It’s about the wireless. The Beats purchase finally makes sense.

I have a pair of Sennheiser Bluetooth headphones. Whenever I wear them, which is nearly every day, someone comments. They’re stunned. I love them. But the sound is limited, in quality and volume. It appears that Apple has solved this problem, with its W1 chip.

I’d love to tell you today’s Apple presentation was a home run. But they’ve lost touch with the fact that it is a presentation, that it is entertainment. The Carpool Karaoke opening was a left field stunner, it humanized Tim Cook, who’s badly in need of being seen as more than a droid. But then it went on too long, with Pharrell in the back seat. There’s a skill in performance. We in Hollywood get pissed on by those up north. But without our content, without our ability to tell a story, their devices are useless. Sometimes you’ve got to leave the best stuff out. But no one at Apple knew where to draw the line.

And the presentation got boringer and boringer, with not only Cook, but a rainbow coalition of women and ethnicities. Is that the nation we’ve become, where we’re so busy being politically correct that it affects our culture? We want to give everybody an opportunity, a leg up, but when it’s the bottom of the ninth and you’re two behind…

You bring out Phil Schiller.

The Watch guy… Didn’t tell us if the Watch itself was improved. It was all about software, there was no mention of charging times, of functionality re the screen staying on. He blew his chance.

But Phil Schiller, the old white guy…

He blew us away!

It’s about keeping our attention. Something Sia is not doing as I write this. The breakthrough would be to have no music, the idea of a star du jour playing at the end of these shows is so stale that it should not be repeated, but, once again, no one left at Apple has a sense of theatre.

So, Phil comes out without any bells and whistles, tells us he’s got a ten point program, and keeps us in rapt attention as he goes through the list. This is the modern paradigm, we don’t have a short attention span, just an incredible detector of b.s., we change the channel if you’re not great, that’s the world we live in, where excellence triumphs and everything else is left in the dust.

The cameras… Those were impressive.

As well as the performance specs.

As for design… To hear Jony Ive testify is to think of an SNL skit, this guy has become a parody of himself, this element should be abandoned too, get someone else to narrate, better to do live.

But, it’s what was left behind which is most interesting. We’ve been hearing for months that Apple is abandoning the headphone port. It’s been lamented, no one has explained the change until yesterday, when David Pogue gave a convincing case.

Why The Headphone Jack Must Die

That’s the nation we now live in, where facts are irrelevant and everybody wants to stay in the past. We need a national explainer, like Walter Cronkite way back when, to keep everybody up to speed on what is really going on. If you watched this presentation you’d be glad the headphone port is gone, and, to boot, they included a lightning adapter for your old phones! Headphones, that is.

But it’s the wireless ones that were intriguing. The pods looked…futuristic and funky, you almost don’t want to be seen wearing them. But when they said the Beats headphones would include the W1 chip and the resulting wireless I was intrigued, that’s what I want, high quality wireless sound, this is a breakthrough.

Will they license the technology? Are the specs really that good?

That’s unclear.

What is clear is that the star is the product, built by human beings.

The star is the music, built by human beings.

You lead with the product.

People care about the product.

But most people believe they deserve attention when they cannot get out of their own way and cannot deliver something deserving of interest.

We need thinkers. We need pushers of the envelope. We need people who pay their dues who are willing to do it different.

That’s the Steve Jobs way.

P.S. Too many old people in the audience. Makes Android look like a youth movement.

P.P.S. Only 17 million Apple Music subscribers, who skew old too? It’s like Apple Music is spinning off into its own universe that the rest of us can comfortably avoid. Bells and whistles are irrelevant when the underlying infrastructure sucks. You watch this presentation and wonder if this stuff really works, whether you can swim with the Watch, but today we expect everything to work right, right out of the box. Apple Music didn’t and still doesn’t. It needs a rethink and a rewrite. And no exclusive appearance by Sia will push it forward. We’re looking for visceral excitement, the only person who delivered it today was Phil Schiller.

P.P.P.S. I want a date with Toadette!

