You go to see the people not the bands.

Welcome to the twenty first century, wherein concert promoters are sick of giving all the money to the bands so they’ve established their own brands, i.e. the festival…Coachella, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Outside Lands, ACL…

Does it matter who plays?

Not really. It’s a matter of trust, as Billy Joel would say (is he going to headline next year?) The concertgoer trusts the promoter won’t cheap out and will book the best talent available. And the promoter trusts that the concertgoer will pay a lot of money to not only enter, but survive, on food, water, tchotchkes…

It used to be different. Way different. The concert promoter made the lion’s share. But then Peter Grant realized every Led Zeppelin concert would sell out, without any advertising or promotion, so why should the promoter take such a healthy fee?

Ergo the 90/10 deal.

Which evolved into the 95/5 deal.

Which evolved into the Jimmy Buffett deal, wherein Mr. Margaritaville got more than 100% of the ticket gross, because the promoter would make so much money on alcohol.

But they came to see Jimmy. No one cared who promoted the show. Jimmy was the attraction.

But Coachella is the attraction, it supersedes the bands, which is why Goldenvoice/AEG is having such a healthy payday.

Not that the bands aren’t either. But once you pay them seven figures, once you give them more than they get at a private, once you tell them you can live without them, there’s only so much you can charge.

But every year you need new headliners.

But the headliners can’t come back, not for quite a while. Whereas a superstar band can tour all year, or every summer, like Dave Matthews. But Coachella is bigger than any one band.

And what do you get when you attend?

A smattering of music, both new and old, you can sample the smorgasbord and talk like an expert for months, if not the entire year. You’ve seen the up and coming acts, as well as the superstars.

But even more, you’ve seen your brethren.

Coachella is a rite of passage for Southern California teens. If their parents saw what they were wearing on the polo grounds, they’d rescind their driving privileges, maybe even take back their mobiles. Coachella is where you go to be free. Movies are only a couple of hours, Coachella is a whole WEEKEND!

And you see your friends. And meet new people. And today you can stay in touch, with modern communications techniques, with social media.

Oldsters go to show they’re still hip. Or that they’re better than everybody else. That’s what the VIP experience is all about. It’s not really VIP, the real VIP is backstage, but few get that. Still, VIPs are in a walled garden with better food and they can feel good about themselves, the same way they do when they buy a Mercedes or a $17,000 Apple Watch. And did you ever hear someone with VIP access who didn’t tell you they had it? No, only a true insider is humble that way.

And we live in the Me Century. Everybody’s not only building a shrine to themselves on social media, they’re dunning you to pay attention. Do you really think they’re gonna care that much about the bands? Hell, the main attraction at Coachella is the Sahara Tent, where you bump bodies and dance, where the DJ is just the grease. It’s about letting your flag fly, not your freak flag, that’s so sixties, but your fashion flag, how you dress and accessorize is key at Coachella.

And Lollapalooza, and Bonnaroo and…

This is a big change. The concert promoter is no longer at the ass end of the business, feeding off the efforts of the record label, rather the promoter owns an ASSET! Which will drive up your stock price, or get you a good payday if you sell. Isn’t that how ACL got such a good deal from Live Nation? And Electric Daisy too?

And at first Coachella was a financial dud.

Because it takes time to grow a festival. The bands come and go, but the festival brands endure, everybody wants to be Glastonbury.

And now we’re in the heyday of festivals. Kind of the classic rock era of festivals. Where everybody wants to go, where many are launching and a surprising number are profitable. And the same bands appear everywhere, proving that it’s about the festival, not the acts.

Not that this is a bad thing.

But when you read about the performances at Coachella… Know that you’re not getting the real story. That’s not what’s truly happening. The reviewers are deep up their butts. They’re believers. Whereas the attendees are constantly moving, constantly checking each other out, knowing that acts come and go, but Coachella is FOREVER!

It was the last track on “Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass),” the Rolling Stones greatest hits set with the cover photograph I thought was shot in England but turned out to be L.A.

And “Play With Fire” itself was cut in Los Angeles, but I didn’t learn this until years later, to me it sounded like nothing but England, with the references to the locales.

I hadn’t purchased a Stones set sooner. I couldn’t afford it. There was stuff I needed more, and that’s what you did when someone lasted but you never started, you purchased the greatest hits set. And greatest hits sets are ultimately disappointing, they contain what you want, but not what you need. The albums have context. And they’re all available online now, but back then you had to find someone who owned them and be at their house with time to kill and it was always so weird hearing it for the first time because the truth is albums reveal their greatness over time, back when we had time, when albums counted, when music was scarce and the people who made it truly believed they were making a statement, when music was the highest calling on earth.

