1. People Want To Belong

We’re tribal, we abhor a vacuum, how can you make us believe in you?

The lesson of the Internet age is that traditional media may not reach the target audience. In other words, just because it’s in the newspaper, that does not mean everybody knows about it. Even worse, just because it’s on TV, that does not mean everybody’s seen it. Individual television rankings have been tanking ever since the advent of cable television, your jaw would drop if you knew how lousy the ratings for “Breaking Bad” were, despite all the press plaudits. Furthermore, it took years to achieve this level of press success. Bottom line, most people don’t want to dedicate the time. Because we’ve got little of it. How do you convince someone to spend time on what you’re creating, especially when the big boys are having trouble getting people to pay attention to their stuff?

2. The Big Boys

A self-congratulatory circle jerk. Beyonce sells a million albums and you’d think she landed on the moon. Like television, reach of music has declined with the advent of new outlets, i.e. the Internet. We used to be addicted to terrestrial radio, then everybody watched one channel, MTV. Now many people don’t pay attention to anything other than their Netflix queue. There are so many outlets competing for attention that potential listeners tune out. This is a music industry problem which is not being addressed because the heads of public corporations have to congratulate themselves in order to justify their salaries and the wannabes believe they are entitled to be heard and if the hits get more mindshare that means they won’t. But we need a short, approved list of tracks that are jammed down people’s throats, that they will listen to, to feel included. Doesn’t even matter whether they love or hate ’em, it’s just that they must be aware of them. There’s only one iTunes, one Amazon,
one Google, but in music we delusionally believe there are going to be multiple streaming services and that Songza can compete with Pandora and Spotify and we’ve got room for Beats. We’ve only got room for one, and that’s the one everybody else is paying attention to, and since everybody’s playing to Wall Street, not Main Street, they don’t get it. We don’t want a ton of playlists, but five, or seven. Ranked. So we can tell all our friends how much we hate or love what is on them. If it’s on the “Voice,” most people still have not heard it. You may hate TV singing shows, but they’re essentially irrelevant, you’re railing against the inconsequential, the biggest hits of the year had nothing to do with them, i.e. “Get Lucky,” “Blurred Lines” and “Royals.” But one thing those three had was penetration. We need to promote fewer tracks that reach more people. That’s the way we’re going, it’s already happening in news. You think that everybody gets their news from different outlets? The
truth is the only U.S. organizations with boots on the ground are the “New York Times” and the “Wall Street Journal.” All the news derives from them, especially the former, with its foreign bureaus. You may see talking heads bloviating on television, on the web too, but the roots of their rantings are all based in these couple of news outlets. It’s the blockbuster theory on steroids. When everybody else cut their budgets to make their numbers, the big boys reinvested and now own the sphere, the fact that most people don’t know it doesn’t deny that it’s so. We’re gonna see this consolidation in music. The Grammys should have fewer than ten categories instead of a hundred. They’re pleasing the wrong people, the wankers with tiny audiences who made this music, but the organization is really about the TV show, which has the power to close those watching, turn them on to great new stuff. But the Grammys don’t do this, because the Grammys are too busy being democratic when the truth is we
live in a dictatorship run by the truly talented with money behind them and if you believe this is not so, you’re too busy playing sandlot baseball without a glove with no smartphone and no television set.

3. Music

Has a power no other medium possesses. It’s hotter than film or TV, but it’s become a backwater because those involved in making it and selling it don’t respect it. If you don’t believe in it, how do you expect anybody else to do so? Music is only trumped by sex, and many people have sex to music, very few want to get laid to episodic television. So stop trying to sell out to sponsors and start realizing the music is enough if it shoots for the stars and arrives there, unlike the lame Beatles tribute featuring a reunion of the Eurythmics. Huh? No one wants to see that act reunite. If you can’t respect the Beatles’ arrival on our shores, if you can’t deliver the attendant gravitas, give up. It’s kind of like the People’s Choice Awards. We don’t want to know what the public thinks, we want to know what the talented think. We don’t want Scorsese and Spielberg to make films by committee and we don’t want our musical stars to do so either. Did Jimmy Page put his finger to the public wind
to decide what kind of music Led Zeppelin should make? Of course not, because people don’t know what they want, giving people what they want is artistic death, cultural bankruptcy, art is about opening eyes and ears, both reflecting the human condition and liberating people from it. We’ve got to head into the wilderness to regain our purchase upon the public pysche.

4. Story

That’s why television is so successful these days, producers realize it’s not how it looks, but what it says. Whereas in music we’re so busy getting the sound right that we forgo the emotion, which is the essence of great art, after inspiration. Sure, it’s great if the vocals and notes are perfect, but not if said perfection eviscerates the soul. Most of our music sounds like it’s made by machines, which is why we can’t relate to it. If it’s gonna be machine-like, let’s all listen to Kraftwerk and make the computers our servants instead of the reverse.

5. People

They make hits. They got everybody to watch “Gangnam Style,” illustrating you can be ubiquitous, if you’re cool enough, if you’re running on the aforementioned inspiration. Screw the gatekeepers, we want something with rubberneck effect, you know, the thing you can’t help but slow down and look at on the freeway. If I’m not instantly drawn to your music, you’re doing it wrong. Don’t ask me for more time and more dedication, I’ve got none, I’ve got a list of stuff I’m already not listening to, watching or accomplishing longer than I’ve got time left to live. And it’s not only me.

6. Ubiquity

Everybody knew “Saturday Night Fever.” Because that’s how good the Bee Gees songs were. Come on, have you ever heard “Stayin’ Alive”? How about “I Want To Hold Your Hand” or “Satisfaction”? All sounded completely unlike what had come before. They were novel and inspirational. With attitude. That’s what made “Royals” such a hit, the attitude, as well as the sound. Same deal with the Avicii track “Wake Me Up.” Music is like a Balkanized nation where we’re so busy fighting in our own backyard that we can’t see that there’s a whole world out there. We should unite and promote the great hits of our day to those not paying attention. Instead we’ve got country music singing about church, babies and brands. Who in their right mind would care about that? When you shoot so low, most people shrug their shoulders and tune out. We’ve got to shoot higher.

7. Talent

Not everybody can play, not everybody can make it. If you’re five feet tall you can’t play in the NBA and if you weigh three hundred pounds you can’t drive Formula One. If you can’t sing, chances are you won’t make it. Own it and do something else. Sure, there are exceptions, but very few. Bruno Mars made it because not only could he sing, but write and play. We’re looking for triple threats, with something to say. Unfortunately, Mr. Mars doesn’t possess this skill. He could develop it, but right now he’s a showman. Will he close those watching him at the Super Bowl? Probably not. We need a Michael Jordan, a player so good that those not truly paying attention will have their eyes bug out and will immediately go to YouTube to watch the presentation again. Yes, can we all just own that YouTube is where music lives? Can we stop talking about iTunes and CDs? Can we stop talking about curation so much when it turns out people have no problem finding what they want to listen to on
YouTube? Sure, curation would grow the pot, but it’s the cherry on top.

8. The World Is Getting Smaller

With more choice, more options, we want very little, and we want it to be the best and what everybody else is utilizing. All that press about CES. Can you name one reasonable product that was introduced? I can’t, and I’m paying attention! We’re ready if you’ve got the new iPhone, if you don’t, we’re not. We’ve got people waiting 24/7 to spread the word on what is great, assuming it truly is. But the sausage factory is so busy turning out links, that we’d rather starve than partake. We’re moving to a world ever smaller with just a few winners. There will be fewer hit acts than ever before, we will want to listen to fewer of their songs, but they will be so much bigger than what came before… If we just get our heads out of our rear ends and realize this and promote that which deserves it to those who’ve tuned out. There are untold riches to come, but they will flow to very few, monetarily. But the public will be wealthy beyond belief. People want music, but it’s got to be better
than TV, which already killed the movies. Don’t try to get your song in a show, try to create something so great people will want to turn the show OFF!

We’re driving fast
From a dream of the past
To the brave new world

I most certainly was.

I made a deal with my parents. I’d go to the Mitzvah Corps if they’d allow me to go to summer ski camp.

You see they wanted to go to Europe, and ski camp was only ten days, and that wouldn’t do.

So I did. Spent ten days in Squaw Valley at the beginning of July and then flew with a box of skis to a frat house on the campus of the University of Chicago whereupon I found four guys, five girls, a soon to be famous rabbi and some brothers and a sister living in the basement.

That’s fraternity brothers. One wanted to run for governor, not sure if he ever made it, he was a Republican in an era wherein almost no one under twenty five was, and the other was a pre-med student who went on to become…a famous AIDS doctor. A friend was showing me a tape in the mideighties and I was stunned to see Paul.

Who lived in the basement with his girlfriend.

And the kind of person who goes to Mitzvah Corps is not exceptionally hip, which I believed myself to be, and I always got along with those more aged, which is how I found myself in the basement listening to Paul’s copy of Steve Miller’s “Brave New World.”

I knew nothing about the Joker, long before he was. But this album with a typically cheap Capitol cover took off with a shot with the above lyrics and never stopped. How could something be so good with so little hype?

There was no hit.

This was long before “Space Cowboy” became a classic rock staple.

Steve Miller was still relatively unknown, but not in the U.K., where Paul McCartney played uncredited on the closing track, “My Dark Hour.” Listen, you’ll hear him, it could only be him.

And “My Dark Hour” is a great track, but it’s a throwaway compared to “Seasons.”

This is not the midseventies Steve Miller. “Seasons” is so ethereal, so right, if you’re not immediately enraptured you think Johnny Rotten is the greatest rock star in history and you’ve got no sensitivity and I’m stunned if you’ve ever been laid.

That’s when I knew satellite radio was here to stay, when I heard “Seasons” on XM, any outlet that could air such magic was a friend of mine.

And yes, the album does include “Space Cowboy,” with its indelible riff, but my favorite cut on the album was “Kow Kow” (sometimes referred to as “Kow Kow Calqulator”).

Oh, listen to that opening riff! It’s an artist at work. Back when being able to play the guitar was the height of musical prowess.

And then those magical keys.

And then Steve falls into the groove.

Kow kow calqulator
Was a very smooth operator

Credit Ben Sidran, who gave an amazing turn on Marc Maron’s podcast a couple of months ago, the keyboards make all the difference. But despite being a band effort, Lonnie Turner positively wailing on the bass, it’s truly Miller who holds the track together and puts it over the top.

Get back in your elevator
Kow kow calqulator
Turn on your love light
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Let it shine

And that they do, in this Glyn Johns coproduction that ends like a later Stones number, with the piano at the end.

And I became an instant fan.

I went to see Steve Miller at the Fillmore East.

And “Kow Kow” is still my favorite cut.

But the best is “Seasons”…check it out.

Rhinofy-Brave New World

Is it me, or has society always been this coarse? Has a plethora of media shone a light into every nook and cranny or has America fundamentally changed, and now it’s every man for himself, and if I have to climb over you to get what I want, tough noogies.

But it’s not only Christie. It’s those employees in New York who rigged the disability game, who said they couldn’t leave the house and turned out to be sportfishing with their free time. Did this always happen, or when the President lies about getting a blow job and a previous majordomo employs voodoo economics to allow a whole slab of consumers to pull away from the rest (yes, I’m speaking of the vaunted Ronald Reagan) the rest of the populace wakes up and says…I’m gonna be a chump?

Sometimes that’s what I feel like. Because I’m not a lying, cheating, scumbag.

Hate to burst your bubble, but that’s what the music business is. It may be driven by tech, but theft and dishonesty and intimidation are still baked in. But the artists used to be pure, right?

I’m not so sure about that. But they used to be informed, they used to be leaders, they paid lip service in their songs to a better life wherein we were all brothers together. Now they sell VIP passes if they’re not scalping their tickets outright and might have Twitter accounts but make sure to fly private and live in gated communities, because that’s what the rich and powerful do today, remove themselves from the rest of us, throwing us crumbs and disinformation along the way to keep us ignorant. Kind of like the plethora of Republicans who don’t believe in evolution. I mean if we can’t agree on science, there’s no place to start, and that’s exactly my point, I’m not sure where we’re starting today.

Jaron Lanier laments that when these tech companies triumph on our backs only a few get rich, we pay with our information, but we don’t share in the spoils, not even a discount on a new hand-set. And I used to pooh-pooh his viewpoint but Snapchat and Instagram are worthless without our participation. In the sixties there’d be revolt. But today, all musicians want to do is complain about Spotify payouts when streaming won, did you see that track sales are down? CDs, vinyl, paper books, I wish all the Luddites would get their respective heads out of their rear ends and start looking forward so they could affect the future, but they can’t, it’s just too scary, they’ve got to stay in the past, lamenting the Zuckerbergs who came of age in the twenty first century and realize there are no rules, when bankers ruin the country and go free and taxes are low and there’s no safety net if you’re not busy raping and pillaging, you’re busy starving.

So an honest forthright person gets no slap on the back, instead he gets a slap in the face. He loses his unemployment insurance, and state governments refuse to give him his Medicaid. And I don’t want to make this a right versus left equation, Republicans versus Democrats, then again, Democrats propagated the notion that we were all in it together and had to take care of each other, before they all sold out to lobbyists.

So now we don’t look to governments to solve our problems, but icons like Elon Musk. Actually, if income inequality is eviscerated it will be by one of these visionaries, not the public at large, because there are no more public movements, none with any traction. The Tea Party is a fiction run by the Kochs and other fat cats and the organizers of Occupy Wall Street were so busy saying there were no leaders that the holier-than-thou media buried them. Yup, we still live in a media-controlled world, and if you think your Tumblr makes a difference, you probably believe your Pinterest page is influencing Anna Wintour.

But it comes down to education. Most people are not smart enough to grasp the issues. That’s the mark of an educated person, someone who can hold two conflicting ideas in their brain at one time. Like the value of a concert ticket is $300, but if we charge that, real fans won’t be able to get in. But screw the real fans, our customer is the Fortune 500, the advertisers, right?

Right. Isn’t that what it used to be about? Right and wrong? Isn’t that what your parents taught you, before they went to school and argued with the teacher, telling them Little Johnny couldn’t possibly be wrong? In the old days, we quaked in our boots if we brought a note home from school, now parents defend their children as if it’s impossible for their progeny to do any wrong.

And they see their boss making millions and paying little taxes.

And they see the riches paraded by the Kardashian Krew.

And they say to themselves, why should I be honest, why should I have good values, why should I hunker down and study hard to make more of myself when the ruling class is dealing with this country like it’s its playtoy, not caring a whit whether someone is sacrificed in the end. It’s like our whole country is playing musical chairs, and if you’re handicapped or sick, too bad, you’re gonna end up out.

So I don’t know what to believe in.

Used to be it was records. Before music turned into two camps, the ultra-rich singing about their lifestyle who want nothing to do with us, who represent nothing more than aspirational figures, and the bitching untalented, without good voices or chops who just complain that they can’t make it here.

Not everybody deserves to make it.

But everybody deserves an opportunity. Everybody is entitled to food on the table and a roof over their head. As for the “winners,” they can’t win without us buying their products and if you don’t think luck is involved in success, you’ve only read about it.

So I’m sitting this one out. I’m not going to listen to the bloviators. I am going to applaud the “New York Times” for doing its job. I’m not going to read the Roger Ailes bio because I already know he’s a scumbag and the people who don’t are never going to be convinced otherwise.

Still, if we’re all looking for the edge, if we’re all trying to climb the greased totem pole, what is end game?

The truth is the game is rigged. And until we’re willing to stand back and say we’re mad as hell and we’re not gonna take it anymore…

You won’t be able to get an abortion.

You’ll never escape your college debt.

You won’t pay any income tax, but the truth is the poor never do, and the corporations don’t either. We’re heading straight towards bankruptcy, not because of some fictional debt issue, but because we won’t fund schools, we won’t fix bridges, we won’t invest in the infrastructure this country needs to move forward.

Kind of like Christie. Who killed the NY/NJ tunnel. Forget bad traffic at the George Washington Bridge for a couple of days, for years after this blowhard retires ingress and egress to the city will be hampered. Oh, that’s right, the rich can afford to live in Manhattan… What about their domestics? The street sweepers? The firemen? The cops?

All being driven to dishonesty by a country wherein the top is triumphing and the bottom is getting squeezed out and the only thing that matters is your bank account.

It’s my favorite Van Halen song.

Once upon a time, I had a free subscription to AOL when you had to pay by the hour. As a result, I checked out every nook and cranny of the service, from the chat rooms to the dating boards. And after lurking for a while, I decided to play, and e-mailed a woman for a date.

She never responded.

But two months later, finding myself on Love@AOL once again, I saw her picture and decided to take a second chance. This time she responded, this time she said yes, she said she’d held off at first because I had the same name as her ex. Huh?

Anyway, after talking on the phone I agreed to drive out to the 805 area code for a date at a sushi bar in Thousand Oaks. This was long before Internet geographical undesirability, this was back when we were still intrigued by our newfangled online connectedness and believed, just maybe, our heart’s desire was out there and now we could find them.

Now I’m not saying I’m a slow mover, but from the moment this woman entered the restaurant, not looking as good as her picture, it was clear this wasn’t an informal get-together, but that we were ALREADY TOGETHER!

She’d decided I was the one. She was talking about our relationship to the other patrons. She was touching me. Sounds horrifying and gratifying all at the same time, I know.

And I was trying to play along, but I was slowly becoming speechless. I mean we all want sex, but we’re all reluctant to enter the bizzaro world.

And when we were done, we drove in my car to Music Plus, so I could advise her on records to buy. Shopping together is always intimate.

And when we were done, we got back into my automobile and I put on “And The Cradle Will Rock…”

Maybe subconsciously I was testing her.

You’ve got to know, I believe in world class car stereo systems. With a zillion speakers and powerful amplifiers. Not the kind you hear from the mini-truck next door to you at a light, but a variation on what you experience at the high end audio shop, back when they used to have those.

I fired up the Alpine head unit. It spoke to the CD changer in the trunk. The ADS amps came to life and the plethora of ADS speakers started emanating this spectacular sound.

Come on, you know the record…

It begins with a glorious noise that sounds like Eddie Van Halen is landing a jet on an aircraft carrier, and then Alex starts to pound, Michael Anthony holds down the bottom, and David Lee Roth implores us to GET UP!

You can just picture it, you’ve been there. Cocooned in your automobile as you’re enveloped in this wondrous noise.

Well, they say it’s kinda frightnin’
How this younger generation swings

Yes it is. This woman was horrified. It’s like an invisible force field immediately surrounded her as she put her hands over her ears and exclaimed…TAKE ME TO MY CAR!

And when some local kid gets down
They try and drum him outta town

I immediately turned it down. But it was already too late. She was no longer speaking to me. I drove across the vast parking lot to her automobile, whereupon I tried to rescue the evening, suggesting we go to her house for some follow-up.

But she wanted nothing to do with me, we were done.

And that, my friends, is the power of rock and roll.

Rhinofy-And The Cradle Will Rock…