And if my thought dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine

“It’s Alright, Ma, (I’m Only Bleeding)”

What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where Bob Dylan comes back from the dead and delivers the paramount rock and roll experience of the twenty first century?

That’s right, MusiCares is a clusterfuck nonpareil. The number one networking dinner of the year. Not only is it peopled by wannabes and no-name Recording Academy members, the movers and shakers all show up, the conversation is scintillating and informative, and then you retire to the ballroom where household names go through the motions, singing songs via Teleprompter.

Now the best stuff I saw in the auction room were the photos donated by Richard Lewis. That’s right, the comedian. He had one from the A.R.M.S. concert with every legend known to man, from Jeff Beck to Joe Cocker to Jimmy Page to Eric Clapton to Ronnie Lane, the inspiration for the show. Even more fascinating was the picture of Tim Hardin, before he was grizzled by heroin addiction, it was almost a completely different man.

And during the speeches I conversed with my table neighbors, nothing relevant or interesting was being said.

And then came the performances.

Now first I have to mention the crack band. Using all their chops and rehearsal to operate on a level so high, I don’t think it can be topped. Don Was the bandmaster. And Kenny Aronoff pounded the skins. Heartbreaker extraordinaire, Benmont Tench, tickled the keys. The legend only insiders know, Buddy Miller, picked the strings. And Greg Leisz was on pedal steel, this guy deserves to be more well-known.

Anyway, all the stars were good, but I can’t say there were many memorable performances. The song choices were confounding. A track from “Saved”? Another from “Oh Mercy”? Even the most dedicated Dylanologist would not only be disappointed, but would struggle to know the lyrics of these obscurities.

I figured John Mellencamp was gonna amp it up with a ripping version of “Highway 61,” but he turned it into a dirge.

And Tom Jones was fluid, but he never put the pedal to the metal, he usually blows us away, here he just barely brought the kettle to a boil.

Beck was all one note, there were no dynamics.

Jackson Browne was really good on an endless number from the early catalog that evidenced magic, but didn’t grab you by the gut and twist you.

Unlike Bonnie Raitt.

Bonnie Raitt, the Grammy darling, came back over the hill to reclaim her title as the sassiest mama with the best interpretive skills, all the while being a soulful slide player who can hold her own with the boys. She took the tertiary track “Standing In The Doorway” and not only made it her own, far eclipsing Dylan’s original, but delivered the best musical performance of the night. It was like being jetted back to 1992. Or 1972. As if no time had passed. There were a few lines in her face, but Bonnie was every bit as good. Really, if you’re a music lover, you would have smiled and then jumped to your feet, as we all did.

The second best performance, by a hair? Willie Nelson’s rendition of “Senor.”

Talk about a professional… Willie couldn’t read the Teleprompter at the back of the room. And the one on stage wasn’t working. So he and the band vamped endlessly until the glitch was rectified. Minutes. Talk about draining energy from the performance… But then Willie sang so beautifully, so soulfully, picked so amazingly, that he converted everyone on the fence into a fan. This guy is a deserved legend. He’s heads above everybody else. He wrung meaning out of that song that we didn’t know was there.

Jack White earned his place in the movie “It Might Get Loud.” He wailed.

And the Boss did a solid rendition of “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” and whipped out some leads to demonstrate that he’s not about to hang up his rock and roll shoes.

And then came Mr. Z.

Well, first we had Neil Portnow’s monotonic introduction. What a juxtaposition, a legend and an administrator.

But credit Mr. Portnow for knowing it was not his night, that he was not up to the task, for he relinquished the mic to Jimmy Carter.

That’s right, our 90 year old ex-President who was put into office by the Allman Brothers. And I didn’t believe half of what he said, but then he got truthful, you could feel the connection, and out came Zimmy.

Now this is usually the lamest moment of the show. When the winner holds the trophy, thanks the usual suspects and says nothing meaningful.

But not the poet laureate from Hibbing.

Bob talked in that insane voice he’s developed, like his skin is a different color and he was brought up in the holler. And he made some perfunctory remarks. And then he told us he was gonna read.

Oh god, he’s afraid of making a mistake, he can’t do it off the cuff, get ready to be bored.

And all night we were wondering if Bob would perform. Most people do, but when Neil Young was honored he did not. And really, I don’t want to see Bob mangle his old material, but maybe on this occasion he’ll hearken back to the originals.

It was better than that. Bob didn’t play a note, but he delivered a speech that dropped jaws and had you tingling, not believing you were there in attendance.