Now she gets her kicks in Stepney
Not in Knightsbridge anymore

It localizes it! That’s how you end up becoming universal, by telling your own personal truth. The more specific you are the more we can relate, because we have our own references. And I went to day camp in Stepney, Connecticut, was it named after the English burb? And now I know Harrods is in Knightsbridge, but everything I knew about London in 1966 was from records.

Well, you’ve got your diamonds and you’ve got your pretty clothes
And the chauffer drives your car

No one had a chauffer in the U.S. There was wealth overseas we could only dream of. Unlike today, there was no obvious class system in the States.

Your mother she’s an heiress, owns a block in St. John’s Wood

There’s that specificity once again, where exactly was this? Was it dark and haunting like the music? Back before all movies were in color and all the English musicians testified about the rain?

Now you’ve got some diamonds and you will have some others
But you’d better watch your step girl
Or start living with your mother

WHAT? Music was all about liberation, separation, there was a youthquake going on and he was talking about sending her back to her MOTHER?

There was an inherent danger.

And the Rolling Stones were dangerous. I know that sounds laughable today, but so it was. And unlike today’s musical gangsters they weren’t going to kill you, but they were going to CORRUPT you!

And that’s why Mick was warning her…

So don’t play with me, ’cause you’re playing with fire

Hmm… Aren’t we supposed to revere the rich? Aren’t we supposed to let people make their own decisions?

Not back then. Rockers were paramount. And bad boy Mick was warning her. And you know what happens when you tell someone you don’t need them, when you tell them they’re not up to the challenge…they’re drawn ever closer.

And we were.

We were addicted to the radio.

We wanted to be like the bad boys.

Because they got all the girls.

And our parents were clueless, they were anything but best friends.

And there were a ton of hits on “High Tide and Green Grass,” even “Satisfaction” and “19th Nervous Breakdown,” but the one that creeped me out, that made me feel the band was different from me, that made me want to get ever closer, was “Play With Fire.”

So don’t play with me, ’cause you’re playing with fire

They didn’t beg us to like them. They seemed not to need us.

But we needed them.

We got infected by their music and it changed our lives.

It changed the culture.

That’s the power of one record.

That’s the power of “Play With Fire.”

Rhinofy-Play With Fire

Enough already.

Tidal is a nonstarter, its only benefit is it shines light on the sphere, i.e. paid music streaming services. But the way the industry is talking about it you’d think it was a savior, it’s not.

Because it doesn’t put the consumer first.

That’s our goal. To get the consumer to pay for music.

Instead, the whole industry is jockeying for position, putting money first and leaving so much on the table.

Tidal’s flaw is it is not user-friendly. All it’s got is a bunch of stars crowing about getting screwed and taking power and a few exclusives which are readily available where people now consume music, i.e. YouTube and BitTorrent. We’ve already seen this movie before. Put the content in a walled garden, tell people to be honest and support rich people, and they ignore this willy-nilly and steal to their hearts’ content, assuming they’re paying attention at all.

And the disconnect is…

We’ve got uber-rich artists complaining they’re just not making enough.

And a plethora of unknown wannabes saying the same thing.

And you wonder why people are confused and turned-off.

Meanwhile, the holy grail of the industry is to give Jimmy Iovine exclusives and get everybody to pay Apple. Jimmy’s track record ain’t that good. He got Apple to pay a lot for Beats, but his music service was inept and laughable. And let’s not forget the Farm Club.

In other words, we’re keeping a scorecard for a game that the public is not paying attention to.

First and foremost know that the public only cares about the stars and rising artists who break through. They don’t care about much else. Sorry, mid-tier artists, it’s not Spotify that’s screwing you, but consumer indifference. When everything is available, no one’s got time for you, the same way they’ve got no time for BlackBerry or Windows Phone, they’re just not good enough, they just don’t have critical mass.

And if you’re a winner, you’re making more money than any artist has in the history of the music business, because of endorsements and ticket prices, never mind being able to reach the whole world easily. This is actually a dream, allowing everybody to sample your music without paying an intermediary, i.e. radio and retail, and at no cost to boot! You give away the razor to sell the blades. But don’t expect anybody in the music business to be smart.

