“Vail Resorts pays top dollar for iconic Canadian ski resort Whistler Blackcomb”

Vail Resorts is revolutionizing the ski industry by providing a better product for a lower price and they’re doing it all in plain sight!

Used to be every ski hill was unique. With an individual owner. Usually a cranky sort who was good with tools but bad with money. Then the real estate developers took hold, believing there wasn’t enough cash in the mountain and if they could just build condos and sell land…they could become profitable.

And for a while this worked, but then they ran out of land.

Les Otten decided to roll up the ski areas back in the nineties, he upgraded infrastructure and was then hit by a few bad winters, which decimated his mostly east coast based empire.

And then came Rob Katz. A Wall Streeter who left New York after 9/11 and was installed on Vail’s board. Whereupon he learned the lay of the land, became Chairman and CEO, and came up with the Epic Pass.

You see skiing was seen as expensive, so he lowered the price, dramatically. Not only was a season pass now a third the price, it worked at multiple areas. So, people lined up to purchase it in droves. Sales went from four figures to 500,000 per year and have been increasing at a fifteen percent rate per annum. Some buyers never skied at all, others did much more, and then Vail made even more money on food and retail sales, yes, the resort operator owned a lot of the establishments at the base.

This isn’t that different from Amazon. Which promised low prices for a gold-plated product and then sold two-day delivery for $79 as Prime and kept laying free perks on top of that, like music and movies and TV. And now, Amazon is so far ahead of the game not only are there no competitors, it’s decimating physical retail, it’s a better experience.

Vail is the best experience.

Hard core skiers hate this. They hate Vail, a notoriously flat mountain whose main selling point is its glorious Back Bowls, Vail is for everyman, whereas the rabble-rousers want to keep skiing for themselves. If it sounds like music, it should, forever we’ve had self-anointed experts saying mainstream taste was crap, that people should be listening to what they wanted them to. But now the public ignores them. There’s just too much noise in the marketplace to pay attention to naysayers. And pop, hated by the cognoscenti, rules.

Now Katz and Vail didn’t just lower the price, they invested in infrastructure. After the completion of the replacement of Chair 17 in SunUp Bowl this year there will be no low speed fixed grip chairlifts left on Vail Mountain, other than those servicing beginners. Wouldn’t you like to ski where the lifts run at two and a half times the speed and the slopes are groomed to perfection?

Most people would.

But lower prices and infrastructure improvements were only the beginning. Vail went on a buying spree, a strategic buying spree, purchasing ski resorts in the Midwest because…if the pass worked at your local hill, and you could ski for free out west, wouldn’t you make the trip? I went to Big Sky and Telluride the past two years and a few days of skiing cost me as much as my Epic Pass that allowed me to ski for every day for one low price all over the world.

Yes, Vail bought Perisher in Australia. So when Aussies wanted to ski during their summer, they’d come to Vail resorts, where their passes worked.

And now Vail has bought Whistler, the huge area outside of Vancouver, and the rest of the industry is stunned, they’re overwhelmed, they don’t know how to compete. Vail also owns three areas in Tahoe. And now Park City, as well as major resorts on Colorado’s Front Range.

Of course, income inequality has made it so that skiing is no longer a middle class sport, but ironically, the barrier to entry at Vail, the biggest and the baddest, is the lowest. Sure, day rates are exorbitant, but no one pays those, everybody buys a pass, or purchases tickets in advance at a discount online.

And climate change is wreaking havoc on the sport but that’s why Vail has diversified, the Pacific Northwest, Tahoe and the Rockies are three distinct weather zones, it’s rare they’ve all got a drought in the same year.

And this paradigm could be replicated, someone could step up and compete, but no one has, they’re just too stunned, set in their old ways.

It’s kind of like music. Where the oldsters didn’t see digital and complain that Spotify and streaming ate their lunch.

And rather than convince people what a good deal ten bucks a month is, they bad-mouth the site, driving people away from it!

