Music is a popularity contest.

That’s right, you can’t bitch about your Spotify payments if no one wants to listen to your music.

This is where we’ve arrived, the data-centric world. The old days of Tommy Noonan manipulating the “Billboard” chart are done. Now all we’ve got is raw statistics, which will leave most people out.

And they don’t like it.

That’s the number one bitch in the music business, that you can’t make any money, that the internet destroyed the paradigm and now you’re broke.

Well, just like Sam Kinison said not to send food to Africa, but suitcases, if you want to make money…MAKE MUSIC PEOPLE WANT TO LISTEN TO!

Sounds simple, I know.

But you don’t want to do it. You want to make the music you want to make, and then bitch that people won’t listen to it, that the label won’t sign it and that radio won’t play it, ignoring the fact that YouTube and Spotify are open worlds, and if there’s any demand, it can be instantly filled.

Are you a member of a club that is marginalizing yourself? Are you so busy talking to your friends in the echo chamber that you don’t realize you’ve got to convince those outside it to make money?

Being a hipster might make you cool, but it won’t make you rich.

Of course, some hipster music breaks through. And that’s great, we need the bleeding edge, that’s what’s wrong with too much of today’s pop, the formula. But most hipster music is just not made for mainstream consumption, which is fine, but please stop complaining that no one wants it.

Imagine making a tech product no one wants. Do these people complain, no they PIVOT! An incredible percentage of tech companies started out making something different, and when no one wanted it, they took the essence and turned it into something else.

Which means if you know how to play, you don’t only have to play the music you do.

And if you can’t sing, you can get someone who can.

And you can learn how to write songs.

Just because the barrier to entry in music is so low that does not mean everyone is entitled to be successful.

As for Taylor Swift bitching about Spotify payments, not only is she already rich, she gave the biggest injection of publicity to the Swedish streaming music service ever. Now everybody knows what Spotify is. Thanks Taylor!

And if you’re successful on Spotify you’re gonna get rich. Don’t conflate low Pandora payments with Spotify royalties, they’re a different animal, although songwriter payments need to be improved (thank the government for screwing that up.)

There’s tons of money in music. You’ve just got to make stuff people want!

And if you’re decrying everything successful as pabulum, the joke is on you.

Dark star, I see you in the morning
Dark star, a’ sleeping next to me

No, not “Dark Star,” DARK SKY!

I love this guy Slava Rubin, he’s the Founder and CEO of Indiegogo. You know how some people rub you the wrong way at first and then you become best friends? That’s Slava.

We were at the Summit Series, in Utah, at the top of Powder Mountain, debating crowdfunding, the music business and the world in general. It started out as a heated debate, and then Slava and I entertained questions for hours and when all was said and done there were smiles all around.

And the very next morning we were in the van to the lake, pondering when it was going to stop raining, and Slava said…DON’T YOU HAVE DARK SKY?

I hate to feel inadequate, especially in front of techies, I like to know what’s going on, and then Slava pulled up the app which said it was going to stop raining in two minutes…and THEN IT DID!

Like magic. I had to have it.

I know, I know, no one likes to pay for apps, including myself.

I know, I know, it’s a failed business model.

But I will tell you, for my $3.99 I’ve gotten endless entertainment. It’s a parlor trick. I was at Amy and Leo’s in Pacific Palisades and it was clear and I pulled up Dark Sky and it said it was going to start raining in 25 minutes, and it did, even though every weather forecast said it would not!

There’s no human element in Dark Sky. It triangulates radar and algorithms to come up with an up to the minute forecast for exactly where you are, or want to be, you can plug in alternative locations.

Like right now it says it’s 13 degrees and falling, and it feels like 2 degrees.

For the next hour there’s no precipitation.

The nearest precipitation is 45 miles to the northeast.

Meanwhile, there’s a Winter Storm Warning for Eagle County, that’s where I am, where it’s been blowing and snowing all day long, it was a veritable winter wonderland, there’s nothing I like more than being out in the elements, riding the chairlift, banging the bumps in the quietude of a snowstorm.

Dark Sky says there’s a 56% chance of snow until 8 PM.

Tomorrow, the high will be 10, the low -7, BRRR! It always gets cold after a storm.

Sunday, there’s a 72% chance of snow. Dark Sky is predicting 2-4 inches in the morning and afternoon.

Is Dark Sky always right?

No.

But I will say yesterday it was pukin’ snow and I pulled up Dark Sky and it said it was gonna stop in 25 minutes. No one believed it, including me, I mean it was coming down as heavy as it does in Vail.

And then, right on time, it STOPPED!

Whew!

Slide backward from the homepage and you get the radar.

