If you’ve got my attention…

Blow my mind.

Sunday, I’d never heard of Craig Federighi. Monday, I couldn’t stop talking about him, because he was so damn good in the Apple presentation.

Turns out, according the “Wall Street Journal,” in an article behind a paywall, that Mr. Federighi began at NeXT, moved to Apple with Steve Jobs, left to be CTO of Ariba and was wooed back to Apple in 2009. And when Scott Forstall was pushed out, he became the new software kahuna.

And you might not care about Apple, but this story is instructive.

It takes a long time to get your breakthrough moment. And when you get your opportunity, you’ve got to kill.

This is the opposite of conventional wisdom. People believe it’s about the fame more than the work, and that if you just get a chance, you’re in. But where are the losing contestants of “American Idol” today? Where are the WINNERS!

First and foremost, you’ve got to love what you do. Because that may be all that you get, the work experience. If your happiness depends upon becoming a household name, you’re gonna waste a lot of time in the trenches being frustrated. That’s the number one reason people give up, frustration, they don’t like that it’s so hard… Winners don’t always win because they’re better than everybody else, but frequently because they outlast everybody, there are fewer competitors down the road. I know, I know, music is a youth business. But that’s changing. Youth records don’t pay as well as they used to and oldsters have disposable income and are interested in music. If you think your chance expired when you hit your thirtieth birthday you’re thinking inside the box, and that’ll hurt you.

The biggest payment you can get in this world is attention. Everybody’s overwhelmed with incoming. When you presume we’ve got time to waste on you, you’re wrong. We’re not sitting at home bored, we don’t have time to do all we want, but we always have room for excellence. So when you finally get our attention, you’ve got to deliver. As for a second chance? That’s so twentieth century…

Don’t ask for someone’s time until you’re ready.

You can get your name in the newspaper, but if you think that ensures long term success, you have no Internet connection. You want to build yourself off the radar screen, you want to figure out what works, you want to become so good you’re undeniable.

I don’t know how Craig Federighi got so good. Watching him present at the WWDC was like watching a dancer, a figure skater, who continues to execute difficult moves without falling.

It was the jokes.

Anybody can tell the story, but can you endear yourself to us? Can you make us think you’re one of us?

First and foremost you must gain our trust. Sure, Kanye gets away with people hating him, but he’s the exception. You’re truly no better than the rest, you’re human, relate as such. And know that performing is a skill unto itself. You can’t throw in everything, you can’t wander, you’ve got to keep hitting the notes.

Oh, don’t tell me I’ve got to listen to the whole album ten times to get it. We only give that kind of attention to our heroes.

And at this point, that’s what Apple has become…

No one but a small coterie of fanboys watched Steve Jobs’s initial presentations. If he’d tried to launch the iPad without the iPod and iPhone, no one would have cared. Even Apple started small. As for the prognosticators, the hoi polloi…they said the company was doomed, Michael Dell said to liquidate and distribute the proceeds to the shareholders. Then Apple became the world’s most valuable company. Huh?

So you’ve got to believe in yourself.

But that’s not enough. There are more delusional people in the arts than in any other field. You cannot make it through sheer will, by having a positive attitude and performing affirmations. No, you’ve got to be positively realistic, launching a career is like launching a satellite…they don’t blast one off without running the numbers incessantly and a firm belief that failure is essentially impossible. In other words, it’s fact-based.

Fact… Are you good enough?

But art is about emotion. The delivery counts.

Craig Federighi delivered this week, that’s why I’m talking about him.

“Apple’s Rising Star: Craig Federighi”

Article with WSJ excerpt – Meet Apple’s ‘Rising Star,’ Head Of Software Craig Federighi

LISTEN TO HER HEART

You think you’re gonna take her away
With your money and your cocaine

Tom Petty not only fought to keep his records cheap, refusing to be the first act to charge a dollar more, he also told his label he wouldn’t change the above lyric for radio. Yup, they wanted “cocaine” to be CHAMPAGNE!

But then it’s totally different.

