Tonic Mountain – Spotify

I discovered this on Daily Mix.

I heard Barenaked Ladies’ “Baby Seat,” skipped through a song by Beck from “Sea Change,” heard another number that was blah and then…

You know it when you hear it, paraphrasing the Supreme Court on pornography.

I always thought Tonic was a wimpy act, closer to Starland Vocal Band than Alice In Chains, BOY WAS I WRONG!

Yes, they had that big hit “If You Could Only See,” but “Mountain” isn’t playing to the cheap seats, it’s not pop music made for coin, it’s like something out of the glory days of FM radio, when testing limits and providing substance was the goal, the empty sugar calories of Top Forty being completely irrelevant.

Oh, what a long strange trip it’s been.

MTV started with the classic rockers with videos, Rod Stewart, other acts that had broken in Europe where the visual format mattered.

Then the rest of the oldsters poured through the gate, Tom Petty, Don Henley, and then Duran Duran blew the paradigm wide open, it was all new acts with new music.

And then Michael Jackson widened the horizon, MTV became a big tent.

And then when the decade turned, from the eighties to the nineties, production became everything, pop made inroads, but rock soldiered on, even if we sometimes considered it ersatz, with the ultimately underrated Matchbox Twenty ruling.

And then it went totally urban, hip-hop and pop, and that sound has been dominating for the entire twenty first century, it’s like rock is a lost art, except for the shoegazers, you know, the boys with the thin voices and the thin guitars who believe they can bring the magic back if they just get enough attention.

And then you hear something like “Mountain” and you’re brought back to where you once belonged, it feels so good, it’s like discovering a Dead Sea Scroll. Whew!

It starts with an acoustic guitar, like a graybeard sitting around a campfire, completely disconnected from society, picking for himself as opposed to the audience.

And then there’s this descending figure, like someone’s telling you their life story, not someone famous, but a regular joe, like you and me, the people who count, and then…

A bit after thirty seconds, the guitars start to spit lightning, lighting up the sky, and a mellifluous voice sits atop the whole thing.

She
She came down
From the mountain
And I
I stood my ground
On the mountain

And the guitars ring like bells in a cathedral, spouting religion, you become an instant believer, and that descending figure hooks you in its electric iteration and Emerson Hart is twisting and turning the words and you can feel it in your gut.

Like a fire I’m drawn to her lust
I can’t run from her, but lord I must
Like a demon I’m drawn to her flame
I’m gonna burn calling her name
I’m gonna burn calling her name

It’s loud, but it’s intimate. You’re twisting and turning in this section, like a roller coaster after the big hill, and then…

The whole thing amps up, everybody turns it up to 11, everybody’s firing on all cylinders, but unlike with today’s speedy metal it’s not overbearing, it’s not too much, it’s not made to turn you off, rather it’s a pill you cannot help but swallow, one that will take you on a magic trip.

And when it gets quiet again, with the acoustic instruments reappearing.

And then it gets so HEAVY!

It’s like Led Zeppelin filtered through a modern paradigm, the dynamics, the loud to soft and back to loud again, with lyricism and melody baked in, it’s INFECTIOUS!

And if we, are patient
Then maybe, we’ll get it straight
On the mountain

Oh, this image resonates. I love the city accoutrements, everything at your fingertips, but it can become oppressive, I can breathe in the mountains, atop a hill, free, that’s where the insights come, in a vacuum where you’re alone with your thoughts.

And the music.

Used to be we knew the songs by heart, we sang them to ourselves, they were playing in our head. Now we can take them everywhere.

I couldn’t believe it, I had to fire up Wikipedia, learn more about this act.

I read this track was from their debut, “Lemon Parade,” and that they’d remade it acoustically just now, in 2016, via PledgeMusic.

So I pulled that up.

Same song, but different. I missed the dynamics of the original, even though it was satisfying on its own merits.

But, was this album so popular, was it the “Jagged Little Pill” for a subsection of the population, to the point fans were clamoring for a redo?

“Lemon Parade” went platinum, then again everything went platinum in 1996.

Then again, albums come out today and instantly disappear. And when you go back to them, eh.

So now I’ve got to listen to more of “Lemon Parade.” I start with the opening track, “Open Your Eyes,” I can’t believe it, it’s so heavy yet so lyrical, I get it immediately. I’m coursing through the album, I play “If You Could Only See,” find out that after the light intro it too gets heavy. I go on Deezer Elite to hear “Mountain” in CD quality.