This should have been bad. Seventies act far beyond its years playing to a multitude that didn’t care in a faraway land where no discerning eyes are present. But that wasn’t the case, this show was FANTASTIC! INCREDIBLE! ASTOUNDING! THE BEST OF THE YEAR!

And how can that be?

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

In a world where how EARLY you wake up is a badge of honor, it’s refreshing to be re-rooted to a world where all the good things happen at night, and it’s not when you get up, but how long you STAY UP!

There’s no place more bizarre than a county fair. In this case in far-off Pomona, a sea of people you see nowhere else, bad bodies, various ethnicities, only an hour from L.A. but in mind-set and visuals as far away as Iowa or Mississippi. You’re forced to walk through a midway of vomit-inducing rides, vittles that might cause a heart attack and ultimately funneled to a grandstand that looks like it hasn’t had a dime invested this century. And then the screens light up, introducing the band, yes, they brought their full production, and the guitars start to scream, the drums start to pound, Paul Rodgers twirls the mic stand and sings the above lyrics and…

I’M TINGLING AS I WRITE THIS! I IMMEDIATELY JUMPED TO MY FEET AND THRUST MY ARM IN THE AIR! It was like it was still the seventies and music was the most important medium in the world and fully worth living for. This was a show where you didn’t pull out your cell phone unless it was to take a photo, you didn’t want to take your eyes off the band, you felt when they left the stage you might not get another chance.

And it wasn’t just me. The middle-aged women next to me were twisting and turning their bodies, singing every word at the top of their lungs. The Latino men in front of me were doing the same thing. The fat white guy to the right, he was getting more exercise than he probably got in a month. The assembled multitude was gyrating like rock music was the most important thing in the world, the elixir of life, they were taking it all in AND GIVING IT ALL BACK!

Come on, “Ready For Love” was a Mick Ralphs cut on a Mott The Hoople record that was redone more slowly for the initial Bad Company LP, an album track for sure. But when Paul Rodgers dropped the mic and stopped singing…everybody in attendance sang in unison that they were READY FOR LOVE, OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN! It was like an alternative universe, where not only rock ruled, but Bad Company were legends, the toppermost of the poppermost, rock royalty come back to get its just accolades. WHEW!

They get no love. The punksters and hipsters at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame pooh-pooh them, lauding fraudsters like Patti Smith and Joan Jett when it’s groups like this that are the heart of rock and roll. And I’ve been to see Kiss, but the mania for Bad Company was bigger. And I love the guys in Rush, but this audience was half women, and they weren’t dragged by their boyfriends, THEY NEEDED TO BE THERE!

It’s almost like they don’t exist. No one ever talks about Bad Company. But here they are, in plain sight, and they’re LEGENDS!

And it wasn’t only “Ready For Love.” The audience took over for “Shooting Star” too.

Johnny was a schoolboy
When he heard his first Beatles song

So was I, so were you. We heard this sound and it changed our lives, it gave us something to live for. And Saturday night I felt like I was at the church, the synagogue of my life, re-centered, I’m a rocker, always was and forever will be.

And speaking of rock…

This is the show you want to see, not Guns N’ Roses, they ran circles around Axl and Slash. You see there were TWO lead guitarists. Howard Leese of Heart and Rich Robinson of the Black Crowes. And not only did they riff off each other, they played in unison… We went there to relive what once was and we didn’t know they were gonna reinvent it and push the envelope into the future. Leese doesn’t get enough respect, he WAILED! And after watching Robinson… Just because you’re not the frontman, that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve credit, Chris Robinson gets all the accolades, but now I’m re-evaluating.

And speaking of re-evaluating…

Legend has it Paul Rodgers still has his voice, when almost no one from that era still does. And not only is that true, he played the guitar and the PIANO! He tickled the ivories and I was stunned, this was not some lame singer, this was a MUSICIAN! And except for a storm effect at the beginning of “Burnin’ Sky,” nothing was on hard drive, it was just real music, all the time, played on guitars, how it once was and seemingly forever more will no longer be. It was like being jetted back to the past where everything was different. Where how you looked paled in comparison to how you played. Where it was all about a big sound emanating from the speakers, one you created by practicing in your bedroom for eons, alone. IT WAS REVELATORY!

