https://spoti.fi/2TgyFNy
https://bit.ly/2VdnLWa
This is Saturday night music...
For those who don't want to bump asses in the club, who don't want to dress up and go out to eat but just want to stay home and lay back, drift, recover from the working week.
Can't say I was a Mayer fan. Wasn't hooked in his early wimpy days. Didn't enjoy the material of the Trio. Didn't really care about the "Playboy" interview, but was mad at the media who couldn't see that he was just trying to riff, to entertain, but you've got to be self-conscious in today's world, otherwise you'll be excoriated when you let your freak flag fly. Funny, artists are supposed to say what everybody feels but is unable to verbalize, but since 2016 that's been in politics, not music, not even the movies.
And then Mayer dated Katy Perry and was envious of her hits, he tried to have one too, but he failed, his moment had passed.
And then John switched to Irving Azoff for management, who told Mayer if he wanted to play the radio hit game, he was not interested, but if he wanted to have a career...
And then came Dead & Company, which is strangely better than the Dead ever were. The Dead were uneven. Sure, the music breathed, you could be taken on journeys, but oftentimes you were just bored. Sorry to be honest, but I saw them.
And I've seen Dead & Company. They're tighter. Mayer has injected discipline, he's enabled the concoction to exceed the experiments of the post Jerry era.
And you don't have to be a Deadhead to enjoy the Dead & Company, but that's got a built-in audience. Who is John Mayer's audience today?
Well, he put out those EPs, but traction was minimal. But it seems like some of those women from years ago are still in love with him, they're supporting his solo shows.
And now comes "I Guess I Just Feel Like."
Now Mayer does not have a warm and fuzzy image. He's seen as a womanizer, a narcissist. But "I Guess I Just Feel Like" transcends his image, at least to a great degree.
I got a couple of e-mails about the track, I decided to check it out. It seemed repetitive, but then...THE GUITAR PLAYING!
He's no longer a newbie, he's no longer a phenom, but part of the fabric, and when Mayer starts to wail, WHEW! But he's not wailing, he's more subtle, the notes are fat, they're bluesy, they set your mind free, like listening to one of those extended Allman Brothers tracks. Hell, maybe Mayer could resuscitate that act too. Imagine a double lead with Derek Trucks, hell, add Warren Haynes as a third...it would be magical.
And being hooked by the outro, which goes on in excess of a minute, I let "I Guess I Just Feel Like" play again from the top.
"I guess I just feel like
Nobody's honest
Nobody's true
Everyone's lying"
Did you read about Butts and the Forum in today's L.A. "Times"? (https://lat.ms/2IvNQyl) Is that the new normal, lying in depositions, on the stand? Am I the only one who takes the oath of honor seriously, seems so.
Although Mayer goes on to say he's "the same way too." And he might be.
"I guess I just feel like
Good things are gone
And the weight of my worries
Is too much to take on"
Could be that Katy Perry is getting married. Could be the world situation. But one thing's for sure, I'm overwhelmed too. Endless news, not so much of it good.
"I guess I just feel like
The joke's getting old
The future is fading
And the past is on hold"
He's 41 now. Straddling Gen-X and the millennials. He's seen the trick, he's starting to wonder, is there any prize inside the pinata?
"But I know that I'm open
And I know that I'm free
And I'll always let hope in
Wherever I'll be
And if I go blind I'll still find my way"
Ah, the optimism...does it ring true?
I'm not so sure. Everybody wants to write an anthem, lift people up.
But then...
"I guess I just felt like
Giving up today"
BINGO! Everybody feels this way sometimes. It usually ends. You lick your wounds, you're depressed, and then you get a bolt of inspiration and stand on your feet again.
That's what happened with Mayer, according to his Instagram post. He had writer's block, but then suddenly "I Guess I Just Feel Like" came to him.
And don't expect to hear it all over the radio. I don't know what format would play it.
And Mayer is no longer the flavor of the moment, so he won't be in the Spotify Top 50.
But the people who hear this track will be satiated, calmed, let loose like only music can do.
And they'll tell other people and...
Maybe that's the most you can hope for.
But that's a lot.
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Saturday, 23 February 2019
40 Degrees
That's what my car thermometer just said.
Now if I was in Vail, that would be a heat wave, get any warmer and the snow might get too slushy to ski. But in L.A?
The weather is backwards in L.A.
I remember working at a summer camp in the White Mountains. By time you get to the middle of August, you're freezing in your sleeping bag, you're curled up inside, trying to suck your own heat.
But in L.A?
It doesn't get hot until maybe September. Memorial Day? You don't want to go to the beach, there'll be a nip in the air.
And cold weather?
That happens in December. By time the New Year rolls around, it starts to get balmy. Hell, I've seen 90 in January many a time.
But this year...
I used to own a BMW that had a bell when it got to 36. For all I know, BMWs still have that feature. But I never experienced it until I drove to Mammoth. It went off and I had no idea what was going on. Was it a classic BMW defect, i.e. after owning a BMW past warranty, you've got to expect ghosts in the machine, that rarely reappear when you bring it in for service and you learn to live with. And I'm paranoid. If there's a bell in the car, gosh darn, there must be something wrong.
But it's just a feature. To warn you. Bridges freeze before roads, did you know that? I certainly do, having grown up on the east coast before the days of four wheel drive, before the days of all-season tires. Back then you put on your snows before Thanksgiving, and didn't take them off until April. With studs, for traction on the ice. Today people use all-season rubber and think they're covered, but they're not. But those in the know today put snow tires on all four wheels, we never did that.
But on the east coast, in Connecticut, by time you hit March 1st, you're almost in spring. Sure, it might snow, but it'll melt. You break out your baseball glove and go to the park and fight the wind as you throw the ball around. But you're eager, you've been waiting for this. Back when you watched the Grapefruit League on TV with no thought of going down to Florida to see it live.
But in California you can ski until July, but in Vermont, you're sometimes lucky if you can make it to April 1st.
Which reminds me of 1971, an especially good snow year. We skiers remember. My friend Ronnie came to Middlebury in his sister's Datsun and we drove for spring skiing at Stowe on April 21st. On April 22nd, we went to the quarry and jumped in, went swimming. In Vermont, if it's in the fifties, you break out your shorts.
And when I go back to Vail will it even be winter? It's supposed to be in the forties next week. Sure, it can snow. But will the surface be soft and wet and will I wonder where the winter went?
The years don't start to speed up until you leave school.
Remember waiting for Christmas vacation, taking the bus home elated? I vividly remember that in high school.
I walked to elementary school. And my mother never took me and never picked me up, even the day there was a hurricane. I didn't think twice. Actually, I enjoy battling the elements, as long as disaster doesn't lurk. I like riding the chairlift in the snowstorm. But that time our tent blew over below Tuckerman Ravine...I was scared.
Have I told you I've been on the edge of death a number of times? I'm not boasting about it, it's just that when you engage with nature, stuff happens. Mother Nature doesn't care about you, no way.
Now next week it's supposed to warm up a bit. Be 60 during the day. And with the sun higher in the sky, you feel the warmth, especially in your automobile.
But at night, they're still talking less than 50.
So it's a conundrum. I like the winter more than the summer. But after a while, you get used to the mild winters of SoCal. You probably read that it snowed here yesterday. Not where I was, and even though I saw pics, it's hard to believe. They were citing a storm back in the forties in comparison, that's how rare it is.
But I used to live in the cold weather.
And there you look forward to the warm weather, the spring, when everything comes back alive.
But the world is going so fast, and the older you get you realize it doesn't care about you, and the focus is on the young, and you feel displaced. You want to tell someone that you're freaked out about how fast time is going, you want to know what this means.
And they can debate all about global warming, but you realize all the predictions are gonna happen after you're dead.
Then again, the "New York Times" said they've lost 23 ski days in the Rockies since the eighties. Vail used to be open until May, that never happens anymore. And they lost 27 in the Sierras.
But only 8 in Vermont, where the season was short to begin with.
Still...
I feel like a lobster. I'm in the pot, they're turning up the heat gradually and I don't notice it, but soon I'll be cooked.
And so will you.
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Now if I was in Vail, that would be a heat wave, get any warmer and the snow might get too slushy to ski. But in L.A?
The weather is backwards in L.A.
I remember working at a summer camp in the White Mountains. By time you get to the middle of August, you're freezing in your sleeping bag, you're curled up inside, trying to suck your own heat.
But in L.A?
It doesn't get hot until maybe September. Memorial Day? You don't want to go to the beach, there'll be a nip in the air.
And cold weather?
That happens in December. By time the New Year rolls around, it starts to get balmy. Hell, I've seen 90 in January many a time.
But this year...
I used to own a BMW that had a bell when it got to 36. For all I know, BMWs still have that feature. But I never experienced it until I drove to Mammoth. It went off and I had no idea what was going on. Was it a classic BMW defect, i.e. after owning a BMW past warranty, you've got to expect ghosts in the machine, that rarely reappear when you bring it in for service and you learn to live with. And I'm paranoid. If there's a bell in the car, gosh darn, there must be something wrong.
But it's just a feature. To warn you. Bridges freeze before roads, did you know that? I certainly do, having grown up on the east coast before the days of four wheel drive, before the days of all-season tires. Back then you put on your snows before Thanksgiving, and didn't take them off until April. With studs, for traction on the ice. Today people use all-season rubber and think they're covered, but they're not. But those in the know today put snow tires on all four wheels, we never did that.
But on the east coast, in Connecticut, by time you hit March 1st, you're almost in spring. Sure, it might snow, but it'll melt. You break out your baseball glove and go to the park and fight the wind as you throw the ball around. But you're eager, you've been waiting for this. Back when you watched the Grapefruit League on TV with no thought of going down to Florida to see it live.
But in California you can ski until July, but in Vermont, you're sometimes lucky if you can make it to April 1st.
Which reminds me of 1971, an especially good snow year. We skiers remember. My friend Ronnie came to Middlebury in his sister's Datsun and we drove for spring skiing at Stowe on April 21st. On April 22nd, we went to the quarry and jumped in, went swimming. In Vermont, if it's in the fifties, you break out your shorts.
And when I go back to Vail will it even be winter? It's supposed to be in the forties next week. Sure, it can snow. But will the surface be soft and wet and will I wonder where the winter went?
The years don't start to speed up until you leave school.
Remember waiting for Christmas vacation, taking the bus home elated? I vividly remember that in high school.
I walked to elementary school. And my mother never took me and never picked me up, even the day there was a hurricane. I didn't think twice. Actually, I enjoy battling the elements, as long as disaster doesn't lurk. I like riding the chairlift in the snowstorm. But that time our tent blew over below Tuckerman Ravine...I was scared.
Have I told you I've been on the edge of death a number of times? I'm not boasting about it, it's just that when you engage with nature, stuff happens. Mother Nature doesn't care about you, no way.
Now next week it's supposed to warm up a bit. Be 60 during the day. And with the sun higher in the sky, you feel the warmth, especially in your automobile.
But at night, they're still talking less than 50.
So it's a conundrum. I like the winter more than the summer. But after a while, you get used to the mild winters of SoCal. You probably read that it snowed here yesterday. Not where I was, and even though I saw pics, it's hard to believe. They were citing a storm back in the forties in comparison, that's how rare it is.
But I used to live in the cold weather.
And there you look forward to the warm weather, the spring, when everything comes back alive.
But the world is going so fast, and the older you get you realize it doesn't care about you, and the focus is on the young, and you feel displaced. You want to tell someone that you're freaked out about how fast time is going, you want to know what this means.
And they can debate all about global warming, but you realize all the predictions are gonna happen after you're dead.
Then again, the "New York Times" said they've lost 23 ski days in the Rockies since the eighties. Vail used to be open until May, that never happens anymore. And they lost 27 in the Sierras.
But only 8 in Vermont, where the season was short to begin with.
Still...
I feel like a lobster. I'm in the pot, they're turning up the heat gradually and I don't notice it, but soon I'll be cooked.
And so will you.
--
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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--
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Friday, 22 February 2019
Music Is Like Politics
Everybody's in their own silo.
Only in this case, hip-hop is the coasts, the "New York Times" and the "Washington Post."
And everything else is Fox News.
