Tim Cook shut the behemoths down. The charlatans at Facebook and Google couldn't work, couldn't even know what was for lunch, because their internal operations run on Apple apps.
Proving that distribution is king and privacy matters will be solved by business, not the government.
Those in the government are too stupid, they can't understand the issues, never mind enact rules of change.
So it comes down to this. Facebook and Google make money on your data. It's the only way Facebook exists, without showing you targeted ads, it's dead in the water. And sure, Google has search ads, but the internet has evolved and the two companies triumph on advertising, which is based on your data, you're coughing up your privacy and in most cases are unaware of it.
Privacy. The number one issue today. Fake news is based upon it. And income inequality is secondary to it. It may be 2019 on the calendar, but it's 1984 in truth. You don't get the same search results as your neighbor, you don't see the same ads, because you are targeted based on your history/data. They know everything about you, not only your name. Did you ever Google yourself? It's horrifying. You may have an unlisted number, but it's findable online. As well as everybody you've ever been married to or related to and their ages and locations and...that's just the tip of the iceberg.
They target you based on income and location, and we all know the internet is turning our world into the Tower of Babel, but what most don't realize is these companies like Facebook and Google whose business model is based on your data are pouring gasoline upon it, fanning the flames.
How much is your privacy worth to you?
If it's a lot, buy Apple products.
Because Apple's business model is different from that of Google and Facebook and Snapchat and too much of the rest of the net. Apple charges you a fortune for their products, and protects your privacy in return. Of course, of course, they had that Facetime glitch, and there's no excuse for it, but at least they admitted it and are fixing it. Whereas Zuck testifies to the contrary in the WSJ and then makes his fortune on your data.
In other words, your best friend on the internet is Tim Cook.
He may not be technologically innovative like Steve Jobs, but he has values. Sure, he could stand up to the Chinese some more, but he's leading the charge for morality amongst the techies, and that's significant.
Facebook and Google broke the App Store rules, quite consciously, and Cook spanked them, took them off the service. We're dependent upon these wankers to self-police, but can we trust them? OF COURSE NOT! Come on, like Sheryl and Mark are gonna do anything that hurts the bottom line? As for Google, they literally own the Android operating system, they're not gonna do anything that hurts them, they give it away for the DATA!
That's why America is so screwed up. People think it's about bringing back coal, manufacturing in the U.S., when the truth is our wealth is now based upon technological innovation, which is being hobbled by the government's visa limits. So now the brilliant South Asian computer scientists create that value for India instead of America. But that's right, immigrants are the enemy. Doing jobs you're too stupid to do or those which are beneath you, like cleaning and picking.
And creativity. Forget that Netflix is running circles around its cable competitors, do you know that it's a global company? That's right, an American enterprise that's bringing those foreign dollars in, if not home. But you don't believe in globalization. The ship has already sailed. Look at Brexit. The economic consequences will hobble the nation. Who's gonna build their HQ in the U.K?
But back to Apple.
It's the business model...data or on the sale of products. You think Facebook and Google are free, but they are not, you're paying with your data.
And Tim Cook just said that data should not be collected via Apple. He's making a stand!
Maybe this is more important than a high stock price, than Wall Street. That's what's ruined America, which the MAGA people don't get, the unbridled pursuit of profits with no conscience.
I could go deeper into this fracas, but I won't, even though it's not that complicated.
I'm just saying as America focuses on a game that kills athletes, people much less sexy are fighting the good fight. They are the ones who need to be lauded. They're not ripping you off, they're standing up for you.
But ain't that Americans, always fighting the last war, when a new one has begun.
Privacy. If you expect the government to keep yours, you're thinking someone in D.C. has a technical clue, and that is untrue. People with less traction than the Kardashians are fighting today's battles for tomorrow's world and most just don't get it, I'm beginning to agree with Bill Maher that everybody should not be able to vote, they're too uninformed.
And the world runs on information.
This could be the last battle folks. The days of internet startups are history. There are only a few companies left. And the only one on your side is Apple.
You can make a stand and buy Cupertino products, but you're too cheap.
But believe me, you're paying the price.
"Apple Shows Facebook Who Has the Power in an App Dispute": https://nyti.ms/2G39Yyi
(Notice there are only 23 comments, even though this article was on the front page of the print newspaper, but the story is not sexy enough for the proletariat.)
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Saturday, 2 February 2019
Friday, 1 February 2019
The Stars Tonight
We came to Vail to celebrate Andy's birthday.
Only Andy is not here. But we kept the restaurant reservation anyway, at Allie's Cabin, on the mountain at Beaver Creek.
I can't say the food was spectacular, but the ride up in a snowcat driven sleigh...whew, I haven't seen that many stars in decades.
I told you I was an Eagle Scout, but the first time I slept outside was in the backyard. We had three-quarters of an acre. And the backyard was big enough for baseball and badminton and sleeping.
You know how it is, you beg your parents, and eventually they say yes.
You go outside just before dark, with your flashlights and provisions, and you tell jokes and stories and wait to get tired, which happens much later than you expect. And then when you're deep in sleep, the sun comes up, and your bag is covered with dew and you schlepp it inside and watch cartoons.
And eventually you become a Boy Scout, a dying organization whose best feature was the hiking and camping. Only this time, we used tents.
And then you graduate to the point where you hike and camp by your lonesome, or with a partner.
Let's see, I've hiked the Green Mountain Trail and slept overnight, but not the whole thing.
I've slept in Grand Teton National Park.
Actually, I've driven cross-country twice and camped the whole way.
I'm not sure anybody does that anymore, I think they fly. They're not in search of America, but we were, kinda like that old Simon & Garfunkel chestnut, back when you couldn't really know what a place was like unless you went there.
But I haven't camped in years. Maybe because of my sleep apnea. Which went undiagnosed for years. I didn't start to snore so bad until my ex-wife moved out. I woke up gulping for air for years, but I thought it was a sinus problem, I slept with the humidifier on. And then sharing a room with an engineer on a ski trip, he timed my breaths and I told my shrink and I still didn't go for the sleep test. But then, months later, after my deductible was met, just before the end of the year, I went to the sleep clinic, and I've got it bad, real bad, 14, if you know what that means. And it took about a month to get used to the CPAP machine, but then in 2010 ResMed had a breakthrough, an automatically adjusting machine, and it's so much easier today. But still, many people with sleep apnea won't use the devices, I don't know why. I used to be proud of myself, I could sleep on the shortest of flights, but now with the CPAP machine I feel like a superman, I have so much energy, I can't imagine sleeping a whole night without it. Actually, I was in the Intercontinental Hotel in Toronto about ten years ago and the power went out and my machine wouldn't work and it was one of the worst nights of my life, I hardly slept.
Which is all a long story to explain why I no longer camp.
Actually, the last time I did was in '88. Long story, with my ex and her friend. I felt like the odd person out, it was the beginning of the end.
But I know the experience.
Like I've said, I went to college in Vermont, lived in Utah for two years thereafter, I know the back country.
But it'll surprise you.
I wasn't thinking of the stars when we got in the sleigh, I was thinking of the horse-drawn sleigh in Sun Valley, that takes you to Hemingway's cabin, I did that back in '75 with my parents. I was thinking of being cold.
And I was, we were. But we stretched those football capes around us, you know, like the players throw over their shoulders during a cold game, and when the sleigh left the station we were confronted with...
Stars.
Orion's Belt. The Milky Way.
I started to get excited, I started to smile. This was the real thing, nature.
No drug I've ever taken is close to a natural high.
And we're so addicted to our devices that we rarely put ourselves out of range, in the wilderness, where we feel small and not powerful, but privileged to be there. That's one thing about Mother Nature, she don't care, she'll freeze your butt off, the world is perilous.
And snow was kicking up from the PistenBully. But I couldn't stop looking up. It wasn't a Spielberg movie, it was the real thing. It's there every night, assuming it's clear. It was there before us, and it'll be there after us.
And I'm not quite sure I want to go there, but I am overwhelmed by space.
Then again, not only did I camp in the sixties, we explored space. It was the computer science/tech of the day. Mercury, Gemini, Apollo. It seemed otherworldly. Back when America was a can-do nation. When our politicians were not people of ridicule, but those who got things done.
And when they walked on the moon...
It was hard to comprehend. Kinda like the power of your mobile handset today, the way we never lose touch with anybody in the world.
But the sky is different. It's more about awe.
Seeing the Big Dipper in its winter position, low in the sky, at an angle.
And I'm no astronomer, but I was still speechless.
You shoulda been there.
Only Andy is not here. But we kept the restaurant reservation anyway, at Allie's Cabin, on the mountain at Beaver Creek.
I can't say the food was spectacular, but the ride up in a snowcat driven sleigh...whew, I haven't seen that many stars in decades.
I told you I was an Eagle Scout, but the first time I slept outside was in the backyard. We had three-quarters of an acre. And the backyard was big enough for baseball and badminton and sleeping.
You know how it is, you beg your parents, and eventually they say yes.
You go outside just before dark, with your flashlights and provisions, and you tell jokes and stories and wait to get tired, which happens much later than you expect. And then when you're deep in sleep, the sun comes up, and your bag is covered with dew and you schlepp it inside and watch cartoons.
And eventually you become a Boy Scout, a dying organization whose best feature was the hiking and camping. Only this time, we used tents.
And then you graduate to the point where you hike and camp by your lonesome, or with a partner.
Let's see, I've hiked the Green Mountain Trail and slept overnight, but not the whole thing.
I've slept in Grand Teton National Park.
Actually, I've driven cross-country twice and camped the whole way.
I'm not sure anybody does that anymore, I think they fly. They're not in search of America, but we were, kinda like that old Simon & Garfunkel chestnut, back when you couldn't really know what a place was like unless you went there.
But I haven't camped in years. Maybe because of my sleep apnea. Which went undiagnosed for years. I didn't start to snore so bad until my ex-wife moved out. I woke up gulping for air for years, but I thought it was a sinus problem, I slept with the humidifier on. And then sharing a room with an engineer on a ski trip, he timed my breaths and I told my shrink and I still didn't go for the sleep test. But then, months later, after my deductible was met, just before the end of the year, I went to the sleep clinic, and I've got it bad, real bad, 14, if you know what that means. And it took about a month to get used to the CPAP machine, but then in 2010 ResMed had a breakthrough, an automatically adjusting machine, and it's so much easier today. But still, many people with sleep apnea won't use the devices, I don't know why. I used to be proud of myself, I could sleep on the shortest of flights, but now with the CPAP machine I feel like a superman, I have so much energy, I can't imagine sleeping a whole night without it. Actually, I was in the Intercontinental Hotel in Toronto about ten years ago and the power went out and my machine wouldn't work and it was one of the worst nights of my life, I hardly slept.
Which is all a long story to explain why I no longer camp.
Actually, the last time I did was in '88. Long story, with my ex and her friend. I felt like the odd person out, it was the beginning of the end.
But I know the experience.
Like I've said, I went to college in Vermont, lived in Utah for two years thereafter, I know the back country.
But it'll surprise you.
I wasn't thinking of the stars when we got in the sleigh, I was thinking of the horse-drawn sleigh in Sun Valley, that takes you to Hemingway's cabin, I did that back in '75 with my parents. I was thinking of being cold.
And I was, we were. But we stretched those football capes around us, you know, like the players throw over their shoulders during a cold game, and when the sleigh left the station we were confronted with...
Stars.
Orion's Belt. The Milky Way.
I started to get excited, I started to smile. This was the real thing, nature.
No drug I've ever taken is close to a natural high.
And we're so addicted to our devices that we rarely put ourselves out of range, in the wilderness, where we feel small and not powerful, but privileged to be there. That's one thing about Mother Nature, she don't care, she'll freeze your butt off, the world is perilous.
And snow was kicking up from the PistenBully. But I couldn't stop looking up. It wasn't a Spielberg movie, it was the real thing. It's there every night, assuming it's clear. It was there before us, and it'll be there after us.
And I'm not quite sure I want to go there, but I am overwhelmed by space.
Then again, not only did I camp in the sixties, we explored space. It was the computer science/tech of the day. Mercury, Gemini, Apollo. It seemed otherworldly. Back when America was a can-do nation. When our politicians were not people of ridicule, but those who got things done.
And when they walked on the moon...
It was hard to comprehend. Kinda like the power of your mobile handset today, the way we never lose touch with anybody in the world.
But the sky is different. It's more about awe.
Seeing the Big Dipper in its winter position, low in the sky, at an angle.
And I'm no astronomer, but I was still speechless.
You shoulda been there.
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Stunts
Don't work unless the track is a hit.
In case you missed it, the idiot who tattooed Harry Styles on her face is reveling in the fact that she got all that attention, I'm sure you saw it, and thought WHAT KIND OF PERSON DOES THAT?
Turns out the tattoo was a fake. See the whole story explained here:
"How I rocked the entire world for $300": https://bit.ly/2MIH2vV
But that video only has 85,421 views, far from the entire world. In other words, people were interested in the stunt, but not the track, which is far from close enough, never mind no cigar.
This paradigm was started by drummer Josh Freese. He too got attention for inventing what came to be known as the Kickstarter paradigm, i.e. different perks for different donations, but has anybody ever heard the music?
This is different from Radiohead doing their name your own price deal with "In Rainbows," as Radiohead were already superstars with a dedicated fanbase.
But the nitwit with the Harry Styles tattoo did this for the attention. Believing it would springboard her to musical success. But it don't work that way anymore. But this is evidence that the only way to get mass attention these days is to set yourself on fire, shy of that you're dependent upon the work, and that's a long hard struggle.
Like the Killers track "Land Of The Free." Not only is the band known, but I think the song is a hit, but it isn't, there are only 1,767,322 views on YouTube. And only 1,998,422 plays on Spotify. In other words the track has no traction, only fans and looky-loos have partaken of it. What are the odds for a newbie? LONG! Especially if they don't make hip-hop with known suspects.
So what's a poor boy to do?
Certainly not play in a rock and roll band.
But if you choose to go down this path...
You're in the worst era ever in the history of making it. People have too many options, and they're not only music, we're living through the golden age of television. As for help... Major labels only want to sign that which is easy to break, and that's hip-hop. So, chances are you're not going to get any help and you're going to have to do it yourself.
In other words, you're gonna have to think really small. Your family and friends.
And if the word spreads, you play live.
Playing live is the best way to make it if you're not a hip-hop act. But it's really hard to get gigs, and it's hard to get an agent, but if you get a response, you're on to something.
One of the biggest bands in America has never had a hit, the Tedeschi Trucks Band. Sure, Derek Trucks got traction playing with the Allmans, but I'm pointing out this paradigm as one to pursue. The act goes on the road with way too many players to get rich, but it's about the show, and it's building, however slowly.
