1

I meant to write this three weeks ago.  But I got sidetracked.

I could not figure out a need for an iPad, but once I experienced the Sonos app, I was hooked, it’s a FANTASTIC remote control! It’s like having the dashboard of the Millennium Falcon in your hands.  Suddenly I could scroll through the Wolfgang’s Vault concerts with the scroll of a finger, I could SEE them!  And when I came across a Lee Michaels show, I was so inspired that I jumped up from my bed, walked into the living room and found…no sound.  Nada.  The speakers emitted not a note.  I could have written anyway, but I’ve got an innate desire to troubleshoot, I can’t let a malady go unaddressed.

So I’m tearing apart wires, surfing the Web, convinced the solution is only an insight away.  But I was wrong.  The speakers were toast.  And that’s a problem, because they come from Italy.  And it took a week to get their replacements.  Sure, I hooked up the $150 jobbies I’d used previously prior to their acquisition, but although sound came out, it was not music.

I’ve had a rough week.  I’ll just tell you a simple story.  Which reflects not a whit what actually happened, but represents my frustration.  I had a flat tire.  I limped to the repair place.  They fixed it.  Only they didn’t.  And I had to limp back to Sherman Oaks from Glendale, white-knuckling it all the way.  Was I going to crash on the freeway, was I going to trash the rim?  My Pirelli spent an hour in surgery.  They literally drilled a hole in it to insert a plug.  I shouldn’t have watched, but the repair seems to be holding. And I was so stressed out and overobligated that I didn’t finally get to relax until last night when I was sitting in front of my Mac listening to music suddenly stunned how phenomenally great it sounded.

I couldn’t get up from my machine.  Couldn’t pee.  Couldn’t eat.  Even though these were MP3s, through these AUX speakers the music was a revelation.  It was like Bettye LaVette was on my desktop, even though she was only ripped at 162 kbps.

I don’t ask for much, I only want your trust
And you know it don’t come easy

If you were here right now, we’d be dancing around the room.  Bettye LaVette’s take on Ringo’s classic is a wild conglomeration of Muscle Shoals and Stax with a dose of "Let It Bleed" sitting on top.  You remember listening to "Gimmie Shelter" in the dark, right?  IT’S JUST LIKE THAT!  But Bettye LaVette is not going to break through.  Because nobody can.

We’ve got a mainstream media that wants to believe we can live in the past and wannabes who want to use the new tools to triumph in the fading mainstream, but the truth is we live in an era of chaos.  We’re all inside a giant pinball machine, with Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg playing the flippers with unknowns filling in during their absence.  There’s no center.  You’re chasing a dream that doesn’t exist.  Jay-Z’s not that big a star.  Not even GaGa.  Unless you made it prior to this Internet mania, most people have no idea who you are.  Or, if they do, they don’t know your music.  And this isn’t going to get better, it’s going to get WORSE!!!!

Despite the gossip sites, everybody’s a journeyman these days, almost nobody’s getting rich, I hope you love what you’re doing, because that’s all you’re gonna get.  World domination?  You can’t even dominate KANSAS!

2

When I bought "Barrel", I was listening on a separates system that cost $150.  And I know most people are listening on systems that cost less than that today, but back in the seventies sound was EVERYTHING!

But it wasn’t until I moved to Los Angeles that I got the stereo of my dreams.  JBL L100s.  Technics direct drive turntable.  Sansui integrated amp, with 110 watts of pure power.  I’d drop the needle and that was all the entertainment I needed.  I could stay home all night, listening to the soaring melodies, I could hear Mick Fleetwood’s foot in the kick drum.  Literally.  Listen to "The Chain" on a good system.

And last night, I had this experience once again.  My synapses were firing, thinking of tracks I wanted to hear.  It was like the decades had not passed.  I was still the same person.  When everything’s compressed, when music is a second class citizen, suddenly I’m reminded of what once was, just because of these phenomenal speakers.

And that’s when I was reminded of the Lee Michaels song.  "Day Of Change" wasn’t contained in that concert I pulled up on Sonos via the iPad, but the sound was so invigorating, I went to my collection and played this early classic.

