It's cold here!
I could feel it in the gap between the jetway and the plane, the blast of not quite frigid air that told me I was not in California anymore.
What's interesting about the new connected world is that you can live anywhere. Once upon a time, if you weren't in L.A. or New York you were off the grid. The outskirts were a good place to raise children, but chances were you were never going to be anything more than a big fish in a small pond.
But those days are history. The Internet works everywhere. As does cable TV. You can be hip anywhere. As well as completely out of it in the metropolis. With the onslaught of information chances are some kid in his basement in the midwest is much more savvy than you are on the coast. Which is why Spotify can be started in Stockholm, where the broadband speeds dwarfed those in the United States. That's what we all desire these days, a fast connection. That's why you must upgrade from your iPhone 4 or 4s to a 5, for the LTE. It's like surfing at home. Well, a U.S. home.
And there are rich people everywhere. We're driving along the banks of the Mississippi (I know how to spell it because of the song!) and on the St. Paul side are manses so big and beautiful, that you contemplate moving.
Not that Minneapolis was ever backward. It was always hip.
But always cold.
But the one thing they don't tell you is that just as cold as it is in the winter, that's how hot it is in the summer!
And since the advent of global warming, it's not as cold as it used to be, but everything's relative.
And where did I learn about Minnesota?
College! Going to school with Dodd Cosgrove, whose father ran Jolly Green Giant, and the kids from Wayzata, they taught me how to pronounce it!
And "The Heartbreak Kid." Forget the remake, the initial Charles Grodin flick is incredible. The final scene is priceless, when he's in Minnesota, giving his spiel to the blue bloods, this Jewish sporting goods retailer... But the highlight is the beach scene, where Grodin lays his towel down amidst endless sand and suddenly feels a shadow... And he looks up and it's Cybill Shepherd saying "You're lying in my spot!" That's what all males are looking for, a female to say we're lying in their spot. For all the machismo, most men are weak. If you're waiting for the man to move first, you're gonna wait a very long time, if not forever. Want a date with a guy? CALL HIM!
Or text him or e-mail him or...
Wendy, that's my sister, is a Facebook addict. I asked how the population was over there. She said in the last year so many have dropped out. I'm about done with Twitter, because I post and get no reaction, it's too frustrating. As for Facebook, I only play with a fake name, looking up those I used to know.
And the colors! We don't get them in Los Angeles. Even Colorado is not the same thing. But Minneapolis is like the east coast, and I've hit it perfectly, at its peak, when the trees are blazing and the leaves are still on.
And we're driving across the bridge and Wendy laments that winter is coming. How does she know? The clouds! They're flat, not puffy. The long tunnel is beginning.
And we drove under the new Guthrie, with its cantilever over the roadway.
And we saw the bridge that fell... In a cannot do nation, it was inspiring to see the replacement. It's lit up at night. Thoroughfare as celebration. And there's a memorial to the fallen. I got out and looked at the blue columns, with a short bio for each of the deceased.
And I know David Byrne is railing about the Internet. And Thom Yorke has doubled down on his hatred of Spotify. And track sales are dropping, because of YouTube streaming, if nothing else. And once upon a time we bought records, then tapes, then CDs, then MP3s and now...everything is available at our fingertips. It used to be important to get an iPhone, now a Samsung Galaxy is good enough. The tech comes and goes.
But the people, the culture, the society, remain.
They know that in Minneapolis.
The I-35W Bridge On Memorial Day: http://bit.ly/GWQDve
35W Bridge Memorial: http://bit.ly/17yqgBK
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Saturday, 12 October 2013
Friday, 11 October 2013
The Rascals At The Greek
SUENO
You buy these records and you never hear your favorites live, especially today, when bands are afraid to play their deep cuts, for fear of boring their audience, especially if aged.
Yes, that's what we are, we baby boomers. Old. We try to deny it. Act like hipsters. But it's the aches and pains and the cancer and looming funerals that tells us otherwise. The most amazing thing about the Rascals in concert is that they're all there, all these years later, nearly fifty.
To say they were huge would be an understatement. They were the biggest band on the east coast, and that's what they were, a band. And this is the revelation when you see them live, that they're playing all the instruments, it reminds you of nothing so much as your own history in the basement, playing your own instrument you were driven to pick up after seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan in newly-formed bands that played all the hits but rarely played live, not that you were unhappy about this.
Yes, instead of tweeting, instead of writing apps, we played music. And sure, some people dreamed of becoming famous, but most of us knew it was not in the cards, we were thrilled just to participate, to pick out the notes, to be as close to the music as possible.
And those of us who were truly bitten by the bug gave up on singles early, we were album people, and that's how I know "Sueno," it's on the "Groovin'" album.
The intro was played by Gene, on an acoustic, with no help from hard drives, the band fell into the groove and Felix began singing this Spanish-styled number and I truly started to tingle, just like the line in the song.
Here I am, decades later, but I'm jetted right back to 1967, playing these records over and over again because that's all we had. No YouTube, no Spotify, no satellite radio and only a handful of TV stations. We were all addicted. It was not like today. The hits were not everything, it was about the bands. And they didn't come and go in a weekend, but lasted for years. Like the Rascals.
DINO DANELLI
He was Ginger Baker before Ginger Baker. He twirled the sticks around his ears and we tried to replicate it and never could but it was more than artifice, Dino could PLAY!
And on the big screen he tells the story of pursuing his craft in the city, otherwise known as New York. Not only the rockers, but the jazzers too, he loved Miles Davis and Buddy Rich back when you didn't only like one kind of music.
And he was just as good last night. Sure, he was wearing a headscarf, but he was still lean and active, in touch with the other players, driving the music forward. It was worth the price of the admission just to watch him.
GENE CORNISH
I saw him on 48th Street, where you went to buy musical instruments at a discount. The most famous place was Manny's, which was completely unlike Guitar Center. There was no warmth, no ability to take your time and play, certainly if you were not gonna buy. Did you want it? They called back to bring it up to the front of the store and you were on the sidewalk with your purchase before you knew what happened.
But it was next door, maybe at Sam Ash, where you walked a few steps down. Gene was there with his hair curling up at the back, standing by his Acoustic amp. That's what he used. We knew. Every model Fender amp. If you played something else, we paid attention.
And not long after the Rascals broke, it was the era of the guitar hero. And today we've got people who can play real fast but sans soul and style. But this was not and is not Gene. A nearly seventy year old is supposed to mug, take attention away from his playing, but Gene delivered.
Yup, just Gene, Dino and Felix, that's what the band was. With Felix playing the bass notes on the organ pedals. And there wasn't much more last night, oh, a trio of backup singers, and a bass player and another keyboard player, but most of the old bands go out with a plethora of players, it's all fake, they're trying to be who they once were even though we're all older, it's creepy. But the Rascals were still a band. You could envision the Barge, a small space overwhelmed with this sound, forcing you to get up and dance.
That's what we did. Spun our records. And then went to dark spaces where we bumped into each other as live music pounded our ears and bodies, we were left with an exuberant feeling every boomer knows by heart.
I AIN'T GONNA EAT OUT MY HEART ANYMORE
Eddie was the frontman, the cute one, the ones playing the home game wanted to be.
And it all started with this track.
So I'm skiing at Stratton on the last day of the season 1967, it's the second weekend of April and it dumped nine inches the night before and me and my buddy Keith are glomming through the Maypo and suddenly I hear...
"You ski at Bromley, right?"
I looked up. There were only two people on the chairlift. Girls. Our age.
They couldn't be talking to us...but there was nobody else on the slope!
So I said YES!
And they said..."We'll wait at the top!"
So we're skiing together all weekend, my older sister's male buds are agog, and while we're riding up the lift, we're singing songs to each other.
And the following Christmas, when Steph and I reunited at Bromley, we're riding the J-bar and about a hundred fifty feet up she looks over her shoulder at me and says, REMEMBER THIS?
And she starts singing "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore."
COLLECTIONS
I'm possessive of my records. Don't touch 'em, don't put on any fingerprints.
So I was absolutely mortified to come home after my older sister's eighth grade graduation party to find the basement strewn with my albums.
But before I could express my displeasure, Jill's face lit up and she said I DIDN'T KNOW YOU HAD COLLECTIONS!
GOOD LOVIN'
The follow-up to "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" and a sixties staple.
And unlike their children, boomers prefer to sit, but once they heard the count-off, everybody in the joint jumped to their feet and started boogieing.
That's the power of music.
TIME PEACE
Quite possibly the biggest greatest hits album of the sixties. If a house didn't have it, the inhabitants already owned every Rascals album. There was nowhere I went where I didn't find it. Like at Colleen's house. The first girl I felt up.
You never forget it.
YOU BETTER RUN
Most people think it's a Pat Benatar record.
What do they say, all the money's in publishing?
I'VE BEEN LONELY TOO LONG
Sometimes you're too young to get it, it wasn't until after my wife moved out that this record truly made sense. A Felix Cavaliere tour-de-force, the horn accent in the verse is so unexpected yet so right the only thing I can compare it to is the harp in the Beach Boys' "Catch A Wave."
HOW CAN I BE SURE
"How can I be sure
In a world that's constantly changing
How can I be sure
...I'll be sure with you"
The question of the ages. And it's not only about love. It's about all commitments from which you cannot turn back. What are you gonna do?
Put on a record and wait for the answer to reveal itself.
GROOVIN'
The sixties were different. Despite all the protests and assassinations, it was an era of optimism. The Beatles implored us to love one another and we listened. Income inequality was something unheard of, no one we knew was rich, we were all in it together, waiting to get our driver's license so we could tool around in our dad's station wagon.
"Groovin'" and Sly's "Hot Fun In The Summertime." Listen to them if you want to know what it was like. There was no underbelly of angst, as there is in the recordings of the rappers. There's just sheer unmitigated joy.
And that's what we felt, listening to the music emanating from the dashboard speaker with the windows down back before everybody had air conditioning.
FIND SOMEBODY
That's what we were all trying to do. And until we did, the bands were placeholders, we invested all our hopes, dreams and love in them.
Another album track I felt I'd never hear live again in my lifetime that Gene pulled the stinging guitar part out of like it was still 1968.
PEOPLE GOT TO BE FREE
To practice their religion.
To be gay.
To play their music loud.
To dress how they like.
This is what we were fighting so hard for in the sixties. We believed when we finally got power, the world would be a better place. But in the eighties every baby boomer stopped loving his brother and only worried about himself. And now we've got the governor of the Rascals' home state of New Jersey professing to love the Boss, but unlike his mentor, not putting the people first.
Speaking of the Boss... Credit Steve Van Zandt for making this show happen. He not only reunited the Rascals, he raised money on Kickstarter for production, which is brilliantly executed by Marc Brickman.
But it really comes down to the music.
Once upon a time you needed to know how to both play and sing. The Rascals had this nailed.
But if you wanted to be a superstar, you had to write.
And that's where Felix Cavaliere comes in. He loved covers, but he implored the band to write its own material. Who knew he and Eddie Brigati could write standards!
That's what the songs of the Rascals are. Whether sung soulfully by Felix or mellifluously by Eddie, they were truly the soundtrack of our life. Back when you played music for the joy more than the money, when everybody knew the Top Ten, when everybody grew their hair long and let their freak flag fly. The Rascals cast aside their schoolboy outfits and grew beards, wore their street clothes on stage, it was the opposite of today, when as soon as you make it you hire a stylist and a choreographer.
