Re: Shark Tank Rules
Thanks for the nod Bob, been reading your letter for years. I'm a big fan and appreciate the candor of your writing (we need more of that these days).
Lucky for us Mark Burnett took out the equity clause in Season 4 (he got a ton of flack for it on Inc, Entreprenuer, etc and caved - you can find some of the scathing articles online) so we didn't have to give up anything to be on the show.
I think it all comes down to what you always talk about...passion. Making people feel something. For the artists that can make their fans feel moved, or changed in some way, that fan desires a deeper engagement. Hell I'm that way with Jimmy Buffett. Been a superfan for over a decade and still haven't found something I won't consume of his... Right down to his first live Internet performance for Maragartiaville TV a few weeks ago. I like to think we have a bit of that in all of us... Even if it's being a fan of a pastrami sandwich and movie screening on your birthday! :)
Take care,
Kim
Kim Kaupe
Co-Founder, ZinePak
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Re: Ezrin
Bob, I can stomach the people dissing Bob Ezrin for telling the truth, and will try to keep down my breakfast reading the predictable (and predictably full of shit) comeback "Old people always feel that way about younger people's music", but I have to respond to people using Alice Cooper as an example to challenge Bob's credibility. "I'm Eighteen" is one of the greatest expressions of teen angst ever recorded. "....Lines form on my face and hands, lines form to the left and right, l'm in the middle without any plans, I'm a boy and I'm a man..." "I've got a baby's brain and an old man's heart..." Alice's treatment of "Hello Hooray" (previously by Judy Collins!) is stunningly good. "School's Out", with the creepy Children of the Corn kids singing along? "We can't even think of a word that rhymes..."
Keep proudly displaying your ignorance, jackasses. Much better than learning how to write and play.
Berton Averre
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Re: Ezrin
Bob still leaves his imprint. Take a listen to Wingsuit on the most recent Phish album. Genius.
Ron Sawchuck
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Re: Ezrin
I'm not sure I agree with my son (josh) but I applaud and respect his passion.
As a great admirer of Bob Ezrin please get this to him
David Berman
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Re: Ezrin
It seems to me that this revelation should be be exciting to an artist. What's a better environment for someone creating great music, than a world that lacks great music?
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Re: Ezrin
Well, I stopped reading these after several dozen…and methinks Mr. Ezrin protests too much…and yet, the TRUTH of the matter is, there IS a CRISIS of COMPOSING in songwriting today. Everyone is trying so desperately to express themselves in their LYRICS….while putting less than zero time into their music. I will promise not to wax geezer on anyone, if they can only show me today's Lennon/McCartney, or Joni Mitchell, or Paul Simon, or Randy Newman, or Todd Rundgren, etc. These people wrote/write SONGS, with changes, interesting and inventive chord movement, and MELODY. Just show me where their modern corollaries are, and I will be delighted. There should be someone out there today SURPASSING those names, as they surpassed the rock-era songwriters before them. Just sayin'...
Rob Meurer
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Re: Ezrin
Hi Bob,
Visited Vincent Van Gogh's grave in Auvers-Sur-Oise over the weekend. Puts things in perspective. Never sold a painting in his life even though his brother was in the business (art dealer). In 1987, around 100 years after he died broke, his Irises painting sold for over $100 million. We all seem to agree on one thing, that this music we love is art and made by artists, and if that is the case, I would suspect that posterity will have the last laugh on all of us.
From Paris,
Elliott Murphy
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Re: Ezrin
Bob,
I just finished teaching a class of 19 to 21-year-olds at the University of Warsaw in Poland. I asked them each to write down the music they like best. I got "swing" and "doo-wop", Blur and a few rappers (Jay-Z, of course), but predominantly The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Yes, The Rolling Stones, ELP, James Brown, Queen, etc.
I asked them, "Why do you listen to so many artists from the 60s and 70s?" About 4 of them replied at once, "Because it was more creative then. You don't really have that now." None of them listen to the radio, BTW.
Youth speaks..........
Robert Bond
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Re: Ezrin
Old money trumps the nouveau riche and their bling every time.
Billy Chapin
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Re: Ezrin
I am not a Musician but only a Fan of great Music, Musicians, Bands and Producers! Two of my favorite Bands are produced by Bob Ezrin as well ! The Bands are: AIR SUPPLY, their Self Titled Album in 1985 and CHRISTIAN KANE's "The House Rules" renamed WELCOME TO MY HOUSE (Put out in 2012 and then again in 2014!! (This is only my opinion)!!
You made my days so much brighter, producing both: AIR SUPPLY and CHRISTIAN KANE, Mr. Ezrin!! I, for one am a big Fan of Yours, Mr Ezrin!!
Jane Elizabeth Hames
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Re-Ezrin
Bob - sorry but I have to disagree with Bob Ezrin. I dunno what the scene is in the USA but it can't be much different from here in the UK where the gatekeepers decide who gets heard and who doesn't. There are just as many concerned, socially aware songwriters out there but it's not in the interests of the industry to stir the pot and make enemies who can influence the bottom line when the end of year accounts roll around. A select few have managed it but they're mostly pre-1990s, anyone who's become popular since then mostly writes the same sad drivel that Ezrin so succinctly highlights. So please, give the artists a break. There are still message driven writers and singers out there, they just don't get heard above the clamour and it's the labels that censor the output down to the same anodyne crap that they think sells safely. What we really need is some labels with the balls to stand up to the man. Unfortunately when some wealthy artists become the 'man' that's increasingly
difficult.
Tony Gilmore
PS I declare an interest in that my daughter is about to release her 15th album the majority self-penned and has to fight hard to get any airtime at all so I've watched the decline of music with immense frustration for her struggle. Amazingly she continues despite the knock backs because it's what she loves. Her name is Thea Gilmore, perhaps you've heard of her - no thought not!
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Re: Ezrin
It has nothing to do with getting old. I'm 25 and I see it too.
Sure the rolling stones sung "I can't get no satisfaction" a hedonstic anthem but it was honest and innovative and powerful.
I don't see fuck all emotion or honesty or innovation in the majority of new (widely popular) music.
There are lots of exceptions like Kendrick Lamar, Lorde, Mac Demarco, tame impala, sticky fingers, ben Howard.
But the majority of talented musicians are just too vain to really step outside the box, take risks and add their own personality to music.
Musicians seem to have an ulterior motives when writing. Everyone wants a music career and wants to get paid. But music isn't a product or service..its sacred..and just because you know how to play your instrument and put in the years and produced a professional quality album doesn't mean anyone's wants to fucking listen to your shit. I've had a few musician friends who've moaned to me about how they're professionally produced EP just isn't taking off even though they've done all the 'right things' and they seem confused that they aren't rockstars yet.
I really want to say hey maybe your music isn't actually that fucking fun to listen to because all the character has been sucked out of it while you and your record label have been devising your rise to the top of the music industry with your finely calculated set of songs.
I wasn't alive in the 80's but that seemed like a fucking shitty time for music too.
Ben Carter
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Re: Ezrin
Hi Bob,
I wasn't going to tell this story but if you think it's worth printing go ahead.
Once upon a time there was a bunch of people going to college at Harvard who started what became known as the Harvard COOP. That was short for cooperative. It sold food, books and records among other things. The people there worked basically for free seeing their labor as a payback to help the people in the neighborhood who were not as fortunate as them. All profit was plowed back into the cooperative. A few years later in 1969/1970 at the State University of New York at Buffalo, myself with a few friends, did the same thing but just for music. We started the UB Record Coop because we all felt that since music was an integral part of our lives and soul that it should be made available at the lowest price possible. Two years later we were able to help start similar coops throughout the SUNY system.
The Buffalo Record Coop was so successful that the local record store sued the SUNY system for allowing the Coop to exist. The local record store lost! In fact, that lawsuit went all the way up to the NY Courts of Appeals and established for the entire SUNY system that retail type stores both profit and non-profit, can operate on SUNY campuses and compete with local merchants even if they don't pay rent, payroll (give students credit or even nothing, volunteer), etc.
In those days, there was a real effort to meet all the necessities of life with the least amount of money as possible. That's right, it was the basic hippie philosophy and you know what? It felt real good.
Why doesn't Jay-Z and all the other artists who have made it, fund a non-profit streaming service that includes limiting the operating c-level executives' salaries and all profits get plowed back in to the non-profit to increase payments to the music creators. And why not clearly publish on the web site exactly how the royalties are computed along with every ones' salaries?
I know why, because that would be like we trying to be back in the hippie days. Maybe not such a bad idea.
Best,
David
David E. Parker, Business Affairs
Amherst Records / Harlem Music (BMI) / Halwill Music (ASCAP)
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Re: Ezrin
Hi Bob,
Sorry I am late on this.
I totally agree with the two Bobs.
Is there any doubt that the quality of music (melody, harmony and general quality of music) has been on a decline since the era of the Great American songbook (song standards)? I think this is unanimous among musicologists and musician historians who study music, the way environmental scientists study global warming. Song and musical quality has been on a downward slide for the past 50 or 60 years and the slope is a straight line down each decade.
Will people be listening to the hits of today in 1000 years, 100 years, 10 years or even in 1 year? "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" will be still listened to in 1000 years from now.
About 10 years ago I imagined a day when there would be a hit song on the radio with 1 melody note and 1 chord and it just happened last year.. A band was on the MTV music awards playing a hit song that had one vocal melody note and 1 chord in it the whole way through the song. Some hit songs now don't even have one melody note or one chord in them (and no background music) and the beat is all there is. Soon, there will be a hit song with just a noise sound such as glass breaking and there won't even be a rhythm, not to mention a melody or a chord.
There is still good quality music out there but it's underground and on the fringes because the major labels don't want to be music people who educate and inform and create culture. They want to make the most money by not having to worry about the music. It's a lot easier to find 100 so-so artists than find 5 excellent artists. The zillions of people who listen to something go viral, the lowest common denominator are maybe not going to be the easiest people to market to. Those massive numbers of people are not really ready to hear better music, until they get cultured to appreciate quality.
Many major labels don't even have good music people working there. They only have business people trying to make money who know how to get along with others at the label, who have worked their way up at the label or who might even be friends or relatives with someone at the label.
It's like we need an alternative major label universe with cool young artists where the labels are interested in developing a music culture by educating listeners, finding the really good underground talent and thereby creating a culture where a great musical product would be appreciated. In the end, these labels would beat out the inferior major labels by creating a better product that more listeners would support in time. People would then realize the first major labels were impostors. I know from my own music students that they can be educated after many years and learn to appreciate better and better music as they learn to listen to music.
The BBC and CBC do try to culture listeners but they are only scratching the surface and tend to focus on music they think is cool. However, some of the greatest music being produced might not be that cool at first listen to a population with corrupted taste buds.
Just my two cents.
Mike Vancha
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Re: Ezrin
The fastest way to get artists out of the business that don't belong is to demand some money for what they do at lower levels. When someone has to buy talent, usually they start being really scrutinous of what they are purchasing. Yep, you can hone your chops in pay to play places and places that don't have an audience and in empty rooms called practice spaces for rent. Are Imagine Dragons great? Absolutely, they wouldn't have the fans if they didn't have the material to back up what they can do.
There's two tiers of musicians here in this town that I'm from.
Those that get paid.
Those that don't.
Typically, the ones that get paid don't mingle with the ones that don't. It's hard talking to someone who doesn't want to hear the truth, and costs you performance space.
The ones that get paid a living wage do cover band stuff and perform out a couple of times a week up and down the coast, not just in one area. Or they stay at home and record and pitch their music to get played in film. An artist can make a living wage writing instrumentals or playing low tier casinos and larger clubs.
Those that don't get paid are the dreamers, the believers in the old guard, the poo pooers of good and great material. The people that believe that it isn't about the song, it's about being a star and faking it till they make it. Ha! These people don't know that in order to get signed, you have to sell over 50,000 copies on your own (which at that point, why would you sign over 95% of your income, so you can make a pittance of what you were making before?) AND you have to be under 25 AND you have to have enough unreleased material to fill 10 records and each song has to be great AND you have to be willing to do other forms of entertainment. These are also the people that laud vinyl, believe fame is the end game and that being famous will solve their problems for them. Plus, faking it till you make it is a band aid until you actually learn how to do it.
I realize that when you are writing these letters (about fame and bitching about getting paid) you are talking to the idiots, and there are a lot of them in this area where I live. Sometimes, I forget that and write re's to you, like this one.
What's really a shame is the people really being left out of this equation is the audience.
Artists bicker back and forth about whether or not there has to be a ton of money backing a project (so everyone can get paid handsomely) in order for it to be successful.
If something is great, and I mean has potential for the audience to share it and get buzz or word of mouth going on a project, that's ultimately where your success is going to happen.
But artists think it's a total crap shoot. It's a lottery ticket waiting to happen. That being famous is the endgame.
The problem is my peers. I hate calling them that because they aren't interested in the audience, just playing out.
And now we have people saying, 'get out and support local music!' because nobody is playing to the audience anymore, they're playing to and for themselves.
What happened to making sure the audience is entertained?
Rebekah Ann
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Re: Blue bloods/musicians/Ezrin/music today/grumpy geezers (I subtitle)
There's another side of this.
I came up as a musician in the late 70's, playing in bar bands at first, learning my trade, getting the sounds, licks and parts of all the greats. That's all I did for a living. There was enough money playing clubs so that our band could rent a house together and buy enough food, records and weed to not have to have another job. My entire life was music. There was enough money that when my Fender Rhodes and Mini-Korg weren't cutting it anymore, I went to my Mom's credit union and got a loan for almost $8000 to buy an Oberheim 4 Voice and a Yamaha CP-70 (by the way that's $36k in today's money). I paid it off easily with what I was earning back then. Our band's sound went up a notch and we started getting even better paying gigs.
Then I moved to Chicago and became a studio musician doing jingles. More money than I'd ever imagined! Bought keyboards after keyboard and built a studio in my killer apartment. I began to spend all my free time writing, composing, sound designing, whatever. Then the day would come and it would be back to eight hours in the studio making insane money from all the re-use, all while working with the best musicians, engineers, producers, arrangers, composers, etc.
Got tired of making jingles and moved to Los Angeles, where the sessions were even better. Bought a nice house, great car, and built the studio of my dreams. Did hundreds of records. Wrote with all the cool people and got placements in film and TV, with eye-popping royalty checks. Fell in love with songwriting and producing and spent most of my time doing that, honing my skills, working with most of the greats while getting better every day. Started scoring movies. Then as a musical director, I traveled the world, over 30 countries, playing live with legends.
Then the bottom fell out of the music business, but also at the same time for the entire middle class of this country.
No more record budgets. The clubs lost money, bands were required to pay to play, the session scene disappeared as the labels did, artists weren't developed any more, no tour support, film and TV people paying a couple of hundred dollars for licenses to songs, the unions were crushed, the bankers and billionaires thrived. Music was now free and the entire infrastructure was blasted into a thousand pieces.
So let's fast forward and put that same 17 year old here today. Can't make money playing clubs, Can't get a record deal worth a shit, can't do sessions, can't make money from songwriting, no publishing deal, can't tour unless you're a WELL proven act, can't get a loan, can't afford college. Hell, you can't even play WEDDINGS any more, because nobody can afford a band, they all get a DJ, who by the way plays the songs from back when there was a support system for musicians! Oh, and your parents are split and both broke.
Yet all these old farts are having a field day doing the traditional "these kids today" BULLSHIT. I'm tired of it.
Can you imagine that kid today borrowing $36,000 to invest in his craft? Can you imagine him not having to work two other crappy jobs so he can have time to hopefully have time to write for a market that doesn't exist? You get my drift.
Yeah the artists starved in the 60's. But they had an outlet to play in front of people, for at least enough money to survive. That is GONE, no two ways about it.
To my point: no wonder these kids are aiming for the money. No wonder it's all about THEM. They're scared to death. And they grew up with PARENTS who were scared to death. Our parents in the 60's and 70's worked one job and had a nice house, two cars, vacations, insurance, pensions, etc. Well all that is gone. These kids' role models are driving three hours a day to work two jobs and still don't have enough money to send their them to college (not that I think that that's a great idea). And overseas travel? Maybe the most important thing for a kid to see? Out of the question. And all this stress has helped to almost triple the divorce rate, so again, our "lazy" kids get screwed again. Yeah they get iPhones and soccer but what they want is TIME from their parents.
I think some of us have forgotten how good it was for us, and how SHITTY it is for these kids.
All this crap about no talent any more makes me want to puke. All the old whiny, grumpy geezers who don't take even a minute to listen to the amazing stuff that's being created today despite all the hardships and find it convenient and fashionable to bash these "entitled" kids today, rarely do I see a WORD from somebody trying empathize with, let alone even understand them. Put yourself in their places, folk. We had it AWESOME in our time. I don't know where I would have ended up if I had to come up in today's cesspool.
The government, the media and the labels have all figured out how to easily manipulate the masses using the devices that EVERYONE carries around with them. These tools just make it easier for them to cram total garbage down our throats, after all they have to answer to shareholders with a tidy 20% profit each year. How does a McDonalds do that? By cheapening their ingredients. Same with the labels. Don't pay anybody anything, don't develop, don't tour support. But look what's happening to McDonald's now…it's all backfiring. Same with the music industry, the labels are gasping for air.
In my opinion, Streaming will get figured out, it will scale so EVERYBODY is paying in like they do with Netflix, and the artists of the future will reap the benefits finally after a dormant couple of decades.
