Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7F5Hc4ta5ivrgpVGAs5m7y?si=57e28b9b0ed34a9c
This is where the Bad Company and Mott the Hoople versions of "Ready for Love" differ.
I've been pleasantly surprised at all the kudos Mick Ralphs has been receiving. I didn't expect this, especially since Bad Company gets no love from the press and the cognoscenti. Which has always baffled me. Because not only was Bad Company successful and ubiquitous and still-played on the radio today, THEY WERE GREAT!
There have been obits in every major newspaper. And more than a squib, there have been details.
And rock musicians have been testifying. You might have seen Joe Elliott's version of "Seagull":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaCSTttDAsQ
The irony being that this is the one number on the debut that Mick Ralphs did not play on, the acoustic guitar was played by Paul Rodgers, although Mick did co-write it. And the lyrics fit:
"Seagull you fly across the horizon
Into the misty morning sun"
That's the metaphor, that dead people are now birds, in any event are up in the sky, in heaven.
However there is a twist:
"And you fly all around 'til somebody, yeah
Shoots you down"
That's being a rock star. You fly above everybody else, they adore you, you look down upon them, but ultimately you are cut down.
As for "Seagull"... All dedicated Bad Company fans know this track that closes the second side of the album, I remember Tommy Nast mentioning it to me, actually singing it... Then again, maybe if you were a fan of Patti Smith or Whitney Houston you never even heard it. (As for me, I bought those Patti Smith albums, never a Whitney Houston one, but I could appreciate the greatness of Bad Company too. And although I occasionally sang "Kimberly" to myself back in the day, it's Bad Company songs that I sing to myself and play to this day.)
Anyway, since Ralphs died I've been on a jag, playing his music, which is not usually the case. I know, I know, someone dies and consumption goes up, but if I was a fan I was usually such a big fan that to hear their music weirds me out, I don't need to be reminded, I never forgot. But it's been different with Mick, maybe because his work encapsulated the core of rock and roll, you could draw a straight line from Chuck Berry to him, Bad Company had no frills, it was rock and roll sans extras, it was direct, and that was its power.
Anyway, I know the albums so well, I've been searching for additional material. And there are a number of live albums, but you've got to investigate, not all of them feature Ralphs. Like "Live at Red Rocks." Cut in 2018, Mick was already bedridden from his stroke at this point.
But there is one live set entitled "Live 1977 & 1979" that features the original band, including Mick. And last night I got hooked on that one.
The funny thing is live the band sounds a bit different, Paul's vocals are a bit less controlled. Then again, live is where rock and roll has always lived. The energy, the feel.
First I pulled up "Simple Man." I was stunned there was a live version of this, my favorite Bad Company song. But this take is less eerie, yet more powerful. Instead of being ethereal, it's down to earth. Performed on a stage right in front of you, from a band that was employing no tricks, it's just them and when they hit the chorus the emotion and the power rise.
"I'm just a simple man, trying to be me
Oh, it ain't easy"
These are the words that resonated most last night. I just want to be me. And that's a hard choice, a rough journey in today's world. You can't be you if you're busy trying to fit in and be a member of the group, if you're holding back for fear of offending someone.
Then I played "Good Lovin' Good Bad," you'd be stunned how Mick's guitar fills up the entire space. But what I love most about this number is it requires Rodgers to sing in a higher register, he's straining, like Levi Stubbs in those great Four Tops hits.
And I'm working through the numbers and ultimately have to play "Movin' On" to see if it's got the same energy as the original, recorded version. It's got Mick's sound and Paul is strutting and if you know the track you can envision how great it must have been to hear this live, that was what I always loved best, hearing my personal hits live, the ones I knew from playing the album from start to finish over and over again, that were embedded in my brain, I was not a casual concert attendee just there to hear the hits, not knowing much more.
But what I've been singing in my head most, what I've been playing most, is "After Lights."
We've already established that the versions of "Ready for Love" by Mott the Hoople and Bad Company are different. I mean compare Paul's strong vocal to Mick's weak, thin one. The irony is when Mick sings "want you to stay" it's even more believable, it evidences a need, a near desperation. And this is amped up in the second verse:
"Don't let go, you know I'm ready for you
Don't you be slow, you know what I'm going to do
Give it to me, you know what I'm talking of
Give it to me, I'm ready for love"
This may sound macho on paper, but if you listen to the record... He approached her, but now he's got up his gumption, he's emoting, he's proving why he needs her attention.
And then the track breaks down, Mick calms down, he's reciting the details without the emphatic emotion:
"Now I'm on my feet again
Better things are bound to happen
All my dues surely must be paid
Many miles and many tears
Times were hard but now they're changing
You should know that I'm not afraid"
You've got to understand, before they make it, before they break through, musicians struggle, sometimes even if they have a record deal. They're working all the time, they've got little money, but then like an alcoholic or drug addict now clean, Mick is approaching the object of his affection and letting her know he was lost, but he's ready to be found, he's ready for love.
Then at 3:07 the track modulates up. Adding more emotion, near-pleading, but then...it breaks down completely. There's a keyboard solo, dark in that classic U.K. way, and then he implores her once more.
"Oh, I'm ready for love
Oh baby, I'm ready for love"
And that's where the Bad Company version ends. But not the Mott the Hoople original. At 4:26 the number completely changes, now we've got AFTER LIGHTS! The cut quiets down and gets mellow, it's like the singer and the band have been launched into space and are floating around millions of miles away. The vocals moan and then whoo-ooh and then there are guitar licks like shooting stars. And they continue. And then the track enters a groove like a space capsule orbiting the earth, and who knows what happened between him and the woman. Is he happy in his own mind, in orbit, or are they together?
This is the part I've been singing to myself these past few days. Especially Mick Ralphs's moans and whoos. This has been the part that's killed me, the last two minutes, "After Lights." I've slid the slider to 4:26 in Spotify over and over and over again.
This is not hit music. Not in the way of the Spotify Top 50. But this is what the entire modern music business was built upon. It was singles with the Beatles and British Invasion, and then Hendrix and Cream came along and blew that paradigm apart. For years it was all about exploration, there were no time limits, records were adventures, it was the low spark of high heeled boys.
And then MTV made it about the hit single again. But then hip-hop, a singles driven medium, took over and now, a quarter of the way into the twenty first century it's like it was before the Beatles all over again. There is a music business, it is purveying hits, but they're evanescent candy that don't touch your soul in the same way as "After Lights." This was the experience, alone in your bedroom after dark, going on an aural adventure, having your head explode to the music. You knew other people felt the same way, but you didn't meet most of them until you were together at the gig. And the acts knew this was their job, to set the listener's mind free, take them away, and they could only do this by throwing off restrictions and testing the limits themselves. Who cared if the record company couldn't hear a single, the audience was tuned in, your fans were keeping you alive.
But it's very rare you get what is perceived to be a journeyman musician as a driving force of a superstar band. This is not the Edge getting kudos, no one talked about Mick Ralphs during his heyday, you just felt the music, the audience just knew. But without him there would be a hole not only in these bands, but in rock and roll history. You see if you did it right the roots were evident, but the end result was just a little bit different, which is what made you special. And you had to have the chops to make it. There was no autotune, no hard drives on stage, you were playing without a net and the audience could sense this tension.
Mick Ralphs was too ill to attend the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, yet he did know the band was finally in, but I wish he'd still been alive to experience this well of emotion, these testimonials from his peers and his fans, for this final victory lap.
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Thursday, 26 June 2025
The Bear-Season 4
So far it's not as good. And we're only in four episodes so far. But there were two moments in last night's viewing that struck me that I want to write about.
First, Richie. You know, the hotheaded bro called "cousin" even though he's not related by blood.
Richie is played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who I first encountered in the last seasons of "Girls." Ebon played a wimpy, needy folksinger involved with Allison Williams. Everything about this guy bugged me. On one hand he was kind of macho, but he cried and was manipulative and...
Maybe you never watched "Girls." And it's funny how it's now in the rearview mirror. It was of a time and place and it has not sustained, it has not been picked up by the next generation, or maybe HBO/Max has not publicized viewing numbers, megalomaniac David Zaslav too busy being paid. Not that I watched the whole series, but I got hooked on Lena Dunham/Hannah Horvath going to the Iowa Writers' Workshop where she didn't fit in, she was an original and they were not.
And to be honest, Moss-Bachrach's hyphenated last name rubbed me wrong just as much as the character he played. Why are you making it so difficult for us? Just pick one or the other, "Moss" or "Bachrach," the hyphenation is pretentious.
And Ebon played another annoying character in "The Bear." But now, with the fine dining restaurant open, as the maître d', he's started to come into his own, he feels better about himself, he respects himself more, and he feels he's truly an integral part of the restaurant.
But said restaurant is teetering financially.
So one night, after midnight, on the way home Ebon/Richie stops off in a bar for a few drinks and... One thing about Ebon is he's good-looking. Which doesn't quite square with his character. The way he reaches his limit so quickly and explodes. He's normal and calm and then operating at a hundred miles an hour. Anyway, in a usual show the good-looking character goes to a bar and he meets a woman. Happens all the time. But Ebon/Richie drinks alone. And then he goes home alone. And he's lying in his single bed in his downscale apartment and...
Richie was once married. He's got a kid. But his ex is getting remarried, and wants him to come to the wedding to boot.
Richie's got nothing, other than his gig at the restaurant, and he lies on his bed and he tells this to God, prays that the restaurant stays open, that he keeps his job, BECAUSE HE'S GOT NOTHING ELSE!
Nitpickers might claim he's got his daughter. But his ex does not agree with his parenting techniques and if he loses his income he'll lose access and...
I've been there. Sans daughter, but... Whatever you had has now been destroyed or lost. You're living in less than ideal circumstances. You're surviving on sheer will. And you don't know how you'll cope if the little income you've got disappears.
We see all these shows about meeting people, getting married, but after breakup, after divorce...this is oftentimes how it is. You were somewhere, it all worked, and now it doesn't. And you're on the verge of being desperate. The depiction is brilliant.
Also, and to not spoil the series I won't mention names, when one character approaches another and... This is a love relationship. And there's been discord. And eventually they talk it out. Whew, this is right too.
Now on some level I think they should have wrapped up the series already. I mean where are they going to go? On a high level show like this the restaurant could fail, but how would you keep the cast together?
But, they are not painting by numbers. They are still throwing the long ball. And in these two instances, they scored.
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First, Richie. You know, the hotheaded bro called "cousin" even though he's not related by blood.
Richie is played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who I first encountered in the last seasons of "Girls." Ebon played a wimpy, needy folksinger involved with Allison Williams. Everything about this guy bugged me. On one hand he was kind of macho, but he cried and was manipulative and...
Maybe you never watched "Girls." And it's funny how it's now in the rearview mirror. It was of a time and place and it has not sustained, it has not been picked up by the next generation, or maybe HBO/Max has not publicized viewing numbers, megalomaniac David Zaslav too busy being paid. Not that I watched the whole series, but I got hooked on Lena Dunham/Hannah Horvath going to the Iowa Writers' Workshop where she didn't fit in, she was an original and they were not.
And to be honest, Moss-Bachrach's hyphenated last name rubbed me wrong just as much as the character he played. Why are you making it so difficult for us? Just pick one or the other, "Moss" or "Bachrach," the hyphenation is pretentious.
And Ebon played another annoying character in "The Bear." But now, with the fine dining restaurant open, as the maître d', he's started to come into his own, he feels better about himself, he respects himself more, and he feels he's truly an integral part of the restaurant.
But said restaurant is teetering financially.
So one night, after midnight, on the way home Ebon/Richie stops off in a bar for a few drinks and... One thing about Ebon is he's good-looking. Which doesn't quite square with his character. The way he reaches his limit so quickly and explodes. He's normal and calm and then operating at a hundred miles an hour. Anyway, in a usual show the good-looking character goes to a bar and he meets a woman. Happens all the time. But Ebon/Richie drinks alone. And then he goes home alone. And he's lying in his single bed in his downscale apartment and...
Richie was once married. He's got a kid. But his ex is getting remarried, and wants him to come to the wedding to boot.
Richie's got nothing, other than his gig at the restaurant, and he lies on his bed and he tells this to God, prays that the restaurant stays open, that he keeps his job, BECAUSE HE'S GOT NOTHING ELSE!
Nitpickers might claim he's got his daughter. But his ex does not agree with his parenting techniques and if he loses his income he'll lose access and...
I've been there. Sans daughter, but... Whatever you had has now been destroyed or lost. You're living in less than ideal circumstances. You're surviving on sheer will. And you don't know how you'll cope if the little income you've got disappears.
We see all these shows about meeting people, getting married, but after breakup, after divorce...this is oftentimes how it is. You were somewhere, it all worked, and now it doesn't. And you're on the verge of being desperate. The depiction is brilliant.
Also, and to not spoil the series I won't mention names, when one character approaches another and... This is a love relationship. And there's been discord. And eventually they talk it out. Whew, this is right too.
Now on some level I think they should have wrapped up the series already. I mean where are they going to go? On a high level show like this the restaurant could fail, but how would you keep the cast together?
But, they are not painting by numbers. They are still throwing the long ball. And in these two instances, they scored.
--
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Colin Blunstone-This Week's Podcast
Lead singer of the Zombies.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/colin-blunstone/id1316200737?i=1000714644795
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6x5pxEjlk7JSMxldAjiiq1?si=K_ZYRiGtSIm_LYfKNFeo5w
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/colin-blunstone-282868087/
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/f0166bc6-8d4f-493a-9da5-bab4596a38f5/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-colin-blunstone
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/colin-blunstone/id1316200737?i=1000714644795
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6x5pxEjlk7JSMxldAjiiq1?si=K_ZYRiGtSIm_LYfKNFeo5w
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/colin-blunstone-282868087/
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/f0166bc6-8d4f-493a-9da5-bab4596a38f5/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-colin-blunstone
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Wednesday, 25 June 2025
The Pixar Flop
Not enough people knew "Elio" was out and not enough people who did knew if it was good and not enough people had friends who were going to see it...
Therefore, box office was disappointing.
But it could bounce back and it could sustain, depending upon word of mouth. But this is not how entertainment is made and marketed today.
There is a fiction that the wall to wall hype of the nineties still works. Now it occasionally does, last time with "Barbie," then again, the movie was based upon a well known doll that had been in the market for half a century. But if you want to break something brand new?
And it's not only movies, it's music too. All the focus is on that which is made for big bucks immediately. Whereas it's the little engines that could who are hoovering up all the dough, with low marketing costs and avid fans.
Used to be films were platformed. They opened in New York and L.A. and they might take months to hit the hinterlands. Then the paradigm shifted to opening in thousands of theatres and hoovering up all that dough on the first weekend. And then the film had another run in physical media, i.e. DVDs, then pay per view and cable/streaming...
That game was blown apart. But that's the game the studios are still playing. I know I'm just one of many piling on the studio heads, but they are so out of touch, crippled with short term thinking to boot. Remember when everybody laughed when Netflix switched to streaming? Who's crying now?
But Netflix has its own built-in marketing device. Its homepage. They serve up what they think you want and you don't have to scroll down very far to see the Top Ten. So you get a feel for the marketplace instantly. Albeit a walled-garden, but Netflix is the big kahuna here and you can survive on Netflix alone, which is why Disney+ and Hulu have their streaming bundle, you need to entice people to sign up, whereas word of mouth about their shows gets people to sign up for Netflix and keeps them paying every month.
So conventional wisdom is it's impossible to break an original movie and therefore sequelmania is the only option. Let's be clear, the sequels do business because the audience already knows what they are, they know what to expect, and the originals are successes, otherwise no sequels are made. Whereas if you start with something new...
Studios have to accept the fact that something new is going to take time to percolate in the market and therefore they must be marketed accordingly. An original script should be seen as a four to six month project. With a slow rollout. There should be no imminent pay per view or streaming. The film goes to secondary distribution before most people are even aware of it. The movie business thinks America is enthralled and is following their releases...NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH! Most people are out of the loop and don't care. How do you get them to care? By creating a product so good that it creates word of mouth and sustains.
But studios have giant contracts with the secondary markets, they get big bucks for these, but they're killing original productions.
And original label productions have fallen completely by the wayside in music. The old game of signing an unknown to a label and marketing the hell out of them is completely done. First the act must establish a fan base independently and then the major label will sign it and try to blow it up further.
And why is this so? The death of terrestrial radio, which had a lock on exhibition. And while we're at it, let's talk about TV being in the dumper. There's still a channel called MTV, but nobody watches it and it's got little to do with music. And late night talk shows' ratings have cratered and an appearance there means bupkes, so...
You can't rig the game anymore. Anybody can play.
So what are the labels doing? Buying independent distribution networks. Rob Stringer just boasted about all the data Sony gets from the indie companies it acquired, not only the Orchard, but Kobalt. And now Universal wants to buy Downtown... Thank god the indies in the U.K. are fighting this. How are you supposed to compete with someone who has all your data?
