He sells 600,000 CDs a month at KFC.
Lillywhite lives in Jakarta, as in Indonesia, as in most Americans have no clue, even though there are 200 million people there.
He came over to produce a record by Noah. Heard of them? I thought not, and ended up staying, after paying rent for a year, which was required.
And after arriving, he was approached by the local KFC licensee.
You see in Indonesia, chicken is the thing, in this predominantly Muslim country, beef is taboo, and KFC is a luxury restaurant. Well, kinda like an Olive Garden, with some local spices, not just the usual Kentucky Fried flavors, and with every meal, you get a CD. Really.
So Lillywhite signed on, producing local acts, and now, even though there are only ten choices per store, and some of them are from the majors, Lillywhite and KFC dominate the market. There are only 100,000 other CDs sold in the country a month. Sure, streaming is coming, but for now, KFC RULES!
So Lillywhite played one of his productions. There's a local sound, it started off with Indian influences and has evolved over the years and the result...this was a hit, even in America, if it got a push. That's today's market, sans push it doesn't matter how great you are, you'll languish in the marketplace.
And Ralph remarked if only English-speaking acts recorded a song or even a verse in the local language, they'd be stars, but few want to go there, why? It's a worldwide business, the person who realizes this and maximizes their reach maximizes their dollars.
And contrary to preconception, of a man who's a Commander of the British Empire, who's sat behind so many consoles, Lillywhite is a bundle of energy and stories and truth, he'll talk a little shit, you could listen to him FOREVER!
He was famous for his big drum sound. But after employing it on Marshall Crenshaw's "Field Day," he realized it was a mistake, that it wasn't in service to the music, even though Marshall likes the album. You've got to be in service to the music, you've got to evolve.
But you've got to have hits to play. And after having one he leveraged himself out of the punk world, you don't want to get caught in a niche.
And after asking Elton John who the hot producer was, Mick Jagger called Steve and Lillywhite produced a Stones album, which he calls the band's worst ever...until the next one. Says the music keeps Keith alive, others get caught up in the dope and lose focus.
And Jared Leto is a perfectionist with Thirty Seconds To Mars. He literally sang a line a hundred times and was still unsatisfied. But then he strummed a guitar and sang in the lounge and Steve said Jared thinks too much, you've got to let it flow.
As for today's music, he laments it's not done all in the same room and is perfected by machines. He believes it's best when the musicians can see each other and play off each other, like his client Phish.
Who he produced after working with Dave Matthews. He became the jam band guy.
As for his long history with U2...
Bono was unsatisfied with the last single so he farmed it out to every famous mixer on the planet, but after going back and forth with Lillywhite via WhatsApp all night in Jakarta, it's Steve's mix that survives, that is the single.
As for producing bands, he focuses on the worst players, the ones who are anxious they won't live up to what the writers' wants, he lifts them up.
And as far as left field ringers...
He was in Paris cutting the last Talking Heads album, and they called in a locally famous African musician, but he was late, and they thought the non-English speaking messenger was the player and sat him down on a stool with an axe and recorded him until the real player arrived.
Lillywhite's full of stories like this. And he's not just living in the past, he's still playing.
It was funny, educational and EXHILARATING!
P.S. I caught half an hour of Marcie Allen's interview before I had to bolt for the airport. The sponsorship queen said a couple of interesting things. Like tour sponsorship is dead. It's about the whole enchilada. The brands want to be involved in the album release too, everything, to garner maximum value. And her pet peeve is companies who only look at the data, who won't play unless you have a certain number of Instagram followers, whereas Marcie believes it's all about meaningful connection, some clients might post infrequently, but when they do, engagement is through the roof. And she believes the future of sponsorship is artist-curated festivals, she worked with Dave Grohl on CalJam, she said sponsors get lost in the smorgasbord festivals with names bigger than the acts.
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Saturday 12 May 2018
Friday 11 May 2018
Today's Uber Driver
She was driving a BMW X4.
That's an expensive car. Let me look it up online. It STARTS at 50k. Why is its owner driving Uber?
Well, maybe it's not the person's car. That's right, I wasn't sure whether it was a male or female, the name was VINEETA. But last night, the driver rented his new Audi Quattro to drive, it cost him $40 for the day. But an X4?
It was her car, it was the first thing I asked Vineeta, after I got into the front seat.
Sometimes I don't want to ride in the back, I didn't want to look at my phone, do any business, although Paul Anka did call while we were en route and WAZE was barking directions and I was disoriented and I'm worried I didn't perform appropriately, but basically I wanted to experience the vista.
But the woman was dignified and well-dressed, what was going on?
Well, she was from India, she'd been here fifteen years. That's what you have to understand about Toronto, supposedly it has the most ethnicities of any city in the world, if you're a racist, it's not the place to be, especially since many people of color have been here for generations.
So why was she driving?
Her kids were in school.
Did she need the money or the entertainment?
She was trying to keep herself busy. She's got a degree in finance, but she has to take her son to swim practice every afternoon and it's hard to hold down a full-time job. Her husband works in software. He's a muckety-muck, but I didn't learn that until I found out...
It was an arranged marriage.
Well, not exactly, they were on that road, they could see that ending, so they picked each other.
I asked her, sensitively, whether if she had to do it all over again...
DEFINITELY, she loved her husband.
But India was so culturally different. It's about family, and extended family, and her parents approved of his parents, but she's having a hard time adjusting to here, where everybody's in their own silo.
But she would never move back, she didn't think her kids would tolerate it, even though they visit on vacation regularly.
Oh, did I tell you they got married at SIXTEEN??!!!
Eeegads!
Her husband's father was a player in India, they moved to Singapore for a couple of years and then here.
Does she fit in?
Well, her kids, thirteen and seven, keep bossing them around, telling them what's up, how to live, and this would NEVER happen in India, you do what your parents say.
But she's experienced no racism, which is kind of astounding, with that skin color and name in the United States...
Where an Indian woman in my doctor's office dates a white man but has not and will not tell her parents, who live up north.
Vineeta said her parents would be okay with her marrying a white man, it's just that it would NEVER HAPPEN!
And her driving was somewhat hesitant, and she wasn't that familiar with WAZE, but she told me she'd been driving Uber for three months.
Ah, the stories in the city.
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That's an expensive car. Let me look it up online. It STARTS at 50k. Why is its owner driving Uber?
Well, maybe it's not the person's car. That's right, I wasn't sure whether it was a male or female, the name was VINEETA. But last night, the driver rented his new Audi Quattro to drive, it cost him $40 for the day. But an X4?
It was her car, it was the first thing I asked Vineeta, after I got into the front seat.
Sometimes I don't want to ride in the back, I didn't want to look at my phone, do any business, although Paul Anka did call while we were en route and WAZE was barking directions and I was disoriented and I'm worried I didn't perform appropriately, but basically I wanted to experience the vista.
But the woman was dignified and well-dressed, what was going on?
Well, she was from India, she'd been here fifteen years. That's what you have to understand about Toronto, supposedly it has the most ethnicities of any city in the world, if you're a racist, it's not the place to be, especially since many people of color have been here for generations.
So why was she driving?
Her kids were in school.
Did she need the money or the entertainment?
She was trying to keep herself busy. She's got a degree in finance, but she has to take her son to swim practice every afternoon and it's hard to hold down a full-time job. Her husband works in software. He's a muckety-muck, but I didn't learn that until I found out...
It was an arranged marriage.
Well, not exactly, they were on that road, they could see that ending, so they picked each other.
I asked her, sensitively, whether if she had to do it all over again...
DEFINITELY, she loved her husband.
But India was so culturally different. It's about family, and extended family, and her parents approved of his parents, but she's having a hard time adjusting to here, where everybody's in their own silo.
But she would never move back, she didn't think her kids would tolerate it, even though they visit on vacation regularly.
Oh, did I tell you they got married at SIXTEEN??!!!
Eeegads!
Her husband's father was a player in India, they moved to Singapore for a couple of years and then here.
Does she fit in?
Well, her kids, thirteen and seven, keep bossing them around, telling them what's up, how to live, and this would NEVER happen in India, you do what your parents say.
But she's experienced no racism, which is kind of astounding, with that skin color and name in the United States...
Where an Indian woman in my doctor's office dates a white man but has not and will not tell her parents, who live up north.