Again I wouldn't trade places.
And all you grumpy geezers: You won't be able to yell "get off my lawn" anymore, there's no WATER. Think about that. And count your fucking blessings.
CJ Vanston
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Re: Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame
Bob
Great stuff as always. I'd like to add Jan & Dean to the list of those who belong in the R&RHOF. Granted, Dean couldn't care less. As it is, he keeps his Grammy for best album design art (Pollution, 1971) on his toilet.
I imagine if he accepted an award from the R&RHOF on Jan's behalf he'd use it as a doorstopper.
David Beard
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Subject: RE: Re-Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame
Bob,
The biggest joke is that the Moody Blues are not in the Rock and Roll HOF. Besides having some major hits, how many bands followed them with a mellotron and flute.
Bob Levatino
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Subject: Re: Re-Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame
I'm astonished that in all that mail, no one mentions Jethro Tull! I know I wasn't sitting alone in sold out arenas through much of the 70's, and I don't think I knew anyone who didn't own Aqualung.
Andrew Cohen
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From: BERTON AVERRE
Subject: Re: Bernie Leadon
Bob, it's funny. I'm doing this gig (of all things!) with Jack Tempchin, and we do "Peaceful Easy Feeling" (of course), and I'm thinking, "Man, Bernie Leadon's playing was always right on the money, I love melodic guitarists." So today there's Bernie Leadon chiming in on the lack of melody. Right on the money.
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From: mark linett
Subject: Re: Rhinofy-WABC Top Ten-2/24/65
Bob,
WOW… If only radio and music was like this today. I was 13 in 1965 and AM radio was "it". I listened to WABC, WMCA and WINS constantly, and bought and still have every record on the list.
A few anecdotes .
1.- There was an answer record to "This Diamond Ring"" called "(Gary Don't You Sell) My Diamond Ring" by Wendy Hill done by the same crew that made the hit including Al Kooper. Not a great record but the flipside "Donna" is a great LA girl group record. This is what you did back then. If a record was a hit, there would be a similar sounding followup and perhaps an answer record. Heck there's even one for "Mrs Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter" BTW you forgot to mention that Leon Russell arranged both records for producer Snuff Garrett.
2- And speaking of novelty records, check out Alan Sherman's great take on "Downtown" ("Crazy Downtown")
7- I made an album with Barry Mann who along with wife Cynthia Weil wrote Lovin Feelin and was at the session. He told me everyone knew it was a smash when they cut it.
The song is over four minutes long, way over what radio would play back then. So Spector just put 3 minutes something on the label……and the rest as they say is history.
The other story is that at the session Bobby Hatfield asked Spector what he should do while waiting since he didn't sing a note until the chorus. Phi''s reply "You can go to the bank!"
No they don't make em like that anymore. Every record on the list is a memory …..Today nothing is.
Mark Linett
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From: chris stein
Subject: Re: (Goldfinger)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3ARioGCJww&spfreload=10
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From: Bret Clancy
Subject: U2 can't sell tickets
U2 and Garth Brooks have a lot in common...they booked too many shows. Look at the prices of U2 in Boston on StubHub right now. As low as $35 with thousands for sale.
I can't wait to go to the show for like $18 like Garth.
StubHub:
http://www.stubhub.com/search/doSearch?searchStr=u2&pageNumber=1&resultsPerPage=50&searchMode=event&start=0&rows=50&geo_exp=1
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Subject: Re: Rhinofy-Joni Mitchell Covers
Bob, great list. I'm glad you included Urge For Going, an underrated
classic. But check out this version, which shows you just how far Joni
Mitchell came and how she changed music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLu2-gG68S0
It's from a Canadian TV show, Let's Sing Out, apparently their version of
Hootenanny. Everybody else (the older guy, BTW, Jimmy Driftwood, wrote The
Battle of New Orleans and Tennessee Stud) is earnest in that "Mighty Wind"
style, and then she starts singing.
You can sense that the others immediately recognize she's taking this music
somewhere beyond their vision. It's also revealing to see how fully
developed as an artist she was at that time. Given that it's 1966, that
means she's a year away from going to New York and two years away from
recording an album and she's already making music like this.
Hope you like it.
George Evanko
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Subject: RE: Rhinofy-Joni Mitchell Covers
Hi Bob,
I'd like to add a song to the Joni Mitchell list: "River"
Naturally, I'm partial to the wonderful Linda Ronstadt version on her Christmas album, with a beautiful arrangement by David Campbell, but the version of this classic that surprised me the most happened during an episode of the David Kelley series, "Ally McBeal." Fifteen years ago, Robert Downey, Jr. was having problems in Hollywood, almost unbookable because of his recurring substance abuse issues. Kelley took a chance and hired him to be Ally's new boyfriend, Larry and he delivered big time (until he got arrested again and subsequently fired). During one episode, Downey sat down at the piano and sang "River." As I listened, I was struck by the power of what a great actor can do for a song. Not blessed with an iconic voice, Downey nevertheless brought so much to his performance that he re-invented the song for me. When he sang: "I'm so hard to handle, I'm selfish and I'm sad," I believed him to the core - it resonated, maybe because of what I knew about him, but also because his
utter commitment to the lyric reached me. It was later released on a CD of songs from the show. Definitely worth listening.
Best,
John Boylan
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Subject: Re: Rhinofy-Joni Mitchell Covers - how "Urge" ended up on "Hits"
A bit of trivia. When Reprise / Howie Klein went looking for Joni's version of "Urge For Going" to put on the "Hits" collection there was no master tape anywhere.
They had to take it off the vinyl 45 and clean it up digitally.
Marc Ratner
(I was Reprise VP Promotion at the time)
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Subject: Re: Rhinofy-Big Sky Country
Hi,
Chris Whitley had contracted HIV prior to being contracted and recording "Living With The Law."
That was not common knowledge, but he made no secret of it to his extended circle of friends.
Perhaps this information offers a different insight and perspective into the lyrics of his you quote.
Thanks for reminding me of him so unexpectedly.
Balisani
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From: William Perkins
Subject: Re: Rhinofy-Anything Goes
"Anything Goes" Also, one of my favorites by Gregg. Alex Hodges and I were able to get him the deal at Epic based on the title track "I'm No Angel" because Bill Bennett told them he could get "Angel" added on 200 AOR's. "Angel" was #9 video at MTV for the year, we had several AOR #1 tracks from this and the follow-up cd and "Angel" went gold. Gregg had a great year and opened for our client Stevie Ray Vaughan at the sheds all summer. A great comeback year for Gregg! And we did get on every AOR except Cincinnati.
"Like the first time walking in the moonlight, the first time you ever touched a rose. The first time in a long time, everything was alright, What happens now nobody knows.....ANYTHING GOES!"
Willie Perkins
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From: budski1313
Subject: Re: Rrhinofy-Anything Goes
The GAB (Gregg Allman Band) were working on demos for Epic to summit to Michael Kaplan. i suggested to Gregg and Danny we do "Anything Goes". Gregg looked at me like I was an idiot and said "name one lyric from that song you remember" I answered with "it's like the first time you ever saw the moonlight, first time you ever touched a rose, first time in a long time everything's alright. what happens next anything goes."
They decided to do the song. Gregg was hesitant to do the song because Clive Davis had rejected the song a few years earlier when ABB were signed to Arista. I told Gregg that "Clive was wrong ! I believed it could be a hit."
Thesong was release as the second song for radio play from the "I'm No Angel" CD, it became a power play on 96 stations through out the country.
I recieved no engineering credits on the CD liner credits other then crew credits.The album and cassette included my additional engineering credit. Willie Perkins adds more insight to the the "I'm No Angel " story in his book "No Saints No Saviors".
P.S. I will have more to talk about in my book. "Journey Of An Enlightened Roadie" lol
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Subject: Re: Rhinofy-Anything Goes
Hi Bob,
Loved that story. It's great to meet your heroes and they're cool. I helped Robert Plant once at the Apple Store in Nashville. He said "All this technology is so new to me...I feel like a Catholic putting on a condom for the first time...should I roll it on this way?...or that way?"
Cracked me up! He had no obligation to joke with me but he did. A totally cool dude. And he waited his turn like everyone else in the store. No "hey I'm Robert Plant"
He is indeed a golden God in my book.
Cheers,
David Bach
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Re: Gregg Allman At The Roxy
As an example of how different things are, I took my younger son Sam who grew up with bands like Matchbox Twenty and only knowing bands with a hit song or two, to see the Allman Brothers at the Beacon a few years ago. Imagine this--he'd never seen a band just play together letting the music flow freely and grow like that. So after one of their extended jams with the music reaching euphoric heights, his mind was completely blown!! It was like showing him a brand new primary color he'd never seen before.
He looked up at me and said, "Dad, that's even better than the songs! Looks like they are having so much fun. If music is fun to play like that why don't all bands do it??"
I explained that back in the day many did, and not just The Dead, but bands like Santana, Big Brother, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Stones, etc. all played an extended jam or two in their sets because that's what music was about.
I also explained that back then musicians were people who really honed their craft and wanted to bring the music itself to new heights. That was what they worked hard on, as opposed to discussing some new hot marketing strategies and how to win awards.
I think the thing that amazed me most was the fact that in his sphere Sam had never experienced anything like this before, and pure music being played at this level.
Paul Rappaport
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Re: Gregg Allman At The Roxy
Hi Bob,
Scott Sharrard here (Gregg's guitarist and musical director), I just want to take a moment to thank you for this great review of our show at The Roxy. You painted what I feel was a very accurate picture of that night and of our man, Gregg Allman, who is still kicking ass and taking names even without his flagship band.
I've had the pleasure of working with Gregg for about 7 years. To say they dont make them like they used to is an understatement. I can tell you first hand from playing many shows, sharing his bus and his home for many tours and rehearsals, and now writing songs together, that Gregg is all about the music. When people ask me what its like to play with him, my usual response is that its like playing every night with Frank Sinatra or Sam Cooke. Gregg has one of those voice that we call a "phonebook" voice, give this cat anything to sing and he can turn it into a song. But of course he has written and made indelible covers of so many great tunes. When you have material like his, and that voice, the gig never, ever gets old.
Of course this is what's missing from most new bands. Being a solo artist myself for many years I know well the struggle with todays cultural climate in regards to music and it's lack of relevance and importance to the public at large. Case in point was all the people yacking through our Roxy set and then bellowing out the hooks to familiar songs, only to return to their phones to film, take pictures and text. Clearly the smart phone won over the album and people are looking for answers through their devices and not from their artists. I think most people are not looking for the cultural zeitgeist from music anymore. People don't seem to look to musicians for the answer, culturally or spiritually as intently as they once did. The distractions and trappings of the quick fix are too tempting. After all, in real music and especially rock and roll, there are always seeds of revolution being planted, which can be uncomfortable at first but ultimately transcendent. When you hear Gregg's
music in this modern context it reminds you of what really matters. Human connection, not digital connectivity. Blood sweat and tears, not virtual thrills.
All that said, all art is cyclical. At some point music will become the message again. I dont know what generation is gonna give us another Allman Brothers Band or Gregg Allman. I'm in my 30's and grew up studying Gregg's music, The Brothers and all their influences. I spent my child hood hanging with people like Buddy Miles, Hubert Sumlin and many local Milwaukee blues masters youve never heard of like Stokes, Willie Higgins and Harvey Scales. And I also spent time hanging and playing with the great Levon Helm who in my estimation is a kind of blood brother and kindred spirit to Gregg's school of rock and roll. What I call real rock and roll, usually involving white men praying at the altar of black music and in the process of reaching for that magic in the blues and soul masters they create that new flavor, rock and roll! These guys have taught me so much, not just from their indelible records but I actually got to hang with these people and make music with them. It's been an
incredible privilege and a joy to know these guys who were part of what will be considered Americas great musical renaissance of the 1960's-70's.
You will be hearing a lot more from Gregg and the band this year. As a life long fan of the Allman Brothers and a great admirer of all the original members I was sad to see them retire. But I can tell you that Gregg is about to open a whole new chapter and he has the fire in his belly and his voice! This lineup of musicians is also an inspiring mix of players and you will be hearing us on a live DVD thats in the pipe line as well as a new studio album that is currently in the works.
Again, thank you so much Bob for coming down to hear us and for writing this heartfelt and entertaining review of the night. We hope to see you at many more shows this year and beyond. I was always told "take care of the music and it will take care of you". I hope not only the musicians but writers like yourself and the real music fans will follow this mantra and continue to protect the music.
Sincerely,
Scott Sharrard
Guitarist/MD The Gregg Allman Band
www.scottsharrard.com
__________________________________________
Subject: Re: Rhinofy-Top Ten-Week Ending September 25, 1965
From: Richard Gottehrer
Bob
The story of Hang on Sloopy is interesting. I first heard the song along with my songwriting partners Bob Feldman and Jerry Goldstein when it was called "My Girl Sloopy" and recorded by the Vibrations. When we recorded it as the Strangeloves we changed it to "Hang".
The track was actually done for the Strangeloves album following "I Want Candy" the song we wrote with Bert Burns and released on his label Bang Records.
Through a series of events we found ourselves on tour in Columbus Ohio where the local back up band was called Rick and The Raiders, (Rick Zehringer/Dehringer). They were very young; Rick had a commercial voice and was a great guitar player so we literally took them off the stage and back to New York; changed their name to the McCoys, (Hatfields and McCoys feud?); adding their voices and Rick's outstanding guitar solo to our track. The same track was used on the Strangeloves album but with our voices...not as good of course but that's what producers do.
There was a "My Girl Sloopy" version by Little Caesar and The Consuls out and moving up the charts but as soon as the McCoys single was released we moved past it and quickly found ourselves at #1. The rapid rise was aided by the promotional skills of Seymour Stein who was soon to become my partner leading us to the founding of Sire and a lifelong friendship. One good thing leads to the next.
I guess the real point is music and the process we all went through then led us somewhere and you're right it wasn't about all about the money. Creating something from nothing was a joy and if you were fortunate enough it might get on the radio and live for a while.
Things are different today and in a sense I might have had something to do with it but as great as things were then, I wouldn't trade today for any of it. The future is bright as long as people keep making music even if just for the fun of it.
Said as I'm sitting in The Orchard Studio on a Friday night mixing what I still call a record.
Richard
__________________________________________
Subject: Re: Kim Fowley
Kim Fowley got a lot of heat for being himself, but my perspective on him
was rather different.
I met him in line at the Roxy in 1975 to see Springsteen, on the Born To
Run tour. He was boastful, arrogant and goddamned funny.
We flip forward to 1988, when, somehow, Eric Lowen and I re-met him at the
Gaslight in Hollywood, when Eric and I were first starting out. I vaguely
recall it being a Trainwreck Ghosts gig, with Roger Prescott (from The
Pop) and Eddie Mu?oz (from the Plimsouls) on board. He was the same
arrogant boastful guy, but he started asking us, "So what are you all
about." So we told him, acoustic duo, stuck in time on purpose, not giving
a shit what anyone thought any more.
Eric got his number and the two started chatting regularly. He would grill
him in that put-you-on-the-spot way, with the most direct, unsettling
questions. like "Why should anyone give a shit about you?," or "Sing me the
song a guy in Texas in his truck is gonna care about." Somehow, we managed
to pass muster.
Kim was the first to ever write about L&N, also in 1988, in an article
where he called us ?the next big Nu-Folk duo, a dubious distinction if
there ever was one. Whether it meant anything was a matter of opinion. We
didn't care. It was encouragement, it was press, and it was Kim.
In 1993 or 1994 he asked Eric and me to participate in a panel at SXSW,
called "Surviving the Nuclear Nineties." He didn't tell us what he wanted
us to do, but on the spot, asked us to get up an sing a medley of our best
songs. We didn't have one, so we made one up on the fly. He asked the
whole group, "Who here is an artist?", and some hands went up. He picked
one woman and said, "Sing me your best song." She said, "I don't have an
instrument." He said "I don't care. Do it. Now." And she did, a cappella.
Then he said, "Who here is an attorney." A couple of hands went up, and he
MADE the girl go trade contacts with one of the attorneys, right there,
not later, on the spot. Carpe demo, motherfucker.
Now I had heard horror stories from Michael Steele of the Bangles (when
she and I worked at Tower Records Westwood, many many years before Bangles
or Benatar). She had been the first bass player in The Runaways still
had scars from Kim harsh bluntness at that time, and maybe
even worse stuff I don't know about. And I don't doubt that she was
accurate in her assessment. But he was never an asshole with us. Blunt,
yes; asshole, no.
He and Eric kept in better touch than I did, and Eric visited him in New
Orleans around 2000 or so. But Christmastime 2013, after his illness
became public, I finally wrote him a note to say, basically, "Thanks for
all that, way back then." He wrote me a short sweet note back saying,
"Thank you man. Be Happy and Be Brave. KF."
I ended my note by saying, "You're a great guy, that's how I remember you,
and will always remember you. It's OK. I won't tell anyone.˛ I guess I
lied.
RIP Kim Fowley.
dn
__________________________________________
Subject: superbowl/homogeneity
When I was a kid in the sixties there was a complete schism/split between sports and hipness. One was either a Hippy or a Jock. There were no gradations. If one was a Hippy type they dabbled in music, smoked weed and had no interest in sports. I usually credit the beginning of homogeneity in youth culture with the advent of skateboarding which created a bridge between sport related sub groups and rock and roll subgroups.