Entertainment survives on new product. Almost no one has a hit on the chart a few years after their breakthrough. No, we need a steady slew of new acts. But since they're so hard to break, the labels just promote that which sounds like everything else and most of the audience tunes out. Ditto on movies. SOME people like Marvel movies, many people don't care. Marvel is a NICHE! Just like Taylor Swift. But the press still believes in the old paradigm too, they employ the traditional charts... Recently publications have started releasing lists of their best tracks of 2025. It's laughable, all of them are from the Spotify Top 50. The acts selling tickets outside the pop/hip-hop genres are nowhere to be seen, even though they sell a boatload of tickets. We call this marginalization. Unless you're a fan of the Spotify Top 50 try listening to some of this dreck, you'll be horrified. As for the kind of music you want to hear, where the hell would you find it? The entire system is based on selling you a limited amount of tripe, and therefore you're' dependent upon friends to turn you on to the good stuff, and your friends might not be music aficionados, so you just spend time on TikTok, which is more exciting than the Spotify Top 50 anyway!
If you're an act, prepare for the long haul. There are exceptions, like Zach Bryan, but Zach's music was totally different from the Spotify Top 50, he was original and credible and people hungered for him and his music, most acts are not that desirable.
And most movies are not that good.
You've got to flip the script. Instead of working from the audience backward, you've got to start with the art. Create something incredible on its own terms and then wait for the public to find it. This is Netflix to a T. Meanwhile, if dropping episodes week by week was such a great strategy, Apple TV+ would have a zillion more subscribers. There's no heat. If every time I go to your platform I can't find something new, I'm not going to pay to subscribe to your service.
This is all evident to consumers. Consciously or unconsciously. It's only the purveyors and the attendant media who are brain dead.
Instead of declaring "Elio" a failure, expectations should have been low for the first weekend, with subsequent marketing to help enhance word of mouth. Hell, so much of the audience for this pic is under ten, good luck reaching them. As for their harried parents? They're too busy paying the bills and doing the laundry and schlepping the kids to pay attention to your marketing. This is not Thursday night Must See TV with tens of millions exposed to Hollywood's ads. And the dirty little secret is the audience HATES ads, they're a turn-off, they know when they're being marketed to, so it gets ever harder to market to them, your sales pitch must be the artwork itself, it must have intrinsic quality and appeal.
I'd say the landscape is going to change, but it's ALREADY changed.
Just like the "New York Times" releasing their Top 100 movies of the century. I never go to a movie theatre, almost no one I know does, who does this appeal to? A niche lost in the past. You want to interest people? Do the Top 100 TV shows of the twenty first century. And include all the foreign ones, just like you do with films. And most of these series can be instantly accessed on a platform that many are already paying for anyway. Barry Diller says the film business is dead, but the "New York Times" which wrote all about his autobiography did not get the message!
It's kind of like politics. The Democrats drove the car off the cliff and then were stunned when they lost. They thought the public would be happy having no choice in candidate, they thought the public was happy when in truth people were flipping out for economic reasons. It wasn't only Joe Biden who was out of the loop.
Now you can get the straight poop if you talk to the young 'uns. Even better, go on TikTok. But oldsters propping up the old model ABHOR TikTok! But what works on TikTok? Honesty, credibility, something different... If you do the same thing over and over on TikTok you lose views, you've got to constantly come up with new stuff, which used to be the studio's job. But now these crybabies say it's too difficult. Give me a break.
The business is disrupted by those who are digitally native. The Boomers and Gen-X'ers have to die off. They run on nostalgia. A boomer will tell me they like episodes dripped week by week, but I've never ever heard this from someone under forty. They want to BINGE! In today's world if the product is not available, people will go elsewhere!
How do you connect the consumer to the product. That's the most difficult thing to do. The only ones who've figured it out are the ultimate distributors, like Amazon and Spotify. They offer EVERYTHING! And when you add up everything, it works. But if you're just one product, one record on their service...
Digital boycotts? Ever find someone under forty who wants to start one? No, they know how good these services are!
"Elio" didn't stiff because of the movie, it didn't stiff because the public doesn't want original productions, it stiffed because the studio and the surrounding press are employing an ancient template in a modern world.
Quick, who runs the studios?
Lord knows.
But you know who Ted Sarandos is. And Daniel Ek. And it's only those who grew up in the old pre-internet system who rail against them. They want it the old way.
But the old way is never coming back.
Therefore, box office was disappointing.
But it could bounce back and it could sustain, depending upon word of mouth. But this is not how entertainment is made and marketed today.
There is a fiction that the wall to wall hype of the nineties still works. Now it occasionally does, last time with "Barbie," then again, the movie was based upon a well known doll that had been in the market for half a century. But if you want to break something brand new?
And it's not only movies, it's music too. All the focus is on that which is made for big bucks immediately. Whereas it's the little engines that could who are hoovering up all the dough, with low marketing costs and avid fans.
Used to be films were platformed. They opened in New York and L.A. and they might take months to hit the hinterlands. Then the paradigm shifted to opening in thousands of theatres and hoovering up all that dough on the first weekend. And then the film had another run in physical media, i.e. DVDs, then pay per view and cable/streaming...
That game was blown apart. But that's the game the studios are still playing. I know I'm just one of many piling on the studio heads, but they are so out of touch, crippled with short term thinking to boot. Remember when everybody laughed when Netflix switched to streaming? Who's crying now?
But Netflix has its own built-in marketing device. Its homepage. They serve up what they think you want and you don't have to scroll down very far to see the Top Ten. So you get a feel for the marketplace instantly. Albeit a walled-garden, but Netflix is the big kahuna here and you can survive on Netflix alone, which is why Disney+ and Hulu have their streaming bundle, you need to entice people to sign up, whereas word of mouth about their shows gets people to sign up for Netflix and keeps them paying every month.
So conventional wisdom is it's impossible to break an original movie and therefore sequelmania is the only option. Let's be clear, the sequels do business because the audience already knows what they are, they know what to expect, and the originals are successes, otherwise no sequels are made. Whereas if you start with something new...
Studios have to accept the fact that something new is going to take time to percolate in the market and therefore they must be marketed accordingly. An original script should be seen as a four to six month project. With a slow rollout. There should be no imminent pay per view or streaming. The film goes to secondary distribution before most people are even aware of it. The movie business thinks America is enthralled and is following their releases...NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH! Most people are out of the loop and don't care. How do you get them to care? By creating a product so good that it creates word of mouth and sustains.
But studios have giant contracts with the secondary markets, they get big bucks for these, but they're killing original productions.
And original label productions have fallen completely by the wayside in music. The old game of signing an unknown to a label and marketing the hell out of them is completely done. First the act must establish a fan base independently and then the major label will sign it and try to blow it up further.
And why is this so? The death of terrestrial radio, which had a lock on exhibition. And while we're at it, let's talk about TV being in the dumper. There's still a channel called MTV, but nobody watches it and it's got little to do with music. And late night talk shows' ratings have cratered and an appearance there means bupkes, so...
You can't rig the game anymore. Anybody can play.
So what are the labels doing? Buying independent distribution networks. Rob Stringer just boasted about all the data Sony gets from the indie companies it acquired, not only the Orchard, but Kobalt. And now Universal wants to buy Downtown... Thank god the indies in the U.K. are fighting this. How are you supposed to compete with someone who has all your data?
Entertainment survives on new product. Almost no one has a hit on the chart a few years after their breakthrough. No, we need a steady slew of new acts. But since they're so hard to break, the labels just promote that which sounds like everything else and most of the audience tunes out. Ditto on movies. SOME people like Marvel movies, many people don't care. Marvel is a NICHE! Just like Taylor Swift. But the press still believes in the old paradigm too, they employ the traditional charts... Recently publications have started releasing lists of their best tracks of 2025. It's laughable, all of them are from the Spotify Top 50. The acts selling tickets outside the pop/hip-hop genres are nowhere to be seen, even though they sell a boatload of tickets. We call this marginalization. Unless you're a fan of the Spotify Top 50 try listening to some of this dreck, you'll be horrified. As for the kind of music you want to hear, where the hell would you find it? The entire system is based on selling you a limited amount of tripe, and therefore you're' dependent upon friends to turn you on to the good stuff, and your friends might not be music aficionados, so you just spend time on TikTok, which is more exciting than the Spotify Top 50 anyway!
If you're an act, prepare for the long haul. There are exceptions, like Zach Bryan, but Zach's music was totally different from the Spotify Top 50, he was original and credible and people hungered for him and his music, most acts are not that desirable.
And most movies are not that good.
You've got to flip the script. Instead of working from the audience backward, you've got to start with the art. Create something incredible on its own terms and then wait for the public to find it. This is Netflix to a T. Meanwhile, if dropping episodes week by week was such a great strategy, Apple TV+ would have a zillion more subscribers. There's no heat. If every time I go to your platform I can't find something new, I'm not going to pay to subscribe to your service.
This is all evident to consumers. Consciously or unconsciously. It's only the purveyors and the attendant media who are brain dead.
Instead of declaring "Elio" a failure, expectations should have been low for the first weekend, with subsequent marketing to help enhance word of mouth. Hell, so much of the audience for this pic is under ten, good luck reaching them. As for their harried parents? They're too busy paying the bills and doing the laundry and schlepping the kids to pay attention to your marketing. This is not Thursday night Must See TV with tens of millions exposed to Hollywood's ads. And the dirty little secret is the audience HATES ads, they're a turn-off, they know when they're being marketed to, so it gets ever harder to market to them, your sales pitch must be the artwork itself, it must have intrinsic quality and appeal.
I'd say the landscape is going to change, but it's ALREADY changed.
Just like the "New York Times" releasing their Top 100 movies of the century. I never go to a movie theatre, almost no one I know does, who does this appeal to? A niche lost in the past. You want to interest people? Do the Top 100 TV shows of the twenty first century. And include all the foreign ones, just like you do with films. And most of these series can be instantly accessed on a platform that many are already paying for anyway. Barry Diller says the film business is dead, but the "New York Times" which wrote all about his autobiography did not get the message!
It's kind of like politics. The Democrats drove the car off the cliff and then were stunned when they lost. They thought the public would be happy having no choice in candidate, they thought the public was happy when in truth people were flipping out for economic reasons. It wasn't only Joe Biden who was out of the loop.
Now you can get the straight poop if you talk to the young 'uns. Even better, go on TikTok. But oldsters propping up the old model ABHOR TikTok! But what works on TikTok? Honesty, credibility, something different... If you do the same thing over and over on TikTok you lose views, you've got to constantly come up with new stuff, which used to be the studio's job. But now these crybabies say it's too difficult. Give me a break.
The business is disrupted by those who are digitally native. The Boomers and Gen-X'ers have to die off. They run on nostalgia. A boomer will tell me they like episodes dripped week by week, but I've never ever heard this from someone under forty. They want to BINGE! In today's world if the product is not available, people will go elsewhere!
How do you connect the consumer to the product. That's the most difficult thing to do. The only ones who've figured it out are the ultimate distributors, like Amazon and Spotify. They offer EVERYTHING! And when you add up everything, it works. But if you're just one product, one record on their service...
Digital boycotts? Ever find someone under forty who wants to start one? No, they know how good these services are!
"Elio" didn't stiff because of the movie, it didn't stiff because the public doesn't want original productions, it stiffed because the studio and the surrounding press are employing an ancient template in a modern world.
Quick, who runs the studios?
Lord knows.
But you know who Ted Sarandos is. And Daniel Ek. And it's only those who grew up in the old pre-internet system who rail against them. They want it the old way.
But the old way is never coming back.
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Tuesday, 24 June 2025
Re-Mick Ralphs
Big Mick Ralphs fan here. The slow vibrato, the fat tone, the tasteful choice of notes, he had it all.
When I was somewhere around the 9th grade, my friends and I went to see Bad Co. at the basketball arena in Louisville. Just a group of music nerds with no money, we were sitting up in the cheap seats.
What I remember most about that concert, has had a deep effect on me. Here's what happened; The place is completely packed, and a little ways into the show, they're in the middle of a song, it might have been Rock Steady. Both Paul and Mick are playing guitar. They're about to start the second verse, and the power goes out. All the lights and PA are not working, but the amps on stage must have been on a separate line, because you could still hear them playing a little, but not coming thru the PA..
You could see their silhouettes thru the darkness, and they all huddled around the drums and kept playing.
Not missing a beat, just grooving in a little huddle, the crowd cheered them on, because you could still hear it a little bit. Not sure how long this went on, probably around a minute. Then the lights burst back on, the PA cranking, they turned around to the crowd, never once stopping the groove and went right into the second verse. The place absolutely exploded. It was one of the most badass things i've ever seen, will never forget it. For me as professional musician and record maker, it's always been about the groove and the pocket, and that night in Louisville, i got a great lesson in how it's done. I will carry that with me always.
Much love and peace to Mick Ralphs and his family.
Kenny Greenberg
____________________________________
In 1977 the Outlaws had the pleasure of being the special guest on the Bad Company Burning Sky Tour. On that Tour I met Paul Rodgers, Simon Kirke (who the Outlaws invited to the White House thanks to Jimmy Carter) Boz Burrell, Peter Grant, Jerry Weintraub, Tom Hulett, John Meglen, Paul Gongaware and although all left their imprints on me it was Mick Ralphs that always brought the biggest smile to my face. Almost 20 years later I had the pleasure of managing Bad Company with different lineups but finally I had Rodgers, Kirke and Mick together and there was nothing like that set list of great songs cowritten by Paul & Mick. Always magic on the stage .... Ronnie VanZant's favorite singer was Paul and Gary loved Kosoff and Ralphs.
Many long and wonderful nights with Mick and I will miss him until I see him again.
RIP Mick Ralphs your music will live on forever.
Cheers,
Charlie Brusco
____________________________________
Bob,
A great note.
I promoted every one of the bands mentioned and I loved the music of all of them.
All the Young Dudes" is still a favourite.
Yes Mick Ralphs quietly held the band s together both with his writing and playing.
Bad Company were a favourite of Peter Grant. He really loved the band and pushed them hard.
Mick was a great unsung hero.
May he rest in peace
Harvey Goldsmith
____________________________________
Testify, Bob. Bad Company until the day I die indeed. Love every one of those Bad Co. tracks you mention with Mick's stamp on 'em -- and I'm still also partial to "Electricland," which I may have mentioned before. Can't get enough (sorry/not sorry) of his solo on that underappreciated Rough Diamonds opener.
Also, when I asked Ian Hunter in 2023 about what made Mott the Hoople's version of "All the Young Dudes" so indelible, his response was immediate: "Well, it's Mick Ralphs' intro that did it, you know? David (Bowie) had done it in C and we took it up to D, and we added that little rap at the end. David was bored with the way he'd done it because he'd done a lot of alto sax on it, as he was an alto player. He just ran out of ideas — but with us, it was a whole different ball game. Our version excited him. It was just two nights of recording, and that was it."
Mike Mettler
Editor, Analog Planet
____________________________________
Worked security at the 1977 Burnin' Sky tour at what was then the Fabulous Forum in LA. Actually got into the back stage party where the many very pretty women wouldn't give me the time of day. Was a great show and I actually remember some of the songs thay played. Always wondered why they weren't in the RRHOF a while back. "Bad Company till the day I die" a rock motto to live by in your 20's.
Alan Fenton
____________________________________
Mick Ralph's was always a master minimalist. Never played four notes when one was just what the song needed.
Bob Levy
____________________________________
Nice tribute, Bob. Mott's All The Young Dudes belongs in the pantheon of greatest all-time rock albums.
Tom Lehr
____________________________________
Such an underrated musician. To teenaged guitar players like I was in the '70's there were few players whose sound you couldn't quite figure out. Mick Ronson (we later found out it was the wah), Jimmy Page (multiple tricks), and others, including Mick Ralphs and his fat, razor-edged wailing. There's a great bit in a recent Mike Campbell interview of Lukas Nelson where Nelson recalls asking dad Willie if he thought he was a good player. Willie says (paraphrasing) "yeah, your good, but who cares? You need to develop a VOICE." Now Willie was talking about Lukas' singing voice, but it's no less true of standout guitarists.
Writing is a rare talent. Playing great guitar is a little less rare, but when you combine that with a wholly unique sensibility--a voice--you can transcend. RIP Mick.
Ted Doyle
____________________________________
I don't remember how my brother and I first heard of Bad Company. There was certainly some buzz about them being favored by Led Zep being on their record label. At some point, maybe as Can't Get Enough started showing up on the radio, we made our way to Bailey's Music Rooms on Church Street in Burlington. When we went into the store we headed over to the POP / Rock section and looked under "B." The LP was nowhere, nothing. Then we heard a voice from behind the cash register... "What are you boys looking for?" When we told him we were in search of the Bad Co. LP he waved us over. Yes, they had an open case of the LPs at the cash register...they were flying out the door. We made off with one and listened to it seemingly a million times when we got home. It is still a favorite.
