times" breaks it down:
http://nyti.ms/13MwPDy
What you want is freedom. And if you can't gain it by winning the lottery, maybe money isn't the answer.
Now I'm not saying money isn't important, having not enough will make you think about it all day and will ruin your life. But freedom is charting your own course, being able to do what you want, and that's rarely about cash.
DON'T EQUATE PRESS WITH SUCCESS
There's a story in the newspaper about a live stage version of the movie "Point Break." I'm sure the actors and creators are congratulating themselves. But few people will ever see the production. And there will be very little money. So I hope they're doing it for the fun of it, because there's not that much more. Oh, you could get noticed by producer bigwigs and move up the food chain, but this is the bane of indie movie producers. You make something meaningful and then you want to make "Iron Man"?
MOVIES
Have left the public conversation. That's what's killing everything but the blockbusters. Used to be you had to go see the flicks so you could discuss them at parties. For all the publicity about "Blue Jasmine," nowhere I go is anybody talking about it. It appears it's a press story, kind of like Steve Martin and Edie Brickell's banjo folk tour.
People talk about television because it's accessible.
Music doesn't last because it's too accessible. Your track can be trumped by another with a click.
We're all grazers looking for something superior and spending more time in transit than at our desired location.
MOBILE PHONES
Are mature. It doesn't matter whether you use Android or Apple, they both do the same thing. They've become commoditized. Future breakthroughs will not be in mobile phones but in another, heretofore unseen area. In other words, if your phone has LTE, you may not need to upgrade for years. Which is kind of what killed computers. You had to have the latest and greatest chip and more RAM to utilize the new applications, and now what you own is good enough and you'd rather not spend the money.
If you're still excited by mobile phones, you probably can talk for an hour on bathtubs.
INFORMATION OVERLOAD
I wish I were born yesterday, so this present, cacophonous world, was all I knew. A baby boomer didn't realize three networks and needing to go to the theatre to see a movie were restrictions. We liked cable and VCRs, but now we're stuck, lamenting the passage of the good old days, the seventies movies and the seventies records. And we want to be hip and glom on to what's new, but we just don't know how to play. How do you make sense of a world with endless choices?
SUMMER
Is highly-anticipated and then it wanes.
All the good thinking is done in the fall, after we've gotten our ya-yas out. When the days get shorter and the nights get cooler and we don a sweater and spend time indoors, reading, watching...
MONEY IS FORGOTTEN
David Geffen did an interview in "Fortune." It's behind a paywall, so it got no traction. But the most interesting thing he said was how Bill Paley had been forgotten. Everybody with money has been forgotten. So enjoy it while you're here, because there will be no lasting monument, unless you give your alma mater a hundred million and then students will know nothing but your name, they'll have no idea what you did.
Art can last. But very little of it does.
http://cnnmon.ie/15hFYDt
IT'S 2013
And they still don't call it the "teens." I don't know what they're waiting for. But it's almost fifteen years since the beginning of the new millennium. Classic rock music is even further behind us in the rearview mirror. Today's youngsters don't remember the eighties, never mind the seventies.
AL COURY
He died this week.
The most vaunted record exec in the seventies, absolutely unknown today. He was the guy behind the success of "Saturday Night Fever." Some of those songs remain in the public consciousness, he does not.
GETTING OLDER
You can't remember who's alive or dead. So much time has passed that your memory is clouded, if it can be penetrated at all. But they say those who let go of the past live longer, let that be your prescription.
CONVENTIONAL WISDOM KILLS
It killed the L.A. "Times." The publication looked at the circulation numbers, thought they told the truth. Whereas the reading public suddenly realized there was nothing left in the newspaper and gave up.
Same deal with Bieber. Don't look at grosses, it's perception that matters. Everyone believes he's lost control, he's already done.
GOING ON THE ROAD
You've got to love it. Otherwise it's an endless grind.
Ask yourself... Do you want to spend months a year wasting time traveling to play the same damn songs again and again? Sure, the Dead stretched out, and Dylan remakes his tunes, but many acts cannot afford to do this, people want to hear the hits.
So when the techies say to forgo recording revenue and make it up on the road... Do you really want to do this?
Ask yourself before you go down the pike of a music career.
SIR KEN ROBINSON
This guy is a star. He lived in his niche until he got lucky, with a TED talk.
We're all looking to get lucky. If you keep doing it, you've got more opportunity to succeed. It's always the one thing you don't really want to do, that you think will be a waste of time, that breaks you through.
The record companies of the late sixties and seventies didn't ask you for a single, they just gave you money and hoped to get lucky. Oh, they picked people they believed in, but they steered clear of the creative process.
And it's all about the creative process.
Sir Ken comes out with some gems in this article:
http://bit.ly/16ovZLX
Like:
"It's important to note, especially for parents, that there just isn't a straight line between what you do at school and what you go on to do. I argue in my new book it's like being on the ocean. You keep correcting your course according to things that happen to you. And we end up writing a resume, which makes it look like it was a plan. There was a study by a professor at Duke University looking at the degree majors for leaders in 500 companies in Silicon Valley. Forty percent were in math, science, or engineering, but 60% were in the arts and humanities."
And:
"The continuum, as I see it, starts with imagination. It's the most extraordinary set of powers that we take for granted: the ability to bring into mind the things that aren't present. It's why we are so different from the rest of life on earth. That's why we're sitting in a beautiful building, drinking from these cups. Because human beings make things. We create things. We don't live in the world directly; we live in a world of ideas and of concepts and theories and ideologies."
But what's most interesting is Sir Ken is not selling t-shirts or coffee mugs, he's not trying to capitalize on his fame, waiting for a Fortune 500 company to break him big. No, this is who he is.
Be happy with who you are.
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Friday 9 August 2013
Rhinofy-Buddy Miles
I neglected to mention it was his arrangement of "Dreams" that Molly Hatchet copped and rode to AOR success.
Buddy Miles... Drummer for Electric Flag, a member of Hendrix's Band Of Gypsys and then...he never really broke through. He wasn't warm and fuzzy, he was the victim of a bad label, and he's almost been completely forgotten, but if he were still alive today, if he hadn't died of heart problems back in 2008, he'd finally be in the right place at the right time.
You see Buddy only wrote one hit, "Them Changes." Which he played ad infinitum. Back when you had to have radio action to get noticed and to survive, it was damn good, it was his calling card, but we all tired of it. And only the cognoscenti heard the "Them Changes" album, because of the aforementioned bad label, but...listening now, you can see with his covers Buddy was positively poised for YouTube, where you don't have to write the tune to get noticed, just ask Walk Off The Earth.
And his cover of "Down By The River" on "Them Changes" bugged me. It seemed superfluous. Then again, at this point most people had no idea who Neil Young was. "After The Gold Rush" wasn't released until September 1970, "Harvest" in February of 1972, most people, almost no people, had heard Neil's first two albums, the second of which contained "Down By The River."
As for "Dreams"... The Allmans didn't break through until late summer 1971, with "Fillmore East." The first album, which included "Dreams," sank like a stone. "Idlewild South" slowly made inroads, but like Springsteen thereafter, the Allmans built their rep on the road. In other words, when most people heard 1970's "Them Changes" album they were unfamiliar with both "Down By The River" and "Dreams," but as stated previously, most people didn't hear the album at all.
Now I don't want to completely rewrite history, I'm not saying "Them Changes" is an unknown, unheralded masterpiece, but with forty-odd years of distance...it's astounding how good it is. Then again, quality was rampant in this era, when music drove the culture and you had to know how to play to make it.
Furthermore, you hear the money in the tracks. Everybody's so busy doing it on the cheap today. Or else it's a superstar production with tons of writers and remixers, polishing the tracks to death. But way back when, if you had a deal, you got a budget, you did it your way. You could have strings and horns...
Listen to "Heart's Delight."
Now, at this distance, you yearn to tweak the vocal sound. Make it a bit richer. Not that Buddy hasn't got the pipes, it's just that today with technology and experience we can do so much more.
And "Heart's Delight" takes off like a shot and even if you've never heard it before you can get into the groove.
And I like the closer, "Your Feeling Is Mine," it just swings. You believe that Buddy believes, and isn't that what it's all about?
"Memphis Train" is another cover. A Rufus Thomas original, Buddy's take is not quite as good as the master's, but if you've never heard the original, you'll be satisfied.
I still can't listen to "Down By The River," maybe because the original made me a Neil Young fan, but at this distance it does not sound sacrilegious.
And that brings us to the legendary opener, "Them Changes."
That's how it used to be and what people no longer remember. The opening cut had to grab you by the genitalia and not let go. And "Them Changes" did that. Oh, there's the riff, the horns, the vocal...but what's so revelatory is the lyrics. Nobody goes through any changes anymore, at least not those they'll admit to. All men are superconfident, they're never on the losing end, even though that's not how it truly is, certainly not on the inside. We were all going through them changes back in 1970, with the Vietnam War and Kent State and...the only thing on our side was the music, back before it was owned by the man. I mean what kind of crazy world do we live in where it's a badge of honor to sell out to the Fortune 500... Huh?