But in the age of social media influencers, no one wants to put in the work. Ironically, the easier it is to make and distribute it, the harder it is to get it heard.
Change always comes from outside. One act can skew the entire universe. As Nirvana did. So we're waiting for something to break the hip-hop hegemony.
But it's not going to arrive via stunting.
The internet loves a train-wreck, kill yourself, dismember somebody and you'll be all over the news for half a day. THEN WHAT?
The faster you gain attention, the faster you lose it. MTV made acts big overnight, most of them faded just as fast, whereas those who took years to make it on rock radio before video are still around.
Life is about paying your dues, now more than ever, even though it doesn't seem that way. There's only one real social networking company, Facebook, with its original service and Instagram, expect Snapchat to buckle and sell, and there's only one real search engine, Google, and one real shopping site, Amazon. Because if it works, everybody gravitates to it. Same deal with hits. The curve of adoption is ever so steep.
So you don't play in everybody else's arena, you do something new.
But just like in tech, if you don't get a minimum of traction instantly, you pivot or give up. That's right, if these companies don't succeed, they literally go bankrupt or are sold for pennies on the dollar, so if no one's paying attention to your work...
And most of these companies start off being free. If you're thinking of money, you're putting the cart before the horse.
But the truth is human beings are always looking for something new, and they want to tell everybody when they find it. But making the connection between producer and consumer...is harder than it's ever been.
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In case you missed it, the idiot who tattooed Harry Styles on her face is reveling in the fact that she got all that attention, I'm sure you saw it, and thought WHAT KIND OF PERSON DOES THAT?
Turns out the tattoo was a fake. See the whole story explained here:
"How I rocked the entire world for $300": https://bit.ly/2MIH2vV
But that video only has 85,421 views, far from the entire world. In other words, people were interested in the stunt, but not the track, which is far from close enough, never mind no cigar.
This paradigm was started by drummer Josh Freese. He too got attention for inventing what came to be known as the Kickstarter paradigm, i.e. different perks for different donations, but has anybody ever heard the music?
This is different from Radiohead doing their name your own price deal with "In Rainbows," as Radiohead were already superstars with a dedicated fanbase.
But the nitwit with the Harry Styles tattoo did this for the attention. Believing it would springboard her to musical success. But it don't work that way anymore. But this is evidence that the only way to get mass attention these days is to set yourself on fire, shy of that you're dependent upon the work, and that's a long hard struggle.
Like the Killers track "Land Of The Free." Not only is the band known, but I think the song is a hit, but it isn't, there are only 1,767,322 views on YouTube. And only 1,998,422 plays on Spotify. In other words the track has no traction, only fans and looky-loos have partaken of it. What are the odds for a newbie? LONG! Especially if they don't make hip-hop with known suspects.
So what's a poor boy to do?
Certainly not play in a rock and roll band.
But if you choose to go down this path...
You're in the worst era ever in the history of making it. People have too many options, and they're not only music, we're living through the golden age of television. As for help... Major labels only want to sign that which is easy to break, and that's hip-hop. So, chances are you're not going to get any help and you're going to have to do it yourself.
In other words, you're gonna have to think really small. Your family and friends.
And if the word spreads, you play live.
Playing live is the best way to make it if you're not a hip-hop act. But it's really hard to get gigs, and it's hard to get an agent, but if you get a response, you're on to something.
One of the biggest bands in America has never had a hit, the Tedeschi Trucks Band. Sure, Derek Trucks got traction playing with the Allmans, but I'm pointing out this paradigm as one to pursue. The act goes on the road with way too many players to get rich, but it's about the show, and it's building, however slowly.
But in the age of social media influencers, no one wants to put in the work. Ironically, the easier it is to make and distribute it, the harder it is to get it heard.
Change always comes from outside. One act can skew the entire universe. As Nirvana did. So we're waiting for something to break the hip-hop hegemony.
But it's not going to arrive via stunting.
The internet loves a train-wreck, kill yourself, dismember somebody and you'll be all over the news for half a day. THEN WHAT?
The faster you gain attention, the faster you lose it. MTV made acts big overnight, most of them faded just as fast, whereas those who took years to make it on rock radio before video are still around.
Life is about paying your dues, now more than ever, even though it doesn't seem that way. There's only one real social networking company, Facebook, with its original service and Instagram, expect Snapchat to buckle and sell, and there's only one real search engine, Google, and one real shopping site, Amazon. Because if it works, everybody gravitates to it. Same deal with hits. The curve of adoption is ever so steep.
So you don't play in everybody else's arena, you do something new.
But just like in tech, if you don't get a minimum of traction instantly, you pivot or give up. That's right, if these companies don't succeed, they literally go bankrupt or are sold for pennies on the dollar, so if no one's paying attention to your work...
And most of these companies start off being free. If you're thinking of money, you're putting the cart before the horse.
But the truth is human beings are always looking for something new, and they want to tell everybody when they find it. But making the connection between producer and consumer...is harder than it's ever been.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
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-TuneIn: http://tunein.com/lefsetz
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Thursday, 31 January 2019
Virgil Wander
https://amzn.to/2DM3Tng
Everybody's going somewhere. And the truth is if you're not, you're being left behind. But it used to be you could have stasis, have a job, earn a living, not get rich and not be poor, kinda experience life as it comes to you.
Like Virgil.
Virgil lives in Greenstone, Minnesota, north of Duluth. And at the beginning of the book he drives his Pontiac off the road and into the lake and if weren't for a bystander rescuing him...
Virgil ends up with a head injury, and it changes his perspective.
Now I've been to Duluth, one of the last outposts before wilderness. It can be winter in the middle of summer, the lake is as forbidding as the Pacific at times. The wind blows, and don't forget, the Edmund Fitzgerald embarked from Duluth.
I love that song. Along with Dan Fogelberg's "Old Lang Syne." I like story songs, although Harry Chapin's were at times a bit treacly. Yet Gordon Lightfoot's opus is completely different from today's hits. It feels like it was cut up in the Great Lakes, it makes you feel something. The wind in your hair, the nip at your collar, you feel fully alive. I'm not saying that I want to be in Minneapolis today, but I have experienced double digits below zero. And as long as it doesn't last too long, you sit inside overheated buildings and feel fuzzy, along with being warm. In our tech-ridden world, it illustrates that Mother Nature is still in charge. That's one thing about being out in the elements, in the wilderness, you realize how insignificant you are, you think you matter, but you really don't, like George Carlin said, save yourself, the Earth will be here long after you're gone. Possibly without human inhabitants, as a result of global warming, but we believe everything we do is so important, and it's not. What's important is that moment in "Same Old Lang Syne." We think about the old ones, and when you run into them, it's bittersweet.
Now I found "Virgil Wander" on Amazon, it was one of the Best Books of 2018. Actually, I trust Amazon more than the major publications, than writers themselves, because they too often recommend titles to make themselves look good, unreadable stuff that makes you feel inadequate for being unable to fathom it. And I'm always looking for new books. I was on a run of bad ones for a while, but that has changed. I read Rebecca Makkai's "The Great Believers." It's about the AIDS crisis in Chicago, but it's more than that, and so readable. It's lauded, and deservedly so. And "Late In The Day" by Tessa Hadley, which is a little less readable than "The Great Believers," but the plot gets you going. The reviews say it's comedic, but not by my standards. It's about two couples and one husband dies and...I'm not gonna ruin it for you.
But the book that rang my bell most was "Virgil Wander."
You see I download the samples to my Kindle.
I know, I know, you abhor the device. But kids are not addicted to bookstores, which will continue to die, and you're victimized by inventory at the store and it's easier to research titles online than comb through the shelves, and how do you know what's good, by the blurbs? Ain't that a laugh.
And I rarely read non-fiction. Because most of it can be summed up in a sentence, and a lot of it is wrong and it doesn't ring that humanity bell. Of course there are exceptions, like "Educated. Read that immediately. But I wonder what the author's gonna do next.
So I read the sample and really enjoyed it so I went back to Amazon to see who this author Leif Enger was. And I was immediately thrown off by the typeface of the book cover, it seemed to portend a story from a galaxy far far away in the past, but it turned out Mr. Enger wrote a legendary book, "Peace Like A River," in 2007 that I'd never heard of, but the reviews were stellar, so I decided to dive into "Virgil Wander," I bought it, long after midnight, when bookstores are closed.
And I became enraptured in the Greenstone world.
Lake Superior threatens on the shore, and then there's a bluff and beyond that...nothing, plains. The thing about Minnesota is, as cold as it is in the winter, that's how hot and muggy it is in the summer. But you can live there. Minneapolis is au courant, culturally bubbling, Prince is not the only hip thing to come from the city. And the lakes and the living...
Once again, most people have never been there. But maybe you've been outside the metropolis, you'll get "Virgil Wander," or maybe you'll want to move there.
Virgil owns a cinema. No, he calls it a "movie theater." But he's not making any money. Oftentimes fewer than ten people are in the audience, since not only are movies dying, but Greenstone too.
So he works as city clerk. That's a truism of the hinterlands, many people have multiple jobs, you just can't pay the bills otherwise.
So eventually something big happens. But along the way, it's a number of small events. Sure, some death, but mostly characters damaged and imperfect in a world where everybody's doing their best to appear streamlined and together.
And now I don't want to tell you more.
There's a moment of misunderstanding, but you don't realize it until deep into the book, but it made my heart sigh when the truth was revealed.
Not that that's the number one plot point, but "Virgil Wander" is like life, there are many things going on, few of them major.
So I think you should read it. Especially if you're a victim of the polar vortex. Just download it on your Kindle...oops, to the Kindle app on your iPad, phone or computer, you don't have to leave the house, you can cocoon up with a book that will make you feel connected, not inferior, that there's more to life than becoming a millionaire, that there are rewards in just waking up every day.
I recommend it.
Everybody's going somewhere. And the truth is if you're not, you're being left behind. But it used to be you could have stasis, have a job, earn a living, not get rich and not be poor, kinda experience life as it comes to you.
Like Virgil.
Virgil lives in Greenstone, Minnesota, north of Duluth. And at the beginning of the book he drives his Pontiac off the road and into the lake and if weren't for a bystander rescuing him...
Virgil ends up with a head injury, and it changes his perspective.
Now I've been to Duluth, one of the last outposts before wilderness. It can be winter in the middle of summer, the lake is as forbidding as the Pacific at times. The wind blows, and don't forget, the Edmund Fitzgerald embarked from Duluth.
I love that song. Along with Dan Fogelberg's "Old Lang Syne." I like story songs, although Harry Chapin's were at times a bit treacly. Yet Gordon Lightfoot's opus is completely different from today's hits. It feels like it was cut up in the Great Lakes, it makes you feel something. The wind in your hair, the nip at your collar, you feel fully alive. I'm not saying that I want to be in Minneapolis today, but I have experienced double digits below zero. And as long as it doesn't last too long, you sit inside overheated buildings and feel fuzzy, along with being warm. In our tech-ridden world, it illustrates that Mother Nature is still in charge. That's one thing about being out in the elements, in the wilderness, you realize how insignificant you are, you think you matter, but you really don't, like George Carlin said, save yourself, the Earth will be here long after you're gone. Possibly without human inhabitants, as a result of global warming, but we believe everything we do is so important, and it's not. What's important is that moment in "Same Old Lang Syne." We think about the old ones, and when you run into them, it's bittersweet.
Now I found "Virgil Wander" on Amazon, it was one of the Best Books of 2018. Actually, I trust Amazon more than the major publications, than writers themselves, because they too often recommend titles to make themselves look good, unreadable stuff that makes you feel inadequate for being unable to fathom it. And I'm always looking for new books. I was on a run of bad ones for a while, but that has changed. I read Rebecca Makkai's "The Great Believers." It's about the AIDS crisis in Chicago, but it's more than that, and so readable. It's lauded, and deservedly so. And "Late In The Day" by Tessa Hadley, which is a little less readable than "The Great Believers," but the plot gets you going. The reviews say it's comedic, but not by my standards. It's about two couples and one husband dies and...I'm not gonna ruin it for you.
But the book that rang my bell most was "Virgil Wander."
You see I download the samples to my Kindle.
I know, I know, you abhor the device. But kids are not addicted to bookstores, which will continue to die, and you're victimized by inventory at the store and it's easier to research titles online than comb through the shelves, and how do you know what's good, by the blurbs? Ain't that a laugh.
And I rarely read non-fiction. Because most of it can be summed up in a sentence, and a lot of it is wrong and it doesn't ring that humanity bell. Of course there are exceptions, like "Educated. Read that immediately. But I wonder what the author's gonna do next.
So I read the sample and really enjoyed it so I went back to Amazon to see who this author Leif Enger was. And I was immediately thrown off by the typeface of the book cover, it seemed to portend a story from a galaxy far far away in the past, but it turned out Mr. Enger wrote a legendary book, "Peace Like A River," in 2007 that I'd never heard of, but the reviews were stellar, so I decided to dive into "Virgil Wander," I bought it, long after midnight, when bookstores are closed.
And I became enraptured in the Greenstone world.
Lake Superior threatens on the shore, and then there's a bluff and beyond that...nothing, plains. The thing about Minnesota is, as cold as it is in the winter, that's how hot and muggy it is in the summer. But you can live there. Minneapolis is au courant, culturally bubbling, Prince is not the only hip thing to come from the city. And the lakes and the living...
Once again, most people have never been there. But maybe you've been outside the metropolis, you'll get "Virgil Wander," or maybe you'll want to move there.
Virgil owns a cinema. No, he calls it a "movie theater." But he's not making any money. Oftentimes fewer than ten people are in the audience, since not only are movies dying, but Greenstone too.
So he works as city clerk. That's a truism of the hinterlands, many people have multiple jobs, you just can't pay the bills otherwise.
So eventually something big happens. But along the way, it's a number of small events. Sure, some death, but mostly characters damaged and imperfect in a world where everybody's doing their best to appear streamlined and together.
And now I don't want to tell you more.
There's a moment of misunderstanding, but you don't realize it until deep into the book, but it made my heart sigh when the truth was revealed.
Not that that's the number one plot point, but "Virgil Wander" is like life, there are many things going on, few of them major.
So I think you should read it. Especially if you're a victim of the polar vortex. Just download it on your Kindle...oops, to the Kindle app on your iPad, phone or computer, you don't have to leave the house, you can cocoon up with a book that will make you feel connected, not inferior, that there's more to life than becoming a millionaire, that there are rewards in just waking up every day.
I recommend it.
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Tuesday, 29 January 2019
Mailbag-White Room & More!
Subject: Re: The State Of Stardom
That's why award show numbers are flaccid.
No one knows most of the faces.
And even with the ones who are slightly familiar, no one gives a shit.
