“These Days”

1

He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page.

I decided to play some new music. I’ve been reading this new novel and my eyes were starting to glaze over. I’m not sure I’ll ever recommend it, because it’s kinda dense with highfalutin’ words, but a lot of it centers on Berlin club culture and I can relate to that. “Good Girl” is about a young woman of Afghan heritage who is troubled by her heritage and there’s great insight into Muslim culture and on the surface even I didn’t want to read it, but it’s very intriguing.

But maybe it was the Sunday afternoon blues. I found myself checking out. So I decided to get my iPad and listen to some new music as I surfed the web. And first I listened to the new Wet Leg album, which is surprisingly good, and if it was the seventies I’d be a fan. Back then if you purchased an LP you played it enough to know it and like it but in today’s hit and run world you don’t listen that way anymore. But I played about half the album. I liked where it was coming from. They were thinking about this music before they made it, this is the punk ethos of the seventies, in this case the antithesis of the Spotify Top 50. But halfway through I decided I’d heard enough and…

I pulled up Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist, which can yield some gems, but is too often littered with old stuff I already know, and then I went to Release Radar and it stimulated some further listening. I heard that Bob Dylan duet with Barbra Streisand which made me research the album and see that she did a duet with James Taylor on “Secret o’ Life,” a genius song, but then I pulled up the duet and the worst part was Streisand herself, I was never a fan. She’s the antithesis of what the rock revolution represented back in the late sixties and seventies.

And then I saw a duet with Buddy Guy and Joe Walsh, which I had to listen to. We’re going back to the old days, where you make the album because you want a recorded document, which you issue into the ether, if you’re banking on sales forget about it.

But Release Radar wasn’t satisfying either, so I went to Amazon Music and couldn’t find a playlist that resonated with me, so then I went to Qobuz and found this playlist entitled “New Releases”:

https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/2049430

And what appealed to me was that this was a multi-genre playlist, I wanted a taste of everything, which I got, there are 105 cuts on it.

And the tracks weren’t by the usual suspects, at least not those at the beginning, and some I listened to and some I skipped through after thirty seconds or so and then…

I’m catching up on “Bloomberg Businessweek” in Apple News+, I’m not concentrating on the music, but I hear something that stops me, stops my reading and makes me take a moment to listen, to then research.

The cut was “These Days” by Tanner Usrey.

2

“A heart like mine is a hard one to love

‘Cause I’ve gotten real damn good at really f*cking things all up

Now I’m fighting demons in the dark

I don’t know where I should start

Oh lord I’m spiraling again”

This is why country music is having a moment, YOU CAN RELATE TO IT!

The Spotify Top 50 has become a caricature of itself, it’s TMZ music, made for the penumbra, gossip columns and brand endorsements more than the music itself, oftentimes bluster and braggadocio, little different from a Marvel movie. It’s relatively narrow, and then I hear someone like Tanner Usrey and he’s totally outside.

This is not what the newspapers are writing about. There are genius acts plying the boards far superior to the overhyped dancing nitwits. How do you find them? Let me tell you, I rarely check out these playlists so don’t see this as a ringing endorsement of them.

“Oh and I’ve been sinking down

Try to scream but can’t make a sound

Tell me is it all just in my head

And I’ve grown so numb to it all

Oh God here comes the fall”

This is in the vein of singer-songwriter acts of the early seventies. Then again, James Taylor could not only pick and create songs with changes he had a way with words, and studying those of Tanner Usrey I had to admit that they weren’t quite in JT’s league.

Does he have it in him? When someone reaches this age, seemingly around thirty, and has been in the game for over a decade, usually not. Then again, there are some producers who can push them into their interior and squeeze greatness out of them.

Then again, there are very few great ones out there.

But the magic of “These Days” is more than the downtrodden lyrics, there’s Usrey’s vocal…THIS AI cannot reproduce. This is the magic. It’s got nothing to do with “The Voice,” that’s got nothing to do with art, this guy’s voice is soulful in that you truly get the impression he’s singing from the heart, that it’s truly him. And it’s sweet with just a bit of whiskey/rough and can sustain a song all by its lonesome, sans effects.

