Netflix trailer: https://t.ly/UVdmN
Now this is a series to watch. Even though it's the opposite of the yacht rock doc. The yacht rock doc is about stars, this is about nobodies. And in truth, we're almost all nobodies.
I read about dating coach Logan Ury in the "New York Times" and did a podcast with her.
But then...
I hooked my buddy up with her, I told him to take her boot camp. Because his kid was gonna leave home and I wanted him to be hooked up before he felt the loss.
He followed my advice, which surprised me to begin with. And I didn't want to bug him, I didn't want to be that person. But I called him one day, with something minorly important, and I couldn't get ahold of him, and it was the middle of the afternoon and he was retired. He got back to me hours later and said I WAS ON A DATE!
Wow!
And now he's got a steady girlfriend. He had to kiss a number of frogs before he found her, but...
If I saw his profile, I would have dated him too.
That's what Logan taught him. Don't say you love dogs and long walks on the beach. Say something unique, that will stimulate conversation with a potential date. She tells you how to create the correct pictures, and if you want a taste, read her best-selling book, it's excellent:
"How to Not Die Alone": https://t.ly/KJrCr
It's a breeze. There are people you date and people you marry and so much more and...
My friend told me Logan had an upcoming Netflix series. And this is crucial, despite my interest, I was unaware of this production. Nothing spreads without word of mouth anymore. How do you create something so special that people will talk about it, that has more than train-wreck value.
So...
These are people over 50 who are looking for significant others.
And it's hilarious, because they've got so little self-knowledge, they're so wrapped up in their own little lives that they can't see how others perceive them. And they've got a list an arm's length long of requirements. Nobody gets everything they want, ever!
So one thing Logan says is to be VULNERABLE!
This is the essence of connection, this is why music is in such a bad space. If you can't reveal your faults, your flaws, present yourself as less than perfect...no one can connect with you. It's your flaws that make you lovable.
And she says another woman is operating with a 40 year old playbook, being coy. She won't commit to a second date, she's playing hard to get, she's delusional.
And another, who was married to Steve Marriott, I saw his picture and screamed, is so wrapped up in the past. Ever go on a date with someone who can't stop talking about their ex?
And at this age you're not looking for the love of your life, but companionship.
But there's the guy with OCD who won't admit it. So many people with OCD won't. They say they like order, they don't realize they leave no room for others.
And another who says inappropriate things... He asks a woman if she's had any work done.
And this same woman has a doctorate... Logan says to lay it all out there, don't hold back, don't play dumb, it never works. Although she shouldn't brag.
It's just hysterical watching all these people. They've all got money, they all have houses, some quite spectacular, but they're not rich. And they're not famous. And they're not going anywhere. They think they've got it together, the one thing they're missing is love and they can't figure out why they don't have it, they can't see inside themselves.
And then there's the woman who doesn't ask her date a single question.
This is 101, but so many people are uneducated and oblivious.
We're only two episodes in, but I can't stop thinking about this series, because it evidences humanity when we're surrounded by fakery. Celebrities who are bulletproof and influencers who are selling us 24/7. How about the rest of us?
The rest of us are on "The Later Daters," I highly recommend it.
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Saturday, 30 November 2024
The Yacht Rock Dockumentary
HBO Trailer: https://t.ly/8aLxv
This is pretty terrible. And to think I was looking forward to it. All you've got to know is they spelled Mo Ostin's name Mo "Astin," what's next, TOETO?
What we've got here is the guys who created the web series saying that really they respect this music, which I don't believe for a second, otherwise why make fun of it, and a bunch of irrelevant talking heads and a few of the players from the era. It's a big fat "Behind the Music" episode, only it's twenty five years later, and what did Bob Dylan sing, "things have changed"?
Forget that everybody streams and MAX is a lame service. If you're not on Netflix, it's almost like you don't exist. No, that's not exactly true, but I bet your inbox is not overflowing with hosannas for the new Beatles documentary, because that's on Disney+, and unless you're a kid or a "Star Wars" fan, there's no need to have a subscription.
So what is yacht rock?
We can debate that.
But once we decide which acts are included and which are not...we want to go deep. Into the personalities, into the making of the records, we want complete stories telling us stuff we don't know.
Instead this doc is a bad version of a college 101 course. A survey. About as deep as Olivia Newton-John.
Fealty is paid to Steely Dan. But then...
You can't lionize Kenny Loggins, who did his best work with Jim Messina. What came thereafter is flavor of the moment, evanescent stuff that was made for its day and is a curio now. Whereas those Steely Dan songs...THEY'RE FOREVER!
What inspired them... They've got Gary Katz, they've got Jay Graydon testifying as to playing the solo on "Peg"... But we want to go much deeper.
The members of Toto played on so many records, wrote so many songs, but all we've got here is "Rosanna" and "Africa" and "Thriller," with a little Boz Scaggs thrown in.
Yes, there is information here, but unless you're brain dead, if you lived through the era you'll learn almost nothing.
This doc is made for those too young to have experienced it firsthand. But it's too lame to create word of mouth. It's not the Motley Crüe movie and it's certainly not the "We Are the World" movie, which was fantastic, despite the song being so lame. "The Greatest Night in Pop" set the scene and painted beyond the numbers. Huey Lewis's fear, the endless session so deep into the night that it became morning. The genius of Quincy Jones.
But here...
Do I really give a f*ck what Bethany Cosentino has to say about yacht rock? Of course not, this is a paint-by-numbers production that needed a young female musician, and she fit the bill. Couldn't they at least get a woman famous for her playing?
And I must admit Questlove ultimately says some good things, but he's so damn overexposed. He's become a joke just like Michael McDonald back in the day. McDonald's on EVERY record? Questlove's in EVERY documentary?
And then we've got the rock critics who finally get to be on camera, before they retreat to their parents' basement, where they truly live.
I mean what is this documentary supposed to be about?
The web series? That would be interesting, and the creator Huey's got some good words here, but that's just the framework. We know nothing about the personalities, what did they expect, did they make any money, what are they doing today?
And rock critics philosophizing... That's like asking your kid about quantum mechanics. Way out of their league.
And then you've got the music and those who made it. Michael McDonald is pretty good. As is Christopher Cross. But so many of the players are absent.
And then there's the endless drivel about the sound being embraced by the Black community. They've got multiple Black people saying this, but not one white. The producers are bending over backwards here, it's all about surface, it's all about the scorecard as opposed to the je ne sais quoi of how this music came to be and what it represents.
Yacht rock evolved from...
In the early seventies being able to play was a badge of honor. We had Rick Wakeman and other classically trained musicians. And recording went to 24 tracks. And records threw off so much money you could spend eons in the studio getting it right. And the boomers had licked their wounds after the Vietnam war and were looking to have fun, had become hedonists.
But this music was not made on a lark. Rather those who created it were talented and serious. But this documentary is not serious.
Then again, it was made under the aegis of Bill Simmons, who made an overall deal with HBO, flopped on camera and is ultimately responsible for this POS. It'd be like having Steve Lukather executive produce a documentary on the 1988 World Series.
Today you're narrow and deep, not broad and surface. You could get away with this when there were so few channels. Now if it's a trifle, no one is interested. You've got to go deep. A multi-part documentary on the acts of yacht rock... That would have people talking. Or the arc of web series, those who created the initial ones and how it did or did not pay off for them.
I want to dig down deep.
And I want respect for the era I lived through.
That does not mean you have to only say good things about the past, but at least involve those who lived through it. Other than the musicians, everybody involved here is a youngster. Which bugs me about rock history, it's being written by those who weren't there.
You won't hate this documentary, but you'll want your hour and a half back. You might learn a couple of things, glean a few nuggets, but...
This is AM in a world that is no longer even FM.
These acts, like Steely Dan, occasionally they were embraced by AM radio, but if you look at what else was on the chart at the time, a lot of it was drivel. There was exploration involved in these tunes And there's only passing mention of disco. Not how the music got so slick, became so common denominator that punk came along and then the whole industry cratered before MTV resuscitated it.
I wanted more. I was looking forward to this.
But there's nothing here to see.
Don't bother.
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-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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This is pretty terrible. And to think I was looking forward to it. All you've got to know is they spelled Mo Ostin's name Mo "Astin," what's next, TOETO?
What we've got here is the guys who created the web series saying that really they respect this music, which I don't believe for a second, otherwise why make fun of it, and a bunch of irrelevant talking heads and a few of the players from the era. It's a big fat "Behind the Music" episode, only it's twenty five years later, and what did Bob Dylan sing, "things have changed"?
Forget that everybody streams and MAX is a lame service. If you're not on Netflix, it's almost like you don't exist. No, that's not exactly true, but I bet your inbox is not overflowing with hosannas for the new Beatles documentary, because that's on Disney+, and unless you're a kid or a "Star Wars" fan, there's no need to have a subscription.
So what is yacht rock?
We can debate that.
But once we decide which acts are included and which are not...we want to go deep. Into the personalities, into the making of the records, we want complete stories telling us stuff we don't know.
Instead this doc is a bad version of a college 101 course. A survey. About as deep as Olivia Newton-John.
Fealty is paid to Steely Dan. But then...
