Mailbag

From: peter noone
Subject: Re: Gerry Goffin

hello bob

on plane from frankfurt to houston to go sing the gerry and carole song
woke up this morning feeling finer, because that song came to mickie most and when he played it to me and my merrie band of hermits, we knew that it was the perfect song for a gang of 16 to 18 years old english posters to eat up the charts.

I changed the words a bit, because I didn't think it was a good idea to sing "last night I met a new boy in the neighbourhood, oh yeah."
I open every concert with the song and see the smiles!
my audience see my face when they hear it on the radio!
I am so happy to read your stuff and it's always appreciated.

peter noone

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From: Keith Hopwood
Subject: Re: Gerry Goffin

Right on the nail Bob - the power of the pen. We were incredibly lucky to have I'm into Something Good as our first release, thanks to Mickie Most finding the original. It's only with the benefit of hindsight you can recognise the talent that wove such brilliant lyrics into melodies that just got under your skin, saying so much, in so few words. It was an era when the art of songwriting triumphed, and 'production' was just the process that got it onto the vinyl. So different to today - now it's the other way round. The sheer amount of covers of songs from the sixties over the years is testament to their writers' genius.

Keith Hopwood

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Subject: from Kim Carnes

Hey Bob, just want to thank you for mentioning my song BREAK THE RULES..... I still open every show with it, only I sing it acapella with my band....

my thanx, best, Kim

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From: CLINT YOUNG (and others)
Subject: Re: Rhinofy-Cream Primer

Hey Bob.. this is the scoop on BADGE

"Badge" was originally an untitled track. During the production transfer for the album Goodbye, the original music sheet was used to produce the liner notes and track listing. The only discernible word on the page was "bridge" (indicating the song's bridge section). Due to Harrison's handwriting, however, Clapton misread it as "badge" - and the song was titled soon thereafter.
Harrison remembered the story differently: "I helped Eric write "Badge" you know. Each of them had to come up with a song for that Goodbye Cream album and Eric didn't have his written. We were working across from each other and I was writing the lyrics down and we came to the middle part so I wrote 'Bridge.' Eric read it upside down and cracked up laughing-- 'What's BADGE?' he said. After that, Ringo walked in drunk and gave us that line about the swans living in the park."

A common legend or misconception is that the name came about because its chord progression is B-A-D-G-E (it is not), or simply because an anagram of a guitar's standard tuning (E-A-D-G-B-E) can be arranged to spell "Badge".

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From: Cahoon Keith (and others)
Subject: Re: Rhinofy-Cream Primer

legends have it that-

NSU stands for non specific urethritis, a disease which Clapton was said to have been suffering from at the time

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From: Stuart Marvin
Subject: Re: Rhinofy-Cream Primer

About 17 years ago, my buddy and I peeled out of work early to play some pool on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It was mid-day so the place was pretty empty, until two guys walked in and snagged a table near ours. One looked a bit like Clapton but I really didn't give it a second thought, until I heard the British accent. I said to my friend, "holy shit, that's EC playing two tables over." Not missing a beat, I walked over and in a very understated way said "hey guys, my friend is giving me a real beating how'd you like to make it interesting and play us in a game of eight-ball," They replied affirmatively and I went back to get my friend.

When we returned Clapton put out his hand and said "Hi, I'm Eric," although inside I said to myself "really, no f-ing shit." His playing partner was Russ Tittelman, the famed producer. Now, to briefly set the table here, in my day job I've met a fair amount of famous sports celebs and never, ever have I got even the least bit star struck. Not once! That said, when I lined up my very first shot in this eight-ball challenge, my hands started to shake. I thought of all the times I listened to Fresh Cream, Disraeli Gears, Wheels of Wire, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominos, etc., in both my childhood bedroom and as an adult. This was "Slowhand" or "God," or any other moniker attributed to Clapton over the years. My childhood was literally flashing before my eyes.

Eric couldn't have been nicer. We played for about an hour and did talk a little shop, although I refrained from being the star struck fan that I was. I couldn't tell you who won, not that it really mattered much. It was both a great day and experience!