And speaking of no effects, the instrumentation makes magic. The subtle piano, never mind the acoustic guitar, and some organ notes…

“These Days” is in the vein of those Stephen Stills songs on those Crosby, Stills, Nash and sometimes Young albums, like “4+20.” Nobody seems to be trying to replicate that formula, even too many of the vaunted Americana artists who are overwriting their songs for gravitas and don’t have voices as magical s Usrey’s.

3

Now further research tells me that Usrey had a song in “Yellowstone.” And I know “Yellowstone” is a phenomenon, but middlebrow soap is not for me, I watched enough “Bonanza,” where’s that at, if you want me I’ll be in the bar.

And it seems that the initial “Yellowstone” placement got him a deal with Atlantic. Turns out it’s from the pre-Grainge hip-hop all the time chasing online momentum regime. It didn’t make cognitive sense, but Usrey is on Atlantic.

And doing deep research I see that Sacks & Co. is involved, what a waste of money. It’s no longer about hype, about print, it’s about LISTENING! No amount of press is going to get me to check out Tanner Usrey, another Texan cowboy who is a product of the Red Dirt scene and likes Skynyrd and… Now, more than ever, you’ve got to hear it to get it, and it’s nearly impossible to get someone to hear it. But if something is good, despite not flying on the mainstream radar, someone is listening, Usrey’s got four tracks with double digit million streams on Spotify, and they’re not from “Jellystone.” How did everybody find out? What accounts for the 49,393,234 streams of “Come Back Down”? Damned if I know.

Maybe it’s those endless gigs, multiple recordings… If you’re good enough you gain traction, and if you don’t either you’re doing something wrong or you and your music just aren’t good enough.

4

Then I decided to check out some more Usrey songs. First I started with the most popular on Spotify, but I figured it would be best to go to the new album, also called “These Days,” which was released on Friday, that major label big money can oftentimes be heard in the recordings.

And the opening cut, “Do It to Myself”…was a rocker, nothing like “These Days.” At first kind of pedestrian, not that memorable, but then I could lock into the “Smuggler’s Blues” vibe, but still… This was not magical.

And then I wondered if “These Days” was an anomaly, whether it was really a rock record with only this one introspective track. So I started sampling songs and I came across “Better Weather,” which was even more intimate than “These Days,” I thought it was superior to “These Days,” but then going back to the latter I decided it was not, but it’s pretty damn good.

Let’s be clear, I don’t see either of these tracks burning up the chart, whatever chart that might be. This is not appropriate for the flashy too often mindless in your face country chart, and it’s more mainstream than the Americana niche, this is the type of music with broad-based appeal, this guy is one step away from BLOWING UP!

I mean I checked out Reddit. People who’d seen him were testifying, and I got it. This was completely different from the production of today’s arena show, in this case just the man (or woman) and his music is enough. You’re sitting there and the sound sets your mind free, adrift, you’re in your own movie, we call this life.

5

There is definitely something here. Neither of these tracks are going to make Tanner a household name, then again, who is these days? But he could build a career and become…

Zach Bryan?

Well, Usrey is less country. It’s the difference between Oklahoma and Texas. Then again, Bryan sells out stadiums, instantly. Could Usrey do the same? All I’ll say is these two songs will ignite the average punter more than anything Bryan’s done.

All you’ve got to do is listen.

“Better Weather”

Tune in Saturday July 12th 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

1

Ed Cherney told me to toss it.

But he was making peace with the fact that he was going to die in a few months. I told him a bit of the backstory and he laughed and reiterated his point.

The Nakamichi 582 was the ultimate cassette deck.

This ain’t no Sony, no AIWA, no portable, this is a Ferrari. Or was back when cassette recording was still a thing. The 582 came with a little screwdriver that allowed you to align the heads, adjust the EQ and azimuth using a built-in tone generator. And the tapes it generated? You would not believe it, you couldn’t tell the difference from the original recording. But the legend was true. If you played a tape you recorded on a Nakamichi on another deck it just didn’t sound good. It was playable, but if you cared about sound… I ended up buying a cheap AIWA just to record cassettes for my car.

