Spotify playlist: https://rb.gy/jdfgor

I really don’t want to write another obituary, but I don’t want Mick Ralphs to be overlooked as he too often was in the two big bands he was a member of. 

Mott the Hoople was dominated by Ian Hunter, even though the band’s initial single was an instrumental cover of “You Really Got Me,” long before Diamond Dave and the Van Halens did their version of this Kinks classic.

There was a buzz on that first Mott the Hoople album, it had the aforementioned Kinks cover, and it also featured a distinctive album cover, M.C. Escher’s “Reptiles,” which I studied in the bins. As for buying an LP based on the cover, I never did that, who would? And “You Really Got Me” was all over underground FM radio, which was burgeoning in the New York market with multiple stations, and I saw the band open for the Traffic reunion at Fillmore East in the spring of 1970, but the album was not a commercial success, and the three Atlantic LPs which followed the eponymous debut were not either, even though “Brain Capers” got good reviews. It was a different era, if a label signed you they stuck with you, especially the English acts, but not forever, Mott eventually jumped to Columbia, however…

The other big cut on the debut was “Rock and Roll Queen,” which was Mott’s signature cut before “All the Young Dudes,” and it was composed by Mick Ralphs. That’s why I’m writing this, not only was Ralphs’s playing overlooked, but his songwriting ability. “Rock and Roll Queen” was an Ian Hunter tour-de-force, the average punter had no idea that Mick had composed it.

And by the time of “All the Young Dudes”… The story was that Bowie wrote and produced the number, and I don’t want to take anything away from the way Ian Hunter twists the words and emotes vocally, but that indelible guitar work, that was Mick Ralphs.

And if you weren’t concentrating on Ian Hunter in the band, your eyes drifted to the tall and gussied up Pete “Overend” Watts, with his platform boots. Mick Ralphs was just the guitar player.

But I bought that album, which bore the moniker of the hit song. I’d read it was good, but also I had to own “All the Young Dudes.” The LP never caught fire, you never heard another track on the radio, but if you owned it, on the second side…

There was a Hunter/Ralphs number “One of the Boys” that is great straight ahead rock and roll with attitude, and then there is…

“Ready for Love/After Lights,” which was remade on the initial Bad Company album, but as good as Paul Rodgers’s vocal is, the original is a completely different experience, that sets you free to drift, something that’s been lost in today’s in-your-face era. Furthermore, Mick SANG IT! His weak voice adding gravitas.

The follow-up to the “All the Young Dudes” album, entitled “Mott,” was solid throughout and more commercially successful, even though there was not a huge hit single. HOWEVER, “All the Way from Memphis” opened the not yet legendary Martin Scorsese’s “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and Ralphs wrote the driving opening track on the second side with Ian, entitled “Drivin’ Sister,” truly the second best song on the album…

And then Mick left. Replaced by a man named Ariel Bender, who was really Luther Grosvenor from Spooky Tooth, and the ensuing record wasn’t bad, Mr. Bender could pick the notes, but he could not add the flavor Mick Ralphs did and the band broke apart, Ian Hunter went solo and…

Started off with a lot of hype and then faded until he switched to the nascent in America Chrysalis label and delivered a classic, “You’re Never Alonie With a Schizophrenic.”

Meanwhile, Mick Ralphs was the guitarist in one of the biggest bands in the world, the first signed to Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song label, Bad Company, where Paul Rodgers showed that he was more than a one hit wonder, that “All Right Now” was just the beginning.

But in that previous band…it is well established that Paul Kossoff was one of the best guitarists EVER! So not only did it look like Ralphs was slotted into a replacement Free, with Simon Kirke from that band on the drums, but almost no one could live up to the talent of Paul Kossoff, whom Paul Rodgers told me was the best guitarist he ever worked with, and don’t forget that he worked with Jimmy Page in the Firm and fronted Queen with Brian May.

But, once again, Ralphs’s songwriting talents were overlooked, still are. It’s one thing to be able to play, but to compose? And don’t ever forget, Bad Company was a guitar-dominated group, and Mick was the guitarist. Paul played occasionally, but it was Mick who did the heavy lifting, and go no respect.