Once again, if you've never heard "Them Changes," you'll be stunned. You'll wonder where this powerful music came from. That's 1970.
But what's got me writing this is "Dreams."
The original Allmans' take is slow and dreamy. It's the same song, but it's oh-so-different.
That guitar sound intro. You can positively SEE the player! And then the organ oozes in. And all kinds of other sounds. There's positively too much on this track, it should have been pared down, but that does not mean it doesn't WORK!
And Buddy finds a groove completely absent from the Allmans' take. One so hypnotic you've got to play the track again and again.
And the horns are right out of the first Blood, Sweat & Tears album. Which hearken back to the roots of rock and roll. Today, when a band goes on the road they want to do it as cheaply as possible. It's all about the money. But in 1970, it was about the music. Hell, the money was in the records. So every once in a while you'd be treated to a stage full of players laying into a groove and wailing. Just imagine hearing this live!
And how about that guitar solo that begins at 1:49? They might not have treated Buddy's vocal, but the effects here are positively otherworldly. Meanwhile, as the guitar beams down from outer space, the horns suddenly march in in military formation. So rigid and cut. You nod your head.
And then there's an organ solo. Not a synth. Hell, this was before the Moog and ARP made inroads. You can hear the elbow grease.
And then it all comes back together and gets even more powerful.
The original is a drug trip. Buddy Miles's cover is a freight train. And when Buddy comes back in after the break, the vocal sound is so heartfelt, so real. It's not someone worried about overdoing it, or the melisma masters overdoing it to impress us, it's someone who FEELS IT!
And isn't that what great music is all about? FEEL?
And the last thirty seconds is an acceleration. The band is leaving the stage. No! Wait! THIS CAN'T HAPPEN!
And now you get it, why we followed this music...EVERYWHERE!
That's the power of pop. It's in the grooves.
And this is an album on the positively weak Mercury Records that didn't make it!
Look at the album cover. Buddy's a mean mofo. He had something to prove.
In retrospect, he did. It just took us decades to realize it.
Spotify link: http://spoti.fi/p6HcZ8
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Buddy Miles... Drummer for Electric Flag, a member of Hendrix's Band Of Gypsys and then...he never really broke through. He wasn't warm and fuzzy, he was the victim of a bad label, and he's almost been completely forgotten, but if he were still alive today, if he hadn't died of heart problems back in 2008, he'd finally be in the right place at the right time.
You see Buddy only wrote one hit, "Them Changes." Which he played ad infinitum. Back when you had to have radio action to get noticed and to survive, it was damn good, it was his calling card, but we all tired of it. And only the cognoscenti heard the "Them Changes" album, because of the aforementioned bad label, but...listening now, you can see with his covers Buddy was positively poised for YouTube, where you don't have to write the tune to get noticed, just ask Walk Off The Earth.
And his cover of "Down By The River" on "Them Changes" bugged me. It seemed superfluous. Then again, at this point most people had no idea who Neil Young was. "After The Gold Rush" wasn't released until September 1970, "Harvest" in February of 1972, most people, almost no people, had heard Neil's first two albums, the second of which contained "Down By The River."
As for "Dreams"... The Allmans didn't break through until late summer 1971, with "Fillmore East." The first album, which included "Dreams," sank like a stone. "Idlewild South" slowly made inroads, but like Springsteen thereafter, the Allmans built their rep on the road. In other words, when most people heard 1970's "Them Changes" album they were unfamiliar with both "Down By The River" and "Dreams," but as stated previously, most people didn't hear the album at all.
Now I don't want to completely rewrite history, I'm not saying "Them Changes" is an unknown, unheralded masterpiece, but with forty-odd years of distance...it's astounding how good it is. Then again, quality was rampant in this era, when music drove the culture and you had to know how to play to make it.
Furthermore, you hear the money in the tracks. Everybody's so busy doing it on the cheap today. Or else it's a superstar production with tons of writers and remixers, polishing the tracks to death. But way back when, if you had a deal, you got a budget, you did it your way. You could have strings and horns...
Listen to "Heart's Delight."
Now, at this distance, you yearn to tweak the vocal sound. Make it a bit richer. Not that Buddy hasn't got the pipes, it's just that today with technology and experience we can do so much more.
And "Heart's Delight" takes off like a shot and even if you've never heard it before you can get into the groove.
And I like the closer, "Your Feeling Is Mine," it just swings. You believe that Buddy believes, and isn't that what it's all about?
"Memphis Train" is another cover. A Rufus Thomas original, Buddy's take is not quite as good as the master's, but if you've never heard the original, you'll be satisfied.
I still can't listen to "Down By The River," maybe because the original made me a Neil Young fan, but at this distance it does not sound sacrilegious.
And that brings us to the legendary opener, "Them Changes."
That's how it used to be and what people no longer remember. The opening cut had to grab you by the genitalia and not let go. And "Them Changes" did that. Oh, there's the riff, the horns, the vocal...but what's so revelatory is the lyrics. Nobody goes through any changes anymore, at least not those they'll admit to. All men are superconfident, they're never on the losing end, even though that's not how it truly is, certainly not on the inside. We were all going through them changes back in 1970, with the Vietnam War and Kent State and...the only thing on our side was the music, back before it was owned by the man. I mean what kind of crazy world do we live in where it's a badge of honor to sell out to the Fortune 500... Huh?
Once again, if you've never heard "Them Changes," you'll be stunned. You'll wonder where this powerful music came from. That's 1970.
But what's got me writing this is "Dreams."
The original Allmans' take is slow and dreamy. It's the same song, but it's oh-so-different.
That guitar sound intro. You can positively SEE the player! And then the organ oozes in. And all kinds of other sounds. There's positively too much on this track, it should have been pared down, but that does not mean it doesn't WORK!
And Buddy finds a groove completely absent from the Allmans' take. One so hypnotic you've got to play the track again and again.
And the horns are right out of the first Blood, Sweat & Tears album. Which hearken back to the roots of rock and roll. Today, when a band goes on the road they want to do it as cheaply as possible. It's all about the money. But in 1970, it was about the music. Hell, the money was in the records. So every once in a while you'd be treated to a stage full of players laying into a groove and wailing. Just imagine hearing this live!
And how about that guitar solo that begins at 1:49? They might not have treated Buddy's vocal, but the effects here are positively otherworldly. Meanwhile, as the guitar beams down from outer space, the horns suddenly march in in military formation. So rigid and cut. You nod your head.
And then there's an organ solo. Not a synth. Hell, this was before the Moog and ARP made inroads. You can hear the elbow grease.
And then it all comes back together and gets even more powerful.
The original is a drug trip. Buddy Miles's cover is a freight train. And when Buddy comes back in after the break, the vocal sound is so heartfelt, so real. It's not someone worried about overdoing it, or the melisma masters overdoing it to impress us, it's someone who FEELS IT!
And isn't that what great music is all about? FEEL?
And the last thirty seconds is an acceleration. The band is leaving the stage. No! Wait! THIS CAN'T HAPPEN!
And now you get it, why we followed this music...EVERYWHERE!
That's the power of pop. It's in the grooves.
And this is an album on the positively weak Mercury Records that didn't make it!
Look at the album cover. Buddy's a mean mofo. He had something to prove.
In retrospect, he did. It just took us decades to realize it.
Spotify link: http://spoti.fi/p6HcZ8
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Without You
YouTube: http://bit.ly/157LftP
Spotify: http://spoti.fi/16rmiwf
No, not the Badfinger song turned into a hit by Harry Nilsson and remade by Mariah Carey, but a new production by an acolyte of Diplo, Dillon Francis.
Huh?
Released Tuesday, if you go to the iTunes Store, you'll see there are 78 reviews, and 71 are five star. I know, I know, the fans love it. But isn't that just the point?
In other words, yesterday this track was at the bottom of the iTunes chart, but last night Tom Windish, Dillon's agent, told me he was good for 2,000 tickets a night, if not more.
So listen to the track... It sounds like an English new wave production from the eighties until you hit the electronic elements. And I mean that in a good way. You know, the intimacy, with the vocal melody, and no covering up of the thin voice. Yup, today everybody wants to sound like everybody else, and they lose their personality in the process. But the slight voice in this case adds intimacy. Instead of swinging for the fences, Dillon Francis is just trying to hit it over the infielders' heads. He doesn't want to crush the game, but be part of it. In other words, you can be included. It's like catching the eye of that imperfect girl at the club or the party. Everybody's pitching and fantasizing about plastic-surgeried airbrushed stars. I ask you, how do you kiss Kim Kardashian's lips? Inflated with a rubbery substance, does she quack when she makes love?
In a world exceptionally phony, "Without You" is positively real.
And, as I stated above, it's not a home run. But it's infectious. Not something you need to listen to forever, but you need to hear it a few times through and you want to tell your friends about it and you want to go to the gig to feel good. And since Francis has been at it for a few years, there's more than the "hit" to experience live.
In other words, what you considered mindless, beat-driven music may not be. Maybe the deejays are coming closer to the melodicists, the singers and songwriters. Or maybe it's the reverse, the singers and songwriters are moving towards electronics. But the point is this is new, or at least different from what has been proffered for years.
