FREQUENCY

You cannot win if you do not play. (Did you catch the Steve Forbert reference?) Don’t be afraid. Dip not only your toe in the water, but your whole body. Reluctance is so last century. You’ve got to create on a regular basis. Once a week at least, once a day is totally fine. Don’t think of it as reaching people, but working out your kinks. It’s the beginning of your 10,000 hours. The cycle is so fast these days, and everybody’s so overwhelmed with input and time-limited, that your lame work will go unnoticed, the way the “Harlem Shake” is already history. As for people discovering your lame-o’s down the line, you should only be so lucky!

WHAT

Everything. Originals, cover tunes. Acoustic versions of electric tunes. Electric versions of acoustic tunes. With unlimited bandwidth, you are not restricted. Studio time used to be expensive, you demoed and oftentimes got it wrong in the recording, whether because you were uptight or unduly influenced by a producer. Your goal is to get comfortable in front of the camera. And to keep experimenting until you find something that works. The record industry has got it totally wrong, it thinks it’s about perfection when truly it’s all about warts. You want to first and foremost be relatable, embrace your imperfections and mistakes.

GOING VIRAL

Don’t chase the dragon. Because it’s hard to follow up, just ask Alanis Morissette. You think you want overnight success, but you really don’t. You want the gradual build, you want fans to embrace you, to become invested in you. If you have overnight success, once it’s done, you’re toast. Can you say “Rebecca Black”? That does not mean you shouldn’t follow what works. If a certain style of video gains viewers, repeat the formula. Marketing is not about being on every platform, screaming your way into people’s hearts, or not. Rather marketing is about research, taking chances and seeing what works and refining it and following it up.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A MUSICIAN

Wake up. If you don’t want to practice, if you’d rather surf the net and make videos than be holed up alone in your basement being bad, then note that there’s more than one road to fame. That’s the dirty little secret of today’s wannabes, they don’t want to be musicians, they just want to be famous. On YouTube you can let your freak flag fly, go for it.

BE CREATIVE

The punks couldn’t play. Ah, that’s a bit of a lie, but the Ramones were all about the conception, the Sex Pistols too. Rather than imitate what’s on the radio, think about being unique. And don’t be afraid to follow your instincts and stay with them. You’re nobody until you’re somebody.

RADIO

You can’t get on it. Not unless you’re signed to a major label and make Top Forty music. So forget the radio, YouTube is your radio. As it is for the younger generation. Did you see the NPD report? I don’t trust research, it’s inherently flawed, but if you’re the kind of person who needs numbers to confirm what’s right in front of your face, I hope you saw the NPD report that said Internet radio accounted for 23% of 13-35 year olds’ listening time, up from 17% last year, and AM/FM dropped two points to 24%. The Internet already won, the only people who don’t know it are the old farts, who listen to the Internet 13% of the time and AM/FM 41%. It couldn’t be written any clearer. Until record labels are run by twenty year olds, they will continue to tumble into darkness, they’ll get the message last.

PRETTY

That’s not the only way to engage viewers. Charismatic is even better. You can display your whole identity in a YouTube clip. You can try on other identities. You’re not limited to sound. Today’s stars are not two-dimensional, they display every facet of their identity. Do it if you want to last.

LASTING

The faster the ascent, the faster the descent.

CAREER

Don’t equate YouTube success with a career. Just like those old sitcom stars can’t get arrested (actually, they do, their mugshots are all over the web), YouTube fame is evanescent, here today and gone tomorrow. Just because you’ve got a million views, that does not mean you should drop out of school, you’ll probably never get a million views again.

MUSIC

Singles are obvious, but singles rarely lead to a career. More cerebral music, which takes longer to identify with and spread, leads to careers. So if you’re interested in a career, get ready to be frustrated. You’re going to grow very slowly. But now, you’re building a catalog on YouTube, and you own it!

