The problem is Amanda Palmer! Don’t you get it? A scrappy young ‘un who understands the new technology is ripping off her brethren, all the classically-trained musicians who’ve got no idea who she is who were thinking about strolling down to her gigs to play for free.

Don’t you get it? This is exactly how the wealthy want it. Us fighting us. While they count their billions in private. Yes, billions.

You can’t make a billion making music.

You can make a billion creating a music service. Just ask the guys at Spotify. But at least Spotify’s on the right side… The right side you say? Spotify is ruining the business, crippling my royalty account, those Swedes must be stopped!

Just like progress. Musicians abhor it. They want a world in which CDs cost $13 and you have to buy ’em to hear them. While you’re at it, why don’t you charge for YouTube and e-mail, why not monetize everything you’ve come to know as free?

Wait a second. I’m getting too deep for you. I want to make my point.

Amanda Palmer is not the enemy. The bankers and the super-rich are! We’ve been sold such a bill of goods that most people have no idea of the truth. They want their taxes lowered when they don’t pay any. They’re against health care even though they’ve got no insurance. Did you see that the life expectancy of poor people is going down in the U.S?

Yup, if you’re a poor musician, you’re gonna die young. That’s the world we live in.

And the “New York Times” can’t stop it. Money can’t stop it. The only thing that can stop it is music.

Yup, while the business is focused on television singing competitions, with “stars” hosting for the cash, as if Britney Spears ever had a cogent thing to say about anything, the media is all wrapped up in whether Lady Gaga gained weight or not.

Last time I checked, music was something you heard. What difference does it make what she looks like? And Adele has proven the calorie-challenged can succeed despite what the body police have to say.

But one thing Gaga has not done, she has not gone on record about the inequality in our economic system.

Now she’s focused on bullying, I’m only singling her out because she’s got so much power.

How about that nitwit Taylor Swift. Even though she’s leaving Nashville behind, she still has the mentality. That you say nothing against rednecks, that you support the Republican line. As if all country music fans were rich!

But that’s one thing the extreme right and the extreme left have in common. Anger. And they should be united instead of carping at each other.

We just ain’t got enough. Romney doesn’t care about poor people and Obama is beholden to the bankers. It’s not good on either side.

But the media and the moneyed interests have us grasping for each other’s throats. While everybody with traction tries to screw those below and climb the ladder.

Did you see Phil Williams’s expose on Justin Bieber? The Beeb scalps his own tickets. Do you see a brouhaha? No, because in this winner-take-all society no one stands up for the downtrodden and we put our faith in faux artists when there are no real ones to go around.

Now Tom Rush is a septuagenarian. He comes from an era when musicians stood up for what was right, not what paid the most. I’ve got no idea if his video will go viral.

But you, the public, determine this. You, the public, made “Gangnam Style” a household term. We are not beholden to radio, we are not beholden to bankers, we’ve got the power, that’s what the Internet is all about, we need to USE IT!

How about a competition for the best protest song. Hell, they can be right or left, I don’t care. Sunlight on the subject helps us all.

If you want to make it, you’ve got to make a difference.

That’s what’s wrong with our phoney-baloney society today. Not welfare moms and Medicare matrons, but wimpy automatons who think their job is just to get along.

Now I’m gonna piss you off. All you wannabes recording protest songs in your basement. If you can’t write and you can’t sing, you’re never gonna make it.

In order to succeed, you’ve got to be fantastic!

Even Bob Dylan is not that good anymore. Heard anything about “Tempest” recently?

Even Taylor Swift’s paean to the past is fading.

No, that’s how you can tell if something is great, it STICKS!

Like the Yankees and the Lakers.

Then again, those leagues are limited, anyone can play in music.

And with everybody playing, we end up with two camps, the untalented and the sheep. Both abhorrent.

But in between are the geniuses.

Prince, Don Henley, Elton John… Where are you today?

