What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where a Billy Gibbons throwaway track is more memorable than the complete album ZZ Top did with Rick Rubin?

One in which music has ceased being spontaneous and is over-written, over-rehearsed and over-managed to death.

Feel the GROOVE!

And listen to Billy’s guitar work. He’s positively wailing, inspiring all the young ‘uns to pick up a guitar and the oldsters to take theirs down off the wall to learn the parts. Oh, when he goes down and starts picking from the bottom it’s got the feel of those early Beatles changes.

And then Allen Toussaint comes in and adds unexpected funkiness from New Orleans. It’s amazing this guy is still alive, never mind still functioning at the top of his game.

Then again, we put all our oldsters in a box, refusing them to grow, take chances, be new. And that’s death for a musician. If a musician is not exploring, improvising and taking chances he might as well be dead, or in a drug coma.

Come on, get up, get out of my life!

Billy and Will vocalizing together, with Allen and then Billy adding instrumental accents. This is all done in the great tradition of music past.

That’s the way it used to be. Recording was an effort to capture something, lightning in a bottle. You went into the studio and tried not to get it perfect, but get it right.

Now I’d say to put these guys together in a studio for forty eight hours and see what results. It’d be a modern day “Super Session.” More covers, like this Allen Toussaint song of yore, would be just fine, because an arrangement can make a track sound brand new.

Wouldn’t you go to see this concoction live?

Not in the arena. But in a low-ceiling place where you stood because you wanted to, because you needed to dance, not because the promoter is trying to squeeze in more people.

This is the way it used to be.

And can be again.

Really.

After a magical intro guitar sound that only Billy can deliver, the band settles into a groove and Billy’s vocal is so expressive, like he really wants the woman to get out of his life, because when you auto-tune and comp vocals you get them perfect but they lose all their soul, all their humanity in the process.

But the essence of this track is the soloing, the noodling, the sound. It’s Phish…if the players in that band were stars in their own right.

Maybe that’s what this concoction of players should do. Go out with America’s foremost jam band and show what riffing and taking chances is all about.

This is the anti-Katy Perry. The anti-Top Forty.

This is the music baby boomers grew up on, playing ad infinitum in their bedrooms and testifying about.

And going to see live.

Can’t we make the music first?

It’s enough.

If done right.

And this is.

P.S. Be sure to listen to the initial hit version of this song, by the Leaves, from their album “Hey Joe,” it’s positively lost in the sixties, but it’ll illustrate what Will and Billy and Allen are referencing (YouTube, not on Spotify):

THE LEAVES ¨Get Out Of My Life Woman¨

P.P.S. And be sure to play the 2009 live iteration from Allen Toussaint’s recent album “Songbook”, it positively swings, even though it’s just him and the piano.

P.P.P.S. And play the original Toussaint take, with the sampleable beat.

P.P.P.P.S. This is the way it used to be, an infectious record put you in the wayback machine. You read the credits and were stimulated to go back and discover artists and renditions, you became fans of others along the way, according to Toussaint this is his most highly covered song, go on Spotify and have a field day!

Spotify playlist

TIM COOK

Is a bad lead singer. The Doors could never replace Jim Morrison and Queen could never find a singer to step in for Freddie Mercury. Talent and skill are important, but never forget charisma, that indefinable element that draws us to you. Not only did Jobs know the product presentations were a show, but that he was the star. Watching Tim Cook headline today’s keynote is like having Lucian Grainge headline Staples Center. Huh?

FREE MAVERICKS

It gets everybody on the same page. Something the music business did with the CD and has never done since (yes, they killed the vinyl record to make way for the CD.) Unless you’re moving into the future, you’re going to be dragged down by the past. The music business should have switched everybody to files, they should now switch everybody to streaming, having a fire sale on files while they do it. Every track a quarter! Come and get ’em!

FREE MAVERICKS 2

People are cheap. Charge a dollar and most people will shy away. Give them something for free and they embrace it, assuming they want it.

APPS

Are all free now. If you’re charging for one, you’ve missed the business model. Apps are service elements, add-ons to your core business.

NEW MAC PRO

Ridiculously high-priced, a middle finger to its core audience. Doesn’t Apple have enough cash reserves?

