Re-Tom Seaver

I was so sad to hear of Tom Seaver's passing. He was every kid's hero in the late 60s and early 70s. A guy wrote a piece in the NY Post and he said something that resonated. His wife and kids would sit behind home plate when he pitched. They were so elegant.So perfect. The Seavers were the Met fans Kennedys.

They represented all the things that were good about baseball. I remember my dad waking me up twice during the summer of 1969 when I was eight years old. Once to see a man walk on the moon and the other time to see Tom Seavers near perfect game. I remember my dad telling me both times ....,"You have to watch this you're about to watch history."

I remember when I was a kid I used to deliver the Daily News.

Those were the days when you actually got your news from a newspaper that morning. And when I saw the headline that Mets had traded him I was devastated. I reluctantly followed his career and even felt a little bit of pride when he threw is no hitter with the Reds

He will always be Mr. Met.

Now please build this damn statue of Seaver in front of Citifield

Gary Dell'Abate

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The Mets had a pitcher named Craig Anderson who lost 20 games two seasons in a row. To lose that many games, you have to be pretty good or they wouldn't have kept playing him.

But in 1962 he led the Mets in saves and appearances, and was the winning pitcher in both games of the first double-header the Mets ever won. How could I not be a fan? I didn't care that he spelled his last name incorrectly :)

I probably bumped into you at Shea Stadium a couple of times without realizing it.

Great writing, as usual.

Craig Anderton

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Great piece. The company I work for manages The Mets' archive, along with other teams. One of our founders, Charlie, was talking with Mike Piazza today. Today was a busy day for Mike and tomorrow is his birthday. Turns out that Mike and Tom are the only two Mets inducted into the Hall of Fame.

I forwarded your piece to Charlie and invited him to share it with Mike.
We built a nice tribute to Tom on the Mets virtual vault. You might enjoy it.
https://www.metsheritage.com/

All the best,

Daryl Faulkner

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As a child of the sixties growing up in New Jersey, the Mets were part of my DNA. Hell, I saw Sandy Koufax strike out 15 Mets at the Polo Grounds. When Tom Seaver came along, he transformed the Mets from a bunch of bums to 1969 World Series champions with a grace and skill that proved infectious to the rest of the team. Many of the 1969 Mets played at a level they never approached again. And Tom Seaver was very cool. I met him at "Autograph Day" at Shea Stadium (when there was such a thing), and to a young teenager, that was like meeting Babe Ruth. Years later at a charity event in Century City, Tom was seated at the table next to me. I introduced myself and thanked him for his autograph. He smiled and gregariously shook my hand. Still a world-class act. Thank you Tom Seaver and RIP.

Michael R. Morris

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I started following baseball as a six year old Met fan in '65. Tough to be a little kid when your team is a joke.

When I was eight we got our knight in shining armor. He could face anybody. He could face Bob Gibson.

My mother used to tell my father 'buy tickets for when Seaver is pitching" so we saw him many times. We saw him mow down Chicago in '69.

I cried when I heard the news. I had to explain to my wife that she was looking at an eight year old boy.

Michael Alex

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I was a gonzo Mets fan and loved Tom Seaver

Eric Greenspan

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THANKS..."YA GOTTA BELIEVE!" will be on my Tombstone. Appreciate that

Boomer Bobby Ekizian

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beautiful tribute Bob. my memory of watching seaver pitch is fuzzy compared to how i remember dwight gooden but even then, gooden did not have the sustained success seaver did. jacob degrom might if he stays healthy and keeps dominating like he does. but still, you pretty much knew the mets were winning when seaver pitched and I'm pretty sure I cried when he lost his no-hitter to the padres....with one out in the 9th to leron lee. was it 1972 or 73?

Mike Farley

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Thank you, a skilled piece of writing that still conjures up the feeling on a well trod field. I was there as well.

Jon Klein

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Beautiful tribute to Tom Seaver and the fluidity and instinctive nature of those decades. Baseball was magic with the transistors out at recess and everyone huddled around to listen to the Reds or the As or The Orioles. You captured that spirit of unity and loyalty that we felt together. I loved the As and not a big fan of the Giants eve though I respected all their playing including "say hey". Games on the radio at night trying to fall asleep. Magic times Bob

Scott Tavis

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Thanks Bob for the great article on Tom Seaver. One of my childhood heroes is now gone, but my memories of Tom "Terrific" will live on! #LGM!

JIm

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Yes, we did, indeed.
Tom Seaver. from Fresno HS, my old hometown.
Thanks, Bob, well said.

Michael Wright

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Well done Tom Seaver.
And Bob Lefsetz.
Don Matthews

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Thank you for your tribute to Tom Terrific and reminding me of the transistor radios! Everyone in my 6th grade class had one with those little white "earbuds" (mono, precursor to the real earbuds). I heard some great Mets World Series moments on those.

Regards,

David M. Ehrlich

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Bob, great piece. And it's great to see you point out that the "NLCS" acronym was never used back then. I'm not really sure when it started, exactly, but maybe sometime in the '90s or late '80s. To this day, when I hear it, I wince.

Charles Siegel

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61 years old.. raised in Merrick on the South Shore of L.I. and my hero's were Tom Seaver, Joe Namath and Bob Dylan. When Seaver news hit the other day, my phone lit up .This one hurt.

Brian Lukow

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Bob, thanks for the great tribute to one of my childhood heroes. I had sketches of the entire '69 team on my wall and knew the batting lineup backward and forward. Great players like Bud Harrelson, Wayne Garret, Cleon Jones, Tommy Agee and Tug McGraw Still Tom Terrific was was the heart and soul of the team in both '69 and in '73. It was a sad day when the Mets traded him away and a sad day now to say goodbye. May he Rest In Peace

Michael Weintraub

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This death hit very personal. As a 10 year old on Long Island I went to opening day '69 where Seaver pitched against the brand new Montréal Expos. I watched or listened to every game. Lindsey Nelson Ralph Kiner Bob Murphy. Pitched Tom Seaver fastballs into my pitch back with a whiffle ball.

And we knew every player on the starting 9. Still do. By number. An indelible part of my youth. A real coming of age that he is gone. RIP.

Kenneth Freundlich

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Your best bit of writing this year. Maybe ever. You captured what was right about Seaver, what was right about baseball, why it all snapped together in a time capsule we probably can't open again.

There's so much we've lost and not enough we've gained. I still love the game, walking into the stadium will always be true joy for me, but a school kid listening to the big game on a transistor radio that also played The Beatles, no way to know what that is unless it was you.

Seaver was a mensch, a larger than life hero to so many who needed one. You captured that. He matters a lot.

Ken Goldstein

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Thank you - Great post - I was 11 in 1969 and loved the Mets.

Lance Bakemeyer

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Dick Young, reporter for the Dailey News ran him out of town because Seaver had the audacity to ask for more money. Biggest hypocrite ever. Years later jumped to the NY Post for more money

Johnnie O'Connell

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Nice piece of writing. Rap on double hipness… Good to see there's still some intelligent life on the planet.

Victor Levine

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Great guy.

Not on the take- like you...

Tony Brummel

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Great read! Reminds me of the great baseball movies; the Natural, Love of the Game etc...
Reason why I loved baseball in the first place. This is the first year I've ignored MLB because of politics.

What ever happened to the great American pastimes that whether they had Heart or not, at least you believed they did?!

Robby Vee

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Hey Bob,

Thanks for the shout out to Tom Seaver. He was great. He was an innovator. He changed the game, in particular pitching, to analytics before analytics arrived. He played in the era when starting pitchers were expected to finish the game, even if it went extra innings. He was the first to figure out the percentages of situations and play accordingly. As opposed to going full bore effort and concentration with every pitch, he figured out to have three different speed fastballs. This would throw the batters timing off and help him to complete games. He also would work the first out of every inning as if the game was on the line; after getting that out he could "cruise" for the next two outs. He would later say the obvious (today) that the percentages of having a scoring inning were greatly reduced if the team at bat only had two outs to work with. Seaver was an innovator on the mound. The opposite (though equally as great) Nolan Ryan who would simply blow batters away with the first 100mph fastball. Oddly, perhaps because of Seaver's style, Seaver never really got credit for his best fastball; it was as hard as almost anybody in the league. I just wish that today's high schoolers would learn from Seaver that there is more to pitching than power.

Thanks for remembering Tom Seaver.

Matthew Grandi

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So in '69, I was a dj at the Temple U station, WRTI-FM. I somehow wangled a press ticket to the Mets v. Phillies game at old Connie Mack Stadium.
It was late in the season. It was a great game. Tom Seaver notched his 25th win. I sat up in the rickety old press box at the top of the stadium. Early in the game, Cleon Jones hit a foul ball that soared straight up over the first base line, hit the top of the press booth and miraculously dropped into my hand. It was the first time I'd ever caught a foul ball at a game. After years of attending Dodgers, Yankees and Mets games, this was my first. I decided to go down to the clubhouse after the game and get it signed.

