This was the week Elizabeth Warren's candidacy was taken seriously and Donald Trump lost all credibility.
And "Old Town Road" continued to triumph in the music sphere, because it's a fad driven by social media and that's how far we've sunk these days.
It comes down to substance. And experience. The entertainment business believes it's all about marketing, and it happens instantly, you throw it all up against the wall and see if it sticks. And if it doesn't, you throw your hands in the air and move on to the next project. Meanwhile, the person whose work you threw against the wall, which failed, is usually lost in the shuffle, forgotten, like an autoworker whose plant has closed.
Backstory matters. Sure, be an OG if you really are one. But if it's an act, the truth outs. We live in an era of authenticity.
Meanwhile, if you can't play your instrument and can't write a song, you're going to be outed too. Of course you'll push back, crying about all the haters, but once you're in a Twitter war, once it becomes about the battle as opposed to the issue, you've lost. Real players know you only respond to haters if it will move your agenda. You never try to correct people. Hell, there isn't even one agreed upon news source, people believe different "truths," what are the odds you're going to set someone straight on Twitter...NONE! But if the perp has enough followers and you nail them the story might be picked up elsewhere, it could go viral, your cause could be helped.
But you can't analyze it that much, you can't map out a definitive plan. Actually, you've got to live outside the system, hewing to your own tuning fork and hope that it resonates. If it doesn't resonate... You're toast.
The story in America today is income inequality.
Forget all the minimum wage earners who can't make ends meet. I mean don't truly forget them, but chances are you aren't one of them. Chances are you're middle class, wondering how in hell your dreams didn't come true. There's a whole class of people with more money than you, and there's no legal way you can penetrate, ascend to their level.
Of course techies and entrepreneurs and basketball players can get there. But not graduates of good colleges, professionals, intelligent, hard-working people.
And the country is controlled by the wealthy, with their dollars. What cash buys you is influence. And you'd be surprised what a ride on a private jet can get you. Then again, chances are you've never been on a private jet. That's another thing the rich don't want you to know, how grand their lifestyles truly are. While you're waiting in line, dealing with TSA, getting to the airport two hours in advance to fight your way onto the plane and find storage for your carry-on, the elite are showing up on the tarmac five minutes before takeoff, with no TSA hassle, it's wheels-up and they're at the destination before the hoi polloi has gotten in the air.
Not that some haven't earned it. That's one of the reasons you wanted to become a rock star, so you could live the lifestyle. Now rock stars make a pittance, relatively speaking. So managers are investing in startups. And WME is going public. Everybody in Hollywood is trying to get rich, and usually it's not even on the backs of talent, TALENT DOESN'T YIELD ENOUGH CASH!
But chances are you don't know how the real world works. Because they don't want to let you know. But one thing's for sure, you know you got a raw deal, and your opportunity is limited.
The Democratic National Committee doesn't want to lose control. So they're on a disinformation campaign, anointing Joe Biden, which is like saying a second-string player on the Bulls teams of yore is your best bet. At least give us Michael Jordan, even better, STEPH CURRY!
But the DNC won't acknowledge the game has changed, doesn't even know the game has changed. Curry revolutionized play in the NBA, with the 3-pointer. America is far different from what it was even in the Obama era. We live in an era of cacophony where everybody believes in their own truth and those with power are on massive disinformation campaigns. If you think the number one problem in America is immigration, you don't understand the economy. But Trump is diverting you, so you won't see the real issues.
But Trump made a deal with Mexico and then reneged.
This is his pattern, and now foreign governments don't trust him. What do they say, you're only as good as your word? Well Trump's word ain't worth much. This fact was buried before there was national scrutiny, but now we know.
As for Warren, the DNC said she couldn't win, she was another strident woman only this time with left field, progressive views they didn't cotton to.
The rule in America today is no one can lose their job, no one can lose power, you're entitled to keep everything you earned and never lose your station. Only that's B.S. That's like saying Madonna should still sell out stadiums. But she can't. Oh, we could argue that one... That's like saying Alanis Morissette can still go clean at every arena, along with Miley Cyrus. Times change, the heat dissipates, stars lose their light. But not in business, in business you're entitled to keep your job, just like the coal miners and autoworkers and the post office people. Only you're making a lot more money and have a lot more power.
So the establishment, those with money and power, HATE Elizabeth Warren, because they've got something to lose and they don't want to lose ANYTHING!
Now Warren has paid her dues. And is organized. She's been pounding policies, plans, ad infinitum while Joe Biden isn't sure whether he's for the government paying for abortions or not.
And this work, along with Warren's truth, is making people cling to her, believe in her, and the press is only noticing now.
This is just like a band. You practice, pay your dues, work in the trenches and WAIT for your moment. And if it doesn't come, it often means you just weren't good enough. People recognize excellence, they're wowed by excellence, they can't get enough of it, opportunity comes to those who deliver stellar performances.
But of course those on the right, still on the Trump train, decry everything I just said. But elections are like the music business. NO ONE LIKES EVERY ACT! For every Drake lover, there are tons of haters. You just need enough to make it work economically, you just need enough votes to win.
If you think it's business as usual in America, you're either rich or delusional.
As for the Pocahontas thing...epithets never triumph over substance. And America is all about redemption. And name-calling has no chance against hope, which is what Warren delivers. Hell, even George Will thought she'd be the right person to run, that's what he said on "Real Time" tonight, that Warren would be FUN, and that politics should be fun.
And politics is no different from music. We're always looking for something new, something outside, something different. We get sick of the same old thing. The landscape keeps changing, we want new faces that understand it.
So what you've got is a disconnect between those with power and the rest of the world, the internet world, the connected world, the cacophonous world. Used to be you could get away with being out of touch, but no longer, it just makes you look dumb. Like Congressman Steve King bitching to the CEO of Google Sundar Pichai about his iPhone...GOOGLE MAKES ANDROID!
Conventional wisdom is just that. And in today's overloaded world there's a belief that he or she who yells loudest triumphs. But that's B.S. You can yell, but that does not mean anybody is listening. What you're hyping can be forgotten in a minute, heard anybody talk about Steve Perry's solo album recently? But if you've got the goods, if what you're working is great, you've got a chance that the people will glom on to it and spread the word. The press is always last. It's just the cherry on top, like radio. But when a track gets on radio, IT BLOWS UP!
This week Elizabeth Warren blew up.
And Trump blew himself up.
And Nancy Pelosi and the old farts are afraid of impeachment, even though daily telecasts will inform those on the right what is really going on, will pierce the Fox bubble.
But never expect change from the entrenched. It always comes from outside. It's always supported by the people. It's all about connection and resonance. Trump resonated with people the RNC denigrated. And the DNC was too stupid to see that Hillary Clinton resonated with almost nobody. She was like a great session guitarist, no one pays to see that.
We're looking for superstars. And now, more than ever, the penumbra is irrelevant, it all comes down to substance.
And that's how Elizabeth Warren got traction.
P.S. If you're interested in the Warren phenomenon, whether you love her or hate her or just want more information, please read the "New Yorker" story on her, it's balanced and thorough and after you read it, you can talk like an expert, which everybody wants to be these days: https://bit.ly/2IM9xXO
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Saturday, 15 June 2019
Friday, 14 June 2019
Mailbag
From: Sir Talldhogg
Subject: Re: Making Hits
I completely agree with your analysis of the music business. They want us all to believe the hot or important music all resides in hip hop or pop music. That simply is the furthest from the truth. It's self defeating. The labels want to make as much money as possible but yet only play in two sand boxes now limiting their earning power. It makes no sense and me as a music fan doesn't get the diversity of music that is out there without going on a scavenger hunt and hours of sifting through terrible music that is now so easy to put out.
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From: Keith Levy
Subject: Re: Album Bundles-From A Promoter
This is a beautifully succinct summary of the forced bundle. Thanks Craig as I will now forward this verbatim to any of my managers/labels when they ask me to tack the forced bundle onto the ticket. Also worth noting, that they almost always ask after the tour is booked, cleared, confirmed, and negotiated, as the agents are usually working further out than the labels when planning a tour vs a release.
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Re: Album Bundles-From A Promoter
From the artist point of view.
We (Melissa Etheridge & Management, who is an OG Concert West guy) looked at this every which way we could. Bundle with the ticket, sell at merch, and bundle in Fan Club package. We purchased BDS pre-scanned cd's from the label. Our thought at the time was to increase chart position, which would encourage airplay, which would encourage ticket sales. The truth was, all the fans already had the disc, which is probably true for those buying tickets to individual shows today. They are already fans, that's why they bought the ticket to the show. It's pretty simple. In my view it is not the artists responsibility to buy (which is as Craig so astutely pointed out) or sell the product. That's why you have a label. It's really sad how the hubris of all those execs let the business fall apart. The really smart ones sold out decades ago.
All the best,
Ken Deans
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Re: Karla Bonoff-This Week's Podcast
Thanks for the shout-out to Karla Bonoff, who deserves all the accolades you gave her. And I'd like to add that her first album was masterfully produced by the late Kenny Edwards, and as you mention, he made the songs and her vocals the center of the record, never letting the production get in the way.
Kenny was one of the under-appreciated secret weapons of the California Country Rock movement of the 70s. An original member of the Stone Poneys, he went on to a long career as a session and touring musician. One of the few multi-instrumentalists who could also sing harmony, he was proficient as a bassist, guitarist, banjo and mandolin player. He spent many years in Linda Ronstadt's touring band and is prominently featured on her newly-released live album.
His affiliation with Karla, however, may have been his most important contribution. They were both members of the band Bryndle along with Andrew Gold and Wendy Waldman. I saw them many times at McCabe's and other venues. Their harmony singing was amazing.
Kenny encouraged Karla's early attempts at songwriting, produced her albums, and up until his death, toured with her. I remember seeing the two of them at a club in upstate New York. Kenny opened the show and then provided instrumental and vocal support for Karla. It was one of those deliciously intimate musical evenings I won't forget.
Best,
John Boylan
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From: Rob Meder
Subject: Re: T-Mobile/Sprint
Agree agree agree. The importance of 5G cannot be overstated.
I cannot wait to cut the cord and stop paying Spectrum $200 for a bundle, bulk of which I don't use, just so I can have decent internet to the home. No other options where I live and that is a recipe for disaster with the net neutrality laws in tatters.
The Fins say something along the lines of - we never protect the job.. we only protect the worker. so if your job is going away - they don't prop up the industry. They invest in the worker so that they are prepared for the future that will happen no matter how hard we try to resist it. And they actually do it, real training, real investment. Works like a charm.
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From: Jeff Hanna
Subject: Re: Will The Circle Be Unbroken
Really enjoyed the piece on Jackson Browne, Get Lit and The Ash Grove Foundation. I've got great admiration for Jackson as an artist and as a human being. And yeah, he's funny, as well!
The Ash Grove was a huge part of our musical development. We'd hitchhike to Hollywood from Long Beach as kids to see folks like Doc Watson and Mississippi John Hurt play. Ed Pearl would use NGDB as an opening act a couple years later for Merle Travis and Lightning Hopkins among others. Great guy, Ed. Heard and met the Chambers Brothers there as well. Phenomenal..
Thanks for the shout-out on Will The Circle Be Unbroken. That record was life-changing for us.As you pointed out, that song has an amazing effect on people. We still sing it every night, and it always moves people. Power of song, indeed.
Thanks again, Bob
Jeff
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From: susan werner
Subject: Re: Will The Circle Be Unbroken
Bob -
I had the good fortune to get to open a few shows for George Carlin in 2007. Sitting backstage I said to him, "There aren't a lotta people who still mean it out there. You know? But you still mean it when you go onstage." He said, "Yup." I said, "Who else do you think still means it?" He answered, "Well, Tony Bennett." Then he thought a minute and said, "And Jackson Browne."
Susan Werner
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From: David Jensen
Subject: Re: Go Where You Wanna Go
Great stories...and here's more facts...as a hobby I find lost royalties for deserving musicians...alive and dead...about a year ago, I fell into some for Chuck Day...but who's Chuck Day???...turns out to be the Baby Daddy To Mama Cass...and he lived out his final days in an apartment atop the music club 19 Broadway in Fairfax up north here...it's a great story all around including gay husbands evading the draft and all...and eventually I got the lost royalties to Mama's daughter Owen...that's what I do...
You know how much the musicians have been screwed...this all needs more publicity...every State as the same system of Unclaimed Property...in Cali, it's the California State Controllers Office...Sorry, I never learned to cut and paste...Stevie Wonder has LOTS of lost monies in Sacramento...is he really that hard to find???...
Cheers, DJ
SF
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From: Charles Driebe
Subject: Re: Political Lessons
Bob -
The legendary gospel group Blind Boys of Alabama, who I have been managing for the last 20 years, have been 'standing their ground' for decades.
The late Clarence Fountain, who led the band from 1944 until a few years ago, used to tell the story of how he and the Blind Boys were in the same studio as Sam Cooke in the 1950s and were offered the same deal as Sam if they would 'cross over' to popular music. Clarence and the Blind Boys refused.
Since I have been managing the band, they have declined offers to sing their deep harmonies on songs with the biggest names in the business when the band determined the material to be insufficiently spiritual - in particular love songs. As the last original member and current leader of the band, Jimmy Carter, says 'If the song has the word 'baby' in it, it's not for us.'
When George W. Bush was in office, the band was invited to perform at the White House and they accepted out of respect for the office. But when they were later asked to sing at the Republican convention for the biggest fee they had ever been offered, they declined.
The Blind Boys of Alabama have principles and they stand up for them!
Best regards,
Charles Driebe, Esq.
blindambitionmgt.com
facebook.com/BlindAmbitionManagement
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From: Richard Foos
Although we've known each other for over 40 years? And I've read "the Lefsetz Letter" off and on ever since you started, I've never written you until now as I thought your column on Politics (6/4/2019) was so sad and true. Specifically the following line: "You've got to be able to say no. That's one thing a musician is no longer is capable of. If you're willing to pay, they'll show up. They'll even sing for dictators. There's no endorsement they won't sign on to. The whole enterprise is built on cash, and everybody wants some, in fact they want more." And I see this as particularily relevant because except for some country artists, Ted Nugent and Kid Rock, I've never heard of a musician who supports Donald Trump. Yet, according to a number of sources Warner Records owner Len Blavatnik donated a million dollars to Trump's inaugural campaign as well as 3.5 million to various McConnell PACS. And of course Mr. Blavatnik has every right to donate to whoever he wants and is a very generous philantrophist giving many millions to worthy causes, but just wondering how aware the artists on the various Warner labels are of his support of Trump and other prominent Republicans and if so how true the above comments you made are.
Richard Foos | Chairman, Shout! Factory
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From: Rich Waters
Subject: Re: WWDC 2019
Hi Bob,
I'm at wwdc. It's fun to see your enthusiasm about the keynote. I'm not sure I completely agree with everything you said, but you nailed it with:
"As for the iPad, it now has its own OS, but it will never be a desktop replacement"
I think there's a disconnect between who's actually using iPads (my 80-something mom) and who Apple wants to use iPads (people who care about multiple windows)
Aside from that, FWIW, the real excitement here among developers is about something called SwiftUI. There might have been more people at the "SwiftUI Essentials" session today than were at the keynote. Every seat was filled, and there were multiple layers of standing room. All developers.
Thanks,
-Rich
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From: Joel Silverman
Subject: Dean Torrence
Hi Bob,
I was a good friend with Dean's sister KT.
I'm sad you didn't talk a bit more about her.
She and her husband Keith Barr founded Alesis after they left MXR. They destroyed the commercial studio business with the invention of the ADAT. That product enabled musicians to record with the same or better quality than the gigantic 24-track machines. Studer even did a deal with them and came out with a Studer branded product.
KT was very talented artist that had to live in the shadow of her big brother.
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Subject: Re: What The Web Has Wrought
You are right on point again Bob!
Outside of my world of music, and unlike any piece of gear, computer or anything else I own that gets obsolete and runs slower with time, my Tesla is the gift that keeps on giving, the best money I have ever spent, comes with the best sound system and with every update the car gets better with more insane stupid funny stuff ( who would think of the "Santa Mode" or the "More Cowbell" mode!!!) but also it gets safer to drive and FASTER! And puts a stupid grin on my face whenever I summon it to drive to me driverless, or floor it on the highway and leave just about anybody behind with their foreign gas guzzlers or drive on autopilot to pick up my son in San Jose State University, stopping at a supercharger that looks like an airline airport club and the charge is free while I sip my espresso! Sick and tired of all the crap I read about Tesla or Musk.