Vineeta said her parents would be okay with her marrying a white man, it's just that it would NEVER HAPPEN!
And her driving was somewhat hesitant, and she wasn't that familiar with WAZE, but she told me she'd been driving Uber for three months.
Ah, the stories in the city.
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Thursday 10 May 2018
Canadian Hall of Fame Dinner
"I watch what I eat and work out... I've been on Jenny Craig more than Mr. Craig."
Paul Anka
Can you say that in the #MeToo era?
Speaking of eating, I forgot to tell you about the salt cod latkes.
We had lunch at Drake One Fifty, a jumping place, and when I saw the latkes on the menu...
I thought you had to be Jewish, your mother made them during Hanukkah, you waited for them all year. Latkes are potato pancakes, delivery systems for the applesauce and sour cream that accompany them. And my mom made them in the electric frying pan, a hit back in the sixties, just like Mr. Anka's records.
They're crunchy, and the sour cream adds smoothness and the applesauce adds sweetness and the cod...
I've never heard of cod in latkes before, must be a Great White North thing. You know, the land of Newfoundland and ice fishing and...I don't really know, but I do know the cod are gone from the Cape, as in CAPE COD, but maybe their remaining relatives have moved to colder waters up north, but ANYWAY, these salt cod latkes were DELECTABLE! The cod added a bit of sourness to the concoction, I think I'll eat them eight days a week!
Anyway, tonight I went to the Canadian Hall of Fame dinner.
Which is kind of funny, because if you're not from Canada, it doesn't quite add up. There was this dj from Montreal, which you pronounce "MUN-treal," for those south of the border, and he worked at CHOM for forty years. Which made him seem old, until I realized I was already out of college, where we dialed in the station, when he signed on, which makes ME really old.
And my generation...
Music was everything, we had to be in the business.
Arcade Fire got the Slaight philanthropy award, which Gary Slaight gave and introduced, and you may not know he made a billion when he sold the family's radio chain, which his dad started from scratch. That's how much money used to be in the music business. We Ubered over to the hall, and I was thinking...what's gonna happen to radio when we're no longer behind the wheel? Kaput I tell you, terrestrial dies, it's all about what's on your phone.
And speaking of phones, I'm in the hall and I realize...
That's what you've got to beat, that's the new metric, ARE YOU BETTER THAN WHAT'S ON MY PHONE?
If not, I'm gonna surf, and don't give me that crap about putting it down, you're just not good enough. Go listen to your CDs, you're living in the past. The phone is personalized, you can get that hit of dopamine any time you want, so if you're not getting it from the stage...
So the Barenaked Ladies performed. And what I love about that act is their sense of humor. The problem with having hits in the past is too often the acts are stuck in the past, afraid to acknowledge time has changed. But it has, and Ed Robertson reflected upon now.
But the best musical performance, other than the one by Mr. Anka, was by the Pursuit of Happiness. Yes, they did "I'm An Adult Now."
Which they truly are.
First and foremost, they were really tight, seamless. You know that wall of guitar sound. And did you know a woman was one of the guitar players? Yup, way before her #MeToo time. And Moe Berg looks the same, except for some lines in his face, he's an artist. Yup, the oldsters couldn't help themselves, this was all they could be. Which means they still are, they're not working for the bank.
And it's the anti-hip-hop all we white boys used to like.
Thirty two years ago.
And the lyrics about being an adult now...
We're sixty, not twenty, it's mind-bending. We were there, and now we're here. And the sound is fresh and ancient at the same time.
Kinda like Paul Anka.
Let's be honest, this was an insider affair. People talked through performances, it's hard to gain attention, but when Mr. Anka took the stage...
Michael Buble introduced him, well, because of the jokes, the sense of humor, you're entitled to a personality.
But then Paul Anka...
TOOK US TO VEGAS!
It was cheesy and incredible all at the same time. He was a progenitor, and he's still STANDING!
Yup, he gives his speech, which has got some laugh lines, i.e. the above, but when he was through he took the mic and...
HE DID IT HIS WAY!
Come on, this is a private gig, not for TV, evanescent. But Paul came with a full band, even a saxophone player. It was slick, the production levitated the whole room. It's like we were earthbound previously, but now were jetted into outer space.
So he's singing "My Way" and...
It still sounds like "My Way," he's seventy six, but he can still deliver.
And he's elongating notes, getting us to sing along, doing false endings, and you can't help but be drawn in, get in the spaceship with him.
This is the guy who predated the Beatles, who should have been wiped from the map, but he clawed his way back, not only by performing, but writing, forget "The Tonight Show," he co-wrote "This Is It" with Michael Jackson!
Yes, he's a hustler.
But, it's like finding an aged relic, which has been alive, but out of sight. You remember that Vegas sound, before Celine, who Paul worked with, and Britney took over. When you wore a tux and you thrilled the graybeards who grew up with you, you made them young once again.
That's what Anka did...
AND WE LOVED IT!
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Paul Anka
Can you say that in the #MeToo era?
Speaking of eating, I forgot to tell you about the salt cod latkes.
We had lunch at Drake One Fifty, a jumping place, and when I saw the latkes on the menu...
I thought you had to be Jewish, your mother made them during Hanukkah, you waited for them all year. Latkes are potato pancakes, delivery systems for the applesauce and sour cream that accompany them. And my mom made them in the electric frying pan, a hit back in the sixties, just like Mr. Anka's records.
They're crunchy, and the sour cream adds smoothness and the applesauce adds sweetness and the cod...
I've never heard of cod in latkes before, must be a Great White North thing. You know, the land of Newfoundland and ice fishing and...I don't really know, but I do know the cod are gone from the Cape, as in CAPE COD, but maybe their remaining relatives have moved to colder waters up north, but ANYWAY, these salt cod latkes were DELECTABLE! The cod added a bit of sourness to the concoction, I think I'll eat them eight days a week!
Anyway, tonight I went to the Canadian Hall of Fame dinner.
Which is kind of funny, because if you're not from Canada, it doesn't quite add up. There was this dj from Montreal, which you pronounce "MUN-treal," for those south of the border, and he worked at CHOM for forty years. Which made him seem old, until I realized I was already out of college, where we dialed in the station, when he signed on, which makes ME really old.
And my generation...
Music was everything, we had to be in the business.
Arcade Fire got the Slaight philanthropy award, which Gary Slaight gave and introduced, and you may not know he made a billion when he sold the family's radio chain, which his dad started from scratch. That's how much money used to be in the music business. We Ubered over to the hall, and I was thinking...what's gonna happen to radio when we're no longer behind the wheel? Kaput I tell you, terrestrial dies, it's all about what's on your phone.
And speaking of phones, I'm in the hall and I realize...
That's what you've got to beat, that's the new metric, ARE YOU BETTER THAN WHAT'S ON MY PHONE?
If not, I'm gonna surf, and don't give me that crap about putting it down, you're just not good enough. Go listen to your CDs, you're living in the past. The phone is personalized, you can get that hit of dopamine any time you want, so if you're not getting it from the stage...
So the Barenaked Ladies performed. And what I love about that act is their sense of humor. The problem with having hits in the past is too often the acts are stuck in the past, afraid to acknowledge time has changed. But it has, and Ed Robertson reflected upon now.
But the best musical performance, other than the one by Mr. Anka, was by the Pursuit of Happiness. Yes, they did "I'm An Adult Now."
Which they truly are.
First and foremost, they were really tight, seamless. You know that wall of guitar sound. And did you know a woman was one of the guitar players? Yup, way before her #MeToo time. And Moe Berg looks the same, except for some lines in his face, he's an artist. Yup, the oldsters couldn't help themselves, this was all they could be. Which means they still are, they're not working for the bank.
And it's the anti-hip-hop all we white boys used to like.
Thirty two years ago.
And the lyrics about being an adult now...
We're sixty, not twenty, it's mind-bending. We were there, and now we're here. And the sound is fresh and ancient at the same time.
Kinda like Paul Anka.
Let's be honest, this was an insider affair. People talked through performances, it's hard to gain attention, but when Mr. Anka took the stage...
Michael Buble introduced him, well, because of the jokes, the sense of humor, you're entitled to a personality.
But then Paul Anka...
TOOK US TO VEGAS!
It was cheesy and incredible all at the same time. He was a progenitor, and he's still STANDING!
Yup, he gives his speech, which has got some laugh lines, i.e. the above, but when he was through he took the mic and...
