“Hollywood’s Eve – Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A.”: https://shorturl.at/edrI7

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I wish this was a movie, for if it was I’d tell you to run out and see it immediately.

And although there might ultimately be a flick, it could never capture Eve completely.

I know, I know, you’re burned out on her story, ever since the 2014 “Vanity Fair” update it’s been all Eve all the time, even though her production was slight and a lot of it not so great.

But I knew who she was because she wrote “Slow Days, Fast Company.”

I’m infatuated with Los Angeles. You’ve got to know, California was a dream in the sixties, I used to beg my mother to move there on a regular basis. All the TV shows were made there, and there was surfing and Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.

But Los Angeles was always considered to be déclassé, a place where there was no there there, a location where Woody Allen said the “only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light.”

A New Yorker comes to Los Angeles and says they don’t get it, there’s no city center, that New York City is the greatest city in the world.

An Angeleno goes to New York City and says…greatest city in the world, but I’d rather live in Los Angeles.

L.A. is very livable. It’s a giant suburb, you can have a single family dwelling with a yard and be only a short drive from where you want to go.

And the burbs are different from the city. It’s less flash, less ego, it’s inherently middle class. L.A. is not about inherited wealth, finance (not that there are not nepo-babies), it’s a place where everybody starts from the same line and everybody can make it. Where everything that’s meaningful in the east is irrelevant…where you went to school, who your parents are… The titans of the music industry didn’t even go to college! The business was built by scrappy entrepreneurs. And this unique vision, not being hobbled by the past, enabled the growth of Silicon Valley. Everybody in the east would have told the inventors they were delusional dreamers or to wait their turn, that they didn’t deserve it. And as goes Silicon Valley, so goes America.

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But the sixties were different from the twenty first century, if for no other reason than there were no smartphones with cameras. All the stories you’ve heard of groupies, the sex, drugs and rock and roll…it was right there for the taking, hiding in plain sight in Los Angeles.

And Eve Babitz was there.

She hung out at Barney’s Beanery. Which the news tells me is hip again. However, if you went there late, in the last half-century, you asked yourself what it was all about.

As for the Troubadour bar, where the Eagles had their genesis, that lasted a little longer, I remember bumping into Alice Cooper and Keith Moon and having a bit of conversation. That doesn’t happen anymore, everyone’s behind closed doors, or they have bodyguards.

But once upon a time…

Eve was an L.A. native. And she traded in sex. She was liberated before the women’s revolution. She would go to Barney’s and pick up men and…

Eve had relationships with so many, so many married, some household names, like Jim Morrison, whom she ultimately excoriated in print.

As for Jim’s leather pants… They were made by Eve’s sister Mirandi and her husband Clem, who beat her. Mirandi was the true groupie… Eve was ultimately an outsider, a typical artist.

Eve wasn’t always the center of attention, but she was there, making her own way…

Until it all fell apart in the eighties.

But before that…

I thought I knew rock and roll history. But I never knew Tom Dowd was unfaithful to his wife. And you’ll get some of the true Ahmet Ertegun here, as opposed to the sanitized version in the mainstream press. Ahmet was a ladies’ man… But he could be cruel. If you knew Ahmet, he was aware of his surroundings, the landscape which he helped build. Today’s labels are run by functionaries who never had skin in the game. But to build something from scratch, that takes a special talent, that’s what Hollywood is really all about. Ahmet could talk sh*t, he was a good hang, he might disdain others, but he would embrace you warmly if you too had attitude, if you too could poke fun at the games. Which after all they are, you don’t want to take the business too seriously, but you do want to take the art.

Yes, you get Ed Ruscha, and his brother Paul. The start of the explosion of west coast art at the Ferus Gallery.

And, of course, you get Eve’s picture with Marcel Duchamp, the two playing chess, with Eve sans clothing. Showing her…

Big t*ts.

Oh, she was quite proud of her big boobs. She wrote to Joseph Heller, saying she was a writer and she was “stacked.”

Eve was the kind of girl you screwed, but never married. Possibly because you were married already, but mostly because Eve moved on, she didn’t want to build a family with you, she wanted to be footloose and fancy free.

