We’re leaving eight billion dollars on the table!

You’ve got to listen to Michael Rapino on Peter Kafka’s podcast. Or maybe not, you haven’t got that much time and don’t care but then you can’t get a ticket to the show and need a scapegoat and denigrate Ticketmaster and illustrate your lack of knowledge and contribute to the problem and there you have America in a nutshell…a land overloaded with information where everyone complains and points to inaccurate facts.

Within said podcast Rapino delineates Live Nation’s complete business model, tells more about the company’s vision than you can get by reading a lifetime of Ben Sisario articles or “Rolling Stone” pieces. This is the music business education you’re yearning for. And it’s definitely business, if you want creativity look to the labels, then again, the labels aren’t sure what they’re looking for, bunkered down in search of cash they’re pursuing commercialism, and that’s why the listener is unsatisfied. As for those doing it for themselves, testing limits… It’s hard to get attention, hell, I’ve never even seen anybody write about the above podcast or email or tweet about it, and Rapino is one of the two most powerful people in the music business!

The $8 billion figure is the amount by which we underprice tickets.

But let’s go back a step. If Drake or Beyonce play Madison Square Garden, what are the odds you can get tickets anyway? Superstar acts might tour every three or four years, millions want tickets, not everybody can go. Just because you can tweet and pontificate on Facebook that does not mean you can get inside the building. Which flummoxes you, that you have access on Ticketmaster but you can’t conclude the transaction.

Because of the bots.

But this is not a technological problem, no, this is all about economics!

Which abhor a vacuum. It’s no different from drugs. The government reduces Oxy availability and the heroin dealers see an opportunity and move in. That’s what happened, that’s why everybody’s o.d.’ing, heroin is not only cheaper, it’s a more available fix.

So get off your highfalutin’ college education pedestal and see when an entire industry underprices its inventory there will be those willing to move in and skim the profits. You can’t put billions up for grabs and expect those who are not already rich, or those who already are, the hackers and the ticket scalpers respectively, to not move in and take it.

Of course there’s subterfuge in the offering. When tickets finally go on sale they may be less than a tenth of total inventory. Pre-sales and holdbacks making up the majority. Get your Amex or Citi card, or both, join the fan club, do your best to be an insider, there are rewards for being a regular customer as opposed to buying once a year… But the real problem is we’re underpricing our tickets.

What’s the value of a front row Beyonce ticket? Four hundred? A grand or fifteen hundred in NYC? That’s what they end up going for, either through scalpers or platinum procedures. Yes, platinum, it’s a way for the industry to capture that income without looking bad. You give a good seat and a laminate and maybe a poster or a meet and greet and somehow that rationalizes a ducat price far in excess of face value. But the truth is people just want the seats, close, and that’s what they’re worth.

And then you have Lin-Manuel Miranda bloviating about bots in the “New York Times.” We haven’t even been able to eradicate e-mail spam, what are the odds we can mess with the bots? Low.

But give “Hamilton” credit, they just jacked up the price for good seats to $849. Don’t get your knickers in a twist, that’s what they go for anyway, but not via the primary sale, but scalpers.

Or, you can enter a lottery for a cheap seat, wherein victors get in for just ten bucks. But the odds of winning are about as good as those in the California Lottery.

But “Hamilton” has it half right. The rich have unlimited bucks, they’re gonna pay anyway, why not capture that income?

And the poor are priced out, so give them hope, give them a small chance.

But the truth is in order to make this work, to get rid of the bots, acts have to charge what the tickets are worth. That’s what the Stones do, that’s why you can always get a ticket.

But the wimps paying fealty to their fans while they make backroom deals to scalp their own tickets are worried about the backlash. Screw that, the public already knows what tickets are worth, that’s why StubHub and the scalpers are so profitable! And how great is it we work in an industry where even the poor will overpay for what they truly desire, yes, people will scrimp and save and blow the piggy bank for the show they want to see. And  you can always get a ticket at an exalted price, just Google, the offers come right up.

So…

Let’s come out from under the covers, let’s stop blaming the bots.

Either…

Price the tickets at what they’re worth.

Or…

Employ a paperless or lottery system to ensure that the great unwashed can get in.

Expect outsiders to bitch, they always bitch, you’ve got to ignore them.

But if you don’t go paperless, if you don’t tie the ticket to the initial buyer, you’re gonna discover…

The rich people are gonna get most of the good seats.

And there you have America. You might be priced out of “Hamilton” at $849 a ticket, but to a corporate denizen, someone who landed in Teterboro, that’s just the cost of doing business, their only decision is whether they want to go or not.