You can't lionize Kenny Loggins, who did his best work with Jim Messina. What came thereafter is flavor of the moment, evanescent stuff that was made for its day and is a curio now. Whereas those Steely Dan songs...THEY'RE FOREVER!
What inspired them... They've got Gary Katz, they've got Jay Graydon testifying as to playing the solo on "Peg"... But we want to go much deeper.
The members of Toto played on so many records, wrote so many songs, but all we've got here is "Rosanna" and "Africa" and "Thriller," with a little Boz Scaggs thrown in.
Yes, there is information here, but unless you're brain dead, if you lived through the era you'll learn almost nothing.
This doc is made for those too young to have experienced it firsthand. But it's too lame to create word of mouth. It's not the Motley Crüe movie and it's certainly not the "We Are the World" movie, which was fantastic, despite the song being so lame. "The Greatest Night in Pop" set the scene and painted beyond the numbers. Huey Lewis's fear, the endless session so deep into the night that it became morning. The genius of Quincy Jones.
But here...
Do I really give a f*ck what Bethany Cosentino has to say about yacht rock? Of course not, this is a paint-by-numbers production that needed a young female musician, and she fit the bill. Couldn't they at least get a woman famous for her playing?
And I must admit Questlove ultimately says some good things, but he's so damn overexposed. He's become a joke just like Michael McDonald back in the day. McDonald's on EVERY record? Questlove's in EVERY documentary?
And then we've got the rock critics who finally get to be on camera, before they retreat to their parents' basement, where they truly live.
I mean what is this documentary supposed to be about?
The web series? That would be interesting, and the creator Huey's got some good words here, but that's just the framework. We know nothing about the personalities, what did they expect, did they make any money, what are they doing today?
And rock critics philosophizing... That's like asking your kid about quantum mechanics. Way out of their league.
And then you've got the music and those who made it. Michael McDonald is pretty good. As is Christopher Cross. But so many of the players are absent.
And then there's the endless drivel about the sound being embraced by the Black community. They've got multiple Black people saying this, but not one white. The producers are bending over backwards here, it's all about surface, it's all about the scorecard as opposed to the je ne sais quoi of how this music came to be and what it represents.
Yacht rock evolved from...
In the early seventies being able to play was a badge of honor. We had Rick Wakeman and other classically trained musicians. And recording went to 24 tracks. And records threw off so much money you could spend eons in the studio getting it right. And the boomers had licked their wounds after the Vietnam war and were looking to have fun, had become hedonists.
But this music was not made on a lark. Rather those who created it were talented and serious. But this documentary is not serious.
Then again, it was made under the aegis of Bill Simmons, who made an overall deal with HBO, flopped on camera and is ultimately responsible for this POS. It'd be like having Steve Lukather executive produce a documentary on the 1988 World Series.
Today you're narrow and deep, not broad and surface. You could get away with this when there were so few channels. Now if it's a trifle, no one is interested. You've got to go deep. A multi-part documentary on the acts of yacht rock... That would have people talking. Or the arc of web series, those who created the initial ones and how it did or did not pay off for them.
I want to dig down deep.
And I want respect for the era I lived through.
That does not mean you have to only say good things about the past, but at least involve those who lived through it. Other than the musicians, everybody involved here is a youngster. Which bugs me about rock history, it's being written by those who weren't there.
You won't hate this documentary, but you'll want your hour and a half back. You might learn a couple of things, glean a few nuggets, but...
This is AM in a world that is no longer even FM.
These acts, like Steely Dan, occasionally they were embraced by AM radio, but if you look at what else was on the chart at the time, a lot of it was drivel. There was exploration involved in these tunes And there's only passing mention of disco. Not how the music got so slick, became so common denominator that punk came along and then the whole industry cratered before MTV resuscitated it.
I wanted more. I was looking forward to this.
But there's nothing here to see.
Don't bother.
--
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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Friday, 29 November 2024
More Rock Deaths-SiriusXM This Week
Tune in Saturday November 30th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.
Phone #: 844-686-5863
X/Twitter: @lefsetz
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz
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Phone #: 844-686-5863
X/Twitter: @lefsetz
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz
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Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
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Mike Pinera
I missed this one.
The funny thing is to look back at Blues Image and realize not only did the band contain Pinera, but Joe Lala. How in the hell did Joe end up going from Blues Image to working with Stephen Stills? Was it a Florida connection? Something to do with Criteria? "Stephen Stills 2" was the first album cut at Criteria. So many of the major connections in rock and roll have been delineated ad infinitum, like Neil Young being spotted in his hearse on Sunset Boulevard by Stills, Richie Furay and Barry Friedman and as a result Buffalo Springfield being born.
Joe's dead too. I kinda remember that. But now they're dropping like flies.
Wikipedia tells us that Blues Image opened for Iron Butterfly on the "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" tour, and that's probably how Mike Pinera ended up in that band, and maybe that's how I know his name, even though the Iron Butterfly album "Metamorphosis" that Pinera played on was a complete stiff, the public had moved on.
And then Pinera ended up in Ramatam, whose music was overshadowed by the sexual orientation of the band's female lead guitarist April Lawton, who turned out to be born a man. This was long before everybody knew a trans person, never mind have one in your family.
But Pinera's most famous moment, not that we had any idea who he was, Blues Image was a faceless band, was as the co-writer, guitarist and lead singer of "Ride Captain Ride."
I never heard that song on FM radio, but when it was a hit, in 1970, not every automobile had FM, as a matter of fact that was rare, and "Ride Captain Ride" was a smash on AM. I just figured Blues Image was a lightweight pop band a la Looking Glass, which had a hit two years later with "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)." That's another track I never heard on FM. And I've been stunned to hear it on yacht rock playlists. Doesn't fit in my playbook. Too early, too outside, no credibility. Just because it's soft, that does not make it yacht rock. Yacht rock is soft rock by credible acts. It's a pejorative, but a lot of that music was not only popular, but stands the test of time. Being able to play and sing, what's the problem? Somewhere along the line the rock press made it that if you weren't punk, if you weren't wearing leather, you were no good, and that is patently untrue.
But "Ride Captain Ride"... It was that noodling piano intro that put the track in the Top Forty camp. Can't say I've ever heard an intro like this in credible rock. It sounded like your piano teacher demonstrating something completely out of touch and time.
But then there was a downbeat and Pinera started to sing:
"Seventy three men sailed up
From the San Francisco Bay"
Now this was the era of the Tallahatchie Bridge. Songs set in locations based on history or fiction or...
So had seventy three men really sailed up from the San Francisco Bay or was this made up, and if so, why did this lightweight pop group set this number in the epicenter of America's credible rock and roll?
"Rolled off their ship and here's what they had to say
'We're callin' everyone to ride along to another shore
We can laugh our lives away and be free once more'"
We had "Groovin'," we had "Get Together," this was a constant theme at the end of the sixties, all of us coming together on a mission...to make a statement, to have fun.
"But no one heard them callin'
No one came at all
'Cause they were too busy watchin' those old raindrops fall
As a storm was blowin' out on the peaceful sea
Seventy three men sailing off to history"
Raindrops? Like in the Cowsills' "The Rain, the Park & Other Things"? This was obviously fantasy, and kinda stupid to boot.
But that damn chorus, boy was it hooky.
"Ride captain ride upon your mystery ship
Be amazed at the friends you have here on your trip
Ride captain ride upon your mystery ship
On your way to a world that others might have missed"
Bogus lyrics, as if written by middle-aged men in New York City, trying to glom on to youth culture. Just one step beyond bubble gum. Then again, can I admit I loved "Yummy Yummy Yummy"? Which I bought along with my Cream and Hendrix albums?
And there's a kind of simple, almost weak, guitar solo...then again, the solo in the extended version of "Light My Fire" was not so special. And at the end of the number, the guitar wails.
But really it was about the verses. The way the melody went up and down. But even more the rich vocal. Little did we know it was Mike Pinera. It's not like Pinera had the absolute best voice, it wouldn't win on a TV competition show, but it was perfect for this story song. You almost believed the story was true purely on Pinera's delivery, before you realized it absolutely was not.
And "Ride Captain Ride" was a hit and then disappeared. You'd hear it occasionally on oldies radio, but by that time we were all deep into FM rock. And then came classic rock and it fell through the cracks. But with the internet and satellite radio I now hear "Ride Captain Ride" on a regular basis, AND I LOVE IT!
It's not nostalgia, it's not a museum piece. It's just that on some level it feels so right.
I hope Pinera kept his publishing.
But I guess it doesn't matter anymore.
He's dead.
Spotify: https://t.ly/JRoaM
YouTube: https://t.ly/-_1xu
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--
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-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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The funny thing is to look back at Blues Image and realize not only did the band contain Pinera, but Joe Lala. How in the hell did Joe end up going from Blues Image to working with Stephen Stills? Was it a Florida connection? Something to do with Criteria? "Stephen Stills 2" was the first album cut at Criteria. So many of the major connections in rock and roll have been delineated ad infinitum, like Neil Young being spotted in his hearse on Sunset Boulevard by Stills, Richie Furay and Barry Friedman and as a result Buffalo Springfield being born.
Joe's dead too. I kinda remember that. But now they're dropping like flies.
