They Follow The Data

Data killed smooth jazz radio. When Arbitron employed Portable People Meters, when they could track what people were truly listening to on the radio, it turned out the filled-out diaries were wrong. People lied about what they were listening to. And once it turned out they weren't listening to smooth jazz radio as much as they said they were, the stations flipped format.

The same thing is happening in music today. People have the idea that record companies are cultural institutions beholden to the arts, but the truth is they are businesses, beholden to the buck, just like you, who will shop at Amazon despite declaring that Wal-Mart hollowed out your city square. Turns out cash is the biggest motivator. And what is driving cash in music today is hip-hop and pop. Despite seeing reviews for jazz and rock and all kinds of genres in the newspaper, in the news, the truth is we now have listenership data on streaming services, and they're anemic there. You can complain that fans of these sounds don't stream, but their fandom is unquantifiable. It certainly doesn't translate to sales, not in any tonnage, so those in the production business are going to follow the money, which is in streaming, which is in pop and hip-hop. These other genres will die because there's not enough money in it, no one with marketing bucks, with cash on the line, will produce them. Big band music died, why can't rock?

And it becomes a vicious cycle, the younger generation makes hip-hop and pop because that's where the money is. That's ALREADY happening. So other genres lay dormant, become stagnant, and then fade away to marginality.

Now this can all flip. But it requires innovation, excellence, a reaction from fans. Marketers, i.e. labels, will go wherever the cash is. If klezmer starts appearing in the Spotify Top 50, there will be a run on those acts. So, hip-hop and pop may not be forever, certainly not in their present forms, but what will replace them is not something from the past, but something brand new, maybe a mash-up of previous elements, and it will appeal to the youth, because they are the active consumers, streaming and going out to the show in prodigious numbers. So if you think you can make it with three chords and a guitar, with a mediocre voice and repetitious lyrics...

Think again.

"Here's what happened the last time audio producers got better data": http://bit.ly/2trQkRA

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Kid Rock For Senate

That's what I don't get about the libtards, THEY TAKE THE BAIT!

Kid Rock is not playing to you, he doesn't care about you, and neither does his audience. You've got your knickers in a twist, saying the country's going to hell in a handbasket, you're denigrating Rock's looks, age and music and he's laughing all the way to the bank, because he knows his audience is EATING IT UP!

The Democrats have to get a new strategy, just bitching about the right wing isn't working. It's like a Gen-X'er yelling at a boomer, telling him Pearl Jam is the best band ever and the boomer shrugging his shoulders. Better yet, a millennial raving about Migos to both of those elder groups. You don't win by yelling at somebody, changing hearts and minds is a long term process that the Republicans have been good at, with the Federalist Society and right wing talk radio and Fox News, and now the Democrats believe they can sway the converted in an instant, by telling them how inane and stupid they are?

Not gonna happen.

Meanwhile, Kid Rock, i.e. Bob Ritchie, is not stupid.

This is one of the great publicity stunts of this era. A guy who's in his forties, who works in a moribund format, i.e. rock, suddenly got the whole nation's attention when that's nearly impossible to do. I don't care if he runs for Senate or he doesn't, that's not the point, he can decide later. Kinda like Trump, he just wanted your love and attention, but he tapped into something that appealed to people. As does Rock... It's about the underclass celebrating their uniqueness. Yes, it is a dying tribe, the white uneducated blue collar workers, but the truth is Rock has always employed a multiracial band which is better rehearsed than most and he gives 110% at his shows and if you think you can convince his audience otherwise, you must be a Democrat.

Meanwhile, Rock is smart. Literally. And upper middle class. His father was a Lincoln dealer. It's all an act. Sit down with him long enough and you'll find he's almost a Democrat, it's just that he's got a brother living on welfare who doesn't work and it drives him nuts. All I'm saying is if you're bitching about the rube, you've missed the point. Rock is smarter than Trump, and he doesn't want to be in politics, but he wants to sell tickets, in an era where I told someone I was going to Dodger Stadium tomorrow to see the Eagles and they were unaware they were playing. Yes, that's the challenge you face, awareness, and Rock just broke the bank, by sticking his finger in your eye and having you do his work for him. Especially in an era where politics is more important than music. Rock got more traction than the biggest acts in the world, Drake, Jay Z, Beyonce, and you're continuing to talk about it, articles are being written about it, and he's not only playing along, he's pushing back! Saying the press has got it wrong, he's not on Warner Brothers and he's got fifteen days to file. He's doing it modern style, which is getting down in the pit and fighting it out, while you're at home plotting a year-long publicity campaign for your album that'll go Top Ten and instantly disappear, I hope your accomplishment keeps you warm at night, because the truth is your money won't, because you're upside down.

