I’m going to print more Coachella responses.  So that people don’t accuse me of being biased, I’m not going to edit them and am only going to exclude those that are completely redundant and incomprehensible.

Now it took ME forever to slog through these.  So, I wasn’t going to reprint them, I was done.  But everybody’s so into it, and I don’t want to give the illusion I require the last word, so I’m putting the raw data out there so YOU can investigate and come to your own conclusions.  The same way the government releases transcripts so you won’t argue with its conclusions.

I could sit here and try to explain myself further.  But shit, I’d say those with any power of analysis know where I’m coming from already.  And then there are others who so desperately need to believe in their lives, what they’re doing, that they can’t hear a contrary opinion.

You could say all this action shows we’ve got a great group of believers, of music fans.  That might be true, but I don’t draw the same conclusion.  Rather, I believe we’ve got a snapshot of America as a whole.  Too many ill-informed, self-righteous people who believe just because they put in an effort something is good.  What I’m waiting for is responses from the artists.  Because without them, none of this matters.  But artists can’t relate to businesspeople.  Their goals are different.   It’s that one moment on stage.  It’s not about the next buck as much as testing the limits (assuming they can pay the rent!)  That’s one thing you learn quickly in this business.  The industry, the executives, the businesspeople, are on a completely different team from the artists.  The artists not only bitch about the infrastructure, they make fun of so many of its players behind their backs.  Or, to speak in a language everybody can understand but the prissy girls who constantly e-mail me can’t handle…backstage nobody wants to fuck Lyor Cohen or Jimmy Iovine or even Clive Davis for that matter, despite their money and power.  But they’ll suck the dick of the drug-addicted bass player who’s gonna be working at the gas station soon.  Because there’s a power in the music.  Something that eclipses dollars.  Something sensual.  Something you can feel inside, that makes you tingle.

You went to Coachella and you had a good time.  I don’t give a flying fuck.  I care just about as much as I do about those people praying in megachurches in Texas.  Don’t agree with me?  I don’t really care about that either.  I’m running on instinct.  Because that’s all we’ve got.  It’s when you start calculating, worrying about results, that you fuck up.

I found it odd that everybody who was buzzing about Coachella in years past didn’t even mention the festival this year.  There were no phone calls about renting houses, no talk about the bands, NOTHING!

I had dinner Saturday night with someone who used to be INVOLVED in Coachella.  Last year, even though he’d moved on to a new company, he insisted I go to the festival in the desert.  This year he didn’t even bring it up during the meal.

Then, when my twentysomething engineer at KLSX asked me why I wasn’t at Coachella during a commercial break, I asked him why HE wasn’t there.  And believe me, he’s a player, he’s just as hip as any of you.  And he said the lineup SUCKED!  There was nobody there he wanted to SEE!

Then, when I got home from my show, at 11 PM, I fired up Safari to get a take on the show.  And found almost no buzz.  I even went to the Velvet Rope, where I have NEVER EVER POSTED, not under an assumed name, NOTHING, despite what those people think, and I found essentially no discussion.  So I went to the show’s site.  And was linked to an AT&T Webcast page to view Tool.  But AT&T doesn’t work with Macs.  Because everybody is so paranoid that their music will be stolen, they need Windows Media DRM, which is unavailable in a Mac player.  And when I fired up my PC, I got nothing.

And I started to wonder whether anybody other than the people who went really cared about Coachella.  And the fact that Goldenvoice would make a deal with a company that’s not Mac-savvy, even though Macs are the computers of artists…  I started to get a feeling, my instincts told me this was not the buzz event of the past.  Despite constant coverage in the L.A. "Times".

Then I wrote.

We take all our experience into our communications.  I could quote my bona fides, but what’s the point, you’d just ridicule them.  And I concluded, with no input from anybody with an agenda, that something was DIFFERENT about Coachella this year.  And you know what, I STAND by that.  Because I’ve found the only time I get fucked up is when I IGNORE my instincts, and am influenced by others.

But having said that, I’ll quote an old seer.  James Taylor.  Who you might think is a joke, but he’s still here.  And too many of the festival acts from the last decade no longer are.

But just because I might be standing here
That don’t mean I won’t be wrong this time
You could follow me and lose your mind

"Lighthouse"