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.

“Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood’s Creative Artists Agency“

This book is so depressing I almost want to tell you not to read it.

But that would be a mistake.

I was not going to read it, because I hate oral histories and the reviews were horrid. Then I ran into Steve Barnett who told me he finished it in two days on vacation in Hawaii and I had to dive in.

I did.

It’s a tome. There’s no way you can finish it in forty eight hours unless it’s the only thing you do. But it does call out to me, I have wanted to read it. And I’m just positively stunned…

How it’s all ancient history and so many of the players are irrelevant.

Live in the belly of the beast long enough and it seems so important. But when they go back thirty years and lay it all out, you remember the movies but don’t care about them and realize they’ve got no staying power. It’s as if all this work has been done for naught. As guys, and it is mostly guys, beat their chests, take credit and play chess with each other believing they’re Gary Kasparov when the truth is they’re kids playing Chinese checkers.

The progenitors left William Morris. The Morris agency was a bastion of fiefs with no upward mobility. Ovitz, et al, wanted to start over with a teamwork ethos that truly served the client.

They won.

And in the process they got big-headed and Ovitz alienated everybody and CAA became a monolith… SO WHAT?

My favorite part of the book is when Paula Wagner, known primarily as Tom Cruise’s producing partner, says…

“I left CAA in August ’92. As an agent, you aren’t a principal. You’re the representative of the principal, and I decided I wanted to be a principal.”

Bingo! Exactly how I felt practicing law, something I never planned to do but fell into awaiting my bar results, it takes a long time to get them in California. And I passed and not long into my tenure I said…I don’t want to be a lawyer and be told what to do, I want to call my own lawyer and tell him what to do!

But actually, the truly best part of the book, the laugh out loud part, is a story told by Tom Ross, who goes to rehab for weight-loss:

“I was there a month, and one day I ran into Steven Tyler, who was there for drug rehab and sexual addiction. They arranged for us to spend an afternoon together and Steven said to me ‘Man, I don’t know if I can do this. I just can’t imagine going to a gig and not getting laid or not getting a few blow jobs.’ I looked at him and said, ‘Try being an agent for a few years. You get used to it.'”

Bada-bing!

But the execs have the last laugh, except for a few outliers like Tyler, true stars, the business people outlast the talent. The talent leaves its mark, but the business people make more money and soldier on, until they can’t.

“Mike left because he knew there are good agents and there are old agents, but there are no good old agents.”

Bingo!

A lot of this book is about knowing when to move on, when your time is done, when you’ve got to pass the torch to the younger generation before they gain control and fire your ass. I heard it from a famous A&R guy the other night, he says his biggest challenge is the boomers who hate their jobs who won’t retire. I mean Snapchat? That’s where oldsters draw the line. That’s when you know you’re done. When you’ve built a home on Facebook and find out time has passed you by, there’s a new sheriff in town, and you just want to move on down the road to elude his reach.

But it is old news. CAA is a juggernaut today. But it’s a different company in different businesses. Deep into sports, it’s sold equity to outsiders. Trying to figure out how to survive as movies become marginalized and the realization hits…there’s just not that much money in entertainment.

But you can own your identity.

Mick Fleetwood comes into the office just as Tom Ross has joined the agency and says:

“I can’t talk to you with that tie on. It’s not you.”

And Tom rips it off and never wears one again.

It’s who you are, not your image.

That’s the difference between the rock stars of yesterday and those of today. Before, they marched to the beat of their own drummer, today they’re trying to fit in. And they never really can. Because that’s not their skill. The business people will eat them alive.

And Ovitz screws his partners but makes them money and everybody comes out to piss on his grave, as Ovitz continues to explain away the faux pas. It’s hard not to feel sorry for these people. Who think this is oh-so-important. It’s not. Can you even name the heads of today’s movie studios?

But there are so many lessons to be learned, Bill Haber says:

“In any business on earth – I always say to people – nobody will leave you for the money, and nobody will leave you over titles. People will only leave if they have no loyalty to you.”

Hollywood is incredibly tribal. It’s all about gangs. You’ve got your people and you’d take a bullet for them.

Or you’re not in the game.

That’s one of the eye-opening elements, how Ovitz and his gang foist advantages upon their clients.

Sign with CAA and they’ll introduce you to Marty and Bob. They can not only solve problems, they can create opportunities. Who you’re with is sometimes more important than who you are. There are very few slots in Hollywood, in filmed entertainment and music too. If you think you can just waltz in and take your shot, you’ve got no idea how the game is played. It’s a controlled universe. You need your team. And this book makes that very clear.

It all seemed so important at the time. The Eszterhas affair. “Legal Eagles.” Ovitz going to Disney and getting fired.

But not only is Ovitz out of the picture, so is Eisner. Sid Sheinberg too. Take away their power base and they’re mortal. Meanwhile, the youngsters want to freeze you out, they don’t want to give you another shot, Ovitz had no chance with AMG.

So where does this leave us?

It’s about you baby. Follow your dream. You think you want to be at the center of it all, but the more you read the book the less you care. Never mind everybody working 24/7 just to stay in place, it’s just a matter of when the clients will leave you, not if.

But wisdom comes with experience and age. One can tell youngsters how it works but they never listen, they need to do it for themselves.

And I don’t think any youngsters are reading this book. Because they can’t catch the references, they have no idea who the people are, all plowed under, in the rearview mirror. Sydney Pollack is six feet under. Dustin Hoffman is a guy who had a series on HBO that got cancelled. Bob Redford is that old guy with a film festival. There’s a whole section on “Sneakers.” Do you even know that film? I saw it, I liked it, but it’s a distant memory, a faded photograph of a Little League team, if you were there it’s meaningful, if not, it’s meaningless.

Boys and their toys. Their Ferraris and their private jets. And you buy it, you want what they’ve got. Even though so many are faking it, and are unhappy inside.

To hear competitors rain on Ovitz’s parade, to say he was a bad businessman…

I mean come on, even if in some instances that’s true, it’s basically jealousy. Ovitz changed the agenting industry. And made beaucoup bucks doing it. Hell, he even changed the medium, both movies and TV. He left his mark.

But he did have blind spots.

We’ve all got blind spots.

And you conquer them via information. That’s what Hollywood runs on, information. If  you’re not communicating 24/7, if you’re not hoovering up tidbits and analysis, you’ll never make it.

It’s good to be the king.

But it never lasts.

P.S. Read the damn book. Your eyes will glaze over at times as they go down the rabbit hole, jumping around in the process, but you’ll learn more about how Hollywood really works than in a lifetime of college courses.