Mailbag

From: Chris Stein
Subject: Re: Re-Mike Chapman

I just saw Mike in London at our last Roundhouse show. He's in great physical shape, goes salmon fishing in Alaska, hangs with the young ladies etc etc.
My main concern for his health was his damn hearing, his playbacks were often horrendously loud. One studio he worked in gifted him a custom console volume knob that said 'Chapman Level' where the eleven would be. We were doing some guitar in the control room at one point, getting feedback effects through the monitors and the system was so fcking loud one of the speakers burst into flames... this really happened, it's on video somewhere and is on my short list of rock and roll moments.
Anyway he seems to be hearing fine. Also one of the great things about our time with Mike was that we were working at the absolute height of analog recording. Mike absolutely loved the EMT 250 digital reverb though which was the first digital reverb unit available commercially, came out in '76 I think. It's a massive thing that looks like (and is as heavy as) an old radiator and is all over the Blondie records. It was a foreshadowing in a way...

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From: Peter Noone
Subject: Re: Harold Bronson's British Invasion Book

sorry this is a bit long bob

I am glad you like my friend harold bronson's book!
I appreciate the facts a lot!
little has been written about me and me 'ermits and our years in our van and "gages" at the cavern, and the songs we played before mickie most claimed the credit for everything except writing the house of the rising sun!(wait….. I think he did claim it)
most of the first LP (like everyone elses from the period) was stuff we played live, so mrs brown and leaning on a lamppost, silhouettes, searches, mother in law and lots of the fun stuff was played at the cavern the oasis etc in 1963 and 1964 as we struggled to be different! It was hard to find songs that other groups didn't do, hence no roll over beethoven and no fortune teller and some other guy!
we also did killer version of my boy lollipop which mickie (my best friend) didn't think was appropriate although it was ahead of it's time! no such luck for mother in law sung by a 16 years old boy!
a little known fact is that I was 16, karl green and keith hopwood were both 17, barry whitwam was 18 and derek leckenby was 20.
we all came from other groups.
we connected because we liked the same kind of music not because of friendships like most people in what was called the British Invasion!
mickie most was a genius and my best friend but he is credited for things he didn't do!!!
he was best man at my wedding and is my daughter's godfather
he is also the godfather of pop!
love your stuff bob!

Peter Noone

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From: Nona Hendryx
Subject: Re: Save The Country

Bob,

I loved Laura. One of the most inspired recordings in Labelle's history is the Gonna Take A Miracle, the album with Laura. I'm proud to have been part of it and to have called Laura a friend. If I had to choose one song I feel says Laura, it is 'New York Tendaberry', (Laura's spelling).

thanks for sharing her musical, lyrical genius today.

Nona

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From: Joe Walsh
Subject: Re: Ohio

Thanks for re-visiting
Kent State. I was there.
Very relevent to
right now. Divided
country- intolerance,
a deceitful executive branch, a war nobody cares about, and gathering massive social protest-
On the timeline:
"We haven't had that
feeling here since 1969"
The stage is set.
Look out for next year.
Joe Walsh

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From: Jay Cooper
Subject: Re: Elton Weighs In

This track has 168M streams on Spotify. What exactly is "flown" if this isn't?

I just went to Shaky Knees Fest in Atlanta this weekend - a smallish but highly respected festival now owned by C3. This track has more plays than any track by any artist there. Including headliners LCD Soundsystem and Phoenix, and Sir Elton's Buddy Ryan Adams.

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From: Bob Ezrin
Subject: Re: Elton Weighs In

Elton is 100% correct about "Human". It's been the "Where Is The Love", "Crazy", "Little Lion Man", "Royals" or "Stay With Me" for me this year; that unpredicted, slightly skewed "who is that" song that you want to keep hearing over and over.

My theory is that it's not because "Human" is too sophisticated but that it is a bit too long and too different for Snapchat, figuratively speaking. It requires attention longer than a few seconds to really get it. Plus the artist is an anomaly visually and that takes some knowing as well. He's not fast food. He's slow cooking which doesn't seem to be popular anymore in America.

I don't think many people here half our age or less are giving music the time and concentration that we did - and that some of us still do. It's mostly picked up now along with a ton of other stuff to pay attention to from an informational and cultural Walmart of low or no cost, bulk media sights and sounds. There's so much to see and hear and text about. And it's all easy to get.

Rag'n'Bone Man doesn't quite fit in Walmart. He's really special in pretty much every way. Good call, Elton!