HE DID IT HIS WAY!
Come on, this is a private gig, not for TV, evanescent. But Paul came with a full band, even a saxophone player. It was slick, the production levitated the whole room. It's like we were earthbound previously, but now were jetted into outer space.
So he's singing "My Way" and...
It still sounds like "My Way," he's seventy six, but he can still deliver.
And he's elongating notes, getting us to sing along, doing false endings, and you can't help but be drawn in, get in the spaceship with him.
This is the guy who predated the Beatles, who should have been wiped from the map, but he clawed his way back, not only by performing, but writing, forget "The Tonight Show," he co-wrote "This Is It" with Michael Jackson!
Yes, he's a hustler.
But, it's like finding an aged relic, which has been alive, but out of sight. You remember that Vegas sound, before Celine, who Paul worked with, and Britney took over. When you wore a tux and you thrilled the graybeards who grew up with you, you made them young once again.
That's what Anka did...
AND WE LOVED IT!
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Toronto
I just saw James Comey.
That's right, I had to come all the way to Canada to get an up close and personal on the U.S. government.
Travel, the things you learn.
Used to be they passed out this immigration form on the plane, you know, did you hang at any farms, are you bringing in illegal drugs, that kind of stuff. And that always makes me anxious, because my pen is in my backpack in the overhead compartment and honestly, I do not know my passport number by heart, and it's a race to immigration, if you're not first, you could be waiting for an hour or so, after taking time to fill out the form after you've exited the plane, only this time...
There was no form. You spoke to a robot!
No, not exactly, you didn't speak. But this device that looked like Robby took all your information and then automatically adjusted to your height and took a picture. How come we don't have these in the States?
Things are so much better elsewhere. Not EVERYTHING, but it's the blind loyalty, the nationalism, the inability to question precepts that bugs me about the U.S. Love it or leave it? Leave it so you can come home and improve it!
And we took the train from the airport to downtown. Pretty cool. Avoided rush hour traffic.
And when I had to go to the drugstore at ten thirty p.m., we took the streetcar.
I didn't pay, don't tell anybody. Jake asked me if I had any Canadian money and when I said I didn't, he said to just follow him on, I didn't know I wasn't going to pay, honestly, well, kinda honestly, but the truth is we only went three blocks, his knee was hurting.
But the funniest thing was when we emerged from the drugstore, the Blue Jays game had just broken up, and the streetcar was full, and the driver started telling JOKES! Turned off the lights, made the assembled multitude pledge fealty. It cracked me up. There was a sense of community you don't get in L.A., because even though there's a downtown, and it's burgeoning, it's not the epicenter of the city, we're all in our far-flung abodes, in front of our devices, since traffic is too bad to go out.
So I'm here for Canadian Music Week. They shifted it from March to May a few years back. The benefit is the weather, used to be you were worried about getting snowed in, now you can experience the city awakening from winter, the populace free and easy.
But there are concrete barriers in front of the train station, so no other incel drives up on the sidewalk and kills people.
And I saw Ralph and the regulars in the lobby.
And at lunch Michael remarked how it was first generation immigrants who were shaking up the music business. As for showcases, isn't it interesting, the three biggest acts in the business, ironically Canadian, Drake, Bieber and the Weeknd, never played a gig before they made it.
It's not your father's music business anymore. We're experiencing a great transition. And it will be driven by money, millennials will capitalize on it.
The truth is, you can be a worker bee in tech, and the odds of your startup triumphing are nearly nonexistent. But you can be a music manager and make it with nothing, no education, just your smarts.
And Post Malone plays arenas on his first tour.
That never used to happen. All the wankers are talking about artist development, that's now the artist's job, not the labels', and if you're great, your audience knows you, and quite possibly, nobody else.
So I'd love to tell you Comey said something revolutionary, but he didn't, he's too well media-trained.
But he was likable.
When he wasn't hatable.
The interviewer asked him about the Hillary e-mail announcement eleven days before the election. He gave a completely plausible answer, but so did Dick Cheney.
But he was certainly human, right up there on the stage. And tall, you know Comey is 6'8". But he was endearing and inofficious, is that a word? You know how muckety-mucks can be so polished, holier-than-thou, but not Comey, he was like the guy you went to high school with, albeit kind of a choirboy.
And everybody up here knows everything we know down there.
Except today there's too much for everybody to know.
Used to be we all knew the same stories.
Now we're at lunch and every story brought up the rest of the assembled multitude does not know.
Never mind all the crazy places people fly in from. Never mind Calgary, but Red Deer?
Canada's only a motion away, you should visit!
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That's right, I had to come all the way to Canada to get an up close and personal on the U.S. government.
Travel, the things you learn.
Used to be they passed out this immigration form on the plane, you know, did you hang at any farms, are you bringing in illegal drugs, that kind of stuff. And that always makes me anxious, because my pen is in my backpack in the overhead compartment and honestly, I do not know my passport number by heart, and it's a race to immigration, if you're not first, you could be waiting for an hour or so, after taking time to fill out the form after you've exited the plane, only this time...
There was no form. You spoke to a robot!
No, not exactly, you didn't speak. But this device that looked like Robby took all your information and then automatically adjusted to your height and took a picture. How come we don't have these in the States?
Things are so much better elsewhere. Not EVERYTHING, but it's the blind loyalty, the nationalism, the inability to question precepts that bugs me about the U.S. Love it or leave it? Leave it so you can come home and improve it!
And we took the train from the airport to downtown. Pretty cool. Avoided rush hour traffic.
And when I had to go to the drugstore at ten thirty p.m., we took the streetcar.
I didn't pay, don't tell anybody. Jake asked me if I had any Canadian money and when I said I didn't, he said to just follow him on, I didn't know I wasn't going to pay, honestly, well, kinda honestly, but the truth is we only went three blocks, his knee was hurting.
But the funniest thing was when we emerged from the drugstore, the Blue Jays game had just broken up, and the streetcar was full, and the driver started telling JOKES! Turned off the lights, made the assembled multitude pledge fealty. It cracked me up. There was a sense of community you don't get in L.A., because even though there's a downtown, and it's burgeoning, it's not the epicenter of the city, we're all in our far-flung abodes, in front of our devices, since traffic is too bad to go out.
So I'm here for Canadian Music Week. They shifted it from March to May a few years back. The benefit is the weather, used to be you were worried about getting snowed in, now you can experience the city awakening from winter, the populace free and easy.
But there are concrete barriers in front of the train station, so no other incel drives up on the sidewalk and kills people.
And I saw Ralph and the regulars in the lobby.
And at lunch Michael remarked how it was first generation immigrants who were shaking up the music business. As for showcases, isn't it interesting, the three biggest acts in the business, ironically Canadian, Drake, Bieber and the Weeknd, never played a gig before they made it.
It's not your father's music business anymore. We're experiencing a great transition. And it will be driven by money, millennials will capitalize on it.
The truth is, you can be a worker bee in tech, and the odds of your startup triumphing are nearly nonexistent. But you can be a music manager and make it with nothing, no education, just your smarts.
And Post Malone plays arenas on his first tour.
That never used to happen. All the wankers are talking about artist development, that's now the artist's job, not the labels', and if you're great, your audience knows you, and quite possibly, nobody else.
So I'd love to tell you Comey said something revolutionary, but he didn't, he's too well media-trained.
But he was likable.
When he wasn't hatable.
The interviewer asked him about the Hillary e-mail announcement eleven days before the election. He gave a completely plausible answer, but so did Dick Cheney.
But he was certainly human, right up there on the stage. And tall, you know Comey is 6'8". But he was endearing and inofficious, is that a word? You know how muckety-mucks can be so polished, holier-than-thou, but not Comey, he was like the guy you went to high school with, albeit kind of a choirboy.
And everybody up here knows everything we know down there.
Except today there's too much for everybody to know.
Used to be we all knew the same stories.
Now we're at lunch and every story brought up the rest of the assembled multitude does not know.
Never mind all the crazy places people fly in from. Never mind Calgary, but Red Deer?
Canada's only a motion away, you should visit!
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Tuesday 8 May 2018
Moby-This Week's Podcast
"Don't nobody know my troubles but God"
What happens when you make the most iconic album of the turn of the century, when suddenly you're up all night getting high and dating models?
YOU WANT MORE!
