Report: https://loudandclear.byspotify.com

1

The music business is opaque. And that’s the way those inside like it. Because they can play fast and loose with the money… Isn’t that what the Live Nation conversation between those two employees is all about, the company screwing the ignorant public?

Maybe you missed that story. If so, here goes:

“‘Robbing Them Blind’: Live Nation Employees Joked About Fees – A series of private exchanges in the messaging system Slack were revealed as exhibits in the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against the concert giant.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/arts/music/live-nation-ticketmaster-trial-fees-slacks.html

Now the funny thing is it’s not only Live Nation (and its competitors) who don’t want the truth to come out, but the acts themselves. If breakdowns of every show were posted… The fans would still blame Ticketmaster and Live Nation, the ticketing company and the promoter. Because they just can’t believe that the acts are at fault, that they bear any responsibility for high ticket prices, that without the fees, the economics don’t work, there is no show. Again and again Live Nation says that the acts set ticket prices. And let’s put aside club gigs… Once you grow into theatres, the artist’s team might ask the promoter for its opinion on pricing and scaling, but the buck stops with the act. Then again, if an act wants a certain gross, wants to walk away from the tour with a large pot of money, inherently ticket prices will be higher. Conversely, if the act wants to charge less for tickets, then it’s a field day for bots and the secondary market. But somehow the consumer doesn’t want to accept any of this, people just believe they should be able to get a great seat for a low price and scalp the ticket themselves if they want to.

As for the antitrust case… Are you aware of the Apple iBooks antitrust lawsuit? Amazon was paying publishers full wholesale, but selling books for under ten bucks to build a business. But Apple was employing the agency system. Which means the publisher can set whatever price it wants, and Apple will take 30% of that. I’m not going to walk you through all the details, but the bottom line here is the antitrust case made Amazon go to the agency system as well, meaning…THE PRICE OF E-BOOKS WENT UP! FOR EVERYONE! Which is antithetical to the theory of antitrust, that it’s about harm to the consumer. That’s how intelligent the government is.

As for the Live Nation/Ticketmaster case… That’s the true question, if you split off the company, if you change the game as per the settlement just reached, will the consumer benefit, will prices go down and will they find it easier to get a ticket? ABSOLUTELY NOT! But nobody in the government can see or accept this.

2

Word on the street is that Spotify is the devil, that it is ripping artists off, if it pays at all. I mean someone’s got to be blamed for the fact that the act isn’t making more money. And no matter what you tell people, you can’t change their mind. It’s like MAGA, doesn’t matter what Trump does, they hate the LIBS.

But Spotify is a tech company. Those are the roots of the two founders, Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. And tech is about digital, zeros and ones, there’s no fudging, because if there was the system, the program, wouldn’t work.

And the ethos of the Millennials and Gen-Z is far different from that of the Baby Boomers and Gen-X. Boomers believed music should be free, back in the SIXTIES! The younger generations don’t mind people making money, as long as they can see all the evidence, be walked through the steps. These are the entrepreneurial generations. Not buying insurance by becoming a doctor or lawyer, but believing in themselves and taking risks.

And the truth is the younger generations have no problem with Spotify. It’s the oldsters who do… Who want to go back to the label model of yore, before the internet. But their cries are dying out. Remember all the oldsters complaining about the audio quality of digital files? That was batted about FOR YEARS! And now hi-res is available and most people don’t bother to pay for it or have the equipment to hear it.

It’s kind of like politics. Did you read that 85 year old Representative Jim Clyburn is running for another term, his 18th in Congress? Man, I’d like to get him in a conversation about TikTok and social media. He’s inherently out of touch. And I know this is true… I’m constantly doing podcasts with Boomers who don’t know the tech, who tell me their computers broke. Bottom line…if you’ve got a Mac, they’re almost bulletproof. Just reboot. This is not the eighties anymore. Can I tell you how many times I’ve fixed people’s iPhones and Macs when they were ready to go to the Apple Store?

Of course, of course, there are old people who are tech-savvy, but the world is based on generalizations, except in tech.