And stop teasing its introduction. Tell me when it finally ships, not before. This is like Katy Perry telling us she has a new album…years in advance.

MAVERICKS 3

Everybody likes a surprise. Give us what we don’t expect earlier than we thought possible.

As Seth Godin says, it’s all about shipping, and by making Mavericks a free download TODAY, Apple wowed us, rendered us speechless.

DAVID POGUE

How does the “New York Times” let him go? This is like a label without any stars, or Pacha without famous deejays. That’s what the “Times” no longer realizes, that we live in an era where we follow personalities more than faceless monoliths. As for Yahoo picking him up, it’s the blockbuster strategy at work, suddenly there’s a reason to go to the site, something that didn’t exist previously. This is not AOL picking up the “Huffington Post,” which is all traffic and no substance, Pogue is the public’s tech guru. Better for him to be there than for AllThingsD to go solo, because Pogue’s a star and nobody at AllThingsD is.

NEW iPADS

Apple upgrades them every year.

Isn’t it interesting that Apple has a steady stream of product but in the music business acts can take years between albums? Apple stays in the public eye, we’re always wondering what the company is up to.

SAMSUNG

Has no innovation. But mobile phones are now a commodity. And tablets will be too soon. Then it’s all about a race to the bottom re price. Apple cannot win this war with its present strategy. It needs a new blockbuster product. At some point the iPad you have is good enough.

iPODS

Notice they weren’t upgraded this year? It’s a dying paradigm. Music goes with your phone. If you want one, they’ll sell you one, but they’re not gonna waste time redesigning and promoting them, unlike Sony, which keeps polishing old products until we no longer want them.

ATTENTION

Earned by Steve Jobs over fifteen years. With a bunch of hit singles. Miley Cyrus got us all to pay attention with no underpinnings. Her strategy would have worked better if she’d had more hits under her belt. As for Jay-Z, he’d have been better off writing an ANTI-Samsung song, that’s how you get ahead as an artist, speaking truth to corporations, which rule our world…and our government!

APPLE STOCK PRICE

A better game to follow than SoundScan.

ONE MORE THING

That’s what we miss about Steve Jobs, the gleam in his eye, the anticipation…that he would blow our minds.

This is what musicians used to specialize in, before they became crybabies only interested in the money. It’s about the conception, the art, that’s what resonates, that’s what gives you power. Jobs was not only about innovation, but design. Because it’s the little things that matter. The shiny silver back to the original iPod, the color of the original iMac. Sure, you need a great song, but the stray instrument at the right spot can make all the difference.

So set your mind free.

That’s why Steve Jobs was so successful, he was a child of the sixties, an era of freedom and exploration. Furthermore, he knew it was about excellence.

ATTENTION 2

When artists are all whored out to the corporation, it’s more interesting to go directly to the source, to hear what the corporation has to say. Hell, I’d rather listen to Samsung than Jay-Z any day. Apple has the whole world’s attention. And grabs it every couple of months. The Cupertino company knows entertainment better than Hollywood.

FREE

If you’re not giving something away, you’re missing the point. That’s how you bond your fans to you. It started over a decade ago with the free iTunes. And now we’ve got Mavericks and so much more. We already bought into the platform, this Halloween candy makes us stick.

1. Excellence

If it’s not great, don’t release it. Put it up on YouTube, not the album, if you’re trying to get everybody’s attention, make sure your music deserves it.

2. Availability

Put your complete album on YouTube and all streaming services. That’s where people discover your music. Your hard core fans will buy it, for now anyway, but casual users sample, and see if they’re interested. There’s plenty of money if you can get people to focus and continue to listen.

3. Be your own curator.

Don’t put out ten tracks, call it an album and leave us to discover what’s good. Sure, you can focus on a single, but too often it’s trying to be all things to all people and is not great. So point us to the two or three tracks we need to listen to.

4. Trust your heart.

Don’t listen to anybody else. Push the cuts that resonate with you, that make your heart sing, jump for joy and cry. People are drawn to emotion, they want to be touched. Don’t second guess, unless you’re playing the singles game, and that’s a game controlled by the usual suspects, unless your track was made by Dr. Luke and Max Martin, don’t bother.

