He played “Urge For Going.”

I awoke today and found the frost perched on the town

Geoff Muldaur said frost didn’t perch, his wife disagreed, he said they’d be debating it all the way home.

I thought Geoff Muldaur was dead. Guess I was confusing him with Mel Lyman. Did you read that story about the Lyman Family in “Rolling Stone” back in the day? Tom knew him. Talk about a cult!

“The Lyman Family’s Holy Siege of America”

And just like the college students phoned up the delta bluesmen and got them to perform at Club 47, there’s a whole generation of original folkies that is hiding in plain sight, plowed under by not only today’s pop, but the production of the oldsters touring arenas.

Tom did the original cover of “Urge For Going.” Joni ultimately released a version too, but it couldn’t equal the haunting quality of Tom’s, which sounds like a New England day too cold to go outside but not cold enough to snow. When you sit and wonder… Should you stay or should you go, if you stay will the winter depress you…

I was sitting in the audience with tears in my eyes, I reconnected with who I once was, that’s the power of music.

Tom had an accompanist. This thirty year old Matt Nakoa, a Berklee graduate finding his own way. His fills added a texture, color to the songs.

But it was the songs that shined.

Not only “Urge For Going,” but “Rockport Sunday” into “No Regrets.”

I know your leavin’s too long overdue
For far too long I’ve had nothin’ new to show to you

It’s the nature of life. You break up. Things end. How do you feel? Empowered, yet depressed.

And it felt so strange to walk away alone

Loneliness, it’s the scourge of life. But it’s music that eases the pain.

I didn’t expect to get so caught up in the show. But it was a window into what once was. When we weren’t networked, when something could develop off the grid, when playing music was a calling, and not necessarily a road to riches.

Tom met Joni in Detroit. She played him a couple of numbers and he was blown away. Told her to send him a tape, he was past due on delivering an album to Elektra. The six songs included a new one, which she apologized for, it was “The Circle Game.”

Tom tried to get Joni a deal, he couldn’t. Because the powers-that-be can’t see what’s in plain sight, they’re so busy looking for what they’ve already got that they can’t embrace something new. Eventually Joni was signed and broke through. Tom burned out and retreated to New Hampshire.

He was making a lot and spending a lot. Every night in a different city, supporting five men on the road. Oftentimes they worked to lose, making ninety cents on the dollar of costs. But he soldiered on.

Until he couldn’t.

He could have moved to L.A. Would that have vaulted him into further stardom?

We’ll never know, he might have ended up dead.

And after a break, Tom resumed playing, because he missed it. The audience. And the money too! That’s right, music is a job.

And he never had another hit, unless you include his 2007 live version of “Remember Song,” which has 7 million plays on YouTube:

“Remember Song”

Life is about soldiering on. I fished for insight, probed for wisdom. But that’s all Tom had to say.

And that’s all he’s doing.

And there are the stories… Competing with Jackson Browne for a girl neither got and Jackson bringing her up years later. The tale of blind bluesmen threatening each other at Harvard. All the tidbits that make up a life. Tom’s been doing it for decades and it shows.

But it’s the music that shines.

Stunningly, one of the highlights was “Come See About Me,” a new song, the muse has been visiting him, he’s gonna make a new record, not for the fame, but because he has to.

And light fare, like a cover of John Prine’s “Let’s Talk Dirty In Hawaiian.”

But it was the old standbys, from the days of yore, that truly resonated.

Like Tom’s cover of David Wiffen’s “Lost My Drivin’ Wheel.”

I feel like some old engine that’s lost my drivin’ wheel

A song you know by heart if you lived when hits weren’t everything and a great song resonated in the culture. Tom debuted it, it’s even been covered by Cowboy Junkies.

Then there was Jackson Browne’s “These Days.” Tom’s take pre-dated Jackson’s version by half a decade, never mind Gregg Allman’s iconic iteration.

But the piece-de-resistance was “The Panama Limited,” a tale about a train, an amalgamation of Bukka White songs. It gathered steam, rolled on down the track, you could hear the whistle whine as the rails got hot and transmitted the chug of the arriving engine.

If you were there…

You were brought back to an era when you couldn’t fake it, when you were bit by the blues and dedicated your life to chasing the sound. When audiences discarded the ditties for something more fulfilling, the work of those channeling real life into song.

There are still some practitioners today. But the hype is institutionalized and their acolytes have chips on their shoulders, angry their favorites aren’t known by everyone.

But back then we didn’t care. We just went down the road less travelled and…

Despite there being no iPods or Walkmen, music was everywhere, it was in the air. Seemingly everyone owned a guitar and could pick out a handful of chords, when you got together you sat in a circle and sang, there are few things that feel as good as singing a song.