Not that the Nakamichi was foolproof. My first issue arose not long after I bought it. It wouldn’t generate a test signal that hit zero on the meters. At that time Nakamichi was on Colorado in Santa Monica, so I packed the thing up, took it there, waited my turn, and the Japanese guy who waited on me…laughed at me and then insulted me. It took all of my gumption to stand my ground, reiterate there was a problem. So the guy deigned to test it himself…and lo and behold he had the same problem. And after fiddling with it for about thirty seconds, he lifted the whole unit up and RAN into a back room, having said nothing. He reappeared about fifteen minutes later with a smile on his face. He said it was the TAPE! The best tape TDK made, and then he said that TDK made their tape, Nakamichi had its own line, and that every once in a while you get a bad batch…

And then there was the time the entire machine froze. I had no money but my sometime to be wife and then ex said I shouldn’t live without it, I should be able to use it, I should have that functionality. Ultimately I drove somewhere in the South Bay where Nakamichi now had its headquarters and paid two hundred dollars and change to get it repaired. This was 1985. I’d purchased the deck in 1979. And while I’m waiting for the clerk to retrieve my unit, this guy standing next to me in the waiting room tells me he wants to buy it, how they have a whole fleet of 582s, they use them at the institute, or some formal name like that. He offered me less than the repair cost. But as I continued to talk to him it came out that he was a Scientologist, and they used Nakamichis in their reproduction facility.

Now a week ago a promoter friend sent me a Bad Company tape made straight from the board back in the seventies. I was worried about the quality of said tape, but it turned out to be a Maxell, so my anxiety diminished. Cheap tape flakes, but Maxell is pretty good. And then I realized…

I had to play the tape in the Nakamichi. Which is like firing up a Ferrari that’s been under wraps for a decade.

I had a Walkman. They sent it along with a cassette of the latest Lumineers album. The funniest thing is it was playing in the box. Not the tape, but the built-in radio. We came home from Vail and we’re sorting through the mail and we’re starting to freak out, where is that sound coming from? Took us about half an hour to figure out it was the Walkman inside the box.

Not that it was a Walkman, it was some off-brand. Good for a promotion.

And I listened to the tape and then I put the “Walkman” on the counter where it sat for weeks. And then…

I’m a hoarder. My girlfriend is just the opposite. I’m stunned she doesn’t throw ME out! And I’m sitting there looking at this piece of junk, thinking I might want to play a tape in the future, but, nah…

So I toss it.

And I don’t think about it again until this promoter friend sends me this cassette.

My car stereo doesn’t even have a CD player, never mind a tape deck. It came down to the Nakamichi.

2

Normally I like to start open-ended projects early in the day. Otherwise, if I can’t fix it, can’t solve the problem, I can’t disengage, I end up frustrated working on it into the wee hours and then being unable to fall asleep.

But I’d had this cassette the better part of a week, I didn’t want to be ungrateful.

So I fired up the amp and clicked one of the tape inputs. Turned on the Nakamichi, inserted the tape, pressed play and…

Nothing happened.

It looks like there’s light on the VU meters. I mean I’m getting power, right?

But then I pull the unit out and realize it’s not plugged in. So I plug it into an outlet and…nothing. But  maybe it’s the outlet, so I plug it into a known live outlet and…still nothing.

Oh well, the Nakamichi has a problem.

So I go to eject the cassette and… The button pushes in and stays there, the cassette door won’t pop out.

Okay, now I start to wrestle with it. But nothing works.

So I go to the expert.

Google. There’s an answer for everything. And there’s an answer for my problem too, it comes right up. Turns out there’s a plastic piece that is known to break and if it has broken the door won’t open. But the other thing the boards tell me is, whatever I do, DON’T FORCE IT!

So now what?

I decide I’m going to do surgery. I mean if I take off the cover I can get the tape, right?

I go get the toolbox, wondering if I’ve got the right-sized screwdriver and it turns out I do.

Turns out taking off the cover is not that difficult, I’m proud of myself.

But I’m nowhere near fixing my problem.

I ultimately decide I have to go deeper, I have to take off the faceplate.