As Neil DeGrasse Tyson says, he is the closest thing to Thomas Edison we got!
With all my best.
Philippe Saisse
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Subject: Re: News/Best Eric Clapton Album-Sirius XM This Week
I don't claim to be a know-it-all but do believe George Harrison (L'Angello Misterioso) played the rhythm guitar part at the beginning of the bridge on Badge (the C-G-D progression after the second verse). The beginning part played through a Leslie. He continues playing this part through the bridge while Clapton sings and then proceeds to play the lead guitar solo over Harrison's part.
Peace,
Rick McClanahan (and a few others)
from George Harrison's Facebook page:
George recorded "Badge" with Cream in late November 1968 in LA. George plays the main rhythm guitar. Written by Eric and George.
Guitar Player Interview, 1987:
Q: I always wondered about, speaking of collaboration, "Badge," the bridge part where the guitarist played through the Leslie. Is that you?
GH: No, that's where Eric enters. On the record Eric doesn't play guitar up until that bridge. So there was Felix, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker and me. I played the rhythm, the chops. And we played the song right up to the bridge, at which point Eric came in on the guitar on the Leslie. And then he overdubbed the solo part later.
Q: Did he write all the music?
GH: I wrote most of the words. Eric had that bridge, definitely. And he had a couple of chords I think. He called me up saying, "look, you know we're doing this last album and we've all got to have our song by Monday," or something. He came by and I think he had the first couple of chord changes, and then I joined in and finished the verses off. And then he had the middle bit already. I think I wrote most of the words to the song but he was there, and we bounced off of each other.
https://www.facebook.com/georgeharrison/posts/10153916284551345
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Re: The Universal Fire
It's important to note that some labels were more responsible than others and stored their masters in secure, fire and earthquake proof locations and to this day still do (Sony/BMG for instance). Fortunately the Blue Note catalog, though now part of UMe, was stored downtown L.A. in a very secure location. Those tapes, mostly Scotch 111 sound as good as the day they were first recorded.
It's also true that when vinyl "went away" and the mastering houses in Europe closed down along with many studios, masters and multitracks were simply tossed into dumpsters! It was mass insanity/hipnosis! I interviewed the great recording engineer Phill Brown (Talk Talk, Traffic, Small Faces etc.) who told me one day he got a call from someone who said "Hey mate! There's a dumpster in front of Trident full of tapes, and I noticed your name on some. Better go fetch them before they are landfill". And he did. But so much was tossed then too! Plenty of blame to go around.
Also, a great deal of the MCA/UNI/UMG/UMe catalog had been backed up to 1/2" 30 IPS safety copies and sent over to Universal's Hanover, Germany vaults (now located in the U.K.). I visited back in late 1990s and saw it. A friend reissued some A&M stuff a few years ago and was able to get those back ups for his all-analog reissues and they sound great. But losing much of the Chess, Impulse and Motown catalogs is an unbearable loss.
Also the Times story contains some inaccuracies. The Buddy Holly masters for instance, were not lost in the fire. Also at least four Skynyrd albums said to be lost are not…. and some Chess titles and others were out for vinyl remasters when the fire struck and those were saved (like "Muddy Waters Folk Snger").
Ironically, the best available sources for much of this lost material resides in the grooves of clean original pressings. The labels should be requesting high quality needle drops and UMe should stop trying to defend itself from bean counter stupidity. So lame. Fess up!
Michael Fremer
editor analogPlanet.com
Stereophile senior contributing editor
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Re: The Universal Fire
You haven't even scratched the surface of this story. There are companies that really try to care about their masters, such as Sony. Yet, there are enough horror stories about EMI and Universal (pre-merger) and their handling of assets to fill several books. Most of these stories have been on the street for years and are true.
Tom Cartwright
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Re: The Universal Fire
IN THE LATE 80'S"+ THEY STORED TAPES AT BEKINS!!!!
John Klemmer
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Re: The Universal Fire
I somewhere once downloaded a multi track of Stevie Wonder's Superstition. The absolute best part was hearing the horn players tapping their feet and talking to each other, like "Ok this is the bridge coming..." etc
I can't imagine what moments are lost in that material
Tears in the rain...
Chris Stein
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Re: The Universal Fire
THANK YOU.
I have a copy of everything I've ever mastered, and made sure the artist has a copy.
I've done a lot of studying on archiving...what lasts (e.g., tape stored properly), what doesn't (e.g., tape not stored properly). I digitize everything on Blu-Ray, even though most people don't get why it's an outstanding archival medium. (Well, at least it will be until you can't buy something that can read the data...)
Just remember: Digital data is not real until it exists in more than two places.
Craig Anderton
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Re: The Universal Fire
Not to excuse Universal but many artists have lost their Masters, good thing the recording studios had safeties..
Another artist who insisted his Masters be returned lost them in a fire! Safeties once again at the studio.
So, luck of the draw.
Sally Grossman
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Re: The Universal Fire
Billy Squier masters just might be safe. Unless mistaken, it seems Universal acquired EMI (and hence Capitol) in 2012, which of course would be post-fire. Thank god.....
-- Greg Debonne
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Re: The Universal Fire
I trained under Jack Richardson in Canada. First thing he taught us was make duplicates of your multi tracks and keep the copies.
When the label couldn't find the Guess Who's master tapes, they came to Jack and had to pay. Best advice, I've been making copies since day one.
Jay Ruston
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Re: Karla Bonoff-This Week's Podcast
I made my first album almost by accident. I'm from Texas, but in the summer of 1996, I was couch surfing with a friend out in Venice, Ca., and ran across an old friend one afternoon on the boardwalk, who happened to be an A&R person at A&M Records at the time. That afternoon she offered to put me in the studio on the A&M lot to do a new demo. The next morning I showed up at the studio with no gear, no songs, no real ideas to speak of. I called a local DJ and asked to borrow his sampler, but he didn't show up until the second day. So I spent the entire first day just reading some of my short stories onto five different two-inch analog tapes. The second day my friend and I spent all day just coming up with random instrumental ideas from scratch, with no real idea what we were going to do with them. At the end of the day, the engineer pressed the button that had been muting my vocal track (on those same two-inch tapes) from the previous day. As it turned out, we had 14 "songs" that had been created this way, entirely by accident. The folks at A&M seemed to love what we had come up with, and for a couple of weeks we went back and forth trying to figure out how to strike some kind of cheap deal. (I, of course, had no manager or lawyer, or any sort of infrastructure at the time.) Anyway, the deal never came together, but cassettes of the sessions had somehow made their way into the hands of A&R folks at Geffen, and also the A&R staff at Irving Azoff's Giant Records. Both were interested… up until the moment that I told them that the masters were still in the vault at A&M. They loved the demo, but weren't willing to buy the masters from A&M. So there I was. Sitting on my friend's couch, wondering, "Did all of this really happen? Did I just make a record that is going to sit in a fucking vault forever? Will anyone ever believe that I had just made this album by accident?" Finally I got the courage to take matters into my own hands. I climbed onto an LA city bus (didn't have a car at the time), made my way into West Hollywood, and then screwed up the courage to try to get my masters back. Waited until after business hours, then walked right up to the front gate, and then lied to the guy at the desk about needing my tapes for a remix that I was doing at another studio across town. Imagine my surprise when the guy watching the vault handed them right over. There were five of them, weighing about twenty pounds each, but god damn if I didn't find a way to schlep them onto the bus back out to Venice. A month or so went by, and obviously no one from A&M ever noticed that the master tapes from my demo had disappeared. I ended up signing a deal with Virgin, did the entire Lollapalooza Tour that year, and went on to release the lowest-selling album in the history of the label. But at least it the damn thing came out.
PS - The album was nominated for a Grammy for "Best Spoken Word Album" in 1997. Hillary Clinton won that year for a Children's book on tape. Ten years after the album was originally released, a former exec at Virgin bough the rights to my album from them and then re-released it on his own imprint. He did it because he didn't think the record got a fair shot the first time. None of that would have ever happened if I had not of stolen my masters from the vault that night.
Jeffrey Liles
Cottonmouth, Texas
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Re: The Universal Fire
I became very good friends with Terry Melcher in the late 80s and early 90s.
I loved talking music history with him. About the 60s and the stories about CBS/Columbia as he brought the label out of the Mitch Miller Era and into the world of Rock.
While growing up and approaching my teen years, Dick Clark's Where The Action Is was in every weekdays on ABC and provided my insight to the world of rock. On the show, Paul Revere and the Raiders (along with Herman's Hermits) were essentially the house band. To me, that made both groups more important than they most likely were in reality.
As a result, I purchased virtually every Paul Revere and the Raiders albums at the time.
In the early 90s when CBS released the Paul Revere and the Raiders Box CD Set, I was dumbfounded to find many of the songs, such as "Let Me" (surprisingly their first Gold Record) was in mono. I knew I had it in Stereo.
As Melcher had produced so much of the early CBS product such as that and the Byrds, to name a few, I asked him what was going on with the Mono recordings.
He told me the story of how CBS/Columbia hired interns from UCLA/USC a Decade or so after his time.
Now today, with the Department of Labor and sue happy lawyers everywhere, the intern programs are very strict. Someone must constantly be overseeing interns as they cannot be doing real work unsupervised (at least in theory).
Not so back then.
Apparently these interns were told to clear out an area and, according to Melcher, a tremendous amount of Masters were thrown out by the interns. This may or may not be associated with the Billboard story from July of 1997 written by Bill Holland about CBS/Columbia cutting up metal tape reels and selling them for scrape metal. As Melcher has passed on, I cannot follow up with him.
Regardless, he told me I might be in possession of the only Paul Revere recordings in Stereo as apparently Sony/CBS/Legacy could not find ANY source for them while searching to make the box set.
Now Paul Revere and the Raiders might be arguably less important than some of the other artists you mentioned (and were in the NYT article), but one can only wonder what other masters were thrown out by the College Interns? And was the scrape metal story even accurate?
Then again, anyone who knows anything about tape knows that tape from roughly 1985-1990 had a defect that caused the lubricated backing to come off after a number of years. With the way they were wrapped on reels, this caused the backing to stick to the other side....the magnetic playing surface...of the tape.
Sadly, between tape defects and pure carelessness, I wonder how many masters have really been lost for the ages.
Randy Kabrich
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Re: The Universal Fire
I've been the owner or co-owner of four (4) Indie Record labels since the mid 80's. Acts like Valerie Carter, Vonda Shepard, Mary Karlzen, and all the session players who back up the headliners on the road and in the studio were my clients. I did it for the love of the music and the people I was working with.
My policy from day one was the Masters ALWAYS belong to the artists. There were exceptions, most often when artists had taken so many draws against the "next release" in some cases I begun writing "personal loan" and writing the check from my personal account as opposed to the label account. But that's both an exception to the rule and me digressing.
In the late 1990's I invested in a company called Y&T Records out of Miami Florida. There were 4 partners each contributing in their area of strength. Rich Ulloa, the best A&R man I've ever worked with on an indie label was 1 partner. Don't believe me? Ask Raúl Malo and The Mavericks who Rich found in a dive bar in Hialeah. Four Cuban- Americans playing traditional original Country Music for 20 people. Joel Levy, who owned Criteria Studios before he sold it to The Hit Factory. Yes, THAT Criteria, where Clapton made 461 Ocean Boulevard. This allowed us 100's of hours of studio time at no cost although it was mostly from 10:00 P.M. to 10:00 A.M. A local attorney, Steve Goldberg provided all legal services gratis. My job was to provide financing and my L.A. connections.
We had a well known local female singer / songwriter, Mary Karlzen. We got her music in front of some L.A. players and the result was an album entitled "Yelling At Mary," produced by Kevin McCormack, keyboards by Belmont Tench, Bob Glaub and Mark Goldenberg on guitar, the multi-talented Scotty Thurston, Greg Liesz on strings and Luis Conte played percussion. This was basically Jackson's touring band at the time and yes Jackson sat in on a song so we could advertise "Including a duet with Jackson Browne."
The album was picked up by Atlantic which was a division of Warner in 1995.
We were forced to break up the partnership due to the sale of Criteria as not only was it "our" recording studio but also Y&T's "offices."
Assembling all the Masters to insure each artist had theirs Rich realized Atlantic was holding the "Yelling At Mary" Masters. Although our partnership was technically dissolved he asked me to please lay out the funds to BUY the Masters back to gift to Mary. I never hesitated and wrote the check even though there was nothing in it for me except doing what I felt was the right thing by Mary.
That album has been released twice more since then including currently being available on Dualtone but Mary owns the Masters.
Of course artists should own their Masters with the exception of some extreme cases. Sorry for the excessive verbiage but you have to know the "backstory" for the point to make any sense.
Rob Halprin
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Re: The Universal Fire
The 2008 fire was indeed, to take Don McLean out of context, "the day the music died." I licensed a TON of masters from Universal back when it was MCA and the latter day owner of not only the expected Decca stuff but a vast array of smaller, now defunct labels. I was forever asking Universal/MCA for tracks I knew they owned but did not realize they had -- such as the pre-EMI 1960 Beatles recordings ("Ain't She Sweet," etc.) On one hand it was an advantage to license from Universal/MCA because I could get the output of many labels (A&M, Mercury, MGM, Uni, etc.) from a single source and thus get a bit of a quantity discount when assembling multi-label CD box sets. . But at the same time their growing near monopoly of masters worried me for two reasons. One was that Universal/MCA could easily take advantage of the vastness of their holdings and jack up their licensing fees. The other was -- WHAT IF THEY HAD A FIRE? Losing the archives of ONE label would be bad enough. But if what Universal was holding in mostly a single location went up in smoke, the enormity of the disaster would be staggering. Turns out -- it was and is.
I left Reader's Digest Music in 2002, having licensed material for some 300 mostly box sets over the previous 20 years which cumulatively sold in excess of 39 million copies. In some cases having the multi-track masters available proved essential to me as a box set compiler. An example was when I put together the "Carpenters: Their Greatest Hits & Finest Performances" 3 CD box set. I had Richard Carpenter go in and pull out of their "Now and Then" LP multitrack mix several annoying fake DJ overdubs. That allowed a string of favorite oldies the duo covered to be heard in full out in the clear for the very first time. Such a remix would not be possible today as all the Carpenters multi-track master recordings were burned up in the 2008 fire. After creating some box sets independently for other clients (like Guideposts), I finally stopped licensing tracks altogether in 2011.
The only saving grace in this disaster is that copies of the released music still exists in one form or another -- on CDs, LPs, 45s, 78s, etc.. However, copies are always inferior to first generation master recordings -- and it is those first generation masters which perished in the blaze. Why did Universal not take better care of their masters -- or at least get the fire out minutes after it first broke out?
It simply wasn't a priority. They didn't care -- which is so typical of the entertainment industry which always focuses on new material Be aware when you see a clip retrospective of vintage television that the clips you see are, as often as not, all that remains of the TV series they represent. When Jim Aubrey took over at CBS, he discovered his network was "wasting" valuable storage space filled with old black and white film and video. He ordered all of it destroyed -- and he wasn't alone. John Guedel, the producer of "You Bet Your Life,": once got a call from the foreman at the NBC archives in New Jersey. Guedel was asked if he wanted copies of any of the episodes as NBC was burning them all up. If he'd just pay the shipping costs --- which John gladly did. When the crates of film arrived on his doorstep, Guedel had Groucho come over with a 16mm projector. After watching a few episodes, Guedel said, "Well, Groucho. I don't know. They're old and black and white. Do you think anyone would want to air these shows again?" Groucho didn't know -- but he did have a friend over at Golden West Broadcasters (Channel 5) in L.A. he could ask. The guy at Channel 5 told Groucho that as a test he'd run episodes for 13 weeks but wouldn't pay anything for them. Groucho said fine and the shows aired. By the second week "You Bet Your Life" was #1 in its time period and wound up getting syndicated to more than 100 markets. But it came THAT CLOSE to bring lost forever. I told that story to Steve Allen one day and he said, "Do you think NBC burned up my old 'Tonight Show' episodes?" I said I didn't know -- and got to watch as Steve phoned NBC in New York and was told that, sure enough, NBC has incinerated all of Steve's episodes. (They also burned up Johnny Carson's early years on the show.) Pat Boone told me the only reason he has copies of his "Chevy Showroom" series is that an employee of ABC called him on day to report that all the "Chevy Showroom" episodes were out in a dumpster. After the death of Ernie Kovacs, ABC began erasing all of his shows -- until Ernie's widow, Edie Adams, stepped in and bought from them the tapes. How did Edie raise the money? By becoming "The White Owl Girl" in a long string of TV commercials. Soupy Sales and Metromedia were 50-50 owners of "The Soupy Sales Show" episodes for ten years -- after which all rights were to revert to Soupy. On the day Soupy walked in to pick up his tapes, he was told that Metromedia had recorded over all of them long before. Soupy then spent the rest of his life tracking down the lower-quality kinescopes of his shows syndicated to stations which did not have video playback equipment. He only found a few. Nearly all the recorded programming seen on the Dumont television network was dumped into New York's East River in 1971. There are tons of stories like these.