And she makes collages, and giving Stephen Stills a ride home from the South Bay, she gets him to promise her the ability to create the new Buffalo Springfield album cover, which she does, “Buffalo Springfield Again.”

Yes Eve made album covers, before she was a writer. Work petered out and she needed a new game.

That’s what people don’t understand today, that your heyday is very brief, certainly in retrospect, oftentimes only a couple of years, then you have to reinvent yourself.

After reinventing herself as a writer, Eve spent a decade doing coke. Which eats up all your money.

That’s what we never hear about, how these people survive. As my father always said…there are no miracles.

You can be famous, yet broke.

Eve gets money from the sale of her parents’ house, and then a settlement after she sets herself on fire (a weak case, but a strong attorney). And Eve’s sister insists she take the money as an annuity, otherwise she’ll blow it all and be SOL.

And Eve was hiding in plain sight in the heart of Hollywood, completely forgotten until the “Vanity Fair” story, written by the author of this book, Lili Anolik.

They’re all around, assuming they didn’t die early of misadventure. O.D. or die in a car crash and you’re a legend, continue to live and you’re a mere mortal, like the rest of us.

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So we’ve got the Eagles… Eve is hired to write a screenplay that she never completes.

And Earl McGrath, who heretofore was known as an executive at Atlantic Records, but in truth he was a connector, a bon vivant whom everybody like to have around.

Eve touched all these people, or should I say they touched her.

Holes in history are filled here. Assuming you’re interested.

Most aren’t, they’d rather buy the legend as opposed to investigate the personalities, the identities of those involved.

And the more famous you are, usually the more compromised you are. In that you have holes in your personality. The well-adjusted don’t take these risks, but with the risks come the rewards.

Not that Eve wanted to be famous, or be in the movies, but she did want to be part of the scene.

So…

“Hollywood’s Eve” is written in a highfalutin’ style. This is not a celebrity memoir, this is the work of an Ivy League graduate, written for the same class, one that favors analysis and theory more than facts, where the bigger the words, the denser the prose, the better your writing is considered to be.

Meaning I can’t wholeheartedly recommend this book, it is not long, but it is a bit of a slog.

However, some of Anolik’s insights are refreshing, she says that the height of writing is now journalism, akin to the new journalism of yore, with the writer invested and revealed as opposed to novels. I’ll buy that.

But having said that…

The reason I read this book is…

Anolik has a new book, “Didion and Babitz,” wherein she cuts Joan down to size. I loved “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” but it’s good to know that I’m not the only one who is not on the Didion train. Didion worked it, like Susan Sontag. If you’re sitting at home wondering why you’re not anointed a public intellectual…know that your marketing skills are substandard, if in evidence at all.

And in the endless hype about  “Didion and Babitz” I read that Anolik had a podcast, released in 2021, entitled “Once Upon a Time…At Bennington College,” an in-depth analysis of the lives and work of Bret Easton Ellis, Jonathan Lethem and…Donna Tartt.

Tartt has carefully manicured her image. But the truth is “The Secret History” was to a great degree based on fact, as was “Less Than Zero.” These famous novels…are so often thinly fictionalized truth. One of my favorite books of the nineties was Pam Houston’s “Cowboys Are My Weakness.” Billed as fiction, Houston ultimately revealed it was real.

As are all of Eve Babitz’s writings.

And listening to the Bennington podcast, I was moved to read “Hollywood’s Eve.”

Anolik is involved in hagiography here. In truth Babitz was not the sainted writer Lili keeps telling us she was. Babitz nailed some of Southern California culture, but her output was very thin, and mixed.

But the life she led…

We know about the stars. But those adjacent to the stars, those who are in relationships with them, who partake of the lifestyle, we really don’t know much about.

You don’t want to be Eve Babitz.

Then again, everybody today thinks they can be a star from their own home. And unlike most people my age, I am not down on internet culture, but the truth is when there were no smartphone cameras, when publicity was strictly controlled…there was a lot going on we didn’t know about, and Eve was there and a lot is revealed in this book.