That's right, hip-hop won. The only people who don't know are oldsters, who are irrelevant. In this case it's the opposite of politics, as in the old people are inconsequential and the young ones count. It does not matter what baby boomers say about music whatsoever. Peter Tork just died, and Frampton just announced his retirement from the road. Sure, oldsters will line up to overpay to see their classic rock heroes, hopefully before they die, but they're not subscribing to streaming services, they're not going to clubs and they're certainly not haunting Soundcloud to see what's developing.
But, the insiders are out of the loop. Just like Trump upset the apple cart in politics, the same thing is gonna happen in music. Because despite its domination, a great swath of the public does not like hip-hop, does not pay attention, does not care at all, even active music consumers.
But they are ignored by the music business.
Radio plays records that are already old. Streaming services do a subpar job of breaking records. So many have tuned out completely, because they just cannot fathom the present world.
But many like genres other than hip-hop.
And major labels and the media refuse to acknowledge this.
Think about it, the internet has turned the world into the Tower of Babel. Yet in music, we've still got one chart of hits that we see as tablets from the mount. Does that make sense?
Look at it another way, does Netflix just make sci-fi? No, they make superhero shows and distribute English dramas and make comedy specials, they're doing their best to appeal to everybody, although not caring if you're buried in your own little niche.
But in music, we're just appealing to the hip-hop and pop crowd.
Kinda like that inane story in "Billboard" about Ariana Grande breaking the Beatles' chart record. That's like saying a kid hit 60+ homers in Little League and broke the Babe's home run record. It's two different worlds! You couldn't avoid the Beatles, everybody knew them and their music, oldsters and youngsters. But I'll posit at least fifty percent of America has not heard Ariana Grande's new album, if not more. Howard Stern did not know who Childish Gambino was and his show is centered on pop culture!
So what happened in politics?
Blowback. The underserved, when given a chance, got rid of the status quo. And rather than understanding their motivation, the coastal people just told them they were wrong, had contempt for them. Proving, if nothing else, that there is no agreement.
Our nation has broken apart. Our world has broken apart. Elections have proven this in politics. As for the internet, you can tweet, but there's a good chance no one will read it. Medium failed. We're positively lowest common denominator, i.e. Instagram, it comes down to showing a picture of yourself and trying to gain followers. Meanwhile, it's all fake, because no one posts a bad pic. Music, when done right, reveals warts and all. But today, everything is streamlined, no one shows vulnerability, everybody's FABULOUS!
But we know that is not true.
Hell, most genres are not played on terrestrial radio. And a huge slice of the public never tunes in to the over the air band, despite the disinformation campaign of stations. Ain't that America, we deny problems until we collapse.
Hell, we had a more equal distribution of musical styles in the sixties and seventies than we do today! Just look at an old chart, Sly coexisted with the Beatles who coexisted with Petula Clark and I could go on, but you get the point. But now, when every genre can surface online, we're narrowcasting and thinking everybody's interested, BUT THEY'RE NOT!
Meanwhile, there's not enough money in the music business to appeal to the young intelligentsia, so the landscape is still run like the gangster operation it always has been. Just ask an act if it trusts its label...
So, the music industry could prepare for the coming tsunami, but it won't.
Yes, now is when major labels should be developing acts. They think if anything gains traction they'll be able to hoover it up. But that's so last century. To prepare for the future you invest, you broaden your portfolio. Kinda like Apple, the iPhone is their cash cow, but they're constantly creating new products to prepare for the day, which may have already arrived, when iPhone revenue craters.
But not the music industry.
Nobody owns anything and everybody's looking for their bonus.
So be prepared for the audience to turn over the table.
It's gonna happen.
--
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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--
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Only in this case, hip-hop is the coasts, the "New York Times" and the "Washington Post."
And everything else is Fox News.
That's right, hip-hop won. The only people who don't know are oldsters, who are irrelevant. In this case it's the opposite of politics, as in the old people are inconsequential and the young ones count. It does not matter what baby boomers say about music whatsoever. Peter Tork just died, and Frampton just announced his retirement from the road. Sure, oldsters will line up to overpay to see their classic rock heroes, hopefully before they die, but they're not subscribing to streaming services, they're not going to clubs and they're certainly not haunting Soundcloud to see what's developing.
But, the insiders are out of the loop. Just like Trump upset the apple cart in politics, the same thing is gonna happen in music. Because despite its domination, a great swath of the public does not like hip-hop, does not pay attention, does not care at all, even active music consumers.
But they are ignored by the music business.
Radio plays records that are already old. Streaming services do a subpar job of breaking records. So many have tuned out completely, because they just cannot fathom the present world.
But many like genres other than hip-hop.
And major labels and the media refuse to acknowledge this.
Think about it, the internet has turned the world into the Tower of Babel. Yet in music, we've still got one chart of hits that we see as tablets from the mount. Does that make sense?
Look at it another way, does Netflix just make sci-fi? No, they make superhero shows and distribute English dramas and make comedy specials, they're doing their best to appeal to everybody, although not caring if you're buried in your own little niche.
But in music, we're just appealing to the hip-hop and pop crowd.
Kinda like that inane story in "Billboard" about Ariana Grande breaking the Beatles' chart record. That's like saying a kid hit 60+ homers in Little League and broke the Babe's home run record. It's two different worlds! You couldn't avoid the Beatles, everybody knew them and their music, oldsters and youngsters. But I'll posit at least fifty percent of America has not heard Ariana Grande's new album, if not more. Howard Stern did not know who Childish Gambino was and his show is centered on pop culture!
So what happened in politics?
Blowback. The underserved, when given a chance, got rid of the status quo. And rather than understanding their motivation, the coastal people just told them they were wrong, had contempt for them. Proving, if nothing else, that there is no agreement.
Our nation has broken apart. Our world has broken apart. Elections have proven this in politics. As for the internet, you can tweet, but there's a good chance no one will read it. Medium failed. We're positively lowest common denominator, i.e. Instagram, it comes down to showing a picture of yourself and trying to gain followers. Meanwhile, it's all fake, because no one posts a bad pic. Music, when done right, reveals warts and all. But today, everything is streamlined, no one shows vulnerability, everybody's FABULOUS!
But we know that is not true.
Hell, most genres are not played on terrestrial radio. And a huge slice of the public never tunes in to the over the air band, despite the disinformation campaign of stations. Ain't that America, we deny problems until we collapse.
Hell, we had a more equal distribution of musical styles in the sixties and seventies than we do today! Just look at an old chart, Sly coexisted with the Beatles who coexisted with Petula Clark and I could go on, but you get the point. But now, when every genre can surface online, we're narrowcasting and thinking everybody's interested, BUT THEY'RE NOT!
Meanwhile, there's not enough money in the music business to appeal to the young intelligentsia, so the landscape is still run like the gangster operation it always has been. Just ask an act if it trusts its label...
So, the music industry could prepare for the coming tsunami, but it won't.
Yes, now is when major labels should be developing acts. They think if anything gains traction they'll be able to hoover it up. But that's so last century. To prepare for the future you invest, you broaden your portfolio. Kinda like Apple, the iPhone is their cash cow, but they're constantly creating new products to prepare for the day, which may have already arrived, when iPhone revenue craters.
But not the music industry.
Nobody owns anything and everybody's looking for their bonus.
So be prepared for the audience to turn over the table.
It's gonna happen.
--
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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Thursday, 21 February 2019
Mailbag
Re: ABG: Bio
Dear Bob,
I'm da widow. I've been collecting interviews and comments about Albert aiming for an oral history style book to give a bigger picture. So strange of John Simon and even Todd to not get how in love with his clients Albert was and how he loved the music. Of course Peter Yarrow really knew him. Geoff Muldaur (Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Geoff and Maria, Paul Butterfield's Better Days) states that with Albert you had the best record deal, tv appearances, good gigs. And he fought for you. Peter Hoffman privy to all contracts, lawsuits says the important thing is not what Albert made but what the artist made..
Simon sent me stuff to read prepublication and I tried to "correct" … like that he never had paperwork with Albert. John never had a management contract because he worked for the bands, paid I assume from the record companies. AND Albert did get him his own Warner's deal as John acknowledges.
Good call by ABG to put the schooled John with the guys in the band. I agree with you that the book is special because John describes the process. Fascinating. How a producer can be valuable, steer the project. Great stuff. And for me personally, after years of attacks from people who were not there and blame me! Albert and Robbie for "ripping Levon off." Whew, Jon Taplin and John Simon books take some weight off me.
Take care,
Sally Grossman
__________________________________
From: AJ Wilk
Subject: 14 Year Old New York Kid Grammys Opinion
Hey Bob,
My name is AJ Wilk and I'm a 14 year old kid from New York who not only loves but lives music. Last year on spotify, I had streamed music for 23,000 minutes which is equivalent to just under 16 days straight. Music has been my biggest passion ever since my uncle, who works in the music industry, and my music-loving father got me into it at a very young age. For whatever it's worth I wanted to share my opinion on the other nights award show, hoping the views of me and my peers are heard. I hope to take after my uncle and work in the music industry just as he does, and I'd love nothing more than to help shape the future of it, but sitting down and watching the Grammys I was astonished at my own lack of interest. For a kid who has loved music his entire life, why was I so bored by it? How come I couldn't even sit through it?
The other night, as we do every year, my family and I sat down and got ready to watch the Grammys, excited to see who would take home the so-called biggest honors of the year in the music industry. But the 2019 Grammys, which is meant to be focused on this past year in music, was outdated and almost completely irrelevant to those even close to my age, the people influencing music the most right now. Let me just say, I don't really have any issue at all with the awards given, but rather the programs use of time and selection of artists . I think we can all agree, weather you like it or hate it, hip-hop/rap was the biggest genre in music this past year. Let me ask you this, Grammy producers, music executives, and whoever else cares enough about what the kids are listening to these days, who are you really trying to appeal to? Are the Grammys marketed towards the kids? The parents of the kids? The grandparents? Yes, I love Post Malone just as much as the next teen, but the Red Hot Chilli Peppers on stage with him? Everyone loves seeing their favorite artists perform, but watching shirtless Anthony Kiedis at the 2019 Grammys just feels wrong. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers are without a doubt a historic band, but were not up for any awards and had pretty much no reason to be there. While I love a good music collab, this one just made no sense to me and seemed pretty pointless. Also, while I am sure Dolly Parton is an amazing musician, and I completely respect everything she's done for music, the last #1 charting Dolly Parton song was in 1981. So giving the Dolly Parton lifetime achievement ceremony 10 and a half minutes was definitely excessive and lost my interest completely. Ask yourself again, who is this show meant to appeal to?
I can tell you from the personal experience of a 14 year old kid from New York with all of my closest friends being big music fans, I do not know one other kid who even bothered to watch. Seeing my favorite artists snubbed year after year, or more importantly blatantly disrespected or left out completely, means me and my friends won't at all care to watch next year. They're losing us. They are losing the young people they should be trying to appeal to, who are the future of their industry. It was a 3 hour and 40 minute show, and there were only 9 trophies handed out on air, and the performances were painfully outdated and only somewhat relevant to people watching under the age of 20.
Even when they got it right, they also get it wrong. What was all that with Drake? Easily one of the biggest artists of all time, Drake won the award for Best Rap Song with his "Gods Plan" which broke Spotify streaming records. In his speech he started to say "If there's people with regular jobs who are coming out in the rain, in the snow, spending their hard earned money to buy tickets to come to your shows, you don't need this right here I promise you, you already won". Right after saying this, he began to speak again but was immediately cut off. Why? You need to listen to these artists and what they're saying and instead of cutting them off, give them a platform to speak. What these artists are saying matters to us, and if music execs and Grammy producers want to stay relevant to this next generation, then it should matter to them too. If they don't let Drake share his opinion on their awards show, why should we care about their award show's opinion of who had the best album this year? Why should we still watch and value this show when the artists we value and their opinions are being disregarded and disrespected. Drake is right, if the Grammy producers, and anyone involved with them won't accept the fact that hip-hop/rap is a very legitimate genre and should be very well acknowledged at this show, for every year that it's still a globally huge genre as it now is, then they will lose us. Simple as that, if they want to stay relevant as a show and more importantly as a show who gives highly regarded awards, they need to give us the awards, performances and acknowledgement that these artists deserve.