I recently saw a really great interview with William Gibson (the guy who pretty much of invented the idea of cyberspace) on Wired. At least read this page of it:
http://www.wired.com/2012/09/william-gibson-part-2-twitter/all/
In it he says "When I find myself… being nostalgic… I check my pulse for conservatism."
Maybe nostalgia is an aspect of "Get off my lawn."
What I do miss that's gone from the cultural dialog is the discussion of conformity. It used to be a hot topic and everyone spent a lot of time and lip service on what it meant to them.
We are at a place where all media is the same entertainment. Sports, music, advertising is a mashup, the way all the big cities of the west are kind of the same.
Maybe some things are better off being on their own and special. For me the only successful marriage of music and 'sports' is what goes on in professional wrestling but what do I know?
Thanks Bob, my wife said "Missy Elliot won the Superbowl." I didn't watch any of it.
Chris Stein
__________________________________________
Re: The passing of Lou Maglia
Bob, I don't know if you knew Lou Maglia or not but to many of us in the music biz, he was the guy. He was my boss when I was a running the Elektra Records PR dept. back in the mid-80s. One day Lou called me into his office and asked me to close the door. He handed me my expense form from the week before. It was for $51 and change. Lou said, "Dassinger I spend this kind of money going to lunch. This is embarrassing."
I explained to Lou that I don't hold much regard for the wine-and-dine part of doing PR.
Lou laughed and shook his head saying,"Here is what you are gonna do. Take your wife to dinner once a week. Take David Hinckley at the Daily News to lunch and your friends at MTV. Take Ben Orr to lunch - just spend money. OK? I want to see your expenses double - triple.Lou added, "Speaking of lunch, let's go out for lunch right now and we'll stop at OTB on the way."
Lou you will be missed and I know everyone who worked with him at Elektra, Island Records feel the same.
George Dassinger
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Friday 1 May 2015
Rhinofy-Tales of Mystery and Imagination
"Find the end of the rainbow
Fly wherever the winds blow
Laugh at life like a sideshow
Just what you need to make you feel better"
John Miles never broke through in America, but he's a star in my book, because he sings lead on "(The System of) Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether"!
Huh?
Once upon a time Alan Parsons was unknown. And his initial LP didn't help his condition. Released on 20th Century Fox in two different incarnations, it made not a dent, no one cared that Parsons was a famous engineer, and 20th Century Fox was a noted entity in the film business, but nearly irrelevant and certainly inept in music. As a result, Ambrosia's first album was nearly buried, it too came out on 20th Century Fox, is that why the band ended up playing on Parsons's opus? I DON'T KNOW!
I didn't know much. By time the second iteration of the LP was released, it featured only an illustration of Mr. Parsons and almost nothing more. The details evaporated with the rarely seen gatefold cover the album was released with first.
And lord only knows what inspired me to buy it. I found the album in the promo bin at my favorite record store on Gayley, in Westwood, and at two bucks I took a flyer. I ended up buying five copies, I gave them away, just like I did with Karla Bonoff's debut, which I discovered the same way.
THE RAVEN
The album starts off with an instrumental, almost the whole second side is instrumental, you can ignore it if you choose, you won't be missing much.
But the second cut is this, "The Raven."
That's the right, "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, it featured the same moniker as Poe's 1908 collection.
"Nevermore!"
Thus quote the raven, you remember that from high school, don't you?
Actor Leonard Whiting performs the main vocal, Parsons appears on vocorder and Eric Woolfson does the backups. The end result is majestic, positively cinematic.
It starts off quietly. With a thumping bass that resembles nothing so much as a heartbeat.
And then the track starts to build. It's like you're descending into a dark basement, apprehensive, and then the world starts to spin, you're on an adventure that's only yours, you've left the world behind.
It's not a single, it's not a hit, it's something better...an album cut speaking only to you. From a concept album, back when you needed an entire LP to tell your story.
THE TELL-TALE HEART
Arthur Brown! That's right, from the "CRAZY WORLD OF"!
By this time he was a has-been, only famous for his 1968 super-smash "Fire."
And befitting its vocalist, "The Tell-Tale Heart" starts off on a tear, there's no subtlety involved.
But it does get quiet in the middle, with strings and moodiness, reflectiveness, but then the whole concoction starts to pulse and tear once again.
"Louder and louder
Till I could tell the sound was not within my ears
You should have seen me
You would have seen my eyes grow white and cold with fear"
Only Arthur Brown could convey this scariness, and if he was frightened...you should be too!
Perfect casting. Classic.
THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO
I read the short story in sophomore English class, Mrs. Hurley dared someone to do it, while holding a lit candle in the darkness.
The problem was there was not quite enough time, so I ended up rushing and sacrificing dramatic effect in order to finish.
Funny what you remember...
But as a result I've never forgotten the word "amontillado," although John Miles pronounces it differently.
The track is lyrical, melodic, it has movements.
Funny how punk was launched at the same time.
But it was possible to love bombast as well as simplicity.
I certainly did.
(THE SYSTEM OF) DOCTOR TARR AND PROFESSOR FETHER
The first side closer, the single. The tour-de-force.
How did Alan Parsons come up with such greatness, a near-masterpiece?
He switched labels, on Arista he started to have hits.
But his initial failure tarnished his inspiration. He was always a bit cautious thereafter, never quite as out there, never quite as adventurous. If you listen to one Alan Parsons album, "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" is it.
And you should.
Then you'll know what the seventies were like. When nobody sounded quite the same and everybody was testing limits. When you broke the shrinkwrap and you never knew what you would encounter. When you couldn't wait to turn your friends on to your favorites. When music still drove the culture. When you sang songs in your head because they inspired you.
I still sing "Doctor Tarr." It pops into my head at the strangest moments.
LIKE TODAY!
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Fly wherever the winds blow
Laugh at life like a sideshow
Just what you need to make you feel better"
John Miles never broke through in America, but he's a star in my book, because he sings lead on "(The System of) Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether"!
Huh?
Once upon a time Alan Parsons was unknown. And his initial LP didn't help his condition. Released on 20th Century Fox in two different incarnations, it made not a dent, no one cared that Parsons was a famous engineer, and 20th Century Fox was a noted entity in the film business, but nearly irrelevant and certainly inept in music. As a result, Ambrosia's first album was nearly buried, it too came out on 20th Century Fox, is that why the band ended up playing on Parsons's opus? I DON'T KNOW!
I didn't know much. By time the second iteration of the LP was released, it featured only an illustration of Mr. Parsons and almost nothing more. The details evaporated with the rarely seen gatefold cover the album was released with first.
And lord only knows what inspired me to buy it. I found the album in the promo bin at my favorite record store on Gayley, in Westwood, and at two bucks I took a flyer. I ended up buying five copies, I gave them away, just like I did with Karla Bonoff's debut, which I discovered the same way.
THE RAVEN
The album starts off with an instrumental, almost the whole second side is instrumental, you can ignore it if you choose, you won't be missing much.
But the second cut is this, "The Raven."
That's the right, "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, it featured the same moniker as Poe's 1908 collection.
"Nevermore!"
Thus quote the raven, you remember that from high school, don't you?
Actor Leonard Whiting performs the main vocal, Parsons appears on vocorder and Eric Woolfson does the backups. The end result is majestic, positively cinematic.
It starts off quietly. With a thumping bass that resembles nothing so much as a heartbeat.
And then the track starts to build. It's like you're descending into a dark basement, apprehensive, and then the world starts to spin, you're on an adventure that's only yours, you've left the world behind.
It's not a single, it's not a hit, it's something better...an album cut speaking only to you. From a concept album, back when you needed an entire LP to tell your story.
THE TELL-TALE HEART
Arthur Brown! That's right, from the "CRAZY WORLD OF"!
By this time he was a has-been, only famous for his 1968 super-smash "Fire."
And befitting its vocalist, "The Tell-Tale Heart" starts off on a tear, there's no subtlety involved.
But it does get quiet in the middle, with strings and moodiness, reflectiveness, but then the whole concoction starts to pulse and tear once again.
"Louder and louder
Till I could tell the sound was not within my ears
You should have seen me
You would have seen my eyes grow white and cold with fear"
Only Arthur Brown could convey this scariness, and if he was frightened...you should be too!
Perfect casting. Classic.
THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO
I read the short story in sophomore English class, Mrs. Hurley dared someone to do it, while holding a lit candle in the darkness.
The problem was there was not quite enough time, so I ended up rushing and sacrificing dramatic effect in order to finish.
Funny what you remember...
But as a result I've never forgotten the word "amontillado," although John Miles pronounces it differently.
The track is lyrical, melodic, it has movements.
Funny how punk was launched at the same time.
But it was possible to love bombast as well as simplicity.
I certainly did.
(THE SYSTEM OF) DOCTOR TARR AND PROFESSOR FETHER
The first side closer, the single. The tour-de-force.
How did Alan Parsons come up with such greatness, a near-masterpiece?
He switched labels, on Arista he started to have hits.
But his initial failure tarnished his inspiration. He was always a bit cautious thereafter, never quite as out there, never quite as adventurous. If you listen to one Alan Parsons album, "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" is it.
And you should.
Then you'll know what the seventies were like. When nobody sounded quite the same and everybody was testing limits. When you broke the shrinkwrap and you never knew what you would encounter. When you couldn't wait to turn your friends on to your favorites. When music still drove the culture. When you sang songs in your head because they inspired you.
I still sing "Doctor Tarr." It pops into my head at the strangest moments.
LIKE TODAY!
Spotify link: http://spoti.fi/1bF2P3f
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Thursday 30 April 2015
The Great Unbundling
Nobody wants to watch the Discovery Channel. 2.9 million people viewed "Naked and Afraid." But a hundred million paid for it. More than a buck a month. The CEO made $156 million. Now what?
Lawsuits.
Verizon is following the customer, allowing its FiOS TV subscribers to pick and choose channels. And the content providers are going nuts!
Sound familiar?
Let me analogize for you.
A CD cost $12. But people only wanted to hear one song. There was no other way to get it than to purchase the album. The labels liked the income and the acts believed the other nine tracks had value, but not to the ultimate customer, who didn't care and oftentimes didn't believe in the act at all, moving on to someone else soon thereafter.
What changed the equation?
PIRACY!
Piracy is disruptive, sure it's theft, but it breaks the logjam. You might be bitching you're making less money on recorded music, but you're simultaneously complaining about your cable bill.
You can't have it both ways.
Napster begat the iTunes Store, the great unbundling already happened in the music business, and the acts still haven't recovered. Turns out most people only want the single, and with everything available they don't want your music, maybe not at all. Kind of like in cable... The three networks used to have 90% of the audience, but now the four and a half networks get a fifth of the viewers, with the rest spread amongst a zillion outlets. And these outlets get paid by the cable company, via extortion. That's right, the providers consolidated the channels, such that if you turn off one, we won't give you the other. As a result, customers are paying for what they don't want to watch. And they're sick and tired of it.
Now in music we're ahead, you can get all the programming in one spot, whereas in TV you've got to have a subscription to Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Showtime, cable, internet... They're inviting you to pirate. However, we're also moving in the wrong direction in music, with the exclusive. Once Apple/Spotify/Tidal all have different product people will return to piracy, or stop paying all together, as they're doing with cable, cutting the cord.
HBO is going direct. You no longer need a cable contract, you can subscribe on the internet for $15.
But HBO is a winner, Discovery is not.
Taylor Swift is a winner, you are not.
That's right, the old model was different. Very few people could record and distribute. Radio was the only way to get traction, and the major labels controlled the slots. And, as stated above, music was sold in a bundle for a high price. So, if you ran this gauntlet, you were a winner, you made money, whether it be the advance on your deal, even if you were a failed artist, or the royalties you got as a songwriter. But now that old system has been decimated, via the internet and piracy, and it turns out most people don't want most music and you just can't make what you used to.
Like Discovery. I'd cancel it tomorrow if I could, I haven't watched it in years.
Nor have I viewed the vaunted ESPN, which costs every cable customer six plus bucks. That's right, the success of sports is built upon a fiction, that we all care. But we don't. Go a la carte and sports turn niche. Well, they tumble to a level far below the perch the media puts them upon now. As for the value of live sports... That's to the advertiser, other than the Super Bowl, which is a national holiday, most people aren't watching the game either. And if we all stop paying six plus bucks a month...
Everybody makes less money.
The corporations didn't beat you, the public did!
It turns out people have time for great, they'll even pay for it. HBO has got over 30 million subscribers, it costs $15 a month. Just like people will pay triple digits to see a superstar in concert. But they won't pay to see you.
Superstars are making more than ever before. Sure, recorded music is a smaller piece of the pie, but ticket prices have far outpaced inflation and sponsorship offers are legion.
But it's hard to become a superstar. You have to be great, you have to have promotion, to gain traction and stick you have to be at it for years.
And there are very few shortcuts. Ignore the U2 tour hype. They scaled down from stadiums, their new album was distributed and not heard. The people going are all Gen-X'ers who still believe, there are no new fans, because U2 is irrelevant, because the band doesn't have hits.
You hate that you need hits.
But that's what "Game of Thrones" is.
No one wanted to watch "John from Cincinnati."
And that obscure show you love on Animal Planet... It's being paid for by those who never watch, who aren't even aware of it. It's going to disappear when the great unbundling appears.
Which is happening now. In five years the TV landscape will look totally different. You'll pay less, but there will be fewer high quality shows available. Then again, maybe TV should be made on the cheap, for YouTube.
You can be on YouTube. You can put your music up there and get paid just like the superstars.
But you won't make much because most people don't care, you have a tiny audience not because your promotion sucks, but you do.
Sorry to wake you up.
But what killed you was the customer. Turns out the customer only wants great. And if something is superior, there's seemingly no limit to what he'll lay down for it.
Them's are the rules, that's the game we're playing, don't shoot the messenger, your cheese was not only moved, but completely stolen, you can complain all you want but it ain't gonna make any difference.
Note: Partially inspired by "How Cable Lost The Remote": http://on.wsj.com/1HTmqsS
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Lawsuits.
Verizon is following the customer, allowing its FiOS TV subscribers to pick and choose channels. And the content providers are going nuts!
Sound familiar?
Let me analogize for you.
A CD cost $12. But people only wanted to hear one song. There was no other way to get it than to purchase the album. The labels liked the income and the acts believed the other nine tracks had value, but not to the ultimate customer, who didn't care and oftentimes didn't believe in the act at all, moving on to someone else soon thereafter.
What changed the equation?
PIRACY!
Piracy is disruptive, sure it's theft, but it breaks the logjam. You might be bitching you're making less money on recorded music, but you're simultaneously complaining about your cable bill.
You can't have it both ways.
Napster begat the iTunes Store, the great unbundling already happened in the music business, and the acts still haven't recovered. Turns out most people only want the single, and with everything available they don't want your music, maybe not at all. Kind of like in cable... The three networks used to have 90% of the audience, but now the four and a half networks get a fifth of the viewers, with the rest spread amongst a zillion outlets. And these outlets get paid by the cable company, via extortion. That's right, the providers consolidated the channels, such that if you turn off one, we won't give you the other. As a result, customers are paying for what they don't want to watch. And they're sick and tired of it.
Now in music we're ahead, you can get all the programming in one spot, whereas in TV you've got to have a subscription to Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Showtime, cable, internet... They're inviting you to pirate. However, we're also moving in the wrong direction in music, with the exclusive. Once Apple/Spotify/Tidal all have different product people will return to piracy, or stop paying all together, as they're doing with cable, cutting the cord.
HBO is going direct. You no longer need a cable contract, you can subscribe on the internet for $15.
But HBO is a winner, Discovery is not.
Taylor Swift is a winner, you are not.
That's right, the old model was different. Very few people could record and distribute. Radio was the only way to get traction, and the major labels controlled the slots. And, as stated above, music was sold in a bundle for a high price. So, if you ran this gauntlet, you were a winner, you made money, whether it be the advance on your deal, even if you were a failed artist, or the royalties you got as a songwriter. But now that old system has been decimated, via the internet and piracy, and it turns out most people don't want most music and you just can't make what you used to.
Like Discovery. I'd cancel it tomorrow if I could, I haven't watched it in years.
Nor have I viewed the vaunted ESPN, which costs every cable customer six plus bucks. That's right, the success of sports is built upon a fiction, that we all care. But we don't. Go a la carte and sports turn niche. Well, they tumble to a level far below the perch the media puts them upon now. As for the value of live sports... That's to the advertiser, other than the Super Bowl, which is a national holiday, most people aren't watching the game either. And if we all stop paying six plus bucks a month...
Everybody makes less money.
The corporations didn't beat you, the public did!
It turns out people have time for great, they'll even pay for it. HBO has got over 30 million subscribers, it costs $15 a month. Just like people will pay triple digits to see a superstar in concert. But they won't pay to see you.
Superstars are making more than ever before. Sure, recorded music is a smaller piece of the pie, but ticket prices have far outpaced inflation and sponsorship offers are legion.
But it's hard to become a superstar. You have to be great, you have to have promotion, to gain traction and stick you have to be at it for years.
And there are very few shortcuts. Ignore the U2 tour hype. They scaled down from stadiums, their new album was distributed and not heard. The people going are all Gen-X'ers who still believe, there are no new fans, because U2 is irrelevant, because the band doesn't have hits.
You hate that you need hits.
But that's what "Game of Thrones" is.
No one wanted to watch "John from Cincinnati."
And that obscure show you love on Animal Planet... It's being paid for by those who never watch, who aren't even aware of it. It's going to disappear when the great unbundling appears.