But it gets worse… The album, Petty’s second, underperformed, without the giant hit single it didn’t sell as well as the first. But Tom soldiered on. Because that’s what you do when the music is more important to you than the fame, when being true to yourself is all you’ve got.

AND THE FANS NOTICE! Hell, I’m telling this story thirty five years later!

All this hogwash about the younger generation not caring if you do endorsements, if you sell out… People know whose payroll you’re on, they know if they’re number one. Life is lonely, you look to artists for solace, you need to know they’re pure, that they’re thinking of you. But if they’re thinking of money, bitching about it ad infinitum, which is all today’s musicians seem capable of doing, the public is turned off.

Speaking of which…despite Saturday’s show being three quarters through before the fire marshal closed it down, Petty is giving full refunds:

TICKET AND PREMIUM PACKAGE REFUND FOR JUNE 8 FONDA THEATRE SHOW

Huh?

Because, you see…love is a long road.

LOVE IS A LONG ROAD

You pace yourself. If you’ve got to do six nights…first and foremost you’ve got to make it through. But when you do, when the end is in sight, YOU CUT LOOSE!

Yup, last night, the final show, they started off louder, more energized, they hit the stage running. Instead of stopping the train at the station, we had to run alongside and jump on.

Are you ready to jump on?

Back then, music was the alternative. It wasn’t made for commercials, it was purely youth culture. And in the thirties hobos might have hopped rail cars, but every baby boomer will tell you about hitchhiking, it was a communal thing…you stuck out your thumb and it could take you all the way across the country. We were looking out for each other, we were helping each other. Until those at the bleeding edge of financial success pulled far ahead as taxes took a dive and suddenly it became about me and not you.

FOOLED AGAIN

AND I DON’T LIKE IT!

This was the highlight of last night’s show…

It’s the organ, the lead guitar, the frustration…

Tom said they rarely do it, he couldn’t remember where it was on the album, the first side or the second…but it was that kind of night, that kind of run, where the songs you know by heart COME ALIVE!

Sure, it’s a good song, but it’s an even better PERFORMANCE! The kind the Grammys say they recognize, but not until you’ve had massive success and have been anointed by the cognoscenti.

Awards are meaningless. If you need a Grammy to sell your tour, it’s not worth going to. What brings people into the building is the belief that you’re putting yourself on the line, that you’re expressing what everybody feels but cannot articulate.

If you haven’t been frustrated in love…you married your grade school sweetheart or you’re lost and lonely and have never played. It’s the essence of the game. What do they think? What do they feel? What are they gonna do? And once upon a time, unlike the rappers, unlike today’s “winners,” it was o.k. to say you were on the losing end…

MELINDA

Play it

And don’t tell me you don’t have a Spotify account… That’s like saying you still use a BlackBerry… It’s all about the apps, it’s all about the modern age. If you don’t think it’s better today than yesterday you weren’t alive back then. Sure, there’s so much of everything, life is overwhelming, oftentimes incomprehensible, but before the Internet, before Spotify, we had to own it to hear it, and that’s no longer true, the history of recorded music is at your fingertips…PARTAKE!

And the reason you want to listen to “Melinda” is…Benmont Tench’s solo. It starts about 2:40, it goes on, it’s a journey equivalent to the Dead, but without any superfluous noodling. Check it out.

BABY, PLEASE DON’T GO

It’s all about roots. If you’ve got none, we’re not interested. The young may be pretty, but the lines on the faces of the old are all about experience… Experience molds your personality, it influences you…this is one of Tom’s influences, every baby boomer has heard it, whether it be on the radio or in a bar or…

THE UNEXPECTED

“Best Of Everything,” from “Southern Accents.” Even better than the recorded version.

“Kings Highway,” from “Into The Great Wide Open,” when we still listened all the way through and knew the album cuts.

“Two Gunslingers,” also from “Into The Great Wide Open,” played acoustically. Adding new meaning. Sometimes the best version comes long after the recording is made.

“Time To Move On,” from “Wildflowers.” A gem. In all iterations. It was a raucous evening, but this added a moment of touching introspection.

