Mailbag

From: Dan Navarro
Subject: Re: Affirmative Action

Were it not for Affirmative Action in 1969, I would not have been able to attend UCLA immediately upon high school graduation. I was admitted under the Educational Opportunities Program (EOP) that looked past my mediocre grades, and into my wide range of activities, strong letters of recommendation, my heartfelt essay and, particularly, my Latino ethnicity and border town upbringing.

I am 100% certain that being exposed to the artistic environment I was, and not to a different school in a different town in a different community, led to a career I have cherished. I have been openly grateful to the opportunities, environments and experiences that came my way due to the EOP program, and am profoundly sad to see 50 years of sociocultural justice thrown out.

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From: Ian Lee
Subject: Re: Music Burgeons

Thanks for this one Bob
Top of your game insights-the content we want :)

I see the same unlimited upside.

"And I just can't see a downside."

I do. Personnel to keep live going. The infrastructure of the touring industry is old.

Is there a pipeline of killer sound guys, tour managers? Bus drivers? No.
And there's no infrastructure to train these highly specified niche skills.
The speed that the internet has allowed YouTube and tick toc stars to start playing arenas has come up against the lack of a path for new personnel who want to join the circus of the support crews.

This is part of why you hear "production costs" are so high. More demand than supply of competent crew= crew demanding more.

I have 2 competing quotes from other bus companies for tours im doing that were over 3x my bid.

I don't raise my prices because it's simply gouging. But at the same time, the competition is taking advantage of the misbalance of supply (in the case of buses, a huge capital investment) demand= nobody can find a tour bus.

I wrote a couple of business plans to solve these during the pandemic, which i parked over the last 2 years playing catch up as we came out of it.

Recently started talking to some people about them.
Fun.

Over and out

Your on the road bus driving fool reporter.

Ian

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From: Xavier Ramirez
Subject: Re: TikTok Marketing

I think the unspoken part about the post-covid touring music world is how unprepared all these venue and promoter marketing teams are for the new paradigm.

TikTok surged during covid and what did every promoter and marketing team (if they were lucky enough to retain a marketing team or find new ones)? For nationwide amphitheater tours? They all went straight back to Facebook and Instagram ads. And if you ask for ad spend buyouts/marketing dollars to promote your show? They don't do that.

A handful might know what to do if you give them a TikTok Sparks code but even then, TikTok's ad targeting is still extremely limited. My artist and scene is very niche/specialized so the broad TikTok interests and demographic targeting just doesn't cut it. In comparison with the pixels, audiences, segments, etc we spent the last decade curating on Meta, the data is still catching up. Thankfully we were able to port over all the phone numbers (way better match rate), emails, pixel data, etc… and then great lookalikes from those to create a large enough pool (THEN we can geotarget against that list). 

To be fair, artists are just as much to blame… they're still trying to focus on Instagram clinging to their likes and engagement (nevermind all the bots mess up all the engagement audiences for targeting).

End rant.

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From: Terence Reilly
Subject: TikTok

Bob - ?

Ahmed makes some great points especially about "getting noticed."

TikTok changed my 110-year-old company - Stanley.  Wow, did we ever get noticed!

Just search Stanley Quencher on TikTok and you'll see what I mean. You can scroll for hours - your thumb will hurt. The Times, Journal and seemingly every other media outlet also noticed. Adele too!

And as much as it's about TikTok, for us it's also about the power of female consumers as it's their passion that has fueled our resurgence. Listening to their ideas and suggestions has been crucial and naturally we make many of those connections on TikTok.

Imagine that, a 110-year-old Tik Tok sensation.

Stay well. And hydrated.

Terence

Terence Reilly
President - Stanley

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From: Charlie Brusco
Subject: Re: Oh I Wept

In the late 60s early 70s all over England it was proclaimed Clapton is God and Paul Rodgers was and remains The Voice.

Many of us grew up and remain mesmerized by Paul Rodgers but a young guitar player from Jacksonville, FL   followed everything that was Paul Kossoff. Gary Rossington was a true disciple of Kossoff and Ronnie Van Zant idolized Rodgers. And that was the English blues part of Skynyrd music. It's part of the fabric and Fire and Water was the Holy Grail. Over 50 years later I sat at Gary's funeral and listen to Paul eulogize my great friend and I could feel Gary smiling down on all of us as Paul spoke of his love for Gary as he had told me many times over the years.

What a long strange trip it certainly has been.

Cheers,
Charlie

Red Light Management

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Mark Williams
Re: All Right Now

Recently read Chris Blackwell's book The Islander and he goes in depth about Free and the origins of All Right Now and how one song can change everything for a band. I did not know Free were on Island as in U.S. it was A&M. It inspired me to revisit All Right Now and appreciate how perfect a rock song it is. 
Another interesting Free note in the excellent Lynyrd Skynyrd documentary Gone With The Wind, which is way more detailed than the more recent If I Leave Here Tomorrow, I learned that Ronnie Van Zant was obsessed with Free and insisted Albert Collins and Gary Rossington see their show when they played Jacksonville just as Lynyrd Skynyrd were just starting to become a band.  It made so much sense. It's all there in particularly in the first album with Simple Man, Tuesday's Gone, Gimme 3 Steps etc. It helped Lynyrd Skynyrd develop their own sound of southern rock infused with the British version of blues separating them from The Allmans and Marshall Tucker.

_______________________________________

From: Gary Lang
Subject: Re: Oh I Wept

Love it.

You do know that Skynyrd were complete Free maniacs right?

Listen to "On the Hunt" on "Nuthin' Fancy". The guitar work is pure Kossoff-driven. The song has the feel of "The Stealer". And then, as the guitar climaxes and goes into the kind of chording Kossoff loved, van Zandt actually shouts "I'm a Hunter" (shades of "Tons of Sobs"). They loved Free, and I can tell… so do you.

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From: Lionel Conway
Subject: All Right Now


Hi Bob,
I ran Island Music for Chris Blackwell back in those days.
I represented the band Free, and here is a little story about the track "All right Now"
In the UK at the time BBC radio was all important, if you didn't get on Radio 1 you had very little chance of breaking a record,
The BBC had very strict rules regarding language, you could not  use "swear words" in a lyric.
They banned the song "All right now" because  in their opinion  Paul had sung " lets move before they raise the fucking rate "   Its very possible he did.  Banning the record caused a backlash of press , BBC had never had that kind of bad press,  this caused  much more interest in the song
We insisted that Paul had not used the word "fucking" but in actuality the word was " parking"
We won the arguement, I think mainly due to the public eager to hear the record,  BBC lifted the ban and of course it became a w/w hit and it started the bands career.
They were 16/17 years old at the time. amazing band.

Lionel Conway
Co-President
Mothership Music Publishing

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Subject: Re: Once Bitten, Twice Shy

I was Mott's A&R man between 73-75. I remixed and edited All The Way From Memphis for the single back in the time when that was just part of your day job. Ian Hunter was the only rock'n'roller I met who truly lived up to his image. He could be intimidating, he could be vulnerable, and - if he learned to trust you - he could be kind and funny. He also wrote some fine songs that never got the recognition they deserved. But man, what a career he built over the decades, built on the concrete of a true rock'n'roll spirit and serious intelligence.

Paul Phillips

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From: Tom Rush
Subject: Re: David Bromberg-This Week's Podcast

I pride myself, Bob, as being the one who got him back on stage after that 22 -year hiatus.
 
I called him and asked him to be a guest on one of my Club 47 multi-artist concerts (2 "established" acts, 2 brilliant-but-unknown newcomers who would mix it up on stage). "Hey, David, it's just a 30-minute set and you can get other guests to join you. Easy! Good money! And if you take 2 Advil and 2 Tylenol your fingers won't hurt!"
 
He went for it and we did several of those shows (with different newcomers) before he decided he wanted to get his band back together. I couldn't afford that — the plane tickets, the hotel rooms, the paychecks — so we parted ways, but remain good friends to this day and have shared the stage on many occasions. Sad to see him retiring!
 
Tom Rush
www.TomRush.com

_______________________________________

From: Jesse Lundy
Subject: Re: David Bromberg-This Week's Podcast

Such a hero. I've had the good fortune to work with him many times (as promoter), and I tour managed for a long weekend in the midwest. Of all the things I've done in my career, it's THE thing that my parents were really excited about. 
"Hey mom, here's a picture of me and The Stones"
"Very nice!"

"Mom, I'm working with Bromberg!"
"We are SO proud of you!"

