This is not the movie you wanted it to be.

This is a business story. About the power of individuals, with big dreams and the ability and desire to make them come true.

No Russ Solomon, no Tower Records.

Your heart will pitter-patter when you see Elton John combing the aisles in a tracksuit before opening, hoovering up LPs as Tower’s best customer.

You’ll puke watching Dave Grohl talk his way through nostalgia, who made this guy the keeper of the flame? If Kurt Cobain were still alive today he’d want nothing to do with him.

That’s what’s wrong with today’s music business, the incredible yearning for what once was. But even Russ knows it’s never coming back.

Russ. He took a risk his own dad did not want to. He opened up a record shop and then another and another. And along the way he hired his family and then the longhairs no one else would. No ties and you could wear your street clothes. Oh, how far we’ve come, today what you wear is more important than who you are, and that’s just plain sad.

But the paradigm remains the same, it’s about scale. Being able to replicate an item at low cost and sell it to everybody. That’s what music was. It was the cultural grease of an entire generation. It was the radio and the stereo and the concerts, it was the iPhone of its day.

With a lot fewer zeros.

We’re never going back to the past, just like the industrial revolution looks quaint compared with the 1960s. Wal-Mart leveled the corner store and then Amazon leveled Wal-Mart. The customer is inured to top shelf products at the lowest price delivered nearly instantly. If anything, costs are gonna come down and delivery is gonna speed up. You mean you want them to go to a retail shop, you mean you want them to stand in line for tickets?

Starting at the bottom. Everybody began as a clerk. That’s why they hated Mike, Russ’s son, he didn’t pay his dues, he got no respect.

Whereas today the badge of honor is dropping out of Harvard and running a tech company. We revere the intelligent, and some become rich upon the scraps thrown away. And those outside try to play in this tech sphere laughingly. No one is good at everything. Own what you do. But how can you feel good about yourself when there’s a cadre of people making so much money!

It’s a financial nuclear bomb. It was exploded a couple of decades back, and we’re just feeling the effects now. Not only did they kill physical retail, they took our jobs too. We might get free music, but we’re paying for it with our attention, with our postings on social media. The only thing that doesn’t scale is us. We keep clicking, looking for attention, but fewer care. Otherwise why would YouTube start to charge? There’s just not enough money in placing advertisements against your home videos. No one cares.

But we all cared about music.

So Russ kept saying yes. Primarily to expansion. If you had a good idea he’d let you run with it. And he had a financial wizard to keep him in place. And when the CFO left the company…

The truth is the tide turned. No one could have saved Tower Records.

But the story of how it was built is a lesson those with MBAs should study, instead of self-satisfyingly writing their business plans and perusing their spreadsheets.

Money comes last.

The idea is first.

Then comes execution.

Not all ideas take hold. But those that do…

Tower was not the only record chain. But it won by doing things differently. Refusing to overcharge and carrying a staggering amount of inventory. Tower had it. Kind of like Amazon today. But instead of visiting online, you went in person.

And it was all about the Sunset store. When Tower closed down, the Strip faded, it’s nearly history, rock is gone and condos are rising.

Because Tower was a mecca. A shrine. Where all the music was. The Apple Store on steroids.

But unlike at Steve Jobs’s creation, the help at Tower was rude and barely existed. The store was a paragon of hip. And if you weren’t, you didn’t belong. Or you could start studying. And many did, because they wanted to be involved.

We knew about the acts, the players, the information was our manna. It was not about us, but them, the stars, those ruling our universe. Today everybody believes that they individually rule, but that can’t be.

So you need a visionary.

Who empowers his troops.

Who creates a work culture. Where people are loved as opposed to threatened.

You’ll be stunned at the ragtag group of employees. From Sacramento, for godssakes. Without college degrees on the fast track to nowhere. But they got the job done, on pure passion and hard work. Pay was crappy, but you could live on five bucks an hour.

You can’t any longer.

We need music. It’s part of life.

But once upon a time it was the only thing.

We don’t need more Tower Records. We don’t need more vinyl. We don’t need higher prices. WE NEED MORE RUSS SOLOMONS! A guy just like you and me, but different. Who knew work was supposed to be fun. Who operated with a gleam in his eye. Who knew you didn’t have to have all of the money, just some.

So write your app.

Post your selfie.

Try to make it through the sieve of modern life.

But some of us have lived long enough to know how it once was. When it was more decentralized and not only music, but information was scarce. And back then there were business titans just like today. And stunningly, none of them wore suits. And none of them reported to higher-ups. They had to do it their way, and they won.