THE COVERS

“I’d Like To Love You Baby.” Eric Clapton is not the only person who listened to J.J. Cale. We all have influences. The greats can respect someone else’s work…and make it their own. Fantastic Mike Campbell guitar work here, listen to the version from the “Live Anthology”:

Tom Petty- I’d Like To Love You Baby (Live)

“The Image Of Me,” originally done by Conway Twitty…

Tom told a great story about coming up, traveling around Florida and listening to country music on the jukeboxes at the truck stops. He said we pooh-poohed that music, but it was really good. Yup, the closest boomers came to country was covers on Grateful Dead albums.

Then Tom went on to say yesterday’s country was not like today’s, which is “rock light with a fiddle.” Ha! Funny how the truth rings true.

But the absolute best part of the intro was when Petty dealt with a heckler. Someone yelled out I LOVE YOU! and Tom stopped in his tracks, looked over and said…he liked the positive feedback, it’s interesting to hear that from a guy, but HE WAS TELLING A STORY!

Whew! The pros, with all those years on the road, know how to silence the interrupters and endear themselves to the audience, without even pissing off the hecklers!

RUNNIN’ DOWN A DREAM

On “Full Moon Fever,” this is intimate. It’s more Traveling Wilburys than Heartbreakers. But last night, this was a freight train with its headlight shining right in your eyes, mesmerizing you, making you unable to jump off the track. POWERFUL!

YOU WRECK ME

This too was more intense than the original, even though the take on “Wildflowers” rocks. Ferrone drove everybody forward, everybody was locked on, you could only nod your head in time…and agreement.

REBELS

I was born a rebel
Down in Dixie
On a Sunday mornin’
Yeah, with one foot in the grave
One foot on the pedal
I was born a rebel

That’s what we were, whether we lived north or south of the Mason-Dixon line. Everything our parents told us to do, everything the government told us to believe in…WE QUESTIONED! And who were the leaders? MUSICIANS!

Yes, John Lennon was bigger than God.

Because those Bible-thumpers think everything’s written in stone. When nothing could be further from the truth. If you’re not questioning authority, if you’re playing the game, I feel sorry for you, you’re dead inside.

But Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are not. Rather than bitching about the death of the old days, they’re keepin’ on, giving back as opposed to taking. Sure, they’re doing festivals, but those big paydays allow intimate shows like this, which not only keeps their image alive, but the band itself.

You know the feeling… Driving down the highway with the window down, your arm on the sill, with the radio cranked, truly the king of the world, that’s the essence of rock and roll, that’s what happened at the Fonda this week.

I just wish you could have been there, seen it, experienced it.

I wish everybody could have. Then we’d get a reset, and realize…

1. You’ve got to know how to play.

2. You’ve got to love to play.

3. Music is an end unto itself. It needs no videos, no backdrops, no dancing…when done right, the sound and the feel is enough.

P.S. It was a rogue fire marshal who shut down Saturday night’s gig, there were no more people inside than on any other night. It was not his beat, he refused to count the people on the floor, he insisted on eyeballing it… Then again, the man has been shutting down our music since its inception. The question is, which side are you on? Are you for the man or against him? Do you only listen or do you talk too? Do you take risks, worry about money last and realize life is about exuberance, the moment, the high? If so, welcome to the club!

1. The major music business, the “new music” business, is built upon radio, it depends upon it.

2. There’s a fiction that we still live in a monoculture. This concept has been blown apart on television, where there are five hundred channels available, but the Luddites in radio still believe the Internet didn’t happen, that we’re all prisoners of the dial, where there are few stations and little innovation.

3. There are radio alternatives. I.e. Pandora and the forthcoming iTunes Radio. Please don’t confuse Spotify and Rdio and Deezer and MOG/Daisy with radio, they’re nothing of the sort. Oh, they might have a Pandora or iTunes Radio component, but these streaming services are retail replacements, lending libraries wherein for ten bucks a month you can go into the store and borrow anything you want, as long as you return it. Also, you’re not limited to one album at a time…

4. The radio alternatives represent market fragmentation. Because Internet in the car is not yet here on a widespread basis, they’ve had little impact on car listening… Then again, we’ve experienced tapes in the car, CDs and iPod hookups. Terrestrial radio listenership is not close to what it once was. Radio used to dominate, it’s still the biggest player, but its market share has receded dramatically.