Which is happening now. In five years the TV landscape will look totally different. You'll pay less, but there will be fewer high quality shows available. Then again, maybe TV should be made on the cheap, for YouTube.
You can be on YouTube. You can put your music up there and get paid just like the superstars.
But you won't make much because most people don't care, you have a tiny audience not because your promotion sucks, but you do.
Sorry to wake you up.
But what killed you was the customer. Turns out the customer only wants great. And if something is superior, there's seemingly no limit to what he'll lay down for it.
Them's are the rules, that's the game we're playing, don't shoot the messenger, your cheese was not only moved, but completely stolen, you can complain all you want but it ain't gonna make any difference.
Note: Partially inspired by "How Cable Lost The Remote": http://on.wsj.com/1HTmqsS
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Gregg Allman At The Roxy
The Allman Brothers had a slow build, their initial album was ignored, the second was known only by cognoscenti and the third blew up, not through airplay, but WORD OF MOUTH!
Imagine there was a band so good, people couldn't stop testifying about them, dragging their friends to a show so adventurous yet refined that it fulfilled all your dreams. Never forget, it was the Allmans that closed Watkins Glen, the Band and the Dead opened for them.
STATESBORO BLUES
This was the opener. An air guitar number so fast and furious you could not play it at home. That was the genius of Duane. He started off at 100 MPH and stayed there. The Allmans had something to prove. It was they who initiated southern rock, everybody else went through the door they opened. And when you're breaking ground you can't screw up, you can't just be good, you've got to blow people away!
"Statesboro Blues" was the opening cut on "Fillmore East." You dropped the needle that fall of '71 and you were off on a wild ride, as we were Friday night. Gregg may look worse for wear, but his voice is still there, after the opening riff, after the band locks into the groove, Gregg starts to sing and then drifts his fingers over the organ keys and you're taken right back to what once was when.
TROUBLE NO MORE
I'll argue that the Allmans' debut was their best work. It was sterile, the production was off, the live album is more them, but through the scrim you can hear them working their asses off, with that exquisite concoction of confidence and desire to prove.
I bought it after "Idlewild South" and "Fillmore East." You've got to hear the compact five minute version of "Whipping Post." But the highlight is "Trouble No More."
"Don't care how long you go
Don't care how long you stay
Good kind treatment
Bring you home someday
Someday baby, ain't gonna trouble, poor me, ANYMORE"!
You put me through the grinder, but not only am I done with you, I'M OVER YOU! Easier said than done, but you're helped by music. It's the essence of metal, it's something pop rarely delivers. You want a sound that drowns out all the noise, that picks you up and carries you away. And that's "Trouble No More." Listening to the rendition Friday night I was taken right back and completely away. I got that hit of what once was. When you went to the show to be transported, away from regular life, all the b.s.
THESE DAYS
So Gregg straps on an acoustic, begins strumming one of the most famous songs in his canon, one written by Jackson Browne and done by so many others but made legendary by him on his solo album "Laid Back."
Does it get any better than this?
NOT FOR THIS AUDIENCE!
Let me get this straight, you're paying a hundred bucks to get in, you're at a unique experience and you can't even pay attention, never mind respect?
Bummed me out immensely.
What is it, the lack of seats? When they were torn out did concertgoers lose all decorum?
Or is the me generation, where everybody is a star. Gregg's up there pouring out his heart and no one cares. I couldn't find a box to put it all in.
AIN'T WASTIN' TIME NO MORE
The opening cut on "Eat A Peach," the posthumous album with a bit of new stuff and a bunch of old Duane. It never gets any respect, it's never mentioned, but it's a personal favorite.
"You don't need no gypsy to tell you why
You can't let one precious day slip by"
You've got to look inside, you're the only one with the answers. Just put on a record, lay back and think, the truth will come.
Just talk to any baby boomer in the business, they heard this music and had to get closer, they didn't get in to get rich, but to be next to the art and the artists, to turn others on to the elixir. The scene was run by musicians, who could testify about influences and desires if they could talk at all, who didn't know brands other than Jack Daniel's and Marlboro, who had handlers who whipped off hundreds as they did whatever they chose, knowing the music would carry them through and make everything right.
And sure, music was not free. But it was the music that generated all this heat. Because it's all about belief. Music is religion, excise that element and you've got soulless pabulum that's here today and gone tomorrow, unlike the music of the Allman Brothers.
HOT 'LANTA
I remember my family being pissed I called it that. A friend was going to the capital of the south, and I said they were going to "Hot 'Lanta" and I was EXCORIATED!
Welcome to my life. Persecuted when I was not ignored. I found solace in my records, when the world was closing in I put them on.
This is Gregg's showcase, he played it right after his break, right after introducing the band.
I know it by heart.
MELISSA
Uh-oh. Another acoustic number. Everybody's talking. Walla if you've ever worked in the movie business. And then Gregg reaches the chorus and the assembled multitude sings...SWEET MELISSA! Almost a sigh, in unison.
The reason there are so many thirtysomething Melissas is because of this song. That's the power of music.
MIDNIGHT RIDER
Same deal.
Come on, can you mistake the intro? With the groove of a clomping horse? Gregg's giving it his best, everybody's talking and then when he reaches the chorus everybody sings...MIDNIGHT RIDER!
It was like a bizarre horror movie. Where the zombies wake up every once in a while and utter a key phrase. Every time through, every chorus. It's like their brains had been removed but the song was in their DNA!
SOUTHBOUND
So, let's see. Arena act, STADIUM ACT, survives but ends up playing a club.
But that's not really what happened. It was a special gig tied into Stagecoach, Allman doesn't usually play venues this small, never mind with a full horn section, and, as stated above, tickets were $100.
Still...
Was this like the jazzbos, playing deep into the night earning their keep...
Or was it a legend coming down from the mountaintop to deign us with excellence and then disappear?
You've got to understand, it used to be different. We used to be bored, we used to go to the bar to connect, you couldn't do it on the internet, there'd be a jukebox, and for a while there in the seventies, it was populated with Allman hits.
But really, the band was for the dorm room, the house party, when you were all sitting in a circle with the lights down low, drinking Bud and bourbon, getting higher and higher, communing with your buddies, dreaming of getting laid but getting none.
But Gregg was getting enough for all of us. He was our hero, not someone to make fun of, but to emulate.
Not that we could ever be him. But just maybe, inspired by his music, we could achieve our dreams. Which included good sex, a fulfilling job and tickets to the show, we had to go to the show.
And we still do.
Because we remember.
When music tested limits, when it changed the world.
Bob Ezrin was right.
And if you don't believe so, you're young and ignorant or an oldster trying to look hip. Sure, there's good music today. But it used to be different. Music was peopled by the best and the brightest, testing limits. The entry price was low. Albums were way under ten bucks and so were tickets. And you had to go the show, to not only be transported, but to change your life.
Music is forever.
But there was only one Renaissance. They've made music since the sixties and seventies, but the coalition of forces engendered greatness that hooked the entire world. The radio station was your bible, the music was your religion and the rock stars were your gods.
Still are.
CODA
He's 67 and looks it. He's not exactly frail, but he's not the picture of health. Up close and personal he's a southern gentleman, with a voice so soft you can barely hear, but with a brain working overtime. He told me about breaking his arm, playing a gig the next day. And when I asked him what he thought about everybody talking during "These Days" Gregg said he didn't even notice, because he was in the ZONE!
They do it for themselves, not us.
You can tell the difference.
And it makes all the difference.
You can get close, but you're never gonna catch the midnight rider.
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Imagine there was a band so good, people couldn't stop testifying about them, dragging their friends to a show so adventurous yet refined that it fulfilled all your dreams. Never forget, it was the Allmans that closed Watkins Glen, the Band and the Dead opened for them.
STATESBORO BLUES
This was the opener. An air guitar number so fast and furious you could not play it at home. That was the genius of Duane. He started off at 100 MPH and stayed there. The Allmans had something to prove. It was they who initiated southern rock, everybody else went through the door they opened. And when you're breaking ground you can't screw up, you can't just be good, you've got to blow people away!
"Statesboro Blues" was the opening cut on "Fillmore East." You dropped the needle that fall of '71 and you were off on a wild ride, as we were Friday night. Gregg may look worse for wear, but his voice is still there, after the opening riff, after the band locks into the groove, Gregg starts to sing and then drifts his fingers over the organ keys and you're taken right back to what once was when.
TROUBLE NO MORE
I'll argue that the Allmans' debut was their best work. It was sterile, the production was off, the live album is more them, but through the scrim you can hear them working their asses off, with that exquisite concoction of confidence and desire to prove.
I bought it after "Idlewild South" and "Fillmore East." You've got to hear the compact five minute version of "Whipping Post." But the highlight is "Trouble No More."
"Don't care how long you go
Don't care how long you stay
Good kind treatment
Bring you home someday
Someday baby, ain't gonna trouble, poor me, ANYMORE"!
You put me through the grinder, but not only am I done with you, I'M OVER YOU! Easier said than done, but you're helped by music. It's the essence of metal, it's something pop rarely delivers. You want a sound that drowns out all the noise, that picks you up and carries you away. And that's "Trouble No More." Listening to the rendition Friday night I was taken right back and completely away. I got that hit of what once was. When you went to the show to be transported, away from regular life, all the b.s.
THESE DAYS
So Gregg straps on an acoustic, begins strumming one of the most famous songs in his canon, one written by Jackson Browne and done by so many others but made legendary by him on his solo album "Laid Back."
Does it get any better than this?
NOT FOR THIS AUDIENCE!
Let me get this straight, you're paying a hundred bucks to get in, you're at a unique experience and you can't even pay attention, never mind respect?
Bummed me out immensely.
What is it, the lack of seats? When they were torn out did concertgoers lose all decorum?
Or is the me generation, where everybody is a star. Gregg's up there pouring out his heart and no one cares. I couldn't find a box to put it all in.
AIN'T WASTIN' TIME NO MORE
The opening cut on "Eat A Peach," the posthumous album with a bit of new stuff and a bunch of old Duane. It never gets any respect, it's never mentioned, but it's a personal favorite.
"You don't need no gypsy to tell you why
You can't let one precious day slip by"
You've got to look inside, you're the only one with the answers. Just put on a record, lay back and think, the truth will come.
Just talk to any baby boomer in the business, they heard this music and had to get closer, they didn't get in to get rich, but to be next to the art and the artists, to turn others on to the elixir. The scene was run by musicians, who could testify about influences and desires if they could talk at all, who didn't know brands other than Jack Daniel's and Marlboro, who had handlers who whipped off hundreds as they did whatever they chose, knowing the music would carry them through and make everything right.
And sure, music was not free. But it was the music that generated all this heat. Because it's all about belief. Music is religion, excise that element and you've got soulless pabulum that's here today and gone tomorrow, unlike the music of the Allman Brothers.
HOT 'LANTA
I remember my family being pissed I called it that. A friend was going to the capital of the south, and I said they were going to "Hot 'Lanta" and I was EXCORIATED!
Welcome to my life. Persecuted when I was not ignored. I found solace in my records, when the world was closing in I put them on.
This is Gregg's showcase, he played it right after his break, right after introducing the band.
I know it by heart.
MELISSA
Uh-oh. Another acoustic number. Everybody's talking. Walla if you've ever worked in the movie business. And then Gregg reaches the chorus and the assembled multitude sings...SWEET MELISSA! Almost a sigh, in unison.
The reason there are so many thirtysomething Melissas is because of this song. That's the power of music.
MIDNIGHT RIDER
Same deal.
Come on, can you mistake the intro? With the groove of a clomping horse? Gregg's giving it his best, everybody's talking and then when he reaches the chorus everybody sings...MIDNIGHT RIDER!
It was like a bizarre horror movie. Where the zombies wake up every once in a while and utter a key phrase. Every time through, every chorus. It's like their brains had been removed but the song was in their DNA!
SOUTHBOUND
So, let's see. Arena act, STADIUM ACT, survives but ends up playing a club.
But that's not really what happened. It was a special gig tied into Stagecoach, Allman doesn't usually play venues this small, never mind with a full horn section, and, as stated above, tickets were $100.
Still...
Was this like the jazzbos, playing deep into the night earning their keep...
Or was it a legend coming down from the mountaintop to deign us with excellence and then disappear?
You've got to understand, it used to be different. We used to be bored, we used to go to the bar to connect, you couldn't do it on the internet, there'd be a jukebox, and for a while there in the seventies, it was populated with Allman hits.
But really, the band was for the dorm room, the house party, when you were all sitting in a circle with the lights down low, drinking Bud and bourbon, getting higher and higher, communing with your buddies, dreaming of getting laid but getting none.
But Gregg was getting enough for all of us. He was our hero, not someone to make fun of, but to emulate.
Not that we could ever be him. But just maybe, inspired by his music, we could achieve our dreams. Which included good sex, a fulfilling job and tickets to the show, we had to go to the show.
And we still do.
Because we remember.
When music tested limits, when it changed the world.
Bob Ezrin was right.
And if you don't believe so, you're young and ignorant or an oldster trying to look hip. Sure, there's good music today. But it used to be different. Music was peopled by the best and the brightest, testing limits. The entry price was low. Albums were way under ten bucks and so were tickets. And you had to go the show, to not only be transported, but to change your life.
Music is forever.
But there was only one Renaissance. They've made music since the sixties and seventies, but the coalition of forces engendered greatness that hooked the entire world. The radio station was your bible, the music was your religion and the rock stars were your gods.
Still are.
CODA
He's 67 and looks it. He's not exactly frail, but he's not the picture of health. Up close and personal he's a southern gentleman, with a voice so soft you can barely hear, but with a brain working overtime. He told me about breaking his arm, playing a gig the next day. And when I asked him what he thought about everybody talking during "These Days" Gregg said he didn't even notice, because he was in the ZONE!
They do it for themselves, not us.
You can tell the difference.
And it makes all the difference.
You can get close, but you're never gonna catch the midnight rider.
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Wednesday 29 April 2015
Shark Tank Rules
IT'S WHO YOU KNOW
A spice rub company couldn't get arrested at Sam's Club, they'd been trying to get their product stocked for years, but once they made a deal with Barbara Corcoran, voila!, they were in.
Stop becoming such an expert. You're not. It's great to be a student of the game, to know about royalties and players, but the best way to get ahead is to hire an intermediary, who will navigate the waters for you. And it's less about knowing where to go, than knowing the right people to go to.
Who needs product? Who is open to making a deal?
And people who make a deal only want to deal with those they know. Of course there are exceptions, but very few.
You need a lawyer or a manager, someone who's been there before. Don't denigrate the players, INGRATIATE yourself with them!
HISTORY
No one wants to invest in someone without a track record.
How long have you been at it, how many albums have you sold, how many YouTube views do you have, how many gigs have you done, how many people have attended, how much money did you make?
Yes, enthusiasm is contagious, but it's no match for data.
If you want someone to invest, you must have proof of concept.
If you don't, it's too early.
DON'T BE IRRATIONAL
Nothing spins heads as much as a newbie with little track record who turns down a deal because they believe they're a winner. Then why are you looking for a deal? Of course you can go it alone, but if you're looking for help, be open to it. Listen. You don't know everything, you probably know very little. And initial deals with newbies tend to be bad, they only get better with a proven track record. And a small piece of something is much better than a big piece of nothing. They're cliches because they're true, like you've got to spend money to make money. Don't reinvent the wheel, put it on your vehicle and roll.
DON'T ARGUE
No one wants to be involved with someone who's a headache. If you're headstrong, if you have a retort to all insight, no one's gonna want a piece of you, no matter how good your product, life is too short.
NOT EVERYONE HAS TO LIKE YOU
You only need a deal from one shark. It's great to get into a bidding war, but you've ultimately got to decide who to go with. And that person is frequently not the one who offers the most money. The struggle is just beginning. You need someone who will help you.
And, there are 300 million people in America. You don't have to please all of them, a tiny fraction of fans will make you rich and successful.
EXPERIENCE COUNTS
Respect the sharks. They didn't get there by accident. Sometimes daddy gets them in, but usually they're self-made. Investigate why they're successful, don't put them down. They learned a lot of lessons, which can rub off on you if you're in business with them.
BE WILLING TO HEAR THE TRUTH
An investor wants to know you're open to change, that you're malleable, that you can pivot. Someone kicking the tires does not need to know that everything is right, but enough things. It's their job to give direction and input. If you need nothing but money, chances are people don't want to be involved, they want to steer some. If you refuse all input, you don't want a deal.
INVESTING IS POKER
Sharks don't reveal their hand right up front, that's your job. You're selling. Negotiations are fraught with issues. And due diligence is key. Just because you got a deal on the show, that does not mean you got a deal in real life. When the cameras stop rolling the real work begins. You told a story, upon investigation, is it real?
EVERY DEAL IS DIFFERENT
How much equity, how much cash, a letter of credit? There's no set term sheet. And every business is different. Some have cash flow issues, others need distribution... That's one of the first things an investor asks, WHAT DO YOU WANT? The conversation starts there.
SMART IS ATTRACTIVE
You don't have to finish college, but it helps.
When someone throws a curve ball, can you react? Can you think and respond on the spot? Can you do anything but get flustered and repeat what you've already said? Investors are looking for grace under pressure, from those intelligent enough to cogitate, to know that as hard as they've thought about it, they haven't thought of everything.