The interesting thing about this band, the music was not a bunch of shredding, it had a solid, simple groove behind it, and brilliant song writing and playing. R.I.P. Mick!
Joe Tymecki
Fairfax, VT
____________________________________
Thanks, Bob, for a nice tribute to Mick Ralphs - agree very much overlooked as your detailed synopsis of his work proves. All I can add is an observation from when I was a younger guy working at Maurice Placquet in Shepherd's Bush, as many aspiring 70's musicians did, providing sales and rentals to the stars of the day. Mick was one of the rare ones who would come into the store/warehouse and tool around on the guitars we had in stock, and was always friendly and ready to chat - one of the all-round nice guys in the business. Rare, and happy his work will live on, perhaps more recognised in the future than it has been in the past….
Adam Howell
____________________________________
Thanks for a wonderful tribute, Bob!
I loved Mick Ralphs! Loved those first three Mott The Hoople albums and then had the honor to work with Mick and
Bad Company ("Desolation Angels" era) during my stint at Atlantic Records.
A lovely man and the driving force for so much that molded a lifestyle back then!
Really appreciate you giving Mick Ralphs even just some of his due.
Alan Wolmark
CEC Management
____________________________________
Thanks for the well deserved tribute to the rather unsung Mick Ralphs.
The early Mott had another impressive cover version. Their "Brain Capers" album featured "Darkness, Darkness" from the Youngbloods' "Elephant Mountain" LP.
I was fortunate to catch them on a bill at the Fillmore West slotted between Freddie King and Albert King. Quite memorable.
Best,
Michael Wright
____________________________________
Wonderful tribute to the great Mick Ralphs. You mentioned the Mott the Hoople song "one of the boys" and of course at about 49 seconds of that song is the riff that would not long after become the opening riff to Bad Company's "can't get enough.".
Thank goodness, Paul's short-lived trio called "peace," did a short run opening gigs for Mott the Hoople in late 1971 while Free took a break. That's where Paul and Mick first started hanging out in the tuning room before the gigs, developing a relationship that would become the foundation for Bad Company.
Chris Epting
____________________________________
"…down in the city just Hoople and me, don't I love him so…" I remember the rock critics making a big deal about that line when Queen recorded it. Mott The Hoople will always mean so much to me. Often wondered if it bothered Ian Hunter that Mott's biggest song was one he or the band didn't write. It didn't bother me because All The Way From Memphis, Roll Away The Stone, Ballad of the Mott and of course All The Young Dudes never left my stereo system in the 70's. I still play Roll Away The Stone monthly along with Silver Blue and Gold from Bad Company. And speaking of Bad Company. Did any band sound better on the radio than them? Thank you Mick Ralphs for all that and much more.
Jeff Sacks
____________________________________
Thank you for writing about the great Mick Ralphs. I've always urged friends to listen to the extended outro on "Sweet Jane," the lead track from "All The Young Dudes," to truly capture Mick's exquisite sense of melody and tone. It's so beautifully crafted and my favorite guitar solo of all time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPa8GZAZJFc
Rich Ulloa
____________________________________
Hi Bob. I was 16 years old on a sunny day at Charlton Football Stadium in South London. It was my first music festival and I had to go straight from Saturday morning school in my school uniform, much to my embarrassment. The bill was f*cking stupendous, including Lou Reed, Humble Pie and The Who topping the bill. But the band that blew my schoolboy socks off was the first show from a brand new band- Bad Company. These guys were the real thing. Kick-ass rockers with stupendous songs… of course every Free fan knew who Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke were… but as a young guitar player I couldn't take my eyes of the dude in the leather pants. He was a f*cking rock God, strutting around, slamming out the riffs, and ripping out ear bursting solos. They played 44 minutes and I loved every second. There was no internet, I had to wait for that week's Melody Maker to be released to find out who this guy was. Mick Ralphs. Right up there with the other generation of guitar heroes- especially Blackmore and Page. I had no idea he wrote most of those songs. But he was absolutely the genuine article. RIP.
John Watkin
____________________________________
Bob! THX for sharing this! Ive been a lifelong MOTT fan and was a Bad Co fan when I was a kid, but Mott remain in my top 3 All Time Greats. I cannot agree w/ you more about the singular talent that Ralphs always was. Even the first couple of Mott's albums - the ones referred to as their "hippie" years - had some great songs and most of them authored by Ralphs way before Ian hit his mark as the great songwriter he would become. And...right you are again about Ralphs as a guitarist. His solos were seismic and incredibly tasteful and well thought out and executed solos that brought the songs to life. Full of restraint, build and release and he was one of the few who could play in a way that made you want more. He didn't give it all away at once. He made you think about what you were listening to and how to support the song in ways no other guitarist did or does. Had Mott never released anything else after, the solo at the beginning and at the end of "All The Way From Memphis" on its own may be strong enough to illustrate what an influential and intelligent player he was, even before one took notice of the songwriting credits. I appreciate you flying this fly for one of the Best. No one else will... Bless ya!
Rick Gershon
____________________________________
I was 15 about to turn 16 in 1990. I was working as a dishwasher at a Swiss chalet, the most popular chicken chain casual dining restaurant in Canada. I was already bitten by the rock 'n' roll bug growing up, listening to the top 40 AM radio that was a constant in my house. I also had just started learning to play guitar. I was aware of who Bad Company were, at least the Paul Rodgers fronted band from their classic tracks always being spun on FM rock radio and did love them. (I mean when your first discovering classic rock as a kid in the 80s and 90s, if you didn't own Bad Companys' compilation 10 From 6, did you really like classic rock?)
Working as a dishwasher in that restaurant I'd befriended one of the older waitresses and she was a passionate 80s rock 'n' roll girl. I was only 15 and she had to be at at least 20 and our relationship was strictly platonic and about rock 'n' roll. It wasn't that she wasn't attractive, It's just that's our friendship developed because of our passion for rock 'n' roll and not based on some teenage boy crush. We'd talk about the different bands we're hearing about or interested in. Grunge hadn't hit yet so we were still clearly in the 80s hair metal era and we both loved majority of those bands and talk incessantly about them.
I mentioned one shift I had heard this new band on the radio that seemed to be a lot bluesier than even Cinderella and seem to have a more Stones edge to them called the Black Crowes. She said she actually had recently bought the cassette and that I could borrow it. When she lent it to me, she also included a cassette album called Holy Water. Bad Company? They were still around?
I had no idea what to expect but let's just say Holy Water got a lot more play than Shake Your Money Maker until I returned them both to her. Not that I didn't enjoy Shake Your Money Maker, but the hooks and guitar playing by Mick and Brian Howe's slightly less raspy Brian Johnson vocal style had me playing that album repeatedly until I returned the tape back to her and went out and bought my own copy on CD. I just could not get enough of hearing Micks' guitar playing on that album. Every riff was a hook! Every lead was its own song within the song!
I know the previous and following Bad Company albums with with Brian were not as well written or received, and the overall catalogue of that era with Brian is dismissed by Bad Company fans, but for me without taking anything away from the incredible and rightfully definitive Paul Rodgers Bad Company, Holy Water will always be a favorite of mine!
RIP Mick Ralphs
Michael Moniz
____________________________________
In the Fall of 73, (freshman year of high school) I bought my first Circus magazine, mostly because of Robert Plant being on the cover and a multipage piece on Led Zeppelin (who I had discovered the previous summer).
There was also a multipage piece on Mott The Hoople, a band I had never heard of. The article was promoting their new release, Mott. You're correct about Hunter and Watts being the attention grabbers, visually. Ian with his shades and Watts with his gray frosted hair and Gibson bass. But as I looked closer I noticed that Mick Ralph's had a Fender Telecaster, which is the guitar I was saving for, but I noticed that instead of the typical Tele neck pickup, it had a HUMBUCKER, like Keith Richards. I took the picture to my local music store and told them that's what I wanted to order. The owner looked at me and said "You can't. It's not in the catalog Sorry kid". I was fascinated enough by the article to ask for the record for Christmas. My parents mistakenly got me All The Young Dudes instead of Mott, but one listen to the record hooked me. "Sweet Jane", "Jerkin' Crocus" "One Of The Boys" along with the title track and "Ready For Love/After The Lights". I wore out the grooves on that record and eventually got Mott fairly soon after that. Those songs and those guitar riffs were killer and I wore that record out as well. And then I heard Mick Ralph's, like Verden Allen before him, had left the band. The Hoople may have rocked a little harder but it seemed less special, more generic-with Mick gone they lost my interest.
When the first Bad Company record came out, it was, as you said, undeniable. Whenever I read about Bad Company though it seemed like it was "Paul Rodgers and the other 3". It wasn't like Led Zeppelin where you had Page interviews, Plant interviews, and Bonham worship. Unlike Page, there were no stories of Mick making pilgrimages to Morocco, no guitar virtuoso drooling. Just meat and potatoes rock and roll, which is so hard to do as well Mick Ralphs did it. And yes, I'm saddened by all the obituaries of my music heroes lately, but thank you for taking the time to recognize Mick Ralphs. He more than deserved it
Jim Blaney
____________________________________
Good for you Bob. Let's not overlook or ever forget that unique incredible sound of Mick Ralphs, or his songwriting with Paul Rodgers.
When Mott had to move on without Ralphs, all of us fans knew that was a big blow. As good as Bender was, he just didn't possess the gravitas of Ralphs. Mick Ralphs' sound and style was a force to be reckoned with. Hunter had to explain it, and in the liner notes on the next Mott album he wrote about the Mott's journey and the band changes with something akin to: "Mick Ralphs appeared to be in bad company." I thought it was very clever the way he stated it.
Mick left because he had bigger musical visions for himself. And with Bad Co.he grew to his potential. Although not talked about nearly enough for all his talents, if you mention Mick Ralphs to any guitar player you will get a knowing smile. The guy was a giant. Bad Co. owned FM Rock Radio airwaves in the 80's. A true supergroup of musicians with Paul Rodgers vocals being pushed by Mick's incredible fat, crunchy Les Paul tone. Bad Co. is finallllly being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year. But it doesn't matter. Because if you're a rocker you know that both Paul Rodgers and Mick Ralphs are bigger than, and mean more than that whole institution. We lost a big-time guitar brother today. Ouch.
Paul Rappaport
____________________________________
I totally agree with your article, not an obituary. Well written and well deserved.
Love, Paul Rodgers
When I was somewhere around the 9th grade, my friends and I went to see Bad Co. at the basketball arena in Louisville. Just a group of music nerds with no money, we were sitting up in the cheap seats.
What I remember most about that concert, has had a deep effect on me. Here's what happened; The place is completely packed, and a little ways into the show, they're in the middle of a song, it might have been Rock Steady. Both Paul and Mick are playing guitar. They're about to start the second verse, and the power goes out. All the lights and PA are not working, but the amps on stage must have been on a separate line, because you could still hear them playing a little, but not coming thru the PA..
You could see their silhouettes thru the darkness, and they all huddled around the drums and kept playing.
Not missing a beat, just grooving in a little huddle, the crowd cheered them on, because you could still hear it a little bit. Not sure how long this went on, probably around a minute. Then the lights burst back on, the PA cranking, they turned around to the crowd, never once stopping the groove and went right into the second verse. The place absolutely exploded. It was one of the most badass things i've ever seen, will never forget it. For me as professional musician and record maker, it's always been about the groove and the pocket, and that night in Louisville, i got a great lesson in how it's done. I will carry that with me always.
Much love and peace to Mick Ralphs and his family.
Kenny Greenberg
____________________________________
In 1977 the Outlaws had the pleasure of being the special guest on the Bad Company Burning Sky Tour. On that Tour I met Paul Rodgers, Simon Kirke (who the Outlaws invited to the White House thanks to Jimmy Carter) Boz Burrell, Peter Grant, Jerry Weintraub, Tom Hulett, John Meglen, Paul Gongaware and although all left their imprints on me it was Mick Ralphs that always brought the biggest smile to my face. Almost 20 years later I had the pleasure of managing Bad Company with different lineups but finally I had Rodgers, Kirke and Mick together and there was nothing like that set list of great songs cowritten by Paul & Mick. Always magic on the stage .... Ronnie VanZant's favorite singer was Paul and Gary loved Kosoff and Ralphs.
Many long and wonderful nights with Mick and I will miss him until I see him again.
RIP Mick Ralphs your music will live on forever.
Cheers,
Charlie Brusco
____________________________________
Bob,
A great note.
I promoted every one of the bands mentioned and I loved the music of all of them.
All the Young Dudes" is still a favourite.
Yes Mick Ralphs quietly held the band s together both with his writing and playing.
Bad Company were a favourite of Peter Grant. He really loved the band and pushed them hard.
Mick was a great unsung hero.
May he rest in peace
Harvey Goldsmith
____________________________________
Testify, Bob. Bad Company until the day I die indeed. Love every one of those Bad Co. tracks you mention with Mick's stamp on 'em -- and I'm still also partial to "Electricland," which I may have mentioned before. Can't get enough (sorry/not sorry) of his solo on that underappreciated Rough Diamonds opener.
Also, when I asked Ian Hunter in 2023 about what made Mott the Hoople's version of "All the Young Dudes" so indelible, his response was immediate: "Well, it's Mick Ralphs' intro that did it, you know? David (Bowie) had done it in C and we took it up to D, and we added that little rap at the end. David was bored with the way he'd done it because he'd done a lot of alto sax on it, as he was an alto player. He just ran out of ideas — but with us, it was a whole different ball game. Our version excited him. It was just two nights of recording, and that was it."
Mike Mettler
Editor, Analog Planet
____________________________________
Worked security at the 1977 Burnin' Sky tour at what was then the Fabulous Forum in LA. Actually got into the back stage party where the many very pretty women wouldn't give me the time of day. Was a great show and I actually remember some of the songs thay played. Always wondered why they weren't in the RRHOF a while back. "Bad Company till the day I die" a rock motto to live by in your 20's.
Alan Fenton
____________________________________
Mick Ralph's was always a master minimalist. Never played four notes when one was just what the song needed.
Bob Levy
____________________________________
Nice tribute, Bob. Mott's All The Young Dudes belongs in the pantheon of greatest all-time rock albums.
Tom Lehr
____________________________________
Such an underrated musician. To teenaged guitar players like I was in the '70's there were few players whose sound you couldn't quite figure out. Mick Ronson (we later found out it was the wah), Jimmy Page (multiple tricks), and others, including Mick Ralphs and his fat, razor-edged wailing. There's a great bit in a recent Mike Campbell interview of Lukas Nelson where Nelson recalls asking dad Willie if he thought he was a good player. Willie says (paraphrasing) "yeah, your good, but who cares? You need to develop a VOICE." Now Willie was talking about Lukas' singing voice, but it's no less true of standout guitarists.
Writing is a rare talent. Playing great guitar is a little less rare, but when you combine that with a wholly unique sensibility--a voice--you can transcend. RIP Mick.
Ted Doyle
____________________________________
I don't remember how my brother and I first heard of Bad Company. There was certainly some buzz about them being favored by Led Zep being on their record label. At some point, maybe as Can't Get Enough started showing up on the radio, we made our way to Bailey's Music Rooms on Church Street in Burlington. When we went into the store we headed over to the POP / Rock section and looked under "B." The LP was nowhere, nothing. Then we heard a voice from behind the cash register... "What are you boys looking for?" When we told him we were in search of the Bad Co. LP he waved us over. Yes, they had an open case of the LPs at the cash register...they were flying out the door. We made off with one and listened to it seemingly a million times when we got home. It is still a favorite.
The interesting thing about this band, the music was not a bunch of shredding, it had a solid, simple groove behind it, and brilliant song writing and playing. R.I.P. Mick!
Joe Tymecki
Fairfax, VT
____________________________________
Thanks, Bob, for a nice tribute to Mick Ralphs - agree very much overlooked as your detailed synopsis of his work proves. All I can add is an observation from when I was a younger guy working at Maurice Placquet in Shepherd's Bush, as many aspiring 70's musicians did, providing sales and rentals to the stars of the day. Mick was one of the rare ones who would come into the store/warehouse and tool around on the guitars we had in stock, and was always friendly and ready to chat - one of the all-round nice guys in the business. Rare, and happy his work will live on, perhaps more recognised in the future than it has been in the past….
Adam Howell
____________________________________
Thanks for a wonderful tribute, Bob!
I loved Mick Ralphs! Loved those first three Mott The Hoople albums and then had the honor to work with Mick and
Bad Company ("Desolation Angels" era) during my stint at Atlantic Records.
A lovely man and the driving force for so much that molded a lifestyle back then!
Really appreciate you giving Mick Ralphs even just some of his due.