As Suzanne Somers life & business partner since 1968, at the top of our list is REINVENTION.
When one's career arc is cresting at the peak of a parabola, you must change direction or the sands of time will bury you.
Showbusiness is a blood sport designed to build you up with kudos & cash and just when you think you've 'made it', They tear you down.
Once you truly understand this concept & are savvy enough to recognize objectification coming your way from the same folks who worshipped you,
REINVENTION saves the day.
There Is No Big Time!!
Alan Hamel
____________________________________
Subject: Re: The State Of Stardom
Bob,
As a "famous comedian" I can tell you that you're 100% right. I have dug in on the old way. I'm all about content and the live part goes up and down. I'll still do comedy specials and release albums. It all streams but sometimes the reaction is a shrug. Other times a big reaction. The only thing I control is the content. Everything else is noise. Maybe I'm antiquated. But I'm going to keep going this way and retire when I've hit the point of if a tree falls in a forest.
Yours in good looks,
Jeff Garlin
____________________________________
From: Dale Janus
Subject: football
Hi Bob,
Just read your very interesting post on football and I agree with most of it. I was a little surprised at some of the responses, but to each his/her own.
I lost interest in NFL a long time ago when Bill Belichick was coach of the Cleveland Browns and he fired local star Bernie Kosar for disagreeing with him.
I am more aware of the football player mentality than most as my brother-in-law played college for KSU (full scholarship) and then for the USFL.
We often went to college games and one day on the trip home he mentioned he's have to go see the trainer on Monday because he got hurt. I thought it was because they would fix him, but he said so matter of factly for a 20 year old, " no, they fix it so you don't hurt". And this was at the college level.
He played 3 years for USFL, with Herschel Walker, Kent Hull, Bernie Kosar and Doug Flutie. After that he had a pretty successful business career, (he did graduate from KSU with a degree in business) but the CTE and alcoholism eventually took over. He died two years ago at age 57. We sent his brain to the CTE institute, where it was diagnosed with CTE.
So I'm with you, I can't tell what's pass interference. Hell, I can't even tell what constitutes a foul in the NBA.
Maybe the NFL should eliminate the holding penalty and let the big dudes slug it out however they feel like. That would make it more like the gladiators. After all, that's what it is, bread and circuses.
I would have loved a Kansas City - New Orleans superbowl. I agree with you the Boston mentality is do whatever it takes to win and if you get caught, well, that's just the cost of doing winning business.
I doubt I'll even watch the superbowl year.
But you and I are in the minority, judging by your email responses. I think it will take a few (well,maybe a lot of) generations, but football will eventually fade.
____________________________________
From: Rob Fraboni
Subject: Re: Unjustifiably Forgotten-SiriusXM This Week
Hi Bob,
I've waited too long to write you. I very much appreciate what you do & it's interesting how no one else has what it takes to do what you do. The Dean's List is good, but as you know, different.
I saw this post and thought you'd be interested to know the story behind Lonely Traveler.
I recorded & co-produced Sail On Sailor which is how I met Blondie Chaplin & Ricky Fataar. After Blondie's unfortunate fracas with Steve Love on the tour for the Holland album, he was shattered & recovering & I suggested he do his own record. I approached David Geffen with some songs we had demoed. He liked them.
The resultant record is the one you mentioned here.
The story behind Lonely Traveler:
We were in the middle of takes on a different song and suddenly Blondie broke into Lonely Traveler. He never had played it, wrote it down, etc. It just came blasting in from the ether, complete in lyrics, etc. He started playing it, sitting at the piano, the band followed him and we got it in one take, in between takes of the song we were working on. That's the version on the album. The only other time I ever witnessed something like this was during the recording of Planet Waves.
I love that you pointed to it and the 'fine' comment.
Blondie mentioned to me that you met him at the Hollywood Bowl Brian Wilson show.
I live in Weston, CT & unfortunately was out of town for the Fairfield Lefsetz vs Flom event in October. I did hear a Sirius Archive of one of the shows. Good stuff!
Thanks again for what you do. It's important in my opinion...
Best, Rob
Rob Fraboni
____________________________________
Subject: Re: The Klarman Letter
Independent stocks trader and former Wall Street fund manager here (and one who rubbed shoulders briefly with Klarman back in the day, though he would not remember me). I think Klarman's context is something like this:
While Wall Street was never a charitable institution, it did well when it accepted the constraints FDR imposed on it, implemented through agencies like the SEC and FDIC. In the booming markets of the '50s and '60s, and even into the '80s, US companies spent lots on R&D, invested in plant and equipment -- and domestic workforces. Longterm value was created. And even though they didn't try to grab it all, bankers, traders, and portfolio managers happily made their tens and even hundreds of millions. Now only billions are enough and most of the time (unless you are the founding tycoon of a major company) you get that by legalized cheating of one kind or another.
Klarman is saying, that if business people don't remember what ethical conduct looks like, either someone like Bernie Sanders will take the business community to pieces, or the short term mentality will bring America down. And he's right.
Jonathan Bernstein
____________________________________
From: Ulysses Hüppauff
Subject: Re: 823
Hi Bob,
I'm based in Berlin, Germany. For various reasons physical still is stronger here than in most other countries in the world.
Let's see for how long though.
You are spot on reg. chart regulation.
The German system also counts in all streams and has an equivalent for an album sale. But due to single charts (we have here too) we do not allow the two strongest songs being allocated into the album sales. And we only allow a max of 12 songs being allocated into the calculation. Only these little change in calculating makes it so much clearer.
That all being said the real question is: What do we still need album charts for? The old argument of retail visibility and additional programs is long gone. And no serious media reviews album charts in any way.
Best, Ulysses
____________________________________
From: Andy Vale
Subject: Re: 823
"Would "Baby Shark" have hit the chart in a sales era? No."
____________________________________
From: James Day
Subject: Re: Re-Baby Shark
Hey Bob I am a loyal reader and an Organist of a professional sports team... this song is played at almost every arena except mine because I work for a team very closely related to the song...think NHL.. the other teams troll us with the damn song!!
JMD
____________________________________
Subject: Re: The Klarman Letter
Among the other cultural advancements that "boobs started" in this country was an interest in foreign films.
dennis brent
____________________________________
Subject: Re: Re-Pledge Music
hey bob
it's sad and really frustrating to see this happening. the crowdfunding business is like the music business: it's a small pile of laundry and any and everything can get stained by association. i've never used pledge - i was a loyal kickstarter user before i moved to patreon pretty much full-time.
but the main sadness here is the general trust that it chips away at, in the subtle subconscious opinion of the user/audience/fan/supporter....in a world where the public is already suspicious and wary of direct-crowdfunding tools. doubt is sparked and then everybody's just a little more fucked...people get scared fast. look at what happened with romaine lettuce, or apples at halloween.
for any/all the artists out there who are wondering aloud to you where to head, i think patreon (and/or platforms like it that will probably spring up in its wake) is pretty much the next untapped oil field of artists getting fairly and predictably paid (until that magical day when someone who actually understands how to merge blockchain, micropayments and musicians' salaries gets off their ass and saves us all forever).
i'm grossing about $50-80k a month there and my community, about 15k members now, is really liking it. i've especially been appreciating the off-facebook (fuck facebook) nature of it, it's like getting back to 2007 when people still read blogs and hung out in forums and smaller, rational-discussion communities on the net, not unlike this bob-curated list you've got going here.
some of the tools are still in beta and clunky, but the proof of concept is there: subscription works. people who love artists - really love them - are generally happy to support them off and on cycle and give them a "working salary". anyone here who wants to ask me how i've made it work is free to hit me up on twitter - i read my entire feed and i like helping people figure it out.
amanda palmer
@amandapalmer
____________________________________
Would you believe on the very eve that Pledge was sending me an automated email to remind me to upload my songs for the release the news of them was to hit the streets? I uploaded the songs because it was too late for me to back out after promising my supporters that the album would be in their inbox on Friday.
Today arrives and no email back from them. I wrote these two guys:
Rob Knight rob.knight@pledgemusic.com,
Jim Heindlmeyer Jim.heindlmeyer@pledgemusic.com
and not a word back.
Here's my take. I am but a one-man operation over here. I don't have a manager or an agent or a lawyer to speak on my behalf. I'd rather not take the angry route, because I must remind myself that there are people in this world with life-threatening problems right now and all I'm dealing with is another potential music business shyster who isn't very good at managing money. It just hurts because Pledge or crowdsourcing companies like them are perfect for guys like me who want to put hardly anything-like a record company-between them and their art, but then even they turn out to be liars? It hurts and a part of me wants to pull a full Emily Dickinson and just make art and put it in a trunk in my room and work some mindless job where I can retainmy creativity somehow. As it is I have to cancel my album release tour then borrow the money from my daughter's savings account to pay for the manufacturing of the merchandise because my fans have spent their moneyon it- money that they thought was going to me.
It's very disheartening, but like I said, a quality problem in a world gone money crazy.
I will make songs and poems no matter what. It would be nice if people didn't try to rip me off in the process. It's already hard enough that music is mostly free these days, and then this happens? I will be going into my daughter's savings account and borrowing the money from an 8 year old with the hopes that someday Pledge can pay me and her back. It's the only way I can begin the process of making the downpayment for the merchandise orders. This is what it has come to for me, and I am a simple folksinger.
This machine kills apathy.
Rock on my friend, and thanks to anyone out there who supports independent art and music.
Tim Easton Whites Creek, Tennessee
P.S. They reached out to me today shortly after I posted on Social Media, so I must retract that they are not communicating with me. They asked for my patience.
Tim Easton
____________________________________
From: Ryan Patch
Subject: Re: Neflix vs. the Oscars
Bob -
I had an amazing conversation with a good friend who works at Netflix over the holidays. I brought up this article: https://bit.ly/2Ba9kKW, which in essence, painted Netflix as the high-paying gravy train with little cultural meaning. That the "importance" of the film was being on the big screen, that was what connoted legitimacy, which is why Crazy Rich Asians MUST have opened on the big screen.
She fired right back that although CRA star Henrey Golding has 750k fans on IG, whereas To All the Boys I've Loved Before star Noah Centineo has 16.2 MILLION. Both go their break in 2018 in movies with a predominantly asian-american cast. One was released in theaters, one on Netflix.
It's not even close. Netflix doesn't reveal numbers, but you can see the difference in exposure.
While Hollywood is busy fretting over box-office numbers from a couple weeks or making sure their billboard is on the 405, Netflix is spending 1/4 of the marketing dollars, but launching a new movie or show every week in 190 countries at the same time. Hollywood wants the affirmation of that Monday-after-release glow of achievement, or the ratings to come in - the traditional affirmations, when in reality those metrics are relics, and measuring yourselves by them may feel good, but won't be good for you in the long run.
R
____________________________________
From: Thomas Cussins
Subject: Re: Stick Figure Photos for StubHub Promotion
To: Maria Burke, Bob Lefsetz
Yeah thats a no from me... you want me to give you photos so you can scalp my clients tickets easier without including us in the revenue when we know very well that you are cutting deals on the side with the big promoters?
It makes me sick that you are selling tickets to our sold out Red Rocks show at up to 10x the face value of the ticket, and even if we were ok doing that to our fans (which we arent), we dont participate in the revenue or the customer data..
This is why I support Lyte, the only real fan to fan exchange that undercuts the scalpers like your client and drives prices back towards the face value.
I know you are just doing your job, but enough is enough. Have a great weekend.
On Fri, Jan 18, 2019 at 10:22 AM Maria Burke wrote:
Hello Thomas,
?
My name is Maria Burke from Six Degrees Rights & Clearances (www.sixdrc.com), a media clearance company in New York. I am contacting you on behalf of our client, StubHub, regarding a request for photographs that can be used to help promote ticket sales to Stick Figure's events.
StubHub will use the photos you can offer on their website, social media channels, online magazines and in their emails. They have contracted Six Degrees to try to find and secure permission to authentic photos that they can use in these promotions. We are reaching out to you to see if you can offer photos for this use that you own/control the rights to.
If you have photos that you can send me to offer to the StubHub creative team, please let me know. We can accept low resolution now for preview and then request the high resolution if they choose any.
I look forward to hearing from you and please contact me if you have any questions.
Kind Regards-
Maria
Maria Burke
Clearance Specialist
____________________________________
Subject: Reggie Young
Date: January 16, 2019 at 8:15:34 PM PST
Bob,
Hope you are well.
I want to bring to you and your readers attention the last days of a wonderful and fantastic musician.
Every guitarist should be aware of the name Reggie Young.
I know many do , and i would just like to tell them that he is passing.
This man has played on some of the most memorable records of our time.
If you will look at his discography you will see classics like,"Drift Away", "Raindrops Falling on My Head", Elvis cuts and so many more.
One of the finest men I have ever met as well.
Here is Nashville, there is the "Musicians Hall Of Fame", and he stands out as one of the best sideman that ever did a session.
Want to pay tribute where it is truly deserved.
http://reggieyoung.org
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGapa99Y1Hw
Best,
Felix Cavaliere
(Note: Reggie died the next day: https://nyti.ms/2CV2MQH)
____________________________________
____________________________________
I had the Wheels of Fire album and remember when they started playing the single, White Room on AM Philly radio. One day, while listening, as the song was ending, Jack Bruce sang out, 'At the party.....' .... they played the album version! All five minutes... quite exciting back in the day.
David Cantor
____________________________________
My friends and I made a type of necklace with our 45's, our version of a playlist, so when we showed up on our sting ray bikes to someone's house, we showed up with our music.
White Room was on my necklace.
Kim Bullard
____________________________________
And that amazing intro in 5/4! Who the heck was doing that?
White Room was the best Cream song!!
Rich Madow
____________________________________
Could not agree more about the magnificence of White Room. The magic of Jack Bruce's voice on this track in the 2005 Royal Albert Hall reunion show is testament to his greatness - even in what would be the sunset of his life. Clapton sings his balls off in the first two runs of the chorus, and then Jack takes the chorus to only where he could. No one sounds like Jack Bruce. A god on bass and on mic.
https://youtu.be/dCc00pX_pFA
Jim Mulhern
____________________________________
My old friend and artist Pete Brown wrote the lyrics to 'White Room', as well as 'Sunshine of Your Love' and 'I Feel Free'
among others.
I once asked Pete what 'White Room' was about. He said he was
meeting Jack Bruce that day to write songs. He was living in a white flat with black curtains by Belzise Park tube station. So he just came up with the words as he was leaving his flat to take the tube.
Aaron Sixx
Aura Records
____________________________________
The story behind White Room from the guy who wrote the song:
https://youtu.be/Jr1xkRkUlMk
Dennis Maille
____________________________________
.....And Bob,
The holy grail was the Dunlop Wah Wah...... you'd be long gone.... for hours....down in your basement!