You remember that experience, don’t you? When the gigs weren’t productions matched to clicks and if you didn’t go to the show you didn’t know, there was no MTV, never mind YouTube? When you went because you never knew what would happen?

Well, something happened last night.

And what happened was that Bob Dylan revealed he’s been listening all the while, he knows what we’ve been saying about him, he’s got an opinion about it, and unlike everybody else in this sold-out business he’s not afraid to step on toes, he’s not afraid to offend.

It had a somewhat historical structure. These were not notes, Bob had written an essay, nearly a book, it took him half an hour to deliver it, turning the printed pages all the while. And he didn’t go all the way back to Minnesota, then again, there was a reference to Highway 61, but he did start with John Hammond, giving the man props for signing him, alluding to the luck he was the beneficiary of that no one likes to talk about.

It’s more than luck, it’s personality and drive and cunning and making opportunities others cannot see, never mind take advantage of. But there’s always luck.

And from there to his initial publisher Lou Levy, and Joan Baez, who he praised to high heaven, all the way to Jimi Hendrix on up to today.

Lou said Bob was ahead of the game, and if he was lucky the audience would catch up with him in three to five years.

Bob didn’t want to write novelty tracks like Leiber and Stoller, whom he excoriated. Bob was only interested in the truth, which he got from folk songs, which he knew by heart and played incessantly.

Yes, Bob told us where his songs came from. Made the connection from the past to the present. It was positively mind-blowing, the guy who obfuscates for a living is giving us the god’s honest truth in a way no one ever does. It’s like the fathers of our country telling us what’s behind the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, the only difference being Dylan is still alive.

You see Dylan impacted the culture, we’re just pawns in his game. The big story this week was the “Billboard 100,” the executives who run this enterprise. That’s how far we’ve come, we lionize the rip-off businessmen who’ll soon be forgotten. Even David Geffen’s almost been forgotten.

But Bob Dylan won’t be. Great artists cobble together something new from the past and inspire those who come after. Bob Dylan is a great artist.

And what a perspective!

He talked about his voice and the criticism of it. Wondered why he was singled out and Leonard Cohen was not. Why everybody else can do a covers album and get away with it but the critics put him through the wringer.

The truth is Bob Dylan is different from the rest. We hold him to a higher standard. Because he’s at the pinnacle, and we need to believe in him.

But Dylan’s an elusive sort. Bobbing and weaving like a boxer. Confounding expectations.

That was a highlight, when Dylan said this was not a job description, this is not what he does, he’s just following his own muse in search of the truth.

And I could recite more verbiage but if you’re interested in the details you can read excerpts online.

But ultimately it was more than the content. It was the fact that Bob Dylan trail blazed again. That he did confound our expectations. That he pushed an envelope we could not even see.

And we were there. When he went on not worrying what we thought, not worrying about losing us, because that’s what great artists do, follow their own path and not worry about pandering to the masses.

But now pandering rules the business. And those who are unique don’t realize that Bob Dylan could get away with his unique voice because he was the best lyricist of all time. Are you? I don’t think so.

And Bob Dylan is still demanding our attention. Who else can we say that of?

And I won’t say everything he does is good. But you’ve got to respect the man for trying, for continually being born instead of dying.

So there you have it. This is what got us to go to the shows way back when. Because a friend went and couldn’t stop testifying about what he’d experienced.

Last night I experienced the best speech by a rock musician ever.

And the honor is bogus, but all awards are. That was another of Dylan’s targets, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. An empty institution where the second-rate are members and the genuine article is excluded. That’s right, Billy Lee Riley might have only had one hit, “Red Hot,” but that track got inside Dylan in such a way as to not only inspire, but never be forgotten.

You remember inspiration, don’t you?

You remember the indelible experience, don’t you?

Or are you just about the money, and if someone’s got it they’re above criticism?

If so, I feel sorry for you. Because you wouldn’t have gotten Bob Dylan’s speech last night, you wouldn’t have understood where he was coming from, and you wouldn’t have been made to believe that the future is still in front of us as opposed to being in the rearview mirror, and you wouldn’t know that art trumps money every minute of the day, every hour of the week, and that without Bob Dylan our lives would be so much emptier.

So you can pledge fealty to false idols.

But the empty icons won’t keep you warm at night.

Grammy weekend is already over. Bob Dylan took home all the trophies, made the entire ceremony look small and he never sang a note.

That’s an artist.