Not that you have to be old to have any power. It’s just that the old people remember when music could change the world…

Bono? If you’re all about saving the world, can’t you write a song about it? Release it without worrying whether radio will play it?

Ah, but Bono’s sold out. He’s a venture capitalist now.

He followed the money.

There’s nothing wrong with money.

But you’ve got to put art first.

Art hasn’t been number one since AOL burgeoned and the Internet blew up in 1995. We’ve been following the technologists ever since. As if you could eat an iPhone, as if it could keep you warm at night.

We’ve got a crisis all right. It’s an artistic crisis. Movies are crap and so is most music.

Oh, don’t e-mail me about this and that band, if they were really that good, they’d have gone viral, and they haven’t.

Did you know that “Gangnam Style” was subversive? A put-down of a culture?

Where’s Jay-Z’s rap video where’s he’s putting down the wealthy culture? Oh, that’s right, those are his friends now, he can’t make fun of them.

But Jay-Z is just a figurehead for Barclays Center.

It’s Ratner and the Russian dude who really count. The people who promised housing but got their arena first.

Tom Rush is doing his part… What are you doing?

“Documents Show ‘Bieber Is Scalping His Own Tickets”

“Leon Cooperman and Relative Wealth”

“Life Spans Shrink for Least-Educated Whites in the U.S.”

I’ll take you there!

She doesn’t tweet. I doubt many people under forty have any idea who she is. But last night, Mavis Staples positively killed at the Greek. She evidenced all the elements that made music the preferred art form of the baby boomers, a religion. It was all about sound, it had nothing to do with the trappings. If you’d never heard her or her music, you’d instantly be sold. Because of the energy, the passion, the performance!

Mavis was opening for Bonnie Raitt. Who came out and wailed on a number. You see Bonnie has a long history of heralding the unsung and forgotten, whether it be Sippie Wallace or Mose Allison, she never forgets, so neither do you.

Promoters told Bonnie she had to play 1500 seaters. That the audience had moved on and forgotten her in her absence. Bonnie responded that she hadn’t played halls that small since her twenties. Maybe the promoters are so inured to the new world, here today, gone tomorrow, that they’ve forgotten about the legends, who have an audience, a loyal audience. Who’ll buy the new music and listen to it live. Yes, last night’s gig was sold out and dominated by tunes from Bonnie’s most recent album, “Slipstream.” It was like the seventies, except we were all so much older, but we still remembered…when going to the show wasn’t entertainment, but life itself.

In addition to the new album, Bonnie did a killer take of “Have A Heart” and a slowed-down, burning “Angel From Montgomery,” but the highlight of her set was “Love Me Like A Man.” Were you there, back then, in ’72, for her second best album, “Give It Up”? (The best is “Luck Of The Draw”…how many people do you know who do their best work twenty years on?) It’s a Chris Smither original. And when Bonnie sings it you don’t hear a victim, a complainer, but a modern woman who can truly fend for herself. Hell, Bonnie referenced so many failed relationships, stating that she’s now got a good man. But when she’s wailing on the slide, slipping out the lyrics, it’s a wild blend of estrogen and testosterone, no wonder both sexes are drawn to her, she’s the antithesis of everything being sold today, there’s no flash, it all comes down to the music. It takes a lifetime to earn an audience, but if you’ve got one, they’ll follow you anywhere, they’ll support you, they truly love you.

And the venue was more than half-full when Mavis took the stage. Boomers remember when the opening act counted, they’re always open to having their horizons expanded. And there’s three backup singers, how can she pay for this? And there are only three backup musicians, but boy could they wail. The septet fell instantly into a groove and never bounced out. Mavis is a bundle of energy and honesty. Shouting/singing, shocking you to life. You could not help but stand up, clap, move your body. It was a religious experience.

And everybody was so skilled. The tall guy who looked like he bagged groceries when he wasn’t on the road soloed with a voice better than most on the hit parade. And the guitarist squeezed out the notes, made a glorious sound. And Mavis led it all with more energy than those sixty years younger.