This was my first time in a clubhouse. It was very unnerving to see your heores naked. I mean, baseball players were always seen with the head shot like on the baseball card. But here was Yogi, Gil, Rube, Tom, Cleon, Tommy, Ron, Bud all naked and showering. I tried not to look down.
Anyway, the ball was passed around the room and signed by the team. Seaver had the sweet spot and wrote "25" under his name.
About a month later, they won the World Series and I knew that my ball was a keeper. I preserved it in a clear plastic box and stashed in my locker. I never showed it to anyone.

Two years later, I was out in California. I sublet my apartment to a college friend. I would be gone for two months and when I returned, I would be moving back to New York and a post-college job at WNEW-FM. When I returned, I discovered that my apartment had been stripped bare. The guy I sublet it to had become the opposite of the hard-working young student I knew. He'd become a junkie, joined a motorcycle gang and had been kicked out of my apartment. He stole everything on his way out.
It took me months to track him down and to find out what he did with my stuff. His family had disowned him and didn't know where he was. I finally found him in jail outside of Scranton. He sold the stuff or threw it away and too bad. A few months later, out of prison, he overdosed and died.

Of all the things that I never saw again, only that baseball plagued me. It still does.

Rich Arfin

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Wow Bob!
Brilliant piece of writing!
One of your best. Love how you wove in the cultural Zeitgeist. Born in 1970 so missed it all but I remember the vapors if the end of it all, but you just made me feel like I was there!
Thanks!

Dan Millen

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Before Shea Stadium was built, the expansion New York Metropolitan Baseball Club, more commonly known as the Mets, played two season in the Polo Grounds, located in Upper Manhattan. My grandfather took me to a game at the Polo Grounds during that 1962 inaugural, but I was far too young to remember. I only know that I was there. So, what choice did I really have in life but to become a diehard Mets' fan? The early years were painful and embarrassing. Their ace that 1st season was Al Jackson, who went 8-20. The team lost 100 games five out of the first six years of its existence, stumbling seemingly forever until Tom Seaver arrived in '67. "Tom Terrific," who generated power from his massive legs and torque, and would scrape his knee on the pitcher's mound with every delivery. 1969, that championship season, was a magical year for NY sports, between the Jets, Knicks and Mets. The Jets and Mets played at Shea Stadium, the Knicks at "The Garden." No New York sports star exhibited more grace and a competitive spirit than Tom Seaver, a 311 career game winner, a 3X Cy Young Award winner and a 1st round HOF-er. He once, unimaginably, struck out 10 consecutive batters in a game. Years later after his retirement, I met Seaver at a charity squash event my gf was running for Lehman Brothers, you know, the bank of ill repute. Seaver was to play tennis great John McEnroe in a charity match. Seaver played squash several times a week, McEnroe hardly at all. McEnroe won, and boy was Seaver pissed, though he never lost sight that he was there to raise money for charity. It was great to see, so many years after retirement, Seaver still had that competitive spirit and absolutely couldn't stand losing. That's cause all his life, Tom Seaver was a winner. RIP.

Stuart K. Marvin

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Tom Seaver's death is upsetting. He meant a lot to me as a young baseball fan.

I went to game 4 of the 1969 WS . It was October 15, 1969 and it was the first moratorium day against the Vietnam war - a national protest against the war and everyone was cutting school and going to an anti war demonstrations.

This school friend asks me if I wanna go to the WS game instead - his dad had tix and Seaver was pitching.

What baseball fan could say no to that ?

So, I say yeah and we bring a bunch of anti war leaflets with us that had a picture of Seaver proclaiming him to be against the war .

We get to Shea early and he and I begin handing out the fliers for a few hours , then we were all of a sudden promptly taken away by police. They were harassing us for having Seaver's picture on the leaflets.

Next thing you know, my friends dad comes by and gets the cops to let us go. The dad was Sy Berger -who was the founder and president of Topps baseball card company ( he is considered the father of the bb card) .

I had no idea who my friends Dad was . He took us inside the stadium down to our box seats by dugout (he kindly scolded us first) and gave us both a WS program signed by both teams . A few years ago I see on Wikipedia that...

"Game 4 was mired in controversy. Tom Seaver's photograph was used on some anti-war Moratorium Dayliterature being distributed outside Shea Stadium before the game, although the pitcher claimed that his picture was used without his knowledge or approval."

Pretty funny. RIP -Tom terrific - one of the best!
By the way ,you may already know this but the NY Mets original uniforms had both the blue of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the orange from the NY Giants , who fled NYC for somewhere out West and were never forgiven!

Regards and stay safe,
Steve Fenster

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If you remember, I was the high school Mets fan. It says so in the Yearbook, so I have a little credibility here! I had been to so many Mets games at the Polo Grounds and Shea Stadium, I could tell you where all the stops were by rail all the way from Fairfield Station all the way to Flushing and give you every year's roster and line up on the way. We were a National League family and my mother was a diehard Dodgers fan. The story has it that I saw my first ball game, in utero, at Ebbetts Field. She loved Roy Campanella, Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, the whole gang.
Then, in 1957, the great betrayal occurred; both National League teams fled for the coast, leaving us in the hands of those Yankee bullies. We had nothing left but to root against every team that played against the Yankees. We became big time professional major league Yankee haters. We had it so bad, we'd even watch a Bosox game and listen to Curt Gowdy on Channel 8 rather than give Phil Rizzuto the satisfaction over WPIX during important games. Who cares about Mantle and Maris!

Five years in the desert and then the skies opened up and the seas parted, the New York Mets were born. The Metropolitan Baseball Club of New York. Aside from the old timers brought onto the field by a decrepit Casey Stengel, Choo Choo Coleman (or Chris Cannizzaro), Marv Throneberry, Charlie Neal, Felix Mantilla, Elio Chacon (or Hot Rod Kanehl), Frank Thomas, Richie Ashburn and Jim Hickman (or Joe Christopher) were our guys in the starting lineup and they were a hoot! And we had 3 20 game losers on the pitching staff who led us to a 40-120 record the first year, worst in the history of baseball. Every game, fans throughout would speculate on what new and creative way they would find to lose the game. Would Hot Rod Kanehl throw the ball in the dugout on a botched double play? Would Marvelous Marv Throneberry forget to touch 2nd base?

I was smitten. It didn't matter if they won. They'd have their day. We'd have fun getting there. That is why I bet David Harinstein, whom I'd known since elementary school chader, $.10 at 100 to 1 odds that the Mets would win the World Series every year since I moved to Fairfield in '64. In 1969, after coughing up five slim dimes, I finally collected from the Yankee loving bully to the jeers of Fred Lobdell in the background.
There weren't many of us in those days. Most of the students were Yankee fans. They'd taunt us and gloat over man for man comparisons: Jerry Grote or Jake Gibbs; Ed Kranepool or Joe Pepitone, Ron Swoboda or Bobby Murcer and so on. But then they'd stop when we'd get to pitching: Tom Seaver or Mel Stottlemyre. It got serious.

That is why it was so gratifying when I saw this news item in The New York Times:

BALTIMORE, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- Tom Seaver, the New York Mets' starting pitcher for the opening World Series game here tomorrow, believes the United States should get out of Vietnam. He says he plans to buy an advertisement in The New York Times saying: "If the Mets can win the World Series, then we can get out of Vietnam."
https://www.nytimes.com/1969/10/11/archives/tom-seaver-says-u-s-should-leave-vietnam.html

Holy Cow! Tom Terrific was a peacenik! The association of the underdog team's star pitcher with the noble movement of the moment was astounding. Long before Colin Kapernik was born, here is a star laying his career on the line. Wow!

He was a man among men; a titan on the field and in the world of Fair Play, an antiquated notion that once governed what the ancients used to call, "Civics." He personified all that was good, all that was healthy and all that was fun about professional sports. Even Ralph Kiner knew.

Tom Seaver, the world will miss you. Thanks for the inspiration.

Your classmate,

Ken Shain
AWHS Class of '70

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I too was at that Atlanta game and finally tossed a shoe box with just dirt (it did originally have a patch of grass from behind the pitchers mound - I know, a bad thing to do...) We had parked near that Sunoco gas station just before the exit to LaGuardia and when the game ended we hopped on the hood of cars with everyone yelling and screaming to get back to our car. Every one was sharing beers and other stuff to help us celebrate. I'll never forget that day.

And we were lucky - we got to go to the WS game 4 and watched the JC Martin bunt where the throw got away in the 10th. I was also there for opening day at Shea Stadium and I'll also always remember their first banner day where me and my brothers paraded our banner around the warning track.

Fun times...

Mitch Roth

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Legend was never tarnished but Dick Young tried to soil it pretty good.
He was a class act....in the hallowed Sandy Koufax hall of "class."
I cried like a baby last night when I heard.

Larry Solters

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I love sport.

I played cricket, rugby and even ran half mile for my county.
I've been a Man Utd fan since watching the 1963 FA Cup final when they beat Leicester 3-1. God knows what I would have been if Leicester had won!

I came to LA and immediately became a LA Raiders fan. Marcus Allen became my hero. When he left to the Chiefs and I moved to NY I stayed with Marcus and became a Chiefs fan. Still am to this day. Flew into Miami for that incredible Super Bowl win.

I didn't get Basketball, but John Frankenhiemer took me to a Lakers game, and I've never looked back.