Well now…

There are five screws on top, of different sizes, and they’re tiny, and if I can even get them out can I keep from losing them? I know, I know, I should have a plastic tray, holding all the screws, but I’m on a mission now and when you’re on a mission, either you stop or continue, and I couldn’t stop, because the tape was still locked up!

And I try removing some of these screws and I’m at my limit so I go back to Dr. Google. Whereupon I find the Nakamichi repair manual.

Voila!

Well, no. It’s written in English, but unless you’ve worked for NASA, good luck. But one thing is clear, I only have to remove three of the five screws, so I dive back in.

But the faceplate still won’t come off.

Hmm… I turn the unit over and it turns out there are another three screws on the bottom! Which won’t come out. I’m turning and turning and are they stripped or… I mean I’ve come this far, I’ve got to get the faceplate off.

Which I ultimately do.

And when I do, all the dials and buttons pop off the faceplate. They’re all over the floor. This isn’t good, but…let me first get the cassette out.

And not only the dials and buttons pop out, but so did the broken piece! It was all very clear. But I’m pushing on buttons and pulling on belts and the damn well won’t open so I can retrieve the tape.

And I’m pushing every piece of plastic in there. You’d be stunned how much stuff there is in there, a veritable Rube Goldberg construction.

I mean if it’s electronic, I’m screwed. But I think the eject button is one thing that is manual. I should be able to push a lever and…

NOPE!

Well maybe it pushes this belt. That’s one of the reasons I was reluctant to fire up the Nakamichi to begin with, the belts are known to stretch over time, and ultimately break. And it had been years since I’d used it… And I’m wary of stretching this belt and then I hear Ed Cherney’s words in my brain. Maybe he was right, maybe he wasn’t being offhand about it, maybe it had nothing to do with being close to the end, maybe it was just TIME!

I mean the deck is forty six years old. But I scrimped and saved to buy it. I’m just gonna toss it?

But now it gets worse. Can I really just toss it anyway? Don’t I have to go to a special place to dispose of electronic gear?

Now I’m kneeling on the floor. And my body hurts. And I’m wondering…am I too old to do this?

Forget whether someone can actually fix this thing, have I reached the point where I’m so old I shouldn’t be addressing tasks like this?

I’m not a guy with a workshop. I wouldn’t say I’m handy. But when it comes to logic, I’m pretty good. I love fixing the toilet, getting TVs to work, it’s all about thinking it out. It’s kind of fun. But it can be really frustrating.

And now I’m starting to sweat. So I turn the A/C up a notch, or down, depending how you see it.

And I’m touching and pushing everything inside this unit and nothing will pop the door.

And that’s when I realize…

I can just break it.

I mean that I can do. But I’m going to sacrifice this nearly thousand dollar tape deck for a one dollar cassette?

But the cassette is viable, and the deck is not.

And now my mind starts to drift…

Why do I expect this forty six year old unit to work anyway? Nakamichi’s in the rearview mirror. Recording on cassettes is in the rearview mirror. And the new solutions are so much better. There’s not the issue of the tape, the transport, the EQ and the azimuth, there’s no wear and tear the more you play it… And unlike vinyl, digital has no surface noise, and it certainly doesn’t skip. It’s AMAZING!

So what I’ve got here is a relic. Can I toss it?

And my entire life is flashing in front of my eyes. When I bought this deck, when I repaired it, being afraid to use it for fear it would break again.

I’m thinking of the girl I lived with when I purchased it, who was mad I spent all that money on it instead of her.

I’m thinking of the lost nineties.

The twenty first century and Napster and the digital revolution and…

It’s already 2025! They’re doing twenty five year retrospectives. America’s going to have its 250th birthday next year. I remember the Bicentennial!

I don’t feel old.

Then again, I’m roaming around the floor dirty and lightheaded…

I’m getting more and more depressed.

No wonder it costs so much to repair anything. Just GETTING to the problem is an effort, never mind solving it.

And I still can’t solve it.

So now it comes down to breaking the deck. Can I really do that?

And then the door pops open.

IT’S A MIRACLE!

I pushed some piece of plastic inside…I couldn’t repeat the process, but it worked!

So now what?