I guess what I’m saying is I’m jaded. I’ve been to the show. I know the economics. All the soul’s been removed. A single gig is not as important as the number of Twitter followers you’ve got, what beer you’re endorsing. Sure, little kiddies almost faint when they see their favorites, but the music just does not penetrate. Because, when done right, music will lift you right out of your seat, eradicate all your troubles, make you feel fully alive.

We live in a money economy. If you’re not part of the 1%, you’re either a loser or a striver on your way. Nobody’s happy where they’re at. Everyone feels inadequate. That’s what all the boasting is about. Then you see Mavis Staples and her troupe and you’ve got that desire you felt evaporated, to jump up on stage and go on the road and sing and play music…that’s more than enough!

Mavis stated that she was having FUN!

It’s no fun working at the bank. Just do a little online research. The hours are long and boring.

If you’re doing it for the money, half your life is a throwaway.

Mavis and her backup singers might not be rich, but they’re having tons of fun and joy. And watching, you become infected.

Yes, they did “I’ll Take You There.” And I was waiting for it. But unlike with the stars du jour and the has-beens, it wasn’t only about the hit, the rest of the songs were just as good.

Remember when you went to the gig and felt this was the only place you wanted to be, that music was the richest art form in the world, that if you could just hang with the musicians, your life would be complete? IT WAS LIKE THAT!

“52 Ways to Screw an Artist, by Warner Bros. Records”

Their maps may suck, but at least they’re honest.

Yup, that’s what pisses me off. All the people suing Apple for its iTunes accounting practices, claiming they’ve been screwed. You know Apple, famous for paying late, if at all. Never honoring a deal. Forcing you to audit and then settle for less than you deserve.

They’ve been selling tracks at the iTunes Store since 2003. Apps, books and movies thereafter. And I’ve never ever heard anyone complain about the accounting, no one to my knowledge has ever sued. They may complain about retail pricing, but a deal’s a deal.

A deal is never a deal in the music business.

It’s just a starting point, a negotiating point. Hell, oftentimes the people “honoring” the deal are not those who made it. Which is kind of like complaining about your haircut to the barber in the next chair. Or bitching about your 1904 Hamilton watch to the company owning that name today, which is Swatch. But it’s even worse, because unlike a haircut or a watch, copyrights are the gift that keeps on giving. So it’s never settled. There’s always income. Who gets it?

In a world where I can go on bit.ly and see how many people clicked on a link I’ve posted, where I’ve got reams of data at my fingertips, record royalties are still a black art. What I love most about the above lawsuit is after agreeing the royalty rate on “Mudslide Slim” is 11.5% in the first audit, after a rate of 10% and 11% was applied, then Warner only pays 11% thereafter. Whether intentional or sheer incompetence, why does this happen? Believe me, if an executive’s paycheck was suddenly short, he’d drop everything and do his best to get it right, would stop coming to work and file a lawsuit if the problem wasn’t immediately rectified. But if it’s the artist? Well, the artists are dumb.

No, that’s the major label business model. Theft from the artist.

And I know so many deals don’t pan out, but is that really a reason to put your finger on the scale on those that do?

Deals could be simpler.

Royalties could be computerized.

But then profits would vaporize.

______________

And while I’ve got your attention, and that’s all that’s important, attention, money comes after that, I want to revisit something I posted in the Mailbag, about ticketing.

Tweets are evanescent, they come and go, they evaporate. Just because somebody tweets something, don’t believe most people saw it. Most people are overloaded with information, they can hardly keep up with what’s going on in the present, never mind comb the past.

Which is also to say, few people click on links. They just haven’t got the time.

And I posted a link at the very top of the Mailbag, and I got almost no e-mail about it.

Click this link, now:

Eric Church Show Reveals How Scalpers Really Work

You can watch the video or not.