5. Press is a circle jerk.

Kinda like the wannabes want to send a CD that the writer won’t listen to in order to make themselves feel good, ancient acts believe if they get enough ink, TV and radio play that they’ve done their job, but the truth is they haven’t even scratched the surface. It’s a direct to fan era. Know who your hard core is and give them tracks for free, if they’re good, they’ll spread the word. Fire your PR person and read Malcolm Gladwell’s “Tipping Point.”

6. Virality

Your goal is to keep your music alive. There’s nothing more frustrating than spending a year on an album and then seeing it disappear in a month, never to be heard again as you ply the boards playing your greatest hits.

7. Reviews

Only matter if EVERYBODY says something is great.

8. Hunger

It’s a conundrum, the audience has got no time, yet is desirous of something new and exciting that will not only satiate them, but they can turn others on to. That’s your job, to feed this machine. Don’t ask for the audience’s time, don’t put yourself above them, it’s a privilege to be heard, your job is to serve the audience. Interestingly, the more you focus inward, on your art, the greater chance you have of succeeding. The two biggest left field hits in recent memory are all about the track, not the campaign… Lorde’s “Royals” and Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know.” The tracks infected listeners and they spread the word.

9. Sound

Don’t master for radio if your track will never be played. Extreme loudness and compression is a disservice to your music unless you’re playing the hit game.

10. Fame

Is no guarantee anybody will listen to anything more than a single. Which is why your single must absolutely kill. It’s like your first line in a bar, if it’s bad, you’ve blown your chance.

11. It’s something you feel.

Great records cannot be described. They contain something that penetrates you in a way that stops time and you can’t focus on anything but the pure sound and how it makes you feel. I still remember hearing “Sexual Healing” the first time…driving on the 10 East, between National and Robertson… Ha!

12. They call it show business.

But it starts with art. Business is easy, and always comes last. You can always hire someone to do your business, but you can’t easily hire someone to create magic.

13. Don’t fake it.

If you’re losing your voice (or looks!) don’t cover it up! The imperfections will appeal to people. Owning who you are is so enticing.

14. Artwork and album title and running order.

Are irrelevant. The art is a tiny square on a person’s computer or mobile, and the title is only memorable if your album is, as for running order, no one listens that way anymore, if they listen to the whole album at all.

15. Don’t pay attention to musos.

It’s great people live for albums and music, but they vocally skew the discussion, the same way they’ve convinced everybody that vinyl is making a comeback, it’s not, it’s a pimple on the ass of the music business. Don’t be afraid to alienate the holier-than-thou.

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These albums sound so bad on the streaming services. They say they’re at 320kbps, both Spotify and MOG if you’ve got premium, but they’re a far cry from the CD, which is a far cry from the vinyl, which still isn’t as good as the master tape. In other words, what kind of world do we live in where this stuff is recorded digitally, on computers, but we can’t have the version direct from the source? It’s got to be compressed and remastered and by time we hear it it sounds like it’s being transmitted via two Dixie Cups on a string.

In the old days I probably would have bought McCartney’s new album, I’m a fan. Maybe not the CD, CDs were always too expensive, you had to think twice before you laid your money down, vinyl led to experimentation. And I would have gotten home and broken the shrinkwrap and dropped the needle on my mega-stereo and been engrossed by the sound.

But today, even with great computer speakers, even with the ultra-popular Beats headphones, which are mediocre, the source is so crappy that what comes out is not music.

Oh, I know, you can hear a hit through mud. I believe that. But I also believe we get the music we deserve. Which is over-compressed, bass-heavy drivel, because something more sensitive loses all its sensitivity in today’s digital translation.

And sensitive is what “Early Days” is.

I’m playing McCartney’s new album, because I’m a fan, because it’s scannable on Spotify, and if you’re holding back from streaming services you’re verging on irrelevance, like Thom Yorke’s Atoms For Peace. The main challenge today isn’t getting paid, it’s getting someone to listen, and almost no one can accomplish this goal.

Exhibit one, Miley Cyrus.

Even grandmothers know who she is. Miley executed the best promotional campaign of the decade. But still no one wants the album, she only sold 270,417 copies of “Bangerz” last week, which to say is commendable is like lauding Miguel Cabrera if he hit 275 and 20 home runs. Sure, better than many, but still…positively mediocre.