Oh, and talk about karma, my playing buddy, who wasn't a super hyped up fan like me, well, his real-life name is Derek. So I guess it was fate all along.

Stuart K. Marvin

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From: Ben Erickson
Subject: Re: Uber

Like I emailed you before...Uber is a tour managers wet dream. It has literally changed my life being able to send cars to pick up the band, have them waiting backstage, take guests home, etc. I get bummed when I'm in a city that doesn't have it...and the whole $100 to deliver a mariachi band and a bottle of tequila to wherever you're at on Cinco de Mayo is such a cool idea it's ridiculous. You always talk about "getting people to talk about you" and nothing does it like on demand Mariachi. Ole' from the beach in France!

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From: Richard Musterer
Subject: Re: WWDC

Random musing: Does Jimmy Iovine actually use Beats headphones? Would
audiophile Steve Jobs use Beats?

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/steve-jobs-stereo-system/

And it was interesting to read this while recalling that Jimmy Iovine
once engineered Springsteen sessions...

(Bruce) kept saying, "This doesn't sound right." I was like, "What are
you listening on?" He goes, "Well, I got Dr. Dre Beats headphones."

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bruce-springsteen-producer-breaks-down-high-hopes-exclusive-20131230

Thanks.

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From: Dan Millen
Subject: Re: Delusional

Oh man, you gotta love it! This is why I have a love / hate relationship with small clubs… the bands and agents are just as delusional.

Hey Dan,

We are the dungflingers, we are from Bayonne NJ, we are all high school students who started this band a couple years ago. We plays tons of house parties and we opened up for LIT once. We are looking to go on tour this summer to support our new CD, do you have Saturday July 5 (in your 21+ club in the heart of the city that no one will be at because it's the 4th of July and nobody knows who your are) that you could hook us up with? We are asking for $350 versus the door plus a hotel room. You can book three local bands to open for us that will bring 25-30 people.

ugh…

Or contrast with:

Dan,

it's Ari Gold at the humungo agency. We have "Had a hit 10 years ago and still trying to cruise on it" out looking for dates.

Me: I like the band, what kind of cake are they looking for.

Him: $7500 plus ground transportation and back line.

Me: Last play in the market was 240 tix sold at $15 - that's about half of what you are looking for.

Him: Well they won't even look at offers less than that.

Me: Get the money from a Casino…

Act fires that agent. Three months later I get the same email from the agency across town… and the cycle never stops.

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From: Jack Casey
Subject: RE: Delusional

Hi Bob,

The notion that mass appeal = rubbish is a subject I address constantly in class and at WERS. Radio has traditionally been driven by Arbitron (now Nielsen) which has never been about qualitative measurement (who has advanced degrees or who appreciates the great poets)... it has always been about cume aka tonnage. Because the ad agencies sell their clients' products and services through media, they want numbers. That's the business. This has never been more true for radio than in the age of the personal people meter (PPM).

In the end, taste is always subjective and people vote with their meters and their purchases (downloads, hard media, concert tickets). If you want to survive and thrive (or as we say in the not-for-profit world "become sustainable"), give the most people you can reach what they want. And, just because more and more started to like them doesn't mean that Mumford and Sons or The Lumineers "sold out" or lost their mojo.

By the way, Kiesza's success is an interesting example of "give the people what they want." I met her and her friend Alicia Lemke often while they were both at Berklee. Alicia was just as driven to succeed as Kiesza but she is much more a pure folk artist. Her voice reminded me of a young Judy Collins. And, while she has done OK in New York, she hasn't enjoyed the same level of success as Kiesza because she simply isn't as mass appeal. Niche artists can still make a decent living but they shouldn't whine because others have more of what consumers are looking for. The Studebaker Avanti was a unique and wonderful automobile in many ways. But sorry, it never had enough of the things that made people buy Corvettes in record numbers. And that's why Studebaker is no longer in business.

Love your blog.