YOU, NOT YOUR IDEA
The idea, the music, the product, is secondary to yourself. People are investing in YOU! Oftentimes the sharks don't bid, but say the creator is a winner. Sometimes you just haven't found the right idea, the right musical format. Winners keep changing, looking for gold. Losers just double down and tell everybody who disagrees that they're wrong and will be proven so. They don't realize everybody is laughing at them.
DON'T REINVENT THE WHEEL
"Shark Tank" is based on the Japanese TV show "Dragon's Den." You don't always have to reinvent the wheel. You can take a preexisting concept and make it your own. And it's about perseverance more than splash. There's so much noise today that it's about doing good work, being in the marketplace and waiting for word to spread. "Shark Tank" premiered in 2009. It doubled its ratings and audience over four years. It's a long haul, some make it immediately, most don't.
Every artist should watch "Shark Tank," religiously. To see how the game is played.
But a great artist creates something ethereal, that is only quantifiable after the fact.
But there are very few great artists out there.
Being a businessman is very different from being an artist. It's extremely rare that people are both. You need help. Take it!
"ZinePak Emerges Victorious From 'Shark Tank' With $725,000": http://bit.ly/1EAw6rn
"With More than $3 Million in Annual Sales, Why ZinePak Decided to Go on 'Shark Tank'": http://entm.ag/1EDriS3
Mark Cuban was out. He thought the company was based in desperation, that physical is dying. But the other sharks wanted to make a deal. Was it ignorance or pure numbers? That's one thing about an investor, he may be interested only in the money. If you want someone to hold your hand and be your best friend you're dreaming. It's about the cold hard cash.
As for ZinePak... Two women, negotiating the waters successfully. Selling millions. They could do it, can you?
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A spice rub company couldn't get arrested at Sam's Club, they'd been trying to get their product stocked for years, but once they made a deal with Barbara Corcoran, voila!, they were in.
Stop becoming such an expert. You're not. It's great to be a student of the game, to know about royalties and players, but the best way to get ahead is to hire an intermediary, who will navigate the waters for you. And it's less about knowing where to go, than knowing the right people to go to.
Who needs product? Who is open to making a deal?
And people who make a deal only want to deal with those they know. Of course there are exceptions, but very few.
You need a lawyer or a manager, someone who's been there before. Don't denigrate the players, INGRATIATE yourself with them!
HISTORY
No one wants to invest in someone without a track record.
How long have you been at it, how many albums have you sold, how many YouTube views do you have, how many gigs have you done, how many people have attended, how much money did you make?
Yes, enthusiasm is contagious, but it's no match for data.
If you want someone to invest, you must have proof of concept.
If you don't, it's too early.
DON'T BE IRRATIONAL
Nothing spins heads as much as a newbie with little track record who turns down a deal because they believe they're a winner. Then why are you looking for a deal? Of course you can go it alone, but if you're looking for help, be open to it. Listen. You don't know everything, you probably know very little. And initial deals with newbies tend to be bad, they only get better with a proven track record. And a small piece of something is much better than a big piece of nothing. They're cliches because they're true, like you've got to spend money to make money. Don't reinvent the wheel, put it on your vehicle and roll.
DON'T ARGUE
No one wants to be involved with someone who's a headache. If you're headstrong, if you have a retort to all insight, no one's gonna want a piece of you, no matter how good your product, life is too short.
NOT EVERYONE HAS TO LIKE YOU
You only need a deal from one shark. It's great to get into a bidding war, but you've ultimately got to decide who to go with. And that person is frequently not the one who offers the most money. The struggle is just beginning. You need someone who will help you.
And, there are 300 million people in America. You don't have to please all of them, a tiny fraction of fans will make you rich and successful.
EXPERIENCE COUNTS
Respect the sharks. They didn't get there by accident. Sometimes daddy gets them in, but usually they're self-made. Investigate why they're successful, don't put them down. They learned a lot of lessons, which can rub off on you if you're in business with them.
BE WILLING TO HEAR THE TRUTH
An investor wants to know you're open to change, that you're malleable, that you can pivot. Someone kicking the tires does not need to know that everything is right, but enough things. It's their job to give direction and input. If you need nothing but money, chances are people don't want to be involved, they want to steer some. If you refuse all input, you don't want a deal.
INVESTING IS POKER
Sharks don't reveal their hand right up front, that's your job. You're selling. Negotiations are fraught with issues. And due diligence is key. Just because you got a deal on the show, that does not mean you got a deal in real life. When the cameras stop rolling the real work begins. You told a story, upon investigation, is it real?
EVERY DEAL IS DIFFERENT
How much equity, how much cash, a letter of credit? There's no set term sheet. And every business is different. Some have cash flow issues, others need distribution... That's one of the first things an investor asks, WHAT DO YOU WANT? The conversation starts there.
SMART IS ATTRACTIVE
You don't have to finish college, but it helps.
When someone throws a curve ball, can you react? Can you think and respond on the spot? Can you do anything but get flustered and repeat what you've already said? Investors are looking for grace under pressure, from those intelligent enough to cogitate, to know that as hard as they've thought about it, they haven't thought of everything.
YOU, NOT YOUR IDEA
The idea, the music, the product, is secondary to yourself. People are investing in YOU! Oftentimes the sharks don't bid, but say the creator is a winner. Sometimes you just haven't found the right idea, the right musical format. Winners keep changing, looking for gold. Losers just double down and tell everybody who disagrees that they're wrong and will be proven so. They don't realize everybody is laughing at them.
DON'T REINVENT THE WHEEL
"Shark Tank" is based on the Japanese TV show "Dragon's Den." You don't always have to reinvent the wheel. You can take a preexisting concept and make it your own. And it's about perseverance more than splash. There's so much noise today that it's about doing good work, being in the marketplace and waiting for word to spread. "Shark Tank" premiered in 2009. It doubled its ratings and audience over four years. It's a long haul, some make it immediately, most don't.
Every artist should watch "Shark Tank," religiously. To see how the game is played.
But a great artist creates something ethereal, that is only quantifiable after the fact.
But there are very few great artists out there.
Being a businessman is very different from being an artist. It's extremely rare that people are both. You need help. Take it!
"ZinePak Emerges Victorious From 'Shark Tank' With $725,000": http://bit.ly/1EAw6rn
"With More than $3 Million in Annual Sales, Why ZinePak Decided to Go on 'Shark Tank'": http://entm.ag/1EDriS3
Mark Cuban was out. He thought the company was based in desperation, that physical is dying. But the other sharks wanted to make a deal. Was it ignorance or pure numbers? That's one thing about an investor, he may be interested only in the money. If you want someone to hold your hand and be your best friend you're dreaming. It's about the cold hard cash.
As for ZinePak... Two women, negotiating the waters successfully. Selling millions. They could do it, can you?
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Tuesday 28 April 2015
Baltimore
The PIGS, that's what we called them back when I was growing up.
And I still don't trust the police, they've never been there when I needed them and have most certainly hassled me when I have not.
Welcome to the sixties, minus the draft. Wherein the younger generation mistrusts their elders and...
Wait a minute, that's not what's happening at all.
The educated whites are chummy with their parents. They're all about succeeding and paying no taxes and making sure the government protects their assets.
The underclass?
Being pushed further down.
America's a bad Hieronymus Bosch painting. All of us struggling, but not realizing we're in hell.
Read the statistics, it's the poor who donate to charity, who help their brother. Everybody else is just out for themselves.
Hate to harp on Tidal, but it's evidence of the backlash. The rich and famous believe they're admirable, that they deserve their wealth and status. Kind of like the Republicans dissing the 47%. Not realizing that without customers, you've got no business. Unless, of course, your customer is the government... Too many bad boy corporations suck on the government tit and complain about regulation at the same time.
But it seems that some of us are mad as hell and ain't gonna take it any more.
But, once again, it's not the richies, the upwardly mobile, not the artists.
Because the artists are in bed with the rich. You don't want to take a stand, you might lose your endorsement with the corporation. The radio station might stop playing your record. Why are we all paying fealty to a structure we hate? Bitching and then hoping we can get some milk from the corporate teat.
That's right, government and corporations run this country. In bed with each other. And they do their best to keep us scared. You'd better give up your privacy or they're gonna drop a nuke in Montana and steal your baby in Arkansas. Everybody's so scared of loss that they don't complain. As their future is pulled out from under them.
But when you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.
Which is why protest is being led by those without assets.
The Supreme Court tells us racism is history, we need no voter protections.
The corporations tell us if we just deregulated, the nation would soar, throwing safety out the window. And you'd better not ask for a higher wage or health insurance, because then... The stockholders would not make a profit and the execs would not make double digit millions and when you got your opportunity there'd be nothing left.
YOU'RE NOT GONNA GET YOUR OPPORTUNITY!
They came for the instruments in the schools. Music must go. Education is about science and math, the humanities are a joke, and don't ever ask me to pay taxes to contribute to the common good, if it doesn't benefit me, I'm out.
They came for your personal information. Edward Snowden stood up for you, the way artists once did. But today a techie's got more brains and more soul than anybody making music. Music is about bitching about what you don't have. What you do have is a platform and a voice. And funny, when you get down in the pit and stand up for what's right people rally around you, they clamor for more. But today's stars believe their audience is the media, not their fans.
But I don't expect you to do anything. Not the artist class. Not those who keep bitching about Spotify payments. Because you just don't get it. You're part of the problem, not the solution.
When we were all middle class, we could fight for what's right.
Now that we're divided, we can't unite on a single thing.
And I won't bore you with Kansas welfare restrictions. It all doesn't mean a thing.
What does mean a thing is the Arab Spring. Whose flames were fanned by modern media, i.e. the internet. The truth is we can all see the story, and not only from one side. And we're all sitting here wondering what happened to our country. How did the police become a paramilitary organization, able to perform with no regard to basic human rights, rallying around each other in defiance whenever questioned.
It happened this way once before. And history repeats.
That's right, the African-Americans couldn't take it anymore. They wanted to use the same restrooms, the same water fountains and the same buses.
Protest music came thereafter.
I'm just warning you here. I don't expect you to do anything. You're a good American, you're a follower. But keep watching. There's a coterie of Americans you denigrate who've had just about enough and are willing to put their lives on the line. And sure, some of them are crossing the line, but you stole music, didn't you?
Because when a system is unjust, people rebel.
Music should not be free, but when the label makes you pay fifteen bucks for a CD with one good song you're just waiting to exact retribution.
Those in underprivileged economies, the inner city where the schools suck and the police are oppressive and every other black man is in jail, have been waiting for their moment to fight back.
It happened in Baltimore.
Before that in Ferguson and New York City.
And if you're debating the details you're missing the point. Which is you can only keep people down for so long. America is a great country, but it's not the best in the world on every benchmark. We need to look at ourselves, we need to do what's right.
But that'll happen when they get money out of politics.
And seeing as how that's no time soon, expect more flash points, expect more rebellion.
It's happening here.
And it's becoming more clear.
For what it's worth.
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And I still don't trust the police, they've never been there when I needed them and have most certainly hassled me when I have not.
Welcome to the sixties, minus the draft. Wherein the younger generation mistrusts their elders and...
Wait a minute, that's not what's happening at all.
The educated whites are chummy with their parents. They're all about succeeding and paying no taxes and making sure the government protects their assets.
The underclass?
Being pushed further down.
America's a bad Hieronymus Bosch painting. All of us struggling, but not realizing we're in hell.
Read the statistics, it's the poor who donate to charity, who help their brother. Everybody else is just out for themselves.
Hate to harp on Tidal, but it's evidence of the backlash. The rich and famous believe they're admirable, that they deserve their wealth and status. Kind of like the Republicans dissing the 47%. Not realizing that without customers, you've got no business. Unless, of course, your customer is the government... Too many bad boy corporations suck on the government tit and complain about regulation at the same time.
But it seems that some of us are mad as hell and ain't gonna take it any more.
But, once again, it's not the richies, the upwardly mobile, not the artists.
Because the artists are in bed with the rich. You don't want to take a stand, you might lose your endorsement with the corporation. The radio station might stop playing your record. Why are we all paying fealty to a structure we hate? Bitching and then hoping we can get some milk from the corporate teat.
That's right, government and corporations run this country. In bed with each other. And they do their best to keep us scared. You'd better give up your privacy or they're gonna drop a nuke in Montana and steal your baby in Arkansas. Everybody's so scared of loss that they don't complain. As their future is pulled out from under them.
But when you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.
Which is why protest is being led by those without assets.
The Supreme Court tells us racism is history, we need no voter protections.
The corporations tell us if we just deregulated, the nation would soar, throwing safety out the window. And you'd better not ask for a higher wage or health insurance, because then... The stockholders would not make a profit and the execs would not make double digit millions and when you got your opportunity there'd be nothing left.
YOU'RE NOT GONNA GET YOUR OPPORTUNITY!
They came for the instruments in the schools. Music must go. Education is about science and math, the humanities are a joke, and don't ever ask me to pay taxes to contribute to the common good, if it doesn't benefit me, I'm out.
They came for your personal information. Edward Snowden stood up for you, the way artists once did. But today a techie's got more brains and more soul than anybody making music. Music is about bitching about what you don't have. What you do have is a platform and a voice. And funny, when you get down in the pit and stand up for what's right people rally around you, they clamor for more. But today's stars believe their audience is the media, not their fans.
But I don't expect you to do anything. Not the artist class. Not those who keep bitching about Spotify payments. Because you just don't get it. You're part of the problem, not the solution.
When we were all middle class, we could fight for what's right.
Now that we're divided, we can't unite on a single thing.
And I won't bore you with Kansas welfare restrictions. It all doesn't mean a thing.
What does mean a thing is the Arab Spring. Whose flames were fanned by modern media, i.e. the internet. The truth is we can all see the story, and not only from one side. And we're all sitting here wondering what happened to our country. How did the police become a paramilitary organization, able to perform with no regard to basic human rights, rallying around each other in defiance whenever questioned.
It happened this way once before. And history repeats.
That's right, the African-Americans couldn't take it anymore. They wanted to use the same restrooms, the same water fountains and the same buses.
Protest music came thereafter.
I'm just warning you here. I don't expect you to do anything. You're a good American, you're a follower. But keep watching. There's a coterie of Americans you denigrate who've had just about enough and are willing to put their lives on the line. And sure, some of them are crossing the line, but you stole music, didn't you?
Because when a system is unjust, people rebel.
Music should not be free, but when the label makes you pay fifteen bucks for a CD with one good song you're just waiting to exact retribution.
Those in underprivileged economies, the inner city where the schools suck and the police are oppressive and every other black man is in jail, have been waiting for their moment to fight back.
It happened in Baltimore.
Before that in Ferguson and New York City.
And if you're debating the details you're missing the point. Which is you can only keep people down for so long. America is a great country, but it's not the best in the world on every benchmark. We need to look at ourselves, we need to do what's right.
But that'll happen when they get money out of politics.
And seeing as how that's no time soon, expect more flash points, expect more rebellion.
It's happening here.
And it's becoming more clear.
For what it's worth.
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Sunday 26 April 2015
Re-Ezrin
right on!
Chris Spector
__________________________________
I think I can distill Bob Ezrin's comments a bit further. It seems as if many of us have lived through an artistic Renaissance into a period of "Dark Ages". It may not be "just" music, but music is the best example. Sad...
Jimmy Fox
__________________________________
.......yup......(when I began to read this I thought it was your setup to the ezrin letter, only to find that IT WAS the ezrin letter........the two bob's speak the truth!)......
Tommy Allen
__________________________________
Amen
Joe Weinstein
__________________________________
Re: Bob Ezrin
Amen.
Desmond Child
__________________________________
Bob Ezrin is a genius and a brilliant human being.
He produced a record for me for no charge. The record itself stands as something I'll be proud of for the rest of my life but, more importantly, what he (and GGGarth Richardson and Moe Berg) taught me about honestly creating art and always seeking true creative expression and committing oneself to striving for greatness literally gave me a better life.
Being generic is a CHOICE you do not HAVE to make.
Thank you Bob Ezrin for not giving up the good fight.
And thank you Mr. Lefsetz as well.
Rock on guys.
Robin Black
__________________________________
Word!!
thanks for posting!
Malcolm Clark
__________________________________
After the letter from Ezrin, I wanted to re-familiarize myself with some of his work.
I bounced around a little and then found myself going through his work with Alice Cooper.
This led me to finding out the the song "I'm Eighteen", was first released as only a single, which peaked at 21 on the charts. This convinced Warner Bros, that Alice had the 'stuff' and would be worth investing in and an album including the song was recorded.
Tell me in today's world, would a single peaking at 21, garner an album release? Zero chance in my opinion. We have no more artist development, everything is just instant gratification.
So many classic bands would have been killed off after album 1 didn't hit #1. No one wants to invest in the long term, just cookie cutter song writing.
Cheers
Mitch Nixon
__________________________________
He must have been hiding his true feelings while collecting his own checks from Clear Channel, Live Nation...
Michael H. Burnett
__________________________________
Powerful and succinct . BUT there are those who follow the old model and are sadly not embraced by the current industry.
Sent from BOB JAMES
__________________________________
Kids today! Turn that racket down!
The battle cry of the old geezer complaining about modern music. A battle cry almost as old as music itself.
With bonus points awarded for being a white boy complaining about white boys.
Alec Bennett
__________________________________
The demise of popular music has never been more eloquently described, nor more accurately.
Frank A. Gagliano
__________________________________
Thanks for the reminder. I always forget that this generation is the first to sing self-centered songs and have to deal with frustration with main stream materialism.
