Mailbag

From: Benjamin Bamsey
Subject: CNNi Thank You


Bob,

I produce the 9p "CNN Newsroom L.A." show. Thank you for coming on the program last night. I've been reading your letters for years and always appreciate your commentary. Great fun getting the guest perspective in your behind-the-scenes CNN experience post. You may have left a couple of things out and mixed up the order of the Bush brothers on live TV... but you hit a grand slam with your knowledge and energy. You are a music savant. Please come back and see us again!

http://www.cnn.com/videos/entertainment/2016/04/12/rockers-cancel-concerts-over-laws-lefsetz-intv.cnn

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Subject: Andy 'Thundeclap' Newman

Hello Bob,

Yes, I know what you're talking about. I read your blog and find it very interesting. Thank you for that.

Andy was my friend of 30 years' standing and we were about to record one of my songs.

I feel absolutely devastated, I really miss that guy.

I have just posted a message on fb with a link to my blog on my website www.istvanetiam.com. you might want to check it out.

Regards,

István Etiam


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Subject: Re: The End

Glad you got to experience a visit with Jim even though he didn't show up for you. He was kind of like that in real life too. I've been a few times and he did show up. Jim was probably the first one who connected me with the first internet-the internet of souls that have always been there if you were willing to find them.

Bill Siddons

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From: Keith Blackmore
Subject: Re: The End

Bob

My wife and I went to Pere Lachaise on a cold clear day last month, me for the second time (after 30 years) and she for the first. We too visited Morrison's grave and many of the others you mention and took much the same view as you on the whole experience.
But what moved us to tears was another, new, grave, barely 50 yards from Jim's. It was for a beautiful young woman named Suzon Garrigues. She was 21. The photograph on her headstone was surrounded by countless small gestures of empathy - flowers, notes, beads, jewellery and even a pair of sunglasses.

Suzon went to a rock concert at the Bataclan last November with her 17 year-old brother. He survived. She did not.

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From: Daniel Kortchmar
Subject: Re: Pop Music

Bob.. Some of us "oldsters" are not scratching our heads, or think vinyl is the only way to hear music and don't have a problem with streaming.. As for singles many of us grew up with singles
but in 45rpm form...
All we bought were singles! The first one I bought ( stole) was "shake rattle and roll"
backed with "honey hush" by Big Joe Turner. Please don't lump us together and don't assume we are all clueless.

Thanks,
D Kortchmar

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From: Bob Ezrin
Subject: R.I.P. Phife Dawg

We lost another revolutionary artist today. I regret that I neglected to refer to ATCQ and especially Phife and Q-Tip in my Kanye rant. These were pioneers of a truly new art form and totally helped pave the hip hop road. When you revisit his work (check out "Butter") you realize what a towering talent Malik Taylor was and how far his group - and their brothers in De La Soul - pushed the boundaries of a formative genre. Sadly as powerful as his work was, that's as fragile as his body must have been to give out at the far too young age of 45.

Here's to Phife Dawg!

B

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From: Andrew Oldham

bob;
keith emerson - the artist who showed immediate records the future it could not contain.
best, o

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Subject: Re: Springsteen At The Sports Arena

Hi Bob,

Bruce Springsteen put the smile back on rock 'n roll when it was in danger of sinking into decadence and self-destruction. He declared this music we love to be an art form, as important and valuable as any other, and the unabashed courage of his convictions was so rapturous that he rightfully convinced all of us to share in that belief. No matter what it's shortcomings may be, there would be no Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame without his presence and legitimacy; because of his undeniable authenticity, rock stars can now sing for US Presidents; and, almost single handedly, he made rock 'n roll musicians acknowledge each other in a way we never did before, turning us into a community with a common life force. He has invited everyone from icons like Paul McCartney to punters like myself to join him on stage. Who else does that? The scope and range of his talent can be overwhelming but he never allowed it to distance himself from his fans. Whatever that promise he always talks about may be,
he has surely kept it. Once upon a time we were in competition (that didn't last long) and then we became fast friends and now the decades pass behind us oh too quickly but still from where I stand the man and the myth are inseparable. If the Beatles were about love and the Stones about sex, then Bruce is about hope. And hope springs eternal ... as in Springsteen.