I don't want to beat a dead horse. I don't want you to tell me your metal band is better. I'm just e-mailing you this because it portends possibilities.
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Spotify: http://spoti.fi/16rmiwf
No, not the Badfinger song turned into a hit by Harry Nilsson and remade by Mariah Carey, but a new production by an acolyte of Diplo, Dillon Francis.
Huh?
Released Tuesday, if you go to the iTunes Store, you'll see there are 78 reviews, and 71 are five star. I know, I know, the fans love it. But isn't that just the point?
In other words, yesterday this track was at the bottom of the iTunes chart, but last night Tom Windish, Dillon's agent, told me he was good for 2,000 tickets a night, if not more.
So listen to the track... It sounds like an English new wave production from the eighties until you hit the electronic elements. And I mean that in a good way. You know, the intimacy, with the vocal melody, and no covering up of the thin voice. Yup, today everybody wants to sound like everybody else, and they lose their personality in the process. But the slight voice in this case adds intimacy. Instead of swinging for the fences, Dillon Francis is just trying to hit it over the infielders' heads. He doesn't want to crush the game, but be part of it. In other words, you can be included. It's like catching the eye of that imperfect girl at the club or the party. Everybody's pitching and fantasizing about plastic-surgeried airbrushed stars. I ask you, how do you kiss Kim Kardashian's lips? Inflated with a rubbery substance, does she quack when she makes love?
In a world exceptionally phony, "Without You" is positively real.
And, as I stated above, it's not a home run. But it's infectious. Not something you need to listen to forever, but you need to hear it a few times through and you want to tell your friends about it and you want to go to the gig to feel good. And since Francis has been at it for a few years, there's more than the "hit" to experience live.
In other words, what you considered mindless, beat-driven music may not be. Maybe the deejays are coming closer to the melodicists, the singers and songwriters. Or maybe it's the reverse, the singers and songwriters are moving towards electronics. But the point is this is new, or at least different from what has been proffered for years.
I don't want to beat a dead horse. I don't want you to tell me your metal band is better. I'm just e-mailing you this because it portends possibilities.
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Thursday 8 August 2013
The Amazon Effect
It should be a full time job being a fan of your band.
I just finished reading "Fast Company"'s Amazon story. Amazon's goal is to eliminate all competition, under the guise of being your go-to retailer, charging you for Prime, so you'll spend even more, thrilled with faster delivery and some bells and whistles, like free books and movies, and getting you to pay even more, $299, for same day delivery of groceries.
The company never sleeps. Because it's seen the movie.
What turned Apple into a juggernaut was the iPod. Which was not a good portable music player, but the ONLY portable music player. The company cornered the market on flash storage, no one could buy it as cheap, and hooked people into their ecosystem, i.e. synching and buying via iTunes, and no one else could even get a toehold.
In other words, take a hint from tech, you want to be the only band, the only service.
Huh?
That's not the way art is!
But that's the way it's gonna be.
Kinda like Phishheads. The band keeps giving its fans more tools to flex their fandom. Downloads, streaming concerts... Whereas the biggest acts in the business today run by the old rules. They wait twelve plus months to put out an album of ten songs and then go on the road in support of it. But what if you're a diehard fan and bought the album on the day of release? What are you supposed to do for the next twelve months, other than wait for the act to come to your town and get a lousy ticket because the game is rigged against you, if you can even get inside at all.
Everything you were afraid of you now have to do. To stoke the fires of your hardcore fans, who are a better advertisement for your music than any radio station or TV play. You're a cog in the wheel of those media outlets. Whereas you're the driver in the act/fan relationship. You're in control. You can read the feedback, deliver what people want.
What do fans want first and foremost?
MORE MUSIC!
That major label paradigm wherein a track is polished to perfection over months... That doesn't even work for them, because after spending so much money, no one buys the album, they see no need to, they're a fan of the single, not the act.
Look at Kanye... If he were smart, he'd put out new music tomorrow.
Huh? And kill "Yeezus"?
"Yeezus" is already dead. As is Jay Z's album. Fans have digested both and are hungry for more. To try to convince those not interested is to be inefficient and waste your time.
In other words, every band is its own little corporation. And should be run as such.
Microsoft charged manufacturers a Windows license fee whether they put the OS on the box or not. The company was cutthroat. You've got to be cutthroat too.
Don't waste time helping your friends. Don't even bother to sleep. Keep feeding the fire of your act 24/7.
And don't try to imitate Instagram or Tumblr or the rest of the one hit wonders. You've seen the movie, a few services or apps sell for a fortune to deep pockets and then fade away and do not radiate. If you're in it for the instant splash and the instant cash, buy a lottery ticket, or try to make a deal with a major label, doing everything they tell you to, losing your personality in the process.
Steve Jobs? Steve Ballmer? Jeff Bezos?
Not nice guys.
That's what I find hilarious about today's acts. They've got no edge. Look at country. They're afraid of being excommunicated. They sing about SUVs and babies and Christianity and you wonder why the music doesn't spread beyond the niche...because there's nothing there!
Artists first and foremost have edge. They're different.
But there's not an endless list of tech giants. I've got a couple of ideas for great sites in my back pocket, but that's where they're going to sit, because I don't have the time, money and general wherewithal to proceed. In other words, execution is everything. You can have a plan, but if your music doesn't kill, it's irrelevant.
Amazon works because it's cheap and easy and trustworthy. The rest are just add-ons.
Who cares about your social networking if at the core your music sucks?
So from now on write music constantly, post it online, every live show, keep feeding the beast. If you know exactly what resonates with your audience, you're wrong, you must experiment to find out, and keep doing so.
But the major label paradigm is just the opposite. Do less. Make it safe. Play nice.
Does that sound like Amazon?
Read this article and find out:
"AmazonFresh Is Jeff Bezos' Last Mile Quest For Total Retail Domination": http://www.fastcompany.com/3014817/amazon-jeff-bezos
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I just finished reading "Fast Company"'s Amazon story. Amazon's goal is to eliminate all competition, under the guise of being your go-to retailer, charging you for Prime, so you'll spend even more, thrilled with faster delivery and some bells and whistles, like free books and movies, and getting you to pay even more, $299, for same day delivery of groceries.
The company never sleeps. Because it's seen the movie.
What turned Apple into a juggernaut was the iPod. Which was not a good portable music player, but the ONLY portable music player. The company cornered the market on flash storage, no one could buy it as cheap, and hooked people into their ecosystem, i.e. synching and buying via iTunes, and no one else could even get a toehold.
In other words, take a hint from tech, you want to be the only band, the only service.
Huh?
That's not the way art is!
But that's the way it's gonna be.
Kinda like Phishheads. The band keeps giving its fans more tools to flex their fandom. Downloads, streaming concerts... Whereas the biggest acts in the business today run by the old rules. They wait twelve plus months to put out an album of ten songs and then go on the road in support of it. But what if you're a diehard fan and bought the album on the day of release? What are you supposed to do for the next twelve months, other than wait for the act to come to your town and get a lousy ticket because the game is rigged against you, if you can even get inside at all.
Everything you were afraid of you now have to do. To stoke the fires of your hardcore fans, who are a better advertisement for your music than any radio station or TV play. You're a cog in the wheel of those media outlets. Whereas you're the driver in the act/fan relationship. You're in control. You can read the feedback, deliver what people want.
What do fans want first and foremost?
MORE MUSIC!
That major label paradigm wherein a track is polished to perfection over months... That doesn't even work for them, because after spending so much money, no one buys the album, they see no need to, they're a fan of the single, not the act.
Look at Kanye... If he were smart, he'd put out new music tomorrow.
Huh? And kill "Yeezus"?
"Yeezus" is already dead. As is Jay Z's album. Fans have digested both and are hungry for more. To try to convince those not interested is to be inefficient and waste your time.
In other words, every band is its own little corporation. And should be run as such.
Microsoft charged manufacturers a Windows license fee whether they put the OS on the box or not. The company was cutthroat. You've got to be cutthroat too.
Don't waste time helping your friends. Don't even bother to sleep. Keep feeding the fire of your act 24/7.
And don't try to imitate Instagram or Tumblr or the rest of the one hit wonders. You've seen the movie, a few services or apps sell for a fortune to deep pockets and then fade away and do not radiate. If you're in it for the instant splash and the instant cash, buy a lottery ticket, or try to make a deal with a major label, doing everything they tell you to, losing your personality in the process.
Steve Jobs? Steve Ballmer? Jeff Bezos?
Not nice guys.
That's what I find hilarious about today's acts. They've got no edge. Look at country. They're afraid of being excommunicated. They sing about SUVs and babies and Christianity and you wonder why the music doesn't spread beyond the niche...because there's nothing there!
Artists first and foremost have edge. They're different.
But there's not an endless list of tech giants. I've got a couple of ideas for great sites in my back pocket, but that's where they're going to sit, because I don't have the time, money and general wherewithal to proceed. In other words, execution is everything. You can have a plan, but if your music doesn't kill, it's irrelevant.
Amazon works because it's cheap and easy and trustworthy. The rest are just add-ons.
Who cares about your social networking if at the core your music sucks?
