It was joyous!
The seventies get a bad rap. The era is seen as one of excess, as opposed to the progenitor era of the sixties, where the Beatles caused a revolution and the album became a statement and...
If you went to a gig in the sixties, the sound was often bad, frequently the bands couldn't play all that well, this is when they were still figuring it out. Long before Live Nation was an international presence, before consolidation, when it was all being developed. We lived through this in the internet era. Going from dialup to cable, from computers to smartphones, when gadgets were superseded not long after you brought them home. The technological wild west is in our rearview mirror.
But those were exciting times, before the stasis, before the hate, when the companies were our friends as opposed to enemies.
In the seventies, FM superseded AM. Suddenly radio was in stereo. And you needed a makeover of your auto's interior to extract the sound. This is after you purchased components for your apartment or dorm room. We talked about cartridges like we used to talk about chips. We wanted more power, saved up for JBL L100's. We just had to get closer to the sound, which was everything.
And the gigs were religious experiences. You could finally hear the music. And it was so popular stadium gigs were de rigueur. It's only forty years later that stadium shows have made a comeback.
And the winners were the second generation. Not the Beatles and the British Invasion acts, but acts like the Eagles, Yes, Peter Frampton...the list goes on and on. And if they're alive, they're still doing boffo at the b.o. That was the impact of their music. The eighties were all about flash, how you looked on MTV. In that era you could rocket to the moon, become world famous overnight, and then be a nobody soon thereafter.
And in the years that have passed, people have forgotten the magic of the seventies. With the audience all on one page, paying fealty to the music, going to the gig to revel in sounds that were known by not only fans, but seemingly everybody. We marinated in the music. And those who were around back then have never forgotten. Their demands keep these bands on the road.
But none of them have a hit single anymore. As a matter of fact, none of today's hits sound like anything from the seventies. And when Greta Van Fleet pays homage to Led Zeppelin, this is seen as an offense. But I'd say more new acts should look back to what once was, because then there was genius, a melding of act and listener that hasn't happened since. Sure, Fleetwood Mac was on the radio, but "Rumours" was a staple in the home. Played over and over again. To the point where you knew all the licks, to the point where you had to go to the show.
Where you sat down.
Not only were tickets cheap, all the money being in recordings, the music got respect. Food was a bad hot dog. There were no smartphones for selfies. Going was a religious experience, where you were locked as one in thrall to the act. When done right, no one talked, everybody was together but in their own dreamland, this was the peak of their lives, hearing live what they knew by heart.
It's not that way anymore.
But it was that way at the Ace last night.
Not that I expected it. I thought it would be an oldies show for the nearly dead. Instead it was an energetic performance that elated the act's hard core fans.
You see this wasn't a shed show. You know those gigs, where they book a slate of acts for a summer night, it's a value proposition, you go as much for the experience as the music.
But America goes out alone. So everybody there wants to see the band.
There was not a cut they did not know. There was a standing ovation after "Sandman." If you'd been flown in from outer space you'd think America was one of the most popular acts on the planet.
First and foremost, you did not need a libretto to understand the words. The music was not an assault, rather it wafted over you in waves, setting your mind free to recall those days back then, and the thread that takes you to today.
That's what happens when you sit, You don't have to jockey for position, you don't get tired, it's all about the sound and the experience. And the experience is all about the sound.
The band started off with "Tin Man." That's what you do if you have enough hits, you deliver right up top, to satiate the fans.
And America has a ton of hits. All of which they played. Sans attitude. It seemed that you could be up on stage with them, if you had any talent.
And the show wasn't on hard drive, and there was not a ton of support, so the sound was alive, it breathed, there was only a five piece, enough room for everybody's work to be heard. It was like sitting in front of the big rig back then, being able to pick out all the instruments, before the loudness wars and everything got compressed and air was anathema.
And this was an acoustic act, with support. So for most of the show, Gerry and Dewey strummed those big guitars. You were reminded when you used to play that guitar. In the seventies, after James Taylor, when you knew you were never going to make it, but you enjoyed learning and singing the songs.
But there was a guy who played his Les Paul with stinging leads. The melding of electric and acoustic is magic. And they played that song too, "You Can Do Magic."
And occasionally Gerry sat down at the keyboard. And occasionally he and Dewey strung on electric axes. But really, this show was based on an acoustic platform, with drums, bass and electric guitar holding down the bottom and adding spice.
And I was sitting in the audience thinking being on stage would be fun!
It doesn't usually look that way. The band is on a hundred gig slog. Just another date for cash. They're bored, they hate each other, there's a clear line of demarcation between on stage and off.
But we felt included last night. It was like the Ace was not even in Los Angeles, we had no idea what was happening outside its walls and we did not care.
The music is playing and my mind is drifting back to those days. Buying the first album, going to college, it was in 3-D, in color, in my brain. And I knew that everybody else was having the same experience, even if their memories were different.
And my favorite track on that first album was "Sandman." And for me and many others it was the height of the show. It was heavy and meaningful and dramatic...like our music back then, before everybody became self-conscious.
That's right, America can rock. But at no time was the show an assault. First and foremost it was music, whereas with so many people it's about the performance.
Now I bought that initial LP, I know all the hits. But I can't say I'm the biggest America fan.
But after last night, if you are a fan, or just want to hear these songs live, you need to go.
This is America's fiftieth anniversary. They had a slew of hits, but like their contemporaries, not recently. But sometimes accidental moves chart the course of your entire life, sometimes to your detriment. Have one hit and it's hard to go back to regular life, be a civilian.
And then there are other acts, with more success, who might be better off giving up, going to college, broadening their experience, having a second career.
And sometimes musicians come from the depths of the economic ladder, their success rises them above.
But America is made up of middle class members, their fathers were in the Air Force, on some level music was a lark.
But when you see the band live you see why they continue. Because it's fun, because it's an adventure, because of the connection with the audience, because of the music.
That's how it was in the seventies, not about how you looked...Gerry and Dewey came out in street clothes, not outfits...but music.
And as I sat there as the music washed over me and resonated, in my own private reverie, I said to myself THIS IS IT!
And I wanted more.
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Saturday 22 June 2019
Friday 21 June 2019
Lebanon
https://spoti.fi/2KtQVPH
Strasburg turned me on to this.
That's right, now promoters give you the tips. They see everything, they know what's reacting or not, whereas record company people hype you on their wares.
This is what Don said:
"You heard J.S. Ondara yet? Check track called Lebanon. There is hope"
So I did, Don's right, I've got to ask him how he found it.
I navigated to Spotify and pulled up "Lebanon" and I didn't get it at first, but then it changed and hit a groove and I found my body moving and I said to myself, this is GREAT! It sounds nothing like what's on the hit parade, it's the type of thing you listen to at home, or alone in the car, it just makes you feel good, and you might even get up and dance.
Remember "White Ladder"? David Gray flopped with three major label albums and then he cut just what he wanted independently and he became a star. It was in the grooves, the album took you to a space only music could take you, where no one else was taking you. "White Ladder" wouldn't die. It was part of the culture for two years.
Unfortunately, David Gray has never been able to equal it since, not even close, it's like he's inhibited by his success with "White Ladder." Kinda like Alanis after "Jagged Little Pill."
Then I played the J.S. Ondara cut with the most plays, entitled "American Dream." It's been streamed on Spotify 1,259,446 times. Which means some people have heard of J.S. Ondara, but most people have not.
But "American Dream" didn't resonate, so I clicked on the second most played track, "Saying Goodbye," with 803,356 streams. And it resonated just about as much as "Lebanon." Now I was excited, I had to play the whole LP, but on initial listen, only one other cut jumped out. So, maybe this isn't "White Ladder," which was solid throughout, or maybe I just haven't heard it enough. But the problem with the internet age is if it doesn't come out and grab you immediately, you ignore it, move on to something else.
Now maybe I'm making the "White Ladder" connection because of the similarity of the vocal. But still, it made me think of when adults mattered, when something didn't have to have beats or an overblown pop singer to make it, hell, J.S. Ondara is subtle.
So I Googled J.S. Ondara. He did have a Wikipedia page, which was a good sign. But then I clicked on the "News" tab and found the same story again and again, Ondara's story, how he came from Nairobi, but stories like this only matter after the music catches on. That's the hardest problem, getting people to listen, to check something out and spread the word if they like it.
I immediately wanted to spread the word.
But it's not 1999 anymore. Now there's a plethora of product and the world is laden with people who feel good by telling everybody else they're full of crap, that their taste sucks and they'd better shut up and crawl back into the hole they came from. And that makes it so you don't even want to play, what difference is it gonna make anyway, a sliver of the audience will like this music, everybody else will ignore it. You feel like Sisyphus.
But then you don't want to write about anything.
But the truth is "Lebanon" and "Saying Goodbye" are a cut above. The people who do care need to be made aware, these songs will make them happy.
So that's what I'm doing.
P.S. I always give a Spotify link, that's the dominant service, the most active one, yes, Apple may have more subscribers in the U.S., but they listen less, don't hassle me, that's a fact. But not everybody has Spotify, so I decided to look for a YouTube video. And I wanted the studio take, but what I found first was a live version. And I was stunned. The acoustic certainly sounded live, but the vocal, was it canned? No, this guy is that good, he sounds just as good as he does on record, and that's rare. And if you put J.S. Ondara on a TV competition show he'd lose. Because that's not what they're looking for, they want someone with an excellent voice who is malleable, who can sing everything. Ondara's voice is unique, not traditional. And he can sing his stuff with feeling, but somebody's else work? Ondara is what we're looking for, when you hear it you know it.
P.P.S. The official "Lebanon" video only has 86,718 streams on YouTube, as opposed to the 406,103 on Spotify. Turns out YouTube is only for the youngsters who won't pay, or for truly exceptional videos. True fans are ponying up for streaming services.
YouTube live: https://bit.ly/2x8G1WR
YouTube official: https://bit.ly/31GoHXg
Entire album: https://spoti.fi/2WWc9aT
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Strasburg turned me on to this.
That's right, now promoters give you the tips. They see everything, they know what's reacting or not, whereas record company people hype you on their wares.
This is what Don said:
"You heard J.S. Ondara yet? Check track called Lebanon. There is hope"
So I did, Don's right, I've got to ask him how he found it.
I navigated to Spotify and pulled up "Lebanon" and I didn't get it at first, but then it changed and hit a groove and I found my body moving and I said to myself, this is GREAT! It sounds nothing like what's on the hit parade, it's the type of thing you listen to at home, or alone in the car, it just makes you feel good, and you might even get up and dance.
Remember "White Ladder"? David Gray flopped with three major label albums and then he cut just what he wanted independently and he became a star. It was in the grooves, the album took you to a space only music could take you, where no one else was taking you. "White Ladder" wouldn't die. It was part of the culture for two years.
Unfortunately, David Gray has never been able to equal it since, not even close, it's like he's inhibited by his success with "White Ladder." Kinda like Alanis after "Jagged Little Pill."
Then I played the J.S. Ondara cut with the most plays, entitled "American Dream." It's been streamed on Spotify 1,259,446 times. Which means some people have heard of J.S. Ondara, but most people have not.
But "American Dream" didn't resonate, so I clicked on the second most played track, "Saying Goodbye," with 803,356 streams. And it resonated just about as much as "Lebanon." Now I was excited, I had to play the whole LP, but on initial listen, only one other cut jumped out. So, maybe this isn't "White Ladder," which was solid throughout, or maybe I just haven't heard it enough. But the problem with the internet age is if it doesn't come out and grab you immediately, you ignore it, move on to something else.