Click on the temp and you get the wind speed and direction, humidity, pressure and visibility.

It’s absolutely incredible. And since I’ve been in Colorado, more accurate than the National Weather Service, more accurate than all of the weather prognosticators, and let me tell you, here in snow country, people take the weather VERY seriously.

So I know you’re not gonna buy it. Because you don’t want to spend $3.99.

And you weather acolytes are gonna tell me you’ve got an app as good.

But then I’m gonna whip out Dark Sky and convert you.

I promise.

Thanks Slava!

Dark Sky

She was sittin’ all alone over on the tailgate

That’s right, the boys and their trucks. But wouldn’t you want a guy? If you had a desire to hug and kiss and more? Is there anything wrong with being red-blooded and desirous?

OF COURSE NOT!

I was lookin’ for her boyfriend
Thinkin’, no way she ain’t got one

Insecurity, it’s in the DNA of men. That’s right, all you women worrying about being picked, feeling at the mercy of the opposite sex, the truth is guys are riddled with self-doubt, don’t mistake the bluster for confidence, it’s just a way they screw up their courage to interact with you WHATSOEVER!

Soon as I sat down I was fallin’ in love

Guys don’t fall in love gradually, that’s women. You know, the people who testify in the Sunday “New York Times” Style section that they were friends first. Guys are never friends first, no matter what they tell you, the truth is they fall in love right at the very first, and then they wait for the signal…

Talkin’ over the speakers in the back of that truck
She jumped up and cut me off

There’s a canard that men want you to be demure, look good and keep quiet. Nothing could be further from the truth. Men are clueless without women. We might be able to make some money, but we don’t know how to create a social schedule, we need to be led, we need your help. And what attracts us, after looks, is someone who is alive, who is so excited by life that she can’t help but jump up and take action, who’s a live wire waiting to react.

She was like, oh my God, this is my song
I’ve been listenin’ to the radio all night long
Sittin’ ’round waitin’ for it to come on and here it is

And here we come to the heart of the matter, the exuberance, the excitement, the way the unexpected heart’s desire can send us over the moon (and there’s a cliche for you!)

If you’re over the age of thirty you know exactly what Luke Bryan is singing about, pushing the buttons on the radio and hearing the one song you’ve been waiting for all day. That’s why kids cannot understand the power of radio, because they don’t remember when it was the only thing, the only way to hear it, when music was not free, when everything ever recorded was not at your fingertips.

She was like, come here boy, I wanna dance

Most guys don’t. Dance, that is. But if you ask us, we will, especially if it’s the beginning of a relationship.

And she gave me a kiss
And she said, play it again, play it again, play it again
And I said, play it again, play it again, play it again

We just want to do it over again. Everything. With you. Start with a kiss, graduate to sex, we’re completely enthralled. Women lead, never forget that. And when they do, we doofuses cannot help but be thrilled and play along.

I could try and be cool, tell you my favorite track of the year is something obscure that you’ve never heard of, recorded by someone in Iceland to an Afro-beat by someone who never shows their eyes and dresses totally in black. But that would be a futile effort by me to look cool.

And I’m not cool. A few people are, the rest of us are not. We commit faux pas. We stay stupid stuff. We lie in bed at night replaying the day, wishing we could pray away mistakes. We stumble through the world alone, and then we uncover a record that gets us through.

“Play It Again” serves that purpose for me.

I wish I could tell you I have all the answers. Oh, I’m looking, constantly. But unlike many, I’m willing to separate the wheat from the chaff, I know that in this Internet era usability is everything, that it doesn’t matter what hits you intellectually, but emotionally. Windows Phone ain’t bad, but not good enough to buy. Ditto on Fire Phone. There’s plenty of good out there, but I’m only interested in great.

And Luke Bryan’s “Play It Again” is great.

I heard about his album “Crash My Party” from a friend. An agent in Nashville who issued a caveat, how Luke was decried but “Drink A Beer” delivered.

And it did. Deliver, that is. And yes, we always hate the people at the top. Everyone from Obama to Taylor Swift to Luke Bryan. But unlike so many, Luke Bryan is not beating us over the head, telling us to pay attention, issuing statements how great he is. His music is speaking for itself. The public is embracing it.

And what’s so wrong with the public taking you into your arms?

I feel sorry for those so outside they cannot embrace the mainstream, whose identities depend upon being different. Once upon a time, when society was cohesive, when art was limited, those people had a place in the firmament. But the truth is we now live in a Tower of Babel society and it’s the mainstream moments that keep us together, that connect us, whether they be sports, news or…hit music. We gravitate towards these shared moments. If you refuse to, the joke is on you. With so much info, you’re not only ignored, it’s like you don’t even exist.