Your move.

Once upon a time live albums were de rigueur, part of the cycle, a way to cash in on fans and those who want to hear all the greatest hits in one place at one time.

But then the internet destroyed album sales and you were able to see endless performances on YouTube and live albums disappeared.

But Eric Church did not get the memo. He decided to make one anyway.

And it’s astoundingly good.

BEFORE SHE DOES

And I believe that Jesus is comin’ back
Before she does

I didn’t get this the first time through. I heard Eric plow through a lot of right wing stuff that turns northerners off, complaining about gas prices and professing faith in the Bible and then…

This.

And it’s HILARIOUS!

They always say it’s guys who leave, but that ain’t so, and when left behind guys have such a hard time getting over it. They want them to come back, they believe they’re gonna come back, but they don’t.

So what you’ve got here is a guy who’s pissed who’s telling his story and not only is it endearing, it’s the anthem for all those sitting on a barstool contemplating their choices and the way the world works.

It rocks hard, you get it immediately.

That’s right, Eric Church reaches out and grabs you right from the get-go, and that’s what we need in this modern world of endless incoming, delivery and deliverance.

HOW ‘BOUT YOU

I like my country rockin’
How ’bout you

And there you have it, the essence of this album. It rocks so hard it’ll twist your preconceived notion of country music.

This is the best live rock album of this decade (not that there are that many, see above), but if you ever held a beer in your hand as you thrust your other arm in the air in time to the music, if you love Skynyrd, if you think the music should be so loud it crowds out all other noise, THIS IS THE ALBUM FOR YOU!

Really, you’ll be stunned, the twinkling leads, the heavy pounding, this is everything you remember and still love, but brand new with truthful, insightful lyrics. Who could ask for more? Which is why you’ll get hooked and won’t be able to stop playing this LP.

DRINK IN MY HAND

Cliched, obvious, but it swings!

Yes, another drinking anthem in support of the working man, but it’s not condescending, it works.

I’M GETTIN’ STONED

So heavy, you’d think it was a Metallica track. Really, throw out your preconceived notions of country music. The bass pounds, it excludes all other thoughts from your brain…isn’t that what you want from hard rock?

CREEPIN’

I defy anyone ever into southern rock to not become immediately hooked by this track.

COUNTRY MUSIC JESUS

It swings, it’s a religious experience, it’ll make you a believer.

We need a second comin’ worse than bad
Some long-haired hippie prophet
Preachin’ from the book of Johnny Cash
A sheep among the wolves there standin’ tall
We need a country music Jesus
To come and save us all

The guitars stutter, the track locks on, but it’s the message that’s so clear.

Forget the religious reference, the truth is music used to be made by hippies, who put the tunes and lifestyle before money, and as a result we all clamored ’round.

Could happen again.

But if it does, it’ll come out of Nashville, out of country. Because pop is bankrupt.

Eric Church co-wrote these songs, they’re from his heart, they resonate, he might not be Jesus, but he’s looking, and I know you are too.

HOMEBOY

This track deserves a blog unto itself.

You were too bad for a little square town
With your hip-hop hat and your pants on the ground

We all know these people, playacting, trying to be someone they’re not, rebelling against nothing so much as themselves, believing if they emulate those on television their lives will work when the truth is they’re their own worst enemies, they can’t get out of their own way, if only they could own who they are they might have a chance.

Get comfortable in your own skin, it’s the only way out.

SMOKE A LITTLE SMOKE

The label said no, Eric said yes.

That’s right, country music fans smoke dope and he who speaks truth wins. The single might not have gone number one, but it had an impact. And, once again, by speaking truth, Eric wins.

SPRINGSTEEN

The big hit single wherein Eric breaks down in the middle and not only sings “Born To Run,” but tells the story of going to his first concert at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre in Charlotte.

And there you have it. We’re rooted to the story, it rings true because of this one reference to an actual place. This is post-rock, when all the buildings have sponsors and everybody’s sold out and we’ve got no one to believe in anymore.

And you wonder why people believe in Eric Church…

Because he’s doing it his way and he’s speaking truth.

But the revelation here is how hard this album rocks, how you get it the very first time through, how it’s totally in the pocket.

PLAY IT!!

P.S. Some might think the audience is mixed up too high, but when they sing along it adds energy, makes you feel like you’re there, and that’s a good thing…and it makes you want to go see Eric Church live. This album may not be the best financial exercise, but it’s marketing genius, it makes fans instantly!