Anyway, the point of this ramble is, I've just never got into Baseball! I enjoyed the social aspect going to a game but never dove deep. Maybe if I had watched Tom Seaver I would have!

Richard Griffiths

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The MTV Documentary

Tuesday September 8th at 9pm on A&E: https://bit.ly/2GvYbtz

Seems like only yesterday.

But it wasn't.

Watching this documentary you will feel old. You will feel like you lived through history, but that it was a long time ago.

MTV's heyday was really the eighties. It bled into the nineties, it and its associated music video channels even lumbered into the twenty first century, but now they're gone, history, for all I know there might still be channels on the cable, but I don't know where or what they are and nobody ever talks about them and the truth is today's movers and shakers in the music world never grew up in an era where MTV mattered, never ever.

But it did, it was everything.

Funny going from a monoculture to today's Tower of Babel society. We all knew everything and now we know nothing, or just something in a very narrow silo. The only equivalent to MTV is the Trump show, we're all aware of it, the shenanigans, but although the Donald is making it up as he goes, he has no sense of humor and doesn't realize that we get sick of train-wrecks, that at some point you've got to change the programming.

Which happened with MTV with the firing of the veejays. It was like killing your brother or sister, your best friend, they were everywhere, omnipresent, and then they were nowhere. Eventually it leaked out that MTV's philosophy was not to grow old with its fans, but to always appeal to the same young demo. A brilliant viewpoint that "Rolling Stone" refused to follow, but both entities are now in the dumper, because when it comes to art it's always about the cutting edge, and if you're not exploring, pissing people off, alienating your core, you're dead in the water.

That's the dirty little secret of successful artists...their fans want them to remain the same, even though when the acts give them what they want they still complain. But to walk into the wilderness? Some have done it, Bowie and Madonna, but everybody else seems stuck in time, locked in amber, with the same long hair/wig and the same outfits and it's weird how they haven't changed and we have.

Context...

The record business was in the dumper. A cash machine from the late sixties through the seventies, it was killed by corporate rock and the denigration of disco. This is not opinion, it is fact. CBS Records fired a ton of people, remembered by everybody working at that time, but how many of those people are still working in the business, how many are still alive?

It's not only the VJs who disappeared, but all the execs too. Tommy Mottola was on screen briefly...does anybody fear Mottola today, does anybody care what he's doing, is he even doing anything? Label heads were titans, now they're unknown, just like the heads of movie studios. They're not creative people so much as business people, it's all about the bottom line, but Jack Antonoff says money is irrelevant if you're ambitious, you just want to make it to the top.

And the star of this documentary, the man who appeared to have the most fun, was Les Garland. A legend inside the company's walls, a known quantity in the business, all the ink went to Bob Pittman, who is heavily featured in this documentary, but Garland is the firecracker, the star, who knows all the musicians, whose office is always a party, who stays up all night just to roll into the building early the next day. In other words, have a good time while you're doing it, that's all that matters, everything else is irrelevant, like MTV itself, but once upon a time...

This is the viewpoint from inside the belly of the beast, from those who did not get screen time, who helped create the channel and its programming. And create they did. Maybe you can get the same charge from writing code, but I don't think so. I don't even think you can get the same charge from building a billion dollar business. Everybody had power and they were given a clean slate. Do what you want to, what feels right. And when you remove the reins, you'll be amazed what people come up with, they don't want to let the team down.

So, much of this is history. Documented. But still, Michael Nesmith gets a lot of screen time, he could have been involved, but he didn't want to be a businessman, just like Meg Griffin refused to be a VJ. Small choices turn into big mistakes. You've got to be willing to take a flier, to jump. Even Mick Jagger... They want him to do a commercial? Is he gonna get paid? Garland whips out a dollar and Mick is closed. The "I Want My MTV" campaign is born. Pete Townshend is next. Then everybody wants to get on board. That's the way it always is, everybody's gun-shy until you lock the heavy-hitter, then they all want to be involved.

As for the retelling of the story... All the big points are covered, but I wouldn't have told the story quite the same way.

There was the idea. Then the launch. Then the campaign to get the channel on all the cable services.

All the initial clips were of old rockers in performance, and then...

Came Culture Club and the other English new wave acts. Not that the movie does not mention this, but it skates over the fact that this happened in 1982! That's when the power of MTV started to be evidenced. And then came Duran Duran, with its expensive videos, and the change was complete. You had to look good, your clip had to be innovative, you had to spend bucks, and the field was wide open if you delivered on these accounts. In other words, the programming niche was not really that narrow.

And then came Michael Jackson. I was not in the room, but the story on the street, documented everywhere, is that Walter Yetnikoff threatened to pull all of CBS's clips from the channel if Michael's wasn't aired. MTV caved. But in this movie, MTV wants Michael Jackson, but when the company delivers "Billie Jean" instead of "Beat It," they're hesitant. The stories are not inherently contradictory, but the Yetnikoff story makes MTV look bad, and gives power to the record companies, and that does not fit with the narrative. Although they do credit David Bowie with changing their programming philosophy, airing videos by black artists. This was a big battle back then, as was the airing of hip-hop, which is dealt with fairly in this doc, it's just interesting that the kids of all the old rockers are now deep into hip-hop.

But it's completely different. If you were on MTV, you were BIG! GIGANTIC! No one is that big today, NO ONE! There ended up being MTV outlets all over the world, you could tour everywhere, you were rolling in dough, you can still tour to this day. As for today's artists? The biggest, from Beyonce to Lady Gaga to Bieber... None of them are even as big as Pat Benatar was. Remember "Fast Times"?

Yes, MTV was influential. It WAS the culture. You learned how to dress and...

The movie makes Viacom the bad guy. This is the first time I've heard that with this emphasis, that when sold to Viacom the air bled out of MTV, the lunatics were no longer in charge of the asylum. But in any event, we got a game show, "Remote Control" and then other half hour shows, many reality-based, to prop up ratings, and it was over. Yes, the reign of MTV was very brief, maybe ten years, from 1981-1991, for the following decade it was running on fumes, not where the action was, and when the internet and Napster and then YouTube put the means of distribution into the hands of the customers, it was all over.

Videos became an on demand item online. And despite all those inane articles about the death of music video, there are now more videos than ever before, it's just that the video is no longer everything, but just a piece of the puzzle, a way to see the act.

And although he's seen, there's no mention of the power of Abbey Konowitch. Yes, one guy was ultimately responsible for what got played and what did not. Nothing could be further from the truth today. What gatekeepers there are are much less powerful.

So it was clear, they were there and you were here. They were on screen, they worked at MTV, and you were at home, and your greatest desire was to be involved. You didn't want to work at a bank, or in tech, or become an entrepreneur, you wanted to be involved with MTV, not only the engine of youth culture, but all culture!

Yes, the documentary makes MTV seem like the little engine that could. But the truth is Michael Jackson just blew it up. It already had purchase. People would turn it on and never turn it off. Can you imagine that today, sitting at home and waiting for ANYTHING??

Now it's all on demand. The audience is in control. Everybody can play. However, something has been lost. The truth is, the internet and the creativity it has spawned is just as momentous as MTV, it's just that more people are in control and there's no dominance. MTV added coherence, clarity. If it made it on the channel, it was worth knowing about. And all the worthwhile acts were on major labels. It wasn't until the early nineties that indie labels really started to get any traction.

So, what am I saying here?

The truth is you know almost everything in this movie. Not EVERYTHING, but it's like looking at a family photo album. Yes, there are business insights, tips, and those might be unknown, and they're important and cool, but really it's about what was on screen. You were there, just like they were! That's another thing that was left out, the contests! Win Mellencamp's house? That was the lottery in those years.

So, the truth is this should have been a six to ten-parter. Ninety minutes is just a survey. There are good talking heads, there's reference to both Billy Squier's pink video and Tawny Kitaen, but all that might seem miniscule in retrospect was positively gigantic at the time. The channel was on 24/7, ninety minutes is not enough.

Then again, who is the audience?

Well, if it was on Netflix, kids would tune in to dig deep into history. Remember the impact of the Motley Crue movie? Kids want to go deep, they do not have short attention spans, in truth they want something to chew on, that they can marinate in, and if you're delivering fluff they'll treat it that way, by ignoring it or sampling it at best.

All the battles...the twenty first century cries for more videos on the channel...they seem quaint these days.

But make no mistake, MTV and music were positively PRIMARY in the eighties. Has there been any musical event in the twenty first century with even a tenth of the mindshare and impact of Live Aid? OF COURSE NOT! And you wanted to get rich, but you also wanted to give back. Sure, you might have hated Kurt Loder and Tabitha Soren, but the news they were delivering oftentimes couldn't be gotten elsewhere or was ignored by the target audience...MTV was a public service, in tune with its fans!

So, MTV is a great illustration that nothing lasts forever, that you must pivot. Pittman and Sykes made their way back to radio, but a lot of people got lost in the shuffle, they thought it was forever, and it was not. Nothing is forever, be ready to pivot, think about the future or you can be left behind.

And very little is remembered. Ask a millennial who Martha Quinn was. She gets very little airtime in this documentary, but what is truly overlooked is she was America's Sweetheart. Normal, yet cool. Plucked from the suburbs to hang with the heaviest of the hitters. You wanted her to be your friend or your girlfriend or... One can argue strongly that MTV never recovered from her firing.