It was MICK who wrote Bad Company’s debut smash, “Can’t Get Enough.” Yup, you might have forgotten that, if you ever even knew it.

Mick also wrote “Movin’ On” on the second side of the first album, a track in the vein of “One of the Boys” and “Drivin’ Sister,” and just as good.

But it was really the second album that broke Bad Company wide, that made the band ubiquitous. That’s right, as huge as the debut was, “Straight Shooter” was even BIGGER! And all the wankers on the Rock Hall of Fame committee seemed to have forgotten this until this very year. I don’t want to get into a pissing match, but KISS was never a match for Bad Company, KISS was about the live show, Bad Company was first and foremost about the music! And “Straight Shooter” opened with a bang, Mick Ralphs’s “Good Lovin’ Gone Bad.”

But the true breakthrough cut on the second album was the second song, with its stinging guitar emphasis, a Ralphs/Rodgers co-composition, a song that you heard everywhere in 1975 and those addicted to the radio still remember, FEEL LIKE MAKIN’ LOVE! Yup, that staccato guitar, wow!

And how about that guitar on the two opening cuts on the second side, “Deal with the Preacher” and “Wild Fire Woman”? Just listen! It’s not how fast you play, but what you wring from the instrument, a sound, a soul, a feeling that goes alternately straight to the heart and straight to the genitals.

As for the third album, not equal to what came before but still with merit, it opens with Mick Ralphs’s “Live for the Music,” my personal anthem:

“Some people say I’m no good

Laying in my bed all day

But when the nighttime comes I’m ready to rock

And roll my troubles away”

I’ve gotten sh*t for DECADES about being a late riser, a creature of the night. In a world where everybody boasts about how early they awaken, those in the arts know that nothing good happens during the day, greatness arrives after dark, oftentimes after midnight, when the rest of the world is asleep and you can stretch out and be yourself, create. And when you create in these hours you can’t fall asleep thereafter. Creative work takes mental energy that you just can’t come down from, which leaves you up all night, just like a band that’s left the arena stage unable to shut their eyes on the bus.

But then, but THEN, comes the PIECE-DE-RESISTANCE! My absolute favorite Bad Company song, one that I sing to myself and play CONSTANTLY, “Simple Man.”

“Simple Man” is a masterpiece from start to finish, the music and the lyrics, the guitar-playing and the vocal, but the key comes forty seconds in:

“Freedom is the only thing means a damn to me

Oh, you can’t fake it

Freedom is the only song, sing a song for me

Oh, we’re gonna make it”

Absolute free speech, all the right wing b.s. parroted under the rubric of freedom, that’s not real freedom and that’s not what Bad Company is singing about, the meaning I take from this number. Rather it’s the freedom to be ME! And believe me, I’ve run up against this my entire life, people criticizing me for what I say and who I am, I just want to be left alone to be myself, but since I’m not just like everybody else, this is a problem. The bands and the music they used to play represented this ethos, they lived in an alternate world, they were a beacon to those of us who didn’t fit in. Please, at this late date, let me be me. Let everybody be themselves if they’re not hurting you. Yes, what difference does it make to you if someone has an abortion or is trans… Give them their FREEDOM!

And then there’s the Bad Company “comeback” album, when their previous record was a disappointment, when they’d disappeared for years, when nothing was expected, the group came back with DESOLATION ANGELS! Mick wrote “Oh, Atlanta,” which Alison Krauss employed to cross over to the mainstream.

So Mick Ralphs was more than a guitar player, MUCH MORE, but he was a great guitar player TOO! All those legendary Bad Company records, that was HIM, up front and center, that was MICK!

And he had a stroke nearly a decade ago and now Mick Ralphs just passed.

This is not just another faceless member of a group, a support player, sans Mick Ralphs THERE IS NO BAD COMPANY! Paul Rodgers never had as much commercial success after he stopped working with Mick. And let’s not forget Mott the Hoople.

But everybody forgets Mick Ralphs.

But not me. You see it’s all personal. How the music hits you. Sure, you can stand with tens of thousands and enjoy a live performance, but the essence is how the sound hits you, yourself, and only yourself. It’s what goes in your ears.

Speaking of “Desolation Angels,” how about that intro to “Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy”?