So you can’t get a ticket because there aren’t enough, they aren’t priced properly and the rich scoop up the good ones.

We can start by pricing our shows properly. As Rapino says, we’ve got to raise the price to sit up close and personal and lower it to sit in the upper bowl.

But that’s never been the case. A bad seat costs almost as much as a good one.

But now, more than ever, people want to sit up close.

I don’t expect rapid change. Acts only have one career, and frequently it’s very brief. But it’s the acts’ responsibility to fix this problem. And railing at scalpers picking up margins like candy ain’t gonna do it. Who’ll follow the Stones into flex pricing? Who’ll follow Metallica into paperless? What will it take to make this behemoth industry move forward?

I’d say there’s no chance, then again, this political season has illustrated the public knows the truth and is ready for change.

We’re ready for change in the ticketing business.

Michael Rapino podcast РFrom Beyonc̩ to Springsteen, almost every big concert goes through Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino

Lin-Manuel Miranda, “Stop the Bots From Killing Broadway”

“Hamilton Raises Ticket Prices: The Best Seats Will Now Cost $849”

This is what we need in music.

I swore off the NBA. It was an unmitigated time suck, TV crack, once you stated watching the playoffs you couldn’t tune out. I spent months in the nineties watching Michael Jordan, after wasting way too much time viewing the shenanigans of Magic and Bird before that.

But Jordan was the best player of all time. Oh, you can argue for Cousy or Bill Russell, but the truth was when he was gone it was said we’d never see his likes again, someone so talented, who could single-handedly win the game.

And we didn’t. We got big men, dominant forces, veritable freaks, like the lovable Shaq. And incredible players with great movement and intense shooting skills like Kobe. And then the apotheosis, a hybrid of it all, LeBron James, who was big but could play small. The NBA was bigger business than ever. Yet I rarely watched.

But then came Steph Curry.

Like all movements I came to it late. You hear about things long before you check them out. I noticed last year’s NBA championship, eclipsing LeBron’s Cavs, snatching victory from the mouth of defeat.

But then there was that night a few months back. When Curry hit so many three-pointers that it became a viral sensation. People’s minds were blown. But unlike giveaways, Oprah deeding cars on television, Curry had earned the accolades.

WHO WAS THIS GUY?

Yes, Butch asked Sundance this question way back when. Or maybe it was the other way around. All I know is that phrase entered the culture, that’s what art did way back when, it dominated the discourse. Our heroes were those who uttered the words of liberal arts creators, whose rep has been decimated in this STEM/money-dominated world.

And then comes this veritable shrimp from Davidson College to light up the NBA? Aren’t you supposed to be overhyped, leave school after the Final Four, sign a big contract and burn your identity into our consciousness whilst selling us crap all along the way?

Davidson is a liberal arts college of 1900 in North Carolina, far from the vaunted Stanford which the techies attend. But all those Silicon Valley acolytes are paying fealty to Steph Curry and his Warriors today, all because of the three point shot.

STEPH CURRY REINVENTED THE GAME!

He didn’t change the rules, he didn’t bitch and moan that the odds were stacked against him. He just took advantage of the notes that were in evidence. The three point perimeter has been in existence for decades. But rather than lauding those who attempted shots from there we decried their low completion rate, we wanted players to drive to the basket, to get close, that’s what every coach preached.

But not Steve Kerr and his Warriors.

They win from outside.

It’s incredible to watch. The ball arcs in an a parabola and then SWISH! Three points make a difference. A run of them put OKC to bed.

That’s why I started watching. Because the Warriors were down 3-1. Could the team owning the NBA’s regular season record get blown out, in this conference final?

NO! Because once Curry turned it on, the Thunder were doomed.

It was thrilling. It brought me back to sports. I no longer felt that I’d seen it all. This veritable pipsqueak, eating his mouth guard like a two year old playing with his pacifier, was putting the opponents to bed. Along with Klay Thompson and Draymond Green and… It was a team effort.

But the three point shot made the difference.

This is what the Beatles were. Something the same yet wholly different. Something honed off the radar screen that emerged fully-formed to blow our minds. The antithesis of the television competition shows. The usual suspects abhorred it, but the little girls understood.

And then we had the hip-hop breakthrough.

But that was decades ago.

So we’re looking for something different. Something made perfect in plain sight that we’re unaware of. Especially in this internet age when almost nothing gets traction.