Rock was CREATIVE!

Every other has-been musician from the turn of the century is running on fumes. Putting out music that sounds just like what they made before. So, he's criticized for mashing up Zevon and Skynyrd. But it went to number one, didn't it? Isn't that the game, while you sit at home and bitch about art and the culture?

This is like the Globetrotters beating the Washington Generals. And Kid Rock is Meadowlark Lemon. If you're not laughing, you don't understand the game.

Stop being so serious.

And go to Rock's show, you might enjoy yourself!

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The Defiant Ones-Episode Four

It's not about the money...

It's about the money.

That's a music business aphorism. For those who didn't go to college, that means, according to the Oxford Dictionary, built into my Mac, "a pithy observation that contains a general truth, such as 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'"

You don't have to go to college to make it in the music business. You don't even have to finish high school. You just have to have a burning desire to make it, and the ability to make and maintain relationships. It's a hard business to stay in. People are lining up to work for free. People my age are either running the company or retired, it's a young person's game. And while the baby boomers were alive, the whole thing flipped. It went from being THE game, to an also-ran.

So what did all the execs do?

Fund startups, do things that had nothing to do with music. Scratch someone in Hollywood, not only in music, but the moribund movie business too, and you'll find they're invested in startups, they want to play the Silicon Valley game, because what attracted them to Hollywood wasn't the music or the movies, but the money. And the longer they're in it, the more important the money becomes.

You at home don't understand this. You run into a famous exec and demonstrate more knowledge about their wares, about their scene, than they do. But you don't get it, that's not what makes them successful, it's their drive, their ability to view the landscape and make the hard decisions. They don't call it show "friends," they call it show BUSINESS! And believe me, if Jimmy retired tomorrow, many of those people at his wedding to Liberty would not show up. That's the music business, that's ALL business, you're the job, not the person.

Unless you're an artist.

But rare is the artist who sticks with the same team throughout. They've got a new manager, not the one who brung 'em here, but someone who can be trusted, who knows the finances, who will book the live gigs and...

That's about all you've got.

That's right, make it on the hit parade and your fame lasts forever, if not your money.

Start off behind a desk... And you'll probably have a longer career than most acts, but most of all you want the money.

Did you see Dre take the stage at Wembley? Where else can you get that roar of adulation? You can't as a businessman. Hell, we've got a couple, the dearly-departed Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, maybe Bezos and Zuckerberg too, but that just proves the point, there's not a single musician who has that kind of traction, that kind of purview, that kind of reach today. You may think Drake is ubiquitous, but not only is that untrue, he's nowhere near as big as Eminem.

That's palpable, watching Eminem. You're reminded of the early aughts. When MTV still counted, when CDs could still sell, and we still lived in a monoculture.

That's been blown apart.

Forget the hype machine. I was listening to the Bret Easton Ellis podcast, which is about movies, and he admitted...no one goes to the movies anymore. And as far as TV...everywhere he goes people are talking about shows that he's never even heard of! Mothers and fathers were outraged by Eminem, they don't even know who Kendrick Lamar is. And if they do, chances are they've never heard one of his songs. Hell, the news clip in this show says Suge Knight is in the ROCK business. If they can't get that right, what are the odds the hoi polloi can?

So what we've got here, other than the bit about Marshall Mathers, is hagiography. And once again, for those who didn't go to college, the Oxford Dictionary says that's: "the writing of the lives of saints."

But neither Dre nor Jimmy is.

Dre's an uber-talented musician/producer/creator.

And Jimmy is an uber-talented marketer.

And together, they made billions.

They won if you're playing that game.

And everybody in America now is. It's solely about the cash, whether you've got it or not. You want to get ahead, you don't want to pay for anybody else, and D.C. reflects this turmoil, it's in our blood.

So Jimmy takes a lame headphone and puts it on the ears of musicians and athletes and starts a lame streaming service and lays it all off on Apple. Laying it off is the triumph here. Beats headphones were a fad, no different from a pet rock, well, at least they transmitted sound, but poorly. Sony and Sennheiser are forever. Beats headphones? Give me a break. And no one can forget that Beats Music failed as MOG and failed as Beats Music and if Apple hadn't rescued them, it'd be Tidal time. Jay Z got an infusion from Sprint, even dumber than Apple, but that's the Hollywood game, getting someone to pay, laying it off on somebody else, taking your money and going home.

We hear nothing about the death of Dre's son. As for Jimmy's initial marriage...there are enough holes in that story to fill the Albert Hall. You're watching at home and you believe it was an endless march to the top.

Only it wasn't.

You think you too can make it.