So I went to Stagecoach where the Americana man of the moment played to fewer than a hundred people.

But when Luke Bryan took the stage there were 70,000, a sea of people as far as you could see, with their heads in the air, singing along with every song.

Play it again, play it again, play it again.

That’s why we go to the show. To hear the songs we know by heart one more time. We can’t believe it’s really happening, it’s like heads exploding in that SNL skit about Oprah giving away cars. No one else matters in these moments, you bond with the heavens, where your eyes are looking, because this is as good as it gets.

Then I got deeper. I memorized Luke Bryan’s Spring Break EP. I learned what a Yeti was. I tried to play other music, but I couldn’t stop digging deeper. Luke wasn’t brand new, there were old albums I could explore.

I’d ‘a gave that DJ my last dime
If he would have played it just one more time

We’ll do anything to make you happy. Anything.

I was scannin’ like a fool, AM, FM, XM too

This roots the song, I scan XM ALL DAY LONG!

But I stopped real quick when I heard that groove
Man, you should have seen her light up

That’s our goal. To get you to light up.

Tom Petty may have called country music “rock music of the 70’s” but the truth is despite a scorched earth publicity campaign Petty’s last LP was essentially a nonstarter, it had no cultural impact, except for a few hard core fans no one listened to it, it had almost no radio action, few played it again and again and again.

But Luke Bryan’s “Crash My Party”… IT WAS A CULTURAL INSTITUTION!

Check not only the sales figures, but the Mediabase chart. Luke Bryan is all over the airwaves. He’s big, he’s successful.

And I’m proud to say I’m a fan.

You can like “Homeland,” “True Detective,” all the TV shows everyone else does. But when it comes to music why do you have to trumpet the obscure? Does it really keep you warm at night? Do you run into a desired love who melts when they hear the same arcane song?

Probably not. That’s like finding a needle in a haystack.

And there’s another cliche. And the reason they’re cliches is they’re true.

And the truth is country music is the most dominant format in America. Because it focuses on the basics. First and foremost the song. Then the singer. And then the humanity. We can relate.

We need more of this in the rest of music.

In the meantime, I’m gonna play it again.

And again.

And again.

Spotify link
YouTube link

I don’t know what happens when people die
Can’t seem to grasp it as hard as I try

“For A Dancer”
Jackson Browne

My friend just died. You can Google him, search for him on Facebook, you won’t find much. Although he was addicted to Foursquare for a time. He loved being the mayor.

I met Andy Oliver at the Vail Mountain Club. New members, we knew nobody and he seemed to be the center of attention, everybody came up to talk to him, I told Felice to say hi.

And thus began a beautiful friendship. One of my closest. That didn’t quite last five years.

Andy was the only person I’ve ever met who was as into skiing as I was. He knew all the hills, the lifts, the vertical drops. He’d been everywhere from Whistler to Val d’Isere, but now he was in Vail, because he could no longer work.

It wasn’t long before you knew something was off. You see Andy had a very soft voice. And when riding the lift the day after we met, I can tell you exactly which one it was, #26, the Pride Express, I asked Andy what was up. I mean he could barely talk and I could barely hear.

You can do that when you’ve been afflicted too. That was my ace in the hole. My own experience with the Big C. It’s kind of like being Jewish, you can tell anti-Semitic jokes when you’re a Jew, but if not…

Andy was Jewish too. Maybe that was part of our bond, the shared values. There was a streak of Jewish skiers in the sixties, back when assimilation was everything and skiing was an everyman’s sport, before it became about the haves and the haves only.

Andy told me he had salivary gland cancer. That it was a result of radiation for lymphoma two decades before. That it had been hard to diagnose, he’d gone to multiple doctors and spent time uncovering the cause of something that wasn’t quite right.

There was treatment.

And then there was the day Andy removed his feeding tube to ski the powder.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Andy grew up in Baltimore. At least that’s what I recall.

But then he went to Boston University. My sister and mother went to BU.

Then he went into real estate.

Then he got sick.

Then he got another job.

Then that job ended and Andy skied and traveled.

He took a train trip to Russia. He’d e-mail me from Asia. Sounds fantastic, I know, but Andy knew that time was running out.

Then it became harder to eat. It could take Andy an hour to finish a sandwich. People lost patience with him. But Andy was always up for making some turns. He was always optimistic, then again he bitched that people were beating the EpicMix system. He was high on the leaderboard, since he skied every day. But there were some with so many vertical feet that Andy couldn’t believe it was real. Andy had a strong sense of fairness.

But life was not fair to Andy.