So from now on write music constantly, post it online, every live show, keep feeding the beast. If you know exactly what resonates with your audience, you're wrong, you must experiment to find out, and keep doing so.
But the major label paradigm is just the opposite. Do less. Make it safe. Play nice.
Does that sound like Amazon?
Read this article and find out:
"AmazonFresh Is Jeff Bezos' Last Mile Quest For Total Retail Domination": http://www.fastcompany.com/3014817/amazon-jeff-bezos
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Album Sales Tank
http://bit.ly/18WfnRb
Huh?
If you don't know it's about the single, you're still listening to "Sgt. Pepper" on vinyl. Wait a minute, maybe you're one of those people who believe the vinyl revolution is gonna conquer our society and you truly are listening to albums, albeit the National and other modern acts, on your turntable, or maybe you're one of those people stocking up on cassettes, you've heard they're making a comeback too, right?
Don't extrapolate from your musical addiction to the entire world.
The entire world doesn't live and breathe music, doesn't give a whit about your so-called career and only has time for excellence, because they're so overbooked, their online calendars look like the Rosetta Stone.
As for those people talking about streaming cannibalization, keep attacking Spotify... THAT'S NOT THE PROBLEM! YOUTUBE IS!
So I'm sitting with Daniel Ek in Stockholm. Is he worried about Jimmy Iovine and Beats?
Not really. Oh, he's aware Jimmy's a marketer nonpareil. But there is an issue of infrastructure, you've got to have it to scale, and Spotify has got the same wireless deals in many territories, and conversion rate is not fantastic. Yup, it has to be a new contract and it only lasts for a short while and if you think Beats' deal with AT&T or Google's deal with Verizon, both rumored heavily, are going to squash Spotify instantly, you still think that Apple is going to kill us all with a streaming service. Hell, I'd be more worried about Amazon, with its Prime. They're going after Netflix!
What I'm saying here is music streaming comes free with the new Microsoft OS. Which may be a failure, but has still sold millions. Traction? NONEXISTENT!
Because the big streaming kahuna is YouTube. That's where the under 25's go for music. And this is your problem artists. You're getting paid a pittance. You want your listeners to go to Spotify, you're just too ignorant to say so. Kind of like the labels who wanted to kill P2P downloading while proffering no alternative.
That's what's great about Spotify and its ilk. They're ahead of the marketplace. And maybe Jimmy can convince everybody they need a subscription, something Spotify is seemingly unable to do, knowing 1's and 0's but seemingly nothing about marketing.
But the point is don't confuse yesterday with tomorrow. Don't believe we're going to grow a middle class of musicians whose names are known by everybody. No, we're gonna have superstars and niches.
The superstars of tomorrow are gonna be much bigger than those of today. That's the lesson of "Gangnam Style." Online, everything is available, and if it catches fire, it can burn down the whole world.
But there won't be twenty "Gangnam Style"s a year. Nowhere close.
As for streaming impacting album sales... Once again, if you're going to point your finger at any service, it's YouTube, not Spotify, et al. The views on YouTube dwarf the streams on the dedicated music streaming services.
But if you are streaming...
Ever notice on YouTube it's never whole albums? Even Vevo, the label site, is only a track at a time. Sure, you had to buy the album to hear the track in the nineties, but that was FIFTEEN YEARS AGO! MORE!
The album is dying, despite what the aged and the Luddites and the labels that make their profits from them have to say. Because they're a bad fit for today's listeners. No one's got that much time to waste. No one wants to hear that much bad music. No one wants to listen to your album ten times to get it. That's what we did when we had no cash and could only afford one disc, play it ad infinitum, now we just play what's phenomenal.
Yup, the album is dying and you can point your finger anywhere you want to, but you're best off pointing it towards yourself. Robin Thicke has the song of the summer but only 175,000 people in a country of over 300 million want the album? Hey, do you think there's something wrong here? As for the Spotify decrier Thom Yorke, it's like Atoms For Peace never even came out. By the way, did it?
If you do something great, people are interested. They'll listen to your album if it's good through and through and they're fans, but combine those two factors and you come up with a tiny number.
We're in the midst of a revolution.
YouTube killed P2P. Spotify, et al, are providing a legal solution.
The future is here but you continue to whine that it doesn't look like the past.
Good luck!
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Huh?
If you don't know it's about the single, you're still listening to "Sgt. Pepper" on vinyl. Wait a minute, maybe you're one of those people who believe the vinyl revolution is gonna conquer our society and you truly are listening to albums, albeit the National and other modern acts, on your turntable, or maybe you're one of those people stocking up on cassettes, you've heard they're making a comeback too, right?
Don't extrapolate from your musical addiction to the entire world.
The entire world doesn't live and breathe music, doesn't give a whit about your so-called career and only has time for excellence, because they're so overbooked, their online calendars look like the Rosetta Stone.
As for those people talking about streaming cannibalization, keep attacking Spotify... THAT'S NOT THE PROBLEM! YOUTUBE IS!
So I'm sitting with Daniel Ek in Stockholm. Is he worried about Jimmy Iovine and Beats?
Not really. Oh, he's aware Jimmy's a marketer nonpareil. But there is an issue of infrastructure, you've got to have it to scale, and Spotify has got the same wireless deals in many territories, and conversion rate is not fantastic. Yup, it has to be a new contract and it only lasts for a short while and if you think Beats' deal with AT&T or Google's deal with Verizon, both rumored heavily, are going to squash Spotify instantly, you still think that Apple is going to kill us all with a streaming service. Hell, I'd be more worried about Amazon, with its Prime. They're going after Netflix!
What I'm saying here is music streaming comes free with the new Microsoft OS. Which may be a failure, but has still sold millions. Traction? NONEXISTENT!
Because the big streaming kahuna is YouTube. That's where the under 25's go for music. And this is your problem artists. You're getting paid a pittance. You want your listeners to go to Spotify, you're just too ignorant to say so. Kind of like the labels who wanted to kill P2P downloading while proffering no alternative.
That's what's great about Spotify and its ilk. They're ahead of the marketplace. And maybe Jimmy can convince everybody they need a subscription, something Spotify is seemingly unable to do, knowing 1's and 0's but seemingly nothing about marketing.
But the point is don't confuse yesterday with tomorrow. Don't believe we're going to grow a middle class of musicians whose names are known by everybody. No, we're gonna have superstars and niches.
The superstars of tomorrow are gonna be much bigger than those of today. That's the lesson of "Gangnam Style." Online, everything is available, and if it catches fire, it can burn down the whole world.
But there won't be twenty "Gangnam Style"s a year. Nowhere close.
As for streaming impacting album sales... Once again, if you're going to point your finger at any service, it's YouTube, not Spotify, et al. The views on YouTube dwarf the streams on the dedicated music streaming services.
But if you are streaming...
Ever notice on YouTube it's never whole albums? Even Vevo, the label site, is only a track at a time. Sure, you had to buy the album to hear the track in the nineties, but that was FIFTEEN YEARS AGO! MORE!
The album is dying, despite what the aged and the Luddites and the labels that make their profits from them have to say. Because they're a bad fit for today's listeners. No one's got that much time to waste. No one wants to hear that much bad music. No one wants to listen to your album ten times to get it. That's what we did when we had no cash and could only afford one disc, play it ad infinitum, now we just play what's phenomenal.
Yup, the album is dying and you can point your finger anywhere you want to, but you're best off pointing it towards yourself. Robin Thicke has the song of the summer but only 175,000 people in a country of over 300 million want the album? Hey, do you think there's something wrong here? As for the Spotify decrier Thom Yorke, it's like Atoms For Peace never even came out. By the way, did it?
If you do something great, people are interested. They'll listen to your album if it's good through and through and they're fans, but combine those two factors and you come up with a tiny number.
We're in the midst of a revolution.
YouTube killed P2P. Spotify, et al, are providing a legal solution.
The future is here but you continue to whine that it doesn't look like the past.
Good luck!
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Tuesday 6 August 2013
Wake Me Up
http://bit.ly/1c6ZZSm
Avicii and...Incubus?
Add in failed artist Aloe Blacc and you end up with a track that's selling faster than "Blurred Lines" in the UK.
You know, the song of the summer (or is that "Get Lucky"?), Robin Thicke only managed to sell 175,000 copies of his new album this week. And you know about debuts...it's down, down, down from there. Seems nobody's a fan of the artist, only the fan. In other words, Robin Thicke is this year's Carly Rae Jepsen. Going from obscurity to history just that fast, with a moment of mainstream pop visibility in between. Is this any way to run a business? Especially when the hit was essentially a rip-off of a Marvin Gaye track to begin with?
Now if you find an oldster who claims to love EDM, he's got a ponytail and a seventeen year old girlfriend. Nobody hates electronic music more than baby boomers, who believe they control the media and the last time anything good happened in music was 1969.
Not that it wasn't better back then, it truly was. But there's a chance EDM is another spark, another British Invasion so to speak, when we heard Herman's Hermits we could not envision Cream, hell, when we heard "For Your Love," we could not envision Cream, but that's what we got, along with a plethora of acts so inventive they're still plying the boards today.