Why are 90% of the silent movies ever made now lost? A key reason was that studios then thought of films they way one might think of today's newspaper. After a short time, it's time-expired garbage. Why save it? So many movies -- including loads of sound ones -- are lost today due to studio short-sightedness and neglect. Why should the owners of music masters act any different -- properly archiving and storing their treasures in climate-controlled, fireproof locations? Well, first of all, they have to think of them as treasures
Imagine a yardstick -- with the earliest recordings ever made at one end and the latest releases at the other. Recordings that speak to and for your heart could have been cut at any point along that yardstick -- and as an archivist, I look at that yardstick's 36 inches full on. Every inch has "good stuff," "OK stuff" and a lot of crap -- right on up to the present day. The music industry itself looks that yardstick so much from the new end only it doesn't even see the other 35 3/4 inches -- and wants the public to view music in the very same way. What's important to them is not how good a recording is -- how well it speaks to and for your heart -- but how NEW it is. That's like having an art gallery in which every painting is discarded a month or so after it was first hung.
I welcome new music -- but stack it up against everything else ever recorded. Is it as good, better or worse? I'm all ears to find out. But if it's only good compared to the tiny sliver of tracks only a couple of months old or less -- well, to quote Shania Twain, "That don't impress me much."
Gary Theroux
"The History of Rock 'n' Roll"
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Subject: Re: Andy Slater-This Week's Podcast
Bob,
I was really moved by your podcast with Andy Slater. When I was around 19 years old, in 2004, Andy Slater told me that I "made the worst decision of my life". It's something that has stuck with me for the past 15 years. Let me explain.
In high school, I was the original drummer for a band called The Pages, that eventually changed their name to The Redwalls. In 2003, we released an album called Universal Blues on an indy label in Chicago. That album, Spotify link below, got the attention of most of the major labels. Soon after, as we were getting ready to graduate from high school, we started getting courted by the major labels and the band eventually signed with A&R rep Julian Raymond at Capital Records.
Along the way, we had many amazing experiences and met with some of the industry big wigs. I unfortunately was too young and naive to realize who was who at the time. We met with Gary Gersh in Chicago, who gave us an early copy of Mars Volta's first album. We flew out to LA with Wilco's previous drummer, Ken Coomer, who helped set up most of the major label showcases and ended up getting a large chunk of the signing bonus with Capitol. We missed our high school graduation rehearsal to play for most of the major labels in LA, one after another in a large practice room at SIR. We even had lunch with Seymour Stein at one of the best Jewish deli's in LA... wish I could remember which one. Might have been Canter's or Art's.
Long story short, I made the difficult decision to attend college instead of sign to Capital and earned a degree in Marketing and Sales Leadership at DePaul. The Redwalls flew me to LA in 2004 to be in their music video for a song called, "Thank You". It was a large production for a pretty basic video. At one point, Andy Slater stopped by the shoot the check in on things. That's where I was introduced to him as the previous drummer who decided to attend college instead of signing with Capital. Andy's response was that choosing college over staying with the band was the worst decision I've ever made in my life.
Hearing that from the President of Capitol Records at 19 years old was devastating. It was an influential time in my life and it felt like he was right. The Redwalls were getting a lot of attention and were on tour opening for Oasis, playing for massive crowds in soccer stadiums in Europe while I was in school. It was a depressing time in my life, however the path I chose has led to some great things and this podcast helped me feel like there's so much hope for better things to come.
When Andy talked about trying to find the reward in life after he went to rehab, and then lost the Smashing Pumpkins management gig, but then found the Fiona Apple demo tape... I got emotional. It's an amazing example that there are good things around the corner, even if you're constantly beaten down.
I've always been torn between the music and business worlds, and it's only been over the past few years that I've come to peace with my decision. I've had a 12 year career in the Salesforce.com technology ecosystem, and I've continued to play drums in multiple bands. I've played in over 50 bands since high school, and still do as much touring and recording as possible with my career in business.
The Redwalls ended up getting dropped a few years after they were signed by Capitol. They never sold enough albums to recoup and ended up breaking up a few years later. I still keep in touch with most of them, and funny enough I play more music than they do these days.
Not sure if you'll read this, but I've enjoyed reading your blog for many years and finally had the courage and reason to write back. Thanks for all of the honest writing and insights you've provided over the years. I've learned a lot from you... in music and life.
All the best,
Jordan Kozer
Subject: Re: Making Hits
I completely agree with your analysis of the music business. They want us all to believe the hot or important music all resides in hip hop or pop music. That simply is the furthest from the truth. It's self defeating. The labels want to make as much money as possible but yet only play in two sand boxes now limiting their earning power. It makes no sense and me as a music fan doesn't get the diversity of music that is out there without going on a scavenger hunt and hours of sifting through terrible music that is now so easy to put out.
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From: Keith Levy
Subject: Re: Album Bundles-From A Promoter
This is a beautifully succinct summary of the forced bundle. Thanks Craig as I will now forward this verbatim to any of my managers/labels when they ask me to tack the forced bundle onto the ticket. Also worth noting, that they almost always ask after the tour is booked, cleared, confirmed, and negotiated, as the agents are usually working further out than the labels when planning a tour vs a release.
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Re: Album Bundles-From A Promoter
From the artist point of view.
We (Melissa Etheridge & Management, who is an OG Concert West guy) looked at this every which way we could. Bundle with the ticket, sell at merch, and bundle in Fan Club package. We purchased BDS pre-scanned cd's from the label. Our thought at the time was to increase chart position, which would encourage airplay, which would encourage ticket sales. The truth was, all the fans already had the disc, which is probably true for those buying tickets to individual shows today. They are already fans, that's why they bought the ticket to the show. It's pretty simple. In my view it is not the artists responsibility to buy (which is as Craig so astutely pointed out) or sell the product. That's why you have a label. It's really sad how the hubris of all those execs let the business fall apart. The really smart ones sold out decades ago.
All the best,
Ken Deans
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Re: Karla Bonoff-This Week's Podcast
Thanks for the shout-out to Karla Bonoff, who deserves all the accolades you gave her. And I'd like to add that her first album was masterfully produced by the late Kenny Edwards, and as you mention, he made the songs and her vocals the center of the record, never letting the production get in the way.
Kenny was one of the under-appreciated secret weapons of the California Country Rock movement of the 70s. An original member of the Stone Poneys, he went on to a long career as a session and touring musician. One of the few multi-instrumentalists who could also sing harmony, he was proficient as a bassist, guitarist, banjo and mandolin player. He spent many years in Linda Ronstadt's touring band and is prominently featured on her newly-released live album.
His affiliation with Karla, however, may have been his most important contribution. They were both members of the band Bryndle along with Andrew Gold and Wendy Waldman. I saw them many times at McCabe's and other venues. Their harmony singing was amazing.
Kenny encouraged Karla's early attempts at songwriting, produced her albums, and up until his death, toured with her. I remember seeing the two of them at a club in upstate New York. Kenny opened the show and then provided instrumental and vocal support for Karla. It was one of those deliciously intimate musical evenings I won't forget.
Best,
John Boylan
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From: Rob Meder
Subject: Re: T-Mobile/Sprint
Agree agree agree. The importance of 5G cannot be overstated.
I cannot wait to cut the cord and stop paying Spectrum $200 for a bundle, bulk of which I don't use, just so I can have decent internet to the home. No other options where I live and that is a recipe for disaster with the net neutrality laws in tatters.
The Fins say something along the lines of - we never protect the job.. we only protect the worker. so if your job is going away - they don't prop up the industry. They invest in the worker so that they are prepared for the future that will happen no matter how hard we try to resist it. And they actually do it, real training, real investment. Works like a charm.
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From: Jeff Hanna
Subject: Re: Will The Circle Be Unbroken
Really enjoyed the piece on Jackson Browne, Get Lit and The Ash Grove Foundation. I've got great admiration for Jackson as an artist and as a human being. And yeah, he's funny, as well!
The Ash Grove was a huge part of our musical development. We'd hitchhike to Hollywood from Long Beach as kids to see folks like Doc Watson and Mississippi John Hurt play. Ed Pearl would use NGDB as an opening act a couple years later for Merle Travis and Lightning Hopkins among others. Great guy, Ed. Heard and met the Chambers Brothers there as well. Phenomenal..
Thanks for the shout-out on Will The Circle Be Unbroken. That record was life-changing for us.As you pointed out, that song has an amazing effect on people. We still sing it every night, and it always moves people. Power of song, indeed.
Thanks again, Bob
Jeff
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From: susan werner
Subject: Re: Will The Circle Be Unbroken
Bob -
I had the good fortune to get to open a few shows for George Carlin in 2007. Sitting backstage I said to him, "There aren't a lotta people who still mean it out there. You know? But you still mean it when you go onstage." He said, "Yup." I said, "Who else do you think still means it?" He answered, "Well, Tony Bennett." Then he thought a minute and said, "And Jackson Browne."
Susan Werner
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From: David Jensen
Subject: Re: Go Where You Wanna Go
Great stories...and here's more facts...as a hobby I find lost royalties for deserving musicians...alive and dead...about a year ago, I fell into some for Chuck Day...but who's Chuck Day???...turns out to be the Baby Daddy To Mama Cass...and he lived out his final days in an apartment atop the music club 19 Broadway in Fairfax up north here...it's a great story all around including gay husbands evading the draft and all...and eventually I got the lost royalties to Mama's daughter Owen...that's what I do...
You know how much the musicians have been screwed...this all needs more publicity...every State as the same system of Unclaimed Property...in Cali, it's the California State Controllers Office...Sorry, I never learned to cut and paste...Stevie Wonder has LOTS of lost monies in Sacramento...is he really that hard to find???...
Cheers, DJ
SF
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From: Charles Driebe
Subject: Re: Political Lessons
Bob -
The legendary gospel group Blind Boys of Alabama, who I have been managing for the last 20 years, have been 'standing their ground' for decades.
The late Clarence Fountain, who led the band from 1944 until a few years ago, used to tell the story of how he and the Blind Boys were in the same studio as Sam Cooke in the 1950s and were offered the same deal as Sam if they would 'cross over' to popular music. Clarence and the Blind Boys refused.
Since I have been managing the band, they have declined offers to sing their deep harmonies on songs with the biggest names in the business when the band determined the material to be insufficiently spiritual - in particular love songs. As the last original member and current leader of the band, Jimmy Carter, says 'If the song has the word 'baby' in it, it's not for us.'
When George W. Bush was in office, the band was invited to perform at the White House and they accepted out of respect for the office. But when they were later asked to sing at the Republican convention for the biggest fee they had ever been offered, they declined.
The Blind Boys of Alabama have principles and they stand up for them!
Best regards,
Charles Driebe, Esq.
blindambitionmgt.com
facebook.com/BlindAmbitionManagement
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From: Richard Foos
Although we've known each other for over 40 years? And I've read "the Lefsetz Letter" off and on ever since you started, I've never written you until now as I thought your column on Politics (6/4/2019) was so sad and true. Specifically the following line: "You've got to be able to say no. That's one thing a musician is no longer is capable of. If you're willing to pay, they'll show up. They'll even sing for dictators. There's no endorsement they won't sign on to. The whole enterprise is built on cash, and everybody wants some, in fact they want more." And I see this as particularily relevant because except for some country artists, Ted Nugent and Kid Rock, I've never heard of a musician who supports Donald Trump. Yet, according to a number of sources Warner Records owner Len Blavatnik donated a million dollars to Trump's inaugural campaign as well as 3.5 million to various McConnell PACS. And of course Mr. Blavatnik has every right to donate to whoever he wants and is a very generous philantrophist giving many millions to worthy causes, but just wondering how aware the artists on the various Warner labels are of his support of Trump and other prominent Republicans and if so how true the above comments you made are.
Richard Foos | Chairman, Shout! Factory
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From: Rich Waters
Subject: Re: WWDC 2019
Hi Bob,
I'm at wwdc. It's fun to see your enthusiasm about the keynote. I'm not sure I completely agree with everything you said, but you nailed it with:
"As for the iPad, it now has its own OS, but it will never be a desktop replacement"
I think there's a disconnect between who's actually using iPads (my 80-something mom) and who Apple wants to use iPads (people who care about multiple windows)
Aside from that, FWIW, the real excitement here among developers is about something called SwiftUI. There might have been more people at the "SwiftUI Essentials" session today than were at the keynote. Every seat was filled, and there were multiple layers of standing room. All developers.
Thanks,
-Rich
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From: Joel Silverman
Subject: Dean Torrence
Hi Bob,
I was a good friend with Dean's sister KT.
I'm sad you didn't talk a bit more about her.
She and her husband Keith Barr founded Alesis after they left MXR. They destroyed the commercial studio business with the invention of the ADAT. That product enabled musicians to record with the same or better quality than the gigantic 24-track machines. Studer even did a deal with them and came out with a Studer branded product.
KT was very talented artist that had to live in the shadow of her big brother.
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Subject: Re: What The Web Has Wrought
You are right on point again Bob!
Outside of my world of music, and unlike any piece of gear, computer or anything else I own that gets obsolete and runs slower with time, my Tesla is the gift that keeps on giving, the best money I have ever spent, comes with the best sound system and with every update the car gets better with more insane stupid funny stuff ( who would think of the "Santa Mode" or the "More Cowbell" mode!!!) but also it gets safer to drive and FASTER! And puts a stupid grin on my face whenever I summon it to drive to me driverless, or floor it on the highway and leave just about anybody behind with their foreign gas guzzlers or drive on autopilot to pick up my son in San Jose State University, stopping at a supercharger that looks like an airline airport club and the charge is free while I sip my espresso! Sick and tired of all the crap I read about Tesla or Musk.
As Neil DeGrasse Tyson says, he is the closest thing to Thomas Edison we got!
With all my best.
Philippe Saisse
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Subject: Re: News/Best Eric Clapton Album-Sirius XM This Week
I don't claim to be a know-it-all but do believe George Harrison (L'Angello Misterioso) played the rhythm guitar part at the beginning of the bridge on Badge (the C-G-D progression after the second verse). The beginning part played through a Leslie. He continues playing this part through the bridge while Clapton sings and then proceeds to play the lead guitar solo over Harrison's part.
Peace,
Rick McClanahan (and a few others)
from George Harrison's Facebook page:
George recorded "Badge" with Cream in late November 1968 in LA. George plays the main rhythm guitar. Written by Eric and George.
Guitar Player Interview, 1987:
Q: I always wondered about, speaking of collaboration, "Badge," the bridge part where the guitarist played through the Leslie. Is that you?
GH: No, that's where Eric enters. On the record Eric doesn't play guitar up until that bridge. So there was Felix, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker and me. I played the rhythm, the chops. And we played the song right up to the bridge, at which point Eric came in on the guitar on the Leslie. And then he overdubbed the solo part later.
Q: Did he write all the music?
GH: I wrote most of the words. Eric had that bridge, definitely. And he had a couple of chords I think. He called me up saying, "look, you know we're doing this last album and we've all got to have our song by Monday," or something. He came by and I think he had the first couple of chord changes, and then I joined in and finished the verses off. And then he had the middle bit already. I think I wrote most of the words to the song but he was there, and we bounced off of each other.
https://www.facebook.com/georgeharrison/posts/10153916284551345
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Re: The Universal Fire
It's important to note that some labels were more responsible than others and stored their masters in secure, fire and earthquake proof locations and to this day still do (Sony/BMG for instance). Fortunately the Blue Note catalog, though now part of UMe, was stored downtown L.A. in a very secure location. Those tapes, mostly Scotch 111 sound as good as the day they were first recorded.