So, Spotify has put up Loud&Clear, which answers every question people have about streaming and how the company works. Whenever anybody tells you how bad Spotify is, point them to this site. It’s exhaustive. And potentially exhausting. People want it simple, bite-sized, and they prefer emotion to facts.

3

Here is the summary:

https://newsroom.spotify.com/2026-03-11/loud-and-clear-music-economics-highlights/

But the bottom line is more people are making more money.

Here’s where it gets dicey. When I tell people they’re not entitled to compensation if people don’t stream their music. Where in business does this concept play? Does a commission salesperson get paid a big salary when they sell very little? Does everybody who can shoot a basket earn a place in the NBA? Then again, the world runs on delusion.

You should read each and every point in the above link, click on the ten Takeaways, expanding them for more information.

In addition, you should read the FAQ:

Your Questions, Answered

My favorite is: “Why does the ‘per-stream rate’ appear lower for Spotify than some other streaming services?”

Of course there’s no per-stream rate, and that is explained in depth in this report. But the nougat is:

“The average Spotify listener streams 3 to 4 times more music per month than the average listener of other streaming services.”

I could do the math for you, but either you get it or you don’t. But underneath that is the fact that Spotify is where active music listeners go. Where the fans are. You can be a king on another service but still be a pawn in the game. If you’re a king on Spotify, you are truly royalty.

And the increased listening and market share and ultimate payouts are why competing platforms won’t release their own reports, won’t be as transparent. Then again, are the others pure music companies or is music a sideshow.

Which brings me to that inane “Death of Spotify” article that I wrote about, that people keep e-mailing me.

To think Jimmy Iovine is a seer of technology is like saying Clyburn is one too. Boomer Jimmy is all about the old world, and he’s pissed someone moved his cheese.

But the bottom line is…if you think Spotify is about to die, you’d better short Apple and Nvidia too. Because the odds of the streaming company going under are as miniscule as those of the two tech giants caving.

But it makes a good story.

Then again, the labels used to run the music business, now it’s the promoters, it’s all about live. And those holding the short end of the stick don’t like that they’re no longer all-powerful.

But it gets better. One of the questions in the FAQ is:

“Would the user-centric model be fairer?”

They link to the French report and a summary from MusicAlly.

If you click through to the summary:

French study offers new data on impact of user-centric payouts

You’ll find out that:

“Among the key findings: switching to a user-centric system would reduce the royalties paid out to rightsholders of the top 10 artists by 17.2% – they’d get 7.7% of the overall payouts rather than 9.3%. The result would be small percentage gains further down the pyramid: an average 1.3% increase for artists ranked 11-100; 2.2% for those ranked 101-1,000; 0.5% for those between 1,001 and 10,000; and 5.2% for those outside the top 10,000.”

And you must read the following paragraph:

“‘If the percentages of change seem not insignificant, the amounts in value remain in reality limited,’ warned the CNM in its summary of the findings. That 5.2% average increase for artists outside the top 10,000 would be ‘at most a few euros per year on average’ for those musicians.”

And there you have it, the user-centric model is a canard.

And speaking of MusicAlly, they have a great summary of Loud&Clear here:

80 artists are generating $10m-plus of Spotify payouts a year

4

Most people can’t handle the truth. Which is Spotify isn’t the devil, it didn’t kill the music business, IT SAVED IT!

But now everybody can play and everybody can complain. The most vociferous e-mail I receive about the system is from those not in it. That’s the internet, everybody is entitled to a voice, but not every voice is worth listening to.

Streaming is here to stay. There’s nothing past streaming, it’s on demand. You get it when you need it, and it’s available instantly. What could be better than that?

And there are other ways to make money from recordings, like Patreon and SoundCloud… Go for it! But that’s marginal artists making money from fans. At least they’re marginal in terms of absolute streams, compared to who is successful on Spotify.

Let me just quote the MusicAlly report above, to make it perfectly clear:

“Spotify said that more than 1,500 artists generated more than $1m in payouts in 2025, while more than 13,800 generated at least $100k. The usual caveat being that this is before rightsholders and distributors took their cuts.