But Moby couldn't replicate the success of "Play," even though he tried so hard.
And despite ventures into real estate and restaurants, Moby is still making music every day.
And this is his story.
This was done live at the L.A. "Times" Festival of Books. Moby was erudite and intellectual, listen as he lays out his stories and insights, with a sense of humor. It's as if the guy in your classroom made it, but not that easily, Moby hustled his way up from Darien to New York City, from club to record deal to...
This is only an hour, but I could have listened to Moby all day. There was no artifice, he was so honest.
I know you'll dig it.
Moby on his first solo show and meeting Miles Davis: https://bit.ly/2jIgGwn
TuneIn: https://listen.tunein.com/mobyletter
Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/moby/id1316200737?i=1000410948615&mt=2
Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Dtzgoa7uajl5k77ze32eka4byc4?t=Moby-The_Bob_Lefsetz_Podcast
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/bob-lefsetz/moby-22
Overcast: https://overcast.fm/+LBr8cPdT8
Acast: https://www.acast.com/theboblefsetzpodcast/moby
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What happens when you make the most iconic album of the turn of the century, when suddenly you're up all night getting high and dating models?
YOU WANT MORE!
But Moby couldn't replicate the success of "Play," even though he tried so hard.
And despite ventures into real estate and restaurants, Moby is still making music every day.
And this is his story.
This was done live at the L.A. "Times" Festival of Books. Moby was erudite and intellectual, listen as he lays out his stories and insights, with a sense of humor. It's as if the guy in your classroom made it, but not that easily, Moby hustled his way up from Darien to New York City, from club to record deal to...
This is only an hour, but I could have listened to Moby all day. There was no artifice, he was so honest.
I know you'll dig it.
Moby on his first solo show and meeting Miles Davis: https://bit.ly/2jIgGwn
TuneIn: https://listen.tunein.com/mobyletter
Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/moby/id1316200737?i=1000410948615&mt=2
Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Dtzgoa7uajl5k77ze32eka4byc4?t=Moby-The_Bob_Lefsetz_Podcast
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/bob-lefsetz/moby-22
Overcast: https://overcast.fm/+LBr8cPdT8
Acast: https://www.acast.com/theboblefsetzpodcast/moby
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This Is America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY
You can hide in plain sight.
Donald Glover was on "Community," is in the second season of his own highly-lauded series "Atlanta" and has one of the longest running hits on the chart with "Redbone," a cut from his THIRD Glassnote album and still...
Most people had no idea who he was.
Until now.
Glover's gonna be in the new "Star Wars" movie. He hosted SNL and was the musical guest too. But what cemented his fame, what captured the cultural zeitgeist, was his video for "This Is America."
Wasn't this paradigm supposed to be over? Isn't MTV dead? Isn't every creator criticizing the public for watching their masterpieces on phone screens?
Yes, but "This Is America" has garnered 41+ million YouTube views in four days.
And it sits atop the Spotify U.S. streaming chart with 2,270,990 daily streams, although its cume is only 4,851,816, and it's only #7 on the Global chart, but...
This success is about the video.
I'm sure you've felt or heard the buzz. But if you pull up the video, it's got all the elements the public is supposedly intolerant of, violence, racism... It's the flipside of the Trump revolution. Honesty on the left. By someone with incredible purchase.
Funny how African-Americans are pushing the artistic envelope and whites are just complaining that someone moved their cheese.
And the press is fawning all over Glover. I haven't seen this amount of intellectual analysis over a record since the sixties. It's like out of white guilt the entire press corps is waking up to what it missed for decades, ditto Beyonce's appearance at Coachella, only this time you didn't have to be there, you can just stream the video again and again...
But not mindlessly.
The video makes you think. And feel. In an era where too much music has been relegated to the dustbin, seen as a second-class citizen, momentary entertainment, Glover is not so much challenging us than bopping us over the head, forcing us to evaluate our own viewpoints, either resonate in solidarity or turn it off.
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
History always repeats, just not in the way you think it does.
We were waiting for anthems to bubble up and dominate radio. But the anger is more tribal and less singable, and music lives online, not over the airwaves. You pull it up on demand, there are no gatekeepers, you get a vibe on the wind and you check it out.
That's how hard it is to make it these days. Glover was playing to sold out theaters and still most people had no idea what he was doing. Let that be a lesson to the wannabes wondering why they've not had their chance.
You've got to make your own chance, over and over and over again.
And I'm not sure how long Glover's moment lasts. Today some art is evanescent, and some lasts nearly forever. You can have an impact for a moment and be in the rearview mirror just that fast. But if you're establishing a body of work as opposed to reaching for a momentary brass ring, you survive.
Watch the video, have your own opinion, but just know it's not your father's music business anymore.
Pop is dead. You know, that manufactured sound constructed by a team, refined for smoothness to the point where there's no edge to catch you.
And rock became so formulaic as to be uninteresting.
But hip-hop...
The lesson is not to be calculated, not to play it safe, not to second-guess the audience. To dig down deep and tell your own truth. Over and over and over again. To experiment, take chances and then maybe...
The public will catch up with you.
As it just did with Donald Glover.
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You can hide in plain sight.
Donald Glover was on "Community," is in the second season of his own highly-lauded series "Atlanta" and has one of the longest running hits on the chart with "Redbone," a cut from his THIRD Glassnote album and still...
Most people had no idea who he was.
Until now.
Glover's gonna be in the new "Star Wars" movie. He hosted SNL and was the musical guest too. But what cemented his fame, what captured the cultural zeitgeist, was his video for "This Is America."
Wasn't this paradigm supposed to be over? Isn't MTV dead? Isn't every creator criticizing the public for watching their masterpieces on phone screens?
Yes, but "This Is America" has garnered 41+ million YouTube views in four days.
And it sits atop the Spotify U.S. streaming chart with 2,270,990 daily streams, although its cume is only 4,851,816, and it's only #7 on the Global chart, but...
This success is about the video.
I'm sure you've felt or heard the buzz. But if you pull up the video, it's got all the elements the public is supposedly intolerant of, violence, racism... It's the flipside of the Trump revolution. Honesty on the left. By someone with incredible purchase.
Funny how African-Americans are pushing the artistic envelope and whites are just complaining that someone moved their cheese.
And the press is fawning all over Glover. I haven't seen this amount of intellectual analysis over a record since the sixties. It's like out of white guilt the entire press corps is waking up to what it missed for decades, ditto Beyonce's appearance at Coachella, only this time you didn't have to be there, you can just stream the video again and again...
But not mindlessly.
The video makes you think. And feel. In an era where too much music has been relegated to the dustbin, seen as a second-class citizen, momentary entertainment, Glover is not so much challenging us than bopping us over the head, forcing us to evaluate our own viewpoints, either resonate in solidarity or turn it off.
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
History always repeats, just not in the way you think it does.
We were waiting for anthems to bubble up and dominate radio. But the anger is more tribal and less singable, and music lives online, not over the airwaves. You pull it up on demand, there are no gatekeepers, you get a vibe on the wind and you check it out.
That's how hard it is to make it these days. Glover was playing to sold out theaters and still most people had no idea what he was doing. Let that be a lesson to the wannabes wondering why they've not had their chance.
You've got to make your own chance, over and over and over again.
And I'm not sure how long Glover's moment lasts. Today some art is evanescent, and some lasts nearly forever. You can have an impact for a moment and be in the rearview mirror just that fast. But if you're establishing a body of work as opposed to reaching for a momentary brass ring, you survive.
Watch the video, have your own opinion, but just know it's not your father's music business anymore.
Pop is dead. You know, that manufactured sound constructed by a team, refined for smoothness to the point where there's no edge to catch you.
And rock became so formulaic as to be uninteresting.
But hip-hop...
The lesson is not to be calculated, not to play it safe, not to second-guess the audience. To dig down deep and tell your own truth. Over and over and over again. To experiment, take chances and then maybe...
The public will catch up with you.
As it just did with Donald Glover.
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Monday 7 May 2018
Seinfeld & Letterman At FYSEE
https://fyc.netflix.com/fysee.html
I'm numb. I drove home with the radio off. I just want to bask in the experience, the greatness, of two men still at the top of their game in the flesh.
It was the sensibility, the quickness, the jokes. We were eavesdropping on two men talking about their history and their craft. It was not only an insight into who they were, but how they made it.