Amen brother.......
Steve Chrismar
____________________________________
Thank you for reliving so many of my life highlights. It's funny, though I never saw Cream in person. I deified them from the stereo.
Which was plenty sufficient until I subscribed to a cable package which includes AXStv.
The network recently aired the 2006 Cream reunion concert. I calculated their ages, and remember noting that Jack was 62, Ginger was 65 and Eric was only 60. And then it hit me.
There was no one else on stage in this show. The original three guys. All playing and singing every note. As well as they ever did. Many reunion shows are lip syncing extravaganzas.
Not Cream.
They rose to the top.
Bill Capps
Pittsburgh
____________________________________
I was lucky enough to see Cream right after Disraeli Gears came out, late in 1967, at University College in London, where my draft board and my parents thought I was studying for the year. I still have the ticket: 8 shillings, about a dollar. Kids were literally hanging from the rafters to get a look at the band. They played like fire.
Les Jacobson
____________________________________
I still have the hollow body Danelectro I bought from Bob Abbott for $25 back in high school so I could play along with Fresh Cream and East West. Inverted lipstick pickup, Masonite body, Formica top. Neck by Gibson w/full set screw. Fun ax. Later, I took lessons with Sal Salvador in Bridgeport, later to study with Archie Shepp and Max Roach and managed a few jazz and reggae bands, sitting in occasionally. Highlights include performing Elvis songs on guitar to drunk East Germans partying on the deck of a tour boat on the Elbe River and jamming with Arturo Rodriguez and his band New Years Eve at the Hotel Deauville in Havana, Cuba, playing My Favorite Things Coltrane style!
Still, I was just a half talent. You remember little Al Ferrante at Warde? Played Sunshine of Your Love note for note the day it came out. Neil Steubanhaus, went to play with Billy Preston. But they were nothing compared to the dueling leads of Goodhill's Stan Cooney and John Stowell. W/George Miller on bass, they could play anything, even their own. Their lead vocalist, Harryson Buster, had the sweetest voice in town and the hearts of all the girls in our school in his pocket. He's still performing.
Anyhow, you do best when you remember!
Keep those memory cells strong!
Ken Shain
____________________________________
Thanks,Bob
I like the way you describe being back in the moment with the old songs
Cream rocked my Junior High world in Maplewood, New Jersey, and listening to the seemingly infinite Spotify stream brings me back to those days (and nights)
Music is timeless, and it helps keep me ageless
Thank you for my Daily Lefsetz
Sincerely
Joyce Ann Martin
San Diego, California
____________________________________
Love your posts and thanks for the always insightful and thought provoking commentary. Have you checked out the new Cream Album on Spotify: Live in San Diego '68. It sounds like a boot or one of those radio broadcast type albums that have been popping up by loads of Classic artists over the past few years but the tunes and playing are all there. White Room is the first track, Jack is in great voice, the bass is sublime (especially his backing over the solo at the end which is totally different to the record), Ginger is all over the kit and Eric gives it the full wah-wah treatment that only he could in '68.
Thanks and best wishes,
David Duggan
____________________________________
Cream accomplished the hard thing: had musicians talking and the punters listening and buying.
Don't forget the contribution of lyricist, Pete Brown. Scorcese is a fan of his. I asked Pete how he ended up writing lyrics for Cream. He said that he was a poet and knew Jack when poetry and jazz were part of the same scene. He said Cream would be on the road and be told that when they got home, they had two weeks to do an album before they had to go out again. So, Pete was called in at crunch time to help with the writing. Pete wrote a book, "White Rooms and Imaginary Westerns", that will give you the whole story.
"I Feel Free" was also one to remember,
Al Staehely
____________________________________
Nothing changed music for us like the three Cream Albums and the three great Hendrix Albums
Amazing to think about all these years later .
Gerry
____________________________________
To say that Cream was huge, and an influencer of young musicians already enraptured by The Beatles is an understatement indeed! I remember carrying the majestic & silvery Wheels Of Fire album around under my arm for literally one entire school year, (my eighth grade) from fall 1968 to the end of our school year 1969. It went everywhere with me, and I'm so glad to read that I wasn't alone in my unbridled enthusiasm and adoration.
Before that I was weaned on (and fell in love with) the sound of high fidelity audio blaring from my best friends dad's component stereo system with it's Wharfdale speakers blasting Disraeli Gears.
I didn't realize at the time that Eric Clapton was God, but I have certainly learned since. What a band. The basis of much of what we know about rock music still, today.
Brian Malouf
Producer | Mixer
____________________________________
Interesting. Your guitar journey was very similar to mine. I Feel Free guitar solo freaked me out and shook me out of my Folkie bondage. Then it was all downhill from there when Hendrix hit a year later
Kenny Lee Lewis
____________________________________
"White Room"!! Now you're talkin'! Isn't it all true! Everything you said. We all wait over and over again in anticipation sitting at the end of our seats during that pause right before the iconic solo. Then we crank up the volume until our ears hurt while Clapton lets loose on the Wha-wha pedal (funny that, I wonder how that thing got its name? Did the inventor just spit out the sound when describing it??).
At any rate, for my money, that's when Clapton played and sounded best. And that SOUND!!! That's what riveted though me—I couldn't get enough. That's what turned the corner for me wanting to really learn how to be a real guitar player—that sound, those riffs (gotta say Jeff Beck's Truth helped a bit there as well). But I couldn't figure it out, wasn't hip to what a Les Paul, SG, or any Gibson cranked to the max could do. But I knew it had something to do with volume. I was playing a 6 string Rickenbacker at time and plugged it into my makeshift amp stack of Fender equipment, but of course the Ricky's pick-ups are designed to be ringy-dingy and not even close to a humbucker, much less the thin semi-hollow body. A band mate gave me his Gibson Melody Maker and I was finally off to the races!
Without any formal lessons, I discovered vibrato, learned to play triplets (not knowing what they were) and copying Clapton's hammer-ons and pull-offs. Like most players, listening to Clapton lead me back to discover Freddie King and all the rest. The electric guitar means so much to me and has been such a big part of my life. Michael Bloomfield and Keith Richards (playing Chuck Berry riffs) were my earliest influences, but it was Clapton who got me off the couch with the burning desire to be able to learn how to speak with a guitar.
Thank you Slowhand,
Paul Rappaport
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In 1968 Cream played on a Wednesday night in the little gym at Union Catholic H.S. in Scotch Plains, NJ -about a half mile down the road from my childhood house. I was 16 and a junior in Scotch Plains' public high school. Tickets were $2.50, no pre-sale; we just showed up at the back entrance of the school, lined up & walked in like going to a high school basketball game. They played the entire "Wheels of Fire" repertoire that night (this was the tour on which they recorded the LP so no one had yet heard the material). The show lasted for over three hours...Ginger solo'd on "Toad" for 40 minutes; "Spoonful" went on and on for almost a 1/2 hour. We all went nuts.
Union Catholic had presented The Who in their gym the year before ( they blew up their stuff in front of the first row of folding metal chairs where the teachers were seated... a bunch of nuns, brothers & priests in their black frocks....the crowd literally climbing over their poor heads to get a piece of Pete Townsend's guitar neck!!). Notwithstanding that first mini riot, the school nevertheless continued these shows for a few years thereafter into the early '70s until costs, liability concerns, etc. became prohibitive...The Beach Boys, The Association, an early big metal act (Metallica I think...I was by then off to Dartmouth) catching them mid-week literally in between shows in Philly & NYC....one local cop at the door as security, the bands playing on choral risers, with the audience a bunch of kids standing behind a couple of rows of metal folding chairs for the staff five feet from the "stage".
One of the experiences from my teen years (including seeing Hendrix in 1967 when I was 15 in NYC in a tiny auditorium at Hunter College) that inspired me to play professionally after college and then become an entertainment attorney.
I'll never forget....
Paul B. Ungar, Esq.
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"Funny how music can bring you back. It's not a memory of, you're right in the moment, you're a teenager once again, when the goal was to be a guitar hero, when we only talked about music, when radio was our religion and music drove the culture."
November 4, 1968 - I was 13. It was time. My uncle (mom's younger brother) lived in "the village" and bought the tickets. I think they were a rather lofty $6.50 to be in cavernous Madison Square Garden, where I had previously seen The New York Rangers and Ringling Brothers both stink up the joint. I'm sure a joint or two stunk up the Garden that night as well, but I was about 7 weeks and a place called the Fillmore East from learning about that.
My uncle was "cool," working for Ed Sanders of the Fugs at the Peace Eye Bookstore. I was a Junior High School student in Forest Hills. That night would be my first concert.
I had dozens of records. Beatles, Stones, Herman's Hermits, Dave Clark Five all come to mind immediately, but Hendrix, Joplin and Cream were all being ushered into the mix as Mrs. Brown and her lovely daughter segued into a real kind of hush (oh yeah, Deep Purple!)
The opening act was just two years younger than my Uncle Joe, five years older than me. His name was Terry Reid, and from the opening notes of his cover of "Bang Bang" to his long camel haired coat, I fell in love on so many levels. Terry, his voice, his band, his presence, and his repertoire would be a staple in my world for life. Those first two Epic records are among my personal top 20 of all time. The mid-liner was Buddy Miles, who, as I soon learned, could midline a 45 minute version of "Them Changes" at the drop of a hi-hat.
The lights went down a third time, and I swear to you, while I don't remember what row, seat or section I was in, I do remember that they harmonized on that opening note and began their farewell set with "White Room." I hear it today, in my head, as it was that night. I would and could never forget it. The set was magnificent, but that single note was perfection!
Marc Nathan
What the hell am I doing in
Nashville, TN
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My parents used to be bring me to visit my Uncle Lou and Aunt Anne and their son, my cousin Izzy in The Bronx when I was a kid. Isadore Meyrowitz was eleven years older than me, weighed 400 pounds, had the most mind-blowing MacIntosh-powered home stereo of anyone I've ever known, and lived in the apartment next door to his pal Larry Weinstein (later aka Leslie West).
In 1967 when I was eleven and Izzy was twenty-two, he sat me down in a bedroom with black lights and black light posters, slapped Koss headphones on my head, and said "Shut up and listen to this". He put on the new album Disraeli Gears. SWLABR was his favorite, but it was all Godhead to him (especially Eric). And soon to me, too.
To your point, Bob, Izzy showed up the next year with Wheels of Fire - two completely separate experiences - the studio disc and the live disc. Of course I loved the foil cover, but by that point all I wanted was to slap the headphones on and slip into the power and majesty of White Room. Nothing else on the studio disc matched that opening track. Jack, Eric, and Ginger sounded like equals, which of course they were, but White Room is really Jack's. Ginger drives with his titanic drumming, and Eric wah-wah's the track to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, but it's Jack's song (with songwriting partner Peter Brown), and Jack's voice is so dramatic and unforgettable that it has never mattered that the lyrics' meaning remains a total mystery. (I must also note here that Side Three - the live recordings of Crossroads and Spoonful - remains the most over-the-top explosion of combined live musical innovation and amplification ever, and for me will never be equaled... listen again sometime under headphones).
Izzy turned me on to so much more. In June, 1969, I showed up at my sixth grade end of the year party in Queens with a copy of Second Winter - the searing three-sided Johnny Winter album with the unforgettable Richard Avedon cover - tucked under my arm. When I snuck the album's blazing opening track Memory Pain onto the turntable with the volume up, the other kids howled to "turn that shit off", and promptly returned to the Monkees, the Fifth Dimension, or whatever non-threatening pop of the moment. I knew it would be a lonely life ahead, and didn't care.
Izzy was hard-core Beatles, too, of course - everything. In '69, he couldn't get enough of the power and wit of I Want You (She's So Heavy), playing it over and over again on his monstrous and brilliant MacIntish sound system. And then Izzy couldn't stop talking about a new version of The Yarbirds, now calling themselves Led Zeppelin. At his urging, I bought their first album the week it was released at the "G.O. Store" in the basement of JHS 194 in Whitestone, Queens where I was in seventh grade. I'll just say that while White Room utterly expanded my mind the year before - in "How Many More Times", when Plant's howl "Oh Rosie... steal away now..." leads into Bonham's grinding earth-shaking drum rolls, I swear I felt like I understood something about sex for the very first time.
Izzy died in 1998 at fifty four. A year before he passed, I had the incredible pleasure of introducing him to Al Kooper, one of Izzy's music heroes, at The Bottom Line. Izzy is still flipping out under headphones, seated at a station in a white room with black curtains.
Danny Kapilian
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Pete Brown wrote the lyrics to "White Room." He was a well-known poet at the time and collaborated with the band, especially Jack Bruce. I interviewed both Pete and Jack for my book on Mose Allison.. I got to know both of them pretty well over the time I was writing and researching my book. Pete in a lot of phone calls over a couple of years because he was a Mose fan and also because he was very entrenched in the blues. I remember he was also very involved in British politics at the time. I also remember he appreciated the revenue stream classic rock was providing, especially White Room.
Jack is a longer story and fairly involved and started with a letter he sent me responding to my request for an interview for my book. His letterhead bore the bassline of "Sunshine of Your Love." We had similar backgrounds in conservatory training. Like me, Jack was a chorister. When he told me he was the boy soloist in Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem," I was dumbfounded. For those of us in the classical choral world, that is huge. He premiered the "War Requiem" and worked personally with Benjamin Britten but he never talked about it!! The "War Requiem" stands alongside some of the most important works in the choral music repertoire, including the Requiems of Brahms, Faure and Mozart. Britten is one of the most important composers of the 20th century and to many, his work is considered as important as Bach, Brahms and Beethoven. Jack was a classically trained cellist as well. He totally downplayed his excellent musicianship and conservatory training. He had real, trained chops and his voice was powerful with trained technique. Nonetheless, he chose to take musical risks, he left the conservatory to explore other genres....and like me (who turned to the law) was like a "fallen angel" from the structure of that world, so we connected on that level and spoke a similar language. As a personality, Jack was generous, gregarious, engaging, funny and very normal…but like many artists of that era, he was also complicated. Many of those artists struggled with the reality that they were artistic pioneers enjoying the perks of celebrity and those perks were not consistent as they aged, when they took on jowls and bellies and were lumped in as has-beens or legends. It must have been very difficult to figure out.... But Jack Bruce was a special and unique soul and I was honored to share a meal at his home with his loving family, a pint and a rolled cigarette at his local pub, a drive in his aging Porche and many hours in conversation. Like being around Mose Allison, also a living legend, I knew I was in the presence of a great contributor to an important art form but it didn't feel like it – he was just like the guy next door, only English. But even though I knew he was the singer and founding member of the first power rock trio, I wasn't a fan girl, just somebody who got to meet and hang out with him for a while discussing a topic that made a difference to him.
