I started reading the new Pynchon book. It got good reviews and I love him in principle, he’s disconnected, he’s a writer, he doesn’t need the penumbra, the media profile. Then again, I bought “Gravity’s Rainbow” and never made much headway, never mind “The Crying of Lot 49.” So I’d just finished this book “The […]

Peter Guralnick has written the definitive Elvis Presley books, “Last Train to Memphis” and “Careless Love.” His latest is about Elvis’s manager, “The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley and the Partnership that Rocked the World.”  Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/peter-guralnick/id1316200737?i=1000733121871 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/40a99a83-89d4-4894-9e39-c02fb6dac5c1/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-peter-guralnick

He didn’t want to repeat himself. I know people my age who are doing the exact same thing in the music business they were doing forty years ago, the only thing that’s changed is the names. The acts come and go, they remain. Paid well, but isn’t it soul-crushing? Speaking of soul-crushing… What is it […]

NIGHT CALL I found out about this via the “New York Times” Watching newsletter. I highly recommend you sign up for it. Not everything mentioned is great, but you can triangulate, do research, before you dive in. Once again, I find streaming algorithms and media hype unreliable. To give you an example, advance word was […]