It was so long ago. Decades. But back then it seemed that MTV would be forever, like the Yankees. Or physical media. Or...funny what gets left behind.

So, if you're playing to impress others you've got it wrong. No one cares. Come to L.A., during non-Covid days, you'll see people who couldn't leave their hotel room in their heyday walking the aisles of Whole Foods or Ralphs alone, unbothered.

And in the past...the past just faded away. But now we've got all this footage, all these videos, that are just a click away. The past coexists with the present. And this impacts music, it used to be the oldies were forgotten, but now every act has to compete with Led Zeppelin and Michael Jackson, never mind the Beatles.

But no one is competing with MTV. It's a dead paradigm. Kaput! A hula-hoop, yet with more meaning. Not inert like a pet rock, but just a moment in time. And, of course, never forget MTV made instant stars, and oftentimes they fell off the radar screen just as fast. To last, you must pay your dues. Which is what is going on today, but it's the opposite of the MTV era, people can't believe it's taking this long to break through!

But it's about commitment, taking risks.

And that's what the original MTV team did, push the envelope.

Fun. That was MTV. Both on screen and off. In the offices and at home. You wanted to get closer to the magic, you needed the magic. It was in an era where everybody was still optimistic, when the American Dream still existed, you truly believed you too could make it, even if the odds were long.

But some did. Some worth paying attention to, and some not. MTV blew up Dire Straits, but it also blew up Warrant.

But remember the first time you heard "Money For Nothing"? Or saw "Sledgehammer"? They captured the zeitgeist. That was MTV.

If you lived through it, you'll want to watch this doc. Not because you will learn so much but because you will be brought back to what once was. It's not exactly nostalgia, more a memory of a past era, that you were a part of.

We haven't had that spirit here since 1991.

We're waiting for more.


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Tom Seaver

In the sixties, all the faders were pushed up, everything was to the max and we could hear all of it.

We started off with mono, ended up with sixteen tracks. And by time the decade ended there was so much going on and you were aware of all of it. Of course there was a generation gap, our parents were the last generation that got old. Boomers today wear jeans and run marathons and are teenagers until they pass, unlike their forefathers who were shell-shocked by the Depression and two wars and were risk averse. The sixties were all about testing limits, intellectually and emotionally. Sure, drugs were part of the equation, but they were billed as a way to expand your mind. We were in it together, developing together, and we knew it all.

In the seventies we licked our wounds.

In the eighties we had a monoculture, dictated by MTV. There was more going on, but you didn't hear about it. And then in the nineties it all started to fracture, where today nothing is truly popular, nothing is known by everybody, everybody's got different facts and resides in a different bubble, but not in the sixties.

The fifties...the underground was truly underground. But it surfaced in the sixties, the Beat poets, never mind Bob Dylan and the folk scene and then the Beatles. We wanted more, we wanted it all. America was the land of possibilities, and our generation spearheaded it. We'd brooked no crisis until the advent of the Vietnam War. Of course your view was different if you were a minority, but this was also the decade where others were exposed to the plight of the minorities. And sure, there were some who didn't like it, and Nixon rounded them all up and emerged in victory, but we stood up to them, these were turbulent times.

But the transitions!

Like your hair... Crew cut and then after the Beatles, long.

Hats flew by the wayside with Kennedy's inauguration.

Ties faded, bell bottoms arrived, along with paisley...your clothes contained a statement...you were either with us or against us. And you'd be surprised how many found it difficult to change, they grew their hair out in the seventies, bought Stones albums in the eighties, they were frightened, they needed their feet firmly planted, whereas everybody else was hopping from stone to stone, not believing it was even possible to slip and fall into the water.

But although the tide started to turn on the coast in the early sixties, the pace was slower elsewhere. At first we believed in our country, were excited by the space program, by the possibilities. And then the Beatles swept us off our feet and they didn't play by the rules. Lennon said the taboo, that the band was bigger than Jesus, and they were, the back to God movement didn't really start until the seventies.

But it was not like the internet, there was no brittle break, no great leap forward, but an evolution. You were here, and then you found yourself there. And it was surprising what you would not leave behind, like sports.

Which were also different in the sixties. The games may have been the same, but that was all. The stadiums were not branded by sponsors. There weren't that many teams. The NFL grew into a monolith over the decade, its pinnacle being Super Bowl III, with Namath's victory, but the truth is, baseball ruled. And it still rules for many boomers.

Oh, they'll tell you it's about strategy and the opportunity to come from behind but the truth is the sport is out of whack with today's world. It's kind of like trying to sell a gas-guzzler to a Tesla customer. It'll work, but it's not what people want.

But in the sixties, baseball was all people wanted.

Not that the entire country was on the same page. The south was dominated by college football, lacking Major League Baseball. And by the end of the decade, the hip were anti-football because of the injuries. But baseball players were some of the biggest stars in the land, bigger than the musicians, as well-known as the president. Mickey Mantle was a hero to the generation. And the Yankees were nearly unbeatable.

In the era before free agency, you rooted for the team closest to you. There were no sports bars to go see an out of region game, no DirectTV, you had the local team and that was it. And sure, I watched the Rangers on Saturday night, but their hold on the country was minimal. The Knicks sucked, but ultimately became a juggernaut, but that was more the seventies. Basketball really didn't reach its heyday until the eighties, with Magic and Bird. And yes, the AFL sprouted and merged with the established league, but sports were dominated by baseball. Mickey Mantle made a hundred grand! That's who we all wanted to be, a baseball player.

But only in California did they seem to have established sports programs. It was all amateur, AAU mentality, on the east coast. There were no sports academies. And sure, the sport was still mostly white, but the Yankees had Elston Howard. You went directly from high school to the minor leagues. If you were lucky, you'd be in the majors within a couple of years. And your name would be on a card, we all had 'em, we flipped 'em, we carried them loose in plastic bags, we did not worry about physical attrition, they were not like rare sports cars, they were meant to be driven every day.

And then the Yankees fell off their perch, the trophy was passed around.

Meanwhile, New York had a new team, the Mets.

The Giants had left. The Dodgers too. The league had to give back. And what we got was a ragtag outfit managed by the Old Perfesser, Casey Stengel, playing in the antiquated Polo Grounds with games called by Ralph Kiner. They were in the major league, but they were playing minor league ball. Oh, we had our heroes, but they were antiheroes, like the not even twenty year old Ed Kranepool, no one could believe in the Mets, and then you could.

It started with Shea Stadium. Out in Flushing Meadows. Which debuted with the World's Fair. It was round and industrial, but it was brand new. And even though it was hard to figure out the metal panels on the exterior, the truth was the Yankees had history on their side, but the Mets were a look into the future.

And then they got Tom Seaver.

Someone good on the Mets! Someone world class on the Mets! One player changed the perception of the entire team.

And sure, Yogi Berra had a personality, and many players had nicknames, but this was before long hair in sports and arrests and...the craziest the sport got was Jimmy Piersall, or maybe Bo Belinksy. Seaver strode to the mound, did his job and earned our respect. He lifted the entire team, the fan base, you couldn't make fun of the Mets anymore, now they were playing baseball, but still, they were not good.

Until 1969.

YA GOTTA BELIEVE!

Well, actually that catchphrase came with the '73 run, but the point is we did start to believe in the Mets. They put a smile on our face, made us all optimistic, if the Mets could do it, why couldn't we? They became a religion.

It was not like today. With all this hoopla about curses, etc. The Red Sox had Carl Yastrzemski, it's just that the rest of the team wasn't quite as good. As for the Cubs? They played without lights and it looked like it, they sucked. Sure, a contract was indentured servitude, but we got to know our teams. It was a collective, it all fit together. And you were there for the ride up and the ride down except...

Many were not there for the ride down of the Yankees. They were fair weather fans. I hate the Yankee fans that came along in the Steinbrenner era, they were following success, whereas a true fan is there even if you lose every season. And the Mets had fans, primarily because they played in the National League and they were underdogs.

The National League only met the American League in the World Series. Which took place in the beginning of October. But now, in '69, the year of the Miracle Mets, there was a playoff series, today called the NLCS, but that acronym was not used back then, no way. And the Mets played the Braves and...

I went.

I had no connection, it's just that my father lived for the mail. He had to have a post office box, delivery at the house came too late. He knew if you dropped a letter in downtown Bridgeport on Sunday afternoon, it would arrive at its destination on Monday. And he knew that the fastest way to get through was Express Mail, for five bucks.

Knowing all this, I employed my dad's tricks to get tickets for the playoffs, all three games, but there ended up only being one.

As for the World Series? I left it to Judd, my compatriot, we didn't get tickets.

It was October 6th. The games started in the afternoon. You'd miss them if you were at school. But that wasn't as bad as today, where everything's played at night for money and youngsters can't stay up that late. We'd have our transistors in school, we'd know the score, and if we were lucky we could ride our bikes home in time to catch an inning or two on TV before the game was over. But to be there?

There's a feeling you get when you walk into a baseball stadium. There's the scale, larger than life, the green field, the exclusion of the outside world, and that noise, when the ball meets the bat, with that crack.