“The 13,800 figure is nearly 1,400 up on last year’s report, while Spotify offered another angle on the payout-millionaires stat. ‘Capturing just 1% of streams from 1% of listeners is enough to earn $1 million in annual royalties from Spotify.’

“‘In 2025, the 100,000th-highest-earning artist generated more than $7,300 in royalties from Spotify alone. In 2015, the artist in that same position generated about $350,’ added Spotify in its summary of the trends in this year’s report.”

Read it and weep.

Or maybe you can see that the future’s so bright you’ve got to wear shades.

But not for everybody, but it never was.

5

Let’s hope for more of this, more transparency, but don’t bet on it. This is the essence of the entertainment business, ripping people off. Just ask the actors with net profit participations in the hit films they appeared in. When I was practicing law, we represented an actor who had a net profit participation in the second biggest film of the year. He never saw a dime, it remained in a negative position. Creative accounting. If the hits don’t make money, how can the studios survive? But the truth is they do make money, they just employ accounting tricks to make sure they’re not sharing it.

That’s not what Spotify is doing and Loud&Clear lays it all out.

I’d read it before you start pontificating how bad Spotify is.

The Black Crowes have a new album, “A Pound of Feathers,” and have been nominated once again for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rich-robinson/id1316200737?i=1000754826873

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/dcc1e593-2888-4657-a9d0-652185058f9f/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-rich-robinson

From: Joel Selvin

Subject: Re: Country Joe McDonald

Date: March 10, 2026 at 10:37:49?AM MDT

As Bill Graham once introduced them at Fillmore East, Country Joe and the Fish — taking Berkeley with them wherever they go.

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From: Marc Sedaka

Subject: Re: Neil Sedaka/Dad

Date: March 4, 2026 at 11:35:30?PM MST

I couldn’t read the comments from the both of you and not weigh in. Those London years from ’72-’74 were arguably the happiest of my father’s life and undoubtedly his most creative. Solitaire and The Tra La Days Are Over remain the Sedaka family’s favorite albums, and, till the day he died, Neil would refer to songs like “Trying to Say Goodbye”, “Anywhere You’re Gonna Be” and “For Peace and Love” as his hidden treasures. He revered you both and was forever grateful for your guidance and your contributions. 

Elton – Thank you for saying that Neil should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It truly is an injustice that he’s not and I’m only sorry that he didn’t live long enough to see it happen. I must also reference something from Bob’s wonderful retrospective that bears clarification. Neil never wanted to leave Rocket Records, but rather allowed himself to be coerced by people close to him who thought they knew better. Yes, he had regrets. But only because he didn’t listen to his heart and do what he knew was right. I don’t know if he ever told you that, but he told me a lot. He loved you so much.

Thank you both for changing his world.

____________________________________

From: Alex Cooper

Subject: Re: The Wings Book

Date: February 5, 2026 at 7:24:49?AM MST

My lawyer in NY worked for Yoko. He said he only really understood how famous the Beatles were when he walked into a room with the President of the United States and Paul McCartney in it. The Secret Service agents were looking worried. He saw why. Nobody was talking to The President. They all wanted to talk to Paul.

____________________________________

From: Michael Moniz

Subject: Brett Guerwitz, Epitaph Records Founder Speaks About Spotify

Bob, I’m unsure if you’re familiar with who Brett Gurewitz is founder of Epitaph records and legendary Los Angeles punk band Bad Religion. Listening to him on this recent podcast episode of the podcast Hardlore, I think you might want to listen and even propagate it to your readers because of his take on Spotify. It’s pretty much right in line with you have been saying, and to hear it these days from a mid-level musician and indie label owner is really hard to find these days. It’s a long episode, it covers the history of the band and the label, but you just have to listen at about the two hour mark for about 10 to 12 minutes where he discusses it.