Alan Wolmark
CEC Management
____________________________________
Thanks for the well deserved tribute to the rather unsung Mick Ralphs.
The early Mott had another impressive cover version. Their "Brain Capers" album featured "Darkness, Darkness" from the Youngbloods' "Elephant Mountain" LP.
I was fortunate to catch them on a bill at the Fillmore West slotted between Freddie King and Albert King. Quite memorable.
Best,
Michael Wright
____________________________________
Wonderful tribute to the great Mick Ralphs. You mentioned the Mott the Hoople song "one of the boys" and of course at about 49 seconds of that song is the riff that would not long after become the opening riff to Bad Company's "can't get enough.".
Thank goodness, Paul's short-lived trio called "peace," did a short run opening gigs for Mott the Hoople in late 1971 while Free took a break. That's where Paul and Mick first started hanging out in the tuning room before the gigs, developing a relationship that would become the foundation for Bad Company.
Chris Epting
____________________________________
"…down in the city just Hoople and me, don't I love him so…" I remember the rock critics making a big deal about that line when Queen recorded it. Mott The Hoople will always mean so much to me. Often wondered if it bothered Ian Hunter that Mott's biggest song was one he or the band didn't write. It didn't bother me because All The Way From Memphis, Roll Away The Stone, Ballad of the Mott and of course All The Young Dudes never left my stereo system in the 70's. I still play Roll Away The Stone monthly along with Silver Blue and Gold from Bad Company. And speaking of Bad Company. Did any band sound better on the radio than them? Thank you Mick Ralphs for all that and much more.
Jeff Sacks
____________________________________
Thank you for writing about the great Mick Ralphs. I've always urged friends to listen to the extended outro on "Sweet Jane," the lead track from "All The Young Dudes," to truly capture Mick's exquisite sense of melody and tone. It's so beautifully crafted and my favorite guitar solo of all time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPa8GZAZJFc
Rich Ulloa
____________________________________
Hi Bob. I was 16 years old on a sunny day at Charlton Football Stadium in South London. It was my first music festival and I had to go straight from Saturday morning school in my school uniform, much to my embarrassment. The bill was f*cking stupendous, including Lou Reed, Humble Pie and The Who topping the bill. But the band that blew my schoolboy socks off was the first show from a brand new band- Bad Company. These guys were the real thing. Kick-ass rockers with stupendous songs… of course every Free fan knew who Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke were… but as a young guitar player I couldn't take my eyes of the dude in the leather pants. He was a f*cking rock God, strutting around, slamming out the riffs, and ripping out ear bursting solos. They played 44 minutes and I loved every second. There was no internet, I had to wait for that week's Melody Maker to be released to find out who this guy was. Mick Ralphs. Right up there with the other generation of guitar heroes- especially Blackmore and Page. I had no idea he wrote most of those songs. But he was absolutely the genuine article. RIP.
John Watkin
____________________________________
Bob! THX for sharing this! Ive been a lifelong MOTT fan and was a Bad Co fan when I was a kid, but Mott remain in my top 3 All Time Greats. I cannot agree w/ you more about the singular talent that Ralphs always was. Even the first couple of Mott's albums - the ones referred to as their "hippie" years - had some great songs and most of them authored by Ralphs way before Ian hit his mark as the great songwriter he would become. And...right you are again about Ralphs as a guitarist. His solos were seismic and incredibly tasteful and well thought out and executed solos that brought the songs to life. Full of restraint, build and release and he was one of the few who could play in a way that made you want more. He didn't give it all away at once. He made you think about what you were listening to and how to support the song in ways no other guitarist did or does. Had Mott never released anything else after, the solo at the beginning and at the end of "All The Way From Memphis" on its own may be strong enough to illustrate what an influential and intelligent player he was, even before one took notice of the songwriting credits. I appreciate you flying this fly for one of the Best. No one else will... Bless ya!
Rick Gershon
____________________________________
I was 15 about to turn 16 in 1990. I was working as a dishwasher at a Swiss chalet, the most popular chicken chain casual dining restaurant in Canada. I was already bitten by the rock 'n' roll bug growing up, listening to the top 40 AM radio that was a constant in my house. I also had just started learning to play guitar. I was aware of who Bad Company were, at least the Paul Rodgers fronted band from their classic tracks always being spun on FM rock radio and did love them. (I mean when your first discovering classic rock as a kid in the 80s and 90s, if you didn't own Bad Companys' compilation 10 From 6, did you really like classic rock?)
Working as a dishwasher in that restaurant I'd befriended one of the older waitresses and she was a passionate 80s rock 'n' roll girl. I was only 15 and she had to be at at least 20 and our relationship was strictly platonic and about rock 'n' roll. It wasn't that she wasn't attractive, It's just that's our friendship developed because of our passion for rock 'n' roll and not based on some teenage boy crush. We'd talk about the different bands we're hearing about or interested in. Grunge hadn't hit yet so we were still clearly in the 80s hair metal era and we both loved majority of those bands and talk incessantly about them.
I mentioned one shift I had heard this new band on the radio that seemed to be a lot bluesier than even Cinderella and seem to have a more Stones edge to them called the Black Crowes. She said she actually had recently bought the cassette and that I could borrow it. When she lent it to me, she also included a cassette album called Holy Water. Bad Company? They were still around?
I had no idea what to expect but let's just say Holy Water got a lot more play than Shake Your Money Maker until I returned them both to her. Not that I didn't enjoy Shake Your Money Maker, but the hooks and guitar playing by Mick and Brian Howe's slightly less raspy Brian Johnson vocal style had me playing that album repeatedly until I returned the tape back to her and went out and bought my own copy on CD. I just could not get enough of hearing Micks' guitar playing on that album. Every riff was a hook! Every lead was its own song within the song!
I know the previous and following Bad Company albums with with Brian were not as well written or received, and the overall catalogue of that era with Brian is dismissed by Bad Company fans, but for me without taking anything away from the incredible and rightfully definitive Paul Rodgers Bad Company, Holy Water will always be a favorite of mine!
RIP Mick Ralphs
Michael Moniz
____________________________________
In the Fall of 73, (freshman year of high school) I bought my first Circus magazine, mostly because of Robert Plant being on the cover and a multipage piece on Led Zeppelin (who I had discovered the previous summer).
There was also a multipage piece on Mott The Hoople, a band I had never heard of. The article was promoting their new release, Mott. You're correct about Hunter and Watts being the attention grabbers, visually. Ian with his shades and Watts with his gray frosted hair and Gibson bass. But as I looked closer I noticed that Mick Ralph's had a Fender Telecaster, which is the guitar I was saving for, but I noticed that instead of the typical Tele neck pickup, it had a HUMBUCKER, like Keith Richards. I took the picture to my local music store and told them that's what I wanted to order. The owner looked at me and said "You can't. It's not in the catalog Sorry kid". I was fascinated enough by the article to ask for the record for Christmas. My parents mistakenly got me All The Young Dudes instead of Mott, but one listen to the record hooked me. "Sweet Jane", "Jerkin' Crocus" "One Of The Boys" along with the title track and "Ready For Love/After The Lights". I wore out the grooves on that record and eventually got Mott fairly soon after that. Those songs and those guitar riffs were killer and I wore that record out as well. And then I heard Mick Ralph's, like Verden Allen before him, had left the band. The Hoople may have rocked a little harder but it seemed less special, more generic-with Mick gone they lost my interest.
When the first Bad Company record came out, it was, as you said, undeniable. Whenever I read about Bad Company though it seemed like it was "Paul Rodgers and the other 3". It wasn't like Led Zeppelin where you had Page interviews, Plant interviews, and Bonham worship. Unlike Page, there were no stories of Mick making pilgrimages to Morocco, no guitar virtuoso drooling. Just meat and potatoes rock and roll, which is so hard to do as well Mick Ralphs did it. And yes, I'm saddened by all the obituaries of my music heroes lately, but thank you for taking the time to recognize Mick Ralphs. He more than deserved it
Jim Blaney
____________________________________
Good for you Bob. Let's not overlook or ever forget that unique incredible sound of Mick Ralphs, or his songwriting with Paul Rodgers.
When Mott had to move on without Ralphs, all of us fans knew that was a big blow. As good as Bender was, he just didn't possess the gravitas of Ralphs. Mick Ralphs' sound and style was a force to be reckoned with. Hunter had to explain it, and in the liner notes on the next Mott album he wrote about the Mott's journey and the band changes with something akin to: "Mick Ralphs appeared to be in bad company." I thought it was very clever the way he stated it.
Mick left because he had bigger musical visions for himself. And with Bad Co.he grew to his potential. Although not talked about nearly enough for all his talents, if you mention Mick Ralphs to any guitar player you will get a knowing smile. The guy was a giant. Bad Co. owned FM Rock Radio airwaves in the 80's. A true supergroup of musicians with Paul Rodgers vocals being pushed by Mick's incredible fat, crunchy Les Paul tone. Bad Co. is finallllly being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year. But it doesn't matter. Because if you're a rocker you know that both Paul Rodgers and Mick Ralphs are bigger than, and mean more than that whole institution. We lost a big-time guitar brother today. Ouch.
Paul Rappaport
____________________________________
I totally agree with your article, not an obituary. Well written and well deserved.
Love, Paul Rodgers
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The Mafia Documetary
"Fear City: New York vs The Mafia"
Netflix trailer: https://short-link.me/15ALU
I thought they took the Mafia down in the seventies, after all didn't "The Godfather" come out in 1972? Weren't the seventies the heyday of Mafia movies? With made men testifying for the government in exchange for witness protection?
I guess not, according to this documentary, the Mafia was taken down in the EIGHTIES!
That's right, when the average punter could name the five families, they were still at it. Acknowledging the Feds like Tony and his paisans.
But the government was disorganized. That's one thing we've learned for sure in the past few decades, with the O.J. trial and so many more... If you've got money, you can hire attorneys who can run circles around those working for the government. After all, very few few see government work as the end all and be all. It's a stepping stone at best. Therefore, you get the young and inexperienced, which was the case in the trial against the Commission.
I'd love to tell you this documentary is well-made, a tour-de-force, but that is not the case. HOWEVER, we've all got this fascination with the Mafia, and it's all laid out here, the families and the FBI and Giuliani...
It all came down to a Cornell professor, who instructed the government on how to fight organized crime. They were suspicious, but they went along with it. The key was to create separate task forces and go against the head guys, the aforementioned Commission, via the RICO act! This professor had written it, the government did not know how to use it.
And how the FBI snoops...
That's really interesting. How they plant the bugs, how they build the case. Listening to hours of tape and figuring out the truth.
Not that these Mafiosi were dumb. They never left their houses empty. The heads of the families didn't write stuff down. And they controlled so much!
Like the concrete business in New York City. You marvel at how they could get away with it.
And you've got ex-Mafiosi who've served their time in prison explaining how the life was.
"Fear City" is not a huge commitment, only three episodes, but if you ever watched "The Godfather," if you ever had any interest in the Mafia at all, you'll dig it. Watch it.
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Netflix trailer: https://short-link.me/15ALU
I thought they took the Mafia down in the seventies, after all didn't "The Godfather" come out in 1972? Weren't the seventies the heyday of Mafia movies? With made men testifying for the government in exchange for witness protection?
I guess not, according to this documentary, the Mafia was taken down in the EIGHTIES!
That's right, when the average punter could name the five families, they were still at it. Acknowledging the Feds like Tony and his paisans.
But the government was disorganized. That's one thing we've learned for sure in the past few decades, with the O.J. trial and so many more... If you've got money, you can hire attorneys who can run circles around those working for the government. After all, very few few see government work as the end all and be all. It's a stepping stone at best. Therefore, you get the young and inexperienced, which was the case in the trial against the Commission.
I'd love to tell you this documentary is well-made, a tour-de-force, but that is not the case. HOWEVER, we've all got this fascination with the Mafia, and it's all laid out here, the families and the FBI and Giuliani...
It all came down to a Cornell professor, who instructed the government on how to fight organized crime. They were suspicious, but they went along with it. The key was to create separate task forces and go against the head guys, the aforementioned Commission, via the RICO act! This professor had written it, the government did not know how to use it.
And how the FBI snoops...
That's really interesting. How they plant the bugs, how they build the case. Listening to hours of tape and figuring out the truth.
Not that these Mafiosi were dumb. They never left their houses empty. The heads of the families didn't write stuff down. And they controlled so much!
Like the concrete business in New York City. You marvel at how they could get away with it.
And you've got ex-Mafiosi who've served their time in prison explaining how the life was.
"Fear City" is not a huge commitment, only three episodes, but if you ever watched "The Godfather," if you ever had any interest in the Mafia at all, you'll dig it. Watch it.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
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The Hitler Documentary
"Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial"
Netflix trailer: rb.gy/mrxhgk
I just wasn't satisfied by the fake. No drama was resonating, from the foreign to the domestic, from crime to relationship comedy, nothing was floating my boat. I needed down home reality.
Which is why I watched the Titan documentary.
That having resonated, I watched a great documentary on the Mafia, which I should write about separately.
And that led me to this Hitler doc, made by Joe Berlinger, of West Memphis Three and Metallica fame.
Now Tony Soprano loved to watch the History Channel, which used to be World War II 24/7, but I never cottoned to that, and does that still even exist, in a world where streaming has eclipsed network and cable combined? I don't know, but I figured I'd give Hitler a shot.
And I was stunned how much I didn't know.
Maybe you know it, kudos. But growing up in the sixties, we never studied World War II. Our teachers had lived through it so they thought we knew all about it, even though this was untrue. We learned about World War II through osmosis, the words of our parents, society in general, it was palpable, at least what they now call the Holocaust, never again we were told, and now it's happening to a degree never seen previously in my lifetime. If you think most people separate Israel from the Jews, you're not Jewish, you've never experienced antisemitism. If any other country was fighting Hamas would there be this uproar? And this Hitler documentary is a great analogue. Hitler, like Hamas, refused to surrender, so the Allies bombed the hell out of Germany, killing so many people. But Hitler had to be defeated. As for Hamas, should it be allowed to stand?
You need to read Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib's piece in the "Washington Post":
"The first step to saving Gaza is seeing Hamas for what it is"
Free link: https://wapo.st/4k9IAgx
Money quote?
"The war in Gaza has killed 35 members of my extended family and destroyed both of the homes in which I lived as a child."
Unlike all the nincompoops on campuses living in safety, this guy has been directly affected, yet he knows where the blame lies.
And all the musicians... Funny how you can take a stand on Palestine yet not Trump. Talk about going with the flow...
I know this is a dangerous topic. My inbox is filled with pro-Palestinian rhetoric excoriating me for not calling for Israel to immediately stop the war and vacate Gaza. But it's very simple, Hamas could stop the war tomorrow, they could just cough up the rest of the hostages. But they refuse to do this, putting the entire populace at risk.
But Hitler knew the score, the problem in the world is very clear, it's the JEWS!
But we already knew this. Then again, today Holocaust denial is a thing. I wonder what these naysayers would say if they saw the piles of corpses, where did those come from?
No, I'm not telling you to watch this Hitler documentary to learn about the killing of Jews, although it's not a bad bonus, but because of TRUMP! You see in many ways the landscape was the same.
The populace was disillusioned, they felt they'd' been dealt a raw deal. They were angry and Hitler tapped into this discontent.
It was all about the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the first World War. The terms were just too onerous. The average German was suffering, chafing under these restrictions. Beware of settlements within which you demand too much, they often backfire. And if you don't know a treaty, a contract, is just a piece of paper, you're naïve.
The Weimar Republic? Seen as good for some, but they were the few, and much of the public was suffering.
Hitler comes from nothing and takes power with about 35% support. Sound familiar? Like the hard core Trumpers?
Oh, don't get your knickers in a twist, don't claim TDS, don't be ignorant, calm down and watch the first two episodes, your jaw will drop and you'll feel queasy, the parallels are just too clear. A charismatic leader is given an entry and then he takes over, excludes all comers and becomes a dictator.
I'm living in these United States, explain again why ICE wears masks? If the government can't fight its battles in the open, with identities clear, maybe their cause is not just. If ICE members are fearful of retaliation... Why don't all members of Congress hide their identities, and CEOs too. This is not the solution to the problem, if you're fearful about violence speak to the core, the motivation and how to prevent people from taking action, not defense.
Now I must warn you, this documentary has a few quirks. First, the images are colorized. We fought that battle with Ted Turner decades ago, I haven't seen someone talk about it recently, yet it's still offensive.
Second, there are re-enactments. But the real problem is that you sometimes can't separate the re-enactments from the real footage.
Then again, when you see the real Nazis in the dock in Nuremberg...
There's all this damning information, the Nazis were meticulous note keepers. But what does each and every Nazi say (except for one, who accepts a smidge of responsibility), IT WASN'T ME! IT WAS ALL HITLER! I HAD NO IDEA!
Yeah, right.