But you can't. Because the skills it takes to get there not only weren't in this series, in most cases you're born with them.

And if you're not willing to make the hard choices, you'll never make it.

And, like they say about managers, anybody can get lucky once, but can you break TWO acts? I give Jimmy tons of credit for Beats, but I'd like to see him do it again. As for Dre, he did do it multiple times, on record, which is why the chances of him being remembered are much greater than those of Jimmy.

But you've got to get up and do something every day. Lifestyle only goes so far. Why is it all the rich inheritors O.D?

So this final episode resembled nothing so much as "Behind The Music," only with less failure. This targeted the neophytes, the nobodies at home who've got no idea how the game is played. The rubes who believe they can get off the bus in Hollywood and make it. Kinda like Axl Rose in that video.

But he DID make it.

That's the upside, the machine needs talent. You've got a chance, only it's marginally better than playing the lottery, if the odds are even that good.

So we venerate those who win. We tell ourselves if we just try harder, we can too...

We don't see the blowback from the U2 giveaway. We don't see Bono singing thirty year old hits to aged fans. We don't see Tim Cook introducing a boffo new product that blows us away. Like I said, this final episode is hagiography. Without Apple's muscle, its brand mystique and credit card numbers, the streaming service is a nonstarter. As it is, the post-Jobs Apple has yet to show us breakthrough innovation. They're like a record label repackaging catalog. Yes, we need to hear the Beatles, we need to use a mobile phone, but every time you see a Tesla on the street, you wonder, HOW DID THEY DO THAT? How did they create a car from scratch?

HOW DO THEY MAKE THE MUSIC FROM SCRATCH?

Our country runs on culture. Money is just currency. Despite this show, despite the media, despite "Billboard" telling you who made most, the truth is...you start with nothing, only your wits. Your degree won't help you, but experience will. But even the most experienced people run dry.

You want to create a hit. And don't lie and say no. You want the recognition, you want the accolades, you want to be KNOWN!

Jimmy and Dr. Dre are known.

Not because of Beats headphones. Not because of Apple Music. But because of what comes out of the earpieces. You don't have to spend a lot of money, you've just got to create magic.

That's one tough job.

But some people are up to it.

I know you're gonna try.


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Jack Tempchin At The Grammy Museum

There weren't that many people who were in the room where it happened. And in time these stories are gonna disappear.

And we want to hear them.

You see once upon a time life was boring. And the way you dealt with that was to go out. Now it's nearly impossible to get someone to go out, and I understand that, after the hour plus it took me to drive from Santa Monica to downtown. I used to go to the Valley for a movie on a whim! Now WAZE has created gridlock in my own damn neighborhood. I reminisce about when traffic was only bad, when it was one hour to Hollywood in rush hour as opposed to two, when rush hour ended at 7 instead of 9:30 PM.

So you'd go to the club to a hear a band, to throw back a couple of beers, to try and get lucky, to have a life. And most times the experience didn't deliver. But that was the old days, when you stuck it out, knowing that if you kept going one time you'd mine gold. You'd see a band that blew your socks off. You'd meet the love of your life. Now people won't go unless the act is already famous, they don't want to waste their time.

But Jack Tempchin met Glenn Frey and J.D. Souther at a club in San Diego. He had them sleep at his house. Long before Airbnb, when we trusted each other, when we were all middle class and in it together. They became buddies. And when Jack played "Peaceful Easy Feeling" in Echo Park, in Jackson Browne's apartment, with the windows taped over, to create that creative feeling, Glenn was enthralled, he wanted it for his new band, with the best singers, the best writers and the best players. Glenn called Jack from the studio days later, played him the hit recording over the phone.

And Jack wrote "Peaceful Easy Feeling" in a club in El Cajon, he'd sent the band along, he was gonna wait for the waitress to take him home, but she never returned, he was lying on the linoleum trying to sleep and... He showed us the flier with the lyrics written on the back, whew!

But there was still one verse to go. He finished it at der Wienerschnitzel, which has now lost the "der," but they put a plaque in the table and gave him a golden hot dog and...

If you lived through the era, these stories are priceless. About his dearly departed friend Glenn. About hanging at the Troubadour. Driving cross-country with his wife in a VW microbus and hooking up with Jackson Browne in NYC who said he had to get back to the garden, but first he truly had to go to the Garden, as in Madison Square Garden, he was playing there that night.

And I own that Funky Kings album. I bought it because of Tempchin's name, as well as Richard Stekol's, of Honk fame. Back when the world was smaller and you graduated from sports scores to liner notes and you bought albums based on credits without hearing them first.