Jack Casey
General Manager
WERS-FM
Emerson College
Boston

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From: mark weiss
Subject: Re: Private Equity

I read the same article and wondered how the facts fit my world view:
here's one way:
Palo Alto, California recently passed a noise ordinance that banned the use of music amplifiers in a public plaza during business hours due to the lobbying by a hedge-fund manager named Rick Kimball of Technology Crossover Ventures and his landlord who claimed that the street musician playing blues guitar for tips was disrupting their ability to make that kind of Leon Black Steve Schwartzman money--Kimball by the way is a trustee of Dartmouth College, as is Leon Black.

mark weiss in palo alto (who spoke a half dozen times at public hearings claiming that the noise ordinance was actually contrary to bill of rights)

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Subject: The Impact of Refrigeration

Hi Bob;

I feel as though the bulk of the music industry is still in the ice making and delivery business and despite the advent of home refrigeration; they want everyone to keep using and paying for their daily ice delivery.

The great ice making companies: Warner/Elektra/Atlantic, EMI, Sony (CBS/Columbia), A&M, Polygram, Universal, BMG....slowly melting away, daily....and their greatest ice makers: Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elton John, The Eagles and so on...

http://www.history-magazine.com/refrig.html

excerpts:

"By 1879 there were 35 commercial ice plants in America, more than 200 a decade later, and 2,000 by 1909. In 1907, 14-15 million tons of ice were consumed, nearly triple the amount in 1880. No pond was safe from scraping for ice production, not even Thoreau's Walden Pond, where 1,000 tons of ice were extracted each day in 1847."

"The ice wagon was a familiar sight on urban streets. It became an American institution, delivering ice as needed when consumers posted the 'Ice Today' sign in their windows. Iceboxes were typically made of wood, lined with tin or zinc and insulated with sawdust or seaweed. Water pans had to be emptied daily."

"The household refrigerator changed the way people ate and socially affected the household. They were no longer dependent on ice delivery and they didn't have to make provisions for it like leaving a key or leaving the door open. Ice wagons became a thing of the past. By the 1920s, the household refrigerator was an essential piece of kitchen furniture. In 1921, 5,000 mechanical refrigerators were manufactured in the US. Ten years later that number grew past one million and just six years later, nearly six million. Mass production of modern refrigerators began in earnest after WWII. By 1950, more than 80 percent of American farms and more than 90 percent of urban homes had one."

Sound familiar? Yes, it does.

Get with it.

Andre Bourgeois
INSTINCT

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From: Scott Cohen
Subject: Re: More Math

Bob,

I think everyone really loves this debate. But can you really call it a debate. It is like debating climate change. There is no debate.

I wrote this a few months back. - http://www.dailyrindblog.com/news-flash-music-business-fixed/

"'News Flash'-The Music Business Has Been Fixed"

That's not really true. Let me start differently. The music business is not broken. If I hear one more artist complain about the broken music industry and the small digital payouts, I am going to pull my hair out. (Luckily I am already bald so it is not a real concern.)

If you are successful, the music business is amazing. Lots of fun, money, drugs and alcohol (if you choose and I am not endorsing this behavior) and of course the opportunity to make music that people enjoy. If you are not popular, the problem is that there is not much money. Still lots of fun, drugs and alcohol (but you have to pay for them) and still plenty of opportunities to make music. But no money. And it has nothing to do with Spotify payouts or the quality of the music.

I used to hear complaints about the broken business back in the 20th century.

Here is a list of a few of the common ones:

1. I need to get signed by a label to release my music.

2. Recording is too expensive.

3. I have no way to reach potential fans.

4. I can't get distribution.

These problems don't exist anymore. Solved. But still there is a lot of complaining. The system must be broken. The business just doesn't work. I can't make enough money to survive with my music. Digital services just don't pay enough.

SSShhhhhhh. Let me tell you a little secret. It is a secret that all the successful artists know. Are you ready? You need to become popular. Then you earn a lot of money. People that knew this: Elvis, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Madonna, every rapper that ever existed, Taylor Swift, Jarvis Cocker, Oasis, and the list goes on and on and on.