David's the best

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From: Rueben Williams
Subject: Re: Oh I Wept

Bob, 
We appreciate you taking the time to write about Eric Johanson. Whiskey Bayou Records is owned by guitarist Tab Benoit. Tab took Eric out on the road where he supported Tab Benoit dates for a couple of years. The record was a one off and has already recouped. We saw an opportunity to help new Artist who are ignored by the traditional record labels and my clients Samantha Fish, Devon Allman, and Tab Benoit started their own labels to support new Artist. 

Eric just signed with Ruf Records out of Germany and is on a year long tour supporting Samantha Fish and Jesse Daytons Death Wish Blues tour.  On Ruf he joins the roster who once had blues legend Luther Allison, Walter Trout, and Eric Burden. Today Ruf has Eddie 9volt, Ghalia Volt, and Ally Venable. The label has always focused on Blues Rock. 

My Artist wanted to use their success to help new Artist and invest in the support acts. The trade off for the new Artist is  access to larger social media following and their ticket buying fan base.  It is true that with  out Whiskey Bayou Eric Johanson would not be appearing in front of thousands and would not have signed to Ruf Records.  Jesse Dayton would not have produced his new record and you would not have made us all happy by writing about him. Eric is super talented and deserves all the attention he is getting. We have launched a few Artist though our labels and like Eric they are on to a successful career. 

Eric was going to sign with Blue Elan Records. One reason why we chose Ruf Records is because Eric JOHNSON is on that label. I mentioned to him a few days ago that I felt that people would get their names confused. 

 Thank you again for writing and keep your eye on Eric Johanson.  His new record is great and the purist will say it's not blues while others will call it blues. It's only rocknroll. 

Rueben Williams 
Thunderbird Management 
Artist Management Plus 

_______________________________________

From: Jesse Dayton
Subject: I produced the Eric Johanson record

Hey Bob this is Jesse Dayton. You wrote about me a few years back. Thanks for the incredible piece on the Eric Johanson music. I co-wrote & produced his new record The Deep and the Dirty that comes about to come out.

Hope your piece alerts folks to the fact that their is a massive disenfranchised record buying demographic out there of folks who love blues-rock but have been ignored by the industry in favor of soulless regurgitated youth driven pop music. These snarky hipsters pushing this pathetic narrative they've deemed "Dad Rock", are missing out on an entire movement that is still and will always be a large part of the market share.

My friend/comedian Jay Mohr has a great bit about these hipsters who walk around Park Slope and Silver Lake in vintage Journey concert T shirts which they claim to be wearing "ironically". Jay Mohr ask them "oh, do you like Jouney?" Hipster responds "nah, just thought it was funny". Jay Mohr than begins a tirade telling the hipster "if you would've seen Journey in 1979 in a 12,000 seat auditorium, they would've rocked your balls off!" 

Of course this borders on "hey you kids get off of my lawn!" But it also reveals that these younger bands like Greta Van Fleet,(who I must admit, I'm not really a fan of), are filling a huge record sales/ticket sales void left by these so-called "Dad Rock" acts. Eric Johanson is a blues based rock guitar act who is no way aping Stevie Ray Vaughn, which is unto itself, a miracle. Great songs, great playing, multi-racial power trio, balls out blues rock…expect great things. Blues-rock has historically re-trended every 10 years since the 60s when the hybrid was invented and Eric has the goods to do it again. 

best, Jesse Dayton 

_______________________________________

From: Eric Johanson
Subject: Thank you - Oh I Wept

Hi Bob - I can't thank you enough for your thoughtful and kind words about my cover version of the Free song. I made those Covered Tracks EPs by myself in my living room, during the pandemic when the live gigs were all but shut down.  The fact that you discovered me through that, is just the coolest surprise. 

I'm back out on the road now, with a new record on the way in July. 

I just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to listen and share those thoughts. I really appreciate it. 

All the best, 
Eric Johanson

-- 
Eric Johanson
EricJohanson.com
New Orleans, LA 
THE DEEP AND THE DIRTY - Out 7/28
ffm.to/tdatd

_______________________________________

From: Denny Somach
Subject: Abut Eric Johnson...

Bob,

I had no idea you were a big fan of Eric Johnson and I also know you like a good backstory, so here is the story on Eric.  
 
In the late 80's, Lee Abrams and I started a label with the idea of making new progressive music. The label was called Cinema and we got a distribution deal with Capitol. The first record we put out was by Pete Bardens, the ex-Camel founder. Don Zimmerman was president at the time and believed in the concept. We went through more presidents, including David Berman, Gary Gersh, Hale Milgram, and Joe Smith. We did three more artists for Capitol. They were beginning to lose patience, and our deal was for five artists, so we had one more to go. 
 
Eric had a bit of a following from other guitarists, namely Skunk Baxter and Steve Morse, who raved about him. He was also one of Stevie Ray Vaughn's favorite players. After seeing him on Austin City Limits where he was one of the few artists to play the show without a record deal, Prince saw him and mentioned Eric to somebody at Warner Brothers, where they signed him. He made one album, 'Tones', that did nothing and was immediately dropped by them. 
 
I happened to be at the Tower one day and stopped in to say hi to Thom Walley. He had just become head of A&R. I asked him if had heard anything interesting that fit our criteria. He handed me a cassette of demos by a little-known guitarist named Eric Johnson from Austin, Texas. His main claim to fame was that he had played with Carole King and Cat Stevens and was all over the Christopher Cross debut. 
 
I listened to the tape and was absolutely blown away, especially the song 'Cliffs of Dover.' Sent it to Lee and he agreed that this guy was amazing, so we signed him. He made 'Ah via Musicom' which included many of the songs that were on that demo. The record started out slow but built momentum. It sold about 200,000 and Capitol was about to drop him. They figured every guitar player had bought a copy, but interest from anywhere else was zilch.
?All of a sudden, it started to get attention from stations like WBCN, WNEW-FM, KLOS, and other influencers. The record started to get adds, not a lot right away, but consistently about a dozen a week. The record had now been out for almost a year, so Capitol started chasing it and it took off. Eventually went platinum and Eric was nominated for three Grammy awards and won for Best Rock Instrumental. He is one of only three guitarists to be voted Best Overall Guitarist in Guitar Player Magazine three years in a row. The only other two guitarists to win the category for the Gallery of Greats are Steve Morse and Steve Howe.
?
Eric is a perfectionist, and it took five years to deliver a follow up, 'Venus Isle.' As you know, the public has a short memory, and he was dropped by Capitol when it didn't immediately take off. It did eventually go Gold.
 
He still does great business on the road particularly in the south and southwest. Joe Bonamassa is quoted in the March issue of Guitar World saying he regularly apologizes to Eric Johnson: "Every time I see him I'm like, I'm sorry for stealing your style."
 
I just saw Eric play in south Florida a couple of months ago and he is still amazing, definitely in the top three. I told him there should be a documentary done on him and he agreed. So, now I am looking for a director who plays guitar and knows about this phenomenal player named Eric Johnson.
 
That's the story, hope you liked it. 
 
Regards,
 
Denny Somach

_______________________________________

From: Lee Abrams
Subject: Re: Chris Licht/CNN

CNN had the opportunity to reinvent themselves for this century.  Like most news organizations,  they're good at gathering news,  terrible at presenting it
Changing the lower third, losing the "breaking news" moniker and a few lineup changes ain't going to do it.  Information is the new rock n roll —- it's what's driving culture and CNN is  as flat as the platform
It's on at a time when the world is going through a revolution similar to the late 60's. 
?
Journalists and TV executives aren't programmers and they get caught up in their own battles reporting to each other and the conference room rather than the streets. The world is an electric place and requires truthful reporting of the right stories ( there's no research going into story selection ) presented with Technicolor inventiveness.  
?
CNN's failures were predictable.  A revolution in video information is and will happen,  but it won't be with a bland format rooted in the 80's.  It'll be as explosively fresh and 180 degrees from the cliched and pompous presentation we're currently seeing.  A complete rethink rather than compromises and bandaids.  Oh…and it'll be online and IMHO will change the future of information delivery.  

_______________________________________

From: Jason Harris
Subject: Re: Chris Licht/CNN

Hubris is so spot on.

It's Not TV. It's HBO.

It's Not HBO. It's MAX?

As a guy who spend an entire career in marketing/advertising,

This must be the worst branding move of all time.

Hubris and dumbassery.

In one ego shot, wiping out 51 years of brand equity and identity.

_______________________________________

Subject: Re: Chris Licht/CNN

Hey, Bob – 
Once again, you've covered all sides of the story well. 
Please allow me to add an aside from Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth: "The ego may be clever, but it is not intelligent. Cleverness pursues its own little aims. Intelligence sees the larger whole in which all things are connected. Cleverness is motivated by self-interest, and it is extremely short-sighted. Most politicians and businesspeople are clever. Very few are intelligent. Whatever is attained through cleverness is short-lived and always turns out to be eventually self-defeating. Cleverness divides; intelligence includes." 