I am not saying that there is no place for tributes and milestone celebrations, I just think there is a need for more relevant content in these shows in order to keep the younger generation caring. I completely agree with having some sort of way of bridging old and new. Music fans should know and understand where their culture evolved from, but in my opinion, you can't call it a 2019 award show, and then go on to have a Lifetime Achievement Ceremony, a 75th birthday celebration, an Aretha Franklin Tribute and a Motown Tribute, and then cut off Drake as he accepts an award for his work in the past year.
Speaking of tributes, where was a mention of XXXtentacion in the memoriam segment? He was an undoubtedly influential artist who was shot and killed in 2018 and was left out of the tributes at the 2019 Grammys. While I totally understand the controversy around him, are we going to act like he's the only artist to ever be accused of these kinds of things? Once again we have to ask ourselves, who is this show really for? What is this all about? The show not only had it's all-time low in ratings, but only 19.9 million people watched, compared to 40 million in 2012. The numbers don't lie, people are getting less and less interested in the Grammys. Why? Because they're no longer reflective of the industry. If you watched the Grammys this year with no prior knowledge of music or the industry in general, you would not have come away with an accurate picture of the state of the industry today. You definitely would not get a sense that hip-hop/rap is one of the most prominent genres. So if they're looking to get their ratings, views or just overall reputation up, I'd think about making sure that the 2020 award show is more reflective of the state of music this year, let artists voice their opinions, and be recognized as they should.
All in all, the thing the Grammys have to realize is that music is changing. The way we listen, distribute, share and produce, so many parts of this industry are evolving, and things like this show need to evolve along with it. They did make some positive changes. The actual awards were particularly accurate this year according to the Village Voice survey, many people agree with some of the awards they gave out. A rap song won Song of the Year and also Record of the Year (This is America - Childish Gambino) which are two awards a rap song has never won. This is truly a step in the right direction and shows that the Grammys know at least the general direction to go in. But I, for one, would like to see more change. If they had something like possibly a 'Junior Committee' or maybe even an entirely different show for someone like me, who is interested in more of the younger generation's music. I can see an opportunity here for the Grammys to innovate and do really great things, they'll just need to do a better job of reflecting what is actually going on in music. I can only speak for myself and what goes on in my 14 year old mind, but to me, the Grammys really missed the mark this year and I think we can really and truly build on what they are and make them so much better, and keep them relevant to my generation. Music is evolving, but that wasn't on display at the 2019 Grammy Awards.
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Subject: Re: The Grammy Ratings Will Tank
Bob-
I teach at a university contemporary music school. Bright talented kids, great program. On the Monday after the Grammys I asked my students how many of them watched the Grammys the night before. Out of a class of 16, zero watched the show. I asked them why? None of them have cable or a dish. They have Netflix.
There you have it. The traditional media is dead and these kids, who all want to be in the music business, know the Grammys don't matter. CBS doesn't matter and don't get me started on radio. If the brain trust of the music business has lost the college kids who live and breathe music, they've lost the war.
Geoff
Geoff Koch
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From: Mike Sherman
Subject: Re: Re-Linda Ronstadt's Live Album
Ok, ok. Maybe I was a bit harsh on the boomers. Reading my own words made me realize that. After all, my own parents are boomers and they gave me the well-rounded tastes I have now. They're also more plugged in than you'd think - they just have less time and bigger fish to fry.
But with the lack of opportunity, archaic office culture, poor pay, and rampant nepotism in this music industry, can you blame a guy for being fed up with the old guard? Anyone in my cohort knows the story well: a 20-something with a deep passion for music eagerly enters the music industry only to become jaded by the cynicism and abuse of their superiors. And who the hell told these people that $30k/year is doable in Los Angeles? Yes, yes, I know. Back in your day you made the same as an entry level grunt. But guess what, inflation is a thing. And we were promised a return on our education investment (which many of us are still paying for by the way). Where is it?
As music consumers, the boomers have the deepest pockets no doubt but I am starting to smell the end. Oldchella may have been the last gasp for these legacy acts. And those Linda Ronstadt numbers are just further proof.
Appreciate the column Bob! Looking forward to the next.
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Subject: Pledge Music - Continued
Hi Bob —
I've been holding our PledgeMusic story back in hopes it might resolve itself, but there appears to be no plan to make good coming from the company. I co-manage the artist Seth Walker who ran his new album's crowd-sourcing campaign through the service. Your email literally hit a few days after we had reached our goal, raising approximately $23,000. Obviously we were spooked by this news, but we made a decision to play it out with Pledge and hope for the best as they were already holding our money.
Our fulfillment of items to fans/pledgers was pre-arranged through Pledge to be handled by Bandwear with the cost of shipping and handling built into to the contribution level. We sent all of our vinyl, t-shirts, posters, original artwork, etc. to Bandwear to begin fulfilling orders. At that time, Bandwear informed us they couldn't ship because Pledge was delinquent on reimbursing them shipment costs. We raised this issue with PledgeMusic and they told us they would handle it directly with Bandwear. A few days later we heard back that shipping was green-lighted and items began being sent out. About a week passes and Bandwear tells us they've shipped approximately 70% of Seth's orders but Pledge never sent the money they were holding for our shipping costs. Thus Bandwear says they cannot continue fulfilling our items to pledgers until we pay them $2233 in outstanding shipping and handling costs that are due to them. So to add extra insult, we're being stuck with the shipping bill on funds PledgeMusic has already collected from our fans.
This past Friday, Seth's record 'Are You Open?' was released. He is an A-list artist—among the best songwriters and most soulful performers in the game—with close to two decades making music. He has a loyal and consistently growing fan-base, earning a working class living as a touring artist. That being said, the cost of recording a proper studio album and modestly marketing it in today's music industry would be impossible without the support of his fanbase on the front end of the process. Seth put everything on credit cards to get ahead of the game, knowing his audience would come through for him, which they did. Never in our worst nightmares did we ever expect that the company who pitched to assist him in this endeavor would go belly up on us.
Seth is now scrambling to borrow money to stay afloat personally and professionally, never mind trying desperately to not let this torpedo his album release campaign and tour. In the grand scheme, I know that $22.5K is not an insurmountable hole for an artist with Seth's fortitude and talent to climb out of, but it would certainly be a gut check for even those flush with cash. The story is to be continued.
Kevin Calabro
Calabro Music Media
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From: Ben Jackson-Cook
Subject: The Brits
Hi Bob,
I've been a subscriber to your emails for about a year now and I love them.
I'm a musical director and I'm emailing you because you haven't spoken about live vs miming performances that much. What's really tipped me over the edge is the Brits. How can a show celebrating UK music be so shit?
I've been involved with the show for 3 years now and every year we really have to push to have anything actually live. It's like everyone has forgotten what it means to create something in a moment in time. It's a complete con! How can some of the biggest artists in the world get away with it?
Striving for a perfect performance has left us with a load of bland shit. Everything is too safe. We created a performance last year that had absolutely no track, and was a re-arranged version of the original studio version. Following the event, all of the live performances were released on DSPs and ours had the best download + streaming figures out of all performances for the first 2 weeks, beating ?Ed Sheeran? and more! I really hope this is because we did a different arrangement and kept things live. The rush of creating something live makes a performance. The whole performance last year was very hard to get approved by The Brits themselves, and then the label. This year we are a part of another artists' show (one of the biggest artist in the world) and he specifically doesn't want anything live! Crazy!!
When an artists finally manages to get live elements into their performance all they want to do is make it sound exactly like the record! Surely the audience who've come to see it want a little extra right? They don't want to listen to the same thing they've been listening to on Spotify?
Labels and managers find it easier to talk in visual terms, so spending millions on the visual team and set makes more sense than spending more than an hour working out how to make something stand out musically, which makes me really sad.
I feel like I'm on my own in this fight for live performances. Thanks for inspiring me to have a good rant.
Ben,
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From: Jay Jay French
Subject: Re: Re-Maroon 5 & The Super Bowl
Bob
What Maroon 5 managed to do in 15 minutes was merge the embarrassment of Billy Squire's "Rock Me Tonite" video and beavis & butthead wearing the Winger T shirt, thus killing a total of 3 careers.
Putting aside the absolutely terrible and boring game, I'm afraid that Adam and the band won't survive the negative onslaught.
I met Adam once about 15 years ago and he told me that the first song he ever learned to play on guitar was ours-"I Wanna Rock". My 10 year old daughter was impressed!
I have watched the band over the years and accepted that they filled that space for straight commercial rock/pop. All fairly innocuous but I'm a sucker for a good pop hook and they certainly had lots of 'em.
Given that social media is as instantaneous as it is unforgiving, I just don't see a path back to any credibility (and many would chime in that they didn't have any to begin with) but I believe that Adam is sincere.
I'm not dancing on their grave but I will sit back and watch them try to recover....
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From: Craig Anderton
Subject: Re: Mailbag-White Room & More!
Bob...when I first heard Cream, it was at the Café a Go Go, which sat people in the hundreds, not thousands. Same for the Blues Project, with Al Kooper playing a Tubon, which inspired me to make electronic instruments. Hendrix? At the tiny Café Wha, before he was "Jimi Hendrix"...I met him because Randy Wolf/Cassidy (later Randy California, the lead guitarist in Spirit) said "you think I'm good? You should hear the guy I'm playing rhythm guitar for," and this was way before the Hendrix sessions for Electric Ladyland, when Chris Wood from Traffic opened the door at the Record Plant to let me in for the next session, and I was playing at Steve Paul's The Scene with Traffic sitting in the audience. Or opening for Procol Harum in Chicago, two weeks after the Democrat Convention riots, in Aaron Russo's KInetic Playground. (That was one powerful group, one of the best live acts ever...Gary Brooker had pipes that wouldn't quit, the rhythm section - BJ Thomas, drummer on the Rocky Horror Picture show soundtrack, and Chris Copping on bass - was solid as a rock, Robin Trower made his guitar cry, and Matthew Fisher took us to church with his Hammond.)
**Music was intimate back then.** Musicians were part of a movement, a brotherhood that included women (I could tell you Janis Joplin and Joni Mitchell stories), not a label, not a web site, and most certainly, NOT a "brand." We played the same circuit as the Who one year, and every security guard along the circuit had a Keith Moon story. The audience was in on the secret. You could see Cream play and tell that Ginger Baker was the most awesome fucking drummer on the planet because you were seated tens of feet, not hundreds of yards, away from him and could see him sweat and feel the pulse of the double kick drums - not see him on some giant LED screen in a stadium.
What's going to save music isn't politics, isn't necessarily taking a stand, and isn't streaming. It's intimacy. Can you create that in an era when "bigger is better?" I don't know. I'd rather have 10,000 devoted fans/friends who say "hi" when they see me at NAMM shows, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and engage in conversations, than 100,000,000 anonymous streams on Spotify. You see, I too want intimacy.
Music isn't about the business, and isn't about the money. It's a language, and it's about communications with your fellow fragile human beings. The Music BUSINESS is about business and money. I have no use for the latter, but treasure the former as much as life itself.
Craig
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From: John Yunker
Subject: Re: The Apple/Facebook/Google Fracas
Hi Bob,
Well said. Speaking of Netflix, it currently supports 26 languages, having most recently added French (for Canada) and Indonesian.
I've been tracking the languages supported by global companies for more than 15 years (yes, a rather curious life's work) and the average number of languages supported by those organizations has more than doubled over the past fifteen years:
Here are some of the language leaders:
Google 100+
Facebook 100+
Toyota 51
Hyundai 49
Coca-Cola 48
Honda 48
Twitter 47
Nissan 46
NIVEA 46
Uber 46
Chevrolet 45
If you want to reach more than 90% of the world's Internet users, you need to support at least 40 languages. English is no longer the dominant online language.
Wikipedia, the world's largest crowdsourced website, supports more than 290 languages — proof that the people of the world want to see their languages supported. And proof that those who embrace the chaos of languages and cultures is poised to succeed globally.
And Google's secret weapon these days isn't so much search but its machine translate engine — Google Translate, which supports more than 100 languages and translates 100 billion words each day.
We've been "going global" since the days of the Silk Road. It's just that now more people see it and feel it than ever before. The internet may connect computers but language connects people.
Hope this is of interest. Keep up the great work…
John Yunker
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From: Alan Hamel
Subject: Re: The State Of Stardom/Suzanne Somers
I don't know about wisdom being in my wheel house. I think it's more about a basic foundation of common sense borne from a lifetime of constant rejection for which I am grateful.