5. Satellite, Sirius XM, benefits from its automobile deals. That was the essence, even more than the programming. At this point, ten years past launch, almost all cars are satellite-ready. Not everybody pays, but subscriptions exceed twenty million. How can Sirius XM get the rest of the public to subscribe? By utilizing Internet techniques, i.e. social networking. People go where their friends are… Right now, Sirius XM has not leveraged its subscriber base.

6. When wi-fi hits the car, or whatever type of cheap Internet access deploys in automobiles, Sirius XM will be challenged too. Right now, Sirius XM’s Internet play is laughable.

7. Most people under age twenty have never experienced good radio. So when baby boomers and Gen X’ers start waxing rhapsodically about their old time favorites, wanting them to come back, it’s the equivalent of wishing that music videos would come back to MTV. Music videos are now an on demand item. No one is going to sit and wait for their favorite. And this is the same challenge facing all radio outlets, from terrestrial to satellite to Pandora to… They’re all based on an old model. Which is you’ll sit through what you don’t like to hear what you do, paying for the experience, whether with cash or by listening to ads. At this point, ads on Pandora are limited. But it’s the ads that will kill terrestrial…

Never forget Sirius XM’s music channels are commercial-free. The public hates commercials, despite all the b.s. propagated by advertisers. The absence of commercials is satellite’s number one selling point.

8. Insiders believe that there’s no revolution in terrestrial radio because the owners know it’s headed into the dumper. They’re just milking it for all they can before it falls off a cliff. So if you’re waiting for format innovation and fewer commercials…you’ll be waiting forever.

9. The challenge of Spotify/Rdio/etc. is…to tell their subscribers what to listen to. That’s what traditional radio has done best. So far, these services have not succeeded because they’re run by techies, and curation is all about human effort, not algorithms, otherwise we’d all be in relationships determined by computers.

10. Indie and left of center musical acts cannot get on terrestrial radio.

11. Terrestrial radio sells records and builds careers. Just not as well as before. The reason we see so few diamond sellers isn’t because of piracy so much as the fragmentation of the audience. In the old days of the walled garden, of radio and MTV dominance, if something got airplay it went nuclear, now radio just plays to its niche.

12. There’s very little innovation in the music played on alternative and active rock stations. Hip-hop killed rock and roll, but rather than innovating, rock and roll stayed the same. And now electronic music is killing hip-hop. Sure, kids want something different from their parents, but even more they want to own the scene, they don’t want to be dictated to, they want something that’s testing the limits!

13. Pop/Top Forty has more innovative music than alternative and active rock. Because the largest rewards are in pop/Top Forty, the best people gravitate there. I know you hate this, but it’s true.

14. Young people, prepubescent people, listen to Top Forty to be a member of the club, it’s a rite of passage, discovering pop after Disney…before you become an adolescent and want to express your identity by finding your own music, when you stop inviting all the kids in your class to your birthday party and only the few you like, who you gossip with about those you hate.

15. Baby boomers and Gen X’ers control the big time music business. They’re inured to the past, the dominance of radio and MTV, and they only want to be involved with that which pays, heavily… So they’re not about to put a decade into building your indie band, never gonna happen.

16. The young acts of today have to depend upon the young entrepreneurs of today to build their careers. It wasn’t oldsters who built classic rock, but a totally new generation of young players and young business people, only the young business people understood it.

17. Look at trends. Ten years ago the major labels said no record ever broke on the Internet. Look at PSY’s “Gangnam Style”! Radio is dying and YouTube and other alternatives are growing.

18. If you want to gain the most eyeballs, you must be controversial, tweet-worthy. If I can listen to your station and have no opinion, not hate or love your deejays or hate or love your music, if you give me nothing to talk about other than the same damn thing, then I’m not gonna talk about it, I’m not gonna bring new people in, you’re going to be living in an echo chamber.