Larry Butler 
Nashville

_______________________________________

From: Michael Scott
Subject: Re: The Backseat Lovers

Hi Bob,
I saw the Backstreet Lovers at Sea, Hear, Now festival in Asbury Park last summer. They played on a side stage in the middle of the afternoon, but the crowd, mostly 20-something's (I'm almost 50!), was totally engaged, knew all the words. They were the best performance I saw that weekend, and that includes the headliners, Stevie Nicks and Green Day. I've been a huge fan since. Kilby Girl comes up on my Spotify once a week, and I never skip over it. Great song. Check out "Pool House".
Take Care,

_______________________________________

From: Roger McNamee
Subject: Re: The Baseball Game

Dear Bob,

On the off chance you were not asking a rhetorical question, Cracker Jill was a brand extension introduced last year by Frito Lay to honor women in sports.  

I have not done a side-by-side taste test, but the Cracker Jill bag I had at Dodger Stadium has month tasted better than what I remember of the last bag of Cracker Jack that I had.  Fresher.  Crunchier.  Until further notice I am a Cracker Jill man.  

Roger

_______________________________________

From: Garrett Gravley
Subject: Re: Gutfeld Beats The Tonight Show

I interviewed Greg Gutfeld once. It was because Riley Gale from the band Power Trip had died, and he paid tribute to him on The Five, telling everyone that the two struck a fortuitous friendship. After the tribute aired, I reached out to Fox News thinking he wouldn't talk to me in a million years, but to my surprise, he did. He had nothing to promote or anything - he just wanted to discuss his friendship with an artist whose music he liked. And that's what the story was about. No politics or anything - just a story about that friendship and the grief he was feeling after his friend's death. 

I rarely ever get behind his politics and can NEVER get behind the network he's on, but I will always respect him for being charitable with his time and opening up to me about that without looking to plug anything. 

The story: https://www.dallasobserver.com/music/the-unlikely-friendship-between-a-fox-news-host-and-a-trash-metal-musician-11939649

_______________________________________

From: Randy Stine
Subject: Full circle after 15 years

Bob -


It's hard to believe you first wrote about Straight No Chaser over 15 years ago, when the original 1998 performance of 12 Days of Christmas went viral.  At that time, seven million views in a month were considered big numbers, as YouTube was in its infancy.  I know how lucky we were to rise to anyone's attention, let alone yours, along with Craig Kallman's at Atlantic Records.  After you wrote about us, I got several very kind, generous e-mails from Steve Lukather, encouraging us to reunite, and even assuring us that "Toto has your back!"  Steve and I haven't connected in person yet, but, ten years ago, I'm sitting in our signing line after a show at the Wiltern in LA, and a gentleman comes down the line and says, "Hi, I'm David, I wrote Africa and I love your arrangement."  He had no arrogance, he hadn't requested tickets or passes, and he even waited in-line to come say hello.  After years of corresponding via e-mail, and him coming to see us again last year in Thousand Oaks, David Paich had us fly out and record with him, in his studio this past March.  It was a thrill, a real full-circle moment for us, and we're proud to have him on our new album.

It's amazing for me to think about the power of a single song. If David Paich hadn't penned Africa, we wouldn't have covered it in college and morphed it into the end of a Christmas song.  Which means, without Africa, our silly version of a Christmas carol would never have gone viral, and we wouldn't have been recording and touring for the last 15 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMok9WRpCO4

Thanks again for your part in all of this too; your kind words for us from the very beginning are not forgotten.

Randy

The whole album is here, not that you don't have 1,000 other things to listen to.
https://open.spotify.com/album/4gDZ32a6jU74t8Rr5bQDkk?si=7jPXkQ66SaCZhE66048UEg

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From: Kevin Cronin
Subject: Re: Alito

Yo Bob,

I fucking love this letter. Your parting thought is a basic human truth. I have done my best to lead a righteous life, and yeah, I missed the mark several times. But when I did, it bothered me. I didn't like myself in those times. I have a little voice in my head, my Catholic upbringing calls it a conscience. I bailed on all the "changing water into wine, and walking on water" fantasies, but the conscience part stuck with me. It is, in my opinion, the most important thing I learned in my religious upbringing…and it has nothing to do with organized religion. Feeling bad when you lie, or cheat, or hurt someone is Human Being 101. Trump flunked that course, and flaunts his failure. "I could kill someone in Times Square and no one would care." He is proud of his hall pass to "grab 'em by the pussy." The Klu Klux Klan took notice, and took off their hoods. Sorry guys, but racist assholes were meant to be marginalized, and remanded to a life in the shadows. LGBTQ people are meant to be out of the closet and live their authentic lives. The Klan needs to be the ones closeted.  It is ludicrous to me that Trump retains his cult-like hold on so many otherwise good and reasonable citizens. My point is in line with yours. Trumps blatant misbehavior serves to undermine what I have spent years trying to impart to my children: When you are honest, driven by integrity, and care about others, it feels good. It doesn't feel good when you act like an asshole. I have tried it, so I know. Trump legitimizes the worst parts of human nature. He must be remanded to the same closet as the Klan. My fantasy is that Trump and OJ end up as roommates in a two bedroom apartment West Palm Beach, with no ocean view. … kc

PS. I only fly on private jets owned by people I like. And yeah, I have turned down plenty of opportunities. Who wants to be stuck on a fancy boat, luxurious plane, or in a mansion guest room, owned by an a-hole billionaire! There are plenty of nice billionaires who know the value of hard work and are grateful for their good fortune. When invited, I'll fly, float, or hang with them, any day. Oops, I'm flying commercial toady, and about to miss my flight. Where's a righteous billionaire when you need one?! … kc

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More Change Songs-SiriusXM This Week

More songs with "Change" in the title.

Tune in Saturday July 1st, to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz 


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Affirmative Action

I feel powerless. You'll tell me to vote, and I do, each and every time, the only time I missed an election was a California Democratic primary for which I was out of town, and I know voting makes a bit of difference, but it seems more about putting one's finger in the dike as opposed to making positive change. It didn't used to be that way, then again I came of age in the sixties, when everything was possible and everything was up for grabs. It was all about going forward, questioning norms and authority for a better life for everyone.

Yes, we live in a society. Even the white nationalists. The actions of the rest of us affect them. This reminds me of the wealthy, who always say they did it alone and are entitled to their riches. Well, no. You see if we didn't buy your products, you'd have bupkes. We're all interconnected, we all need to get along. Isn't that what Rodney King said? Oh, he's dead. And it won't be long before I am too. Do I just shrug my shoulders and go on with my life? When did everybody in America become so narcissistic, only focusing upon themselves. Imagine if Kennedy were President again today, and I'm talking about JFK, not the conspiracy spewing RFK, Jr. who seems to be building a base of the uninformed looking for change. JFK said: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." There are many people today who don't believe in the country. Oh, they say they're nationalists, but the government is evil and should be stripped down and out of their lives. How can this be? As for altruism... I'm not saying nobody cares, but it's all about careers. You don't want to take time out of your procession up the ladder to do for others. That's someone else's problem, the government's. But isn't this the same government that everybody hates?

So in the sixties we recognized that certain people were at a disadvantage and this needed to be rectified. Let me see... Do we want people of color to sit in the back of the bus? Be unable to go to college? Well, the dirty little secret is that many Blacks are forced into substandard schools sans the rest of society. And this impacts them their entire life. So they may not be as well-prepared for college as others who were the beneficiaries of a better education. But we're all equal, right?

It wasn't only about affirmative action in schools, it was also about voting rights. But the Supreme Court said racism was a thing of the past and laws were not needed. Everybody on the street knows racism is not a thing of the past. I'll make it very simple, when you get in an elevator and you're the only white person amongst Blacks or Latinos or...do you feel totally at ease? Admit it, in many cases you do not. You're afraid.

But it's their problem. They have to pick themselves up by their bootstraps. Why does everybody in America have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps? Oh, you were born handicapped? It's your problem. Tough noogies. Or without a father? Well, you should have chosen better. What, I was unborn! And you told my mother that she couldn't have an abortion. Are you proposing eugenics? Absolutely, we just don't call it that.