And it’s all because of Spotify’s Daily Mix.

We live in a golden era. I must not have been on the mailing list back then, I don’t remember owning “Lemon Parade.” And it would have disappeared completely if not for the modern paradigm, wherein everything’s at your fingertips for one low price.

But I needed someone to lead me to it.

And the algorithm did. Lord only knows how it knew. Lord knows how I missed this the first time around, “Mountain” could reestablish your allegiance to rock music, if you only heard it.

But it was cut twenty years ago. The band members are now fifty.

But what I wanted most was to SEE THEM!

Not for the production, not for the dancing, but the sound. I wanted to nod my head and mouth the words, be entranced, taken away.

“Mountain” is as fresh as yesterday. I mean Wednesday.

You’ll be stunned.

Tonic Mountain – YouTube electric

Tonic Mountain – YouTube acoustic

The only problem is people HATE HIM!

Expecting Lyor Cohen to make peace with labels is like believing Roger Waters will get back together with David Gilmour for a concert in support of Israeli statehood.

This shows how out of touch YouTube is, I hope the ink isn’t dry.

As for Lyor himself…KUDOS! He crawled from the wreckage into a brand new car.

Every other majordomo has faded into the woodwork. From Yetnikoff to Mottola, take away their checkbook, their power-base, and they’re done. Lyor opened his label, the 300, and ultimately had a hit with Fetty Wap, but despite that hit, despite all the hogwash about establishing a new paradigm, using Twitter data, not much else materialized.

As for YouTube…

They don’t need any hand-holding, they don’t need anybody explaining their position, they just need to agree to one take-down notice and higher royalty payments, something Robert Kyncl and his team have repeatedly said they would not do.

This isn’t Spotify or Apple, with playlists and exclusives…

And if you think the music industry wants to deliver those to YouTube… You don’t know that YouTube is more hated than Lyor.

Lyor is known for loyalty. Like Pablo Escobar, his team would take a bullet for him. He’s a smart guy, but he’s street smart, and that doesn’t work in tech, it’s about the numbers, data doesn’t lie.

Come on, can you imagine Lyor in a meeting convincing a label head or a manager? Do you even know how this guy speaks? And he needs to sit atop the pedestal, humility is not in his bag of tricks.

This just proves that YouTube is clueless.

This is a breakthrough.

The problem with Apple Music is it’s locked behind a paywall, and unlike Sirius there’s no amnesty, no free weekends, once your trial period is up you’re gone, forever, unless you want to pony up.

I know, I know, it’s hard to compete with a free tier. On YouTube and Spotify. But have you forgotten the deep dark ages wherein piracy ruled, when MP3s were de rigueur? Did you buy the iPhone 7 with 256 GB? Why? We used to need to cart all our music around with us, now it’s available on demand, and we can sync a modicum of playlists to the device for listening off the grid.

So, Daily Mix is a daily playlist. You can read about it here:

Rediscover Your Favorite Music with Daily Mix

Jimmy Iovine promises future miracles to Buzzfeed

Inside Apple Music’s Second Act

Spotify surprises us with anew feature available today, as Steve Jobs famously did at the end of almost every product introduction. You give us what we didn’t even know we wanted and we can test it out immediately, this is the instant gratification the internet was built on.

The internet was not built on hype. The internet was built on product. Marketing a website is a waste of time. You want to enable users who spread the word.

I can’t tell you exactly what Daily Mix is. But I just checked it out on my handset and…there are only fifteen tracks. Playlists need to get shorter, otherwise they’re incomprehensible, we’ve got to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Now upon launching the Spotify app I found six Daily Mixes. There’s only supposed to be one a day, but I guess I’m seeing the beta prototypes as well as today’s.

Daily Mix 1 has got all the old rockers. From the Stones to the Beatles to Zeppelin to Jackson Browne. All winners, it’s good to see what I’m familiar with.

But more satisfying is Daily Mix 2, which focuses on my country listening. It’s got Luke Bryan and Eric Church and Steven Tyler and Florida Georgia Line as well as some tracks I haven’t heard.

That’s the essence of Daily Mix. Some of what you already know mixed in with that which you don’t. It’s an evolving process. But it’s satisfying.

