Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered

If only he’d make music as riveting as his writing, with as many people caring about what he has to sing. Then again, Lowery is preaching to the converted, wannabe artists who are pissed the gravy train broke down before they could get their fair share.

While we’re at it, why don’t we save the printers’ jobs too. And bring back Smith-Corona. That company had employees…

I believe artists should be paid. But that does not mean they should be paid the same way they used to be. As for inequality, the fact that they make so much less than the corporate fat cats…why not do a little protesting instead of fighting a little girl who’s on your side?

We live in a land of misinformation. Distributed by powerful people to keep you in your place. They like that David Lowery is beating up on this little girl, because that takes the attention off of them and the heinous activities they’re engaged in.

I’m beginning to believe George Carlin was right. You can vote, but it doesn’t make any difference. The owners of this country have a strong grasp upon the machinery and they’re never going to let you be in control, never gonna let you drive. As long as you believe the Republican mantra…"the party of the rich and soon to be rich"…you’re in trouble.

Why don’t you face it. Most people don’t want to hear your music.

And, if some do, that does not mean you’re gonna be rich.

And if you think being rich is everything, you never read Gregg Allman’s book, wherein he states:

"Money doesn’t impress me worth a f**k, and it doesn’t make me feel good. I’ve had it both ways – I’ve been rich and I’ve been broke."

Gregg’s all about playing music.

To be fighting file-sharing is akin to protesting dot matrix printers. File-trading is on its way out. Because it takes too much time to do it. And you don’t fight piracy with laws, but economic solutions. It doesn’t pay to steal if you can listen instantly on Spotify and its ilk.

And please stop bitching about the low payouts… That’s like saying Apple should liquidate and give the proceeds back to its stockholders, which is what Michael Dell so famously said in the nineties. Spotify is a trojan horse. You get hooked, and then you pay for higher quality on your mobile. Facebook stock gets hammered because of its inadequate mobile strategy and you’re not smart enough to see the connection to music??? You can’t get Spotify and its brethren on your handset without paying. And you will. Because you like the convenience of having all your music at your fingertips all the time.

Yes, most people still think you’ve got to stream your music to Spotify on your handset. But no, your playlists synch, it’s just like owning them.

The public will figure this out a few years down the line.

As for the value of Spotify… That’s an investment game. Hell, it’s worth a little less since the Facebook debacle. If you want money, switch sides, go into tech. But your odds of getting laid and getting high are so much lower.

We’re in the midst of a wrenching transition. Anybody who says they know where it’s gonna end up is just plain wrong. But one thing’s for sure, we’re not gonna be where we started.

The major labels, if they exist, will look different. They might not be in control. A future label might get the short end of the stick instead of the long.

The people in power are not listening to you. Not Universal, not Spotify, not Verizon, not Time Warner. Because they’ve got the power and you refuse to understand their game. They’re fighting for survival and you want them to pay attention to musical artists. That’s like Al Qaeda being distracted by U.S. high school protests.

You want to make a difference?

MAKE GREAT MUSIC!

Then the doors open.

Lady Gaga famously told Steve Jobs Ping sucked. Was he so powerful that he could make it successful? No, she was right. She spoke truth to power. Are you speaking truth to power?

That intern David Lowery is beating up on has no power. He’s wasting his time. And you’re high-fiving him as if it all makes a difference. You’re involved in a circle jerk anybody with the chance of making a difference is ignoring.

Why is it everybody in America can’t see the big picture? Why do union members vote for Scott Walker? Why do poor people want fewer taxes on the rich? Why do musicians think they can shame people into doing the right thing?

If that was possible, nobody would talk on their handset on the freeway. But this behavior is plentiful, to the point where deaths have not declined since the hands-free laws have been in place, because everybody ignores them.

If we want to talk about law and shame, why don’t we get all the musicians to stop doing dope?

But they’re gonna say those are stupid laws.

And the public is gonna say that fourteen dollars for a CD with one good track is stupid.

You start first with a killer product. And then you leverage this for change. Knowing that economics are more powerful than emotions.

David Lowery is not gonna make a difference. He’s speaking in an echo chamber. He’s got the right to do this, but that does not mean we should applaud it.

He’s right. The artists have suffered financially with the collapse of the CD model/Napster. But with destruction comes opportunity… Don’t forget, the record companies sued to kill the Diamond Rio, the predecessor of the iPod.