They moved to L.A.
Dave felt it was the only way to get on television. To appear at the Comedy Store and get scouted for "The Tonight Show."
Jerry was king of the comedy roost in New York, but when he got to L.A., Mitzi wanted nothing to do with him. He would not give the details, since Ms. Shore so recently passed, but he asked for a meeting and she told him face to face...
Why he wasn't getting any slots.
But Jerry always knew he was gonna make it. You can feel his confidence.
And you can feel his strangeness. He doesn't need you and me, and that allows him to be himself. Which endears us to him ever more closely. He's famous for his standup, his TV show, but in conversation...you realize this is who Jerry truly is, and it's fascinating and inspirational.
My dad was funny. Oftentimes in a lame way. But he looked for the humor in life. That was the highest calling in my house, to make a joke.
Actually, Dave told one. About golf. He was reluctant.
The golfer was on the eighteenth tee with a cumulative score of 160 already. He took out his 7 iron and told his caddie if he didn't hit the green, he was gonna drown himself in the pond.
His caddie told him he didn't think he could keep his head down that long.
HILARIOUS!
If you know golf, almost no one in attendance did. But Dave chuckled to himself.
But Jerry's all about the audience, that's how he judges what works, by the laughs, he's always in search of laughs. He's been doing this routine about raisins. About Sun-Maid and Raisinets. How eighty years later, Sun-Maid is finally covering their product with chocolate. He's ruminating on how this happened, did a Sun-Maid employee go to the movies and have an a-ha moment?
But forgetting the routine itself, Jerry was trying it out in a club in New York and there were crickets, no response, he thought it was only funny to himself, he was about to abandon it, and then minutes later, in a lull, there was a voice from the back of the club...MORE RAISINETS!
Then he knew he was on to something, he decided the routine was gig-worthy.
And speaking of worthiness, if Jerry and Larry agreed something was funny, they included it, they figured if it made it past their two filters...
That's what comedians are, filters, of life.
Jerry started riffing on products and commercials and I realized...
Only comedians do this job. Everybody else is hawking stuff, and we're sitting home alone saying HUH?
The comedian says "huh."
But Jerry wouldn't comment on Michelle Wolf's Correspondents Dinner routine, at least not the substance of it. But he appreciated her preparation and her willingness to hang it out there with no regrets.
And Dave loved that she didn't apologize.
That's Jerry in a nutshell. He doesn't want to offend on a big level, he'd rather offend on a minor one. Dave was uttering platitudes and Jerry continued to call him on them. It was so refreshing. Jerry wouldn't let anything slide. And when he grins and laughs everything is forgiven, you know it's all in service of the joke.
As for Dave...
He was built wrong, his sensibility is off. He sees things in a skewed way. And rather than point them out, he just utters a crack or a judgment and you break up, hysterically.
Actually, that's one thing Jerry said that I loved, that comedians are JUDGMENTAL!
In a world where everybody's afraid of offending someone, giving people the benefit of the doubt, to get along, WHY?
And Jerry refused to talk about his children, not because of privacy concerns but because everybody does it and it's boring, he's sick of hearing about stars' children.
And Dave said he learned you're not supposed to be your kid's best friend, but their father. But he did say Harry was his favorite person.
And Jerry said on stage, doing his act, was the only place he felt comfortable. Dave agreed. These are ill-adjusted people, even though Jerry refuses to admit it. Then again, the greats are sui generis, they've got little self-knowledge, they can only be themselves.
Jerry talked about growing up as an outsider in his own family.
They both talked about being the first people in their families to graduate from college.
And Jerry asked Dave about his love of skiing, how he was willing to do it alone, without Harry. And Dave went into a whole riff about conversations on the lift, whether they were high-speed or fixed grip, how if it's the latter you've got all day to share ideas and become friends.
And I don't expect you to get that, but it's about the narrow passions we all have.
And unlike SNL, Jerry and Dave end up being universal without trying to be. It's that aforementioned sensibility, of walking through life and laughing at it. SNL is trying to find reference points in the culture, Jerry and Dave realize PEOPLE are the reference points.
And when the lights went down and they were only twenty feet away I got that excitement you do at the concert, you know, when your favorite band is taking the stage.
But in this case, the show was unrehearsed. And this was superstars hanging it all out.
Like the mantra of "Seinfeld," there was no hugging.
But there was plenty of learning.
Why I came to Los Angeles. Who I am.
I yearned to be who I once was, an oddball with my own language. My ex-shrink shrunk it out of me, said no one could understand me. But I think they did.
And conformity is all the rage, yet we lionize those who are true to themselves.
In a world where everything is canned, at our fingertips, where it's an effort to leave the house, fight the traffic, to be there tonight was a peak experience, a thrill.
So this is part of Netflix's campaign for Emmy nominations. There's weeks of events, a little museum/event space filled with dioramas from their shows. You'd be stunned how many hits there are.
And Ted Sarandos did the introduction.
And it's unclear whether this conversation will ever see the flat screen.
And it's not that I need to tell you I was there, it's just that I need to tell you how I feel.
Less alone. Encouraged. Inspired to test limits.
Inspired to be myself.
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I'm numb. I drove home with the radio off. I just want to bask in the experience, the greatness, of two men still at the top of their game in the flesh.
It was the sensibility, the quickness, the jokes. We were eavesdropping on two men talking about their history and their craft. It was not only an insight into who they were, but how they made it.
They moved to L.A.
Dave felt it was the only way to get on television. To appear at the Comedy Store and get scouted for "The Tonight Show."
Jerry was king of the comedy roost in New York, but when he got to L.A., Mitzi wanted nothing to do with him. He would not give the details, since Ms. Shore so recently passed, but he asked for a meeting and she told him face to face...
Why he wasn't getting any slots.
But Jerry always knew he was gonna make it. You can feel his confidence.
And you can feel his strangeness. He doesn't need you and me, and that allows him to be himself. Which endears us to him ever more closely. He's famous for his standup, his TV show, but in conversation...you realize this is who Jerry truly is, and it's fascinating and inspirational.
My dad was funny. Oftentimes in a lame way. But he looked for the humor in life. That was the highest calling in my house, to make a joke.
Actually, Dave told one. About golf. He was reluctant.
The golfer was on the eighteenth tee with a cumulative score of 160 already. He took out his 7 iron and told his caddie if he didn't hit the green, he was gonna drown himself in the pond.
His caddie told him he didn't think he could keep his head down that long.
HILARIOUS!
If you know golf, almost no one in attendance did. But Dave chuckled to himself.
But Jerry's all about the audience, that's how he judges what works, by the laughs, he's always in search of laughs. He's been doing this routine about raisins. About Sun-Maid and Raisinets. How eighty years later, Sun-Maid is finally covering their product with chocolate. He's ruminating on how this happened, did a Sun-Maid employee go to the movies and have an a-ha moment?
But forgetting the routine itself, Jerry was trying it out in a club in New York and there were crickets, no response, he thought it was only funny to himself, he was about to abandon it, and then minutes later, in a lull, there was a voice from the back of the club...MORE RAISINETS!
Then he knew he was on to something, he decided the routine was gig-worthy.
And speaking of worthiness, if Jerry and Larry agreed something was funny, they included it, they figured if it made it past their two filters...
That's what comedians are, filters, of life.
Jerry started riffing on products and commercials and I realized...
Only comedians do this job. Everybody else is hawking stuff, and we're sitting home alone saying HUH?
The comedian says "huh."
But Jerry wouldn't comment on Michelle Wolf's Correspondents Dinner routine, at least not the substance of it. But he appreciated her preparation and her willingness to hang it out there with no regrets.
And Dave loved that she didn't apologize.
That's Jerry in a nutshell. He doesn't want to offend on a big level, he'd rather offend on a minor one. Dave was uttering platitudes and Jerry continued to call him on them. It was so refreshing. Jerry wouldn't let anything slide. And when he grins and laughs everything is forgiven, you know it's all in service of the joke.
As for Dave...
He was built wrong, his sensibility is off. He sees things in a skewed way. And rather than point them out, he just utters a crack or a judgment and you break up, hysterically.
Actually, that's one thing Jerry said that I loved, that comedians are JUDGMENTAL!
In a world where everybody's afraid of offending someone, giving people the benefit of the doubt, to get along, WHY?