And there were stories about writing songs, getting in the mood, how they do it in Nashville, how Frey liked to do it, and Jack needs to be in the mood, he got up and wrote every day and found out it was crap. Then again, everything doesn't come to him in a flash, he reworks the words.

And then Jack played.

"You Belong To The City."

"Already Gone."

"Peaceful Easy Feeling."

He's covering his classics for a new album coming out in August.

And then he started telling a tale. Of seeing a legendary performer whose life ended poorly who you won't know anyway, whose shtick was to call up his girlfriend on stage and argue with her, and Jack noticed that people only danced when the music was slow. And he thought about his desire to press up against the opposite sex, he thought about his new girlfriend, ultimately to become his wife, and he looked to the ceiling and sang...

"Slow dancing, swaying to the music
Slow dancing, just me and my girl"

And I flashed back to that high school dance, I went with Debbie.

And then I thought of my law school girlfriend. We'd gone through a rough patch, but this night was better and I put on the newly-released "Rumours" and when "Gold Dust Woman" came on we embraced like we hadn't, like I thought we might never do again...

And my life is vividly flashing before my eyes, like at that HillBenders show on Friday night, hearing "Tommy" and then...

"No one else in the whole wide world"

No one cares. About you and your foibles. Nobody's paying attention. You get out of school and you're on your own. And if you can find one damn person you can count on, who you can slow dance with...

You're lucky.


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How Hip-Hop Conquered America-Chapter One

Frequency of product, oftentimes FREE!

Whilst the oldsters were bitching about the moving of their cheese, the demise of the old paradigm, hip-hop slid in to fill the void, utilizing the new tools to exploit the new world, while the rockers and country denizens were still worrying about the radio the rappers knew it was all about online, about streaming, they realize it's not about monetization so much as access, attention, which is why they realize it's best to have a continuous flow of product, to be making news.

And utilizing multiple writers and a multitude of performers evidences the millennial ethos where the most important thing is belonging, being a member of the group, whereas boomers are all about the singular triumph, hoisting the trophy over your shoulder, in hip-hop it's about the group, ever see a rap record win an award, a Grammy, there's a group on stage having a party, enjoying the moment, because music isn't about achievements, awards, but living, they get it.

I'm not saying it's not about money, it's just that they know when and where to charge.

And getting back to inclusiveness, that's where Drake triumphed in March, with his mixtape, he placed himself in context, it wasn't about him, but EVERYBODY.

And that includes you at home, the listener, you can follow the scene like sports, only there's no commissioner getting in the way, there are no rules, everybody can play, and all the exhortations and denigrations are in plain sight.

And in a country that's completely divided, the only thing the younger generation agrees on is hip-hop, they rap in country records, hip-hop is everything what came before is not. It's no longer fighting for attention, as it did it in the MTV era, now it owns ears and eyeballs, by superseding the construct and taking advantage of new technology, no other genre comes close.


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Rock Fans Have To Stream

I'm looking at the half year BuzzAngle report where the rock format is #1 in both Album Sales, with 14.3%, and also #1 in Physical and Vinyl, and #2 in Digital Alum Sales and #1 in Song Sales, but when it comes to Audio Streams...it's dwarfed by Hip-Hop/Rap, which has 24.4% to rock's 6.9%. Even COUNTRY has a greater percentage of Audio Streams, with 7.2%, and that's the land of Luddites, the last people to buy CDs, the last people to be influenced by terrestrial radio...not that I want to give country too much crap, because it almost equals Rock's sales numbers, with 13.4% of Album Sales, 16.2% of Physical Sales, so if you're a rock fan looking for all the people, I'd check out the Nashville sound.

Not that the numbers aren't complicated. There also are Indie Rock, Metal and Punk categories, and if you add them into Rock, which they probably should be, of course the numbers go up. But then you'd have to add Pop into Hip-Hop Rap, and then it would be game over. Pop dominates Song Sales, with 19.3%, and dwarfs Rock with 12.8% of Audio Streams, and Metal is positively anemic when it comes to streams and...

I'll stop boring you with the numbers. I'll just say it's a youth business, and it appears rock fans are old, the last to give up physical formats, the big vinyl collectors, they get a disproportionate amount of press, but if you want to know what's really going on...

You look at on demand streams, which BuzzAngle reports, both Audio and Video.

Forget those inane charts in the newspaper, they're complete hogwash, blending sales and streams in a formula so bizarre that it makes no sense. An album can go to number one based on the streaming of one song. And you supposedly get bragging rights by entering the chart high, but then you fall off and are forgotten.

So who do we blame? The artists or the audience or...

The NBA lives on Twitter, while the baseball fans abhor the service and the NFL is run like high school, controlling the behavior of athletes.