For a while anyway.

P.S. This phony-baloney movie is so wrongheaded that it shows the triumph of Tower Japan at the end as evidence that Russ’s vision still rings true. But Japan is the last standing physical market, where not only streaming doesn’t rule, but neither does files. It’s all going to crater soon, along with Tower Records. Proving that timing is everything. Which was a big point in Gladwell’s book. Just because you put in 10,000 hours, that does not mean you’re gonna be rich, timing is everything.

P.P.S. The star of the show is one Jim Urie, the recently retired Universal sales majordomo. Who tears up while telling the story of Russ inviting him to dinner after he’d been fired. Humanity is everything, that’s what we’ve lost in this digital age.

P.P.P.S. Documentaries have it right, music has it wrong. Although “All Things Must Pass” is playing in theatres, its true life will be on Netflix and other digital outlets, where people will stream it. Those who believe it’s about the initial impact, getting in and out fast, are lost in the modern economy. You’ve got to last. Streaming pays…if people keep streaming your tunes.

P.P.P.P.S. Speaking of pay, tickets used to be four, five and six dollars. Musicians were not that much more wealthy than we were, their pay scale was reachable, unlike that of the billionaire techies. When you’re complaining that you can’t make bank know that the enemy is society at large. You don’t scale. If everybody was listening to your music you’d be a lot richer. But never as rich as the tech CEO.

P.P.P.P.P.S. Once again, if you’re watching this movie to feel all warm and fuzzy, remembering what once was, you’re gonna be disappointed. Because the truth is Tower Records was a retail joint. A business. The soul was the music, and that’s not what this film is about. Then again, there’s a lot of money to be made on the penumbra of the action. Like cell phone bumpers. People gravitate to what’s hot, they find a way to make it pay. But music is no longer hot, sorry.

The Tsar of Love and Techno: Stories

Marketing is a start.

But it’s word of mouth that rules this world.

And I’m telling you to read Anthony Marra’s new book, “The Tsar of Love and Techno.” Not because it has music in the title, but because it will make you forget about your little life and its everyday troubles and will take you away to a world so horrible you’ll be thankful you live on the underside of this great nation of ours.

Maybe you read Marra’s previous book, “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena.” Probably not, because it’s about war in Chechnya, which most Americans can’t pick out on a map, certainly not me, all I know is the Russians got their ass kicked there. Kinda the way Apple’s getting its ass kicked in streaming music. The big kahuna doesn’t always win. That’s a myth we believe in in order to make order in this world. If the Yankees spend a fortune they should be World Champions, right? But no, little KC and St. Louis are the powerhouses.

Not that I would have bought “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena,” it was a gift from Daniel Glass. Who sends items on a  regular basis, because he cares. Kinda strange in today’s dog eat dog world where everybody’s out for themselves. But Daniel learned from the masters decades back, before life got coarse, and he’s passionate about music, but nearly equally as passionate about books.

As am I.

Didn’t used to be. It was the Kindle that got me. Felice bought me one for my birthday back in 2009 and I’ve been on a reading tear ever since. I was intrigued by not only the new technology, but the low price of books, I felt I was on the leading edge of a revolution, which I was until the publishing industry and its compliant authors took back the power from the Seattle giant and killed the business. You see they wanted it for themselves. Which is kinda why novels are stagnant. Because it’s a club and you’re not a member, they don’t want you. You think record execs are bad, publishers are much worse, kinda like movie executives on steroids, people who believe they’re better than us. And I’m not going to laud the uneducated, but the publishing world is everything I hate about New York, where your pedigree rules and it’s all about keeping everybody else down. Come on, have you seen Donald Trump’s act?

Books are so passe it’s laughable. And so many are written by graduates of writing workshops where the standard is unreadability. It’s like they pack their tomes with words you have to look up to make them feel better about themselves. Whereas the first criterion of a book is readability.

And I’d be lying if I told you “The Tsar of Love and Techno” cuts like butter. I’m the kind of reader who has to get everything, who can’t skim, who wants to be able to picture it in my mind. But I advise you to run roughshod and go for the plot, and then you’ll get into the rhythm of this book.

Of short stories.

No, wait a minute, hold on, they’re linked!

Yes, it’s really one big book. Well, kinda slim actually. But the characters reappear and when they do it’s like finding out the clue to a crossword you didn’t know you were doing, the satisfaction is palpable.