That’s what it was, our rock and roll fantasy. It’s gone now, but the music still remains, even though those lauding artists with a way with words and not much more and pop singers want to forget this era completely. Sure, to a degree it’s cock rock. But sans this sound so many of today’s young males feel lost and alienated. Used to be this music made them feel alive and whole. As for the girls… Just go backstage, to the stage door at a Bad Company show, call them groupies, call them whatever you want, but these women were drawn to the sound and the men who made it, no one wants to be raped, but that does not mean people don’t want to have SEX! And this was the music that got them excited and they f*cked to. You need to get loose and into the mood, and the way you did that was to put on a record. And you can dance to a disco track, but it doesn’t have the raw sexual energy, the stripped-down human essence of rock, what did Aerosmith sing, WALK THIS WAY?

These Bad Company records stand up. Because Paul Rodgers could sing and Mick Ralphs could play and both could write, and Simon Kirke and Boz Burrell provided a rock steady rhythm section.

Bad Company and I can’t deny.

BAD COMPANY ‘TIL THE DAY I DIE!

Tune in Saturday June 21st to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

Democrats are never going to win on the immigration issue.

Sure, our nation depends upon undocumented immigrants to pick our fruit, provide our low-paying manual labor, however you’re just not going to convince the vast majority of Americans that people who are here illegally deserve to be so. I am stunned, and happily surprised, that residents are standing up to ICE in L.A., it illustrates there is a line that when crossed people say NO MAS, but these deportations will not be the fulcrum upon which American power shifts. Not to mention that Trump seems to have halted illegal immigration overnight, something the Democrats deemed impossible. People entering this country illegally? That’s not something the majority is going to agree with, no matter which political party you’re a member of.

And then there’s due process. We all want it, but oftentimes we don’t encounter/are exposed to/need it. It’s kind of like getting males excited about the lack of abortion rights. Unless it affects you personally, most people cannot get energized.

No, James Carville was right on this one, it all comes down to the economy, it’s staring the Democrats in the eye, but they continue to blink.

Unfortunately, economic issues are soft issues politically. It’s not like the government itself raises prices. Sure, interest rates may go up for treasuries, but the average person doesn’t own any and can’t relate. But the average person can relate when they go to the grocery store, seem to buy nothing and end up spending more than a hundred dollars. And then there are cars, which are projected to go up $1700 as a result of tariffs. The average person is being squeezed. I think about the money I’ve got, feel good about my income, and then realize I’ve lost twenty percent over the Biden years. Oh, don’t tell me it’s not his fault, that’s not the point. The point is despite increases in income, I’m treading water, or falling behind, and I’m not the only one.

And Democrats did not seem to understand this.

So I was at the car stereo place Wednesday and I asked the proprietor how business was. He said all right, but he was hurting as a result of the fires and Trump. And then he said he couldn’t believe he’d voted for the man. I asked him why he did so. And he said “I couldn’t vote for HER!”

How come the average person can see the truth but the educated elite, who control the Democratic party and look down upon the rest of us, can’t?

Harris was a bad candidate. A phony who could not get the public excited and sealed the deal on the nomination through a coup. Most insiders wanted some sort of primary system, even though they were wondering whether this was possible when Biden took so long to step down, but Joe believed he had to put his weight behind Kamala, after all, he’d picked her to be VP, and he gave her a heads-up early and she immediately called all her potential competitors and asked whether they were on her team, closing out competition.

The mechanics are interesting, but not definitive.

As for those saying we’ve got to stop looking at the past, these are the same people who won’t let you say anything negative about Kamala and her campaign. It’s this litmus test that makes people hate Democrats. You have to sign up for the orthodoxy, be all-in, or you’re excommunicated. Which gives talking points to the right. The Democrats won’t say no to anybody, and therefore test limits that the majority aren’t in agreement with. The whole pronoun thing… The Dems let themselves be labeled “woke” and never denied it, no matter what the truth, and it stuck to them.

AND NOW YOU’RE PISSED OFF!

Because you know better. Why are all these loser Democrats so convinced since they’re educated and watch MSNBC they know what the score is? Not to mention that you can only divine the score by turning on your smartphone, which they consider anathema, never mind social media. But the Democratic elite knows better, when it is out of touch.