Do you want to give up your iPod to satiate David Lowery?

Just hang in there. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Spotify pays most of its revenues to rights holders. The fact that labels come before acts and they don’t distribute all their income… Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

And the fact that revenues are low now…

Live Nation is worried about Sillerman and Burkle, not your misunderstanding of ticket fees, which you think its company Ticketmaster swallows whole.

The problem is the artists.

And it still is.

Want to be powerful Mr. Lowery? Then make good music and sell it yourself. Be the new Curt Flood instead of one of the faceless minions agitating for the way it always was.

This is SO good, I want you to immediately stop reading this and go on Amazon and buy it.

Not because it’s the Allman Brothers, but because it’ll give you insight into what it was like, fifty years ago, being a musician, wanting to make it.

Gregg picked up the guitar first.

But it was all about Duane. Duane believed they could make it.

On the way up there are so many bad turns, so many discouragements, you need someone on your team who believes, who keeps you going when you’re ready to give up. And that’s Duane.

You also need the unsung heroes… The music store owners, the girlfriends, the fans of the band…who not only put you up at night, but buy you instruments, lend you money when you’ve got none.

So it’s the racist south. The one kids today have never heard of, never mind remember. When you not only didn’t want to be black, you didn’t want to have long hair. Roads were dirt and the cops were on the wrong side. Not yours.

And growing up most people had no ambition. Gregg missed out on graduation and prom for gigs but remarks when he went to his high school reunion no one amounted to shit. It takes determination and guts to make it.

And practice.

Boy did they practice.

And gig. Multiple times a night.

And they’d practice and gig on the same day.

The first thing a kid wants to do today is be famous. He believes he’s entitled to it. His parents gave him that instrument, he filmed himself on YouTube, why isn’t everybody clamoring!

So he’ll e-mail you, implore you to help him achieve his dream… Which is to appear on TMZ. It’s no longer about riches, they’re better in banking and tech, it’s about fame and lifestyle.

But the lifestyle these musicians had back then was better than any one on TMZ. Because they got high and got laid when nobody was paying attention. There were no cameras busting them, it was a freewheeling world.

Gregg talks about being inspired to write "Melissa", hearing the name of the song from a grandmother calling her kid in the supermarket.

He talks about writing "Dreams" after being given tips by Mike Finnegan on his B3.

He talks about learning to write songs from a summer of apprenticing under John Loudermilk.

Buying all the records, learning all the licks, the Allman Brothers were on a mission. Of survival. Because there was no backup plan. No safety net. No college if this didn’t work out.

And people dropped out all the time. To go to school, because of stage fright, because they just didn’t believe.

But not Duane and Gregg.

Duane tortured Gregg. But he also inspired him. And vice versa.

I know, I know, this sounds like nostalgia, for the seventies, listening to those long, dreamy, extended cuts.

And I love the Allmans, but that’s not what I like about this book.

I like it first and foremost because it’s readable. It cuts like butter. It’s written in Gregg’s voice. You get the impression there’s somebody home, and it’s not the drug-addled laughingstock he’s occasionally played.

And I like it because it portrays a family, not just an endless string of events. Life is like Jenga, you keep pulling out parts, waiting for it all to fall. But, can you pick yourself up after it crumbles?

And I like it because it doesn’t start with the Beatles. That’s not why the Allmans became musicians. First and foremost they loved music. All the old R&B and blues tunes, played on the radio. They were students of the music. They worked harder at their craft than a guy who goes to law school. Because they needed it, they were excited by it, they wanted to get closer to it.

And it’s so different from today.

And we’re never going to go back to yesteryear. Not with modern connectedness.

But when you’re slaving away in obscurity, remember that despite being able to connect with everybody, nobody really cares. Used to be everybody knew this. Which is why they practiced so hard, paid their dues, just hoping for a shot at the big time.

Today people believe they’re born ready.

Ain’t that a laugh.

Gregg had to learn how to sing. He just didn’t open his throat and sound good.

Today everything’s easy. At least that’s what the media tells us.

But it’s really damn hard.

Some people need to make it.

Those are the ones who do.

The Gregg Allman Book – My Cross to Bear

"Meadows"

I had the world’s worst case of mononucleosis.