ROAD

That’s the mantra, go on the road, prove it and earn it fan by fan. The only problem is there’s nowhere to play. Screw fighting for opening slots to play to twelve people who don’t care. If you catch fire on YouTube, the whole world is your potential audience. Sure, if you get traction, you’ll eventually have to go on the road and develop your chops. But Bieber broke on YouTube, not in a damp, dark clubs. Sure, it’s great if you’ve built a road base. But that’s for old farts and hippie bands. Today’s youngsters know it’s all about being connected. And you connect online. That’s where you start. Offline comes LAST!

ORGANIC

Don’t dun your friends to spread the word. You’re gonna burn them out before you’ve even figured out what it is you’re doing. Better to woodshed and then when your avocation comes up in conversation on the couch, in a bar, pull up your phone or laptop and show people what you’re doing, they’ll be interested, and if you’re good, they’ll spread the word. Would you go to a club sans shower and the appropriate clothing? Of course not! Then why would you expect your substandard video to go viral!

MONEY

It’s there. And it’s all yours. It depends on views. If you’re truly mercenary, focus on getting subscribers. Who’ll watch everything you do. But don’t worry about fans until you truly have something clickworthy.

EQUIPMENT

You’ve got a smartphone, right? That’s all you need. Some of the best records of all time were cut live to tape with mistakes in place. Capture lightning in a bottle. Ever see two identical lightning bolts? Hell, you can’t even remember how every one looked! You just remember the emotional experience, how you felt when you saw them and heard the resultant thunder. That’s the business you’re in, connecting with people emotionally. And that’s all about letting loose and taking chances.

THE MODEL

This is the new model. Forget everything you once knew. Albums, cycles, they’re totally toast. An artist today is constantly creating and constantly in the public eye. He doesn’t bitch that he can’t sell records, that the old model is broken, rather he explores the new avenues where money is available to be made. Piracy? Rip-offs? Imitation? That’s your greatest desire! Content ID will make it so you profit off all the imitators who cover your music! You don’t want to hold it close to the vest, you want to open it up to everybody. Which reminds me, ALWAYS SAY YES! You’re gonna get ripped-off anyway. The courts are an expensive and slow way to protect rights you probably can’t. If there are no barriers to piracy, let people do what they want. This does not mean you can’t sell tracks, can’t profit from streaming, but if you think you’re in control of your work today, you don’t have a fan base. Your efforts are just fodder, starter material for others to bake their own bread. They’ll give you credit if you don’t antagonize them. And they’ll give you their money too. People like to pay those they believe in. Foster belief and you’ll get paid. Phony is history, like the deejays on terrestrial radio, if you’re playing to everybody, afraid to offend anyone, you’re playing to nobody. You want viewers, you want fans, make it easy, don’t put up barriers.

From: Graeham Goble
Subject: It’s A Long Way There – Little River Band

Hi Bob.

I read, with great interest, your blog on my song ‘It’s A Long Way There’.

I wrote it on June 2nd, 1972, almost 40 years ago! Time certainly has gone fast.

I was in my 20s and I had just left my home town of Adelaide, to pursue a music career in Melbourne. I was having a difficult time emotionally, with missing home, but I was very aware that the JOURNEY I was taking was my destiny. These were my first, tentative steps into a new and unfamiliar World. I didn’t want to leave my home town of Adelaide, but I knew it was something I had to do. I was very anxious and I missed my home enormously. For the first few months, I used to travel back to Adelaide (9 hours by car), every 3 weeks to see my family, and have home cooked food! It took a long time for me to let go.

The idea for “It’s A Long Way There” came from that 9 hour road trip I used to make. I realised much later though that there was something deeper within the words. And looking back on it now, it was a premonition of where life was taking me… I’m glad I listened!

It’s one of those records that still sounds great even today. I think that has a lot to do with the guys who played on it. We were doing 8 gigs a week those days. So when we went into the recording studio we were so well rehearsed we could just focus on the performance. We recorded it live, including the guitar solo work by Ric Formosa… just overdubbing the string section and vocals. (I remember cutting the vocals at 3 a.m.). Each take we did was a little under 9mins long, and there was no Pro Tools back then, so you had to get it right! Of course, today, with Technology, you wouldn’t try for the whole band having to get everything right at the same time, but there was a magic to the way LRB used to record… it was like the collective energy in the room was the 7th player. You can definitely hear that in the record.