From back when the songs were singable. When they had melodies and changes, when meaning was everything and corporations played it safe and sponsorship was unheard of.

That’s what it was like last night. The lights went down, Tom strode to the mic and lifted the shade so we could look through the picture window at America. The images came through our ears, not our eyes, but they were seeable nonetheless.

And despite us all being together, we were all alone, it was a personal experience, my life flashed before my eyes. Because the music sets you free. It opens your mind and allows it to drift, so you can see that which has been invisible for so long.

This is why I used to go to the show. Not so I could tell everyone I was there, not to hear the songs from the radio, but…

The songs from my bedroom. The ones I played over and over again that meant so much to me.

I didn’t want it to stop. I didn’t want to leave. I stayed for the second show. Which not only featured different material, but was looser. Warmed up with nothing to prove Tom entered a zone and took us on a journey, he was the pied piper of Pico. And when it was all over…

I felt different.

Music can change us. If those who make it have a passion for it, that is transmitted to the rest of us.

It’s about songs. Not only Joni and Jackson’s, but Lyle Lovett and Murray McLauchlan’s too.

That’s right, Tom brought “Child’s Song” to our attention. Tom was the vehicle, the waystation, the bridge from there to here, from hootenanny to singer-songwriter.

The seasons do go ’round and ’round.

We are captive on the carousel of time.

But the truth is despite tech innovation, life doesn’t change. We’re all still the same. And we do best when we look not only forward, but back.

I went out walking last night and what I found was the road remains unchanged, the signs are different, the people are too, but I’m still the same individual, only a bit wiser and more experienced.

In this fast-paced world we so rarely reflect.

And then Tom Rush takes the stage in Santa Monica and brings us all back home.

To where we once belonged.

The best thing that ever happened to Spotify was Apple Music. Competition lifts all boats. Which is why malls have two anchor tenants, two department stores.

But that was back before malls cratered and turned into festive dining areas that feature shopping as a sport, if the mall hasn’t closed completely.

We live in the streaming era. Who’s going to win?

The uninformed and uninitiated would bet on Apple and Google. But it appears the former has hit a ceiling and the latter is moribund. Spotify is adding twice as many subscribers than Apple per month. Spotify is adding 1.7 million, Apple, 875,000. Spotify has 40 million paid subscribers and Apple 17. So the two-thirds rule still applies, or close to it.

That’s right, online, one outlet ends up with two-thirds of the market. There are always people who won’t shop at the big kahuna. Google has about two-thirds of search and Spotify’s got nearly two-thirds of streaming music subscriptions. As for competitors…Napster and Deezer, they’re sideshow also-rans with acolytes who will eventually migrate to the big two just like Beta users went to VHS.

The final chapter has not been written. Amazon has a play here. We heard that Apple had everybody’s credit card number, that can’t compete with Amazon’s 63 million Prime subscribers. There’s an offering here that might work, but maybe not. Maybe Spotify was just too early and kept on improving.

Yes, Spotify had first mover advantage. There were streaming services before, but none with a free tier. Not only did the free tier cause conversion, it begat buzz, people started talking about Spotify.

But then, when Apple illustrated to everybody that streaming was here to stay…

Spotify innovated.

This is what is hurting Apple in general. This is the story of the iPhone 7, which never should have come out. Remember when the iPhone migrated to Verizon mid-cycle? Apple extended the cycle, kept selling the 4… Because you don’t want to screw your customers, you couldn’t eclipse the purchase of Verizon users six months later. Sure, the bottom line would have taken a hit, but if we got the iPhone 8, with an OLED screen and other innovations in January or March, all would be forgiven. Never forget, Apple was late to CD burners, music software and music players. But then it won with its Rip/Mix/Burn campaign and the iPod. Better to get it right than to alienate your fan base.

And Apple Music was a disaster in functionality. When every other service was better, even the now defunct Rdio, which was purchased by Pandora. In today’s marketplace you don’t get a second bite at the apple, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.

Discover Weekly put the stake in the heart of Apple Music. Music discovery was supposed to be Jimmy Iovine’s domain. He testified he was gonna fix it, using real people, but then the algorithm came along and beat him and…

Then Spotify came up with Release Radar, a way to discover brand new music. Apple not only did not have a similar product, whatever products it is coming up with are locked behind a paywall, so those who checked the service out once are now completely unaware, and don’t care.

So, competition heated up adoption, but there was a war between Yahoo, HotBot, AltaVista and Google once upon a time. And Buy.com was competing with Amazon. Turns out one player pulls out from the pack, and competing after the fact is impossible. Bing is a disaster, a great percentage of its market share was purchased, but it’s still got a de minimis percentage of search and the losses are legendary.

