"On YouTube, Amateur Is the New Pro"

They pay.

That’s the number one question I get, HOW DO I GET PAID?

Actually, that’s two questions in one. How do you, the reader, get paid and secondarily, how do I, Bob Lefsetz, get paid.

I’m not gonna answer the second. But I will say power is more interesting to me than money. And fame is overrated. There are many wealthy people who have no impact on the discussion. And people like Snooki and Paris Hilton have such short shelf lives. But if money is your primary concern, go on YouTube.

My understanding is they find you. It’s all mysterious, how much YouTubers receive from parent company Google. It seems to be the way of the Web, why we hate Spotify so much and root for Google to fail. Despite its "Don’t Be Evil" mantra, Google is an odious empire with all our data that cares not a whit about anyone but itself, and, for the record, contrary to what Mitt Romney may claim, corporations are not people.

But if you’ve got more desire than talent, if you believe in ingenuity and hard work, if you don’t know how to code, if you’ve got no uncle in the entertainment business, your best option is to build up your YouTube count.

YouTube is harsh. That’s where you find out if someone has any followers or not. Sure, you can game the system, but most of these wannabes don’t have the money to pay for that. You see they live outside the system. That’s their calling card. That’s why people flock to them.

It’s an intimate medium. It’s just you and the viewer. Which is why so many YouTube clips are about speaking directly to the viewer. Who is lonely, despite the sunniness on TV, and wants a friend, someone to believe in.

And the YouTubers are accessible. They’re the opposite of superstars. Post a comment and they’ll get back to you.

Not that I expect any of these YouTubers to become household names…

You see now we live in a two-tiered system, professional and wannabe. And it’s harder than ever to fly up the ranks, but today wannabe isn’t what it once was. Used to be if you weren’t signed to a label you were toast, you had no impact. Now you can get your music on iTunes via Tunecore, rally your troops via Facebook and sing your songs on YouTube.

Yes, YouTube is the new radio. That’s where kids go to hear tunes. That’s why Spotify is failing. Spotify is so busy trying to placate the old guard, the labels and the ancient artists, that they’ve been completely ignored by kids. Kids don’t need Spotify, they’ve got all the music, for free, at their fingertips, on YouTube.

YouTube is more powerful than any network, bigger than any newspaper… It may all be niches, but in the aggregate..!

And the biggest clips have hundreds of millions of views. They’ve got greater penetration than any TV show, most songs…

You want to get in on the action.

Anybody can play. Video gear is cheap and posting is free.

The ‘Tubers in this article first and foremost want to work for themselves, they desire freedom. And art is secondary to views. They need views.

They’re smarter than almost every musician who e-mails me.

If you’re truly great, all you’ve got to do is put your wares online. People will find you and spread the word, there’s very little phenomenal stuff and we’re trolling for it all the time. We want to tell people about great stuff, it makes us feel good.

And we want to tell people about Rebecca Black’s "Friday", because sometimes train-wreck is great. But those are one hit wonders… How do you get people to continue to pay attention?

One of these ‘Tubers had been on "Ellen". I’ve never heard of her, or was it him, I’ve already forgotten. You see it’s not about being on TV or in the paper, there’s too much info, it all goes by too fast, but building your tribe.

Get your tribe to follow you on YouTube, then you’ll get paid.

And if you’ve got no tribe, you’re screwed. Because the pros find people to invest in by scouring the Internet for those with tribes. It’s not about knocking on their doors, but waiting for them to find you because you’re so damn big. Hell, isn’t that how Perez Hilton made it?

And Perez is just the point. He’s talentless. But a brilliant self-promoter. He’s the poster boy for the age! He’s something the boomers can’t understand, they can just profit off of him after he’s already made a dent.

And will those who make a dent in the future sell out or stay independent?

I don’t know.

A great artist wants to be rescued. He wants someone else to do the heavy lifting. He just wants to stay home and create.

But despite all the carping about the need to do social networking, very few of these "artists" are great. Sure, we want to follow McCartney and Gaga, but all the middling artists have been dragged down by the wannabes. They were never that good, they were just the only thing available. Now, with diversions, we just don’t care.

These ‘Tubers have money, fans, they’ve built what the rock stars of yore desired, independence, albeit on a very small scale.

The big YouTube channels are gonna fail. Because the people YouTube gave the money to don’t understand the medium. It would be like giving classical musicians money to make rock records.

Everything’s up for grabs.