The last time I checked there was still only one number 1 single every week. Make it to number 1 and you will see that the system pays out a lot of money. Don't get hung up on your numbers of streams, downloads, views, etc. It is only the amount in relation to the other artists. So 100,000 video views may seem like a lot but it really doesn't stack up to the billion views a top artist receives. Same with streaming payouts. Even 1 million streams is not a lot. There's no money in 1 million streams.

So please stop blaming the system. It is hard to make money in the music industry. But it is not because the industry is broken.

________________________________________

From: Jim Steinman

From: Jim
Subject: TODD R. & THE 1977 BLACKOUT

I remember Todd Rundgren, a pure genius, maybe the ONLY one I ever met or knew in pop/rock, was incredibly sarcastic. He never once said anything positive about ANY of my songs--which never bothered me. (I had a certain immunity to being criticized, from my college years at Amherst, where Ray Teller (Penn & Teller) was a dorm mate.) My first piece as ARTS EDITOR got the following alumni comment: "Well, hallelujah! Amherst now has its premier priapic perpetrator of pure pornography." I was extremely flattered.

Todd had a strong undercurrent of real bitterness: I think he KNEW that he was WAY UNDERCELBRATED, and massively not as "successful" as he should have been. He would say "I hate nothing more than when record people, or musicians, say 'That's a reallly commercial track! Definitely a hit.' He'd respond with "There are NO commercial or hit tracks, until it's released & proves it. Until then, it's all BS!" Hard to argue with!

He took out his venomous "side" mostly on people like Bruce Springsteen or Billy Joel; he was "withering" in criticizing them. On the other hand, his genius was gloriously shown on all the background vocals on BAT OUT OF HELL and BACK INTO HELL--breathtaking!

I did BAND OF GOLD with Bonnie Tyler. (Still the ONLY song I know about impotence.) He sung a ton and sampled about 35 vocal phrases into a synth. He then played back the song and inserted those phrases EVERYWHERE in the song: usually doing "variations"--like "since you've been gone" would be "si--si--si--si--since you've been gone". He had not planned any of this out! It was spontaneous and throughout the song, maybe over 65 "phrases". He then said "OK, let's double that". As I watched in total amazement, the song played back and he "doubled" EVERY SINGLE PHRASE, right down to all the variations like "si--si--si--since you've been gone" which was done manually by clicking really fast on the word "since". There were tons like that, & he doubled the entire song perfectly! Only stopped one time to correct himself.

I felt that Toddy creating BACKING VOCALS was one of the most breathtaking things and purest example of musical "genius: I'd ever seen!. In summer 1977, Meat and I were up at Todd's house working on BAT and he finished, and said something like "You wanna see my souped up video game?" He had some STAR TREK large standing set up game. We said "SURE!" and he suddenly started doing the most explosive things I'd ever seen in a"game". And by far the loudest!

The lights would dim a lot, even shut off for a second, and he just kept on going. When it had ended I was pretty blown away. Meat and I drove down from Bearsville back to the city. We were so consumed by & involved in talking that it wasn't till we were on the West Side Highway that I said "Meat! Look! Something's wrong!." We both THEN noticed the complete lack of ANY KIND of light! It was the GREAT BLACKOUT of 1977! We drove around the whole city, seeing revellers in the streets, people breaking windows and looting, and everything you could think of happening OPENLY in the pitch black of NYC! I kept a notebook and it read, for that night, "10:17PM: Toddy makes the lights go off with his fucking amazing video game!." It was FOUR DAYS later that the papers, reporting on the cause of the blackout, wrote that "It seemed to begin at a major power station near Newburgh NY, and spread from there. Analysts say it started about 10:15 or so." People can deny this all they want, but Todd,
being right up against Newburgh, to me, CAUSED the GREAT BLACKOUT with his "souped up video game."! I'll never forget those days, and believe, totally, that it WAS Toddy!."..........Now THAT's ROCK N' ROLL! Plunging the country's biggest city into "medieval" darkness for days!............And honestly, this all began by my thoughts of eating at HoJo's and FRIENDLY'S in Massachussetts!."

________________________________________

thank you for that beautiful piece---you see gerry goffin is my husband --- and i thought that piece was just perfect gerry would have loved that michele goffin


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