It's a new world. If you're talking about the sound quality of CDs, owning physical objects, you no longer matter, you're old and out of touch, cry all you want, it makes no difference.

But if you want to make a difference, you've got to tell everybody you know to start streaming, to prop up the rock format before hip-hop runs away with the game. Because catching up is hard. Somehow all the youngsters found streaming, are signed up for Spotify, while the oldsters still debate the efficacy and the payouts. Meanwhile, Drake has nearly two billion Audio Streams, 1,786,913,816 to be exact, and the only rock act in the top 25, which is really pop, is Twenty One Pilots, which is #23 with only 501,885,392. But talk to either of these acts, they're not bitching about streaming payouts, no way.

And, of course, Ed Sheeran is #4. Which shows you what melodies and songs you can sing along with produce.

It's not rocket science folks.


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The Defiant Ones-Episode Three

The internet killed the music business.

That's right, it wasn't only about recording revenues, it was about UBIQUITY!

Walk into an exec's office in the nineties and MTV was on. That's what broke Dre big, rap too, sure Jimmy got Snoop and Dre on the cover of "Rolling Stone," but even though that rag is a shadow of itself today, it was already over the hill back then. It had been replaced by a new boss, cable television.

You see MTV News. You see Michael Lewis's wife Tabitha Soren and are brought back to an era when the original VJs were gone, but MTV was even more powerful, radio had rolled up and become corporate, and we all drank at the mouth of Tom Freston's station.

At first your mind wanders, all this hogwash about Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson, who cares? I'm not saying that Trent is not talented, I wish he would get back to making music, pushing boundaries, but so much of the non-rap stuff released by Interscope was ultimately forgettable trash, whereas "The Chonic"...

That was "Sgt. Pepper."

Now this is where the series goes off the rails. Because they leave too much out. Dre was locked up in a contract with Ruthless, and we do live in a nation of laws, remember, the labels love that, they always go back to the deal, and then...

Suge Knight gets involved.

We've all heard the stories.

I heard it from Jerry Heller.

Let's just say...

The story's not in this video.

Nor is the true story of Michael Fuchs.

The real story is Doug Morris was off the rails, he gained too much power at Warner Music and abused it. Made Mo and Kras feel like second class citizens, and they didn't like it. So that's why Doug was pushed out. And to Doug's credit, he learned his lesson, he stopped the publicity shenanigans, he made friends, he was more behind the scenes at MCA/Universal.

And there's no mention of No Doubt's label, Trauma.

As for David Geffen's genius, his record company went out of business because it had no rap. He got rid of the Geto Boys. And I'm not saying this wasn't the right decision morally, and David had already cashed out, but the music was turning black, before it went white with Eminem, and Geffen was left out. We're all eventually left out. Hell, give Jimmy credit for reinventing himself, when you stop hearing it, you should go, or hire others to hear for you, even Ahmet famously said there'd be a point where you no longer got it.

And then there's C. Delores Tucker and Warner getting rid of Interscope and there you have modern America, the corporation always triumphs, even if it's wrong. That's right, TW merged with AOL, spun off AOL, got rid of the cable system and now is gonna sell HBO and the rest of the TV assets, the magazines are long gone, while the music lives on. Hell, they sold the whole Warner Music Group, just for a couple of billion, they couldn't wait until things turned around. That's corporations for you, businessmen, they do what's good for them in the short term, screw long term value, screw the shareholders ultimately, just do it for yourself.

Whereas Jimmy and Dre triumphed outside the corporate system, especially with Beats, that's why their story is so genius. Nobody in music today, not in the major system, has their own money at risk, not at the label and not at the promoter, they're all lackeys, working for the man.

Whereas revolution always comes from outside.

So, "The Chronic" changes everything. It's everything that rock is not. Vital, of the street, new and different. The Seattle sound peters out, and rap...

Not that they don't know their roots, when Dre quotes Stevie Wonder's "Living For The City" when he's walking around New York, you can only smile. There's always a continuum, nobody comes from nowhere.

And the nineties are too recent, too pored over to rewrite history.

But by the end of the episode, even Jimmy admits he was scared. And Tupac dies. And I remember writing about it on the internet. Because '96 was the Summer of Love online, when everybody bought a PC just to play, when AOL was the dope, when we all got turned on and dropped out, when we dedicated hours to the service, connecting.

And we haven't disconnected since.

Took a while for everybody to catch on.

Eventually everybody got hooked up. Then came high speed connections and Napster. Still, CDs ruled, Eminem blew up, but disruptive disasters are all the same. We see them coming, we hear they're coming, but they don't arrive, but then, just when we've given up, they do. We heard digital was gonna eclipse Kodak, but it never happened, not for a decade, and then within the span of a year, it did. We heard that file-trading increased CD sales, all kinds of hogwash, but then the recorded music business cratered.