I’ve got the tape, do I just toss the deck? I mean I could have forgone all that effort, broken the door and retrieved the cassette and not wasted all that time.

No, I’m going to screw this thing back together. Well, at least I’m going to try.

And it ain’t easy. Certain screws won’t grip. But with enough OCD therapy I decide I’m not going to force it, if the screw doesn’t fall out I’m not going to to continue to turn it until it stops.

So now I’ve got to install all the dials and buttons.

Easier than I thought, but to align them? So the indicators line up as they should? That is not easy. And when I get it wrong I have to pull the faceplate off to remove and reinstall them.

And then I’m all done and I realize some of the buttons…they have tiny little white spots that are indicators, and I hadn’t seen them in the low light and was I gonna leave them misaligned or get them right?

I couldn’t leave them wrong, even though they would have worked. I mean if I’m going to put this unit back together, I’m going to do it right.

And then I realize I forgot to put the well’s cover back on and…

I’m definitely not taking the faceplate off again.

So I decide to squeeze it on. Instinct has taken over. My conscious brain is telling me this is a bad idea, it’ll probably break, but then it pops in!

This is AMAZING!

Now all I have left is to screw the cover back on. And this turns out to be amazingly easy.

And then I’m done.

NOW WHAT?

Am I really going to pay to get this deck fixed? Is there anybody who CAN fix it? And if I fix it, when am I going to use it, other than to play this Bad Company tape.

This is the moment to throw it away. I’ve achieved my mission. I’m wasted and I’m covered in dust, but the surgery was successful. It can now be MY choice to toss the Nakamichi as opposed to being forced to because I broke it to get the tape out or couldn’t manage to put the damn thing back together.

Am I willing to break with the past? Write off my prior investment, forget about sunk costs? This is about the Nakamichi, but really it’s about MUCH MORE!

Do I toss out the Technics SL1300, the old top of the line, which works but really needs the speed pot adjusted? I mean I’ve got other turntables. But that Technics is direct drive and…

What else should I throw away?

One thing is for sure, when I die my family will throw EVERYTHING AWAY!

And I’ve accepted this, but I’ve told Felice over and over, NOT THE VINYL RECORDS! They’re worth a fortune! Don’t toss them, don’t just give them away, sell them, not for the money but because I spent decades building the collection and it’s worth more to me than the records themselves!

Really? A monument to myself?

Did I tell you I threw out all my laminates? Larry still has all of his, he showed them to me.

Now since then I’ve kept a few, like all access for the Rolling Stones, but… All this stuff I have, how recently have I used it? But I’ve got it and I know where it is and someday…

This is another of the secrets of aging. Only a secret because no one talks about it, no one wants to admit they’re old, that they’re going to die… Your stuff contains less and less meaning. You realize certain people you’re never going to see again. You start to realize you’re going to die and…

Don’t tell me to be optimistic, you’re just in denial. I’m just trying to face facts. I mean I skied 102 days last season, to what degree are you even physically active? To what degree won’t you do things because you’re afraid of injury?

And right now, let me count them… I have ten pairs of skis. And only two are not current models. And let me tell you, I can rationalize them all, but there was a point in my life when if I had a quiver this big I’d be thrilled and proud and I’m not saying I don’t like having these skis, but there’s a level of meaning that’s just gone.

Like Ed Cherney.

It’s going to put a huge dent in the middle class and cause a rush to authenticity.

AI makes it easier. So if you’re looking for music to accompany your YouTube video, voila! If you’re just another wanker recreating the electronic sounds/effects of the Spotify Top 50, good luck!

AI will be a tool. Just like with Velvet Sundown, auteurs will use AI to enhance their productions, just like the 808 and the Synclavier and other digital keyboards and effects. But this era where everybody makes music and believes they’re entitled to a living?

MORE people will be making music.

But fewer people will be professionals.

If you can strum a guitar and sing the hits you might be able to get a job at your local bar. But it’s doubtful, it’s cheaper for that establishment to just play records, delivered via streaming services, or a DJ who does essentially the same.

Technology changes the landscape.

The new recording technologies of the sixties caused a concomitant surge in the sale of higher end stereos, so people could hear the productions as clearly as possible.