Will we have a Nuremberg style trial for all the Trump enablers? The Congresspeople who are afraid to go against Trump for fear of retaliation, just like with Hitler? You got in line or you were excommunicated. The Führer could fathom no bad news, no contradictions.
It's eerie.
Do you need to watch all six episodes?
Maybe not, but you do need to watch the first two.
Now don't roll your eyes and shrug your shoulders, saying analogies to Hitler are employed too frequently and don't apply. Trump has been operating from the authoritarian playbook, which was laid out clearly in Project 2025, just like in "Mein Kampf." And Stephen Miller is Joseph Goebbels.
Don't tell me I'm being histrionic, you can ignore my words completely, as long as you watch the first two episodes of this documentary.
As for me, those Nuremberg Nazis hanged because they couldn't say no, they couldn't stand up to Hitler, they couldn't see that certain actions were immoral.
And it's not like we've never seen this in America before. McCarthyism? A black stain on American history, but how many went along with it back in the fifties, afraid to look soft on Communism?
This is the American spirit we've lost, in a world that has become totally about money, even though so many have been left behind. America was always about the rugged individual, free to be themselves, walk their own way, not put up with the b.s.
Today everybody is a sheep, and it's not only in politics. People are afraid to go against conventional wisdom, stand up to the bullies. They're afraid of being excoriated by the minions.
But not me.
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Netflix trailer: rb.gy/mrxhgk
I just wasn't satisfied by the fake. No drama was resonating, from the foreign to the domestic, from crime to relationship comedy, nothing was floating my boat. I needed down home reality.
Which is why I watched the Titan documentary.
That having resonated, I watched a great documentary on the Mafia, which I should write about separately.
And that led me to this Hitler doc, made by Joe Berlinger, of West Memphis Three and Metallica fame.
Now Tony Soprano loved to watch the History Channel, which used to be World War II 24/7, but I never cottoned to that, and does that still even exist, in a world where streaming has eclipsed network and cable combined? I don't know, but I figured I'd give Hitler a shot.
And I was stunned how much I didn't know.
Maybe you know it, kudos. But growing up in the sixties, we never studied World War II. Our teachers had lived through it so they thought we knew all about it, even though this was untrue. We learned about World War II through osmosis, the words of our parents, society in general, it was palpable, at least what they now call the Holocaust, never again we were told, and now it's happening to a degree never seen previously in my lifetime. If you think most people separate Israel from the Jews, you're not Jewish, you've never experienced antisemitism. If any other country was fighting Hamas would there be this uproar? And this Hitler documentary is a great analogue. Hitler, like Hamas, refused to surrender, so the Allies bombed the hell out of Germany, killing so many people. But Hitler had to be defeated. As for Hamas, should it be allowed to stand?
You need to read Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib's piece in the "Washington Post":
"The first step to saving Gaza is seeing Hamas for what it is"
Free link: https://wapo.st/4k9IAgx
Money quote?
"The war in Gaza has killed 35 members of my extended family and destroyed both of the homes in which I lived as a child."
Unlike all the nincompoops on campuses living in safety, this guy has been directly affected, yet he knows where the blame lies.
And all the musicians... Funny how you can take a stand on Palestine yet not Trump. Talk about going with the flow...
I know this is a dangerous topic. My inbox is filled with pro-Palestinian rhetoric excoriating me for not calling for Israel to immediately stop the war and vacate Gaza. But it's very simple, Hamas could stop the war tomorrow, they could just cough up the rest of the hostages. But they refuse to do this, putting the entire populace at risk.
But Hitler knew the score, the problem in the world is very clear, it's the JEWS!
But we already knew this. Then again, today Holocaust denial is a thing. I wonder what these naysayers would say if they saw the piles of corpses, where did those come from?
No, I'm not telling you to watch this Hitler documentary to learn about the killing of Jews, although it's not a bad bonus, but because of TRUMP! You see in many ways the landscape was the same.
The populace was disillusioned, they felt they'd' been dealt a raw deal. They were angry and Hitler tapped into this discontent.
It was all about the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the first World War. The terms were just too onerous. The average German was suffering, chafing under these restrictions. Beware of settlements within which you demand too much, they often backfire. And if you don't know a treaty, a contract, is just a piece of paper, you're naïve.
The Weimar Republic? Seen as good for some, but they were the few, and much of the public was suffering.
Hitler comes from nothing and takes power with about 35% support. Sound familiar? Like the hard core Trumpers?
Oh, don't get your knickers in a twist, don't claim TDS, don't be ignorant, calm down and watch the first two episodes, your jaw will drop and you'll feel queasy, the parallels are just too clear. A charismatic leader is given an entry and then he takes over, excludes all comers and becomes a dictator.
I'm living in these United States, explain again why ICE wears masks? If the government can't fight its battles in the open, with identities clear, maybe their cause is not just. If ICE members are fearful of retaliation... Why don't all members of Congress hide their identities, and CEOs too. This is not the solution to the problem, if you're fearful about violence speak to the core, the motivation and how to prevent people from taking action, not defense.
Now I must warn you, this documentary has a few quirks. First, the images are colorized. We fought that battle with Ted Turner decades ago, I haven't seen someone talk about it recently, yet it's still offensive.
Second, there are re-enactments. But the real problem is that you sometimes can't separate the re-enactments from the real footage.
Then again, when you see the real Nazis in the dock in Nuremberg...
There's all this damning information, the Nazis were meticulous note keepers. But what does each and every Nazi say (except for one, who accepts a smidge of responsibility), IT WASN'T ME! IT WAS ALL HITLER! I HAD NO IDEA!
Yeah, right.
Will we have a Nuremberg style trial for all the Trump enablers? The Congresspeople who are afraid to go against Trump for fear of retaliation, just like with Hitler? You got in line or you were excommunicated. The Führer could fathom no bad news, no contradictions.
It's eerie.
Do you need to watch all six episodes?
Maybe not, but you do need to watch the first two.
Now don't roll your eyes and shrug your shoulders, saying analogies to Hitler are employed too frequently and don't apply. Trump has been operating from the authoritarian playbook, which was laid out clearly in Project 2025, just like in "Mein Kampf." And Stephen Miller is Joseph Goebbels.
Don't tell me I'm being histrionic, you can ignore my words completely, as long as you watch the first two episodes of this documentary.
As for me, those Nuremberg Nazis hanged because they couldn't say no, they couldn't stand up to Hitler, they couldn't see that certain actions were immoral.
And it's not like we've never seen this in America before. McCarthyism? A black stain on American history, but how many went along with it back in the fifties, afraid to look soft on Communism?
This is the American spirit we've lost, in a world that has become totally about money, even though so many have been left behind. America was always about the rugged individual, free to be themselves, walk their own way, not put up with the b.s.
Today everybody is a sheep, and it's not only in politics. People are afraid to go against conventional wisdom, stand up to the bullies. They're afraid of being excoriated by the minions.
But not me.
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Monday, 23 June 2025
Mick Ralphs
Spotify playlist: https://rb.gy/jdfgor
I really don't want to write another obituary, but I don't want Mick Ralphs to be overlooked as he too often was in the two big bands he was a member of.
Mott the Hoople was dominated by Ian Hunter, even though the band's initial single was an instrumental cover of "You Really Got Me," long before Diamond Dave and the Van Halens did their version of this Kinks classic.
There was a buzz on that first Mott the Hoople album, it had the aforementioned Kinks cover, and it also featured a distinctive album cover, M.C. Escher's "Reptiles," which I studied in the bins. As for buying an LP based on the cover, I never did that, who would? And "You Really Got Me" was all over underground FM radio, which was burgeoning in the New York market with multiple stations, and I saw the band open for the Traffic reunion at Fillmore East in the spring of 1970, but the album was not a commercial success, and the three Atlantic LPs which followed the eponymous debut were not either, even though "Brain Capers" got good reviews. It was a different era, if a label signed you they stuck with you, especially the English acts, but not forever, Mott eventually jumped to Columbia, however...
The other big cut on the debut was "Rock and Roll Queen," which was Mott's signature cut before "All the Young Dudes," and it was composed by Mick Ralphs. That's why I'm writing this, not only was Ralphs's playing overlooked, but his songwriting ability. "Rock and Roll Queen" was an Ian Hunter tour-de-force, the average punter had no idea that Mick had composed it.
And by the time of "All the Young Dudes"... The story was that Bowie wrote and produced the number, and I don't want to take anything away from the way Ian Hunter twists the words and emotes vocally, but that indelible guitar work, that was Mick Ralphs.
And if you weren't concentrating on Ian Hunter in the band, your eyes drifted to the tall and gussied up Pete "Overend" Watts, with his platform boots. Mick Ralphs was just the guitar player.
But I bought that album, which bore the moniker of the hit song. I'd read it was good, but also I had to own "All the Young Dudes." The LP never caught fire, you never heard another track on the radio, but if you owned it, on the second side...
There was a Hunter/Ralphs number "One of the Boys" that is great straight ahead rock and roll with attitude, and then there is...
"Ready for Love/After Lights," which was remade on the initial Bad Company album, but as good as Paul Rodgers's vocal is, the original is a completely different experience, that sets you free to drift, something that's been lost in today's in-your-face era. Furthermore, Mick SANG IT! His weak voice adding gravitas.
The follow-up to the "All the Young Dudes" album, entitled "Mott," was solid throughout and more commercially successful, even though there was not a huge hit single. HOWEVER, "All the Way from Memphis" opened the not yet legendary Martin Scorsese's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" and Ralphs wrote the driving opening track on the second side with Ian, entitled "Drivin' Sister," truly the second best song on the album...
And then Mick left. Replaced by a man named Ariel Bender, who was really Luther Grosvenor from Spooky Tooth, and the ensuing record wasn't bad, Mr. Bender could pick the notes, but he could not add the flavor Mick Ralphs did and the band broke apart, Ian Hunter went solo and...
Started off with a lot of hype and then faded until he switched to the nascent in America Chrysalis label and delivered a classic, "You're Never Alonie With a Schizophrenic."
Meanwhile, Mick Ralphs was the guitarist in one of the biggest bands in the world, the first signed to Led Zeppelin's Swan Song label, Bad Company, where Paul Rodgers showed that he was more than a one hit wonder, that "All Right Now" was just the beginning.
But in that previous band...it is well established that Paul Kossoff was one of the best guitarists EVER! So not only did it look like Ralphs was slotted into a replacement Free, with Simon Kirke from that band on the drums, but almost no one could live up to the talent of Paul Kossoff, whom Paul Rodgers told me was the best guitarist he ever worked with, and don't forget that he worked with Jimmy Page in the Firm and fronted Queen with Brian May.
But, once again, Ralphs's songwriting talents were overlooked, still are. It's one thing to be able to play, but to compose? And don't ever forget, Bad Company was a guitar-dominated group, and Mick was the guitarist. Paul played occasionally, but it was Mick who did the heavy lifting, and go no respect.
It was MICK who wrote Bad Company's debut smash, "Can't Get Enough." Yup, you might have forgotten that, if you ever even knew it.
Mick also wrote "Movin' On" on the second side of the first album, a track in the vein of "One of the Boys" and "Drivin' Sister," and just as good.
But it was really the second album that broke Bad Company wide, that made the band ubiquitous. That's right, as huge as the debut was, "Straight Shooter" was even BIGGER! And all the wankers on the Rock Hall of Fame committee seemed to have forgotten this until this very year. I don't want to get into a pissing match, but KISS was never a match for Bad Company, KISS was about the live show, Bad Company was first and foremost about the music! And "Straight Shooter" opened with a bang, Mick Ralphs's "Good Lovin' Gone Bad."
But the true breakthrough cut on the second album was the second song, with its stinging guitar emphasis, a Ralphs/Rodgers co-composition, a song that you heard everywhere in 1975 and those addicted to the radio still remember, FEEL LIKE MAKIN' LOVE! Yup, that staccato guitar, wow!
And how about that guitar on the two opening cuts on the second side, "Deal with the Preacher" and "Wild Fire Woman"? Just listen! It's not how fast you play, but what you wring from the instrument, a sound, a soul, a feeling that goes alternately straight to the heart and straight to the genitals.
As for the third album, not equal to what came before but still with merit, it opens with Mick Ralphs's "Live for the Music," my personal anthem:
"Some people say I'm no good
Laying in my bed all day
But when the nighttime comes I'm ready to rock
And roll my troubles away"
I've gotten sh*t for DECADES about being a late riser, a creature of the night. In a world where everybody boasts about how early they awaken, those in the arts know that nothing good happens during the day, greatness arrives after dark, oftentimes after midnight, when the rest of the world is asleep and you can stretch out and be yourself, create. And when you create in these hours you can't fall asleep thereafter. Creative work takes mental energy that you just can't come down from, which leaves you up all night, just like a band that's left the arena stage unable to shut their eyes on the bus.
But then, but THEN, comes the PIECE-DE-RESISTANCE! My absolute favorite Bad Company song, one that I sing to myself and play CONSTANTLY, "Simple Man."
"Simple Man" is a masterpiece from start to finish, the music and the lyrics, the guitar-playing and the vocal, but the key comes forty seconds in:
"Freedom is the only thing means a damn to me
Oh, you can't fake it
Freedom is the only song, sing a song for me
Oh, we're gonna make it"
Absolute free speech, all the right wing b.s. parroted under the rubric of freedom, that's not real freedom and that's not what Bad Company is singing about, the meaning I take from this number. Rather it's the freedom to be ME! And believe me, I've run up against this my entire life, people criticizing me for what I say and who I am, I just want to be left alone to be myself, but since I'm not just like everybody else, this is a problem. The bands and the music they used to play represented this ethos, they lived in an alternate world, they were a beacon to those of us who didn't fit in. Please, at this late date, let me be me. Let everybody be themselves if they're not hurting you. Yes, what difference does it make to you if someone has an abortion or is trans... Give them their FREEDOM!
And then there's the Bad Company "comeback" album, when their previous record was a disappointment, when they'd disappeared for years, when nothing was expected, the group came back with DESOLATION ANGELS! Mick wrote "Oh, Atlanta," which Alison Krauss employed to cross over to the mainstream.
So Mick Ralphs was more than a guitar player, MUCH MORE, but he was a great guitar player TOO! All those legendary Bad Company records, that was HIM, up front and center, that was MICK!
And he had a stroke nearly a decade ago and now Mick Ralphs just passed.
This is not just another faceless member of a group, a support player, sans Mick Ralphs THERE IS NO BAD COMPANY! Paul Rodgers never had as much commercial success after he stopped working with Mick. And let's not forget Mott the Hoople.
But everybody forgets Mick Ralphs.
But not me. You see it's all personal. How the music hits you. Sure, you can stand with tens of thousands and enjoy a live performance, but the essence is how the sound hits you, yourself, and only yourself. It's what goes in your ears.
Speaking of "Desolation Angels," how about that intro to "Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy"?
That's what it was, our rock and roll fantasy. It's gone now, but the music still remains, even though those lauding artists with a way with words and not much more and pop singers want to forget this era completely. Sure, to a degree it's cock rock. But sans this sound so many of today's young males feel lost and alienated. Used to be this music made them feel alive and whole. As for the girls... Just go backstage, to the stage door at a Bad Company show, call them groupies, call them whatever you want, but these women were drawn to the sound and the men who made it, no one wants to be raped, but that does not mean people don't want to have SEX! And this was the music that got them excited and they f*cked to. You need to get loose and into the mood, and the way you did that was to put on a record. And you can dance to a disco track, but it doesn't have the raw sexual energy, the stripped-down human essence of rock, what did Aerosmith sing, WALK THIS WAY?
These Bad Company records stand up. Because Paul Rodgers could sing and Mick Ralphs could play and both could write, and Simon Kirke and Boz Burrell provided a rock steady rhythm section.
Bad Company and I can't deny.
BAD COMPANY 'TIL THE DAY I DIE!
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I really don't want to write another obituary, but I don't want Mick Ralphs to be overlooked as he too often was in the two big bands he was a member of.
Mott the Hoople was dominated by Ian Hunter, even though the band's initial single was an instrumental cover of "You Really Got Me," long before Diamond Dave and the Van Halens did their version of this Kinks classic.
There was a buzz on that first Mott the Hoople album, it had the aforementioned Kinks cover, and it also featured a distinctive album cover, M.C. Escher's "Reptiles," which I studied in the bins. As for buying an LP based on the cover, I never did that, who would? And "You Really Got Me" was all over underground FM radio, which was burgeoning in the New York market with multiple stations, and I saw the band open for the Traffic reunion at Fillmore East in the spring of 1970, but the album was not a commercial success, and the three Atlantic LPs which followed the eponymous debut were not either, even though "Brain Capers" got good reviews. It was a different era, if a label signed you they stuck with you, especially the English acts, but not forever, Mott eventually jumped to Columbia, however...