“Brett Gurewitz: Bad Religion, Founding Epitaph Records, Early Punk/Hardcore & The Shift to Spotify”: https://overcast.fm/+AA5US0ZH1Tg

____________________________________

From: John Van Nest

Subject: Re: Re-Paul Anka

Date: March 9, 2026 at 6:38:06?PM MDT

Hi Bob,

I recorded vocals for a project of Paul Anka’s somewhere around the late 80’s.  During the sessions, which ran a few days, we talked about a lot of things; family, life, his career, etc.  I found him to be wonderfully genuine and a truly engaging person.

On the last day, as he was leaving, I felt his hand slide into my pocket, and when I reached in, I pulled out a $100 bill he had given me.  I explained that tipping wasn’t really customary nor necessary for a recording engineer.  He replied, “Buy something nice for that little daughter of yours.”

I was always struck by that act of kindness and appreciation.  I’ll forever be a fan of the man and his art.

____________________________________

From: Dave Arbiter

Subject: Re: Mac McAnally At The Vilar

Date: February 21, 2026 at 5:27:22?AM MST

Loved this one!!

I’ve been living in one of those Jimmy Buffett 55 (and better) communities for 1-1/2 years now, in Daytona Beach. Mac plays our community once a year, and it’s impossible to get a golf cart spot on those evenings!

I appreciate you comparing the Parrotheads to the Deadheads. It’s not far off, except by scale.  Plenty of both here. 

Fins Up,

Dave Arbiter 

Latitude Margaritaville 

Daytona Beach, FL

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From: Kevin Cronin

Subject: Re: Man On The Run

Date: March 2, 2026 at 12:40:26?PM MST

Hey Bob,

I came across Man on the Run the other night, and found it to be my favorite post-Beatles doc. I can’t put my finger on why … and I don’t really care. It simply worked for me. 

On a strictly musical level, it’s hard to beat the in-studio piece with Paul and Rick Ruben. And the three-part special on the drama leading up to the rooftop performance was great in its own way. But again, for my money, Man on the Run told the story best. … kc

____________________________________

From: Jim Willcox

Subject: Re: Calibration

Date: February 12, 2026 at 7:22:11?AM MST

Hi, Bob, thanks for the write-up on TV calibration. I can’t tell you how many times I go to someone’s house and they brag about their new, great TV, and all I see is that they have the brightness cranked too high, the image is over-sharpened, they have engaged a high level of motion smoothing, and the colors are boosted to where they look unnatural. We know many people never take their TVs out of the default settings, or won’t pay for a true ISF calibration, so we started offering members the actual settings we use in our labs to get TVs as close as possible to our reference models. We also point out that consumers don’t have to be afraid to play around with the individual settings; you can always easily return to the TV’s default settings in the menu.

Glad this made a difference in the LG OLED TV you bought, a great choice.

The offer for a lab visit still stands when you’re on the East Coast.

Best regards,

Jim

James K. Willcox

Senior Electronics Editor

Consumer Reports/Consumer Reports Online

____________________________________

From: Steven Marmalstein

Subject: Re: The Billy Preston Movie

Date: February 24, 2026 at 8:09:06?PM MST

Hi Bob,

In 1997, I was a segment producer on a TV special for ABC called “The Three Stooges Greatest Hits.” It was a clip/variety show hosted by Martin Short and was seen by probably 26 people. We hired Little Richard to appear on the show and sing the accidental hit from 1984 called “The Curly Shuffle” by Jump in the Saddle.

After we handed Richard his 25 G’s in a brown paper bag,  we asked him if he wanted to check out the piano, the tuning and whatnot. He said, “I’m good, I have Billy coming in to play my parts for me. I’ll just sing it after.”

Ten minutes later, Billy Preston walks into the recording studio and sits at the piano. He tells the band to start and they play.  He jumps in and plays his part perfectly. Does one more take, gets up and says hello to Richard. They hug and Richard then reaches into his bag, hands him some cash and Billy leaves. He’s there for maybe ten minutes.

A few minutes later Richard says “Oh no! Billy was supposed to sing back up! I’ll do it but I need some help. Can any of you boys carry a tune?” So me and another producer look at each other and say “yeah, sure” and volunteer for the gig. We grab a lyric sheet, walk into the studio and sing back-up WITH Little Richard! Okay so it wasn’t Tutti Frutty, but wow!