Rhinofy-Caught in the Act:Live

ONE DIRECTION

Biggest band in the world, even though you might have never heard their music.

Proving that not only does cute which appeals to pre-teens rule, so does social media.

One Direction is the first global social media act. It lives online. They care not a whit if you like them. The music is important, but it’s the glue that holds the enterprise together, not the sole thing. Hell, they’ve barely had any hits!

Sure, they might have gotten a boost from a TV show, but that doesn’t explain selling out stadia in far-flung territories.

Welcome to the new world.

SPOTIFY

Kills piracy dead.

That was Daniel Ek’s mission.

Turns out he was right.

Piracy sank from 20% by under 30’s to 4%.

“Music Piracy Has Been ‘Virtually Eliminated’ In Norway”

Turns out people don’t want free music as much as convenience!

This is the same mantra Steve Jobs rode to success. Keep it simple stupid, and make it easy to use and people will pay a fortune for well-designed products. Remember the people who said the iPod would fail because it was too expensive? That the iPhone was doomed?

Well, the iPod helped make Apple the world’s most valuable company.

And the iPhone just exceeded Android’s market share in America:

“Apple iOS leads US OS share for the first time since Q4 2012”

Furthermore, Apple reaps almost all the profits in smartphone sales.

Proving, once again, hardware is important but software is king. That’s right, Samsung, yesterday’s news, sank by not owning its own software. He who writes the songs wins. (Which is why reality TV stars rarely succeed, they don’t write their own songs.)

THE WHOLE ENCHILADA

Even Steely Dan goes on the road.

If you can make it just writing, or writing and recording, more power to you. We’ve just about hit bottom, recording revenues are going up.

But if you want to get excited, watch Daniel Glass in this PBS clip,

“Can the music industry survive the streaming revolution?”
He starts at 6:41.

Daniel talks about the power of Spotify, getting on their playlist and the jump in listeners.

Isn’t this what you want?

And as a result ticket sales went through the roof.

The game remains the same. It’s about exposure, and then leveraging that exposure for revenue. If you’re good, and you get on a top list…the world’s your oyster, you can make more money in music than ever before. There are more revenue streams, you’re not just limited to recordings and low-priced tickets.

Ignore what comes before in this clip. Rosanne Cash carping about payments, never mind Aloe Blacc and the guy in Black 47. Do not confuse Pandora with Spotify, a whole different service that pays a different rate.

As far as PBS goes, it’s so busy giving both sides it echoes the vaccination debate. There aren’t always two sides to every issue, but the press believes it must air both to look fair, muddying the water.

The truth is it doesn’t matter what PBS says. It doesn’t matter what the “New Yorker” says.

The music business is run by consumers. You amass them and they rain down revenue. Anybody who gets in the way of this gravy train is doing it to their detriment.

Having said all this, the truth is fewer acts are going to make more money.

Sorry if you’re in the niche. You have the ability to reach people, but the truth is you don’t, they’re overwhelmed with incoming and they don’t care.

So there you have the modern music business. Burgeoning for the top acts while everybody below keeps bitching and saying it’s bad.

You’ve got to do everything to win today. Just like a household can’t survive on a single income.

Why is it everything can change but the music business?

Then again, everybody hates change, including musicians.

RECORD OF THE YEAR

Other than “Shake It Off” and maybe “All About That Bass,” most people haven’t heard the nominees.

That’s right, just because you live for music, that does not mean everybody else does.

Music is so incomprehensible, so many mediocre acts are looking for attention, that most people ignore it.

MTV rescued the music business from the doldrums because it chose very few songs and promoted them heavily, it was action central.

Today there’s no MTV.

And never forget, MTV eclipsed radio, which was broken. Top Forty ended up playing the songs that MTV promoted. And as a result Top Forty experienced a renaissance, eclipsing classic rock.

But many acts were excluded.

We need this order from chaos today.

Why does Neil Young get a pass?

I don’t care that no one in the mainstream other than David Pogue has criticized Pono, I’m more worried about the rest of the stories. As Tony Wilson once told me, after screwing up the football scores for a news broadcast, the boss said no one cared about that, but it cast a shadow on the rest of the news, if the broadcast couldn’t get it right about something so simple, would people believe they could get it right about the important stuff?

Did you read that article in the “New York Times” wherein Harvey Weinstein bullied the PR person for his Broadway musical, “Finding Neverland,” into resigning? At first you wonder why this is news, and then you read it and you’re horrified. Weinstein is pissed that his flack can’t get guaranteed covers. He himself lined up “Vogue,” how about the rest of the magazines?

