Fuck Facebook.  Mark Zuckerberg is a pompous, socially-impaired nitwit who has managed to connect a ton of people but not make any money.

That’s what’s wrong with these Web hypes.  They’ve got very short shelf lives.  Because they just can’t make any money!  Wouldn’t it be cool to order an ice cream sandwich on the Internet and have it delivered to your door?  Sure, but the company providing that service went out of business.  If you’d like an ice cream sandwich delivered to your house for less than twenty bucks, buy a slave.  Or enlist your children (for a hefty reward!)

Then there’s MySpace…  PASSE!

You want to know where it’s really happening?  THE APP STORE!

Apple isn’t focusing on ONE app, they’re purveying MANY!  Some of them even FREE!

But you’ve got to buy an iPhone first.  Or at least an iPod Touch.

Then you’re a member of a cult.

Ask your buddy, the one who has already gotten religion.  Have him demonstrate some apps.  Like the one reproducing that labyrinth game, you know, the one where you’ve got to keep the ball from falling into the hole.  It’s extremely cool on an iPhone, and you can take it ANYWHERE!  Never mind apps giving you information and telling you what song you’re listening to.

The iPhone is cool.  May not do e-mail as well as a BlackBerry, might not be as easy to use to make calls as your old RAZR, but the total package is damn near irresistible.  When was the last time you heard a song that was irresistible?  THAT MEANT SOMETHING!

I’m not talking about the little doggie in the window, or the bitches and ho’s anthem that cracks you up.  There used to be a culture around music, just like there’s a culture around the iPhone.  If you wanted to know what was going on, you bought a record.  The acts were hipper than you.  Not tools of the corporation, but independent thinkers.  We were DRAWN TO THEM!

I’m at a music conference in Aspen.  I’ve heard a lot of interesting things.  But the question everybody keeps asking is how can I get more people to buy what I’m selling?

Don’t they get it?  The public is OVERWHELMED with music.  They don’t know what to listen to and your damn e-mail is not going to encourage them.  They might go see a dinosaur at an inflated price, but not your developing act.  Because it doesn’t mean shit.

Steve Jobs has become a national icon by doing it his way.  Sure, the products are cool, but the cult of Steve is based on his iconoclasm.  He’s direct. He got rid of the floppy.  Now he’s killing Firewire 400.  What kind of guy does this?  Don’t you know you’ve got to play by the RULES?

But what if you made up your own rules?

Using Twitter to tell your twits that you’ve got a new album out is ridiculous.  The funny thing about great albums?  Everybody knows they’re coming out.  What kind of fucked up business do we have where people say "Chinese Democracy" failed because Axl Rose didn’t work it.  Come the fuck on. PEOPLE DON’T GIVE A SHIT!  If they did, they’d be going to Guns N’ Roses’ Website every damn day.  That’s what fans do.  Multiple times a day. They tell everybody about what they’re into.  If Axl goes on Jay Leno, he reaches the people who truly don’t care and aren’t going to come to the gig where the real money is made anyway.

The business thought Guns N’ Roses was cool.  But the public was way ahead of the game.  They knew he was TOAST!  Didn’t you see him on the VMAs?  LAUGHABLE!  You think people didn’t KNOW?

And if you think Britney Spears is about music, then you don’t ever read "People" or "Us" or surf from TMZ to PerezHilton.  Britney’s about train-wreck. That’s a business, but the music is incidental.

Great music sells itself.  Doesn’t matter if the venue has got plush seats or you’ve got to stand, if the music is great, the building will sell out.

We don’t have a theft problem.  We’ve got a MUSIC problem.

This business is too long in the tooth.  It used to be run by renegades, now it’s controlled by major corporations, only interested in the bottom line.  It’s all about the money, baby.  And money might be good in the abstract, but money doesn’t keep you warm, doesn’t get you high all by its lonesome. But music does.  A great record can change your mood, can literally keep you from committing suicide.

Don’t tell me it’s the same as it always was.  It was different in the sixties and seventies.  Sure, we wanted to go to the gig to hang out, but we NEEDED to hear the music.  We NEEDED to be closer to the geniuses who made it.  We felt it was us versus them, the act and its audience versus the system.  Whereas now the acts ARE PART OF THE SYSTEM!

If you make a deal with a major corporation, how are you different?  Steve Jobs keeps telling everyone he won’t do it their way, but everybody in the music business is compromising and selling out.

Will a golden era return?

Doubtful.

But it will only happen when acts are about the music first, and don’t focus on reaching everybody, but SOMEBODY!  When they say no more than yes.

"The Sopranos" was cooler than any record, any act of the twenty first century.

Network television is dying because it’s trying to be all things to all people.  And there’s too much competition.

There’s too much competition in music.  Listeners are confused.  They’ll go to see an old classic act, even a momentary star, but the country does not have a passion for music.

Michael Rapino?  Who gives a shit how you sell it, what’s underneath is not compelling.

Jimmy Iovine?  Like we used to say in the sixties, you’re either part of the problem or part of the solution.  You took a huge hit to your cred, you did the business a disservice by hyping the Pussycat Dolls.  You made everybody think music is a joke, only created to get rich.

The revolution is based in the tools.  Your Mac and Pro Tools allows you to put forth your vision.  You are an app in the world of music.  Apps are downloaded because of their coolness.  You’re nobody until you’ve downloaded the latest one.  When was the last time you could say that about music?