Sure, they played “Can’t Get Enough,” but they also played “Crazy Circles,” it was just as hypnotic as it was on wax.

Life is like a merry-go-round
Painted horses riding up and down
Music takes you and you’re gone again

ABSOLUTELY!

What if I told you there was an era where we were glued to the radio, where we lived at the record store, where being into music wasn’t only one thing, it was EVERYTHING! That’s what it was like during the seventies, when you went to the show not to be seen, but to connect with the band, which wasn’t featured in social media, which made it on the music alone, which went from town to town living a life of luxury and debauchery, with wine and drugs and sex and…it was everything we wanted, everywhere we wanted to be, musicians were the richest and most powerful people in America…AND WE LOVED IT!

Yes, it’s all part of my rock ‘n roll fantasy…AND THEY PLAYED THAT TOO! I knew every lick, every word…AND SO DID EVERYBODY ELSE! Was it all that airplay on classic rock radio, could it be that this band with no respect and no ink RULES?

YES!

Bad Company, and I can’t deny. Paul sat at the piano and began the riff and the crowd swooned, they immediately recognized it. Simon Kirke pounded the drums like he was still looking for his ticket out of obscurity and the entire joint levitated, high on the sound.

We were rocking steady, which was the second encore. We couldn’t believe it. We were at the heart of rock and roll, and it was still beating. The band was not punching the clock, they were feeding off our energy.

And I still haven’t gotten over it.

He gave Irving Azoff his first job in Hollywood.

Irving sent letters to all the major players and Jerry was the only one who said yes, and Irving was loyal to Jerry forever thereafter, because that’s how the game is played, you remember where you came from.

‘Cause I was wondering why Irving would respond. We’d get caught up in these e-mail chains…

Jerry had a band. It was from Denver or Philly or Pittsburgh and he put on the full court press, if you didn’t go to the show you’d pay, the Israeli Mafia would come after you. That’s right, Jerry had support. Bodyguards. He lived through the rap wars.

As for what happened with Jerry and Eazy-E and Dre… I don’t know. As a matter of fact, Jerry never bitched about them to me. All the hatred seems to go in one direction. You can read his book if you want his viewpoint, which is interesting but has been plowed under.

But Jerry could tell a tale. He’d get you in a corner and go on like he was revealing state secrets.

He told me about Dre going to Death Row. And the most fascinating part involved Jimmy Iovine. Scared for his life. Riding in his limo lying down so he wouldn’t get shot.

Would Jimmy tell it the same way?

I don’t know.

But my favorite Jerry Heller story, the one I tell over and over again, is…

A guy was writing a book about Ruthless Records. And Jerry’s going on about it, because with Jerry everything was ultra-important, the world depended upon it. And the guy asked…

“How many albums did you sell at Ruthless Records?”

SEVENTY MILLION!

And then Jerry leaned his head into mine and said sotto voce, like in a “Godfather” movie…MY COMPANY, MY NUMBER!

And there you have the music business in a nutshell, it’s all smoke and mirrors.

Jerry was good entertainment, even if you got uptight every time you heard from him.

He’s gone now.

“Another Apple Exclusive: Travis Scott”

This is the company that doesn’t pay taxes.

I don’t know why everybody keeps pontificating that Apple is a beloved enterprise whose customers will follow it like lemmings no matter where it goes. That’s a dying paradigm which is undermined every time the Cupertino company does something consumer unfriendly.

This is not DuPont, not some mining company no consumer actually touches. Rather, Apple made its bones by selling to the rank and file, not corporations. And even though Tim Cook has tied up with IBM, even though there’s been a push into the corporate sphere, the lion’s share of the dough comes from you and me. And we’re starting not to like these people.

Cook is bland, Jony Ive has disappeared, and Eddy Cue was lambasted in the “Wall Street Journal” for overreaching.