So…

If you’re a rock and roll aficionado, looking for more SoCal information, step right up, there’s stuff here that appears nowhere else.

But even more interesting is the arc of Babitz’s life. Beneath the flash, the peaks…

Some people become stars and sustain. Sometimes they get ripped-off by advisors, but they can ultimately go on the road and make that money back, at least some of it.

And it all comes down to music. Because the people from this era, they were writing and singing their truth, unedited by the machine.

As for the movies…

Turns out Harrison Ford was a crappy carpenter, he survived by being a dope dealer. For almost fifty years we’ve been sold the legend that he was a carpenter to the rich and famous…yeah, one who took the money and never finished.

And Eve told Steve Martin to wear a white suit, and he ultimately gifted her with a Volkswagen and…

Anolik constantly marvels that Eve’s tales are true. Especially in an era where everybody makes up their own story, where you can’t trust nearly anything a celebrity or hanger-on says.

And it all starts at Hollywood High in the late fifties/early sixties. Where the students were movie stars, where society was fluid, where the rest of us were completely out of the loop.

You had to be there.

And Eve Babitz was.

A hit record is something that someone hears once, maybe twice, and can’t get out of their head.

Or as Ahmet Ertegun said… A hit record is something you hear on late night radio that causes you to get out of bed, get dressed and go to the all night record shop to buy.

A hit record can be a chart success, but not necessarily.

The Dave Matthews Band’s first hit record was “Ants Marching,” which showed up nowhere on the hit parade, but when you played it for someone they wanted to play it themselves and then turned everybody they knew on to it.

Going back further we’ve got “Sunshine of Your Love” by Cream, with its indelible riff. Part of “Disraeli Gears,” Cream not only had not had a Top 40 hit previously, underground FM radio, which played the track, was still only in a few cities. But the track was so undeniable that it ultimately crossed over.

And then you’ve got “Purple Haze,” released even earlier. Top 40 was not ready, but that was the track you played to turn people on to Hendrix.

As for this century, we’ve got Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy,” which didn’t even have to finish for me to love it, to immediately go home and download it.

But sans context “Crazy” was just a single. There’s a business in singles, but it’s a hard one. What you want is a culture, a whole belief system, surrounding music, so that someone can be involved in the song.

Culture… Think about it. I write that Billy Strings hasn’t written a hit song, but he does have culture. If he wrote a hit, he’d no longer be underground, but everywhere (you can be underground and play arenas today, that’s how narrow the niches can be).

As for writing hit songs…

Maybe work with Dan Wilson, who doesn’t compromise your culture in order for you to have a hit. Your hit must be “on brand,” must sound like you.

A great example is “Whole Lotta Love.” The first Led Zeppelin album as amazing, it penetrated society for nearly a year, and then came “Whole Lotta Love,” which AM radio embraced and the rest is history.

As for “Stairway to Heaven”… It was never a single. But it was the number one rock track for decades in the Memorial 500 of AOR stations, and still would be if any of those stations were still active.

Oh, let’s comb the past once more. Def Leppard was not new, but you only had to hear half of “Photograph” to love it.

Today everybody has it backward. They think that the hit comes first. But that is very rare. It worked for the Eagles and Sam Smith, but when all you have is the hit…you’re screwed, few are coming to your shows, you have no career.

Now just because you’re a fan of a band, that does not mean they have a hit. You love them, you’ve seen them multiple times, you stream their music, but the act’s base doesn’t grow, because there’s not that instant track.

Acts need that instant track.

I loved Dawes’s second album. But they could never come up with a hit and ultimately band members left, they were sick of the grind.

How do you write a hit?

It’s best if it’s organic, within your oeuvre.

Traffic had written hits covered by others, but the band broke through with “Low Spark of High Heeled Boys,” which sounded like them, sounded like a stretch, but sounded like nothing else.

That’s what we’re missing. Acts that go on their own hejira, are not me-too, that when ultimately embraced become legendary.

That was the paradigm in the late sixties and seventies, until me-too corporate rock and disco killed it. MTV made stars, they rocketed you to the moon, but many of those acts immediately fell back to earth, because there was no culture.