And, of course, there is no piracy in skiing. You can climb up yourself, but very few people do this. So, there’s no free tier at Vail, but…

The Epic Pass started off under five hundred dollars a month. You broke even in less than five skiing days. Music streaming is a bargain, but no one in the artistic community wants to spread the message, for fear of being left out, since in the era of consolidation winners take all and the losers are screwed. But that’s got nothing to do with Spotify, that’s a cultural issue.

However, after improving the product and rolling up additional areas what did Vail do…IT RAISED THE PRICE! Now, an Epic Pass costs almost twice as much, after less than a decade. But Vail did raise the day price, so the break even remains the same, it’s still a bargain. And it’s still cheaper than a season pass at most standalone resorts.

Music streaming could be five bucks a month. With no free tier. And then after everybody signs up, the price could slowly be raised, like Vail.

This is not rocket science. It’s about providing a premium product at a low price, a deal, and after people are hooked raising prices.

How do you get everybody to buy a streaming music subscription?

You might tell me no one needs it, but did everybody need two day delivery with Amazon Prime?

Music streaming is here to stay, it already won.

Want to multiply the number of subscriptions? Say how good it is, not how bad. Talk about the value. Get everybody excited about music, word of mouth is king.

There’s plenty of money to be made when everybody gets on board.

But those inured to the old ways refuse to do this, they muddy the water, they trot out false economics and spread hatred and if you subscribe to Spotify you’re seen at the devil.

No, the devil is the naysayers.

Sure, Daniel Ek is rich, but so is Rob Katz! When we start denigrating those who come up with a new solution that satisfies customers we’ve truly lost the American way.

People love convenience and quality. They love cheap.

Vail has found a way to provide this.

The music industry keeps alienating its customers whilst complaining prices are too low.

Is this any way to run a business?

NO!

I  bought blue sneakers because that’s what Dean was wearing on the cover of the live album “Command Performance.”

And they were not easy to find. In Fairfield, Connecticut, everybody wore P.F. Flyers or Keds, in white, black had gone out with the fifties, this was not California, Fairfield’s a lonely town when you’re the only surfer boy around.

This was pre “Endless Summer.” The only way I knew about surfing was…

Records.

And the Beach Boys are the most famous musical exponent of the surfing culture, but Jan & Dean came first, they were already an established act when the Surfaris released “Wipe Out.”

“Command Performance” was not the first album I bought, but it was close. I played it so much it turned grey, back in the day of heavy tonearms, when you’d put a nickel or a dime on top to make sure the needle didn’t skip.

Guys, hold on to your girls
Girls, you just hold on…
HERE COMES JAN AND DEAN

And after a fanfare and tons of screaming out of the one speaker in the side of the record player came…

Two girls for every boy

At this point that was meaningless. I’d had no girlfriend, was not interested in the opposite sex, but this mellifluous sound..IT WAS EVERYTHING!

In case you’re under sixty, that line is the opening lyric of “Surf City,” now known as Huntington Beach, where Dean Torrence presently resides. Yes, he surfed.

I’m not sure if Jan Berry did. But Jan was no music nerd, they met on the football team, Jan was on his way to medical school and Dean was studying architecture at USC and…

Jan crashed his Corvette into a parked truck on Sunset Boulevard and although that wasn’t all she wrote, Jan was never the same thereafter, speaking was hard, but the records remain.

And the records got me to Pasadena last night. Come on, give up on a chance to hear “The Little Old Lady (From Pasadena)” in Pasadena?

OF COURSE NOT!

It’s a free concert under the stars and despite Periscope, never mind television, you can’t really understand unless you’ve been there, here, Southern California.

It’s a different culture. You don’t need a jacket and tie to get into a restaurant, a college degree is nice, but where it’s from is irrelevant… The most important things are your image and your outlook, if  you’re up for anything, Southern California is your place!

That’s why I moved here. For that attitude, for that mental perspective, and it was the right move, but once upon a time I lived on the east coast.

So, I’m sitting there reminiscing. The memories flowing fast and furious. Summer camp. School dances. This was the soundtrack…

To a time long gone, in the rearview mirror never to be replayed, eventually not even to be remembered.