Apple’s Hard-Charging Tactics Hurt TV Expansion

As for Apple Music, it’s faceless. Musicians criticize Daniel Ek, but they don’t know who to complain about at Apple Music. Until Apple-bleeder Sean Glass said that Larry Jackson was the man, no one knew who was working with acts at Apple.

Apple Music Exclusives – Sean Glass

As for Jimmy Iovine, he seems to be in the witness protection program.

Kind of like streaming itself.

There’s a fiction that these exclusives will drive subscriptions.

I’m not so sure. You see the average person just doesn’t need one. At least that’s what they believe. Sure, YouTube is free, but the Tidal people kept bitching the competition didn’t pay enough and they were getting poor when they were all rich, the wannabes and already made-its say Spotify doesn’t pay enough and Apple Music…worked even worse than MobileMe and is about as desirable as the Watch. As for their vaunted Beats 1 radio service, when in hell did anybody have a “successful” product and not tell anybody about it, that’s not Entertainment 101. The reason we haven’t heard any ratings numbers is because they suck, you know that. And now the Apple Music Festival in London is going behind the paywall.

Watching Apple’s Music Festival will now require a subscription

This is like charging people for single episodes of “Vinyl” and “Roadies,” they just don’t care. You’ve got to make people want the product first before you can charge them. What next, an entry fee at the Apple Store?

Spotify says the free tier causes conversion, you’ve got to taste it to embrace it, like dope. I was against the service being free on the mobile handset, but data said it caused conversion, so I was convinced. As for the future, tweaks are reasonable, but I wouldn’t go against the data, no growing company does. But we live in an industry where it’s show me the money 24/7 and we do our best to destroy our nest egg. Recording revenues are off by 66% since the turn of the century… Are we gonna blame that all on pirates? No, I think the industry is complicit. First by selling overpriced CDs with only one good track. If I was running the world I’d be more fan-friendly. But no, the music industry would rather have the public as an enemy, in an adversarial position, is this any way to run a business? OF COURSE NOT!

As for Lucian Grainge banning exclusives… I’m worried we’ve got a “Hit Men” situation, wherein CBS drops indie promo and everybody else doubles down, loves the lack of competition. Time will see but in a world where cash is everything it’s not hard to believe these acts are dashing for it.

Do you know who Travis Scott is?

I don’t. And I’m proud of it. And the only people who do are young without credit cards, and they’re gonna tell their parents to cough up ten bucks a month for Apple Music? Come on, they’re just gonna steal it, find it elsewhere like with Frank Ocean.

WOW: Entire Frank Ocean Album Is Now Available on SoundCloud…

Frank Ocean’s Entire ‘Blonde’ Album Is Now Available on YouTube…

You’ve got to convince the people with the wallets first, the parents.

I’m interested to see iPhone 7 adoption. Because handsets are no longer subsidized in the U.S. And it is not a revolution, that’s the iPhone 8, next year.

What has Apple done for us lately? Just ask Walt Mossberg, who drank the kool-aid, who was a friend of Jobs, he questions a company that hasn’t upgraded its laptops in four years.

Mossberg: The post-Jobs Apple has soared financially, but lacks a breakthrough product

This is the gang that can’t shoot straight. As for Samsung Galaxy Note 7’s burning up… Who cares? Samsung is the alternative, the yin to the yang. People are gonna jump from Android to Apple like they do from Trump to Clinton, as in NEVER!

What kind of enticement is this? Music that used to be free on YouTube, that I can still buy on iTunes, I’ve got to pay ten bucks a month to hear it and then have it disappear?

We’re putting the cart before the horse. Closing the barn door before most people see a need to pass through it. Exclusives would work better when everybody paid for a music subscription and they might jump ship. Now it’s just a circle jerk amongst players who want to get paid and a corporation rolling in dough with no future roadmap. But ain’t that America, where everybody has their head in the sand until disaster arrives. Kind of like BlackBerry. The company thought it was indomitable and so did the financial press, and then it crashed. It used less data! It was more secure! There was a keyboard! Who cares!

Who cares about these exclusives other than those involved with them?

Almost nobody.