That was 1975 and now, in 2013, LRB is still touring the US, but sadly with NO original members. Through a bizarre legal situation, the original members have lost the rights to our ‘Little River Band’ name and Trademark. But even though we’ve lost the right to call ourselves Little River Band, it’s good to know our songs still live on!

Thanks again Bob.

Sincerely,

Graeham Goble
Founding member of Little River Band
www.graehamgoble.com

Maybe they were spending too much time on Justin Timberlake…

Late last night I broke the shrinkwrap on a pair of Sennheiser MM 100‘s. I’ve been evaluating headphones, and nothing came close to my old PMX 60’s until these. You know that feeling when what’s pouring into your ears is music? Not that bottom-heavy compressed sludge, but a sound that is expansive, that breathes, that makes you feel positively alive?

That’s what I’m experiencing.

All my old tracks sound new again. I dialed up my favorites on my phone and…it was just me and the sound, I had a smile on my face, I was a BELIEVER!

Forget Beats. Forget fake response curves. What we’re looking for is accuracy. And warmth. The music needs no tricks if it’s real.

And I’m going through all my old favorites, Wendy Waldman, Bonnie Raitt, stunned how close to vinyl they sound, streamed via Bluetooth, from Spotify to my ears and…I decide to check out MOG, since they say it sounds better.

And that’s where I saw Dido.

Did you know she has a new album out?

I bet not. Her album didn’t even sell 20,000 copies this week. It entered way down the chart.

And I’d be lying if I told you it was a rival to her first two, but it is a return to form, from the Jon Brion abortion she perpetrated upon us back in 2008. I don’t understand the adulation for Mr. Brion, everybody he works with does worse work than they did before. So he’s talented, SO WHAT?

And there are nods to today, with rappers, most especially Kendrick Lamar, and the opening cut, the single, doesn’t resonate, but track two is vintage Dido, “Girl Who Got Away” brings tears to my eyes. She may be beautiful, but deep inside she’s me. And that’s when music works best, not when the “artists” talk down to us, but when they reveal all their insecurities and warts and let us know…they may not be exactly just like us, but they’re just as screwed up.

That’s the dirty little secret of human beings. We’re flawed. The most beautiful model, she’s as poorly adjusted as you are. If everybody stopped saying how fabulous they are maybe kids wouldn’t shoot up schools, if they learned that everyone’s alienated, everyone’s got more questions than answers.

And you see that in “Girl Who Got Away,” I heard it the very first time through.

But nothing else jumped out from the album.

I don’t get it, we had to wait five years for more Dido tunes? Why couldn’t she have dribbled one out every other month or so? It would have kept me going back to her website, it would have kept her in the loop.

And I’m a bit flummoxed, a bit unsure whether it’s thumbs up or down on the album, so I decide to do research, go to iTunes and Amazon and see what the fans are saying. And it’s mostly positive, but there are skeptics. And I don’t want to be on the wrong side of history, yes, you can stick your neck out and get your head chopped off these days, it takes a strong person to go against the tide of public opinion.

And then I’m listening to the album the third or fourth time through and a track jumps out…”End Of Night.”

I got addicted to Dido via radio. Driving my mother’s Lexus back in ’03 when “White Flag” was all over Top Forty and Hot AC. I could ignore her when she got her initial burst of fame as a result of Eminem’s use of “Thank You” in “Stan,” but now I just could not get enough. “Sand In My Shoes” could be my favorite track of the last decade. I went to see her live, and she less than killed, her voice is so thin, but the records are so perfect, not made for everybody, just for me. That’s their magic, they’re not playing to the last row, but you alone. Whew! I love her! And I’ve never even met her!

So I’m answering e-mail and I hear this mellifluous tune in my ears and I say EUREKA! THIS IS THE TRACK!

And I go to Dido’s website and find out it’s the second single. The opening cut, “No Freedom,” is the initial track. Huh? It’s not a hit! You’ve got to lead with your best shot these days. No matter how hard the RCA team works, they can’t make “No Freedom” a hit.