Same today. A track is embraced and after it fades…nothing.

Today’s paradigm is akin to the movie business, which wants only blockbusters, and therefore relies on sequels and superhero flicks. All the innovation is on streaming television, that’s where risks are taken, supported by subscriber revenue.

And, in truth, the major labels are supported by subscriber revenue, they call it “catalog.” Endless income with almost no costs. Allowing the labels to…

Put out me-too wannabe blockbuster product.

That’s why the scene is moribund. There’s no there there. No innovation. Either you’ve got dreck just like the previous dreck, or left field stuff sans the essential building blocks of success…instrumental dexterity, melody, changes and a good voice. You can play in today’s music business, you can put your music up on Spotify, but you won’t truly go anywhere unless you have a hit.

And then there are bands that do boffo at the b.o. who can’t write a hit. Tedeschi Trucks… Doesn’t anybody in that act know the formula?

It’s like it’s a lost art. Acts have no idea what a hit is.

As for acts that have one big hit and go on a big tour and are given hosannas by the press… There are 100 million more people in America than in the seventies. Oftentimes it’s a large niche with no trailing effect.

So…

It’s actually easy. Play your music for someone, if they don’t want to tell everybody about it, if they just say they like it, it’s not a hit.

And a hit can take many forms. And it doesn’t need to be on the chart.

But hits are the heart and soul of this business.

There’s example after example. Metallica was big before “Enter Sandman,” after the track they were legendary, can sell out stadiums to this day.

We’ve got too many acts with too few knowing how the game truly works, never mind not many having talent. Everybody’s got their heads in the clouds, detached from reality.

The truth is the public is hungry for new music. But you’ve got to make it easy for them, you’ve got to write a hit.

That’s your assignment.

The media will focus on a handful of pop acts when the true action will be in smaller acts outside the national consciousness who focus on touring and merch as opposed to bitching about Spotify payouts.

Country will grow and grow. Country is the new hip-hop, but the northern elite controlled media continues to look down upon it, hating the same people who they believe are ignorant and voted for Trump. Country is rock in sheep’s clothing. Rock devolved into Active Rock, a marginalized format that you need a decoder and a deep knowledge of history to understand while country took the big guitars of rock anthems, added choruses and gained mindshare. Furthermore, to this day country acts, unlike pop acts, are not dependent upon hits, they are building careers, and careers are forever.

Acts will continue to bitch about Spotify. Believing we still live in the physical era and everybody who makes music is entitled to a living. No one is stopping you from selling CDs at your gig, never mind overpriced vinyl oftentimes to fans who don’t even own a turntable. If few are listening, why should you get paid? There’s a lot to complain about with major corporations but they and their practices are not always the reason you’re unsuccessful.

Spotify will be forced to respond to Liz Pelly’s new book “Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist.” You know Pelly’s accusations are true by the lack of Spotify’s response. Spotify denied Drake’s accusations… When the book finally comes out Spotify…will have a hard time defending itself, and if the major labels come down hard enough they’ll eliminate the practice. However, never forget most people do not get turned on to new music via playlists, playlists are mostly used as background music, which is why Spotify can get away with this program. However, every bogus stream does take away money from the overall pool. But don’t believe if you’re a marginal artist the elimination of this game will show up in your bank account.

The public will still believe that Spotify pays a per stream rate. And will state that Apple pays more per stream, not knowing that’s because Apple subscribers are less active listeners. Once again, it’s a pool of money that’s divided based on overall listens. Everybody does it the same way, but Spotify gets the heat because it’s the dominant service, active listeners are on Spotify.

The public will continue to misunderstand ticket fees, believing they all go to Ticketmaster and that the acts are completely innocent. The business is built on faith in the acts, and almost nothing can undercut that. Having said that, acts need to beware of their image, one false move can hurt you, assuming it’s big enough. Then again, everybody is ultimately forgiven, except for maybe R. Kelly, but his music still streams! If the track is good enough, it doesn’t matter who the artist is or what they have done, people will listen.

Classic rockers will continue to die. If you want to see them, see them now.