But be sure to read the article. Wherein the head of the “Fan Freedom Project” is shocked, I say shocked, like in “Casablanca,” that scalpers ended up with 75% of the floor seats for an Eric Church concert at the Bridgestone Arena.

You know, the Fan Freedom Project that wants to make sure you can resell your tickets on StubHub. No one’s selling their tickets on StubHub but scalpers. This is kind of like voter fraud, the number of legitimate people reselling tickets on StubHub is tiny. It’s a haven of scalping. And these people, via the “Fan Freedom Project,” want to ban paperless ticketing, so you have the right to overpay a scalper who’s never going to go to the show, just resell the tickets at a higher price to you, the fan. This Eric Church concert in Nashville had ticket buyers from 41 states, “248 tickets went to New York, 353 to Massachusetts, 495 to California.” Is this Church’s only concert this year, are people flying to Nashville for the show? Of course not, this is a profit center, that’s overcharging you, the fan.

Yes, this is America in a nutshell, while you’re bitching about Amanda Palmer scoring a volunteer horn/string section, unknown faces working in the dark are truly screwing you. Yup, while you’re discussing Romney’s “tape,” you’re clueless as to how private equity truly works, how Bain really makes its money.

And that’s just how they like it. With you in the dark. Ignorant.

Who do you blame?

TICKETMASTER!

Yup, the country was ruined by Obama and Ticketmaster, and if we could just get rid of both of them, harmony would reign.

What a load of crap…

I really didn’t know who Neil Young was until he joined Crosby, Stills & Nash. Oh, when he did I recognized his visage from the Buffalo Springfield, and I remembered he released a solo record…like anybody cared? But at the time, Stephen Stills was considered the star.

And I love “Country Girl” from “Deja Vu.”

And hate “Helpless.”

But sometime that spring I bought “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” so I could own “Down By The River”…so simple, yet so intense. At this point, the only track that’s played from Neil Young’s second solo is “Cinnamon Girl”…and that’s great, especially the guitar explosion so often excised on terrestrial radio, but I prefer “Down By The River,” and the second side closer, “Cowgirl In The Sand.” Nine and ten minutes long respectively. Enough time to sink your teeth and let your mind drift.

And I can make a strong case that the first solo album is the best. Which was pulled and remixed shortly after being released, but it took me a while to save up the cash for that one, I bought the third solo album first, “After The Gold Rush.”

History has been rewritten. It is said that “Harvest” broke Neil Young through, made him a superstar. That’s incorrect. It was “After The Gold Rush.” Sure, “Heart Of Gold” brought aboard some stragglers, but there wasn’t a baby boomer alive who wasn’t exposed to “After The Gold Rush,” it was a dorm room staple. It was the first record released in my freshman year of college.

It was totally different back then. Physical ruled. You didn’t steal your music before it was released or go online at midnight to download it from iTunes. Instead, you went to the store. And in 1970, indie retail was still nascent. Most albums were bought at the big box. But in Middlebury, Vermont, there was only one outlet, the Vermont Book Shop. A relic of a prior era, when books and music collided, yup, a purveyor of literature would have an inventory of classical music and a few overpriced pop records. No self-respecting young music fan would buy anything there.

But I had no choice.

I bought “After The Gold Rush” at the Vermont Book Shop. And only a couple of more albums there before I swore off. I had my mother buy my records and ship them from Connecticut thereafter, because of the price. When you’re a heavy consumer, every dollar makes a difference.

And eventually, with access to a car, this was long before everyone who turned sixteen got an automobile, I didn’t get my hand-me-down Chevy until I was a senior, I discovered the distributor in Burlington where I became a regular customer. I believe their best. Because I was addicted.

And I became addicted to “After The Gold Rush.” I was the first person in Hepburn Hall to own it.