The CD held more than seventy minutes of music, therefore albums got longer and longer, there was this belief that you could stretch out without compromise and that somehow the public would judge you negatively if you didn’t use up the space.

MTV put an emphasis on the looks of performers heretofore unseen. We still live in a visual environment, but the music has never been as separate from images since the heyday of MTV.

The music got compressed, you didn’t need to hear it on a full spectrum stereo, so people got all-in-one units, or even boomboxes, which were portable!

At the beginning of the digital music era an MP3 took up far less space than a full featured recording and the public accepted this so there was a vast reduction in the need for sound quality.

And then AirPods and headphones became popular, both of which have a hard time reproducing bass, so the quality of the sound was reduced once more, if you can’t hear it, why spend all that money to make it?

Do not fear AI.

Unless maybe you’re a coder. Anything to do with math, facts, rights and wrongs? AI is great at that. But the next iteration of AI known as relational AI is now on the market and this advance has rendered even MORE hallucinations. So this constant AI fear in the marketplace…do you remember NFTs? I’m not saying AI will have no impact, but it is overblown. Because the experts don’t even think they’ll be able to improve the accuracy soon, never mind that they’ve run out of data to train their models on.

So…

You can make a professional sounding song using AI. Right now it’s a party trick. I wouldn’t quite call it a fad, like the Syndrum, but it won’t be long before listeners are no longer impressed by a lame new track by a famous artist. It’ll be like sending jokes when the internet broke, no one does that anymore.

But to use AI as PART of your creation? That’s where the digital future lies. As for using it to write your papers, your legal documents…just in the newspaper today there was a judge castigating the legal team of the MyPillow guy because their documents were riddled with errors produced by AI.

So…

If you’re a musician and you want to survive… EMBRACE AI! It is not going away. Learn how to use it. Whether you ultimately use it in your compositions or recordings or not. This lesson has been taught over and over during the last two plus decades and creators still refuse to learn it. THE PAST IS NOT COMING BACK! We are only going forward. Don’t be a Luddite sitting on the sidelines.

There will be some people with little musical training who will create hits via AI.

And there will be pros who create hits.

But all the dreck filling up Spotify, et al, today?

If you’re making music that sounds like the Beach Boys, it must be BETTER than the Beach Boys, because I can get pretty good AI Beach Boys sounding music already.

So if you’re me-too about what once was… Good luck with that.

As for modern music, the Spotify Top 50, a lot of it is just a takeoff on what has been done by someone else, employing the same teams of writers, producers, remixers… So if you’re doing this, it won’t stand out. And the competition will be fierce, because you will be able to imitate the Spotify Top 50 cheaply and quickly.

But as far as authenticity?

If you’re skilled at playing your instrument, especially if it is acoustic/organic…this is your best hedge against AI. Authenticity, credibility is where AI is lacking. It’s literally a regurgitation of the past. As we go forward it might be able to be programmed to do something innovative and new, but that will come down to the experts referenced above who know how to do this.

The public always desires humanity, that’s what machines do worse. So for those of you complaining that AI will steal the musician’s lunch… Not that of someone who knows how to play and create something new.

Once again, we are going to see a hollowing out of the middle.

We will be exposed to genius productions at both ends of the spectrum. Stuff that we couldn’t even conceive of. AI could cause a renaissance in music.

As for AI in general…

This is music’s time once again. Music was the canary in the coal mine for digital distribution disruption and AI music is the canary in the coal mine for creative disruption. The applications AI is used for now… Rote tasks. But AI that can be part of the final product? What that looks like? Music will be first. Because music is cheap to make and distribute, unlike film and so many other enterprises.

You’ve got to jump into the fire.

AI music will only get better.

As for drummers being put out of business by the drum machine… There’s a huge market for drum programming, it’s a skill unto itself. I’m not saying it’s a one to one replacement, but drummers were not wiped out. There are always winners and losers in a new environment.

As for those ten year olds trying to have hits? Addison Rae? That’s commerce, not art. And AI can do that work very easily.

AI is going to EMPOWER creators, just like the computer and Pro Tools.

Get ready!