But back then dancing was something we did involuntarily, inspired by the music.
It was wonderful.
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You buy these records and you never hear your favorites live, especially today, when bands are afraid to play their deep cuts, for fear of boring their audience, especially if aged.
Yes, that's what we are, we baby boomers. Old. We try to deny it. Act like hipsters. But it's the aches and pains and the cancer and looming funerals that tells us otherwise. The most amazing thing about the Rascals in concert is that they're all there, all these years later, nearly fifty.
To say they were huge would be an understatement. They were the biggest band on the east coast, and that's what they were, a band. And this is the revelation when you see them live, that they're playing all the instruments, it reminds you of nothing so much as your own history in the basement, playing your own instrument you were driven to pick up after seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan in newly-formed bands that played all the hits but rarely played live, not that you were unhappy about this.
Yes, instead of tweeting, instead of writing apps, we played music. And sure, some people dreamed of becoming famous, but most of us knew it was not in the cards, we were thrilled just to participate, to pick out the notes, to be as close to the music as possible.
And those of us who were truly bitten by the bug gave up on singles early, we were album people, and that's how I know "Sueno," it's on the "Groovin'" album.
The intro was played by Gene, on an acoustic, with no help from hard drives, the band fell into the groove and Felix began singing this Spanish-styled number and I truly started to tingle, just like the line in the song.
Here I am, decades later, but I'm jetted right back to 1967, playing these records over and over again because that's all we had. No YouTube, no Spotify, no satellite radio and only a handful of TV stations. We were all addicted. It was not like today. The hits were not everything, it was about the bands. And they didn't come and go in a weekend, but lasted for years. Like the Rascals.
DINO DANELLI
He was Ginger Baker before Ginger Baker. He twirled the sticks around his ears and we tried to replicate it and never could but it was more than artifice, Dino could PLAY!
And on the big screen he tells the story of pursuing his craft in the city, otherwise known as New York. Not only the rockers, but the jazzers too, he loved Miles Davis and Buddy Rich back when you didn't only like one kind of music.
And he was just as good last night. Sure, he was wearing a headscarf, but he was still lean and active, in touch with the other players, driving the music forward. It was worth the price of the admission just to watch him.
GENE CORNISH
I saw him on 48th Street, where you went to buy musical instruments at a discount. The most famous place was Manny's, which was completely unlike Guitar Center. There was no warmth, no ability to take your time and play, certainly if you were not gonna buy. Did you want it? They called back to bring it up to the front of the store and you were on the sidewalk with your purchase before you knew what happened.
But it was next door, maybe at Sam Ash, where you walked a few steps down. Gene was there with his hair curling up at the back, standing by his Acoustic amp. That's what he used. We knew. Every model Fender amp. If you played something else, we paid attention.
And not long after the Rascals broke, it was the era of the guitar hero. And today we've got people who can play real fast but sans soul and style. But this was not and is not Gene. A nearly seventy year old is supposed to mug, take attention away from his playing, but Gene delivered.
Yup, just Gene, Dino and Felix, that's what the band was. With Felix playing the bass notes on the organ pedals. And there wasn't much more last night, oh, a trio of backup singers, and a bass player and another keyboard player, but most of the old bands go out with a plethora of players, it's all fake, they're trying to be who they once were even though we're all older, it's creepy. But the Rascals were still a band. You could envision the Barge, a small space overwhelmed with this sound, forcing you to get up and dance.
That's what we did. Spun our records. And then went to dark spaces where we bumped into each other as live music pounded our ears and bodies, we were left with an exuberant feeling every boomer knows by heart.
I AIN'T GONNA EAT OUT MY HEART ANYMORE
Eddie was the frontman, the cute one, the ones playing the home game wanted to be.
And it all started with this track.
So I'm skiing at Stratton on the last day of the season 1967, it's the second weekend of April and it dumped nine inches the night before and me and my buddy Keith are glomming through the Maypo and suddenly I hear...
"You ski at Bromley, right?"
I looked up. There were only two people on the chairlift. Girls. Our age.
They couldn't be talking to us...but there was nobody else on the slope!
So I said YES!
And they said..."We'll wait at the top!"
So we're skiing together all weekend, my older sister's male buds are agog, and while we're riding up the lift, we're singing songs to each other.
And the following Christmas, when Steph and I reunited at Bromley, we're riding the J-bar and about a hundred fifty feet up she looks over her shoulder at me and says, REMEMBER THIS?
And she starts singing "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore."
COLLECTIONS
I'm possessive of my records. Don't touch 'em, don't put on any fingerprints.
So I was absolutely mortified to come home after my older sister's eighth grade graduation party to find the basement strewn with my albums.
But before I could express my displeasure, Jill's face lit up and she said I DIDN'T KNOW YOU HAD COLLECTIONS!
GOOD LOVIN'
The follow-up to "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" and a sixties staple.
And unlike their children, boomers prefer to sit, but once they heard the count-off, everybody in the joint jumped to their feet and started boogieing.
That's the power of music.
TIME PEACE
Quite possibly the biggest greatest hits album of the sixties. If a house didn't have it, the inhabitants already owned every Rascals album. There was nowhere I went where I didn't find it. Like at Colleen's house. The first girl I felt up.
You never forget it.
YOU BETTER RUN
Most people think it's a Pat Benatar record.
What do they say, all the money's in publishing?
I'VE BEEN LONELY TOO LONG
Sometimes you're too young to get it, it wasn't until after my wife moved out that this record truly made sense. A Felix Cavaliere tour-de-force, the horn accent in the verse is so unexpected yet so right the only thing I can compare it to is the harp in the Beach Boys' "Catch A Wave."
HOW CAN I BE SURE
"How can I be sure
In a world that's constantly changing
How can I be sure
...I'll be sure with you"
The question of the ages. And it's not only about love. It's about all commitments from which you cannot turn back. What are you gonna do?
Put on a record and wait for the answer to reveal itself.
GROOVIN'
The sixties were different. Despite all the protests and assassinations, it was an era of optimism. The Beatles implored us to love one another and we listened. Income inequality was something unheard of, no one we knew was rich, we were all in it together, waiting to get our driver's license so we could tool around in our dad's station wagon.
"Groovin'" and Sly's "Hot Fun In The Summertime." Listen to them if you want to know what it was like. There was no underbelly of angst, as there is in the recordings of the rappers. There's just sheer unmitigated joy.
And that's what we felt, listening to the music emanating from the dashboard speaker with the windows down back before everybody had air conditioning.
FIND SOMEBODY
That's what we were all trying to do. And until we did, the bands were placeholders, we invested all our hopes, dreams and love in them.
Another album track I felt I'd never hear live again in my lifetime that Gene pulled the stinging guitar part out of like it was still 1968.
PEOPLE GOT TO BE FREE
To practice their religion.
To be gay.
To play their music loud.
To dress how they like.
This is what we were fighting so hard for in the sixties. We believed when we finally got power, the world would be a better place. But in the eighties every baby boomer stopped loving his brother and only worried about himself. And now we've got the governor of the Rascals' home state of New Jersey professing to love the Boss, but unlike his mentor, not putting the people first.
Speaking of the Boss... Credit Steve Van Zandt for making this show happen. He not only reunited the Rascals, he raised money on Kickstarter for production, which is brilliantly executed by Marc Brickman.
But it really comes down to the music.
Once upon a time you needed to know how to both play and sing. The Rascals had this nailed.
But if you wanted to be a superstar, you had to write.
And that's where Felix Cavaliere comes in. He loved covers, but he implored the band to write its own material. Who knew he and Eddie Brigati could write standards!
That's what the songs of the Rascals are. Whether sung soulfully by Felix or mellifluously by Eddie, they were truly the soundtrack of our life. Back when you played music for the joy more than the money, when everybody knew the Top Ten, when everybody grew their hair long and let their freak flag fly. The Rascals cast aside their schoolboy outfits and grew beards, wore their street clothes on stage, it was the opposite of today, when as soon as you make it you hire a stylist and a choreographer.
But back then dancing was something we did involuntarily, inspired by the music.
It was wonderful.
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Rhinofy-Stranger In A Strange Land
What do you do when everybody is watching?
He wrote songs for Gary Lewis, made an album with Marc Benno, but no one knew who Leon Russell was until he went on the road with a conglomeration of thirty-odd people entitled "Mad Dogs and Englishmen," a legendary tour from which Joe Cocker emerged drunk, broke and depressed, and Leon Russell emerged a star.
How did this happen?
Well, it began with the rapid rise of "Delta Lady," the exuberant number from Cocker's second album. Inveterate readers of credits saw it was written by Leon Russell, and were led to the solo album by same released by Shelter Records which was dead as a doornail until this time. And once there, they discovered a sense of humor, and the effort of a man who believed he could will himself to stardom via what was in the grooves. Furthermore, Russell's take on his Cocker composition had a soulfulness, a groove, absent from the famous rendition. And this just burnished Leon's image.
But then came the Cocker tour.
Joe was a star. The Woodstock movie had made him one. And now he was on the road with the biggest band anybody in rock and roll had ever seen. And the leader of this conglomeration was...
Leon Russell.
In a top hat and basketball jersey Leon Russell was the star of the show, more than Joe, more than Rita Coolidge, more than anybody else who sang or played. Talk about a scene stealer...
Leon's reign on top was very brief. The first solo album burned brightly, Helen Reddy even had a hit with a cover of "A Song For You," the third album was solid, and then the supposed victory lap, 1973's three album package "Leon Live," killed his career. It was just too much way too soon. Leon went from cult item to self-satisfied wanker so fast people abandoned him, even if you purchased the package you found it unlistenable. And then Leon went country with "Hank Wilson's Back" and truly put a stake in his career, and even Elton John was not able to bring him back, because to sustain people must like you, and when it comes to Leon Russell they no longer do.
Now it wasn't only Cocker, when the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour finished, Leon went on to be a key element of the Concert for Bangladesh, he went from zero to hero in a year, and we were all waiting for his second album, now credited to the group "Leon Russell and the Shelter People."
A disappointment it was.
I'm not saying it was bad. But Al Kooper and his brethren did a better cover of Dylan's "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry," and did we really need a cover of "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," in the seventies, no less? And "Crystal Closet Queen" was good, just not as good as "Pisces Apple Lady" on the previous LP, ditto "Sweet Emily" and "Home Sweet Oklahoma."
But opening up the album was a veritable killer that you could not help but play again and again and again.
"Stranger In A Strange Land."
Oh, the title was a rip-off of the famous science fiction novel.
But...
You'd expect Russell to start with another in-your-face number like "Delta Lady," or something slow, like "A Song For You," but "Stranger In A Strange Land" was different. It was an artist climbing up his own personal mountain and delivering something unexpected and better, different.
The track starts slowly, with an infectious piano figure which leads to Leon exclaiming and then locking into a swampy groove instantly. And as the track soldiers on it keeps adding elements and becoming more powerful, especially during the chorus, when there are so many backup singers you believe everybody within ten blocks of the studio is singing.