And the wise ones are using the new tools to do something different.

And the baby boomers scratch their heads and denigrate. Home recording studios? Streaming? YouTube stars? Vine stars? Live streaming?

This is where the action is, this is why Jimmy's screwing up at Apple, he thinks he's in charge, but he's not, he's bringing old precepts to a new business. Paying for music? It's got to feel FREE! Beats 1 radio, in an on demand world? Hand-curated playlists in an era of logarithms? Secrecy in an era of transparency? No public data in a world ruled by data?

He's hit his Waterloo.

Dre seems to have petered out, it happens to the best, they no longer feel it anymore, they don't get hard for the old work.

And that's when the new generation takes over.


P.S. I was hipped to the fact that you can stream all four episodes on demand. I've been watching it on my computer. So, GO FOR IT!


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The Defiant Ones-Episode Two

There were billboards on Sunset Boulevard.

It's hard to fathom the music business, it's hard to fathom Los Angeles, if you weren't there in the seventies. The dream had died, Nixon was elected, Tom Wolfe named it the "Me Decade" and at the advent of the next decade Reagan legitimized greed, the boomers grew up, it was all about the money, but the sixties hung over.

Unlike today. People pay lip service to the music. But listening to Tom Petty, you know that's all he is, an artist. Somehow he's more charismatic than the Boss, more believable, he's dark and somewhat removed and when he speaks it's from a deep place, he's the leader, you can either follow him or...

Jimmy followed him and then crossed him. And despite his mealy-mouthed excuse, Doug Morris nails it, Jimmy wants to WIN!

And this was before everybody got old, got plastic surgery, had their teeth fixed, when you see Stevie Nicks in action your jaw drops, she was the dream, and she's even more delicious than you remember her, women wanted to be her, guys wanted to be with her, and she seems so damn normal back then, with all eyes upon her, WOW! That's a star.

And Jimmy argues with Stevie in the studio, Richard Perry's studio for those playing the home game, remember him? And you can see the genesis... Jimmy no longer wants to support the artist, he wants to BE THE ARTIST!

You think you just want to be in the room, but once you feel comfortable, you want to own the room.

As for Dre, he was all about excellence, in a parallel universe that gets short shrift in the mainstream media, in D.C. The FBI sends a letter about "F___ Tha Police," utterly laughable, and then Obama has Jay Z and Beyonce to the White House and suddenly we're jetted right back to the past, as if the last eight years didn't even happen, and if you don't think this is gonna cause an artistic blowback...

You're enthralled by the techies and the bankers.

How many of them die? Get cut down before their time? Of course we lost Steve Jobs to cancer, but we've lost so many of our entertainers to misadventure, you see they were testing the limits so we didn't have to.

But so many want to walk in their steps.

Music blew up marijuana.

But Oxy led to the opioid crisis all by itself, that's the story of the twenty first century, the ruling of the corporations, and we have to pull ourselves back from that, through the arts.

But that's the story in music too, THE MONEY! Jimmy tells Petty that letting Stevie cover "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" will buy him a house. At first with N.W.A. there was no money, but once they had big success, the act broke up over it. At least they included Jerry Heller in the episode, I'm not saying Jerry was a prince, but at least they don't heap all the blame upon him. Eazy chose Jerry over Dre. We all need our protector.

And it was all about myth-making and promotion. It started long before Van Halen and the brown M&M's, you see the public likes a good story, they like outrage, which is why they watch the "Housewives" and follow the gossip, but it used to all come from the musicians, now they're just a sideshow.

But when you hear those N.W.A. songs they're so powerful, not dated, they still hit you in the gut, they tell you what went on then, even if you were oblivious during the era.

And Dre gets his comeuppance, shooting paintballs on the freeway? Assaulting Dee Barnes? And they both talk about the impact of death, but the more you watch the fewer answers you've got. Jimmy was destined for success. Dre was the Beatles of hip-hop. We're just observers. Oh, we can participate but almost no one can win, both Jimmy and Dre came from nothing, close to it, they lifted themselves up, became heroes to many, visionaries who broke the bank.

But you and me, we just remember the tunes.

And when you see Stevie and Petty sing together...

When you see Bono at the US Festival...

You're reminded of what once was, and you ask yourself how in hell we got here.


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The HillBenders Perform "Tommy" In Pasadena At The Levitt Pavilion

"Tommy: A Bluegrass Opry": http://spoti.fi/2ubRlC5

Sometimes the best entertainment is free.