But a guy who interviews metal musicians can make $4,000 a month. Wow, if people were making this much, they’d stop e-mailing me!

And corporations will pay you six figures to create commercials. Because they want your audience.

My head is spinning. Do you sell out, tie in with the professionals, or just go your own way and invent it as you go along?

I’m not sure.

But I can tell you despite all the press hoopla nobody wants to see Neil Young’s movie or buy his album of American standards. What a cheap shot. Even he’s desperate.

You see it’s almost impossible to get traction.

Which is why these ‘Tubers are starting at the bottom, working ’round the clock, trying to build something, which is so hard to sustain even if you erect it.

It’s like a Firesign Theatre record come to life. Everything you know is wrong.

You’ve got to read this article. It will leave you with so many more questions than answers.

I could not put this book down.

Do you know this album by Supertramp, "Crime Of The Century"?

This was long before they had their hits, before they started singing about having kippers for breakfast. As a matter of fact, this was only their second record, and the first was not really the same band, it was from a different oeuvre.

Maybe the best sounding record ever, it sold a million stereos in its half-speed mastered iteration, it’s what made me decide to pop for a Nakamichi instead of an Akai, only the former could reproduce the wail in "Bloody Well Right". "Crime Of The Century" told the story of alienation, of school, of us versus them. This was from an era before parents were your best friends, before your goal was to go to Princeton and get a job at a bank, it was the tail end of the counterculture, before greed changed the entire fabric of our country, if not the world. That was the crime of the century, the brainwashing, the conditioning to be just like them, to sell out and be a productive member of society Jackson Browne so eloquently named "The Pretender".

Movies are dead. Soulless concoctions hyped to high heaven that are two-dimensional enough they can be comprehended by those unable to speak the language. All story, all humanity has moved to television.

It’s the changes that are so fascinating. The ones the elders deny. Yes, those baby boomers who scarfed up "Crime Of The Century" now want us to believe untruths, as our government is hijacked by the rich, as bankers who create nothing roam the earth like the rock stars of yore.

But everything is different. It’s not so much about Facebook and FarmVille than the underlying infrastructure. The Internet itself. The mobile devices, the iPhones and the Androids. That’s what killed the BlackBerry, the lack of possibilities. Like newspapers, it just couldn’t do enough.

Yes, newspapers are on their way out too. News is important. Who reports it is not. As for that thud at your doorstep, it’s not going to happen in a decade. And online hype is separated from truth. Newspapers are a network of PR people and reporters. If PR died, the newspapers would lose half their heft, it’s not news, it’s what’s placed there via relationships.

But what if those relationships died? What if everything was truly up for grabs?

"The Age Of Miracles" is a story about the slowing. Yes, the lengthening of the time it takes for the Earth to spin on its axis. And the attendant effects.

Set in a not so distant future in San Diego, it’s just like today. There are cellphones and e-mail and the routine drudgery of life as well as love, hate and anger. Change one piece of the puzzle and everything’s different.

That’s what the Internet has begat.

But here the source is not man-made. It’s what you don’t expect that comes to change your life.

"The Age Of Miracles" made me think about the human condition. Not everyone is popular, not everyone is a member of the group. Who’s making music for these people? You can’t see their story on the big screen. But they dominate. They’re us.

Once upon a time, art was a reflection of us.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t drive a Benz with twenty two inch rims, I don’t party with a bunch of big breasted bikini babes, my life is not about making it rain at Vegas clubs. But that’s what our mainstream music is about.

And that which is a bit off kilter is nowhere near as good as "Crime Of The Century". Because too many of these people can’t sing or play. Those used to be criteria for making it, no longer, in a world where your best friend parents say you’re a worldbeater, that you can win it all baby.

I’m not saying the end is near. I’m just saying something’s changing. It’s imperceptible to those in the seats of traditional power. It’s got to do with the income gap, but imagine if a natural event altered your perspective.

That’s what "The Age Of Miracles" is about.

The Age Of Miracles Book

The Age Of Miracles Website

(Ignore the stupid video, that’s the clueless book business venturing outside of its purview trying to utilize new media to sell its wares. But you can read an excerpt here:
The Age Of Miracles exerpt

The words are enough, just like the music is enough. The rest is just penumbra. It’s easy to look good, make a video, social network, but all of that pales in comparison to the essence, the art.)

Note: I neglected to include my Dukes Of September Spotify playlist with the last missive, you have to click through, you have to hear Boz’s version of "Love T.K.O."