The other big cut on the debut was "Rock and Roll Queen," which was Mott's signature cut before "All the Young Dudes," and it was composed by Mick Ralphs. That's why I'm writing this, not only was Ralphs's playing overlooked, but his songwriting ability. "Rock and Roll Queen" was an Ian Hunter tour-de-force, the average punter had no idea that Mick had composed it.
And by the time of "All the Young Dudes"... The story was that Bowie wrote and produced the number, and I don't want to take anything away from the way Ian Hunter twists the words and emotes vocally, but that indelible guitar work, that was Mick Ralphs.
And if you weren't concentrating on Ian Hunter in the band, your eyes drifted to the tall and gussied up Pete "Overend" Watts, with his platform boots. Mick Ralphs was just the guitar player.
But I bought that album, which bore the moniker of the hit song. I'd read it was good, but also I had to own "All the Young Dudes." The LP never caught fire, you never heard another track on the radio, but if you owned it, on the second side...
There was a Hunter/Ralphs number "One of the Boys" that is great straight ahead rock and roll with attitude, and then there is...
"Ready for Love/After Lights," which was remade on the initial Bad Company album, but as good as Paul Rodgers's vocal is, the original is a completely different experience, that sets you free to drift, something that's been lost in today's in-your-face era. Furthermore, Mick SANG IT! His weak voice adding gravitas.
The follow-up to the "All the Young Dudes" album, entitled "Mott," was solid throughout and more commercially successful, even though there was not a huge hit single. HOWEVER, "All the Way from Memphis" opened the not yet legendary Martin Scorsese's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" and Ralphs wrote the driving opening track on the second side with Ian, entitled "Drivin' Sister," truly the second best song on the album...
And then Mick left. Replaced by a man named Ariel Bender, who was really Luther Grosvenor from Spooky Tooth, and the ensuing record wasn't bad, Mr. Bender could pick the notes, but he could not add the flavor Mick Ralphs did and the band broke apart, Ian Hunter went solo and...
Started off with a lot of hype and then faded until he switched to the nascent in America Chrysalis label and delivered a classic, "You're Never Alonie With a Schizophrenic."
Meanwhile, Mick Ralphs was the guitarist in one of the biggest bands in the world, the first signed to Led Zeppelin's Swan Song label, Bad Company, where Paul Rodgers showed that he was more than a one hit wonder, that "All Right Now" was just the beginning.
But in that previous band...it is well established that Paul Kossoff was one of the best guitarists EVER! So not only did it look like Ralphs was slotted into a replacement Free, with Simon Kirke from that band on the drums, but almost no one could live up to the talent of Paul Kossoff, whom Paul Rodgers told me was the best guitarist he ever worked with, and don't forget that he worked with Jimmy Page in the Firm and fronted Queen with Brian May.
But, once again, Ralphs's songwriting talents were overlooked, still are. It's one thing to be able to play, but to compose? And don't ever forget, Bad Company was a guitar-dominated group, and Mick was the guitarist. Paul played occasionally, but it was Mick who did the heavy lifting, and go no respect.
It was MICK who wrote Bad Company's debut smash, "Can't Get Enough." Yup, you might have forgotten that, if you ever even knew it.
Mick also wrote "Movin' On" on the second side of the first album, a track in the vein of "One of the Boys" and "Drivin' Sister," and just as good.
But it was really the second album that broke Bad Company wide, that made the band ubiquitous. That's right, as huge as the debut was, "Straight Shooter" was even BIGGER! And all the wankers on the Rock Hall of Fame committee seemed to have forgotten this until this very year. I don't want to get into a pissing match, but KISS was never a match for Bad Company, KISS was about the live show, Bad Company was first and foremost about the music! And "Straight Shooter" opened with a bang, Mick Ralphs's "Good Lovin' Gone Bad."
But the true breakthrough cut on the second album was the second song, with its stinging guitar emphasis, a Ralphs/Rodgers co-composition, a song that you heard everywhere in 1975 and those addicted to the radio still remember, FEEL LIKE MAKIN' LOVE! Yup, that staccato guitar, wow!
And how about that guitar on the two opening cuts on the second side, "Deal with the Preacher" and "Wild Fire Woman"? Just listen! It's not how fast you play, but what you wring from the instrument, a sound, a soul, a feeling that goes alternately straight to the heart and straight to the genitals.
As for the third album, not equal to what came before but still with merit, it opens with Mick Ralphs's "Live for the Music," my personal anthem:
"Some people say I'm no good
Laying in my bed all day
But when the nighttime comes I'm ready to rock
And roll my troubles away"
I've gotten sh*t for DECADES about being a late riser, a creature of the night. In a world where everybody boasts about how early they awaken, those in the arts know that nothing good happens during the day, greatness arrives after dark, oftentimes after midnight, when the rest of the world is asleep and you can stretch out and be yourself, create. And when you create in these hours you can't fall asleep thereafter. Creative work takes mental energy that you just can't come down from, which leaves you up all night, just like a band that's left the arena stage unable to shut their eyes on the bus.
But then, but THEN, comes the PIECE-DE-RESISTANCE! My absolute favorite Bad Company song, one that I sing to myself and play CONSTANTLY, "Simple Man."
"Simple Man" is a masterpiece from start to finish, the music and the lyrics, the guitar-playing and the vocal, but the key comes forty seconds in:
"Freedom is the only thing means a damn to me
Oh, you can't fake it
Freedom is the only song, sing a song for me
Oh, we're gonna make it"
Absolute free speech, all the right wing b.s. parroted under the rubric of freedom, that's not real freedom and that's not what Bad Company is singing about, the meaning I take from this number. Rather it's the freedom to be ME! And believe me, I've run up against this my entire life, people criticizing me for what I say and who I am, I just want to be left alone to be myself, but since I'm not just like everybody else, this is a problem. The bands and the music they used to play represented this ethos, they lived in an alternate world, they were a beacon to those of us who didn't fit in. Please, at this late date, let me be me. Let everybody be themselves if they're not hurting you. Yes, what difference does it make to you if someone has an abortion or is trans... Give them their FREEDOM!
And then there's the Bad Company "comeback" album, when their previous record was a disappointment, when they'd disappeared for years, when nothing was expected, the group came back with DESOLATION ANGELS! Mick wrote "Oh, Atlanta," which Alison Krauss employed to cross over to the mainstream.
So Mick Ralphs was more than a guitar player, MUCH MORE, but he was a great guitar player TOO! All those legendary Bad Company records, that was HIM, up front and center, that was MICK!
And he had a stroke nearly a decade ago and now Mick Ralphs just passed.
This is not just another faceless member of a group, a support player, sans Mick Ralphs THERE IS NO BAD COMPANY! Paul Rodgers never had as much commercial success after he stopped working with Mick. And let's not forget Mott the Hoople.
But everybody forgets Mick Ralphs.
But not me. You see it's all personal. How the music hits you. Sure, you can stand with tens of thousands and enjoy a live performance, but the essence is how the sound hits you, yourself, and only yourself. It's what goes in your ears.
Speaking of "Desolation Angels," how about that intro to "Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy"?
That's what it was, our rock and roll fantasy. It's gone now, but the music still remains, even though those lauding artists with a way with words and not much more and pop singers want to forget this era completely. Sure, to a degree it's cock rock. But sans this sound so many of today's young males feel lost and alienated. Used to be this music made them feel alive and whole. As for the girls... Just go backstage, to the stage door at a Bad Company show, call them groupies, call them whatever you want, but these women were drawn to the sound and the men who made it, no one wants to be raped, but that does not mean people don't want to have SEX! And this was the music that got them excited and they f*cked to. You need to get loose and into the mood, and the way you did that was to put on a record. And you can dance to a disco track, but it doesn't have the raw sexual energy, the stripped-down human essence of rock, what did Aerosmith sing, WALK THIS WAY?
These Bad Company records stand up. Because Paul Rodgers could sing and Mick Ralphs could play and both could write, and Simon Kirke and Boz Burrell provided a rock steady rhythm section.
Bad Company and I can't deny.
BAD COMPANY 'TIL THE DAY I DIE!
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Friday, 20 June 2025
Stop Songs-SiriusXM This Week
Tune in Saturday June 21st to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.
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Fighting Back
Democrats are never going to win on the immigration issue.
Sure, our nation depends upon undocumented immigrants to pick our fruit, provide our low-paying manual labor, however you're just not going to convince the vast majority of Americans that people who are here illegally deserve to be so. I am stunned, and happily surprised, that residents are standing up to ICE in L.A., it illustrates there is a line that when crossed people say NO MAS, but these deportations will not be the fulcrum upon which American power shifts. Not to mention that Trump seems to have halted illegal immigration overnight, something the Democrats deemed impossible. People entering this country illegally? That's not something the majority is going to agree with, no matter which political party you're a member of.
And then there's due process. We all want it, but oftentimes we don't encounter/are exposed to/need it. It's kind of like getting males excited about the lack of abortion rights. Unless it affects you personally, most people cannot get energized.
No, James Carville was right on this one, it all comes down to the economy, it's staring the Democrats in the eye, but they continue to blink.
Unfortunately, economic issues are soft issues politically. It's not like the government itself raises prices. Sure, interest rates may go up for treasuries, but the average person doesn't own any and can't relate. But the average person can relate when they go to the grocery store, seem to buy nothing and end up spending more than a hundred dollars. And then there are cars, which are projected to go up $1700 as a result of tariffs. The average person is being squeezed. I think about the money I've got, feel good about my income, and then realize I've lost twenty percent over the Biden years. Oh, don't tell me it's not his fault, that's not the point. The point is despite increases in income, I'm treading water, or falling behind, and I'm not the only one.
And Democrats did not seem to understand this.
So I was at the car stereo place Wednesday and I asked the proprietor how business was. He said all right, but he was hurting as a result of the fires and Trump. And then he said he couldn't believe he'd voted for the man. I asked him why he did so. And he said "I couldn't vote for HER!"
How come the average person can see the truth but the educated elite, who control the Democratic party and look down upon the rest of us, can't?
Harris was a bad candidate. A phony who could not get the public excited and sealed the deal on the nomination through a coup. Most insiders wanted some sort of primary system, even though they were wondering whether this was possible when Biden took so long to step down, but Joe believed he had to put his weight behind Kamala, after all, he'd picked her to be VP, and he gave her a heads-up early and she immediately called all her potential competitors and asked whether they were on her team, closing out competition.
The mechanics are interesting, but not definitive.
As for those saying we've got to stop looking at the past, these are the same people who won't let you say anything negative about Kamala and her campaign. It's this litmus test that makes people hate Democrats. You have to sign up for the orthodoxy, be all-in, or you're excommunicated. Which gives talking points to the right. The Democrats won't say no to anybody, and therefore test limits that the majority aren't in agreement with. The whole pronoun thing... The Dems let themselves be labeled "woke" and never denied it, no matter what the truth, and it stuck to them.
AND NOW YOU'RE PISSED OFF!
Because you know better. Why are all these loser Democrats so convinced since they're educated and watch MSNBC they know what the score is? Not to mention that you can only divine the score by turning on your smartphone, which they consider anathema, never mind social media. But the Democratic elite knows better, when it is out of touch.
And you can't completely discount right wing news. There was an opinion piece in the "Wall Street Journal" that said the No Kings protests were self-satisfying, a way for demonstrators to feel good about themselves, with no ultimate real effect. BINGO! Just because you stood outside holding a sign don't expect any true change to be fomented, that always comes down to economic issues. Then again, so many of the protesters are upper middle class and are fearful of losing out financially themselves.
Trump only reacts to money. He blinked on ICE cracking down when he heard from farmers saying they were relying on undocumented workers. He understands MONEY, but the Democrats refuse to enter the arena, all the while saying what a great job Joe Biden did.
Well, that's not public perception, irrelevant of the truth.
If you want change you have to hurt Trump and his core constituency economically. And/or you've got to prove to Trumpers that they're' being hurt.
I'd start right there, with a campaign based on how much extra money the average person is spending as a result of Trump's policies. Be SPECIFIC! Talk in dollars and cents, not generalities, that the public can understand.
Don't try to spook people conceptually, it doesn't resonate.
I'm a big believer in a national strike. One day when no one goes to work. There are not enough National Guard or military troops to knock on every door in America, keep everybody in line. You divide and conquer. This is how they do it in Europe, it's not like it's unfathomable, but elected Democrats won't touch it, this has to come from the people.
All we hear from the Democrats is what we SHOULDN'T do. Don't be violent. Okay, but does that mean all I can do is stand in the park with a sign?
Right now America isn't good for anybody. Everybody is being hurt. From tech to auto manufacturers to the rank and file. Instead of pitting people against each other, organize on this theme and FIGHT BACK!
Even all those Trumpers who defend everything he does. That's team sports more than reality. Don't talk to them about Trump, but what they are LOSING!
And don't depend upon the courts. Please. Even if you get a ruling, sans enforcement it's meaningless. And Trump has avoided enforcing rulings again and again.
No, it all comes down to us and it all comes down to money. That's the message, plain and simple.
And never forget, no one is immune to public perception and blowback. First and foremost, Trump wants to be liked. Once he feels that his own people aren't on board, are pushing back, then he'll reconsider. Don't make it Democrats versus Trump, the Trumpers will rally around him. But if you focus on the economic issues, are people hurting...only people who are rich and want tax cuts disagree, and there are very few of those people.
Some blows have landed, like TACO. There will be more. But the key is to pull away from the day to day and strategize. Don't expect the media to lead you, the media just reports. We the people lead. And we the people are demoralized, because our representatives have let us down.
This is truly simple. Make it about the money. Point out where Trump's actions have hurt people. Take action financially re boycotts, etc., on those who are in bed with Trump.
This is easier than you think.
But the protesters are congratulating themselves and so much of the population is disillusioned that nothing is happening.
But it can.
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Sure, our nation depends upon undocumented immigrants to pick our fruit, provide our low-paying manual labor, however you're just not going to convince the vast majority of Americans that people who are here illegally deserve to be so. I am stunned, and happily surprised, that residents are standing up to ICE in L.A., it illustrates there is a line that when crossed people say NO MAS, but these deportations will not be the fulcrum upon which American power shifts. Not to mention that Trump seems to have halted illegal immigration overnight, something the Democrats deemed impossible. People entering this country illegally? That's not something the majority is going to agree with, no matter which political party you're a member of.
And then there's due process. We all want it, but oftentimes we don't encounter/are exposed to/need it. It's kind of like getting males excited about the lack of abortion rights. Unless it affects you personally, most people cannot get energized.
No, James Carville was right on this one, it all comes down to the economy, it's staring the Democrats in the eye, but they continue to blink.
Unfortunately, economic issues are soft issues politically. It's not like the government itself raises prices. Sure, interest rates may go up for treasuries, but the average person doesn't own any and can't relate. But the average person can relate when they go to the grocery store, seem to buy nothing and end up spending more than a hundred dollars. And then there are cars, which are projected to go up $1700 as a result of tariffs. The average person is being squeezed. I think about the money I've got, feel good about my income, and then realize I've lost twenty percent over the Biden years. Oh, don't tell me it's not his fault, that's not the point. The point is despite increases in income, I'm treading water, or falling behind, and I'm not the only one.
And Democrats did not seem to understand this.
So I was at the car stereo place Wednesday and I asked the proprietor how business was. He said all right, but he was hurting as a result of the fires and Trump. And then he said he couldn't believe he'd voted for the man. I asked him why he did so. And he said "I couldn't vote for HER!"
How come the average person can see the truth but the educated elite, who control the Democratic party and look down upon the rest of us, can't?
Harris was a bad candidate. A phony who could not get the public excited and sealed the deal on the nomination through a coup. Most insiders wanted some sort of primary system, even though they were wondering whether this was possible when Biden took so long to step down, but Joe believed he had to put his weight behind Kamala, after all, he'd picked her to be VP, and he gave her a heads-up early and she immediately called all her potential competitors and asked whether they were on her team, closing out competition.
The mechanics are interesting, but not definitive.
As for those saying we've got to stop looking at the past, these are the same people who won't let you say anything negative about Kamala and her campaign. It's this litmus test that makes people hate Democrats. You have to sign up for the orthodoxy, be all-in, or you're excommunicated. Which gives talking points to the right. The Democrats won't say no to anybody, and therefore test limits that the majority aren't in agreement with. The whole pronoun thing... The Dems let themselves be labeled "woke" and never denied it, no matter what the truth, and it stuck to them.
AND NOW YOU'RE PISSED OFF!
Because you know better. Why are all these loser Democrats so convinced since they're educated and watch MSNBC they know what the score is? Not to mention that you can only divine the score by turning on your smartphone, which they consider anathema, never mind social media. But the Democratic elite knows better, when it is out of touch.
