Rockin’ Vibes – Spotify playlist

Do you know this band Kaleo? They’re from Iceland and now signed to Atlantic and they’ve played SXSW and…they’ve got two tracks with over twenty million plays on Spotify.

I’ve never heard of them.

I started with “Discover Weekly,” and discovered that unsung, never broke through Bob Schneider definitely has the goods, check out his cut “Han Solo.” And my personalized playlist had a Nitty Gritty Dirt Band cover of “You Ain’t Going Nowhere,” a “Basement Tapes” song made famous by the Byrds but still unknown by so many. And there was a great Emmylou Harris song “Bluebird Wine,” but too many of the songs I already knew, even if they were amongst the best of the acts’ output, hell, how did the algorithm know to pick out Arc Angels’ “Sent By Angels”? And I LOVE Aerosmith’s “Seasons Of Wither” and the Cars’ “It’s All I Can Do,” but they’re from the seventies and I want to hear something new.

My “Discover Weekly” playlist did include Courtney Barnett’s “Three Packs A Day,” but even though it was better than the rest of her output I’d been exposed to it didn’t move the needle, it was edgy music for young people, not radically different from what I used to listen to.

But then I discovered “Rockin’ Vibes.”

Spotify keeps changing/improving its interface, on a regular basis there are new features. And now they recommend playlists and tracks based on what you’ve listened to previously, kind of an ongoing “Discover Weekly.” And…it’s all so overwhelming, there’s so much stuff. I was about to default to my usual playlists, the “United States Top 50” and “Hot Country.” But…

Too many of the “Top 50” are tune-outs and too many of the “Hot Country “are repetitious, not groundbreaking, serviceable, but ultimately a waste of time.

So I decided to dig deeper.

Spotify was recommending “This Is: George Harrison.” That’s right, I’d been listening to “All Things Must Pass,” the title track, I had a hard week and I started to write something but…

And there was “This Is: Eagles,” which I perused, but I know all that stuff.

“Classic Acoustic” was interesting, but like I said, I wanted to hear some new stuff, stuff I didn’t know.

And that’s when I stumbled on “Rockin’ Vibes.” Could it have a worse title?

The first track was “Take Me Down,” by the Pretty Reckless, and it was pretty good.

Huh? Isn’t that Taylor Momsen’s band? Aren’t actors supposed to suck at music? “Take Me Down” wasn’t cutting edge, but it was hooky, I most certainly got it.

And then I discovered Kaleo’s “Hot Blood,” with that guitar sound that has you twisting in your seat that I like so much. Once again, not revolutionary, but really good, I got sidetracked, that’s when I went down into the rabbit hole, learning about Kaleo.

And when I went back to “Rockin’ Vibes,” I was stunned, everything was GOOD!

Some of the bands you’ve heard of.

Some of you have not.

But there was nothing I wanted to fast-forward through.

That Band Of Horses track, “Solemn Oath,” I can listen to stuff like this for a very long time.

And Jeff Beck put out a new album which had no impact, he was totally wrong to fire Harvey Goldsmith as his manager, Harvey knew how to raise a ruckus, and I’ve heard this cut, and am somewhat disappointed by the vocalist, but if you’re not wowed by Beck’s guitar work you don’t like the six stringed instrument. When he starts to wail it’s like God has come down from heaven and is converting you just by doing his act, it’s irresistible.

And you can tell what all the buzz is about by listening to St. Paul & The Broken Bones’ “All I Ever Wonder.”

And then there’s the underrated deserving of praise Bob Moses, with “Tearing Me Up.” There’s no place for this on Top Forty radio, no place in our all promotion all the time in-your-face culture, but if you’re human, if you come home and want to relax, this will do it for you.

And then there was that band I’d never heard of, the Quaker City Night Hawks, I played “Beat The Machine” and I couldn’t stop playing it.

Rockin’ Vibes is a REVELATION!

If you’re a rock fan looking for new music who just can’t fathom the Top Forty, if you feel you just weren’t made for these times, you’ll be stunned to find there’s a playlist just for you.

What I’d like is a festival of just these acts, where each played three cuts, maybe four or five, I’d go for that, bands would truly break out of that, that’d be different from the casual clusterf**ks with the same acts playing across this great country of ours.

