Hold on, wait a second, don't shoot the messenger! So I'm sitting in the waiting room at the UCLA Medical Center and I'm reading this new book from the Trouser Press: "Wake Me, Shake Me: New York City, the 60s & the Pop-Rock Youthquake": https://www.trouserpressbooks.com/wake-me-shake-me I wasn't planning to read it. I was just skimming it, checking it out, and what hooked me was the names, the details, I decided right then and there I was going to read it, take it from the top. You see last night out hiking I started the new podcast from "A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs." I know, I know, you've e-mailed me about this before, and I checked it out and wasn't completely satisfied, but it came up in my feed and this edition was: "Song 185: 'Peaches En Regalia' by Frank Zappa" https://500songs.com/podcast/song-185-peaches-en-regalia-by-frank-zappa/ I'll check that out. Although never a commercial hit, "Peaches En Regalia," the opening cut on "Hot Rats," is a one listen smash, from the Zappa universe wherein he tests limits, fusing jazz and rock and... The following cut on the album, "Willie the Pimp," actually gained more attention back then, even occasional airplay, and it had a great riff and groove and a classic Captain Beefheart vocal, but it's been almost completely forgotten to the sands of time. Now what I expected was a deep dive into "Peaches En Regalia." But that's not what the narrator, Andrew Hickey, delivered. He started at "Freak Out." And that was a surprise, going back to the beginning. And then very detailedly he chronicled that album and every one thereafter in order of release and my mind was blown, because I was learning things, despite knowing so much already. Now maybe at this late date if you do comprehensive research all this information is available online, but it certainly was not back in Zappa's heyday, the sixties and seventies. Hickey goes on that famously, the album credits on Frank's albums did not comport with who actually played on the record. But even better, he went through every player involved and gave their backstory. People who I knew by name only. I didn't know that Don Preston made his bones in the Army band. And that he was born in 1932, and was ten years older than most of the Mothers. And that he knew Jim Fielder, who was a bassist, who Frank brought on to play rhythm guitar (after Elliott Ingber was so high they had to turn off his amp at a show), who then quit to go back to the bass. And the details on Bunk and Buzz Gardner! And even an in-depth detour into Essra Mohawk, who used to e-mail me before she died, she was way into Buddhism. So when I picked up "Wake Me, Shake Me" and saw this same deep dive into personalities, some completely unknown, if not like a rolling stone, that's when I decided to commit. And the author, Mitchell Cohen, starts out in the fifties. And makes very clear that the major labels wanted nothing to do with rock and roll, certainly not Columbia, they thought it was a fad, inane music for brain dead teens. And then years later they finally woke up. And this got me to thinking, how social media is the new rock and roll. What we know, based on my inbox, is that you hate it. Even though you probably haven't fully-checked it out. It's a badge of honor for oldsters, I DON'T EVEN HAVE A TIKTOK ACCOUNT! They say self-satisfiedly. They've turned into their parents, even though they refuse to believe this, since they have a smartphone and wear sneakers and shorts to work. Social media, let's just say TikTok and its not as big or as good competitor, Instagram Reels, is the heartbeat of the younger generation. And the cut-off age might be really low. Do you remember Kim Kardashian and the rest of the posing two-dimensional stars of the day complaining when Instagram went to video? This was antithetical to their game. They produced highly-stylized still photos to show that they were better than the rest, to get the public to glom on to their lives, so they could sell them stuff. You can't do this in video, which oftentimes is spontaneous anyway. Still images were like the silent film era, whereas video is like talkies. And very few people translated from one to the other. Still. So one of the main complaints about TikTok is it's a time-waster. Won't those kids get off the damn phone, talk to people in real life? But this is their real life, and that's what's so intriguing. This is not big time motion pictures, nor is it manipulated reality television. What you get is a peek into someone's life. Imagine going into the bedroom of the girl next door, and having her reveal seemingly every detail about her life. Who she has a crush on, bad and good dates, body issues... It's incredibly riveting. No one is going to tell you this stuff in regular life, you might have to hang with them for years to get these inner thoughts, if ever! Think of all the products that fail. You might have even tried to succeed and failed. It's nearly impossible to gain the public's attention, never mind keep it! That's evidence of how desirable TikTok really is. TikTok is the complete opposite of most film entertainment. Honesty and authenticity triumph, whereas film is inherently fake. As for the people... To be a movie star in the U.S. you have to be beautiful, but not to be a success online. Furthermore, if beauty is your thing, you'll find scores of individuals to look at. Some with interesting stories, some not. And it's an ongoing relationship. Post or die. People want to think they know you. This is the opposite of a band that puts out an album every few years. There's not the same relationship. As for traditional stars... They've been pulled down from the sky, they've been toppled. Because film is 2-D and TikTok is 3-D. Online we see who people really are. And just because you're in a hit movie, that does not mean we look up to you. What do you have to say, what are your likes and desires? What are you angry about? This is anathema to conventional media-trained actors, and a lot of popular musicians too. They've been trained not to do this, to hold back. But that does not work online. TikTok is not a facsimile of real life, IT IS REAL LIFE! Which movies and TV shows are not. And what we're all really interested in is people. And if you play online, you're exposed to haters. Conventional stars can't handle this. Used to be the "little people" had no voice. But today they do. Commit a faux pas and it's all over social media instantly. If you were on TikTok, you were inundated with video of Trump being booed at the game on Sunday. There wasn't anywhere near this level of detail featured by conventional news outlets. Maybe there was a short clip. But on TikTok you got multiple videos, multiple angles, you could go deep. And that's what people want to do, go deep, assuming they're interested. They'll go completely down the rabbit hole, in a way that used to be impossible, just like I'm riveted by this Frank Zappa podcast. Is it for everybody? Absolutely not (even though it is absolutely free). But if you're more than a usual Zappa fan, it's manna from heaven. And there's information too. I'm hooked by this ski shop in Austria, Sport H&N, they post videos of fitting ski boots, grinding out the shells, foaming the liners, you can't get this info anywhere else. There's no filter. No censor. No Verve/MGM Records saying that the band couldn't be called just "The Mothers," and that's why "of Invention" was added. Never mind the endless censorship. Frank ended up recording stuff backwards on "We're Only in It for the Money" that was forward and intelligible on the initially submitted version. Now TikTok, online, the smartphone, is not only the heartbeat of America, but the entire world. In India in some locales there were smartphones even before radio! They skipped a few generations of media. Now all this is unfathomable to oldsters, because they didn't do it this way. You've got to do it their way. What you need to do is go out to a club, a bar, and try to meet someone to date. When you cannot only use a dating app, but you can go deep down in your area of interest and connect with people online? It's so much easier! Now oldsters are not the only ones who abhor social media, it's the mainstream news outlets too. Experienced reporters don't want to compete with someone online sans CV who is breaking stories. No, you must jump through the hoops first, prove yourself. But that's not how it works online. Online you start and you hone your chops and refine your act and if it's good, people will come to you, if it's not... That's what we see in music, people complaining no one will listen to them. But they're inured to the old ways. They'd like to close the door on competition, get signed by a label and have that company support and break them. But the truth is there's an endless number of songs online. And the majors can't even break an act. And when they try to play on TikTok, not living on the service, they just think it's shortened MTV clips. But no. First and foremost is the bond with your audience. Then the career grows. There are no middle people, which makes it confounding, but does not make it untrue. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse. But all the oldsters still don't get it, they don't know the joke is on them. If you want to sail into the sunset, ignore social media, that's fine with me. But if you want to sit in judgment, tear it down and insist it must not be used... You're just like parents telling their children not to listen to rock and roll. Best to self-check. -- 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 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