And you can't completely discount right wing news. There was an opinion piece in the "Wall Street Journal" that said the No Kings protests were self-satisfying, a way for demonstrators to feel good about themselves, with no ultimate real effect. BINGO! Just because you stood outside holding a sign don't expect any true change to be fomented, that always comes down to economic issues. Then again, so many of the protesters are upper middle class and are fearful of losing out financially themselves.
Trump only reacts to money. He blinked on ICE cracking down when he heard from farmers saying they were relying on undocumented workers. He understands MONEY, but the Democrats refuse to enter the arena, all the while saying what a great job Joe Biden did.
Well, that's not public perception, irrelevant of the truth.
If you want change you have to hurt Trump and his core constituency economically. And/or you've got to prove to Trumpers that they're' being hurt.
I'd start right there, with a campaign based on how much extra money the average person is spending as a result of Trump's policies. Be SPECIFIC! Talk in dollars and cents, not generalities, that the public can understand.
Don't try to spook people conceptually, it doesn't resonate.
I'm a big believer in a national strike. One day when no one goes to work. There are not enough National Guard or military troops to knock on every door in America, keep everybody in line. You divide and conquer. This is how they do it in Europe, it's not like it's unfathomable, but elected Democrats won't touch it, this has to come from the people.
All we hear from the Democrats is what we SHOULDN'T do. Don't be violent. Okay, but does that mean all I can do is stand in the park with a sign?
Right now America isn't good for anybody. Everybody is being hurt. From tech to auto manufacturers to the rank and file. Instead of pitting people against each other, organize on this theme and FIGHT BACK!
Even all those Trumpers who defend everything he does. That's team sports more than reality. Don't talk to them about Trump, but what they are LOSING!
And don't depend upon the courts. Please. Even if you get a ruling, sans enforcement it's meaningless. And Trump has avoided enforcing rulings again and again.
No, it all comes down to us and it all comes down to money. That's the message, plain and simple.
And never forget, no one is immune to public perception and blowback. First and foremost, Trump wants to be liked. Once he feels that his own people aren't on board, are pushing back, then he'll reconsider. Don't make it Democrats versus Trump, the Trumpers will rally around him. But if you focus on the economic issues, are people hurting...only people who are rich and want tax cuts disagree, and there are very few of those people.
Some blows have landed, like TACO. There will be more. But the key is to pull away from the day to day and strategize. Don't expect the media to lead you, the media just reports. We the people lead. And we the people are demoralized, because our representatives have let us down.
This is truly simple. Make it about the money. Point out where Trump's actions have hurt people. Take action financially re boycotts, etc., on those who are in bed with Trump.
This is easier than you think.
But the protesters are congratulating themselves and so much of the population is disillusioned that nothing is happening.
But it can.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
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The Titan Documentary
"Titan: The OceanGate Disaster" - Netflix trailer: https://rb.gy/2235z2
This was not the film I expected it to be, not the gory details of the explosion, but the choices and behaviors leading up to it. Sure, they show some of the retrieved detritus, but there are not panicked recordings...
But you will be positively unnerved at the noises of carbon cracking as the titan descends during other dives.
So what we've got here is a self-serving educated man who believed not only that he was right, but that everybody else was wrong. Sound familiar? Absolutely yes. But most people are not playing with other people's lives.
At the end of the doc it's said that Stockton Rush was in pursuit of fame. Which he ultimately got, but not in the way he desired.
"Stockton"... On some level that's all you really need to know. Of course his first name is not "Stockton," it's RICHARD! Was he always called "Stockton"? It's possible, because prep school kids adopt these nontraditional first names that are sometimes derived out of thin air, but are oftentimes family names, which are their middle names, in this case it's "Richard Stockton Rush III."
I didn't know anybody named "Brooke" until I went to Middlebury. That's the advantage of going to an elite institution. Being exposed to those who never touched the public school system, who've been living an alternative life from day one. There were a lot of lessons this middle class Jewish suburbanite learned from being exposed to the prepsters. One, don't take anything too seriously, it's just another chapter in your life (then again, they had a job lined up from birth). The due date was flexible, not a strict deadline you had to obey. Give respect to authority's face, denigrate in private. Don't be flashy and stand out, better to wear chinos and Top-Siders than anything out of a fashion magazine. You don't want to draw attention to yourself, that's for the nouveau-riche, who are never accepted by the bluebloods. But the bluebloods run the world.
However it is a bit different today. Not everybody who is rich inherited their money, those who made it like to parade it. But the real string-pullers are people you don't know the name of but wield incredible inside power, the ones who will benefit from the tax cut in Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, if it passes.
That's who Stockton was. He went to Exeter, and then on to Princeton. He only played at the top, and the only way he could make a name for himself was to do something extraordinary, ordinary riches were not for him, he wanted to go down in the HISTORY BOOKS!
So was Stockton Rush like a typical techie, pushing the envelope despite the naysaying, or was he out of his league from day one?
The latter.
Stockton hired all the experts. Who were intrigued by the idea. But when they blew the whistle, he froze them out and/or fired them. To the point where you were afraid to speak up. This was not Steve Jobs. Steve would insult you for poor work, he was in search of excellence, but his first move was not to fire you, furthermore he liked those most who could challenge him to create ever better things. Rush had an idea, and he was going to shoehorn his efforts to fit it, science be damned.
So on one hand you're watching this documentary asking why Rush didn't listen, on the other you're thinking how almost every envelope-pusher does not. Then again, once again, most envelope-pushers are not dealing with people's lives.
And you only hear about the winners, when they're far outnumbered by the losers. Yes, delusional hypesters are plentiful, especially in the arts, where the barrier to entry is so low. People with little talent who spend decades trying to make it and don't, because they're just not good enough. They believe the system is stacked against them, that someone is out to get them, which is kind of what Stockton felt, except he had that pedigree and a modicum of intelligence.
You don't change the world by listening to the establishment.
But you can't bend the rules of science either.
So this is the story of Stockton's adventure, from having an idea for a submersible to charge people to visit Titanic to actually doing it, whilst ignoring all the red flags along the way.
Everybody else built their submersible out of solid material, like steel, whereas Rush built his out of carbon fiber, because it would be lighter and cheaper.
They've been using carbon fiber in skis for years now. It's light, and it's strong, but no one has been able to get it right to the point where the skis are cheap and as good as what's already on the market, most manufacturers have given up on the idea of carbon-fiber based skis. But if you bought a pair and didn't like them, they didn't disintegrate all at once and send you into a tree.
And you think the naysayers are all wusses who played along until the disaster. But this turns out not to be true. Are you willing to quit when you no longer believe?
Most people are not. They rationalize staying.
So ultimately "Titan" is an American story. An entrepreneur who convinces others to join the team by spinning a fantasy. Turns out being a great salesman is a key part of success. These people don't care about you, just that they get what they want. Beware of salesmen, always.
But if you can't sell, you're never going to be a successful entrepreneur. Venture capital is built upon hopes and dreams, fantasies, the cutting edge, and oftentimes it's discovered the purveyor is a huckster and the idea is faulty. This is especially true in entertainment, where everybody is full of sh*t and it's hard to separate winners and losers, truth from fiction. This is what a big swinging dick in the entertainment business can do, ferret out who is real and who is not. Which is why executives are prone to working with those they know as opposed to those they do not. Especially in a world where everybody lies and everything is built on hype. The show that's sold out oftentimes is not. The act has ten million streams on their single? Dig deep and you'll oftentimes they don't even have a hundred thousand, and when you catch them in a lie they just double-down. Hell, look at Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy, he lost in court this week, in a definitive decision, and what did he then say? HE WON! Then again, Donald Trump is a huckster/hypester and he lies all the time. And even his minions know this. So what's the truth worth?
The truth is Stockton Rush was a bad guy whose effort was always going to end up in failure. The lights were flashing brightly. But when you see it all laid out in a movie, it makes you question more than the man, you have to rejigger your take on America, who is a bully with bluster with nothing at the core, do you do what is right or stay with the team?
There are bad actors out there. And not all of them are uneducated gang members in the inner city. Some come from the elite.
Like Stockton Rush.
This was not the film I expected it to be, not the gory details of the explosion, but the choices and behaviors leading up to it. Sure, they show some of the retrieved detritus, but there are not panicked recordings...
But you will be positively unnerved at the noises of carbon cracking as the titan descends during other dives.
So what we've got here is a self-serving educated man who believed not only that he was right, but that everybody else was wrong. Sound familiar? Absolutely yes. But most people are not playing with other people's lives.
At the end of the doc it's said that Stockton Rush was in pursuit of fame. Which he ultimately got, but not in the way he desired.
"Stockton"... On some level that's all you really need to know. Of course his first name is not "Stockton," it's RICHARD! Was he always called "Stockton"? It's possible, because prep school kids adopt these nontraditional first names that are sometimes derived out of thin air, but are oftentimes family names, which are their middle names, in this case it's "Richard Stockton Rush III."
I didn't know anybody named "Brooke" until I went to Middlebury. That's the advantage of going to an elite institution. Being exposed to those who never touched the public school system, who've been living an alternative life from day one. There were a lot of lessons this middle class Jewish suburbanite learned from being exposed to the prepsters. One, don't take anything too seriously, it's just another chapter in your life (then again, they had a job lined up from birth). The due date was flexible, not a strict deadline you had to obey. Give respect to authority's face, denigrate in private. Don't be flashy and stand out, better to wear chinos and Top-Siders than anything out of a fashion magazine. You don't want to draw attention to yourself, that's for the nouveau-riche, who are never accepted by the bluebloods. But the bluebloods run the world.
However it is a bit different today. Not everybody who is rich inherited their money, those who made it like to parade it. But the real string-pullers are people you don't know the name of but wield incredible inside power, the ones who will benefit from the tax cut in Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, if it passes.
That's who Stockton was. He went to Exeter, and then on to Princeton. He only played at the top, and the only way he could make a name for himself was to do something extraordinary, ordinary riches were not for him, he wanted to go down in the HISTORY BOOKS!
So was Stockton Rush like a typical techie, pushing the envelope despite the naysaying, or was he out of his league from day one?
The latter.
Stockton hired all the experts. Who were intrigued by the idea. But when they blew the whistle, he froze them out and/or fired them. To the point where you were afraid to speak up. This was not Steve Jobs. Steve would insult you for poor work, he was in search of excellence, but his first move was not to fire you, furthermore he liked those most who could challenge him to create ever better things. Rush had an idea, and he was going to shoehorn his efforts to fit it, science be damned.
So on one hand you're watching this documentary asking why Rush didn't listen, on the other you're thinking how almost every envelope-pusher does not. Then again, once again, most envelope-pushers are not dealing with people's lives.
And you only hear about the winners, when they're far outnumbered by the losers. Yes, delusional hypesters are plentiful, especially in the arts, where the barrier to entry is so low. People with little talent who spend decades trying to make it and don't, because they're just not good enough. They believe the system is stacked against them, that someone is out to get them, which is kind of what Stockton felt, except he had that pedigree and a modicum of intelligence.
You don't change the world by listening to the establishment.
But you can't bend the rules of science either.
So this is the story of Stockton's adventure, from having an idea for a submersible to charge people to visit Titanic to actually doing it, whilst ignoring all the red flags along the way.
Everybody else built their submersible out of solid material, like steel, whereas Rush built his out of carbon fiber, because it would be lighter and cheaper.
They've been using carbon fiber in skis for years now. It's light, and it's strong, but no one has been able to get it right to the point where the skis are cheap and as good as what's already on the market, most manufacturers have given up on the idea of carbon-fiber based skis. But if you bought a pair and didn't like them, they didn't disintegrate all at once and send you into a tree.
And you think the naysayers are all wusses who played along until the disaster. But this turns out not to be true. Are you willing to quit when you no longer believe?
Most people are not. They rationalize staying.
So ultimately "Titan" is an American story. An entrepreneur who convinces others to join the team by spinning a fantasy. Turns out being a great salesman is a key part of success. These people don't care about you, just that they get what they want. Beware of salesmen, always.
But if you can't sell, you're never going to be a successful entrepreneur. Venture capital is built upon hopes and dreams, fantasies, the cutting edge, and oftentimes it's discovered the purveyor is a huckster and the idea is faulty. This is especially true in entertainment, where everybody is full of sh*t and it's hard to separate winners and losers, truth from fiction. This is what a big swinging dick in the entertainment business can do, ferret out who is real and who is not. Which is why executives are prone to working with those they know as opposed to those they do not. Especially in a world where everybody lies and everything is built on hype. The show that's sold out oftentimes is not. The act has ten million streams on their single? Dig deep and you'll oftentimes they don't even have a hundred thousand, and when you catch them in a lie they just double-down. Hell, look at Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy, he lost in court this week, in a definitive decision, and what did he then say? HE WON! Then again, Donald Trump is a huckster/hypester and he lies all the time. And even his minions know this. So what's the truth worth?
The truth is Stockton Rush was a bad guy whose effort was always going to end up in failure. The lights were flashing brightly. But when you see it all laid out in a movie, it makes you question more than the man, you have to rejigger your take on America, who is a bully with bluster with nothing at the core, do you do what is right or stay with the team?
There are bad actors out there. And not all of them are uneducated gang members in the inner city. Some come from the elite.
Like Stockton Rush.
--
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Thursday, 19 June 2025
Donnie Iris-This Week's Podcast
From "The Rapper" to "Ah! Leah!"
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/donnie-iris/id1316200737?i=1000713550413
https://open.spotify.com/episode/652I7CZ3RYH6ra8u6huCNT?si=0LWKQ1sFTBendlDCOzUnMA
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/donnie-iris-281954308/
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/137b885d-157f-4794-95d2-3aed873bd0b5/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-donnie-iris
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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/donnie-iris/id1316200737?i=1000713550413
https://open.spotify.com/episode/652I7CZ3RYH6ra8u6huCNT?si=0LWKQ1sFTBendlDCOzUnMA
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/donnie-iris-281954308/
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/137b885d-157f-4794-95d2-3aed873bd0b5/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-donnie-iris
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Wednesday, 18 June 2025
Lightnin' Strikes
Spotify: https://rb.gy/sqfyaf
YouTube: https://rb.gy/2xe2yn
1
We knew the record, we knew the name, but we couldn't pick Lou Christie out of a lineup.
That's how it was back in '66, when the Brits still had a hold on the Top 40, album rock was becoming a thing, but every once in a while something American would sneak into the chart from left field, something that sounded so right, but could have been released before the Beatles as opposed to two years after.
But we were all addicted to the radio. Top 40 ruled. Underground FM was still a year away. And there were anomalies that would confound you now, but were part of the fabric back then. Like Mike Douglas's "The Men in My Little Girl's Life" being number six on the WABC 1/18/66 chart, when "Lightnin' Strikes" broke in at number 19. Unfathomable today, where the niches are so narrow, where tons of very popular music does not only not make it on to terrestrial Top 40, but doesn't break the Spotify Top 50 either. But back in the day, if you were on the chart, you were popular, and everybody knew your song.
#1 that week was "We Can Work It Out," the Beatles' Xmas single which featured "Day Tripper" on the flip side, one of the amazing Beatle two-sided singles, and neither of these numbers were part of "Rubber Soul," which was released on December 5, 1965. What a long strange trip it was from "Beatles '65" the previous year to "In My Life" and "Norwegian Wood."
#2 was Simon & Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence," which ruled over the holiday. Not only did people wonder whether Garfunkel was his real name, there was endless debate regarding the meaning of the song, something we no longer have in today's scramble for cash music business.
#3? The Stones' ballad, "As Tears Go By."
#4? The sadly overlooked by today's kids Kinks, with one of their best songs ever, "A Well Respected Man."
#5? Gary Lewis and the Playboys' best song, "She's Just My Style," which Leon Russell had a hand in and sounded like a modern day Beach Boys cut.
And then came that Mike Douglas number.
But there were other anomalies, like the Statler Brothers' "Flowers on the Wall," which everyone loved and sang...
"Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo
Now don't tell me, I've nothin' to do"
I'm not going to delineate every record on the chart, but I will say that the Supremes and the Marvelettes were on there, as well as one of the best English-sounding American tracks, the Knickerbockers' "Lies" and one other record that fit into the same slot as "Lightnin' Strikes," "Five O'clock World" by the Vogues, which had been completely forgotten until Bowling For Soup did a cover for "The Drew Carey Show" and we realized how f-ing great that number had been. It was there in our memory banks, but "Lightnin' Strikes"? We never forgot that, hell, I was singing it to myself just yesterday, truly!
2
"Listen to me baby, you gotta understand"
It was the urgency that got to us. And the record has a great intro, with even horns, but oftentimes the deejay cut that off and got right to the lyrics. But the intensity, it BUILT!
"Listen to me baby, it's hard to settle down
Am I asking too much for you to stick around"
Ah, the need, the desire, the hormones. Believe me, we were hopped up, we felt it.
And then a complete change.