At first I didn’t think it was that bad. I had a sore throat and I went to the University of Utah infirmary under Al’s name. That’s what you do when you’re a starving ski bum. Cut corners. And they did the test and said it came back negative. But when I got to the point a couple of weeks later that I could not swallow, and walking to the end of the block was tiring, I called my dad for some cash and went to see a real doctor. Turns out there are two tests for mono, and they did the cheap one at the U of U. Oh, I had it, bad. And after recovering for two months on Al & Jimmy’s couch I got in my car and drove back east, which was incredibly stupid, because I was still so sick, hell, six months after that, nine months after infection, my blood test still came back as bad as it could be, but…that’s just the kind of family I come from, being sick is illegal.

Anyway, to fuel the ride, I went down to Main Street and bought six cassettes at Odyssey Records. Which I never did. Buy cassettes, that is. Because you could roll your own better at home. Buying some high quality Maxell and recording in real time. But I had no tape deck, other than Jimmy’s 8-track, and I had a Blaupunkt cassette machine in the car, and it was a multiple thousand mile ride, so…I broke down and bought ’em.

One of the cassettes was Joe Walsh’s "You Can’t Argue With A Sick Mind", which was a live album I’m sure was concocted to fulfill his ABC commitment. But I was a huge Joe fan, and this album was a bit disappointing, but there was one cut I kept playing again and again, that got me through…

"Meadows".

I didn’t have the original, from "The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get", Joe’s breakthrough album from a few years before. That’s how it was back then. Of course I knew the single, "Rocky Mountain Way", but not the rest, you had to own it to know it, and that cost money. So, this was a surprise.

And this take of "Meadows" is so great, I immediately went out and bought "The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get" to hear the original.

And I vividly remember playing "Meadows" on Vail Pass, where they have the snow fences. On a warm spring day, early June.

But it was before that I realized… I’d heard this song before. It was "Woman From Tokyo"…


"Woman From Tokyo"

You have to understand, Deep Purple was the band that did "Hush", on Tetragrammaton Records, Bill Cosby’s label. Sure, they got some ink thereafter, but even casual readers of the rock press knew it was a different band, what we called heavy metal, when Led Zeppelin pioneered that genre, before it was taken over by speed metal, before it became the music without melody metal is today.

And the band had no traction in the U.S. until the summer of 1973, when the live take of "Smoke On The Water" invaded the radio and stayed there, for decades.

And with the public’s acceptance of "Smoke On The Water", radio went back and embraced the album it came from, "Machine Head". Kind of like after "Back In Black" broke through they played AC/DC’s "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap".

And at this point, "Machine Head" is seen as Deep Purple’s masterpiece. Containing not only "Smoke On The Water", but "Space Truckin’" and "Highway Star". But "Woman From Tokyo" came from the studio follow-up to "Made In Japan", whose take of "Smoke On The Water" was the one we knew best. And the album "Who Do We Think We Are" was entirely forgettable, maybe the band was spooked by its newfound success, but the opening cut was…"Woman From Tokyo". And lo and behold, it’s the same damn song as "Meadows". Only "Woman From Tokyo" came first.

"The Stake"

Unfortunately, "Book Of Dreams" is not on Spotify. If Steve Miller had a clue, he’d put not only this on the service, but my absolute favorite, "Brave New World", which has not only the original "Space Cowboy" and the title track, but the absolutely infectious "Kow Kow" and the incredibly beautiful "Seasons". But I guess he’d rather have them go unheard.

Yes, these acts are all living in the past (thanks Ian!) If you’re waiting for someone to buy something to hear it, you’re dreaming. In the old days, there were many fewer records, the labels were the gatekeepers, now anybody can play. It’s a different game. Used to be if you got any traction, somebody would buy your album. Now you’re starting at ground zero, nobody knows, you must make it easy for them. "Brave New World" is too good to be forgotten, but that’s what Steve’s trying to have happen.

Anyway, "Book Of Dreams" was the follow-up to "Fly Like An Eagle", which was a surprise hit. Steve was already a faded has-been when he hit in ’73 with "The Joker". Sixties acts were already forgotten by ’76. But Steve was now bigger than ever. And if you don’t love "Jet Airliner", the Paul Pena cut opening the second side of "Book Of Dreams", you’re a perennially depressed Goth dressed in black.