"I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no"
Stephen Chilton
__________________________________
talk about hitting the nail on the head!
Joey Carbone
__________________________________
I love you, Bob Ezrin.
Marthe Reynolds
__________________________________
Spot on Bob!
you hit the nail on the head!!
Pat Lancia
__________________________________
Wall Street helped create the flattening of music. Numbers became the primary decision controller.
Nashville wins since songs and Performance are still the creative driver. But there it sounds like McDrums create the grooves. Most records use the same samples. That drummer is really busy
Elliot Mazer
__________________________________
um, this is coming from the guy who brought us the best of Kiss & Alice Cooper? a little before my time, perhaps, but aren't those classic examples of the hedonism (i.e. "me" culture) the 70's are renowned for? and not examples of the "intricacies...subtleties...mastery...high-mindedness...meaningful work" he's boasting of?
not saying anything is better or that much different now, but once I looked up this guy I was a little galled he's pulling the "back in the day" card so hard. I always tell friends that's how you know you're getting old, when you start bitching about the kids today and how much better it was when you were a kid or young adult. Obviously things are different in certain ways, as you constantly point out, but to make a blatant value judgement like this is crass, blindered, and a bit on the grumpy old man tip. Which is too bad, because he seems like a generally positive person....
chris henry
missoula, MT
__________________________________
Oh yeah, Bob Ezrin because Alice cooper is more than three chord dress up rock? This shit has always been the same. Now all of you old people want to blame us for the talentless pop easy three chords?? Blame yourselves!! YOU ARE THE OLD PEOPLE WHO HOARDED YOUR MONEY and signed your nieces and nephews. Talk about the me generation... It's all of you old people selfish victims while you steal from your own children.
Grow up.
Everyone stopped believing the journey uphill both ways to school decades ago.
-mike loy, a nobody
__________________________________
amen!
Michael Leon
__________________________________
God you old timers are depressing.
If I was to believe everything I read in your emails, I would have given up a long time ago. I understand you are paid to provide opinions, but this problem of 'things ain't how they used to be' has been a recurrent theme throughout the arts, politics, culture, sport etc for decades....hell, even real estate has the same gripes (New York 'hasn't been how it used to be' for about 100 years). It's called generational change.
Good work can rise above all that, or at least be outside of it. Maybe you are trying to filter the greats, the people who have grit and can fight, from the people who are battered by the tides of the times too easily. Or maybe you're just paid to have a black-and-white view of the world and put it in words. Whatever it is, your emails can be infuriatingly negative in your assertion that the world just isn't the same and good art doesn't exist anymore. However, many times they have provided me with the fuel to keep going, as I want to prove that assertion wrong. I am a nobody right now, but I will keep going until I prove naysayers like you wrong.
Matthew Campbell
__________________________________
Fuck you Bob Ezrin! HAS BEEN!
YOUAREOLDANDIRRELEVANT
theundergrounddivas
__________________________________
100% correct - and if continue to allow the dumbing-down of just about everything around us . . . music is, sadly, no exception
Roger Maltby
__________________________________
As far as I'm concerned as a music producer since 1979...
the "click track" has killed the music industry.
That stupid metronome that makes it all perfect.
Line it up and nobody gets hurt.
Took the soul right out of music.
THE NEXT BIG THING ?
Broadway Musicals ?
Christopher Dwight Harris
__________________________________
What if there was a pop artist that told ya upfront "I'm in it for the money" and with that honesty, was able to lace in sociopolitical truths so the "me generation" tunes in? Sorta like on The Walking Dead how they don't trust you're a good person unless you admit what you had to do to survive. Art at its greatest is a mirror held up to society that wakes them to the truth.
Cole Thomas
__________________________________
THAT'S SOME GOOD SHIT - WORTHY OF BEING PASTED AND POSTED ON EVERY LAMP POST, CLUB BULLETIN BOARD, SOCIAL MEDIA SITE, ETC.
Tom Cartwright
__________________________________
Coming from a guy who has spent the last 5 years working with Swift, The Darkness and Phish and Fefe Dobson? If anything it's guys like Ezrin who should be leading the charge, not following suit and then complaining. Easy to bitch when you were once the cats meow and now are working with sub par acts for a ton of money...and by the way most of the artists I know are not looking for fame and fortune, they're looking for a few grand in royalties so that they can stop working 20 hours a day and start working 15 so they can have a bit if time to have sex with their partners and catch up with old friends.
Zach Sutton
__________________________________
It saddens me to hear that someone as esteemed as Bob Ezrin feels that way. However, I am one of the many that is in it for the art, in it for the music! Yes I have to make a living, but I make music not money!
Michael C. Ross
__________________________________
Hi Bob -- these days I buy a lot of music at Goodwill.
Used CDs priced at 99 cents.
I visited Goodwill in Milwaukee today -- walked out with 28 -- for essentially the price of two new CDs.
Great music -- Aretha, Keb Mo, three Clapton albums, Willie Dixon's Columbia album, Frank Sinatra's Reprise work, soundtracks from Trainspotting, Stand by Me, Elton John's Aida, Yo Yo Ma, Dylan, Norah Jones, David Bowie, Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris, more great stuff.
I love music. I listen to music. This is the way to collect it these days.
Ezrin is right.
Jim Charne
__________________________________
Thanks Bob Ezrin for all you've given us, and thank Shep Gordon too!
Rodney Rowland
__________________________________
Yeah, the music! Bob Ezrin was always a music hero of mine and I was just so thrilled to be able to meet and work with him when I was Gene Simmons' personal assistant in the early '90's. The real deal, Bob Ezrin.
Cathy Goodman
__________________________________
Nice note from Bob, Bob. I see that he's worked with 30 Seconds to Mars, another one of those exceptions. Jared Leto is one of those amazing artists we all wish there were more of. Between his music and Dallas Buyers Club? Forget about it! I guess all this means is that we're going to hopefully appreciate the true artist when they come along. Because they will be few and far between.
Regards,
Chris Beytes
__________________________________
Music back then was a seen as form of terrorism, to the same elite
that have a combined wealth of 3 Billion. Rock n roll didn't die. IT
WAS MURDERED!
Write about that!
Steve Cooke
__________________________________
The protest songs no longer exist in the white world, because student loans replaced the time to protest.
Annie Roboff
__________________________________
so, does that mean the world needed to
stop circa 1979 with THE WALL?
do you think our generation has not been an inspiration
and that what is now here has not been built with our seed.
what does moaning and groaning about the good old days..
accomplish?
except make you sound like a moaning, groaning,
old man that needs to be in assisted living.
with that thinking i guess the covered wagons would still be around.
of course, bob doesn't fit in nor understand the new paradigms╔
he didn╒t create them..
and yes, it IS all about the money
and it is going to CONTINUE.
respect what is out there and focus on your moments left on this planet
so you can die with a smile on your face knowing you did it╔
anything else is a waste of energy on your part.
with love, respect, and hoping you can see how lucky
your life has been╔.
marc brickman
__________________________________
Can't disagree more.
1) The golden era of meaning that you guys cherish lasted a tiny amount of time in the life of pop culture.
2) There are always those who miss the good old days. But the same complaints were made even then. Ezrin's comments could have been (and were) directed at Elvis and The Beatles. And who was more alarming to 1960s white people than James Brown? Talk about a lack of melody.
3) Pop is always nonsensical around the edges. Those who disdained rock's infancy preferred the meaning and melody of "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?" I'm skipping across eras but you get the picture.
I guess somebody needs to get off Bob Ezrin's lawn.
Michael Olsen
__________________________________
hey Kids !
Get OFF my lawn !
K Bonson
__________________________________
And until someone sings from the heart of the ╘me╒ generation and challenges the narcissism that has taken over society then this shallow music will continue it╒s reign. Today╒s biggest stars are about as deep as paddling pools.
Ben Carter
__________________________________
Oh for goodness sake - is there ever going to be a generation of grumpy old men that does not embark on all this "back in my day......." and "we used to have principles" wittering? I say this as a devoted fan, admirer and friend of Mr. Ezrin and as a member of the same carping generation. But it has always been thus.
We look backwards and we only remember the good stuff - thankfully we forget all the dreck (and the arrant commercialism) of previous decades and just complain about the dreck we hear now. There are so many extraordinary musicians and songwriters out there today. So many virtuosi, great players both jazz and classical - and yes hip hop and pop as well. There is no sound reason to believe that the ratio of people only in it for fame and fortune to the number of real (and even idealistic) creators is any different now that it has ever been.
Yes the "rhetoric endures" - and the same old complaints come round every generation, the same hyperbole and the same self-congratulation. Come on Bob! Which mountains did we "literally" move?? And from where to where? I need to see a map.
I remain eccentrically optimistic - and send my very best wishes!
Peter Asher
__________________________________
Didn't he just produce a phish album? Wtf bobs
Alex
__________________________________
That Selma song sucked.. So does kendrick's new album. The Ultimate 'bitch don't kill my' vibe killer.
When I hear 'pop' music from the 60s and 70s its just as bad as anything today. When I hear 'protest' music then it just sounds like guys that want to get high and get laid. So what's changed exactly?
Music today has much more diversity than anything before it, it caters to much more discerning ears and you have to be culturally inclined to understand it.
Im 34, connected and well versed in the nuances of inner city life.. but I still don't get all of it.
Face it Bob (and Bob) you're both too damn old to understand any it. you'd be better off just admitting that then trying to knock what you don't understand. That just makes you sound like a hater.
If you don't want to alienate whats left of you under 35 readership you need to teach those ears to do a few new tricks..
I got an idea; twist one, turn your stereo up and go listen to Young Thug on soundcloud. Channel your inner Iovine and get with the program
Josh Berman
__________________________________
"...or whines in hardly rhyming verse about their sad little white boy or girl life". Woah get in there! That is spot on Mr Ezrin, spot on indeed, the post Coldplay/Snow Patrol emasculated male is so drearily wet and ....well, dreary. What to do, the majors love that schtick!
Steve Allen
__________________________________
Right on, Bobs!
Ted Myers
There are pockets of great music all around us. It just may not be in the commercial scene. Kooper's Super Session will not happen again on the same level but nevertheless the faithful will seek and find meaningful music.
My son is 28 and finds great music frequently and shares it with me. The bands may not become future Fleetwood Mac's in a commercial sense but they deliver what you say is lost....connection and emotion.
Sad to see you allow those with a "name" to create a negative spiral for the faithful. Reach out to the younger generation who go and discover new music and you might be pleasantly surprised.
Bill Powell
__________________________________
I can't thank you enough for articulating what I have felt.
I am trying to build a group from Manchester that says something, that is connected to its time and to its community.
You, and Kendrick, have reminded me, or at least given me faith, that people are still looking for that. That they know that's what they need.
I will send you some material when it is ready soon. I know you must have a thousand similar emails clamouring for your attention; but for my own peace of mind I shall send it anyway.
Thankyou,
Rich Reason
__________________________________
Of course Ezrin is correct, except, as I always try to remind people it's mainly with regard to the major artists signed to major record labels and receiving airplay on corporate radio stations. It's now just the same as the film industry, where Hollywood moguls - money men, not the old style creative people - control what is made and sold to the masses.
And yes, there's a lot of copycat rubbish amongst indie artists and unsigned artists as well.
But there are still good musicians and songwriters - it's just that they are no longer acceptable to big, money-oriented business.
So you have to look for them amongst the ordinary workaday artists who ply their trade or for whom music is just a hobby. For every Bob Dylan there are a hundred, a thousand Steve Forberts, and a million amateurs who are just amusing themselves and a few friends, which is OK, that's cool too.
But we don't have a John Hammond any more who can dig out the geniuses and sign then to big companies.
What we need to do is simply give up on the global corporations and the Top 40 - forget them, they're irrelevant, they're pulp.
The real artists, no one will bring them to you, you have to go and find them.
- DC Cardwell
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BOO HOO
Art Polhemus
__________________________________
People have been saying this since Bob and Kiss released Destroyer.
You need to know where to look.
IF you're looking to find it.
GB
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Hi Ez: Well said. In the sixties and seventies music was the jet fuel for revolution and progressive change in America. Today, it is merely grease easing the transition from one app to the next.
However, as Paul Simon said,"every generation puts a hero up the pop charts." What we are experiencing now with EDM is what we called "disco." The kids will get over the drugs and beats and turn to the most sophisticated musical form. The will seek message and inspiration from their music.
After exploring every style of music on YouTube, for free, they will be the most musically educated generation in history. When no genre is ubiquitous, all genres are viable as the source of the next big thing. That will lead them toward the most evolved musical form, Jazz.
The precursors are already here, alive and well. Adele, Alicia Keys, Norah Jones and Esperanza Spalding are leading the parade. The rest are sure to follow. Music will be bigger and better than ever. But, it will be a cottage industry owned and controlled by those who make the music, not trans-national corporations. The criminal conspiracy we call the postmodern record business will crash and burn. Good riddance!
Rock 'til you drop.
John Hartmann
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I agree. But anyone under thirty will think 'out of touch' and 'sour grapes'.
Tom Quinn
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This, from one of the founders of Corporate Rock? You all live in your own little world of self importance and self delusion. Yes, you made gobs of money and sold gobs of tickets and records, but don╒t for a minute try to convince me it was for, ╥the art╙. I lived through that transitional period in the early 70s, when music went from being exploratory and challenging to becoming sales driven. Your rationalizations to justify your life╒s work as something other than what it was are pretty disingenuous. Be happy living in your fog with your amphetamines and your pearls, but know that a lot of folks see through you.
tom kennedy
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Bob Ezrin NAILED it ... Period!
George Miller
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Reading this from Ezrin is so disappointing.
So nostalgic, the sweeping generalizations. Your subj line is also disappointing, as though we're now hearing from the authority on the subject - someone nearly 70 lamenting today's music. Like getting a lecture from my grandfather, God rest his soul. Maybe when Alice and Floyd made albums that mattered, but everyone has their time and it doesn't last forever. Ezrin's ode to the past reminded me of this.
Dave Morris
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I saw a young banjo player at the Detroit Banjo Convention yesterday. He was probably the only one singing his own songs. No one really cared. The crowd wanted those same usual banjo songs that everyone always plays. The crowd was made of 50+ year olds. They were people just like me and you, but they just wanted what they already have. His songs were somewhat history lessons and proverbial. No one will ever hear of him. I approached him with a list of coffee houses and folkie hangouts that will embrace him in and around Detroit. He plays what he loves and it's meaningful and fantastic. I think my generation destroyed the essence of what rock and roll and great music once was. Our kids didn't do it. All we have to do is look for the great musicians and support them. They are there.
regards,
Bogdon Vasquaf
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Hear Hear!
Ed Gardyne
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Excellent.
I've had these thought for years. Where is the next Fools Overture? The next Kashmir?
Things of that quality aren't being made any longer.
Depressing. What's worse, look around. The mediocrity is everywhere. There are exceptions...
Hope its all good there, Bob
Chris Branson at The Shop Radio
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Am I the only one that finds it ironic that Bob Ezrin dismisses current pop music because it's all about 'shallow nursery rhymes about partying, trucks and beer or bitches and bling'?
Back in the day Bob Ezrin produced albums by KISS, a band that built a career on songs about partying, cold gin, bitches and bling. Hell, he even co-wrote some of these tunes. And we all know what drove KISS from day one: money.
And what exactly was 'uplifting' about the albums he produced for Alice Cooper or Lou Reed?
Please don╒t get me wrong, Destroyer, Love It To Dead and Berlin are among my favourite albums, just like others classics that Bob Ezrin added his magic to. I just think it╒s wrong to assume that most music from the sixties and seventies had substance, was uplifting and had a profound message, while current music is lacking in that respect.
I agree that the mainstream ╨ magazines, radio, television ╨ have surrendered to fast food culture and easy money. But there is still great, meaningful music begin made. Allow me to give one example:
My favorite album of this year so far is Hand.Cannot.Erase by the British musician Steven Wilson, formerly of Purcupine Tree. It╒s a concept album inspired by the true story of young woman living in London who dies in her apartment and no one misses her for three years, despite her having family and friends. It╒s a heart wrenching theme that Wilson used to reflect on current society, where we are online all the time, but real human contact has become rare.
And the music ╨ it╒s labelled prog rock, but I don╒t think that label is covers the wide spectrum of styles ╨ is absolutely gorgeous. Well played and well produced.
Steven Wilson has a unique sound, he is in it for the art and he has something to say. And there is an audience for it. He just finished a sold out European tour, playing large venues.
Pop music didn╒t die. There is still great music being made. We just have to look harder.
Robert Haagsma
(Music journalist, Holland)
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What about D'Angelo's "Black Messiah"? What about John Legend w/ The Roots "Wake Up!"? Allen Stone's songs about everyone loving one another and all that, Tedeschi Trucks Band...
There are massive amounts of recent albums that have meaningful messages, and the music/writing is GOOD. They just fall by the wayside because culture and society have evolved as such that people could care less about these albums as far, as the mainstream world that is. Well, and there's just too much saturation. But my point is, the music, the messages, and the quality are being recorded and thrown into the world just like the old days.... It's people (therefore the business) that have changed. I get that you're writing about mainstream/pop culture, but seems as though you're missing the whole other world one or two levels lower than "mainstream". There's a crap load of amazing stuff being put out that's giving bands/artists solid careers with decent enough fan bases. I don't think the best of them aren't famous because their music isn't good enough... there's just too much music in the world now because ANYONE can start making albums and putting them out. I could write and record
the equivalent of the White Album and put it on spotify and promote the hell out of it... that doesn't mean I'll become famous. Buuuut I made a really really good album!! What's the deal?