B

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From: Elton John
Subject: Music

Dear Bob,"Human" will still sound good 20 years from now.
Like "Rolling In The Deep" and "Thinking Out Loud"
They are songs not irritating nursery rhymes.
I was so lucky to have
grown up in the 50's/60's and 70's.
E xx

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From: Blatchley, Tyler, RED Music
Subject: RE: Publicity Is Worthless

Of course Russ is 100x bigger than Sheryl Crow and Bob Dylan in 2017 - he has the youth's attention! Rock is dead to the kids. It's a revival genre at this point. When was the last time you heard a band do anything new or progressive? Hip-hop and dance are thriving because they're still evolving, not to mention the lower barrier of entry to get started. Forming a rock band? Haha. I have a label and I would NEVER sign a rock band in 2017. You first have to spend hundreds of dollars on instruments, find 3-4 likeminded friends, a space to practice, a studio with a live room to record, engineer, mixing, mastering, a van for tour, etc. You've spent thousands before you've even made 100 fans. I doubt the average parent has that in their budget after spending $700 on their kid for their new iPhone. Want to make dance and hip-hop music? Easy. All you need is a halfway decent computer, a good torrent site and a YouTube video explaining how to get started. In 3 hours, you'll be making beats with the exact same tools as your favorite producers. In a few years, you'll have surpassed them. In your bedroom. Meanwhile, the band is burning studio time trying to figure out how to get that Allman slide guitar sound on a song that sounds like it should have been released in 1974. Don't get me wrong, I still love rock music and everything it's done culturally. It was important. There are bands like Radiohead, Bon Iver and Arcade Fire who still drive themselves to madness for the sake of creating something that's never been heard before. But for the most part, the genre has become glorified cover bands and ancient icons that are so out of touch culturally that their music is pretty much deemed irrelevant by the masses. Every show feels like a farewell tour. Name a rock act that's making political music like Kendrick Lamar or J.Cole, party anthems like Lil Yachty and Bieber, successful underdog movements like Russ and Felly, emotionally conceptual albums like Logic and Frank Ocean...so, yes, people don't trust the gate keepers and press as much as they did before, but if the music was strong, fresh, meaningful, relevant, it would have an impact. It's getting harder to trick the masses. After all, these kids were raised on Google search. They're trained from birth to weed through the nonsense and clutter. Maybe?

Tyler B.
Black 17 Media

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From: Kid Rock
Subject: Re: Publicity Is Worthless

Bobby, bob , robert. Sheryl and Dylan are the reason music exists. The only reason u have a platform is folks like these. U would like a fucking American idol judge. J cash would of been booed off that show because of people like u. Stop it. Streams are for young kids. And u ain't one of them. Stop trying.

Robert Ritchie
Kid Rock

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From: Paul Tao
Subject: Re: 13 Reasons Why

Thanks for this newsletter. The addiction to the show has really helped the music as well - our artist Lord Huron was featured heavily in episode 5 of this show and we've seen incredible growth. 35MM+ streams on Spotify, five-figure downloads per week, and now the song has turned from a song from a two-year-old album to now a single that is in the Billboard Top 100 and also charting in UK & Ireland.

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From: Mark Meyer
Subject: Re: More 13 Reasons Why

HI Bob

The label I work at holds the rights holders for 'The night we met' by Lord Huron outside of North America.

What a nice surprise to see the streaming figs and downloads go through the roof from early April thanks to this show. The graph on Spotify analytics insane - in Australia, Brazil, Germany, Sweden. The list goes on..

Of course our music gets synced on all sorts of shows but this is special. The emotion involved sells it so well . It's a perfect fit. You couldn't get better advertising for a song, and hopefully well end up with a decent amount of new Lord Huron fans too.

Dealing in the modern day music business is tough , but once in a while, there's a silver lining. Ultimately - we are in the emotions business.

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Subject: Re: The P.F. Sloan Book

Bruce Hampton was an amazing person with a twisted sense of humor. He could not have orchestrated a better exit... a fatal heart attack onstage during the encore of his 70th birthday celebration concert! The other musicians thought it was one of his famous goofs and were laughing until they realized he was not faking. Bruce was proudest that his Hampton Grease Band album was supposedly the lowest selling album in the history of Columbia Records. I saw him at lunch in Macon a week before his passing and he told my guest to be careful around me because I was involved in the Kennedy assassination. Typical Bruce. RIP!