Now maybe I'm making the "White Ladder" connection because of the similarity of the vocal. But still, it made me think of when adults mattered, when something didn't have to have beats or an overblown pop singer to make it, hell, J.S. Ondara is subtle.
So I Googled J.S. Ondara. He did have a Wikipedia page, which was a good sign. But then I clicked on the "News" tab and found the same story again and again, Ondara's story, how he came from Nairobi, but stories like this only matter after the music catches on. That's the hardest problem, getting people to listen, to check something out and spread the word if they like it.
I immediately wanted to spread the word.
But it's not 1999 anymore. Now there's a plethora of product and the world is laden with people who feel good by telling everybody else they're full of crap, that their taste sucks and they'd better shut up and crawl back into the hole they came from. And that makes it so you don't even want to play, what difference is it gonna make anyway, a sliver of the audience will like this music, everybody else will ignore it. You feel like Sisyphus.
But then you don't want to write about anything.
But the truth is "Lebanon" and "Saying Goodbye" are a cut above. The people who do care need to be made aware, these songs will make them happy.
So that's what I'm doing.
P.S. I always give a Spotify link, that's the dominant service, the most active one, yes, Apple may have more subscribers in the U.S., but they listen less, don't hassle me, that's a fact. But not everybody has Spotify, so I decided to look for a YouTube video. And I wanted the studio take, but what I found first was a live version. And I was stunned. The acoustic certainly sounded live, but the vocal, was it canned? No, this guy is that good, he sounds just as good as he does on record, and that's rare. And if you put J.S. Ondara on a TV competition show he'd lose. Because that's not what they're looking for, they want someone with an excellent voice who is malleable, who can sing everything. Ondara's voice is unique, not traditional. And he can sing his stuff with feeling, but somebody's else work? Ondara is what we're looking for, when you hear it you know it.
P.P.S. The official "Lebanon" video only has 86,718 streams on YouTube, as opposed to the 406,103 on Spotify. Turns out YouTube is only for the youngsters who won't pay, or for truly exceptional videos. True fans are ponying up for streaming services.
YouTube live: https://bit.ly/2x8G1WR
YouTube official: https://bit.ly/31GoHXg
Entire album: https://spoti.fi/2WWc9aT
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Thursday 20 June 2019
Andy Somers-This Week's Podcast
And now the seller's view.
Andy Somers is an agent at APA, he works with acts as disparate as Social Distortion and Brian Wilson.
Hear what it's like to find your own way, becoming a manager and starving, going back to being an agent.
Andy's a good guy who's endured, and even better, he's a dedicated skier!
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/
https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=62047267
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ReV6UpyxM9oR53gvv5LcH
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/andy-somers/id1316200737?i=1000442148089
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Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Andy Somers is an agent at APA, he works with acts as disparate as Social Distortion and Brian Wilson.
Hear what it's like to find your own way, becoming a manager and starving, going back to being an agent.
Andy's a good guy who's endured, and even better, he's a dedicated skier!
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/
https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=62047267
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ReV6UpyxM9oR53gvv5LcH
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/andy-somers/id1316200737?i=1000442148089
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Emotions Trump Facts
This is what the elites don't understand. They keep trotting out facts and figures, as if they matter, but to the masses they don't, it's all about how they FEEL!
It's as simple as Trump calling Hillary a "nasty" woman. That confounded Democrats who were familiar with the lady and her education and experience. But to those who'd felt abused by globalization, the epithet resonated. They felt bad, it had to be somebody's fault.
That's why Biden is in trouble. All his support is intellectual. Trump sucks, we've got to beat him, let's do the math and nominate Joe. But without emotions, there's no passion, and you can't get massive support.
This is the essence of music. Good beat, good changes, terrible lyrics. IT DOESN'T MATTER! If it touches someone's core, that's all that's needed. It's got to resonate with someone's insides, not their brain. This is how Taylor Swift lost control of the narrative. At first she was a geeky outsider delivering her truth to the bullies, the hip kids. But once she became the cool kid, sans the life experiences of the peons, she did not know how to adjust. She turned up the diss to ten. Then she tried to cover it up with friendships. But it doesn't FEEL right to the audience anymore. They're not aligned with her, irrelevant of who works on the records, what they sound like.
People feel good about Drake, because he's not totally narcissistic. He put out his playlist "More Life" featuring other people's material.
Madonna has lost the plot completely. She doesn't see that she comes across as an aged star willing to do anything to stay relevant, with attitude to boot. She's the queen of narcissism. And it hurts her. Younger people don't care, it's only her old fans who still do, if they do.
And then there are hard rock bands like Aerosmith and the Stones. The tracks hit your groin first, it feels like sex and revolution and debauchery and that appeals to you in your straitlaced world, where you want a release.
Elizabeth Warren can't win on policies alone. She has to be seen as human.
This is the key to Howard Stern's success. Oh, he's got a high opinion of himself but he keeps putting himself down, about the size of his penis, his inability to do math, his anxiety in social situations, to the point where he appears an everyman.
Hell, your brand can be smart, we all love to admire and revel in the thoughts of intellectuals. This is how Elon Musk was anointed. Wow, look what he could do! But then he lost the plot and got into Twitter wars and we realized he was unstable, and no one wants to have faith in the unstable.
Even Ozzy... He's the king of poking fun at himself.
Or Letterman. That's why Fallon fails, we don't see the vulnerability, we just see someone striving to entertain us, with no edge, and we all abhor being sucked up to.
So, the facts can be clear but the people still won't believe them. Like on vaccines. The "New York Times" published an exhaustive article on Tuesday with facts, from research. Your odds of getting measles is way higher than having a reaction to immunization. But to some people, that doesn't FEEL right. Intellectuals who've been robbed of power by billionaires believe this is a way they can stand up to the man. They can go their own way, they can have their own beliefs. Hell, that "Times" story featured a pic of a kid with measles, with spots all over him. Circulate that photo. Hell, if you've ever been to a Body Worlds exhibition and seen the lungs of the person who smoked you will never inhale again. The facts may not reach you, but the vision of someone who's dead with decrepit lungs will turn your stomach.
I'm not saying facts are bad, just that you can't sway people on them alone.
What the right does so well is speak to people's emotions.
The left acts wounded and counters with facts and it does not work. But they keep doing the same thing over and over again.
It's kinda like impeachment. Pelosi and her pals look at polls, research, the facts say not to do it. But if they took action, they'd speak to people's emotions, get them excited, bond them to them. Right now they're just unwoke wonks. But, if they were to do this, to impeach, they'd have to have a plan to respond to the right's hate, to Trump's denunciations. But they keep relying on process and lose the narrative. Hell, everybody on the right thinks the President has been fully exonerated. And impeachment is not even specifically about Trump, it's about unchecked power of the executive branch. John Oliver delivered this message with humor and intensity. The Democrats just back away.
And this is why if you're not an aged superstar you're gonna get in trouble with slow ticketing, extracting as much money as you can. It makes you look greedy, people feel ripped-off. Sure, you're combating the scalpers, but they're the act's enemy, not the audience's. As a matter of fact, people love StubHub, they can get the tickets they want at the last minute. And they're willing to pay for them, the upcharge is seen as convenience for what you want. Who knows what you'll be doing a year later, when the tickets initially go on sale.
This is how rock lost, all the anti-internet wankers. Turns out those who were trading friendly won, like John Mayer. The audience doesn't want to hear you bitch, they were screwed under the old system.
And now rockers appeal to your head, not your heart. So many of these bands are making wimpy music with wimpy singers and those on the other end of the spectrum purvey lame riffs no better than those of the progenitors, in an era where the progenitors' music sits right alongside.
People's emotions are torn. They want comfort, but they know the future is always coming, and it will be new and different. Everything dies, and there's resistance to the future until there's an embrace of it. Play it safe at your peril. The bleeding edge always wins. Maybe not right away, but eventually. Sure, you can be too soon. But right now everything's up for grabs, we're looking for leaders, in art, commerce and politics. Now is the time for the new. Which is how Trump won. Which is why you've got to be scared of the DNC and its media partners, they just want to preserve their power, they're out of touch with the emotions of the public.
People feel abused, ripped-off. Anti-Trump is not enough, you've got to speak to how people feel, you've got to make them believe things will get better. That's what swept Obama into office, hope. Where is the hope today?
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It's as simple as Trump calling Hillary a "nasty" woman. That confounded Democrats who were familiar with the lady and her education and experience. But to those who'd felt abused by globalization, the epithet resonated. They felt bad, it had to be somebody's fault.
That's why Biden is in trouble. All his support is intellectual. Trump sucks, we've got to beat him, let's do the math and nominate Joe. But without emotions, there's no passion, and you can't get massive support.
This is the essence of music. Good beat, good changes, terrible lyrics. IT DOESN'T MATTER! If it touches someone's core, that's all that's needed. It's got to resonate with someone's insides, not their brain. This is how Taylor Swift lost control of the narrative. At first she was a geeky outsider delivering her truth to the bullies, the hip kids. But once she became the cool kid, sans the life experiences of the peons, she did not know how to adjust. She turned up the diss to ten. Then she tried to cover it up with friendships. But it doesn't FEEL right to the audience anymore. They're not aligned with her, irrelevant of who works on the records, what they sound like.
People feel good about Drake, because he's not totally narcissistic. He put out his playlist "More Life" featuring other people's material.
Madonna has lost the plot completely. She doesn't see that she comes across as an aged star willing to do anything to stay relevant, with attitude to boot. She's the queen of narcissism. And it hurts her. Younger people don't care, it's only her old fans who still do, if they do.
And then there are hard rock bands like Aerosmith and the Stones. The tracks hit your groin first, it feels like sex and revolution and debauchery and that appeals to you in your straitlaced world, where you want a release.
Elizabeth Warren can't win on policies alone. She has to be seen as human.
This is the key to Howard Stern's success. Oh, he's got a high opinion of himself but he keeps putting himself down, about the size of his penis, his inability to do math, his anxiety in social situations, to the point where he appears an everyman.
Hell, your brand can be smart, we all love to admire and revel in the thoughts of intellectuals. This is how Elon Musk was anointed. Wow, look what he could do! But then he lost the plot and got into Twitter wars and we realized he was unstable, and no one wants to have faith in the unstable.
Even Ozzy... He's the king of poking fun at himself.
Or Letterman. That's why Fallon fails, we don't see the vulnerability, we just see someone striving to entertain us, with no edge, and we all abhor being sucked up to.
So, the facts can be clear but the people still won't believe them. Like on vaccines. The "New York Times" published an exhaustive article on Tuesday with facts, from research. Your odds of getting measles is way higher than having a reaction to immunization. But to some people, that doesn't FEEL right. Intellectuals who've been robbed of power by billionaires believe this is a way they can stand up to the man. They can go their own way, they can have their own beliefs. Hell, that "Times" story featured a pic of a kid with measles, with spots all over him. Circulate that photo. Hell, if you've ever been to a Body Worlds exhibition and seen the lungs of the person who smoked you will never inhale again. The facts may not reach you, but the vision of someone who's dead with decrepit lungs will turn your stomach.
I'm not saying facts are bad, just that you can't sway people on them alone.
What the right does so well is speak to people's emotions.
The left acts wounded and counters with facts and it does not work. But they keep doing the same thing over and over again.
It's kinda like impeachment. Pelosi and her pals look at polls, research, the facts say not to do it. But if they took action, they'd speak to people's emotions, get them excited, bond them to them. Right now they're just unwoke wonks. But, if they were to do this, to impeach, they'd have to have a plan to respond to the right's hate, to Trump's denunciations. But they keep relying on process and lose the narrative. Hell, everybody on the right thinks the President has been fully exonerated. And impeachment is not even specifically about Trump, it's about unchecked power of the executive branch. John Oliver delivered this message with humor and intensity. The Democrats just back away.