As for the guy who started this Harvard lawsuit, it's got nothing to do with Asians, he's been on this tip for decades. This is his calling, to get rid of affirmative action, just like Grover Norquist wants no new taxes. Talk about the power of an individual. You can't get a single Republican to raise taxes. Forget whether it's called for, they'll be excoriated by the party, they'll be primaried. This is the result of gerrymandering. Yes, the seat is Republican, but without a Democrat who can possibly win the lunatic right winger gets the seat.

Yes, call me a Democrat. Call me a liberal. And don't tell me it's the same on both sides, because it's absolutely not.

Then again, the Democrats don't know how to fight back. Somehow Hunter Biden is the worst criminal in the world but Trump's kids are saints? His son-in-law involved with the Saudis? As is Trump with LIV Golf. These are grifters, out to line their own pockets. Why if Trump is so rich does he keep asking for money for his legal defense?

Are there lunatic Democrats? Compromised Democrats? Of course. But the "Woke," the language police, all those straw men the right puts up, are a tiny minority. Do we judge all Republicans by the Ku Klux Klan? Then why do we judge the Democrats by a tiny extreme?

So you're born Black in the inner city which the Republicans label a hellhole. You're branded before you even start. And now doors are being shut left and right, opportunity is fading. The rich have nincompoop kids who they keep trying to get advantaged. Maybe two went to Harvard and there's one...he barely graduated high school, after being kicked out of prep school after prep school. But Daddy and his money get him one cushy job after another, because Daddy is connected. Who is doing the same for the nincompoops who are not white and rich? NOBODY! It's their own damn fault. And we don't want to give you no damn money, go out and work. But even if you do, we're not gonna raise the minimum wage. Go live in a flophouse with many, eat fast food, it's your fault you're obese and you've got to pay for it. National health care? Where in the hell is personal responsibility?

Personal responsibility. Like five year olds know all about this. Like everybody in America is born equal.

Well, in the eyes of the Supreme Court they are.

Sure, in a perfect world we need no affirmative action, but we don't live in a perfect world.

Let's make it about women... The corporation doesn't want you and if it does it pays you less. You might get pregnant. You're just too risky. But we have laws to level the playing field. But if you're a person of color? Too bad. The right wing Supreme Court justices might be going by the literal law, but not the spirit of the law. The MLB was playing by baseball's rules. But the end result was games were getting impossibly long. So what did the MLB do? Change the rules to equalize the game and make it more appealing to the masses, who ultimately support baseball, because once again it does not exist in a vacuum. End result? It works! Games are shorter and baseball is on the way up.

But our country is on the way down. We can't change rules, only tear them down. Because god forbid someone gains an advantage, that the law works in their behalf. It's your fault that you're gay or trans and we're going to teach you a lesson by closing doors. We say we're all about freedom, but it turns out that freedom's for us, not you.

So everything they told us in the "Weekly Reader" turns out to be untrue. Anybody can be President? Let's start from the beginning, who would want to be President?

And I won't say the election fights of the past were fair, but now it's all about defining the Democratic candidate unfairly, taking them out of the contest. Dukakis was weak on crime. As for Hillary? Didn't she kill Vince Foster? Forget that she was educated, she thinks she's above us. Well let me see... Do you want to have your car fixed by an amateur? Why are education and experience anathema?

The Republicans have got this game down cold. Start labeling left wing candidates negatively as soon as they pop up on the radar screen. Death taxes? Almost nobody pays them. As for the man who came up with this term...Frank Luntz is now fighting against Trump and the crazy right. But he's to blame, the rest of them too, enabling the ignorant and racist to the point where the tail is wagging the dog. This doesn't work in business, the CEO gets fired, but in politics it's fine. To the point where the Republican party is now run by the tail, not the head. The uninformed.

All you've got to do is go on TikTok, there are a plethora of videos. Trump is a saint and Biden belongs in jail. The facts don't matter. Fox News and its brethren, like Luntz, have created a monster, and since it's all about money, all they do is feed the monster.

As for the Supreme Court... The voters are so ignorant.

They were told again and again to elect Hillary because of the Supreme Court and...they didn't like this "mean" lady. I don't care what you thought about her, but these Supreme Court decisions are a direct result of her loss.

People voting against their interests. They've got no idea what is going on. How can you run a country when almost nobody knows the truth? I'll say it again, forget opinion, the number one factual resource in America is the "New York Times." Forget the left, the right devours it and reacts to it. But the right has told its constituents to ignore the "Times," live in darkness.

Back to the "Weekly Reader."

Believe me, we were nationalists back in the early sixties, we believed in our country. But then we started to question.

But it didn't occur to us that the game was rigged. That the Federalist Society would proffer inherently biased Supreme Court justices. There's no responsibility, just fealty to the team. And if you're not on that team...

Even worse, if your team is bigger, you still lose. Whether it be the Constitution's two senators for every state, the massage of voting rules or... The deck is stacked against you. And if you win, you lost. Isn't that Trump's mantra? Play that out. Everything is up for grabs, the aforementioned baseball game, Wall Street...facts are fungible, emotions are everything, and there are takers everywhere, poised to push you into the gutter, so you'd better be alert and vigilant to make sure they gain no traction, no advantage.

Respect? How can you respect the Supreme Court? Lackeys, tools of the right. There's an agenda, and it's not in your favor, the majority, the average citizen, it's all about protecting the whites and corporate interests, too often the same damn thing.

But there's nothing I can do about it. You can't get an abortion in your state? MOVE! But don't move to California or New York City because they're crime-ridden and morally bankrupt and... Well, which way is it?

Everybody's so confused they've got no idea.

And all we hear is freedom, FREEDOM, FREEDUMB!

I thought freedom wasn't supposed to hurt anybody else. And if it did, we enacted laws preventing the behavior. How does someone else's abortion hurt you? If anything, the birth hurts you. That kid has needs, and they may have to be met by the government. But they shouldn't be! Personal responsibility! Think about that every time you have sex, every time the condom breaks, every time the baby you're carrying is gonna kill you but an abortion is illegal.

So we're on our own. We can't play in the MLB and we can't really play in government and we certainly can't play on the Supreme Court.

Sounds good in theory, that everybody has an equal chance to get into college. But the truth is everybody is not equal, everybody does not begin at the same starting point. Let's talk about golf, the white man's game. Everybody gets a handicap, to equalize scores in tournaments. Yes, you get an advantage at the country club, but not in regular life, it's unfair!

Talk about unfair...

But I won't. Because it won't make a difference. The game is rigged and too often those on the side of right say their hands are tied.

We're going backwards. I lived through the good old days of equality. Now society is much coarser and much less even. Sure, we've got smartphones. And yes, poor people have flat screens. But you can't afford good food and you can't afford a new car and...it's capitalism. Any change will bring socialism and you don't want that, do you?

Maybe you do.

Like Medicare.

And Social Security.

Nah, let's just let our old people suffer. We keep hearing about deaths of despair. This didn't used to be a thing. But I'll tell you, if I run out of money I'll kill myself, you can't get a job when you're ninety. Too many baby boomers are going to confront this situation, and then what?

Oh, too bad, it's their own damn fault.

And it might be, but does that mean we're going to cut them loose?

That's what the Supreme Court says. We're all born and then you're on your own. However it plays out it's your fault.

Hogwash.

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Dwight Yoakam-This Week's Podcast

You'll love listening to Dwight's tales of growing up in Ohio and coming to Los Angeles to make it. Dwight is quite the raconteur, and this is the longest podcast I've ever done. It's like hanging with your best friend.

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/dwight-yoakam-118213093/

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dwight-yoakam/id1316200737?i=1000618733987

https://open.spotify.com/episode/11hhd0300lwyfPI2zzZMXg?si=Tv9Bbkm3Qv-eDqspRcaWJg

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/9e42b14f-5e35-47b0-82a5-492c4a31c168/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-dwight-yoakam

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/dwight-yoakam-304859482


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Music Burgeons

The theatrical movie business is never going to recover. And we might need population growth to fill all those office buildings. But music? It keeps getting bigger and bigger.

The movie business killed itself. This is what happens when you put bean counters in charge. Let's see... Marketing expenses are so high, let's make fewer and fewer movies and promote the hell out of them. Furthermore, to get a good return on our dollar, let's make sure the films can play in every country around the globe, let's not localize them, like with comedy, content that does not play overseas. And let's build franchises. Because the goal is to eliminate risk. Not only endless sequels, but comic book characters. Look at the gross!

Well, don't. Because the true metric is attendance. And somewhere along the line entire swaths of the public stopped going to the theatre.

The baby boomers...older ones might go out of habit, but so many have checked out, because they don't make the kind of flicks they got addicted to in the sixties and seventies. Deep thought pieces that stimulated your brain and engendered discussion. As for foreign flicks, the independents, there's so much product it's hard to make sense of the landscape, and movies come and go, it's no longer religion.