But “End Of Night”… Now that Top Forty is not solely the province of beats, there just might be an open door. It’s not Gotye, it’s not “Ho Hey,” it’s not novelty, but “End Of Night” is so RIGHT!

I feel nothing
When you cry
I hear nothing
See no need to reply

They always ask forgiveness. I don’t believe in it. Of course for minor transgressions, but when they’re lying, cheating scumbags I’m shaken to the core. I’m a PERSON! I know you’ve got desires, I know you’ve got your unhappiness, but don’t you know you’re hurting my feelings, that I will never recover from this? I used to be a trusting person, but after my divorce I became gun-shy. What exactly is your motivation? You can say anything, but is it true? Can I count on you?

And you know what happens? We end up counting on NOTHING AND NOBODY!

That’s the dirty little secret of getting older. The attrition. The bad experiences that make it so you circle the wagons around yourself. We baby boomers are all free, but we’re all screwed up, we were sold a bill of goods, we were told it was better to follow our desires than honor commitments.

Then again, too many enter commitments on a whim.

So what you’ve got is a guy who’s pushing sixty who trusts inert objects more than human beings. They’ve got no agenda. They’re frozen. I can wrap my ears and arms around them and salve my wounds.

I can smile now
And turn away
Come over here
So you can see me walk away

I get it. But I don’t believe it. You can never get them out of your brain, can never forget that you used to lie together, physically and emotionally connected. The burns eventually cause you to separate physically, but inside you still long for the other person. Don’t believe conventional wisdom, you never get over ANYBODY you have sex with. They’re stuck to you, in some weird twist on DNA.

I go through life living too much in the past, the way it once was, when I still had my hopes and dreams and the healthy body of a twenty year old.

But those days are gone.

And I won’t put my faith in false goods, false answers, false gods. Everybody tells me to lower my standards and embrace that which is nowhere near as good as what came before. We’re living in a golden age of television, but music is a vast wasteland of substandard goods that everybody touts as great because the young are too ignorant to know what they missed.

And then something reaches my ears and rekindles my faith. Makes me want to live forever. To see what comes next. I’m optimistic. Sinews start to reform my trust. I don’t want to go to sleep and can’t wait to get up in the morning. I can’t wait to embrace and eat up life.

That’s the power of a hit record.

And a hit is not something the record company runs up the chart that we listen to for a few months and forget, no, a hit record is something that attaches itself to you and infects you like a virus, something that can’t be shaken, that lives with you forever. Sure, the initial wonderment wears off, but every time you hear the cut it still works, because of its juicy essence and the way it affects you.

And to tell you the truth, “Girl Who Got Away” affects me this way more.

But “Girl Who Got Away” is missing something. It needs another ten or fifteen percent, despite its phenomenal sound and lyrics. Whereas “End Of Night” is fully baked, which is why I’m telling you about it now.

Don’t dial it up and tell me you’re a punk, don’t let me know about your tattoos and piercings, deep inside you’re just like me, little Tommy or Julie on the playground, your look is just an affectation, you’re wearing your alienation as a badge to ward the rest of us away. But the satisfaction and satiation arrives from coming a little bit closer.

If only I could catch you on a late night drive. Slip “End Of Night” in the stream coming out of your speakers. Then you’d get it.

You see, when done right, music brings us together, with the artist and the other listeners who get it. That’s the job of the radio station, of the curator, to find tracks that hit us emotionally, touch something that can’t be described, which is the essence of human life and connection.

That’s what’s in “End Of Night.”

Come on, celebrate! It’s the “End Of Night”!

I feel nothing
When you cry
I hear nothing
See no need to reply
I can smile now
And turn away
Come over here
So you can see me walk away
And celebrate
The end of night
THE END OF NIGHT!

Dido – End of Night

The handle on my suitcase broke.

Whom to blame? The taxi driver who extracted it from the well of his minivan, or the baggage handlers at American Airlines, or was it just wear and tear? I want answers! Every problem must be solved! And if you live your life that way you get stuck in the past and never move forward.