You'd buy a program and keep score. There was beer and hot dogs, maybe pretzels, nothing more. It was about the game.

The game.

The game doesn't mean much anymore. Any game. Today everybody's an individual representing their own brand, their own team, everybody wants to be a star, even though almost no one can be. And they keep changing the game, you gather your friends on MySpace and suddenly it all switches to Facebook, and then Instagram, everybody's chasing an elusive Holy Grail that not only do you not get, but wouldn't fulfill you if you did.

But Tom Seaver...

He didn't pitch that afternoon. It was Nolan Ryan, before he was "Nolan Ryan." And when the game was over, the fans took to the field and ripped it up. Literally. That's just how happy we were. Security was inefficient, it was not prepared, it was spontaneous. They beefed up the guard for the World Series, but it still didn't matter. The system was not in control, the fans, were.

Eventually the Mets traded Seaver. It's always the same, Maggie's Farm, the owner needs to show you who's boss, they can't play but they want to demonstrate their power. But the athletes...THEY CAN PLAY!

And unlike in basketball, you did not need to be tall.

And unlike in football, you did not need to be big.

And hell, you didn't even have to be in great shape!

Hustle helped, but the truth is you needed to have the skills. And if you did, our jaws dropped, we were in awe.

Not that the mighty Casey did not strike out. The cleanup man would come to the plate in the bottom of the ninth and strike out, or pop up. Succeeding was hard, and like Tom Hanks ultimately said in that movie, there's no crying in baseball.

And at the center of it all was Tom Seaver. Not only was he good, he was better! As good as anybody on any other team. He inspired the rest of the players to succeed, he inspired fans to believe. It was a wondrous time.

But those days are through. I could delineate why, but the most obvious example would be to see if those you encounter know even the biggest baseball stars. They almost definitely do not. There's just too much going on. And the players are mini-corporations unto themselves. I'm not saying that they're not entitled to the money, better them than the owners, but it's less about character and more about cash. And Tom Seaver cared about money, but he was anything but a flawed character, he was dignified, nobody's chump, but a real man doing a real job, someone you could respect.

And Tom never soiled that reputation, never ever.

"I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone"

The boys of summer have gone. There are players on the field, but they're as similar to what came before as an iPhone is to a transistor radio. They're playing the same game, you can hear music on both, but...

Technology was a color TV set. Video calling was a World's Fair demonstration of the future. Our futures were contained within ourselves, our hopes and dreams, not in technology. Young boys always need someone to look up to. And men want to be reminded of that youthful spirit. We loved Tom Seaver. Not in a sexual way, but for what he represented. He came to do a job and he delivered. He lifted the rest of the team up, he did not let them drag him down. But that was the sixties. Despite all the turmoil we believed in a more equitable world and Tom Seaver.

Yes, we believed in Tom Seaver.


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Chuck Morris-This Week's Podcast

Chuck Morris is a Denver legend who started in the club business and then went on to work for Barry Fey, Live Nation and AEG Presents. He also managed the Dirt Band and Big Head Todd & the Monsters. In addition to his emeritus status at AEG, Chuck is the Chairman of the newly-created Music Business Department at Colorado State University. Chuck is a fount of energy and wisdom, here he opines about today's concert landscape, his history and the details of the new CSU program.

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chuck-morris/id1316200737?i=1000489941989

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7stpLLIm6niCf0gChvLOux

https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=77441465



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Humble Pie 1970

https://spoti.fi/3lL6bXS

I know it's old, but it's new to me.

I left the house, to go to the periodontist. He charged an arm and a leg for the implant, over three years ago, but he doesn't bill for the follow-ups, he's more on it than I am, he wants me to rubber tip for forty five minutes a day, I wouldn't commit to that, who would?

And the weather is strange in SoCal, it's definitely fall. The light especially, but also the temperature, suddenly it's in the seventies, when we haven't seen that number for over a month, at least not during the day, however it's supposed to be over a hundred this weekend, oftentimes Labor Day is a last hurrah, I remember one day in the eighties sleeping with the front door open, that's just how hot it was, having all my stuff stolen was less of a consequence than expiring from heatstroke. In the coming weeks we'll have the Santa Anas, but then it is cool at night, however warm it gets during the day, but it feels like we're falling into winter, and that's how it feels to me, we rise into summer, through spring, but we fall into winter.

And in Beverly Hills everybody is wearing a mask. And in the parking garage I took the stairs instead of the elevator, I've been totally home, I don't want to risk it, I don't feel that lucky, but when you go out how paranoid do you have to be? I've got no clue, I know people who are nearly living normal lives, and they're Covid-19 free, if only there were leadership, direction, if we were all on the same page, tackling the problem together. But I'm not gonna swerve into politics, it's just not worth it, today when Trump is telling everybody to vote twice...if you think he's leaving voluntarily, you're wrong. Did you read yesterday's Axios article? "Exclusive: Dem group warns of apparent Trump Election Day landslide," but dig deeper and you'll find he may win on November 3rd, but when all the mail-in votes are counted he probably won't, and he's gonna declare fraud: https://bit.ly/3jKoIl5 And, once again, you've got to read Umair Haque on Medium. He's flummoxed that the Democrats won't use the dreaded f-word, and I don't mean the one that connotes sex, but the one that reminds you of Mussolini, i.e. "fascism": https://medium.com/@umairh Trump and the Republicans brand the Democrats all day long, but the Dems are afraid to do it in reverse, who are they afraid of, the 30% who will be up-in-arms who will vote for Trump anyway? There, I got that out of the way, but I must say the "mini-stroke" controversy is cracking me up, funny to see Trump on the defensive, no one said he had mini-strokes, and now he keeps contradicting himself, I'm only laughing because like I said it's all irrelevant, the horse race, the next two months, the game begins when the results start to come in.

So I came home to some e-mail. I was debating writing about a couple of TV shows, but I wasn't in the mood. And then I got an e-mail from Richard Griffiths that inspired me to write about "After the Gold Rush," and then I started compiling next week's Sirius XM playlist, and that's when I pulled up "One Eyed Trouser Snake Rumba" by Humble Pie.

I thought it was from the Clem Clempson era, with that title, when the band scraped the bottom of the barrel, played to such a lowest common denominator as to become a joke, irrelevant.

But it was not.

But that's not what I'm listening to right now, rather it's the Frampton cut from the same LP, the eponymous "Humble Pie," from 1970, the first on A&M, after Immediate imploded, after Dee Anthony became the manager, he might have not done well by Frampton financially, but one always has to ask with these acts, would they have broken through without these managers, especially when you needed a conduit to the label and you fought it out on the road and radio for years before you hopefully broke through.

So, this is the white album. If you're old and spent time combing the bins you've probably seen it. But there's a good chance you haven't heard it. And after I was stunned by "One Eyed Trouser Snake Rumba," I played the whole thing. And I'd like to tell you it demands your attention, but the rest of the LP is not as good as these two tracks, not that it's bad. But listening is such a different experience, because you get it, you understand the music immediately, you don't need a decoder, it's right in the pocket, which is astounding because this album was a stiff, at least in America. If only today's Active Rock acts could cut something as compelling, it's like a lost formula, and yes, this LP is about the basics, not the tricks, you think at times you can't be reached by music and then you hear something like this, the listening experience reminds me of nothing so much as "Molten Gold," the Free anthology which will blow your mind, the band was so underrated.

Now I purchased the follow-up album, "Rock On," because I was going to see the band at the Fillmore, opening for my beloved Lee Michaels, this was the weekend they were recording the live album, "Rockin' the Fillmore," not that we knew this, not that Frampton knew it was going to be such a smash, finally breaking the band through, otherwise he wouldn't have decided to quit.

And in the summer of '72, Frampton released his first solo LP, and if you'd listened to "Rockin' the Fillmore," you were not prepared for it, "Wind of Change" was anything but bombastic, not that it was wimpy. I loved the opener "Fig Tree Bay," which no one ever talks about, but the apotheosis, of Frampton's career as far as I'm concerned, my favorite, that I cannot burn out on, is the second side opener, "All I Wanna Be (Is Your Side)," which survives because an abbreviated acoustic version made it to "Frampton Comes Alive!," but the original is much more, it's an opus, an almost seven minute journey that is both quiet and rocking, like "Earth and Water Song." "Wind of Change" came out of left field from where I sat, but now hearing "Earth and Water Song," I can see the roots.

"Earth and Water Song" is not as good as "All I Wanna Be (Is By Your Side)," but this six minute track has a mood absent from today's scene, a deeper meaning, a heaviness that used to be de rigueur. Play it twice and you can't take it off, I must be about eight or nine times into it by this point. And it's enhanced by the quality, Amazon Ultra HD via my Genelecs. Great sound just makes you feel good, makes you believe the artist is literally in the speakers, there is no scrim, no noise, no distortion blocking the way.

Check "Earth and Water Song" out, but "One Eyed Trouser Snake Rumba" is completely different, yet even better. You've got Frampton's guitar sound, one only an electric can give, that combo of axe and amp with a slight effect...I know this sound, it's rock DNA, and Steve Marriott's vocal. And a hook, a riff. And this is almost a completely unknown cut. It sounds like the boogie of the era, but this is on a level above Foghat, who I've come to love, but this is Steve Marriott, one of the greatest rock vocalists of all time, and Frampton's guitar, is that an ES-335 or a Les Paul or..?

