Tune in Saturday April 18th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

This series really doesn’t kick in until the fourth episode (of six). Before that… I was wincing at some of the fights, which were extended and choreographed to the point you thought you were watching a lame kung fu movie. And the plot twists? They overtook the main plot itself. Which was not completely comprehensible and seemed trivial until the pieces fell in place halfway through.

So… Why am I writing about an imperfect series?

BECAUSE OF THE FEMALE STAR! Susanne Wolff as Meret Schäfer…

Meret and her husband Simon are spies for the BND, the German intelligence agency, or they were and they’re retired but maybe they’re still active, who knows…

And for some reason this guy Koleev… There’s this plot line all about what happened in Belarus, so Koleev is Belarusian? I mean is the BND really that concerned with that old Russian satellite? Eventually you find out Koleev is Russian, but they could have made that clear earlier, and I’m giving away nothing by telling you this, only making things more comprehensible.

So, it’s kinda like “Godfather III,” in that Meret and Simon are dragged back in, but…

This isn’t the typical action couple. Where the mean leads and the woman stands by and looks pretty. I won’t quite say that Meret wears the pants, but she takes initiative, she is not reluctant to enter a dicey situation, and how she behaves there…

Furthermore, Susanne Wolff is 52, actually she’ll be 53 next month, and the casting of a woman of this age in a starring role…

That’s not how Hollywood does it. And Wolff has not been sliced and diced to look younger than her years, she even has a scar in her chin that messes with the perfect image but makes her that much more relatable. Despite being a spy, Wolff feels real, she’s not overly concerned with her look, she’s comfortable.

Anyway, Meret is a loving mother, but she is also devious and…

She surprises you, where she’s coming from, what she’s doing, that’s part of the essence of the show.

But before that…

What we’ve got here is a lot of running around, as we, the viewer, try to figure out what is really going on. 

And it’s not wholly believable, what spy show ever is? In truth, a lot of what spies/undercover agents do is incredibly boring.

And the actions sequences, at first, were just too over the top. But as the characters developed…

I guess that most TV shows are about escape, that whew! moment when you’re out of harm’s way, whereas Meret is always leaning in, but unlike Sheryl Sandberg, her life is at risk and she’s not overpaid.

As for behaving this way…

Are the Shäfers too old for this sh*t? Have they lost their true identities over the years?

And…underneath it all you’ve got the relationship issues between Susanne and Simon…subtle, but they’re there, like in all marriages. Have you been forthcoming, honest, have you held back information…and at what cost?

Now “Unfamiliar” is not in the league of “Payback’ and so many other shows I’ve written about, but it’s right there on Netflix and it was in the Top Ten for a while and much better to watch this than the popular dreck that drops weekly and is a part of everyday conversation.

The imagery is rich and you feel like you’re in a foreign country, but not that you’re behind…Berlin comes across as just another metropolis where people live.

Like I said… The fight Meret gets into in the first episode almost had me turning off the series. It wasn’t until episode four that I was truly glued to the screen. But then I definitely was, I was caught up in the tension, I wanted to see how it all played out, at that point I was totally involved.

And that’s what I look for.

The brand is bigger than the acts.

Which is why so many festivals have failed recently, they believe it’s about the lineup. If you’re dependent upon the lineup to sell tickets, you’re screwed. You need to be selling more than music, you need to be selling CULTURE!

Now my biggest takeaway from Coachella so far is the anointment of Leah Halton as the “most beautiful girl alive” on social media as a result of her Coachella “appearance.”

Never heard of her? Then you’re neither social media nor news savvy, because this story has been EVERYWHERE!

But this is the tale of the past fifteen years, the internet’s flattening of society, the swarming of traditional voices with those of nobodies, the connection of the younger generation online.

And all the Baby Boomers and Gen-X’ers want to do is decimate it!

Let’s be honest… Does someone well-adjusted commit suicide after talking to a chatbot? OF COURSE NOT!

So we had violence in movies, violence in videogames, lyrics on records that needed warnings… All those wars, did they make a bit of difference? All these years later, one must ask whether there ever really was a problem. Ditto on social media and the internet.

Come on, people like Elon Musk and Sarah Silverman play videogames, they’re 54 and 55 respectively. Videogames are now part of the culture.

As are influencers.

In gatekeeper culture all eyes are on those who make it through the sieve, and they’re given undue powers, never mind they oftentimes don’t deserve them. People need other people, to react to, believe in, this is what the internet provides, this is what oldsters hate. Because if you don’t play by modern internet rules, you lose.

Rule #1?

You need constant contact with the public. You must create at all times. This is where young musical stars get it and the old ones do not. They say they’re “artists,” that to post on social media is below them. WRONG! Young people know that social media is part of their art, another way to expose their identity, their sense of humor, to bond themselves to their audience.