And Jerry refused to talk about his children, not because of privacy concerns but because everybody does it and it's boring, he's sick of hearing about stars' children.
And Dave said he learned you're not supposed to be your kid's best friend, but their father. But he did say Harry was his favorite person.
And Jerry said on stage, doing his act, was the only place he felt comfortable. Dave agreed. These are ill-adjusted people, even though Jerry refuses to admit it. Then again, the greats are sui generis, they've got little self-knowledge, they can only be themselves.
Jerry talked about growing up as an outsider in his own family.
They both talked about being the first people in their families to graduate from college.
And Jerry asked Dave about his love of skiing, how he was willing to do it alone, without Harry. And Dave went into a whole riff about conversations on the lift, whether they were high-speed or fixed grip, how if it's the latter you've got all day to share ideas and become friends.
And I don't expect you to get that, but it's about the narrow passions we all have.
And unlike SNL, Jerry and Dave end up being universal without trying to be. It's that aforementioned sensibility, of walking through life and laughing at it. SNL is trying to find reference points in the culture, Jerry and Dave realize PEOPLE are the reference points.
And when the lights went down and they were only twenty feet away I got that excitement you do at the concert, you know, when your favorite band is taking the stage.
But in this case, the show was unrehearsed. And this was superstars hanging it all out.
Like the mantra of "Seinfeld," there was no hugging.
But there was plenty of learning.
Why I came to Los Angeles. Who I am.
I yearned to be who I once was, an oddball with my own language. My ex-shrink shrunk it out of me, said no one could understand me. But I think they did.
And conformity is all the rage, yet we lionize those who are true to themselves.
In a world where everything is canned, at our fingertips, where it's an effort to leave the house, fight the traffic, to be there tonight was a peak experience, a thrill.
So this is part of Netflix's campaign for Emmy nominations. There's weeks of events, a little museum/event space filled with dioramas from their shows. You'd be stunned how many hits there are.
And Ted Sarandos did the introduction.
And it's unclear whether this conversation will ever see the flat screen.
And it's not that I need to tell you I was there, it's just that I need to tell you how I feel.
Less alone. Encouraged. Inspired to test limits.
Inspired to be myself.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
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Warner Sells Spotify Stock
After Sony blows out half of its investment.
This is what's wrong with the record companies, this is what's wrong with AMERICA! The short-term thinking.
Stockholders in Spotify all agree, its value is going up. Of course it's the stock market, no one can predict the future. But trading is thin, because investors believe there's such a big runway for the music streaming service.
The record companies...
They took their short term profits so they could report them on their quarterly calls and claim victory. HUH?
Look at Warner Music.
No, look at Universal Music, which may be spun off from Vivendi soon. Valuation of the company is put around the same number as Spotify, in the mid twenty BILLIONS!
But Time Warner sold Warner Music for a $2.6 billion fifteen years ago. Dumb call, made by Richard Parsons's team which is long gone. It's nearly impossible to get this rate of return on investment, but no one in corporate America is a builder other than the founder, they're all custodians, looking to make their bonuses, playing to Wall Street.
Except for Jeff Bezos.
Excoriated for spending and lack of profits last decade, now Amazon is so successful critics are agitating for its breakup under antitrust laws.
Would an independent label still run by its founder blow out its Spotify holdings just after the company went public?
OF COURSE NOT!
Unless the proprietor wanted to buy something, because where else are you gonna park these funds and get as big a return?
The music business agitates against the hedge funds, the VCs, and then behaves in the same damn way. The stewards of the labels aren't thinking about tomorrow, just today. Isn't that how we got into this mess, the execs fighting to pull the business back to the past when the only thing that has saved it is Spotify and other streaming services, i.e. going into the future?!!
As for sharing proceeds with artists...
Give me a break.
At these royalty rates it's like putting pennies in the cups of beggars. Assuming they account accurately, which they've never been able to do previously.
Rather they'll just take the money off the table, give it to executives, and cry poor soon enough.
They could take these winnings and invest in their future. Try to break acts that don't fit the mold, revitalize the business, but they won't do that either.
Which is why all revolution comes from the outside, when you've got something, you want to protect it, people are greedy, they're afraid of losing, whereas when you've got nothing, you're willing to risk it all.
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This is what's wrong with the record companies, this is what's wrong with AMERICA! The short-term thinking.
Stockholders in Spotify all agree, its value is going up. Of course it's the stock market, no one can predict the future. But trading is thin, because investors believe there's such a big runway for the music streaming service.
The record companies...
They took their short term profits so they could report them on their quarterly calls and claim victory. HUH?
Look at Warner Music.
No, look at Universal Music, which may be spun off from Vivendi soon. Valuation of the company is put around the same number as Spotify, in the mid twenty BILLIONS!
But Time Warner sold Warner Music for a $2.6 billion fifteen years ago. Dumb call, made by Richard Parsons's team which is long gone. It's nearly impossible to get this rate of return on investment, but no one in corporate America is a builder other than the founder, they're all custodians, looking to make their bonuses, playing to Wall Street.
Except for Jeff Bezos.
Excoriated for spending and lack of profits last decade, now Amazon is so successful critics are agitating for its breakup under antitrust laws.
Would an independent label still run by its founder blow out its Spotify holdings just after the company went public?
OF COURSE NOT!
Unless the proprietor wanted to buy something, because where else are you gonna park these funds and get as big a return?
The music business agitates against the hedge funds, the VCs, and then behaves in the same damn way. The stewards of the labels aren't thinking about tomorrow, just today. Isn't that how we got into this mess, the execs fighting to pull the business back to the past when the only thing that has saved it is Spotify and other streaming services, i.e. going into the future?!!
As for sharing proceeds with artists...
Give me a break.
At these royalty rates it's like putting pennies in the cups of beggars. Assuming they account accurately, which they've never been able to do previously.
Rather they'll just take the money off the table, give it to executives, and cry poor soon enough.
They could take these winnings and invest in their future. Try to break acts that don't fit the mold, revitalize the business, but they won't do that either.
Which is why all revolution comes from the outside, when you've got something, you want to protect it, people are greedy, they're afraid of losing, whereas when you've got nothing, you're willing to risk it all.
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FYF Cancellation
It's about branding.
The F in FYF stood for a four letter word, the festival was anti, for those out of the mainstream, the overlooked who gather together to hear bands that speak to them, and possibly no one else. Whereas Janet Jackson is purely mainstream, she speaks primarily to people who don't want to get into the asphalt and grime of L.A.'s Exposition Park, a site baking in the sun made for those who need to go.
Kinda like Bonnaroo. It was a jam band festival. And for a while there, it successfully stretched its limits, but then it went too far and cratered, it still may not be savable, how many people want to camp out in the heat of Tennessee in June?
Only a few festivals are bigger than the acts. In America, it's Coachella in the desert and Lollapalooza in Chicago. The former succeeds because its the first major festival of the year, the site delivers its own satisfaction and no matter who they book as headliners, you can always go to the Sahara Tent and dance your ass off. As for Lollapalooza...you can stay in a hotel, walk to the site, it's positively civilized in a nation that keeps going more upscale, that's the conundrum, with income inequality rampant, people are still lining up to pay beaucoup bucks for shows.
Of course there are more than Coachella and Lollapalooza, the most obvious being JazzFest, but just like you've got the Sahara Tent at Coachella, at JazzFest you always get the local color, the church choirs, the New Orleans stars, the headliners are just the cherry on top.
But not at FYF Fest.
A festival must be a brand, it must stand for something, not just...we show up to overpay and be mistreated so we can say we were there. A festival is about the attendees, it's about the culture, the lineup is not enough if you want to sustain.
But if there's no culture, you're lineup dependent.
Turns out few were at home saying they NEEDED to go to FYF Fest. The lineups had been expanded and mainstreamed so much that the core audience was abandoned. Turned out plenty of people wanted to see Frank Ocean and Missy Elliott, but these same people did not need to go to FYF itself.
There's been a lot of talk about the FYF's cancellation being a judgment on its female-centric lineup.
We already covered Ms. Jackson, does her audience really want to stand in the heat downtown to see her?
As for Florence + the Machine... She caters to intellectuals, thinkers, not the skate-punk people who put FYF on the map.
And St. Vincent has been everywhere and the Breeders reunion is a non-event, the kind of regrouping that plays to few on a side stage at Coachella, you can't depend upon them to bring in attendees, they're spice at best, and their fans are fifty, like the band, who've got no interest in going to FYF.