"Tommy" was not an immediate smash, but it was in my house. It was led by the exquisite single "Pinball Wizard" during the winter of '69, which got little airplay and was not worth buying as a single since you knew the double LP was coming, and in the spring, it did!

Not sure it's the same experience anymore. First you had to drive to the store. After you knew the album was coming. This was before the rock press matured, you depended upon the radio, and free-form had invaded the New York market, I drove with my newly-acquired license to E.J. Korvette to buy the double LP.

And we treated them like gold. At least I did. Sure, packages would get scuffed as time went by, there'd be wear and tear, but when you got home they were still brand new and you broke the shrinkwrap and opened them so gently, removing the LPs by the label and edge only, dropping them on the turntable and waiting for...

Those first notes you'd never heard before.

Kinda liked dropping the needle on "Hotel California" the day it was released, the only thing that was on the airwaves was "New Kid In Town," I had a brand new stereo with JBL L100's and I dropped the needle on my direct drive Panasonic and...WOW!

Kinda like buying "Band On The Run" when all you knew was "Helen Wheels."

In the ensuing weeks FM played elements of "Tommy," but I was still part of a very small club, which over time grew bigger, to tell you the truth what really blew it up was the "Woodstock" movie the following spring, suddenly everybody was involved, SEE ME, FEEL ME, TOUCH ME, HEAL ME!

But there was not another hit on "Tommy," hell, in America the Who's only real hit had been mild, with "I Can See For Miles," and most people still weren't tuned into FM, if they even had a radio that could receive that band, so I dug deeply into the rock opera and told everybody about it, had my mother send the album to Chicago so I could turn the frat rats in the basement on to it as we resided upstairs and they smoked dope downstairs.

And at this point I'd been to the opera, that's the luxury of living so close to NYC, the school takes you, the best one was "Carmen," my mother had a policy, when it came to the arts there was an unlimited budget, and just like those productions in Manhattan, "Tommy" began with an overture, and when the HillBenders blew into the "Overture" Friday night, tears came to my eyes.

It was better than seeing Roger and Pete, they're going through the motions, I'm just gonna be reminded of what was, seeing them with Moon and Entwistle do it straight through at the Fillmore, it would be nostalgic, it would be a bit creepy, but this bluegrass version...IT WAS FULLY ALIVE!

None of the HillBenders were alive when "Tommy" first came out. They were playing classic music, with a twist.

Oh, what a long strange trip it's been. Not only to fans of the Dead, but to those of us who lived through the classic rock era, who saw the pop acts wiped off the map by the Beatles, who sparked the free-format era, the concept album concept, and then the explosion of FM leading to corporate rock and then MTV to...

Here.

I don't know where here is. All I know is it won't be fully free of constraints until the baby boomers pass the torch, which they're loath to do. They hate electronic music, they hate rap, they hate everything the streamers care for. But you can't hold back the future, and we're getting somewhere great.

But I'm not sure it'll be as great as where we once were.

On paper, "Tommy" is a stupid concept. But, like the initial live performances of "Quadrophenia," the HillBenders explained it. And it kind of made more sense.

But to those of us who were there, we'd transcended the story, we knew the music by heart, even if we rarely played it, it's in our DNA.

And these free shows are dominated by geezers and grazers, people out on a lark, getting out of the house on the hottest night of the year, it could be anything on stage, but to gain their attention...

You have to know how to play, to perform, your material's got to win.

And seeing these pickers in action, you were wowed.

But they were playing some of the best material of all time.

I never checked my phone. And I do that at shows of today's greats.

All I could do was sit there, nod my head, sing along at times, and marvel at where I once was and how I got here. Being nowhere in the suburbs and making it to L.A., climbing the ladder, going somewhere, the movie of my life unfolded in my brain. Since this was a new band playing the music with the aforementioned twist I didn't have to compare it to what once was, I didn't have to feel old, but then the memories came flooding back, of not only seeing the Who, but where I was when I was listening, memories that are so deeply buried some of them haven't resurfaced since the sixties.

Is classic rock the new classical music?

It's amazing how many bands have fallen by the wayside. Has anybody played a Seatrain album recently?

But then there's stuff that sustains.

Other stuff that's rarely played but people know.

And when you hear it you marvel at the creativity embodied, the great leap forward artistically, the Who went from a middling band to the absolute bleeding edge, they only got bigger from there, one can argue "Who's Next" was superior, many people believe "Live At Leeds" is the best live LP extant. And you wonder how Pete came up with this stuff.