Wikipedia tells us that Blues Image opened for Iron Butterfly on the "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" tour, and that's probably how Mike Pinera ended up in that band, and maybe that's how I know his name, even though the Iron Butterfly album "Metamorphosis" that Pinera played on was a complete stiff, the public had moved on.
And then Pinera ended up in Ramatam, whose music was overshadowed by the sexual orientation of the band's female lead guitarist April Lawton, who turned out to be born a man. This was long before everybody knew a trans person, never mind have one in your family.
But Pinera's most famous moment, not that we had any idea who he was, Blues Image was a faceless band, was as the co-writer, guitarist and lead singer of "Ride Captain Ride."
I never heard that song on FM radio, but when it was a hit, in 1970, not every automobile had FM, as a matter of fact that was rare, and "Ride Captain Ride" was a smash on AM. I just figured Blues Image was a lightweight pop band a la Looking Glass, which had a hit two years later with "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)." That's another track I never heard on FM. And I've been stunned to hear it on yacht rock playlists. Doesn't fit in my playbook. Too early, too outside, no credibility. Just because it's soft, that does not make it yacht rock. Yacht rock is soft rock by credible acts. It's a pejorative, but a lot of that music was not only popular, but stands the test of time. Being able to play and sing, what's the problem? Somewhere along the line the rock press made it that if you weren't punk, if you weren't wearing leather, you were no good, and that is patently untrue.
But "Ride Captain Ride"... It was that noodling piano intro that put the track in the Top Forty camp. Can't say I've ever heard an intro like this in credible rock. It sounded like your piano teacher demonstrating something completely out of touch and time.
But then there was a downbeat and Pinera started to sing:
"Seventy three men sailed up
From the San Francisco Bay"
Now this was the era of the Tallahatchie Bridge. Songs set in locations based on history or fiction or...
So had seventy three men really sailed up from the San Francisco Bay or was this made up, and if so, why did this lightweight pop group set this number in the epicenter of America's credible rock and roll?
"Rolled off their ship and here's what they had to say
'We're callin' everyone to ride along to another shore
We can laugh our lives away and be free once more'"
We had "Groovin'," we had "Get Together," this was a constant theme at the end of the sixties, all of us coming together on a mission...to make a statement, to have fun.
"But no one heard them callin'
No one came at all
'Cause they were too busy watchin' those old raindrops fall
As a storm was blowin' out on the peaceful sea
Seventy three men sailing off to history"
Raindrops? Like in the Cowsills' "The Rain, the Park & Other Things"? This was obviously fantasy, and kinda stupid to boot.
But that damn chorus, boy was it hooky.
"Ride captain ride upon your mystery ship
Be amazed at the friends you have here on your trip
Ride captain ride upon your mystery ship
On your way to a world that others might have missed"
Bogus lyrics, as if written by middle-aged men in New York City, trying to glom on to youth culture. Just one step beyond bubble gum. Then again, can I admit I loved "Yummy Yummy Yummy"? Which I bought along with my Cream and Hendrix albums?
And there's a kind of simple, almost weak, guitar solo...then again, the solo in the extended version of "Light My Fire" was not so special. And at the end of the number, the guitar wails.
But really it was about the verses. The way the melody went up and down. But even more the rich vocal. Little did we know it was Mike Pinera. It's not like Pinera had the absolute best voice, it wouldn't win on a TV competition show, but it was perfect for this story song. You almost believed the story was true purely on Pinera's delivery, before you realized it absolutely was not.
And "Ride Captain Ride" was a hit and then disappeared. You'd hear it occasionally on oldies radio, but by that time we were all deep into FM rock. And then came classic rock and it fell through the cracks. But with the internet and satellite radio I now hear "Ride Captain Ride" on a regular basis, AND I LOVE IT!
It's not nostalgia, it's not a museum piece. It's just that on some level it feels so right.
I hope Pinera kept his publishing.
But I guess it doesn't matter anymore.
He's dead.
Spotify: https://t.ly/JRoaM
YouTube: https://t.ly/-_1xu
--
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
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Monkey Man
Spotify: https://t.ly/MD1gv
YouTube: https://t.ly/0JaoZ
Spotify slipped into "Sweet Black Angel." Never my favorite track on "Exile on Main Street" but I love the sound...it's sparse, nearly naked, and today everybody is covering up.
I'm always interested in what Spotify will play after my chosen tracks/albums are done. To see what the algorithm presents. And hearing "Sweet Black Angel" I was inspired to go deeper down the rabbit hole, back to the return to form, "Beggars Banquet." People don't remember that for a long time that was considered the best Stones album, before time marched on and "Some Girls" got love and people looked back on "Sticky Fingers" fondly and I always favored "Let It Bleed," but "Beggars Banquet" was a complete surprise, a 180 from the overblown "Satanic Majesties," it was stripped down, no dross, and all the ink was always about "Sympathy For the Devil" and "Street Fighting Man," the former a deserved classic, the latter very good, but not quite as great, yet it was always the album cuts that resonated with me.
Of course there was "Stray Cat Blues," with that salacious intro, "ah...yeah..." before the lyrics even began. And I'm loath to admit that for a long time my favorite has been "Parachute Woman"..."land on me tonight," even though the meaning was slight compared to the rest.
The piece de resistance is the closer, "Salt of the Earth." But the rest of the tracks...
Waiting for a factory girl? Man, don't we live in a different society today.
"Waiting for a girl who's got curlers in her hair
Waiting for a girl she has no money anywhere"
At this point the Stones were stars. And it's not like Mick came from a lower class background. But this was just when England was emerging from black and white into color, when the grit was still baked into the buildings, and people are people...and usually those no one is paying attention to are the wildest and most interesting, because they see no need to color inside the lines.
And "Prodigal Son" sounds like anything but London. This is the England of 19th century literature.
But the song I was inspired to play after hearing "Sweet Black Angel" was "No Expectations."
"Take me to the station
And put me on the train
I've got no expectations
To pass through here again"
Regrets. Leaving with your tail between your legs. Hoping to recover your good feelings, by never returning to what once was.
This was when Brian Jones was still functional. His acoustic slide guitar is key. Just like so much of "Beggars Banquet," this is wooden music, as Crosby, Stills, Nash and sometimes Young put it. And the ignored Bill Wyman's bass is key.
Today everybody is a winner. The external is key. But that's not what the greats of yore were selling. It was a seamier side of life. Internal. After dark.
And Nicky Hopkins is a fifth member of the band.
But I wanted something more electric, so I skipped over to "Let It Bleed."
Now let's be clear, at this point I've forgone Spotify for Qboz, where I can hear these tracks in better than CD quality. The sound is so immediate. Right there. You're inside it. It's striking and pure.
Now let's be clear, "Monkey Man" is just an album track, far from "Let It Bleed"'s best, but this is back from when you couldn't easily pick and choose, you had to get up off the floor, the couch, your bed, to lift and drop the needle to hear a song again, rather you let the album side play right through.
The second side of "Let It Bleed" starts and ends with absolute killers, "Midnight Rambler" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want," but I didn't want to hear anything that overplayed.
"I am a flea-bit peanut monkey"
I didn't know Mick was singing "flea-bit peanut" until I looked up the lyrics online. Don't forget, most albums released back then didn't have lyric sheets. That was part of the magic, you had to figure the words out, and oftentimes you got them wrong.
But "Monkey Man" does not start off like a typical Stones song, in that it begins with Nicky Hopkins's piano. And Bill's bass. And a bit of ethereal guitar, more feedback than the notes.
And then...
Keith comes in. He plays all the guitars on this track.
And he's just hitting a few strings. And when he gets into it, there's just a bit of distortion, the sound is dirty. This was before the seventies, when everybody was experimenting with sounds beyond the strings themselves. Of course we had Hendrix and Clapton, but once Jimmy Page penetrated our consciousness an undistorted, a thin not fat guitar sound was rare.
But unlike the more modern productions, "Monkey Man" breathes. Because there's just not that much there. Nicky in the left ear, Keith in the right.
But then Keith falls into a groove. I wouldn't quite call it soul, but your head starts to nod. And Keith seems to be playing accents more than continuously. Seeing no need to dominate the track.
Although in the right ear there's a quieter guitar that gets louder as the song plays, but really it's Mick singing and then that fat guitar sound of Keith.
"And all my friends are junkies
That's not really true"
Only when you're at the peak can you undercut yourself. Today no one admits any faults. No one we knew was shooting heroin, but we knew what a junkie was, and the Stones had a bad rep, Mick is boasting of being a bad boy...and then he's admitting he's not quite that bad.
"I'm a cold Italian pizza"
Was this a reference to the album's cover, that 'za squeezed into the cake concoction?
"I could use a lemon squeezer
Would you do?"
Funny how the previously released "Led Zeppelin II" spoke of lemon squeezing... A term unused in the U.S. that we instantly became familiar with. When rock stars were at the bleeding edge of sexuality, before anyone could Google porn.
"I was bitten by a boar
I was gouged and I was gored"
"Gouged and gored" I always heard, but not "boar," at least not as in an animal...
"Yes I'm a sack of broken eggs
I always have an unmade bed
Don't you?"