As is the wisdom.

That’s why I read novels, for the wisdom.

“People who have it easy are always telling you how hard it is.”

EUREKA! BINGO! THAT’S IT!

People who are truly working hard don’t complain, they believe the results of their efforts are sufficient. But dilettantes, those who need us to admire them, they keep telling us how hard their lives are…as they go nowhere.

“Wealth announces itself with what’s easy to break and impossible to clean.”

Ever see a white rug in a poor person’s house? Where you find plastic plates and linoleum flooring?

“You know I hate stories.”

I live for them. I want to hear yours. Where you came from, how you got here, where you want to go, how you feel about it all. Especially the loss, the one who got away, the time you got fired…I want to experience your humanity. But someone close to me does not. If it’s more than sentence, she tells you to stop. I thought she was the only one, but now I’ve read this book.

“…but the obvious is only obvious when it happens to someone else. We’ve all ended up with men we’d pity others for marrying.”

Everybody is not a winner, everybody can’t be married to a movie star. Life is about compromise, about seeing the good, which ultimately transcends the mediocre, the less than you hoped for. If you’re not willing to roll with the changes, you’re not going to get anywhere. Kinda like the people I know who never married, no one was ever good enough. And you don’t have to be that good, you just have to stop judging and stop worrying about what other people think. Because so many people have a heart of gold if you’d just start mining for it.

“It takes nothing less than the whole might of the state to erase a person, but only the error of one individual – if that is what memory is now called – to preserve her.”

I guess you’ve got to read the book to get that one. About the artist whose job it is to paint people out of history, the one who turns his brother into the government.

This all happens in Russia. From the revolution to now. What’s it like to be right and still be wrong. Just ask the people who plead guilty to get out of jail…we’ve got that problem in modern America, those who didn’t do it who say they did so they can get back to their regular lives sooner.

And then there are those exiled to Siberia. Where the mines will kill you and you can kiss ass but you’re still not getting back to Moscow.

Unless you’re beautiful.

But then you’re haunted by where you came from…until you screw up and return. It’s as if Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie lost all their money and cred and had to return to where they grew up, and you rubbed elbows with them at the grocery store, what would that feel like? Read this book and you’ll find out.

We’re in this together.

But we don’t know it. I’d say those in power want to keep us divided but the truth is they can’t shoot straight, and life is so difficult that if we just stopped trying to climb the greased pole, if we were just nicer to each other, if we just realized we were the same…

We’d be so much happier.

The switch flipped back in 1980, maybe the beginning of ’81, it coincided with the election of Reagan, but what really happened back then, what started in the late seventies, was a focus on money.

Baby boomers didn’t care about money. They’d grown up with enough of it. And those who hadn’t didn’t know any better. Flyover country was thus, assuming you ever got in an airplane to begin with. Unless you moved to New York or L.A. you were clueless as to how the other half lived. Sure, there were glamour-pusses on television, but you lived in an Archie/Betty world where the metaphor was high school. You graduated and grew up but everything remained the same, you were tarred with not only your moniker but the impression you made years before, this was you…a bumpkin in the greatest country on earth, where gasoline was cheap, sex was free and happiness reigned.

Until inflation hit double digits and the economy tanked and everybody was wondering what came next. They decided to put their faith in an old man with gravitas but little more behind the facade and then everything truly changed.

1981… An era of CNN and MTV, cable television ruled. We could now see what was going on everywhere else, and sitting at home in the hinterlands we decided we wanted some of that. Suddenly, having a tricked-out Chevy didn’t mean that much, you were now competing against everybody, and it didn’t feel good.

And since competition was now the norm, you might as well win. And we know that rules are just meant to be bent, not only by Michael Milken and his troops at Drexel Burnham Lambert, our first exposure to the riches of finance, but everyone, in order to become wealthy, in order to get ahead.

Taxes were lowered, inflation was under control, the bubble known as the baby boomers had obligations, they needed to feed and house their progeny and this required cash. The sixties went out the window instantly. It was no longer love your brother but screw your neighbor and sleep with one eye open, while you’re snorting Colombia’s finest and parading down the boulevard in German iron, which suddenly replaced Cadillac as the symbol of success.

And we know that ultimately we all prayed at the altar of Apple, except those needing to maintain a renegade identity, seen mostly as a rearguard identity, but it was in the eighties that the populace became stratified, that winners pulled away from the losers, and kicked dust in their eyes while they were at it.