And then there are the families... Turns out you can see Pixar movies on Disney +, so why wrangle your kids and spend all that money at the theatre? Furthermore, the theatre is not on demand, there are appointed times, you can't be late, whereas you can stop and pick up Disney+ content whenever you want. The new Pixar movie, "Elemental," is everything adult fare is not...it's innovative, and it got some great reviews, and it's got a 92% audience score on RottenTomatoes, and the critics score is not quite as high, it's 76%, but the flick stiffed at the box office. "Elemental" is the lowest grossing Pixar pic in history, or close to it, depending on how you massage the figures. Then again, when Steve Jobs ran the company, Pixar movies were an event, by ramping up production Disney eradicated a lot of the magic. And like I said, you can watch them on Disney+ anyway.

Oh, you say, it was a mistake to put them on Disney+ during the pandemic. Well, if they held all this content back there wouldn't be a Disney+, which has the thinnest content slate of any streamer other than Apple, and that's only because Apple has no catalog, and it's making more new stuff. And the home experience is incredible these days. With giant hi-def flat screens and surround sound... Sure, there's a bigger picture at the theatre, but you've also got all those humans. Most people don't want to hang with all those humans. There's no policing of the movie theatre audience, getting patrons not to talk, to turn off their phones, and if you complain...expect blowback. People think it's part of the admission price, to do whatever they want during the screening.

And then there's the office. I get it, socialization is needed. But it turns out you can save so much time and accomplish just as much at home. All that brouhaha about innovation in the office...studies say this is untrue, that most innovation is singular, by one person, oftentimes out of the office. You don't need to go to the office to innovate, you can take a break, take a hike, that's when the neurons start to fire. And studies say people actually work harder at home. And it's so much easier, there's no commute. They're trying to bring people back into the office, but corporations don't have the power they used to, they're not the only game in town, treat me right or I'll quit. Ditto the unionization movement. You want to be on the side of the worker today, the wind has changed.

But in music?

The internet was supposed to kill music. After all, who would play if you couldn't get paid? EVERYBODY! Turns out that everybody wants their music on Spotify. As for getting paid...

This is what the oldsters don't understand, they're making less on recorded music because they're getting less mindshare. The pool used to be small. They had label deals, with advances, and marketing and promotion, and there was a limited amount of competition. But with all that competition... This is like network television, ratings have plummeted to lows incomprehensible during the last century. Because there are so many other options, never mind cable and now streaming, but YouTube and TikTok and...

So what we've got is a plethora of cottage industry acts. And in truth, today everybody starts out cottage industry, and after you've proven yourself you can make a major label deal, or not. The majors don't want everything, just what they can blow up, and that's only a fraction of what's out there.

So what we've got is an endless development pool. It's overwhelming, yet it doesn't have to be. But everybody who can separate the wheat from the chaff is addicted to the old model and refuses to do so. The streaming outlets need the major label product so they won't tell you anything sucks, it's all presented as equal, the customer is on their own, meaning you don't discover new music on the streaming platform, that's where you go once you've already heard about it. Music is broken via word of mouth, or TikTok... The streamers do a piss-poor job of breaking acts, they don't even know how to.

And now music is everywhere. The retrograde music industry finally woke up and realized it's not about shutting down new uses, but licensing them. This is why music is now so valuable, why catalogs are selling for a fortune. This is not a one time event. The revenue from music will continue to go up, because they keep inventing new uses for music. Just like things go better with Coca-Cola, things go better with music. And music, unlike Coke, has an unlimited number of brands, you can find anything you want. And it enhances your TikToks, your YouTube clips... It may just be pennies, but those pennies add up, just ask the publishers, this is their business model. Never mind sync licenses... There's more visual product than ever before, and almost all of it needs music. Of all stripes. Of all costs. There's room for the superstar and the wannabe.

So the public is music-crazy. They're exposed to music 24/7, they can't escape it, except maybe when they're asleep. And all these uses pay. Get your mind off the old paradigm of selling physical product. It's not about a short arc of sales, but an endless life of copyright, you get paid when people stream your music decades from now, assuming they do.

And most music doesn't get streamed. It's not only the oldsters who complain about compensation, but the youngsters too. Everybody thinks they're being ripped-off, not realizing there's only so much money and attention to go around. And people want stars. But a star might be a bluegrass band that can sell a thousand tickets everywhere it plays. You see there are kings (and queens!) in every genre. And those at the top can make a good living. You read all about the acts in the Spotify Top 50, but those who never enter it oftentimes make more. Today music is a long game, you pay your dues and you build your fan base and you monetize it forever. Never mind merch. And so much more.

Yes, the paradigm has changed, but the new paradigm is even better, because there are so many ways to monetize. But the competition is fierce. This is what happens when a business matures and the compensation goes up. Baseball players fifty years ago drank and could be overweight, whereas today's seven figure athletes, sometimes eight figure per year athletes, are incredible physical specimens, they lift weights, they work out, they need to be in shape to battle the competition, but also to ensure longevity. So if you're complaining it's harder today... Let me tell you, the "good" old days are never coming back, never.

And with everybody having the same smartphone, possessions becoming commoditized, it's become about the experience. Come on, why do you think food is such a thing? And so is the concert. There are different levels, there are superstars who play to hard drive, but those unknown by many playing different songs every night can sustain for decades. Come on, did you ever encounter a casual Phish fan? No, either you're a diehard or don't care. And the diehards might have seen a hundred shows. Believe me, that keeps Trey, et all, in dollars.

Music is everywhere. There are more stadium shows than ever, more acts that can sell stadiums, and although the bar business is rough, having been supplanted by recorded music, seemingly every burg hires acts to perform, as a cultural benefit to the locals.

But with an unclear top. And those at the top making tons of bucks while reaching fewer people... It's hard to make sense of the world. But if you pull the lens back... There seems to be a market for everything. Morgan Wallen, a country act, is the biggest chart performer. And then there's the Latin act Bad Bunny. Sure, hip-hop and pop seem to dominate, but there's so much else.

And I just can't see a downside.

Ticket prices? Believe me, they wouldn't be high if people didn't want to pay. Scalpers? Bots? They're all a result of demand. Sure, there are some problems here that need to be addressed, but not making enough money is not one of them. And it's hard to get sympathy from the government. Now let's see... The business is raining down cash and you want us to spend time and money enacting and enforcing legislation to undercut the law of supply and demand?

People want music, do you know how much else they don't want?

Sure, superstars draw attention. I'm not saying a new Beatles or the equivalent wouldn't juice the business even more, but the culture is not ready for that. Because to be iconic and believed in you have to leave money on the table and say no, and that's just not today's culture. Everybody wants everything, especially in a world with an elite tier living a lifestyle the rest of us don't. You might read about the compensation of artists, but they're low compared to the CEOs, who get paid astronomical sums year-in and year-out.

But the content of the content... Turns out music is so strong that it can survive even on mediocre content. Everybody talks about streaming television, people may not talk about music the same way, but maybe music has become like food, air and water. A necessity. You wouldn't think of signing off the streaming music service. As for those who do, who complain? They're going unheard, just like the oldsters who complained their cheese was moved twenty-odd years ago. You see twenty plus years have passed. The boomers are in their seventies, young people never knew a different world from today. Where you own little but pay for everything on demand. That's what Netflix is, that's what Spotify is, they call that access, and you don't want to forgo it, you NEED IT!

And then Netflix clamps down on subscription sharing and what happens? The freeloaders pony up. They can't live without Netflix. The product is just that hot.

But music is more visceral. And there's the live component. And when done right it embodies the personality, the identity, of the maker. And you can go to the show and see these acts in the flesh. There's a human component absent from any film, any TV show.

Are tweaks needed? Compensation rates, getting paid for recordings on terrestrial radio... Sure, but anybody who says the music business is upside down and in the sh*tter has their head up their a**.

Kick back and listen to the music.

It's morning not only in America, but the whole damn world.

IT'S GLORIOUS!


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Gutfeld Beats The Tonight Show

"How Fox News (Yes, Fox News) Managed to Beat 'The Tonight Show - Greg Gutfeld has installed his brand of insult conservatism as the institutional voice for the next generation of Fox News viewer. And it's catching on.": https://tinyurl.com/4z294r57

"'Fallon? That guy fawns more than a herd of deer. And I heard Seth Meyers and Trevor Noah ran off to be obscure together.'"

Now that's funny.

