If it’s not in the newspaper, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Just because the newspaper says it’s important, that doesn’t mean it is.

Don’t confuse ink with traction. You can hire a PR person, be all over the media, and no one can care.

Just because you’re on TV, don’t assume everyone’s seen you.

Don’t assume anyone’s seen anything in the media today, we’re all so drilled down into our own little holes that everybody misses much, and doesn’t care when they’re called out on it. The concept of feeling better about yourself because you know about something somebody else does not, or you know it sooner, is passe.

Don’t trust the newspaper. Those are reporters. We want someone who lives that beat all day long, not someone who does a bit of research and tries to put the story together. Old school journalists are concerned with the w’s, the where, when, why and…how. You can only get so far asking questions. But if you live it all day long, you know the history and you know the context. Chances are, on everything other than front page news, there’s a maven online with a website who knows more about it than the traditional reporters.

Reporters get it wrong. Not only do they misquote, they make stuff up. And oftentimes, editors change things so they’re not accurate, sometimes to justify their jobs, other times for space.

If someone’s in the media, being interviewed and quoted everywhere, they’re a whore, they’re into the publicity. Anybody with a profile knows that the media gets it wrong, so they do their best to stay out. So if you see someone incessantly, whether it be Kim Kardashian or John McCain, know they’re working it.

You can tell your own story online. If you’re concerned about the truth, do so. But the real story is you can’t inform everybody, no longer how much you protest, people will spread rumors and false information. Focus on your work, not the sales pitch.

Almost everything in the newspaper other than hard news, i.e. killings and political situations, is placed there by PR people. PR people make it easy for reporters, they fill up the paper. If you think someone in the arts department sits down and decides the important stories, you’re dreaming. They’re concerned first and foremost with access. That’s what PR people do, deliver stories, they write the newspaper…

TV news is what you see and usually nothing more. Other than sticking a camera in someone’s face, shooting a tragedy, there’s almost no one in the field scouring for news and developing stories. If you think you’re getting the real story on TV, you haven’t read the newspaper, which is where TV gets all its leads.

Rupert Murdoch has a viewpoint. He tries to change public opinion via Fox News and his newspapers. If you see a left wing position in his outlets, it’s a straw man ready to be struck down.

Don’t try to convince someone their political position is wrong. They’ll just dig down deeper and e-mail you a contrary opinion by their favorite blogger. People change their opinions over time, by themselves, via a plethora of information. This is the essence of gay marriage. Once everybody saw everybody else was for it, they were too.

Politicians are last. They stay far from the leading edge and are beholden to corporations. If you’re looking for leadership, you should look to artists. Unfortunately, in today’s challenging financial times, artists have been derelict in their duty, they too want to be beholden to corporations.

Just because someone analyzes deeply, that does not mean they’re right. Today, you must do your own analysis. In other words, you must be educated. Which most people are not. The mark of an educated person? Someone who can hold two opposing thoughts in their brain at one time. If you’re just a knee-jerker…you’re gonna get jerked around.

“The New Yorker” is the best-written mainstream publication. But that does not mean it’s always right or on the cutting edge or can influence policy. It just means it’s the most rewarding reading experience. Too many magazines focus on the glitz and not the substance…then again, the average person can’t understand substance.

You see Kim Kardashian in the news because you want to. Want to banish her? Stop reading the stories.

The press stopped hounding Owen Wilson after his suicide attempt, demonstrating it can exercise restraint. But somehow, it never does. If the press didn’t report every move, would Amanda Bynes fly straight? Lindsay Lohan?

See who is paying the bills… Trust trade magazines and sites for raw data, discard the analysis, they say positive things about those who pay them.

Beware the professional prognosticators… Who said the iPod was too expensive and no one would want the iPad. Now digital music rules and tablets are killing the desktop. Furthermore, reporters on this beat go to the same damn pundits every time, skewing the story. But the iPod and iPad show that the pundits are powerless. The people will do what they want to do.

“Huffington Post” has a better layout than the “New York Times,” but is purely link-bait. The “New York Times” site needs a makeover, but no one working there understands design or the web, they’re too busy pounding their chests and claiming they’re reporters. What did Steve Jobs teach us? Number one comes usability!

“USA Today” is irrelevant. Because its bland stories are done better online, and no one’s got a captive audience anymore, you can get the news on your phone, you don’t need a physical paper.

There’s a need for local news, but local newspapers can’t make it financially. The “New York Times” and “Wall Street Journal” survive, everything else is up for grabs.

People need news. They don’t need to get it from traditional sources.

There’s new news every day, want your story to survive? Keep it alive, keep making news every day.

Kids today know more news than their parents, they’re exposed to it all day long.