But hey, I could have a career at least. That didn't use to be able to happen! You were famous or you didn't have a music career at all. I guess I'd actually take modern times over that.
I blame the world changing, not less good music. There's plenty of it, it's just in different places than the equivalent of what being on the radio used to be. Problem is we see the "losers" conforming, we yawn, and then it's easy to just say "well that's how things are these days". But there are artists who are the real deal going unrecognized/unappreciated by the masses and the industry.
The world of music today is a big shitty ocean that has some decent waves, they're just a little tough to find. Or you know, some other metaphor like that :)
Dane Farnsworth
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The internet and cell phones has made it way to easy to push the moment and not care about the real people in your life. TV is another problem, way too many choices and now the average parent would rather let the kids watch it and or play related games. There needs to be a country where you can go and just spend time with the family. No internet, no phones, nice beach, just hang out and get to know the most important people that you have in your life and generally ignore because your just to busy. It's kinda funny, but as you get older you realize that this is just one long and interesting learning experience. And as you get nearer the end you really see how the next generation is kinda repeating exactly what you did...except now they have access to way to many things and tend to ignore the people that made it possible for them to be on the planet in the first place. So...you're born, you have an adventure, get married, have kids and then it's over...really makes me wonder what's
next...????
rgrinter
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The music that my friend Bob Ezrin talks about is indeed missing in action, vaporized from the larger perception, seen as fiscally imprudent and creatively irrelevant, but is not actually gone. It's minimized, Balkanized, ignored, dismissed, sloughed off, patronized, even ridiculed, and starved out by an industry that has lost the plot, even as it holds catalog that will never disappear.
In my small world, it's all gone underground, below the radar, residing in the niches, seeping into the cracks, built one supporter at a time, in real time, on the ground, and has drifted, necessarily, to a domain where "indy" doesn't just mean "independent" but "individual".
It's in the persistent energies of hundreds of artists who own their own "record companies" and publishing, write meaningful songs that only scratch the surface of radio, who sell nowhere but at gigs, who tour largely alone with guitars in cars, often booked without the aid of an agent, in a hopefully endless stream of one nighters in church halls, coffee shops, house concerts, small festivals, tiny clubs, on StageIt and ConcertWindow, and a multitude of vehicles that do a simple single thing: bringing music to a starved audience, and a forum to a challenged group of creatives who are willing to work extra hard to say their peace, if given the chance. The presumption that, be caseu of that status, they must not be any good is, simply, specious.
Most of them go to Folk Alliance, most of them generate subsistence income (if that), most of them are not looking for a handout from industry or government, even as we try to correct some of the injustices that have been perpetuated in the area of copyright and royalty distribution. Most have taken responsibility for their career and artistic choices, and are looking for satisfaction and a shot at a living, not fame or fortune, because there is none. How do you make a million bucks in the niche markets? Start with two million...
I?m not saying Bob is wrong, not even a little. He is dead-on, as usual.
Presciently, incisively, alarmingly accurate. I'm not saying it's OK, or
acceptable, or that everything is fine. It's not. It sucks, hard. And I
believe our entire society suffers when meaningful creations are
impossible to find, invisible to the eye and ear.
But I'm grateful that a small group of dedicated artists and audiences are supporting a world where, however minuscule, the desire to move and be moved still reigns, every day of every year, for less and less money and attention, but greater and greater commitment and fullfillment.
Those are my people, and we do exist.
Dan Navarro
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it will never happen again. we have 6 media conglomerates who own 90% of everything and they wont let a "freedom fighter" with a strong message thru to the masses. It goes against their business policy of perpetuating the "me me me" culture so everyone focuses on themselves. You cant sell masses of crap to masses of people who are informed about the masses. Plus it's threatening to the status quo who own everything. They learned their lesson with John Lennon and artists who slipped thru and had such a huge following as to actually affect political change. They don't want another Lennon. It's bad for big business. And there is WAY more negative world issues for artists to write about / protest today then there was 40 years ago. Pick your fight: Monsanto, Middle east, petrodollar, federal reserve, GMOs, axis of evil, big pharma, big oil, tar sands, the music industry itself. It's easier to grow young kids into hungry consumers when they are focused on "me me me" as opposed to looking
out for "us", the collective group, which is who the freedom toting artists of the past could appeal to and reach before the mainstream was locked down and sewn shut.
Of course freedom exists on the web, its one of the biggest things on there, but the web is still one device removed from our TV-centric living-room lifestyle which still perpetuates the culture of division. Theres a million channels on the web, but only about a dozen (that people regularly watch for information) on TV. Its still too easy to control that handful of channels to perpetuate what people see, learn, and adopt without questioning. It is that culture which permeates the souls of young aspiring musicians and guides their writing to the only thing they know: "me me me". Hence that's all they write about. In a sense it's not their fault. I'ts all they've been exposed to. Chances are by the time they are 30 and have had a chance to look around then they will see what's really going on and that's when their writing might start to change to reflect more world truths, but by then they're too old and won't get major labels behind them who can get their faces on National Morning TV
to spread their knowledge. Of course there are well-informed young artists out there too who do take on social issues but again, are they trustworthy enough for the major media to let them have an international voice that reaches everyone without threatening the system in place?
Good music used to be about addressing those things. Who are the biggest artists today? Do they have any songs that threaten the status quo? Anything that resembles something as articulately assembled as carry as much impact what John Lennon, Joni Mitchell or Bob Marley could (and would) write? They are the biggest BECAUSE they don't threaten anyone, hence they are given a voice and if they abuse it, they are cut off and their entire team loses. Do you want to be the huge popular artist who says the wrong thing and puts your friends and associates out of work? There's a lot of pressure there and usually no one has the balls to break that cycle. Its expensive, isolating, and the end of good times as you know it.
Nope. Both Bobs are right, its all about the money. Keep it safe, keep it controlled, and it will keep coming.
Thanx
Murray Atkinson
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A solution is needed... And that solution lies in education. A mindfulness of what is actually happening psychologically in the individuals behind all this madness and in our selves.
We can only hope that the music industry will begin to go through what the food industry is beginning to go through (albeit slowly): Where a more universal knowledge of what foods are empty and unhealthy is more widespread.
How is corn syrup and other artificial sweeteners any different than most corporate financed and A&R'd pop music? They both serve to give people the same relatively empty yet short lived hyper-sensory experience.
Our culture's current state pushes us to forget that art is nutrition for the soul.
Arts, due to their innate power, have been hijacked by the most intelligent, driven and greedy people and are now most often used as tools to pry money out of our pockets rather than effect the soul in a meaningful way.
Does pop music taste to the ears just as good as corn syrup does to the mouth? Yes. The effect and its intent is exactly the same.
In the end, pop music is often just as unhealthy to the human soul as corn syrup is to the human body.
It's strikingly simple: the love of money created corn syrup just like it created pop music in the rapidly meaning deprived form we find it in today.
On a deep level we crave money because it offers us two key things, power and safety.
And beneath our craving for power and safety lies our constant subcontinent knowledge of, and fear of our own demise. Our fear of death.
This deep fear of death, when left on the unconscious level leads us down a dead end street. We forget that we are living NOW. Art feeds and nourishes the human soul NOW, in the present moment. It soothes this fear of death in a meaningful way through excepting the beauty, meaning and transient nature of life, which is the opposite of what our love and craving for money does, which is keeps us running like rats on a wheel, going nowhere fast, heart racing, mind numb.
My hope is that those of us desiring to make meaningful work and do good business seek to be mindful of these ideas and help change the world around us for the better.... To ingest what makes us healthier, more connected, less fearful and more alive.
Adam Watts
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Chris Spector
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I think I can distill Bob Ezrin's comments a bit further. It seems as if many of us have lived through an artistic Renaissance into a period of "Dark Ages". It may not be "just" music, but music is the best example. Sad...
Jimmy Fox
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.......yup......(when I began to read this I thought it was your setup to the ezrin letter, only to find that IT WAS the ezrin letter........the two bob's speak the truth!)......
Tommy Allen
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Amen
Joe Weinstein
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Re: Bob Ezrin
Amen.
Desmond Child
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Bob Ezrin is a genius and a brilliant human being.
He produced a record for me for no charge. The record itself stands as something I'll be proud of for the rest of my life but, more importantly, what he (and GGGarth Richardson and Moe Berg) taught me about honestly creating art and always seeking true creative expression and committing oneself to striving for greatness literally gave me a better life.
Being generic is a CHOICE you do not HAVE to make.
Thank you Bob Ezrin for not giving up the good fight.
And thank you Mr. Lefsetz as well.
Rock on guys.
Robin Black
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Word!!
thanks for posting!
Malcolm Clark
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After the letter from Ezrin, I wanted to re-familiarize myself with some of his work.
I bounced around a little and then found myself going through his work with Alice Cooper.
This led me to finding out the the song "I'm Eighteen", was first released as only a single, which peaked at 21 on the charts. This convinced Warner Bros, that Alice had the 'stuff' and would be worth investing in and an album including the song was recorded.
Tell me in today's world, would a single peaking at 21, garner an album release? Zero chance in my opinion. We have no more artist development, everything is just instant gratification.
So many classic bands would have been killed off after album 1 didn't hit #1. No one wants to invest in the long term, just cookie cutter song writing.
Cheers
Mitch Nixon
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He must have been hiding his true feelings while collecting his own checks from Clear Channel, Live Nation...
Michael H. Burnett
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Powerful and succinct . BUT there are those who follow the old model and are sadly not embraced by the current industry.
Sent from BOB JAMES
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Kids today! Turn that racket down!
The battle cry of the old geezer complaining about modern music. A battle cry almost as old as music itself.
With bonus points awarded for being a white boy complaining about white boys.
Alec Bennett
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The demise of popular music has never been more eloquently described, nor more accurately.
Frank A. Gagliano
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Thanks for the reminder. I always forget that this generation is the first to sing self-centered songs and have to deal with frustration with main stream materialism.
"I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no"
Stephen Chilton
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talk about hitting the nail on the head!
Joey Carbone
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I love you, Bob Ezrin.
Marthe Reynolds
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Spot on Bob!
you hit the nail on the head!!
Pat Lancia
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Wall Street helped create the flattening of music. Numbers became the primary decision controller.
Nashville wins since songs and Performance are still the creative driver. But there it sounds like McDrums create the grooves. Most records use the same samples. That drummer is really busy
Elliot Mazer
__________________________________
um, this is coming from the guy who brought us the best of Kiss & Alice Cooper? a little before my time, perhaps, but aren't those classic examples of the hedonism (i.e. "me" culture) the 70's are renowned for? and not examples of the "intricacies...subtleties...mastery...high-mindedness...meaningful work" he's boasting of?
not saying anything is better or that much different now, but once I looked up this guy I was a little galled he's pulling the "back in the day" card so hard. I always tell friends that's how you know you're getting old, when you start bitching about the kids today and how much better it was when you were a kid or young adult. Obviously things are different in certain ways, as you constantly point out, but to make a blatant value judgement like this is crass, blindered, and a bit on the grumpy old man tip. Which is too bad, because he seems like a generally positive person....
chris henry
missoula, MT
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Oh yeah, Bob Ezrin because Alice cooper is more than three chord dress up rock? This shit has always been the same. Now all of you old people want to blame us for the talentless pop easy three chords?? Blame yourselves!! YOU ARE THE OLD PEOPLE WHO HOARDED YOUR MONEY and signed your nieces and nephews. Talk about the me generation... It's all of you old people selfish victims while you steal from your own children.
Grow up.
Everyone stopped believing the journey uphill both ways to school decades ago.
-mike loy, a nobody
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amen!
Michael Leon
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God you old timers are depressing.
If I was to believe everything I read in your emails, I would have given up a long time ago. I understand you are paid to provide opinions, but this problem of 'things ain't how they used to be' has been a recurrent theme throughout the arts, politics, culture, sport etc for decades....hell, even real estate has the same gripes (New York 'hasn't been how it used to be' for about 100 years). It's called generational change.
Good work can rise above all that, or at least be outside of it. Maybe you are trying to filter the greats, the people who have grit and can fight, from the people who are battered by the tides of the times too easily. Or maybe you're just paid to have a black-and-white view of the world and put it in words. Whatever it is, your emails can be infuriatingly negative in your assertion that the world just isn't the same and good art doesn't exist anymore. However, many times they have provided me with the fuel to keep going, as I want to prove that assertion wrong. I am a nobody right now, but I will keep going until I prove naysayers like you wrong.
Matthew Campbell
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Fuck you Bob Ezrin! HAS BEEN!
YOUAREOLDANDIRRELEVANT
theundergrounddivas
__________________________________
100% correct - and if continue to allow the dumbing-down of just about everything around us . . . music is, sadly, no exception
Roger Maltby
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As far as I'm concerned as a music producer since 1979...
the "click track" has killed the music industry.
That stupid metronome that makes it all perfect.
Line it up and nobody gets hurt.
Took the soul right out of music.
THE NEXT BIG THING ?
Broadway Musicals ?
Christopher Dwight Harris
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What if there was a pop artist that told ya upfront "I'm in it for the money" and with that honesty, was able to lace in sociopolitical truths so the "me generation" tunes in? Sorta like on The Walking Dead how they don't trust you're a good person unless you admit what you had to do to survive. Art at its greatest is a mirror held up to society that wakes them to the truth.
Cole Thomas
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THAT'S SOME GOOD SHIT - WORTHY OF BEING PASTED AND POSTED ON EVERY LAMP POST, CLUB BULLETIN BOARD, SOCIAL MEDIA SITE, ETC.
Tom Cartwright
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Coming from a guy who has spent the last 5 years working with Swift, The Darkness and Phish and Fefe Dobson? If anything it's guys like Ezrin who should be leading the charge, not following suit and then complaining. Easy to bitch when you were once the cats meow and now are working with sub par acts for a ton of money...and by the way most of the artists I know are not looking for fame and fortune, they're looking for a few grand in royalties so that they can stop working 20 hours a day and start working 15 so they can have a bit if time to have sex with their partners and catch up with old friends.
Zach Sutton
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It saddens me to hear that someone as esteemed as Bob Ezrin feels that way. However, I am one of the many that is in it for the art, in it for the music! Yes I have to make a living, but I make music not money!
Michael C. Ross
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Hi Bob -- these days I buy a lot of music at Goodwill.
Used CDs priced at 99 cents.
I visited Goodwill in Milwaukee today -- walked out with 28 -- for essentially the price of two new CDs.
Great music -- Aretha, Keb Mo, three Clapton albums, Willie Dixon's Columbia album, Frank Sinatra's Reprise work, soundtracks from Trainspotting, Stand by Me, Elton John's Aida, Yo Yo Ma, Dylan, Norah Jones, David Bowie, Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris, more great stuff.
I love music. I listen to music. This is the way to collect it these days.
Ezrin is right.
Jim Charne
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Thanks Bob Ezrin for all you've given us, and thank Shep Gordon too!
Rodney Rowland
__________________________________
Yeah, the music! Bob Ezrin was always a music hero of mine and I was just so thrilled to be able to meet and work with him when I was Gene Simmons' personal assistant in the early '90's. The real deal, Bob Ezrin.
Cathy Goodman
__________________________________
Nice note from Bob, Bob. I see that he's worked with 30 Seconds to Mars, another one of those exceptions. Jared Leto is one of those amazing artists we all wish there were more of. Between his music and Dallas Buyers Club? Forget about it! I guess all this means is that we're going to hopefully appreciate the true artist when they come along. Because they will be few and far between.
Regards,
Chris Beytes
__________________________________
Music back then was a seen as form of terrorism, to the same elite
that have a combined wealth of 3 Billion. Rock n roll didn't die. IT
WAS MURDERED!
Write about that!
Steve Cooke
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The protest songs no longer exist in the white world, because student loans replaced the time to protest.
Annie Roboff
__________________________________
so, does that mean the world needed to
stop circa 1979 with THE WALL?
do you think our generation has not been an inspiration
and that what is now here has not been built with our seed.
what does moaning and groaning about the good old days..
accomplish?
except make you sound like a moaning, groaning,
old man that needs to be in assisted living.
with that thinking i guess the covered wagons would still be around.
of course, bob doesn't fit in nor understand the new paradigms╔
he didn╒t create them..
and yes, it IS all about the money
and it is going to CONTINUE.
respect what is out there and focus on your moments left on this planet
so you can die with a smile on your face knowing you did it╔
anything else is a waste of energy on your part.
with love, respect, and hoping you can see how lucky
your life has been╔.
marc brickman
__________________________________
Can't disagree more.
1) The golden era of meaning that you guys cherish lasted a tiny amount of time in the life of pop culture.
2) There are always those who miss the good old days. But the same complaints were made even then. Ezrin's comments could have been (and were) directed at Elvis and The Beatles. And who was more alarming to 1960s white people than James Brown? Talk about a lack of melody.
3) Pop is always nonsensical around the edges. Those who disdained rock's infancy preferred the meaning and melody of "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?" I'm skipping across eras but you get the picture.
I guess somebody needs to get off Bob Ezrin's lawn.
Michael Olsen
__________________________________
hey Kids !
Get OFF my lawn !
K Bonson
__________________________________
And until someone sings from the heart of the ╘me╒ generation and challenges the narcissism that has taken over society then this shallow music will continue it╒s reign. Today╒s biggest stars are about as deep as paddling pools.