The goal is to get more people to listen to more music.

And Spotify has done this here.

And, for the canard that per stream payments are going down… OF COURSE THEY ARE!    Did you flunk math? There’s a pool of money that’s divided by listens, so the more people subscribe and the more people listen the less each stream is worth, if you’re concentrating on a penny rate (or fraction of a penny rate!) you’re doing it the old way, now it’s all about a percentage.

Spotify is running away with this game. By being married to the technology first and the art form second. Innovation always comes from outside, those who are not inured to the old ways. The company has some of the worst marketing known to man, but it’s the leader, as it should be.

iHeart has got no chance. Haven’t we learned in digital that there’s a first-mover advantage? The only way you can supersede the starter is by doing it grossly better, incremental improvement is not enough. And the only way you can win is if the leader lags, fails to innovate.

Innovate or die. That’s how Apple became the world’s most valuable company, that’s why it’s gonna flag in the future. You can only ride the old hits so long, and unlike a classic rock act, no one wants to listen to their old iPod.

This is good. Piracy has been eviscerated, people are inside the walled garden and subscribers and revenue are going up. One company will be the leader, and right now you should bet on Spotify. Forget all the hogwash about the fundamentals, the loss of cash, if they stopped investing right now they’d be profitable. But like internet hero Jeff Bezos they understand it’s a long game, you look to a far distant destination, when you’ve corralled the market and own it, and are making tons of money to boot.

Remember when people were afraid to buy things on the web?

Remember when humans used to curate Amazon recommendations?

Remember when Amazon stumbled on to Web Services, driving growth?

Never listen to the naysayers married to the past, it’s already in the rearview mirror. Bet on those risking, changing it up. And this applies in art too. The new and different ultimately rules. And now that streaming has won we can focus on the tunes. And the more we get the tunes in front of people the better chance they have to gain traction.

Sure, radio was great, banging the same few tunes over and over again.

But few got a chance to play back then.

Now, everybody can play, but there’s chaos.

Discover Weekly, Release Radar and now Daily Mix are steps to end that chaos, to make music listening and discovery comprehensible.

The rocket has left the launch pad.

And we’re all on board.

Partake of the riches.

And know that subscription revenue is only gonna go up.

Sometimes you’ve got to give it away for people to be convinced.

Some people will never pay.

But music is addictive, it’s the spice of life, and people show up for it, as opposed to so many other products.

YouTube is a lame free service based on video. Its Red application has no traction. This is what happens when you rest on your laurels.

Forget about stream-ripping.

Forget about YouTube.

Tell everybody how great Spotify is.

BECAUSE THEN YOU’RE GONNA MAKE MONEY!

Joe Walsh played “Meadows.”

I had the world’s worst case of mononucleosis but despite the infection I decided to drive my BMW from Salt Lake City to Connecticut and I needed new tunes to get me through so I went down to Odyssey Music on State Street and bought six cassettes, including Joe Walsh’s new live album “You Can’t Argue With A Sick Mind,” made to get out of his ABC contract, and although it did include a live take of “Rocky Mountain Way” it was “Meadows” that stuck out, with its iconic riff and dynamics, I vividly remember driving over Vail Pass, seeing the snow in June, listening to “Meadows.”

So Joe’s sitting on stage, strumming his axe, telling a story, about living in Massachusetts and driving through a field and seeing an old stone wall and my heart starts to palpitate. This is what happens when you know what song the artist is gonna play, when it’s one of your favorites and you never expected it. Joe’s been on the road all summer, I missed his gig at the Forum, I took solace in the fact he played mostly hits, when the people pay they expect them, I wasn’t expecting “Meadows.”

It was the opening cut on the second side of “The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get.” That was forty-odd years ago. Does anybody remember? I still do.

Almost as good was “Indian Summer,” from the 1978 smash “But Seriously, Folks,” his solo album between Eagles albums, the one with “Life’s Been Good.” I know it by heart, I thought I’d never hear it played live again.