From Paris,
Elliott Murphy

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From: Jerry Hopkins
Subject: Re: What Happened To The Spine Of Rolling Stone?

Hey, Bob...

No one is more disappointed in Jann and Rolling Stone than the writers and others who bled for. Sure, it was the best job I ever had---he sent me to London for a year, to Switzerland to hang out with Leary in exile, to Kenya to find out why some fucking hippie commune got kicked off Lamu, and when I was living in Hawaii to LA, Settle and New York for a Jimi Hendrix ripoff story, for chrissake! We weren't paid much, but we had something we believed in. Now it's all fucking lists. Here's my favorite recent one: "10 Musicians You Need to Follow on Twitter."

Sadly, Jerry (first story printed in issue number 5)

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Subject: Re: What Happened To The Spine Of Rolling Stone?

I'm convinced the uptick in vinyl sales over the last 5 years is directly proportionate to the downturn in baseball card, comic book and coin collecting.

It's a COLLECTION of items, not a method of discovery, true consumption or consumer referral.

Cliff Rigano
Director of Music Marketing
Sidney Frank Importing Company

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From: Sarah K. Burris
Subject: Re: What Happened To The Spine Of Rolling Stone?

As a millennial and a reporter and political commentator I can tell you that Rolling Stone must be run by a bunch of old people who only write for themselves. What they cover and the perspective they cover it from is flat at best. The only thing RS publishes that is even remotely interesting is Matt Taibbi. He's unafraid to stir things up and throw some stones. He writes a story, it goes viral, everyone talks about it for a week (if they're lucky) and then it's back to normal.

Their cover stories are uninteresting and feature only big name musicians, who RS is using to appeal to the largest audience as possible to sell as many magazines as possible in a world where the non-tabloid is slowly dying. Oh, look, Bono is on the cover again. Yipee. Let me guess, Bono is saving the world again. Awesome. Read that story. Seen the movie. Donated to the cause. Tell me something different.

RS's chief problem is that they can't balance the immediacy of the web news vs. the comprehensive "month-later" of the magazine's commentary and story-telling. It's almost as if RS doesn't understand that they must operate in two silos on the same farm. Maybe the magazine can appeal to a mass audience but their web must be different. They need to be finding new artists with dedicated followings and showing them to the world. They need to do interviews - truly in-depth interviews - with musicians who are willing to really talk about issues that matter. Not fashion or bullshit. Any issue! World hunger, world peace, feminism, Donald Trump, the nature of music, the evolution of sound, the reemergence of the LP or whatever the hell you can get them to discuss on camera and throw it up on the web and tease for a longer feature in the magazine.

Those of us in Washington think of ourselves like the Hollywood for smart people. I understand that there are people in LA who get it and who are well informed. The problem is you don't hear from them because publicists and managers are too afraid of alienating the masses. An overly opinionated star isn't good for sales in middle America. How has that worked out for Taylor Swift? Beyonce? Seems like they're doing great Musician'ing while having an opinion. When Beyonce launched "Formation" why wasn't there a RS exclusive with her that talked about it and what she hoped it would mean to black America still fighting a war for equality? Was it because RS doesn't have the credibility anymore or because editorial didn't even try?

Finally, their social media is an embarrassment. They have 4.6 million fans on Facebook but they can't break 56 shares on a Taylor Swift article? I'm starting up FeministNews.us a pro-lady site - the demo we're targeting are the activist types young and old. We have 200k fans and we score a minimum of 200 shares on every article. Most of their videos can't break 100,000 views compared to Attn (the millennial news site) which has only 1.8 million fans and easily breaks 500k. Same with their twitter. They're knocking on the door of 5 million followers and can't get more than 140 retweets of a Taylor Swift gif? They obviously don't understand their audience and they're not delivering content that social media wants or cares about much less presenting it in a compelling and unique way.

And you're right, it is sad. It's the death of an institution that many of us hold a great amount of nostalgia for. Who hoped it would evolve to capture each generation from adolescence into our 20's and cling to hold on to in our 30's. Instead, it's like it grabbed onto Gen X and stayed with them forever. They should hire more millennials, embrace the different branches of the culture from nerd culture to hipster culture to activist and more. Instead, they're too damn old and too damn boring and in a few years, I half expect them to be yelling to turn the music down.