I heard "eggs" and "unmade bed," but in the pre hi-res audio days, when we listened on less than perfect stereos, we only caught certain words, and Mick was famous for slurring and the Stones buried the lyrics in the track to the point on "Exile" they were nearly indecipherable.
"Well I hope we're not too messianic
Or a trifle too satanic
We love to play the blues"
I caught all that. And it was hard to hear "satanic" without thinking of "Sympathy for the Devil," but the attitude evidenced...they were the other, they weren't offering salvation, they just wanted to play the blues, but they were DANGEROUS!
That's what permeated the track, the danger.
That's what struck me, the difference between then and now. For a long while hip-hop sold this danger, to some degree it still does. And in active rock you hear anger, I'm not quite sure danger, but for a long time there was no danger in rock and maybe that's why it expired.
The bluesmen were not brought home to mother. How did Robert Johnson die?
Musicians were a cult. They actually knew how to play. And they lived an alternative life. With sex, drugs and...rock and roll. They invented this!
And then everybody glommed on, grew their hair long and lost their ethos.
Taylor Swift has built a career on complaints. No one was complaining back then, they were living the life of Riley.
And those on the Top Forty were not even in mind.
That's why the '72 tour was such a thing. This was not about the money, this was about bad boys raping and pillaging across the country... Maybe we can use that term once again. It was a state of mind, not actual rape. But now you can't even test limits with speech, never mind action.
And what exactly was "Monkey Man" about?
Now the Urban Dictionary will tell you it's "A person who does drugs (specifically cocaine)."
That sounds right. The Stones were famous for using drugs. It was part of Keith Richards's identity.
But Wikipedia says "Monkey Man" is " a tribute to Mario Schifano, whom they met on the set of his movie 'Umano Non Umano ((Human, Not Human!'"
Now as into foreign film as were back then, I've never heard of Mario nor his film, which doesn't even have its own Wikipedia page, which means it might as well not exist, but "Human, Not Human!" could mean monkey.
Or...
It's not really about the lyrics at all. Except for the words that stick out here and there.
"But I've been bit and I've been tossed around
By every she-rat in this town
Have you, babe?"
"She-rat"? That's sexist, abusive... We don't even want to hear your explanation, be lucky you're not #MeTooed.
Then again, the Stones and the other bands drew women to them like lemmings.
Let's be clear, sex was part of the package.
"Well I am just a monkey man
I'm glad you are a monkey woman too"
We are in this together. Ultimately, rock was not exclusionary. You just had to throw off your preconceptions, society, and join in. The Fortune 500 were anathema.
Of course, things changed. The Stones were the first to do a major sponsorship deal, with Jovan, talk about a forgotten brand.
And somewhere along the line it became about the money.
And then all the people who stayed away needed to get close, go to the show, even though it was too down and dirty for them in '69.
And there's that darkness, but baked into "Monkey Man" is also FUN!
You wanted to be Keith Richards throwing off those riffs.
Charlie and Bill holding down the bottom.
And then there was that sound, encapsulated in the notes emanating from Keith's guitar. They penetrated you in a way the words did not. Mick was just the icing on the cake.
And the way the track seemed to accelerate at the end. It didn't fade out so much as disappear into the distance, a train of debauchery pulling away from you.
What was that?
These are just human beings, but how did they come up with this sound? This attitude? This life?
We were drawn closer to the flame. We were even willing to get burned a bit in our journey. You could not get this anywhere else but in the grooves of a record or live at the show. It wasn't on TV. Not even in the movies. The rock stars were kings. You don't nod your head when you use Facebook, never mind other social media. Music might throw off money, but money never ever has had the power of music.
And you need to remember that.
I don't know if we can get back to the garden.
But I know if we do the people who lead us there won't be like you and me. They won't care about societal convention. They'll just be concentrated on getting the lightning of sound in a bottle.
We've come so far from that magic...
It's just not the same.
--
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
YouTube: https://t.ly/0JaoZ
Spotify slipped into "Sweet Black Angel." Never my favorite track on "Exile on Main Street" but I love the sound...it's sparse, nearly naked, and today everybody is covering up.
I'm always interested in what Spotify will play after my chosen tracks/albums are done. To see what the algorithm presents. And hearing "Sweet Black Angel" I was inspired to go deeper down the rabbit hole, back to the return to form, "Beggars Banquet." People don't remember that for a long time that was considered the best Stones album, before time marched on and "Some Girls" got love and people looked back on "Sticky Fingers" fondly and I always favored "Let It Bleed," but "Beggars Banquet" was a complete surprise, a 180 from the overblown "Satanic Majesties," it was stripped down, no dross, and all the ink was always about "Sympathy For the Devil" and "Street Fighting Man," the former a deserved classic, the latter very good, but not quite as great, yet it was always the album cuts that resonated with me.
Of course there was "Stray Cat Blues," with that salacious intro, "ah...yeah..." before the lyrics even began. And I'm loath to admit that for a long time my favorite has been "Parachute Woman"..."land on me tonight," even though the meaning was slight compared to the rest.
The piece de resistance is the closer, "Salt of the Earth." But the rest of the tracks...
Waiting for a factory girl? Man, don't we live in a different society today.
"Waiting for a girl who's got curlers in her hair
Waiting for a girl she has no money anywhere"
At this point the Stones were stars. And it's not like Mick came from a lower class background. But this was just when England was emerging from black and white into color, when the grit was still baked into the buildings, and people are people...and usually those no one is paying attention to are the wildest and most interesting, because they see no need to color inside the lines.
And "Prodigal Son" sounds like anything but London. This is the England of 19th century literature.
But the song I was inspired to play after hearing "Sweet Black Angel" was "No Expectations."
"Take me to the station
And put me on the train
I've got no expectations
To pass through here again"
Regrets. Leaving with your tail between your legs. Hoping to recover your good feelings, by never returning to what once was.
This was when Brian Jones was still functional. His acoustic slide guitar is key. Just like so much of "Beggars Banquet," this is wooden music, as Crosby, Stills, Nash and sometimes Young put it. And the ignored Bill Wyman's bass is key.
Today everybody is a winner. The external is key. But that's not what the greats of yore were selling. It was a seamier side of life. Internal. After dark.
And Nicky Hopkins is a fifth member of the band.
But I wanted something more electric, so I skipped over to "Let It Bleed."
Now let's be clear, at this point I've forgone Spotify for Qboz, where I can hear these tracks in better than CD quality. The sound is so immediate. Right there. You're inside it. It's striking and pure.
Now let's be clear, "Monkey Man" is just an album track, far from "Let It Bleed"'s best, but this is back from when you couldn't easily pick and choose, you had to get up off the floor, the couch, your bed, to lift and drop the needle to hear a song again, rather you let the album side play right through.
The second side of "Let It Bleed" starts and ends with absolute killers, "Midnight Rambler" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want," but I didn't want to hear anything that overplayed.
"I am a flea-bit peanut monkey"
I didn't know Mick was singing "flea-bit peanut" until I looked up the lyrics online. Don't forget, most albums released back then didn't have lyric sheets. That was part of the magic, you had to figure the words out, and oftentimes you got them wrong.
But "Monkey Man" does not start off like a typical Stones song, in that it begins with Nicky Hopkins's piano. And Bill's bass. And a bit of ethereal guitar, more feedback than the notes.
And then...
Keith comes in. He plays all the guitars on this track.
And he's just hitting a few strings. And when he gets into it, there's just a bit of distortion, the sound is dirty. This was before the seventies, when everybody was experimenting with sounds beyond the strings themselves. Of course we had Hendrix and Clapton, but once Jimmy Page penetrated our consciousness an undistorted, a thin not fat guitar sound was rare.
But unlike the more modern productions, "Monkey Man" breathes. Because there's just not that much there. Nicky in the left ear, Keith in the right.
But then Keith falls into a groove. I wouldn't quite call it soul, but your head starts to nod. And Keith seems to be playing accents more than continuously. Seeing no need to dominate the track.
Although in the right ear there's a quieter guitar that gets louder as the song plays, but really it's Mick singing and then that fat guitar sound of Keith.
"And all my friends are junkies
That's not really true"
Only when you're at the peak can you undercut yourself. Today no one admits any faults. No one we knew was shooting heroin, but we knew what a junkie was, and the Stones had a bad rep, Mick is boasting of being a bad boy...and then he's admitting he's not quite that bad.
"I'm a cold Italian pizza"
Was this a reference to the album's cover, that 'za squeezed into the cake concoction?
"I could use a lemon squeezer
Would you do?"
Funny how the previously released "Led Zeppelin II" spoke of lemon squeezing... A term unused in the U.S. that we instantly became familiar with. When rock stars were at the bleeding edge of sexuality, before anyone could Google porn.
"I was bitten by a boar
I was gouged and I was gored"
"Gouged and gored" I always heard, but not "boar," at least not as in an animal...
"Yes I'm a sack of broken eggs
I always have an unmade bed
Don't you?"
I heard "eggs" and "unmade bed," but in the pre hi-res audio days, when we listened on less than perfect stereos, we only caught certain words, and Mick was famous for slurring and the Stones buried the lyrics in the track to the point on "Exile" they were nearly indecipherable.