But I thank You.
The day Suzanne was fired from Three's Company for asking for parity with the men with much lesser shows, what we learned later, was that Laverne & Shirley had renegotiated their deal earlier and gave ABC a major colonic.
ABC in its wisdom then decided to fire the number one female so no other woman would make the same request.
And it worked for 8 years until Roseanne who is fearless and knows her worth. Roseanne opened for Suzanne in Vegas in the 80's.
I'm presently working on a Suzanne/Roseanne double bill in Vegas.
When I came home after the non negotiation at ABC and told Suzanne she was out, she was devastated. She hadn't finished with her Chrissy character.
I promised her we would make this work for us
We started BRANDING Suzanne Somers. We didn't know what we were doing and Suzanne had no agent to work with.
That was 38 years ago.
Cut to today...
27 books, 14 NYT Bestsellers.
Las Vegas Female Entertainer of the Year.
Step by Step ran for 7 years.
A global lecture business.
27 years as 'Queen Of TV Shopping'
A business with over a thousand products that started in 1989 with our ThighMaster which has sold over 10 million units and continues selling in 120 countries.
Watch out for The ThighMaster Vibrato. Yes, it vibrates.
There's more, but You get it.
The other decision we made after 3's Company, was to Never guest star on TV.
Ex sitcom stars who segue into guest starring roles, lose their juice and disappear.
They return on "what ever happened to" shows.
Bottom line....
1. Health
2. Family
3. Our relationship. We are together 24/7 and have not spent a night apart in over 38 years.
4. Business
After the above, it's all bookkeeping.
Alan
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From: Neil Lasher
Subject: Re: Re-Ryan Adams
ALEXA Play "Stray Cat Blues"
By The Rolling Stones.
Dear Bob,
I'm da widow. I've been collecting interviews and comments about Albert aiming for an oral history style book to give a bigger picture. So strange of John Simon and even Todd to not get how in love with his clients Albert was and how he loved the music. Of course Peter Yarrow really knew him. Geoff Muldaur (Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Geoff and Maria, Paul Butterfield's Better Days) states that with Albert you had the best record deal, tv appearances, good gigs. And he fought for you. Peter Hoffman privy to all contracts, lawsuits says the important thing is not what Albert made but what the artist made..
Simon sent me stuff to read prepublication and I tried to "correct" … like that he never had paperwork with Albert. John never had a management contract because he worked for the bands, paid I assume from the record companies. AND Albert did get him his own Warner's deal as John acknowledges.
Good call by ABG to put the schooled John with the guys in the band. I agree with you that the book is special because John describes the process. Fascinating. How a producer can be valuable, steer the project. Great stuff. And for me personally, after years of attacks from people who were not there and blame me! Albert and Robbie for "ripping Levon off." Whew, Jon Taplin and John Simon books take some weight off me.
Take care,
Sally Grossman
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From: AJ Wilk
Subject: 14 Year Old New York Kid Grammys Opinion
Hey Bob,
My name is AJ Wilk and I'm a 14 year old kid from New York who not only loves but lives music. Last year on spotify, I had streamed music for 23,000 minutes which is equivalent to just under 16 days straight. Music has been my biggest passion ever since my uncle, who works in the music industry, and my music-loving father got me into it at a very young age. For whatever it's worth I wanted to share my opinion on the other nights award show, hoping the views of me and my peers are heard. I hope to take after my uncle and work in the music industry just as he does, and I'd love nothing more than to help shape the future of it, but sitting down and watching the Grammys I was astonished at my own lack of interest. For a kid who has loved music his entire life, why was I so bored by it? How come I couldn't even sit through it?
The other night, as we do every year, my family and I sat down and got ready to watch the Grammys, excited to see who would take home the so-called biggest honors of the year in the music industry. But the 2019 Grammys, which is meant to be focused on this past year in music, was outdated and almost completely irrelevant to those even close to my age, the people influencing music the most right now. Let me just say, I don't really have any issue at all with the awards given, but rather the programs use of time and selection of artists . I think we can all agree, weather you like it or hate it, hip-hop/rap was the biggest genre in music this past year. Let me ask you this, Grammy producers, music executives, and whoever else cares enough about what the kids are listening to these days, who are you really trying to appeal to? Are the Grammys marketed towards the kids? The parents of the kids? The grandparents? Yes, I love Post Malone just as much as the next teen, but the Red Hot Chilli Peppers on stage with him? Everyone loves seeing their favorite artists perform, but watching shirtless Anthony Kiedis at the 2019 Grammys just feels wrong. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers are without a doubt a historic band, but were not up for any awards and had pretty much no reason to be there. While I love a good music collab, this one just made no sense to me and seemed pretty pointless. Also, while I am sure Dolly Parton is an amazing musician, and I completely respect everything she's done for music, the last #1 charting Dolly Parton song was in 1981. So giving the Dolly Parton lifetime achievement ceremony 10 and a half minutes was definitely excessive and lost my interest completely. Ask yourself again, who is this show meant to appeal to?
I can tell you from the personal experience of a 14 year old kid from New York with all of my closest friends being big music fans, I do not know one other kid who even bothered to watch. Seeing my favorite artists snubbed year after year, or more importantly blatantly disrespected or left out completely, means me and my friends won't at all care to watch next year. They're losing us. They are losing the young people they should be trying to appeal to, who are the future of their industry. It was a 3 hour and 40 minute show, and there were only 9 trophies handed out on air, and the performances were painfully outdated and only somewhat relevant to people watching under the age of 20.
Even when they got it right, they also get it wrong. What was all that with Drake? Easily one of the biggest artists of all time, Drake won the award for Best Rap Song with his "Gods Plan" which broke Spotify streaming records. In his speech he started to say "If there's people with regular jobs who are coming out in the rain, in the snow, spending their hard earned money to buy tickets to come to your shows, you don't need this right here I promise you, you already won". Right after saying this, he began to speak again but was immediately cut off. Why? You need to listen to these artists and what they're saying and instead of cutting them off, give them a platform to speak. What these artists are saying matters to us, and if music execs and Grammy producers want to stay relevant to this next generation, then it should matter to them too. If they don't let Drake share his opinion on their awards show, why should we care about their award show's opinion of who had the best album this year? Why should we still watch and value this show when the artists we value and their opinions are being disregarded and disrespected. Drake is right, if the Grammy producers, and anyone involved with them won't accept the fact that hip-hop/rap is a very legitimate genre and should be very well acknowledged at this show, for every year that it's still a globally huge genre as it now is, then they will lose us. Simple as that, if they want to stay relevant as a show and more importantly as a show who gives highly regarded awards, they need to give us the awards, performances and acknowledgement that these artists deserve.
I am not saying that there is no place for tributes and milestone celebrations, I just think there is a need for more relevant content in these shows in order to keep the younger generation caring. I completely agree with having some sort of way of bridging old and new. Music fans should know and understand where their culture evolved from, but in my opinion, you can't call it a 2019 award show, and then go on to have a Lifetime Achievement Ceremony, a 75th birthday celebration, an Aretha Franklin Tribute and a Motown Tribute, and then cut off Drake as he accepts an award for his work in the past year.
Speaking of tributes, where was a mention of XXXtentacion in the memoriam segment? He was an undoubtedly influential artist who was shot and killed in 2018 and was left out of the tributes at the 2019 Grammys. While I totally understand the controversy around him, are we going to act like he's the only artist to ever be accused of these kinds of things? Once again we have to ask ourselves, who is this show really for? What is this all about? The show not only had it's all-time low in ratings, but only 19.9 million people watched, compared to 40 million in 2012. The numbers don't lie, people are getting less and less interested in the Grammys. Why? Because they're no longer reflective of the industry. If you watched the Grammys this year with no prior knowledge of music or the industry in general, you would not have come away with an accurate picture of the state of the industry today. You definitely would not get a sense that hip-hop/rap is one of the most prominent genres. So if they're looking to get their ratings, views or just overall reputation up, I'd think about making sure that the 2020 award show is more reflective of the state of music this year, let artists voice their opinions, and be recognized as they should.
All in all, the thing the Grammys have to realize is that music is changing. The way we listen, distribute, share and produce, so many parts of this industry are evolving, and things like this show need to evolve along with it. They did make some positive changes. The actual awards were particularly accurate this year according to the Village Voice survey, many people agree with some of the awards they gave out. A rap song won Song of the Year and also Record of the Year (This is America - Childish Gambino) which are two awards a rap song has never won. This is truly a step in the right direction and shows that the Grammys know at least the general direction to go in. But I, for one, would like to see more change. If they had something like possibly a 'Junior Committee' or maybe even an entirely different show for someone like me, who is interested in more of the younger generation's music. I can see an opportunity here for the Grammys to innovate and do really great things, they'll just need to do a better job of reflecting what is actually going on in music. I can only speak for myself and what goes on in my 14 year old mind, but to me, the Grammys really missed the mark this year and I think we can really and truly build on what they are and make them so much better, and keep them relevant to my generation. Music is evolving, but that wasn't on display at the 2019 Grammy Awards.
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Subject: Re: The Grammy Ratings Will Tank
Bob-
I teach at a university contemporary music school. Bright talented kids, great program. On the Monday after the Grammys I asked my students how many of them watched the Grammys the night before. Out of a class of 16, zero watched the show. I asked them why? None of them have cable or a dish. They have Netflix.
There you have it. The traditional media is dead and these kids, who all want to be in the music business, know the Grammys don't matter. CBS doesn't matter and don't get me started on radio. If the brain trust of the music business has lost the college kids who live and breathe music, they've lost the war.
Geoff
Geoff Koch
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From: Mike Sherman
Subject: Re: Re-Linda Ronstadt's Live Album
Ok, ok. Maybe I was a bit harsh on the boomers. Reading my own words made me realize that. After all, my own parents are boomers and they gave me the well-rounded tastes I have now. They're also more plugged in than you'd think - they just have less time and bigger fish to fry.
But with the lack of opportunity, archaic office culture, poor pay, and rampant nepotism in this music industry, can you blame a guy for being fed up with the old guard? Anyone in my cohort knows the story well: a 20-something with a deep passion for music eagerly enters the music industry only to become jaded by the cynicism and abuse of their superiors. And who the hell told these people that $30k/year is doable in Los Angeles? Yes, yes, I know. Back in your day you made the same as an entry level grunt. But guess what, inflation is a thing. And we were promised a return on our education investment (which many of us are still paying for by the way). Where is it?
As music consumers, the boomers have the deepest pockets no doubt but I am starting to smell the end. Oldchella may have been the last gasp for these legacy acts. And those Linda Ronstadt numbers are just further proof.
Appreciate the column Bob! Looking forward to the next.
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Subject: Pledge Music - Continued
Hi Bob —
I've been holding our PledgeMusic story back in hopes it might resolve itself, but there appears to be no plan to make good coming from the company. I co-manage the artist Seth Walker who ran his new album's crowd-sourcing campaign through the service. Your email literally hit a few days after we had reached our goal, raising approximately $23,000. Obviously we were spooked by this news, but we made a decision to play it out with Pledge and hope for the best as they were already holding our money.
Our fulfillment of items to fans/pledgers was pre-arranged through Pledge to be handled by Bandwear with the cost of shipping and handling built into to the contribution level. We sent all of our vinyl, t-shirts, posters, original artwork, etc. to Bandwear to begin fulfilling orders. At that time, Bandwear informed us they couldn't ship because Pledge was delinquent on reimbursing them shipment costs. We raised this issue with PledgeMusic and they told us they would handle it directly with Bandwear. A few days later we heard back that shipping was green-lighted and items began being sent out. About a week passes and Bandwear tells us they've shipped approximately 70% of Seth's orders but Pledge never sent the money they were holding for our shipping costs. Thus Bandwear says they cannot continue fulfilling our items to pledgers until we pay them $2233 in outstanding shipping and handling costs that are due to them. So to add extra insult, we're being stuck with the shipping bill on funds PledgeMusic has already collected from our fans.