If you told me a year ago, just a few months ago, that this year's summer EDM smash would be cowritten by a rocker from Calabasas and sung by a black guy and sound closer to the country-like songs of Queen than Skrillex, I would have laughed you out of the room.
But that's what "Wake Me Up" is.
Not as instantly infectious as "Get Lucky," if you give "Wake Me Up" thirty seconds, you can't stop playing it, at all, you put it on endless repeat, forever.
The acoustic guitar intro would never indicate you're hearing the latest work of a world famous millionaire deejay. It sounds closer to Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" than it does mindless repetitive drivel.
But at 1:11 when the song explodes with electronics, you're not only surprised, you're thrilled. I don't care if you're six or sixty nine, you can't help but move your body, you feel the joy of life, something that only music can do so well.
And when the track quiets down again at 2:00...you think maybe we're returning to the introspective singer/songwriter days of the seventies.
You know what a hit song is...
Not something that looks good on paper.
Not something you need to hear ten times to get.
Not something you need to be dunned into listening to.
BUT A TRACK YOU GET THE FIRST TIME THROUGH AND CAN'T STOP PLAYING!
So how come everybody in America doesn't know "Wake Me Up"?
Because the music industry in the USA has blown its chance, it's burned people out, selling them mediocre, me-too again and again. Whole swaths of the public have tuned out tunes. They haven't got time for them, they'd just rather watch television.
And the solution is not apps with Samsung. It's not wall to wall television promotion. It's a simple formula, just do something so new and different that it's indelible, that you eat like chocolate and you share like marijuana.
Now "Wake Me Up" is not "Get Lucky." It's not a stone cold, certified classic. But unlike "Blurred Lines," it makes you want to hear more, to see what Avicii is up to. It's the HBO effect, gain our trust and we're open to everything you wanna do.
If you're not throwing your arms up in the air and stomping your feet as this plays, you're a quadriplegic.
P.S. There are no brand mentions in the lyrics, no cliches, no ho's or rims, just an expression of the human condition, which is one in which there are more questions than answers. That's what music used to be, a key, that opened a door...into your mind and the universe.
P.P.S. This is already a stone cold smash in a double digit number of countries. It's America that's lagging. Yes, the self-satisfied U.S., where we claim we're number one but we're reluctant to change.
P.P.P.S. Be sure to check out Aloe Blacc's "I Need A Dollar," almost as good as "Wake Me Up," it never reached international consciousness, unfortunately.
"I Need A Dollar": http://bit.ly/c13hBG
"Wake Me Up" and "I Need A Dollar" on Spotify: http://spoti.fi/140ZH6u
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Avicii and...Incubus?
Add in failed artist Aloe Blacc and you end up with a track that's selling faster than "Blurred Lines" in the UK.
You know, the song of the summer (or is that "Get Lucky"?), Robin Thicke only managed to sell 175,000 copies of his new album this week. And you know about debuts...it's down, down, down from there. Seems nobody's a fan of the artist, only the fan. In other words, Robin Thicke is this year's Carly Rae Jepsen. Going from obscurity to history just that fast, with a moment of mainstream pop visibility in between. Is this any way to run a business? Especially when the hit was essentially a rip-off of a Marvin Gaye track to begin with?
Now if you find an oldster who claims to love EDM, he's got a ponytail and a seventeen year old girlfriend. Nobody hates electronic music more than baby boomers, who believe they control the media and the last time anything good happened in music was 1969.
Not that it wasn't better back then, it truly was. But there's a chance EDM is another spark, another British Invasion so to speak, when we heard Herman's Hermits we could not envision Cream, hell, when we heard "For Your Love," we could not envision Cream, but that's what we got, along with a plethora of acts so inventive they're still plying the boards today.
If you told me a year ago, just a few months ago, that this year's summer EDM smash would be cowritten by a rocker from Calabasas and sung by a black guy and sound closer to the country-like songs of Queen than Skrillex, I would have laughed you out of the room.
But that's what "Wake Me Up" is.
Not as instantly infectious as "Get Lucky," if you give "Wake Me Up" thirty seconds, you can't stop playing it, at all, you put it on endless repeat, forever.
The acoustic guitar intro would never indicate you're hearing the latest work of a world famous millionaire deejay. It sounds closer to Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" than it does mindless repetitive drivel.
But at 1:11 when the song explodes with electronics, you're not only surprised, you're thrilled. I don't care if you're six or sixty nine, you can't help but move your body, you feel the joy of life, something that only music can do so well.
And when the track quiets down again at 2:00...you think maybe we're returning to the introspective singer/songwriter days of the seventies.
You know what a hit song is...
Not something that looks good on paper.
Not something you need to hear ten times to get.
Not something you need to be dunned into listening to.
BUT A TRACK YOU GET THE FIRST TIME THROUGH AND CAN'T STOP PLAYING!
So how come everybody in America doesn't know "Wake Me Up"?
Because the music industry in the USA has blown its chance, it's burned people out, selling them mediocre, me-too again and again. Whole swaths of the public have tuned out tunes. They haven't got time for them, they'd just rather watch television.
And the solution is not apps with Samsung. It's not wall to wall television promotion. It's a simple formula, just do something so new and different that it's indelible, that you eat like chocolate and you share like marijuana.
Now "Wake Me Up" is not "Get Lucky." It's not a stone cold, certified classic. But unlike "Blurred Lines," it makes you want to hear more, to see what Avicii is up to. It's the HBO effect, gain our trust and we're open to everything you wanna do.
If you're not throwing your arms up in the air and stomping your feet as this plays, you're a quadriplegic.
P.S. There are no brand mentions in the lyrics, no cliches, no ho's or rims, just an expression of the human condition, which is one in which there are more questions than answers. That's what music used to be, a key, that opened a door...into your mind and the universe.
P.P.S. This is already a stone cold smash in a double digit number of countries. It's America that's lagging. Yes, the self-satisfied U.S., where we claim we're number one but we're reluctant to change.
P.P.P.S. Be sure to check out Aloe Blacc's "I Need A Dollar," almost as good as "Wake Me Up," it never reached international consciousness, unfortunately.
"I Need A Dollar": http://bit.ly/c13hBG
"Wake Me Up" and "I Need A Dollar" on Spotify: http://spoti.fi/140ZH6u
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Bezos/Washington Post
You double down in a crisis.
When the stock market tanks, you don't pull your money out, you buy.
This was the record labels' biggest mistake, it haunts them to this day, when Napster hit they should have started spending, getting ready for the new reality, instead they kept cutting and no one under thirty works there anymore, certainly not anybody with any ambition.
Just because newspapers are financially challenged, that does not mean there's no more need for NEWS! And that's the dirty little secret, despite all the opinionated bloviating online, there's very little newsgathering going on online, certainly not when it comes to the big issues of the day...finance, politics and international developments. This is what newspapers do best.
Newspapers...
There's no reporting at the TV station. Local outlets are all talking heads, models in a contest to air that which will get ratings. Cable outlets are not much better. And they and the networks take their talking points from newspapers. The "New York Times" might be struggling when it comes to income, but in terms of influence, the paper's never been bigger, it's a powerhouse. Because the "Times" has boots on the ground, and none of its competitors do...except for the "Wall Street Journal" and the "Washington Post."
That's what Bezos is buying. An army of newsgatherers. And if you don't think this is valuable, you don't know the aphorism "knowledge is power." And it is. You can learn more about the music business by sitting home and reading than going to any number of endless lunches. That's what separates the winners from the losers...information. He who has it wins. He who controls it has more power than any banker, any manufacturing titan. Yup, while the Grahams were asleep at the wheel, figuring they had to save the family fortune, Jeff Bezos saw an opportunity.
Does tomorrow's newspaper look like today's?
Hell, Yahoo's directory was eclipsed by Google's search engine. How information is accessed always changes, especially in the digital era. But he who writes the news, he always survives, as long as he continues to evaluate and change distribution.
Paywalls are for pussies. It's a head-scratcher why all publications are erecting them. They learned none of the lessons from the music industry. Foremost of which is your enemy is not reduced revenues, but obscurity. The key is to be the paper of record, to be available to everybody. And not everybody is concerned with everything, but when you break a story...be sure it can go viral.
In other words, if you make people buy your music to hear it, you're never going to make it in today's marketplace. And it's always about the music. Thom Yorke can get everybody to pay attention to his opinion on Spotify, but he can get almost nobody to listen to Atoms For Peace. And that's backward.
There's a huge desire for news. By pulling back from the audience, the paywall police are doing it wrong.
How do you do it today?
You decide what to cover and then own the sphere. That's the Apple paradigm. The iPod lesson. They OWNED portable music. Who will own the news of the future? Not TV, certainly not the "Los Angeles Times" and the other papers that have punted, who've closed foreign bureaus and cut staff in order to maintain margins, there's nothing left there, no reason for people to pay attention.
So what does Bezos do with his asset?
Who knows?
But he comes from a completely different background from yesterday's newspaper owners. He knows you invest and reap profits way down the line, when you've eliminated the competition. Amazon killed Borders. Its only real competition is the struggling Barnes & Noble. Like a venture capitalist, Bezos is investing today for rewards tomorrow.