"Well I hope we're not too messianic
Or a trifle too satanic
We love to play the blues"
I caught all that. And it was hard to hear "satanic" without thinking of "Sympathy for the Devil," but the attitude evidenced...they were the other, they weren't offering salvation, they just wanted to play the blues, but they were DANGEROUS!
That's what permeated the track, the danger.
That's what struck me, the difference between then and now. For a long while hip-hop sold this danger, to some degree it still does. And in active rock you hear anger, I'm not quite sure danger, but for a long time there was no danger in rock and maybe that's why it expired.
The bluesmen were not brought home to mother. How did Robert Johnson die?
Musicians were a cult. They actually knew how to play. And they lived an alternative life. With sex, drugs and...rock and roll. They invented this!
And then everybody glommed on, grew their hair long and lost their ethos.
Taylor Swift has built a career on complaints. No one was complaining back then, they were living the life of Riley.
And those on the Top Forty were not even in mind.
That's why the '72 tour was such a thing. This was not about the money, this was about bad boys raping and pillaging across the country... Maybe we can use that term once again. It was a state of mind, not actual rape. But now you can't even test limits with speech, never mind action.
And what exactly was "Monkey Man" about?
Now the Urban Dictionary will tell you it's "A person who does drugs (specifically cocaine)."
That sounds right. The Stones were famous for using drugs. It was part of Keith Richards's identity.
But Wikipedia says "Monkey Man" is " a tribute to Mario Schifano, whom they met on the set of his movie 'Umano Non Umano ((Human, Not Human!'"
Now as into foreign film as were back then, I've never heard of Mario nor his film, which doesn't even have its own Wikipedia page, which means it might as well not exist, but "Human, Not Human!" could mean monkey.
Or...
It's not really about the lyrics at all. Except for the words that stick out here and there.
"But I've been bit and I've been tossed around
By every she-rat in this town
Have you, babe?"
"She-rat"? That's sexist, abusive... We don't even want to hear your explanation, be lucky you're not #MeTooed.
Then again, the Stones and the other bands drew women to them like lemmings.
Let's be clear, sex was part of the package.
"Well I am just a monkey man
I'm glad you are a monkey woman too"
We are in this together. Ultimately, rock was not exclusionary. You just had to throw off your preconceptions, society, and join in. The Fortune 500 were anathema.
Of course, things changed. The Stones were the first to do a major sponsorship deal, with Jovan, talk about a forgotten brand.
And somewhere along the line it became about the money.
And then all the people who stayed away needed to get close, go to the show, even though it was too down and dirty for them in '69.
And there's that darkness, but baked into "Monkey Man" is also FUN!
You wanted to be Keith Richards throwing off those riffs.
Charlie and Bill holding down the bottom.
And then there was that sound, encapsulated in the notes emanating from Keith's guitar. They penetrated you in a way the words did not. Mick was just the icing on the cake.
And the way the track seemed to accelerate at the end. It didn't fade out so much as disappear into the distance, a train of debauchery pulling away from you.
What was that?
These are just human beings, but how did they come up with this sound? This attitude? This life?
We were drawn closer to the flame. We were even willing to get burned a bit in our journey. You could not get this anywhere else but in the grooves of a record or live at the show. It wasn't on TV. Not even in the movies. The rock stars were kings. You don't nod your head when you use Facebook, never mind other social media. Music might throw off money, but money never ever has had the power of music.
And you need to remember that.
I don't know if we can get back to the garden.
But I know if we do the people who lead us there won't be like you and me. They won't care about societal convention. They'll just be concentrated on getting the lightning of sound in a bottle.
We've come so far from that magic...
It's just not the same.
--
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,
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Thursday, 28 November 2024
Steph Paynes-This Week's Podcast
aSteph Paynes is the lead guitarist and driving force of Lez Zeppelin.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/steph-paynes/id1316200737?i=1000678516624
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0FWUApPKJWN3W54pFCycN5?si=hc0Bk68JRryrBWoqUD-tFA
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/steph-paynes-242943497/
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/22aa286e-2c10-417b-b93a-ec0d38e5a42d/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-steph-paynes
--
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,
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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/steph-paynes/id1316200737?i=1000678516624
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0FWUApPKJWN3W54pFCycN5?si=hc0Bk68JRryrBWoqUD-tFA
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/steph-paynes-242943497/
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/22aa286e-2c10-417b-b93a-ec0d38e5a42d/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-steph-paynes
--
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,
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Wednesday, 27 November 2024
MSNBC
"MSNBC'S Audience Sliced in Half as Viewers Flee Post-Election": https://t.ly/cNh0b
What is MSNBC for?
The day after the election I tuned in MSNBC and it was the same as it ever was, you'd think nothing had changed, it was the usual suspects railing against Trump and the Republicans. I switched stations and haven't been back since.
It's not a news organization. There are almost no reporters. You can't seem to tune in without them quoting the "New York Times" or the "Wall Street Journal." Even Rachel Maddow does this, and she's the most credible star they've got!
As for Lawrence O'Donnell... This guy has got a chip on his shoulder, no one on the other side can ever do anything right. He's a nitpicker. He refuses to see the forest for the trees.
Which is what the Democrats were forced to do after Election Day. But not MSNBC!
Everybody needs to pivot. Did you read today's "New York Times" article on Southwest Airlines?
"How Southwest Airlines Lost Its Groove"
Free link: https://t.ly/pqVhh
If you keep doing the same thing and expecting to win...you're going to lose. Maybe the hard core will stand by you, but how many hard core MSNBC fans are there, who want to spend time in this reality distortion field.
On MSNBC the Democrats are always right and the Republicans are on the verge of getting their comeuppance. But this never happens. MSNBC represents the elite that the country rebelled against. We're sick and tired of people telling us they know better. Just because you wear a suit and tie that does not make you right.
We can debate whether there's any future in cable news. Look at the demographics, only old people watch it, young 'uns are not coming on board. Eventually this audience is going to die, and then what? Maybe you treat MSNBC like Alden Capital treats newspapers. You cut and bleed it dry knowing it's time-stamped.
Otherwise MSNBC has to pivot. Has to reinvent itself.
Has to stop being a delusional left wing cheerleader.
On MSNBC the Democrats had it in the bag, Kamala Harris was a good candidate and everything was hunky dory, only it wasn't.
I'd love to see MSNBC do a deep dive into the Harris campaign and the candidate herself. Truly look at why she lost. Enough with the insanity that Harris ran a perfect campaign. How about more info on how Harris locked up the nomination right after Biden decided not to run. She got an early heads-up and called all her potential competitors and asked whether they were with her or against her. Can't MSNBC investigate the flaws of the Democrats instead of constantly pointing fingers at those on the right?
How about a Snopes show. You know, rumors, are they true or false? And apply it to both sides. An hour of that a day would be interesting. Google News does this, MSNBC can.
How about giving more airtime to the TikTokkers on the left. All we hear about is the political influencers on the right. But social media is filled with regular people in beards and overalls who are on the left. Give them some views.
MSNBC's only hope is to fill a niche that no one else has.
The facts. However they may fall.
CNN says it is doing this, but so far the message is mixed.
That's another show every night. The issues in play, what are the facts.
Tariffs, winners and losers. Car companies, electric car companies, Newsom saying he'll keep electric car incentives even if Trump eviscerates those on a federal level. This is information, we all want information. Enough with opinion, it turned out MSNBC's opinions were WRONG! Are they going to refuse to pivot, just like the DNC?
It should be that if you want to know what is going on, you tune in MSNBC for the facts. Which don't always come down on one side or the other. Make MSNBC authoritative alongside the "Times."
No arguing. No spin. No "Crossfire," no usual suspects with their insane distortion of the truth.
As for Rachel Maddow... She needs to do what she does best, which is historical context. For an entire hour. No interviews. Do a deep dive into what was and thread it up to today. And let the people decide for themselves, even though the facts might be self-evident.
Sure, it will take a while for the public to adjust. But like Adobe which went from sales to subscription, after a while word spreads and you come back stronger than ever before.
Maybe tie in with Bloomberg. Which got away from hard political news. Use their facts to delineate the truth.
And an honest business hour to combat CNBC's cheerleading.
That's what's wrong with MSNBC, the cheerleading. Like we're all supposed to believe when our team gets wiped out again and again and again.
Turns out all the money in airlines these days is in slicing and dicing the cabins and charging for upgraded amenities. The one size fits all paradigm of Southwest no longer works.
Don't tell me about Fox. Just because it works on the right doesn't mean it will work on the left. Fox's spin is that we're the downtrodden underdogs. Forget that we're delusional, we are fighting the forces of evil.
Democrats are not that dumb. How do they lay out the bread crumbs and lead the blue collar and other defectors back to them.
Not by isolating and doing the same damn thing, but by trying a different strategy.
What you want is the person on the factory floor contradicting a Fox viewer by saying they saw something different on the facts hour on MSNBC. Believe me, when you retort that some talking head on MSNBC said otherwise, it means nothing.
You win by being the other.
Being the left wing version of Fox is a losing strategy.
I'm disillusioned. I know dedicated MSNBC viewers who are disillusioned. What, is the channel waiting for Trump's faux pas to do the same damn thing expecting us to return like lemmings?