I remember when Marc Maron built his podcast into a monolith and was rewarded with a sitcom and nobody watched. The paradigm had changed and he didn't know it. Maron actually got more visibility with a role on the Netflix show "GLOW." Why is it that the oldsters and the Democrats are stuck in the past?

I was talking about Pee-wee Herman today. Remember he had that incident in the porn theatre and it killed his career? Wouldn't today. I'm not saying he wouldn't be hurt by it, at least not initially, but he wouldn't be disqualified. Yes, he might not host a children's show, but there would be plenty of opportunities. But Pee-wee felt shamed, and disappeared.

Did Sarah Palin feel shamed when her unmarried teenage daughter Bristol showed up at the Republican convention pregnant? Palin didn't seem to blink an eye. Previously, this would have been a no-no, a no-go, but Palin just doubled-down. And when the election was lost, not only did she go for the bucks, but Bristol did too. You see they knew more about the modern media landscape than those who'd been in it for decades. You strike now, when you're hot, you sell out, you take all the cash, because odds are you won't be around in a few years, no one will care.

Kind of like "Jersey Shore." The people on the initial "Survivor" thought they were really famous. By time "Jersey Shore" came around reality TV was a lark, hijinks for some fun, then you retreated to obscurity in Poughkeepsie.

Actually, that's what kept MTV alive, at least for decades. It was ahead of the game. It was MTV which opened its awards show with Pee-wee after his faux pas. MTV canceled not only shows, but veejays. Sure, old people pooh-poohed, cried, went to the media, but it turned out the channel was right, it knew who its audience was, young people, it didn't want to age and become irrelevant. Of course MTV ultimately did, because it did not have an internet strategy. Ditto with "Rolling Stone." Just because you triumphed in the past doesn't mean you'll win in the future. You might even get a ride of multiple decades, but eventually everything changes, everything, and if you want to survive, you have to change too.

So David Letterman created today's late night paradigm. And it continues to be repeated, forty years later.

First, why does the host need to sit behind a desk? That predated Dave, but come on, really? And the suits? The goal today is not to wear a suit, that's the ethos of the techies, and these pretenders are all dressed up?

Actually, the desk started earlier, but the content...

Dave put on a comedy show. Whereas the talk shows that preceded it certainly had some comedy, but they were also informational. Today every guest is pre-screened for a funny story, it appears rehearsed. If you want reality, if you want to be touched, don't go to late night television, and don't go to popular music either, they no longer specialize in that.

I don't want to talk about the politics of Gutfeld, that's no excuse.

But I will say he's been paying his dues for decades. And adjusting his act all the while. Putting in those hours, the legendary 10,000. Takes a long time to be good, for everybody. Oh, you can get lucky out of the box but most of those people don't sustain.

So Gutfeld's late night show is not like the networks' late night shows. I know, because I hear it on SiriusXM. Sure, I get paid by them, but I ain't never listening to terrestrial radio, my goal is to never listen to or watch a commercial, NEVER! My time is too valuable. And of course there are ads on "Gutfeld!," but I then flip the channel. But my point here is I'm listening to a TV show. I almost never watch MSNBC or CNN, but I listen to them. Maybe that's the paradigm for these late night hosts. Sure, they're creating content for YouTube, but maybe it's something closer to podcasts, long instead of short. It stuns me what a fan base Scott Galloway is building. He's hip, he's a rock star. He's not on TV all the time, then again, his core audience never watches TV, and they think Galloway's appearance on the flat screen is a victory, like seeing a rock act on TV in the sixties.

Galloway's humorous bro act gets thin, but ultimately what Scott is selling is intelligence and analysis, very important in an era where even your next door neighbor plays the market. I'm much more interested in the market than what's on late night talk shows. The market is more than entertainment. And we all know money changes everything.

But no one on late night has sold credibility, they're all pranksters.

And "Gutfeld!" may be one of the biggest.

You see "Gutfeld" realizes first and foremost it's entertainment, that's what brings viewers in. Put the viewer first, not the advertiser, the advertiser comes second, ratings are everything. You don't know what you'll get with "Gutfeld!," and there's this air of irreverence. There's no serious irreverence on late night TV, at least not since Jon Stewart's "Daily Show." And irreverence was a key element of the left wing sixties. Can you say "Abbie Hoffman"?

But the left is so worried about offending someone that it lives inside a box. Left wing creators are hamstrung, they're going to offend somebody, they shy away. Best to go by your own inner tuning fork and suffer the consequences. Controversy is good. And the truth is oftentimes it's a vocal minority that has a problem with you.

Sure, there are certain things that are unsayable...racist, antisemitic. But that leaves a lot of territory.

Hell, if you're on TikTok, and you should be, you know that one of the biggest stars is George Carlin, he pops up all the time. Alan King doesn't. Robert Klein doesn't. The other comedians are dated and fading in the rearview mirror. But Carlin was taking an independent stance and calling them as he was seeing them. I mean Carlin's routine about not voting...vote if it makes you feel good, but the owners of this country won't relinquish any power...and in order to believe in the American dream you've got to be asleep... See, I remember what George said, and I don't remember much of what was said yesterday, anywhere.

You first and foremost must have an identity. And know you're playing to a core, if you're trying to appeal to everybody you've immediately lost the plot.

So everything we knew about late night network talk shows... An aged audience that doesn't move the needle. Remember when a late night musical appearance meant something? Maybe you don't, that's how long it's been!

And why is it that Fox can reinvent itself but the rest of the competition cannot? Kinda like Netflix dropping all the episodes at once. Don't talk to me about money and ratings, this is what the AUDIENCE wants. And the key is to keep them coming, subscribing, for years to come. Now that I have to pay for Apple TV+ I don't. Because I can't watch shows week to week. People tell me about shows, I check and they're not done, and I don't go. And then who cares. But I'd pay if I could watch complete shows all at once. Who is standing up for me?

Very few. At their peril.

Gutfeld has tapped into his audience. He knows who they are and what they want. Fox nurtured him and now he's got the ten o'clock slot.

Oh, don't tell me about Tucker Carlson, whose second Twitter video said the Ukrainians blew up the dam themselves. Meanwhile, the real news, forget the commentators, came out:

"Why the Evidence Suggests Russia Blew Up the Kakhovka Dam - A dam in Ukraine was designed to withstand almost any attack imaginable — from the outside. The evidence suggests Russia blew it up from within.": https://tinyurl.com/3b7z6k4e

Don't roll your eyes, don't tell me about the "New York Times," bottom line is the "Times" doesn't care about you. But Fox News cares about the "Times." The "Times" does the research nobody else does. Better than some bloviating commentator.

The "Times" knows who its audience is. Then again, when it plays to its audience even I wince. Like that story over the weekend about the writer switching from a smartphone to a flip-phone. There are people living in tents too, but the majority don't. Stop this retro-tech stuff, makes you look out of touch.

But the bottom line is if you want to be popular today, you have to have an edge, an identity, and you have to stick to it. And you have to stop apologizing. And you have to take risks.

Kelly Clarkson put out a new album. The difference is it's about...her divorce? I'd be more interested in a covers album reworking songs a la Joe Cocker. Or a hip-hop album. I mean WHO CARES?

A music industry sans clothes. Doing the same thing it has done for years. Play it up the middle. If you had an outside sound in the sixties and early seventies they were bending over backwards to sign you to a deal, because you never knew, and the audience was interested in new and different stuff. I'll let you in on something, the audience is still interested in new and different stuff, but the major labels won't sign you unless you prove your success first in an approved vertical.

And you wonder why music gets no respect.

SNL used to be hip, offended people, was an inside joke. But that was the seventies, and that's almost fifty years ago and they're still using the same damn format, I mean really?

And with "Gutfeld!" we learn once again that the thing people care about most, pay attention to, is the news. Stop telling us about brain-dead Americans, it's now the American pastime, following the news, most especially politics. I don't want to see skits, I want to see something that wrestles with the real issues.

Happens to me all the time. I'm hanging with a famous musician, a powerful promoter, and what do they want to talk about? POLITICS!

But we can't say that, all we can say is the music is as good as it ever was.

Hogwash.

If you read this screed and talk about the viewpoints Gutfeld is espousing, you've missed the point. Gutfeld is playing to the believers, throwing it right down the middle, hard. Where are the Democrats throwing it right down the middle, with truth wrapped up in laughs?

Few and far between.

And last time I checked, the Republicans' are eating the Democrats' lunch. Disproportionate to their population. The minority is ruling because the Republicans have stirred up their constituents. The Democrats? Oh, they got rid of abortion, there's nothing we can do, you've got to vote, we're counting on you to vote. The same vote that George Carlin said was worthless?

Count most people out.