And this is why if you're not an aged superstar you're gonna get in trouble with slow ticketing, extracting as much money as you can. It makes you look greedy, people feel ripped-off. Sure, you're combating the scalpers, but they're the act's enemy, not the audience's. As a matter of fact, people love StubHub, they can get the tickets they want at the last minute. And they're willing to pay for them, the upcharge is seen as convenience for what you want. Who knows what you'll be doing a year later, when the tickets initially go on sale.
This is how rock lost, all the anti-internet wankers. Turns out those who were trading friendly won, like John Mayer. The audience doesn't want to hear you bitch, they were screwed under the old system.
And now rockers appeal to your head, not your heart. So many of these bands are making wimpy music with wimpy singers and those on the other end of the spectrum purvey lame riffs no better than those of the progenitors, in an era where the progenitors' music sits right alongside.
People's emotions are torn. They want comfort, but they know the future is always coming, and it will be new and different. Everything dies, and there's resistance to the future until there's an embrace of it. Play it safe at your peril. The bleeding edge always wins. Maybe not right away, but eventually. Sure, you can be too soon. But right now everything's up for grabs, we're looking for leaders, in art, commerce and politics. Now is the time for the new. Which is how Trump won. Which is why you've got to be scared of the DNC and its media partners, they just want to preserve their power, they're out of touch with the emotions of the public.
People feel abused, ripped-off. Anti-Trump is not enough, you've got to speak to how people feel, you've got to make them believe things will get better. That's what swept Obama into office, hope. Where is the hope today?
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Wednesday 19 June 2019
4+20
They've been trying to get Andy Zax on the podcast.
Zax is the archivist responsible for Woodstock complete, the 38 CD set coming out this summer.
I wasn't sure. I don't know the guy, hadn't heard of him previously, so I asked for more information, on him and the project.
After a bunch of e-mails, today they sent me the recordings...HOLY SHIT!
Took about 11 minutes to download. I used the time to empty my closet, clean the dishes, pay a bill, and I was coming back to the iMac to finish the e-mail and shut it down. Tomorrow I'm working on my MacBook Pro. And I find if I don't turn the computer off, I'm on it all night, searching for nuggets.
So, I'm getting the e-mail aligned, I use POP, not IMAP, because I get too damn much to use IMAP. That's right, I keep EVERYTHING. As long as it's addressed directly to me. So I can look up the pricks who keep sending hate mail. Yup, someone's excoriating me so I go back into the archives, fifteen years, and almost always I find this person has been a prick from day one. Like the right wingers. Whenever I say anything positive about Democrats, or negative, even mildly, about Trump, I know I'll hear from the exact same people, they're working the refs. But only since I write so much do I know they're on a campaign and I should ignore them. They're one note Johnnies. Some are rich, and some are so poor, tenuously making ends meet, that I can't understand how they've bought the B.S. I mean if you're rich and a Republican I can understand, but if you're poor? You want the rich to continue to rule and have the safety net eviscerated? Then again, this has been well-documented, people voting against their interests. But most people opining are not on the front lines, they're faceless, they don't get blowback on a regular basis.
So, having finished the e-mail, I decided to sample the Woodstock box. As I said, I have a hard time getting off the computer.
And I'm wondering what to pick, and then I decide to make it Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, since they're noted for being unable to duplicate the studio sound, the harmonies are always off. So I drop the needle/click on "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and... I'M ASTOUNDED!
Now I've got a first rate speaker system hooked up to my iMac, a Genelec three-way. But I hadn't noticed they'd sent me AIFF files. It was like I was going through a time warp, right back to '69, with a direct line to the Woodstock stage.
Now my understanding is these are the raw tapes, not overdubbed. Hell, the version of "Sea of Madness" on the original three disc set is actually from the Fillmore East! But I truly know the tapes weren't fixed because...
Stephen Stills's voice was intact. Crosby sounds like an angel. Stills sounds like an angel with broken wings. There's the sweetness and the roughness. He's got emotional miles on his voice, at least he did before he had literal miles on it. And that's why he was the star. He wrote, played and sang...
"It's getting to the point
Where I'm no fun anymore"
We all knew these lyrics. The initial Crosby, Stills & Nash album had come out in the spring of '69, but it took a while to percolate in the marketplace, when they played Woodstock they were not yet superstars. But by the spring of '70, if you were hip at all, you knew the track, knew it was about Judy Collins, played it on the guitar if you were talented, but we all sang along...ALL THE TIME! "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" was never a single, but it was bigger than any single in the marketplace today. Forget Drake, Beyonce and Swift. CSN was embedded in the culture, and music was embedded in the populace, the whole world ran on music, that's what Woodstock was about, a celebration of this fact, when 400,000 people showed up the straight media, the disbelievers, were hipped, that music was the primary driver of a generation.
Now when you're listening to CD quality on an almost $2,000 system you can hear EVERYTHING! Like I said, it's like it's happening right now, not 50 years ago. The guitar is not processed, it's not fixed in the studio, it sounds like you do in your bedroom, picking away. And you can hear each individual voice when they're singing, you tingle...THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT JONI MITCHELL HEARD IN HER HOUSE!
How could this be fifty years ago?
That's another thing, our music was not temporary, but for all time. We're not re-evaluating CSN today, we're as addicted as ever, which is why all those old acts can tour to throngs at high prices.
So halfway through, I look at the set list, the Mac window, to see what else is included. And I see "4+20." Yes, Stephen Stills wrote it when he was 24 years old.
Now the first year I lived in Utah, my housemate in Sandy used to sit in front of the stereo and play this track and contemplate his own life, he'd just turned 24.
It was way different back then. You graduated from college and you didn't look for a job, YOU LOOKED FOR YOURSELF! You didn't know where you were going, you had an inkling, but you wanted to get high and go on road trips and listen to music while you were figuring it out. No one was a billionaire, you were not falling behind by not selling out. Furthermore, you could live on minimum wage. Less than two bucks an hour. I know, BECAUSE I DID IT!
But "4+20" didn't resonate for me in Utah. Oh, I always liked it, but it wasn't until I was completely lost in the nineties and the CSN box set was released that it truly resonated.
"Four and twenty years ago I come into this life
The son of a woman and a man who lived in strife
He was tired of being poor
And he wasn't into selling door to door
And he worked like the devil to be more"
It wasn't much different for all of us. Our parents were not our best friends, they didn't always know what was going on with us, but they knew they had to provide. My father was poor, had nothing. Started out as an engineer but only did that for one year, he was not a company man, he opened a liquor store. He was on a long journey to be more.
"A different kind of poverty now upsets me so
Night after sleepless night I walk the floor
And I want to know, why am I so alone
Where is my woman, can I bring her home
Have I driven her away, is she gone"
Money doesn't solve all your problems. You think it will, and there's nothing worse than being unable to pay the bills, it messes with your head, you're always on guard, but once cash is not your number one priority and you can survey the world, your life, you wonder if you're getting it right. And what you want most, is love, sex, companionship. It's so hard to make it, you're one-minded, working around the clock, all hit and run, but once you've got traction you want to delve deeply into all that you left on the back burner.
"Morning comes the sunrise and I'm driven to my bed"
Today everybody brags how early they wake up, that's the badge of honor. If you're not waking up before six, four-thirty, you're laughed at. But that's not the way it used to be. Almost everything good, everything cerebral, happens when after dark. Musicians are famously night owls, hell, it takes time to come down from the gig, but... It's those conversations after, the jamming, that makes the road and studio life worth it. You're bonding. It's just like going to college, but you've got no tests, no restrictions.
"I see that it is empty and there's devils in my head"
Loneliness. You can live with someone and bitch, but there's a floor, a base as to how low your feelings can go, but if you're alone, your mind can go into free-fall.
"I grow weary of the torment, can there be no peace
And I catch myself just wishing that my life would simply cease"
It's so different today. Today it's all about braggadocio. My life is FABULOUS, I'm better than you! And then there are the diss tracks. No one's owning their inner feelings. Listeners feel inadequate, or just slough off the mindless crap, knowing it's just background music.
Then again, CSN&Y weren't just born yesterday. David and Graham had been in bands with a slew of hits, they'd ridden the merry-go-round, they'd paid their dues. And Stephen and Neil... Buffalo Springfield was seen as one of the most credible bands extant, and Stephen wrote an anthem, one that still gets traction today, "For What It's Worth." Then again, that song was about the youth standing up to the man. Today, the policeman is not the Fuzz or a Pig, but your supposed friend, your protector, and the only thing the youth will come out in droves for is jobs, or festivals, where the truth is they are the stars. Coachella survives, the acts don't. And we keep on hearing about how much money everybody makes. If you're into music for the money...hell, there are much easier ways to make money. And why is everybody creating clothing and perfumes and... Back then you could leave money on the table, no one does today.
Now "4+20" wasn't even out. It was on "Deja Vu," which was released in March of 1970.
But you don't have to know great acoustic music to get it.
So Graham introduces the track, and Stephen starts to pick, all by his lonesome, he's got the talent, he's got the chops. And he starts to sing.
You had to have it all or odds were you weren't gonna make it. You had to be able to write, play and sing, the Beatles set the template, and everybody followed them. All the action was on FM, not AM. These acts were giants!
And the funny thing is if you lived through that era and you listen to these cuts you're truly brought back to yesteryear, because they live and breathe, you're bought back to when you saved your money to buy records, when concerts were a tribal rite, when you fell asleep to the radio.
It was a long time comin', and unfortunately it's been a long time gone.
First came corporate rock. Then MTV, where it was about how you looked as opposed to how you could play. And now it's everybody for themselves, with no filter, everybody's yelling for attention.
It didn't used to be that way.
Now we have these artifacts, these tapes, which is why the Universal fire was such a big deal.
But the people making this music are not going to live forever. And when they're gone, they're gonna be missed, their reputations will grow...hell, to the point there are hologram tours.
But there's nothing like the real thing.
These Woodstock tracks are the real thing.
P.S. I'm now listening to "Helplessly Hoping." Whew, it's almost better than the original, it's got this intense humanity...IT'S MAGIC!
Zax is the archivist responsible for Woodstock complete, the 38 CD set coming out this summer.
I wasn't sure. I don't know the guy, hadn't heard of him previously, so I asked for more information, on him and the project.
After a bunch of e-mails, today they sent me the recordings...HOLY SHIT!
Took about 11 minutes to download. I used the time to empty my closet, clean the dishes, pay a bill, and I was coming back to the iMac to finish the e-mail and shut it down. Tomorrow I'm working on my MacBook Pro. And I find if I don't turn the computer off, I'm on it all night, searching for nuggets.
So, I'm getting the e-mail aligned, I use POP, not IMAP, because I get too damn much to use IMAP. That's right, I keep EVERYTHING. As long as it's addressed directly to me. So I can look up the pricks who keep sending hate mail. Yup, someone's excoriating me so I go back into the archives, fifteen years, and almost always I find this person has been a prick from day one. Like the right wingers. Whenever I say anything positive about Democrats, or negative, even mildly, about Trump, I know I'll hear from the exact same people, they're working the refs. But only since I write so much do I know they're on a campaign and I should ignore them. They're one note Johnnies. Some are rich, and some are so poor, tenuously making ends meet, that I can't understand how they've bought the B.S. I mean if you're rich and a Republican I can understand, but if you're poor? You want the rich to continue to rule and have the safety net eviscerated? Then again, this has been well-documented, people voting against their interests. But most people opining are not on the front lines, they're faceless, they don't get blowback on a regular basis.