Ben Carter
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Oh for goodness sake - is there ever going to be a generation of grumpy old men that does not embark on all this "back in my day......." and "we used to have principles" wittering? I say this as a devoted fan, admirer and friend of Mr. Ezrin and as a member of the same carping generation. But it has always been thus.
We look backwards and we only remember the good stuff - thankfully we forget all the dreck (and the arrant commercialism) of previous decades and just complain about the dreck we hear now. There are so many extraordinary musicians and songwriters out there today. So many virtuosi, great players both jazz and classical - and yes hip hop and pop as well. There is no sound reason to believe that the ratio of people only in it for fame and fortune to the number of real (and even idealistic) creators is any different now that it has ever been.
Yes the "rhetoric endures" - and the same old complaints come round every generation, the same hyperbole and the same self-congratulation. Come on Bob! Which mountains did we "literally" move?? And from where to where? I need to see a map.
I remain eccentrically optimistic - and send my very best wishes!
Peter Asher
__________________________________
Didn't he just produce a phish album? Wtf bobs
Alex
__________________________________
That Selma song sucked.. So does kendrick's new album. The Ultimate 'bitch don't kill my' vibe killer.
When I hear 'pop' music from the 60s and 70s its just as bad as anything today. When I hear 'protest' music then it just sounds like guys that want to get high and get laid. So what's changed exactly?
Music today has much more diversity than anything before it, it caters to much more discerning ears and you have to be culturally inclined to understand it.
Im 34, connected and well versed in the nuances of inner city life.. but I still don't get all of it.
Face it Bob (and Bob) you're both too damn old to understand any it. you'd be better off just admitting that then trying to knock what you don't understand. That just makes you sound like a hater.
If you don't want to alienate whats left of you under 35 readership you need to teach those ears to do a few new tricks..
I got an idea; twist one, turn your stereo up and go listen to Young Thug on soundcloud. Channel your inner Iovine and get with the program
Josh Berman
__________________________________
"...or whines in hardly rhyming verse about their sad little white boy or girl life". Woah get in there! That is spot on Mr Ezrin, spot on indeed, the post Coldplay/Snow Patrol emasculated male is so drearily wet and ....well, dreary. What to do, the majors love that schtick!
Steve Allen
__________________________________
Right on, Bobs!
Ted Myers
There are pockets of great music all around us. It just may not be in the commercial scene. Kooper's Super Session will not happen again on the same level but nevertheless the faithful will seek and find meaningful music.
My son is 28 and finds great music frequently and shares it with me. The bands may not become future Fleetwood Mac's in a commercial sense but they deliver what you say is lost....connection and emotion.
Sad to see you allow those with a "name" to create a negative spiral for the faithful. Reach out to the younger generation who go and discover new music and you might be pleasantly surprised.
Bill Powell
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I can't thank you enough for articulating what I have felt.
I am trying to build a group from Manchester that says something, that is connected to its time and to its community.
You, and Kendrick, have reminded me, or at least given me faith, that people are still looking for that. That they know that's what they need.
I will send you some material when it is ready soon. I know you must have a thousand similar emails clamouring for your attention; but for my own peace of mind I shall send it anyway.
Thankyou,
Rich Reason
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Of course Ezrin is correct, except, as I always try to remind people it's mainly with regard to the major artists signed to major record labels and receiving airplay on corporate radio stations. It's now just the same as the film industry, where Hollywood moguls - money men, not the old style creative people - control what is made and sold to the masses.
And yes, there's a lot of copycat rubbish amongst indie artists and unsigned artists as well.
But there are still good musicians and songwriters - it's just that they are no longer acceptable to big, money-oriented business.
So you have to look for them amongst the ordinary workaday artists who ply their trade or for whom music is just a hobby. For every Bob Dylan there are a hundred, a thousand Steve Forberts, and a million amateurs who are just amusing themselves and a few friends, which is OK, that's cool too.
But we don't have a John Hammond any more who can dig out the geniuses and sign then to big companies.
What we need to do is simply give up on the global corporations and the Top 40 - forget them, they're irrelevant, they're pulp.
The real artists, no one will bring them to you, you have to go and find them.
- DC Cardwell
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BOO HOO
Art Polhemus
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People have been saying this since Bob and Kiss released Destroyer.
You need to know where to look.
IF you're looking to find it.
GB
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Hi Ez: Well said. In the sixties and seventies music was the jet fuel for revolution and progressive change in America. Today, it is merely grease easing the transition from one app to the next.
However, as Paul Simon said,"every generation puts a hero up the pop charts." What we are experiencing now with EDM is what we called "disco." The kids will get over the drugs and beats and turn to the most sophisticated musical form. The will seek message and inspiration from their music.
After exploring every style of music on YouTube, for free, they will be the most musically educated generation in history. When no genre is ubiquitous, all genres are viable as the source of the next big thing. That will lead them toward the most evolved musical form, Jazz.
The precursors are already here, alive and well. Adele, Alicia Keys, Norah Jones and Esperanza Spalding are leading the parade. The rest are sure to follow. Music will be bigger and better than ever. But, it will be a cottage industry owned and controlled by those who make the music, not trans-national corporations. The criminal conspiracy we call the postmodern record business will crash and burn. Good riddance!
Rock 'til you drop.
John Hartmann
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I agree. But anyone under thirty will think 'out of touch' and 'sour grapes'.
Tom Quinn
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This, from one of the founders of Corporate Rock? You all live in your own little world of self importance and self delusion. Yes, you made gobs of money and sold gobs of tickets and records, but don╒t for a minute try to convince me it was for, ╥the art╙. I lived through that transitional period in the early 70s, when music went from being exploratory and challenging to becoming sales driven. Your rationalizations to justify your life╒s work as something other than what it was are pretty disingenuous. Be happy living in your fog with your amphetamines and your pearls, but know that a lot of folks see through you.
tom kennedy
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Bob Ezrin NAILED it ... Period!
George Miller
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Reading this from Ezrin is so disappointing.
So nostalgic, the sweeping generalizations. Your subj line is also disappointing, as though we're now hearing from the authority on the subject - someone nearly 70 lamenting today's music. Like getting a lecture from my grandfather, God rest his soul. Maybe when Alice and Floyd made albums that mattered, but everyone has their time and it doesn't last forever. Ezrin's ode to the past reminded me of this.
Dave Morris
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I saw a young banjo player at the Detroit Banjo Convention yesterday. He was probably the only one singing his own songs. No one really cared. The crowd wanted those same usual banjo songs that everyone always plays. The crowd was made of 50+ year olds. They were people just like me and you, but they just wanted what they already have. His songs were somewhat history lessons and proverbial. No one will ever hear of him. I approached him with a list of coffee houses and folkie hangouts that will embrace him in and around Detroit. He plays what he loves and it's meaningful and fantastic. I think my generation destroyed the essence of what rock and roll and great music once was. Our kids didn't do it. All we have to do is look for the great musicians and support them. They are there.
regards,
Bogdon Vasquaf
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Hear Hear!
Ed Gardyne
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Excellent.
I've had these thought for years. Where is the next Fools Overture? The next Kashmir?
Things of that quality aren't being made any longer.
Depressing. What's worse, look around. The mediocrity is everywhere. There are exceptions...
Hope its all good there, Bob
Chris Branson at The Shop Radio
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Am I the only one that finds it ironic that Bob Ezrin dismisses current pop music because it's all about 'shallow nursery rhymes about partying, trucks and beer or bitches and bling'?
Back in the day Bob Ezrin produced albums by KISS, a band that built a career on songs about partying, cold gin, bitches and bling. Hell, he even co-wrote some of these tunes. And we all know what drove KISS from day one: money.
And what exactly was 'uplifting' about the albums he produced for Alice Cooper or Lou Reed?
Please don╒t get me wrong, Destroyer, Love It To Dead and Berlin are among my favourite albums, just like others classics that Bob Ezrin added his magic to. I just think it╒s wrong to assume that most music from the sixties and seventies had substance, was uplifting and had a profound message, while current music is lacking in that respect.
I agree that the mainstream ╨ magazines, radio, television ╨ have surrendered to fast food culture and easy money. But there is still great, meaningful music begin made. Allow me to give one example:
My favorite album of this year so far is Hand.Cannot.Erase by the British musician Steven Wilson, formerly of Purcupine Tree. It╒s a concept album inspired by the true story of young woman living in London who dies in her apartment and no one misses her for three years, despite her having family and friends. It╒s a heart wrenching theme that Wilson used to reflect on current society, where we are online all the time, but real human contact has become rare.
And the music ╨ it╒s labelled prog rock, but I don╒t think that label is covers the wide spectrum of styles ╨ is absolutely gorgeous. Well played and well produced.
Steven Wilson has a unique sound, he is in it for the art and he has something to say. And there is an audience for it. He just finished a sold out European tour, playing large venues.
Pop music didn╒t die. There is still great music being made. We just have to look harder.
Robert Haagsma
(Music journalist, Holland)
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What about D'Angelo's "Black Messiah"? What about John Legend w/ The Roots "Wake Up!"? Allen Stone's songs about everyone loving one another and all that, Tedeschi Trucks Band...
There are massive amounts of recent albums that have meaningful messages, and the music/writing is GOOD. They just fall by the wayside because culture and society have evolved as such that people could care less about these albums as far, as the mainstream world that is. Well, and there's just too much saturation. But my point is, the music, the messages, and the quality are being recorded and thrown into the world just like the old days.... It's people (therefore the business) that have changed. I get that you're writing about mainstream/pop culture, but seems as though you're missing the whole other world one or two levels lower than "mainstream". There's a crap load of amazing stuff being put out that's giving bands/artists solid careers with decent enough fan bases. I don't think the best of them aren't famous because their music isn't good enough... there's just too much music in the world now because ANYONE can start making albums and putting them out. I could write and record
the equivalent of the White Album and put it on spotify and promote the hell out of it... that doesn't mean I'll become famous. Buuuut I made a really really good album!! What's the deal?
But hey, I could have a career at least. That didn't use to be able to happen! You were famous or you didn't have a music career at all. I guess I'd actually take modern times over that.
I blame the world changing, not less good music. There's plenty of it, it's just in different places than the equivalent of what being on the radio used to be. Problem is we see the "losers" conforming, we yawn, and then it's easy to just say "well that's how things are these days". But there are artists who are the real deal going unrecognized/unappreciated by the masses and the industry.
The world of music today is a big shitty ocean that has some decent waves, they're just a little tough to find. Or you know, some other metaphor like that :)
Dane Farnsworth
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The internet and cell phones has made it way to easy to push the moment and not care about the real people in your life. TV is another problem, way too many choices and now the average parent would rather let the kids watch it and or play related games. There needs to be a country where you can go and just spend time with the family. No internet, no phones, nice beach, just hang out and get to know the most important people that you have in your life and generally ignore because your just to busy. It's kinda funny, but as you get older you realize that this is just one long and interesting learning experience. And as you get nearer the end you really see how the next generation is kinda repeating exactly what you did...except now they have access to way to many things and tend to ignore the people that made it possible for them to be on the planet in the first place. So...you're born, you have an adventure, get married, have kids and then it's over...really makes me wonder what's
next...????
rgrinter
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The music that my friend Bob Ezrin talks about is indeed missing in action, vaporized from the larger perception, seen as fiscally imprudent and creatively irrelevant, but is not actually gone. It's minimized, Balkanized, ignored, dismissed, sloughed off, patronized, even ridiculed, and starved out by an industry that has lost the plot, even as it holds catalog that will never disappear.
In my small world, it's all gone underground, below the radar, residing in the niches, seeping into the cracks, built one supporter at a time, in real time, on the ground, and has drifted, necessarily, to a domain where "indy" doesn't just mean "independent" but "individual".
It's in the persistent energies of hundreds of artists who own their own "record companies" and publishing, write meaningful songs that only scratch the surface of radio, who sell nowhere but at gigs, who tour largely alone with guitars in cars, often booked without the aid of an agent, in a hopefully endless stream of one nighters in church halls, coffee shops, house concerts, small festivals, tiny clubs, on StageIt and ConcertWindow, and a multitude of vehicles that do a simple single thing: bringing music to a starved audience, and a forum to a challenged group of creatives who are willing to work extra hard to say their peace, if given the chance. The presumption that, be caseu of that status, they must not be any good is, simply, specious.
Most of them go to Folk Alliance, most of them generate subsistence income (if that), most of them are not looking for a handout from industry or government, even as we try to correct some of the injustices that have been perpetuated in the area of copyright and royalty distribution. Most have taken responsibility for their career and artistic choices, and are looking for satisfaction and a shot at a living, not fame or fortune, because there is none. How do you make a million bucks in the niche markets? Start with two million...
I?m not saying Bob is wrong, not even a little. He is dead-on, as usual.
Presciently, incisively, alarmingly accurate. I'm not saying it's OK, or
acceptable, or that everything is fine. It's not. It sucks, hard. And I
believe our entire society suffers when meaningful creations are
impossible to find, invisible to the eye and ear.
But I'm grateful that a small group of dedicated artists and audiences are supporting a world where, however minuscule, the desire to move and be moved still reigns, every day of every year, for less and less money and attention, but greater and greater commitment and fullfillment.
Those are my people, and we do exist.
Dan Navarro
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it will never happen again. we have 6 media conglomerates who own 90% of everything and they wont let a "freedom fighter" with a strong message thru to the masses. It goes against their business policy of perpetuating the "me me me" culture so everyone focuses on themselves. You cant sell masses of crap to masses of people who are informed about the masses. Plus it's threatening to the status quo who own everything. They learned their lesson with John Lennon and artists who slipped thru and had such a huge following as to actually affect political change. They don't want another Lennon. It's bad for big business. And there is WAY more negative world issues for artists to write about / protest today then there was 40 years ago. Pick your fight: Monsanto, Middle east, petrodollar, federal reserve, GMOs, axis of evil, big pharma, big oil, tar sands, the music industry itself. It's easier to grow young kids into hungry consumers when they are focused on "me me me" as opposed to looking
out for "us", the collective group, which is who the freedom toting artists of the past could appeal to and reach before the mainstream was locked down and sewn shut.
Of course freedom exists on the web, its one of the biggest things on there, but the web is still one device removed from our TV-centric living-room lifestyle which still perpetuates the culture of division. Theres a million channels on the web, but only about a dozen (that people regularly watch for information) on TV. Its still too easy to control that handful of channels to perpetuate what people see, learn, and adopt without questioning. It is that culture which permeates the souls of young aspiring musicians and guides their writing to the only thing they know: "me me me". Hence that's all they write about. In a sense it's not their fault. I'ts all they've been exposed to. Chances are by the time they are 30 and have had a chance to look around then they will see what's really going on and that's when their writing might start to change to reflect more world truths, but by then they're too old and won't get major labels behind them who can get their faces on National Morning TV
to spread their knowledge. Of course there are well-informed young artists out there too who do take on social issues but again, are they trustworthy enough for the major media to let them have an international voice that reaches everyone without threatening the system in place?
Good music used to be about addressing those things. Who are the biggest artists today? Do they have any songs that threaten the status quo? Anything that resembles something as articulately assembled as carry as much impact what John Lennon, Joni Mitchell or Bob Marley could (and would) write? They are the biggest BECAUSE they don't threaten anyone, hence they are given a voice and if they abuse it, they are cut off and their entire team loses. Do you want to be the huge popular artist who says the wrong thing and puts your friends and associates out of work? There's a lot of pressure there and usually no one has the balls to break that cycle. Its expensive, isolating, and the end of good times as you know it.
Nope. Both Bobs are right, its all about the money. Keep it safe, keep it controlled, and it will keep coming.
Thanx
Murray Atkinson
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A solution is needed... And that solution lies in education. A mindfulness of what is actually happening psychologically in the individuals behind all this madness and in our selves.
We can only hope that the music industry will begin to go through what the food industry is beginning to go through (albeit slowly): Where a more universal knowledge of what foods are empty and unhealthy is more widespread.
How is corn syrup and other artificial sweeteners any different than most corporate financed and A&R'd pop music? They both serve to give people the same relatively empty yet short lived hyper-sensory experience.
Our culture's current state pushes us to forget that art is nutrition for the soul.
Arts, due to their innate power, have been hijacked by the most intelligent, driven and greedy people and are now most often used as tools to pry money out of our pockets rather than effect the soul in a meaningful way.
Does pop music taste to the ears just as good as corn syrup does to the mouth? Yes. The effect and its intent is exactly the same.
In the end, pop music is often just as unhealthy to the human soul as corn syrup is to the human body.
It's strikingly simple: the love of money created corn syrup just like it created pop music in the rapidly meaning deprived form we find it in today.
On a deep level we crave money because it offers us two key things, power and safety.
And beneath our craving for power and safety lies our constant subcontinent knowledge of, and fear of our own demise. Our fear of death.
This deep fear of death, when left on the unconscious level leads us down a dead end street. We forget that we are living NOW. Art feeds and nourishes the human soul NOW, in the present moment. It soothes this fear of death in a meaningful way through excepting the beauty, meaning and transient nature of life, which is the opposite of what our love and craving for money does, which is keeps us running like rats on a wheel, going nowhere fast, heart racing, mind numb.
My hope is that those of us desiring to make meaningful work and do good business seek to be mindful of these ideas and help change the world around us for the better.... To ingest what makes us healthier, more connected, less fearful and more alive.
Adam Watts
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