Apple took its eye off the ball. Stayed with files for far too long. It’s a chapter written right out of Clayton Christensen’s “Innovator’s Dilemma.” He not busy being born is busy dying. If you’re doubling-down on your edifice instead of knocking it down with the wrecking ball, your business is time-stamped.

Which is why Apple so badly needs a new product in a sphere within which it can dominate. MSN could never topple AOL and Apple will never beat Spotify, never.

So, what have we learned?

Never bet on yesterday’s giants.

Functionality is everything.

Innovation is key.

And products grow when there’s a light shined upon them. All this anti-streaming nonsense is just keeping you broke. Never forget the cell phone business, it burgeoned when prices fell through the floor and everybody played. When everybody’s talking about streaming music…

Spotify will be even bigger.

Politics is the new tech.
And for those scoring at home, tech usurped the throne from music.

It’s hard for those not there to understand. Music was everything from 1964-1976. Everybody knew the bands, not only did you know who was in town, you went. And musicians were kings whose pronouncements mattered, you hung on every word.

Now they can only talk about their sponsorships, they’re as soulless as the brands they emulate. Bland entities afraid of alienating any potential customer, they’re uneducated automatons who are vehicles for profit, rarely anything more.

And then the techies came along and tipped over the table. Not only did we not anticipate it, we wanted some of it. Remember the summer of ’95, when seemingly everybody bought a computer and signed up for AOL? It was a national mania, with new hits constantly on the horizon. The music may have stayed the same, but overnight there were new websites and apps and it was all very exciting and then we get the iPhone 7. An incremental improvement we don’t even need. As for apps… Uber’s cool, but that’s been around for years. Marc Andreessen keeps telling us the future is so bright we’ve got to wear shades, but Silicon Valley is now an overpriced club of self-impressed wankers who get too much publicity you don’t care about.

But politics…

You could say it’s Donald Trump. But really, it’s Bernie Sanders. How did a septuagenarian socialist from Vermont get such traction with young people? By speaking the truth, dreaming of a better tomorrow where those without hope could get ahead, where the nation could get back on track and all could flourish.

Maybe you don’t agree. Doesn’t matter. It’s just like music and tech. Many stayed on the sidelines. Then they got in the game.

The United States is the best country in the world, but it’s pretty messed up. There’s income inequality, racism, and everybody’s complaining that someone stole their cheese. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C. is gridlocked, with a Republican Congress that won’t even hear out a new Supreme Court nominee. It’d be like losing Eddie Van Halen and still booking Van Halen shows. With the band getting paid even though they didn’t play. Bitching that today’s staging is inadequate and until Live Nation heeds their wishes they’re on strike.

Wouldn’t be good for the music business.

And the government we have in so many instances is not good for the public.

Last night I drove to Pacific Palisades for a fundraiser for Proposition 64. The legalization of pot in California. If you’d have told me pot would be legal back in the seventies, I would have told you a black man could not be President. Both seemed impossibilities. But both came to pass.

And it’s not a dope issue, it’s a human rights issue. About keeping the disadvantaged and oppressed out of jail. About eliminating crime. Gavin’s wife doesn’t want marijuana legitimized, she doesn’t want everybody smoking dope, but that’s not what Prop. 64 is about. And it looks like it’s going to pass.

And it was spearheaded by this guy Ethan Nadelmann, head of the Drug Policy Alliance. In the rest of the world the good-looking and glamorous with empty insides don’t triumph. It’s those hard-working who believe in their cause who move mountains. And Ethan has. The proposition is sixty odd pages. It accounts for economic disparities. They’re trying to get it right, having learned from experiences in Colorado and Washington. It’d be like getting Yes after the Beatles, music used to evolve, what happened?

The featured speaker was Gavin Newsom. Lieutenant Governor of California. I see him all the time on Bill Maher.

That’s what I told him. I wouldn’t have started up a conversation except he was standing next to Jason Flom. So I moseyed on over and told him just that, that I was used to seeing him on “Real Time.”

Gavin chuckled.

And then Jason said he and Gavin were working on fixing bail. Jason’s all about fixing the inequities in the legal system, you may know him as the provider of hits, but his legacy will be getting people out of jail, changing crazy drug laws.

But since the door was now open, I talked to Gavin. I didn’t want to monopolize the conversation, but this was my chance.

I’ve met plenty of rock stars. They’re rarely verbal, oftentimes uneducated. You can bask in their glory but it’s rare to have a stimulating conversation, especially with the nitwits of today who believe their social media feeds are the epitome of ground-breaking opinion.