And if Taylor Swift were so damn powerful, Spotify subscriptions would have tanked. But they didn’t. BECAUSE HER AUDIENCE IS NOT PAYING! How do we get the youngsters to abandon YouTube, which is free, for paying streaming services? At first by getting them to sample them, then by convincing them their friends are all there, then by ultimately charging them. Kids don’t have disposable income. They have to beg their parents for cash. They only do when they really need something and can’t get it any other way. Now, there are a zillion ways to get music for free, even legally, on YouTube, and you want to change this by collecting rich superstars who want to get richer and providing miniscule content that can be had for free almost immediately? You must be dreaming!

And how is the CD still a thing? Apple launches a computer with no USB 3.0 ports, and we’re still selling a disc no one has a drive to play? You look forward, not back. But the truth is the entity getting screwed here is the label. But don’t cry for them, they’ve got catalog which will never expire, at least not in the U.S., where copyright keeps extending. Meanwhile, the acts are getting richer, they’re even squeezing the promoter! No one writes about that, how the acts get all the money from live shows.

So the focus is all wrong. The focus has to be on listeners, the public.

If Tidal wants to win, let people stream for free for a year. Allow them to sample. And it may be part of the rap ethos to rip off the man, the corporation, but Tidal’s ethos seems to be to rip off the public, because the musicians are supposedly being screwed. This is like having sympathy for a CEO because his options are underwater, huh?

Tidal is a bad tech play. It’s just about gaining traction to get someone with a deep pocket to buy it. Something the music business does poorly. These are amateurs playing a professional game. And no one is stupid enough to pay. The reason Apple bought Beats is because it was way behind on music streaming, the company was myopic and hadn’t developed a service. That’s right, even tech companies can get it wrong. Just like the music business has been getting it wrong time and time again, because it just wants to jet back to the past, where people buy overpriced albums like lemmings.

But those days are through. And I say good riddance. People have all the time in the world for great music, but they don’t like a gun to their head, forcing them to pay for that which they don’t want.

Want to help the music industry?

Steer them to Spotify or another streaming service with a free tier. So they can sample it, so they can see how good it is. YouTube sucks on mobile, and we live in a mobile world. Spotify is great on the handset.

And I don’t have a single share of Spotify stock, I’ve never gotten a cent from the company. But I’m realistic. There is only one winner online. And Spotify has a huge head start. Trying to topple Spotify is like trying to topple Google or Amazon, and we all have complaints about Amazon, but we all love their customer service, it’s prompt and they’ll take anything back. Just try to get a hold of someone at a ticketing company, never mind a record company, there’s no such thing as customer service in the music industry, the public pays and pays and gets screwed and screwed and you think they’re gonna wake up and “do the right thing”? Come on, don’t be ridiculous.

Apple should have a free tier. Since not everybody subscribes to a streaming service, there’s a chance Spotify could be dethroned. But not by an entity that’s a walled garden. Meanwhile, by separating exclusives we’re just forcing the public to steal. That’s a solution? Spotify has reduced piracy and now we’re gonna bring it back?

MTV was hampered by a small footprint. They gathered artists to launch the “I Want My MTV” campaign imploring fans to lobby their cable systems to add the service. What happened? SUCCESS! Where is this same campaign today? Everybody’s so worried about giving the money to someone else that they’re stuck in the past with rearguard efforts.

How are we going to get people to adopt streaming music services?

That’s the question.

Getting them to pay COMES AFTER THAT!

NEVER TRY TO CORRAL THE CUSTOMER

People balk at being controlled. Once you place limits, the public abandons you or finds a way to circumvent what you are doing. Give people the opportunity to do more, to expand their horizons, to share. Once you tell them what they cannot do, you’re screwed.

This is why no free tier music services will not dominate in the short run. The public has options. Whether it be YouTube or piracy. Trying to convince people that stealing is immoral doesn’t work, the RIAA already tried that. Don’t demonize your customers, EMBRACE THEM!

COHERENCE NOT CONFUSION

When it’s all said and done there’s going to be a ton of dough in recorded music. But the rights holders are doing their best to forestall this result. They believe competition is key, not understanding that online one service dominates and the rest carve up tiny slices. You want to have one service win. Otherwise, there’s customer confusion. No one wants to embrace what everybody else does not. That’s the lesson of the Tower of Babel society. Nitwits speak about a long tail, human beings want to belong, feel connected, they don’t want to be down in the niche alone, but together, with everybody else. Which is why there is only one Facebook, one is enough, you don’t want to build your digital home in multiple locations. And you want a good chance of being seen. Balkanization is death.

COMPETE ON SELECTION AND SERVICE, NOT EXCLUSIVES

That’s positively brick and mortar. The labels gave exclusives to Best Buy, indie retailers screamed, but it’s the indie retailers who remain. You think you’re getting a leg up by offering exclusives. You’re just pissing people off.