But influencers have one over on most musical acts. The goal of musical acts is to become a brand and then create brand extensions. The problem here is these extensions are too far from their identities. Kim Kardashian, who is selling visuals, a shapely body, sells SKIMS. Kim’s sister Kylie made her money selling cosmetics, supposedly a billion, more than almost all musical acts.

But it’s not just the Kardashians… The influencers… They’re selling image, clothing, cosmetics, and they tie in with the manufacturers who pay them directly, and sometimes they sell these products themselves. It’s seamless. The beauty influencers uses this foundation…YOU GO AND BUY THAT FOUNDATION!

Of course there’s an element of FOMO involved, but when has FOMO not existed?

The public used to look to celebrities for clues, for influences. But the celebrities rested on their laurels, thought they were above it, immune. Now a movie star means little, they’re empty vessels, they stand for nothing. But the influencers?

Now for a while there Coachella continued to drive in its preestablished lane, as a festival of new music, with roots in the old days, with acts who often started in the old days. But the audience for these aged acts died out, no one wanted to come see the reunion of a band whose members were now in their fifties or sixties. No, like MTV, Coachella cast aside its old audience and focused on the new, as it should continue to do.

As for Justin Bieber singing along with YouTube videos on his Mac…I thought that was brilliant, but let’s remember, he debuted as a recording artist in 2009, SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO! A lot of the audience wasn’t even familiar with his early hits, they were barely out of diapers.

No, even Bieber is background, all the acts…Goldenvoice is presenting an environment, wherein the attendees vie for social status. That’s what Coachella is all about. As for grazing and discovering new acts… It’s too hot and you can’t get close and almost all of the acts on the undercard are never going to be heard from again, why shoot a selfie?

But the FOOD!

Coachella has doubled-down on offerings, that’s what influencers and other attendees really want to photograph.

And then there are the brands with their experiences… To a punter, someone who actually goes to Coachella, what do they feel when they hear about these houses/events? LEFT OUT! That’s what’s missing in today’s world, scarcity. To focus on the commercialization of Coachella is to miss the point, because THAT IS THE POINT!

What Goldenvoice is selling is an experience. And the media has been convinced that this experience deserves attention. To read the reviews of the performances is laughable, that’s not what people on the polo fields are really talking about, they’re talking about each other, the great unwashed, the hoi polloi!

You can get up close and personal with a famous influencer, not someone on stage.

And the influencers know it’s not one and done, they’re there for the entire festival, all three days, if not more…taking the stage on one day? That’s for the acts, a completely separate category. The action is all down in the pit, not on the stage.

So…

Festivals have to focus on the penumbra, the experience. And with individual acts refraining from playing, since they can make just as much dough or more alone… If you’re looking for next year’s headliners, you’re already gone.

As for the public and the influencers themselves… Don’t try to beat them at their own game, your role is different. But most of the acts today are chasing the same dream… Fame. And the money it generates. The actual music… Would a real artist listen to the label and use an outside writer? Didn’t Tom Petty stand up against all this?

Justin Bieber ain’t Tom Petty, nor is Sabrina Carpenter.

Carpenter is sex light. This is not the edgy sexual tension of the seventies, never mind the eighties and Madonna. Carpenter, unlike the Rolling Stones, is so safe you can bring her home to mama!

No, if you want to be a successful act today you have to be honest and credible and do it differently. Sure, you’ve got to post on social media, but garnering sponsorships, selling clothing…that leaves you little different from the nobodies online. You’ve got to refrain from that, do it your own way, which requires creativity, which is in short supply.

This is a sea change. The audience has become the star. Just go to a show and watch people talk and shoot selfies during the performance. A recording of having been there is more important than being there!

As for the brands… They’re hipper than the music business. They’re going where the money is, the exposure, they want bang for their buck. Why settle for signage on stage when you can pay an influencer with millions of followers to rave about your product in an intimate video online?

Coachella as a place to break bands is toast.

Coachella as a cultural driver, as a focus of America, the world, as  a place where the public comes and creates content which is then instantly spread around the globe, is number one!

Where we go from here…

Ask yourself what you want.

If you desire money, there are more avenues than ever before.

If you consider yourself a musician, know that we live in an attention economy, and if you can’t garner attention, which you must manufacture yourself, constantly, it’s your own damn fault.

And if you’re a promoter…

You go where the bucks are.

Used to be the labels broke the acts and the promoters followed in their wake, hoovering up dollars.

Then the promoters not only sold what was established, but broke acts too.

Now everything is in the hands of consumers, it’s about discerning trends, seeing what is hot, and capitalizing on it.