"Sweet Freedom"

Did you see that Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines flick? You know, the one from ’86, entitled "Running Scared", from when we still believed movies could change the course of culture but didn’t mind mindless diversions like this, before it became all about the mindless diversions?

I miss Gregory Hines. I used to see him on "Ed Sullivan" with his brother and dad, long before he became an actor. As for Billy Crystal… His peak was "City Slickers", even more than "When Harry Met Sally", even though the latter is a better flick. This was in that period between being a standup and becoming a national treasure the oldsters embrace but the little kids disdain.

And I could recite the entire plot, but let me just say Billy and Gregory are Chicago cops and they’re sent to Key West… Don’t ask.

And when they’re down there, there’s a time-honored montage, of the good life, that will make you want to stop reading this and immediately fly to Florida. That’s what movies do so well, make us want to live another, better life.

And the music playing during this extended sequence is… Michael McDonald’s "Sweet Freedom".

And this was totally unexpected. In the theatre was the first time I heard this. There was no Internet, no plethora of information. And I became enraptured. I’m still enraptured. And you cannot listen to this on Spotify, but you can listen to a zillion covers. That’s what you don’t realize, if you’re not on Spotify, your imitators are. So you might as well be.

All the little extras will entrance you. Even before Michael starts to sing, you’re hooked…

No more runnin’ down the wrong road
Dancin’ to a different drum

Yes, listening to this track you’re on the right road, you’re free and easy.

Cowritten by Rod Temperton, "Sweet Freedom" sounds like it’s straight off of "Thriller", heavily produced and just right. Listen.

YouTube clip from movie

Official music video

"I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)"

It may be hard to believe, but once upon a time, Michael McDonald was one of the biggest stars in the business. It was his turn in the Doobie Brothers, more specifically "Minute By Minute", his work on the multiple hits from that album. But my favorite McDonald cut is from the uneven follow-up, "One Step Closer", "Real Love". From the crunchy keyboard intro that sounds like munching cereal to the second keyboard to the changes to McDonald’s vocals to the lyrics, "Real Love" is a forgotten masterpiece. And that’s what we’re all searching for, just one minute of real love.

"I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)" was the follow-up to "Real Love", it was the first single off of "If That’s What It Takes". And it delivered. Even if the album didn’t completely…

I keep forgettin’ we’re not in love anymore

I’d just broken up with my live-in girlfriend. We got together numerous times after we stopped living together, had conversation, had sex, but I knew it was not forever, even though so much of it was so right. This record came out after we’d pretty much permanently disconnected, even though we did hook up again and try a couple of times thereafter, and by this point most of the pain was gone, but memories don’t fade that fast, you wonder…what have I lost, have I missed out, should I go back?

Meanwhile, this song was cowritten by Ed Sanford, who had a hit in the midseventies with his partner Johnny Townsend entitled "Smoke From A Distant Fire". And ultimately Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were given credit too, because of the similarity to their hit "I Keep Forgettin’", which I’m gonna include in this playlist. You’ll hear the similarity, but many have skated on less resemblance. And however parallel the songs might be, only one had the vocal of Michael McDonald…which makes this track unique.

"I Gotta Try"

This is the other killer cut on "If That’s What It Takes".

Maybe it’s true what they say about it
Maybe we can’t make the ends meet
Maybe we’ll all have to do without it
Maybe this world’s just incomplete

Life is about fighting the conventional wisdom, doing what they say can’t be done. And this song is an inspiration, it goes through my brain decades later, it makes me believe I can do what can’t be done, that I can make it.

Some see the road as clear
Some say the end is here
They say it’s a hopeless fight
But I say I gotta try
Oh, I gotta try baby

Ain’t that the way it is.

Meanwhile, there are so many good verses and changes here. And don’t miss the backup vocals of Kenny Loggins, who cowrote it and included his take on his own album "High Adventure", kind of like Cary Simon put her take of her cowritten with McDonald song "You Belong To Me", which appeared first on the Doobies’ "Livin’ On The Fault Line", on her album "Boys In The Trees".

Unfortunately, Kenny saps it up, Jim Messina always kept this side of him in check. Still, you can’t deny the magic of a great song. And this is one.

"I Heard It Through The Grapevine"

McDonald put out a stiff second solo album, had a hit duet with James Ingram on "Yah Mo B There", and then faded away. This one-time backup singer for Steely Dan seemed to function best as a member of a troupe, put him out front and he just can’t seem to shoulder the responsibility. But as part of an ensemble, he kills, as he is doing right now with the Dukes Of September. And at his nadir, about a decade ago, he reinvented himself as a Motown soul singer, and did it quite well, listen to this as evidence. You’ll love listening to his Motown albums, but I’d be lying if I said they were necessary.