Talent is available. The "New York Times" loses Nate Silver, not knowing what today's star reporters want and need, and Bezos opens up his checkbook and gives a home to all those great writers who'd rather report than build a website and go it alone. Yes, he can make the paper attractive, as opposed to the record labels whose big selling point is they're the last resort, if you want to get on terrestrial radio and make inroads into physical retail. That's like saying I'm the last Smith-Corona dealer and if you want a typewriter...
Bezos is all about the future. And he comes from the school of Microsoft. The first iteration sucks, but over time the product is refined and dominates. From the joke of the first Kindle to the Fire today. Hell, Amazon killed the Nook, right?
That's what you do, kill the competition and shine.
But Bezos also comes from the school of Apple. Wherein you don't have to be first, but if you do it better you can arrive late and win.
So everybody says that newspapers suck, business is lousy and you can get everything you need online. And then five years from now, they say just the opposite, that he who controls the news is king.
Don't look at today, look at TOMORROW!
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When the stock market tanks, you don't pull your money out, you buy.
This was the record labels' biggest mistake, it haunts them to this day, when Napster hit they should have started spending, getting ready for the new reality, instead they kept cutting and no one under thirty works there anymore, certainly not anybody with any ambition.
Just because newspapers are financially challenged, that does not mean there's no more need for NEWS! And that's the dirty little secret, despite all the opinionated bloviating online, there's very little newsgathering going on online, certainly not when it comes to the big issues of the day...finance, politics and international developments. This is what newspapers do best.
Newspapers...
There's no reporting at the TV station. Local outlets are all talking heads, models in a contest to air that which will get ratings. Cable outlets are not much better. And they and the networks take their talking points from newspapers. The "New York Times" might be struggling when it comes to income, but in terms of influence, the paper's never been bigger, it's a powerhouse. Because the "Times" has boots on the ground, and none of its competitors do...except for the "Wall Street Journal" and the "Washington Post."
That's what Bezos is buying. An army of newsgatherers. And if you don't think this is valuable, you don't know the aphorism "knowledge is power." And it is. You can learn more about the music business by sitting home and reading than going to any number of endless lunches. That's what separates the winners from the losers...information. He who has it wins. He who controls it has more power than any banker, any manufacturing titan. Yup, while the Grahams were asleep at the wheel, figuring they had to save the family fortune, Jeff Bezos saw an opportunity.
Does tomorrow's newspaper look like today's?
Hell, Yahoo's directory was eclipsed by Google's search engine. How information is accessed always changes, especially in the digital era. But he who writes the news, he always survives, as long as he continues to evaluate and change distribution.
Paywalls are for pussies. It's a head-scratcher why all publications are erecting them. They learned none of the lessons from the music industry. Foremost of which is your enemy is not reduced revenues, but obscurity. The key is to be the paper of record, to be available to everybody. And not everybody is concerned with everything, but when you break a story...be sure it can go viral.
In other words, if you make people buy your music to hear it, you're never going to make it in today's marketplace. And it's always about the music. Thom Yorke can get everybody to pay attention to his opinion on Spotify, but he can get almost nobody to listen to Atoms For Peace. And that's backward.
There's a huge desire for news. By pulling back from the audience, the paywall police are doing it wrong.
How do you do it today?
You decide what to cover and then own the sphere. That's the Apple paradigm. The iPod lesson. They OWNED portable music. Who will own the news of the future? Not TV, certainly not the "Los Angeles Times" and the other papers that have punted, who've closed foreign bureaus and cut staff in order to maintain margins, there's nothing left there, no reason for people to pay attention.
So what does Bezos do with his asset?
Who knows?
But he comes from a completely different background from yesterday's newspaper owners. He knows you invest and reap profits way down the line, when you've eliminated the competition. Amazon killed Borders. Its only real competition is the struggling Barnes & Noble. Like a venture capitalist, Bezos is investing today for rewards tomorrow.
Talent is available. The "New York Times" loses Nate Silver, not knowing what today's star reporters want and need, and Bezos opens up his checkbook and gives a home to all those great writers who'd rather report than build a website and go it alone. Yes, he can make the paper attractive, as opposed to the record labels whose big selling point is they're the last resort, if you want to get on terrestrial radio and make inroads into physical retail. That's like saying I'm the last Smith-Corona dealer and if you want a typewriter...
Bezos is all about the future. And he comes from the school of Microsoft. The first iteration sucks, but over time the product is refined and dominates. From the joke of the first Kindle to the Fire today. Hell, Amazon killed the Nook, right?
That's what you do, kill the competition and shine.
But Bezos also comes from the school of Apple. Wherein you don't have to be first, but if you do it better you can arrive late and win.
So everybody says that newspapers suck, business is lousy and you can get everything you need online. And then five years from now, they say just the opposite, that he who controls the news is king.
Don't look at today, look at TOMORROW!
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Rhinofy-Molly Hatchet
I know, third-rate boogie band. And I kind of agree with you. But I can still muster some enthusiasm for "Flirtin' With Disaster," but that's not what I heard on Sirius today, that was "Whiskey Man."
Once upon a time, the rednecks didn't listen to country, but rock and roll. Before country gave up its western roots and became rock and roll lite and the acts started singing about babies, SUVs and Christianity. Hell, the country stars of yore, who built the format, the complete genre, would get no airplay on country stations today. Used to be they kept you off the format because your music didn't fit, now they keep you off because of your morals... Huh?
But it was different in the late sixties and seventies. Country records rarely had any presence north of the Mason-Dixon line, but southern rock bands dominated the airwaves, to the point where we got imitation acts, like Molly Hatchet, third generation stuff that was easily dismissible, except for the hits.
Now if you want to draw an oblique parallel, southern rock and EDM are related. They're both about going to the gig and getting completely messed up, the music is just an additive to the fuel you've imbibed, ecstasy at the electronic show, beer at the southern rock gig. The idea was to let loose, something they talk about but no longer do in country anymore. It's all controlled and contrived. But if you watch that Skynyrd movie, you can feel the band teetering on the edge, not only with lifestyle, but music, back when rock stars were kings, not shills for the corporation.
And that's what the rednecks and the northerners had in common. This sound. It brought us together. Because it could not be denied. And it was always played by southerners. First, the Allman Brothers. Then Lynyrd Skynyrd. Then the Outlaws and Molly Hatchet.
And the guys in Hatchet were too fat and unattractive to appear on the covers of their albums in photographs, but this was back before MTV, when how you looked was not paramount, but how you played.
And unlike today's second-rate poseurs, the guys in Hatchet could play. And guided by Tom Werman, with a background in economic rock as opposed to southern noodling, at times Hatchet locked on and made music that today is still just as energizing, it makes you want to call somebody up and hit the bars, with this music blasting out of the convertible on the way to getting smashed.
"Whiskey Man"
It's the energy. From an era where you spoke with your music. Today it's all about the interview, the tweet, the personality, whereas back then these guys were high school losers who got laid via their tunes, they knew how to rev it up, it's hard to sit still listening to "Whiskey Man." Yes, Skynyrd's "Whiskey Rock-A-Roller" is superior, but I've already established that Hatchet was a me-too, second-rate act, but as Tom Petty so eloquently sang, even the losers get lucky sometimes.
"Whiskey Man" is pure boogie, it sounds like it's straight off a Foghat record, and that's a good thing! And when the whole thing breaks down at 1:50 and you hear the bass and then the guitars start to twin and wail, you feel the power of seventies rock, which could be quite calculated, but never lost its power.
If you believe music started with the Ramones, you'll hate this. But if you knew music before then, if you're open to a bit more, if you're not narrow in your tastes, you'll have a hard time denying your affection for "Whiskey Man."
"Dreams I'll Never See"
From Hatchet's debut. And you could call it a cheap shot, covering a classic Allman Brothers song. But the real story is most people still don't know the Allmans' debut, which featured the original, they started with "Idlewild South" at best. Furthermore, the Hatchet take is different. It's faster. Just like Gregg Allman slowed down "Midnight Rider" for his solo debut, Hatchet ratcheted up "Dreams"...and it totally works. Instead of being plaintive, it's active. In the Allmans' take, the dude's just waking up, whereas in Hatchet's take he's conscious, he's already walking around, he's facing the new day instead of being lost in the haze of yesterday. If you've never heard this, you'll like this. Sacrilegious back then, good now.
"Flirtin' With Disaster"
The piece-de-resistance. Overplayed to death back then, we boomers know it by heart and get a nostalgic thrill every time we hear it today.
Once again, it's the energy, and the dynamics, the way the song accelerates and goes up a step, but...
"I'm travelin' down that lonesome road
Feel like I'm draggin' a heavy load
Yet I've tried to turn my head away
Feel 'bout the same most every day
You know what I'm talkin' about man?"
WE DID!
That's the difference between yesterday and today. Today the artists constantly reinforce they're better than us, whereas back then they were a reflection of us, their music encapsulated our experience, that's why we were drawn to them, that's why we wanted to go to the show, to be with like-minded, alienated people and connect with the band that was speaking our truth.