It's so basic, so old, yet it's a revelation. How did the band make an album like this? It's not like there's a single. They obviously just went into the studio and laid down what they did, got a representation of their sound so they could go on tour. But "One Eyed Trouser Snake" is more than that, the kind of cut that has you dancing around in your underwear, one that you cannot sit still for during its playback, it just makes you feel good.

And "trouser snake" is a British expression. Not that others cannot understand it, but it's never used on this side of the pond. And sure, the lyrics are not sophisticated, kind of base, but they're superfluous, this cut is purely about the sound. How did we lose this? Where did we go wrong? Did metal become so obscure, did the soft rockers become so bogus, did credible acts like Rod Stewart cut standards to stay alive to the point where basic rock and roll evaporated in the avalanche of hip-hop and pop? Would kids really not get this? "One Eyed Trouser Snake Rumba" cannot be ignored, you might insist it be taken off, otherwise you're on board, nearly immediately. It's fifty years old, but it still sounds fresh, maybe because it's just the basics, no frills, no filing off of the rough edges, you can hear the humanity of the playing.

I won't say I thought I'd heard everything, but something like that, I didn't think there were that many gems buried, that I was still unaware of. And the truth is most of those records, however big, from the seventies will be forgotten. But "Molten Gold" will be remembered, it's a blueprint, as great as Paul Rodgers is, and he is, it evidences Paul Kossoff's talent, Peter Green has been lionized, but Kossoff has not yet gotten his due, even though he wrote one of the most iconic riffs in rock music history with "All Right Now," but have you listened to "The Stealer"?

This is archaeology. This is life. There will be no renaissance. This is just for you. Not social media. Play these tracks, they just might reach you, they might just give you joy, and isn't that what we're all looking for?

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After The Gold Rush-50th Anniversary

It came out the week I started college.

Those were different days, we didn't even have telephones in our dorm rooms, never mind the internet. As a matter of fact, your dorm room was the last place you wanted to be, this was back when all the action was outside as opposed to inside, and we were doing our best to integrate ourselves with our new compatriots.

Then again, that was back when college was something completely different, back before it was seen as a glorified trade school, back before parents hovered over their children, we were in a far distant state and it was our own responsibility to measure up, with no guidance, no instruction, you had to hit the ground running.

I went to college with more records than anybody in the dorm. They were my lifeline, and I needed more. But there was no E.J. Korvette, the closest one was two states away, as for indie shops...they gained traction as the seventies wore on, most people bought their albums at the big box store, at a discount. But in Middlebury, Vermont there was only one outlet, the Vermont Book Shop, which charged too much, but I had to own "After the Gold Rush." Ultimately everybody else in the dorm did too. Before they switched to the Dead in '72 and overplayed "Brothers and Sisters" in the fall of '73...I still can't listen to "Ramblin' Man," however I cannot get enough of "Come and Go Blues."

So, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were the biggest band in the land. Which was kinda weird, since "Deja Vu" was nowhere near as good as the initial LP. But it was the "Woodstock" movie which cemented their status, you heard the band, both albums, everywhere you went. One can argue that Woodstock and the resultant three album set is what really clued everybody in America to the music revolution, the album revolution, the rock revolution, it no longer had to have a single to matter, earlier in the summer Traffic released its comeback opus "John Barleycorn," and despite having no AM radio play whatsoever, the LP was all over rock radio, my favorite track was always "Empty Pages," which came out before the album, with "Every Mother's Son" on the flip side, suddenly Traffic was no longer a cult item.

So, with the penetration of CSNY into the public consciousness everybody was hungry for more, music and information. The Buffalo Springfield greatest hits album "Retrospective" sold like hot cakes, not that I ever noticed hot cakes selling that well, and everybody knew "Rock & Roll Woman," listeners hungered for more of that Stephen Stills magic, he was the linchpin in the new band, the most famous member, and when his solo album came out just before Thanksgiving it was an instant smash, carried along by the hit "Love the One You're With." There was not as much furor, not as much pent-up demand for "After the Gold Rush," as for Graham Nash...he sang some singles, but he was perceived as a lightweight, which was disproved with "Songs for Beginners," but that didn't come out until the summer of '71, and as for David Crosby...I still cannot get enough of "Long Time Gone" but he was always seen as a supporting player, and despite its legendary status today, "I I Could Only Remember My Name" was a flop when it came out at the tail end of the winter of '71.

So, the first member of CSNY to release a solo album after the band became the biggest in the land was...Neil Young. Who had released his initial solo LP in January of 1969 to crickets, he was not a household name, and the only thing those paying attention knew about it was the controversy, Young being pissed about the sound and insisting the LP be remixed, which it was, and you knew it was the right version if his name was emblazoned in white atop the cover, but like I said, most people didn't buy it, at this late date most people are still unaware of it, but its peaks are as good as Neil Young gets.

There was the opening instrumental "The Emperor of Wyoming." A trademark people were unaware was him just like many didn't know Frank Zappa cut "Peaches en Regalia," even though they knew both tunes from radio airplay. But it's the second track, "The Loner," which announces Neil Young is here to stay.

"Know when you see him
Nothing can free him
Step aside, open wide
It's the loner"

Back when loners were truly such, when they could not connect online, when they were outcasts, truly singular figures.

Equally great, but different, was "I've Been Waiting For You." The intro slayed you, with the distorted guitar and the vocal AHHHs.

"I've been looking for a woman to save my life
Not to beg or borrow
A woman with the feeling of losing once or twice
Who knows how it could be tomorrow"

LOSING?

Talk about a generation gap. Today everybody is a winner, no matter the truth, just check out Instagram. You don't want to reveal your warts, your problems, unless it's a mea culpa, unless it's its own shtick, in the desire of sympathy.

"I've been waiting for you
And you've been coming to me
For such a long time now
Such a long time now"

Rock fans were nerds. The dedicated ones, who owned all the LPs and read all the magazines, they dreamed of getting laid, having a relationship, and it was only the music that kept them sane while they waited for this to arrive. They were never the captain of the football team. This was back when you were looking for another outcast, to understand you.

And, of course, the initial solo LP ended with "The Last Trip to Tulsa," and either you know it or you don't, either you don't understand it or...are lying.

But "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" was something different. Even though it came out mere months after the debut, it contained "Cinnamon Girl," which was not the ubiquitous golden oldie it is today, but was ready for spinning a year after it came out as part of the CSNY mania. This was the LP that new fans owned. And when they did, they were exposed to the nine minute plus "Down by the River" and the even longer "Cowgirl in the Sand." These three cuts were the heart of the album, but really it was about "Down by the River," assuming you owned it. And everybody did not, but many more than the initial LP, and they got stoned and listened to the extended tracks.

"Down by the river
I shot may baby
Down by the river
Dead...
Ooh, shot her dead"

It was the extended riffing, the solos that cemented Neil Young's legacy, this is what you go to see him for today. As for acoustic numbers safe for the populace...after "Harvest" Neil went on an arena tour and played all new music, ultimately released as the live album "Time Fades Away," putting his new soft rock fans on notice, he was not gonna deliver what they wanted, he was not playing it safe, he was not safe.

So "After the Gold Rush"...

All the people who purchased "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere needed it immediately. And slowly, but not that slowly, the soft sound akin to what was included in "Deja Vu" spread to the point where casual fans picked up the LP, it was the beginning of the Neil Young juggernaut, cemented by "Harvest" released nearly eighteen months later, in February of '72.

And "Tell Me Why," "After the Gold Rush"'s opening cut, was a jaunty country number that you could accept if you'd purchased "Deja Vu." As for hearing it for the first time, in the wilds of Vermont, it was an intro, to the title track...

"There was a fanfare blowin' to the sun
That was floating on the breeze
Look at mother nature on the run in the 1970s
Look at mother nature on the run in the 1970s"

The seventies were new. A change from the sixties, nearly as significant as the millennium thirty years later. What would this new decade hold? More death and destruction or..? We were licking our wounds, this was less than four months since "Ohio," it seemed Neil Young had reflected, was pondering what was going on, what would come.

But there were more significant lines:

"I was lyin' in a burned out basement"

"Thinkin' about what a friend had said
I was hopin' it was a lie"

And then there were the "silver spaceships" and "mother nature's silver seed." This was heavy. This was not a ditty. And the lyrics permeated boomer psyches, we all know them. And stunningly, "After the Gold Rush" became a standard, because the forgotten Prelude had a hit with it in '74, and then Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris covered it on their "Trio" album and the song is one of the weirdest ever to become a standard.

"Only Love Can Break Your Heart"... That country feel. But palatable to the rockers. There were no clunkers on "After the Gold Rush," but really it's what came next that mattered, "Southern Man"...