"I’ll Wait"

To say "1984" was a smash would be to underestimate it, to understate the facts. It was a Van Halen victory lap that was unforeseen that lasted for longer than the year that titled the album. And sure, "Jump" was the single that wouldn’t die, but "Hot For Teacher" was nearly as big, because of the MTV video if nothing else. And "Panama" was huge. But my second favorite cut on the album, the one no one ever talks about, but is so damn right, is "I’ll Wait".

It was cowritten by Michael McDonald… How do you like that!!

Spotify link

Previous Rhinofy playlists

Boz Scaggs hit it so far out of the park with Teddy Pendergrass’s "Love T.K.O." I could not help but swoon, even though I don’t think I’ve ever heard the song before.

I had to ask the African-American woman sitting next to me the title, she was writing everything down. She said it was by Teddy Pendergrass. Maybe I was on one of my backwoods sojourns when this was a hit, but Boz’s version was so right, so special, it was the highlight of the show in one packed with fireworks, and I don’t even like Boz that much.

Oh, he did "Lowdown"… When Freddy Washington picked out those bass notes the crowd went berserk. It’d be hard for the young ‘uns to understand, that a track we all loved and adored and knew by heart was not an evanescent piece of shit. And you could hear the amount of money spent on the original, it’d be hard to cut in your bedroom, but this was back when music ruled the world, when a musician was richer and more powerful with a better life than anybody else. Hell, it wasn’t only about the money, you could get laid every night of the week, sometimes multiple times a day, and you might get the clap, but never AIDS. And the soundtrack was oftentimes Boz’s "Silk Degrees", with the sleek cover photographed by my old buddy Moshe Brakha, who I haven’t seen in decades.

This show was so good, so special, so right, if Donald Fagen wasn’t lost in the past and embraced social media his fans might be aware of it and it would eclipse the Steely Dan tours, because it’s a celebration of everything that once was, it’s our DNA on stage.

Whether it be "Sweet Soul Music", the individual hits or "Summer In The City".

Do you like to dance, do you like to sing along? One of the encores was Sly’s "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)"… They funked it up good. I couldn’t help but stand and shake my body. To this song with references to previous Sly and the Family Stone hits, like "Sing A Simple Song", remember when acts had more than one hit, when they had careers?

The second highlight, even though Michael McDonald was the anchor of the show, was "Pretzel Logic"…

Ooh, you know, the keyboard swagger, that intro, and then…

I would love to tour the southland in a traveling minstrel show

That’s what we all desired. More than flying on a private jet, lying on the beach, we wanted to be backstage, we wanted to get closer to the musicians, we wanted to hang. And this troupe might not be rich…but boy were they having fun! That’s one thing they don’t tell you about being a banker, YOU’VE GOT TO DO THE JOB! As boring as playing chess with someone catatonic, the only benefit is the money. But playing music is its own satisfaction.

"Pretzel Logic"’s not even close to forty minutes long, but it’s superior to all of those hour plus statements released today. The hit was "Rikki Don’t Lose That Number", but every track was solid, every number resonated in its own special way. Whether it be "Barrytown", "Any Major Dude Will Tell You", "Monkey In Your Soul" or the title cut. I spent that summer spinning it incessantly. It’s burned into my brain. Just the initial notes of "Pretzel Logic" perk me up and brighten my day.

And Michael McDonald sang the background vocals on "Peg", just like on the original! And sure, he did "I Keep Forgettin’", but even better received was "Takin’ It To The Streets".

You don’t know me but I’m your brother

There was no income gap, not one any of us could see, we were all in it together, bonded by the music.

And last night it was the same all over again. Decades later. We may not have looked that good, but inside we were young once again.

And one of the encores was Buddy Miles’s "Them Changes".

Talk about forgotten…

My mind’s been going through them changes. I live in a world where music is a second class citizen, where all the innovation and excitement is in tech, where the musicians just want to sell out to the corporations which were never on our side. Then I go to a show like this and I’m reminded of the power of a band, of a song, of music.

And we were havin’ a lot of fun

Yes, we were. Singing, dancing, forgetting all our troubles, locked on to the sound.

It was the same as it ever was.

And it was GREAT!