And there was no radio to speak of. Only the college station, which I only listened to when I was on. Ha! So I broke the shrinkwrap and the album unfolded brand new, imprinted itself on my brain fresh. That used to be part of the ritual. Before the concept of the advance single, never mind the before street date leak, whether intentional or not. You had such anticipation, you couldn’t wait to hear the music. It was an experience that today’s kids know nothing about. You dropped the needle and let the whole side play through. Then you flipped the record and played the other side. There was no cherry-picking the hits. Hell, we didn’t know what the hits were! They came after we bought the album.

And if I told you I loved “Tell Me Why” right away, I’d be lying. I didn’t hate it, I loved its acoustic jauntiness, but it didn’t stick with me, it was just the lead-in to…

“After The Gold Rush.” It was all about that line…

Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970’s

I can barely believe it’s the twenty first century. But it’s much easier to comprehend than the 1970’s. The 60’s were an era of tumult. I can distantly remember going to first grade in 1959, but really, the transition to the 60’s slid by without much notice. But the change to the 70’s was monumental. Kent State. Altamont had followed Woodstock at the end of ’69 and left a bad taste in our mouths. Everything was up for grabs, and the first person talking about it was Neil Young.

And yes, the first side contains “Southern Man,” four years before Lynyrd Skynyrd’s answer song, “Sweet Home Alabama”…and purists won’t like it, but “Sweet Home Alabama” is even better. What a riff! And intelligent lyrics. But when have both the inspiration and the answer song been this monumental?

Never.

But my favorite song on the first side, initially, was the last one, “Till The Morning Comes.” It was only 1:16 long, but its brevity and simplicity, its lightness following the heaviness of “Southern Man,” endeared itself to me. I learned to play it on my guitar. My roommate, a music major, accompanied me on his trombone.

That was about the only time we bonded.

He didn’t like my lifestyle or my irreverence. He took college seriously, I took it with a grain of salt.

And I also loved the brief second side closer, “Cripple Creek Ferry.”

But the song that enraptured me, that hooked me, that had me dropping the needle to hear it again and again once it emerged from the album, was “Don’t Let It Bring You Down.”

This was the quintessential Neil Young song. The one people made fun of. With the nasal vocal.

That’s what inspired me to write this. I heard “Don’t Let It Bring Me Down” forty two years later on the satellite, and it sounded just as good!

It truly starts with the intro, the downstroke on the guitar, pregnant with meaning… This is an important story Neil Young is gonna tell…

Old man lying by the side of the road…

This is like the Torah to baby boomers. A religious text that roots us. To hear “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” is not only to connect you to what once was, but it makes you believe you’re a winner…you were there, when this music first came out, when musicians were the towering paragons of greatness and adulation, not bankers, when music ruled and changed the world.

Don’t let it bring you down
It’s only castles burning
Just find someone who’s turning
And you will come around

PERFECT! What Neil was saying was to hunker down, don’t get lost in 60’s hangover, you can make it if you really try, by bonding with your brethren. Not everybody, just somebody.

And there’s no version of “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” I’m not interested in. Every live take moves me. Kinda like every live take of “Carolina In My Mind” is worth hearing.

But there’s another masterpiece on side two… “When You Dance, I Can Really Love.”

We’re wired to be reticent. We must make an effort to move. And one thing that stimulates us to take action is watching another person dance. They’re free. They’re totally themselves. They draw us to them, oftentimes without even realizing it.

And “When You Dance, I Can Really Love” truly rocks, especially on vinyl, it’ll shake your whole house if you turn it up. Neil was earning a reputation with wimpy records, but he was not going to be pigeonholed, he was not going to stifle his liberated, rocking side. He could be sensitive and boisterous. He could only be himself.

And that’s why we loved him. His authenticity. And the songs. And the instrumentation.

On paper, it didn’t work. These were not ditties. Neil had an imperfect voice at best. But the total package was undeniable. Undeniably different and great.

And anything I write will pale in comparison to the music.

Because music, when done right, is the artistic zenith.

“After The Gold Rush” was done right.

Spotify link

Previous Rhinofy playlists