And after some ethereal sounds, Leon lays back into the verse, the band's in full swing and so are you, the listener. The track is hypnotic, everything, including the kitchen sink comes in, but it's not too much, it's a joyful experience that enraptures you, draws you in and has you testifying yourself.
And that's what Leon ultimately does, testify...
"Well I don't exactly know what's going on in the world today
Don't know what there is to say
About the way the people are treating each other
Not like brothers
Leaders take us far away
From ecology
With mythology
And astrology has got some words to say about the way we live today
Why can't we learn to love each other
It's time to turn a new face
To the whole world wide human race
Stop the money chase
Lay back
Relax
Get back on the human track
Stop racing toward oblivion
Oh such a sad sad state we're in
And that's a thing
Do you recognize the bells of truth when you hear them ring
Won't you stop and listen to the children sing
Won't you sing it children
Won't you come on and sing it children
He's a stranger in a strange land
Just a stranger in a strange land
He's a stranger in a strange land
Just a stranger in a strange land"
He's almost rapping!
It's 1971. We've seen the war, we've seen Richard Nixon get elected, we're out of gas and disillusioned and the only ones with insight are our heroes, the musicians. Leon Russell's saying it's all right, I get you, I understand you, we can move on, together.
"Stranger In A Strange Land" is almost an anthem. Not a Bon Jovi track where everybody's perfectly coiffed and imploring you to look at them, but a record you can rally around, that makes you feel better without requiring you to leave your mind at the gate.
That's how good Leon Russell was, that's how powerful "Stranger In A Strange Land" was and still is. You could never burn out on it, it was not quite like anything else but it was just perfect the way it was. Leon upped his game. And we responded. Suddenly, Leon Russell was a first tier superstar.
Spotify link: http://spoti.fi/p6HcZ8
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He wrote songs for Gary Lewis, made an album with Marc Benno, but no one knew who Leon Russell was until he went on the road with a conglomeration of thirty-odd people entitled "Mad Dogs and Englishmen," a legendary tour from which Joe Cocker emerged drunk, broke and depressed, and Leon Russell emerged a star.
How did this happen?
Well, it began with the rapid rise of "Delta Lady," the exuberant number from Cocker's second album. Inveterate readers of credits saw it was written by Leon Russell, and were led to the solo album by same released by Shelter Records which was dead as a doornail until this time. And once there, they discovered a sense of humor, and the effort of a man who believed he could will himself to stardom via what was in the grooves. Furthermore, Russell's take on his Cocker composition had a soulfulness, a groove, absent from the famous rendition. And this just burnished Leon's image.
But then came the Cocker tour.
Joe was a star. The Woodstock movie had made him one. And now he was on the road with the biggest band anybody in rock and roll had ever seen. And the leader of this conglomeration was...
Leon Russell.
In a top hat and basketball jersey Leon Russell was the star of the show, more than Joe, more than Rita Coolidge, more than anybody else who sang or played. Talk about a scene stealer...
Leon's reign on top was very brief. The first solo album burned brightly, Helen Reddy even had a hit with a cover of "A Song For You," the third album was solid, and then the supposed victory lap, 1973's three album package "Leon Live," killed his career. It was just too much way too soon. Leon went from cult item to self-satisfied wanker so fast people abandoned him, even if you purchased the package you found it unlistenable. And then Leon went country with "Hank Wilson's Back" and truly put a stake in his career, and even Elton John was not able to bring him back, because to sustain people must like you, and when it comes to Leon Russell they no longer do.
Now it wasn't only Cocker, when the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour finished, Leon went on to be a key element of the Concert for Bangladesh, he went from zero to hero in a year, and we were all waiting for his second album, now credited to the group "Leon Russell and the Shelter People."
A disappointment it was.
I'm not saying it was bad. But Al Kooper and his brethren did a better cover of Dylan's "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry," and did we really need a cover of "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," in the seventies, no less? And "Crystal Closet Queen" was good, just not as good as "Pisces Apple Lady" on the previous LP, ditto "Sweet Emily" and "Home Sweet Oklahoma."
But opening up the album was a veritable killer that you could not help but play again and again and again.
"Stranger In A Strange Land."
Oh, the title was a rip-off of the famous science fiction novel.
But...
You'd expect Russell to start with another in-your-face number like "Delta Lady," or something slow, like "A Song For You," but "Stranger In A Strange Land" was different. It was an artist climbing up his own personal mountain and delivering something unexpected and better, different.
The track starts slowly, with an infectious piano figure which leads to Leon exclaiming and then locking into a swampy groove instantly. And as the track soldiers on it keeps adding elements and becoming more powerful, especially during the chorus, when there are so many backup singers you believe everybody within ten blocks of the studio is singing.
And after some ethereal sounds, Leon lays back into the verse, the band's in full swing and so are you, the listener. The track is hypnotic, everything, including the kitchen sink comes in, but it's not too much, it's a joyful experience that enraptures you, draws you in and has you testifying yourself.
And that's what Leon ultimately does, testify...
"Well I don't exactly know what's going on in the world today
Don't know what there is to say
About the way the people are treating each other
Not like brothers
Leaders take us far away
From ecology
With mythology
And astrology has got some words to say about the way we live today
Why can't we learn to love each other
It's time to turn a new face
To the whole world wide human race
Stop the money chase
Lay back
Relax
Get back on the human track
Stop racing toward oblivion
Oh such a sad sad state we're in
And that's a thing
Do you recognize the bells of truth when you hear them ring
Won't you stop and listen to the children sing
Won't you sing it children
Won't you come on and sing it children
He's a stranger in a strange land
Just a stranger in a strange land
He's a stranger in a strange land
Just a stranger in a strange land"
He's almost rapping!
It's 1971. We've seen the war, we've seen Richard Nixon get elected, we're out of gas and disillusioned and the only ones with insight are our heroes, the musicians. Leon Russell's saying it's all right, I get you, I understand you, we can move on, together.
"Stranger In A Strange Land" is almost an anthem. Not a Bon Jovi track where everybody's perfectly coiffed and imploring you to look at them, but a record you can rally around, that makes you feel better without requiring you to leave your mind at the gate.
That's how good Leon Russell was, that's how powerful "Stranger In A Strange Land" was and still is. You could never burn out on it, it was not quite like anything else but it was just perfect the way it was. Leon upped his game. And we responded. Suddenly, Leon Russell was a first tier superstar.
Spotify link: http://spoti.fi/p6HcZ8
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Thursday, 10 October 2013
Mailbag
From: John Stamos
Re: Lunch With Joe Smith
great article on joe -
i'd never met him- but jimmy fallon and i crashed that breakfast with dick wolf. he told great stories. he seemed to be a very sweet man. (then fallon spilled a beer on dick and we high-tailed it out of there)
really enjoying your news letters!!
stamos
_______________________________________
Subject: Re: The Muscle Shoals Movie
Bob-
First let me introduce myself as the guy who has the distinction of having worked with Rick Hall for 17 years, which is longer than anyone else other than one of his family members. My duties ran the gamut from engineering, managing his studios, managing his writers, playing, singing and writing for most of the projects he did from the late 70s to mid 90s. I probably have more Rick Hall stories than anyone but particularly wanted to share a meaningful one:
Rick's version of "When A Man Loves A Woman" is that his writer and confidant, Dan Penn, came to him and told him he had heard something recorded at the local radio station that he thought was a hit. Dan and Spooner Oldham wrote such classics as "Dark End of The Street" and "I'm Your Puppet" and Rick relied heavily on Dan's input. Dan went on to say that the producers of the track he'd heard didn't really have any clout to make a deal on it and were willing to give Rick a point for helping them place it. When Dan played it, Rick's response was "I don't know Dan- you really think it's a hit?" Dan said "I think it's a number one record, Rick!"
So, Rick called Wexler and sent it to him and upon hearing it Wex said "I don't know, Rick- you really think it's a hit?" Rick says he replied "I think it's a number one record, Jerry!"
This story has always illustrated to me how important perception and messengers are in our industry. Would the classic Percy Sledge song have found its way anyway? Maybe, but probably not. SOMEBODY had to be passionate enough to convince an unbeliever. Two of them, actually. And that's how close the world came to not ever hearing it.
Best,
Walt Aldridge
_______________________________________
Subject: Re: Lunch With Joe Smith
Bob
One of the most important pieces of advice I ever received was from a speech that Joe gave at a conference connected to the Juno awards in 1991.
Joe was the keynote speaker and he began his talk by dropping this pearl of wisdom: "If you can equate the human brain to a computer, when God made musicians he left out the gratitude chips".
With a few remarkable exceptions, I have found this to be quite true, and recalling these words has saved me from being disappointed by keeping expectations in check.
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Re: Lunch With Joe Smith
great article on joe -
i'd never met him- but jimmy fallon and i crashed that breakfast with dick wolf. he told great stories. he seemed to be a very sweet man. (then fallon spilled a beer on dick and we high-tailed it out of there)
really enjoying your news letters!!
stamos
_______________________________________
Subject: Re: The Muscle Shoals Movie
Bob-
First let me introduce myself as the guy who has the distinction of having worked with Rick Hall for 17 years, which is longer than anyone else other than one of his family members. My duties ran the gamut from engineering, managing his studios, managing his writers, playing, singing and writing for most of the projects he did from the late 70s to mid 90s. I probably have more Rick Hall stories than anyone but particularly wanted to share a meaningful one:
Rick's version of "When A Man Loves A Woman" is that his writer and confidant, Dan Penn, came to him and told him he had heard something recorded at the local radio station that he thought was a hit. Dan and Spooner Oldham wrote such classics as "Dark End of The Street" and "I'm Your Puppet" and Rick relied heavily on Dan's input. Dan went on to say that the producers of the track he'd heard didn't really have any clout to make a deal on it and were willing to give Rick a point for helping them place it. When Dan played it, Rick's response was "I don't know Dan- you really think it's a hit?" Dan said "I think it's a number one record, Rick!"
So, Rick called Wexler and sent it to him and upon hearing it Wex said "I don't know, Rick- you really think it's a hit?" Rick says he replied "I think it's a number one record, Jerry!"
This story has always illustrated to me how important perception and messengers are in our industry. Would the classic Percy Sledge song have found its way anyway? Maybe, but probably not. SOMEBODY had to be passionate enough to convince an unbeliever. Two of them, actually. And that's how close the world came to not ever hearing it.
Best,
Walt Aldridge
_______________________________________
Subject: Re: Lunch With Joe Smith
Bob
One of the most important pieces of advice I ever received was from a speech that Joe gave at a conference connected to the Juno awards in 1991.
Joe was the keynote speaker and he began his talk by dropping this pearl of wisdom: "If you can equate the human brain to a computer, when God made musicians he left out the gratitude chips".
With a few remarkable exceptions, I have found this to be quite true, and recalling these words has saved me from being disappointed by keeping expectations in check.
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Fall
The weather changed in a day.
Tuesday I was adjusting the air conditioning. Wednesday I had to turn on the heat.
I'm not sure I could live on the east coast again. There's so much I miss, the intellectual curiosity, the camaraderie, but those gray days...after living in SoCal so long I don't think I could tolerate them.
Once upon a time I knew no better. Unlike today, in the sixties and seventies we didn't board a plane on a whim. Jet-setters were rich and famous, and you didn't fire up your browser to plot your trip, but had to call your travel agent, you barely dreamed about going anywhere. You were stuck where you grew up.