And after these three, you're on your own. If you bought the albums, you probably know more, if you want to explore, be my guest, but I'm done. I only need these three, that I heard incessantly on the radio back when we were addicted, when it was our best friend.
Spotify link: http://spoti.fi/p6HcZ8
Previous Rhinofy playlists: http://www.rhinofy.com/lefsetz
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Once upon a time, the rednecks didn't listen to country, but rock and roll. Before country gave up its western roots and became rock and roll lite and the acts started singing about babies, SUVs and Christianity. Hell, the country stars of yore, who built the format, the complete genre, would get no airplay on country stations today. Used to be they kept you off the format because your music didn't fit, now they keep you off because of your morals... Huh?
But it was different in the late sixties and seventies. Country records rarely had any presence north of the Mason-Dixon line, but southern rock bands dominated the airwaves, to the point where we got imitation acts, like Molly Hatchet, third generation stuff that was easily dismissible, except for the hits.
Now if you want to draw an oblique parallel, southern rock and EDM are related. They're both about going to the gig and getting completely messed up, the music is just an additive to the fuel you've imbibed, ecstasy at the electronic show, beer at the southern rock gig. The idea was to let loose, something they talk about but no longer do in country anymore. It's all controlled and contrived. But if you watch that Skynyrd movie, you can feel the band teetering on the edge, not only with lifestyle, but music, back when rock stars were kings, not shills for the corporation.
And that's what the rednecks and the northerners had in common. This sound. It brought us together. Because it could not be denied. And it was always played by southerners. First, the Allman Brothers. Then Lynyrd Skynyrd. Then the Outlaws and Molly Hatchet.
And the guys in Hatchet were too fat and unattractive to appear on the covers of their albums in photographs, but this was back before MTV, when how you looked was not paramount, but how you played.
And unlike today's second-rate poseurs, the guys in Hatchet could play. And guided by Tom Werman, with a background in economic rock as opposed to southern noodling, at times Hatchet locked on and made music that today is still just as energizing, it makes you want to call somebody up and hit the bars, with this music blasting out of the convertible on the way to getting smashed.
"Whiskey Man"
It's the energy. From an era where you spoke with your music. Today it's all about the interview, the tweet, the personality, whereas back then these guys were high school losers who got laid via their tunes, they knew how to rev it up, it's hard to sit still listening to "Whiskey Man." Yes, Skynyrd's "Whiskey Rock-A-Roller" is superior, but I've already established that Hatchet was a me-too, second-rate act, but as Tom Petty so eloquently sang, even the losers get lucky sometimes.
"Whiskey Man" is pure boogie, it sounds like it's straight off a Foghat record, and that's a good thing! And when the whole thing breaks down at 1:50 and you hear the bass and then the guitars start to twin and wail, you feel the power of seventies rock, which could be quite calculated, but never lost its power.
If you believe music started with the Ramones, you'll hate this. But if you knew music before then, if you're open to a bit more, if you're not narrow in your tastes, you'll have a hard time denying your affection for "Whiskey Man."
"Dreams I'll Never See"
From Hatchet's debut. And you could call it a cheap shot, covering a classic Allman Brothers song. But the real story is most people still don't know the Allmans' debut, which featured the original, they started with "Idlewild South" at best. Furthermore, the Hatchet take is different. It's faster. Just like Gregg Allman slowed down "Midnight Rider" for his solo debut, Hatchet ratcheted up "Dreams"...and it totally works. Instead of being plaintive, it's active. In the Allmans' take, the dude's just waking up, whereas in Hatchet's take he's conscious, he's already walking around, he's facing the new day instead of being lost in the haze of yesterday. If you've never heard this, you'll like this. Sacrilegious back then, good now.
"Flirtin' With Disaster"
The piece-de-resistance. Overplayed to death back then, we boomers know it by heart and get a nostalgic thrill every time we hear it today.
Once again, it's the energy, and the dynamics, the way the song accelerates and goes up a step, but...
"I'm travelin' down that lonesome road
Feel like I'm draggin' a heavy load
Yet I've tried to turn my head away
Feel 'bout the same most every day
You know what I'm talkin' about man?"
WE DID!
That's the difference between yesterday and today. Today the artists constantly reinforce they're better than us, whereas back then they were a reflection of us, their music encapsulated our experience, that's why we were drawn to them, that's why we wanted to go to the show, to be with like-minded, alienated people and connect with the band that was speaking our truth.
And after these three, you're on your own. If you bought the albums, you probably know more, if you want to explore, be my guest, but I'm done. I only need these three, that I heard incessantly on the radio back when we were addicted, when it was our best friend.
Spotify link: http://spoti.fi/p6HcZ8
Previous Rhinofy playlists: http://www.rhinofy.com/lefsetz
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Monday 5 August 2013
Russia
They liked it better under Communism.
At least you could predict the future. Now it's every man for himself, and what's worse, the game is undefined, and you have to pay $200 every time you pass Go, even though you're not sure who to lay it on and you're suspicious you're falling further behind the winners every day. If it sounds like America it isn't. We've got income inequality. But we don't have twenty four hours of sun in the middle of summer, we don't have doctors who make $900 a month, we don't have a culture of drinking because life is just too damn hard. But we do have a population without passports who are so convinced life is better in the United States that they never bother to leave, resisting insight into how the world works.
Wanna know how the world works?
War. You've got what I don't have and rather than negotiate I'm gonna reach in and grab it. Yes, you can look at a map and think you know what's going on, but until you travel to the Baltic, you've got no idea how close these countries are, nor how different they are, the whole history of Europe comes into focus and it's titillating and tantalizing as well as scary
Let me go back to the beginning.
You didn't hear from me for two weeks because I was on a cruise, a Crystal Cruise to Northern Europe, "Baltic Brilliance," to celebrate my mother's 85th.
Actually, she's pushing 87. But my sister's husband ran out of vacation time and we couldn't agree on where to go and it took this long to figure it all out. To the point where my mother didn't want to buy trip insurance, she was afraid she was gonna die before we departed!
And I hate cruises.
Because the food's so bad.
And they're so often to nowhere.
But there are a few good destinations. Like Alaska. But my sisters wouldn't go there. Which flummoxed me, because everybody I know loved it, but you've got to give to get. Yup, when they said no, I got to say I wouldn't go to the Mediterranean, nowhere where the stops were nothing but tourist traps.
So if I hate cruises so much, why did we go?
Because my mother can barely walk.
Oh, of course we could have gone to a beach resort, but I hate lying in the sun and you put that many people together for that long a time with nothing to do and the conflagration is inevitable. When my father was alive every family trip had a blow-up. But he's been gone twenty years, but it's his money we were traveling on. Actually, no. It was my mother's insurance money, from her accident, wherein a friend ran her over and she broke her hip and she was in rehab and didn't want to live anymore but pulled through and is now her same feisty self, albeit a slower walker.
That's what she uses, a walker. And on this trip, a portable wheelchair and a scooter. But she's game. She doesn't stay home and weep, she's still extracting the zest from life, I can barely get ahold of her, she's so on the go.
But what about the bad food?
Our friends the cruisers, who've sailed everywhere, guaranteed the food on Crystal would be good, there's a Nobu and a Prego and there's no tipping and I was sold. And you should be too. Sure, there were a thousand people on the ship, but no one was dunning for tips and there was no riff-raff and the food was not only plentiful but edible. As for me, I made my daily stop at the Ben & Jerry's ice cream bar, and had a chinois chicken salad after touring each day. And everybody knew my name and everybody was so nice and sure it was not cheap but if you're paying you want service, something the music industry still doesn't understand, but Crystal Cruises does.
So we started in Stockholm.
Yes, I went to see Daniel Ek at Spotify. That's a whole 'nother post. But I will tell you, after spending a few hours with him I don't see why anybody would want to work at the label, that's not where the excitement is, it's in tech. Because at Spotify everybody's smart and they provide lunch and you can criticize payouts all you want but the point is tech is changing the world and music is not. Sorry.
And it was the hottest day of the summer in Stockholm. Which meant high eighties.
And it was the coldest day of the summer in Tallinn, Estonia, where we went next.
But Stockholm is fascinating. It's so far away. And built on islands. And there are thousands of them surrounding the city. Traveling through them was the highlight of cruising.
Tallinn... What can I say, they're no longer under Russian rule, but the economy is so depressed! The guide had three jobs. She took us to a prison...that's where they killed Jews, right there.
Whew!
She took us to the cemetery, where my younger sister spied a stone that said "Lifsitz." We went to the synagogue, where we were treated as the landsmen we were. And we walked through the precious old town freezing our butts off.
Next came Helsinki.
We had a fantastic guide. It makes all the difference. She cracked jokes. She took us to the Rock Church. Look it up, it'll blow your mind.
And then we sailed to St. Petersburg. Eleven time zones away.
They don't tell you it's beautiful, they don't tell you it's low-rise, they don't tell you how you keep pinching yourself, unable to believe you're there.
Yes, we went to the Hermitage. They had more Picassos than there are in MOMA, any museum I've been. And an open window to the sea air. Huh? There was no climate control.