I'm not interested in that. I don't care about tit for tat. I want to play the long game, if anything. How do we turn this ship around? Hell, if this were the Titanic MSNBC would be so busy pointing out the failures of the captain that they'd refuse to get off the ship. Everybody would be running for the exits and on MSNBC they'd be lionizing their favorite captain and bringing out experts who support their position while the ship is listing.
Everybody but Rachel Maddow is expendable.
Don't worry about someone being on the left or the right, worry first and foremost about credibility. MSNBC needs umpires.
MSNBC should be a den of strategy...that's a club, I'm interested in joining. One hour about what we can do, with updates. More "Shark Tank" for political/societal change than sideline snickering.
Right now MSNBC is a joke and the only people who are unaware of this are those who work for the damn channel.
ENOUGH!
--
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--
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What is MSNBC for?
The day after the election I tuned in MSNBC and it was the same as it ever was, you'd think nothing had changed, it was the usual suspects railing against Trump and the Republicans. I switched stations and haven't been back since.
It's not a news organization. There are almost no reporters. You can't seem to tune in without them quoting the "New York Times" or the "Wall Street Journal." Even Rachel Maddow does this, and she's the most credible star they've got!
As for Lawrence O'Donnell... This guy has got a chip on his shoulder, no one on the other side can ever do anything right. He's a nitpicker. He refuses to see the forest for the trees.
Which is what the Democrats were forced to do after Election Day. But not MSNBC!
Everybody needs to pivot. Did you read today's "New York Times" article on Southwest Airlines?
"How Southwest Airlines Lost Its Groove"
Free link: https://t.ly/pqVhh
If you keep doing the same thing and expecting to win...you're going to lose. Maybe the hard core will stand by you, but how many hard core MSNBC fans are there, who want to spend time in this reality distortion field.
On MSNBC the Democrats are always right and the Republicans are on the verge of getting their comeuppance. But this never happens. MSNBC represents the elite that the country rebelled against. We're sick and tired of people telling us they know better. Just because you wear a suit and tie that does not make you right.
We can debate whether there's any future in cable news. Look at the demographics, only old people watch it, young 'uns are not coming on board. Eventually this audience is going to die, and then what? Maybe you treat MSNBC like Alden Capital treats newspapers. You cut and bleed it dry knowing it's time-stamped.
Otherwise MSNBC has to pivot. Has to reinvent itself.
Has to stop being a delusional left wing cheerleader.
On MSNBC the Democrats had it in the bag, Kamala Harris was a good candidate and everything was hunky dory, only it wasn't.
I'd love to see MSNBC do a deep dive into the Harris campaign and the candidate herself. Truly look at why she lost. Enough with the insanity that Harris ran a perfect campaign. How about more info on how Harris locked up the nomination right after Biden decided not to run. She got an early heads-up and called all her potential competitors and asked whether they were with her or against her. Can't MSNBC investigate the flaws of the Democrats instead of constantly pointing fingers at those on the right?
How about a Snopes show. You know, rumors, are they true or false? And apply it to both sides. An hour of that a day would be interesting. Google News does this, MSNBC can.
How about giving more airtime to the TikTokkers on the left. All we hear about is the political influencers on the right. But social media is filled with regular people in beards and overalls who are on the left. Give them some views.
MSNBC's only hope is to fill a niche that no one else has.
The facts. However they may fall.
CNN says it is doing this, but so far the message is mixed.
That's another show every night. The issues in play, what are the facts.
Tariffs, winners and losers. Car companies, electric car companies, Newsom saying he'll keep electric car incentives even if Trump eviscerates those on a federal level. This is information, we all want information. Enough with opinion, it turned out MSNBC's opinions were WRONG! Are they going to refuse to pivot, just like the DNC?
It should be that if you want to know what is going on, you tune in MSNBC for the facts. Which don't always come down on one side or the other. Make MSNBC authoritative alongside the "Times."
No arguing. No spin. No "Crossfire," no usual suspects with their insane distortion of the truth.
As for Rachel Maddow... She needs to do what she does best, which is historical context. For an entire hour. No interviews. Do a deep dive into what was and thread it up to today. And let the people decide for themselves, even though the facts might be self-evident.
Sure, it will take a while for the public to adjust. But like Adobe which went from sales to subscription, after a while word spreads and you come back stronger than ever before.
Maybe tie in with Bloomberg. Which got away from hard political news. Use their facts to delineate the truth.
And an honest business hour to combat CNBC's cheerleading.
That's what's wrong with MSNBC, the cheerleading. Like we're all supposed to believe when our team gets wiped out again and again and again.
Turns out all the money in airlines these days is in slicing and dicing the cabins and charging for upgraded amenities. The one size fits all paradigm of Southwest no longer works.
Don't tell me about Fox. Just because it works on the right doesn't mean it will work on the left. Fox's spin is that we're the downtrodden underdogs. Forget that we're delusional, we are fighting the forces of evil.
Democrats are not that dumb. How do they lay out the bread crumbs and lead the blue collar and other defectors back to them.
Not by isolating and doing the same damn thing, but by trying a different strategy.
What you want is the person on the factory floor contradicting a Fox viewer by saying they saw something different on the facts hour on MSNBC. Believe me, when you retort that some talking head on MSNBC said otherwise, it means nothing.
You win by being the other.
Being the left wing version of Fox is a losing strategy.
I'm disillusioned. I know dedicated MSNBC viewers who are disillusioned. What, is the channel waiting for Trump's faux pas to do the same damn thing expecting us to return like lemmings?
I'm not interested in that. I don't care about tit for tat. I want to play the long game, if anything. How do we turn this ship around? Hell, if this were the Titanic MSNBC would be so busy pointing out the failures of the captain that they'd refuse to get off the ship. Everybody would be running for the exits and on MSNBC they'd be lionizing their favorite captain and bringing out experts who support their position while the ship is listing.
Everybody but Rachel Maddow is expendable.
Don't worry about someone being on the left or the right, worry first and foremost about credibility. MSNBC needs umpires.
MSNBC should be a den of strategy...that's a club, I'm interested in joining. One hour about what we can do, with updates. More "Shark Tank" for political/societal change than sideline snickering.
Right now MSNBC is a joke and the only people who are unaware of this are those who work for the damn channel.
ENOUGH!
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Tuesday, 26 November 2024
Drake's Petitions
"Drake accuses Universal Music Group and Spotify of unfairly promoting Kendrick Lamar's 'Not Like Us'": https://t.ly/wi2pY
"Drake Files Second Action Against UMG, Alleging Defamation Over Kendrick Lamar's 'False' Song": https://t.ly/32_oO
Who knows what the truth is.
But one thing is for sure, the credibility of Universal and Spotify is in question. In a world where Ticketmaster is more hated than the cable industry. If you're big in the world today, you're automatically guilty. This is the ethos of the individuals oppressed online. If you're defending the corporation, if you're taking the side of the man, you're excoriated.
Whatever the truth is here, this is the result of consolidation. Drake and Kendrick Lamar are both Universal artists. Is there an inherent conflict? I'm not saying it's illegal, it's not, but I am saying going forward it will be an issue...does the label have my back, or someone else's?
And let's be clear, Drake's image has taken an irreversible hit.
As for a discount deal with Spotify... That seems totally plausible. This is what labels did with physical retail to move product. So did Universal accept a lesser payment for "Not Like Us"? There's a long history of Spotify paying less in return for promotion.
Let the games begin.
We have innumerable artists saying that Spotify doesn't pay enough, while the big kahunas are accepting less for dominance?
As for employing bots... I truly doubt that Spotify, et al, agreed to this. This is a smoking gun, and there's no upside. But Universal doing anything it can to drive traffic? Once again, that's the history of music promotion.
So whatever happens here, Universal loses. As has Drake. He will never recover from this rap battle. Did Universal have his back? It certainly didn't look like it. If they weren't parts of the same conglomerate would another label have fought for Drake harder against Kendrick? One would think so.
And then there's the dirty little secret that a whole bunch of people just don't care about this rap battle. In a world where country music is ascendant, where you don't have to listen to anything you don't want to, how many people have actually paid attention to the music from last spring that is at the center of this conflagration?
This is a lesson from the election. Perception may be very different from reality. The entire music business was and is focused on this rap battle. But in reality is it a tempest in a teapot? And let's be clear...in a world where there's war in the Middle East and in Ukraine, where grocery prices are sky high, do we really care about a pissing match between two rich rappers?
Fans are as diehard as ever. But how wide is that fandom?
And today people are skeptical of celebrities. In truth, many social media influencers have a wider reach than hit musicians. Which is something mainstream media and the industry at large refuse to acknowledge, they'd rather bury their heads in the sand and believe it's the same as it ever was.
The election proved that big time media was out of touch. Trump bad, Kamala good. Then why did Trump win in the end? Never have big artists reached fewer people. But the industry has not adjusted for this. Instead of major labels trying to gain market share by signing ever more acts in ever more genres, they're signing very few acts in very few genres and trying for moonshots. But a moonshot in the MTV era was very different from today. Back then you were literally known around the world. Today you can be a Spotify Top Ten artist and most of the public cannot name a single song of yours.