And there was a war, but no draft, and the end result was a baby boomer President who reigned over a prosperity so glorious, we all felt entitled. The deficit got wiped out, Wall Street was burgeoning, and then it all went to hell.

Credit Napster.

Well, Napster was the harbinger. Wherein everything we thought we knew turned out to be wrong. That you got ahead by paying your dues and sure, sharp elbows helped, but you knew your place in the firmament, how did Shawn Fanning decide he was king, never mind take all that property that wasn’t his?

And Shawn had the backing of Silicon Valley. An entity heretofore unknown by the masses, who still didn’t have smartphones, but those who thought they were winning suddenly found out they weren’t, for story after story told them the new tech titans were rich!

Richer than ballplayers.

Richer than bankers.

Even richer than musicians.

And the seeds of desperation were sown.

Now he not busy moving forward was busy falling behind.

But we had an ace in the hole, the internet. It favored merit. If you had the right stuff you could go viral. Happened to PSY, right? He might have been Korean, but he muddled his way through Berklee and had the last laugh and if you were sitting at home with the new tools you too could win, right?

Wrong.

Internet cacophony came along and stole your chance. There was no way to get ahead. You could rant about income inequality, but those with the cash felt entitled to it, they worked hard, they were the job creators, and the fact that you were an honest bloke just didn’t matter in this new winner take all society, which so many titans of yore still don’t understand, the truth is one enterprise gets all the lucre online, it’s just a constant battle, a winnowing-down, until we learn who the victor is.

So children are either on the right track or wrong at age five. I’d say you have to go to the right kindergarten, but the truth is you have to go to the right pre-school. City parents understand this, the desperation starts early. As for those too ignorant to know the game, their fate is sealed soon. Elite colleges are need-blind, be smart enough and you get a free ride. But the valedictorians in the hinterlands don’t know this and go to the state school, where they’re left behind. Oh, you don’t get a better education at the Ivys, you just hang with a better class of PEOPLE! Harvard owns comedy. How do you think Conan O’Brien got there? Although he’s losing today, if you’re just part of the pack, you might as well not exist. And you want a degree from Kellogg, or you can get your MBA from Stanford, where you’ll make connections, establish relationships, which will make sure you don’t fall behind.

While everybody else struggles to impress.

That’s what social media has become. It’s no longer about bonding but impressing. Surf Facebook and Instagram and you’ll feel inadequate. But the truth is those two-dimensional icons known as people are not winning, they’re just on the treadmill of desperation, they got screwed in ways they can’t comprehend and they now want a piece of the rock. And if they can’t get that, they don’t want to fall behind.

And you have so many opportunities to fall behind.

Used to be it was about finding yourself, taking some time off after college to enrich your experience and plot a new direction.

Now everybody starts climbing the ladder immediately. Because if you don’t, your resume has a hole in it. And your LinkedIn profile must be perfect, otherwise you won’t get a job. And a job is everything these days, it’s your entire identity. Unemployment is not only unenjoyment, you’re a pariah, invitations dry up, depression sets in, you grasp for a life preserver but no one’s throwing one, everybody’s too busy protecting their own interest, trying to get ahead.

And then there are those who deny the above. It’s a badge of honor, they’re good people with good values and that’s what it’s all about, right?

Wrong. You can’t get a seat at the restaurant, the winners buy all the tickets on StubHub and you’re left behind with like-minded people wondering how this all happened, how you got screwed without knowing it.

It permeates all walks of life. The internet is riddled with networking shenanigans. You’ve got to have a lot of friends, a lot of likes, if you don’t you’re a loser, you’re never going to get ahead. Everything is quantified, everything can be counted, data rules, if it’s fuzzy, we don’t care.

So complaining rules.

That’s the story in music. The enemy is Daniel Ek. Or maybe the public. Because it used to be you could survive but now you can’t. You’re living with your parents, you’re living off your spouse, you’re desperate.

As are those who bought the mantra that ownership was king. If you had your own home, you ruled. Until the banks failed, you lost your job and it was all taken away from you.

And the CEOs are desperate too. That’s why they insist on making so much dough. Because it could end at any time, and they want to be prepared. Or maybe we should blame the corporate boards, who desperately believe they have to have a winner at the helm, to promote from within is anathema. Better to poach talent and brag about compensation, then you’re immune to criticism.

We all believe paying top dollar generates a get out of jail free card. A BMW won’t break. Louis Vuitton is better than the no-name brands. And if you brandish an iPhone, you’re a winner.