And on that same second side, was the curious cut "The Stake". Which sounded so similar to "Rocky Mountain Way", anybody would see the connection. And you have to know, "Rocky Mountain Way" was one of FM radio’s staples. It was a classic just one notch below "Stairway To Heaven" and "Free Bird". You would have thought Miller would have heard it…

P.S. I’m including a live cut of "The Stake", which is on Spotify, but you’ll get the idea…

P.S. I’m also including Allen Toussaint’s 1972 cut "Soul Sister" which is so similar to "The Joker"…

"Rocky Mountain Way"

Frampton burned out the voice box, not that that was his intent, overplaying of the version of "Show Me The Way" from "Comes Alive" did that, but Joe Walsh had ubiquity with that sound first. And I can live without hearing "Rocky Mountain Way" for a few more years, because I know it by heart, but I’ve never burned out on it, it’s that good.

"Surfin’ U.S.A."/"Sweet Little Sixteen"

I was just young enough to believe that "Surfin’ U.S.A." was a complete original!

Yes, there are cuts that share the same riff, that sound the same, but don’t share credits. Then there are songs that are truly the same! But since I heard "Surfin’ U.S.A." first, I always liked it better. Then again, I think it IS better! The sound of the guitar, and the chorus works a bit better. Credit Brian Wilson’s production skills. Chuck Berry’s track sounds rudimentary, the Beach Boys’ is a force of nature, a veritable tour de force that heralded the sixties youthquake.

"Sidewalk Surfin’"/"Catch A Wave"

Turnabout is fair play!

Joe Walsh ripped off Deep Purple and then HE was ripped-off by Steve Miller! The Beach Boys eclipsed Chuck Berry with a remake/cover of "Sweet Little Sixteen" and Jan & Dean had the hit with a remake/cover of "Catch A Wave", in this case known as "Sidewalk Surfin’".

Grab your board and go sidewalk surfin’ with me

Skateboarding was huge in the midsixties. But we didn’t call it that, we called it "sidewalk surfing"… And then the trend died out, because of the steel wheels that gave little traction and a rough ride, but was reborn with better wheels a decade later and has never left us.

For a long time, I liked Jan & Dean more than the Beach Boys. Sure, there was a connection, but Jan Berry was a great producer in his own right. Just listen to the sound of "Surf City"! And "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena" sealed the deal. Jan & Dean had a sense of humor to go with their hooks.

But years later, when I finally got "Surfer Girl" as a birthday present, a used copy from a girl I had a crush on, I heard the original. And in this case, "Catch A Wave" is superior. IT’S THE HARP! Played by Mike Love’s sister, Maureen, it’s unexpected but oh-so-right…

Catch a wave and you’re sittin’ on top of the world

Ain’t that the truth. Some sports just deliver that high whose only competitor is sex.

And you combine the aforementioned harp with Brian Wilson’s falsetto and the carousel organ and you’ve got a masterpiece, which sounds like the sixties preserved in amber.

Spotify link

Previous Rhinofy playlists

"The 30 Richest DJs in the World"

Don’t e-mail me and tell me it’s inaccurate. That’s missing the point.

The bottom line is the public knows record labels rip off artists, that you can be on "American Idol" and be nearly broke. Musicians are people to be made fun of, derided, deejays are to be embraced. For now anyway.

Deejays do it for themselves. If they’ve got a label at all, it’s a minor element of their business. Which is playing live gigs. At extraordinary prices. Flying on private jets from job to job.

That’s all real.

And people want a piece of that.

Which is why so many people now spin records. It’s pure economics.

Fed by commercials like this, from:

Afrojack

Armin van Burren

Who wouldn’t want that lifestyle?

I’ll quibble with the after-effects of these sell-out commercials.

And make you laugh with this ancient David Guetta clip:

david guetta – loreal partyproof

But the deejays have power and money. All the things rock stars say they’ve got but so rarely possess. Traditional rock stars will whore themselves out to anybody with a buck, they’re tools of the man. Who’d want to believe in that?

But an entrepreneur…

Deejays are no different from software coders, app-writers… They’re the new heroes.

We’ll see for how long, but right now the audience is embracing them, they got the message. The Internet doesn’t only allow you to steal music, it allows you to study up and learn the truth, that the traditional music business is run by old men making all the money. If you don’t think most people are aware of this and want no part of it, you’ve got no Internet connection.