So, having finished the e-mail, I decided to sample the Woodstock box. As I said, I have a hard time getting off the computer.
And I'm wondering what to pick, and then I decide to make it Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, since they're noted for being unable to duplicate the studio sound, the harmonies are always off. So I drop the needle/click on "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and... I'M ASTOUNDED!
Now I've got a first rate speaker system hooked up to my iMac, a Genelec three-way. But I hadn't noticed they'd sent me AIFF files. It was like I was going through a time warp, right back to '69, with a direct line to the Woodstock stage.
Now my understanding is these are the raw tapes, not overdubbed. Hell, the version of "Sea of Madness" on the original three disc set is actually from the Fillmore East! But I truly know the tapes weren't fixed because...
Stephen Stills's voice was intact. Crosby sounds like an angel. Stills sounds like an angel with broken wings. There's the sweetness and the roughness. He's got emotional miles on his voice, at least he did before he had literal miles on it. And that's why he was the star. He wrote, played and sang...
"It's getting to the point
Where I'm no fun anymore"
We all knew these lyrics. The initial Crosby, Stills & Nash album had come out in the spring of '69, but it took a while to percolate in the marketplace, when they played Woodstock they were not yet superstars. But by the spring of '70, if you were hip at all, you knew the track, knew it was about Judy Collins, played it on the guitar if you were talented, but we all sang along...ALL THE TIME! "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" was never a single, but it was bigger than any single in the marketplace today. Forget Drake, Beyonce and Swift. CSN was embedded in the culture, and music was embedded in the populace, the whole world ran on music, that's what Woodstock was about, a celebration of this fact, when 400,000 people showed up the straight media, the disbelievers, were hipped, that music was the primary driver of a generation.
Now when you're listening to CD quality on an almost $2,000 system you can hear EVERYTHING! Like I said, it's like it's happening right now, not 50 years ago. The guitar is not processed, it's not fixed in the studio, it sounds like you do in your bedroom, picking away. And you can hear each individual voice when they're singing, you tingle...THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT JONI MITCHELL HEARD IN HER HOUSE!
How could this be fifty years ago?
That's another thing, our music was not temporary, but for all time. We're not re-evaluating CSN today, we're as addicted as ever, which is why all those old acts can tour to throngs at high prices.
So halfway through, I look at the set list, the Mac window, to see what else is included. And I see "4+20." Yes, Stephen Stills wrote it when he was 24 years old.
Now the first year I lived in Utah, my housemate in Sandy used to sit in front of the stereo and play this track and contemplate his own life, he'd just turned 24.
It was way different back then. You graduated from college and you didn't look for a job, YOU LOOKED FOR YOURSELF! You didn't know where you were going, you had an inkling, but you wanted to get high and go on road trips and listen to music while you were figuring it out. No one was a billionaire, you were not falling behind by not selling out. Furthermore, you could live on minimum wage. Less than two bucks an hour. I know, BECAUSE I DID IT!
But "4+20" didn't resonate for me in Utah. Oh, I always liked it, but it wasn't until I was completely lost in the nineties and the CSN box set was released that it truly resonated.
"Four and twenty years ago I come into this life
The son of a woman and a man who lived in strife
He was tired of being poor
And he wasn't into selling door to door
And he worked like the devil to be more"
It wasn't much different for all of us. Our parents were not our best friends, they didn't always know what was going on with us, but they knew they had to provide. My father was poor, had nothing. Started out as an engineer but only did that for one year, he was not a company man, he opened a liquor store. He was on a long journey to be more.
"A different kind of poverty now upsets me so
Night after sleepless night I walk the floor
And I want to know, why am I so alone
Where is my woman, can I bring her home
Have I driven her away, is she gone"
Money doesn't solve all your problems. You think it will, and there's nothing worse than being unable to pay the bills, it messes with your head, you're always on guard, but once cash is not your number one priority and you can survey the world, your life, you wonder if you're getting it right. And what you want most, is love, sex, companionship. It's so hard to make it, you're one-minded, working around the clock, all hit and run, but once you've got traction you want to delve deeply into all that you left on the back burner.
"Morning comes the sunrise and I'm driven to my bed"
Today everybody brags how early they wake up, that's the badge of honor. If you're not waking up before six, four-thirty, you're laughed at. But that's not the way it used to be. Almost everything good, everything cerebral, happens when after dark. Musicians are famously night owls, hell, it takes time to come down from the gig, but... It's those conversations after, the jamming, that makes the road and studio life worth it. You're bonding. It's just like going to college, but you've got no tests, no restrictions.
"I see that it is empty and there's devils in my head"
Loneliness. You can live with someone and bitch, but there's a floor, a base as to how low your feelings can go, but if you're alone, your mind can go into free-fall.
"I grow weary of the torment, can there be no peace
And I catch myself just wishing that my life would simply cease"
It's so different today. Today it's all about braggadocio. My life is FABULOUS, I'm better than you! And then there are the diss tracks. No one's owning their inner feelings. Listeners feel inadequate, or just slough off the mindless crap, knowing it's just background music.
Then again, CSN&Y weren't just born yesterday. David and Graham had been in bands with a slew of hits, they'd ridden the merry-go-round, they'd paid their dues. And Stephen and Neil... Buffalo Springfield was seen as one of the most credible bands extant, and Stephen wrote an anthem, one that still gets traction today, "For What It's Worth." Then again, that song was about the youth standing up to the man. Today, the policeman is not the Fuzz or a Pig, but your supposed friend, your protector, and the only thing the youth will come out in droves for is jobs, or festivals, where the truth is they are the stars. Coachella survives, the acts don't. And we keep on hearing about how much money everybody makes. If you're into music for the money...hell, there are much easier ways to make money. And why is everybody creating clothing and perfumes and... Back then you could leave money on the table, no one does today.
Now "4+20" wasn't even out. It was on "Deja Vu," which was released in March of 1970.
But you don't have to know great acoustic music to get it.
So Graham introduces the track, and Stephen starts to pick, all by his lonesome, he's got the talent, he's got the chops. And he starts to sing.
You had to have it all or odds were you weren't gonna make it. You had to be able to write, play and sing, the Beatles set the template, and everybody followed them. All the action was on FM, not AM. These acts were giants!
And the funny thing is if you lived through that era and you listen to these cuts you're truly brought back to yesteryear, because they live and breathe, you're bought back to when you saved your money to buy records, when concerts were a tribal rite, when you fell asleep to the radio.
It was a long time comin', and unfortunately it's been a long time gone.
First came corporate rock. Then MTV, where it was about how you looked as opposed to how you could play. And now it's everybody for themselves, with no filter, everybody's yelling for attention.
It didn't used to be that way.
Now we have these artifacts, these tapes, which is why the Universal fire was such a big deal.
But the people making this music are not going to live forever. And when they're gone, they're gonna be missed, their reputations will grow...hell, to the point there are hologram tours.
But there's nothing like the real thing.
These Woodstock tracks are the real thing.
P.S. I'm now listening to "Helplessly Hoping." Whew, it's almost better than the original, it's got this intense humanity...IT'S MAGIC!
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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Tuesday 18 June 2019
Do's and Don'ts
Don't feel bad that you don't know what's going on, today no one knows what is going on.
Do ignore the trolls, what they're looking for is a reaction, and once you give it to them they're not only satisfied, they're encouraged and double-down.
Don't assume you've got all the facts. Chances are your news sources are biased. Or shaded.
Don't believe all the facts. Despite the internet being built on 0's and 1's, it's easier than ever to employ subterfuge, since there's no common police, or referee.
Don't follow leaders and watch the parking meters. This is the era of the individual. Go your own way.
Don't assume anyone is that big and influential. We live in a decentralized world with little commonality.
Do check Twitter once a day. The app is vastly improved. Click on the tabs at the top, "For You," "Trending," "News," "Sports," "Fun" and "Entertainment." It won't take you long and you'll get a snapshot of what is going on. The point is you no longer have to follow anybody to get the benefits of Twitter, which is the true town square. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat...they're one to one, Twitter is now many to one. Sure, it's built on one to one, but you don't have to play it that way.
Do think twice about buying an expensive gasoline car. Its value will decline precipitously over time. Better to lease. Or to jump into the electric game.
Don't think you can become famous without a unique, definable talent.
Do watch English dramas on Netflix. They're more rewarding than the American dreck.
Do know that cable news is all about talking heads bloviating, they do almost no reporting.
Do know that reporting is done by newspapers, and when it's national and international the biggest players are "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post." "The Wall Street Journal" is good for business news, but its national and international news is second-rate. The "Times" and "Post," set the agenda for the whole country, they're what both the left and the right react to, whether they agree or not.
Do know a tree can fall in plain sight and no one hears it.
Do know it's all about software, not hardware these days.
Do know that software can be confusing, but a lot of it can be conquered and understood if you just put in the time. Youngsters know this, oldsters don't. And if there is a manual, it's always a good thing to read it, to extract power if nothing else.
Do know that football outside of America does not mean the NFL, and that basketball and soccer are the international sports.
Do know that everybody needs something to live for, and if you can provide it, you can be rich. Sure, people need products, but what I'm talking about here is ideas.
Don't bother hating Apple or Microsoft...that war is over.
Do know that #1 is oftentimes not really #1. The "Billboard" #1 is based on streaming, sales and radio, in weights that don't make sense. But more than ever, it's not about the current or mainstream, it's hard to quantify the success and mindshare of acts that are not on that chart.
Do know the game is rigged against you, but in many situations you can beat the game.
Do not bother going to the movies to catch up. We live in a Tower of Babel society where there's almost no commonality. If you want to go to the theatre, cool. But know that everything hits the flat screen soon. What the purveyors don't understand is that their platforming is working against them, they're losing the hype factor, the word of mouth, because everybody is beginning at a different starting line.
Do know unless you learn a trade you've got to go to college. And in college what you learn outside the classroom is more important than what you learn inside. Although you need a degree to get a job, don't believe that the courses you take in college are preparation for your future, unless you take computer science or accounting or are on a couple of other tracks. You've got no idea what you want to do at eighteen or twenty, and the truth is you'll get kicked around and wake up and end up doing something different anyway. So you want a foundation for the future. You're better off taking an art class than a business class. This is contrary to what the anti-elites and the super-elites want you to believe. The antis because they feel left out and must criticize, and the supers because they think their path is the only one. But neither one of them is correct. It's your life and your life only, better to do what you want to do than be unhappy.
Do know that its harder than ever to make ends meet. But if you're not willing to sacrifice, you're not going to achieve success going down the path less traveled. There are no guarantees in art, no matter how many degrees you've got, no matter where you went to school.
Don't bother going on late night TV to spread the word, despite all the press, few people are watching, and their odds of being motivated are very low. Better off being on Howard Stern, he's got a large audience that is motivated, he can move the needle.
Don't bother accumulating assets, it's about experiences. No one wants to hear about your car, unless it's a Tesla, they want to hear about where you ate, what you saw and where you traveled.
Do read fiction, you'll learn more about life than reading non-fiction.
Do know your parents were not always right, and by adhering to their precepts as opposed to questioning them the only victim is you. The older you get, the more you respect others' way of doing things.
Don't be late.
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Do ignore the trolls, what they're looking for is a reaction, and once you give it to them they're not only satisfied, they're encouraged and double-down.
Don't assume you've got all the facts. Chances are your news sources are biased. Or shaded.
Don't believe all the facts. Despite the internet being built on 0's and 1's, it's easier than ever to employ subterfuge, since there's no common police, or referee.
Don't follow leaders and watch the parking meters. This is the era of the individual. Go your own way.
Don't assume anyone is that big and influential. We live in a decentralized world with little commonality.