EVERYONE HATES BITCHING AND ENTITLEMENT

We live in a nation of vast income inequality. We don’t want to hear winners complain. Ever. And we don’t want to hear how a product benefits you, but how it benefits US!

PRODUCT FIRST, PUBLICITY LAST

Word of mouth built Google, Facebook and Amazon. In a world where it’s impossible to reach everybody via marketing, your only hope is you gain users and have them spread the word. People will listen to their friends, they ignore advertising. The key is to build something so cool, so utilitarian, that others will spread the word. And when you do publicity, it’s about explaining the growth. You don’t LEAD with the publicity, you FOLLOW with it.

This is about to whipsaw the music industry, which believes in frontloading. But no one can garner enough streams in the first week to make their numbers. The key is to get people to stream for years. How do you tell the story then? Awareness is important, but it’s all about the sustained build and the story. And the story isn’t who you worked with and what TV outlets you’re appearing on, but how people have embraced the tunes.

PEOPLE PAY LAST

They believe it’s their god-given right to check something out for free. And they eventually pay, but way down the line, because of CONVENIENCE!

The mobile industry did not force everybody to give up their flip phones for smartphones. Rather, users adopted them and convinced others to get them. And then everybody signed up for a data plan so they could play!

Mobile didn’t eliminate the flip phone, it came up with something better.  And you had to pay, handsomely, to get one and play. And you could not play without one, there was no free tier/competition.

However, people ARE cheap. Which is why T-Mobile and wi-fi calling are making inroads. Tell someone all day long that Verizon has a larger LTE footprint and they don’t care, they focus on price. Proving that some people will pay for quality, the others have to gradually get there. Kind of like cable television. There were early adopters, then everybody else came aboard and cable raised the price.

Once everybody subscribes to a music service, then you can raise the price, as did SiriusXM.

The convenience may come via bundling, i.e. with a cable or cell phone contract, or it may be about functionality, but that’s what closes users.

Right now, Spotify has learned that giving mobile away for free creates new subscribers. Don’t ignore the data. Your intellect is not always right. This is one thing tech understands and the entertainment business does not. When you’re talking about the internet, ignore your gut and go with the data.

DON’T LIE!

The truth is there to be found online. And sure, some might not Google it, but once someone does, the word spreads like wildfire. Jay Z says Tidal pays more. There is no evidence of this and it is contrary to the standard label contract. This is blowback just waiting to happen.

DON’T CONFUSE INDIVIDUALS WITH MASS SERVICES

No one person is as strong as a service. Evan Spiegel could kill someone, but it would not kill Snapchat. Taylor Swift cannot kill Spotify. Once something reaches critical mass the only way it dies is if the service itself screws up or something superior appears and supersedes it. Never yell about behavior, never complain, create something better, ahead of the marketplace, that will draw people to it.

PEOPLE DON’T RETREAT

We’re not going back to dialup and we’re not going back to flip phones. Never base your play on taking something away, that’s never ever gonna work. You always want to deliver MORE!

PAYWALLS ARE ONLY FOR THE HARD CORE

Most people don’t even know the “New York Times” has a soft paywall. Because they don’t care enough about the “Times.” Then again, Facebook users far exceed subscribers to the “Times.” If your service can sustain on the payment of a few, create a paywall. If you want everybody, start free and figure out a way to add desirable features and functionality to get those people to pay.

Furthermore, value can be unlocked in unforeseeable ways. The aforementioned Snapchat was a free messaging service, now it’s an entertainment hub. Create mass, then evaluate opportunities and pivot. If you don’t think audience size is key, you were never in a rock and roll band. Audience is everything. It will follow you and support you as long as you respect it and treat it right.

THE INTERNET IS FOR US

Especially with net neutrality. The public believes it OWNS the internet. Forget the truth, the backbone, the last mile. They see it as a democratic village where they have a voice. Impinge upon this at your peril.

DATA IS VALUABLE

It’s a fine line between privacy and data collection, but the truth is what you learn about user behavior has incredible value. Once again, this only comes from mass.

ARTISTS ARE NOT WEBSITES

Amazon is inert. Artists live and breathe. Artists are separate from services. Artists have an identity. Artists don’t just accept, they question. Tie yourself up with a service at your peril. The service functions 24/7, you don’t come to bat that often. If you’re seen as a tool, even of a good service, it will come back to haunt you. Don’t always say yes, artists gain traction by saying no.