Fifty channels and nothing on? We only had three networks!

And the radio was our internet, we were addicted, it was how we connected.

We were living in the dark and didn’t even realize it.

But it was the music that midwived our transition into the future. A sound far different from what came before, played on guitars, about subjects that would never be sung about again.

Surfing?

What did Jimi Hendrix say, we’d never hear surf music again?

And it won’t be long before you don’t even own a car, never mind drive. Spending hours in your garage tweaking your hot rod? Today’s kids have no idea what a mill is!

Dean is 76. But not only is he still alive, he’s still active. Retirement at 65 is out of the question for baby boomers, who still believe their best days are ahead of them.

But we’re fading into irrelevancy. Not even given a thought. We’ve seen the trick, the marketers want to reach the youngsters.

But we’re still around, and it’s so weird.

So it’s billed as a “Beach Party.” And the set is heavy with Beach Boys numbers, after all…does anybody know Jan & Dean’s deep cuts? Even hits like “Linda”? Go see your favorites now, because soon you won’t be able to. As for those album tracks you loved… There’s no money in that, so they’re never played.

Before the show Dean and band did a private rendition of
“The Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga Sewing Circle Book Review and Timing Association” for Larry, who paid for the show. I had hopes they’d play it in the show. But it turns out Jan & Dean never even played the song live, they never went on a bus tour, they were in COLLEGE!

But now Dean does thirty to fifty shows a year, keeping the summer alive.

And it’s still alive in my brain, but so much of what was there is now gone.

Like my dad. Who came into my bedroom and sang “Tell ’em I’m surfin’,” not “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” but the track from Jan and Dean’s 1964 LP, “Ride The Wild Surf.” There’s more to it than that actually: “Hey mom, if any of the guys from my baseball team ever call me on the phone to ask me to play in an important game, just say their captain ain’t at home, tell I’m surfin'”… That’s right, baseball took a back seat to my new passion for music, which my father understood, even if we could never talk about it or much of anything else.

Camp Laurelwood is still there, but in pictures it’s different, my formative years in Botwinik and Fox live on in my memory, and there only, those photos are long gone.

I’ve still got the records, they’re on Spotify, but today oldies radio plays the music of the eighties and nineties. And sure, I can hear the originals on Sirius but…

The tracks are set in amber, they’re making no new ones.

The torch was passed when I wasn’t even looking. Other than the Beatles and the Stones, a bit of Beach Boys and a smidge of Eagles, all my musical building blocks have been plowed under.

I’ll never climb Everest.

I’ll never have my first girlfriend again.

The hourglass is emptying.

It’s bittersweet, but I couldn’t stop thinking about all this last night.

Dean sang about “The New Girl In School” yet I haven’t been in a classroom for decades and have no desire to return, but…

In my heart, I’m still ready to ride the wild surf.

Gotta take that one last ride.

Which is why I journeyed to Pasadena last night.

I took a left at Dead Man’s Curve, drove through Drag City, waved to Linda and the Honolulu Lulu and got my board and went Sidewalk Surfin’ once again.

The same way I did back when.

I’m still here.

Where is everybody else?

“Command Performance” – Spotify

More Release Radar – Spotify playlist

Yes, I’m cherry-picking, these are just a handful of the cuts I listened to on my “Your Release Radar” playlist, but they’re the ones that got me to react. It’s positively thrilling to be exposed to new music, to stop looking in the rearview mirror and turn your head forward, especially when you’re exposed to stuff that’s previously unknown to you, like Luke Winslow-King’s “I’m Glad Trouble Don’t Last Always,” the final cut below, if you’re pressed for time read about and listen to it first, it’s a winner!

“Hold On, I’m Coming”
Melissa Etheridge

Completely superfluous, not bad, but unnecessary. The last refuge of a has-been, a COVERS ALBUM! And isn’t it funny that it’s always whites covering blacks. I’m waiting for a black act to cover Night Ranger and Styx, HA!