But almost no one can sell an album these days. Certainly not Paul McCartney. Just look at Elton John, who had an even better publicity campaign, spouting nonsense that he has never sung better, Elton’s sold 78,109 copies of “The Diving Board” in three weeks, only 11,816 last week, it’s on its way to being completely forgotten before Thanksgiving.

So what does Paul McCartney do?

What everybody else does.

He goes on Stern, he plays unannounced gigs. But none of this has to do with the music. That’s the problem with Miley Cyrus, she’s a celebrity, her tunes are made by committee, she’s a modern pop star with nothing to say, we just want to see the antics.

But McCartney, once upon a time he had something to say.

But first I listen for music. And I find this track “Early Days.”

“New” gave people what McCartney thought they wanted. Something upbeat that hearkened back to what came before. But the problem with second-guessing the audience is it only works if you’re truly in touch with the audience, like Dr. Luke, the oldsters are clueless, they’re best off trusting their instincts.

Like with “Early Days,” which was not made for radio, but home listening. It’s so intimate. It’s got that White Album feel. You know, that intimacy like Paul is literally sitting inside the speaker singing just for you. Anybody who was ever a fan will get it. But I doubt most fans will ever hear it. Oh, what a conundrum.

One other track stuck out, “I Can Bet,” which is pedestrian until it has a change so delicious 35 seconds in you’ll immediately start smiling and nodding your head, wondering if you’re seeing the world through sixties glasses, viewing today, but having it look so much better.

That’s what McCartney used to specialize in, the changes, the flourishes, no one’s better.

And after getting hooked by these two cuts, , when I started the album from the top again it sounded better than the first time through, I was having the old experience, but almost no one is.

So where does this leave us?

In a singles world in an attention economy.

The album is a failed enterprise because despite so many lauding it, most have abandoned it, they just don’t have the time for it, and therefore they wait for a single to surface before they pay attention, and when one doesn’t, they move on, kind of like with the Elton album.

Oh, we could say it’s all about radio. And oldsters do listen to their NPR. But despite ridiculous protestations from the radio industry, it’s dying.

Not that an EP is always the answer. Fleetwood Mac released one and it’s like it didn’t come out.

Maybe like the Dead, these acts have to insert a few new cuts in their live shows, convince audiences that way first. If everybody’s going to the bathroom, it goes straight to the dumper itself. If you can get everybody to like it at the show, you’ve got something, maybe you then push it out to attendees for free in e-mail, I mean why are we selling these albums anyway, all the money for McCartney is on the road.

What McCartney wants most is to be heard. And he deserves to be. Not because he’s Paul McCartney, but because “Early Days” and “I Can Bet” are good. But that was not the message of the hype, which was all bland and non-specific.

Granted McCartney’s old. And an occasional act, like Drake and Justin Timberlake, can sell an album. Their audience believes they’re making a statement. But McCartney was the voice of his generation.

I guess we’re all dependent upon virality.

And McCartney’s got none. As a result, his album is gonna tank, maybe not as fast as Elton’s, but soon.

That’s what you need. Virality. To start a fire. If only these old acts realized we live in a new world and it’s incumbent upon them to deliver excellence and go straight to the tastemakers, not the press, which will spread the message.

The press is old school. Even television. They’re too cold. What these acts need is fans sending links. And they must focus on tracks as opposed to albums. Because no one’s got time for filler.

And if you were never a McCartney fan, move right along.

But if you are one, try these:

“Early Days”:

Spotify

YouTube

“I Can Bet”:

Spotify

YouTube

CALIFORNIA

Oh, it gets so lonely
When you’re walking
And the streets are full of strangers

There’s no loneliness like the one you feel in a foreign country. It descends like a curtain, when you enter your hotel room, when someone brushes by you on the sidewalk, you don’t fit in, you don’t belong, life is going on all around you, but you’re ensconced in a bubble.

Oh, California I’m coming home
Oh, make me feel good rock ‘n’ roll band
I’m your biggest fan
California I’m coming home

It’s been getting a bad rap, people say Florida is the new California, but that can’t possibly be, you see it’s on east coast time, you’ve got to be out on the west coast, three hours behind and a whole mental state away.