There’s still too much music to digest. “Rockin’ Vibes” is six hours and fourteen minutes long, it contains a hundred tracks, but it’s definitely worth listening to.

Maybe all of us who are fans of this music can agree this is our playlist and elevate these acts to the tier they deserve.

Or maybe not.

“Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice”

Jim Urie recommended this book. Yes, the man who used to run Universal Distribution, the guy who was featured so prominently in the Tower Records documentary. And I didn’t expect it to be good, after all, it was released over a year ago and I’d never heard of it, but…

I started the sample chapter just so I could tell Jim I did, give it a shot, but I was immediately hooked and I believe you will be too.

“Red Notice” is the story of one Bill Browder, whose grandfather ran for President as a Communist, whose parents were real lefties, who became a capitalist in reaction to all that.

Bill went to Stanford Business School. All the press goes to Harvard, Kellogg and Wharton, but the graduates of Stanford have an advantage, it’s about a small team throughout your education and you use these relationships…

Bill did not use these relationships, because he didn’t want to do what they all wanted to do. He wanted to work in Russia. Back before the wall fell and Communism imploded. “Red Notice” is the TRUE story of his exploits, and the hair will rise on the back of your neck as you read it.

You see Putin was after Bill Browder. For making so much money in Russia by revealing corruption.

Well, that’s not how he started. Actually, Browder started in Poland, as a consultant, on a bus deal, he worked his way to Russia, after getting Edmond Safra to invest in his fund. You see, Browder figured out the Russian stock market was incredibly undervalued, and that shares distributed to the public were actually more valuable than preferred, voting shares.

You don’t have to know anything about finance to read this book, never mind enjoy it. It’s really about how one man finds an edge and exploits it. Do you have the insight, do you have the balls?

Most don’t have the insight, that’s the failing of our educational system, we don’t teach people how to analyze, we teach to the test, to our society’s detriment. It’s only at the elite institutions that analytical skills are taught. I’ll give you an example. At Middlebury there were no objective tests, no multiple choice, no true/false, every test was a three hour essay exam, you had to argue your case.

And you hung with people who argued all day long.

But when I went to college back in the seventies, this was long before the era of entrepreneurship, this was when life was about personal fulfillment as opposed to cash. Browder is interested in the cash. And when you make that much, people don’t like it. His lawyer got killed.

That’s right, I’m reading the book feeling inadequate, how I don’t take these kinds of risks, and then the attorney is beaten to death in prison and I tell myself if that’s the cost, I’m out.

And Browder echoes this sentiment in the end.

But before that…

The first half of the book is an adventure story, as in going to different places and having one. I love when Browder and buddy crash the World Economic Forum in Davos. Success is about chutzpah.

The second half is about trying to get justice for the fallen attorney. And it’s not as good, it reads as self-justification, even if Browder’s motives are pure.

But it’s all true.

Sure, we heard about Putin and Sochi, even about Ukraine, but “Red Notice” will give you a feel for the corruption throughout Russia, it will make you glad you live in the United States, it will make you anxious every time Donald says something positive about Vladimir.

“Luckiest Girl Alive”

“Red Notice” is a better book. It calls out to you when you’re lying in bed, going through the day’s travails.

But it’s tough to put Jessica Knoll’s “Luckiest Girl Alive” down.

“Luckiest Girl Alive” is fiction. It’s billed as a mystery/thriller, and there’s an aspect that hits that chord, but really…it’s an expose on high school and outsiders.

Do you feel like an outsider?

I most certainly do. I attribute it to my dad, who never adhered to the conventional wisdom, who always went his own way. Listen to Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast “The Big Man Can’t Shoot” on this subject:

“The Big Man Can’t Shoot”

Turns out the underhand free throw is much more efficient than the overhand one. But people are too embarrassed to use it.