Which was heralded by a veritable twinkle, which set up the unexpected section:
"Every boy wants a girl
He can trust to the very end
Baby, that's you
Won't you wait, but 'til then"
The feel has completely changed. In the opening verse he's begging for her attention, but now he's got it. He's softened his delivery, he's looking into her eyes.
And then the number gets truly intense, like a teenager unable to control their will.
"When I see lips beggin' to be kissed
(Stop)
I can't stop
(Stop)
I can't stop myself
(Stop, stop)"
Have you got it, he cannot STOP! He's gone from begging to reasoning to PURE EMOTION, which then bubbles over.
"Lightning's striking again
Lightning's striking again"
He's cast off all self-consciousness, he's raw emotion, he's in the moment, HE JUST CAN'T HOLD BACK! The release is palpable!
The falsetto chorus, angels singing from heaven, are on Lou's side. I mean what woman can deny THIS?
It's a veritable tour-de-force, and then the number breaks down once again, but with an added level of intensity:
"Nature's takin' over my one track mind
Believe it or not, you're in my heart all the time
All the girls are sayin' that you'll end up a fool
For the time being, baby, live by my rules"
Now he and the background singers are positively testifying, his message is undeniable, how can she not be on his side?
As for "live by my rules"... You may think the sixties were a dark age culturally, but I must say, these words made the listener squirm even back in '66. The man's rules?
"When I settle down
I want one baby on my mind
Forgive and forget
And I'll make up for all lost time"
Believe me, listeners weren't thinking about settling down, this was a hangover from a previous era, the Beatles didn't sing lyrics like this, and the aforementioned Kinks? They were singing social commentary.
Now the number is completely amped up.
There's a break with a solo, but ultimately those high vocals come in over and over again, talking about lightning strikin' again.
"There's a chapel in the pines
Waiting for us, around the bend
Picture in your mind
Love forever, but 'til then"
The record is taken to a level unforeseen, an intensity that squeezes out everything else in the world, the listener is carried away, they're all in.
But it's the outro that seals the deal. Lightning is not only going to strike, not only going to strike again, but AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN!
This was the essence of a hit record in the sixties. When it was over, you could not wait to hear it again, which drove you to the record shop to buy it to spin it at home over and over and OVER again until you were finally satiated, worn out, and you were just starting to be hooked by another record and ultimately repeated the process. But not all of those records were all time, but LIGHTNIN' STRIKES IS!
3
I can literally remember hearing "Lightnin' Strikes" hanging outside junior high waiting for the bell. Wearing my sweater as I'd agreed with Peter we would do. Although I wore a shirt underneath, he didn't bother, I couldn't do this, the itchiness would get to me.
These records lived everywhere. At the school dance, at the bowling alley, they were part of the fabric.
By the next week, "Lightnin' Strikes" was at number 7, and the week after that, the chart of February 1, 1966, it went all the way to NUMBER ONE! And it stayed there, AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN, three more weeks, four weeks in a row. And then it started to descend and by March 29th, "Lightnin' Strikes" was off the chart completely. Which meant you rarely heard it on the radio anymore, but you didn't need to, YOU KNEW IT BY HEART!
We all learned about the records at the same time. You couldn't claim to be hip by knowing a song before everybody else did, we all started from the same line. Records did not take a year to break, hell, a year after their success an act could be working a day job. A hit was oftentimes a lark, a one time shot.
But Lou Christie had another hit, "Rhapsody in the Rain," which was great, but not "Lightnin' Strikes." You don't know how you reach the peak, you're inspired, you're channeling an energy that came from parts unknown, you lay it down and you know what you have but good luck trying to climb to the top of the mountain once again.
"Rhapsody in the Rain" had a very memorable chorus, but the dynamics were as not extreme and the verses were not as good as they were in "Lightnin' Strikes." "Rhapsody in the Rain" was fodder for the radio, "Lightnin' Strikes" was LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE!
4
So I walked in the door and Felice told me Lou Christie had died, she'd heard it from her sister. I was completely out of the loop, it was news to me, and news period, the death was on Wikipedia but you could not find it searching the Google News. Nor Apple News+. I was living it in real time.
And I'm thinking about those who didn't live through the era. They only know the track as an oldie, with the detritus of years of charts cleaned away so only the true goodies survive. And put against the rest of the songs from that era "Lightnin' Strikes" may not be seen as quite the triumph it was. We were addicted to the radio, every Tuesday night I did my homework to Cousin Brucie doing the weekly countdown. When a record emerged it rode shotgun with our complete life, everybody we knew knew it, in a way today's culture knows almost nothing, when even the average person can't say who won the World Series, but back then...our cultural moments were universal peaks we all shared.
Now I was shocked to see that Lou Christie tried and tried and tried. He never gave up, kept searching for another hit, at times changing with the times, writing song after song after song, oftentimes with his partner Twyla Herbert, who was twenty years older than he was.
Songwriting partner, not romantic partner. That was Francesca Winfield, an English model who he stayed married to, just like in the song, it was forever.
And I knew he'd changed his name. After all, I'd researched him over the years, that's one of the magical elements of the internet, the past comes alive.
And Wikipedia tells me Lou was on "Where the Action Is," but I don't remember that. Then again, other than Paul Rever and the Raiders....that show was on five days a week, much of it was a blur. Then again, I remember rushing home to watch the Yardbirds perform "For Your Love" on the show. So I couldn't pick Lou Christie out of a lineup. But that's not what he was selling. The acts of the late sixties and seventies were selling more than the songs, their identities were enmeshed with the music. As for "Lightnin' Strikes"...it was written to strike on the hit parade, right?
But that does not mean it was not great, just that the song has superseded its singer. And co-writer, the aforementioned Twyla. But Lou was involved with two noted crooks, Morris Levy and Stan Polley, did he end up with any rights, never mind royalties? I hope so. Then again, what do you want, riches or a hit? You think they always come together, but not necessarily. You can be famous and broke, believe me.
But being ensconced in the hearts and minds of an entire generation? That's an achievement nearly beyond comprehension, very few achieve that, and when you do...
You and your record are for all time. Everywhere you go, every time you're introduced, people are stopped in their tracks, they start to testify where they were when they listened to your record, what it meant to them, you're just human, but to listeners, you're a GOD!
AI couldn't write "Lightnin' Strikes." It wasn't a paint by numbers dream. There had to be inspiration and excitement, not only in the composition, but the recording!
Technology was primitive. There were no synthesizers. You could replicate these records at home, if not always their rudimentary reverb and other effects.
Then again, I don't remember any local band playing "Lightnin' Strikes." That'd be like trying to impersonate God. It's untouchable. Baked into the grooves is pure magic. From the piano to the horns to the backup vocals...not pieced together over days, with the vocals comped, but laid down all together, all at once.
Then again, the record was more than Lou. "Lightnin' Strikes" was produced by legendary arranger Charles Callelo, who Al Kooper has testified about to me again and again and again. Then again, Kooper was in bed with and ultimately ripped off by Stan Polley too.
But that's all music business history.
Then again, it was a different business back then, peopled by renegade hypesters, people who could promote and intimidate, and artists with little portfolio but an unbelievable hunger to make it.
Like Lou Christie.
--
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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YouTube: https://rb.gy/2xe2yn
1
We knew the record, we knew the name, but we couldn't pick Lou Christie out of a lineup.
That's how it was back in '66, when the Brits still had a hold on the Top 40, album rock was becoming a thing, but every once in a while something American would sneak into the chart from left field, something that sounded so right, but could have been released before the Beatles as opposed to two years after.
But we were all addicted to the radio. Top 40 ruled. Underground FM was still a year away. And there were anomalies that would confound you now, but were part of the fabric back then. Like Mike Douglas's "The Men in My Little Girl's Life" being number six on the WABC 1/18/66 chart, when "Lightnin' Strikes" broke in at number 19. Unfathomable today, where the niches are so narrow, where tons of very popular music does not only not make it on to terrestrial Top 40, but doesn't break the Spotify Top 50 either. But back in the day, if you were on the chart, you were popular, and everybody knew your song.
#1 that week was "We Can Work It Out," the Beatles' Xmas single which featured "Day Tripper" on the flip side, one of the amazing Beatle two-sided singles, and neither of these numbers were part of "Rubber Soul," which was released on December 5, 1965. What a long strange trip it was from "Beatles '65" the previous year to "In My Life" and "Norwegian Wood."
#2 was Simon & Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence," which ruled over the holiday. Not only did people wonder whether Garfunkel was his real name, there was endless debate regarding the meaning of the song, something we no longer have in today's scramble for cash music business.
#3? The Stones' ballad, "As Tears Go By."
#4? The sadly overlooked by today's kids Kinks, with one of their best songs ever, "A Well Respected Man."
#5? Gary Lewis and the Playboys' best song, "She's Just My Style," which Leon Russell had a hand in and sounded like a modern day Beach Boys cut.
And then came that Mike Douglas number.
But there were other anomalies, like the Statler Brothers' "Flowers on the Wall," which everyone loved and sang...
"Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo
Now don't tell me, I've nothin' to do"
I'm not going to delineate every record on the chart, but I will say that the Supremes and the Marvelettes were on there, as well as one of the best English-sounding American tracks, the Knickerbockers' "Lies" and one other record that fit into the same slot as "Lightnin' Strikes," "Five O'clock World" by the Vogues, which had been completely forgotten until Bowling For Soup did a cover for "The Drew Carey Show" and we realized how f-ing great that number had been. It was there in our memory banks, but "Lightnin' Strikes"? We never forgot that, hell, I was singing it to myself just yesterday, truly!
2
"Listen to me baby, you gotta understand"
It was the urgency that got to us. And the record has a great intro, with even horns, but oftentimes the deejay cut that off and got right to the lyrics. But the intensity, it BUILT!
"Listen to me baby, it's hard to settle down
Am I asking too much for you to stick around"
Ah, the need, the desire, the hormones. Believe me, we were hopped up, we felt it.
And then a complete change.
Which was heralded by a veritable twinkle, which set up the unexpected section:
"Every boy wants a girl
He can trust to the very end
Baby, that's you
Won't you wait, but 'til then"
The feel has completely changed. In the opening verse he's begging for her attention, but now he's got it. He's softened his delivery, he's looking into her eyes.
And then the number gets truly intense, like a teenager unable to control their will.
"When I see lips beggin' to be kissed
(Stop)
I can't stop
(Stop)
I can't stop myself
(Stop, stop)"
Have you got it, he cannot STOP! He's gone from begging to reasoning to PURE EMOTION, which then bubbles over.
"Lightning's striking again
Lightning's striking again"
He's cast off all self-consciousness, he's raw emotion, he's in the moment, HE JUST CAN'T HOLD BACK! The release is palpable!
The falsetto chorus, angels singing from heaven, are on Lou's side. I mean what woman can deny THIS?
It's a veritable tour-de-force, and then the number breaks down once again, but with an added level of intensity:
"Nature's takin' over my one track mind
Believe it or not, you're in my heart all the time
All the girls are sayin' that you'll end up a fool
For the time being, baby, live by my rules"
Now he and the background singers are positively testifying, his message is undeniable, how can she not be on his side?
As for "live by my rules"... You may think the sixties were a dark age culturally, but I must say, these words made the listener squirm even back in '66. The man's rules?
"When I settle down
I want one baby on my mind
Forgive and forget
And I'll make up for all lost time"
Believe me, listeners weren't thinking about settling down, this was a hangover from a previous era, the Beatles didn't sing lyrics like this, and the aforementioned Kinks? They were singing social commentary.
Now the number is completely amped up.
There's a break with a solo, but ultimately those high vocals come in over and over again, talking about lightning strikin' again.
"There's a chapel in the pines
Waiting for us, around the bend
Picture in your mind
Love forever, but 'til then"
The record is taken to a level unforeseen, an intensity that squeezes out everything else in the world, the listener is carried away, they're all in.
But it's the outro that seals the deal. Lightning is not only going to strike, not only going to strike again, but AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN!
This was the essence of a hit record in the sixties. When it was over, you could not wait to hear it again, which drove you to the record shop to buy it to spin it at home over and over and OVER again until you were finally satiated, worn out, and you were just starting to be hooked by another record and ultimately repeated the process. But not all of those records were all time, but LIGHTNIN' STRIKES IS!
3
I can literally remember hearing "Lightnin' Strikes" hanging outside junior high waiting for the bell. Wearing my sweater as I'd agreed with Peter we would do. Although I wore a shirt underneath, he didn't bother, I couldn't do this, the itchiness would get to me.
These records lived everywhere. At the school dance, at the bowling alley, they were part of the fabric.
By the next week, "Lightnin' Strikes" was at number 7, and the week after that, the chart of February 1, 1966, it went all the way to NUMBER ONE! And it stayed there, AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN, three more weeks, four weeks in a row. And then it started to descend and by March 29th, "Lightnin' Strikes" was off the chart completely. Which meant you rarely heard it on the radio anymore, but you didn't need to, YOU KNEW IT BY HEART!
We all learned about the records at the same time. You couldn't claim to be hip by knowing a song before everybody else did, we all started from the same line. Records did not take a year to break, hell, a year after their success an act could be working a day job. A hit was oftentimes a lark, a one time shot.
But Lou Christie had another hit, "Rhapsody in the Rain," which was great, but not "Lightnin' Strikes." You don't know how you reach the peak, you're inspired, you're channeling an energy that came from parts unknown, you lay it down and you know what you have but good luck trying to climb to the top of the mountain once again.
"Rhapsody in the Rain" had a very memorable chorus, but the dynamics were as not extreme and the verses were not as good as they were in "Lightnin' Strikes." "Rhapsody in the Rain" was fodder for the radio, "Lightnin' Strikes" was LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE!
4
So I walked in the door and Felice told me Lou Christie had died, she'd heard it from her sister. I was completely out of the loop, it was news to me, and news period, the death was on Wikipedia but you could not find it searching the Google News. Nor Apple News+. I was living it in real time.
And I'm thinking about those who didn't live through the era. They only know the track as an oldie, with the detritus of years of charts cleaned away so only the true goodies survive. And put against the rest of the songs from that era "Lightnin' Strikes" may not be seen as quite the triumph it was. We were addicted to the radio, every Tuesday night I did my homework to Cousin Brucie doing the weekly countdown. When a record emerged it rode shotgun with our complete life, everybody we knew knew it, in a way today's culture knows almost nothing, when even the average person can't say who won the World Series, but back then...our cultural moments were universal peaks we all shared.
Now I was shocked to see that Lou Christie tried and tried and tried. He never gave up, kept searching for another hit, at times changing with the times, writing song after song after song, oftentimes with his partner Twyla Herbert, who was twenty years older than he was.
Songwriting partner, not romantic partner. That was Francesca Winfield, an English model who he stayed married to, just like in the song, it was forever.
And I knew he'd changed his name. After all, I'd researched him over the years, that's one of the magical elements of the internet, the past comes alive.
And Wikipedia tells me Lou was on "Where the Action Is," but I don't remember that. Then again, other than Paul Rever and the Raiders....that show was on five days a week, much of it was a blur. Then again, I remember rushing home to watch the Yardbirds perform "For Your Love" on the show. So I couldn't pick Lou Christie out of a lineup. But that's not what he was selling. The acts of the late sixties and seventies were selling more than the songs, their identities were enmeshed with the music. As for "Lightnin' Strikes"...it was written to strike on the hit parade, right?
But that does not mean it was not great, just that the song has superseded its singer. And co-writer, the aforementioned Twyla. But Lou was involved with two noted crooks, Morris Levy and Stan Polley, did he end up with any rights, never mind royalties? I hope so. Then again, what do you want, riches or a hit? You think they always come together, but not necessarily. You can be famous and broke, believe me.
But being ensconced in the hearts and minds of an entire generation? That's an achievement nearly beyond comprehension, very few achieve that, and when you do...
You and your record are for all time. Everywhere you go, every time you're introduced, people are stopped in their tracks, they start to testify where they were when they listened to your record, what it meant to them, you're just human, but to listeners, you're a GOD!
AI couldn't write "Lightnin' Strikes." It wasn't a paint by numbers dream. There had to be inspiration and excitement, not only in the composition, but the recording!
Technology was primitive. There were no synthesizers. You could replicate these records at home, if not always their rudimentary reverb and other effects.
Then again, I don't remember any local band playing "Lightnin' Strikes." That'd be like trying to impersonate God. It's untouchable. Baked into the grooves is pure magic. From the piano to the horns to the backup vocals...not pieced together over days, with the vocals comped, but laid down all together, all at once.
Then again, the record was more than Lou. "Lightnin' Strikes" was produced by legendary arranger Charles Callelo, who Al Kooper has testified about to me again and again and again. Then again, Kooper was in bed with and ultimately ripped off by Stan Polley too.
But that's all music business history.
Then again, it was a different business back then, peopled by renegade hypesters, people who could promote and intimidate, and artists with little portfolio but an unbelievable hunger to make it.
Like Lou Christie.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1
If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
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