And you can’t completely discount right wing news. There was an opinion piece in the “Wall Street Journal” that said the No Kings protests were self-satisfying, a way for demonstrators to feel good about themselves, with no ultimate real effect. BINGO! Just because you stood outside holding a sign don’t expect any true change to be fomented, that always comes down to economic issues. Then again, so many of the protesters are upper middle class and are fearful of losing out financially themselves.

Trump only reacts to money. He blinked on ICE cracking down when he heard from farmers saying they were relying on undocumented workers. He understands MONEY, but the Democrats refuse to enter the arena, all the while saying what a great job Joe Biden did.

Well, that’s not public perception, irrelevant of the truth.

If you want change you have to hurt Trump and his core constituency economically. And/or you’ve got to prove to Trumpers that they’re’ being hurt.

I’d start right there, with a campaign based on how much extra money the average person is spending as a result of Trump’s policies. Be SPECIFIC! Talk in dollars and cents, not generalities, that the public can understand.

Don’t try to spook people conceptually, it doesn’t resonate.

I’m a big believer in a national strike. One day when no one goes to work. There are not enough National Guard or military troops to knock on every door in America, keep everybody in line. You divide and conquer. This is how they do it in Europe, it’s not like it’s unfathomable, but elected Democrats won’t touch it, this has to come from the people.

All we hear from the Democrats is what we SHOULDN’T do. Don’t be violent. Okay, but does that mean all I can do is stand in the park with a sign?

Right now America isn’t good for anybody. Everybody is being hurt. From tech to auto manufacturers to the rank and file. Instead of pitting people against each other, organize on this theme and FIGHT BACK!

Even all those Trumpers who defend everything he does. That’s team sports more than reality. Don’t talk to them about Trump, but what they are LOSING!

And don’t depend upon the courts. Please. Even if you get a ruling, sans enforcement it’s meaningless. And Trump has avoided enforcing rulings again and again.

No, it all comes down to us and it all comes down to money. That’s the message, plain and simple.

And never forget, no one is immune to public perception and blowback. First and foremost, Trump wants to be liked. Once he feels that his own people aren’t on board, are pushing back, then he’ll reconsider. Don’t make it Democrats versus Trump, the Trumpers will rally around him. But if you focus on the economic issues, are people hurting…only people who are rich and want tax cuts disagree, and there are very few of those people.

Some blows have landed, like TACO. There will be more. But the key is to pull away from the day to day and strategize. Don’t expect the media to lead you, the media just reports. We the people lead. And we the people are demoralized, because our representatives have let us down.

This is truly simple. Make it about the money. Point out where Trump’s actions have hurt people. Take action financially re boycotts, etc., on those who are in bed with Trump.

This is easier than you think.

But the protesters are congratulating themselves and so much of the population is disillusioned that nothing is happening.

But it can.

“Titan: The OceanGate Disaster” – Netflix trailer: https://rb.gy/2235z2

This was not the film I expected it to be, not the gory details of the explosion, but the choices and behaviors leading up to it. Sure, they show some of the retrieved detritus, but there are not panicked recordings…

But you will be positively unnerved at the noises of carbon cracking as the titan descends during other dives.

So what we’ve got here is a self-serving educated man who believed not only that he was right, but that everybody else was wrong. Sound familiar? Absolutely yes. But most people are not playing with other people’s lives.

At the end of the doc it’s said that Stockton Rush was in pursuit of fame. Which he ultimately got, but not in the way he desired.

“Stockton”… On some level that’s all you really need to know. Of course his first name is not “Stockton,” it’s RICHARD! Was he always called “Stockton”? It’s possible, because prep school kids adopt these nontraditional first names that are sometimes derived out of thin air, but are oftentimes family names, which are their middle names, in this case it’s “Richard Stockton Rush III.”

I didn’t know anybody named “Brooke” until I went to Middlebury. That’s the advantage of going to an elite institution. Being exposed to those who never touched the public school system, who’ve been living an alternative life from day one. There were a lot of lessons this middle class Jewish suburbanite learned from being exposed to the prepsters. One, don’t take anything too seriously, it’s just another chapter in your life (then again, they had a job lined up from birth). The due date was flexible, not a strict deadline you had to obey. Give respect to authority’s face, denigrate in private. Don’t be flashy and stand out, better to wear chinos and Top-Siders than anything out of a fashion magazine. You don’t want to draw attention to yourself, that’s for the nouveau-riche, who are never accepted by the bluebloods. But the bluebloods run the world.