As for the undercard, acts like Lucy Dacus, who ever went to a festival for the undercard? Especially when you can see these acts up close and personal in a club.
So this is a misfire. Turns out Sean Carlson was the soul of FYF, and when he was removed, no one was tending the flame, no one was there from the beginning.
That's the story of modern culture, we keep hearing about the power of corporations, but these corporations are run by people, and they make all the difference, can you say Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos?
So what we've learned is all the prognosticators were wrong. The business will survive the death of the classic rock acts. There are more stadium shows than there have been in decades, there is demand. But it's not blind demand, people have favorites, and if you want to have a festival that sustains, play to people's souls, who they are, who they want to hang out with. A festival is just not a show, a festival is an experience. And this experience is just not food and toilets, pleasantries. Rather it's the vibe. Kinda like at Electric Forest, most people are not interested, but if you ARE!
New festivals must be nurtured, they must mean something, they must be curated. EDC is nothing without Pasquale Rotella. It's lifers like him, progenitors of the scene who've got their fingers on the pulse, who are builders of these edifices. Just booking a bunch of acts and putting them in a park is not enough.
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The F in FYF stood for a four letter word, the festival was anti, for those out of the mainstream, the overlooked who gather together to hear bands that speak to them, and possibly no one else. Whereas Janet Jackson is purely mainstream, she speaks primarily to people who don't want to get into the asphalt and grime of L.A.'s Exposition Park, a site baking in the sun made for those who need to go.
Kinda like Bonnaroo. It was a jam band festival. And for a while there, it successfully stretched its limits, but then it went too far and cratered, it still may not be savable, how many people want to camp out in the heat of Tennessee in June?
Only a few festivals are bigger than the acts. In America, it's Coachella in the desert and Lollapalooza in Chicago. The former succeeds because its the first major festival of the year, the site delivers its own satisfaction and no matter who they book as headliners, you can always go to the Sahara Tent and dance your ass off. As for Lollapalooza...you can stay in a hotel, walk to the site, it's positively civilized in a nation that keeps going more upscale, that's the conundrum, with income inequality rampant, people are still lining up to pay beaucoup bucks for shows.
Of course there are more than Coachella and Lollapalooza, the most obvious being JazzFest, but just like you've got the Sahara Tent at Coachella, at JazzFest you always get the local color, the church choirs, the New Orleans stars, the headliners are just the cherry on top.
But not at FYF Fest.
A festival must be a brand, it must stand for something, not just...we show up to overpay and be mistreated so we can say we were there. A festival is about the attendees, it's about the culture, the lineup is not enough if you want to sustain.
But if there's no culture, you're lineup dependent.
Turns out few were at home saying they NEEDED to go to FYF Fest. The lineups had been expanded and mainstreamed so much that the core audience was abandoned. Turned out plenty of people wanted to see Frank Ocean and Missy Elliott, but these same people did not need to go to FYF itself.
There's been a lot of talk about the FYF's cancellation being a judgment on its female-centric lineup.
We already covered Ms. Jackson, does her audience really want to stand in the heat downtown to see her?
As for Florence + the Machine... She caters to intellectuals, thinkers, not the skate-punk people who put FYF on the map.
And St. Vincent has been everywhere and the Breeders reunion is a non-event, the kind of regrouping that plays to few on a side stage at Coachella, you can't depend upon them to bring in attendees, they're spice at best, and their fans are fifty, like the band, who've got no interest in going to FYF.
As for the undercard, acts like Lucy Dacus, who ever went to a festival for the undercard? Especially when you can see these acts up close and personal in a club.
So this is a misfire. Turns out Sean Carlson was the soul of FYF, and when he was removed, no one was tending the flame, no one was there from the beginning.
That's the story of modern culture, we keep hearing about the power of corporations, but these corporations are run by people, and they make all the difference, can you say Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos?
So what we've learned is all the prognosticators were wrong. The business will survive the death of the classic rock acts. There are more stadium shows than there have been in decades, there is demand. But it's not blind demand, people have favorites, and if you want to have a festival that sustains, play to people's souls, who they are, who they want to hang out with. A festival is just not a show, a festival is an experience. And this experience is just not food and toilets, pleasantries. Rather it's the vibe. Kinda like at Electric Forest, most people are not interested, but if you ARE!
New festivals must be nurtured, they must mean something, they must be curated. EDC is nothing without Pasquale Rotella. It's lifers like him, progenitors of the scene who've got their fingers on the pulse, who are builders of these edifices. Just booking a bunch of acts and putting them in a park is not enough.
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Sunday 6 May 2018
Wolvesmouth
It was a badge of honor to see a band on its first tour.
I can regale you with stories of Elvis Costello at the Whisky, Oasis at the Roxy, back when you started small and grew, when music drove the culture and record companies signed you based on the music more than the commercial potential and slowly brought the audience to you. But today most of those clubs are dead. They were supported by the record companies, with comp tickets and tabs. Now you make it online and sometimes play arenas on your first tour. Furthermore, you're a star today and gone tomorrow and the oldsters persist. It's as if dinosaurs were still roaming the earth, along with human beings.
Jamie told us she could get us in. We'd been once before, for a birthday party. I was eager to go again, we said yes. Jake heard about our invitation and wanted to be included, so he and Robyn came too. To an abode with no signage for a meal with no price.
In other words, the experience was PRICELESS!
My parents were gourmets, they even had a club back in the sixties, where once a quarter they'd go to a friend's house and have a potluck from a different country. My dad was all about lifestyle. We didn't live in the best neighborhood, we didn't upgrade when he made it, we stayed in the same split-level, but when it came to food and entertainment, there was no limit.
Except for wine. My dad owned a liquor store. It killed him to overpay for wine in a restaurant, so he didn't. But if you wanted the lobster, you ordered it, but you had to finish. That's right, I grew up in one of those houses where we heard about starving children in Europe, Asia was never mentioned, we had to scrape our plates clean, I still do, it's a hard habit to break. As for throwing food out...I still can't do it, not unless it's smelly and nearly crawling with bugs. Especially with inflation, you can see five or ten bucks evaporating, I must eat it.
And when we traveled my dad always looked for the best restaurants.
And when I was in law school my girlfriend and I combed them all, the ones we couldn't afford we had my parents take us to. But that was a long time ago, before there were so many restaurants you could not eat at them all, before you couldn't get in unless you were connected.
That's the world we live in, you've got to know somebody. I was just watching "The Florida Project" and the motel resident has a connection for waffles at the breakfast place. If you know nobody, you cannot get ahead. We live in a nation of currency, and not all of it is cash.
That's one of the modern paradigms that overwhelms me, the plethora of choices. I like to be comprehensive, I like to know everything about a given field. But today that's impossible, I want to know everything about a subject so I can judge it expertly, but today very few are experts. Or they're experts in one field only.
So Wolvesmouth is a pop-up restaurant. I read about it in the "New Yorker" years before I went. It changed locations. You had to be in the know to go. And I didn't. Until two summers ago.
And here's where I'd like to tell you about the menus, tell the history of the place, but I don't think I can do it adequately. I've heard it in detail twice, but I haven't digested it. I like to ask multiple people the same questions over and over again to gain a feeling, to reach a conclusion. But what I've learned is there are different menus at Wolvesmouth, with a different number of courses.
Last night we had eight.
So, there are twenty people you don't know, other than the group you came with. And to tell you the truth, Felice and I were the oldest people there, by decades. You see it's a millennial thing, a young Gen-X'er thing. Where it's about experiences more than acquisitions. Where you'll blow high dough on an evanescent item that you'll remember, but cannot grasp.
And there was the gay couple from the eastside. And the young marrieds from the South Bay. And everyone brought their own beverages, which were ultimately shared, and in between courses, you conversed.
You can feel lonely and isolated in today's world. Think you know everything. And then you go somewhere and bump into new people and get excited. They're different, yet similar. It's stimulating. They've had the same experiences with a twist. The woman across the table spontaneously said she and her husband were in couples therapy. Is it that you're freer with strangers, I don't know, but I dig it.
So the first course was...
Oh, I'm not gonna delineate it, I'll post a pic of the menu to Twitter for you to check out. It's just that it had a short rib encased in a blood red sauce and potato-filled pasta which were akin to ravioli, and cabbage-beet horseradish and it was all topped with an onion ring.