It's also true that when vinyl "went away" and the mastering houses in Europe closed down along with many studios, masters and multitracks were simply tossed into dumpsters! It was mass insanity/hipnosis! I interviewed the great recording engineer Phill Brown (Talk Talk, Traffic, Small Faces etc.) who told me one day he got a call from someone who said "Hey mate! There's a dumpster in front of Trident full of tapes, and I noticed your name on some. Better go fetch them before they are landfill". And he did. But so much was tossed then too! Plenty of blame to go around.
Also, a great deal of the MCA/UNI/UMG/UMe catalog had been backed up to 1/2" 30 IPS safety copies and sent over to Universal's Hanover, Germany vaults (now located in the U.K.). I visited back in late 1990s and saw it. A friend reissued some A&M stuff a few years ago and was able to get those back ups for his all-analog reissues and they sound great. But losing much of the Chess, Impulse and Motown catalogs is an unbearable loss.
Also the Times story contains some inaccuracies. The Buddy Holly masters for instance, were not lost in the fire. Also at least four Skynyrd albums said to be lost are not…. and some Chess titles and others were out for vinyl remasters when the fire struck and those were saved (like "Muddy Waters Folk Snger").
Ironically, the best available sources for much of this lost material resides in the grooves of clean original pressings. The labels should be requesting high quality needle drops and UMe should stop trying to defend itself from bean counter stupidity. So lame. Fess up!
Michael Fremer
editor analogPlanet.com
Stereophile senior contributing editor
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Re: The Universal Fire
You haven't even scratched the surface of this story. There are companies that really try to care about their masters, such as Sony. Yet, there are enough horror stories about EMI and Universal (pre-merger) and their handling of assets to fill several books. Most of these stories have been on the street for years and are true.
Tom Cartwright
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Re: The Universal Fire
IN THE LATE 80'S"+ THEY STORED TAPES AT BEKINS!!!!
John Klemmer
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Re: The Universal Fire
I somewhere once downloaded a multi track of Stevie Wonder's Superstition. The absolute best part was hearing the horn players tapping their feet and talking to each other, like "Ok this is the bridge coming..." etc
I can't imagine what moments are lost in that material
Tears in the rain...
Chris Stein
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Re: The Universal Fire
THANK YOU.
I have a copy of everything I've ever mastered, and made sure the artist has a copy.
I've done a lot of studying on archiving...what lasts (e.g., tape stored properly), what doesn't (e.g., tape not stored properly). I digitize everything on Blu-Ray, even though most people don't get why it's an outstanding archival medium. (Well, at least it will be until you can't buy something that can read the data...)
Just remember: Digital data is not real until it exists in more than two places.
Craig Anderton
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Re: The Universal Fire
Not to excuse Universal but many artists have lost their Masters, good thing the recording studios had safeties..
Another artist who insisted his Masters be returned lost them in a fire! Safeties once again at the studio.
So, luck of the draw.
Sally Grossman
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Re: The Universal Fire
Billy Squier masters just might be safe. Unless mistaken, it seems Universal acquired EMI (and hence Capitol) in 2012, which of course would be post-fire. Thank god.....
-- Greg Debonne
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Re: The Universal Fire
I trained under Jack Richardson in Canada. First thing he taught us was make duplicates of your multi tracks and keep the copies.
When the label couldn't find the Guess Who's master tapes, they came to Jack and had to pay. Best advice, I've been making copies since day one.
Jay Ruston
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Re: Karla Bonoff-This Week's Podcast
I made my first album almost by accident. I'm from Texas, but in the summer of 1996, I was couch surfing with a friend out in Venice, Ca., and ran across an old friend one afternoon on the boardwalk, who happened to be an A&R person at A&M Records at the time. That afternoon she offered to put me in the studio on the A&M lot to do a new demo. The next morning I showed up at the studio with no gear, no songs, no real ideas to speak of. I called a local DJ and asked to borrow his sampler, but he didn't show up until the second day. So I spent the entire first day just reading some of my short stories onto five different two-inch analog tapes. The second day my friend and I spent all day just coming up with random instrumental ideas from scratch, with no real idea what we were going to do with them. At the end of the day, the engineer pressed the button that had been muting my vocal track (on those same two-inch tapes) from the previous day. As it turned out, we had 14 "songs" that had been created this way, entirely by accident. The folks at A&M seemed to love what we had come up with, and for a couple of weeks we went back and forth trying to figure out how to strike some kind of cheap deal. (I, of course, had no manager or lawyer, or any sort of infrastructure at the time.) Anyway, the deal never came together, but cassettes of the sessions had somehow made their way into the hands of A&R folks at Geffen, and also the A&R staff at Irving Azoff's Giant Records. Both were interested… up until the moment that I told them that the masters were still in the vault at A&M. They loved the demo, but weren't willing to buy the masters from A&M. So there I was. Sitting on my friend's couch, wondering, "Did all of this really happen? Did I just make a record that is going to sit in a fucking vault forever? Will anyone ever believe that I had just made this album by accident?" Finally I got the courage to take matters into my own hands. I climbed onto an LA city bus (didn't have a car at the time), made my way into West Hollywood, and then screwed up the courage to try to get my masters back. Waited until after business hours, then walked right up to the front gate, and then lied to the guy at the desk about needing my tapes for a remix that I was doing at another studio across town. Imagine my surprise when the guy watching the vault handed them right over. There were five of them, weighing about twenty pounds each, but god damn if I didn't find a way to schlep them onto the bus back out to Venice. A month or so went by, and obviously no one from A&M ever noticed that the master tapes from my demo had disappeared. I ended up signing a deal with Virgin, did the entire Lollapalooza Tour that year, and went on to release the lowest-selling album in the history of the label. But at least it the damn thing came out.
PS - The album was nominated for a Grammy for "Best Spoken Word Album" in 1997. Hillary Clinton won that year for a Children's book on tape. Ten years after the album was originally released, a former exec at Virgin bough the rights to my album from them and then re-released it on his own imprint. He did it because he didn't think the record got a fair shot the first time. None of that would have ever happened if I had not of stolen my masters from the vault that night.
Jeffrey Liles
Cottonmouth, Texas
______________________________________________
Re: The Universal Fire
I became very good friends with Terry Melcher in the late 80s and early 90s.
I loved talking music history with him. About the 60s and the stories about CBS/Columbia as he brought the label out of the Mitch Miller Era and into the world of Rock.
While growing up and approaching my teen years, Dick Clark's Where The Action Is was in every weekdays on ABC and provided my insight to the world of rock. On the show, Paul Revere and the Raiders (along with Herman's Hermits) were essentially the house band. To me, that made both groups more important than they most likely were in reality.
As a result, I purchased virtually every Paul Revere and the Raiders albums at the time.
In the early 90s when CBS released the Paul Revere and the Raiders Box CD Set, I was dumbfounded to find many of the songs, such as "Let Me" (surprisingly their first Gold Record) was in mono. I knew I had it in Stereo.
As Melcher had produced so much of the early CBS product such as that and the Byrds, to name a few, I asked him what was going on with the Mono recordings.
He told me the story of how CBS/Columbia hired interns from UCLA/USC a Decade or so after his time.
Now today, with the Department of Labor and sue happy lawyers everywhere, the intern programs are very strict. Someone must constantly be overseeing interns as they cannot be doing real work unsupervised (at least in theory).
Not so back then.
Apparently these interns were told to clear out an area and, according to Melcher, a tremendous amount of Masters were thrown out by the interns. This may or may not be associated with the Billboard story from July of 1997 written by Bill Holland about CBS/Columbia cutting up metal tape reels and selling them for scrape metal. As Melcher has passed on, I cannot follow up with him.
Regardless, he told me I might be in possession of the only Paul Revere recordings in Stereo as apparently Sony/CBS/Legacy could not find ANY source for them while searching to make the box set.
Now Paul Revere and the Raiders might be arguably less important than some of the other artists you mentioned (and were in the NYT article), but one can only wonder what other masters were thrown out by the College Interns? And was the scrape metal story even accurate?
Then again, anyone who knows anything about tape knows that tape from roughly 1985-1990 had a defect that caused the lubricated backing to come off after a number of years. With the way they were wrapped on reels, this caused the backing to stick to the other side....the magnetic playing surface...of the tape.
Sadly, between tape defects and pure carelessness, I wonder how many masters have really been lost for the ages.
Randy Kabrich
______________________________________________
Re: The Universal Fire
I've been the owner or co-owner of four (4) Indie Record labels since the mid 80's. Acts like Valerie Carter, Vonda Shepard, Mary Karlzen, and all the session players who back up the headliners on the road and in the studio were my clients. I did it for the love of the music and the people I was working with.
My policy from day one was the Masters ALWAYS belong to the artists. There were exceptions, most often when artists had taken so many draws against the "next release" in some cases I begun writing "personal loan" and writing the check from my personal account as opposed to the label account. But that's both an exception to the rule and me digressing.
In the late 1990's I invested in a company called Y&T Records out of Miami Florida. There were 4 partners each contributing in their area of strength. Rich Ulloa, the best A&R man I've ever worked with on an indie label was 1 partner. Don't believe me? Ask Raúl Malo and The Mavericks who Rich found in a dive bar in Hialeah. Four Cuban- Americans playing traditional original Country Music for 20 people. Joel Levy, who owned Criteria Studios before he sold it to The Hit Factory. Yes, THAT Criteria, where Clapton made 461 Ocean Boulevard. This allowed us 100's of hours of studio time at no cost although it was mostly from 10:00 P.M. to 10:00 A.M. A local attorney, Steve Goldberg provided all legal services gratis. My job was to provide financing and my L.A. connections.
We had a well known local female singer / songwriter, Mary Karlzen. We got her music in front of some L.A. players and the result was an album entitled "Yelling At Mary," produced by Kevin McCormack, keyboards by Belmont Tench, Bob Glaub and Mark Goldenberg on guitar, the multi-talented Scotty Thurston, Greg Liesz on strings and Luis Conte played percussion. This was basically Jackson's touring band at the time and yes Jackson sat in on a song so we could advertise "Including a duet with Jackson Browne."
The album was picked up by Atlantic which was a division of Warner in 1995.
We were forced to break up the partnership due to the sale of Criteria as not only was it "our" recording studio but also Y&T's "offices."
Assembling all the Masters to insure each artist had theirs Rich realized Atlantic was holding the "Yelling At Mary" Masters. Although our partnership was technically dissolved he asked me to please lay out the funds to BUY the Masters back to gift to Mary. I never hesitated and wrote the check even though there was nothing in it for me except doing what I felt was the right thing by Mary.
That album has been released twice more since then including currently being available on Dualtone but Mary owns the Masters.
Of course artists should own their Masters with the exception of some extreme cases. Sorry for the excessive verbiage but you have to know the "backstory" for the point to make any sense.
Rob Halprin
______________________________________________
Re: The Universal Fire
The 2008 fire was indeed, to take Don McLean out of context, "the day the music died." I licensed a TON of masters from Universal back when it was MCA and the latter day owner of not only the expected Decca stuff but a vast array of smaller, now defunct labels. I was forever asking Universal/MCA for tracks I knew they owned but did not realize they had -- such as the pre-EMI 1960 Beatles recordings ("Ain't She Sweet," etc.) On one hand it was an advantage to license from Universal/MCA because I could get the output of many labels (A&M, Mercury, MGM, Uni, etc.) from a single source and thus get a bit of a quantity discount when assembling multi-label CD box sets. . But at the same time their growing near monopoly of masters worried me for two reasons. One was that Universal/MCA could easily take advantage of the vastness of their holdings and jack up their licensing fees. The other was -- WHAT IF THEY HAD A FIRE? Losing the archives of ONE label would be bad enough. But if what Universal was holding in mostly a single location went up in smoke, the enormity of the disaster would be staggering. Turns out -- it was and is.
I left Reader's Digest Music in 2002, having licensed material for some 300 mostly box sets over the previous 20 years which cumulatively sold in excess of 39 million copies. In some cases having the multi-track masters available proved essential to me as a box set compiler. An example was when I put together the "Carpenters: Their Greatest Hits & Finest Performances" 3 CD box set. I had Richard Carpenter go in and pull out of their "Now and Then" LP multitrack mix several annoying fake DJ overdubs. That allowed a string of favorite oldies the duo covered to be heard in full out in the clear for the very first time. Such a remix would not be possible today as all the Carpenters multi-track master recordings were burned up in the 2008 fire. After creating some box sets independently for other clients (like Guideposts), I finally stopped licensing tracks altogether in 2011.
The only saving grace in this disaster is that copies of the released music still exists in one form or another -- on CDs, LPs, 45s, 78s, etc.. However, copies are always inferior to first generation master recordings -- and it is those first generation masters which perished in the blaze. Why did Universal not take better care of their masters -- or at least get the fire out minutes after it first broke out?
It simply wasn't a priority. They didn't care -- which is so typical of the entertainment industry which always focuses on new material Be aware when you see a clip retrospective of vintage television that the clips you see are, as often as not, all that remains of the TV series they represent. When Jim Aubrey took over at CBS, he discovered his network was "wasting" valuable storage space filled with old black and white film and video. He ordered all of it destroyed -- and he wasn't alone. John Guedel, the producer of "You Bet Your Life,": once got a call from the foreman at the NBC archives in New Jersey. Guedel was asked if he wanted copies of any of the episodes as NBC was burning them all up. If he'd just pay the shipping costs --- which John gladly did. When the crates of film arrived on his doorstep, Guedel had Groucho come over with a 16mm projector. After watching a few episodes, Guedel said, "Well, Groucho. I don't know. They're old and black and white. Do you think anyone would want to air these shows again?" Groucho didn't know -- but he did have a friend over at Golden West Broadcasters (Channel 5) in L.A. he could ask. The guy at Channel 5 told Groucho that as a test he'd run episodes for 13 weeks but wouldn't pay anything for them. Groucho said fine and the shows aired. By the second week "You Bet Your Life" was #1 in its time period and wound up getting syndicated to more than 100 markets. But it came THAT CLOSE to bring lost forever. I told that story to Steve Allen one day and he said, "Do you think NBC burned up my old 'Tonight Show' episodes?" I said I didn't know -- and got to watch as Steve phoned NBC in New York and was told that, sure enough, NBC has incinerated all of Steve's episodes. (They also burned up Johnny Carson's early years on the show.) Pat Boone told me the only reason he has copies of his "Chevy Showroom" series is that an employee of ABC called him on day to report that all the "Chevy Showroom" episodes were out in a dumpster. After the death of Ernie Kovacs, ABC began erasing all of his shows -- until Ernie's widow, Edie Adams, stepped in and bought from them the tapes. How did Edie raise the money? By becoming "The White Owl Girl" in a long string of TV commercials. Soupy Sales and Metromedia were 50-50 owners of "The Soupy Sales Show" episodes for ten years -- after which all rights were to revert to Soupy. On the day Soupy walked in to pick up his tapes, he was told that Metromedia had recorded over all of them long before. Soupy then spent the rest of his life tracking down the lower-quality kinescopes of his shows syndicated to stations which did not have video playback equipment. He only found a few. Nearly all the recorded programming seen on the Dumont television network was dumped into New York's East River in 1971. There are tons of stories like these.
Why are 90% of the silent movies ever made now lost? A key reason was that studios then thought of films they way one might think of today's newspaper. After a short time, it's time-expired garbage. Why save it? So many movies -- including loads of sound ones -- are lost today due to studio short-sightedness and neglect. Why should the owners of music masters act any different -- properly archiving and storing their treasures in climate-controlled, fireproof locations? Well, first of all, they have to think of them as treasures
Imagine a yardstick -- with the earliest recordings ever made at one end and the latest releases at the other. Recordings that speak to and for your heart could have been cut at any point along that yardstick -- and as an archivist, I look at that yardstick's 36 inches full on. Every inch has "good stuff," "OK stuff" and a lot of crap -- right on up to the present day. The music industry itself looks that yardstick so much from the new end only it doesn't even see the other 35 3/4 inches -- and wants the public to view music in the very same way. What's important to them is not how good a recording is -- how well it speaks to and for your heart -- but how NEW it is. That's like having an art gallery in which every painting is discarded a month or so after it was first hung.
I welcome new music -- but stack it up against everything else ever recorded. Is it as good, better or worse? I'm all ears to find out. But if it's only good compared to the tiny sliver of tracks only a couple of months old or less -- well, to quote Shania Twain, "That don't impress me much."