Willie Perkins

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Subject: Re: Great, Not Good

Bob,
I took over for Billy Powell in Lynyrd Skynyrd when he passed away, so I'm not privy to the original story, but I will say that when I heard Sweet Home Alabama on the radio yesterday, I was compelled to listen all the way through, even though I play it with the band every night. When we were in Liverpool a few years ago, Gary Rossington wanted to go on the Beatles historic tour, so we all joined him to witness where his (and several of our) heroes were raised. I remember asking him when he knew that he had written possibly the biggest hit in American music, (Alabama), and he simply replied "when we heard it on a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial." Thought you might get a kick out of his perspective..
Best
Peter Keys
Lynyrd Skynyrd

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Subject: Re: Jonathan Demme

Dear Bob,

My father, Tracey Walter, did more pictures with Jonathan Demme than any other director in his career (The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, The Manchurian Candidate, Married to the Mob, Something Wild, and Beloved). Demme's infectious energy, incredible warmth and enveloping personality were a big part of my childhood. He was always amazingly kind and generous to our family. He loved story and characters and was a character actor's director. His work, like his life, was filled with music of all kinds, the exploration of political and cultural boundaries, and an endless curiosity about those quirks that make us all human. We will never see an artist quite like him again. He was a true individual and a wonderful person who will be so missed. But in the words of Q Lazzarus, one of the great enigmas Demme presented to the world, "All things pass into the night…"

Polly Walter

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From: Jesse Kornbluth
Subject: Re: Jonathan Demme

Bob -

I met Jonathan once, in his office, when I was a journalist. I listened to him pitch a grim movie to a studio head. The guy wasn't buying it - no way could he market the bodies of Cuban refugees washing up on the sands of Palm Beach - but Jonathan hammered away, emphasizing the upside: "He's going through doors! He thinks he's going through doors!" After, we talked about "Silence of the Lambs." Jonathan wanted to cast Michelle Pfeiffer. I had profiled Jodie Foster, and I was sure that she was a better choice. "Jodie's supported her family since was 3 - she's the most authentic blue-collar actress working," I said. Jonathan was unconvinced. Then he was. Oscars followed; Jodie thanked me when she accepted hers. I can think of a dozen directors and producers who have blown off my advice. But Jonathan was open and curious. He loved the adventure of film - he only seemed to see the upside. To be in his presence was to feel that something creative, fun and rewarding might be just around the corner.

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From: Michael Weintraub
Subject: Re: Jonathan Demme

Bob, you're so right about how important the critics used to be. When my dad made Diner with Barry Levinson, the studio wasn't going to release it, didn't know how to market it. He got Pauline Kael to review it and shamed the studio in to releasing the movie. Imagine no Diner, no Levinson Baltimore series, no Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, Paul Reiser, Steve Gutenberg or Ellen Barkin. That's the power the critics used to have!

Michael

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From: Michael Krumper
Subject: Re: Jonathan Demme

I was lucky enough to have contact with Jonathan a number of times over the years. The first was a long while ago, when he directed a video for The Feelies shot at Maxwell's in Hoboken. He had featured the Feelies in Something Wild and was a fan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_9Vlh1OtB8)

I was the Feelies' publicist at the time when at A&M. I got some press people down to Maxwell's…I THINK we actually got MTV News to interview Jonathan. Anyhow, I've always been in awe of directors far more so than most musicians. Demme was incredibly gracious and had an almost childlike enthusiasm for the music, completely not what I expected from a director as his level. Around the same time A&M then released an album of Haitian music curated by Demme, so I got to work with him again handling publicity for the project.

Some years later I was at Artemis Records working with Steve Earle and needed to make a video for a song called "Rich Man's War". I asked Jonathan if he'd direct, he said yes, and shot a performance clip at CBGB's. Then a friend was putting together a series of conversations between artists at the New York Public Library, and Jonathan agreed to take time out of his schedule to interview Steve for one of the inaugural events of the Live from the NYPL series.

The point is, this director whose work I idolized could not have been kinder or more giving of his time, on multiple occasions. When you get to meet and work with your heroes and they go beyond your expectations…I mean, I'll never forget it.

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From: GARY CERGOL
Subject: Re: Jonathan Demme

Bob,

Yes, Jonathan was an artist. He was smart, humble and shrewd. I had the opportunity of working with him twice. The first was on a pilot he directed for CBS called "A Gifted Man." As we were prepping in New York, he conducted a video-conference call with the network on the other coast. This was his opportunity to allow the execs to understand his directorial vision for the show along with production design and costume elements.

The show's plot line followed Michael Holt, a talented neurosurgeon "to the stars" who is suddenly visited by his recently deceased estranged wife. She needs him to help patients of her free clinic uptown.

During the video-conference, there was your standard interaction with questions and comments by the execs. Mostly positive and an air of excitement until Jonathan presented a camera technique he would like to use. He said that whenever Michael spoke with his wife's ghost, he would look directly into the camera. Since this is not a standard technique, the call went silent. After a couple of seconds, Jonathan calmly and confidently stated that this technique was very effective when he chose to use it in "Silence of the Lambs" in scenes where Hannibal Lecter spoke to Agent Starling.

Suddenly, his audience came back to life and lauded the idea.