This past Friday, Seth's record 'Are You Open?' was released. He is an A-list artist—among the best songwriters and most soulful performers in the game—with close to two decades making music. He has a loyal and consistently growing fan-base, earning a working class living as a touring artist. That being said, the cost of recording a proper studio album and modestly marketing it in today's music industry would be impossible without the support of his fanbase on the front end of the process. Seth put everything on credit cards to get ahead of the game, knowing his audience would come through for him, which they did. Never in our worst nightmares did we ever expect that the company who pitched to assist him in this endeavor would go belly up on us.
Seth is now scrambling to borrow money to stay afloat personally and professionally, never mind trying desperately to not let this torpedo his album release campaign and tour. In the grand scheme, I know that $22.5K is not an insurmountable hole for an artist with Seth's fortitude and talent to climb out of, but it would certainly be a gut check for even those flush with cash. The story is to be continued.
Kevin Calabro
Calabro Music Media
__________________________________
From: Ben Jackson-Cook
Subject: The Brits
Hi Bob,
I've been a subscriber to your emails for about a year now and I love them.
I'm a musical director and I'm emailing you because you haven't spoken about live vs miming performances that much. What's really tipped me over the edge is the Brits. How can a show celebrating UK music be so shit?
I've been involved with the show for 3 years now and every year we really have to push to have anything actually live. It's like everyone has forgotten what it means to create something in a moment in time. It's a complete con! How can some of the biggest artists in the world get away with it?
Striving for a perfect performance has left us with a load of bland shit. Everything is too safe. We created a performance last year that had absolutely no track, and was a re-arranged version of the original studio version. Following the event, all of the live performances were released on DSPs and ours had the best download + streaming figures out of all performances for the first 2 weeks, beating ?Ed Sheeran? and more! I really hope this is because we did a different arrangement and kept things live. The rush of creating something live makes a performance. The whole performance last year was very hard to get approved by The Brits themselves, and then the label. This year we are a part of another artists' show (one of the biggest artist in the world) and he specifically doesn't want anything live! Crazy!!
When an artists finally manages to get live elements into their performance all they want to do is make it sound exactly like the record! Surely the audience who've come to see it want a little extra right? They don't want to listen to the same thing they've been listening to on Spotify?
Labels and managers find it easier to talk in visual terms, so spending millions on the visual team and set makes more sense than spending more than an hour working out how to make something stand out musically, which makes me really sad.
I feel like I'm on my own in this fight for live performances. Thanks for inspiring me to have a good rant.
Ben,
__________________________________
From: Jay Jay French
Subject: Re: Re-Maroon 5 & The Super Bowl
Bob
What Maroon 5 managed to do in 15 minutes was merge the embarrassment of Billy Squire's "Rock Me Tonite" video and beavis & butthead wearing the Winger T shirt, thus killing a total of 3 careers.
Putting aside the absolutely terrible and boring game, I'm afraid that Adam and the band won't survive the negative onslaught.
I met Adam once about 15 years ago and he told me that the first song he ever learned to play on guitar was ours-"I Wanna Rock". My 10 year old daughter was impressed!
I have watched the band over the years and accepted that they filled that space for straight commercial rock/pop. All fairly innocuous but I'm a sucker for a good pop hook and they certainly had lots of 'em.
Given that social media is as instantaneous as it is unforgiving, I just don't see a path back to any credibility (and many would chime in that they didn't have any to begin with) but I believe that Adam is sincere.
I'm not dancing on their grave but I will sit back and watch them try to recover....
__________________________________
From: Craig Anderton
Subject: Re: Mailbag-White Room & More!
Bob...when I first heard Cream, it was at the Café a Go Go, which sat people in the hundreds, not thousands. Same for the Blues Project, with Al Kooper playing a Tubon, which inspired me to make electronic instruments. Hendrix? At the tiny Café Wha, before he was "Jimi Hendrix"...I met him because Randy Wolf/Cassidy (later Randy California, the lead guitarist in Spirit) said "you think I'm good? You should hear the guy I'm playing rhythm guitar for," and this was way before the Hendrix sessions for Electric Ladyland, when Chris Wood from Traffic opened the door at the Record Plant to let me in for the next session, and I was playing at Steve Paul's The Scene with Traffic sitting in the audience. Or opening for Procol Harum in Chicago, two weeks after the Democrat Convention riots, in Aaron Russo's KInetic Playground. (That was one powerful group, one of the best live acts ever...Gary Brooker had pipes that wouldn't quit, the rhythm section - BJ Thomas, drummer on the Rocky Horror Picture show soundtrack, and Chris Copping on bass - was solid as a rock, Robin Trower made his guitar cry, and Matthew Fisher took us to church with his Hammond.)
**Music was intimate back then.** Musicians were part of a movement, a brotherhood that included women (I could tell you Janis Joplin and Joni Mitchell stories), not a label, not a web site, and most certainly, NOT a "brand." We played the same circuit as the Who one year, and every security guard along the circuit had a Keith Moon story. The audience was in on the secret. You could see Cream play and tell that Ginger Baker was the most awesome fucking drummer on the planet because you were seated tens of feet, not hundreds of yards, away from him and could see him sweat and feel the pulse of the double kick drums - not see him on some giant LED screen in a stadium.
What's going to save music isn't politics, isn't necessarily taking a stand, and isn't streaming. It's intimacy. Can you create that in an era when "bigger is better?" I don't know. I'd rather have 10,000 devoted fans/friends who say "hi" when they see me at NAMM shows, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and engage in conversations, than 100,000,000 anonymous streams on Spotify. You see, I too want intimacy.
Music isn't about the business, and isn't about the money. It's a language, and it's about communications with your fellow fragile human beings. The Music BUSINESS is about business and money. I have no use for the latter, but treasure the former as much as life itself.
Craig
__________________________________
From: John Yunker
Subject: Re: The Apple/Facebook/Google Fracas
Hi Bob,
Well said. Speaking of Netflix, it currently supports 26 languages, having most recently added French (for Canada) and Indonesian.
I've been tracking the languages supported by global companies for more than 15 years (yes, a rather curious life's work) and the average number of languages supported by those organizations has more than doubled over the past fifteen years:
Here are some of the language leaders:
Google 100+
Facebook 100+
Toyota 51
Hyundai 49
Coca-Cola 48
Honda 48
Twitter 47
Nissan 46
NIVEA 46
Uber 46
Chevrolet 45
If you want to reach more than 90% of the world's Internet users, you need to support at least 40 languages. English is no longer the dominant online language.
Wikipedia, the world's largest crowdsourced website, supports more than 290 languages — proof that the people of the world want to see their languages supported. And proof that those who embrace the chaos of languages and cultures is poised to succeed globally.
And Google's secret weapon these days isn't so much search but its machine translate engine — Google Translate, which supports more than 100 languages and translates 100 billion words each day.
We've been "going global" since the days of the Silk Road. It's just that now more people see it and feel it than ever before. The internet may connect computers but language connects people.
Hope this is of interest. Keep up the great work…
John Yunker
__________________________________
From: Alan Hamel
Subject: Re: The State Of Stardom/Suzanne Somers
I don't know about wisdom being in my wheel house. I think it's more about a basic foundation of common sense borne from a lifetime of constant rejection for which I am grateful.
But I thank You.
The day Suzanne was fired from Three's Company for asking for parity with the men with much lesser shows, what we learned later, was that Laverne & Shirley had renegotiated their deal earlier and gave ABC a major colonic.
ABC in its wisdom then decided to fire the number one female so no other woman would make the same request.
And it worked for 8 years until Roseanne who is fearless and knows her worth. Roseanne opened for Suzanne in Vegas in the 80's.
I'm presently working on a Suzanne/Roseanne double bill in Vegas.
When I came home after the non negotiation at ABC and told Suzanne she was out, she was devastated. She hadn't finished with her Chrissy character.
I promised her we would make this work for us
We started BRANDING Suzanne Somers. We didn't know what we were doing and Suzanne had no agent to work with.
That was 38 years ago.
Cut to today...
27 books, 14 NYT Bestsellers.
Las Vegas Female Entertainer of the Year.
Step by Step ran for 7 years.
A global lecture business.
27 years as 'Queen Of TV Shopping'
A business with over a thousand products that started in 1989 with our ThighMaster which has sold over 10 million units and continues selling in 120 countries.
Watch out for The ThighMaster Vibrato. Yes, it vibrates.
There's more, but You get it.
The other decision we made after 3's Company, was to Never guest star on TV.
Ex sitcom stars who segue into guest starring roles, lose their juice and disappear.
They return on "what ever happened to" shows.
Bottom line....
1. Health
2. Family
3. Our relationship. We are together 24/7 and have not spent a night apart in over 38 years.
4. Business
After the above, it's all bookkeeping.
Alan
__________________________________
From: Neil Lasher
Subject: Re: Re-Ryan Adams
ALEXA Play "Stray Cat Blues"
By The Rolling Stones.
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Wednesday, 20 February 2019
Antiheroes
They used to dominate the music landscape. People who were the "other," who seemed to march to a different drummer, whose values were different from those of the rat race.
Like Woody Guthrie. Like Bob Dylan. Like the Rolling Stones.
Sure, eventually the Stones became members of the glitterati, but we laughed about it, how we invaded the upper reaches of society, how things were on terms now.
They haven't been on our terms for quite a while.
I was listening to Barry Diller on "Recode/Decode" and his attitude made me puke. Like he single-handedly could give back to society. How about if he paid more taxes and we built it! He knew everybody, from Gates to Bezos, and kept testifying about the good they'd done in society, talked about how Zuckerberg was gonna figure it out and when confronted with "billionaire bashing," he was essentially silent.
Billionaire bashing, We used to revere the wealthy, pay fealty to them, want to be like them, rich, in private planes, raping and pillaging...
That's right, too many of these supposed "job-creators" took and took, especially jobs, and then gave little back.
Kinda like Trump. That's how he got elected, he was supposedly a billionaire and he knew better. Now we know he doesn't know nearly anything at all. As for his supporters...they believe in the racism he promotes, the anti-immigrant screeds, but they didn't have to get these positions from him, then again, maybe they're southern rednecks or prairie people left behind as the country moves forward, just like the denizens Charlie Daniels sang about before he became a Republican. That was the word in the sixties...you'd better not bring your long hair and coastal values to the south or you will pay a price, it's the same today.
And the right wing rose up under Trump, and then what ensued was a BACKLASH!
That's what we're talking about here. To piss the right off, I'll call it the payment for forty years of Reaganomics. Let the rich run free and it'll trickle down to the poor. How's that working for the underclass, for the middle class...IT'S NOT!
Therefore you see the rise of progenitor Elizabeth Warren. And then AOC. These people came from the outside and insiders hate them. AOC toppled a long-established Congressman for her seat. They're not doing it to get rich, to become a lobbyist, to go to work at the corporate law firm, rather they're standing up for what's right, remember that?
Doesn't matter if you disagree. If you've got a problem with Warren's roots. The country is against you. The country is pissed and motivated and so far, the stars are not musical. Michelle Obama got the biggest applause at the Grammys. And Walter White did everything to help his family, he didn't want aid from his rich friend who ripped him off.
Standards, principles, they're out the window.
But now they're back.
Music is in such a bad place. All we've got is moneygrubbers at the top of the chart. As for rebelling...I'm not talking about getting in trouble with the law.
We're gonna get a whole new set of stars. More like Jason Isbell than Lil Yachty.
That's how they came up with the "rock star" moniker. People who could do it their way outside the constraints of society. Wreck hotel rooms and then pay the bill. Leave hundreds of thousands behind, and fly back to England. Sure, Led Zeppelin's music was great, but the myth was even better.
And John Lennon proclaimed the Beatles bigger than Jesus. Now winners at award shows keep thanking God, even though facts tell us our nation is moving toward atheism. Just another way performers are out of touch.
But everybody is making beats and rapping while the truly creative have jettisoned their dreams and are working hard in the straight world just to make a buck.
This is the shift. After the pushback. We want more honest performers. Refusing to play for oligarchs, standing up for people as well as animals.
The ship turns slowly, and then it's completely turned around.
That's the point we're getting to today.
The vapid artists will be history overnight, just like almost all were at the advent of the Beatles.
Oh, who am I kidding. Music has gone from a leading enterprise to picking up the crap after the elephants, not realizing the circus has been canceled.
The labels only support what already sells and the streaming services take no responsibility for breaking new acts and the public goes underserved, which is why they're getting behind politicians, addicted to the news. Meanwhile, all we've got is the 808, an ancient sound, and songs about lifestyle.