To  make it today, you’ve got to be totally dialed-in. It’s not something you can learn in business school, it’s not even something you can learn in college. You can only win today if you’re online 24/7, like the younger generations who dominate the culture. To do otherwise is a fool’s errand.

I’m talking about the band, not clothes.

My secret cultural resource is “The Week,” that’s where I pick up left field tips about books, TV shows, podcasts and music. Every week “The Week” features three albums, which they rate on a four star system, and almost never, I mean I can’t remember the last time they gave an album a four star review. Two or three star reviews are a dime a dozen, they don’t deserve my attention, but four stars? Then I pay attention.

But like I said, this is very rare. But “The Week” gave Dry Cleaning’s new album “Secret Love” a four star review.

Now you may have been aware of the mania surrounding the Canadian duo, Angine de Poitrine. I first heard about them weeks ago from George Drakoulias, and I pay attention to everything George says. And I checked out the band, and I got it immediately, but I asked myself how much was shock value, hit and run, and to what degree did I want to listen to an album of this stuff over and over again?

What I’m saying here is people are looking so hard for the next good thing that they trumpet it without questioning whether it has anything beyond first impression, shock value. Kinda like Alice Cooper. The ethos, the stage act were there, but it wasn’t until they worked with Bob Ezrin and created “I’m Eighteen” that they made music you wanted to hear more than once, over and over again.

Do you want to hear Dry Cleaning over and over again?

Some compare Dry Cleaning to Wire. I bought “Pink Flag” when it came out, played it, understood it, but didn’t play it much more thereafter. I got it intellectually, it did hit me emotionally, but I didn’t want to go to that place on a regular basis. Whereas Dry Cleaning’s “Hit My Head All Day”…

Now you don’t have to do much research to learn that the vocals are more spoken than sung, and that works occasionally in a song, but on a regular basis I find it unsatisfying.

And I’ll admit the thundering drum intro of “Hit My Head All Day” didn’t grab me, draw me right in, nor the spoken vocal, but when the guitar came along forty seconds in, I got it IMMEDIATELY! I was instantly hooked. And ultimately there was a guitar hook, which stuck in my brain long after the song was over.

Who is making this music? Well, there are four members of the group, and although I believe the guitarist to be the star so far, all the focus is upon the frontwoman, Florence Shaw. Who Wikipedia says is 36 or 37.

Now wait just a minute, this is not the paradigm we see executed today Today’s acts are younger and younger, they learn how to use the digital tools nearly from birth, they’re expert marketers…as for the music, well purveyors believe young people are the active audience, so these young acts are signed and promoted and…

They sound nothing like Dry Cleaning.

And it’s not like Florence Shaw has been in the garage with the guys since her teenage years, she only joined the group in 2018. When most people are thinking about settling down as opposed to going on an artistic adventure.

Then again, she used to teach illustration at universities, she only gave up this gig recently, as a result of the band’s increased notoriety and success.

Now it’s not like Dry Cleaning is completely unknown. They’ve got two EPs and three albums, and they’ve gotten some press. But Pitchfork is a tsunami of information almost as incomprehensible as the release schedule itself, never mind having peaked before it was acquired by Condé Nast.

But “Secret Love” was also reviewed in the “Wall Street Journal.” And I get the paper and look at the reviews but my eyes always start to slide into the back of my head when I read them. So often acts I know little if anything about that are overanalyzed at length. Most of which don’t demand much attention.

And that’s what Dry Cleaning demands, attention.

You can listen to “Hit My Head All Day” on earbuds, even headphones, but you won’t get it, you may not get it at all. No, you need the bass to infect your body, you need to feel it in your bones, that guitar’s got to sting, and you can only get those experiences from a real audio system with enough raw power not to distort.

Listening to “Hit My Head All Day” reminds me of the pre-internet days, the seventies, when I’d crank up an album on the stereo, the most important element of my living room, MY HOUSE, and the sound would envelop me as I walked around, sometimes I’d just sit on the couch in front of the speakers and let the sound wash over me, envelop me. It was the opposite of today’s concert experience, being there with your buds, shooting selfies. No, it was an isolationist experience. Actually better alone. Someone else in the room would just make you self-conscious. No, it was just you and the music, a religious experience.

Will you like “Hit My Head All Day”?

Most people will not, most people will want to turn it off immediately. Then there are those who remember this sound, this feeling, of the bleeding edge, not needing to tell everybody about it because you’re too busy listening, experiencing it.

As for the rest of “Secret Love”…I am not yet as enamored of it as I am of “Hit My Head All Day.”

This is not Angine de Poitrine. This is not visual, it’s something that goes into your ears, that you feel.

All I know is I can’t turn “Hit My Head All Day” off, because I like the feeling, the mood it puts me in.