But you need to go to Peterhof. The Tsar's summer palace across the water. We took a Soviet-era hydrofoil that buzzed so loudly, I thought it was going to shake apart on the sea. You could see the welds. I wondered if the workers just didn't care, or they didn't have the skills or the money or...
Peterhof is the pictures you've seen. With the gold rooms.
But what they don't tell you is it's all rebuilt. Yup, the Nazis burned down everything but the facade. The art is real, the Russians stored it in Siberia, but everything else is positively post-war. All over Europe, after so many wars, you'd be stunned how little is original. It's kind of like Chumbawamba, they knock it down but they get up again.
And the Tsars served ice cream and you're there getting perspective no amount of traveling in America will give you. You see these people wanted more. They wanted to be somebody. They'd kill their relatives for power. You see how the game is played, and it's no different today.
Oh yeah, Peter & Paul Cathedral, where the Tsars are buried. Yup, right there, all the Romanovs, even the ones who were shot in 1918. You shudder and shake, you just can't believe it.
And then on to Berlin. Where I have to go back. Oh, I want to go back to Russia too, but for different reasons. Russia is different, Berlin is the same. It's low-rise and spread out, like Los Angeles. It's cosmopolitan and hip. But it's also where the Nazis reigned.
Our guide, Yael, took us to the Jewish Community Center. They had guards. On a Sunday. Provided by the government, at all Jewish sites since the '72 Munich massacre. She said she felt safe, I'm not so sure.
And we saw the Brandenburg Gate, which like the Peterhof Palace has been rebuilt.
And the Reichstag, ditto.
And then we went to the Wall.
I'm tingling as I write this. History come alive. I read about it in the "Weekly Reader." Only a sliver is left. With its graffiti. You can see the building where the East Germans swung over to safety on a rope. They closed those offices right thereafter. And right there... Is Nazi headquarters. The SS. Where Hitler made all his plans. RIGHT THERE! This ain't no History Channel reality show about pawn shops, this is the real thing, it's both frightening and intriguing, positively riveting.
And from there we went to Copenhagen. All I can say is go to the Louisiana Museum, up the coast, for the building, the art and the view. You say you want to live in Malibu or the Hamptons? Drive up the Copenhagen coast and you'll change your mind.
And after two flights lasting nearly fourteen hours I'm back home again. Albeit unable to sleep. Thinking about the trip. Wishing I was back there...
"Baltic Brilliance": http://bit.ly/185syec
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At least you could predict the future. Now it's every man for himself, and what's worse, the game is undefined, and you have to pay $200 every time you pass Go, even though you're not sure who to lay it on and you're suspicious you're falling further behind the winners every day. If it sounds like America it isn't. We've got income inequality. But we don't have twenty four hours of sun in the middle of summer, we don't have doctors who make $900 a month, we don't have a culture of drinking because life is just too damn hard. But we do have a population without passports who are so convinced life is better in the United States that they never bother to leave, resisting insight into how the world works.
Wanna know how the world works?
War. You've got what I don't have and rather than negotiate I'm gonna reach in and grab it. Yes, you can look at a map and think you know what's going on, but until you travel to the Baltic, you've got no idea how close these countries are, nor how different they are, the whole history of Europe comes into focus and it's titillating and tantalizing as well as scary
Let me go back to the beginning.
You didn't hear from me for two weeks because I was on a cruise, a Crystal Cruise to Northern Europe, "Baltic Brilliance," to celebrate my mother's 85th.
Actually, she's pushing 87. But my sister's husband ran out of vacation time and we couldn't agree on where to go and it took this long to figure it all out. To the point where my mother didn't want to buy trip insurance, she was afraid she was gonna die before we departed!
And I hate cruises.
Because the food's so bad.
And they're so often to nowhere.
But there are a few good destinations. Like Alaska. But my sisters wouldn't go there. Which flummoxed me, because everybody I know loved it, but you've got to give to get. Yup, when they said no, I got to say I wouldn't go to the Mediterranean, nowhere where the stops were nothing but tourist traps.
So if I hate cruises so much, why did we go?
Because my mother can barely walk.
Oh, of course we could have gone to a beach resort, but I hate lying in the sun and you put that many people together for that long a time with nothing to do and the conflagration is inevitable. When my father was alive every family trip had a blow-up. But he's been gone twenty years, but it's his money we were traveling on. Actually, no. It was my mother's insurance money, from her accident, wherein a friend ran her over and she broke her hip and she was in rehab and didn't want to live anymore but pulled through and is now her same feisty self, albeit a slower walker.
That's what she uses, a walker. And on this trip, a portable wheelchair and a scooter. But she's game. She doesn't stay home and weep, she's still extracting the zest from life, I can barely get ahold of her, she's so on the go.
But what about the bad food?
Our friends the cruisers, who've sailed everywhere, guaranteed the food on Crystal would be good, there's a Nobu and a Prego and there's no tipping and I was sold. And you should be too. Sure, there were a thousand people on the ship, but no one was dunning for tips and there was no riff-raff and the food was not only plentiful but edible. As for me, I made my daily stop at the Ben & Jerry's ice cream bar, and had a chinois chicken salad after touring each day. And everybody knew my name and everybody was so nice and sure it was not cheap but if you're paying you want service, something the music industry still doesn't understand, but Crystal Cruises does.
So we started in Stockholm.
Yes, I went to see Daniel Ek at Spotify. That's a whole 'nother post. But I will tell you, after spending a few hours with him I don't see why anybody would want to work at the label, that's not where the excitement is, it's in tech. Because at Spotify everybody's smart and they provide lunch and you can criticize payouts all you want but the point is tech is changing the world and music is not. Sorry.
And it was the hottest day of the summer in Stockholm. Which meant high eighties.
And it was the coldest day of the summer in Tallinn, Estonia, where we went next.
But Stockholm is fascinating. It's so far away. And built on islands. And there are thousands of them surrounding the city. Traveling through them was the highlight of cruising.
Tallinn... What can I say, they're no longer under Russian rule, but the economy is so depressed! The guide had three jobs. She took us to a prison...that's where they killed Jews, right there.
Whew!
She took us to the cemetery, where my younger sister spied a stone that said "Lifsitz." We went to the synagogue, where we were treated as the landsmen we were. And we walked through the precious old town freezing our butts off.
Next came Helsinki.
We had a fantastic guide. It makes all the difference. She cracked jokes. She took us to the Rock Church. Look it up, it'll blow your mind.
And then we sailed to St. Petersburg. Eleven time zones away.
They don't tell you it's beautiful, they don't tell you it's low-rise, they don't tell you how you keep pinching yourself, unable to believe you're there.
Yes, we went to the Hermitage. They had more Picassos than there are in MOMA, any museum I've been. And an open window to the sea air. Huh? There was no climate control.
But you need to go to Peterhof. The Tsar's summer palace across the water. We took a Soviet-era hydrofoil that buzzed so loudly, I thought it was going to shake apart on the sea. You could see the welds. I wondered if the workers just didn't care, or they didn't have the skills or the money or...
Peterhof is the pictures you've seen. With the gold rooms.
But what they don't tell you is it's all rebuilt. Yup, the Nazis burned down everything but the facade. The art is real, the Russians stored it in Siberia, but everything else is positively post-war. All over Europe, after so many wars, you'd be stunned how little is original. It's kind of like Chumbawamba, they knock it down but they get up again.
And the Tsars served ice cream and you're there getting perspective no amount of traveling in America will give you. You see these people wanted more. They wanted to be somebody. They'd kill their relatives for power. You see how the game is played, and it's no different today.
Oh yeah, Peter & Paul Cathedral, where the Tsars are buried. Yup, right there, all the Romanovs, even the ones who were shot in 1918. You shudder and shake, you just can't believe it.
And then on to Berlin. Where I have to go back. Oh, I want to go back to Russia too, but for different reasons. Russia is different, Berlin is the same. It's low-rise and spread out, like Los Angeles. It's cosmopolitan and hip. But it's also where the Nazis reigned.
Our guide, Yael, took us to the Jewish Community Center. They had guards. On a Sunday. Provided by the government, at all Jewish sites since the '72 Munich massacre. She said she felt safe, I'm not so sure.
And we saw the Brandenburg Gate, which like the Peterhof Palace has been rebuilt.
And the Reichstag, ditto.
And then we went to the Wall.
I'm tingling as I write this. History come alive. I read about it in the "Weekly Reader." Only a sliver is left. With its graffiti. You can see the building where the East Germans swung over to safety on a rope. They closed those offices right thereafter. And right there... Is Nazi headquarters. The SS. Where Hitler made all his plans. RIGHT THERE! This ain't no History Channel reality show about pawn shops, this is the real thing, it's both frightening and intriguing, positively riveting.
And from there we went to Copenhagen. All I can say is go to the Louisiana Museum, up the coast, for the building, the art and the view. You say you want to live in Malibu or the Hamptons? Drive up the Copenhagen coast and you'll change your mind.
And after two flights lasting nearly fourteen hours I'm back home again. Albeit unable to sleep. Thinking about the trip. Wishing I was back there...
"Baltic Brilliance": http://bit.ly/185syec
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Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
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