The RBG movie is a phenomenon, but its song can't make it on today's hit parade.
Authenticity. Marching to the beat of your own drummer. Money subservient to message. Hell, Dylan's "Dont Look Back" is more popular now than it was when it was made. Why? Because Dylan refuses to cave, to play the game.
We need fewer game players.
It takes a long time to start a new movement in today's fractured society. Took decades for the pushback to arrive. But it's happening. And we're gong to see the effects in the music business. It won't come from the suits, but people who resist them.
You don't need to be rich to be intelligent. You don't need to have a college degree to make a statement. You don't have to play by the rules to win the game.
But it takes a special individual to do this.
They're coming.
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Like Woody Guthrie. Like Bob Dylan. Like the Rolling Stones.
Sure, eventually the Stones became members of the glitterati, but we laughed about it, how we invaded the upper reaches of society, how things were on terms now.
They haven't been on our terms for quite a while.
I was listening to Barry Diller on "Recode/Decode" and his attitude made me puke. Like he single-handedly could give back to society. How about if he paid more taxes and we built it! He knew everybody, from Gates to Bezos, and kept testifying about the good they'd done in society, talked about how Zuckerberg was gonna figure it out and when confronted with "billionaire bashing," he was essentially silent.
Billionaire bashing, We used to revere the wealthy, pay fealty to them, want to be like them, rich, in private planes, raping and pillaging...
That's right, too many of these supposed "job-creators" took and took, especially jobs, and then gave little back.
Kinda like Trump. That's how he got elected, he was supposedly a billionaire and he knew better. Now we know he doesn't know nearly anything at all. As for his supporters...they believe in the racism he promotes, the anti-immigrant screeds, but they didn't have to get these positions from him, then again, maybe they're southern rednecks or prairie people left behind as the country moves forward, just like the denizens Charlie Daniels sang about before he became a Republican. That was the word in the sixties...you'd better not bring your long hair and coastal values to the south or you will pay a price, it's the same today.
And the right wing rose up under Trump, and then what ensued was a BACKLASH!
That's what we're talking about here. To piss the right off, I'll call it the payment for forty years of Reaganomics. Let the rich run free and it'll trickle down to the poor. How's that working for the underclass, for the middle class...IT'S NOT!
Therefore you see the rise of progenitor Elizabeth Warren. And then AOC. These people came from the outside and insiders hate them. AOC toppled a long-established Congressman for her seat. They're not doing it to get rich, to become a lobbyist, to go to work at the corporate law firm, rather they're standing up for what's right, remember that?
Doesn't matter if you disagree. If you've got a problem with Warren's roots. The country is against you. The country is pissed and motivated and so far, the stars are not musical. Michelle Obama got the biggest applause at the Grammys. And Walter White did everything to help his family, he didn't want aid from his rich friend who ripped him off.
Standards, principles, they're out the window.
But now they're back.
Music is in such a bad place. All we've got is moneygrubbers at the top of the chart. As for rebelling...I'm not talking about getting in trouble with the law.
We're gonna get a whole new set of stars. More like Jason Isbell than Lil Yachty.
That's how they came up with the "rock star" moniker. People who could do it their way outside the constraints of society. Wreck hotel rooms and then pay the bill. Leave hundreds of thousands behind, and fly back to England. Sure, Led Zeppelin's music was great, but the myth was even better.
And John Lennon proclaimed the Beatles bigger than Jesus. Now winners at award shows keep thanking God, even though facts tell us our nation is moving toward atheism. Just another way performers are out of touch.
But everybody is making beats and rapping while the truly creative have jettisoned their dreams and are working hard in the straight world just to make a buck.
This is the shift. After the pushback. We want more honest performers. Refusing to play for oligarchs, standing up for people as well as animals.
The ship turns slowly, and then it's completely turned around.
That's the point we're getting to today.
The vapid artists will be history overnight, just like almost all were at the advent of the Beatles.
Oh, who am I kidding. Music has gone from a leading enterprise to picking up the crap after the elephants, not realizing the circus has been canceled.
The labels only support what already sells and the streaming services take no responsibility for breaking new acts and the public goes underserved, which is why they're getting behind politicians, addicted to the news. Meanwhile, all we've got is the 808, an ancient sound, and songs about lifestyle.
The RBG movie is a phenomenon, but its song can't make it on today's hit parade.
Authenticity. Marching to the beat of your own drummer. Money subservient to message. Hell, Dylan's "Dont Look Back" is more popular now than it was when it was made. Why? Because Dylan refuses to cave, to play the game.
We need fewer game players.
It takes a long time to start a new movement in today's fractured society. Took decades for the pushback to arrive. But it's happening. And we're gong to see the effects in the music business. It won't come from the suits, but people who resist them.
You don't need to be rich to be intelligent. You don't need to have a college degree to make a statement. You don't have to play by the rules to win the game.
But it takes a special individual to do this.
They're coming.
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Tuesday, 19 February 2019
Parcel Pick-Up
Felice asked me if I ever rode the horse outside the supermarket.
I said yes. Although I then thought about it. Surely I had, but most times my mother declined to honor my request to plug in a dime.
In return I asked Felice whether she remembered parcel pick-up.
I got a blank stare.
Then, on Bloomberg Radio, channel 119 on Sirius XM, I heard them talking about Wal-Mart's numbers, which shot through the roof with the death of Toys-R-Us, and that the company was expanding curbside pickup of groceries to a thousand more stores...
DIDN'T WE HAVE THAT IN THE SIXTIES?
Maybe you don't remember, in the days where you paid for food with a check and not a credit card, in the pre-scanner era. But you'd pay for your groceries and a bagger would put the paper bags in a cart, akin to the one the postman delivers your mail in when you come back from a long vacation, and that cart would be placed on a system of rails and then you'd drive your car to the curb and they'd place the bags in your trunk and...WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THOSE?
They seem to have disappeared with S&H Green Stamps.
My mother never bothered with stamps, nor coupons, life was too short. But when we were kids, we got the books, we pasted in the stamps, and found out we could never afford what we wanted.
But King Cole had no stamps.
It was the Whole Foods of its day. The Stew Leonard's. Opened in 1958 it had sixteen checkout lanes and even sold furniture... It was the future, right now. It was for gourmets.
You're five years old and you're wowed by chocolate covered ants. Yup, they sold those, along with dried grasshoppers. They were ahead of their time, now to save the environment everyone is talking about eating insects.
And by this time I was too big to ride in the grocery cart. That was another breakthrough, the built-in seat. But my sister Wendy got to. And we'd push her around the store... When you're a little kid, you want to push the grocery cart, it makes you feel powerful as you point out all the things your mother won't buy you.
And when we'd check out...
They had parcel pick-up at King Cole, but it went underground, to a whole new location!
This was the tech breakthrough of the fifties. Kids are fascinated by conveyor belts and Rube Goldbergesque constructions. The fact that our food went underground, that was like a ride at Disneyland, which we saw on TV every Sunday night but had never been to. We always wondered, could we get in the cart too? We were certainly small enough.
And then we'd go out to the Ford Falcon, pull up to the distant destination where our food was, actually, just across the parking lot, and drive home.
Now yesterday was not like today. Most mothers didn't work, and most families didn't have full-time housekeepers, never mind nannies. So, a mother would have to take her kids with her to the store. And you know kids, they never want to be distracted from their fun and games.
But if we were going to King Cole!
This was before seatbelts, when safety was a non-issue, when dashboards were made out of metal.
We'd climb over the seats while our mother was driving. We'd delve into the bags and extract some Fudge Town cookies or bread. The car was just another playground.
And it wasn't only King Cole that had parcel pick-up, Grand Union did too. Even the A&P, where my mother refused to shop, claiming it was dirty.
This was a standard feature, you'd see the rollers right out front. There'd be a doggie door between the store and the outside. A kid could watch the parcel pick-up delivery system for the entire time his or her mother was shopping, when you got old enough to be let out of her sight.
But parcel pick-up seemed to disappear, long before the advent of self-service gas stations. Seems like something is always lost in the march to the future. Like vent windows. I bet kids today have never seen them. But before the days of auto a/c, you'd crack the vent and it would blow air right into your face and it would feel so good!!
But now Wal-Mart is delivering your groceries curbside. Will the metal rollers of parcel pick-up arrive next?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/78111739@N00/1393240067
Or, comb through the pics here:
https://www.pinterest.com/ybcjunior/project-parcel-pickup/
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I said yes. Although I then thought about it. Surely I had, but most times my mother declined to honor my request to plug in a dime.
In return I asked Felice whether she remembered parcel pick-up.
I got a blank stare.
Then, on Bloomberg Radio, channel 119 on Sirius XM, I heard them talking about Wal-Mart's numbers, which shot through the roof with the death of Toys-R-Us, and that the company was expanding curbside pickup of groceries to a thousand more stores...
DIDN'T WE HAVE THAT IN THE SIXTIES?
Maybe you don't remember, in the days where you paid for food with a check and not a credit card, in the pre-scanner era. But you'd pay for your groceries and a bagger would put the paper bags in a cart, akin to the one the postman delivers your mail in when you come back from a long vacation, and that cart would be placed on a system of rails and then you'd drive your car to the curb and they'd place the bags in your trunk and...WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THOSE?
They seem to have disappeared with S&H Green Stamps.
My mother never bothered with stamps, nor coupons, life was too short. But when we were kids, we got the books, we pasted in the stamps, and found out we could never afford what we wanted.
But King Cole had no stamps.
It was the Whole Foods of its day. The Stew Leonard's. Opened in 1958 it had sixteen checkout lanes and even sold furniture... It was the future, right now. It was for gourmets.
You're five years old and you're wowed by chocolate covered ants. Yup, they sold those, along with dried grasshoppers. They were ahead of their time, now to save the environment everyone is talking about eating insects.
And by this time I was too big to ride in the grocery cart. That was another breakthrough, the built-in seat. But my sister Wendy got to. And we'd push her around the store... When you're a little kid, you want to push the grocery cart, it makes you feel powerful as you point out all the things your mother won't buy you.
And when we'd check out...
They had parcel pick-up at King Cole, but it went underground, to a whole new location!
This was the tech breakthrough of the fifties. Kids are fascinated by conveyor belts and Rube Goldbergesque constructions. The fact that our food went underground, that was like a ride at Disneyland, which we saw on TV every Sunday night but had never been to. We always wondered, could we get in the cart too? We were certainly small enough.
And then we'd go out to the Ford Falcon, pull up to the distant destination where our food was, actually, just across the parking lot, and drive home.
Now yesterday was not like today. Most mothers didn't work, and most families didn't have full-time housekeepers, never mind nannies. So, a mother would have to take her kids with her to the store. And you know kids, they never want to be distracted from their fun and games.
But if we were going to King Cole!
This was before seatbelts, when safety was a non-issue, when dashboards were made out of metal.
We'd climb over the seats while our mother was driving. We'd delve into the bags and extract some Fudge Town cookies or bread. The car was just another playground.
And it wasn't only King Cole that had parcel pick-up, Grand Union did too. Even the A&P, where my mother refused to shop, claiming it was dirty.
This was a standard feature, you'd see the rollers right out front. There'd be a doggie door between the store and the outside. A kid could watch the parcel pick-up delivery system for the entire time his or her mother was shopping, when you got old enough to be let out of her sight.
But parcel pick-up seemed to disappear, long before the advent of self-service gas stations. Seems like something is always lost in the march to the future. Like vent windows. I bet kids today have never seen them. But before the days of auto a/c, you'd crack the vent and it would blow air right into your face and it would feel so good!!
But now Wal-Mart is delivering your groceries curbside. Will the metal rollers of parcel pick-up arrive next?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/78111739@N00/1393240067
Or, comb through the pics here:
https://www.pinterest.com/ybcjunior/project-parcel-pickup/
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Monday, 18 February 2019
Artists Are In Control
This is what the internet has wrought.
For fifteen years we heard about recorded music revenue, how the business was being decimated, when the truth is the only people losing power were the labels themselves. Suddenly, the acts were making more. The truth is record deals were a lousy proposition unless you were a superstar and could get it all up front without worrying about sales, for a while anyway. But if you were a developing band, or couldn't renegotiate, the deal paid you little, but the only way to get noticed was via the record company's efforts.