Only in LA.

Here’s the video, which we shot a few days later at the Alex Theater in Glendale.

You can hear us on the “Hey Moe’s” in the bg.

“The Curly Shuffle” by Little Richard:

____________________________________

From: David Macias

Subject: Great seeing you!

Date: February 2, 2026 at 3:51:47?PM PST

Hi Bob-

It was wonderful (as always) to see you at the Americana event the other night, and I enjoyed the conversation as well. I did want to clarify my thoughts about “the music” being regressive. It sounds like I am being critical of the music that is being made today, and that is not what I meant to say.

What I mean to say is that our algorithmically driven ecosystem tends to reward music that is stylistically similar to whatever the listener has been listening to, so how do new stylistic breakthroughs occur? If you only listen to Mozart, what chance will you ever have to hear Stravinsky, much less Schoenberg?

I’m interested in, and investing time and energy into thinking about how to build a world around music that would not be rewarded by the algorithm. If all we ever do is think about art through the framework of how algorithms will reward it, then our creative landscape becomes a self-referential closed loop. That feels creatively barren, and listeners will also tire from experiencing the same sonic textures and emotional cues, and will begin to tune out. We already see songs that reach the top of the radio charts and stream only 5m times on DSPs. It’s because we’re stuffed to the gills with the same formulaic tropes and that music fails to move anyone. I predict we’re going to see more and more of this dynamic at play.

I also feel strongly that this is not the fault of the DSPs. They don’t owe a platform to anyone. They use algorithms to do the same thing that McDonald’s and Starbucks do. There is value in providing predictability to a consumer. People eat Big Macs because they’re good, but also you know what a Big Mac is and you’re not going to be surprised. Will you remember that meal years from now, unlike that Michelin starred restaurant you ate at on your vacation in Paris? No, but that doesn’t make McDonald’s bad people for offering you what they are offering you. DSPs get too much blame for things, and I don’t want to make them the bad guys in this dynamic.

It’s up to the music business to learn how to create worlds outside of algorithms, and the sooner that we learn to do this and team together to build communities collaboratively, then we’re going to support a more creatively vibrant music ecosystem. When you asked me what I was excited about, I’m excited about thinking about and solving this problem.

Best-

David

____________________________________

From: Kenny Jacob

Subject: On bipolar and “triggers”

Date: January 27, 2026 at 2:47:36?AM PST

Bob —

I’ve lived with Bipolar 1 for over 50 years. One nuance worth clarifying in your excellent piece is the word “trigger.” It doesn’t mean cause. Bipolar is genetic; life circumstances are what activate it.

In my case, the lifestyle at Sound City studios when I worked there as a teenager — nights, chronic sleep deprivation, drugs, total disengagement from normal rhythm — flipped the switch. In my family, my father and his brother were triggered by war trauma. Different lives, same illness.

That’s why origin stories matter. When people believe an external event created the illness, it feeds denial and delays treatment. Mania convinces you nothing is wrong — that everyone else is overreacting — which you describe very accurately.

Untreated mania doesn’t just exaggerate personality; it can produce behavior unrecognizable to the stable self. I’ve done things I deeply regret, mostly to myself. When that happens publicly, at celebrity scale, the consequences don’t reset with an apology. Trust takes years to rebuild.

Your writing here is unusually precise for someone who isn’t bipolar. I only wanted to underline that understanding how the illness comes to life is key to preventing it from repeating.

Kenny Jacob

Biarritz, France

____________________________________

From: Martin Theander

Subject: Re: Kanye’s Ad

Date: January 27, 2026 at 2:19:54?AM PST

Very spot on, Bob.

Once the medication works, you start thinking: ”I’m fine really, obviously I don’t need these pills”.

Then it takes a while for those around you to understand that something’s off, and when they do it’s already too late.

So you crash, and if you’re lucky you get help, you don’t end it, with support you manage to climb back up.