Make me puke.

But that’s the news industry today. Few stand alone. They want to sidle up to the rich and famous who believe they’re so much better than us. Kind of like the rich westsiders who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Of course they’re right, they went to Ivy League schools, they’re rich! And they’re perpetuating their breed, if they don’t get felled by disease, using their money, power and influence to get ahead while the poor line up for shots and take whatever is given to them.

Kind of like Ken Ehrlich getting a star on the Walk of Fame and an attendant glowing article in today’s “Los Angeles Times.” I’m cool with Ken, but is this news? What next, a star for the guy who casts the Oscar statuettes? Where’s Ken’s fame? And where in the article is the blowback about his power, how Neil Portnow kowtows to him and every Grammy-worthy act is afraid of him.

Nowhere to be seen.

So I’m waiting for the big boys to say Pono sucks.

David Pogue just did, and his opinion went viral, if you didn’t get it you need new friends, he declared that “The Emperor Has No Clothes.”

Not only did Pogue say you couldn’t hear the difference, but that hi-def tracks were overpriced, the store was incomprehensible and the hardware was a failure, hell, it doesn’t even have a lock button, never mind fit into your pocket.

Isn’t that what Steve Jobs promoted back in 2001? A thousand songs in your pocket? And now Neil Young is jetting us back to the past?

But Mr. Young is untouchable. He gets endless press for his new, unlistenable records that don’t sell. And he gets a pass for entering a sphere he knows nothing about.

That’s right, Neil Young knows something about sound, but he knows nothing about hardware, nothing about tech. Which is why anybody with a brain knew this project was doomed from the start. I said so.

But I was inundated by e-mail from his fans calling me a hater.

That’s how far we’ve come, you can’t say a negative thing about anybody with a profile because you’re gonna offend their tribe. Which is how Chris Christie comes out against mandatory vaccinations. Pander much Chris?

Why does everybody believe they can do everything?

You might as well put your teenage science project on Kickstarter saying you’re gonna deliver the new smartphone, as if Apple and Android don’t exist and everybody working there is an uneducated, inexperienced idiot. That’s right, Jony Ive knows nothing about design.

And the Center For Disease Control knows nothing about vaccinations. It’s all just a plot to pull the wool over your eyes.

If only the government could do this, if only it could truly prevent leaks. But you’d rather subscribe to the rantings of an inexperienced Luddite than believe the truth. What did Jack Nicholson say in that movie, YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH?

No one can handle the truth anymore.

No one wants to hear that the internet has created a two class system in music, winners and losers. That the middle class has been eviscerated. It’s got nothing to do with Spotify and everything to do with access to the best instantly.

No one even wants to say a negative thing about Taylor Swift, for fear she’ll write a song about them, even more that she won’t invite them to her house and cook them dinner and make small talk, as if Taylor Swift is their friend. Hell, she doesn’t care about them, she just wants to sell.

We used to have a critical society. The only people poking holes in theories were not nobodies online. And the funny thing about the haters is they focus more on the nobodies, the stars are untouchable, because if the stars have feet of clay they’ve got nothing to believe in.

So football is safe, global warming doesn’t exist and Neil Young can’t be wrong.

But he is.

Even a four year old knows twenty plus bucks for an album is too much. Hell, you can buy a Ferrari FXX for two million dollars, it’s great, but do you want to lay down for it?

I don’t think so.

So in one fell swoop, David Pogue killed Pono. It doesn’t even matter whether he’s right, his story dominated the news cycle.

Proving once again that the viral story trumps the media message every day. That’s the power of the people, rarely used, except for inanities, cat videos and specious scientific theories.

Mr. Pogue made a mistake leaving the “New York Times.” Yahoo is so disorganized it’s a hoot that it started out with the mission to make the web comprehensible.

And conventional wisdom is reviewing is dead, no one has any power.

But every other mainstream outlet could have bought a Pono and done an A/B test. But they didn’t because they were too busy sucking up to movie stars and non-celebrities like Ken Ehrlich, desiring to be a member of the club.

Meanwhile, I’m stuck here in the middle with you. Looking for truth in a world that doesn’t want any.

But it does…

Read Pogue’s review from start to finish, it’s devastating:

Neil Young’s PonoPlayer: The Emperor Has No Clothes

 

“‘Finding Neverland’ Publicist Resigns After Dispute”