That's now history.
From the Beatles to MTV the acts were in control. But MTV ushered in the era of money, right after the crash of the late seventies, when disco ate rock and then the whole enterprise collapsed. Suddenly, there were few avenues of success, and if you made it, a whole lot of coin rained down. So there was an opportunity cost in releasing stiff records. And the old model of artist development was broken. It made no sense to sit by acts that might make it to the middle at best, you needed to hit home runs.
That's still the philosophy of the majors, to their detriment.
Because the world got bigger, and they're not in control of it.
And a record deal is no longer the only way to get heard.
The last decade has been about the transition from sales to streaming. If the labels were smart, they'd kill physical and files tomorrow, because that would force buyers to buy in to streaming, where the label makes so much more in the long run. But despite selling forward looking product, the music business looks backward, and it's run on a gangster mentality. It's not what's good for the business, but what's good for ME! This is how Paramount lost Marvel, the purchase would have dented executives' bonuses.
So the majors used their leverage to stall and then finally license streaming outlets. But that's now history, streaming is here to stay, Spotify is never shutting down, so wielding your catalogues as a threat...that don't play anymore.
So, the labels control less of the marketplace than ever before, they've lost their leverage with distribution and their traditional promotional power centers, radio and television, are on the wane, they mean less than ever.
In other words, you can do it by yourself. All the tools are at your fingertips. From production to promotion to distribution. Can you say PRO TOOLS, INSTAGRAM AND SPOTIFY?
This is the labels' worst nightmare, but they don't realize it, they're too busy trying to make up lost revenue and screwing the artists. But you can't screw the artists, they won't stand for it anymore. The labels could have fixed their accounting... How come Kobalt can do it and they can't? They could have cut fairer deals. They could have been partners as opposed to shylocks, but that's not the culture at the labels.
But they are a bank.
But now it takes less money than ever to make a buzz.
And the promoter pays you.
Of course the deals are bad when you're starting out, but if you can sell tickets, you can rewrite them on the spot, and make tons in a digital era where the live experience is everything.
But the promoter doesn't want to manage and invest in you.
Of course Live Nation has management in-house, but that's just a remnant of the Azoff days, no one there knows exactly what they're doing.
A management powerhouse is more akin to Red Light. However, that's a disorganized outlet where if any manager gets traction, they leave. Can you say Moe Shalizi? Or Ron Lafitte before him?
And then there's Full Stop, moving into the future under Jeffrey Azoff with his father Irving looking over his shoulder. Pound for pound they've got the best, most profitable acts.
Every other management company is positively cottage industry. Maybe very lucrative cottage industry, but way less powerful.
But the point is, who is going to control and direct the acts in the future?
Historically, managers don't want to invest. Some do, but most would rather look to the label and the promoter.
And it's true, the promoter develops acts these days, live, where the real riches lie, but they're not eager to expand their footprint into the act's business.
In other words, in a world where an act is a bad business person, there's a vacuum. Unless the labels adjust quickly, they're going to lose more and more power.
Is the hole filled by a new kind of management company?
I can speculate, but I'm not sure.
But one thing is for sure, the act is in the catbird seat with all the power. You can speak directly to your audience, you can make demands, you're reliant on almost nobody. And you're making more bank than you ever were before as a result of increased ticket prices and new opportunities.
Then there are the nowhere nobodies bitching they've been screwed. Maybe no one wants to listen or see them. But chances are, they too are using the new tools to play for little cost, even if they may not be winning.
It's good when the acts are in control, because they create the art.
But they need no league to survive. No NBA is necessary. Each act is its own league.
And acts know best.
It's an artist-centric world today, the days of Tommy Mottola and CD replacement monies are long gone.
If you want to succeed today, you've got to service the artist.
Or you're screwed.
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For fifteen years we heard about recorded music revenue, how the business was being decimated, when the truth is the only people losing power were the labels themselves. Suddenly, the acts were making more. The truth is record deals were a lousy proposition unless you were a superstar and could get it all up front without worrying about sales, for a while anyway. But if you were a developing band, or couldn't renegotiate, the deal paid you little, but the only way to get noticed was via the record company's efforts.
That's now history.
From the Beatles to MTV the acts were in control. But MTV ushered in the era of money, right after the crash of the late seventies, when disco ate rock and then the whole enterprise collapsed. Suddenly, there were few avenues of success, and if you made it, a whole lot of coin rained down. So there was an opportunity cost in releasing stiff records. And the old model of artist development was broken. It made no sense to sit by acts that might make it to the middle at best, you needed to hit home runs.
That's still the philosophy of the majors, to their detriment.
Because the world got bigger, and they're not in control of it.
And a record deal is no longer the only way to get heard.
The last decade has been about the transition from sales to streaming. If the labels were smart, they'd kill physical and files tomorrow, because that would force buyers to buy in to streaming, where the label makes so much more in the long run. But despite selling forward looking product, the music business looks backward, and it's run on a gangster mentality. It's not what's good for the business, but what's good for ME! This is how Paramount lost Marvel, the purchase would have dented executives' bonuses.
So the majors used their leverage to stall and then finally license streaming outlets. But that's now history, streaming is here to stay, Spotify is never shutting down, so wielding your catalogues as a threat...that don't play anymore.
So, the labels control less of the marketplace than ever before, they've lost their leverage with distribution and their traditional promotional power centers, radio and television, are on the wane, they mean less than ever.
In other words, you can do it by yourself. All the tools are at your fingertips. From production to promotion to distribution. Can you say PRO TOOLS, INSTAGRAM AND SPOTIFY?
This is the labels' worst nightmare, but they don't realize it, they're too busy trying to make up lost revenue and screwing the artists. But you can't screw the artists, they won't stand for it anymore. The labels could have fixed their accounting... How come Kobalt can do it and they can't? They could have cut fairer deals. They could have been partners as opposed to shylocks, but that's not the culture at the labels.
But they are a bank.
But now it takes less money than ever to make a buzz.
And the promoter pays you.
Of course the deals are bad when you're starting out, but if you can sell tickets, you can rewrite them on the spot, and make tons in a digital era where the live experience is everything.
But the promoter doesn't want to manage and invest in you.
Of course Live Nation has management in-house, but that's just a remnant of the Azoff days, no one there knows exactly what they're doing.
A management powerhouse is more akin to Red Light. However, that's a disorganized outlet where if any manager gets traction, they leave. Can you say Moe Shalizi? Or Ron Lafitte before him?
And then there's Full Stop, moving into the future under Jeffrey Azoff with his father Irving looking over his shoulder. Pound for pound they've got the best, most profitable acts.
Every other management company is positively cottage industry. Maybe very lucrative cottage industry, but way less powerful.
But the point is, who is going to control and direct the acts in the future?
Historically, managers don't want to invest. Some do, but most would rather look to the label and the promoter.
And it's true, the promoter develops acts these days, live, where the real riches lie, but they're not eager to expand their footprint into the act's business.
In other words, in a world where an act is a bad business person, there's a vacuum. Unless the labels adjust quickly, they're going to lose more and more power.
Is the hole filled by a new kind of management company?
I can speculate, but I'm not sure.
But one thing is for sure, the act is in the catbird seat with all the power. You can speak directly to your audience, you can make demands, you're reliant on almost nobody. And you're making more bank than you ever were before as a result of increased ticket prices and new opportunities.
Then there are the nowhere nobodies bitching they've been screwed. Maybe no one wants to listen or see them. But chances are, they too are using the new tools to play for little cost, even if they may not be winning.
It's good when the acts are in control, because they create the art.
But they need no league to survive. No NBA is necessary. Each act is its own league.
And acts know best.
It's an artist-centric world today, the days of Tommy Mottola and CD replacement monies are long gone.
If you want to succeed today, you've got to service the artist.
Or you're screwed.
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Best Keyboard Player-SiriusXM This Week
Tune in tomorrow, Tuesday February 19th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.
Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863
Twitter: @lefsetz @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive
Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive
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Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863
Twitter: @lefsetz @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive
Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive
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Abducted In Plain Sight
Did you watch this?
Documentaries have flourished in the Netflix era. And I must say, I love a good one, since truth is stranger than fiction, and ultimately more believable. (I know that sounds obvious, but we read fiction for the truth embodied therein. But when you encounter the unvarnished truth it takes you aback, and makes you question all your preconceptions. THIS REALLY HAPPENED? And the funny thing is non-fiction so rarely contains truth, essence, the nuggets.)
Anyway, this film was made in 2017. Why did it not get distribution for years?
Kinda like Malcolm Gladwell says in "Outliers," timing is key.
But I feel like I just spent ninety minutes on weekend CNBC/MSNBC or "20/20," where they have these true crime specials with heavy music that you watch once and then never tune in again.
But "Abducted In Plain Sight" is different because it happened TWICE?
I know, I know, you could consider that a spoiler, but it was in all the reviews.
Bottom line, there's a manipulative child molester and...
Forget that the kid is susceptible, so are the parents!
You're watching this flick and wondering what they were thinking. Kinda like you go to a horror movie and yell out to the soon to be dead to WATCH OUT!
But we don't expect people to be so evil.
And... Does the fact that they're LDS and live in Pocatello make a difference?
I've been to Pocatello. In today's cheap flight era, where you go to the destination and don't waste any time driving in between, most people have not. But there's a vast swath of the west that is relatively uninhabited where real people live and those on the coasts have no idea what transpires there. Used to be they were somewhat off the grid, with three TV networks and nothing else, but now there's cable/satellite everywhere and high speed internet too but still...
Those places are different.
I lived in Utah. The Mormons look after each other. And they take family and business very seriously. That's the difference between the people in this doc and those shows on weekend television, these people are not poor. And there have been so many stories about the fact that Mormons win reality competition shows because they know how to get along in large groups, i.e. families.
But still...
The smaller the town, the more people you know. Cities are faceless, that's one of their appeals. Everybody's so busy going somewhere that they don't want to get bogged down with personal baggage. The model here is Madonna, how she kept graduating from/using one person and then another, moving up the food chain to a pedestal where she's all alone. That's why she's clueless, she's now got no frame of reference. She's hooked on the adoration and the status but those are empty constructs.
In other words, life is more real in Pocatello than Hollywood.
But why did these people keep letting the offender in?
We had close family friends. But we knew when to say no. There were boundaries. But the level of trust here...
But the perp was manipulative. My father taught me to keep an eye out. But maybe I ended up suspicious of everyone, to my detriment. You've got to have a little trust in this world...
And then there's the issue of the perp getting the parents to do things against their nature. Seems unlikely, but only if you're sheltered. We're all in situations where we wonder, if we back out are we missing out?
And then the brainwashing of the girl, with all the alien stuff.
Then again, the Angel Moroni is supposed to have been the last person to write in the golden plates that Joseph Smith discovered and translated and if you believe that...
You're probably not an atheist.
Once you start believing there's a little man in the sky who knows whether you're naughty or nice, anything is possible.
But still, I recommend this show.
It's no "Three Identical Strangers," but you don't have to leave home to watch it.
Oh, that's right, you can see the triplet movie on demand if you're willing to endure CNN's commercials.
Or you can hop on to Netflix, spend ninety minutes with the Brobergs and then move on to Ted Bundy.
Really? I lived through that. But I didn't know the Broberg story.
I'm glad I now do.
Beware.
P.S. The police can't protect you. Sure, the Brobergs did their best to thwart the justice system's mechanics, but if someone is out to get you, it's rare the police or FBI can keep you safe. When someone tells you they're gonna kill you, they just might.
Trailer: https://bit.ly/2GOWfKL
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Documentaries have flourished in the Netflix era. And I must say, I love a good one, since truth is stranger than fiction, and ultimately more believable. (I know that sounds obvious, but we read fiction for the truth embodied therein. But when you encounter the unvarnished truth it takes you aback, and makes you question all your preconceptions. THIS REALLY HAPPENED? And the funny thing is non-fiction so rarely contains truth, essence, the nuggets.)
Anyway, this film was made in 2017. Why did it not get distribution for years?
Kinda like Malcolm Gladwell says in "Outliers," timing is key.
But I feel like I just spent ninety minutes on weekend CNBC/MSNBC or "20/20," where they have these true crime specials with heavy music that you watch once and then never tune in again.