And I grew up in Connecticut. Not far from Long Island Sound. Amidst the greenery and the rolling hills only an hour from the excitement of New York City, back when the metropolis was still scary, when you had to be aware at all times, like in Bogota.
And I'd wake up in the dark and walk down to the bus stop and the weather was always the same, gray.
I went to college in Vermont, where it appeared the sky was made of slate. A blue sky day was like Christmas, everybody jumped for joy.
But the big day at college was the advent of spring. It would be warm and sunny towards the end of April, hovering in the high fifties, maybe squeaking into the sixties, and you'd put on your shorts and go swimming. Jumping into the quarry was like immersing yourself in ice cubes, but not only was it invigorating, but inspiring, you'd made it through another winter, the good weather was coming.
And in Vermont, fall is short. It's warm and then it gets cold and by Halloween it's bitter at night and November is positively miserable, with that rain that could almost be snow that chills you to the bone.
It rarely rains in Southern California. But when it does, it either mists or pours.
Yesterday it did both.
It saw it Monday on the widget, that's where I get my weather, no one turns on the TV to get the prediction anymore. I was shocked, it was positively summer, unlike the east coast September is the hottest month of the year, oftentimes eking into October, when the Santa Ana winds rage and fan the flames of brush fires.
But when I woke up yesterday, it was gray, precipitation was descending, I refused to put on long pants, but I did need a fleece vest.
And later in the day I was forced to turn on the heat in my house. I hadn't had time to clean the vents, the dust swirled in an acrid smell. It always happens sometime in October, but usually when the days are in double digits.
And then I had to remember how to put on the heat in the car. I couldn't have the sunroof open. It was snowing in Mammoth and the distant ski season suddenly seemed imminent.
The downhill slide had begun, from hot to cold, from beach to slope.
And I love the winter. In the old days, we'd play in the snow, come inside for hot chocolate and play board games. Did you know Jimi Hendrix was a whiz at Risk? I don't think they even sell that game in L.A., the weather's never bad enough to finish it. But we'd play it all night in college, I remember those days.
But they're fading in the rearview mirror. Occasionally I go on the alumni site and not only can I no longer put a face to the names, I can't recognize the names either.
As for high school, it's even worse.
So Congress dilly-dallies with the budget and debt ceiling yet nature does not get the memo, it keeps plowing on.
Goodbye to the long days. Hello to depression.
But I'm not gonna stop wearing my shorts for another month, I'm holding on to the warm weather, in my mind if nowhere else.
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Tuesday I was adjusting the air conditioning. Wednesday I had to turn on the heat.
I'm not sure I could live on the east coast again. There's so much I miss, the intellectual curiosity, the camaraderie, but those gray days...after living in SoCal so long I don't think I could tolerate them.
Once upon a time I knew no better. Unlike today, in the sixties and seventies we didn't board a plane on a whim. Jet-setters were rich and famous, and you didn't fire up your browser to plot your trip, but had to call your travel agent, you barely dreamed about going anywhere. You were stuck where you grew up.
And I grew up in Connecticut. Not far from Long Island Sound. Amidst the greenery and the rolling hills only an hour from the excitement of New York City, back when the metropolis was still scary, when you had to be aware at all times, like in Bogota.
And I'd wake up in the dark and walk down to the bus stop and the weather was always the same, gray.
I went to college in Vermont, where it appeared the sky was made of slate. A blue sky day was like Christmas, everybody jumped for joy.
But the big day at college was the advent of spring. It would be warm and sunny towards the end of April, hovering in the high fifties, maybe squeaking into the sixties, and you'd put on your shorts and go swimming. Jumping into the quarry was like immersing yourself in ice cubes, but not only was it invigorating, but inspiring, you'd made it through another winter, the good weather was coming.
And in Vermont, fall is short. It's warm and then it gets cold and by Halloween it's bitter at night and November is positively miserable, with that rain that could almost be snow that chills you to the bone.
It rarely rains in Southern California. But when it does, it either mists or pours.
Yesterday it did both.
It saw it Monday on the widget, that's where I get my weather, no one turns on the TV to get the prediction anymore. I was shocked, it was positively summer, unlike the east coast September is the hottest month of the year, oftentimes eking into October, when the Santa Ana winds rage and fan the flames of brush fires.
But when I woke up yesterday, it was gray, precipitation was descending, I refused to put on long pants, but I did need a fleece vest.
And later in the day I was forced to turn on the heat in my house. I hadn't had time to clean the vents, the dust swirled in an acrid smell. It always happens sometime in October, but usually when the days are in double digits.
And then I had to remember how to put on the heat in the car. I couldn't have the sunroof open. It was snowing in Mammoth and the distant ski season suddenly seemed imminent.
The downhill slide had begun, from hot to cold, from beach to slope.
And I love the winter. In the old days, we'd play in the snow, come inside for hot chocolate and play board games. Did you know Jimi Hendrix was a whiz at Risk? I don't think they even sell that game in L.A., the weather's never bad enough to finish it. But we'd play it all night in college, I remember those days.
But they're fading in the rearview mirror. Occasionally I go on the alumni site and not only can I no longer put a face to the names, I can't recognize the names either.
As for high school, it's even worse.
So Congress dilly-dallies with the budget and debt ceiling yet nature does not get the memo, it keeps plowing on.
Goodbye to the long days. Hello to depression.
But I'm not gonna stop wearing my shorts for another month, I'm holding on to the warm weather, in my mind if nowhere else.
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Wednesday, 9 October 2013
The Muscle Shoals Movie
SPOONER OLDHAM
About fifteen minutes into the movie, Spooner Oldham walks across the floor of FAME studios, sits down at a ratty old piano, puts his fingers to the keys and starts to play music so soulful, I tingle as I write this, remembering it.
RICK HALL
He was motivated by rejection, he needed to prove to the kids at school who saw him as poverty-stricken and Jerry Wexler, who pulled Aretha from FAME and never came back, that he was the baddest, bestest, record producer extant.
I know I wrote about grit, but the truth is so many people who achieve great things have something to prove. They want to set the record straight. Show all the bullies and naysayers they were right.
If you're shooting for excellence, you have a strong opinion. You do your best to get along, but by testing limits in search of greatness, people are gonna be offended, they're going to try and put you in your place. The key is to swallow the negative feedback and soldier on. Unfortunately, when you do break through the revenge is not as sweet as you envision it, but it's what got you there.
PRODUCERS
Sometimes they neither play nor sing, they don't even put their hands on the board, but they know what's right. They're searching for that elusive something that separates an average track from a hit. It's not so much eliminating mistakes as it is capturing the essence. It's the exhalation at the end of a vocal line, the way a note is bent, getting the drummer in the pocket... As the years have gone by and acts have seen everybody produce themselves, the value of a great producer has been diminished. But every session needs a boss. And it's best if it's an outsider.
ARETHA
Was backed by white musicians on her legendary hits. Soul is not a color, it's something you feel.
MUSCLE SHOALS
None of the Swampers was famous. They were all local players who gravitated to FAME to get their chance.
MICK JAGGER
Looks like a fop surrounded by these down home crackers. In his cap and color it appears to be artifice, whereas the players were all about soul.
WILSON PICKETT
Wanted nothing to do with Rick Hall and vice versa. Hall saw Pickett as dangerous! But they ended up becoming fast friends. MTV has done a lot to integrate America, but in the sixties racial tension constantly boiled, especially in Alabama.
PERCY SLEDGE
He's still alive!
He's working in the cotton fields, singing and...
He ends up recording "When A Man Loves A Woman" at FAME. Rick Hall calls Jerry Wexler, who said to ring him whenever he had a hit, and it was.
HITS
That was Rick Hall's goal. To deliver a hit whenever anybody came down to record. Otherwise, they probably wouldn't come back. Talk about pressure. In today's world where you get extra time on the SATs for disabilities and everybody wants a do-over, the truth remains that when push comes to shove no one wants to hear about your shortcomings, they just want you to deliver, instantly.
BARRY BECKETT
Is barely in this movie. Even though I believe him to be the most talented player in Muscle Shoals. Listen to his piano work on Paul Simon's "One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor." The notes are simple, but the way Barry extracts them from the instrument...whew!
ROGER HAWKINS
Didn't believe he was good enough until Jerry Wexler said so.
Today everybody's overconfident.
But praise can inspire.
DAVID HOOD
Looks like your uncle who never got married and works at the insurance agency! Proving once again, it's not how you look, but how you play.
JIMMY JOHNSON
Looks like David Hood's boss at the insurance agency.
ARETHA FRANKLIN AGAIN
Was once young and sexy.
ETTA JAMES
Was a hottie in every sense of the word. She was visually exciting and was hot-headed, she could be pushed into delivering that something extra.
HEY JUDE
Duane Allman convinced Wilson Pickett to record the Beatles number during a break. Duane went from hippie outcast to insider instantly as a result.
LYNYRD SKYNYRD
Jimmy Johnson spent a year trying to get a deal for Skynyrd, but no one would bite. But when you see the band playing live, after so much studio footage, your head will spin. Once upon a time, a band could become so successful that they could sell out stadiums on their music alone. There was no big screen, almost no production whatsoever. But the minions came and lost their minds to the sound.
_____________________
This is a flawed movie. Trying to be everything to everybody, it disappoints those who care and those who don't. Bono speaks, even though U2 has no history there. Alicia Keys testifies even though she's decades removed from the music's heyday and the session featuring her at the end of the flick is boring. And as great as he is, there's too much Rick Hall, is it his biography or the story of the music?
But having said all that, watching this movie you want to do nothing so much as make a pilgrimage, because place is important, you can feel the music when you're in Memphis, I'm dying to go to the Shoals.
But what's most thrilling about this flick is the geekiness and the music. Stripping away the star testimonials and the landscape footage, what you've got here is a renegade bunch of crackers who made some of the most legendary music of all time, and they're all there to explain how they did it. And it wasn't difficult so much as it required dedication to their craft, stardom was secondary, hell, almost none of the musicians had ever hit the road, but boy could they play!
There was a small coterie of people bitten by the bug. They formed bands and played fraternity parties. They could never give up and go straight, they had to follow the muse. And when you put a bunch of people in a room who love to play, who are in search of excellence, you find out the whole world is watching, and listening.
P.S. Denny Cordell named them the Swampers, after they worked on "Leon Russell and the Shelter People."
http://www.muscleshoalsthemovie.com
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About fifteen minutes into the movie, Spooner Oldham walks across the floor of FAME studios, sits down at a ratty old piano, puts his fingers to the keys and starts to play music so soulful, I tingle as I write this, remembering it.
RICK HALL
He was motivated by rejection, he needed to prove to the kids at school who saw him as poverty-stricken and Jerry Wexler, who pulled Aretha from FAME and never came back, that he was the baddest, bestest, record producer extant.
I know I wrote about grit, but the truth is so many people who achieve great things have something to prove. They want to set the record straight. Show all the bullies and naysayers they were right.
If you're shooting for excellence, you have a strong opinion. You do your best to get along, but by testing limits in search of greatness, people are gonna be offended, they're going to try and put you in your place. The key is to swallow the negative feedback and soldier on. Unfortunately, when you do break through the revenge is not as sweet as you envision it, but it's what got you there.