“This House Is Not For Sale”
Bon Jovi

More of the same, but in this case mixed to a miasma that’s impenetrable, and did Jon always sing in this stylized voice, or is that just frustration that he can’t get arrested on wax.

He needs a new producer with a more modern and less dense sound. And sure, it’s got an arena rock chorus, once again, poorly mixed, with the vocal too far down, but this is really self-parody. He needs to work with Dave Cobb….

“Kiss The Sky”
Jason Derulo

This is fantastic, from Derulo’s greatest hits album. Sounds generic at first, but as it plays out you get hooked.

If we were living in the eighties, in a monoculture, with MTV ruling, everybody would know Derulo’s name, but now…

He’s part of the pop ghetto. (I know, that’s a dangerous word, fraught with subtext, but pop is a minority, even if it’s the loudest sound in a sea of noise, but my point is you think you’re winning when you’re on Top Forty but so many people don’t tune in but so many of these records…those not paying attention would like them, if they ever heard them.)

“Waiting For The Thunder”
Blackberry Smoke

If you were a fan of southern rock crossed with Foghat you’ll be stunned that a modern band has synthesized something new out of what once was, with an anthemic chorus putting it over the top. Sure, this is nearly paint-by-numbers, but it’s solid. If we were in the heyday of AOR, during the seventies, this would sit right next to the Outlaws just fine, you’d like it, you’d see them as the middle band in a triple bill.

“I’m Glad Trouble Don’t Last Always”
Luke Winslow-King

And here’s the winner. By someone I’ve never heard of, doing that swamp rock sound, hearkening back to what once was without being pure nostalgia, with a big fat chorus to boot, this unheralded nobody is doing soulful blues rock better than Eric Clapton, all the old farts should track this guy down and play with him, to reinvigorate themselves, you can’t think too much, you’ve just got to strap on the axe, turn up the amp, step up to the mic and feel the power, that’s right, rock music is all about feel, something that starts in the heart and then migrates to the genitals, gets your whole body shaking, the problem with too much of today’s music is it appeals to the brain, and in music, thinking is always secondary to feel.

This is on Bloodshot, most famous for releasing Ryan Adams’s “Heartbreaker,” how does an indie label survive, one that cannot participate in 360 degrees of revenue, they must be doing it for the love of it.

And “Your Release Radar” relies not on radio, it’s not part of the winning through relationships and intimidation game, rather it’s all driven by science, algorithms, so something can surface if it’s good, and “I’m Glad Trouble Don’t Last Always” is…good, that is, it’s heavy without being fake, bass-driven but not bass-dominated. CHECK IT OUT!

What It Means – Spotify

What It Means – YouTube

What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where a band of whites from the south writes the protest song of the year?

One in which everybody in pop music is so busy self-promoting their hedonistic vision that the sideshow becomes the real show.

Glenn Yarbrough died. If you lived through the sixties you’ll remember him from the Limeliters, from his solo hit “Baby The Rain Must Fall.” He was inspired by Woody Guthrie, he saw music could be an agent for change, it didn’t just have to be mindless drivel.

But that’s what we’re subjected to, in a nation where facts are irrelevant, everybody’s got their own agenda and we have not only political gridlock, but cultural and economic gridlock too. Both sides shout loudly and the issue gets covered up and we all put our tails between our legs and move on. But a song, it has power that transcends and maintains.

He was running down the street
When they shot him in his tracks
About the only thing agreed upon
Is he ain’t coming back

Dead is dead, it’s final. That’s something seemingly only friends and families of the deceased seem to know, for everybody else the person gone is a bargaining chip, a point of discussion to hang your viewpoint upon, after you assassinate the character of someone who cannot defend him or herself.

There won’t be any trial
So the air it won’t be cleared
There’s just two sides calling names
Out of anger, out of fear

Fear, it rules our nation, drummed up by wankers on TV and talk radio, saying how bad our nation is when the truth it’s safer than ever before. It’s all about perception as opposed to reality. And the outside agitators want to fan the flames of despair, it suits them, then you’ll pay fealty to the powers-that-be, give up power over your own destiny, pointing at others as opposed to marching forward yourself, how ever hard that might be.