But that’s the power of Joe Walsh. Chris Stapleton said “Hell Freezes Over” was the best show he’d ever seen. Bar none. He’d saved up his money and went with his little brother…
Stapleton got the biggest reaction, the audience came to see him, he was primed. And when Chris reached down deep and wailed…it was a REVELATION! This is a star, hiding in plain sight, makes you a believer. And Chris stated that he cowrote “When The Stars Come Out” with Dan Wilson and when the show was done Kenny MacPherson introduced me to him, Dan Wilson, that is, you know the guy who wrote “Closing Time,” the guy who cowrites with Adele, I was nearly speechless, it’s not often you’re in the presence of genius, this is a smart guy, he went to Harvard, and that means something to my east coast sensibility, if you want to know some of the history read Jacob Slichter’s “So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star: How I Machine-Gunned a Roomful Of Record Executives and Other True Tales from a Drummer’s Life,” a rock star story written by someone with a brain who gives insight on what it’s like to make it and then descend into the abyss, but Dan survived, whew!

It was one of those L.A. nights.

When the stars come out to shine.

Hosted by Vince Gill, “All For The Hall” is a fundraiser for the Country Music Hall of Fame. It’s a guitar pull, with five musicians on stage, trading songs and licks, with no production, only the music and the stories.

And Vince’s story of being good friends with Arnold Palmer… Funny where music will take you.

And Vince played a new number about Merle Haggard that held my attention, that’s how you know something’s a winner, if it penetrates when you’ve never heard it before.

And Kacey Musgraves added levity. She’s a pistol. She talked about working in her parent’s print shop, badly. She sang a sad Christmas song from her yet to be released holiday LP and she finished with her breakthrough number “Merry Go ‘Round” after telling a great story about Miranda Lambert covering her “breakthrough” single, Kacey was saving it for herself, told Liz Rose, who was in attendance, that it broke her heart, but Liz said the money she was gonna make was gonna fill that hole, ha!

But the star of the show was…

James Taylor.

He opened with “Today Today Today” from his 2015 LP “Before This World,” which disappointed me, this was a bad sign, he was only gonna play new music, not the classics, not what I wanted to hear, boy was I wrong.

Meanwhile, “Today Today Today” was good because in the middle Vince started playing along, adding notes in his anti-Yngwie style, in other words it was what Vince left out that made it so good, in classic Lowell George style he was playing so little, but what he did was tasteful and added resonance.

But then James played “Something In The Way She Moves.”

Do you have the original version, from the Apple LP, it’ll blow your mind, it’s on Spotify, it starts with a musical interlude, one of the links that connected all the songs on that LP and then…

Funny how everybody can play the guitar but we all play it differently. James is picking the notes and I’m transported back to my bedroom on Farist Road in Fairfield, Connecticut, I played that record every day of the last two months of my senior year of high school as the weather got warmer and my mood got better.

Every now and then the things I lean on lose their meaning, this aging thing is putting me through the wringer, I love the future but I can’t believe the past is in the rearview mirror and then I hear JT play “Something In The Way She Moves” and it all connects, it’s one big continuum, I’m all right.

But then he played “You Can Close Your Eyes.”

Well the sun is surely sinking down
And the moon is slowly rising
And this old world must still be spinning ’round

I went to see James at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester. Me and about 75 other people who’d gotten the memo, he sat on a stool and played most of “Sweet Baby James.” It was months later that “Fire And Rain” broke through and ever since JT’s been out with a band, he’s turned into a crooner, it wasn’t quite the same until…

Tonight.

Tonight James Taylor was an American treasure. He survived drug abuse and the songs are still here and he can still play them. When he sang about the Berkshires being dream-like on account of that frosting I tingled. I’ve been living on the west coast for so long, but part of me is still in New England, I know that road from Stockbridge to Boston, I’ve left some blood on those tracks.

And it turns out “You’ve Got A Friend” was an answer song to “Fire And Rain,” you know he could not find a friend, Carole King wanted to provide one, James told the story, along with the making of “Two-Lane Blacktop,” he’s never seen it to this day, dating Joni Mitchell and playing a song that took less time to write than play.

That’s right, James Taylor and Joe Walsh duetted on “Steamroller,” Joe on his electric wringing out those notes that enthralled an entire generation.

It won’t be long before another day.

We gonna have a good time.

We’re gonna put on our tunes, smile as we eat up the miles, no one’s gonna take that time away, you can listen as long as you like.

Sometimes you’re brought back to where you once belonged, the thread back to why you do this is pulled tight, you understand most of life is trappings, but music is the essence, the center, the nougat.

Tonight was one of those nights.

All For The Hall – Spotify playlist