They don't bother to vote because they don't think it makes a difference. And this is not their fault, but that of the parties and candidates. But the candidates are so phony no one can believe in them. Now that Hillary Clinton has given up elective office she can speak some truth, she does, whereas when she was running she said her favorite book was the Bible. Did ANYBODY believe that?

No.

And you've got the problem right there.

People have to believe you believe. And are not beholden to the man. That you're on their side and willing to take risks.

That's the modern paradigm.

But the set in their ways oldsters refuse to own it, employ it. They'd rather just depend on what an out of touch, old wave mainstream media says. Only so many stories can fit in a newspaper, even a digital one. To be informed you have to canvass many sites, and most people do.

Come on, can we live in the twenty first century?

It appears not.

Except for a select few.

And they're winning.


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TikTok Marketing

I just got off the phone with Ahmed Nimale, CEO and Co-Founder of KYD Labs. Know him? I doubt it. And neither did I, until I hosted a panel about ticketing at Canadian Music Week.

Ticketing. It's a game few understand, and few want to understand. And ultimately this panel wasn't about solving the ticketing problems everybody is concerned with, i.e. the fees, availability, prices, bots...but independent ticketing companies trying to build a business.

I've lived through this, for decades. Anybody who gains real traction is ultimately sold to one of the big kahunas, akin to how if you compete with Amazon and are any good, they buy you. It's just not that interesting to me, because we don't live in a vacuum. I remember meeting the majordomo of Songkick, back in the early days, I asked him how he was gong to make money. It was simple, he told me he was going to sell tickets. SELL TICKETS? Yes, the platform was a way to reach new customers and they could sell tickets. And how much would they pay Ticketmaster, et al, for these tickets? NOTHING! These outlets would be glad to work with Songkick, because of its ability to reach potential customers. This was a complete misunderstanding of the business, all the money is in selling the tickets, these companies are not just going to cough up inventory. And they didn't.

What you've got is techies who see a problem and don't understand the business. Like all those music distribution sites that launched back at the turn of the century. They just could not fathom that they needed licenses from the rights holders, on the rights holders' terms. Didn't matter how good the idea was, the question was how good was it for the company? Was it going to undercut its traditional business, was it going to generate revenue, was there going to be a large enough guarantee? Eventually the problem was solved by Daniel Ek, years after the problem arose, and despite all the complaints about Ek and Spotify, he dedicated untold time and money in making it happen. He might fly private now, but he didn't back then. That's what people don't understand, one person can make a difference, change the world, but not in a vacuum. Ek realized he needed licenses to make it work, that was the hardest part, the tech was much easier.

So what I ended up doing on this CMW panel was asking about the specific companies, drilling down into the specifics. How much money was raised, how much spent. Those are the important details when starting a business, an idea is just the kernel, you need to make it pop. And you've got to be able to answer all these questions, And I don't want to hear that your company is bootstrapped, because you don't have enough money to make a difference, even if you may be able to make a small profit. I want someone dynamic, alive, who can answer all the questions.

And that was Ahmed Nimale. A man with experience in ticketing. He was impressive, and in reviewing my panel with others, I mentioned him, pointed him out.

And then he wanted to talk.

I never want to talk. Because you want to sell and I'm not buying. But I found this guy impressive, so I ended up with a free moment today and I decided to call, weeks after he first asked me to.

And he talked about TikTok marketing. THAT I'm interested in.

Did you catch that article the other day how they can't prove the deleterious effects of TikTok?

"Everyone Says Social Media Is Bad for Teens. Proving It Is Another Thing. - Parents, scientists and the surgeon general are worried. But there isn't even a shared definition of what social media is.": https://tinyurl.com/2p9af9b8

It's just like they used to say about rock and roll, the little girls understand. And the oldsters do not.

So Ahmed told me he had TikTok ticket marketing down.

So I asked him to tell me the story.

Well, he'd gone through a huge number of influencers, and found ones with reach that were in the proper wheelhouse. And he asked them how much they'd charge to create a clip, and in this example, the girls said $200. This is what he got:

https://tinyurl.com/4ynfzrxx

For his $200, Ahmed got in excess of 10,000 impressions.

And then he went to TikTok and bought ads, to put on these clips.

Now in this case, the end result was a wash, as much as he put in for ads is what he got back in ticket sales.

He said for $100, TikTok delivered 10,000 impressions. But it could be more, because the clip itself might go viral. There might end up being 100,000 impressions.

And then Ahmed told me he purchased a site. Well, a name. Well, a TikTokker. Ahmed combed the music influencers, found one with reach who needed money to blow himself up, paid the influencer a five figure sum and put him on salary.

So, to put a clip promoting shows on this site, that he owns, costs Ahmed nothing. But in one day, ONE DAY, a clip posted yesterday got 98,000 views. And Ahmed finds ads on this site deliver a return of 3x.

So...

The hardest thing to do today is get noticed. The "Wall Street Journal" has a story today about Taylor Swift possibly doing a billion dollars on her tour. No one really knows, because she's not releasing grosses, she's waiting for it to be over, wanting the publicity of a large number. That's Taylor. But what's also true about Taylor is never has someone this big reached so few.

The only analogous tour to Swift's "Eras" is the Rolling Stones' 1972 U.S. tour. There was the same amount of publicity. But in that case, everybody under thirty knew Stones songs, everybody had heard "Satisfaction," and more. So youth culture was apoplectic, talk about the impossibility of getting a ticket.

And today there are acts that sell boatloads of tickets, but their music is unknown to most.

"Morgan Wallen Enters Adele Territory With 14th Week at No. 1- The country singer's latest album, "One Thing at a Time," has now notched more weeks atop the Billboard chart than any album in more than a decade.": https://tinyurl.com/mrx7epfw

Since Adele?? That album "21" with "Rolling in the Deep"? Never mind "Rumour Has It" and "Set Fire to the Rain"? Man, you couldn't escape Adele back then, everybody had heard an Adele song. But has everybody heard a Morgan Wallen song? NO WAY!

And Morgan Wallen's "Last Night" just spent its twelfth week at #1 on the Hot 100. Twelve weeks is amazing, but even more amazing is how many people don't know the track. Imagine this in the eighties, Whitney Houston had a bunch of tracks you couldn't escape, never mind so many others. That paradigm is gone.

But the publicity isn't.

Never mind the myopia.

You see what they tell us is omnipresent and reaches everybody does not. From "Succession" to "Eras"... The news is skewed. And in truth the impact of this is more serious in straight news as opposed to music, but...

The hardest thing to do is to reach people. And Ahmed Nimale has figured out a way.

He says it takes six touchpoints to get someone to buy. He focuses on TikTok and Instagram. And he's built the technology to be able to track it all, where someone saw the info and what ad they used to buy tickets.

In other words, what works.

I asked Ahmed if anybody else was doing what he was.

And when I pushed him he said maybe a couple of people, but his advantage was nailing tracking and attribution. He'd made a science of it, he'd cracked the code.

Seems to me that Ahmed is on the bleeding edge.

Then again, I don't talk to everybody.

Then again, everybody is so full of shi*t. They say they can do it and can't. Sometimes they've never even tried, they're just looking for the cash, then they'll figure it out. Bluster is king.

Now Ahmed is using this marketing to aid the entities using his ticketing platform. And he says he can employ the same strategy/technology to sell other things, merch, etc.

But I'm not that interested in these independent ticketing companies. Because it's an inherently limited market, all the big venues are sewn up. And the dirty little secret is the contracts almost never expire. The venue signed up for five years, but has spent the money/needs money in three. Sure, the ticketing company will give them more money, in exchange for more years.

But the marketing...

The active ticket buyer, the youth, and not only the youth, are on TikTok, which mainstream media abhors, which gets pissed on constantly. I won't sell TikTok, but I will say that that's where everybody is, and they don't care what you think.

But TikTok is a black hole, run by algorithm, and everybody sees different stuff, making it look too opaque to tackle.

But Ahmed says he's figured out a way.

Pretty interesting to me.


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New West Summerfest

https://newwestsymphony.org/#schedule

I went to hear Alex Ligertwood sing "Winning."

I felt like I was on vacation. You take the 405 deep into the Valley, and then you go left onto the 118, so far that you end up in a different county. But pretty soon the landscape looks different, like in those westerns the boomers used to watch on television. I'm thinking I haven't been this far out on the 118 since we were making movies in the eighties. And I haven't been this far from home since the pandemic. Oh, I've left town, gone to Colorado, Utah, but as far as getting in my car and driving... No. Then again, you can't go anywhere in Los Angeles anyway, because of the traffic. When I checked the map app the day before it said 46 minutes. For this show? But then I realized I oftentimes spend that much time in the car going to a show downtown. And by Saturday afternoon, it said only 35 minutes, and then 33, and I made it there faster than that, because on that stretch of road it's hard to go less than 75, usually you're at 80, I had to remember how to use the cruise control, it'd been years since I'd employed it.