And Curry didn’t make it through hype. Sure, he played in the NBA, but virality put him over the top.

You know how hard it is to make it? Almost impossible. When you’re broke in music know that the system isn’t rigged, it just doesn’t need that many players. But we do need winners. And to gain attention they have to be different, they have to reinvent the game.

And the music game hasn’t been reinvented in eons. Metallica still rules metal and Jay Z and Kanye are still the kings of hip-hop and everything on Top Forty sounds the same.

Not that being different is enough. You have to be EXCELLENT!

Every time Steph Curry fires from way downtown you get butterflies. It’s way too much risk, the defender is in his way… But when he sinks ’em, like last night, you gain this happiness that spreads throughout your entire body, you feel life is worth living.

Like I said, I gave up on basketball twenty years ago, kept it at arm’s length, it wasn’t worth the time, there were other things I wanted to accomplish.

But then Steph Curry came along and reinvented it all, when I thought the game was moribund.

I’m waiting for the same thing to happen in music.

P.S. There’s a story in today’s WSJ:

Under Armour’s New Steph Curry ‘Chef’ Shoe Gets Cooked

how Curry’s new Under Armour shoe is a dud, it’s too basic, too obvious, it looks like something from the pre-Jordan era, it’s generic. But notice Curry’s not signed to Nike, the behemoth. And his shoe is cheaper than LeBron’s. Today’s basketball kicks are for anything but playing, it’s all about fashion. But that’s not what Curry is selling. I want a pair.

I had shoulder surgery.

I really didn’t believe it when they told me I’d torn my rotator cuff. Can one get messed up that easily, just by falling on the ice?

Guess you can. Hell, the doctor that cut me said I must have fallen violently, my shoulder was “all messed up.”

But I come from that school where if you just hang in there you can achieve the desired result. The waiting might be the hardest part, but those who do reap the rewards. Although not with rotator cuff tendons, they never grow back.

Surgeon number one told me I had to be cut within two weeks. Only one problem, he was going on the road for a month.

So he insisted I see surgeon number two, who I’d never heard of, whereas number one is world famous, he did Felice’s ACL, he’s done most of the star athletes you’re familiar with.

But surgeon number two dissuaded me. Said I might die on the operating table, that I was so old results might not be good. To do PT and come back in a month.

Shocking, I know.

So I went to surgeon number three, and I know this sounds like overkill, but if surgeon number one had been available I wouldn’t have even checked out anybody else, wouldn’t have even gotten a second opinion, he’s the man.

Surgeon number two erased my appointment from the calendar but ended up being able to see me anyway. He said the same thing as surgeon number two, to try PT, and that I could wait up to a  year to do the surgery.

Hmm, a consensus. Sounds good. I’ll go with that. Except I’ve got massive biceps pain and I have trouble sleeping at night.

So I ended up keeping my appointment with surgeon number four. I rationalized it. Saying really, I’d only be seeing two surgeons of my choice. And Val Garay testified and Paterno had good results with him and his partner had reconstructed Dr. Dre’s arm, so what the hell.

But I felt might guilty, let me tell you, as I was sitting in the waiting room named “Skiing,” literally, this operation is a factory.

And the tech loaded the MRI. And then asked me if I had x-rays, which I did, shot back at Snowbird, but wouldn’t they be superfluous if I had an MRI? No. And if there weren’t all three views, we were gonna have to shoot more, which I found patently ridiculous, as I said, I felt guilty even being there.

Then I saw the fellow. I won’t talk to the fellows. Well, I used to not. But then I found at UCLA my hematologist would punch the clock with me if I didn’t tell my story first to the newbie.

So this thirty year old fellow looks at the film, demonstrates on a model, and tells me I need surgery.

My heart started to sink. My brain started to go numb. He wasn’t equivocal, but said we’d wait to see what surgeon number four had to say.

That I was totally messed up. You see the rotator cuff tendon everybody’s talking about? It’s got a rounded edge. Yes, I could see that on the MRI. That meant it had already been torn previously, not in this injury, because if it’s recent, the tendon is frayed, like this other one over here.

HUH?

That’s right, you’ve got TWO torn rotator cuff tendons.

And what about my biceps?

He said he could fix that, but might have to tack it down at another location.

Hmm…

Surgeon number two said if the biceps tendon was torn more than 30% it was history, he’d just tie it down and forget about it, that never sounded good to me.

And surgeon number three said number two was really an “open shoulder” guy, and everybody said this would be an arthroscopic procedure.

So forget number two, he’s out.