But Gavin looked like a rock star. Without an ounce of body fat and white teeth and a flashy smile, he oozed charisma.

But he had substance.

He talked about the football team’s low graduation rate at Berkeley. He spearheaded change, now the coach is compensated by the academic achievements of his players, not their accomplishments on the field. Berkeley is a university first and foremost, correct?

But in America everything’s topsy-turvy. We keep hearing about the economic miracle in Texas but that’s run out of gas, it’s California that’s burgeoning. They raised the taxes, jobs skyrocketed, it may not be a Garden of Eden, but here in the Golden State things are moving forward.

And it’s all because of politicians.

First and foremost Jerry Brown, who Gavin called the “adult in the room.” Brown has experience, and that counts, sorry to inform you of that Donald.

And we got into football at Berkeley because of the NCAA pulling out of North Carolina. Gavin knew the guy who ran the organization, it was a good thing. We need people to take stands as opposed to constantly checking which way the wind blows so they can say that which will move their game piece down the board.

And I asked Gavin why he got into politics.

He chuckled and said it was all about his mother, needing to prove…

I told him that’s the Southern California ethos, maybe he belonged in Hollywood.

And I’m noticing… Gavin’s not two-dimensional. Sure, he’s smiling a lot, but it’s more like hanging with a bro back in the dorm as opposed to meeting someone famous who’s shaking your hand as he looks over your shoulder for an exit. This guy was normal!

And he wasn’t boasting like Kanye, nor bitching that he didn’t get his chance, rather he was rationally laying out his achievements and desires in response to the topics being brought up. It was a conversation, not a stump speech.

And speaking of speech…

Gavin was the most dynamic speaker of the night. Passionate, rational, believable and not so brief that you thought he was punching the clock. And he didn’t leave after his part was done, he stayed, as opposed to someone too busy for the rest of us, who needs to jet away to some smoky boardroom where our lives will be influenced but we get no say.

Gavin Newsom is gonna be Governor of California. This is not opinion, everyone believes this is fact. Of course he could be derailed. But we live in a Democratic state where Arnold Schwarzenegger put the Republicans six feet under and Latinos and other immigrants are ensuring the state leans left.

And from there, maybe the White House. That was the ticket being bandied about, Gavin Newsom and Cory Booker. Although it was said Cory’s no longer good at returning phone calls, but you hear from Gavin right away.

Of course you can go on Wikipedia and find fault. That’s what our races have become, one of gotcha. As if no one ever smoked dope and we all married the first girl we slept with. We’re flesh and blood people, we need to give the keys to someone, someone’s got to drive.

But no one’s been driving in Washington, D.C. for far too long.

Kansas is letting the the rich run away with the state. Taxes have been lowered to the point where the government is dysfunctional, the court keeps saying more money has to be spent on education, but that’s not as important as taxes being low, after all, the rich are the job creators.

Huh?

We all need someone to believe in. We all need hope.

And last night I found it where I least expected it.

Used to be I believed in entertainers.

But now it’s politicians who are getting things done. Who are employing new ideas. Who want to lead. Who are truly accessible.

And I know I was up close and personal, and not everybody gets the chance, but really, it was no different from going to see Elvis Costello at the Whisky back in the seventies. You too can be first, if you get in on the ground floor, if you care.

The musicians were all about expanding horizons. The techies were about testing limits. And now it’s the politicians who’ve taken over the reins. They’re the new leaders. Not those gumming up the works, but those who are willing to get their hands dirty to effect solutions.

Disaffection isn’t everything. Life is not about pointing fingers at the enemy, saying they’ve stolen your opportunity.

No, life is about hard work in search of a better world where we all can thrive.

I’d about given up hope.

And then I met Gavin Newsom.

“How Fox News women took down the most powerful, and predatory, man in media”

It’s much worse than you think.

I’ll never forget my ex-wife telling me a close family friend was a dirty old man. We were in Vermont and Harry told Kim to twirl around, like Vanna White on “Wheel Of Fortune.” I grew up with the man, I thought he was harmless. But she knew…the iceberg was huge beneath the surface.

“New York” is a challenged magazine. Not long ago it went to every other week publication. It’s making headway with its website, but it’s fallen out of the national discussion, it no longer captures the zeitgeist, as it did in the Clay Felker years. But it’s not alone, the same thing can be said of “Rolling Stone,” all the rest of the mags run by old men who are protecting their print product despite all the action moving to the web. If you think that money is everything, then you know nothing. Roger Ailes was far less rich than Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos, but he shaped the national discussion, he was far more powerful. And isn’t it interesting that Facebook is now a hotbed of news and Bezos bought the “Washington Post”? He who controls the dialogue owns America. It’s about hearts and minds, not wallets, which those who have no chance of earning what the Wall Street titans do would be smart to realize.