Do check Twitter once a day. The app is vastly improved. Click on the tabs at the top, "For You," "Trending," "News," "Sports," "Fun" and "Entertainment." It won't take you long and you'll get a snapshot of what is going on. The point is you no longer have to follow anybody to get the benefits of Twitter, which is the true town square. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat...they're one to one, Twitter is now many to one. Sure, it's built on one to one, but you don't have to play it that way.
Do think twice about buying an expensive gasoline car. Its value will decline precipitously over time. Better to lease. Or to jump into the electric game.
Don't think you can become famous without a unique, definable talent.
Do watch English dramas on Netflix. They're more rewarding than the American dreck.
Do know that cable news is all about talking heads bloviating, they do almost no reporting.
Do know that reporting is done by newspapers, and when it's national and international the biggest players are "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post." "The Wall Street Journal" is good for business news, but its national and international news is second-rate. The "Times" and "Post," set the agenda for the whole country, they're what both the left and the right react to, whether they agree or not.
Do know a tree can fall in plain sight and no one hears it.
Do know it's all about software, not hardware these days.
Do know that software can be confusing, but a lot of it can be conquered and understood if you just put in the time. Youngsters know this, oldsters don't. And if there is a manual, it's always a good thing to read it, to extract power if nothing else.
Do know that football outside of America does not mean the NFL, and that basketball and soccer are the international sports.
Do know that everybody needs something to live for, and if you can provide it, you can be rich. Sure, people need products, but what I'm talking about here is ideas.
Don't bother hating Apple or Microsoft...that war is over.
Do know that #1 is oftentimes not really #1. The "Billboard" #1 is based on streaming, sales and radio, in weights that don't make sense. But more than ever, it's not about the current or mainstream, it's hard to quantify the success and mindshare of acts that are not on that chart.
Do know the game is rigged against you, but in many situations you can beat the game.
Do not bother going to the movies to catch up. We live in a Tower of Babel society where there's almost no commonality. If you want to go to the theatre, cool. But know that everything hits the flat screen soon. What the purveyors don't understand is that their platforming is working against them, they're losing the hype factor, the word of mouth, because everybody is beginning at a different starting line.
Do know unless you learn a trade you've got to go to college. And in college what you learn outside the classroom is more important than what you learn inside. Although you need a degree to get a job, don't believe that the courses you take in college are preparation for your future, unless you take computer science or accounting or are on a couple of other tracks. You've got no idea what you want to do at eighteen or twenty, and the truth is you'll get kicked around and wake up and end up doing something different anyway. So you want a foundation for the future. You're better off taking an art class than a business class. This is contrary to what the anti-elites and the super-elites want you to believe. The antis because they feel left out and must criticize, and the supers because they think their path is the only one. But neither one of them is correct. It's your life and your life only, better to do what you want to do than be unhappy.
Do know that its harder than ever to make ends meet. But if you're not willing to sacrifice, you're not going to achieve success going down the path less traveled. There are no guarantees in art, no matter how many degrees you've got, no matter where you went to school.
Don't bother going on late night TV to spread the word, despite all the press, few people are watching, and their odds of being motivated are very low. Better off being on Howard Stern, he's got a large audience that is motivated, he can move the needle.
Don't bother accumulating assets, it's about experiences. No one wants to hear about your car, unless it's a Tesla, they want to hear about where you ate, what you saw and where you traveled.
Do read fiction, you'll learn more about life than reading non-fiction.
Do know your parents were not always right, and by adhering to their precepts as opposed to questioning them the only victim is you. The older you get, the more you respect others' way of doing things.
Don't be late.
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Monday 17 June 2019
Worst Career Move-SiriusXM This Week
Bill Squier's pink video?
Peter Frampton's "I'm In You"?
David Lee Roth leaving Van Halen?
Or...
"Lefsetz Live," Tuesday June 18th, on Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.
Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863
Twitter: @lefsetz
Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive
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Peter Frampton's "I'm In You"?
David Lee Roth leaving Van Halen?
Or...
"Lefsetz Live," Tuesday June 18th, on Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.
Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863
Twitter: @lefsetz
Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive
--
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--
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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Warren's Ascension
The mainstream media is always last.
No, wait a minute, even if you hate Elizabeth Warren you've got to hear what I say. Because it applies to you. The issue is how do you get famous and have your ideas heard in America today.
You've got to do the work and you must be selling substance.
Elizabeth Warren is on the road. Most of the audiences are relatively small. There's not a ton of press coverage of each event. She's just like a crack band bubbling under, that is not understood by the mainstream, is seen as an also-ran and then...THEY BLOW UP! Can you say Bruce Springsteen? His first LP was an anomaly, not representative of his sound, the band was there, but deep in the background, "Greetings From Asbury Park" was more New Dylan than the Springsteen we all now know. But the sound was there for everybody to hear on "The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle." But now Springsteen was no longer the new thing. And the mix on the LP was a bit muted, it lacked edge. So the album didn't sell and Bruce went on the road convincing consumers one by one. If you saw him, you talked about him. Until that famous moment when Jon Landau said he'd seen the future of rock and roll and the tide turned. The Landau article was in Boston's "Real Paper," the paper of record amongst the youth, devoured by everybody, Landau's review wasn't first, but it was the most important.
Same deal with Elizabeth Warren. She's been around for years. Mostly in the background until the right started attacking her. And before you get your knickers in a twist you righties, know that she wanted to protect the populace, the rank and file, from the corporations. You can't be against that unless you're sucking at the tit of the corporation yourself, making seven figures, and that's a very small number of people. You're getting screwed and don't even realize it. Those insane interest rates on your credit cards? Warren wanted to stop them.
But Warren was depicted as a schoolmarm and no one on the left ran to her side, to defend her, because they don't want to get caught up in any war that doesn't benefit them directly, they don't want the potential stink upon them.
So Warren went her own way and ran for Senate and won.
This is the act that refuses to do what the A&R person says to. Who won't cowrite, who won't work with the producer du jour, who has a sound he or she wants to get down and doesn't want any interference. But can you go on your own, do it your way, prove it yourself? We hear about the winners, but not the losers. The truth is most people are scared to do it by themselves, they're convinced they won't succeed, they tell themselves they need money, it's undoable. But even today, if you've got the goods and you play live, or release an undeniable hit like Lorde, you can make it.
And then Warren got into the Senate and spoke English. Nobody speaks English in D.C., it doesn't behoove you. You obfuscate, keep the lobbyists close, it's all about raising money for your reelection campaign. Screw the people you're representing, you give them lip service, but your true constituency is the corporations. And when someone comes along and blows the whistle on that, says she's for the people, you blanch.
It comes down to big media too. You can't make a ton of bucks writing stories for a newspaper or magazine, and the subjects you write about know this. So they lay on perks. And if you say you can't take those, they work around it. Give you access they normally wouldn't. Give you stuff that's theoretically outside your beat. Or dangle a job when you're ready, at a much better salary. Furthermore, mainstream media depends upon ads. The corporations are the customer, via their ad agencies, not the audience. So, "The New York Times" is not gonna be a hotbed of revolution. And Fox is gonna play to its base. Because otherwise, they'll lose audience and lose ads, or the value thereof. So, the mainstream media is always last.
So now you get the voices in the wilderness. The small periodicals, the individuals. And in the old days, there was a clear line of demarcation. If you weren't on the major label you were ignored, seen as inferior. If you couldn't get your stuff published in a mainstream mag, you were a kook who should be stayed away from.
And that describes a lot of people online, but not all of them. This is what the internet has wrought, a whole bunch of interested citizens writing about news and analyzing it that the mainstream media just can't fathom. They're the kings, right? Well, maybe not. Like the major labels during Napster, like the major labels today. And all the emphasis is on recordings, but the truth is today it's about the road, not only because of the economics, but because personal appearances bond you to the audience. Which is why the more it's on hard drive, the less you connect. If you play it all yourself and don't cover up the mistakes you're seen as human and attendees have a true experience as opposed to watching a canned show and talking amongst themselves. That's how you know when you've truly connected, when everybody's put down their smartphone and is focusing on you. You don't need rules banning devices you just have to be that good.
So the shadow news is where movements start, where stories break. And if you don't think they have power, look at Steve Bannon and Breitbart.
But when the noise becomes big enough, when it's loud enough, the mainstream media dives in, it wants to own the story. And this is a good thing if you're the act/purveyor, it signals to everybody paying attention that you've made it. Whereas if you get the publicity first, it's wasted, today you have to have something to back it up.
So the mainstream media wisdom was that Elizabeth Warren was unelectable. All the focus was on non-candidates like Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg. Yes, even Mayor Pete, he's got no chance this time around. Maybe close, but no cigar.
And then there was the excoriation of Bernie and the wait for Biden to rescue the Party and put the Democrats on top.
But everybody in entertainment knows the best-laid plans often go awry. Hell, the big story in movies today is the failure of the latest "Men In Black" iteration. Everybody discounted the public's opinion, the film grossed even less than already low projections.
This is just like in music. How many highly touted albums stiff? It happens all the time. Illustrating all the pre-hype is worthless...coming albums, coming books, reviews before you can hear or read... The public is addicted to the Tomatometer. People wait until it hits the street and then they put their finger to the wind and judge the mood, if it's a stinker, they stay away.
But how come the public is more sophisticated than the purveyors, the mainstream media? That's the story of the internet era, how those supposedly "in charge" get it wrong over and over again. They're inured to the past, whereas it's always about looking forward, not back.
So Elizabeth Warren percolates in the marketplace, is sometimes begrudgingly acknowledged, and then she goes way up in the polls and the mainstream media gloms on. Hell, if they weren't so busy lunching and bloviating to their peers, and were surfing the web and were out on the street, they'd have felt it, just like I felt the Trump wave and everybody in the mainstream did not. Because I was on the front line. Anybody who was on the front line felt the blowback. But if you're not... And everybody in the mainstream is not, the talking heads cashing their checks on TV, the reporters who don't want to hang with THOSE people and...
"The New Yorker" feature is excellent. It's mostly facts, not opinion.
But today's "New York Times" feature is half a takedown. I'll attribute it to woman on woman hate. Women criticize each other more than men criticize women. Oh, men commit many faux pas and hold women back, but the perception is that if you leave it to women, it'll be all right. For an example to the contrary, look at the Women's March, which was riddled with anti-Semitism.
So the author of the "New York Times" piece, Emily Bazelon, has got quite a CV, she went to undergrad and law school at Yale, her grandfather was a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals. Who is this interloper who went to run-of-the-mill colleges and Rutgers for law school think she is? Bazelon's viewpoint is that of the insider, assessing the game she knows, and not the one she doesn't, to her detriment. But, once again, the usual suspects have an investment in the past, these are the elites not only Trump fans abhor, but rank and file lefties too.
But this is Sheelah Kolhatkar's beat. Business. And that's the essence of Warren's candidacy, economics.
That's why Warren's booming, she's speaking English about income inequality, she's got plans to decrease it.
And what do the usual suspects say...IT'S UNWORKABLE!
No one likes to snuff hope like someone already in power. They're afraid of the new.
But not the public.
Meanwhile, Warren is playing the long game, with her plans. She's so far ahead of the rest of the pack, they can't catch up. Biden is afraid of offending someone, Sanders has the right viewpoint, but he's nowhere near as specific as Warren, and everybody else is playing personality politics. Like we care about your dog and your smile and your likability.
Anybody becomes likable if they deliver what you want, the ugliest person. And right wingers know they got shafted by Trump, because he's erratic and didn't deliver on his promises. And the media no one pays attention to keeps talking about this, but who wants to listen to these self-righteous wankers? But they want to listen to Elizabeth Warren, who is not top-down, but grass roots.