But if you’re the boss, most times you won’t trust anyone to help you. 

It’s very lonely at the top. 

Then it takes a good while before the medication is in tune again, and by that time…again you think you don’t need it.

So it’s an endless loop that’s so hard to break out of, it can go on forever, each crash bringing you closer to the actual edge. 

Anyone who manages to eventually accept and handle it, they’re climbing Mount Everest.

We all have our stuff to deal with, but most of us don’t climb Mount Everest.

Perhaps that’s what he’s done now.

Like you, I wish him good luck. 

He’ll need it, apart from the pills and the help and love from those around him.

____________________________________

From: Marty Bender

Subject: Re: Kanye’s Ad

Date: January 26, 2026 at 8:25:46?PM PST

My brother suddenly developed bipolar disorder in his fifties.

It took a lot of trial and error, but he finally got on the right meds.

However—

In his manic phase, he felt as though he no longer needed the medication.

Stopping the medication then plunged him right into deep depression.

And down there, he convinced himself that he could not afford his prescription.

Even though he wanted to live…

There’s only so much mental push and pull a human can take.

R.I.P. (with an emphasis on the peace)

Marty Bender

____________________________________

From: Jan Jankingston

Subject: Re: Kanye’s Ad

Date: January 27, 2026 at 1:59:48?AM PST

Hi Bob,

I don’t know about Kanye.  But my dad had bipolar disorder.  You are correct.  When they are manic, they think they can do anything, and they don’t want to stop that. And they do some amazing things when manic.  He died by suicide when I was 13. He’d been suicidal for 10 years of my 13.  I used to sit by his bedside and keep him awake after he took pills and drank, while my mom called around to find my brother to take him to the hospital.  I don’t know if there weren’t ambulances or if the shame kept her from calling the ambulances. It was a long time ago.

I don’t think I’d trust my Dad again. Even if he took out an ad.  I’m sorry he was so sad.  You are right though.  There are consequences to those around the person.

You’re right. It’s an illness and hard to say if the person can keep a hold on it. It’s tough.

I’ll check out Kanye’s ad.  

J

____________________________________

From: Ben Dalby

Subject: Long term thanks

Date: January 23, 2026 at 9:00:30?AM PST

Dear Mr Lefsetz,

Long term reader, I’ve gotten an awful lot from your writing over the years. 

My favourite thing ever – standing on a rain swept platform at 6am in UK, waiting for a jammed commuter train to take me into central London. And opening your letter to read about some great sandwich you’d eaten in sunny California. It was a better glimpse into a better world .

Take care, sending you positive thoughts from cold and wet UK, goodness knows you get enough stick.

Ben

1

I think the first time I heard “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die” was on WBAI, the public radio station in New York.

You see underground FM radio was the internet of its day. Not that it was truly underground, the stations were all legal, but they were an alternative, they were subversive… Do not conflate the FM radio of the sixties with that of the seventies, when the playlist was tightened and…

Then again, Country Joe and The Fish had something to do with that. They were an indelible part of the Woodstock movie, and that flick changed the course of history.

Before that, rock music was a sideshow. But Woodstock woke up the industrialists, they saw all those people and they saw all that MONEY!

And that’s what it became about. With the purchase of Warner and Elektra by Steve Ross, after the prior purchase of Atlantic. As for the consolidation today, with only three major label groups, back then new companies were popping up like flowers, there was money to be made, music SCALED! The costs of production were recouped quickly, and after that there was a ton of profit. The Warner music division paid for the Warner cable system. Movies got all the respect, and there were some great ones in the late sixties and into the seventies, but the true cultural action was all in music. And those films utilized music to set the tone, to root the action.

Now the first upheaval came from the U.K., the so-called “British Invasion.” But after that came the San Francisco Sound.

But unlike the British Invasion, it was more than music, it was cultural. Sure, we had Carnaby Street in London, and there were fashions in the Haight, but there was also a mind-set. That life was about loving your brother, doing drugs and f*cking your brains out. And this was all done to a soundtrack of music, played by acts that didn’t wear suits, that didn’t even seem to care about the system, they were subversive.