And the HillBenders worked through songs we know by heart, the transition from the "Overture" to "Captain Walker," they played "Pinball Wizard" with as dramatic a transition as the original, do you remember listening on headphones waiting for the explosion to arrive in the other ear, and there were appearances by Uncle Ernie and Sally Simpson and then...

"Welcome to the camp
I guess you all know why we're here"

Actually, we didn't. We were just going about our business, going to school, being on the swim team, and then the whole world went topsy-turvy, the sixties truly arrived, that's what that first installment of the Grateful Dead movie depicts so well, suddenly the establishment was done and the hippies took over. And leading the charge was MUSIC!

We weren't gonna take the old crap anymore. The youth were not divided, we were all on the same page, gaining strength all the time.

We got the music.

We felt the heat.

We millions saw the glory.

We got opinions.

We got the story from rock acts like the Who.

And what we wanted most was to be seen, to be felt, to be touched, the music healed us.

And when "We're Not Gonna Take It" faded into the ether there was only one option...

A STANDING OVATION!


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The Defiant Ones-Episode One

The first ten minutes is the best advertisement for the music business this decade.

There's been too much focus on the negative for this entire century. And it's all about the decline in revenue of recorded music. There's industry infighting, bitching about streaming, hosannas about vinyl, meanwhile the public doesn't care.

It's a struggle out there. You either make it or you fall behind. The people need hope. And "The Defiant Ones" gives them hope.

First there's money. Jimmy and Dre made tons. And they're not bitching (at least not yet, supposedly in Episode Four Jimmy goes off on YouTube and free). They won. Not by music business standards, but by AMERICAN STANDARDS! The line of demarcation is a billion, and they surpassed it, they're in the league of the financiers and the techies, only they made their money through creativity.

Think of that. They didn't pay their dues in school. Didn't jump through hoops. They created their own path, when they didn't know where they were going, knowing only that they wanted to get there.

I mean really, do you want to sit inside and code? Sure, Mark Zuckerberg is rich, but do you want his job?

YOU WANT JIMMY AND DRE'S JOB!

And that's the essence. Sure, you want the fame, but there are twenty four hours in a day, your image is not enough to sustain you, you've got to work, and watching Jimmy and Dre in action you feel this is the work you want to do. One in which you make creative decisions, spend all your time and get rich.

Sure, not everybody can succeed, but if you don't think "The Defiant Ones" is gonna inspire people, you didn't see the Beatles on "Ed Sullivan."

And sure, the footage of John Lennon is breathtaking. And Bruce Springsteen is loose and relaxed. But for far too long the establishment has focused on white at the expense of black. And if you don't think black rules, you haven't checked out the Spotify Top 50, we now live in a hip-hop world more than ever. And sure, the old farts, the baby boomers, want to see their heroes on screen, but even more exciting, especially for millennials and younger, is to see the Dr. Dre story. From Compton to Beverly Hills. Well, actually he lives in the Valley last I heard, but the truth is not important, it never is, it's all about image, people at home want some of what he and Jimmy have got!

And to see Dre spin discs in that blue doctor's outfit is like opening a time capsule with the cure for cancer. Wow, you can feel the heat.

And when he implores Eazy to rap...

You make it up on the fly, as you go along, but don't believe watching "The Defiant Ones" you can walk in their footsteps, you've got to go on your own path, make your own way.

And this show won't move the needle significantly on Apple Music. That meeting with Zane Low falls flat. He used to be famous, now he works for Apple and he's a household word on the inside, but the outside just doesn't care, they don't believe in radio, it's an on demand world.

And Jimmy works for Tim Cook and Eddy Cue, but they pale in comparison to him and Dre, they've got no charisma, they're businessmen, whereas Jimmy and Dre are businesses, MAN!

That's the American Dream. You come from nothing and you get to the top.

You're supposed to be happy... So far the losses, the divorces and the deaths, are not portrayed in this show. It's not so much that it's sanitized, it's just that certain stuff is left out, they're building a myth.

And they're doing an excellent job.

You remember myth-making, don't you? The Boss and Dre, all the legendary acts, your greatest desire was to meet them, hang backstage, share a bite. And the truth is so many of them are incomplete people, far from normal, you can't connect, they can do this one thing well, and that's it. But this show flips the script. Which is how you do it today. You appear to give everything, boosting your image and credibility, you give the illusion of access, it's not about holding back but pushing it out, on your terms.

Jimmy and Dre did it on their terms.

This is hagiography.

But so far you don't wince, because you're thrilled to have a peak inside.

So some people will believe college is unnecessary. Some will go to USC and believe they've got their golden ticket. And it's good to start with a leg up.

But disruption always comes from the outside, from people who don't fit in, who have to do it their own way.

Like jimmy and Dre.


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