Whether she wins the nomination or not, Warren has proven the game has changed. That she's more in touch with a changed public than the "New York Times" and most of D.C.
As for the debates, assuming she gets the nomination, where is it written that substance doesn't matter? Warren is the queen of the takedown, she's famous for it, watch this video where she gives it back to John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo: https://tinyurl.com/zdkvwst
All the attention is paid to the mob, not the individual. You get the feeling no one cares about you or me. Hell, I'll talk about me. I was on the road and entered payments on two credit cards in my checkbook, but spaced it and didn't pay them on my phone app. Fine, my fault. BUT THEN I HAD TO PAY NEARLY FIFTY BUCKS IN PENALTIES ON EACH CARD! AND THE BALANCE ON ONE OF THE CARDS WAS EVEN LESS THAN THAT!
I hate making mistakes, but I can afford it. But how about someone who is struggling to make ends meet, fifty bucks means a lot to them. And Warren has learned those who are poor are not lazy takers, many times they're working two jobs and one blip and they're on the road to bankruptcy. But it's a better story if it's the individual's fault, no one wants to admit the system is broken and doesn't serve the people but the corporations.
Everybody but the rich can identify with Warren's statements.
And we've seen the Trump movie before, in Minnesota, with Jesse Ventura. Every action has a concomitant reaction. One thing's for sure, Trump is not an expert on policy, international relations, so much. The public is now ready for someone experienced, which is why if they wanted to win the Republicans wouldn't even run Trump, they'd find someone with experience to speak to the base he awoke.
But, like I said, institutions abhor change. Not only the newspapers, but the TV companies too, they can't stop bitching about Netflix, which was seen as a joke until it started making its own hit programs and got 100 million subscribers. It might even be too late for competitors to get real traction.
And record labels are risk averse, now more than ever. They want a predictable hit, something that sounds similar to what's already successful. This is why music is stagnant, a joke. But one thing's for sure, someone in the trenches, outside the system, is gonna turn the table over, the audience demands it.
And the audience demands our country step forward and change, because it's just not working for too many of us.
This is the road Elizabeth Warren is taking. This is the road the mainstream media couldn't see in 2016 and can't see today.
But they're waking up.
Because you can't keep a good woman down. You can't muzzle a knowledgeable source whose views are based on substance. You see it's the same as it ever was, America believes in truth, justice and the American way.
Is Elizabeth Warren Superwoman?
We're about to find out.
"The New York Times": https://tinyurl.com/y6k5xau2
"The New Yorker": https://tinyurl.com/y2u5a3k3
No, wait a minute, even if you hate Elizabeth Warren you've got to hear what I say. Because it applies to you. The issue is how do you get famous and have your ideas heard in America today.
You've got to do the work and you must be selling substance.
Elizabeth Warren is on the road. Most of the audiences are relatively small. There's not a ton of press coverage of each event. She's just like a crack band bubbling under, that is not understood by the mainstream, is seen as an also-ran and then...THEY BLOW UP! Can you say Bruce Springsteen? His first LP was an anomaly, not representative of his sound, the band was there, but deep in the background, "Greetings From Asbury Park" was more New Dylan than the Springsteen we all now know. But the sound was there for everybody to hear on "The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle." But now Springsteen was no longer the new thing. And the mix on the LP was a bit muted, it lacked edge. So the album didn't sell and Bruce went on the road convincing consumers one by one. If you saw him, you talked about him. Until that famous moment when Jon Landau said he'd seen the future of rock and roll and the tide turned. The Landau article was in Boston's "Real Paper," the paper of record amongst the youth, devoured by everybody, Landau's review wasn't first, but it was the most important.
Same deal with Elizabeth Warren. She's been around for years. Mostly in the background until the right started attacking her. And before you get your knickers in a twist you righties, know that she wanted to protect the populace, the rank and file, from the corporations. You can't be against that unless you're sucking at the tit of the corporation yourself, making seven figures, and that's a very small number of people. You're getting screwed and don't even realize it. Those insane interest rates on your credit cards? Warren wanted to stop them.
But Warren was depicted as a schoolmarm and no one on the left ran to her side, to defend her, because they don't want to get caught up in any war that doesn't benefit them directly, they don't want the potential stink upon them.
So Warren went her own way and ran for Senate and won.
This is the act that refuses to do what the A&R person says to. Who won't cowrite, who won't work with the producer du jour, who has a sound he or she wants to get down and doesn't want any interference. But can you go on your own, do it your way, prove it yourself? We hear about the winners, but not the losers. The truth is most people are scared to do it by themselves, they're convinced they won't succeed, they tell themselves they need money, it's undoable. But even today, if you've got the goods and you play live, or release an undeniable hit like Lorde, you can make it.
And then Warren got into the Senate and spoke English. Nobody speaks English in D.C., it doesn't behoove you. You obfuscate, keep the lobbyists close, it's all about raising money for your reelection campaign. Screw the people you're representing, you give them lip service, but your true constituency is the corporations. And when someone comes along and blows the whistle on that, says she's for the people, you blanch.
It comes down to big media too. You can't make a ton of bucks writing stories for a newspaper or magazine, and the subjects you write about know this. So they lay on perks. And if you say you can't take those, they work around it. Give you access they normally wouldn't. Give you stuff that's theoretically outside your beat. Or dangle a job when you're ready, at a much better salary. Furthermore, mainstream media depends upon ads. The corporations are the customer, via their ad agencies, not the audience. So, "The New York Times" is not gonna be a hotbed of revolution. And Fox is gonna play to its base. Because otherwise, they'll lose audience and lose ads, or the value thereof. So, the mainstream media is always last.
So now you get the voices in the wilderness. The small periodicals, the individuals. And in the old days, there was a clear line of demarcation. If you weren't on the major label you were ignored, seen as inferior. If you couldn't get your stuff published in a mainstream mag, you were a kook who should be stayed away from.
And that describes a lot of people online, but not all of them. This is what the internet has wrought, a whole bunch of interested citizens writing about news and analyzing it that the mainstream media just can't fathom. They're the kings, right? Well, maybe not. Like the major labels during Napster, like the major labels today. And all the emphasis is on recordings, but the truth is today it's about the road, not only because of the economics, but because personal appearances bond you to the audience. Which is why the more it's on hard drive, the less you connect. If you play it all yourself and don't cover up the mistakes you're seen as human and attendees have a true experience as opposed to watching a canned show and talking amongst themselves. That's how you know when you've truly connected, when everybody's put down their smartphone and is focusing on you. You don't need rules banning devices you just have to be that good.
So the shadow news is where movements start, where stories break. And if you don't think they have power, look at Steve Bannon and Breitbart.
But when the noise becomes big enough, when it's loud enough, the mainstream media dives in, it wants to own the story. And this is a good thing if you're the act/purveyor, it signals to everybody paying attention that you've made it. Whereas if you get the publicity first, it's wasted, today you have to have something to back it up.
So the mainstream media wisdom was that Elizabeth Warren was unelectable. All the focus was on non-candidates like Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg. Yes, even Mayor Pete, he's got no chance this time around. Maybe close, but no cigar.
And then there was the excoriation of Bernie and the wait for Biden to rescue the Party and put the Democrats on top.
But everybody in entertainment knows the best-laid plans often go awry. Hell, the big story in movies today is the failure of the latest "Men In Black" iteration. Everybody discounted the public's opinion, the film grossed even less than already low projections.
This is just like in music. How many highly touted albums stiff? It happens all the time. Illustrating all the pre-hype is worthless...coming albums, coming books, reviews before you can hear or read... The public is addicted to the Tomatometer. People wait until it hits the street and then they put their finger to the wind and judge the mood, if it's a stinker, they stay away.
But how come the public is more sophisticated than the purveyors, the mainstream media? That's the story of the internet era, how those supposedly "in charge" get it wrong over and over again. They're inured to the past, whereas it's always about looking forward, not back.
So Elizabeth Warren percolates in the marketplace, is sometimes begrudgingly acknowledged, and then she goes way up in the polls and the mainstream media gloms on. Hell, if they weren't so busy lunching and bloviating to their peers, and were surfing the web and were out on the street, they'd have felt it, just like I felt the Trump wave and everybody in the mainstream did not. Because I was on the front line. Anybody who was on the front line felt the blowback. But if you're not... And everybody in the mainstream is not, the talking heads cashing their checks on TV, the reporters who don't want to hang with THOSE people and...
"The New Yorker" feature is excellent. It's mostly facts, not opinion.
But today's "New York Times" feature is half a takedown. I'll attribute it to woman on woman hate. Women criticize each other more than men criticize women. Oh, men commit many faux pas and hold women back, but the perception is that if you leave it to women, it'll be all right. For an example to the contrary, look at the Women's March, which was riddled with anti-Semitism.
So the author of the "New York Times" piece, Emily Bazelon, has got quite a CV, she went to undergrad and law school at Yale, her grandfather was a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals. Who is this interloper who went to run-of-the-mill colleges and Rutgers for law school think she is? Bazelon's viewpoint is that of the insider, assessing the game she knows, and not the one she doesn't, to her detriment. But, once again, the usual suspects have an investment in the past, these are the elites not only Trump fans abhor, but rank and file lefties too.
But this is Sheelah Kolhatkar's beat. Business. And that's the essence of Warren's candidacy, economics.
That's why Warren's booming, she's speaking English about income inequality, she's got plans to decrease it.
And what do the usual suspects say...IT'S UNWORKABLE!
No one likes to snuff hope like someone already in power. They're afraid of the new.
But not the public.
Meanwhile, Warren is playing the long game, with her plans. She's so far ahead of the rest of the pack, they can't catch up. Biden is afraid of offending someone, Sanders has the right viewpoint, but he's nowhere near as specific as Warren, and everybody else is playing personality politics. Like we care about your dog and your smile and your likability.
Anybody becomes likable if they deliver what you want, the ugliest person. And right wingers know they got shafted by Trump, because he's erratic and didn't deliver on his promises. And the media no one pays attention to keeps talking about this, but who wants to listen to these self-righteous wankers? But they want to listen to Elizabeth Warren, who is not top-down, but grass roots.
Whether she wins the nomination or not, Warren has proven the game has changed. That she's more in touch with a changed public than the "New York Times" and most of D.C.
As for the debates, assuming she gets the nomination, where is it written that substance doesn't matter? Warren is the queen of the takedown, she's famous for it, watch this video where she gives it back to John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo: https://tinyurl.com/zdkvwst
All the attention is paid to the mob, not the individual. You get the feeling no one cares about you or me. Hell, I'll talk about me. I was on the road and entered payments on two credit cards in my checkbook, but spaced it and didn't pay them on my phone app. Fine, my fault. BUT THEN I HAD TO PAY NEARLY FIFTY BUCKS IN PENALTIES ON EACH CARD! AND THE BALANCE ON ONE OF THE CARDS WAS EVEN LESS THAN THAT!
I hate making mistakes, but I can afford it. But how about someone who is struggling to make ends meet, fifty bucks means a lot to them. And Warren has learned those who are poor are not lazy takers, many times they're working two jobs and one blip and they're on the road to bankruptcy. But it's a better story if it's the individual's fault, no one wants to admit the system is broken and doesn't serve the people but the corporations.
Everybody but the rich can identify with Warren's statements.
And we've seen the Trump movie before, in Minnesota, with Jesse Ventura. Every action has a concomitant reaction. One thing's for sure, Trump is not an expert on policy, international relations, so much. The public is now ready for someone experienced, which is why if they wanted to win the Republicans wouldn't even run Trump, they'd find someone with experience to speak to the base he awoke.