Just my 2 cents.
-s

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From: Del Dias
Subject: Re: Shazam Industry Charts on 28th March 2016

Hi Bob

Is alan walker "faded" on your radar yet? Biggest track
On Shazam for 5 weeks in a row.

Here's the backstory.

Our company (AEI) has been around for 20 years, helping mostly young entrepreneurs build careers in the music industry. We're independent, profitable, self-funding and have 40 people in our London base.

Alan Walker - "Faded" starts with a kid called Billy who lives in a small town near Manchester, UK. He called my office 2 years ago having seen how we'd helped Luke Hood build a business around his "UKF" Youtube channel which encompassed compilations, festivals and more recently working with brands. (UKF was launched in 2009 by a 16yr old dubstep/drum&bass fan and quickly grew to be the largest genre channels on youtube, spearheading careers of acts like Nero, Flux Pavilion, to name a few. For UKF and most other channels that followed, Youtube was a funnel to other types of monetisation, mostly records and live. UKF has sold over 1 million compilation albums, and sold out 10k venues in London, throws parties internationally and has its own festival. Heineken launched a branded content series with UKF last year. We eventually acquired Luke's remaining stake in UKF and he is now 1/3 shareholder in our business, and a senior exec - aged 23. )

Luke inspired a whole generation of young entrepreneurs who realised they could make a living discovering and curating music on Youtube. A few of these guys (all barely in their twenties, male) gravitated towards our company - Majestic Casual, TheSoundYouNeed, AllTrapMusic, etc, all inspired by Luke's original model, and we helped them build their business, mainly providing business coaching, rights management/legal, accounting, product management/distribution to Spotify and iTunes, compilations, creative/artwork, marketing, PR services, events, sponsorship, etc in return for equity. Basically, providing the supporting infrastructure that enables theses business to scale quickly. Also an environment for these guys to mix with other people and a team who understand their business, and share their same independent values.

So back to Billy. Billy called my office in 2014, saying "I've got this youtube channel and I wondered if you could help me build it like you have done with UKF." I said "Sure - come in for a chat." He had 500k subscribers at the time. He was also working on minimum wage in construction, driving dumper trucks.

Billy is an avid gamer. Making youtube videos of gameplay is a huge phenomenon. Billy was frustrated that he couldn't use a Skrillex track as the background to one of his gaming videos without invoking the wrath of the label involved (Youtube's "Content ID" system flags up the unauthorised use of music and either disables monetisation for the creator of the video or at worse "strikes" the channel)

So Billy launched "NoCopyrightSounds" - a Youtube channel that provides gamers and youtubers with music that they can use in their videos without fear of getting stung by Youtube's copyright system, and royalty free. The only requirement from any youtuber using the video is that they credit the artist and link back to the original video on the channel.

So we got involved as we had done before, tightened up his agreements and made sure he was signing both master and publishing rights, and extended the reach of his music beyond Soundcloud and Youtube to all the other digital channels. At the time, this was pretty unique for music curation youtube channels in that everything he uploaded was owned on both master and publishing. This was essential in order to support the proposition of providing music to Youtube creators. I guess also pretty interesting at the time, was a record label that essentially gave its music away to people with an audience/fanbase for "free" and focused on monetisation secondly… a "freemium" record label?

The model clearly works as NCS has grown to 5million subscribers in less than 2 years, and Billy isn't working in construction any more. For me personally, that's the most important outcome - that we've helped someone build an independent business and career around their passion. Especially at a time when millennials are struggling to own homes, find stable careers, and often drowning in university debt. (20 years ago university was free, I owned a home pretty as soon as a I graduated - but in 1996 I couldn't make a living uploading songs to youtube…)

In November 2014, NCS signed a track from a Norwegian called Alan Walker on Youtube, and uploaded a track called "Fade" - the original is here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM7SZ5SBzyY

The instrumental version was resonating on Youtube, and Spotify/iTunes numbers were impressive too. I couldn't figure out why at the time, but I knew there had to be something in it as my pre-teen kids loved it saying it reminded them of "minecraft" music. We got on a plane to Norway and signed more tracks from Alan….

Even before "Faded" which followed - the track had hit 40m youtube views, and 20m spotify plays. Zero marketing, no radio.