Club business will continue to decline.

EDM is forever, but it’s just a very big niche, which will peak again, but not soon.

The acts selling tickets in the clubs that still exist and theatres are completely unlike the pop stuff dominating the Spotify Top 50. Despite all the hype for these charting acts, the acts winning on the road actually know how to play their instruments and don’t dance to hard drive. What sells at this level is skill, songwriting, credibility and an ultimate bond with the audience.

Billy Strings shows that the public is hungry for skilled players. Imagine if Strings could actually write a great song! It always comes down to the song, and no matter how good a player you are, sans a great song you will always be hobbled.

Writing the songs yourself will continue to grow and be a badge of honor. The public is looking for honesty, this is the essence of Zach Bryan. Songs written by committee will be for the pop charts, and unless you’re a pop act, if you use Jack Antonoff it’s going to work against you, even if your song has some success, fans are sophisticated, they want their act to be unique, not just the latest work by the producer du jour.

The major labels will continue to believe they can buy anything successful. But the tools in their box continue to decline. Radio, TV and print mean less than ever before. But, having said that, if you dangle a big enough check, artists have a hard time resisting this.

The major labels will have no new competitors. In recorded music, that is. Because the majors sustain on catalog, which represents not only easy revenue, but power. Sans catalog and the revenue it generates no new label can truly compete. Having said that, publishers are the major labels’ big competitors today. Primary Wave is better for legacy acts than any label. And Primary Wave operates like a label, with product managers, not even doing the administration like most publishers. This is the wave of the future. As for Merck and Hipgnosis… The problem was interest rates, they went up and the investment in Hipgnosis looked bad. When it comes to publishing you don’t want a hypesters running your business, but someone with experience as a CFO.

Acts will continue to sell their catalogs and then wake up one day angry when their song is used in a commercial and they don’t get paid. Revenue for copyright is only going up, if you’re selling you don’t believe in the business…and yourself.

Springsteen selling to Sony undercuts the essence of what built the Boss, truth, justice and the American Way. Music is about the rugged individual speaking truth to power. Once you sell, you’re just another business person, ultimately a victim of the corporation. We’ve seen this movie from Elvis Presley on… You sell your rights, thinking you won, and ultimately you find out you lost. As for Pink Floyd selling…that’s a bit different, the members couldn’t get along, and David Gilmour has not been coy in speaking his truth, so he gets a pass. As for Roger Waters..?

The touring business will never change. If you can sell out arenas, never mind stadiums, you can write your own deal. As you go to smaller venues the act’s leverage is less. If you’re complaining about the split in clubs…the onus is on you, you don’t have enough leverage, sell more tickets and you’ll get more of the money. This business is about growth. Always has been, always will be. Having said that, if you have one hit you can work forever, and even those without hits can do the house concert circuit, which can sustain an act.

Tour deals will only increase in number.

The business has exhausted the post-Covid euphoria, not every act will go clean going forward. Big dreams will oftentimes lead to big disappointments. But ticket prices will not come down. If people want to go to the show, they’ll pay the freight, they need to be there.

Terrestrial music radio will continue to decline. Will this be the year the industry admits it? I doubt it.

This is a music driven business. If more young acts are inspired by Zach Bryan as opposed to the paint-by-number hits in the Spotify Top 50, we could see a surge. We are waiting for that one act which will gain the attention of the entire nation, the entire world, that everybody wants to listen to. Having said that, Bryan still has runway. Your market is the whole world today, and most people do not know your music. There is money in niche, but there’s more money in conventional songs/records, with melodies the public can sing along to, hooky choruses… But this is seen as uncool by most of the artists and the business, they want false edge (real edge is something different, it grows up from the bottom and is always outside, even when successful), the formula is right in front of us, new acts should be forced to listen Beatle albums to get it. And not only could the Beatles write memorable songs with bridges, they could sing! Unless you’re Bob Dylan, the greatest lyricist of all time, you’re going to be hobbled unless someone in the act has a great voice.

Finishing “Dreams” and “Angels” songs.

Tune in Saturday December 28th  to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz