They’re looking for a few good men…and women.

Geiger told me he went to New Orleans, to speak at a convention of music educators. Why? Because he wanted their best and brightest, he wanted the cream of the crop to come work for him at WME.

No, Geiger doesn’t make the decision. He’ll pass people through, like the person Mother Hubbard recommended, but he wants a better caliber of person for their training program.

They take fifty a year.

Forget the summer internship, that’s a whole ‘nother deal, albeit worthwhile. WME is looking for fifty people a year go to through their boot camp in L.A., New York, Nashville, Miami…do you have the goods?

Everybody says there’s no opportunity.

There certainly isn’t any at the labels. I have a friend who manages a household name act, he feels sorry for those who work at the label. While the top dogs gallivant around, the workers burn the midnight oil for little compensation and almost no possibility of moving up the food chain. Take a look at these companies…it’s still the same damn baby boomers, even older than baby boomers! So when you complain you can’t get a job at the label, all I can say is you’re looking in the wrong damn place.

But are you cut out for the WME training program? Are you ready to put your nose to the grindstone and work?

That’s the problem with millennials. They want the reward quickly, with positive feedback along the way. I know, because I had dinner with an exec for a publishing company just the other night, she said college students come in and refuse to take a starter job, they refuse to make tea. She laughs and forgets them. She had a starter job, she still makes tea, despite having a fancy schmantzy title. Want instant rewards, work for yourself!

Then again, that’s a long hard road, and there’s no mentoring.

But, as stated above, Geiger doesn’t want just anybody. He wants those with insight, who preferably have already achieved something. Yes, that’s the dirty little secret. Have you booked some bands or are you still wet behind the ears? Do you want it all on a silver platter or have you been kicked around yet are both excited and humbled?

We have not had the best and the brightest in music for a very long time.

And yes, Marc Geiger is looking to traditional music business programs. But I asked him about those who attended Ivies, who can think but need to be trained. He told me WME was open to all comers, to bring it on. And that you can apply on the website, and what he was telling me was not news.

But it was news to me.

P.S. You’ve got to be a college graduate. Don’t bitch about all the money spent, don’t tell me you’re different, this is the entry price, kind of like needing to be sixteen with hours of experience to get your driver’s license. Used to be college started you up the ladder, now it gives you a chance to climb the ladder.

P.P.S. Two years, that’s how long the boot camp is. You’ll get enough money to pay your bills, but not a whole hell of a lot more, not that you’ll have time to spend it. This is a delayed gratification program, like life.

P.P.P.S. Assuming you make it through, and many wash out, then you’ll be assigned to a department, and ultimately you’ll get your freedom in four to seven years when an opening arises. Yup, four years in you’ll be making 60+, assuming you’re good. And then…then you’ve got to show your mettle, you’ve got to demonstrate your wares. They don’t pass you along just because you’ve been there, you’ve got to show initiative, you’ve got to demonstrate results, and if you do, you can make a lot of money. Yup, the board has tilted. The power’s no longer with the labels but the agents and the promoters. And WME is actively looking for people. You’re not going to start off making what you would at the bank, but you might love your work, and that’s what life’s about.

P.P.P.P.S. Carole Katz. She’s the sieve, she’s the decider. I debated leaving her name out, making you hunt for it, because it’s those with initiative who win, but I’ll give you some focus. Don’t barrage her with e-mails and inundate her with cookies. Send something of substance, this is not a two-dimensional beauty contest, WME wants to know who you are, then they want to teach you their method.

P.P.P.P.P.S. It’s an arms race. Geiger’s not the only one looking for people, WME’s not the only agency with a training program. And yes, you can start on your own and merge later, but generally speaking that’s a different kind of person, like Tom Windish, who wants to remain independent. If you’re looking for opportunities, I just gave you one. But competition is fierce. Welcome to the music business.

I’ve got time to kill, Catskill, June in July…so I figured I’d check in.

Just went through security. They’ve got a great system with the trays. You know, the bins you put your wares into to be scanned.

You see there’s a return path, like at the grocery store, or the way it used to be, in the days of parcel pickup, when they’d put your bags into a bin and it would slide down rollers all the way outside and a gentleman, actually a boy, and never a girl, would put your groceries in your trunk. I guess that went the way of full-service gas stations, but the point is those rollers, do you remember them? When you’re through with your tray at London City Airport, they put it on rollers and it rolls down to those who now need it, so there’s never a shortage, never a need for an employee to stack them up and drive them back to the beginning. And I know you’re saying SO WHAT, but I’m the kind of guy who travels heavy, and I’m always running out of bins, so I thought that was pretty cool.

As for yesterday, we went to dinner and discussed Rammstein.

Have you seen them?

Everything’s so close! Webbo and Janet flew to Berlin for the show. I saw them opening up for Ozzy, back in the nineties, and the music is superfluous, but the show is amazing!

When you get rock and rollers together, no matter what country, no matter what nationality, you end up talking shows but really you communicate through lyrics. That’s how Janet connected with Derek Smalls, i.e. Harry Shearer, he was giving away an Ivor and he quoted one of his band’s obscure lyrics and she gave him the next line backstage. That’s Spinal Tap to you, and the point is nothing is obscure to a fan.

Before that Lisa had a get-together.

You can’t have get-togethers in L.A., because no one can get together! Tell everybody to meet in L.A. at six and they’ll say NO! Because you just can’t get from there to here, traffic is that damn bad. But in London, even more than New York, you can be anywhere shortly via public transportation, and that engenders human contact, it enriches society.

Before that we went to the Museum of London. I’m fascinated with what happened here. Not only the Royals, but the hardscrabble life of yesteryear to today.

The biggest impression upon me?

The Black Death. Put a perspective on SARS. Yup, it could happen, some disease could wipe us out.

And there was plague thereafter. And they didn’t know what caused it, there were a ton of cockamamie theories, kind of like when the AIDS epidemic began.

And then there was the great fire…

Streets were so crowded that you could reach out and touch your neighbor across them. Yup, people not only built up, they built out. Houses were narrow at the bottom and wide at the top. And the fire began in a bakery, but you’re stunned there wasn’t one sooner, with so many people cooking and heating.

And of course there was the footage of the bombing of London. The tales of those who were there. About losing their loved ones, narrowly escaping. I was always fascinated with the concept of taking shelter in the subway, i.e. the Underground. Turns out that was for the hoi polloi. Higher classes considered them breeding grounds of crime and disease. And there was a lot of fear, but there was a story of some soldier who told everybody down under there were gonna be many nights of bombing, so they had to get used to it, and then he began to sing…

Yup, music gets you through. Always.

And speaking of music, you won’t be bitching about the loss of recorded music sales when you contemplate what happened to the blacksmiths. Progress eradicates the past, and if you try to hold on to it you’re doomed. But in America, not only are taxes unnecessary, no one can lose their job. It’s like we need a national rethink, a decision to all go forward together, but that would require some to win and others to lose and that’s just not the American Way, although it is.

And London goes up and down over the centuries. There’s endless war. Royals come and Royals go. But if you lived back then, you probably thought you were at the height of modernity, after all you had sewers, built with log pipes. Huh?

And you see all this stuff in the museum and you wonder if you should save yours. I’m a pack rat, but as you get older possessions become meaningless. Oh, you want the utilitarian necessities, but the extras become superfluous. You need no gifts, you need nothing extra, because you can’t take it with you.

I don’t understand those people who build palaces, monuments to themselves, and then usually die so soon thereafter. Life is about living. But it’s easy to get sidetracked.

But everything’s in the cloud today, so it’s all about experiences, connection, sparks.

And infrastructure is important, but it’s those who titillate us, who amaze us, who make us feel warm and fuzzy and blow our minds who are truly important today.

In other words, you may have all the money, but you may have missed the point.

1. “Honey” Bobby Goldsboro

I HATE this song! So wimpy, I had to endure it endlessly in the pre-FM car radio days.

And when FM finally hit cars, it was really spotty. Sometimes we had to tune in the AM band just to get reception. Now in ’68, I was fully an album guy, my single purchasing days were far behind me. But because of this auto situation, I knew the radio hits. I can sing every lick of this song, it’s an insidious number that gets in your head that you can’t get out.

But all these years later, every time I hear it, I smile.

Explain that to me! How songs you hate you end up liking decades later.

Note – liking, not loving…

2. “Tighten Up” Archie Bell & The Drells

Drells?

I reference this song every time I go skiing. When I get off the lift, I tell my compatriots I’ve got to do the TIGHTEN UP! Yup, buckle my boots tight for my next run.

My older sister bought this single. Girls seem to get soul first, they’ve got the rhythm in them, isn’t it interesting so many play bass…

That’s just to say I didn’t really get “Tighten Up” at first, but hearing it in my house I came to enjoy it. And just like with “Honey” above, I smile every time I hear it…

3. “Young Girl” The Union Gap Featuring Gary Puckett

I don’t know if they could have released this song today, what with the politically correct army and the religious zealots…

Then again, this is an undeniable smash, and when we were young the lyrics oftentimes went over our head, we were enraptured by the sound and the feel, and from beginning to end, “Young Girl” works. It’s the apotheosis of the Union Gap. Which may not sound like much, but they had a run…this song was ubiquitous on the radio, I never changed the channel when it came on initially and continued to listen to it as time went by, some classics you can never burn out on. I won’t say it still sounds fresh today, but its magic is intact. It’s a mini Phil Spector production, there are horns, a whole bunch of stuff, the wall of sound is porous, but we can’t help but immerse ourselves in it.

4. “The Good, The Bad And The Ugly”  Hugo Montenegro, His Orchestra And Chorus

I never saw the movie. Oh, I had buddies who waxed rhapsodic about the charms of Clint Eastwood, but I didn’t get hooked until he went American, and then I saw everything he did…both the dramas and the comedies, from “Dirty Harry” to “Bronco Billy,” he was truly talented.

Every baby boomer knows this track. They can name it within one second of hearing the riff, the hook, the cry from the desert, the western of your mind.

5. “Cry Like A Baby” The Box Tops

Nothing can top their initial single, “The Letter,” but I loved this too, primarily because of Alex Chilton’s vocal, he had the same name in Big Star, but never sounded the same. And although the production sounds a bit cheesy, you can still hear the drama, and that solo is akin to a George Harrison masterpiece, simple yet so right. The track is only two and a half minutes long, but there’s so much in it, from the aforementioned guitar solo to the brass to the backup vocals, it’s exquisite work.

6. “A Beautiful Morning” The Rascals

It looks like they’re finally getting their victory lap.

The Rascals were the biggest thing on the east coast. They held their own against all the British groups. To hear this in the morning was to start your day with a bounce in your step.

7. “Cowboys To Girls” The Intruders

I remember when I used to play shoot ’em up

This is another track where the lyrics didn’t truly resonate until I got older, when it was a hit I was done with guns, but I wasn’t fully grown up. Then again, it was a girl in Old Greenwich who turned me on to it. I met her skiing at Stratton and we used to correspond, it’d make my heart pitter-patter when I arrived home and a letter was on my blotter, where my father put my mail. Wish I still had those missives, but I threw them out in a fit of pique, angry she’d moved on. Once again, I was relatively immune to so many soul classics, but this girl turned me on to this one. Every time I hear it I think back to her and those days…

And once again, could this lyric make the hit parade today?

I remember when I chased the girls and beat ’em up

We know what he’s talking about, but there are certain things you don’t say today, for fear of the backlash. Then again, that’s what you do with girls, disdain them until you do a 180…I know, I saw it on the “Rugrats,” where physicality turned to affection on the playground!

8. “The Unicorn” The Irish Rovers

I haven’t heard this since. I couldn’t even place the title. But as soon as it started to play…instant recognition, that’s what endless airplay did back then, burn these songs into our subconscious.

“The Unicorn” is kind of like Donovan’s “Atlantis,” you laugh at it, but you still like it!

9. “Mrs. Robinson” Simon & Garfunkel

“The Graduate” dominated discussion…it was controversial and poignant. But in an era where everybody wanted to be hip, wanted to not only acknowledge the new reality but partake, backlash was close to nonexistent. Today the same baby boomers who embraced the movie decry the loss of everything they know, like CDs, while lamenting the fast pace of the future.

Then again, I don’t think today’s graduates would understand the movie, which was all about finding yourself after college graduation. Nobody has time to lose, nobody can trust their instincts and emotions these days, everybody’s chasing the big bucks…or being left behind.

As for the power of song… “Mrs. Robinson” single-handedly brought Joe DiMaggio back into the public consciousness. He was not happy about it, but there would have been no Mr. Coffee ads on TV, no latter-day bucks, without this song. The younger generation knew Joe, but we’d never seen him play, he’d retired when our hero, Mickey Mantle, took the field in 1951, but suddenly, in this pre-Internet era, his visage was everywhere, tied up with Marilyn Monroe and dignity and…

Then again, this was when artists were kings, when the personal statement was key, before money trumped everything.

10. “Lady Madonna” The Beatles

Of course this is not on Spotify, the Beatles led fifty years ago, today they come last. But once upon a time, even four years after their American debut, a Beatles song would blast out of the speaker outshining everything.

McCartney says Fats Domino was an inspiration. I’m gonna attach his cover to this playlist, but he’s not the only one who did it, so did the dearly-departed Richie Havens and Booker T. And The MG’s and…THE UNION GAP, on their YOUNG GIRL album!

P.S. This is the “Billboard” Top Ten, your mileage may vary, because at this point in time radio was still local, and some stations ran songs up the chart and kicked them to the curb quicker than others.

Rhinofy-Top Ten-May 11, 1968

Previous Rhinofy playlists

It’s still light out!

I don’t know what time it is there, but it’s ten after nine here, eleven now, and the sun still hasn’t set… I don’t know if it’ll ever set, when I slept at Richard’s house three years back during the summer solstice it was like that Al Pacino movie set in Alaska, “Insomnia,” you’re waiting for complete darkness and it never comes!

So what have I observed about Londoners…THEY SMOKE!

Once upon a time smoking was cool, now everybody knows it causes cancer. I can understand doing it for a bit when you’re a teenager, that rebellion thingy, but once you grow up…do you not want to grow old? I know quitting sucks, but so does dying. You realize that when the end is near, like so many other truths your parents told you.

And I realized everybody was smoking because I saw them out last night in Piccadilly Circus. I’m used to L.A., where there is no nightlife, where everything interesting is happening at home, and you’re not invited. But there’s definitely a scene in London, and it’s not only there.

But back to smoking… I did see a woman outside a hospital, in a wheelchair, with the drip bag attached, puffing on a cigarette. And no, it wasn’t a “MAD” magazine photo shoot.

Today we started off with a jaunt around Hyde Park. We saw Kensington Palace. The newlyweds with the soon to be newborn are going to live there, I wouldn’t, maybe because the point was made again and again in the play last night, that it’s actually not good to be the queen. Everybody’s got problems, and we want our privacy to work them through.

And then we strolled down to the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum) for the David Bowie exhibition.

I learned plenty.

Just not what they intended.

The exhibit is schizophrenic, it’s needed to be laid out linearly, from yesterday to today. But you keep wondering why they skipped “Ziggy Stardust” when they’re talking about “The Earthling,” and then you go into a further room and there it is. Huh?

And if you’re a big fan, and I was, you know so much.

But not everything.

First and foremost, BOWIE WAS DYING TO MAKE IT!

Yup, it didn’t happen by accident. His father gave him an acrylic saxophone, he played a twelve string because it looked good. He was in numerous bands before going solo and striking it rich. And in each and every one of them, he was focused not only on the music, but the look, both the fashions and the staging.

And he came from a musical family. Not only was his mother a singer, so was his father’s first wife. Yup, Bowie’s dad John blew $400,000 to $600,000 in today’s money, his inheritance, trying to make his first wife famous.

That’s what they don’t tell you about performers, it’s in their blood.

And I didn’t know that Paul Buckmaster did the strings on “Space Oddity” and Rick Wakeman played keyboard.

But what struck me most about the exhibit was…

1. Influences.

You’ve got to soak it up, you’ve got to read, watch and observe. Nobody exists in a vacuum. You need to be inspired, you need to twist and meld these influences into something new.

2. Bowie was a product of his era, when pop stars were king, when television was the best exposure. We don’t live in that era anymore. What I don’t understand is why today’s stars don’t utilize today’s medium, i.e. the Internet. No one wants an album every few years when they’re surfing the Net every minute for new info. Furthermore, when it comes to imaging, everybody’s looking at a mobile handset! Bowie blew it with his new album. He could have taken over the Internet, he could have matched his music to the era, but he didn’t.

You’ve got to:

A. Create and distribute constantly. Perfection is irrelevant. Don’t polish, release. Used to be we had very little music, we saved for albums and played them incessantly, because it’s all we had. Now, we’ve got the history of recorded music at our fingertips, we’re grazers, graze along with us!

B. Mystery is history. We pondered who Bowie truly was, it was part of his magic, now there’s a camera on every corner and everybody’s known. Use this to your advantage! The old pop star is dead, create the new one!

C. Communicate the way your fans do. Tweeting and Instagraming is not marketing or promotion, it’s your art, the same way Bowie’s outfits were.

3. Pop careers are brief. Primarily because radio abandons you. Give Bowie credit, he kept innovating, but radio became static. And without radio, he couldn’t penetrate anybody but his fan base. It’s a harsh reality. Although with the decline of radio, a new reality is being born.

4. They make the point that pop stars used to try and become movie stars, because musical careers were brief and movie stars were kings. But by the late sixties, rock stars were kings. Bowie tried to make the movie/acting thing work for him, it never works for any pop star, not even Justin Timberlake, but it does keep you in the public eye.

I guess what I’m saying is David Bowie was a product of his era.

And his era passed.

So why do you keep playing by his rules? It’d be like trying to dial a push button phone, push the keys hard on a computer, as if it were a manual typewriter…you’ve got to adjust to the new game.

Everything used to be so small, so quaint. You could do a show and build word of mouth slowly. Now, if you’re any good, the highlights of your performance are all over YouTube in minutes. And if you’re not a star, no one cares what you do. Everything’s topsy-turvy, but the business runs like it’s still the same.

And video… Today you make your own. You don’t have to worry about acting. They’re truly advertisements for the rest of your work. And they’re cheap. You can make them for free!

Not that you can’t spend.

But how are you going to spend?

Yes, the biggest disappointment of the Bowie show was it was made for non-fans. You know a fan, he wants to dig deep, he laps up the obscure, he lives for factoids. But there were very few in this exhibit. It was a victory lap for the uninitiated.

Not that that’s Bowie’s fault.

And good for him that he can draw so many people, it was packed.

But we own the music, not the curators or the mainstream reviewers. Music is for fans.

And I can tell you that Ron Davies wrote “It Ain’t Easy” on the “Ziggy Stardust” album, but there was no depth about that production whatsoever. Although I did see some handwritten lyrics, which was so cool.

Remember dropping the needle on “Five Years”?

That’s a feeling not contained in this exhibition.

Then again, that’s music, something you hear, not see.

It all comes down to the music. The imaging is subservient to that.

I would have wanted to hear more from Tony Visconti, more from Ken Scott, more studio pictures, more context of what was and was not successful at the time.

But instead we get costumes from SNL.

Oh, I don’t want to bitch, I just want to give you some perspective.

Let go! Be inspired! Create! Blow our minds!

Human nature has not changed. We want to be intrigued, we want to be titillated, and now, like never before, you can go straight to your audience, there are no restrictions. So I just can’t understand why you’re doing it the same old way.

That’s why music is unhealthy. Because there are no David Bowies.

Mr. Jones had one helluva long ride. You wanna know why? Because he kept adjusting. He kept looking at the landscape and cogitating his place in it. And when he got on top, he went into hyperdrive, he was anything but safe, that’s when he accelerated change, that’s when he truly began to lead.

See anybody doing that today?

The challenge is set. The gauntlet is thrown down.

Your move.

David Bowie is