In an era of transparency, the music business continues to be opaque. As for Spotify...it actually publishes the streams, available to everybody, right in the desktop app. But since Spotify is the biggest streamer with the most listeners it must be guilty.
What Drake wants is sunlight, whatever the truth might be. But historically the industry has done everything to avoid this, settling all lawsuits, avoiding precedent.
But it used to be that acts were afraid of labels. But with so much money in touring, this is no longer the case. Lawsuits are more prevalent.
Questlove said in the wake of the Kendrick/Drake rap battle that "Hip-hop is truly dead."
But it might just be the beginning of transparency.
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"Drake Files Second Action Against UMG, Alleging Defamation Over Kendrick Lamar's 'False' Song": https://t.ly/32_oO
Who knows what the truth is.
But one thing is for sure, the credibility of Universal and Spotify is in question. In a world where Ticketmaster is more hated than the cable industry. If you're big in the world today, you're automatically guilty. This is the ethos of the individuals oppressed online. If you're defending the corporation, if you're taking the side of the man, you're excoriated.
Whatever the truth is here, this is the result of consolidation. Drake and Kendrick Lamar are both Universal artists. Is there an inherent conflict? I'm not saying it's illegal, it's not, but I am saying going forward it will be an issue...does the label have my back, or someone else's?
And let's be clear, Drake's image has taken an irreversible hit.
As for a discount deal with Spotify... That seems totally plausible. This is what labels did with physical retail to move product. So did Universal accept a lesser payment for "Not Like Us"? There's a long history of Spotify paying less in return for promotion.
Let the games begin.
We have innumerable artists saying that Spotify doesn't pay enough, while the big kahunas are accepting less for dominance?
As for employing bots... I truly doubt that Spotify, et al, agreed to this. This is a smoking gun, and there's no upside. But Universal doing anything it can to drive traffic? Once again, that's the history of music promotion.
So whatever happens here, Universal loses. As has Drake. He will never recover from this rap battle. Did Universal have his back? It certainly didn't look like it. If they weren't parts of the same conglomerate would another label have fought for Drake harder against Kendrick? One would think so.
And then there's the dirty little secret that a whole bunch of people just don't care about this rap battle. In a world where country music is ascendant, where you don't have to listen to anything you don't want to, how many people have actually paid attention to the music from last spring that is at the center of this conflagration?
This is a lesson from the election. Perception may be very different from reality. The entire music business was and is focused on this rap battle. But in reality is it a tempest in a teapot? And let's be clear...in a world where there's war in the Middle East and in Ukraine, where grocery prices are sky high, do we really care about a pissing match between two rich rappers?
Fans are as diehard as ever. But how wide is that fandom?
And today people are skeptical of celebrities. In truth, many social media influencers have a wider reach than hit musicians. Which is something mainstream media and the industry at large refuse to acknowledge, they'd rather bury their heads in the sand and believe it's the same as it ever was.
The election proved that big time media was out of touch. Trump bad, Kamala good. Then why did Trump win in the end? Never have big artists reached fewer people. But the industry has not adjusted for this. Instead of major labels trying to gain market share by signing ever more acts in ever more genres, they're signing very few acts in very few genres and trying for moonshots. But a moonshot in the MTV era was very different from today. Back then you were literally known around the world. Today you can be a Spotify Top Ten artist and most of the public cannot name a single song of yours.
In an era of transparency, the music business continues to be opaque. As for Spotify...it actually publishes the streams, available to everybody, right in the desktop app. But since Spotify is the biggest streamer with the most listeners it must be guilty.
What Drake wants is sunlight, whatever the truth might be. But historically the industry has done everything to avoid this, settling all lawsuits, avoiding precedent.
But it used to be that acts were afraid of labels. But with so much money in touring, this is no longer the case. Lawsuits are more prevalent.
Questlove said in the wake of the Kendrick/Drake rap battle that "Hip-hop is truly dead."
But it might just be the beginning of transparency.
--
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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Sunday, 24 November 2024
Alice Brock
She died.
Who's that?
Alice from "Alice's Restaurant"!
Oh, they had an Alice's Restaurant in my hometown. Didn't they even have one on the Malibu Pier? Always homey inside, with barnboard and healthy food...
NO!
That was all in the wake of the song, the movie and...
The sixties are over, but once upon a time there was a counterculture.
"Alice's Restaurant" came out in the fall of 1967. If you were living in San Francisco or New York, you heard the entirety of the eighteen minute song on the radio. If you lived in the hinterlands...I don't know, I didn't live in the hinterlands.
When did the sixties begin?
Earlier than you think. Everybody focuses on the late sixties, Humphrey, Woodstock, but the wheel turned much before that.
But you had to be paying attention to know.
It started with civil rights. I remember our rabbi taking the bus down south to protest. This was when it was less of a herd mentality and a personal desire, a personal need, you had to stand up, you thought the issue was black and white, you needed to make a statement, and you thought it made a difference.
And somewhere along the line people became aware of the Vietnam War. First there were advisors, then we were in a full scale conflagration. Which most people thought we would win easily, after all, weren't we the United States?
And while we were just living a life, hippiedom began in San Francisco. And after the Beatles wiped the radio deck clear of everybody but the Beach Boys and the Four Seasons, and the Mamas & the Papas and Jefferson Airplane and so many came in their wake... It was clear, something was happening here.
"For What It's Worth came out in '66, after the Sunset Strip riots. No, the title was not in the song. But this was at the advent of acts having power. And in truth, the labels were starting to blink, they wondered if they truly knew what was going on. They all hired house hippies to steer them.
So by '67...
Well, '67 was the Summer of Love. But those outside the metropolis, those not hip, and you could tell by the clothes and the hair, still weren't clued in, but eventually they got on the same page. There was just too much excitement. There was a vibe, an underpinning. Every young person was a Democrat back then, you could point out the Republicans, they were so rare. The youth were aligned. But then came Kent State and you could no longer tell someone's values by the length of their hair and Nixon resigned and Reagan legitimized greed and everybody sold out to the almighty dollar and we truly haven't had the spirit here since 1969.
But back then...
There was an alternative. And it was just a matter of when you got hipped. And in the suburbs, in Fairfield, Connecticut, fifty miles from New York City, we got hipped early.
My mother was a culture vulture.
But so was Mrs. Hurley, our sophomore English teacher.
I was thinking about her just today. Someone was talking about the antisemitic protests in Montreal. Which made me think of being in that city in the fall of '67, for Expo '67. And coming home on Sunday, my parents detoured to drop me Off-Broadway, where my class was attending a performance of "MacBird."
Back when Off-Broadway was a thing. Broadway was for musicals, big tent productions. Off-Broadway was where all the experimental, cutting edge productions were. Testing limits.
Yes, a field trip on a Sunday. We didn't need no stinking time off from school to attend a cultural event.
And we went to see Janis Ian at Philharmonic Hall on a Friday night, before it was Avery Fisher Hall, before it was David Geffen Hall. We had to hear "Society's Child."
And on the bulletin board in Mrs. Hurley's classroom was thumbtacked...
An article about Arlo Guthrie and "Alice's Restaurant" from "Time" magazine.
The straight news was becoming hip to the alternative, to the youthquake. And when you made it there your acolytes felt good for you, you'd triumphed, and as a result we had too.
So what was "Alice's Restaurant" all about?
The draft.
All those Trumpers... I'd like to hear your take on things if you were subjected to getting your ass shot off overseas.
I mean we grew up in the wake of World War II. We knew you had to fight for your right...to live under a democracy, if not to party.
But did we really want to be in the line of fire?
And then the first guy from my high school died.
It was a real thing. Regular people, they got drafted and...
Can I tell you the military was the enemy, as were the cops? Everything's flipped today. Back then we were suspicious of organizations, it was about the lone individual.
Like Arlo Guthrie.
Woody Guthrie's son.
Not that everybody knew who Woody Guthrie was. This land was your land, from the redwood forests... We'd been singing those words since first grade, we had no idea someone actually wrote them, we figured they'd been passed down through the ages.
And of course Bob Dylan was influenced by Woody Guthrie. But at this point, most people only listened to Top Forty, they didn't go any deeper. They hadn't heard "Purple Haze," which also came out in '67.
So this guy with the funny name had this long song...
Oh, we were into length. That was testing limits. There were long versions and short versions, like with "Light My Fire." Did you know the long version, were you even aware it existed?
So Arlo Guthrie takes a whole side of an album to tell this meandering story about being drafted but evading service because he was a litterbug. The Group W Bench....that was in regular conversation, just like W.C. Fields.
So it was Thanksgiving and the dump was closed and Arlo and his buddy put the trash in a ravine and...
Suddenly, Alice and her restaurant were famous.
But then there was the movie, and everybody truly knew who she was. And it was most people's first exposure to Joni Mitchell, who sang "Songs to Aging Children Come" on a hillside in the snow.
The "Alice's Restaurant" movie was dark. Anything but a superhero fantasy. Then again, life was alternately light and dark. We were testing limits while MLK and RFK were being assassinated, while there were riots in the street. You listened to a record to know which way the wind blew.
So Arlo became a cultural staple.
And he "came back" in the Woodstock movie when he flew in from London from over the Pole. And he made some great music thereafter, but then there was corporate rock and disco and MTV and he wasn't quite a footnote, but he was far from mainstream.