PRODUCERS
Sometimes they neither play nor sing, they don't even put their hands on the board, but they know what's right. They're searching for that elusive something that separates an average track from a hit. It's not so much eliminating mistakes as it is capturing the essence. It's the exhalation at the end of a vocal line, the way a note is bent, getting the drummer in the pocket... As the years have gone by and acts have seen everybody produce themselves, the value of a great producer has been diminished. But every session needs a boss. And it's best if it's an outsider.
ARETHA
Was backed by white musicians on her legendary hits. Soul is not a color, it's something you feel.
MUSCLE SHOALS
None of the Swampers was famous. They were all local players who gravitated to FAME to get their chance.
MICK JAGGER
Looks like a fop surrounded by these down home crackers. In his cap and color it appears to be artifice, whereas the players were all about soul.
WILSON PICKETT
Wanted nothing to do with Rick Hall and vice versa. Hall saw Pickett as dangerous! But they ended up becoming fast friends. MTV has done a lot to integrate America, but in the sixties racial tension constantly boiled, especially in Alabama.
PERCY SLEDGE
He's still alive!
He's working in the cotton fields, singing and...
He ends up recording "When A Man Loves A Woman" at FAME. Rick Hall calls Jerry Wexler, who said to ring him whenever he had a hit, and it was.
HITS
That was Rick Hall's goal. To deliver a hit whenever anybody came down to record. Otherwise, they probably wouldn't come back. Talk about pressure. In today's world where you get extra time on the SATs for disabilities and everybody wants a do-over, the truth remains that when push comes to shove no one wants to hear about your shortcomings, they just want you to deliver, instantly.
BARRY BECKETT
Is barely in this movie. Even though I believe him to be the most talented player in Muscle Shoals. Listen to his piano work on Paul Simon's "One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor." The notes are simple, but the way Barry extracts them from the instrument...whew!
ROGER HAWKINS
Didn't believe he was good enough until Jerry Wexler said so.
Today everybody's overconfident.
But praise can inspire.
DAVID HOOD
Looks like your uncle who never got married and works at the insurance agency! Proving once again, it's not how you look, but how you play.
JIMMY JOHNSON
Looks like David Hood's boss at the insurance agency.
ARETHA FRANKLIN AGAIN
Was once young and sexy.
ETTA JAMES
Was a hottie in every sense of the word. She was visually exciting and was hot-headed, she could be pushed into delivering that something extra.
HEY JUDE
Duane Allman convinced Wilson Pickett to record the Beatles number during a break. Duane went from hippie outcast to insider instantly as a result.
LYNYRD SKYNYRD
Jimmy Johnson spent a year trying to get a deal for Skynyrd, but no one would bite. But when you see the band playing live, after so much studio footage, your head will spin. Once upon a time, a band could become so successful that they could sell out stadiums on their music alone. There was no big screen, almost no production whatsoever. But the minions came and lost their minds to the sound.
_____________________
This is a flawed movie. Trying to be everything to everybody, it disappoints those who care and those who don't. Bono speaks, even though U2 has no history there. Alicia Keys testifies even though she's decades removed from the music's heyday and the session featuring her at the end of the flick is boring. And as great as he is, there's too much Rick Hall, is it his biography or the story of the music?
But having said all that, watching this movie you want to do nothing so much as make a pilgrimage, because place is important, you can feel the music when you're in Memphis, I'm dying to go to the Shoals.
But what's most thrilling about this flick is the geekiness and the music. Stripping away the star testimonials and the landscape footage, what you've got here is a renegade bunch of crackers who made some of the most legendary music of all time, and they're all there to explain how they did it. And it wasn't difficult so much as it required dedication to their craft, stardom was secondary, hell, almost none of the musicians had ever hit the road, but boy could they play!
There was a small coterie of people bitten by the bug. They formed bands and played fraternity parties. They could never give up and go straight, they had to follow the muse. And when you put a bunch of people in a room who love to play, who are in search of excellence, you find out the whole world is watching, and listening.
P.S. Denny Cordell named them the Swampers, after they worked on "Leon Russell and the Shelter People."
http://www.muscleshoalsthemovie.com
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Tuesday, 8 October 2013
Lunch With Joe Smith
He was interested in ME!
Not a day goes by where I don't get e-mail imploring me to waste my time listening to someone I usually don't know try and sell me something I don't need. That's what they want, some of my time, so they can convince me to help them get ahead.
Huh?
I've about given up going to lunch. I don't even respond to most e-mail. It's not so much that these people are takers, but that I'm nowhere in the equation. You meet them and they don't even pay lip service to the fact I'm a human being, they're just narcissistically on their own trip.
Maybe you're too young to know who Joe Smith is.
He started out as a deejay (after graduating from Yale), and then went on to star in the Mo and Joe show, running Warner/Reprise Records.
Oh, he told me some great stories.
My favorite was about the Eagles, when Joe'd moved on to run Elektra/Asylum. He'd convinced them to do a live album. It would be good for the label and the band. But days before, Irving called and said there was a problem... He put Glenn Frey on the phone. Glenn went on about how it really didn't feel right, how they didn't want to play the Santa Monica Civic, how they could make so much more somewhere else and...the band would only do it if Joe could name the four starting pitchers of the Baltimore Orioles who each won twenty games in 1971. Joe had a history with Glenn, discussing baseball trivia, but this was too much, this was manipulative, this was unfair. But like the father who lifts the automobile crushing his son via pure adrenaline, Joe answered Glenn, he got it right, and they went on to record the double album!
That's exactly how Joe told it.
Not that he was into polishing his image, it's just that I got uptight with the focus all upon me and shifted it back to him.
So I asked Joe about the Grateful Dead. What did he say to them when they put out one stiff album after another?
First, Joe said they burnished the roster, the Dead helped the label sign other bands. Then he told me of a conversation with Mike Maitland, his then boss. Joe told him he could sign every San Francisco act for the same 50k he gave the Dead...Joplin, Country Joe and the Fish... But Mike said to wait and see how it turned out with the Dead.
But by then it was too late.
But the Dead ultimately turned it around, with "Workingman's Dead."
How did Joe get them to record it?
By saying MAKE ONE FOR ME!
After letting them do three studio albums their way, and one overpriced live album, Joe felt the label deserved something it could work with.
And what did Joe say when he heard the result?
He was thrilled!
But he had absolutely no input into the record whatsoever, that's not the way he did business.
Joe signed Bonnie Raitt by having her meet with him and Randy Newman and Ry Cooder, her idols. She was gonna sign with Capitol, which paid to fly her to the west coast, but now she switched allegiance. And for her first record she wanted to record in Minnesota with a friend.
Joe was against this. But he let her. Because artists have to find their own way. Bonnie learned what she didn't know making that first record and adjusted for the second.
There was one story after another of how Joe was hands-off. So different from today.
But then I asked Joe about Ry Cooder, who never broke through commercially, what could I take from that?
Well, Ry was an artist.
But Joe threw it back to me...how was I gonna make some MONEY!
I told him about personal appearances, about my gig with "Variety," but Joe wanted to know about the plan, the strategy.
I wish I had more answers.
But I did tell him I wanted to make seven figures a year.
I shoot high.
Which is what Joe believes in. He felt I had to meet with more people who could push my career. Not the HR person, but the ones who ran companies.
I told Joe I wanted to be on the Amazon homepage. Or iTunes'. Or maybe even an interview podcast for AEG or Live Nation, someone who'd put it on the homepage and promote it, I'm not gonna start at zero, I'm too old, and Joe agreed.
But Joe told me first and foremost I had to know what I wanted. And then I had to get along. In other words, people had to be glad to see me, when I walked into their office they had to be thrilled.
And I've worked on that. I've learned how to be warm and nice. But the nature of my act is I'm going to inherently piss people off in my writing, otherwise it wouldn't be honest.
Joe told me not to change the act. Not to take any ads, not to play the game, not to change the essence of who I am.
But to strategize, to reach out, to not be afraid to fail, he said I was too old to be afraid.
And he's right.
P.S. We went to Bouchon Bistro. Mmm...was the food good. You could go just for the bread, but I ordered the steak and frites. Got to say, it was the most tender steak I'd eaten in years, and I even had the Japanese wagyu at CUT last week! I had to look down with my weak eyesight and investigate, was this hamburger? My knife cut through so easily!
P.P.S. Steve Ross was the big boss. And Steve never interfered, whenever Joe asked him what to do, Steve said it was Joe's money, the same thing Joe told the acts. If you give people responsibility, they step up and deliver, or at least try.
P.P.P.S. Joe referenced having breakfast with Dick Wolf, to trade basketball tickets. Joe's got the Lakers, Dick's got the Clippers. His point was everything's social, and you've got to play with the right people, those you can call up who deliver. The same way Irving did when Joe was writing his book, furnishing addresses and phone numbers. That's the nature of the game, he who does favors wins. And the big boys don't ask for payback, because if you give enough, you always get.
P.P.P.P.S. Joe tracked me down. I felt he had an agenda. The fact he wanted to focus on me was quite the surprise. Then again, if you walk out the front door you never know what will happen.
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Not a day goes by where I don't get e-mail imploring me to waste my time listening to someone I usually don't know try and sell me something I don't need. That's what they want, some of my time, so they can convince me to help them get ahead.
Huh?
I've about given up going to lunch. I don't even respond to most e-mail. It's not so much that these people are takers, but that I'm nowhere in the equation. You meet them and they don't even pay lip service to the fact I'm a human being, they're just narcissistically on their own trip.
Maybe you're too young to know who Joe Smith is.
He started out as a deejay (after graduating from Yale), and then went on to star in the Mo and Joe show, running Warner/Reprise Records.
Oh, he told me some great stories.
My favorite was about the Eagles, when Joe'd moved on to run Elektra/Asylum. He'd convinced them to do a live album. It would be good for the label and the band. But days before, Irving called and said there was a problem... He put Glenn Frey on the phone. Glenn went on about how it really didn't feel right, how they didn't want to play the Santa Monica Civic, how they could make so much more somewhere else and...the band would only do it if Joe could name the four starting pitchers of the Baltimore Orioles who each won twenty games in 1971. Joe had a history with Glenn, discussing baseball trivia, but this was too much, this was manipulative, this was unfair. But like the father who lifts the automobile crushing his son via pure adrenaline, Joe answered Glenn, he got it right, and they went on to record the double album!
That's exactly how Joe told it.
Not that he was into polishing his image, it's just that I got uptight with the focus all upon me and shifted it back to him.
So I asked Joe about the Grateful Dead. What did he say to them when they put out one stiff album after another?
First, Joe said they burnished the roster, the Dead helped the label sign other bands. Then he told me of a conversation with Mike Maitland, his then boss. Joe told him he could sign every San Francisco act for the same 50k he gave the Dead...Joplin, Country Joe and the Fish... But Mike said to wait and see how it turned out with the Dead.
But by then it was too late.
But the Dead ultimately turned it around, with "Workingman's Dead."
How did Joe get them to record it?
By saying MAKE ONE FOR ME!
After letting them do three studio albums their way, and one overpriced live album, Joe felt the label deserved something it could work with.
And what did Joe say when he heard the result?
He was thrilled!