However it is a bit different today. Not everybody who is rich inherited their money, those who made it like to parade it. But the real string-pullers are people you don’t know the name of but wield incredible inside power, the ones who will benefit from the tax cut in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, if it passes.

That’s who Stockton was. He went to Exeter, and then on to Princeton. He only played at the top, and the only way he could make a name for himself was to do something extraordinary, ordinary riches were not for him, he wanted to go down in the HISTORY BOOKS!

So was Stockton Rush like a typical techie, pushing the envelope despite the naysaying, or was he out of his league from day one?

The latter.

Stockton hired all the experts. Who were intrigued by the idea. But when they blew the whistle, he froze them out and/or fired them. To the point where you were afraid to speak up. This was not Steve Jobs. Steve would insult you for poor work, he was in search of excellence, but his first move was not to fire you, furthermore he liked those most who could challenge him to create ever better things. Rush had an idea, and he was going to shoehorn his efforts to fit it, science be damned.

So on one hand you’re watching this documentary asking why Rush didn’t listen, on the other you’re thinking how almost every envelope-pusher does not. Then again, once again, most envelope-pushers are not dealing with people’s lives.

And you only hear about the winners, when they’re far outnumbered by the losers. Yes, delusional hypesters are plentiful, especially in the arts, where the barrier to entry is so low. People with little talent who spend decades trying to make it and don’t, because they’re just not good enough. They believe the system is stacked against them, that someone is out to get them, which is kind of what Stockton felt, except he had that pedigree and a modicum of intelligence.

You don’t change the world by listening to the establishment.

But you can’t bend the rules of science either.

So this is the story of Stockton’s adventure, from having an idea for a submersible to charge people to visit Titanic to actually doing it, whilst ignoring all the red flags along the way.

Everybody else built their submersible out of solid material, like steel, whereas Rush built his out of carbon fiber, because it would be lighter and cheaper.

They’ve been using carbon fiber in skis for years now. It’s light, and it’s strong, but no one has been able to get it right to the point where the skis are cheap and as good as what’s already on the market, most manufacturers have given up on the idea of carbon-fiber based skis. But if you bought a pair and didn’t like them, they didn’t disintegrate all at once and send you into a tree.

And you think the naysayers are all wusses who played along until the disaster. But this turns out not to be true. Are you willing to quit when you no longer believe?

Most people are not. They rationalize staying.

So ultimately “Titan” is an American story. An entrepreneur who convinces others to join the team by spinning a fantasy. Turns out being a great salesman is a key part of success. These people don’t care about you, just that they get what they want. Beware of salesmen, always.

But if you can’t sell, you’re never going to be a successful entrepreneur. Venture capital is built upon hopes and dreams, fantasies, the cutting edge, and oftentimes it’s discovered the purveyor is a huckster and the idea is faulty. This is especially true in entertainment, where everybody is full of sh*t and it’s hard to separate winners and losers, truth from fiction. This is what a big swinging dick in the entertainment business can do, ferret out who is real and who is not. Which is why executives are prone to working with those they know as opposed to those they do not. Especially in a world where everybody lies and everything is built on hype. The show that’s sold out oftentimes is not. The act has ten million streams on their single? Dig deep and you’ll oftentimes they don’t even have a hundred thousand, and when you catch them in a lie they just double-down. Hell, look at Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy, he lost in court this week, in a definitive decision, and what did he then say? HE WON! Then again, Donald Trump is a huckster/hypester and he lies all the time. And even his minions know this. So what’s the truth worth?

The truth is Stockton Rush was a bad guy whose effort was always going to end up in failure. The lights were flashing brightly. But when you see it all laid out in a movie, it makes you question more than the man, you have to rejigger your take on America, who is a bully with bluster with nothing at the core, do you do what is right or stay with the team?

There are bad actors out there. And not all of them are uneducated gang members in the inner city. Some come from the elite.

Like Stockton Rush.