White Room is not that simple of a song. The meter of that song is challenging- the famous intro is in 5/4 and then it shifts to 4/4 - there were a lot of meter shifts back then but not in songs that were on the radio.. -so that song was pretty much pushing the envelope at the time. Being younger, I really didn't hear WHITE ROOM until it was past its prime but I always knew it was an iconic work.
I was blessed to connect to that work through its backdoor, through its creators - and getting to know the people who wrote it was a gift.
Patti Jones
That's why award show numbers are flaccid.
No one knows most of the faces.
And even with the ones who are slightly familiar, no one gives a shit.
As Suzanne Somers life & business partner since 1968, at the top of our list is REINVENTION.
When one's career arc is cresting at the peak of a parabola, you must change direction or the sands of time will bury you.
Showbusiness is a blood sport designed to build you up with kudos & cash and just when you think you've 'made it', They tear you down.
Once you truly understand this concept & are savvy enough to recognize objectification coming your way from the same folks who worshipped you,
REINVENTION saves the day.
There Is No Big Time!!
Alan Hamel
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Subject: Re: The State Of Stardom
Bob,
As a "famous comedian" I can tell you that you're 100% right. I have dug in on the old way. I'm all about content and the live part goes up and down. I'll still do comedy specials and release albums. It all streams but sometimes the reaction is a shrug. Other times a big reaction. The only thing I control is the content. Everything else is noise. Maybe I'm antiquated. But I'm going to keep going this way and retire when I've hit the point of if a tree falls in a forest.
Yours in good looks,
Jeff Garlin
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From: Dale Janus
Subject: football
Hi Bob,
Just read your very interesting post on football and I agree with most of it. I was a little surprised at some of the responses, but to each his/her own.
I lost interest in NFL a long time ago when Bill Belichick was coach of the Cleveland Browns and he fired local star Bernie Kosar for disagreeing with him.
I am more aware of the football player mentality than most as my brother-in-law played college for KSU (full scholarship) and then for the USFL.
We often went to college games and one day on the trip home he mentioned he's have to go see the trainer on Monday because he got hurt. I thought it was because they would fix him, but he said so matter of factly for a 20 year old, " no, they fix it so you don't hurt". And this was at the college level.
He played 3 years for USFL, with Herschel Walker, Kent Hull, Bernie Kosar and Doug Flutie. After that he had a pretty successful business career, (he did graduate from KSU with a degree in business) but the CTE and alcoholism eventually took over. He died two years ago at age 57. We sent his brain to the CTE institute, where it was diagnosed with CTE.
So I'm with you, I can't tell what's pass interference. Hell, I can't even tell what constitutes a foul in the NBA.
Maybe the NFL should eliminate the holding penalty and let the big dudes slug it out however they feel like. That would make it more like the gladiators. After all, that's what it is, bread and circuses.
I would have loved a Kansas City - New Orleans superbowl. I agree with you the Boston mentality is do whatever it takes to win and if you get caught, well, that's just the cost of doing winning business.
I doubt I'll even watch the superbowl year.
But you and I are in the minority, judging by your email responses. I think it will take a few (well,maybe a lot of) generations, but football will eventually fade.
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From: Rob Fraboni
Subject: Re: Unjustifiably Forgotten-SiriusXM This Week
Hi Bob,
I've waited too long to write you. I very much appreciate what you do & it's interesting how no one else has what it takes to do what you do. The Dean's List is good, but as you know, different.
I saw this post and thought you'd be interested to know the story behind Lonely Traveler.
I recorded & co-produced Sail On Sailor which is how I met Blondie Chaplin & Ricky Fataar. After Blondie's unfortunate fracas with Steve Love on the tour for the Holland album, he was shattered & recovering & I suggested he do his own record. I approached David Geffen with some songs we had demoed. He liked them.
The resultant record is the one you mentioned here.
The story behind Lonely Traveler:
We were in the middle of takes on a different song and suddenly Blondie broke into Lonely Traveler. He never had played it, wrote it down, etc. It just came blasting in from the ether, complete in lyrics, etc. He started playing it, sitting at the piano, the band followed him and we got it in one take, in between takes of the song we were working on. That's the version on the album. The only other time I ever witnessed something like this was during the recording of Planet Waves.
I love that you pointed to it and the 'fine' comment.
Blondie mentioned to me that you met him at the Hollywood Bowl Brian Wilson show.
I live in Weston, CT & unfortunately was out of town for the Fairfield Lefsetz vs Flom event in October. I did hear a Sirius Archive of one of the shows. Good stuff!
Thanks again for what you do. It's important in my opinion...
Best, Rob
Rob Fraboni
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Subject: Re: The Klarman Letter
Independent stocks trader and former Wall Street fund manager here (and one who rubbed shoulders briefly with Klarman back in the day, though he would not remember me). I think Klarman's context is something like this:
While Wall Street was never a charitable institution, it did well when it accepted the constraints FDR imposed on it, implemented through agencies like the SEC and FDIC. In the booming markets of the '50s and '60s, and even into the '80s, US companies spent lots on R&D, invested in plant and equipment -- and domestic workforces. Longterm value was created. And even though they didn't try to grab it all, bankers, traders, and portfolio managers happily made their tens and even hundreds of millions. Now only billions are enough and most of the time (unless you are the founding tycoon of a major company) you get that by legalized cheating of one kind or another.
Klarman is saying, that if business people don't remember what ethical conduct looks like, either someone like Bernie Sanders will take the business community to pieces, or the short term mentality will bring America down. And he's right.
Jonathan Bernstein
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From: Ulysses Hüppauff
Subject: Re: 823
Hi Bob,
I'm based in Berlin, Germany. For various reasons physical still is stronger here than in most other countries in the world.
Let's see for how long though.
You are spot on reg. chart regulation.
The German system also counts in all streams and has an equivalent for an album sale. But due to single charts (we have here too) we do not allow the two strongest songs being allocated into the album sales. And we only allow a max of 12 songs being allocated into the calculation. Only these little change in calculating makes it so much clearer.
That all being said the real question is: What do we still need album charts for? The old argument of retail visibility and additional programs is long gone. And no serious media reviews album charts in any way.
Best, Ulysses
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From: Andy Vale
Subject: Re: 823
"Would "Baby Shark" have hit the chart in a sales era? No."
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From: James Day
Subject: Re: Re-Baby Shark
Hey Bob I am a loyal reader and an Organist of a professional sports team... this song is played at almost every arena except mine because I work for a team very closely related to the song...think NHL.. the other teams troll us with the damn song!!
JMD
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Subject: Re: The Klarman Letter
Among the other cultural advancements that "boobs started" in this country was an interest in foreign films.
dennis brent
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Subject: Re: Re-Pledge Music
hey bob
it's sad and really frustrating to see this happening. the crowdfunding business is like the music business: it's a small pile of laundry and any and everything can get stained by association. i've never used pledge - i was a loyal kickstarter user before i moved to patreon pretty much full-time.
but the main sadness here is the general trust that it chips away at, in the subtle subconscious opinion of the user/audience/fan/supporter....in a world where the public is already suspicious and wary of direct-crowdfunding tools. doubt is sparked and then everybody's just a little more fucked...people get scared fast. look at what happened with romaine lettuce, or apples at halloween.
for any/all the artists out there who are wondering aloud to you where to head, i think patreon (and/or platforms like it that will probably spring up in its wake) is pretty much the next untapped oil field of artists getting fairly and predictably paid (until that magical day when someone who actually understands how to merge blockchain, micropayments and musicians' salaries gets off their ass and saves us all forever).
i'm grossing about $50-80k a month there and my community, about 15k members now, is really liking it. i've especially been appreciating the off-facebook (fuck facebook) nature of it, it's like getting back to 2007 when people still read blogs and hung out in forums and smaller, rational-discussion communities on the net, not unlike this bob-curated list you've got going here.
some of the tools are still in beta and clunky, but the proof of concept is there: subscription works. people who love artists - really love them - are generally happy to support them off and on cycle and give them a "working salary". anyone here who wants to ask me how i've made it work is free to hit me up on twitter - i read my entire feed and i like helping people figure it out.
amanda palmer
@amandapalmer
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Would you believe on the very eve that Pledge was sending me an automated email to remind me to upload my songs for the release the news of them was to hit the streets? I uploaded the songs because it was too late for me to back out after promising my supporters that the album would be in their inbox on Friday.
Today arrives and no email back from them. I wrote these two guys:
Rob Knight rob.knight@pledgemusic.com,
Jim Heindlmeyer Jim.heindlmeyer@pledgemusic.com
and not a word back.
Here's my take. I am but a one-man operation over here. I don't have a manager or an agent or a lawyer to speak on my behalf. I'd rather not take the angry route, because I must remind myself that there are people in this world with life-threatening problems right now and all I'm dealing with is another potential music business shyster who isn't very good at managing money. It just hurts because Pledge or crowdsourcing companies like them are perfect for guys like me who want to put hardly anything-like a record company-between them and their art, but then even they turn out to be liars? It hurts and a part of me wants to pull a full Emily Dickinson and just make art and put it in a trunk in my room and work some mindless job where I can retainmy creativity somehow. As it is I have to cancel my album release tour then borrow the money from my daughter's savings account to pay for the manufacturing of the merchandise because my fans have spent their moneyon it- money that they thought was going to me.
It's very disheartening, but like I said, a quality problem in a world gone money crazy.
I will make songs and poems no matter what. It would be nice if people didn't try to rip me off in the process. It's already hard enough that music is mostly free these days, and then this happens? I will be going into my daughter's savings account and borrowing the money from an 8 year old with the hopes that someday Pledge can pay me and her back. It's the only way I can begin the process of making the downpayment for the merchandise orders. This is what it has come to for me, and I am a simple folksinger.
This machine kills apathy.
Rock on my friend, and thanks to anyone out there who supports independent art and music.
Tim Easton Whites Creek, Tennessee
P.S. They reached out to me today shortly after I posted on Social Media, so I must retract that they are not communicating with me. They asked for my patience.
Tim Easton
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From: Ryan Patch
Subject: Re: Neflix vs. the Oscars
Bob -
I had an amazing conversation with a good friend who works at Netflix over the holidays. I brought up this article: https://bit.ly/2Ba9kKW, which in essence, painted Netflix as the high-paying gravy train with little cultural meaning. That the "importance" of the film was being on the big screen, that was what connoted legitimacy, which is why Crazy Rich Asians MUST have opened on the big screen.
She fired right back that although CRA star Henrey Golding has 750k fans on IG, whereas To All the Boys I've Loved Before star Noah Centineo has 16.2 MILLION. Both go their break in 2018 in movies with a predominantly asian-american cast. One was released in theaters, one on Netflix.
It's not even close. Netflix doesn't reveal numbers, but you can see the difference in exposure.
While Hollywood is busy fretting over box-office numbers from a couple weeks or making sure their billboard is on the 405, Netflix is spending 1/4 of the marketing dollars, but launching a new movie or show every week in 190 countries at the same time. Hollywood wants the affirmation of that Monday-after-release glow of achievement, or the ratings to come in - the traditional affirmations, when in reality those metrics are relics, and measuring yourselves by them may feel good, but won't be good for you in the long run.
R
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From: Thomas Cussins
Subject: Re: Stick Figure Photos for StubHub Promotion
To: Maria Burke, Bob Lefsetz
Yeah thats a no from me... you want me to give you photos so you can scalp my clients tickets easier without including us in the revenue when we know very well that you are cutting deals on the side with the big promoters?
It makes me sick that you are selling tickets to our sold out Red Rocks show at up to 10x the face value of the ticket, and even if we were ok doing that to our fans (which we arent), we dont participate in the revenue or the customer data..
This is why I support Lyte, the only real fan to fan exchange that undercuts the scalpers like your client and drives prices back towards the face value.
I know you are just doing your job, but enough is enough. Have a great weekend.
On Fri, Jan 18, 2019 at 10:22 AM Maria Burke wrote:
Hello Thomas,
?
My name is Maria Burke from Six Degrees Rights & Clearances (www.sixdrc.com), a media clearance company in New York. I am contacting you on behalf of our client, StubHub, regarding a request for photographs that can be used to help promote ticket sales to Stick Figure's events.
StubHub will use the photos you can offer on their website, social media channels, online magazines and in their emails. They have contracted Six Degrees to try to find and secure permission to authentic photos that they can use in these promotions. We are reaching out to you to see if you can offer photos for this use that you own/control the rights to.
If you have photos that you can send me to offer to the StubHub creative team, please let me know. We can accept low resolution now for preview and then request the high resolution if they choose any.
I look forward to hearing from you and please contact me if you have any questions.
Kind Regards-
Maria
Maria Burke
Clearance Specialist
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Subject: Reggie Young
Date: January 16, 2019 at 8:15:34 PM PST
Bob,
Hope you are well.
I want to bring to you and your readers attention the last days of a wonderful and fantastic musician.
Every guitarist should be aware of the name Reggie Young.
I know many do , and i would just like to tell them that he is passing.
This man has played on some of the most memorable records of our time.
If you will look at his discography you will see classics like,"Drift Away", "Raindrops Falling on My Head", Elvis cuts and so many more.
One of the finest men I have ever met as well.
Here is Nashville, there is the "Musicians Hall Of Fame", and he stands out as one of the best sideman that ever did a session.
Want to pay tribute where it is truly deserved.
http://reggieyoung.org
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGapa99Y1Hw
Best,
Felix Cavaliere
(Note: Reggie died the next day: https://nyti.ms/2CV2MQH)
____________________________________
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I had the Wheels of Fire album and remember when they started playing the single, White Room on AM Philly radio. One day, while listening, as the song was ending, Jack Bruce sang out, 'At the party.....' .... they played the album version! All five minutes... quite exciting back in the day.
David Cantor
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My friends and I made a type of necklace with our 45's, our version of a playlist, so when we showed up on our sting ray bikes to someone's house, we showed up with our music.
White Room was on my necklace.
Kim Bullard
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And that amazing intro in 5/4! Who the heck was doing that?
White Room was the best Cream song!!
Rich Madow
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Could not agree more about the magnificence of White Room. The magic of Jack Bruce's voice on this track in the 2005 Royal Albert Hall reunion show is testament to his greatness - even in what would be the sunset of his life. Clapton sings his balls off in the first two runs of the chorus, and then Jack takes the chorus to only where he could. No one sounds like Jack Bruce. A god on bass and on mic.
https://youtu.be/dCc00pX_pFA
Jim Mulhern
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My old friend and artist Pete Brown wrote the lyrics to 'White Room', as well as 'Sunshine of Your Love' and 'I Feel Free'
among others.
I once asked Pete what 'White Room' was about. He said he was
meeting Jack Bruce that day to write songs. He was living in a white flat with black curtains by Belzise Park tube station. So he just came up with the words as he was leaving his flat to take the tube.