But he had absolutely no input into the record whatsoever, that's not the way he did business.
Joe signed Bonnie Raitt by having her meet with him and Randy Newman and Ry Cooder, her idols. She was gonna sign with Capitol, which paid to fly her to the west coast, but now she switched allegiance. And for her first record she wanted to record in Minnesota with a friend.
Joe was against this. But he let her. Because artists have to find their own way. Bonnie learned what she didn't know making that first record and adjusted for the second.
There was one story after another of how Joe was hands-off. So different from today.
But then I asked Joe about Ry Cooder, who never broke through commercially, what could I take from that?
Well, Ry was an artist.
But Joe threw it back to me...how was I gonna make some MONEY!
I told him about personal appearances, about my gig with "Variety," but Joe wanted to know about the plan, the strategy.
I wish I had more answers.
But I did tell him I wanted to make seven figures a year.
I shoot high.
Which is what Joe believes in. He felt I had to meet with more people who could push my career. Not the HR person, but the ones who ran companies.
I told Joe I wanted to be on the Amazon homepage. Or iTunes'. Or maybe even an interview podcast for AEG or Live Nation, someone who'd put it on the homepage and promote it, I'm not gonna start at zero, I'm too old, and Joe agreed.
But Joe told me first and foremost I had to know what I wanted. And then I had to get along. In other words, people had to be glad to see me, when I walked into their office they had to be thrilled.
And I've worked on that. I've learned how to be warm and nice. But the nature of my act is I'm going to inherently piss people off in my writing, otherwise it wouldn't be honest.
Joe told me not to change the act. Not to take any ads, not to play the game, not to change the essence of who I am.
But to strategize, to reach out, to not be afraid to fail, he said I was too old to be afraid.
And he's right.
P.S. We went to Bouchon Bistro. Mmm...was the food good. You could go just for the bread, but I ordered the steak and frites. Got to say, it was the most tender steak I'd eaten in years, and I even had the Japanese wagyu at CUT last week! I had to look down with my weak eyesight and investigate, was this hamburger? My knife cut through so easily!
P.P.S. Steve Ross was the big boss. And Steve never interfered, whenever Joe asked him what to do, Steve said it was Joe's money, the same thing Joe told the acts. If you give people responsibility, they step up and deliver, or at least try.
P.P.P.S. Joe referenced having breakfast with Dick Wolf, to trade basketball tickets. Joe's got the Lakers, Dick's got the Clippers. His point was everything's social, and you've got to play with the right people, those you can call up who deliver. The same way Irving did when Joe was writing his book, furnishing addresses and phone numbers. That's the nature of the game, he who does favors wins. And the big boys don't ask for payback, because if you give enough, you always get.
P.P.P.P.S. Joe tracked me down. I felt he had an agenda. The fact he wanted to focus on me was quite the surprise. Then again, if you walk out the front door you never know what will happen.
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Monday, 7 October 2013
Notes
"How country music went crazy: A comprehensive timeline of the genre's identity crisis" bit.ly/17c9klo
At least they're having the debate, no one's fighting over the soul of rock.
Will the traditionalists pull country out of the proverbial ditch, leaving trucks and babies by the wayside, or has country truly left Nashville and is just another pop format, albeit a couple of generations behind Top Forty?
In other words, do you play to the lowest common denominator or go for authenticity?
Authenticity wins in the end, when people burn out on the hollow, but it can take a very long time.
_________________
"Disruptive Innovation Explained" bit.ly/HsH9YC
This is the guru of the future, Clayton Christensen, expounding upon his theory of disruption. How the inadequate cheap gets slowly better and ultimately supplants the high margin quality. Christensen believes good enough is good enough for most people. In other words, not everybody needs a Mercedes Benz, BMW or iPhone. Tim Cook should watch this and be very afraid. Once upon a time, the iPhone owned the market, with high margins to boot. Then inadequate Android handsets came upon the market. And now you've got Samsungs, never mind Motorolas, LGs, HTCs and a plethora of cheap knock-offs that are not quite as good as the iPhone, but good enough for most people (and in the case of high end Samsungs, nearly as good!)
But the biggest takeaway from this clip comes at the end, wherein Christensen says that fact-based analysis inevitably looks backward, because that's where the facts are. If you want to go forward, you've got to have a theory!
I doubt business school is as interesting as this clip. But this is the most fascinating video I've watched all week.
_________________
"The Doctor Is In": http://nyr.kr/1bvJRY6
The story of Dr. Luke. Worth the price of this week's "New Yorker" if you're a wannabe and want to see how to make it.
Will Dr. Luke be on top tomorrow?
Everybody dies. Whether it be Phil Spector, Roy Thomas Baker, Mike Chapman, Stock Aitken Waterman or... You wake up one day and you're done.
I've got no idea why Dr. Luke agreed to this victory lap. Everybody profiled by the "New Yorker" tanks right thereafter, or doesn't make it, it's kind of a jinx, from Ben Kweller to Cherie to...
Everyone feels inadequate, everyone wants the kudos, but he who refrains from this wins.
David Geffen agreed to Tom King's biography, and his image has never recovered.
Be grateful you've earned the success you've got, if you're on top the only thing press can do is...bring you down.
_________________
From: Rich Harris
Subject: Re: The New Me Decade
No it is NOT going away. It's just different. To your point......some stats for ya....(I'm a mobile analyst/strategic for a Fortune 250 company). Get on board or move to the caves of Tora Bora.
A long, long time ago, back in 2011...
96M smartphones in the US.
13% of all internet traffic was mobile.
U.S. E-Tail sales was at $197B, $25B of that from mobile.
Today...
230MM smartphones in the U.S.
39% of all Web traffic is mobile, expected to crest 50%+ by end of this year beating out desktop/laptop internet traffic.
U.S. E-Tail sales expected to hit $240B this year with $39B of that from mobile.
Rock on....
-Rich
_________________
From: Andrew Oldham
Subject: Re: Desperation
bob;
old acts do not deserve 60 minutes plus of saying time.
neither do most younger acts, but it is what it is.
and most younger acts do not survive the long term format.
some shirts should only be washed and left to dry as opposed to dried. they look - or sound - better.
in the beginning there was sheet music, and that was all about one song.
guy drives around the houses with a piano on his flatbed, plays the songs and sold the sheet music for the folks to play at home. he sold the hits!
in our day you got to cut your first 45 RPM; if that did well you were allowed another, then an EP, then another single and if all that hit, an LP.
you were on probation!
as you grew and succeeded you were promoted from the fourth division to the first.
i do understand how much elton enjoys being in the studio. it's like going back to the safety of the womb, but sometimes you just gotta stand in the alley and jerk off .....
best, o
_________________
From: Chris Wink
Subject: Re: Grit
If you look at Angela's Lee Duckworth's TedX talk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaeFnxSfSC4) you see a big drum in the background. That's because her TedX talk was in Blue Man Group's rehearsal Space. We brought her in because Grit was one of the topics we were interested in trying to teach at the School we founded http://blueschool.org. It also resonated with our own experience. The question is, is Grit teachable? Or do some people just have it? Well, one thing is certain, you won't have it if you pursue things you aren't passionate about. I'm like you; people said I was lazy when I was doing stuff I didn't like. But when it comes to building cool shows, I'm an unstoppable force. I'm not saying all my ideas are good, I'm just saying I can't be stopped. I keep going, getting help from others until the ideas get good. Maybe not every time, but most of the time my partners and I can outlast the forces of mediocrity (which are everywhere).
Anyway, Angela Lee Duckworth rocks.
Chris
_________________
My favorite viral video of the day:
PEOPLE ARE AWESOME 2013 (NEW) http://bit.ly/16tyDmg
_________________
"Say 'Cheese' to the Narrative Clip Life-Logging Wearable": http://on.wsj.com/15iTGr4
I want one. But not this one. Kickstarter sucks. Have you seen a Pebble in real life? Absolute junk. A plasticky thing you'd never wear on your wrist.
_________________
Thirty Seconds To Mars vyrt: https://beta.vyrt.com/mars
I love everything about this but the counter.
Jared Leto is smart, innovative and I give him credit for this live stream. The only problem I have is he's only sold 4,114 of 7,500 tickets.
That's why you don't want a counter online. Because people can see how puny your effort truly is. Like the number of people who fund the Kickstarter project. You might have raised the money, but you're proving your a tiny niche.
As for Jared/Thirty Seconds To Mars...it's a big band. But with this small number, it gives the impression they're not so big. Bottom line...people want to go to the show, they don't want to pay to watch at home, because going is as much about the experience as the music, and free live footage is plentiful online.
Now you know why people buy Twitter followers and YouTube plays, to give the imprimatur that something is happening, when in many cases it's not.
_________________
Howard Stern's radio show is no better today than it was before he was a judge on "America's Got Talent." But having been on network television, the gatekeepers, the handlers, now approve of him and the quality of his guests is equal, if not better than that of mainstream media outlets. Howard interviewed Floyd Mayweather soon after the fight, as well as Michael J. Fox and James Caan and so many others. And sure, Howard extracts information everyone else is afraid to get near, but my point is Howard played a very traditional game and it worked for him, we want to believe the Internet changed everything, but it didn't.
P.S. Listen to Howard's interview of Graham Nash, it'll blow your mind. That's the thing about Stern, he digs deep when no other pro will even pick up the spade: http://bit.ly/1a6n4z5
_________________
Speaking of disruption, soon the "New York Times" will be even more powerful than it is today. If you focus on money, you get left behind. When everybody else was cutting severely, the "Times" held out, well relatively. As a result, the paper is ready for the next paradigm, Web 3.0, filters. We want trusted ones. We're all sick of the online outlets we've never heard of reporting rumor or rendering opinion at best. Television has punted. Radio is almost exclusively opinion. The "New York Times" sets the American agenda more than ever, whether you're a liberal or a conservative, it's what those in the know read to find out what is going on, they haven't got time to waste on untold Websites.
The "Huffington Post" has jumped the shark. It's linkbait and nothing more.
The "Wall Street Journal" is the only paper in the "New York Times"'s league.
I'm not saying the "Times" is not challenged, but it's got boots on the ground. And suddenly, that's very important.
P.S. The "Times" is taking all kinds of risks, even though it's doing a bad job of promoting them. Baby boomers should bookmark this page, to read about the long term marriages and the divorces if nothing else: "Booming": http://www.nytimes.com/pages/booming/index.html
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At least they're having the debate, no one's fighting over the soul of rock.
Will the traditionalists pull country out of the proverbial ditch, leaving trucks and babies by the wayside, or has country truly left Nashville and is just another pop format, albeit a couple of generations behind Top Forty?
In other words, do you play to the lowest common denominator or go for authenticity?
Authenticity wins in the end, when people burn out on the hollow, but it can take a very long time.
_________________
"Disruptive Innovation Explained" bit.ly/HsH9YC
This is the guru of the future, Clayton Christensen, expounding upon his theory of disruption. How the inadequate cheap gets slowly better and ultimately supplants the high margin quality. Christensen believes good enough is good enough for most people. In other words, not everybody needs a Mercedes Benz, BMW or iPhone. Tim Cook should watch this and be very afraid. Once upon a time, the iPhone owned the market, with high margins to boot. Then inadequate Android handsets came upon the market. And now you've got Samsungs, never mind Motorolas, LGs, HTCs and a plethora of cheap knock-offs that are not quite as good as the iPhone, but good enough for most people (and in the case of high end Samsungs, nearly as good!)