And speaking of Wall Street titans, “New York” was purchased by Bruce Wasserstein, Wendy’s brother, who made a fortune in banking but was always more interested in writing. He’s dead now, pursue your dream or come to realize you’ve wasted your life, or left too much on the shelf, even if you did get some spoils.

So we live in an era where everybody’s fighting for attention and as a result fewer messages are ultimately heard, certainly not at length. You know Hillary Clinton’s talk of “deplorables”? Turns out that was only half of the quote, read Charles M. Blow’s piece yesterday to find out that Hillary was lamenting the state of the disadvantaged:

“…but that other basket of people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t even really matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.'”

About the ‘Basket of Deplorables’

Bingo! If only those who felt Hillary didn’t care about them heard that. Here Hillary is saying the right thing, and that gives me hope.

But the story is only about her health.

We’re inundated with lists of articles to read. As if these wankers are providing a service. They’re not. Because I don’t click through, almost nobody does, and when they do they oftentimes find stuff written so poorly it’s unreadable.

But Gabriel Sherman’s article on Ailes is not unreadable, it’s RIVETING!

LOOKS

Good luck making it if you’re not beautiful. That’s all Roger was interested in, gorgeous women. If you played by his rules, which included touching, degradation and maybe even sex, not only could you get on the air, you could get a William Morris agent… And once you stopped playing ball, the opportunities evaporated. William Morris never called back. You lost your shift, your contract was not renewed.

CIRCLE THE WAGONS

Everybody’s afraid. Call it Michael Jordanism. The most famous athlete of the nineties, who refused to take a side because it might piss off some sponsors. Is that the American Way, being beholden to the man? I think it’s great football players are kneeling down for the National Anthem. It shows they’re THINKING ABOUT IT! Instead of my country right or wrong, a nation of groupthink, they’re cogitating and expressing an opinion. Good for them. Dialogue always illuminates the issues. Does wearing a flag pin make you a better American? Does saying “God Bless” in every speech make you righteous? Whenever people refuse to think different, to test limits, the country is doomed.

TALKING POINTS

The war on Christmas, gay marriage, Fox News set the agenda, quite consciously. And he with the biggest microphone wins the war. Because in a factless world we vote with our emotions, and we align with those we believe in, and believe everything they say. It’s scary that most people are unable to discern the truth, unable to analyze facts, but not as scary as the power of one man to sway our entire nation.

We have institutionalized sexual harassment. Baby boomers and Gen X’ers think it’s par for the course. And they’re too afraid to speak up. This is a more pervasive problem than rape, not to denigrate that crime, but the truth is the average male may not undress you, but he’ll ask for untoward favors and halt your progress in the organization and if you complain he’ll say something about it being your time of the month, even call you a whiny bitch. And if you push hard enough you might get a check, but along with that comes a nondisclosure agreement so tight that you can never talk about what happened, ever.

There is hope for the future. Millennials seem to be more enlightened. And the next Murdoch generation is not as right wing as the prior, never mind not blindly going along with anything that makes money.

And I believe the departure of Ailes will cripple Fox News. That’s the story of organizations, leaders make a difference. They usually cannot be replaced. And when they’re gone the operation falters. Because the leader, especially the founder, built the damn thing, and has a vision for how it all works out.

Respect those who’ve been to war and come back triumphant.

But don’t accept their success at face value. Dig deep. Look for the flaws. We’re all human, we all have foibles, and the more winners are torn down from the pedestal the more they’ll be humanized and will worry about what the public thinks.

Roger Ailes nearly single-handedly moved the United States to the right. That’s the power of media, that’s the power of news.

Meanwhile, music and film keep chasing bucks instead of power. They can move mountains, sway opinions, but they’re too afraid of alienating one damn person.

Roger Ailes alienated plenty and he won.

Until he lost.

But there are so many other males in corporations who have not been caught. Whose bad behavior has been tolerated because coin has rained down.

That’s not enough.

Then again, if the average person knew how many corners were cut to achieve success… Play by the rules and you lose, cheat and you win.

But that does not mean we can’t push back.

And we can start by pushing back against sexual harassment.

Jews know not to tolerate anti-semitism, they speak up, challenge people whenever they see it and are despised for it.

But let the Jews be a beacon. The oppressed have to stand up for their rights, they have to cry foul.

And, oh yeah, Roger Ailes made anti-semitic remarks too.

We’re all victims here.

We all need to inform ourselves and stand up for what’s right.

We can start by reading this article.