In December 2015, Sony Sweden released "Faded" - a vocal version of the song. It was an instant hit in the nordic countries and mainland Europe and is breaking into the Top 10 in the UK. Sony amplified the track's momentum by servicing it to radio and by stuffing it on the playlists it owns on Spotify. If Shazam is a barometer of future success, then the US is next and Alan Walker is going achieve Kygo level success.

I hope this is interesting to you - feel free to ask more.

Regards

Del

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From: Matt Gaines

Bob-

Where is the revenue???? re:Lucinda....ps she's a favorite of mine...but she's got the same problems...

Well let's start with a genre that is a crock pot of other genres that doesn't even know what to call itself....

It used to be the place musicians went to die...Americana.

Americans ranks right behind .......GOSPEL...it's that tiny...so the audiences are tiny too....so the $$ are tiny too!!! just ask the 25 fans that show up for the signing your label put together at the local Barnes and Noble....what a joke...they are the 4th largest distributor of music....and almost bankrupt.::

As far as the music category..::At least go compete back in "Country and Western" as a genre...and let's differentiate that from what all the new comers in Nashville like to call "Country Pop"...I've never seen a Country Pop Grammy....you might find its a good fit and there's an audience there...

As far as revenue, I can't believe no one has said what Irving would say .. "I would sell a T-shirt over a song any day" ... No one has said "PR drives brand building"...it's not about promoting the music if you're looking for revenue..IT'S ABOUT BUILDING A BRAND...."but the ol school says...we'll tour these many dates and that covers your nut"....

Zipcodes???? hardly....what a archaeic way of thinking...how about....um...MOBILE....it's where everything happens- previews, plays and PURCHASES...

GEOLOCATION- who needs ZiPCODES?????? Are we really having this discussion???

Internet Access is Everywhere....I almost hate calling it mobile...but it's where everything happens....

Communicating with fans on FB and Twitter is Worthless unless you learn how to sell your 400,000 friends something for a dollar each year...sell them SOMETHING.

There's plenty of revenue out there but it's BRAND REVENUE not SPONSORSHIPS REVENUE.... The problem is you've spent your time building a relationship in FB when you should have been focused on brand experiences and sold that to a brand...there's your payday....I'm sure Lucinda would be happy then....

Matt Gaines

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Subject: more north carolina

bob

PLEASE do not use my name or company should you print any of this (using private email rather than business email)---i do not want to OUT my daughter

i am the parent of a transgendered girl---at 19, she has presented herself as female for eight years now---i guarantee no one could tell by looking at her that she was born with male parts---she has had no surgery but has had hormone treatments for years---my daughter is a girl

should she be forced to use the mens room at any event, she would be looked at as an outsider in that environment

she has absolutely no desire to do anything in the women's rest room with anyone except that which the room is designed for

gender issues do not make for increased sexuality

just as many folks now accept that they have someone in their family who is gay, there will come a time when everyone realizes they also have a trans relative or friend---and that person should NOT be discriminated against

every time that bruce or bryan adams or billy ray cyrus does something that raises the consciousness of some folks who may not normally have given the issue any thought, it is a good thing---yes, the fans suffer BUT if you want to talk about suffering, think about the transgendered person who has NO CHOICE about how they were born

again---please, no names

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Subject: SPRINGSTEEN

Bob,

In 1975 I was 7 years old, and my sister was 16. We would sit in her bedroom and she would play her records, and that year the one record that stood out to me was Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen. That entire album has been with me since back then. When I was in grade school I began to notice some of the boys in my class. It was 1979 and even though I was 11, I knew what I was feeling was something I had to keep to myself. I didn't even know what being "gay" was. I didn't come out of the closet until I was in my early 20s and now I'm 48. Bruce's music has always been part of my life, and now with the stand he took againt the anti-LGBT law in North Carolina, I am prouder than ever to be a supporter of his.

Russ Turk

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Subject: Re: Even More Springsteen/North Carolina

"Hey Sean Mormelo-

Please jump off a cliff.

Love,
the World
(Kevin Lathrop)"

Spoken like a true NASTY little leftist. I'd expect nothing less from your ilk. Personal attacks, no compromise. We're heading for a bad confluence of events in this country when we're this divided.

I'm easy to find if you want to come try to throw me off the cliff.

Sean Mormelo


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