But the biggest takeaway from this clip comes at the end, wherein Christensen says that fact-based analysis inevitably looks backward, because that's where the facts are. If you want to go forward, you've got to have a theory!
I doubt business school is as interesting as this clip. But this is the most fascinating video I've watched all week.
_________________
"The Doctor Is In": http://nyr.kr/1bvJRY6
The story of Dr. Luke. Worth the price of this week's "New Yorker" if you're a wannabe and want to see how to make it.
Will Dr. Luke be on top tomorrow?
Everybody dies. Whether it be Phil Spector, Roy Thomas Baker, Mike Chapman, Stock Aitken Waterman or... You wake up one day and you're done.
I've got no idea why Dr. Luke agreed to this victory lap. Everybody profiled by the "New Yorker" tanks right thereafter, or doesn't make it, it's kind of a jinx, from Ben Kweller to Cherie to...
Everyone feels inadequate, everyone wants the kudos, but he who refrains from this wins.
David Geffen agreed to Tom King's biography, and his image has never recovered.
Be grateful you've earned the success you've got, if you're on top the only thing press can do is...bring you down.
_________________
From: Rich Harris
Subject: Re: The New Me Decade
No it is NOT going away. It's just different. To your point......some stats for ya....(I'm a mobile analyst/strategic for a Fortune 250 company). Get on board or move to the caves of Tora Bora.
A long, long time ago, back in 2011...
96M smartphones in the US.
13% of all internet traffic was mobile.
U.S. E-Tail sales was at $197B, $25B of that from mobile.
Today...
230MM smartphones in the U.S.
39% of all Web traffic is mobile, expected to crest 50%+ by end of this year beating out desktop/laptop internet traffic.
U.S. E-Tail sales expected to hit $240B this year with $39B of that from mobile.
Rock on....
-Rich
_________________
From: Andrew Oldham
Subject: Re: Desperation
bob;
old acts do not deserve 60 minutes plus of saying time.
neither do most younger acts, but it is what it is.
and most younger acts do not survive the long term format.
some shirts should only be washed and left to dry as opposed to dried. they look - or sound - better.
in the beginning there was sheet music, and that was all about one song.
guy drives around the houses with a piano on his flatbed, plays the songs and sold the sheet music for the folks to play at home. he sold the hits!
in our day you got to cut your first 45 RPM; if that did well you were allowed another, then an EP, then another single and if all that hit, an LP.
you were on probation!
as you grew and succeeded you were promoted from the fourth division to the first.
i do understand how much elton enjoys being in the studio. it's like going back to the safety of the womb, but sometimes you just gotta stand in the alley and jerk off .....
best, o
_________________
From: Chris Wink
Subject: Re: Grit
If you look at Angela's Lee Duckworth's TedX talk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaeFnxSfSC4) you see a big drum in the background. That's because her TedX talk was in Blue Man Group's rehearsal Space. We brought her in because Grit was one of the topics we were interested in trying to teach at the School we founded http://blueschool.org. It also resonated with our own experience. The question is, is Grit teachable? Or do some people just have it? Well, one thing is certain, you won't have it if you pursue things you aren't passionate about. I'm like you; people said I was lazy when I was doing stuff I didn't like. But when it comes to building cool shows, I'm an unstoppable force. I'm not saying all my ideas are good, I'm just saying I can't be stopped. I keep going, getting help from others until the ideas get good. Maybe not every time, but most of the time my partners and I can outlast the forces of mediocrity (which are everywhere).
Anyway, Angela Lee Duckworth rocks.
Chris
_________________
My favorite viral video of the day:
PEOPLE ARE AWESOME 2013 (NEW) http://bit.ly/16tyDmg
_________________
"Say 'Cheese' to the Narrative Clip Life-Logging Wearable": http://on.wsj.com/15iTGr4
I want one. But not this one. Kickstarter sucks. Have you seen a Pebble in real life? Absolute junk. A plasticky thing you'd never wear on your wrist.
_________________
Thirty Seconds To Mars vyrt: https://beta.vyrt.com/mars
I love everything about this but the counter.
Jared Leto is smart, innovative and I give him credit for this live stream. The only problem I have is he's only sold 4,114 of 7,500 tickets.
That's why you don't want a counter online. Because people can see how puny your effort truly is. Like the number of people who fund the Kickstarter project. You might have raised the money, but you're proving your a tiny niche.
As for Jared/Thirty Seconds To Mars...it's a big band. But with this small number, it gives the impression they're not so big. Bottom line...people want to go to the show, they don't want to pay to watch at home, because going is as much about the experience as the music, and free live footage is plentiful online.
Now you know why people buy Twitter followers and YouTube plays, to give the imprimatur that something is happening, when in many cases it's not.
_________________
Howard Stern's radio show is no better today than it was before he was a judge on "America's Got Talent." But having been on network television, the gatekeepers, the handlers, now approve of him and the quality of his guests is equal, if not better than that of mainstream media outlets. Howard interviewed Floyd Mayweather soon after the fight, as well as Michael J. Fox and James Caan and so many others. And sure, Howard extracts information everyone else is afraid to get near, but my point is Howard played a very traditional game and it worked for him, we want to believe the Internet changed everything, but it didn't.
P.S. Listen to Howard's interview of Graham Nash, it'll blow your mind. That's the thing about Stern, he digs deep when no other pro will even pick up the spade: http://bit.ly/1a6n4z5
_________________
Speaking of disruption, soon the "New York Times" will be even more powerful than it is today. If you focus on money, you get left behind. When everybody else was cutting severely, the "Times" held out, well relatively. As a result, the paper is ready for the next paradigm, Web 3.0, filters. We want trusted ones. We're all sick of the online outlets we've never heard of reporting rumor or rendering opinion at best. Television has punted. Radio is almost exclusively opinion. The "New York Times" sets the American agenda more than ever, whether you're a liberal or a conservative, it's what those in the know read to find out what is going on, they haven't got time to waste on untold Websites.
The "Huffington Post" has jumped the shark. It's linkbait and nothing more.
The "Wall Street Journal" is the only paper in the "New York Times"'s league.
I'm not saying the "Times" is not challenged, but it's got boots on the ground. And suddenly, that's very important.
P.S. The "Times" is taking all kinds of risks, even though it's doing a bad job of promoting them. Baby boomers should bookmark this page, to read about the long term marriages and the divorces if nothing else: "Booming": http://www.nytimes.com/pages/booming/index.html
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Sunday, 6 October 2013
The New Me Decade
I went to a show and it took all my willpower to refrain from dipping into my pocket and checking my iPhone.
An e-mail would be nice, or a text, but in my fingertips I hold a personal link to the entire world, and this has changed not only my behavior, but that of the entire globe.
We used to put stars on a pedestal. Now they're vehicles for put-downs. If you're famous, you've been abused online, it goes with the territory.
And if you're having a "digital free" day enjoy the analog to camping but there's nothing wrong the new paradigm and it's never going away, it's only going to intensify.
We were never at the heart of the action. In fact, we had to leave home to participate. Now we can not only watch TV in our lairs, we can surf for dates and dig deep down into our personal interests, chatting with those like-minded all the while. When I went to college with my hundreds of albums in the seventies I was an outcast, I came to Los Angeles and found people just like myself. Now no one is alone, everybody lives in a virtual village of their choosing. And the star is you.
It's already happened. People won't leave their house without their device. Forget the baby boomer backlash, decrying the loss of... Actually, it's a gain. Everybody you ever knew is at your fingertips. You're more socially engaged than ever before. You can buy goods at the lowest possible price without living in Los Angeles and New York. Virtual connection is a panacea that brings whole nations together and fosters revolutions, and this is good.
In other words, expect people to continue to take photos at the gig. To dial their friends and have them listen in. To check their timeline or feed while the music plays. Because what's happening in your world is more important than what's happening on stage. As Sly Stone sang decades ago, everybody is a star.
And our heroes are the enablers. The techies who create this stuff. Disruption is in their blood the same way it was in that of the classic rock musicians. That was their appeal, the way they tested limits, it's why we're always interested in a new social network and data has triumphed over emotion, everybody looks at the numbers first.
If they're in business. But emotion is king in your own personal world. Music is not primary, but part of the ever-flowing background, no different than the wallpaper on your phone. He who realizes enabling the listener is the key to success triumphs tomorrow.
Putting your fan primary does not mean paying lip service to those adhered to you. No, it means giving them artwork and free music and snippets of information, that they revel in, believing they're truly your best friend.
Yes, the world has been flattened. Everybody's equal. And if you act differently, you're going to get mowed down. That's what's wrong with Kanye, he's living in the wrong decade, Jay-Z too, wherein they believe proclaiming themselves rich and powerful makes them so. No, everybody believes they're rich and powerful today, and if you establish a moat between you and them you're headed for a downfall.
If you're in the public eye, humility is key. It's the essence of Howard Stern's success. He could go on about how wealthy he is, how he doesn't fly commercial, but instead he focuses on his foibles, bringing his audience ever closer to him, cementing a bond that cannot be broken.
We're immune to so much hype and me-tooism because we've all tried it ourselves and found out it doesn't work, that fame online is earned over time, based on the work, which explains why everything that pops up on YouTube seems to die quickly and is never followed up, we view it not as the start of a career, but a wreck on the side of the highway to rubberneck at and then forget.
And it all started with the Internet.
But the final link was the mobile phone. Because suddenly we can take our world with us. BlackBerry didn't realize this and died. It's not solely about e-mail, we want EVERYTHING at our fingertips, we never want to encounter a technical glitch, to have a problem with your mobile phone is akin to having a problem with your body, something that is completely untenable.
And it's only going to become more so. We're all connected, we're all primary, and it all happens on the mobile.
The clock ain't turnin' back.
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An e-mail would be nice, or a text, but in my fingertips I hold a personal link to the entire world, and this has changed not only my behavior, but that of the entire globe.
We used to put stars on a pedestal. Now they're vehicles for put-downs. If you're famous, you've been abused online, it goes with the territory.
And if you're having a "digital free" day enjoy the analog to camping but there's nothing wrong the new paradigm and it's never going away, it's only going to intensify.
We were never at the heart of the action. In fact, we had to leave home to participate. Now we can not only watch TV in our lairs, we can surf for dates and dig deep down into our personal interests, chatting with those like-minded all the while. When I went to college with my hundreds of albums in the seventies I was an outcast, I came to Los Angeles and found people just like myself. Now no one is alone, everybody lives in a virtual village of their choosing. And the star is you.
It's already happened. People won't leave their house without their device. Forget the baby boomer backlash, decrying the loss of... Actually, it's a gain. Everybody you ever knew is at your fingertips. You're more socially engaged than ever before. You can buy goods at the lowest possible price without living in Los Angeles and New York. Virtual connection is a panacea that brings whole nations together and fosters revolutions, and this is good.
In other words, expect people to continue to take photos at the gig. To dial their friends and have them listen in. To check their timeline or feed while the music plays. Because what's happening in your world is more important than what's happening on stage. As Sly Stone sang decades ago, everybody is a star.