19. Just like music piracy is a dead conversation, just like streaming has eclipsed it, terrestrial radio is dying…however, its replacement has not reared its head yet. Therefore the oldsters say radio is forever. But lousy sales figures of today’s mass market records proves this to be wrong.

20. We, as a culture, want to feel included. That’s what the radio of yore was all about. To grow mass, you’ve got to make us feel included. In other words, it’s all about culture. Talk radio has culture. As does public radio. After that, it’s a vast wasteland of sold-out stations with the same flaw of network television… Trying for broad-based appeal, they appeal to no one, and cede their market to excellence. HBO and the cable outlets killed network with quality… If you don’t think new services will kill terrestrial radio, you must like inane commercials, you must like me-too music, you must think airplay on one of these outlets will sell millions of albums, but that almost never happens anymore.

It was the first post-Steve presentation.

I know, I know, Apple’s supposed to be history. Samsung is on a full court press, giving away their devices to all the tastemakers while Apple, like the moribund music business, refuses to give it away for free.

But then today happened.

Tim Cook is better.

But he’ll never be good.

But the new Scott Forstall? This guy Craig Federighi?

He’s almost as good as Steve Jobs, and WE’VE NEVER HEARD OF HIM BEFORE!

That’s how deep the bench is.

But what we saw today, if you were watching, was cool, was wow, was…I WANNA GET ME SOME OF THAT!

Whether it be Phil Schiller previewing the new Mac Pro.

Or even the Anki race cars, with their glitch.

But the positively mind-blowing experience was iOS7.

Huh? Isn’t it a mature system? Isn’t that why Apple’s dying? Because they don’t know where to go?

With Steve gone… With Scott gone…

Jony Ive can take control.

Jony Ive is the new Steve Jobs. And rather than being cautious, resting on his laurels, Jony Ive has completely redesigned iOS7 to make it so cool, once it’s launched Apple-envy will be prevalent once again, with every iPhone owner showing off how cool it is.

Oh, I know, you’re an Android user. You’re a hacker. You like the flexibility of a PC.

That’s fine.

But most people are not.

I don’t want to know how to fix my car…I just want it to run right.

And if it breaks, I want to know where to take it, a place where the mechanic is familiar with the product, like the Genius Bar.

There are more blowhards in tech and media than there are at a carnival. They need to feel special, they need to be ahead of the curve, they need to be one of a kind, they need to dictate.

But we just want our stuff to work… Easily.

And it wasn’t only iOS7. It was also Mavericks, the latest edition of OS X.

Lousy name, I agree. But just like a band, the name is irrelevant if the music is great.

Maybe you’ve got to be a fanboy to watch this presentation… But just like those in the audience, you’ll find yourself clapping at times, because what they’re showing is so damn cool.

It’s the opposite of the music industry, where everybody’s a moneygrubber looking to sell out. Apple cares not a whit about anybody else…except for its customers, it wants to satiate its customers, it figures they’ll spread the word, not the reporter with an agenda.

Smart people have inherited the nation. Being dumb and uneducated is passe. Smoke and mirrors have been superseded by substance.

We’re always ready to be blown away…

And Apple did this to us TODAY!

WWDC. June 10,2013.

P.S. Apple’s iPod strategy has died in mobile… The company doesn’t seem to know how to create a monopoly anymore. Yup, that’s what the iPod was, driven by software more than hardware. Still, if you like sexy, innovative products, the Cupertino company seems to have a lock on them. As for Samsung… It’s got one big problem…software. Sure, it builds upon Android, but you’ve got to control the whole thing to execute elegant solutions. As for Amazon… It’s Microsoft, where the money is, but nowhere close to the bleeding edge. There’s a business on the bleeding edge. The mass market bleeding edge. That’s where Apple has perched itself. That’s where musicians used to perch themselves. That’s what Steve Jobs took from Bob Dylan. But now we get inspiration from Apple instead of our musicians. Because at Apple they know it’s about the work, not the hype.