I know, I know, we’re supposed to like David Lee Roth Van Halen better, and I do, but…

That does not mean that Sammy’s version of the band was no good…

So Dave thinks he’s a star, a veritable one man band, covering classics and promoting them with extravaganzas on the breakout MTV. And then…

Word comes down that the Van Halens have hooked up with Sammy Hagar. Who they famously met through their exotic car mechanic, back when musicians were rich, before everybody found out the money was in tech and players invested in startups instead of iron.

And I’m a Sammy fan. Probably because of Montrose, but even more the Capitol years, with Carter…do you know the second solo, which started off with “Red,” but had the hilarious “The Pits” on side two? I bought it, I became a fan.

But then…

John Kalodner recognizes Sammy’s greatness, signs him to Geffen and he starts having hits. The debut had two, “There’s Only One Way To Rock” and…”I’ll Fall In Love Again”! Produced by Keith Olsen, I won’t say you hear the Fleetwood Mac influence, but there’s a melody, a subtlety, sonic extras that were absent previously.

And then, on the follow-up, there’s another one of these melodic smashes, “Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy”…

And then comes the apotheosis, the ubiquitous “I Can’t Drive 55.”

The track was great, it’s just that Sammy looked like such a doofus in the video, wearing the one piece yellow outfit. Huh? I thought the guy was a heartland rocker. But now Sammy inhabited a place somewhere between Fontana and Hollywood…a no man’s land. I mean it was a great track, but did you have to chew the scenery?

That’s MTV… Everybody knows your name overnight, and then everybody looks at each other and says…eewww!

Now Eddie Van Halen’s trajectory was just the opposite. Seen as a Starwood/Gazzarri’s metalhead in new wave crazy L.A., with every album the cognoscenti shifted its opinion, suddenly Eddie was seen as possibly the world’s best guitarist, certainly the most innovative player with any traction. But he had no lead singer, his was a band without a frontman.

So you match the credible with the cartoon and..?

Sammy tones down his act. Retires the clothes and becomes about the music. Although it takes the better part of two years to hear the result. And when “Why Can’t This Be Love” hit the airwaves…at first you weren’t sure, but almost immediately thereafter you couldn’t hear it enough.

It was Eddie’s playing, the sound. From the intro to the breaks, it was an Eddie tour-de-force, with Sammy doing what a frontman should do…SING! Sammy was the anti-Dave, he was a team player, with no antics…and he could hit the notes! Despite being so heavy, there was a certain melody in the track, suddenly Eddie was playing with someone who could sing.

As Sammy did all over the album.

The opener was a little atonal, but after experiencing the single, you were gonna give the album a chance. But really, it was the two songs that finished side one that closed you…

“Dreams”…that’s what we all have, and Eddie mastered the keyboard once again, as he did with “Jump,” and created something infectious, that just made you feel good.

But his guitar skills were back in “Summer Nights.” It was the perfect melding of Eddie and Sammy. Eddie was wailing and Sammy was singing about the good times. Far different from the Dave days, when the songs had a twist, a deeper meaning, but…you could not deny that unlike Dave, Sammy could sing. Sure, it was a different band, a different thing, but it was bigger than the sum of its parts… Very few Dave-era fans were lost, Sammy’s came aboard and a whole bunch of new fans were made, stoked by the ear-friendly music.

But I wouldn’t be writing this if it weren’t for the cut that opens side two, my favorite on the album, the absolute highlight of the Sammy era, “Best Of Both Worlds.” And Sammy’s good, but really it’s all about Eddie, the dynamics. From loud to quiet to loud once again, it’s positively Zeppelinesque, without being a rip-off. It’s a roller coaster, with hills and dives, twists and turns, I can listen to it all day long, it makes me feel so good, powerful, like the rest of the world doesn’t matter.

And “Love Walks In” is a gorgeous ballad, something Dave could never do. And instantaneously the almost impossible is achieved. Yes, Genesis replaced its lead singer, but they were not superstars when they did. Van Halen was at the top, and then they got Sammy and they were BIGGER!

And from there…

“OU812” was almost as good.

But then sophomoric Sammy gained undue influence and despite great sales, the music was less meaningful and more pedestrian. “Poundcake”? Dave would never sing that. Sammy doesn’t believe in subtlety, and he continued to pull the rest of the band along with him and then…

It all expired.

The Van Halens got together with Gary Cherone, a blatant mistake.

And then reunited with Dave.

Then Sammy.

Then Dave.

But one thing’s for sure, the star is Eddie… Who’s got nothing in his life other than music, that was Sammy’s bitch with him, that he never wanted to take time off.

And Eddie was so good, that hooked up with journeyman Sam, he once again made memorable music, he didn’t need Dave.

But Eddie always needs somebody.

Rhinofy-5150

Previous Rhinofy playlists

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!