As for Gladwell’s “Revisionist History”…it’s extremely well done, make it your number one podcast, a position it usually holds on the chart. HOWEVER, Gladwell has an agenda. And it’s usually one of taking the top people, the elite, down. That’s a thread throughout his work. That those who go to top universities falter, that you can get just as good an education at a state school and can possibly achieve greater career goals because of the lesser competition. In the episode “Food Fight”, Gladwell takes a swipe at Bowdoin College, says not to go there, because of its great food. That Vassar is the better choice, even if it serves inferior food, because it has more Pell Grant attendees. But that’s not the only mark of financial aid/helping the underprivileged. Bowdoin helps the poor by having need blind admissions and giving a ton of money in financial aid. Furthermore, the food program is self-sustaining, there’s no endowment money used. But Gladwell has an agenda. And when confronted, he doubles down on Twitter, going on about steak and lobster dinners, even though that’s only twice a year and on the second date it’s mostly paid for by attendees, the families of Bowdoin graduates. But never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

And the fact is Jessica Knoll WAS raped. It came out much later, that’s right, “Luckiest Girl Alive” features a rape, but it’s got so much more than that. It’s got…the privileged versus the wannabe. The marriage for safety. And the desire to prove to those who put you down that you’ve made it, using your success to prove your worth.

“Luckiest Girl Alive” sometimes is so inside and obtuse in its language and sentence construction you don’t know what is being said. I read slowly, for content. And in this case I found it’s best to keep reading, most is revealed. It’s kind of like listening to a teen tell his or her story, a convoluted trip through an amusement park that only exists in their own mind.

But…

The emotions are so right.

You want to fit in, so you make one bad choice after another.

Kids are vicious, they bully.

And those with money win in the end.

And the end of this book is marginally unsatisfying. But the trip there…

If you weren’t popular in high school but wanted to be. If you think you are entitled to recognition but no one else sees it that way. If you…

Want to know how the east coast thinks…

“Not everyone is flush on the Main Line, but the priorities are certainly different than the kind I’d grown up with. Education, travel, culture – this is what any pennies pinched should be used for, never flashy cars, loud logos, or personal maintenance.”

If you grew up on the Main Line, in Philadelphia, or any other enclave of east coast pretentiousness, you’ll understand this completely. If you didn’t… This is the ethos of those who truly run America. Start here. But even more amazing is those who adhere to this ethos don’t know that other people see the world differently. TiFani’s mother drives a leased BMW, she’s got to, for her image. She makes sure TiFani is wearing makeup, the mother always has her look on. I never encountered this viewpoint until I moved to the west coast, where image oftentimes trumps substance.

But not really.

“Luckiest Girl Alive” is a good ride. Just enough plot to keep you moving forward, but it’s the insight that grabs you.

So many of today’s vaunted books don’t hit the high note, they ultimately disappoint. And sadly, “Luckiest Girl Alive” does too. But not as much as this summer’s “Sweetbitter,” which gets better towards the end, but is vastly overrated, as is “The Girls,” which is essentially unreadable, because of the endless digression into description, but…

In order to review a book you have to read it. And that takes a lot more effort than listening to a song. So, most people are excluded. But those who remain are members of a secret society. And when they tell you about something and it resonates you smile.

Someone e-mailed me about “Luckiest Girl Alive.” I spent the last twenty four hours reading it.

I can’t think of a better way to spend a day.

MAKE NEWS

Trump owns the news cycle, he’s the headline every damn day, whereas Hillary’s nowhere to be found. Taylor Swift did not become the biggest star in America by laying back and resting on the laurels of “1989.” She had listening parties, of both professionals and fans. She delivered Christmas gifts and filmed the ensuing hysteria. And despite experiencing a backlash, she could still sell out stadiums all across this great nation of ours. You see the fans don’t care about the haters. Don’t piss in the wind complaining, best your enemies by playing their own game, but better.

SPEAK TO HIS CONSTITUENTS

Want to replace Taylor Swift, do her act better than she does. Or come up with something transcendent that eclipses her. This election is about persuading the undecided. You’ve got to speak to their issues and convince them. The anybody but Trump faction is never gonna vote for him, don’t bother preaching to the converted, if anything it alienates the middle. The middle is worried about jobs and their future. And you appeal to these people emotionally, you feel their pain, something Bill Clinton was so good at. Stop railing against the Donald and go after his fans.

INNOVATE

Kanye is the master here, he held rallies to roll out his fashion line and his video, and charged for the privilege of attending. Kanye thought outside the box, he realized it wasn’t about unit sales, but mindshare.