"Southern man better keep your head
Don't forget what your good book said
Southern change gonna come at last
Now your crosses are burning fast
Southern man"

You could not drive south of the Mason-Dixon Line with long hair, you were asking for it. Nixon had won on the Southern Strategy, the seeds of separation were sown, and this was the cut that became ubiquitous on FM rock radio which was spreading its wings everywhere. "Southern Man" was a compressed "Down By the River," only five and a half minutes long it allowed Neil to stretch out yet there was no issue of boredom, and you didn't need to be stoned to get it, most people consider "Southern Man" to be the heart of the album, and it would be hard to argue with that, but it's not my favorite.

"Old man lying by the side of the road
With the lorries rolling by"

Edgier than the title track, "Don't Let It Bring You Down" was buried on the second side, it was not obvious, it was heavy, something you could get right away but could never get enough of.

"Don't let it bring you down
It's only castles burning
Find someone who's turning
And you will come around"

Once again, there's that concept of being behind the 8-ball, holding the losing end of the stick, someone at a distance, not in the mainstream, the music wasn't for everybody, just like-minded people, and there were a lot of us, it couldn't be more different from today. You had to endure, but you knew you were not alone.

Each side of the LP ended with a short ditty. I loved "Till the Morning Comes." Prior to the era of CDs, I used to lift the tonearm to play this incessantly. A meaningful throwaway. Which I played with my roommate, me on the guitar and he on the trombone, probably the only moment we bonded. And the closer on the second side was "Cripple Creek Ferry," which one could not listen to without thinking of the Band song, our music was part of a continuum.

"Oh Lonesome Me" opened side two. There's all this talk of Gram Parsons, how he was the innovator, the man who merged country and rock, with the Byrds and the Burritos, and that's probably true, but none of that work had anywhere near the ubiquity of "After the Gold Rush," one can argue quite strongly that it was Neil Young who truly brought the country feel to the rock masses.

And just before the end of the second side, there's "I Believe in You," a slow walk on the prairie, with a very sweet chorus, which made the song, but it's Linda Ronstadt's 1973 cover that endures, what burned the track into people's brains.

And in the middle of the second side was "Birds," almost a palate cleanser between two heavy numbers, two of Neil's best, the aforementioned "Don't Let it Bring You Down" and...

"When You Dance, I Can Really Love."

This was a throwback to what had come before, closer to the cuts on the first two LPs, a melding of edge and sensitivity that was Neil Young's trademark, the ability to rock out and be meaningful at the same time.

One of the great things about the guitar is style triumphs over skill. There are great technical players with barely a hold on the public consciousness, and then there are others whose sound we know immediately, that just rings right, so true, like Neil's blistering notes in "When You Dance, I Can Really Love."

"When you dance do your senses tingle then take a chance"

Wait a minute. The rockers, the dedicated listeners, they might have been on a date, but they never danced, if they even went to the school events. They were wallflowers, at best mirror stars. This is what separated Neil Young from his hardest core fans, HE WAS COOL! There were those patches on his jeans, the way he laconically laid on that couch, the album cover of "After the Gold Rush" was studied, for clues, it was influential.

Or is it his potential beloved who is doing the dancing? "While the lonely mingle with circumstance"?

"I got something to tell you, you made it show
Let me come over, I know you know
When you dance, ooh ooh, I can really love"

Between the music and her movement you become INSPIRED! To make a move. That's one of music's powers, it can infiltrate you, make you take chances, perform better than you ever have before.

"I can love, I can really love, I can really love"

This was the dream. Not getting on stage, those were gods, but having music lead you to the point where your dreams were fulfilled.

At this point, one of the most famous things about "After the Gold Rush" is not contained in the album, it's "Sweet Home Alabama," the answer track by Lynyrd Skynyrd. And the funny thing is, however great "Southern Man" and the rest of "After the Gold Rush" are, "Sweet Home Alabama" is better.

Oh, don't get your knickers in a twist. The fact is "Sweet Home Alabama" is either the best or second-best song Skynyrd ever cut. That illustrates the power of inspiration, the Skynyrd boys were pissed, they had to blow back, to a track that was now ubiquitous on the FM rock radio that was everywhere.

It wasn't until the fall of '71 that the Allmans broke through nationally, with "Fillmore East," the Brothers and the rest of the Capricorn crew and Skynyrd were giving us new insight into what was happening down there, when Miami was still dilapidated, when Nashville was seen as third-rate and Memphis was the dark place where Martin Luther King was assassinated. It was southern rock which opened the minds of northerners as to what was really happening down there.

"Well I heard Mr. Young sing about her
Well I heard ol' Neil put her down
Well I hope Neil Young will remember
A southern man don't need him around, anyhow"

MR. YOUNG! There's that southern politeness, which still exists. Everything in the south is indirect. You don't tell someone to close the window, you say you're cold, the listener is supposed to figure it out. The key is not to offend, and the Skynyrd boys were offended by Neil Young, making both their track and its inspiration, "Southern Man," staples to this day.

Now the truth is it was "Harvest" that put Neil Young on the pedestal, that demonstrated not only did he deserve to be in Crosby, Stills & Nash's band, maybe he was better than any of the others. It was "Heart of Gold." Not that "Harvest" was not great.

But "Harvest" could not have existed without "After the Gold Rush," that's how Neil Young got there.

Musicians want it. It wasn't like today, they didn't make it overnight. And Neil had been through a number of bands where he had not shined, where he had not been the star. And rather than calculate, he filtered his message for the masses on "After the Gold Rush." Not that he was aware of how big the Woodstock movie would make him, what attention it would focus on him. It's nearly impossible to deliver when eyes are upon you, but when you're still on the way up, when you can feel it in your bones, your desire is at its peak, this is when you do some of your best, if not your best, work.

After dismantling his career, Neil Young got a second wind, came back into the public consciousness, with 1979's "Rust Never Sleeps." It doesn't, and that term has become part of the lexicon. And since then, Neil has bounced all over the map, tried new sounds, discarded them, followed his muse, not concerned what the public thinks.

But it is "After the Gold Rush" that paved the way, that allowed Neil Young the freedom to experiment, to be him. Not everybody loved "Harvest," the hipsters were getting off the bus as the newbies were coming on board. But "After the Gold Rush"? It was a stealth achievement, a hidden victory. There was no hit single. Fans bought it, then musos bought it, and then everybody owned it, you heard it everywhere, what was on the hit parade was irrelevant, if you wanted to know what was going on you listened to an album. And there were many turning points in this journey, most notably "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," and "After the Gold Rush" may not be quite that achievement, but it's close, and nearly as influential.

But it was a different era. The world was smaller. Everybody could be reached. You could start at the bottom and ring the bell. And the youth, no matter where they grew up, where they lived, were on the same page, they rejected what came before, they were busy paving their own way, with music riding shotgun. We were still testing limits, albeit more personally than politically, and if you wanted to free your mind and get inspired at the same time you played...

"After the Gold Rush."

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Pete Townshend Solo-Part 1-This Week On SiriusXM

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3jMZwL9

Pandora: https://bit.ly/3gOlEml

Tune in today, September 1st, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive


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Physical

Spotify remix: https://spoti.fi/3jJmVx1
Spotify original: https://spoti.fi/2YR8DC9

YouTube remix: https://bit.ly/3jB6uT1
YouTube original: https://bit.ly/2EJHIRV

No, not the Olivia Newton-John track, although Freddy Moore played that every time we had lunch at Los Tacos, with or without Demi.

It's rare that the remix is better than the original, but that's the case here, the star is Mark Ronson. Ronson turns "Physical" from an upbeat, mindless track into a dreamy dance floor trance that sets your mind free, has it drifting, in your own bubble, thinking of your own life even if you're dancing elbow to elbow with others. The original pops along, it's mindless, it's pure energy, you're bouncing like you're on uppers, Ronson's take is more of a downer, and that's what makes it great, it adds meaning, density, possibilities that are absent from the original. It's one thing to just pop the question, do you want to get physical, do you want to have some exercise, bump bodies and forget about each other tomorrow or...the physical attraction is there, maybe this could evolve into something deeper, it's the darkness, when it's just the two of us we're gonna dig down deep and connect. Not that we're not gonna achieve the Big 0, Ronson's chorus contains enough energy, enough stimulation, and then about a minute and a half into it, you're in the throes, you're building, the track is imploring you to peak and then the energy starts to dissipate, it's positively post-coital.

You can't get this mood, this energy, anywhere but music. Not in any video game, not in any streaming TV show, not in any TikTok video, you see this track is sans images, it's something you hear, like the best music, you can make your own visuals, live your own life, this isn't paint by numbers, this is a blank canvas, with inspiration built in. As for Gwen Stefani's contribution, it's not a feature, not a star turn made to gain attention, her voice is just another layer of the track, making it denser, entrancing you into its movie.

Now there is precedence for this. Albeit thirty years ago, before most fans of Dua Lipa were born. I'm talking of the remix of "Express Yourself" on the "Immaculate Collection." The original, the hit version, is bouncy, Madonna is a cheerleader, you can sing along mindlessly, participating without paying attention to the lyrics, you don't have to be old enough to understand the message, but the remix...

"Baby,
B,b,b,b-baby..."

The track no longer lopes. It's more direct, the synth faux-strings add seriousness, but I must admit the "Immaculate Collection" was released when people still owned stereos, before the earbud craze, and it was released in the ultimately failed QSound, and we can debate the merits of that technology, but the truth is it made the percussion dance around the room, and the bottom in the remix is more emphasized. The track is more mature.