There are two versions.  The studio take on "Barrel" and the version from the live album.  And on that live album, there are only three elements, Keith Knudsen’s drums, Lee’s organ and his vocals.  The studio take is better, the lyrics meld with the music to have such power.  But speaking of power, nothing can compete with the live take.  Remember going to the show and being overpowered by the sound?  Not the visuals, not the dancing, not the production, but the hair-raising sound?  That’s what this is like.  It’s like Bill Graham brought out giant hoses of medicated goo and covered the floor of the auditorium.  That’s what the organ sounds like.  And the drums are the kick in your butt that prevents you from relaxing, you can’t help but have the music inhabit you, grab hold of your insides and move through the mud like Gumby!

3

My favorite Animals record is "Don’t Bring Me Down".  Eric Burdon’s throaty intimate vocal embodies the midsixties in the U.K. even better the Beatles.  Underneath the suits, the Beatles were rough and tough, John Lennon ultimately tried to recapture this spirit, of lads who broke more laws than they obeyed, who were raising themselves, trying to escape lives of drudgery.  They didn’t do it for the money, they didn’t do it to become rich and famous, they did it to ESCAPE!

And the Beatles did.  But listening to "Don’t Bring Me Down" you don’t believe the Animals ever did.  They seem prisoners of this record just like ? is forever wrapped up in "96 Tears".  It’s nothing without him, and he’s nothing without it.  Alan Price’s organ on "Don’t Bring Me Down" has got the same sound and feel as the instrument in "96 Tears"…this sensuality is as good as it’s gonna get.

"Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood" was not quite as big as a hit.  But it’s this song that Elvis Costello covered.  And Bettye LaVette too.

Elvis sounds like he’s afraid he’s trapped.  His vocal is more expressive than Eric Burdon’s.  But my new favorite is Bettye LaVette’s version.

She doesn’t want to be misunderstood.

And that’s funny.  In this era everybody wants to be misunderstood. They want to appear to be somebody else.  Twelve year olds want to be seen as sophisticated.  Fat cats want to be seen as caring for poor folk.  Politicians placate through duplicity, they hope the public is too stupid to know the truth.

The music we loved best is not about artifice, it’s not trying to be something else, just itself.  The greatest accomplishment we can have as human beings is to be known.  Actors play roles in movies, now too often singers are playing roles in their own songs. Thug.  Macho.  Even wounded.  But laying it all out honestly and being vulnerable, that’s anathema.

4

Earlier tonight, I inserted Bruce Springsteen’s new old album into my computer.  I wanted to hear the alternative take of "Candy’s Room", entitled "Candy’s Boy".

Positively awful.  Not even interesting as an historical artifact.  And the rendition of "Racing In The Street" was not much better.

It’s so funny that these outtakes are being lauded when "Human Touch" was decried.  Yes, the "Lucky Town" album is better than "Human Touch", but no one had a good word to say about either when they came out because Bruce was no longer working with the E Street Band.  That’s why you can’t listen to the public.  They don’t want change, they just want what came before.  And a concert promoter wants to give you what came before, maybe an agent and manager too.  But an artist wants to break new ground.  He wants to take chances, he wants to do something different.

Springsteen’s released a better track since the title cut of "Human Touch", that song is known as "Streets Of Philadelphia", but "Human Touch" is number two when it comes to the last twenty years.  It’s got all the power, all the emotion Bruce built his reputation upon.  That’s all we want, a little human touch.

You and me we were the pretenders
We let it all slip away

How prescient.  We pretended we were rich.  But the only ones who are are those buying seats down close at the Boss’s show with the winnings they made on Wall Street.

In the end what you don’t surrender
Well the world just strips away

They tell you to keep your chin up.  But from square one, they break us down into winners and losers.  Bruce Springsteen was put into the latter camp, he didn’t believe it.  But that was back when the record company gave you a big advance and your music could be played on thousands of stations everybody in the target demo was listening to.

I ain’t lookin’ for praise or pity
I ain’t comin’ ’round searchin’ for a crutch
I just want someone to talk to
And a little of that Human Touch
Just a little of that Human Touch

These records made me feel alive, in touch.  I just wanted to tell you.