And number three didn’t even see the other torn tendon, so he’s gone too.

But number one?? So much time had passed that maybe he’d be able to do it.

So I leaned upon him.

No, the world famous guy leaned upon him.

But surgeon number one had cold feet. Talked about my leukemia drug, he didn’t want to do it.

So I rolled the dice with surgeon number four.

As for doing it at all… Surgeon number four said what number one did… I wouldn’t be able to ski, unless I did it one-armed. And despite my age, he thought I had thirty years left, why live them with so little functionality?

So, 5/31 was the day.

Oh, I had to go for a pre-op with my internist, who was very helpful, told me to view it as an athletic event, to clear the decks and get in shape.

And I had to go to a pain specialist, because supposedly this operation is horrifically painful but they’d come up with a protocol that would reduce it so much…

And then finally a pre-op with the man himself.

And then the day arrived.

Well, not before I freaked out over the long weekend. You see there was a MAJOR drug interaction between the pain pill and my cancer pill. And I don’t want to DIE!

My internist really came through, he calmed me down, walked me through, said it would be cool, by Tuesday morning I was ready.

To do it at the surgery center, my sleep apnea did not require the operation to be done at St. John’s.

And I thought of requesting the anesthesiologist who’d interviewed me about the sleep apnea, thank god I did not, because I got the bigwig, who’d done Arnold and Reagan, who said he was gonna just put tubes down my nose, whereas the other guy was all about the throat and complications.

I lived.

I know you’re laughing. But they told me to bring  my CPAP machine in case I didn’t wake up in recovery. But I did not need it.

But I did need pain medication. I was at my limit. My shoulder was HURTING!

And it took about 45 mins. for the pills to kick in, and then they scooted me out of there. To Felice’s house, where I sat in the lift chair I’d rented, everybody said you had to sleep in a recliner, and looked at the world through a haze.

But I didn’t feel that bad. The doctor called me. Friends. The business bigwig who was trying to push surgeon number one to do it.

And then the next day I crashed. Had to take the oxycodone just to muddle through. And that pill messes you up for about sixteen hours. You’re functional after about six, but you’re zoned out, and I hate that feeling.

But there was no way I could sleep.

You see you have to lie on your back. With your arm in a sling. And I’m a stomach sleeper and I haven’t gotten a good night of z’s in ten days.

But starting a day or two ago, my senses returned.

After stopping the oxycodone.

You see it’s heavily addictive. They said to employ it. But I had such a hard time getting  off Ativan after years of use. I didn’t want to use the pain pills at all, but I had to. Especially to sleep.

But now it was Saturday night and I couldn’t. Was I in enough pain to rationalize the dope? Not quite. But there ensued one of the worst nights of my life. I did not swallow a pill, but I did see my entire adult life pass through my brain in between hours of staring straight into darkness, awake. I’ve got a pretty strong constitution. But even I succumbed to the Ativan. No wonder we’ve got a major drug problem. Purdue Pharma’s a pusher and the hipsters won’t negate drugs, because substances are cool, don’t you know? Isn’t it interesting everybody’s grieving publicly over Prince’s demise, but when they say it’s due to opiates they’re mum. This is a major problem people.

So now I can be sling-free inside the house. Except at night, when I’ve got to wear it, and outside, when I have to don it too.

But I can’t move my elbow from my side.

And I’m so anxious about messing up. As it is, the doctor said I had soft bones and the Gleevec would impede healing a bit and I don’t want to go through this again.

P.S. The surgeon called the procedure “entertaining.” As in not run of the mill. He made everything anatomically correct, and utilized a bovine patch to help keep the biceps in place and aid healing.

P.P.S. I have to do pendulum and pulley exercises one minute each twenty times a day. That’s right, TWENTY! I keep a record. I’m a dot the “i” and cross the “t” kind of guy.

P.P.P.S. I see the doctor in three weeks. If everything goes according to plan, I can start physical therapy then.

P.P.P.P.S. I should be able to ski next season. But I shouldn’t expect a perfect result. This doc would normally say 90%, but since there were three procedures you multiply, like in statistics in college he said, which I did not take, but I’ll roll along, so we’re really shooting for about a 70% result. And I believe it. I’ve only had one operation that completely achieved its goal.

P.P.P.P.P.S. I missed being on the Howard Stern WrapUp show the day of Steve Miller. I had to pass on being on CNN. I had to cancel going to Electric Daisy and speaking at the Insomniac conference…and those are just the biggies.