But "Abducted In Plain Sight" is different because it happened TWICE?
I know, I know, you could consider that a spoiler, but it was in all the reviews.
Bottom line, there's a manipulative child molester and...
Forget that the kid is susceptible, so are the parents!
You're watching this flick and wondering what they were thinking. Kinda like you go to a horror movie and yell out to the soon to be dead to WATCH OUT!
But we don't expect people to be so evil.
And... Does the fact that they're LDS and live in Pocatello make a difference?
I've been to Pocatello. In today's cheap flight era, where you go to the destination and don't waste any time driving in between, most people have not. But there's a vast swath of the west that is relatively uninhabited where real people live and those on the coasts have no idea what transpires there. Used to be they were somewhat off the grid, with three TV networks and nothing else, but now there's cable/satellite everywhere and high speed internet too but still...
Those places are different.
I lived in Utah. The Mormons look after each other. And they take family and business very seriously. That's the difference between the people in this doc and those shows on weekend television, these people are not poor. And there have been so many stories about the fact that Mormons win reality competition shows because they know how to get along in large groups, i.e. families.
But still...
The smaller the town, the more people you know. Cities are faceless, that's one of their appeals. Everybody's so busy going somewhere that they don't want to get bogged down with personal baggage. The model here is Madonna, how she kept graduating from/using one person and then another, moving up the food chain to a pedestal where she's all alone. That's why she's clueless, she's now got no frame of reference. She's hooked on the adoration and the status but those are empty constructs.
In other words, life is more real in Pocatello than Hollywood.
But why did these people keep letting the offender in?
We had close family friends. But we knew when to say no. There were boundaries. But the level of trust here...
But the perp was manipulative. My father taught me to keep an eye out. But maybe I ended up suspicious of everyone, to my detriment. You've got to have a little trust in this world...
And then there's the issue of the perp getting the parents to do things against their nature. Seems unlikely, but only if you're sheltered. We're all in situations where we wonder, if we back out are we missing out?
And then the brainwashing of the girl, with all the alien stuff.
Then again, the Angel Moroni is supposed to have been the last person to write in the golden plates that Joseph Smith discovered and translated and if you believe that...
You're probably not an atheist.
Once you start believing there's a little man in the sky who knows whether you're naughty or nice, anything is possible.
But still, I recommend this show.
It's no "Three Identical Strangers," but you don't have to leave home to watch it.
Oh, that's right, you can see the triplet movie on demand if you're willing to endure CNN's commercials.
Or you can hop on to Netflix, spend ninety minutes with the Brobergs and then move on to Ted Bundy.
Really? I lived through that. But I didn't know the Broberg story.
I'm glad I now do.
Beware.
P.S. The police can't protect you. Sure, the Brobergs did their best to thwart the justice system's mechanics, but if someone is out to get you, it's rare the police or FBI can keep you safe. When someone tells you they're gonna kill you, they just might.
Trailer: https://bit.ly/2GOWfKL
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--
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-TuneIn: http://tunein.com/lefsetz
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Sunday, 17 February 2019
Books
I read two books in two days. Each was unputdownable in its own way.
The first was "Normal People" by Sally Rooney. She was heavily hyped in the "New Yorker" about a month ago, so I read her first book, 2017's "Conversations With Friends," and Daniel Glass sent me her second, "Normal People," from Claridge's in London, since it is unavailable in the States until April. I wonder if that's because they're gonna change it, eliminate the Britishisms. And speaking of Britishisms, you MUST read the story about Dan Mallory in the "New Yorker," they've got a soft paywall and the article is long but it's all about duplicity. I might be the only person who didn't love his book "The Woman in the Window," written under the nom de plume A.J. Finn, then again, did Mallory/A.J. Finn write the book at all? This is a funny world we live in, where facts hide in plain sight but untruths rule because nobody checks them. Kinda like the "Times" expose on Trump's taxes. The Grey Lady admitted it had been snookered, had never done the research. And here's the point where I mention Maureen Dowd's piece on Michael Jackson today, she's being inundated with naysayers, saying MJ is pure and the HBO doc is heresy. But that's the world we now live in, one where facts don't matter and it's about what team you're on.
Anyway, I was riveted by "Normal People" until the relationship...
Let's just say it got a bit unbelievable. But Rooney does capture the ethos of the millennials. She speaks in today's language, she gets the angst right, and I'd be surprised if it's not thinly-veiled autobiography, kinda like Pam Houston's "Cowboys Are My Weakness," which was my second favorite book of the nineties, which is why I'm now reading her "Deep Creek," which is non-fiction. And I was yearning for story, for fiction, which is why I interrupted my reading of "Deep Creek" with "Normal People," but the truth is I think Houston is a better writer than Rooney, she's a bit more honest even though her time has passed.
Kinda like that of John Simon.
He tracked me down months ago to see if I'd read his memoir, "Truth, Lies & Hearsay." And I was interested, because of his credits, but he kinda disappeared, and blamed it all on techno-ignorance, but his book finally arrived and I read it in a matter of hours, riveted, because of the story.
You see Simon's name was in the credits.
And I figured he was another puffed-up oldster, smoking a pipe and living on the fumes of yesteryear.
But that is not the case. Simon is vibrant and alive. Irreverent. His book reads like a long conversation late at night.
And he tells you how he made that Big Brother "live" album, and those first two Band albums too.
If you were around, if those records mean much to you, you'll eat this up.
Now this is a self-published book with some mistakes, but the story shines through. Of a guy from Norwalk, Connecticut who used creativity to get ahead. That's how he got into Princeton, based on the musical he created in high school.
You see first and foremost Simon is a musician.
And he's old. After graduating from college he got a gig at Columbia Records pre-Beatles, and he started producing before the youthquake hit. He'd record Original Cast Albums on Sunday and they'd be shipped on Tuesday.
And then he fell in with Albert Grossman...
Well, after working with the Cyrkle and Simon & Garfunkel.
We need a definitive bio on Grossman. Without him, Dylan is not a legend, Peter, Paul & Mary don't exist, but the acts get all the credit and the manager is forgotten. And Simon hints that Grossman loved money more than truth, but Albert made things happen.
But when he died and royalties came from Capitol instead of Bearsville, Simon was cut out. That's right, he doesn't get paid on those Band albums. This was back before acts were savvy, when the business was developing.
Simon pins it to the Beatles and electric guitars and multi-track recording.
Everybody picked up an axe. The technology let you experiment.
That's what's going on with streaming today. You can release as much or as little as you want to whenever you want to. Meanwhile, acts with old mind-sets are still releasing an album to play into the hands of print and radio which mean so much less than ever before.
So if you want to know how those Band records were made...
This is the best explanation I've found. Because Simon was there and the writing is not dry.
And when his moment is past, Simon takes a gig playing the piano in a restaurant.
That's entertainment fame. It's not linear. Your moment passes, and then you're forgotten, or playing your old hits forever.
Now I'm gonna finish Houston's book.
And I'm wondering whether I should get out, engage more. Watch television. Be part of the conversation.
Then again, Simon says he never liked to go out to hear live music, unless he was working on it. Used to be an A&R guy was the producer, now he's a guy telling you to make it more commercial and keep it under budget.
And I really don't expect anybody who wasn't there to care.
But if you were...
"Normal People": https://amzn.to/2tqwOY5
"A Suspense Novelist's Trail Of Deceptions-Dan Mallory, who writes under the name of A.J. Finn, went to No. 1 with his debut thriller, 'The Woman in the Window.' His life contains even stranger twists": https://bit.ly/2BlfqIF
"Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country": https://amzn.to/2SG1SCd
"Truth, Lies & Hearsay: A Memoir Of A Musical Life In & Out Of Rock And Roll": https://amzn.to/2BBI7Be
The first was "Normal People" by Sally Rooney. She was heavily hyped in the "New Yorker" about a month ago, so I read her first book, 2017's "Conversations With Friends," and Daniel Glass sent me her second, "Normal People," from Claridge's in London, since it is unavailable in the States until April. I wonder if that's because they're gonna change it, eliminate the Britishisms. And speaking of Britishisms, you MUST read the story about Dan Mallory in the "New Yorker," they've got a soft paywall and the article is long but it's all about duplicity. I might be the only person who didn't love his book "The Woman in the Window," written under the nom de plume A.J. Finn, then again, did Mallory/A.J. Finn write the book at all? This is a funny world we live in, where facts hide in plain sight but untruths rule because nobody checks them. Kinda like the "Times" expose on Trump's taxes. The Grey Lady admitted it had been snookered, had never done the research. And here's the point where I mention Maureen Dowd's piece on Michael Jackson today, she's being inundated with naysayers, saying MJ is pure and the HBO doc is heresy. But that's the world we now live in, one where facts don't matter and it's about what team you're on.
Anyway, I was riveted by "Normal People" until the relationship...
Let's just say it got a bit unbelievable. But Rooney does capture the ethos of the millennials. She speaks in today's language, she gets the angst right, and I'd be surprised if it's not thinly-veiled autobiography, kinda like Pam Houston's "Cowboys Are My Weakness," which was my second favorite book of the nineties, which is why I'm now reading her "Deep Creek," which is non-fiction. And I was yearning for story, for fiction, which is why I interrupted my reading of "Deep Creek" with "Normal People," but the truth is I think Houston is a better writer than Rooney, she's a bit more honest even though her time has passed.
Kinda like that of John Simon.
He tracked me down months ago to see if I'd read his memoir, "Truth, Lies & Hearsay." And I was interested, because of his credits, but he kinda disappeared, and blamed it all on techno-ignorance, but his book finally arrived and I read it in a matter of hours, riveted, because of the story.
You see Simon's name was in the credits.
And I figured he was another puffed-up oldster, smoking a pipe and living on the fumes of yesteryear.
But that is not the case. Simon is vibrant and alive. Irreverent. His book reads like a long conversation late at night.
And he tells you how he made that Big Brother "live" album, and those first two Band albums too.
If you were around, if those records mean much to you, you'll eat this up.
Now this is a self-published book with some mistakes, but the story shines through. Of a guy from Norwalk, Connecticut who used creativity to get ahead. That's how he got into Princeton, based on the musical he created in high school.
You see first and foremost Simon is a musician.
And he's old. After graduating from college he got a gig at Columbia Records pre-Beatles, and he started producing before the youthquake hit. He'd record Original Cast Albums on Sunday and they'd be shipped on Tuesday.
And then he fell in with Albert Grossman...
Well, after working with the Cyrkle and Simon & Garfunkel.
We need a definitive bio on Grossman. Without him, Dylan is not a legend, Peter, Paul & Mary don't exist, but the acts get all the credit and the manager is forgotten. And Simon hints that Grossman loved money more than truth, but Albert made things happen.
But when he died and royalties came from Capitol instead of Bearsville, Simon was cut out. That's right, he doesn't get paid on those Band albums. This was back before acts were savvy, when the business was developing.
Simon pins it to the Beatles and electric guitars and multi-track recording.
Everybody picked up an axe. The technology let you experiment.
That's what's going on with streaming today. You can release as much or as little as you want to whenever you want to. Meanwhile, acts with old mind-sets are still releasing an album to play into the hands of print and radio which mean so much less than ever before.
So if you want to know how those Band records were made...
This is the best explanation I've found. Because Simon was there and the writing is not dry.
And when his moment is past, Simon takes a gig playing the piano in a restaurant.
That's entertainment fame. It's not linear. Your moment passes, and then you're forgotten, or playing your old hits forever.
Now I'm gonna finish Houston's book.
And I'm wondering whether I should get out, engage more. Watch television. Be part of the conversation.
Then again, Simon says he never liked to go out to hear live music, unless he was working on it. Used to be an A&R guy was the producer, now he's a guy telling you to make it more commercial and keep it under budget.
And I really don't expect anybody who wasn't there to care.
But if you were...
"Normal People": https://amzn.to/2tqwOY5
"A Suspense Novelist's Trail Of Deceptions-Dan Mallory, who writes under the name of A.J. Finn, went to No. 1 with his debut thriller, 'The Woman in the Window.' His life contains even stranger twists": https://bit.ly/2BlfqIF
"Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country": https://amzn.to/2SG1SCd
"Truth, Lies & Hearsay: A Memoir Of A Musical Life In & Out Of Rock And Roll": https://amzn.to/2BBI7Be
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