But, like I said, institutions abhor change. Not only the newspapers, but the TV companies too, they can't stop bitching about Netflix, which was seen as a joke until it started making its own hit programs and got 100 million subscribers. It might even be too late for competitors to get real traction.
And record labels are risk averse, now more than ever. They want a predictable hit, something that sounds similar to what's already successful. This is why music is stagnant, a joke. But one thing's for sure, someone in the trenches, outside the system, is gonna turn the table over, the audience demands it.
And the audience demands our country step forward and change, because it's just not working for too many of us.
This is the road Elizabeth Warren is taking. This is the road the mainstream media couldn't see in 2016 and can't see today.
But they're waking up.
Because you can't keep a good woman down. You can't muzzle a knowledgeable source whose views are based on substance. You see it's the same as it ever was, America believes in truth, justice and the American way.
Is Elizabeth Warren Superwoman?
We're about to find out.
"The New York Times": https://tinyurl.com/y6k5xau2
"The New Yorker": https://tinyurl.com/y2u5a3k3
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Sunday 16 June 2019
The Rolling Thunder Revue
This movie is made for tomorrow not today. Kind of like "Don't Look Back," a footnote when it was released, a legendary artifact from the past today, a rite for college students. Maybe because that era does not exist anymore. When performers could be mysterious, and stay that way. Today it's all about self-revelation, documenting every detail of your life in order to bond an audience to you. But the truth is with nothing underneath, purveyors get no traction, or are instantly forgotten. Music, when done right, is the other. Something ethereal that you truly cannot describe accurately, something you've got to experience, something delivered for your mind, not for your wallet.
Parts of this movie are fake. I point you to this Vulture article for an explanation: https://bit.ly/2Xnpm0m But the thing is too much time has passed, there are few Dylanologists, most people believe the falsehoods, and therefor the trick falls flat. Kinda like that old question, "If a tree falls in a forest..."
But that's not the way it was when Dylan broke, we hung on every word.
And although disco came along and killed corporate rock, and the music industry tanked at the end of '79, it is kind of curious that Dylan survived in that era, because he wasn't playing what anybody else was, although Mark Knopfler is all over '79's "Slow Train Coming." Then again, as a "Christian" album, many people ignored it. I'm waiting for the renaissance in reputation, "Slow Train Coming," with Knopfler and production by Barry Beckett and Jerry Wexler, is a monster, check it out.
Now I saw the Rolling Thunder Revue. I had to.
But not everybody did.
You see Dylan had come back the previous year, with the Band, documented in the "Before The Flood" double LP on Geffen. That's a famous story, how Dylan screwed Geffen, how Dylan gave him two albums and then went back to Columbia. Sure, Geffen ended up a billionaire, but Dylan didn't care.
That theme runs throughout the movie. Dylan just doesn't care. About the audience's expectations. About making money. This was an experience, and no amount of money would buy you a spot in the Rolling Thunder Revue. This was when there were no billionaires, and the corporation wasn't trusted, especially by musicians. Hell, the footage at CBS, with Walter Yetnikoff, is so uncomfortable. Dylan's out of place, the suits are trying to appease him, but you know that everybody just wants to get back to their own world.
But Walter has said that Bob Dylan introduced him to his mother.
You see Dylan's a cipher. Who created a myth from day one, when he got to New York. And he was aided by his manager, Albert Grossman, and became so successful, he could do whatever he wanted to. Dylan would have never made it without Albert. All superstars owe their breakthrough to a manager, who opened doors, who pushed. In Dylan's case, Grossman got covers, Bob was famous for his songwriting long before he penetrated the recorded music market.
So there was press. Rolling Thunder was a big story in the "New York Times," it was covered by "Rolling Stone," if you were interested, you found out. But the dirty little secret is although the Stones do boffo on the road, they've always sold few records, and although Dylan's got a rep nonpareil, the audience for his shows is not that huge. Watch the film and you'll see why. There's a limited audience for this music. But never underestimate Dylan's wisdom, his talent, his impact. The biggest stars don't top the chart, they impact the culture. Sometimes they do both, but rarely.
So there are so many nuggets in this movie. Joan Baez dancing. Whew! Who ever knew she was that young. And skinny. Like Dylan, like everybody else in this movie.
And Joni Mitchell is as charismatic as they get. When everybody is dressed down, she's dressed up, with her beret, she's got her look on. And her artistic sensibility is intact. She won't play her hits on stage. And when she plays "Coyote" backstage in the movie... If you're a fan, your brain is brought back to then, when you just wanted to live with your favorite artist and experience their lifestyle.
And when the whole gang sings "Love Potion #9"... That was the sixties, when we all knew the same songs and we could sing them and did.
Now unlike most music documentaries, "Rolling Thunder" includes whole songs. Which makes for a less than perfect viewing experience, it slows the pic down, but in future years these performances will be studied.
And to hear today's Dylan talk... He's the same guy, the same voice, the one from XM, the one in the commercials. Was he born that way or is it affected? Has he been doing it so long this is the only way he can speak? Believe me, they don't talk that way in Hibbing, Minnesota.
And you're hanging on every word. As Bob drops nuggets. Mostly evading the question, sometimes humble and other times arrogant.
So what we've got here is more akin to a movie than a documentary. Documentaries are about facts, movies are about suspending disbelief, falling for the myth. We've been falling for the Bob Dylan myth for over fifty years. He's bobbed and weaved more times than Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. He's outlasted everybody at his record label. Been through vinyl, cassettes, CDs and streaming. Always following the road less traveled, always one or two steps ahead of the audience.
Kind of like changing the melodies to his songs. He was doing that back in '75, watch this film. He wants the music to be interesting to him, not us. He's not trying to fulfill our wants, but to make us contemplate, and think, ending up with more questions than answers.
You couldn't do a tour like this today. Economically, if for no other reason. And no one would care, there wouldn't be a ton of press. and we've got themed festivals, like Lockn' and...
If you lived through the seventies, you will recognize your past in this movie. When you wore bell bottoms, when grooming was lax, when it was still more about what was inside as opposed to outside, your brain and personality more than your bank account.
If you didn't live through the seventies, you'll probably be bored, you won't get it. After all, it's not like these songs are classics to you, the only one you hear now is "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," a throwaway for the film "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," in which Dylan had a minor role.
And Dylan has a long history of failed film projects, artistically as well as economically.
But this is something different. Once you realize you've been had, you step back and question what is real, not only in the movie, but Dylan's life, your life.
That's what art is supposed to do, challenge you, push you, make you think.
That's the problem with cinema today, movies make tons of money, but almost all of them are empty calories.
So you're better off tuning in to Netflix, where you can see the "Rolling Thunder Revue." If you read the newspapers, you think you can only see it in the theatre. Don't bother. There's no reason. Don't waste the time. Hell, watch it up close and personal on your iPad.
And turn on the subtitles, otherwise you'll miss too many lyrics and dialogue.
And at times you'll be excited, and at times you'll be bored, and when it's all over you'll yearn for those days of yore,
Most of those people are gone.
But not Bob Dylan, he keeps soldiering on.
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.
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Parts of this movie are fake. I point you to this Vulture article for an explanation: https://bit.ly/2Xnpm0m But the thing is too much time has passed, there are few Dylanologists, most people believe the falsehoods, and therefor the trick falls flat. Kinda like that old question, "If a tree falls in a forest..."
But that's not the way it was when Dylan broke, we hung on every word.
And although disco came along and killed corporate rock, and the music industry tanked at the end of '79, it is kind of curious that Dylan survived in that era, because he wasn't playing what anybody else was, although Mark Knopfler is all over '79's "Slow Train Coming." Then again, as a "Christian" album, many people ignored it. I'm waiting for the renaissance in reputation, "Slow Train Coming," with Knopfler and production by Barry Beckett and Jerry Wexler, is a monster, check it out.
Now I saw the Rolling Thunder Revue. I had to.
But not everybody did.
You see Dylan had come back the previous year, with the Band, documented in the "Before The Flood" double LP on Geffen. That's a famous story, how Dylan screwed Geffen, how Dylan gave him two albums and then went back to Columbia. Sure, Geffen ended up a billionaire, but Dylan didn't care.
That theme runs throughout the movie. Dylan just doesn't care. About the audience's expectations. About making money. This was an experience, and no amount of money would buy you a spot in the Rolling Thunder Revue. This was when there were no billionaires, and the corporation wasn't trusted, especially by musicians. Hell, the footage at CBS, with Walter Yetnikoff, is so uncomfortable. Dylan's out of place, the suits are trying to appease him, but you know that everybody just wants to get back to their own world.
But Walter has said that Bob Dylan introduced him to his mother.
You see Dylan's a cipher. Who created a myth from day one, when he got to New York. And he was aided by his manager, Albert Grossman, and became so successful, he could do whatever he wanted to. Dylan would have never made it without Albert. All superstars owe their breakthrough to a manager, who opened doors, who pushed. In Dylan's case, Grossman got covers, Bob was famous for his songwriting long before he penetrated the recorded music market.
So there was press. Rolling Thunder was a big story in the "New York Times," it was covered by "Rolling Stone," if you were interested, you found out. But the dirty little secret is although the Stones do boffo on the road, they've always sold few records, and although Dylan's got a rep nonpareil, the audience for his shows is not that huge. Watch the film and you'll see why. There's a limited audience for this music. But never underestimate Dylan's wisdom, his talent, his impact. The biggest stars don't top the chart, they impact the culture. Sometimes they do both, but rarely.
So there are so many nuggets in this movie. Joan Baez dancing. Whew! Who ever knew she was that young. And skinny. Like Dylan, like everybody else in this movie.
And Joni Mitchell is as charismatic as they get. When everybody is dressed down, she's dressed up, with her beret, she's got her look on. And her artistic sensibility is intact. She won't play her hits on stage. And when she plays "Coyote" backstage in the movie... If you're a fan, your brain is brought back to then, when you just wanted to live with your favorite artist and experience their lifestyle.
And when the whole gang sings "Love Potion #9"... That was the sixties, when we all knew the same songs and we could sing them and did.
Now unlike most music documentaries, "Rolling Thunder" includes whole songs. Which makes for a less than perfect viewing experience, it slows the pic down, but in future years these performances will be studied.
And to hear today's Dylan talk... He's the same guy, the same voice, the one from XM, the one in the commercials. Was he born that way or is it affected? Has he been doing it so long this is the only way he can speak? Believe me, they don't talk that way in Hibbing, Minnesota.
And you're hanging on every word. As Bob drops nuggets. Mostly evading the question, sometimes humble and other times arrogant.
So what we've got here is more akin to a movie than a documentary. Documentaries are about facts, movies are about suspending disbelief, falling for the myth. We've been falling for the Bob Dylan myth for over fifty years. He's bobbed and weaved more times than Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. He's outlasted everybody at his record label. Been through vinyl, cassettes, CDs and streaming. Always following the road less traveled, always one or two steps ahead of the audience.
Kind of like changing the melodies to his songs. He was doing that back in '75, watch this film. He wants the music to be interesting to him, not us. He's not trying to fulfill our wants, but to make us contemplate, and think, ending up with more questions than answers.
You couldn't do a tour like this today. Economically, if for no other reason. And no one would care, there wouldn't be a ton of press. and we've got themed festivals, like Lockn' and...
If you lived through the seventies, you will recognize your past in this movie. When you wore bell bottoms, when grooming was lax, when it was still more about what was inside as opposed to outside, your brain and personality more than your bank account.
If you didn't live through the seventies, you'll probably be bored, you won't get it. After all, it's not like these songs are classics to you, the only one you hear now is "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," a throwaway for the film "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," in which Dylan had a minor role.