And our heroes are the enablers. The techies who create this stuff. Disruption is in their blood the same way it was in that of the classic rock musicians. That was their appeal, the way they tested limits, it's why we're always interested in a new social network and data has triumphed over emotion, everybody looks at the numbers first.
If they're in business. But emotion is king in your own personal world. Music is not primary, but part of the ever-flowing background, no different than the wallpaper on your phone. He who realizes enabling the listener is the key to success triumphs tomorrow.
Putting your fan primary does not mean paying lip service to those adhered to you. No, it means giving them artwork and free music and snippets of information, that they revel in, believing they're truly your best friend.
Yes, the world has been flattened. Everybody's equal. And if you act differently, you're going to get mowed down. That's what's wrong with Kanye, he's living in the wrong decade, Jay-Z too, wherein they believe proclaiming themselves rich and powerful makes them so. No, everybody believes they're rich and powerful today, and if you establish a moat between you and them you're headed for a downfall.
If you're in the public eye, humility is key. It's the essence of Howard Stern's success. He could go on about how wealthy he is, how he doesn't fly commercial, but instead he focuses on his foibles, bringing his audience ever closer to him, cementing a bond that cannot be broken.
We're immune to so much hype and me-tooism because we've all tried it ourselves and found out it doesn't work, that fame online is earned over time, based on the work, which explains why everything that pops up on YouTube seems to die quickly and is never followed up, we view it not as the start of a career, but a wreck on the side of the highway to rubberneck at and then forget.
And it all started with the Internet.
But the final link was the mobile phone. Because suddenly we can take our world with us. BlackBerry didn't realize this and died. It's not solely about e-mail, we want EVERYTHING at our fingertips, we never want to encounter a technical glitch, to have a problem with your mobile phone is akin to having a problem with your body, something that is completely untenable.
And it's only going to become more so. We're all connected, we're all primary, and it all happens on the mobile.
The clock ain't turnin' back.
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Miley Cyrus On SNL
What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where the commercials are funnier than the program?
One in which Miley Cyrus radiates such intelligence that she blows away the rest of the show.
I'm loath to write about Ms. Cyrus one more time, I don't want to be one of those bandwagoneers who use her for momentary fame, like Sinead O'Connor, who is truly the poster girl for mental illness, did you see her face tattoos? Ink has been crawling up the neck for about a decade, but once it migrates to your punim you've completely lost the plot, you've shown that you've got no desire to be part of society, or you're shrieking for help.
I feel sorry for Ms. O'Connor, who spoke the truth to Ms. Cyrus, saying that the music industry is a sausage factory, but why was she so surprised that Miley tweeted back, Sinead's got kids of her own, and one thing we know for sure is at twenty you believe you know everything and radiate a force field reflecting all constructive input.
But it's the same parents who are up in arms over the last six weeks of Mileymania. Whether they be perturbed by her twerking or her ability to dominate the conversation with what boomers declare is not music.
I've got something to tell those oldsters, we're living in a pop world. You can spin your Wilco CDs in your Biemers, but your progeny are streaming the hits of the day and reveling in being members of the group.
It would be easier if Miley Cyrus was a deer in the headlights like Katy Perry. Or an old incomprehensible stoner like Ozzy Osbourne. Then we could write her off as a tool of the system. But watching her on SNL you were wowed not by her body but her brain. She read the cue cards better than any cast member. Which is testimony to years on the Disney Channel, but so many TV stars are wooden on SNL and Miley was not. Because she's smart and she's talented. And unlike her forbear, Madonna, she comes down off the pedestal and is truly likable.
That's what oldsters hate about Miley. That she just won't shut up, recede into the firmament and respect her elders. But that's what stars do, throw off chains and chart their own path. And their fans follow them.
Miley's no Justin Timberlake, letting Janet Jackson take the heat for the nip-slip. Justin's testing no limits, he's truly safe, he's an entertainer, there's no train-wreck, and great rock stars have had a little bit of train-wreck all the way from Little Richard to John Lennon to Boy George to Eminem. It goes with the territory. If you're not making people uptight, you're not doing it right.
And SNL had a bit of an edge. It criticized Boehner and the Republicans without a concomitant equal swipe at the Democrats, a taboo in the "fair" media. And Jay Pharoah had a star turn as Shannon Sharpe, it wasn't so much laugh out loud funny as whoa, watch this guy in action, but it's been so long since we've had a breakout star on SNL that it was thrilling to watch his performance.
But I feel sorry for the telecast. Because in a splintered world there's very little commonality the show can play off of. Even the hippest youngster is gonna be unfamiliar with so much, there are few frames of reference except for the show itself. Yes, SNL is an institution, but the core is rotten. It's just a stepping stone to something else, whereas John Belushi and Danny Aykroyd did their best work on the telecast, they were owned by us, not the man.
And it's hard to tell if Miley Cyrus is working for the man or us because it's all so calculated and without her musical handlers there would be nothing there. None of these products of song factories can write without their team, and what comes out of the speakers is more akin to cheerleading than inner reflection. Yes, this manufactured music has no soul. Then again, despite having a black President America's got no soul, it's a hollow enterprise focused on cash so why criticize Miley Cyrus for being its greatest exponent?
Yes, you've seen the immediate future and this is it. A tsunami of press that forces everybody to pay attention for...as long as the "star" can hold their eyeballs. No one takes a break anymore, if they do they're forgotten. You've got to be in the public eye 24/7.
Not that Miley Cyrus can't sing. But did she really need so many effects and so much on hard drive during her first number?
But that's today's music. Despite all the money being in the live performance, it's all about the record. You can't take any risk, there can be no mistakes, and that's why the aforementioned soul is gone. But we're not looking for perfection, we're looking for soul. It's a conundrum that Miley's life can have jagged edges but her music is slick and polished.
And this won't be forever.
But until the country revolts against income inequality, expect pop stars to reign. Pop never leads, it follows. It takes the best and the brightest to lead and those people left the building long ago, because music's not where the money is.
And it's all about money. Otherwise SNL would do skits about the bleeding edge and force its audience to pay attention and investigate. But the program can't afford a dip in ratings, no risk is involved in a show that hasn't changed in nearly forty years.
But it was great once, just like the music that inspired it and was featured on it.
But that was a long time ago.
To the point where tonight the biggest star was the guest host, she blew everybody off the stage, if they were smart they'd beg her to be regular cast member.
P.S. The Ron Burgundy Chrysler spot and State Farm airplane/BBQ grill commercial were more innovative than anything on SNL. Sure, it's harder to do it live, but the way out is by taking chances, which people do online every day but SNL refuses to do.
P.P.S. Sinead O'Connor face tattoos: http://bit.ly/1f7EBOz
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One in which Miley Cyrus radiates such intelligence that she blows away the rest of the show.
I'm loath to write about Ms. Cyrus one more time, I don't want to be one of those bandwagoneers who use her for momentary fame, like Sinead O'Connor, who is truly the poster girl for mental illness, did you see her face tattoos? Ink has been crawling up the neck for about a decade, but once it migrates to your punim you've completely lost the plot, you've shown that you've got no desire to be part of society, or you're shrieking for help.
I feel sorry for Ms. O'Connor, who spoke the truth to Ms. Cyrus, saying that the music industry is a sausage factory, but why was she so surprised that Miley tweeted back, Sinead's got kids of her own, and one thing we know for sure is at twenty you believe you know everything and radiate a force field reflecting all constructive input.
But it's the same parents who are up in arms over the last six weeks of Mileymania. Whether they be perturbed by her twerking or her ability to dominate the conversation with what boomers declare is not music.
I've got something to tell those oldsters, we're living in a pop world. You can spin your Wilco CDs in your Biemers, but your progeny are streaming the hits of the day and reveling in being members of the group.
It would be easier if Miley Cyrus was a deer in the headlights like Katy Perry. Or an old incomprehensible stoner like Ozzy Osbourne. Then we could write her off as a tool of the system. But watching her on SNL you were wowed not by her body but her brain. She read the cue cards better than any cast member. Which is testimony to years on the Disney Channel, but so many TV stars are wooden on SNL and Miley was not. Because she's smart and she's talented. And unlike her forbear, Madonna, she comes down off the pedestal and is truly likable.
That's what oldsters hate about Miley. That she just won't shut up, recede into the firmament and respect her elders. But that's what stars do, throw off chains and chart their own path. And their fans follow them.
Miley's no Justin Timberlake, letting Janet Jackson take the heat for the nip-slip. Justin's testing no limits, he's truly safe, he's an entertainer, there's no train-wreck, and great rock stars have had a little bit of train-wreck all the way from Little Richard to John Lennon to Boy George to Eminem. It goes with the territory. If you're not making people uptight, you're not doing it right.
And SNL had a bit of an edge. It criticized Boehner and the Republicans without a concomitant equal swipe at the Democrats, a taboo in the "fair" media. And Jay Pharoah had a star turn as Shannon Sharpe, it wasn't so much laugh out loud funny as whoa, watch this guy in action, but it's been so long since we've had a breakout star on SNL that it was thrilling to watch his performance.
But I feel sorry for the telecast. Because in a splintered world there's very little commonality the show can play off of. Even the hippest youngster is gonna be unfamiliar with so much, there are few frames of reference except for the show itself. Yes, SNL is an institution, but the core is rotten. It's just a stepping stone to something else, whereas John Belushi and Danny Aykroyd did their best work on the telecast, they were owned by us, not the man.
And it's hard to tell if Miley Cyrus is working for the man or us because it's all so calculated and without her musical handlers there would be nothing there. None of these products of song factories can write without their team, and what comes out of the speakers is more akin to cheerleading than inner reflection. Yes, this manufactured music has no soul. Then again, despite having a black President America's got no soul, it's a hollow enterprise focused on cash so why criticize Miley Cyrus for being its greatest exponent?
Yes, you've seen the immediate future and this is it. A tsunami of press that forces everybody to pay attention for...as long as the "star" can hold their eyeballs. No one takes a break anymore, if they do they're forgotten. You've got to be in the public eye 24/7.
Not that Miley Cyrus can't sing. But did she really need so many effects and so much on hard drive during her first number?
But that's today's music. Despite all the money being in the live performance, it's all about the record. You can't take any risk, there can be no mistakes, and that's why the aforementioned soul is gone. But we're not looking for perfection, we're looking for soul. It's a conundrum that Miley's life can have jagged edges but her music is slick and polished.
And this won't be forever.
But until the country revolts against income inequality, expect pop stars to reign. Pop never leads, it follows. It takes the best and the brightest to lead and those people left the building long ago, because music's not where the money is.
And it's all about money. Otherwise SNL would do skits about the bleeding edge and force its audience to pay attention and investigate. But the program can't afford a dip in ratings, no risk is involved in a show that hasn't changed in nearly forty years.
But it was great once, just like the music that inspired it and was featured on it.
But that was a long time ago.
To the point where tonight the biggest star was the guest host, she blew everybody off the stage, if they were smart they'd beg her to be regular cast member.
P.S. The Ron Burgundy Chrysler spot and State Farm airplane/BBQ grill commercial were more innovative than anything on SNL. Sure, it's harder to do it live, but the way out is by taking chances, which people do online every day but SNL refuses to do.
P.P.S. Sinead O'Connor face tattoos: http://bit.ly/1f7EBOz
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