Yes, Jefferson Airplane had hits, but Grace Slick was unpredictable. She was America’s worst nightmare. She went to Finch with Tricia Nixon, but then she jumped the track. And she was not the only one. People came to San Francisco in droves, they wanted to be where it was at. Money? You could get by on the kindness of strangers. Or at least you believed you could. People were not going to work for the bank, they thought there was more in life than money. And many from that era still believe this is true.

2

Now you knew the names of the bands, but that did not mean you knew the music. Sure, the Airplane had successful singles, but the rest of the acts had nothing that could fit on AM playlists. It was all word of mouth. Until FM radio.

You knew if you were different, the credo was “question authority.” This was no longer the fifties, where you cut your hair and flew straight. High school became bifurcated, like society. Football was seen as brutal and fascist. And the athletes had contempt for those who had contempt for them, and oftentimes they got physical about it.

But the script flipped with the war. By time we hit ’66, ’67…it was clear that Vietnam was an aberration. We’d heard for decades that America was all powerful, but we couldn’t beat these lone rangers in ragged clothing.

Now if you were brain dead, you just supported the war. America, rah, rah! But for those who questioned the country’s path, there was a whole ecosystem of culture on the other side of the fence.

Start with Kurt Vonnegut. After all, the Grateful Dead named their publishing company, “Ice Nine.”

And there were the poets of San Francisco, not only Allen Ginsberg, but Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the City Lights bookstore and…

Off-Broadway was littered with anti-government work, like “MacBird.” And “Hair” started at the Public Theatre in ’67, it crossed over to Broadway the following year and became a phenomenon.

But music was the primary driver of the revolution. Music led the way. Music was all about freedom, something you could feel, and truth.

So when you heard “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die”…

3

Actually, it was entitled “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag.” And that was important. It hearkened back to the folk era of the early sixties, and there was no pretension that this was mainstream, for everybody, this was truth, with a sense of humor.

Now the world was smaller then. And there were fewer alternatives.

First you had to get a record deal, which was difficult to come by. But if you made a statement, if you rang the bell, there were people who were hungry for your music.

Now Country Joe and The Fish were on Vanguard Records, known primarily for classical music and some folk and jazz. Joan Baez recorded for Vanguard, but by time we hit ’67, her heyday was over, not to return until “Diamonds and Rust” in the next decade. Most of the folk fans were gone, starting families, but some of their leaders remained…and they led the protests, whether it be Mario Savio in People’s Park or Mark Rudd at Columbia or the Chicago Seven…

But really, the slate had been wiped clean. What did Jimi Hendrix say, “You’ll never hear surf music again”?

These were not the denizens of the fifties…the hipsters, the thinkers, the kids who blew up the music business were younger, wet behind the ears, and they were all ears.

“Are You Experienced” came out in 1967. Actually, the Mothers of Invention’s debut, “Freak Out!,” came out in ’66! But that was on Verve, which was not much better than Vanguard, and they were from Los Angeles and it took longer for Frank and his minions to gain traction. L.A. was seen as flash, but San Francisco had soul. And infrastructure for said soul. With the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore and Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, with their Acid Tests.

So we were primed. We were paying attention to San Francisco.

And that’s when I heard “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die.”

4

I had to buy the album, it was not like the song was in regular rotation on any radio station. Which now included multiple outlets on FM…WOR, WABC, WNEW…with AM jocks now speaking slowly in deep tones, like Scott Muni.

So I purchased the album, also called “”I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die.”

So what I did, after breaking the shrinkwrap, after shutting the door to my room, was drop the needle and study the album cover.

And Country Joe was almost the most normal looking of the bunch. Barry Melton had his frizzy hair. David Cohen looked like a magician. And Chicken Hirsch? These were aliens, they didn’t fit in anywhere in America, and they didn’t care. They were just doing their thing.

The music was insight into another world, that of San Francisco.

And I couldn’t get enough. Who could? Either you were on the bus or you were off.