And we dug in.
There's no bread and there's no waiting.
Usually, I fill up on the appetizers, but with food portioned out, this does not happen. Furthermore, they start right away, dinner was set for 6:30, we arrived fifteen minutes early, shortly after the appointed hour the first course arrived.
And I learned that Greg decided to get into the music business when he saw U2 at Dodger Stadium. The guy next to him was elbowing him but then when "One" was played he put his arm around Greg's shoulder.
Jake's dad loved the ponies, they followed him from Toronto to the track in Florida, where Jake went to two different schools in one year.
Jamie and Greg went on a cruise with her father and stepmother. She likes to soak up all the culture, Greg needs time off to rest, just like me and Felice!
And over food and wine you learn stuff about people you never knew, you become closer, I suggested we all go on a cruise together, but I doubt that will happen, enchanted moments engender promises that go unfulfilled.
I didn't shoot any pictures, of food anyway. I don't post on Facebook.
Furthermore, I'm not a forensic eater. I just enjoyed the taste, I'm not even sure I can remember what I ate, but I loved the mini-churro.
So I don't want to boast, I don't want to make you feel envious. That's the scourge of modern society, the social network posts depicting a fabulous life that is oftentimes untrue.
But for a couple of hours last night it wasn't.
So if you want to go you've got to network, find out how to get on the list. Damned if I know.
And you pay what you want, but if it's not significant...then you're just a schnorrer.
And I'd say the food was great.
But the people were even better.
P.S. Wolvesmouth has been going on for years, but only in this location for less. I suggest you start watching the linked video at 8:17 to get an idea: https://bit.ly/2Ed8Tzb
P.P.S. The proprietor, the chef, Craig Thornton, comes from nothing. Seems all of the artistic breakthroughs come from the financially-challenged. They've got few preconceptions and are not worried about failing, they're already at the bottom.
P.P.P.S. Craig wanders the room, you can talk to him, he's not kvelling, he's more internalized, but he's approachable. In the modern world that's what it's all about, being accessible.
P.P.P.P.S. Success is not necessarily reaching everybody and getting rich. You get to define your own success. And there's a reaction to the billionairedom of America, people who are establishing careers on their own terms, isn't it funny that they are the ones we are drawn to most.
Last night's menu: https://bit.ly/2FNCPSD
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I can regale you with stories of Elvis Costello at the Whisky, Oasis at the Roxy, back when you started small and grew, when music drove the culture and record companies signed you based on the music more than the commercial potential and slowly brought the audience to you. But today most of those clubs are dead. They were supported by the record companies, with comp tickets and tabs. Now you make it online and sometimes play arenas on your first tour. Furthermore, you're a star today and gone tomorrow and the oldsters persist. It's as if dinosaurs were still roaming the earth, along with human beings.
Jamie told us she could get us in. We'd been once before, for a birthday party. I was eager to go again, we said yes. Jake heard about our invitation and wanted to be included, so he and Robyn came too. To an abode with no signage for a meal with no price.
In other words, the experience was PRICELESS!
My parents were gourmets, they even had a club back in the sixties, where once a quarter they'd go to a friend's house and have a potluck from a different country. My dad was all about lifestyle. We didn't live in the best neighborhood, we didn't upgrade when he made it, we stayed in the same split-level, but when it came to food and entertainment, there was no limit.
Except for wine. My dad owned a liquor store. It killed him to overpay for wine in a restaurant, so he didn't. But if you wanted the lobster, you ordered it, but you had to finish. That's right, I grew up in one of those houses where we heard about starving children in Europe, Asia was never mentioned, we had to scrape our plates clean, I still do, it's a hard habit to break. As for throwing food out...I still can't do it, not unless it's smelly and nearly crawling with bugs. Especially with inflation, you can see five or ten bucks evaporating, I must eat it.
And when we traveled my dad always looked for the best restaurants.
And when I was in law school my girlfriend and I combed them all, the ones we couldn't afford we had my parents take us to. But that was a long time ago, before there were so many restaurants you could not eat at them all, before you couldn't get in unless you were connected.
That's the world we live in, you've got to know somebody. I was just watching "The Florida Project" and the motel resident has a connection for waffles at the breakfast place. If you know nobody, you cannot get ahead. We live in a nation of currency, and not all of it is cash.
That's one of the modern paradigms that overwhelms me, the plethora of choices. I like to be comprehensive, I like to know everything about a given field. But today that's impossible, I want to know everything about a subject so I can judge it expertly, but today very few are experts. Or they're experts in one field only.
So Wolvesmouth is a pop-up restaurant. I read about it in the "New Yorker" years before I went. It changed locations. You had to be in the know to go. And I didn't. Until two summers ago.
And here's where I'd like to tell you about the menus, tell the history of the place, but I don't think I can do it adequately. I've heard it in detail twice, but I haven't digested it. I like to ask multiple people the same questions over and over again to gain a feeling, to reach a conclusion. But what I've learned is there are different menus at Wolvesmouth, with a different number of courses.
Last night we had eight.
So, there are twenty people you don't know, other than the group you came with. And to tell you the truth, Felice and I were the oldest people there, by decades. You see it's a millennial thing, a young Gen-X'er thing. Where it's about experiences more than acquisitions. Where you'll blow high dough on an evanescent item that you'll remember, but cannot grasp.
And there was the gay couple from the eastside. And the young marrieds from the South Bay. And everyone brought their own beverages, which were ultimately shared, and in between courses, you conversed.
You can feel lonely and isolated in today's world. Think you know everything. And then you go somewhere and bump into new people and get excited. They're different, yet similar. It's stimulating. They've had the same experiences with a twist. The woman across the table spontaneously said she and her husband were in couples therapy. Is it that you're freer with strangers, I don't know, but I dig it.
So the first course was...
Oh, I'm not gonna delineate it, I'll post a pic of the menu to Twitter for you to check out. It's just that it had a short rib encased in a blood red sauce and potato-filled pasta which were akin to ravioli, and cabbage-beet horseradish and it was all topped with an onion ring.
And we dug in.
There's no bread and there's no waiting.
Usually, I fill up on the appetizers, but with food portioned out, this does not happen. Furthermore, they start right away, dinner was set for 6:30, we arrived fifteen minutes early, shortly after the appointed hour the first course arrived.
And I learned that Greg decided to get into the music business when he saw U2 at Dodger Stadium. The guy next to him was elbowing him but then when "One" was played he put his arm around Greg's shoulder.
Jake's dad loved the ponies, they followed him from Toronto to the track in Florida, where Jake went to two different schools in one year.
Jamie and Greg went on a cruise with her father and stepmother. She likes to soak up all the culture, Greg needs time off to rest, just like me and Felice!
And over food and wine you learn stuff about people you never knew, you become closer, I suggested we all go on a cruise together, but I doubt that will happen, enchanted moments engender promises that go unfulfilled.
I didn't shoot any pictures, of food anyway. I don't post on Facebook.
Furthermore, I'm not a forensic eater. I just enjoyed the taste, I'm not even sure I can remember what I ate, but I loved the mini-churro.
So I don't want to boast, I don't want to make you feel envious. That's the scourge of modern society, the social network posts depicting a fabulous life that is oftentimes untrue.
But for a couple of hours last night it wasn't.
So if you want to go you've got to network, find out how to get on the list. Damned if I know.
And you pay what you want, but if it's not significant...then you're just a schnorrer.
And I'd say the food was great.
But the people were even better.
P.S. Wolvesmouth has been going on for years, but only in this location for less. I suggest you start watching the linked video at 8:17 to get an idea: https://bit.ly/2Ed8Tzb
P.P.S. The proprietor, the chef, Craig Thornton, comes from nothing. Seems all of the artistic breakthroughs come from the financially-challenged. They've got few preconceptions and are not worried about failing, they're already at the bottom.
P.P.P.S. Craig wanders the room, you can talk to him, he's not kvelling, he's more internalized, but he's approachable. In the modern world that's what it's all about, being accessible.
P.P.P.P.S. Success is not necessarily reaching everybody and getting rich. You get to define your own success. And there's a reaction to the billionairedom of America, people who are establishing careers on their own terms, isn't it funny that they are the ones we are drawn to most.
Last night's menu: https://bit.ly/2FNCPSD
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