ENGAGE

The person with the best message wins online. If Hillary were smart, she’d get into a flame war with Trump, engage him on his own terms online, spontaneously, on Twitter. The eyeballs and the news would be overwhelming. Trump’s a man of no substance, Hillary’s a wonk. She’d win any battle if she only played. Furthermore, it would set up the debates, it would defuse Trump’s firepower and put him on his heels. And Hillary could reference the online shenanigans during the ultimate televised encounters. Once again, Trump wins by being outrageous, that’s why people tune in, to see what he says next, it worked for him in the Republican primaries. Hillary’s got to go for the jugular, she’s got to be tough, we know she’s got it in her, she’s got to stop playing soft grandma and become bad ass grandma, which will further demonstrate her ability to lead, it’s a win win. Hillary’s not touchy-feely and that’s okay with the women on the work front lines, who have to deal with a man’s world every day and know how to play rough. 1992 was a generation ago, those ladies pissed off that Hillary didn’t want to stay home and bake cookies are in retirement homes wondering how they’re going to pay the next bill, if they’re not still working. People want a fighter and a winner, and that’s Hillary, not Donald, and if she’d just take off the gloves, stop smiling and start sneering…she’d issue the knockout punch.

ISSUES NOT PENUMBRA

Don’t take the bait! Don’t react to Putinism or the Muslim inanities, this election is about economic security, plain and simple. Once Donald gets you off point, you’ve lost. If someone was gonna be turned off by Donald’s wild statements and flip-flopping they’d have already abandoned him. You think the press is doing your job, by hammering Trump every damn day, but when it comes to entertainment there’s no such thing as bad publicity. And Trump has made this election about entertainment. You can’t win on that level, he’s better at that than you are, but if you illustrate his inadequacies by challenging him, you’ll succeed. Trump is thin-skinned and cannot let a comment slide, he’s always got to react. Go on Twitter and ask him how he’s gonna balance the budget with his tax plan, ask him how he’s gonna repair our nation’s infrastructure, ask him how he’s gonna keep black people and Latinos safe. Own the issues, play offense, not defense, that’s when Trump looks worst, when he’s force to respond to specific questions far from his wheelhouse, the ones important to undecided voters.

It’s a game folks. And Trump has revealed it to be a completely different one from what has come before. And all the established players have been caught flat-footed. The Republican party, the media and now Hillary Clinton. Past is prologue. Don’t be one of the seven dwarf Republicans playing your own aged game as Trump clears the board. Bush had a plan, no one cared, they want action and emotion. Rubio had no substance. And Carson was a dodo and Christie was tainted. And while they were jockeying for position, Trump redefined the race and then won it, to everybody’s amazement.

He’s gonna go low. He’s gonna say things that are gonna make many wince. But his words won’t be so different from those used in bars and households all over America today. Decorum is out the window, everybody uses the F-word, life is a rap battle, and the person who believes they’re above this is seen as out of touch and ends up being squeezed out.

Beyonce tested limits and got even bigger. Standing up for something instead of just smiling and playing nice.

And the “Voice” contestants play by the rules and then never succeed in the marketplace.

And Drake releases new music constantly, he’s always in the news.

And Bieber is the biggest and baddest, and he’s left a trail of missteps in his wake, but no one who listens to his music cares, they just love the songs.

Sing your song Hillary. Say what you’re gonna do instead of claiming America is already great. Be a leader, something Obama has faltered at. Challenge Congress. Push back. Organize. Have us follow in your wake instead of you following in ours.

As for Goldman Sachs and the speech money…do your Checkers mea culpa, say you needed the money and you kept making the money because money is power and you needed to accumulate so much to take on the corporations. Make your supposed flaws your assets.

Today’s musicians may not be cutting edge musically, but no one has done a better job of harnessing the new communication tools to reach the populace. It’s musicians who dominate social media, it’s musicians who are now unfiltered and in the marketplace every damn day. Better to consult with Taylor and Kanye than Robby Mook. And Bill’s aged and out of touch and Obama is so busy playing nice that he might have beaten Romney but would be challenged in today’s world.

The battle will be won by making your own news, by controlling your own narrative, not by being interviewed on Fox News, but by being all over Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. Never forget, the mainstream media is last, stories are built online. You can create your own narrative, musicians do it every damn day, Kim Kardashian is the master of this. Hell, she’s a good example. People hate her for having no talent. But you know what talent she does have? Making money. By staying in the news and appealing to those open to her message.

And many more people would be open to your message Hillary if you just got into the pit and fought it out.

You can do this, I know you can.

Don’t be afraid of mistakes, they’re quickly forgotten, step up to the plate and take some whacks, it’s the home runs we remember.