Now the funny thing is in the case of "Express Yourself" it's the remix that survives, since it's part of a greatest hits collection. It has eclipsed the original. In addition because it's more womanly as opposed to girly.

There's just a power in the remix of "Express Yourself," as there is in this remix of "Physical."

Now the great thing about Mark Ronson's remix of "Physical" is you don't have to know the original to get it, even if it's brand new to you you'll get it.

Now the truth is many men are too inhibited to dance. They'll pogo in the dark club. They'll explain they don't dance because they don't like disco, but the truth is they're just too uptight to let loose. As for myself, if you ask me to dance, I'll probably say no, I get no joy from the raw physical activity, but if a track comes on that I like, that hits me...I'LL RUN TO THE DANCE FLOOR! The music penetrates my epidermis, goes straight to my heart, the blood starts pumping through my body, I'm alive!

Want to thrill your girlfriend/wife/partner? Push play on this remix of "Physical," you'll be unable to stand still, you can leave the room, make excuses, but if you just let the music pour over you you'll find it irresistible. Don't analyze, don't overthink it. Don't say you don't get it, that this is not your kind of music, just let go. That's what women do better than men, let go. And when you let go and they let go then...

You get physical.

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Portland Protests Spread

And I thought the battle wasn't supposed to start until AFTER the election!

The best political piece I read this weekend was by Margaret Sullivan, in the "Washington Post":

"Fact-checking Trump's lies is essential. It's also increasingly fruitless": https://wapo.st/3gPn5B6

You're waiting for truth to save you. The system. But that would assume we were living in the twentieth century, and that's no longer true.

I'm a late night guy, and when I saw the news about Portland last night I wanted to run to my computer. But I was afraid of burning you out. I'M BURNED OUT!

Earlier in the evening, on my hike in the mountains, I listened to Bill Maher's "Real Time." I'm about done with that show, because it lacks a visceral edge, it's toned-down in an era where we're all angry. And there are too many talking heads with an investment in the system. Bill asked Trey Gowdy, the Republicans' prosecutor in the House, if any of Trump's behavior was worthy of investigation. Gowdy's answer? Essentially there are good people on both sides. That whoever is in power attacks the other party. Is that what is really going on here?

And yesterday I finished Brian Stelter's book "Hoax," which I assume will debut at number one on the best seller list next week. Don't bother. It's so inside baseball that if you don't work in the news industry, or don't aspire to, you're wasting your time, especially if you keep up on the news to begin with. I mean if you're a Martian, and have been out of the loop, maybe. But I'll save you the time. NEWS IS A CLUB! On both the left and right. It's just like any other industry, people fight to get ahead, they switch teams, they're beholden to their bosses, they don't want to forgo their monstrous salaries. You sit at home and think this is about newsgathering, telling the truth. But it hasn't been that way since the Fairness Doctrine. Come on, Rupert and his minions make BILLIONS off of Fox News. To the point where they now second-guess their audience. Yes, they don't want to say anything that might offend their viewers. Who bite back whenever they do. As for the revolving door with Trump, as for Hannity's influence over the Donald, as for the isolation and ultimate departure of Shepard Smith...you know all that. But, I reinforce that news is a business, and the goal of everybody in it is to survive, and therefore they all know each other, it's like high school with money. And yes, if you read "Hoax," you'll learn that Fox viewers have completely different opinions than those who get their news elsewhere. But did you really not know that?

So, my SiriusXM subscription expired. I found out at 9 PM, too late to e-mail, to call. So I had to rely on Bluetooth, and when I pushed the button in the dash I got the latest edition of Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa's "Gaslit Nation." I had not been planning to listen to it, enough with the news, but I could not turn it off, because Sarah was repeating the message she's purveyed for over half a decade...Trump is employing the authoritarian handbook. He's telling you what he's going to do and then he does it. Today he said he'd bring out the military...BINGO!

Yes, to solve problems in Portland. In his speech last week he said he would deliver troops all across in America, primarily in "Democrat" cities which were overrun with violence, all the governors had to do was call. But nobody in power in Oregon called for federal troops in Portland.

So, I get it, you're at home, you're burned out. It's Sunday. You want a day off. As did I, I was busy reading this book "The Last Romantics," by Tara Conklin. I read a tip somewhere and downloaded it via the Libby app, i.e. the library. I must say I winced when I saw it was one of Reese Witherspoon's picks, but halfway through the book became riveting, I didn't want to get up and eat, I didn't want to break the mood, but ultimately, at five o'clock, still not having had lunch, I got up off the couch.

And I fired up the "New York Times" app because I wanted to see what Ben Smith, the paper's new media columnist, had to say, he's a must-read.

Smith's article wasn't up yet. Or maybe he's taking a vacation. So I decided to go around the horn, catch up on what is happening.

It was on the WaPo that I read about Trump's tweetstorm. And my blood began to boil.

Some people are news junkies. I did not used to be one of them. Sure, I wanted to know what was going on, but I did not want it to take over my life, because there were always new stories, life went on. But will it now?

So, I ask, who is gonna save you?

Well, maybe if there's a free and fair election and Biden emerges victorious things can start changing on January 20th. But that's a long way away. And Biden's victory is suddenly becoming a big if. Did you read Michael Moore's pronouncement?

"Michael Moore warns that Donald Trump is on course to repeat 2016 win - Film-maker says enthusiasm for president in swing states is 'off the charts' and urges everyone to commit to getting 100 people to vote": https://bit.ly/3hJQhdI

There's that dreaded enthusiasm gap again. The Democrats played it safe, will it come back to bite them in the ass? Come on, who is fired up about Biden? It's just about casting a vote against Trump. BUT IT MAY NOT MATTER!

But it can't happen here. But think of all that has happened here already. Like the failure to have a comprehensive Covid-19 plan that ensures people's safety. And then there's this:

"No More In-Person Election Briefings for Congress, Intelligence Chief Says - Lawmakers in both parties worry the move will block their ability to question and test intelligence assessments that can be crucial to ensuring that foreign powers do not undermine election results.": https://nyti.ms/3gHQ6yy

Our country is operating on a need to know basis, and the only people who need to know are Trump and his associates.

And then you've got Trump saying Ivanka is more fit to be president than Kamala Harris. Yes, and there was a fair and free election in Belarus!

So what are you supposed to do about all this?

Be informed, get prepared. Otherwise when the penny drops you'll lose not only your power but your freedoms and will wonder what hit you.

But we keep hearing THIS IS AMERICA!

And according to Trump and his cronies, it's just not good enough, we've got to cut off trading with China, stop paying to protect the rest of the world and look inward, take care of ourselves. The rest of the world is laughing at us!

And social media won't save us, that's a given. But what people still fail to understand is we are no longer living in the teens, never mind the aughts. The internet is not the new new thing, it's been front and center in the public consciousness for twenty five years. The game of musical chairs has ended, there are only a few companies left, so big and powerful that no one else can get a foothold. As for hardware...you may not replace your computer or phone for five, six or seven years. I've got an iPhone 11 Pro Max, do you need one? ABSOLUTELY NOT! If you want one, be my guest (although you should really wait until October for the next iteration, with 5G capability), but there's nothing you can't do on most older models. This is not the late nineties when your computer was obsolete by the time you got it home. And we venerated the techies to the point where we thought they could do no wrong, and since they're rich they're revered and think they can do no wrong.

Why bother to watch the VMAs? What difference are these people making? They say they're independent, but they're just slaves to the system. Isn't that what Black Lives Matter is all about, leveling the playing field, offering opportunity? The Dems in control have been promising it forever, has it arrived? No, the people put the power in their own hands, THEY TOOK THE POWER, and there's been a ton of resultant change.

But now people on the other side are taking the power (many working class who were abandoned by the elite Democrats in control of their party). Egged on by Donald Trump so he can stay in power. Twelve more years! Do you think it is all a joke?

I planned to sign off on political pieces, like Margaret Sullivan said, it just did not make a difference. I was gonna wait until the election itself. I've had enough of the talking heads, the opinionators, it just does not make a difference.

And neither does the news. They print these stories, and nothing happens. They move on to something new the very next day. Read about Roger Stone being pardoned recently?

So this is a warning. If you think it's business as usual in these United States you're sorely wrong. If you think it's solely about rallying around Biden and Harris and keeping your fingers crossed, you're sorely wrong. If you think winning the popular vote is the only thing that matters, you're sorely wrong. If you think it's going to be a fair election, you're sorely wrong. Not to mention that there are so many ways to wiggle...the special powers of the President, the lack of clear information in the Constitution re disputes.

And Trump and his minions are fighting to the death. Isn't that what yesterday proved?

So stream your shows, listen to your music, tune it all out at your peril. We're heading for a great conflagration. History tells us a small spark can cause a big fire, whether it was World War I or the Arab Spring or George Floyd. Everyone's been told for so long how great America is, how it's the best and most free country, the greatest in the world, that they've been resting on their laurels, they believe it and go on their merry way. The system depends on the faith of the people, and that's already lacking. If you still believe...I feel sorry for you.

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-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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