P.P.P.P.P.P. As I once read, you can’t be too scared to get healthy. Go to the doctor. Get a second opinion. And know that you do the best you can, but perfection is unattainable.

We’re looking for heroes. We want those who speak the truth to put us atop the pedestal as opposed to themselves. Seers who are unafraid to be politically incorrect, who are willing to not only talk about the rampant income inequality in America, but the drug scourge.

And these are not techies.

It’s over kids. Four companies won the internet and everybody else is screwed. It’s Amazon and Apple, Facebook and Google, along with maybe also-ran Microsoft and newbie Snapchat, who control our digital lives. If you think you can sit in your basement and come up with a new tech idea and become a billionaire independently you’re either dumb or stuck in 2005. The techies have too much power.

And they’re using it against us.

Used to be we were afraid of losing our privacy. But then they came for the news. Gawker just declared bankruptcy, because it cannot compete with the deep pockets of Peter Thiel, a billionaire, so what chances are there for you?

I’ll vote for Hillary, not because I love her, but because I want to make sure the Supreme Court is no longer run by yahoos giving more power to those who have already been given too much under the rubric of “freedom.” And despite the figurehead, the truth is most people are on my side.

The progressives always win in the end. There’s gay marriage and more racial integration than ever before. Not that we don’t have miles to go, but the rank and file believe in equality.

And that no one is on their side.

Other than Elizabeth Warren on the left and…

I’m not sure who on the right.

Warren stood up to the haters. Whilst entertainers perform for oligarchs, Elizabeth keeps whacking the mole, unafraid of the fallout, of retribution.

This is what rock stars did when that profession rained down money.

But you make more as a Fortune 500 CEO than you do as a musician, year after year. And who can believe in overpaid execs like Philippe Dauman, whose solution to a low stock price is to give away the crown jewels. It’d be like a musician selling his catalog, for the short term money, and that’s always a mistake, it’s always about the long run.

And I’m not sure where we’re going in the long run.

But I do know we’re on the same team.

Those on the right are pissed someone stole their jobs, their opportunity. Which is exactly what those on the left are saying. Only those on the right believe it’s bogeymen like immigrants and welfare recipients while those on the left believe the fault lies in corporate interests.

And like I said, the left always wins in the end. Not through argument, but progress.

And we need progress in America right now. We need everyone to believe they have an opportunity to make it to the top via hard work. We need people to see that the problem is not only in Washington, D.C., but Silicon Valley. We’ve transferred our adoration from entertainers to techies and in the process we’ve sacrificed our souls to get free products with no support that we argue with each other upon while those in control whiplash not only our emotional future, but our economic one. You might connect with friends on Facebook, but the truth is it’s the number one news outlet today, far more powerful than any network, cable outlet or other website.

That’s where we are, the rich have gotten richer and we’re busy fighting amongst ourselves while everybody with a platform is kissing ass and sucking at the corporate tit while the same media which got it wrong about Trump says kids no longer view selling out negatively. That’s crap. Perpetrated by the same corporatists who are running roughshod over the economy and stealing our future, on both the left and the right. If you think the Democratic titans put the working man’s interests foremost, you were probably at that Goldman Sachs meeting where Hillary gave her speech. She got paid for influence. But some have to live outside the law, and to do that you’ve got to be honest.

We are at a turning point. And I’m not only talking about the unrest evidenced in the Presidential primaries. Rather, the tech revolution has become calcified the same way classic rock turned into corporate rock in the seventies. There are bands with long hair still cutting records, but no one cares. Today it’s about who you are and what you say, not your brand evidenced all over social media in your dash to become rich and famous.

Yes, once again it’s about the individual, what he or she has to say. Just you wait, you’re gonna see, because the billionaires have taken it too far.

Popping up from the underground will be people unafraid of being in the public eye who will speak their truth, which we resonate with, despite them being pilloried. Everybody wants to be liked, and that’s a false economy, just like your Facebook page where you display no downsides.

No successful musician is now leading. We’ve just got economic stunts.

And the movies are a complete joke.

Television leads, but despite containing great stories, it’s mostly escapism.

No, we’re looking for hard core reality, evidenced in a living, breathing, human being. A Mr. Smith in Washington, a selfless Kanye West. Someone who sells ideas, not sneakers. Who is not about self-glorification, but doing right for others via their leadership.

We remember Martin Luther King, not Bernie Cornfeld.

And they just sold the Playboy mansion.

It’s a new era. One of utter confusion. Upon whose landscape new leaders will emerge.

Because we need them.