So it comes down to repair. But where to go?

Felice has got this guy in the Valley. I called, but he’s out of the “office” until Wednesday, and I’m leaving town again on Saturday, which is a short enough window to begin with, so I took to the Internet.

I can’t remember what I Googled, maybe “luggage repair Santa Monica,” but I ended up on Yelp, and Bedford Shoe & Luggage Repair came up first. I dialed the number. But it was 6:02 and they were already gone. So maybe I’d go with the number two hit. Nah… Half a star might not make a difference, but when I see a negative review right near the top… I saved the web page for Bedford and decided to call in the morning. Which I did. And I proffered my problem. Could he fix it?

I had to bring it into the shop.

Which reminds me of my favorite repair joke of all time. In the back of “MAD” magazine. There was a cigar-chomping repairman delivering a bill for the repair of Telstar, which those under the age of forty might be clueless as to the identity of, but baby boomers know as one of the initial satellites, the one that got all the press. And the government employee is staggered by the billion dollar bill, cheap today, I know, but back then no individual had a billion, the price was stratospheric! And the repairman said…I HAD TO TAKE IT INTO THE SHOP!

I thought that was hilarious. I still remember it. The best jokes, like the best songs, you always do.

So after running some errands in Santa Monica, I journeyed east of the 405, which took nearly half an hour, because of the construction, which on one hand I approve of, but why is it taking so long? Remember those incentives that got the bridge rebuilt so fast in San Francisco after the ’89 earthquake? Why can’t they have them for L.A.’s most traveled freeway?

And after getting a spot on the street, I journeyed inside the aforementioned Bedford Shoe & Luggage Repair, where Sam Goli, I saw his name on the wall, asked him if he was the owner after our transaction, started to dissect my suitcase.

Who knew there was a zipper that removed the lining?

Sam.

Who knew that the loose plate was associated with the trolley handle?

Sam.

You get the point, I was clueless.

Then again, we all are. Back in the sixties, you knew how cars worked, you had to. But then fuel injection replaced carburetion and computers invaded the engine compartment and suddenly, automobiles never left you stranded and you had no idea what made them run. Hell, you don’t even have to insert the key in many modern cars! Why even bother to join the AAA, with maps on your phone and no towing necessary?

Fifty bucks. For the brackets on both sides of the handle. And if that didn’t do it, seventy five bucks for a handle too.

Huh?

I don’t think this suitcase even cost me $200. I bought it in 2007. It’s served me well. Was it time to retire it?

But that would require research and a trip to the luggage store and I was right here, right now, sure!

Never underestimate the price of gas. And last time I checked, they weren’t making any more time. That’s what I’d like back from the last century, some of that time I wasted!

So Sam got out his drill and I held the suitcase at an angle, and he performed surgery right then. It was a miracle! He fixed my suitcase! Hell, he even did extra work, rooting the free-floating trolley plate with a screw. And then he asked me if I wanted a new pull. You know, you fly and the little tab that allows you to run the zipper outside the case breaks off, well, he’d put a new one on for ten bucks.

Ten bucks?

Well, it doesn’t pay to go halfway.

And as I whip out my credit card, I’m thinking how repair is a lost art. But maybe it should be, since every time I get something fixed, it breaks down soon thereafter, you’re usually better off buying new. But there’s such extreme satisfaction in rescuing the past, in keeping something you’ve become attached to functioning. I asked Sam, how did he learn to do this?

He’d been fixing since he was a tyke. He reclaimed garbage, he’d built his own bike from remnants. He’d put in thirty five years, this was his calling.

And as I exited the shop I wasn’t sure I’d made the economically sound decision, but I had peace of mind and a smile on my face.

Chalk one up for the old guard. Everybody’s saying Internet skills are the key to survival. But you can still make a living working with your hands, quite a good one based on these prices.

I heartily recommend Bedford Shoe & Luggage Repair.

And I’m even more of a believer in Yelp.

I’ve got the app on my phone, I wouldn’t leave home without it!

 Bedford Shoe & Luggage Repair