But Jerry Brown, a seventies refugee, is giving the state a resurgence, with its high taxes and can-do spirit it’s once again the beacon for the rest of the nation. But that’s not why I live here.

It’s the:

1. Freedom.
2. The weather.
3. The landscape.
4. The feeling that we’re still inventing it, that there are opportunities.

Maybe I can’t explain it, L.A.’s such a bad tourist town, spread out with few definitive attractions, but if you’re looking for a place to live, to make home base, I’ve never found anyplace better.

THE TAXI HOME

I feel guilty that I’m only going to Santa Monica. The driver’s been waiting in the queue for eons, expecting a long haul to Hollywood, downtown or even Orange County or the Valley, and I’m just a hop up the hill. Even worse, I wanted the driver to turn on the a/c, which was gonna cost him. Am I the only person who worries about others first, afraid not only that I’ll be disapproved of, but that I’ll disappoint and negatively impact them?

JEWISH HISTORICAL MUSEUM

That’s what Jews do. Go to the synagogue, go to the Jewish sites. That’s what my mother said, I’m following in her footsteps.

The most revelatory sight was the mikveh, uncovered deep beneath the old synagogue in a recent excavation, and I’m not even Orthodox, but I could see people stepping down into the ritual bath to achieve purity.

REMBRANDT’S HOUSE

He was a wheeler-dealer, an operator. His entrance room was a gallery, next door was a space where he did his hondling.

Also interesting were the box beds, cupboards for sleeping that you’d have to fold yourself up in half in in order to fit inside, which is exactly what they did, fearful if they lay flat, they’d be inhabited by bad spirits and whisked away, at least that’s what the guide said.

FIDELITY

Ralph said to hook up with her and Jonty. That they knew the full electronic music experience.

Jonty told me about getting crushed in an elevator shaft in New York City.

Fidelity told me about growing up in East Germany.

Leipzig. That’s where she was born. And I’m running the mental map, is that Austria? We Americans are so ignorant. But then she moved to Berlin. The wrong side.

Her father was a musician, not a member of the Party, and he told her to always be aware. To think before answering the questions of the teachers and the others who were informants, even the West Berliners who implored them to defect who were really working for East Berlin.

And one day on the radio Fidelity heard the wall had come down. She told her mother, who didn’t believe it, and made her go to school. There was no one there.

She got a hundred marks for turning in her passport. With the money she bought concert tickets, she had to see Depeche Mode. And candy. You just couldn’t get this kind of chocolate in East Germany. Not that she spent that much time in West Berlin after the wall came down. Because she and her former East Germans were put down. You could tell which side someone was from…by the clothes, the appearance, integration was a concept more than reality. And to this day Fidelity is untrusting. Because you never know…

VCs AND APP DEVELOPERS

Want to cash out. That’s their goal. Everything’s a means to something else. This has infected the music business a bit too, with wealth and fame so desired. But at the heart of it is the music itself. I realize I’m not on the money team. I’m on the cultural team. And if that leaves me broke, so be it.

PASQUALE ROTELLA

I had such a wild night on Friday. I went out with Pasquale Rotella, majordomo of the infamous Electric Daisy Carnival, a whole posse of people, his road manager, his talent buyer, his financial advisor, Jason Bentley, fellow Los Angeles promoter Milo, and David Lewis’s team, except for Mr. Lewis himself, who had back trouble, he’s the key player in Dutch EDM.

Not that it was called that back when all these people got involved. When no one else was paying attention.

Pasquale started off going to raves. And when that scene died, he started promoting shows himself. And had more ups and downs than those in it for the cash could tolerate. Promoting on an Indian reservation when he lost his site just days before expecting 30,000 people for a show.

It’s like this electronic scene is a parallel business, everything music used to be. The people are in it for everything that’s right, the music, the audience, the scene, the culture. They don’t need anybody else to feel good. Live Nation and SFX came looking for them.

And what happens now is anybody’s guess. Even the biggest insiders are fearful the scene could contract into what it once was. But it will never die. Because like-minded people love to embrace their outsider status and dance.