As for Alice Brock?
The restaurant closed not long after the song came out. She got a divorce. She had a cameo in the movie...
And then she disappeared.
But we never forgot her. You can't forget these iconic moments of the sixties.
And I went with my buddy Keith to see Arlo at Fordham University. He started picking the notes to "Alice's Restaurant" and a whoop of recognition came over the hall. But he said there were three versions of the song, and we didn't know which one he was going to play.
He played one about Johnson being paranoid. Yes, LBJ was anathema. Little did we know we'd get Nixon, little did we know we'd get Trump. We actually had it pretty good in retrospect, but we wanted more. Not for ourselves, but for society.
Now dumping your trash in an unauthorized place... All these years later that seems a taboo. I never understood a dump being closed, but when we rented a ski house in East Jamaica, Vermont in that same year of '67, that was the case... No dumping on Sunday. So my father would look for a dumpster.
Now you're even afraid of putting your trash in a dumpster, because who knows, there might be a camera.
That's what I don't understand about the poor and uneducated and their physical crimes. There are cameras everywhere, don't you watch streaming television?
But in the wake of the environmental movement, which really didn't gain traction until 1970, with the first Earth Day, on April 22nd, my birthday, the first day I got high, we went to see the Woodstock movie...
The rules changed.
Now if someone throws garbage out the window you get pissed.
Then again, that philosophy is waning. And they told us to recycle and almost all we put in the blue bucket goes into a landfill overseas.
But some people are saying to drill, baby, drill.
And it's confounding if you were around back then. It seemed like we were always going forward. But that hasn't been the case for years. And techies are our idols, not musicians. Hell, Steve Jobs revered musicians. But today's musicians are not the best and the brightest and they're looking to sell out to the techies, when in reality music is all about telling truth to power, that's what Arlo Guthrie did.
But at this late date, all you can say is...
"I don't want a pickle
Just want to ride on my motorcycle"
(That was on side two.)
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Who's that?
Alice from "Alice's Restaurant"!
Oh, they had an Alice's Restaurant in my hometown. Didn't they even have one on the Malibu Pier? Always homey inside, with barnboard and healthy food...
NO!
That was all in the wake of the song, the movie and...
The sixties are over, but once upon a time there was a counterculture.
"Alice's Restaurant" came out in the fall of 1967. If you were living in San Francisco or New York, you heard the entirety of the eighteen minute song on the radio. If you lived in the hinterlands...I don't know, I didn't live in the hinterlands.
When did the sixties begin?
Earlier than you think. Everybody focuses on the late sixties, Humphrey, Woodstock, but the wheel turned much before that.
But you had to be paying attention to know.
It started with civil rights. I remember our rabbi taking the bus down south to protest. This was when it was less of a herd mentality and a personal desire, a personal need, you had to stand up, you thought the issue was black and white, you needed to make a statement, and you thought it made a difference.
And somewhere along the line people became aware of the Vietnam War. First there were advisors, then we were in a full scale conflagration. Which most people thought we would win easily, after all, weren't we the United States?
And while we were just living a life, hippiedom began in San Francisco. And after the Beatles wiped the radio deck clear of everybody but the Beach Boys and the Four Seasons, and the Mamas & the Papas and Jefferson Airplane and so many came in their wake... It was clear, something was happening here.
"For What It's Worth came out in '66, after the Sunset Strip riots. No, the title was not in the song. But this was at the advent of acts having power. And in truth, the labels were starting to blink, they wondered if they truly knew what was going on. They all hired house hippies to steer them.
So by '67...
Well, '67 was the Summer of Love. But those outside the metropolis, those not hip, and you could tell by the clothes and the hair, still weren't clued in, but eventually they got on the same page. There was just too much excitement. There was a vibe, an underpinning. Every young person was a Democrat back then, you could point out the Republicans, they were so rare. The youth were aligned. But then came Kent State and you could no longer tell someone's values by the length of their hair and Nixon resigned and Reagan legitimized greed and everybody sold out to the almighty dollar and we truly haven't had the spirit here since 1969.
But back then...
There was an alternative. And it was just a matter of when you got hipped. And in the suburbs, in Fairfield, Connecticut, fifty miles from New York City, we got hipped early.
My mother was a culture vulture.
But so was Mrs. Hurley, our sophomore English teacher.
I was thinking about her just today. Someone was talking about the antisemitic protests in Montreal. Which made me think of being in that city in the fall of '67, for Expo '67. And coming home on Sunday, my parents detoured to drop me Off-Broadway, where my class was attending a performance of "MacBird."
Back when Off-Broadway was a thing. Broadway was for musicals, big tent productions. Off-Broadway was where all the experimental, cutting edge productions were. Testing limits.
Yes, a field trip on a Sunday. We didn't need no stinking time off from school to attend a cultural event.
And we went to see Janis Ian at Philharmonic Hall on a Friday night, before it was Avery Fisher Hall, before it was David Geffen Hall. We had to hear "Society's Child."
And on the bulletin board in Mrs. Hurley's classroom was thumbtacked...
An article about Arlo Guthrie and "Alice's Restaurant" from "Time" magazine.
The straight news was becoming hip to the alternative, to the youthquake. And when you made it there your acolytes felt good for you, you'd triumphed, and as a result we had too.
So what was "Alice's Restaurant" all about?
The draft.
All those Trumpers... I'd like to hear your take on things if you were subjected to getting your ass shot off overseas.
I mean we grew up in the wake of World War II. We knew you had to fight for your right...to live under a democracy, if not to party.
But did we really want to be in the line of fire?
And then the first guy from my high school died.
It was a real thing. Regular people, they got drafted and...
Can I tell you the military was the enemy, as were the cops? Everything's flipped today. Back then we were suspicious of organizations, it was about the lone individual.
Like Arlo Guthrie.
Woody Guthrie's son.
Not that everybody knew who Woody Guthrie was. This land was your land, from the redwood forests... We'd been singing those words since first grade, we had no idea someone actually wrote them, we figured they'd been passed down through the ages.
And of course Bob Dylan was influenced by Woody Guthrie. But at this point, most people only listened to Top Forty, they didn't go any deeper. They hadn't heard "Purple Haze," which also came out in '67.
So this guy with the funny name had this long song...
Oh, we were into length. That was testing limits. There were long versions and short versions, like with "Light My Fire." Did you know the long version, were you even aware it existed?
So Arlo Guthrie takes a whole side of an album to tell this meandering story about being drafted but evading service because he was a litterbug. The Group W Bench....that was in regular conversation, just like W.C. Fields.
So it was Thanksgiving and the dump was closed and Arlo and his buddy put the trash in a ravine and...
Suddenly, Alice and her restaurant were famous.
But then there was the movie, and everybody truly knew who she was. And it was most people's first exposure to Joni Mitchell, who sang "Songs to Aging Children Come" on a hillside in the snow.
The "Alice's Restaurant" movie was dark. Anything but a superhero fantasy. Then again, life was alternately light and dark. We were testing limits while MLK and RFK were being assassinated, while there were riots in the street. You listened to a record to know which way the wind blew.
So Arlo became a cultural staple.
And he "came back" in the Woodstock movie when he flew in from London from over the Pole. And he made some great music thereafter, but then there was corporate rock and disco and MTV and he wasn't quite a footnote, but he was far from mainstream.
As for Alice Brock?
The restaurant closed not long after the song came out. She got a divorce. She had a cameo in the movie...
And then she disappeared.
But we never forgot her. You can't forget these iconic moments of the sixties.
And I went with my buddy Keith to see Arlo at Fordham University. He started picking the notes to "Alice's Restaurant" and a whoop of recognition came over the hall. But he said there were three versions of the song, and we didn't know which one he was going to play.
He played one about Johnson being paranoid. Yes, LBJ was anathema. Little did we know we'd get Nixon, little did we know we'd get Trump. We actually had it pretty good in retrospect, but we wanted more. Not for ourselves, but for society.
Now dumping your trash in an unauthorized place... All these years later that seems a taboo. I never understood a dump being closed, but when we rented a ski house in East Jamaica, Vermont in that same year of '67, that was the case... No dumping on Sunday. So my father would look for a dumpster.
Now you're even afraid of putting your trash in a dumpster, because who knows, there might be a camera.
That's what I don't understand about the poor and uneducated and their physical crimes. There are cameras everywhere, don't you watch streaming television?
But in the wake of the environmental movement, which really didn't gain traction until 1970, with the first Earth Day, on April 22nd, my birthday, the first day I got high, we went to see the Woodstock movie...
The rules changed.
Now if someone throws garbage out the window you get pissed.
Then again, that philosophy is waning. And they told us to recycle and almost all we put in the blue bucket goes into a landfill overseas.
But some people are saying to drill, baby, drill.
And it's confounding if you were around back then. It seemed like we were always going forward. But that hasn't been the case for years. And techies are our idols, not musicians. Hell, Steve Jobs revered musicians. But today's musicians are not the best and the brightest and they're looking to sell out to the techies, when in reality music is all about telling truth to power, that's what Arlo Guthrie did.
But at this late date, all you can say is...
"I don't want a pickle
Just want to ride on my motorcycle"
(That was on side two.)
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