Moorpark. For some reason I didn't think it was quite this far. I mean you can't live in Moorpark and work in L.A. But that does not mean people don't do it. People do a lot of irrational things in Los Angeles, in the name of property ownership, in the name of peace and quiet.

So there's a college out there. Right off the freeway, easy to find. And there were signs to park, but almost no cars in the lot. And I had no idea where the venue was. Turned out it was a field way atop campus, and when I realized this I went back and got my car so I could park in the closer area I had a pass for.

Before that, I'd gone to the porta-potty. I was surprised that at a college campus we didn't have access to the real thing, but I was even more surprised that these porta-potties were brand new, I think I was the first person to piss in the one I was in!

And when I went to wash my hands... They had that pump dispenser for water, you know, where you step down and you get a modicum of H20, but after a splash I decided to just use the hand sanitizer instead, it requires no drying. But, while I was walking back to get my car, the sanitizer never evaporated. That's when I realized it was soap. We've come a long way, baby, back to 2019, before the pandemic.

So what we had here was...

I'm not exactly sure.

They had food trucks, but only a couple, not a cornucopia. And alcohol, and then a natural bowl facing a portable stage. That was another reason I went back to my car, the weather app told me the temperature would drop into the fifties, and I needed to be prepared, I needed another layer. And even though I was baking under the sun, when it fell below the horizon it got chillier and chillier and thank god I had two layers and a hat.

Ferrone had told me to come. He talked about playing with an orchestra, how the members were so skilled. So what we ultimately had was an orchestra fronted by Jason Scheff, a long time Chicago lead vocalist, and his friends. As for the event...

There was no way they were making money here. It had to be sponsored by the symphony or the college, or both. And it was ill-conceived to boot. There were three layers of tickets, up close and personal with a seat at $150 (came with parking), $75 to sit on the grass in the walled garden, and $50 to sit behind the fence, not that far away, but not that close either.

And it was clear to me, this gig needed to be free. Then it would have been full. There are other ways to monetize a gig like this other than with too expensive tickets.

But what exactly was this gig? Some guy came out and talked about Summerfest, but then he talked about next year, it seemed it was two days, this weekend, and that was it. Not an auspicious debut financially, but you've got to start before you can get anywhere.

So I'm sitting there listening to Jason Scheff sing Chicago songs. And it reminded me of seeing Arnel Pineda front Journey, in that the audience now owned these songs, not the band. It was kind of ersatz at first, then Jason's voice sounded just like Peter Cetera's, but still...

Then they played "Saturday in the Park."

This is where the orchestra shined. The sound was full, like the record. In a way you might not even hear if the real Chicago was on stage, then again the real Chicago hasn't been on stage for eons, and it's a different Chicago than the one that included Terry Kath anyway.

But now I was grooving, and so was everybody else. Even the eleven or twelve year old kid down front. Does everybody his age know these songs, the words by heart, or was he related to Scheff or somebody else?

And then Bill Champlin came out to sing his part on "Hard Habit to Break."

Bill Champlin was in the Sons of Champlin, which never broke through, barely made a dent. However I knew one song that I loved, from the "Fillmore: Last Days" album, "Poppa Can Play."

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/5n6rkm45

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/3vz2jk3r

That's from a triple album set, the soundtrack to the movie, the closing of the Fillmore West. The most memorable cut is Santana's version of Joe Zawinul's "In a Silent Way," that was the title track of the Miles Davis LP. Carlos is still here, but Joe and Miles are not, and I'm not sure many people even remember this composition, not that it was famous fifty years ago, but it made an impact, this was at the beginning of the fusion sound.

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/8vuzucy8

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/3bc9d7jh

And I'm thinking about Champlin's career. How this denizen of San Francisco ended up in L.A. and ultimately a member of Chicago. Ultimately a journeyman, his contemporaries might have been household names, but it didn't happen for him, and now he's in his seventies... There are a bunch of these guys, they've dedicated their entire lives to the music, Bill even dropped out of school, was it worth it? Well, ultimately you have no choice, there are no do-overs.

So at first Bill's mic is mixed too low, but then they bring it up and you can hear the characteristics of his vocals. And he's not oversinging, he's not hogging the spotlight, it was a master at work.

And then came Alex Ligertwood.

This guy's about 5'3" on a good day. And he looks like he hasn't had a meal since 2020. He's old and grizzled and even though he fronted Santana for more than a decade, what has he been living on? I mean this guy looked nearly dead. But he stepped up to the mic and...

He was playing to the last row, as if it was Live Aid or something, clapping, imploring, and then...

"One day I was on the ground
When I needed a hand
Then it couldn't be found
I was so far down that I couldn't get up
You know and one day I was one of life's losers
Even my friends were my accusers
And in my head I lost before I begun"

It was jaw-dropping. The guy might have looked decrepit, but he hadn't lost a step, his vocal was exactly like the 1981 record, Santana's first hit single since the early, Greg Rolie days.

"I'm winning
I'M WINNING!"

He had us singing the words, pointing the mic at us, sans his vocal,

And damn if people didn't know it. I certainly did, I bought that album just to hear that song.

And then came "Black Magic Woman"..

And I'm thinking how this is ersatz. Not the real Santana. And then I remind myself that really it's a Peter Green Fleetwood Mac song, and as I'm listening...it's better than the version on "Abraxas," Alex sang it for all those years, he's adding something to it.

Yes, it was a crack band. Not only Ferrone, but this guy Errol Cooney, Janet Jackson's guitarist, and keyboardist Brandon Coleman, who plays with Alicia Keys.

Not that the show was dynamic. It was loose. It looked exactly like what it was, Jason Scheff and his friends.

And one of his friends is Steve Porcaro, so Steve comes out and they play "Human Nature," which Porcaro co-wrote for Michael Jackson.

And then...

They were going to play a Toto song. Honestly, I thought it would be "Rosanna." But it turned out to be the modern classic, "Africa."

Now this is strange, "Africa" is the new "Don't Stop Believin'." Everybody knows it, it's got a billion and a half streams on Spotify.

And the place goes nuts. Everybody comes down close, is dancing, hands in the air. That's the power of "Africa," astounding.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't say that Bill and Alex's background vocals pushed the rendition over the top.

And speaking of Bill...

He comes out to do the number one Chicago song that he sang, "Look Away," written by Diane Warren.

And now that he owns the mic for the whole song...

Wow, you can hear the character in his voice.

And unlike before, this dignified, well-coiffed guy in a sports jacket is playing a Fender. Cool. But then he starts to WAIL! I mean truly WAIL! And I'm sitting there thinking how guitar heroes are a thing of the past. And I'm thinking about where Champlin sits in the hierarchy and then I'm reminded, everybody's got their own style, their own sound, and it's not about comparison, but satiation, of both the player and audience.

And then there were a number of Chicago songs sung by Scheff that were an anticlimax, really, they needed to stop with Bill's performance, and it's over.

So what exactly did I experience?

Vail has a daily newspaper, the "Vail Daily." And you'd be stunned how many events are taking place every day, never mind every week. A surprising amount of name talent, but also a lot of locals.

And this has made me aware of other markets, there's much more entertainment in each place than there used to be.

And I'm thinking about the big shows. By my east coast perspective, Moorpark is Los Angeles. But if you grew up in Los Angeles, it might as well be San Francisco, it's one step beyond. But right down the pike is the epicenter of live entertainment. Yes, there's New York, London and L.A. And in truth, just like the label power is now concentrated in L.A., so is the promoter power, both Live Nation and AEG are here.

So you can see household names on a regular basis.

Then again, if you're paying attention, Steve Ferrone is a household name, as is Porcaro and... If you're a fan, you know all these cats, these are not the secondary players of Vail.

So what's going through their heads?

As Ferrone told me, he loves to play, that's what he digs most in life, with some other cats, whether it be on stage or in the studio, connecting, egging each other on.

And that's what was happening here in this backwater. Unbeknownst to seemingly everybody.

This was not about starpower, but music. These guys had dedicated their entire life to music, and they were still on the road, keepin' on.

Which is where I went, back to the 118.

And I listened to the news on Russia, I didn't want to ruin the mood by listening to music.

And I'm thinking how dark it is.

And I'm thinking what a great big country it is, and all you've got to do is get in your car and drive.

I drove last night. Made me happy.

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