P.S. Own the criticism. Just like African-Americans took back the N-word and Obama called the Affordable Care Act “Obamacare,” tweet Trump and tell him it’s CROOKED HILLARY! And that you’d be tweeting from Benghazi, but you couldn’t get a plane there fast enough, just like you couldn’t get troops in to save…

P.P.S. Ask any golfer, you play to win or you don’t. Sure, Hillary might eke out a victory with her present strategy, but who’s she gonna kick if she fails but herself. No one is better informed on the issues than Hillary, no one knows better how to shepherd change through our system, she’s got to stop having her seconds telling everybody this and DEMONSTRATE IT!

He drives a Toyota Sienna minivan, a 2004, if it weren’t for the sideburns he’d be mistaken for a soccer mom.

For far too long we’ve equated music with riches and fame. Ever since the Beatles, and then the paradigm was supersized with MTV and now too many see playing as a vehicle to somewhere else, assuming they play at all.

But not David Lindley, who picked up a ukulele at four and got hooked, the deal was sealed when he put his head on the piano while his relative’s string quartet played back in the forties, he’s been picking ever since, from long before you knew he played with Jackson Browne, long before “Mercury Blues.”

The Levitt Pavilion is a free venue in Pasadena, we took the train, there’s a stop right there.

And in a small clearing there’s old fans, families and those in search of cheap entertainment assembled under the stars to hear music every bit as good as that being paid for across town, but without quite the same cachet. Oftentimes performed by those past their commercial peak, from back when music ruled the world and chops were everything.

And David Lindley’s got chops galore.

And a personality to match. As Dolly Parton put it during the recording of her “Live From Dollywood” LP, Lindley came to the gig all the way from MARS! That’s right, musicians used to be known for their quirky personalities as opposed to their ability to dominate social media.

So Lindley’s got a rack of instruments. He plucks them one by one and ekes out a sound that’s skilled but absent from the radio, they call this music.

And the highlight was “Meatgrinder Blues.”

Like every other number, it had a backstory. David was with Ry Cooder, telling his fellow axeman a tale of a friend’s woe. And Ry responded that this person was in the “self-meatgrinder.” Hmm, there’s a song in that, David said to himself, and he went home and wrote one with his daughter and sang it last night.

And it was satisfying but then when it was nearly done David told us he had a self-meatgrinder with him right on stage. That it was off in the corner, and if we wanted to go inside…

There were handles, you had to climb up. And when you got inside, you had to spread your haunches over the blades and then pull the handle and…GRIND, GRIND, GRIND!

You suspended disbelief. The story went on so long you had time to remember when you’d put yourself in the meatgrinder. And then the playing got fast and furious and one wondered…WHAT EXACTLY IS HAPPENING HERE?

There was Elvis, and then the folk explosion. Then came the Beatles and the business was transmogrified from a sideshow of hustlers and crooks to the mainstream, suddenly musicians were not only rich people, they had more power than politicians and businessmen.

And then it all disappeared.

They took it to the limit too many times. The joy was no longer in the note, pure and easy, but in the penumbra, the trappings, the side salad.

But David Lindley is still interested in the main course. He practices three to four hours, almost every day. You see it’s all about education, he wants to LEARN! He’s studying tracks from the Middle East and videos on YouTube. How did they do that? He wants to do it too. And he won’t be finished till he can play everything he hears in his head, which is never.

And the penultimate number was his classic “Mercury Blues.”

Only this time there was a new verse, his baby went to Costco, brought home some tuna, and he doesn’t want that mercury runnin’ ’round his brain.

I first saw Lindley at the Bitter End, accompanying Jackson Browne, who referred to him as the “Lindley Brothers,” since every time David picked up a new instrument he exhibited a new personality.

And then there was his star turn on “Stay.”

Needless to say, I needed to buy “El Rayo-X.” We were not only fans of the stars, but everybody we saw in the credits.

And David re-emerged with Jackson at the Greek a couple of years back, re-creating that seventies magic with a twist.

But I had no idea I’d see him last night until a friend informed me of the gig. You see there’s so much happening you can’t keep track.

So I ended up sitting outside on a hot summer night exposed to a guy who never gave up because it was never about stardom and bank to begin with, but only the music.

And that’s not only refreshing, it’s a REVELATION!