Yup, that changed too. Used to be you were proud of your Galaxy, now it just illustrates you haven’t gotten the memo, Samsung is so 2013, before Apple ended up with all the profits and if you don’t iMessage you’re nobody.

We’re all hopping from island to island, as the Whac-A-Mole hammer comes down hard in pursuit. We look for someone to blame. The easiest target is the government, which wastes the money which would make us whole, that we worked so hard for. And the corporations are the enemy.

But the truth is the enemy is us. We’ve lost all perspective. We’ve thrown our values out the window. The baby boomers lost touch with everything they believed in, they no longer remember Jesse Colin Young, never mind getting together. And they imparted these dash for cash and status values to their progeny, who are throwing the tech long ball like an inner city denizen lobs a basketball in pursuit of an NBA career, despite odds being so low. I mean somebody wins, it might as well be me, right?

Wrong. The game is rigged. But you can’t stop playing. You’re addicted to free, not knowing that you’re the product, you’re being bought and sold to advertisers. And that few are paying attention to you.
And every couple of years they wipe the slate clean. MySpace gave way to Facebook. Twitter is fading. And it always happens the same way, when the old site is riddled with self-promotion, desperation in camouflage, people gravitate to a new platform believing it will be different.

But it’s not.

Snapchat is just a way for another twentysomething to become a billionaire.

Nothing lasts. Your BlackBerry sits in a drawer, with your iPods and maybe an old laptop or two. You’re desperate for something to hold on to, to believe in, so you pay for experiences, which don’t count unless you document them online. With selfies. Selfie stick? That’s right, another manufacturer profiting off your narcissism, which is just desperation in disguise.

Some have opted out. But since they’re not bragging about it, not employing the online microphone to tell you they’re right and you’re wrong, they garner little attention. Because the media is desperate too, it’s been disrupted by the same twentysomething techies and all it knows is gossip sells, isn’t Kim Kardashian rich?

Of course.

Used to be she was ridiculed for being famous for nothing. Now she’s seen as a phenomenal businessperson. Because that’s all the matters today, your business. Identity and values are irrelevant, unless they can be distilled to money and image, what we truly pay fealty to in America.

That’s right, religion is dying. Forget the blowhards yelling loudly, statistics tell us millennials don’t have a God complex, unless it involves themselves. Their parents told them they were deities and they’re entitled to win and if that means steamrolling over you, so be it, because it’s a dog eat dog world and no one likes to be eaten.

So build that resume, post away. Count your likes. Buy your followers. Be a denizen of the twenty first century, wherein we all desperately play online roulette but the game is rigged, only a tiny core of usual suspects can win, oftentimes by putting their thumb on the wheel.

We want out, we want someone to believe in, but everywhere we turn we find false idols. Musicians selling out to corporations who can’t be trusted. If Volkswagen cheats on emissions tests why should you walk the line? No one got arrested after the banks crashed and no one’s giving back their salary at VW.

So it’s back to the salt mines. Where you toil away on your mobile, playing the game of life, wherein you constantly seek status.

Desperately.

They’re doing God’s work.

While the rest of America is dashing for cash, while wannabe musicians keep complaining about Spotify, as if they could hold back the future, as if they were owed a living in music, a ragtag band of musicians and entrepreneurs is birthing the next generation of rock and rollers for the sheer joy of it. I’m not saying they’re not getting paid, I’m just saying they’re not getting rich. In cash, that is.

Greetings from Las Vegas, where it’s gray and the season is turning but it’s always the same. A place where people come to let loose and forget who they are, served by an underclass happy to have a job. When it’s 24 hour everything you can get a gig working the graveyard shift, it may not pay well, but no one’s paying attention. That’s the luxury of Vegas, what happens here no one cares about. Except if you’re rich and famous.

But most people are not.

The dynamo of the School of Rock is a dentist. Who’s not a player. He got infected when he saw the people his daughter was interacting with, so different from the usual suspects at her private Philadelphia school. Musicians have been the same since the dawn of time. They’re outsiders, who are about sharing and caring as opposed to dividing lines. When society pooh-poohs you, you come together.

And there’s a surgeon who owns a couple of franchises. He may save lives on the operating table, but what really gets him off is the smiles of the young ‘uns who get up on stage and wail on the classics that soothed his youth.

That’s right, music used to be different. Before the whole world changed, before it was us versus them and those with the money didn’t want to part with it and those left behind kept complaining that someone stole their cheese. We were all in it together, and what kept us together, was the music.