This record was unlike anything I’d previously purchased. These were not tight singles made for radio play. Especially the second side. It was atmospheric, you either bought in or you didn’t.

I did.

And that made me a member of the club. Because I was hip to Country Joe and The Fish.

5

Now when you had the album of a band and it became your favorite, you had to see them live.

It wasn’t like today, there was nowhere else to be exposed. And it wasn’t your motivation, but if you got on the bus early enough, you had bragging rights.

But I must say, my mother hipped me to the Country Joe and The Fish show at Woolsey Hall in New Haven on May 26, 1968.

Now you’ve got to know, my friends and I were only fifteen, we didn’t have driver’s licenses. Which meant…

We had to take the train. The New Haven Railroad, it got you there but it was dirty and scummy and…

The last ride back was at midnight.

Furthermore, it was Sunday night. But that didn’t make a difference to my mother, when it came to culture, all limits were off. Truly..

So I went with two buddies and…

We had to walk from the train station to the hall and…at that point New Haven was dangerous, full of racial tension, most people would not even walk in this area at night.

But we got to Woolsey Hall and…

This was not the Heman’s Hermits crowd, this was unlike any crowd I’d experienced previously. There was no rabidity, there was a lot of milling around, and there was marijuana in the air and…

There was an opening act, and then Country Joe and the band took the stage, started with “Rock and Soul Music,” and then played for nearly an hour with no tunes recognizable to me. We were in New Haven, but they were in San Francisco. They were loose. And they left the stage saying they’d come back for a second set.

WHAT?

This was not fair!

We ultimately ran to the railroad station and made the train…and if you didn’t, you had to stay in New Haven all night…but not before I bought a poster. You needed ownership, evidence of your fandom.

6

So I bought the follow-up, “Together,” which was less out there, more traditional, but playable. I was a deep fan.

But that was the end. The album after that, “Here We Are Again,” was substandard.

But I was still a fan of the band…it was more than the music, it was the attitude, the irony, the humor…THIS WAS THE COUNTERCULTURE!

And the counterculture had its moment in August 1969, when the general public was positively shocked that all those kids showed up at Woodstock. Today it’s de rigueur, back then it was unfathomable.

But Country Joe didn’t gain mainstream notoriety until the movie came out. With its “Give me an F!” cheer.

What’s that spell?

A movement. And Country Joe was at the epicenter.

Not every market had an underground radio station. People may not have even heard of Country Joe and The Fish.

But now they had.

So you’d be places and someone would yell…GIVE ME AN F!

Yup, it was part of the culture, bedrock.

And then the band broke up and Country Joe put out solo albums and “Rolling Stone” wrote about them and he’d play solo here and there, but ultimately there was a long fade-out from public consciousness, until he died a few days back.

7

And that brings it all back. Not only Country Joe, but the sixties. We were optimistic, we felt we had power, we were testing limits, we were in control. And our leaders were musicians. Not selling perfume or tchotchkes…

That’s the modern paradigm, become a brand and leverage it.

But Country Joe and The Fish were just a band. Making music. Sure, they wanted to get paid, but that was not the primary motivation…the experience was.

And we all joined in, wanted to be part of that experience too.

Now it’s not like I ever forgot Country Joe, but I must say I always wondered what he was living on, how he made ends meet. You die young and all your problems are solved, live, and they pile up.

And he lived to 84. That’s not a bad run.

But now he’s in the rearview mirror, and either you were there or you were not.

And in the modern era, we find out the backstory that was unavailable in the pre-Internet era. His parents named him after Joseph Stalin. And he called himself “Country Joe” because Stalin used that moniker.

His parents were Communists. My grandfather was a member of the Workers Circle. He came from Russia, with nothing, he had a sense of equity and opportunity, two factors that are absent in today’s society.

So it was a different time.

But what a time it was.

Music was not the background, it was positively foreground. If you wanted to know what was happening, what to think, you listened to FM radio. Musicians were gods, we listened to them opine. They were thinkers, they had something to say.

And Country Joe was right at the center of it.

To me he’s a founding father.