Aaron Sixx
Aura Records
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The story behind White Room from the guy who wrote the song:
https://youtu.be/Jr1xkRkUlMk
Dennis Maille
____________________________________
.....And Bob,
The holy grail was the Dunlop Wah Wah...... you'd be long gone.... for hours....down in your basement!
Amen brother.......
Steve Chrismar
____________________________________
Thank you for reliving so many of my life highlights. It's funny, though I never saw Cream in person. I deified them from the stereo.
Which was plenty sufficient until I subscribed to a cable package which includes AXStv.
The network recently aired the 2006 Cream reunion concert. I calculated their ages, and remember noting that Jack was 62, Ginger was 65 and Eric was only 60. And then it hit me.
There was no one else on stage in this show. The original three guys. All playing and singing every note. As well as they ever did. Many reunion shows are lip syncing extravaganzas.
Not Cream.
They rose to the top.
Bill Capps
Pittsburgh
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I was lucky enough to see Cream right after Disraeli Gears came out, late in 1967, at University College in London, where my draft board and my parents thought I was studying for the year. I still have the ticket: 8 shillings, about a dollar. Kids were literally hanging from the rafters to get a look at the band. They played like fire.
Les Jacobson
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I still have the hollow body Danelectro I bought from Bob Abbott for $25 back in high school so I could play along with Fresh Cream and East West. Inverted lipstick pickup, Masonite body, Formica top. Neck by Gibson w/full set screw. Fun ax. Later, I took lessons with Sal Salvador in Bridgeport, later to study with Archie Shepp and Max Roach and managed a few jazz and reggae bands, sitting in occasionally. Highlights include performing Elvis songs on guitar to drunk East Germans partying on the deck of a tour boat on the Elbe River and jamming with Arturo Rodriguez and his band New Years Eve at the Hotel Deauville in Havana, Cuba, playing My Favorite Things Coltrane style!
Still, I was just a half talent. You remember little Al Ferrante at Warde? Played Sunshine of Your Love note for note the day it came out. Neil Steubanhaus, went to play with Billy Preston. But they were nothing compared to the dueling leads of Goodhill's Stan Cooney and John Stowell. W/George Miller on bass, they could play anything, even their own. Their lead vocalist, Harryson Buster, had the sweetest voice in town and the hearts of all the girls in our school in his pocket. He's still performing.
Anyhow, you do best when you remember!
Keep those memory cells strong!
Ken Shain
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Thanks,Bob
I like the way you describe being back in the moment with the old songs
Cream rocked my Junior High world in Maplewood, New Jersey, and listening to the seemingly infinite Spotify stream brings me back to those days (and nights)
Music is timeless, and it helps keep me ageless
Thank you for my Daily Lefsetz
Sincerely
Joyce Ann Martin
San Diego, California
____________________________________
Love your posts and thanks for the always insightful and thought provoking commentary. Have you checked out the new Cream Album on Spotify: Live in San Diego '68. It sounds like a boot or one of those radio broadcast type albums that have been popping up by loads of Classic artists over the past few years but the tunes and playing are all there. White Room is the first track, Jack is in great voice, the bass is sublime (especially his backing over the solo at the end which is totally different to the record), Ginger is all over the kit and Eric gives it the full wah-wah treatment that only he could in '68.
Thanks and best wishes,
David Duggan
____________________________________
Cream accomplished the hard thing: had musicians talking and the punters listening and buying.
Don't forget the contribution of lyricist, Pete Brown. Scorcese is a fan of his. I asked Pete how he ended up writing lyrics for Cream. He said that he was a poet and knew Jack when poetry and jazz were part of the same scene. He said Cream would be on the road and be told that when they got home, they had two weeks to do an album before they had to go out again. So, Pete was called in at crunch time to help with the writing. Pete wrote a book, "White Rooms and Imaginary Westerns", that will give you the whole story.
"I Feel Free" was also one to remember,
Al Staehely
____________________________________
Nothing changed music for us like the three Cream Albums and the three great Hendrix Albums
Amazing to think about all these years later .
Gerry
____________________________________
To say that Cream was huge, and an influencer of young musicians already enraptured by The Beatles is an understatement indeed! I remember carrying the majestic & silvery Wheels Of Fire album around under my arm for literally one entire school year, (my eighth grade) from fall 1968 to the end of our school year 1969. It went everywhere with me, and I'm so glad to read that I wasn't alone in my unbridled enthusiasm and adoration.
Before that I was weaned on (and fell in love with) the sound of high fidelity audio blaring from my best friends dad's component stereo system with it's Wharfdale speakers blasting Disraeli Gears.
I didn't realize at the time that Eric Clapton was God, but I have certainly learned since. What a band. The basis of much of what we know about rock music still, today.
Brian Malouf
Producer | Mixer
____________________________________
Interesting. Your guitar journey was very similar to mine. I Feel Free guitar solo freaked me out and shook me out of my Folkie bondage. Then it was all downhill from there when Hendrix hit a year later
Kenny Lee Lewis
____________________________________
"White Room"!! Now you're talkin'! Isn't it all true! Everything you said. We all wait over and over again in anticipation sitting at the end of our seats during that pause right before the iconic solo. Then we crank up the volume until our ears hurt while Clapton lets loose on the Wha-wha pedal (funny that, I wonder how that thing got its name? Did the inventor just spit out the sound when describing it??).
At any rate, for my money, that's when Clapton played and sounded best. And that SOUND!!! That's what riveted though me—I couldn't get enough. That's what turned the corner for me wanting to really learn how to be a real guitar player—that sound, those riffs (gotta say Jeff Beck's Truth helped a bit there as well). But I couldn't figure it out, wasn't hip to what a Les Paul, SG, or any Gibson cranked to the max could do. But I knew it had something to do with volume. I was playing a 6 string Rickenbacker at time and plugged it into my makeshift amp stack of Fender equipment, but of course the Ricky's pick-ups are designed to be ringy-dingy and not even close to a humbucker, much less the thin semi-hollow body. A band mate gave me his Gibson Melody Maker and I was finally off to the races!
Without any formal lessons, I discovered vibrato, learned to play triplets (not knowing what they were) and copying Clapton's hammer-ons and pull-offs. Like most players, listening to Clapton lead me back to discover Freddie King and all the rest. The electric guitar means so much to me and has been such a big part of my life. Michael Bloomfield and Keith Richards (playing Chuck Berry riffs) were my earliest influences, but it was Clapton who got me off the couch with the burning desire to be able to learn how to speak with a guitar.
Thank you Slowhand,
Paul Rappaport
____________________________________
In 1968 Cream played on a Wednesday night in the little gym at Union Catholic H.S. in Scotch Plains, NJ -about a half mile down the road from my childhood house. I was 16 and a junior in Scotch Plains' public high school. Tickets were $2.50, no pre-sale; we just showed up at the back entrance of the school, lined up & walked in like going to a high school basketball game. They played the entire "Wheels of Fire" repertoire that night (this was the tour on which they recorded the LP so no one had yet heard the material). The show lasted for over three hours...Ginger solo'd on "Toad" for 40 minutes; "Spoonful" went on and on for almost a 1/2 hour. We all went nuts.
Union Catholic had presented The Who in their gym the year before ( they blew up their stuff in front of the first row of folding metal chairs where the teachers were seated... a bunch of nuns, brothers & priests in their black frocks....the crowd literally climbing over their poor heads to get a piece of Pete Townsend's guitar neck!!). Notwithstanding that first mini riot, the school nevertheless continued these shows for a few years thereafter into the early '70s until costs, liability concerns, etc. became prohibitive...The Beach Boys, The Association, an early big metal act (Metallica I think...I was by then off to Dartmouth) catching them mid-week literally in between shows in Philly & NYC....one local cop at the door as security, the bands playing on choral risers, with the audience a bunch of kids standing behind a couple of rows of metal folding chairs for the staff five feet from the "stage".
One of the experiences from my teen years (including seeing Hendrix in 1967 when I was 15 in NYC in a tiny auditorium at Hunter College) that inspired me to play professionally after college and then become an entertainment attorney.
I'll never forget....
Paul B. Ungar, Esq.
____________________________________
"Funny how music can bring you back. It's not a memory of, you're right in the moment, you're a teenager once again, when the goal was to be a guitar hero, when we only talked about music, when radio was our religion and music drove the culture."
November 4, 1968 - I was 13. It was time. My uncle (mom's younger brother) lived in "the village" and bought the tickets. I think they were a rather lofty $6.50 to be in cavernous Madison Square Garden, where I had previously seen The New York Rangers and Ringling Brothers both stink up the joint. I'm sure a joint or two stunk up the Garden that night as well, but I was about 7 weeks and a place called the Fillmore East from learning about that.
My uncle was "cool," working for Ed Sanders of the Fugs at the Peace Eye Bookstore. I was a Junior High School student in Forest Hills. That night would be my first concert.
I had dozens of records. Beatles, Stones, Herman's Hermits, Dave Clark Five all come to mind immediately, but Hendrix, Joplin and Cream were all being ushered into the mix as Mrs. Brown and her lovely daughter segued into a real kind of hush (oh yeah, Deep Purple!)
The opening act was just two years younger than my Uncle Joe, five years older than me. His name was Terry Reid, and from the opening notes of his cover of "Bang Bang" to his long camel haired coat, I fell in love on so many levels. Terry, his voice, his band, his presence, and his repertoire would be a staple in my world for life. Those first two Epic records are among my personal top 20 of all time. The mid-liner was Buddy Miles, who, as I soon learned, could midline a 45 minute version of "Them Changes" at the drop of a hi-hat.
The lights went down a third time, and I swear to you, while I don't remember what row, seat or section I was in, I do remember that they harmonized on that opening note and began their farewell set with "White Room." I hear it today, in my head, as it was that night. I would and could never forget it. The set was magnificent, but that single note was perfection!
Marc Nathan
What the hell am I doing in
Nashville, TN
____________________________________
My parents used to be bring me to visit my Uncle Lou and Aunt Anne and their son, my cousin Izzy in The Bronx when I was a kid. Isadore Meyrowitz was eleven years older than me, weighed 400 pounds, had the most mind-blowing MacIntosh-powered home stereo of anyone I've ever known, and lived in the apartment next door to his pal Larry Weinstein (later aka Leslie West).
In 1967 when I was eleven and Izzy was twenty-two, he sat me down in a bedroom with black lights and black light posters, slapped Koss headphones on my head, and said "Shut up and listen to this". He put on the new album Disraeli Gears. SWLABR was his favorite, but it was all Godhead to him (especially Eric). And soon to me, too.
To your point, Bob, Izzy showed up the next year with Wheels of Fire - two completely separate experiences - the studio disc and the live disc. Of course I loved the foil cover, but by that point all I wanted was to slap the headphones on and slip into the power and majesty of White Room. Nothing else on the studio disc matched that opening track. Jack, Eric, and Ginger sounded like equals, which of course they were, but White Room is really Jack's. Ginger drives with his titanic drumming, and Eric wah-wah's the track to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, but it's Jack's song (with songwriting partner Peter Brown), and Jack's voice is so dramatic and unforgettable that it has never mattered that the lyrics' meaning remains a total mystery. (I must also note here that Side Three - the live recordings of Crossroads and Spoonful - remains the most over-the-top explosion of combined live musical innovation and amplification ever, and for me will never be equaled... listen again sometime under headphones).
Izzy turned me on to so much more. In June, 1969, I showed up at my sixth grade end of the year party in Queens with a copy of Second Winter - the searing three-sided Johnny Winter album with the unforgettable Richard Avedon cover - tucked under my arm. When I snuck the album's blazing opening track Memory Pain onto the turntable with the volume up, the other kids howled to "turn that shit off", and promptly returned to the Monkees, the Fifth Dimension, or whatever non-threatening pop of the moment. I knew it would be a lonely life ahead, and didn't care.
Izzy was hard-core Beatles, too, of course - everything. In '69, he couldn't get enough of the power and wit of I Want You (She's So Heavy), playing it over and over again on his monstrous and brilliant MacIntish sound system. And then Izzy couldn't stop talking about a new version of The Yarbirds, now calling themselves Led Zeppelin. At his urging, I bought their first album the week it was released at the "G.O. Store" in the basement of JHS 194 in Whitestone, Queens where I was in seventh grade. I'll just say that while White Room utterly expanded my mind the year before - in "How Many More Times", when Plant's howl "Oh Rosie... steal away now..." leads into Bonham's grinding earth-shaking drum rolls, I swear I felt like I understood something about sex for the very first time.
Izzy died in 1998 at fifty four. A year before he passed, I had the incredible pleasure of introducing him to Al Kooper, one of Izzy's music heroes, at The Bottom Line. Izzy is still flipping out under headphones, seated at a station in a white room with black curtains.
Danny Kapilian
____________________________________
Pete Brown wrote the lyrics to "White Room." He was a well-known poet at the time and collaborated with the band, especially Jack Bruce. I interviewed both Pete and Jack for my book on Mose Allison.. I got to know both of them pretty well over the time I was writing and researching my book. Pete in a lot of phone calls over a couple of years because he was a Mose fan and also because he was very entrenched in the blues. I remember he was also very involved in British politics at the time. I also remember he appreciated the revenue stream classic rock was providing, especially White Room.
Jack is a longer story and fairly involved and started with a letter he sent me responding to my request for an interview for my book. His letterhead bore the bassline of "Sunshine of Your Love." We had similar backgrounds in conservatory training. Like me, Jack was a chorister. When he told me he was the boy soloist in Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem," I was dumbfounded. For those of us in the classical choral world, that is huge. He premiered the "War Requiem" and worked personally with Benjamin Britten but he never talked about it!! The "War Requiem" stands alongside some of the most important works in the choral music repertoire, including the Requiems of Brahms, Faure and Mozart. Britten is one of the most important composers of the 20th century and to many, his work is considered as important as Bach, Brahms and Beethoven. Jack was a classically trained cellist as well. He totally downplayed his excellent musicianship and conservatory training. He had real, trained chops and his voice was powerful with trained technique. Nonetheless, he chose to take musical risks, he left the conservatory to explore other genres....and like me (who turned to the law) was like a "fallen angel" from the structure of that world, so we connected on that level and spoke a similar language. As a personality, Jack was generous, gregarious, engaging, funny and very normal…but like many artists of that era, he was also complicated. Many of those artists struggled with the reality that they were artistic pioneers enjoying the perks of celebrity and those perks were not consistent as they aged, when they took on jowls and bellies and were lumped in as has-beens or legends. It must have been very difficult to figure out.... But Jack Bruce was a special and unique soul and I was honored to share a meal at his home with his loving family, a pint and a rolled cigarette at his local pub, a drive in his aging Porche and many hours in conversation. Like being around Mose Allison, also a living legend, I knew I was in the presence of a great contributor to an important art form but it didn't feel like it – he was just like the guy next door, only English. But even though I knew he was the singer and founding member of the first power rock trio, I wasn't a fan girl, just somebody who got to meet and hang out with him for a while discussing a topic that made a difference to him.