A rock nation. Under Gods like Jimi Hendrix and Alice Cooper and even Gene Simmons. All of whom filled up your bedroom with a sound so glorious you couldn’t help but smile. Their music made life worth living. And it’s making life worth living for a whole new generation.

Sure, some of the students want to play the modern stuff.

But the School of Rock says you start with the basics. Kinda like regular school. But the Who is so much more enticing than Camus, never mind algebra.

So you’ve got housewives and retirees and barely twentysomethings all opening emporia to teach rock. And sure, there are lessons, but the essence is performance. It’s when the kids get on stage with others and crank it that they smile. And it’s these smiles that keep the owners going. They’re doing it for the naches. Look it up, it’s Yiddish. In our narcissistic culture it’s all about pride in the self, puffing yourself up, on Instagram, showing what you’ve got. But the truth is you feel best when you midwife the happiness of others, that’s what the School of Rock does.

And either you know about it or you don’t.

It was started by Paul Green. But thereafter, franchises were sold and every year or so the troops get together to learn.

Especially from the CEO Dzana, who immigrated from war-torn Sarajevo. It’s people like this who make our country great. How did we get so screwed up that we believed the immigrants were here to steal our jobs. Yes, they want what we’ve got, an opportunity to be their best selves, to have a family, to excel. You too have that right as an American, better to stop complaining that someone stole your chance and make the most of yours.

Dzana had such great insight. That the bane of the School of Rock was laziness and fear. The belief that you just can’t get there so you’re better off not trying. Her solution is to hook up the top 10% with the bottom 10%. The winners help lift up those who are challenged. Why do the winners do it? BECAUSE IT MAKES THEM FEEL SO GOOD! You know, like when someone gives you tech help, when they solve your problem. People love to demonstrate their expertise, they love to help others. You think it’s about ME, ME, ME, when the truth is it’s about YOU, YOU, YOU!

And you buy a franchise and then you become part of this wonderful crazy family, that’s what an owner said on stage last night. As she belted…

Yes, after learning all day, they cleared the stage for performances.

First were the All Stars. Teenagers who’d earned the right to not only perform in Vegas, but go on tour. They caravan to such places as Chicago, to grace the stage at Lollapalooza. And even Bridgeport, Connecticut, for the Gathering of the Vibes. They even send a contingent to the Zappanale, over in Europe, to not only soak up Frank’s music, but play it.

And the Sydney school flies over for performances too. Not everyone, just the greats. And the kids are incentivized to be great, because they want to go on tour. And sure, some make it to the big time, graduates pepper the professional ranks, Colbert has got a School of Rock alumnus in his band, but most don’t. But they have an experience of a lifetime.

As did the owners and the general managers and the instructors, who got up and played the legendary hits for hours last night.

I heard a brilliant version of “Highway to Hell,” it had me standing up, thrusting my arms in the air.

Jaw-dropping was the rendition of “Cosmik Debris,” you know, the Zappa track. I certainly do, I played it as an alienated youth, I felt that Frank understood me, that’s the power of music.

And “Under Pressure” and “Baba O’Riley” and “Rock of Ages”…

All right
I got something to say
Yeah, it’s better to burn out
Yeah, than fade away

They give musicians a second chance. When they’re between gigs, when their touring and live careers have dried up. They teach at the School of Rock. Which doesn’t start until 2, so they can get there on time. And they can still perform on weekends.

Rise up, gather ’round
Rock this place to the ground
Burn it up let’s go for broke
Watch the night go up in smoke

Actually, it is Vegas, one of the few places you can still puff away indoors. But long after midnight, when most people are tuckered out and trundle for bed, this crowd was out in full-force. Cheering on their brethren, slaying the axe, tickling the ivories, pounding the skins. They danced, they sang along, they cheered. You know, like at a rock and roll show.

What do you want, what do you want
I want rock ‘n’ roll, yes I do
Long live rock ‘n’ roll

I’m over sixty. I own no real estate. My future is uncertain. But I’ve got this sound, that I studied like the Bible. I know who played what and have followed the tree of life known as music all over the globe, and as I was standing in the Lounge last night I realized these were my people, these players, these instructors, these owners, who know that rock and roll can save your life, if you just let it.

Rock of ages, rock of ages
Still rollin’, keep a-rollin’
We got the power, got the glory
Just say you need it and if you need it
Say yeah

YEAH!

Ain’t that the truth.