Andy’s wife Nancy would talk about Andy not being around, not living forever. I didn’t believe it.

But then Andy got worse.

It happened two years ago. I got to Vail and went to the VMC, the Vail Mountain Club, where everyone knew Andy, where Andy held court…and he was not there.

I called, I texted, and there was no response.

Days later he sent a message that he had pneumonia. He’d been in the hospital. He was recovering at home. But I knew the truth, he was too depressed to connect, I’ve been there.

But after going back to NYC and returning to Vail Andy was back on the slopes. However, he was using a feeding tube. Ensure was his friend. But I’d get off the lift and see him there in his puffy Uniqlo jacket, ready to hit it.

But then Andy faded further. His voice got worse.

Oh, there’s much more. Much, much more. The stuff those who’ve been dragged through the travails of the Big C are utterly familiar with, but don’t broadcast. For all the advancements too often cancer is a slow sink to the bottom. With endless doctor visits. Trials. Hope that is too often extinguished.

There was radiation for spots on his back. The first time the doctor told Andy he couldn’t ski. But Andy found a doctor in Vail who said it was okay. And if you can’t do what you live for, why go on living?

But then the spots returned. Andy would go underground when things were bad. That’s how I knew they were bad, I’d e-mail him ski stories and get no response. Andy lived for ski stories.

And I’d see Andy in New York. And we’d get together during the summer.

And when the double vision came and went it seemed Andy had nine lives. If only he was that lucky.

There comes a point when you know the screw has turned, that you’ve passed the point of no return. That was last March, when Andy was complaining of pain on the chairlift. He wasn’t even trying to speak.

That’s what they don’t tell you about cancer, the pain.

And then Andy disappeared. Except for the wedding invitation. His only daughter was getting married in August, would I come?

Of course I would.

By this time Andy was wearing glasses with one lens fogged, the double vision had returned. His voice was so low and indecipherable that he typed his words on his iPhone. Andy was happy that night. But when I put my arm around him, all I felt was bones.

You can’t will someone to health. The latest studies show positive thinking to be a myth. You just pray for a miracle. That’s what Andy told me a couple of weeks back, he was praying for a miracle

But at least he was responding, I thought Andy was on the upswing.

But when I texted him on Sunday about coming to the VMC for wine and cheese, Andy never missed wine and cheese, he said no.

I then asked if he could ski.

And he said…

I don’t want to pull up the text. But the essence was the double vision remained, he couldn’t turn his head, and if someone ran into him on the slopes it would be very bad, he didn’t think he could ski.

Nor did I think he could. But he’d come to Vail. Andy was so sick, but sometimes people hang on for years.

But not Andy.

Andy Oliver died last night. Not even sixty. Unlucky in life.

And this might all be meaningless to you. But the time will come when you’re touched by the Big C, when Mr. D. comes dancing into your neighborhood. Suddenly life will get very narrow, very constrained, what was important just moments before will lose all meaning. You’ll be left with the question WHY? You’ll be soldiering on in a fog, like a zombie, not one on TV, but one who is truly marching in one’s own universe.

It’s the nature of life, it ends.

We just don’t know when.

Get old enough and health dominates conversation. Some become hypochondriacs, still others are deniers, believing if they just don’t go to the doctor they’ll survive forever. There’s a trail of dead who adhered to this philosophy. You might feel fine, but be completely unaware that plaque is building and you’re about to stroke out. Happens every day. Doesn’t have to, if you go to the doctor, but you don’t want to.

But that wasn’t Andy. Andy went.

But he didn’t make it.

No one does.

But what is important is what you do while you are here. Andy provided for his family, his wife Nancy and daughter Danielle. And Andy skied.

You’ve got to live to do something. Time passes slowly and then it accelerates so fast, you want more, but you see time running out of the hourglass and then you’re done.

You can’t play it safe.

But you can’t test all the limits either.

You can just reach out and grab it. You can live for moments. You can be thrilled by exhilaration.

That’s why we’re skiers. Because of the thrill. Of sliding down the slope. Of being amongst the mountains.

But there comes a time when we can’t even do that. You think you’re gonna live forever, but you don’t. And you are not healthy until the day you die. My mother still regrets she can no longer play golf, she’s using a walker.

But my mother is still here.

Andy is not.

Andy is now pain-free. He’s been released. His pain has been transferred to Nancy and Danielle and me and the rest of those who loved him.

You’ve got an Andy in your life. Whether you know it or not. The Big C lurks everywhere.

So smile. And laugh. And gaze at the landscape and treasure this great world of ours.

Because you’re not gonna be able to forever.

Trust me.

Unfortunately.