Gary Theroux
"The History of Rock 'n' Roll"
______________________________________________
Subject: Re: Andy Slater-This Week's Podcast
Bob,
I was really moved by your podcast with Andy Slater. When I was around 19 years old, in 2004, Andy Slater told me that I "made the worst decision of my life". It's something that has stuck with me for the past 15 years. Let me explain.
In high school, I was the original drummer for a band called The Pages, that eventually changed their name to The Redwalls. In 2003, we released an album called Universal Blues on an indy label in Chicago. That album, Spotify link below, got the attention of most of the major labels. Soon after, as we were getting ready to graduate from high school, we started getting courted by the major labels and the band eventually signed with A&R rep Julian Raymond at Capital Records.
Along the way, we had many amazing experiences and met with some of the industry big wigs. I unfortunately was too young and naive to realize who was who at the time. We met with Gary Gersh in Chicago, who gave us an early copy of Mars Volta's first album. We flew out to LA with Wilco's previous drummer, Ken Coomer, who helped set up most of the major label showcases and ended up getting a large chunk of the signing bonus with Capitol. We missed our high school graduation rehearsal to play for most of the major labels in LA, one after another in a large practice room at SIR. We even had lunch with Seymour Stein at one of the best Jewish deli's in LA... wish I could remember which one. Might have been Canter's or Art's.
Long story short, I made the difficult decision to attend college instead of sign to Capital and earned a degree in Marketing and Sales Leadership at DePaul. The Redwalls flew me to LA in 2004 to be in their music video for a song called, "Thank You". It was a large production for a pretty basic video. At one point, Andy Slater stopped by the shoot the check in on things. That's where I was introduced to him as the previous drummer who decided to attend college instead of signing with Capital. Andy's response was that choosing college over staying with the band was the worst decision I've ever made in my life.
Hearing that from the President of Capitol Records at 19 years old was devastating. It was an influential time in my life and it felt like he was right. The Redwalls were getting a lot of attention and were on tour opening for Oasis, playing for massive crowds in soccer stadiums in Europe while I was in school. It was a depressing time in my life, however the path I chose has led to some great things and this podcast helped me feel like there's so much hope for better things to come.
When Andy talked about trying to find the reward in life after he went to rehab, and then lost the Smashing Pumpkins management gig, but then found the Fiona Apple demo tape... I got emotional. It's an amazing example that there are good things around the corner, even if you're constantly beaten down.
I've always been torn between the music and business worlds, and it's only been over the past few years that I've come to peace with my decision. I've had a 12 year career in the Salesforce.com technology ecosystem, and I've continued to play drums in multiple bands. I've played in over 50 bands since high school, and still do as much touring and recording as possible with my career in business.
The Redwalls ended up getting dropped a few years after they were signed by Capitol. They never sold enough albums to recoup and ended up breaking up a few years later. I still keep in touch with most of them, and funny enough I play more music than they do these days.
Not sure if you'll read this, but I've enjoyed reading your blog for many years and finally had the courage and reason to write back. Thanks for all of the honest writing and insights you've provided over the years. I've learned a lot from you... in music and life.
All the best,
Jordan Kozer
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Thursday, 13 June 2019
Karla Bonoff-This Week's Podcast
Quite possibly the best songwriter of her generation, Karla's most famous for the Linda Ronstadt covers, but her own versions have more emotion and both resonate and sting, depending upon the track.
Of course I saw the credits for the cuts on "Hasten Down The Wind," but the real revelation was when Karla's first LP was released. Her versions were less produced, her voice was less bombastic and...those lyrics play in my head all the time!
"Someone To Lay Down Beside Me":
"Still you know that may be what I need
Is someone to lay down beside me
And even though it's not real
Just someone to lay down beside me
You're the story of my life"
We all need touch, comfort, sex, understanding, and when you don't get it you yearn for it.
And "If He's Ever Near":
"They say just once in life
You find someone that's right
But the world looks so confused
I can't tell false from true
And love's so hard to find
In this state of mind
Oh, I hope I'll know him
I hope I'll know him
If he's ever near"
We're looking, do we trust our judgment, will we know..?
"Rose In The Garden":
"There's a rose in the garden
It will bloom if you're sure
That you pay close attention
But leave it room
I'm not telling any lies now
I need you
You know how
I think I can see how to let you grow
I've got to let you go"
Whoa! This is not the typical love song, even though Karla sings "We've been here for so long now, I see your soul in me". That's closeness. And unless you married your high school sweetheart, you've been here, you're so close, but it can't work. It's so painful.
"Isn't It Always Love"
"Isn't it always love that makes you hang your head
Isn't it always love that makes you cry
And isn't it always love that takes the tears away
And I wouldn't have it any other way"
The track is upbeat, but the message is important. Life has its ups and downs, it's your job to ride the pony. Too many people give up, find someone new, when the truth is they need to stick with what they've got, develop it, change.
"When you find someone that's true to you
Some days are up and oh some days are blue
Just don't go and throw it all away
Wait a minute, you gotta hear what I say"
Those cuts are all on the Columbia debut.
But in 1988, Karla dropped the album "New World," which is marred a bit by the dated production, but contains just as much wisdom.
"Goodbye My Friend":
"Oh we never know where life will take us
We know it's just a ride on the wheel
And we never know when death will shake us
And we wonder how it will feel"
This is the song I played on 9/11. And now with so many of my friends sick and dying...
"All My Life":
"Am I really here in your arms
This is just like I dreamed it would be
I feel like we're frozen in time
And you're the only one I can see
And hey
I've looked all my life for you
Now you're here
And hey
I'll spend all my life with you
All my life"
It's the flip side of "Rose In The Garden," she's decided he's here and she recognizes it.
And "Still Be Getting Over You." All you need to know is the title. We're human, we have emotions, we just can't jump from one situation to another...the thoughts, the feelings, live on.
Now Karla's got a new album, "Carry Me Home," where she rerecords some of her best songs, and includes a take of Jackson Browne's "Something Fine," to boot.
Listen here: https://spoti.fi/2wRobYj
But be sure to also listen to the self-titled debut: https://spoti.fi/2IEwbS8
And hell, if you like that, listen to "New World": https://spoti.fi/2wTT2ne
Most songs are of a time, they're dated, they're a return to what once was.
But Karla Bonoff nails life, her songs are as relevant now as they ever were.
Furthermore, she's regularly on tour. You should see her. Sit in the audience as you ponder your life and tingle.
iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/karla-bonoff/id1316200737?i=1000441378471
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4YqsEAVyf3Ye1YcXoX1i2r
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=61886606
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Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Of course I saw the credits for the cuts on "Hasten Down The Wind," but the real revelation was when Karla's first LP was released. Her versions were less produced, her voice was less bombastic and...those lyrics play in my head all the time!
"Someone To Lay Down Beside Me":
"Still you know that may be what I need
Is someone to lay down beside me
And even though it's not real
Just someone to lay down beside me
You're the story of my life"
We all need touch, comfort, sex, understanding, and when you don't get it you yearn for it.
And "If He's Ever Near":
"They say just once in life
You find someone that's right
But the world looks so confused
I can't tell false from true
And love's so hard to find
In this state of mind
Oh, I hope I'll know him
I hope I'll know him
If he's ever near"
We're looking, do we trust our judgment, will we know..?
"Rose In The Garden":
"There's a rose in the garden
It will bloom if you're sure
That you pay close attention
But leave it room
I'm not telling any lies now
I need you
You know how
I think I can see how to let you grow
I've got to let you go"
Whoa! This is not the typical love song, even though Karla sings "We've been here for so long now, I see your soul in me". That's closeness. And unless you married your high school sweetheart, you've been here, you're so close, but it can't work. It's so painful.
"Isn't It Always Love"
"Isn't it always love that makes you hang your head
Isn't it always love that makes you cry
And isn't it always love that takes the tears away
And I wouldn't have it any other way"
The track is upbeat, but the message is important. Life has its ups and downs, it's your job to ride the pony. Too many people give up, find someone new, when the truth is they need to stick with what they've got, develop it, change.
"When you find someone that's true to you
Some days are up and oh some days are blue
Just don't go and throw it all away
Wait a minute, you gotta hear what I say"
Those cuts are all on the Columbia debut.
But in 1988, Karla dropped the album "New World," which is marred a bit by the dated production, but contains just as much wisdom.
"Goodbye My Friend":
"Oh we never know where life will take us
We know it's just a ride on the wheel
And we never know when death will shake us
And we wonder how it will feel"
This is the song I played on 9/11. And now with so many of my friends sick and dying...
"All My Life":
"Am I really here in your arms
This is just like I dreamed it would be
I feel like we're frozen in time
And you're the only one I can see
And hey
I've looked all my life for you
Now you're here
And hey
I'll spend all my life with you
All my life"
It's the flip side of "Rose In The Garden," she's decided he's here and she recognizes it.
And "Still Be Getting Over You." All you need to know is the title. We're human, we have emotions, we just can't jump from one situation to another...the thoughts, the feelings, live on.
Now Karla's got a new album, "Carry Me Home," where she rerecords some of her best songs, and includes a take of Jackson Browne's "Something Fine," to boot.
Listen here: https://spoti.fi/2wRobYj
But be sure to also listen to the self-titled debut: https://spoti.fi/2IEwbS8
And hell, if you like that, listen to "New World": https://spoti.fi/2wTT2ne
Most songs are of a time, they're dated, they're a return to what once was.
But Karla Bonoff nails life, her songs are as relevant now as they ever were.
Furthermore, she's regularly on tour. You should see her. Sit in the audience as you ponder your life and tingle.
iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/karla-bonoff/id1316200737?i=1000441378471
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4YqsEAVyf3Ye1YcXoX1i2r
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=61886606
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Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
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Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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The Universal Fire
"The Day the Music Burned": https://nyti.ms/2F3ZpZq
Artists should own their masters.
Executives come and go, the tracks they're in custody of are forever.
In other words, acts care more about their material than any executive, IT'S THEIR LIFE'S WORK!
Now in the book publishing world the author owns the copyright, even if the book is a loser. How come not in the music industry? Especially when the act is in profits and has paid for the recording of the album. Not to mention, it's not a dollar for dollar reimbursement, no, recoupment is based on your royalty rate. In other words, if you're a newbie with a bad deal it takes longer to recoup than if you're a star with a better one. Aren't costs costs? Not in the record business, where the acts are slaves. And with 360 deals, the labels have an interest in all income streams, the acts are tied to the label, and if they've got a bad deal they can't make any money. This is fair? NO!
Now the problem with the major labels is no one who works there has skin in the game. They're not playing with their own money. If you own the label you know your masters are your lifeblood, they're all you've got, you want to protect them. When you sell out, the purchaser is buying your catalog first and foremost, especially if you've been in business for decades. But if you don't own the label, if you're working for the man, why in hell would you want to protect the company's back assets? You weren't involved in creating them, you don't own them, the revenues derived from them don't represent the majority of your paycheck. And you want to make your bonus, why would you add costs to your detriment? Because the assets are a national treasure? That goes against the self-interest that has taken root over the past few decades in the U.S., never mind instinct.
So the acts are victims.
But it gets worse, you've got the duplicity of Universal itself. I remember when the fire happened, I bought the line that everything had been digitized, that these were safeties, that nothing of value was lost...BUT THAT WAS A LIE!
And now Universal is trying to cover up with subterfuge, saying that good enough copies exist, that the material wasn't lost forever... BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT! Universal is just like a man accused of bad behavior, rather than admitting it, it's denying it, making excuses.
So the public is pissed.
This was the most popular story in "The New York Times" and it hasn't even hit print yet! Because these songs are the lifeblood of the audience, they're what make life worth living. Movies are larger than life, music is life itself.
And fans are never satiated. They want to hear the work tapes, the alternative takes. Hell, the Beatles sold multiple CDs of outtakes. Imagine if Universal had been in control of THEIR tapes!
Universal owns them, but the Beatles are savvy enough to have not coughed them up.
Actually, many acts don't cough them up. And then there are the acts that leave them in the studios they've been working in, especially mastering. They seem to care less than Universal. Until income dries up and they want to maximize what's in the vault and they find there's nothing in it.
And yes, the original copy is the best. Talk to anybody who's been in the studio. The sound comes out of the speakers and you're wowed. Getting closer to the original sound was a big thing in the sixties and seventies, ergo the audio revolution, when everybody bought a big rig. Those days are coming back, maybe not with big rigs, but technology keeps improving which will ultimately let us get closer to the sound. But if the original doesn't exist, this is a problem.
And what were the tapes doing in that facility on the Universal lot anyway. Everybody knows that storage is key. We're told to stack our vinyl vertically, not too tight, to keep it away from heat, but those who manufacture it care not a whit about the masters? Temperature-controlled, fireproof, these are not exotic concepts, it's just that Universal didn't care enough, it took its eye off the ball. Hell, Doug Morris is long gone. And Lucian can say it's not his fault. But this is the problem with corporations, they continue to exist but the leaders change, there's no accountability.
But the acts... They're not faceless. Their music is their statement, their income, it is everything. A manager can always get a new act, the act is itself for all time. To the point where a mistake can ruin your career. Can you say Billy Squier's pink video? But at least Squier can continue to get paid for airplay from his monster LP "Don't Say No," which ironically is on Capitol. You know that Billy would love to sell alternative mixes, outtakes, anything to bring in income, but now he can't.
All those albums on Geffen?
As for digitization... We were told that CDs were perfect copies, turns out they weren't. Sure, it was a learning process, but also better, more accurate, recording formats/transfers have been invented since.
But the original never changes, it remains the same. You want to get to the source, reproduce it as well as possible. But if that's impossible?
So the public at large is up in arms because of the significance of the loss. These tracks are the building blocks of their lives, the foundation, to wipe them out is like destroying the Twin Towers. Oh, maybe that's a low blow, but in some ways this is even worse. Yes, copies remain, but what was lost impacts even more people. I just can't fathom that Joni Mitchell masters, and Don Henley masters, went up in smoke, are gone forever. Iconic musicians and material... Gone. Because someone just did not care enough. No bomb was dropped, no act of terrorism was involved, Universal just did not care enough.
Universal should do a mea culpa and produce a list of exactly what was lost, as a public service. Universal should not be adversarial, it should be on our side, it should be on the music's side. This is like having a fire at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and being told that nothing of value was lost and furthermore they're never going to tell you what it is. The conservation, the well-being of these recordings, is a national trust. Believe me, if this was a government organization, there'd be hearings, people would lose their jobs. For those who say the public sector does better, this proves in some cases it does not. Universal SKATES! Tells the insurance company the breadth of its loss and then denies it to everybody else. Hell, they haven't even told the artists what's been lost!
Loss happens. Tragedy occurs. We ultimately deal with it, accept it, and then institute procedures so it won't happen again.
Unless there's a cover-up.
Universal put in peril the essential fuel, the only asset the company is built upon. It deserves the backlash, it needs to be held accountable.
And this must be a warning to labels...keep your assets, your recordings safe.
And it must also be a warning to artists. DON'T COUGH UP YOUR MASTERS! Send the label copies. Hold on to your work because nobody cares about it as much as you. And the public.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Artists should own their masters.
Executives come and go, the tracks they're in custody of are forever.
In other words, acts care more about their material than any executive, IT'S THEIR LIFE'S WORK!
Now in the book publishing world the author owns the copyright, even if the book is a loser. How come not in the music industry? Especially when the act is in profits and has paid for the recording of the album. Not to mention, it's not a dollar for dollar reimbursement, no, recoupment is based on your royalty rate. In other words, if you're a newbie with a bad deal it takes longer to recoup than if you're a star with a better one. Aren't costs costs? Not in the record business, where the acts are slaves. And with 360 deals, the labels have an interest in all income streams, the acts are tied to the label, and if they've got a bad deal they can't make any money. This is fair? NO!
Now the problem with the major labels is no one who works there has skin in the game. They're not playing with their own money. If you own the label you know your masters are your lifeblood, they're all you've got, you want to protect them. When you sell out, the purchaser is buying your catalog first and foremost, especially if you've been in business for decades. But if you don't own the label, if you're working for the man, why in hell would you want to protect the company's back assets? You weren't involved in creating them, you don't own them, the revenues derived from them don't represent the majority of your paycheck. And you want to make your bonus, why would you add costs to your detriment? Because the assets are a national treasure? That goes against the self-interest that has taken root over the past few decades in the U.S., never mind instinct.
So the acts are victims.
But it gets worse, you've got the duplicity of Universal itself. I remember when the fire happened, I bought the line that everything had been digitized, that these were safeties, that nothing of value was lost...BUT THAT WAS A LIE!
And now Universal is trying to cover up with subterfuge, saying that good enough copies exist, that the material wasn't lost forever... BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT! Universal is just like a man accused of bad behavior, rather than admitting it, it's denying it, making excuses.
So the public is pissed.
This was the most popular story in "The New York Times" and it hasn't even hit print yet! Because these songs are the lifeblood of the audience, they're what make life worth living. Movies are larger than life, music is life itself.
And fans are never satiated. They want to hear the work tapes, the alternative takes. Hell, the Beatles sold multiple CDs of outtakes. Imagine if Universal had been in control of THEIR tapes!
Universal owns them, but the Beatles are savvy enough to have not coughed them up.
Actually, many acts don't cough them up. And then there are the acts that leave them in the studios they've been working in, especially mastering. They seem to care less than Universal. Until income dries up and they want to maximize what's in the vault and they find there's nothing in it.
And yes, the original copy is the best. Talk to anybody who's been in the studio. The sound comes out of the speakers and you're wowed. Getting closer to the original sound was a big thing in the sixties and seventies, ergo the audio revolution, when everybody bought a big rig. Those days are coming back, maybe not with big rigs, but technology keeps improving which will ultimately let us get closer to the sound. But if the original doesn't exist, this is a problem.
And what were the tapes doing in that facility on the Universal lot anyway. Everybody knows that storage is key. We're told to stack our vinyl vertically, not too tight, to keep it away from heat, but those who manufacture it care not a whit about the masters? Temperature-controlled, fireproof, these are not exotic concepts, it's just that Universal didn't care enough, it took its eye off the ball. Hell, Doug Morris is long gone. And Lucian can say it's not his fault. But this is the problem with corporations, they continue to exist but the leaders change, there's no accountability.
But the acts... They're not faceless. Their music is their statement, their income, it is everything. A manager can always get a new act, the act is itself for all time. To the point where a mistake can ruin your career. Can you say Billy Squier's pink video? But at least Squier can continue to get paid for airplay from his monster LP "Don't Say No," which ironically is on Capitol. You know that Billy would love to sell alternative mixes, outtakes, anything to bring in income, but now he can't.
All those albums on Geffen?
As for digitization... We were told that CDs were perfect copies, turns out they weren't. Sure, it was a learning process, but also better, more accurate, recording formats/transfers have been invented since.
But the original never changes, it remains the same. You want to get to the source, reproduce it as well as possible. But if that's impossible?
So the public at large is up in arms because of the significance of the loss. These tracks are the building blocks of their lives, the foundation, to wipe them out is like destroying the Twin Towers. Oh, maybe that's a low blow, but in some ways this is even worse. Yes, copies remain, but what was lost impacts even more people. I just can't fathom that Joni Mitchell masters, and Don Henley masters, went up in smoke, are gone forever. Iconic musicians and material... Gone. Because someone just did not care enough. No bomb was dropped, no act of terrorism was involved, Universal just did not care enough.
Universal should do a mea culpa and produce a list of exactly what was lost, as a public service. Universal should not be adversarial, it should be on our side, it should be on the music's side. This is like having a fire at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and being told that nothing of value was lost and furthermore they're never going to tell you what it is. The conservation, the well-being of these recordings, is a national trust. Believe me, if this was a government organization, there'd be hearings, people would lose their jobs. For those who say the public sector does better, this proves in some cases it does not. Universal SKATES! Tells the insurance company the breadth of its loss and then denies it to everybody else. Hell, they haven't even told the artists what's been lost!
Loss happens. Tragedy occurs. We ultimately deal with it, accept it, and then institute procedures so it won't happen again.
Unless there's a cover-up.
Universal put in peril the essential fuel, the only asset the company is built upon. It deserves the backlash, it needs to be held accountable.
And this must be a warning to labels...keep your assets, your recordings safe.
And it must also be a warning to artists. DON'T COUGH UP YOUR MASTERS! Send the label copies. Hold on to your work because nobody cares about it as much as you. And the public.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1
If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
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Wednesday, 12 June 2019
The Lay Of The Land
The right knows it got screwed by globalization.
The left still thinks it will work for them. At least the educated left, in control of the Democratic Party. These professionals and high-earners believe that change can happen just as long as it doesn't affect their wealth too much, that they can ride this horse into the future via a bit of compromise and that the problem is Trump.
WRONG!
It's not the mainstream Republicans who believed in Trump, as a matter of fact, they anointed Jeb Bush. And now that Trump is actually President, they're aligning with him, knowing that their party has been taken over by the rank and file, who've been left behind in the last forty years, and are looking for hope.
Hillary didn't embody hope, and neither does Biden. They're just more of the same. And that's not gonna work anymore.
I'd say we're in uncharted territory, but that's only true of the establishment, believing it is safe in its power, that money rules, and only the most experienced get to steer.
Oh, don't tell me about the evangelicals, or the racists, sure, they've been enabled by Trump, but the reason the real estate developer won is that he spoke to the disenfranchised. Someone must be responsible for their drop in income and living standard. Make it the immigrants. Make it the left with their welfare state. Make it anybody but themselves. Which is kind of weird, since the Republican ethos is individual responsibility.
On the left, the intelligentsia in charge has contempt for everybody sans a college diploma, and is so busy arguing identity politics when a slew of voters just want to put food on the table. This is another thing the Democrats don't understand. When you're starving, the cuisine doesn't matter, any food will do. Once your belly is full you can debate what's coming from the kitchen.
So the issues of the left are protection for the religious freedom of Muslims and more jobs for women and a greater focus on rapists. Of course these are all good causes...BUT THEY DON'T RESONATE WITH THE RANK AND FILE! It's not that they don't have opinions on these issues, it's just that they're dealing with bigger ones, like the loss of their jobs. They want someone who's going to give them hope for the future. Trump might have lied, but that was his promise. Furthermore, Trump was speaking English, as opposed to arguing about trigger warnings, getting so caught up in what is right and doesn't negatively impact any special interest group that the message ends up broad without bullet points.
But that's the way the leaders of the Democratic Party want it.
Everybody wants to stay in control, nobody wants to lose their job. Meanwhile, the Clintons have gone on to become fabulously wealthy after losing their gigs, and there's not even a sufficient safety net for the blue collar worker. OF COURSE it's the right that wants to eviscerate the safety net, but the left can't get its messaging right, it's too busy infighting, too wimpy to put one foot forward. So, the blue collar Democrat votes for Trump, at least there's a possibility of change.
But the left is afraid of alienating potential voters. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?? Trump supporters will kick and scream, but Democratic voters will think the party has a backbone, whether it succeeds in getting rid of Trump or not. Certainly Nancy Pelosi is a brilliant politician, but she's using an old playbook, the younger generation wants a voice, the younger generation wants CHANGE!
This is what oldsters cannot fathom. The anger, disillusionment and debt of the youngsters. All boomers can do is excoriate millennials. You've read it, they need hand-holding, positive reinforcement, you can't say anything negative to them. This has become the perception, is it any wonder that the younger generation is disillusioned?
Now if you're a professional golfer, you play to win, you go for it, because once you lay up, play it safe, you lose your edge and you never know when a competitor will get hot.
But the Democratic Party refuses to play to win. Whether it be combating the right or running a candidate who is going to push the envelope and institute change.
Biden's strategy is to run out the clock. To say nothing until Election Day, and have all the anti-Trumpers vote for him. That's not a recipe for success, that's a recipe for disaster. Whenever you play it safe you lose, can you say Kerry, can you say McCain?
And the Democrats always point to McGovern's defeat. Saying if you run too far left you'll lose, the center won't accept you. But that was back in '72! Furthermore, society was much less tribal back then, even though we still view it as the hippies versus the rednecks, the political division was not as great as today. And ALMOST NO ONE was excited about McGovern. He was not a dynamic speaker, some of his positions were good, but you didn't want to go door to door convincing people. The goal was to defeat Nixon instead of pushing the envelope and delivering what the country needed.
People are excited about Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg. And that goes a long way.
People say Warren can't win because anybody with money abhors her. But the truth is, MOST PEOPLE DON'T HAVE MONEY! And an election is decided by the rank and file, not the elite.
And Buttigieg spoke truth to power, and is continuing to coast on his statements. How SIXTIES!
Bernie Sanders is Curt Flood. He broke the reserve clause. In this case Bernie demonstrated how many people were disillusioned with business as usual, but the fruits of his efforts will probably be reaped by those who follow in his footsteps, just like Curt Flood opened the door but didn't profit financially the way the resulting free agents ultimately did.
But when it looked like Bernie would win, Neera Tanden and the rest of the Democratic Party were up in arms, they had to undermine him, make it so he couldn't win. THEY DON'T GET IT, THEY ARE THE PROBLEM!
Bernie still could get the nomination, although it doesn't look like it.
Beto was a one hit wonder.
Harris doesn't have enough of a C.V.
You've got to give Warren credit, she's been preparing for this fight for decades, unlike the wankers who are running even though they know they'll lose. She was a law professor, of bankruptcy. And now the entire country is morally and economically bankrupt. The rich have all the cash, seventy percent of adults possess eight percent of the wealth https://bloom.bg/30HUpmL AND THEY KNOW IT!
The right is rallying around the flag, the American Dream, a past era that was not that good, and today the odds of moving up the economic ladder are better outside the U.S. than they are inside the country. Sure, it's all subterfuge, but the left doesn't counteract this message for fear it will be labeled socialist. Just because the right keeps yelling about the evils of government and taxes doesn't mean they're right. It's an issue of messaging, unfortunately Frank Luntz is on their side.
But this is the problem with impeachment, with all of the left's positions. So fearful of pissing some potential voter off, they pussyfoot and say nothing, and allow the right to define the debate.
I just don't get it. In an era of smartphones, the left wants to go back to rotary dialing. You embrace change, you don't deny it. And this avenue is wide open, because Trump keeps promising to preserve the past, the jobs in coal and other dying industries, and it's just not happening.
But when you tell a coal miner that a woman gets his gig and that all men are rapists he throws his hands in the air and votes Republican.
I'm not saying I'm against affirmative action, but if there's more than one college to go to, the loss is not as great as if you didn't get into UCLA and then you have to perform manual labor.
And even on the broad issues the left's messaging is screwed-up. People are truly afraid the left will take away their guns. Let's speak the truth...THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN! Why can't Democrats say that instead of living in a fantasyland. Yes, many people are one issue voters, and if they think someone's gonna take their gun away, they're gonna vote Republican.
So the Democrats have to anoint a progressive candidate. Even if he or she loses. Because it's just a matter of when. Because it's gonna get worse, the rank and file are gonna have less, and they're gonna be even more pissed about it. Now is the time to throw the long ball. And it needs to be a team effort. Whoever is nominated, all Democrats must rally around that person. But no, they'll continue to bad-mouth them even after they've got the nomination.
The problem is the media is detached. We live in a country where it's impossible to know what's really going on. No one can watch all the movies, never mind the TV shows. You can't listen to all the records... We're in an era of change, and if you believe you can solve the issues via an old paradigm, you're dreaming.
Bill Clinton played the sax.
Joe Biden has hair plugs in an era where the follically-challenged shave their heads.
Let's see, Biden is gonna promise us bell bottoms, breakdancing and beer? The truth is beer consumption is down, the younger generation doesn't cotton to it. But no, the Democratic Party wants to play it the same as it ever was.
There might be revolution in America.
But it's got to happen in the Democratic Party first.
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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The left still thinks it will work for them. At least the educated left, in control of the Democratic Party. These professionals and high-earners believe that change can happen just as long as it doesn't affect their wealth too much, that they can ride this horse into the future via a bit of compromise and that the problem is Trump.
WRONG!
It's not the mainstream Republicans who believed in Trump, as a matter of fact, they anointed Jeb Bush. And now that Trump is actually President, they're aligning with him, knowing that their party has been taken over by the rank and file, who've been left behind in the last forty years, and are looking for hope.
Hillary didn't embody hope, and neither does Biden. They're just more of the same. And that's not gonna work anymore.
I'd say we're in uncharted territory, but that's only true of the establishment, believing it is safe in its power, that money rules, and only the most experienced get to steer.
Oh, don't tell me about the evangelicals, or the racists, sure, they've been enabled by Trump, but the reason the real estate developer won is that he spoke to the disenfranchised. Someone must be responsible for their drop in income and living standard. Make it the immigrants. Make it the left with their welfare state. Make it anybody but themselves. Which is kind of weird, since the Republican ethos is individual responsibility.
On the left, the intelligentsia in charge has contempt for everybody sans a college diploma, and is so busy arguing identity politics when a slew of voters just want to put food on the table. This is another thing the Democrats don't understand. When you're starving, the cuisine doesn't matter, any food will do. Once your belly is full you can debate what's coming from the kitchen.
So the issues of the left are protection for the religious freedom of Muslims and more jobs for women and a greater focus on rapists. Of course these are all good causes...BUT THEY DON'T RESONATE WITH THE RANK AND FILE! It's not that they don't have opinions on these issues, it's just that they're dealing with bigger ones, like the loss of their jobs. They want someone who's going to give them hope for the future. Trump might have lied, but that was his promise. Furthermore, Trump was speaking English, as opposed to arguing about trigger warnings, getting so caught up in what is right and doesn't negatively impact any special interest group that the message ends up broad without bullet points.
But that's the way the leaders of the Democratic Party want it.
Everybody wants to stay in control, nobody wants to lose their job. Meanwhile, the Clintons have gone on to become fabulously wealthy after losing their gigs, and there's not even a sufficient safety net for the blue collar worker. OF COURSE it's the right that wants to eviscerate the safety net, but the left can't get its messaging right, it's too busy infighting, too wimpy to put one foot forward. So, the blue collar Democrat votes for Trump, at least there's a possibility of change.
But the left is afraid of alienating potential voters. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?? Trump supporters will kick and scream, but Democratic voters will think the party has a backbone, whether it succeeds in getting rid of Trump or not. Certainly Nancy Pelosi is a brilliant politician, but she's using an old playbook, the younger generation wants a voice, the younger generation wants CHANGE!
This is what oldsters cannot fathom. The anger, disillusionment and debt of the youngsters. All boomers can do is excoriate millennials. You've read it, they need hand-holding, positive reinforcement, you can't say anything negative to them. This has become the perception, is it any wonder that the younger generation is disillusioned?
Now if you're a professional golfer, you play to win, you go for it, because once you lay up, play it safe, you lose your edge and you never know when a competitor will get hot.
But the Democratic Party refuses to play to win. Whether it be combating the right or running a candidate who is going to push the envelope and institute change.
Biden's strategy is to run out the clock. To say nothing until Election Day, and have all the anti-Trumpers vote for him. That's not a recipe for success, that's a recipe for disaster. Whenever you play it safe you lose, can you say Kerry, can you say McCain?
And the Democrats always point to McGovern's defeat. Saying if you run too far left you'll lose, the center won't accept you. But that was back in '72! Furthermore, society was much less tribal back then, even though we still view it as the hippies versus the rednecks, the political division was not as great as today. And ALMOST NO ONE was excited about McGovern. He was not a dynamic speaker, some of his positions were good, but you didn't want to go door to door convincing people. The goal was to defeat Nixon instead of pushing the envelope and delivering what the country needed.
People are excited about Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg. And that goes a long way.
People say Warren can't win because anybody with money abhors her. But the truth is, MOST PEOPLE DON'T HAVE MONEY! And an election is decided by the rank and file, not the elite.
And Buttigieg spoke truth to power, and is continuing to coast on his statements. How SIXTIES!
Bernie Sanders is Curt Flood. He broke the reserve clause. In this case Bernie demonstrated how many people were disillusioned with business as usual, but the fruits of his efforts will probably be reaped by those who follow in his footsteps, just like Curt Flood opened the door but didn't profit financially the way the resulting free agents ultimately did.
But when it looked like Bernie would win, Neera Tanden and the rest of the Democratic Party were up in arms, they had to undermine him, make it so he couldn't win. THEY DON'T GET IT, THEY ARE THE PROBLEM!
Bernie still could get the nomination, although it doesn't look like it.
Beto was a one hit wonder.
Harris doesn't have enough of a C.V.
You've got to give Warren credit, she's been preparing for this fight for decades, unlike the wankers who are running even though they know they'll lose. She was a law professor, of bankruptcy. And now the entire country is morally and economically bankrupt. The rich have all the cash, seventy percent of adults possess eight percent of the wealth https://bloom.bg/30HUpmL AND THEY KNOW IT!
The right is rallying around the flag, the American Dream, a past era that was not that good, and today the odds of moving up the economic ladder are better outside the U.S. than they are inside the country. Sure, it's all subterfuge, but the left doesn't counteract this message for fear it will be labeled socialist. Just because the right keeps yelling about the evils of government and taxes doesn't mean they're right. It's an issue of messaging, unfortunately Frank Luntz is on their side.
But this is the problem with impeachment, with all of the left's positions. So fearful of pissing some potential voter off, they pussyfoot and say nothing, and allow the right to define the debate.
I just don't get it. In an era of smartphones, the left wants to go back to rotary dialing. You embrace change, you don't deny it. And this avenue is wide open, because Trump keeps promising to preserve the past, the jobs in coal and other dying industries, and it's just not happening.
But when you tell a coal miner that a woman gets his gig and that all men are rapists he throws his hands in the air and votes Republican.
I'm not saying I'm against affirmative action, but if there's more than one college to go to, the loss is not as great as if you didn't get into UCLA and then you have to perform manual labor.
And even on the broad issues the left's messaging is screwed-up. People are truly afraid the left will take away their guns. Let's speak the truth...THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN! Why can't Democrats say that instead of living in a fantasyland. Yes, many people are one issue voters, and if they think someone's gonna take their gun away, they're gonna vote Republican.
So the Democrats have to anoint a progressive candidate. Even if he or she loses. Because it's just a matter of when. Because it's gonna get worse, the rank and file are gonna have less, and they're gonna be even more pissed about it. Now is the time to throw the long ball. And it needs to be a team effort. Whoever is nominated, all Democrats must rally around that person. But no, they'll continue to bad-mouth them even after they've got the nomination.
The problem is the media is detached. We live in a country where it's impossible to know what's really going on. No one can watch all the movies, never mind the TV shows. You can't listen to all the records... We're in an era of change, and if you believe you can solve the issues via an old paradigm, you're dreaming.
Bill Clinton played the sax.
Joe Biden has hair plugs in an era where the follically-challenged shave their heads.
Let's see, Biden is gonna promise us bell bottoms, breakdancing and beer? The truth is beer consumption is down, the younger generation doesn't cotton to it. But no, the Democratic Party wants to play it the same as it ever was.
There might be revolution in America.
But it's got to happen in the Democratic Party first.
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T-Mobile/Sprint
Sprint sucks.
This is how the Democrats get it wrong, ruling by theory instead of practicality.
Sprint is going to continue to fade. What happens when it goes bankrupt, then is its spectrum auctioned off and ends up with AT&T or Verizon anyway?
This is like Warner/EMI... The European Union and Impala were so worried about this concentration in the music business. Then EMI goes bust and most of its assets end up with Universal and the Vivendi company ends up with half the overall market share. This is just? This is progress?
In theory, concentration is bad, it offers fewer options to the public, it augurs against price drops. But you can't deal with mergers with a knee-jerk approach.
Antitrust law has taken a backseat. It should be applied more frequently. But the wankers in the White House and their minions ended up letting Facebook buy WhatsApp and Instagram, creating a singular monopoly in social media, but a reduction of four carriers to three in wireless communication is too much?
And you hear all about the digital divide. People who can't afford computers and high-speed internet, those who live in rural areas outside of range, but the agitators are willing to let there be two tiers of wireless service, based on how much you can pay?
Sprint is a joke, its only good feature is its cheap plans. And the plans can't go down to zero, with free iPhones, there must be some revenue, never mind profit. If the service was any good, people would be flocking to Sprint in droves.
As for T-Mobile... They've made something out of nothing. Outside the metropolis their LTE availability, availability of signal at all, is squat. Sure, T-Mobile gained market share by offering low prices, but without a robust 5G network, its customers would end up living in a tube-based village in a flat screen world.
When something becomes a commodity, there will be concentration. Hell, Samsung makes flat screens for Sony! Because the margins are so bad.
But don't expect Verizon to sell access to its industry leading network to its competitors. The network is its marketing advantage. As for AT&T, sure, it's improving, but if the company didn't have a legacy name, it too would be in the crapper.
Sprint owns valuable bandwidth. It's just that it lacks the cash to build it out. And to be a real competitor in 5G, T-Mobile needs that bandwidth. Not all mergers are bad.
Sure, price competition could wane, to customers' detriment, but how is propping up a fourth-rate service rejected by consumers an advantage?
I won't switch from Verizon. Unless it was literally proven there was a better service.
Meanwhile, everybody complains that there are few options for high-speed service in the home. One cable provider and you're lucky if Verizon FIOS is available in your neighborhood. Don't even talk to me about DSL, it's the Sprint of home service. But with 5G, there will be competition in the home, and isn't it better to have more options than fewer?
People will tolerate bad connections out in the wild, believing it's the nature of wireless communication, but they've never been overseas, where you get a connection everywhere! The truth is American networks are just not that good. But if you don't get good service in your home, where you're watching TV, you complain ad infinitum. So, a crappy 5G system is a nonstarter.
This left wing position bugs me. It's the same one that says we need to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. Sure, if you want to pay $3,000 for a flat screen. Or you're Apple, trying to build the Mac Pro in Texas where they can't get enough quality screws.
These people put out of work should be trained for new jobs, or else the U.S. becomes a second-class economy. Our strengths are intellectual property, tech. But then we have an Administration so afraid of immigrants that it refuses visas for those working in Silicon Valley, forcing them back to their countries where they create startups and competition.
That's right, there's ignorance on both sides of the aisle.
As for those on T-Mobile presently, happy with their service, wait until they actually get improved service, of the standard of Verizon or AT&T, they will be wowed.
You don't know what you're missing until you experience something better.
But in this brand-oriented world, everybody is convinced that what they own is the best, and marketing is all about subterfuge, you can't figure out what's best from the ads.
So this is a merger which must go through, even though John Legere's team stayed in Trump's hotel. Fine them, but don't blow them out of the water.
Meanwhile, this is how business works. It's built on favors and illicit activities. Sure, police it. But don't live with your eyes closed, disinterested in digging deeper to find out the truth, how the world works, even if elements are abhorrent to you.
You can't run the world on emotion, you've got to run it on truth. Just because your heart says one thing, that does not make it true.
In theory mergers, concentration, are bad. People lose jobs. Sometimes prices go up. But if the factory closes its doors completely, that's even worse. As for going against economics, Trump keeps saying the jobs are coming back but the truth is these companies have shareholders and must make a profit, so Carrier exports jobs and Harley-Davidson builds overseas and...
You may want it, but that does not mean you can have it.
And if you put up too many artificial walls, you destroy the marketplace.
Unfortunately, this is a merger that must be approved.
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This is how the Democrats get it wrong, ruling by theory instead of practicality.
Sprint is going to continue to fade. What happens when it goes bankrupt, then is its spectrum auctioned off and ends up with AT&T or Verizon anyway?
This is like Warner/EMI... The European Union and Impala were so worried about this concentration in the music business. Then EMI goes bust and most of its assets end up with Universal and the Vivendi company ends up with half the overall market share. This is just? This is progress?
In theory, concentration is bad, it offers fewer options to the public, it augurs against price drops. But you can't deal with mergers with a knee-jerk approach.
Antitrust law has taken a backseat. It should be applied more frequently. But the wankers in the White House and their minions ended up letting Facebook buy WhatsApp and Instagram, creating a singular monopoly in social media, but a reduction of four carriers to three in wireless communication is too much?
And you hear all about the digital divide. People who can't afford computers and high-speed internet, those who live in rural areas outside of range, but the agitators are willing to let there be two tiers of wireless service, based on how much you can pay?
Sprint is a joke, its only good feature is its cheap plans. And the plans can't go down to zero, with free iPhones, there must be some revenue, never mind profit. If the service was any good, people would be flocking to Sprint in droves.
As for T-Mobile... They've made something out of nothing. Outside the metropolis their LTE availability, availability of signal at all, is squat. Sure, T-Mobile gained market share by offering low prices, but without a robust 5G network, its customers would end up living in a tube-based village in a flat screen world.
When something becomes a commodity, there will be concentration. Hell, Samsung makes flat screens for Sony! Because the margins are so bad.
But don't expect Verizon to sell access to its industry leading network to its competitors. The network is its marketing advantage. As for AT&T, sure, it's improving, but if the company didn't have a legacy name, it too would be in the crapper.
Sprint owns valuable bandwidth. It's just that it lacks the cash to build it out. And to be a real competitor in 5G, T-Mobile needs that bandwidth. Not all mergers are bad.
Sure, price competition could wane, to customers' detriment, but how is propping up a fourth-rate service rejected by consumers an advantage?
I won't switch from Verizon. Unless it was literally proven there was a better service.
Meanwhile, everybody complains that there are few options for high-speed service in the home. One cable provider and you're lucky if Verizon FIOS is available in your neighborhood. Don't even talk to me about DSL, it's the Sprint of home service. But with 5G, there will be competition in the home, and isn't it better to have more options than fewer?
People will tolerate bad connections out in the wild, believing it's the nature of wireless communication, but they've never been overseas, where you get a connection everywhere! The truth is American networks are just not that good. But if you don't get good service in your home, where you're watching TV, you complain ad infinitum. So, a crappy 5G system is a nonstarter.
This left wing position bugs me. It's the same one that says we need to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. Sure, if you want to pay $3,000 for a flat screen. Or you're Apple, trying to build the Mac Pro in Texas where they can't get enough quality screws.
These people put out of work should be trained for new jobs, or else the U.S. becomes a second-class economy. Our strengths are intellectual property, tech. But then we have an Administration so afraid of immigrants that it refuses visas for those working in Silicon Valley, forcing them back to their countries where they create startups and competition.
That's right, there's ignorance on both sides of the aisle.
As for those on T-Mobile presently, happy with their service, wait until they actually get improved service, of the standard of Verizon or AT&T, they will be wowed.
You don't know what you're missing until you experience something better.
But in this brand-oriented world, everybody is convinced that what they own is the best, and marketing is all about subterfuge, you can't figure out what's best from the ads.
So this is a merger which must go through, even though John Legere's team stayed in Trump's hotel. Fine them, but don't blow them out of the water.
Meanwhile, this is how business works. It's built on favors and illicit activities. Sure, police it. But don't live with your eyes closed, disinterested in digging deeper to find out the truth, how the world works, even if elements are abhorrent to you.
You can't run the world on emotion, you've got to run it on truth. Just because your heart says one thing, that does not make it true.
In theory mergers, concentration, are bad. People lose jobs. Sometimes prices go up. But if the factory closes its doors completely, that's even worse. As for going against economics, Trump keeps saying the jobs are coming back but the truth is these companies have shareholders and must make a profit, so Carrier exports jobs and Harley-Davidson builds overseas and...
You may want it, but that does not mean you can have it.
And if you put up too many artificial walls, you destroy the marketplace.
Unfortunately, this is a merger that must be approved.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Tuesday, 11 June 2019
Album Bundles-From A Promoter
Here's my take on albums bundled with ticket sales. First thing to note, TicketMaster refer to it as a "forced bundle". This is because the customer has no option to decline the bundle. They have to pay the same as everyone else, then they can choose not to redeem. Billboard is aware of this and thus only counts redeemed albums, their rules involve the customer having to take action to redeem. If all purchasers received an album directly whether handed out physically at a show or sent digitally as files Billboard would not count it. There has to be a decision to redeem.
All that said, from the customer perspective they don't think "Oh, I get my ticket and the album only cost me $5 extra averaged across all redemptions". The customer thinks "Cool, free album".
As we all know ticket pricing is one of the toughest jobs for a promoter and any tour. If you Price too low you've got an instant sellout but all of that extra demand goes to the secondary market. Revenue not going to the artist who created the demand or the promoter who is taking the risk. Price the tickets too high and you don't sell all the seats. There can be unrest by the fans on social media about the high prices and if ticket prices aren't corrected quickly the show could end up not selling out and possibly losing money for the promoter.
I bring all of this up because the record labels try to sell the forced bundle as "it's easy, just add $5 to every ticket." But if we thought the tickets would sell for $5 more they would already be at that price.
So in reality the $5 is just a deduction off the box office. 12,000 tickets at an arena, $60,000 charge for the album. 50 shows in a tour and someone just spent $3,000,000 buying albums. The record companies couldn't be happier with that arrangement. All they need to do is get their Artist to agree to the album bundle and they just sold 600,000 albums. No marketing on their part, the promoter has to market the tour, no real effort to sell those albums other than to ensure a smooth redemption process (usually outsourced to TM). And they just sold $3,000,000 worth of albums. So who is paying that money?
Billboard and the labels like to think the customer is paying it, it's in the ticket right? But as stated above the tickets are priced what they can sell for, and there is no perceived added value for the album. That money would be in the show gross with or without the album bundle. That means that assuming a tour is in percentage the Artist is left paying the bill for their own albums. Or at least 90% of it (assuming a 90/10 split with the promoter). But if the tour is not in percentage the promoter is left paying that bill. Knowing this risk is there most promoters are now pushing to keep Album Bundles out of the deal entirely. Which means this cost is left entirely on the Artist. Which at the end of the day means the Artist is actually buying their own albums.
Craig Sneiderman
Sr Vice President Touring
Concerts West
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All that said, from the customer perspective they don't think "Oh, I get my ticket and the album only cost me $5 extra averaged across all redemptions". The customer thinks "Cool, free album".
As we all know ticket pricing is one of the toughest jobs for a promoter and any tour. If you Price too low you've got an instant sellout but all of that extra demand goes to the secondary market. Revenue not going to the artist who created the demand or the promoter who is taking the risk. Price the tickets too high and you don't sell all the seats. There can be unrest by the fans on social media about the high prices and if ticket prices aren't corrected quickly the show could end up not selling out and possibly losing money for the promoter.
I bring all of this up because the record labels try to sell the forced bundle as "it's easy, just add $5 to every ticket." But if we thought the tickets would sell for $5 more they would already be at that price.
So in reality the $5 is just a deduction off the box office. 12,000 tickets at an arena, $60,000 charge for the album. 50 shows in a tour and someone just spent $3,000,000 buying albums. The record companies couldn't be happier with that arrangement. All they need to do is get their Artist to agree to the album bundle and they just sold 600,000 albums. No marketing on their part, the promoter has to market the tour, no real effort to sell those albums other than to ensure a smooth redemption process (usually outsourced to TM). And they just sold $3,000,000 worth of albums. So who is paying that money?
Billboard and the labels like to think the customer is paying it, it's in the ticket right? But as stated above the tickets are priced what they can sell for, and there is no perceived added value for the album. That money would be in the show gross with or without the album bundle. That means that assuming a tour is in percentage the Artist is left paying the bill for their own albums. Or at least 90% of it (assuming a 90/10 split with the promoter). But if the tour is not in percentage the promoter is left paying that bill. Knowing this risk is there most promoters are now pushing to keep Album Bundles out of the deal entirely. Which means this cost is left entirely on the Artist. Which at the end of the day means the Artist is actually buying their own albums.
Craig Sneiderman
Sr Vice President Touring
Concerts West
--
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Monday, 10 June 2019
The Society
https://bit.ly/2ZiAlpc
I never read "Lord of the Flies."
That's high school, you try not to read what you ultimately wish you had. All those books they make movies on, by Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, you wanted to avoid those in high school, actually, at my high school you didn't even have to read them. But we did read "Moby Dick," although our teacher did let us skip chapters, before he was accused of assault and sexual harassment, which I never would have predicted, you never know what goes on inside people, but that's what keeps life interesting, it's what's below the surface that intrigues you, the struggle is to pierce the veil. And, just so you know, there's a quid pro quo, if you don't share, other people won't either. It's a mutual thing. Then again, there are oversharers, why do you think it's my job to hear the minutiae of your life? I want a report, not a brain dump of all your anxieties.
"The Society" is based on "Lord of the Flies." And at this point, even I know what "Lord of the Flies" is about, even though, like I stated above, I never read it.
We were watching "Patriot," on Amazon. Although it was difficult, because we constantly ended up getting the chasing its tail circle. I've come to believe this is Amazon's fault, not my ISP's, because it doesn't happen as much on Netflix.
Now "Patriot" is one of those rare series where the second season is better than the first. The whole series is whacked. It's just the first season is slow. But you're invested. And there are some famous actors, and I love the fat Luxembourg detective who looks like Hercule Poirot, but the truth is you don't have to watch "Patriot," hell, at this point it looks like there may not even be a third season.
So we needed a new series. To binge.
That's the only way I will watch, and I will keep saying it until HBO and Showtime and the rest of the cable outlets get the message. I can't wait a week for an episode, to the point where I have a hard time remembering what happened the week before! And you fall behind and give up. You're just not part of the zeitgeist.
But when you can binge...
Dedicated fans finish new seasons in a day or two, they're just that eager.
Casual fans could take a year. These series are time bombs, just waiting to be detonated, and when you see a good one, you tell everybody you know about it. It's yours, for a while anyway, unlike with HBO, sure, you'll have water cooler moments, but you won't own it.
And no one is talking about HBO shows off season.
But Netflix series?
But the media industrial complex doesn't like it this way. The media industrial complex wants all the hype and then the potential boom to happen in a matter of days. Why not spread the publicity out over time?
But these are the same idiots who take full page ads, billboards even, to hype shows for Emmys. This is kind of like states fighting for filming, offering different financial packages. Why are you giving the papers and magazines all this money? It could be better spent.
So we needed a new series to watch.
I don't invest my time unless something is recommended by a blue chip source, or the internet tells me it's great.
But there are very few great series out there.
But you have a yearning to binge.
And I don't want to watch that which I'm familiar with. I lived through the Central Park 5 story, I don't have to watch a miniseries about it. Same deal with Chernobyl. Which they changed anyway. And people believe the falsehoods. It's not only the press that gets things wrong.
So I'm researching and I find this series "The Society" on Netflix. It's got 82 on the Tomatometer. I live by the Tomatometer. The film industry hates it, it wants us to be rubes, investing our time and money in bad products.
But 82 is usually not enough.
But I couldn't find anything higher than that that I wanted to watch.
Anyway, everybody but the parents die, and the kids are left alone, how will it turn out?
And the first thing I noticed is none of the cast members were familiar. Like "90210" back in the day. Yup, on that show they got all the faces the Big Three networks rejected. But now that there's so much production, almost everybody is new, it's kinda strange, we're used to looking for familiarity, to prove that it's just a television show.
And this is definitely a television show, if it were on network I almost definitely wouldn't watch it.
But nobody else is watching it, I didn't see any hype in the media, so I could go where no one else risked going, I could own the experience.
Then again, it's summer, and this is when these unheralded Netflix projects percolate and become monstrous, because kids are home. So maybe "The Society" will ultimately triumph.
Now Cassandra, the #1 girl, who is going to Yale in the fall, theoretically anyway, bugs everybody else, she takes charge, she's a know-it-all. And she bugs me too! And the question arises, how should you behave in a group? I'm not good at staying silent.
But Cassandra's little sister rang true from the first note, she stood out. Then I read in "Vanity Fair" that she's the new It Girl, or at least hot actress, she's in this, "Big Little Lies" and "Pokemon Detective Pikachu." I can see why, she's got it.
Now Allie chafes at being the little sister, and takes risks her sibling will not. Sound familiar?
And boys will be boys. I'm not one of those boys, but some are, Felice asked why boys act this way. I think it's herd mentality, they want to be accepted, they don't realize they're jerks.
And the relationships!
You know that's a main element in teen projects... Who is gonna stay with who? Actually, one of the best moments is when Allie professes her love for Will and...
You always wonder whether to tell someone how you feel about them. If they don't reciprocate, it changes the relationship forever, not in a good way.
But why I'm writing this, the question I want to ask, is are you a hoarder or a sharer? Are you gonna grab on to everything that's not nailed down in order to survive, or are you going to share with your brethren and ultimately find out there's not enough. Although many times, a solution arises before your hoard dissipates. Like after the earthquake (and in my world there's only one, back in '94, I still haven't recovered from it), when my local market was closed and I stocked up with peanut butter and jelly at the minimart, just in case... But the power came back, the stores reopened before I'd depleted most of my stash.
Better safe than sorry?
But if it's not only you?
We're not deep in the series. And this is one I'm not really recommending either, but somehow it's hooked me, I'm invested, I want to see how it all plays out.
That's the power of story.
That's the power of Netflix.
This is the modern world.
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I never read "Lord of the Flies."
That's high school, you try not to read what you ultimately wish you had. All those books they make movies on, by Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, you wanted to avoid those in high school, actually, at my high school you didn't even have to read them. But we did read "Moby Dick," although our teacher did let us skip chapters, before he was accused of assault and sexual harassment, which I never would have predicted, you never know what goes on inside people, but that's what keeps life interesting, it's what's below the surface that intrigues you, the struggle is to pierce the veil. And, just so you know, there's a quid pro quo, if you don't share, other people won't either. It's a mutual thing. Then again, there are oversharers, why do you think it's my job to hear the minutiae of your life? I want a report, not a brain dump of all your anxieties.
"The Society" is based on "Lord of the Flies." And at this point, even I know what "Lord of the Flies" is about, even though, like I stated above, I never read it.
We were watching "Patriot," on Amazon. Although it was difficult, because we constantly ended up getting the chasing its tail circle. I've come to believe this is Amazon's fault, not my ISP's, because it doesn't happen as much on Netflix.
Now "Patriot" is one of those rare series where the second season is better than the first. The whole series is whacked. It's just the first season is slow. But you're invested. And there are some famous actors, and I love the fat Luxembourg detective who looks like Hercule Poirot, but the truth is you don't have to watch "Patriot," hell, at this point it looks like there may not even be a third season.
So we needed a new series. To binge.
That's the only way I will watch, and I will keep saying it until HBO and Showtime and the rest of the cable outlets get the message. I can't wait a week for an episode, to the point where I have a hard time remembering what happened the week before! And you fall behind and give up. You're just not part of the zeitgeist.
But when you can binge...
Dedicated fans finish new seasons in a day or two, they're just that eager.
Casual fans could take a year. These series are time bombs, just waiting to be detonated, and when you see a good one, you tell everybody you know about it. It's yours, for a while anyway, unlike with HBO, sure, you'll have water cooler moments, but you won't own it.
And no one is talking about HBO shows off season.
But Netflix series?
But the media industrial complex doesn't like it this way. The media industrial complex wants all the hype and then the potential boom to happen in a matter of days. Why not spread the publicity out over time?
But these are the same idiots who take full page ads, billboards even, to hype shows for Emmys. This is kind of like states fighting for filming, offering different financial packages. Why are you giving the papers and magazines all this money? It could be better spent.
So we needed a new series to watch.
I don't invest my time unless something is recommended by a blue chip source, or the internet tells me it's great.
But there are very few great series out there.
But you have a yearning to binge.
And I don't want to watch that which I'm familiar with. I lived through the Central Park 5 story, I don't have to watch a miniseries about it. Same deal with Chernobyl. Which they changed anyway. And people believe the falsehoods. It's not only the press that gets things wrong.
So I'm researching and I find this series "The Society" on Netflix. It's got 82 on the Tomatometer. I live by the Tomatometer. The film industry hates it, it wants us to be rubes, investing our time and money in bad products.
But 82 is usually not enough.
But I couldn't find anything higher than that that I wanted to watch.
Anyway, everybody but the parents die, and the kids are left alone, how will it turn out?
And the first thing I noticed is none of the cast members were familiar. Like "90210" back in the day. Yup, on that show they got all the faces the Big Three networks rejected. But now that there's so much production, almost everybody is new, it's kinda strange, we're used to looking for familiarity, to prove that it's just a television show.
And this is definitely a television show, if it were on network I almost definitely wouldn't watch it.
But nobody else is watching it, I didn't see any hype in the media, so I could go where no one else risked going, I could own the experience.
Then again, it's summer, and this is when these unheralded Netflix projects percolate and become monstrous, because kids are home. So maybe "The Society" will ultimately triumph.
Now Cassandra, the #1 girl, who is going to Yale in the fall, theoretically anyway, bugs everybody else, she takes charge, she's a know-it-all. And she bugs me too! And the question arises, how should you behave in a group? I'm not good at staying silent.
But Cassandra's little sister rang true from the first note, she stood out. Then I read in "Vanity Fair" that she's the new It Girl, or at least hot actress, she's in this, "Big Little Lies" and "Pokemon Detective Pikachu." I can see why, she's got it.
Now Allie chafes at being the little sister, and takes risks her sibling will not. Sound familiar?
And boys will be boys. I'm not one of those boys, but some are, Felice asked why boys act this way. I think it's herd mentality, they want to be accepted, they don't realize they're jerks.
And the relationships!
You know that's a main element in teen projects... Who is gonna stay with who? Actually, one of the best moments is when Allie professes her love for Will and...
You always wonder whether to tell someone how you feel about them. If they don't reciprocate, it changes the relationship forever, not in a good way.
But why I'm writing this, the question I want to ask, is are you a hoarder or a sharer? Are you gonna grab on to everything that's not nailed down in order to survive, or are you going to share with your brethren and ultimately find out there's not enough. Although many times, a solution arises before your hoard dissipates. Like after the earthquake (and in my world there's only one, back in '94, I still haven't recovered from it), when my local market was closed and I stocked up with peanut butter and jelly at the minimart, just in case... But the power came back, the stores reopened before I'd depleted most of my stash.
Better safe than sorry?
But if it's not only you?
We're not deep in the series. And this is one I'm not really recommending either, but somehow it's hooked me, I'm invested, I want to see how it all plays out.
That's the power of story.
That's the power of Netflix.
This is the modern world.
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Counting Sales (& Bundles!)
Ben Sisario: https://nyti.ms/2F2k0gV
Counting CD and track sales is like toting up the number of feature phone purchases. We live in an era of streaming and smartphones, why does the music industry insist on holding on to the past?
This is how hip-hop ended up victorious, by moving online, by embracing Soundcloud, by using the new tools and giving away product in the process.
But no, the music industry still sells CDs and files, even though most people no longer have a CD player, they don't even come in cars, and Apple killed the iPod.
Actually, Apple was famous for killing old formats. Killing ADB for USB. Leaving out the floppy drive. Steve Jobs did not worry about the complainers in the background, he just soldiered on.
And now Apple is the most valuable company on the planet, or close to it, depending on the daily stock market.
Ironically, the present Apple killed the 20 pin port for Lightning, even though every hotel room had that connector built into the room radio, and even switched to USB-C on the new iPad Pro, but...for some reason, their Music app still works with both files and streams, which makes it confusing, which Jobs abhorred. It was supposed to just work, be easy, require no manual, but I still can't figure out how to make sure my search is of streams not files, and it makes me reluctant to use the app.
Steve Jobs. Everyone says he was anti-streaming, all about sales.
Believe me, Jobs would be behind streaming today, making it even more convenient, because Jobs was willing to admit he was wrong, and change and leave the past behind. But many musicians still refuse to believe streaming has won, it's been demonized, it can't be sold after the show...it's like bitching you can't sell standard transmissions when even Formula One cars have no clutch.
And the internet/tech works on a different ethos than the traditional music business. The facts are real, and the war is even more intense. Record companies can always depend on their catalogs for revenue, in tech it's purely what have you done for me lately, and if you haven't done anything, soon you're no longer a player. Can you say Blackberry and Gateway and...
Streams can be quantified. They're harder to fake. Of course people are always trying to scam, but there are algorithms to check that too. Ah, the glory of the machine.
In other words, it's easy to add up how many streams a track has. They're even visible on Spotify and YouTube. And streams are raw consumption, a true judge of popularity, whereas if something is sold, you don't know how many times a purchaser listened to it. Furthermore, with streams you get paid forever, while with sales, it's one and done. Do you want to invest in yourself or sell out now and forget your future?
The "Billboard" charts have been manipulated from day one. Sure, SoundScan added some truthiness, but still, shenanigans were prevalent.
And "Billboard" could change its chart overnight.
Then again, what makes the "Billboard" chart worth anything anyway, their special sauce? Why do you need Nielsen to tote up what is easily seen online?
So what you've got is a trade magazine, servicing the trade.
So, there should be no attention paid to "Billboard"'s numbers.
But they're distributed by media outlets as if they mean something, when the truth is they don't mean anything.
Sure, it's all about the add-ons, but who was the wanker who approved this to begin with? What are we counting here, marketing efforts or music consumption, this needed to be nipped in the bud.
And "Billboard" could have done it, but NO, it was afraid to piss off the labels and the acts, who do very little advertising anyway, "Billboard" is now a consumer-facing product, why does it keep one foot in the past? Hell, why don't you pay fealty to retailers, Best Buy doesn't even sell CDs anymore, not that I've been to an outlet in years, why, when there's Amazon.
We need to wave a wand and immediately go to streaming totals to determine popularity. Leave all sales behind. That's how Steve Jobs would have done it!
But the truth is the labels like it this way, they kick and scream as they add tchotchkes and manipulate the chart themselves.
Hell, the government nearly eradicated the Mafia, but the music business is still run like organized crime. These are public companies, why so much subterfuge?
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--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Counting CD and track sales is like toting up the number of feature phone purchases. We live in an era of streaming and smartphones, why does the music industry insist on holding on to the past?
This is how hip-hop ended up victorious, by moving online, by embracing Soundcloud, by using the new tools and giving away product in the process.
But no, the music industry still sells CDs and files, even though most people no longer have a CD player, they don't even come in cars, and Apple killed the iPod.
Actually, Apple was famous for killing old formats. Killing ADB for USB. Leaving out the floppy drive. Steve Jobs did not worry about the complainers in the background, he just soldiered on.
And now Apple is the most valuable company on the planet, or close to it, depending on the daily stock market.
Ironically, the present Apple killed the 20 pin port for Lightning, even though every hotel room had that connector built into the room radio, and even switched to USB-C on the new iPad Pro, but...for some reason, their Music app still works with both files and streams, which makes it confusing, which Jobs abhorred. It was supposed to just work, be easy, require no manual, but I still can't figure out how to make sure my search is of streams not files, and it makes me reluctant to use the app.
Steve Jobs. Everyone says he was anti-streaming, all about sales.
Believe me, Jobs would be behind streaming today, making it even more convenient, because Jobs was willing to admit he was wrong, and change and leave the past behind. But many musicians still refuse to believe streaming has won, it's been demonized, it can't be sold after the show...it's like bitching you can't sell standard transmissions when even Formula One cars have no clutch.
And the internet/tech works on a different ethos than the traditional music business. The facts are real, and the war is even more intense. Record companies can always depend on their catalogs for revenue, in tech it's purely what have you done for me lately, and if you haven't done anything, soon you're no longer a player. Can you say Blackberry and Gateway and...
Streams can be quantified. They're harder to fake. Of course people are always trying to scam, but there are algorithms to check that too. Ah, the glory of the machine.
In other words, it's easy to add up how many streams a track has. They're even visible on Spotify and YouTube. And streams are raw consumption, a true judge of popularity, whereas if something is sold, you don't know how many times a purchaser listened to it. Furthermore, with streams you get paid forever, while with sales, it's one and done. Do you want to invest in yourself or sell out now and forget your future?
The "Billboard" charts have been manipulated from day one. Sure, SoundScan added some truthiness, but still, shenanigans were prevalent.
And "Billboard" could change its chart overnight.
Then again, what makes the "Billboard" chart worth anything anyway, their special sauce? Why do you need Nielsen to tote up what is easily seen online?
So what you've got is a trade magazine, servicing the trade.
So, there should be no attention paid to "Billboard"'s numbers.
But they're distributed by media outlets as if they mean something, when the truth is they don't mean anything.
Sure, it's all about the add-ons, but who was the wanker who approved this to begin with? What are we counting here, marketing efforts or music consumption, this needed to be nipped in the bud.
And "Billboard" could have done it, but NO, it was afraid to piss off the labels and the acts, who do very little advertising anyway, "Billboard" is now a consumer-facing product, why does it keep one foot in the past? Hell, why don't you pay fealty to retailers, Best Buy doesn't even sell CDs anymore, not that I've been to an outlet in years, why, when there's Amazon.
We need to wave a wand and immediately go to streaming totals to determine popularity. Leave all sales behind. That's how Steve Jobs would have done it!
But the truth is the labels like it this way, they kick and scream as they add tchotchkes and manipulate the chart themselves.
Hell, the government nearly eradicated the Mafia, but the music business is still run like organized crime. These are public companies, why so much subterfuge?
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1
If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
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