If you say it wasn’t racial
When they shot him in his tracks
Well, I guess that means you ain’t black
It means that you ain’t black

The Supreme Court says we live in a post-racial society, that voter equality laws are passe, oversight is eliminated, and then the usual suspects make it harder for the underclass to vote.

I mean Barack Obama won
And you can choose where to eat
But you don’t see too many white kids lying
Bleeding on the street

Just because we have a black President, just because separate but equal laws have been struck down, that does not mean we have equality. Today, unless they’re athletes, African-Americans are demonized, as opposed to being given a hand up.

And it happened last weekend
And it will happen again next week
And when they turned him over
They were surprised there was no gun
I mean he must have done something
Or else why would he have run

He’s running because once you’re entangled with the police the games begin, it no longer becomes about the traffic violation, your entire character and past come into question. So, you’re scared. And when people are scared they don’t make the best choices.

And they’ll spin it for the anchors
On the television screen
So we can shrug and let it happen
Without asking what it means

The media… Fox has an agenda. As does Murdoch’s “Wall Street Journal.” But call this out and the right wing just attacks the bleeding heart liberal press trying to get it right, it’s the left wing media that blinks, not Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity stirring up discontent. News is purely entertainment, it’s about the narrative, the personages proud of being on screen and rich, right and wrong are secondary to ratings.

And that guy who killed that kid
Down in Florida standing ground
Is free to beat up on his girlfriend
And wave his brand new gun around
While some kid is dead and buried
And laying in the ground
With a pocket full of Skittles

George Zimmerman may have gotten off, but he’s turned out to be a bad actor, the shooting wasn’t an anomaly, but the discussion is about black kids in hoodies and white fear.

We’re living in an age
Where limitations are forgotten
The outer edges move and dazzle us
But the core is something rotten
And we’re standing on the precipice
Of prejudice and fear

Just because we all have smartphones that does not mean we are not humans, with foibles and problems that need to be addressed. Instead we’re told to be thrilled by social media breakthroughs and to be happy because we have flat screens, huh?

It’s not only the demonization of the blacks, but the poor whites and the hard-working immigrants too. It’s class warfare amongst the lower third, and those in charge, with power, are completely out of touch, or as even right winger Peggy Noonan pointed out…Syrians are settled in poor white communities as opposed to the Beltway. They don’t want people like them in their own neighborhood, even though they’re bleeding heart liberals.

How Global Elites Forsake Their Countrymen

Roger Ailes is a harasser who fostered a culture of sexual pressure and intimidation throughout Fox News. And when confronted, like every tribe throughout history the team just circled the wagons until Gretchen Carlson stood up for what was right.

Hillary Clinton is running for President as an advocate for us but she’s so entrenched with the rich financiers that she’s not sure what side she’s on.

Donald Trump has taken advantage of tax laws after being born on third base and confuses running for President with promoting a television show and this guy knows what’s going on on Main Street as much as a denizen of Ferguson knows what’s going on on Wall Street.

What’s a poor boy to do?

Play in a rock and roll band!

I don’t expect “What It Means” to get Top Forty airplay. Then again, it’s no “Eve Of Destruction,” it’s a rambling ditty which will make the band’s fans happy, they’ll sing along, but as for the rest of us…

We’ll never hear it.

Then again, I discovered “What It Means” via Spotify’s “Release Radar,” that’s right, algorithms are more trustworthy than personal recommendations, they’re unbiased, they surfaced this track for me.

And listening gives me hope.

“What It Means” won’t make the Drive-By Truckers rich, it will barely expand their audience, but they’re speaking from the heart, they’re doing what’s right, which is hard to achieve when a track has ten writers and just as many hooks put together for a short attention span audience.

Maybe it’s time we listened all the way through, to those saying something as opposed to trying to razzle-dazzle us into submission.

Every revolution starts with one step forward.

And the Drive-By Truckers just took one.

Now it’s your job to follow in their footsteps.