I thought to myself, "Damn. He's cool!"….and wondered how many other anecdotes he had in his pocket for a rainy day.

-Gary C.

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From: Sepp Donahower
Subject: Fwd: Jonathan Demme

Here is the story about " Somethng's Wild "……After exiing the concert business in the late 70s, I went into the surf and skate clothing business with an old surfing and art pal of mine, Jim Ganzer, with a hot label we created in the 80's called " Jimmy'z " . While we were building our california art and surf brand, , a young writer by the name of E. Max Frye came to LA with his first screenplay and asked Jim if he could help get it seen around town….Max didnt know anyone. Max then got introduced to my a dear old friend, the lovely Winter Horton, who was working in and around the film business at the time…(Winter has a keen intellect and show business runs in her family…her great uncle was Edward Everett Horton, and her uncle by the same name as her, Winter Horton, was one of the founders of KCET / PBS, and her sister June Horton is head of business affairs at WME ) Winter read Max's script and thought it was pure genius and she took it on with a vengeance. She thought and thought about who would be right….and then she decided to take it to Jonathon Demme. Demme flipped over the script and the rest is history. unfortunately, Winter got pushed out the deal (brutal hollywood) but a brilliant film got made because of her instincts and judgement…….
and Max is living in Paris, and helped Steven Spielberg with Band of Brothers, and did numerous other films. Somethings Wild holds up well and everyone should see it…It is a hoot. Max is a character as well.

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From: Tom Battista
Subject: Re: Jonathan Demme

Bob, indeed Demme was an artist/director. I remember the movie very well and was sucked in to the very end. As for critics, they are dinosaurs in today's television supplanted by the hype from Entertainment Tonight, TMZ and others. Siskel & Ebert were special. They loved the movies and believed in what they had to say. Certainly not always in agreement. They were an important staple on WBBM-TV, Chicago. I was with the CBS O&O's at the time as VP/GM KMOX-TV. Our news was on an upward trend, but something was needed to punch it over the top. So on the late Thursday news, the early and late Friday news, I introduced a very different talent. Always on location, never in the Newsroom, he did his movie critique. The switchboard would practically explode from the love and hate calls. Either way the rating went through the roof. He was gay and black and a superstar in conservative St. Louis. More taking chances in all of TV is sadly needed. Love your stuff. Sorry we missed over the holidays. Tom.

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From: Nancy Cowan
Subject: FW: Bill O'Reilly Gets Canned

When I was a young girl, I worked with Bill O'Reilly at our local TV station. He was a reporter, I was a salesperson. He called me into his office one day, and asked me if my husband and I would pretend that we were going to adopt a child for a story he was doing. I asked my husband if he'd be interested, and he said no. Bill never spoke to me again.

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Subject: Re: Fame Today

Or die publicly, which is what is happening to me since I entered hospice last Friday here in San Antonio, Texas. Though it's mainly on Facebook, friends and musicians are posting stories of my 40+ years writing and rocking. I have my first backstage pass, from the Grateful Dead at the Palladium in L.A. in August 1971, and just took off my last one, from hometown boy Christopher Cross. After retiring from the Austin Chronicle and directing its Music Awards during South by Southwest for decades in Austin, I founded the South Texas Museum of Popular Culture in S.A. and that's my ticket to ride out this sweet old world.

Not unsubscribing till I am gone, though. You are too good, too right, too maddening, too provocative, and remind me all the time why I did this. Thank you for all you've written and your passion for it too.

Margaret Moser

South Texas Museum of Popular Culture, San Antonio
Austin Chronicle Staff 1981-2014 Austin Music Awards, Director 1983-2014

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From: Richard Griffiths
Subject: Re: One Love Manchester

It was a wonderful event Bob.
A lot of emotion release, that I think was needed. The atmosphere amongst the fans was amazing. During the end of Coldplay there was a conga line of fans and police dancing together!
The line up worked great. Short sharp sets that delivered what the fans wanted.
But you're right there's one person who should be acknowledged for pulling it all together.
He's a an extraordinarily driven man. He hooked up with Simon Moran and Melvin Bean who know more about putting on festival shows than anyone else ever will. He got Rob Light and DAVID Zedeck to call it in their end.
From my point of view it was probably one of the easiest shows I've ever been involved with. Scooter emails me to ask if Niall Horan and Little Mix can do it. I say yes. He's says great, he'll get back with details. Two days later I hear from production head and Music Director. We fix times and details.
It was like clockwork. Backstage was a who's who of the business. Everyone chatting and getting on with getting it done.
It was truly a great night. And all possible because of one man.
Scooter Braun.

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From: Scooter Braun
Subject: Thank you
Date: June 5, 2017 at 4:37:40 AM PDT
To: bob@lefsetz.com

Sent from my iPhone

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