And Dylan has a long history of failed film projects, artistically as well as economically.
But this is something different. Once you realize you've been had, you step back and question what is real, not only in the movie, but Dylan's life, your life.
That's what art is supposed to do, challenge you, push you, make you think.
That's the problem with cinema today, movies make tons of money, but almost all of them are empty calories.
So you're better off tuning in to Netflix, where you can see the "Rolling Thunder Revue." If you read the newspapers, you think you can only see it in the theatre. Don't bother. There's no reason. Don't waste the time. Hell, watch it up close and personal on your iPad.
And turn on the subtitles, otherwise you'll miss too many lyrics and dialogue.
And at times you'll be excited, and at times you'll be bored, and when it's all over you'll yearn for those days of yore,
Most of those people are gone.
But not Bob Dylan, he keeps soldiering on.
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1
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Disappearing Earth
https://amzn.to/2ZcjsNc
I crowdsource my reading. It's the same thing I do with my viewing. I've only got time for great, and when it requires a huge investment of my time...
I'm trying to make sense of the world. And I can't. You see there's too much input, too many stories. In the old days it was clear what was important and what wasn't. Who was a star and who wasn't. And most things weren't important and most people weren't stars. And you owned that. You didn't have dreams, except for a few people, who moved to L.A. or New York and tried to make it. Some did, most didn't. But most didn't take the risk. They didn't think they were talented enough, or they just didn't want to make the effort. The people who win are rarely the most talented, it's a weird elixir of talent, desire and luck that pushes you into the stratosphere, and it's very hard to achieve.
But today everybody can play. Everybody is trying to be a star. And as a result, today's stars have a fraction of the wattage they used to. You read about them, but it's easy to ignore them. It's easy to ignore everything these days, other than politics, because it comes and goes so quickly. Madonna and Bruce Springsteen released albums on Friday, you can listen to them for free, but you probably won't. You're busy doing something else, music is no longer the only thing in your life, there are so many options, and chances are these albums will be instantly forgotten. Almost everything is instantly forgotten. And the funny thing is, when you have easy access, when movies come to cable, you don't watch then either, because there's a whole slew of new stuff that you're ignoring. You're just trying to ride the wave. You're so fearful of falling behind. And you think if you just hold on long enough, the beach will appear, the wave will crash and you'll end up on dry land, to a bevy of applause. But the beach never appears and no one's applauding other than your family and friends anyway, no one else is paying attention to you, they're deep in their own hole. Hell, this even happens with Trump. On a regular basis the left, the media, is dumbfounded by his tweets or remarks. But no matter how much they're outraged, life goes on and Trump's behavior is forgotten.
What's a poor boy to do in this situation?
Read.
Yes, we're reading all day long, that's what the internet is all about. But it's mostly factoids, and it's hard to go deep on a smartphone or computer screen anyway.
We're addicted to story, which is why Netflix burgeons, why documentaries are at a peak, but most of the news we encounter, most of the experiences we have, are hit and run. That's why the single triumphs, it's enough. In order to be addicted to an album it must be great and we've got to care and those two rarely align, which is why modern day musicmakers focus on the track, they understand the new world, the oldsters are still waiting for the old world to come back, as if we're gonna go back to three networks on television. Yes, we all watched "Laugh-In." And then the aforementioned Springsteen claimed there were fifty seven channels and nothing on, and now there's too much on.
So what we're looking for is to be removed. Not exactly an escape, but a journey to an alternative universe.
I skim the book reviews. Read the first paragraph and the last to see if the book is any good. Otherwise, I'm gonna know the whole plot. And it's rare that a review causes me to buy, to read, but if I keep on hearing the book mentioned elsewhere, I start to notice.
And then I dig deeper.
"Entertainment Weekly" declared "Disappearing Earth" to be one of the ten best books of the first half of 2019. So I dug deeper, it got four stars on Amazon. I won't read anything with three stars or less, I'm always anxious when a book gets three and a half, but some great ones get that rating. And after a bit more research, I downloaded the sample chapter and got hooked.
I like to read when it's dark out. When it's only me and the book. When the world is asleep and there are no distractions.
It's hard to tear ourselves away from the smartphone, like I said, we're trying to keep up, be in the know, informed.
But after midnight I turn the ringer off, plug in the phone and do my best to ignore it. To go deep, into a book.
"Disappearing Earth" is about Kamchatka. I'm familiar with the vodka, but I couldn't place it on a map of Russia. Turns out it's the far-eastern peninsula, kinda near Alaska. It's nine time zones from Moscow. To the point where it's like another country, whenever you want to call and do business, you can't. Not that Moscow cares about you anyway.
And Kamchatka has white people and natives. And the white people have contempt for the natives, who speak another language. But they're all Russians. Except for the foreign construction workers, that's a feature outside of the U.S., the temporary, sometimes permanent if the country is a member of the EU, workers from other nations, they're always looked upon with suspicion, but they do the work the locals don't want to.
And I'd say "Disappearing Earth" is linked short stories, but really they're all tied together, by the plot and the intersecting characters.
Now that's one of the downsides of this book. The Russian names, it's hard to keep them straight. But life in Russia...I'm fascinated. What's it like to live where it's cold, you don't have enough money and your future is limited? Where homosexuality has consequences and everybody's a big drinker.
So what you've got in "Disappearing Earth" is a bunch of families, and some single adults, trying to get along. They're not trying to be famous, they're just looking for a little happiness.
But as Depeche Mode sang, people are people. We're united by our humanity. Really, we're the same all over the world. So, you resonate with the truth in this book, like "A person needs company." You can't live your life alone, you need other people, believe me, I was so broke I tried to hold on by myself, but I couldn't.
And there's wisdom too, "Masha looked sophisticated enough to have skipped childhood altogether." You know people like this.
And when I tried to finish "Disappearing Earth" during daylight, I started to fall asleep, I wondered if it was getting worse or whether it needed to be dark. I'm one of those people who might be sleepy during the day, but is wide awake at night.
So at first I was gonna highly recommend "Disappearing Earth." Now I'm not so sure.
So this book is not for the casual reader, the person who reads a book a year. But if you're hungry for connection, if you don't limit yourself to genres, like thrillers, mysteries, biographies and romance, if you're more interested in people than plot...
You might want to check out "Disappearing Earth."
I crowdsource my reading. It's the same thing I do with my viewing. I've only got time for great, and when it requires a huge investment of my time...
I'm trying to make sense of the world. And I can't. You see there's too much input, too many stories. In the old days it was clear what was important and what wasn't. Who was a star and who wasn't. And most things weren't important and most people weren't stars. And you owned that. You didn't have dreams, except for a few people, who moved to L.A. or New York and tried to make it. Some did, most didn't. But most didn't take the risk. They didn't think they were talented enough, or they just didn't want to make the effort. The people who win are rarely the most talented, it's a weird elixir of talent, desire and luck that pushes you into the stratosphere, and it's very hard to achieve.
But today everybody can play. Everybody is trying to be a star. And as a result, today's stars have a fraction of the wattage they used to. You read about them, but it's easy to ignore them. It's easy to ignore everything these days, other than politics, because it comes and goes so quickly. Madonna and Bruce Springsteen released albums on Friday, you can listen to them for free, but you probably won't. You're busy doing something else, music is no longer the only thing in your life, there are so many options, and chances are these albums will be instantly forgotten. Almost everything is instantly forgotten. And the funny thing is, when you have easy access, when movies come to cable, you don't watch then either, because there's a whole slew of new stuff that you're ignoring. You're just trying to ride the wave. You're so fearful of falling behind. And you think if you just hold on long enough, the beach will appear, the wave will crash and you'll end up on dry land, to a bevy of applause. But the beach never appears and no one's applauding other than your family and friends anyway, no one else is paying attention to you, they're deep in their own hole. Hell, this even happens with Trump. On a regular basis the left, the media, is dumbfounded by his tweets or remarks. But no matter how much they're outraged, life goes on and Trump's behavior is forgotten.
What's a poor boy to do in this situation?
Read.
Yes, we're reading all day long, that's what the internet is all about. But it's mostly factoids, and it's hard to go deep on a smartphone or computer screen anyway.
We're addicted to story, which is why Netflix burgeons, why documentaries are at a peak, but most of the news we encounter, most of the experiences we have, are hit and run. That's why the single triumphs, it's enough. In order to be addicted to an album it must be great and we've got to care and those two rarely align, which is why modern day musicmakers focus on the track, they understand the new world, the oldsters are still waiting for the old world to come back, as if we're gonna go back to three networks on television. Yes, we all watched "Laugh-In." And then the aforementioned Springsteen claimed there were fifty seven channels and nothing on, and now there's too much on.
So what we're looking for is to be removed. Not exactly an escape, but a journey to an alternative universe.
I skim the book reviews. Read the first paragraph and the last to see if the book is any good. Otherwise, I'm gonna know the whole plot. And it's rare that a review causes me to buy, to read, but if I keep on hearing the book mentioned elsewhere, I start to notice.
And then I dig deeper.
"Entertainment Weekly" declared "Disappearing Earth" to be one of the ten best books of the first half of 2019. So I dug deeper, it got four stars on Amazon. I won't read anything with three stars or less, I'm always anxious when a book gets three and a half, but some great ones get that rating. And after a bit more research, I downloaded the sample chapter and got hooked.
I like to read when it's dark out. When it's only me and the book. When the world is asleep and there are no distractions.
It's hard to tear ourselves away from the smartphone, like I said, we're trying to keep up, be in the know, informed.
But after midnight I turn the ringer off, plug in the phone and do my best to ignore it. To go deep, into a book.
"Disappearing Earth" is about Kamchatka. I'm familiar with the vodka, but I couldn't place it on a map of Russia. Turns out it's the far-eastern peninsula, kinda near Alaska. It's nine time zones from Moscow. To the point where it's like another country, whenever you want to call and do business, you can't. Not that Moscow cares about you anyway.
And Kamchatka has white people and natives. And the white people have contempt for the natives, who speak another language. But they're all Russians. Except for the foreign construction workers, that's a feature outside of the U.S., the temporary, sometimes permanent if the country is a member of the EU, workers from other nations, they're always looked upon with suspicion, but they do the work the locals don't want to.
And I'd say "Disappearing Earth" is linked short stories, but really they're all tied together, by the plot and the intersecting characters.
Now that's one of the downsides of this book. The Russian names, it's hard to keep them straight. But life in Russia...I'm fascinated. What's it like to live where it's cold, you don't have enough money and your future is limited? Where homosexuality has consequences and everybody's a big drinker.
So what you've got in "Disappearing Earth" is a bunch of families, and some single adults, trying to get along. They're not trying to be famous, they're just looking for a little happiness.
But as Depeche Mode sang, people are people. We're united by our humanity. Really, we're the same all over the world. So, you resonate with the truth in this book, like "A person needs company." You can't live your life alone, you need other people, believe me, I was so broke I tried to hold on by myself, but I couldn't.
And there's wisdom too, "Masha looked sophisticated enough to have skipped childhood altogether." You know people like this.
And when I tried to finish "Disappearing Earth" during daylight, I started to fall asleep, I wondered if it was getting worse or whether it needed to be dark. I'm one of those people who might be sleepy during the day, but is wide awake at night.
So at first I was gonna highly recommend "Disappearing Earth." Now I'm not so sure.
So this book is not for the casual reader, the person who reads a book a year. But if you're hungry for connection, if you don't limit yourself to genres, like thrillers, mysteries, biographies and romance, if you're more interested in people than plot...
You might want to check out "Disappearing Earth."
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1
If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
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