White Room is not that simple of a song. The meter of that song is challenging- the famous intro is in 5/4 and then it shifts to 4/4 - there were a lot of meter shifts back then but not in songs that were on the radio.. -so that song was pretty much pushing the envelope at the time. Being younger, I really didn't hear WHITE ROOM until it was past its prime but I always knew it was an iconic work.
I was blessed to connect to that work through its backdoor, through its creators - and getting to know the people who wrote it was a gift.
Patti Jones
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Is Music Out Of Touch With America?
"Don't help elect Trump, you egotistical, billionaire assshole! Go back to getting ratioed on Twitter. Go back to Davos with other billionaire elites who think they know how to run the world."
A protester to Howard Schultz at a book signing event last night.
https://bit.ly/2SfSvIr
For two years we've been hearing about the disillusioned and downtrodden who voted for Trump. The media has been flagellating itself, bending over backward to atone for completely missing the 2016 election. But is this same media now missing the concomitant beliefs of the younger generation and dispossessed on the left?
Actually, it's kind of funny, the left wing press is the left wing candidates' worst enemy. The mainstream media does not stop looking for gotcha moments with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Conventional wisdom is we need a centrist to bring us all together, is this right?
Music was the anti in the sixties. Led by the biggest group ever, the Beatles.
The seventies were a victory lap.
The eighties were about MTV and the ability to reach more people and make more money than ever.
The nineties were about hip-hop, learning that everything N.W.A. and Ice-T said on their albums was true.
The aughts were about disruption, the mainstream's inability to cope with the internet. It was about tech more than music.
In the teens, the tech wars are over and it's all about money. There's supposedly not enough in recordings, so ticket prices are exorbitant and acts are in bed with corporations. That's the goal, to get some of that deep-pocketed money and ultimately become a brand yourself.
The end result has been the marginalization of music, the content is no different from the superhero/cartoon movies, and its impact on the culture is even less. Oh, you'll see financial stories, but doesn't that prove the point?
There's an incredible backlash against billionaires and corporations, but musicians don't stop cozying up to them, and don't stop lauding them.
Meanwhile, concerts are productions, material, whereas music at best is ethereal. Music is secondary to the total effect, which is why so often it's on hard drive.
I'd say we need a reset, and we're gonna get one.
The unrest is palpable. The public is underserved. The music industry believes as long as there's a hit parade, that something is moving/selling/streaming, it's healthy. But this is untrue. It's ultimately about resonance. And the Beatles and the British Invasion turned the music industry into a cash tsunami because of the tunes, not because of the demo, not because of some technical revolution. Albums had been around for a while, the Beatles, et al, finally found a use for them.
So most people feel shut out of the music industry. It's impenetrable, and when you listen to the "hits" you find them unappealing.
So you watch television and listen to the oldies.
Speaking of which, the Eagles own the biggest selling album of all time, and they've never done a sponsorship deal, they've never sold out, and today, decades later, they play stadiums!
There's this myth that today's younger generation is not offended by having acts sell out. This is patently wrong. First and foremost they want someone to identify with, screw aspirations, they're just trying to put food on the table and pay down their student loans. And yes, pre-teens may still be mindless, but not those who've hit puberty. David Hogg is a bigger star, a guiding light brighter than any musician. Sure, some hate him, but isn't that the point, wasn't that the effect of the rockers of yore? Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath were disdained with vigor before being seen as warm and fuzzy years later. They didn't bend to be accepted. As for the theatrics of Alice Cooper, it was all in service to the youngsters' outlook, ever hear "Generation Landslide"?
The labels are asleep. The musicians are asleep. The talk is of television and competition shows. The number of followers, the number of likes. Whereas sheer honesty shines through.
But slower than ever.
But someone who breaks all the rules will be accepted. Someone who doesn't dress up, doesn't depend on big production in the studio or on stage. Someone whose resonance radiates.
Sounds like Bob Dylan. Sounds like Peter, Paul & Mary. Sounds like the rest of the folkies.
But if you look back, you can see that folk era led to not only the music of the sixties, but the cultural changes of the sixties.
We're at that moment right now.
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A protester to Howard Schultz at a book signing event last night.
https://bit.ly/2SfSvIr
For two years we've been hearing about the disillusioned and downtrodden who voted for Trump. The media has been flagellating itself, bending over backward to atone for completely missing the 2016 election. But is this same media now missing the concomitant beliefs of the younger generation and dispossessed on the left?
Actually, it's kind of funny, the left wing press is the left wing candidates' worst enemy. The mainstream media does not stop looking for gotcha moments with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Conventional wisdom is we need a centrist to bring us all together, is this right?
Music was the anti in the sixties. Led by the biggest group ever, the Beatles.
The seventies were a victory lap.
The eighties were about MTV and the ability to reach more people and make more money than ever.
The nineties were about hip-hop, learning that everything N.W.A. and Ice-T said on their albums was true.
The aughts were about disruption, the mainstream's inability to cope with the internet. It was about tech more than music.
In the teens, the tech wars are over and it's all about money. There's supposedly not enough in recordings, so ticket prices are exorbitant and acts are in bed with corporations. That's the goal, to get some of that deep-pocketed money and ultimately become a brand yourself.
The end result has been the marginalization of music, the content is no different from the superhero/cartoon movies, and its impact on the culture is even less. Oh, you'll see financial stories, but doesn't that prove the point?
There's an incredible backlash against billionaires and corporations, but musicians don't stop cozying up to them, and don't stop lauding them.
Meanwhile, concerts are productions, material, whereas music at best is ethereal. Music is secondary to the total effect, which is why so often it's on hard drive.
I'd say we need a reset, and we're gonna get one.
The unrest is palpable. The public is underserved. The music industry believes as long as there's a hit parade, that something is moving/selling/streaming, it's healthy. But this is untrue. It's ultimately about resonance. And the Beatles and the British Invasion turned the music industry into a cash tsunami because of the tunes, not because of the demo, not because of some technical revolution. Albums had been around for a while, the Beatles, et al, finally found a use for them.
So most people feel shut out of the music industry. It's impenetrable, and when you listen to the "hits" you find them unappealing.
So you watch television and listen to the oldies.
Speaking of which, the Eagles own the biggest selling album of all time, and they've never done a sponsorship deal, they've never sold out, and today, decades later, they play stadiums!
There's this myth that today's younger generation is not offended by having acts sell out. This is patently wrong. First and foremost they want someone to identify with, screw aspirations, they're just trying to put food on the table and pay down their student loans. And yes, pre-teens may still be mindless, but not those who've hit puberty. David Hogg is a bigger star, a guiding light brighter than any musician. Sure, some hate him, but isn't that the point, wasn't that the effect of the rockers of yore? Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath were disdained with vigor before being seen as warm and fuzzy years later. They didn't bend to be accepted. As for the theatrics of Alice Cooper, it was all in service to the youngsters' outlook, ever hear "Generation Landslide"?
The labels are asleep. The musicians are asleep. The talk is of television and competition shows. The number of followers, the number of likes. Whereas sheer honesty shines through.
But slower than ever.
But someone who breaks all the rules will be accepted. Someone who doesn't dress up, doesn't depend on big production in the studio or on stage. Someone whose resonance radiates.
Sounds like Bob Dylan. Sounds like Peter, Paul & Mary. Sounds like the rest of the folkies.
But if you look back, you can see that folk era led to not only the music of the sixties, but the cultural changes of the sixties.
We're at that moment right now.
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Monday, 28 January 2019
Are You Gonna Watch The Grammys?-SiriusXM This Week
Tune in tomorrow, Tuesday January 29th, on Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.
Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863
Twitter: @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive
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Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863
Twitter: @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive
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Making Hits
Netflix makes hits.
Streaming music services do not.
The latest example of this is "You." A failure on Lifetime, it's a viral success on Netflix. As of two weeks ago, 40 million households had partaken of an episode within a month of "You" launching on Netflix. On Lifetime, it barely broke a million. Proving, once again, that distribution is king. The show's the same, the service is different.
You see Netflix promotes its own shows. I don't only mean the shows it produces, but rather than depend upon outside sources to drum up viewers, it's a closed ecosystem, it's self-perpetuating, Netflix promotes shows on its own service.
As do network and cable, but you can't fast-forward, you can't shut the ads off, and they end up irritating you, to the point you root against the shows.
So when you sign in to Netflix you see one show promoted. And under that you see what's hot and you get the feeling you're on a website as opposed to a service. That you're in control, that you get to choose, that someone has done the curating for you, and what's out of sight is out of mind...when locked into Netflix you don't care what's happening on the five hundred channels and the competitive streaming services.
But music streaming services are different, they're just distributors, like the record stores of yore, and that paradigm no longer works today, we need someone to tell us what to listen to, whom we trust, who has a great track record.
Actually, that's why Tuma Basa and Rap Caviar were so successful. But Tuma left to join Lyor in the black hole of YouTube and has never been heard from again, proving once again that distribution is king.
But there's only one Rap Caviar...not only has Spotify been unable to replicate that playlist, neither has any competitor.
You see it's the streaming music services' obligation to break records. The truth is they are a replacement for both retail and radio. And they're leaving the public in the dark.
On the home screen should not be the usual suspect popular hit, but a track that people SHOULD hear, that would break if people only listened to it. With a new one once a week, so people would tune in to see it.
And maybe a Hot List, of at most five tracks, of different genres.
Streaming music services are abdicating their power.
And how about consumer ratings?
Netflix screwed theirs up by going from a one to five star system to thumbs up or down, now almost everything gets a great rating, but when you're interested in a show and it gets three or three and a half stars, you steer away, or go in with your eyes open, ready to grab the remote and tune away.
We need ratings on streaming music services, so we know what to pay attention to and what not to, to add coherence.
But streaming services are afraid of scaring away the suppliers. But the system today doesn't work for customers, and they're the gods of all commerce.
We need streaming music services to point the way.
As for Discover Weekly, it's great, but you get the feeling you might be the only person listening to this track you've found, and in the era of social media you want to connect, you want to be part of the group, that's why I watched the first episode of "You." Not my thing, I won't watch more, but now I can play, go to parties and talk like an authority, know what the hubbub is about, never underestimate the appeal of belonging.
And I don't expect streaming music services to make and promote their own product. First and foremost, it's a terrible business without catalog. But the truth is they're much more powerful than the major labels. Wanna mess with a major? Threaten to cut them off, like the government shutdown, we can see how much money was lost, how many lives were ruined. The major labels depend upon streaming music services for survival, they're the lion's share of their income, so the services can flex some muscle, they don't have to be that afraid.
But they're all techies, who just don't get soft skills. They'll tell you about the algorithm, they'll tell you about efficiency, they just don't focus on the music itself. As for their vaunted curators...drones who provide the same number of tracks every week, as if music was a production line in China.
So it's hard to make sense of what's going on.
But sense will eventually come. When the streaming services own their responsibility and start breaking tracks, of all genres, when they start being active instead of passive, when logging in to see what's happening is the same as logging in to Netflix.
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Streaming music services do not.
The latest example of this is "You." A failure on Lifetime, it's a viral success on Netflix. As of two weeks ago, 40 million households had partaken of an episode within a month of "You" launching on Netflix. On Lifetime, it barely broke a million. Proving, once again, that distribution is king. The show's the same, the service is different.
You see Netflix promotes its own shows. I don't only mean the shows it produces, but rather than depend upon outside sources to drum up viewers, it's a closed ecosystem, it's self-perpetuating, Netflix promotes shows on its own service.
As do network and cable, but you can't fast-forward, you can't shut the ads off, and they end up irritating you, to the point you root against the shows.
So when you sign in to Netflix you see one show promoted. And under that you see what's hot and you get the feeling you're on a website as opposed to a service. That you're in control, that you get to choose, that someone has done the curating for you, and what's out of sight is out of mind...when locked into Netflix you don't care what's happening on the five hundred channels and the competitive streaming services.
But music streaming services are different, they're just distributors, like the record stores of yore, and that paradigm no longer works today, we need someone to tell us what to listen to, whom we trust, who has a great track record.
Actually, that's why Tuma Basa and Rap Caviar were so successful. But Tuma left to join Lyor in the black hole of YouTube and has never been heard from again, proving once again that distribution is king.
But there's only one Rap Caviar...not only has Spotify been unable to replicate that playlist, neither has any competitor.
You see it's the streaming music services' obligation to break records. The truth is they are a replacement for both retail and radio. And they're leaving the public in the dark.
On the home screen should not be the usual suspect popular hit, but a track that people SHOULD hear, that would break if people only listened to it. With a new one once a week, so people would tune in to see it.
And maybe a Hot List, of at most five tracks, of different genres.
Streaming music services are abdicating their power.
And how about consumer ratings?
Netflix screwed theirs up by going from a one to five star system to thumbs up or down, now almost everything gets a great rating, but when you're interested in a show and it gets three or three and a half stars, you steer away, or go in with your eyes open, ready to grab the remote and tune away.
We need ratings on streaming music services, so we know what to pay attention to and what not to, to add coherence.
But streaming services are afraid of scaring away the suppliers. But the system today doesn't work for customers, and they're the gods of all commerce.
We need streaming music services to point the way.
As for Discover Weekly, it's great, but you get the feeling you might be the only person listening to this track you've found, and in the era of social media you want to connect, you want to be part of the group, that's why I watched the first episode of "You." Not my thing, I won't watch more, but now I can play, go to parties and talk like an authority, know what the hubbub is about, never underestimate the appeal of belonging.
And I don't expect streaming music services to make and promote their own product. First and foremost, it's a terrible business without catalog. But the truth is they're much more powerful than the major labels. Wanna mess with a major? Threaten to cut them off, like the government shutdown, we can see how much money was lost, how many lives were ruined. The major labels depend upon streaming music services for survival, they're the lion's share of their income, so the services can flex some muscle, they don't have to be that afraid.
But they're all techies, who just don't get soft skills. They'll tell you about the algorithm, they'll tell you about efficiency, they just don't focus on the music itself. As for their vaunted curators...drones who provide the same number of tracks every week, as if music was a production line in China.
So it's hard to make sense of what's going on.
But sense will eventually come. When the streaming services own their responsibility and start breaking tracks, of all genres, when they start being active instead of passive, when logging in to see what's happening is the same as logging in to Netflix.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-TuneIn: http://tunein.com/lefsetz
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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The State Of Stardom
Everybody does not know your name.
No one is as big as they used to be in the pre-internet era. No one reaches everybody, no one is known by everybody, never have individual stars meant less. Platforms are the stars, from Spotify to Facebook to Amazon.
You can be famous and broke.
If you're not polishing your star 24/7, it's fading. Fans can never get enough of you, the only people complaining that you're publishing too much are those who are jealous, not fans, and want to bring you down.
You build your own star. Sure, intermediaries help, but you record on a laptop and can distribute at no cost and the means of disseminating your message are at your fingertips. If you're waiting for someone else to do it, you're gonna be left behind.
Charts don't count. They're for insiders and looky-loos.
The money is on the road, so why are you spending so much time in the studio? Every time you hit a town media explodes, both traditional and online/social network, when your album comes out you're lucky to get a local review, and after release date, you're in the rearview mirror.
Hits mean less than ever. Lady Gaga toured for years without one. Then again, her ability to sell tickets was based on her previous hits.
Mystery is history. If you're not airing your dirty laundry, no one can bond to you. Yes, they want to know what you ate for breakfast. Yes, they want to know if your significant other refused sex last night. The twenty first century is a digital age wherein the humans provide humanity, one thing a chip cannot do, let your freak flag fly.
TV works for old audiences. Same deal with print/magazine/major publications. If you do not appeal to oldsters, save your time and money.
True stars can say no. Most stars cannot.
Hate goes with the territory, don't react. Unless getting into online battles is your thing, but then you become a brand, not a musician, and brands fade faster than music.
You know what's going on in your own silo, but not anybody else's.
Cash is king and don't expect your handlers to say no and forgo their percentage, that's your job.
Don't listen to the stories of social media stars. Their fame and income does not last, they are of the moment, their acts do not translate to other media, they are fads. And what we know online is fads eventually fade away and do not radiate. Anybody e-mail you a joke recently?
The audience is online native, connected all the time, you should be too.
Ignore anti-tech screeds. Your career is based on tech.
Major labels are a smaller slice of the pie than ever. They control a lot of hits, but almost none of the penumbra, and the penumbra is where the action is, all the genres that don't rain down immediate cash with brain-dead youngsters.
Data is everything. It tells you who and where your fans are. You should be able to reach all of them with an e-mail or a tweet or an Instagram post.
Musicians are about content. Posting on social media without it makes you two-dimensional in a three-dimensional world. You're selling story. A picture needs an explanation. Your whole life is a narrative, surrounding around your music.
Be yourself, don't worry about offending those who do not care. Most likely the ones with opposite political viewpoints just want to inhibit your creativity and shut you down.
--
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--
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-TuneIn: http://tunein.com/lefsetz
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No one is as big as they used to be in the pre-internet era. No one reaches everybody, no one is known by everybody, never have individual stars meant less. Platforms are the stars, from Spotify to Facebook to Amazon.
You can be famous and broke.
If you're not polishing your star 24/7, it's fading. Fans can never get enough of you, the only people complaining that you're publishing too much are those who are jealous, not fans, and want to bring you down.
You build your own star. Sure, intermediaries help, but you record on a laptop and can distribute at no cost and the means of disseminating your message are at your fingertips. If you're waiting for someone else to do it, you're gonna be left behind.
Charts don't count. They're for insiders and looky-loos.
The money is on the road, so why are you spending so much time in the studio? Every time you hit a town media explodes, both traditional and online/social network, when your album comes out you're lucky to get a local review, and after release date, you're in the rearview mirror.
Hits mean less than ever. Lady Gaga toured for years without one. Then again, her ability to sell tickets was based on her previous hits.
Mystery is history. If you're not airing your dirty laundry, no one can bond to you. Yes, they want to know what you ate for breakfast. Yes, they want to know if your significant other refused sex last night. The twenty first century is a digital age wherein the humans provide humanity, one thing a chip cannot do, let your freak flag fly.
TV works for old audiences. Same deal with print/magazine/major publications. If you do not appeal to oldsters, save your time and money.
True stars can say no. Most stars cannot.
Hate goes with the territory, don't react. Unless getting into online battles is your thing, but then you become a brand, not a musician, and brands fade faster than music.
You know what's going on in your own silo, but not anybody else's.
Cash is king and don't expect your handlers to say no and forgo their percentage, that's your job.
Don't listen to the stories of social media stars. Their fame and income does not last, they are of the moment, their acts do not translate to other media, they are fads. And what we know online is fads eventually fade away and do not radiate. Anybody e-mail you a joke recently?
The audience is online native, connected all the time, you should be too.
Ignore anti-tech screeds. Your career is based on tech.
Major labels are a smaller slice of the pie than ever. They control a lot of hits, but almost none of the penumbra, and the penumbra is where the action is, all the genres that don't rain down immediate cash with brain-dead youngsters.
Data is everything. It tells you who and where your fans are. You should be able to reach all of them with an e-mail or a tweet or an Instagram post.
Musicians are about content. Posting on social media without it makes you two-dimensional in a three-dimensional world. You're selling story. A picture needs an explanation. Your whole life is a narrative, surrounding around your music.
Be yourself, don't worry about offending those who do not care. Most likely the ones with opposite political viewpoints just want to inhibit your creativity and shut you down.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-TuneIn: http://tunein.com/lefsetz
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1
If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
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Sunday, 27 January 2019
White Room
I rarely practiced.
But I think Guy needed the money.
At first I took guitar lessons with my sister at some folkie's house. That's what you learned back then, Peter, Paul & Mary were kings, or queens. The teacher was a housewife, my mother heard about her through the grapevine. The smaller the community, the more people you know. But we burned out quickly, she wouldn't teach us the hits.
And then the Beatles broke.
The folk guitar was no longer useful. You needed something with a narrow neck and metal strings. And I got one for Hanukkah, sans amplifier, not that I cared. And then a case, although its plastic handle ultimately broke, I think that's one of the reasons I lost interest. And then I started taking lessons across town from this guy in a music store, with hair like Elvis and a big red semi-acoustic guitar, he scared me a bit, his interests seemed to be elsewhere, and one time when I showed up for my three dollar lesson and he'd cross-booked, since I'd been out of town a bunch, that was over.
And that's when I found Guy Smith. Ensconced in one of those buildings in downtown Bridgeport that hadn't yet been torn down. My father would drop me there every Monday night, I'd play what he'd given me the week before, then he'd write out something new, and then we'd play it and the lesson would be over. Guy was nice, and he always wrote down the hits. I remember doing the Turtles' "You Showed Me," I could tell it was one of his favorites, and one week I got him to write down "White Room." Guy didn't want to, maybe that's why I remember it. He said it was too simple. But he did.
At this point Cream was gigantic, and it wasn't that long thereafter that they said they were gonna break up. I'd bought "Disraeli Gears," I loved "Tales Of Brave Ulysses." And "SWLABR" and "Dance The Night Away." And nearly a year after it was released, "Sunshine Of Your Love" crossed over from FM to AM and the band became ubiquitous. That's what changed music, almost as much as the Beatles, FM. Kinda like Spotify, et al, today, they're making short songs de rigueur, but the streaming services have only amplified the power of hip-hop so far, no new musical strand has emerged. And once something was on AM, the cat was out of the bag, singles and albums sold prodigiously. Acts could sell more tickets. Everybody knew who they were, in an era where AM radio reached everybody. Just like network TV, if it was on, it was known.
And in the fall of '68, right after "Sunshine Of Your Love" was fading, Cream released "Wheels Of Fire."
Now if you got in early, and I most certainly did, the album came with a silver foil cover. This was back when we were all collectors, when our albums meant something to us, when we thought they were forever. And on some level, they still are, what with the vinyl revival, but now on eBay you can find everything and life is all about access. If you find a collector, you find someone lost in the twentieth century.
Now at this point, "Wheels Of Fire" is most famous for the tear through "Crossroads," with its Clapton vocal and searing fretmanship.
But back then, the two highlights were "Spoonful" and "Toad." This was back when most bands were lousy live, long before tapes/hard drives, during the era of poor PAs. But these three tracks were all recorded live, "Wheels Of Fire" had one studio disc and one live disc.
This is when Clapton became God in America.
And this time, unlike the year before, no time was necessary for the track to percolate on FM before it crossed over to AM, "White Room" hit the airwaves immediately.
Did you know you could talk to the Amazon Music app? Yup, Alexa is there for you. Spotify has copied this feature, but to be honest I've never utilized it. And the other night, long after dark, I called out to Alexa on my phone to play the rock hits of 1968, since Amazon Music can create playlists on the fly.
I got way too much "White Album." And for some reason, I got "Fire And Rain," twice, even though that wasn't released until 1970, but I also got "White Room."
It was a revelation. The majestic full-throttle intro, how were all those sounds created, and then a Ginger Baker drum hit and Jack Bruce vocalizing, everybody involved considered the pinnacle in their world, a true supergroup, they made that movie about Ginger but today everybody talks about Neil Peart and people rarely mention bass players, even though students know Jaco Pastorius was best, as for Clapton....the past few decades have been about pulling him down from his perch, one he never seemed to want.
But Jack Bruce could sing too, his mellifluous voice was an indispensable part of Cream's success.
"I'll wait in this place where the sun never shines
Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves"
And if I could tell you what that exactly means, I would, but I can't, but I know this couplet by heart, the way Jack loses all harshness and goes for honesty, becomes almost sentimental, and touches your heart.
Now there was privilege in owning the album, the single version lasted barely longer than three minutes, whereas the five minute album take had Clapton wailing on and on, inspiring wannabe axemen around the world.
Funny how music can bring you back. It's not a memory of, you're right in the moment, you're a teenager once again, when the goal was to be a guitar hero, when we only talked about music, when radio was our religion and music drove the culture.
Jack is gone. Stunningly, Ginger is still here. And now Clapton plays occasionally to fans, seemingly more interested in fishing. Live long enough and you see the whole arc, from nobody to star and back again. You can even book a hotel room under your own name.
But those records...
They're locked in amber, they're FOREVER!
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-TuneIn: http://tunein.com/lefsetz
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
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But I think Guy needed the money.
At first I took guitar lessons with my sister at some folkie's house. That's what you learned back then, Peter, Paul & Mary were kings, or queens. The teacher was a housewife, my mother heard about her through the grapevine. The smaller the community, the more people you know. But we burned out quickly, she wouldn't teach us the hits.
And then the Beatles broke.
The folk guitar was no longer useful. You needed something with a narrow neck and metal strings. And I got one for Hanukkah, sans amplifier, not that I cared. And then a case, although its plastic handle ultimately broke, I think that's one of the reasons I lost interest. And then I started taking lessons across town from this guy in a music store, with hair like Elvis and a big red semi-acoustic guitar, he scared me a bit, his interests seemed to be elsewhere, and one time when I showed up for my three dollar lesson and he'd cross-booked, since I'd been out of town a bunch, that was over.
And that's when I found Guy Smith. Ensconced in one of those buildings in downtown Bridgeport that hadn't yet been torn down. My father would drop me there every Monday night, I'd play what he'd given me the week before, then he'd write out something new, and then we'd play it and the lesson would be over. Guy was nice, and he always wrote down the hits. I remember doing the Turtles' "You Showed Me," I could tell it was one of his favorites, and one week I got him to write down "White Room." Guy didn't want to, maybe that's why I remember it. He said it was too simple. But he did.
At this point Cream was gigantic, and it wasn't that long thereafter that they said they were gonna break up. I'd bought "Disraeli Gears," I loved "Tales Of Brave Ulysses." And "SWLABR" and "Dance The Night Away." And nearly a year after it was released, "Sunshine Of Your Love" crossed over from FM to AM and the band became ubiquitous. That's what changed music, almost as much as the Beatles, FM. Kinda like Spotify, et al, today, they're making short songs de rigueur, but the streaming services have only amplified the power of hip-hop so far, no new musical strand has emerged. And once something was on AM, the cat was out of the bag, singles and albums sold prodigiously. Acts could sell more tickets. Everybody knew who they were, in an era where AM radio reached everybody. Just like network TV, if it was on, it was known.
And in the fall of '68, right after "Sunshine Of Your Love" was fading, Cream released "Wheels Of Fire."
Now if you got in early, and I most certainly did, the album came with a silver foil cover. This was back when we were all collectors, when our albums meant something to us, when we thought they were forever. And on some level, they still are, what with the vinyl revival, but now on eBay you can find everything and life is all about access. If you find a collector, you find someone lost in the twentieth century.
Now at this point, "Wheels Of Fire" is most famous for the tear through "Crossroads," with its Clapton vocal and searing fretmanship.
But back then, the two highlights were "Spoonful" and "Toad." This was back when most bands were lousy live, long before tapes/hard drives, during the era of poor PAs. But these three tracks were all recorded live, "Wheels Of Fire" had one studio disc and one live disc.
This is when Clapton became God in America.
And this time, unlike the year before, no time was necessary for the track to percolate on FM before it crossed over to AM, "White Room" hit the airwaves immediately.
Did you know you could talk to the Amazon Music app? Yup, Alexa is there for you. Spotify has copied this feature, but to be honest I've never utilized it. And the other night, long after dark, I called out to Alexa on my phone to play the rock hits of 1968, since Amazon Music can create playlists on the fly.
I got way too much "White Album." And for some reason, I got "Fire And Rain," twice, even though that wasn't released until 1970, but I also got "White Room."
It was a revelation. The majestic full-throttle intro, how were all those sounds created, and then a Ginger Baker drum hit and Jack Bruce vocalizing, everybody involved considered the pinnacle in their world, a true supergroup, they made that movie about Ginger but today everybody talks about Neil Peart and people rarely mention bass players, even though students know Jaco Pastorius was best, as for Clapton....the past few decades have been about pulling him down from his perch, one he never seemed to want.
But Jack Bruce could sing too, his mellifluous voice was an indispensable part of Cream's success.
"I'll wait in this place where the sun never shines
Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves"
And if I could tell you what that exactly means, I would, but I can't, but I know this couplet by heart, the way Jack loses all harshness and goes for honesty, becomes almost sentimental, and touches your heart.
Now there was privilege in owning the album, the single version lasted barely longer than three minutes, whereas the five minute album take had Clapton wailing on and on, inspiring wannabe axemen around the world.
Funny how music can bring you back. It's not a memory of, you're right in the moment, you're a teenager once again, when the goal was to be a guitar hero, when we only talked about music, when radio was our religion and music drove the culture.
Jack is gone. Stunningly, Ginger is still here. And now Clapton plays occasionally to fans, seemingly more interested in fishing. Live long enough and you see the whole arc, from nobody to star and back again. You can even book a hotel room under your own name.
But those records...
They're locked in amber, they're FOREVER!
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-TuneIn: http://tunein.com/lefsetz
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
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