I was supposed to be here yesterday. Which in this case, means Tuesday, because right now it’s 8 a.m. Wednesday.

Having completely confused you, let me say I was totally flummoxed when I showed up at the airport on Sunday night and they wouldn’t let me get on the plane. Turns out you’ve got to have six months of validity left on your passport to get into Singapore, and I only had four, mine expiring at the end of September. I killed myself to get ready, I flew from the east coast and am still somewhere over Nevada mentally and you’re not gonna let me go?

Then I don’t want to go at all.

It’s like the worst case of blue balls ever. I’m ready to orgasm and then..?

So I call Felice in the car and she comes back to pick me up and when I get on the Internet I find out there are these expediting companies, that get you a passport fast. I gave one a ring. Even though it was Sunday night, they picked up.

No can do. He had no slots until Tuesday.

Well, what if I just showed up at the Federal Building myself, I don’t live that far away…

He gave me a number to try.

Turned out they couldn’t see me until Tuesday either, which begs the question why I’d need the expediting company, but if I don’t get my passport until Tuesday it means I don’t arrive until Thursday and then I’m gonna go home on Sunday?

You see it’s an eighteen hour flight. I had no idea when I agreed. Twelve, fourteen even, no big deal. But I crack open the "Wall Street Journal" a couple of months back and there’s this whole article about the longest flight in the world being from L.A. to Singapore. Oh, you can go nonstop from NYC too, but because of the curvature of the earth, it’s the same distance.

Whoa.

So I e-mail Jasper, who runs the conference, and tell him my dilemma.

He calls and tells me to sit tight. They’re gonna fix it with the government.

Huh?

All over the world, the game remains the same, it’s who you know.

And I stayed up until two a.m., five p.m. in Singapore, the end of the business day, to see if there was a resolution, but no e-mail came in. I’m lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, literally wondering whether I’m coming or going.

And it doesn’t pay to wake up early, and I don’t, but when I do there’s e-mail from Adrian, Jasper’s fixer, that it’s all been taken care of, that I’ve just got to show this e-mail at the check-in counter and at immigration and it will all work out.

Yeah, right.

I mean for a moment there, I was relieved. Then I contemplated the situation, what if I flew all that way and I couldn’t get in?

So with trepidation, I entered the International Terminal at LAX last night. Or was that two days ago… Who knows?

And I made a bad choice. I found the one guy who didn’t speak English that well. And I handed him the printout of the e-mail and he shook his head no and then he said he had to talk it over with his boss and disappeared for fifteen minutes.

Whereupon, Troy Carter proceeds to check in next to me.

And when he’s gone, while I’m still waiting, John Meglen checks in on the other side. Well, if I ever actually get on this flight, at least I’ve got friends.

So the clerk comes back and says they photocopied my document. Maybe I’ve seen too many spy movies, it made my anxiety rise, but they were gonna let me on the plane, so I went with it.

In the lounge I ran into Bob Ezrin. Who’s telling me about flying to Beijing after Singapore to get this woman to sing on the Two Cellos album, and I had no idea what that was either, but they’re Croatian, if I heard correctly, and they’re signed to Sony and Elton’s got some involvement.

And on the walk to the gate to the bus to the plane, I introduce Meglen and Ezrin and they become fast friends and I’m left out.

Oh well.

Who knows where Troy is…

And the plane is all business class. And at first I think the lighting is bad, but then it turns out there are lights in the seats!

And in addition to having wi-fi, you can even use your phone on the plane. I guess once you leave U.S. airspace, there’s no danger… Ha!

And I’m doing okay for a couple of hours, they serve me scallops and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, and then dread starts to sink in. I’ve only got…fifteen more hours?

Which is when I see Ezrin and Meglen circling the plane.

They call me over and we end up discussing the status of the world. Everything from EDM to Celine to Vegas and we were having a grand old time until Ezrin pooped out and I figured we were done but Meglen wanted to keep talking.

Whereupon I heard how a boy from Montana ends up promoting everyone from Celine to Prince. He tells me how he squired McCartney and Nancy around Coachella after they landed in their plane just before Swedish House Mafia. McCartney stayed to the end, and then whisked off to Uruguay.

So John is the concert guy at Washington State. And he hangs around Concerts West long enough to get some work…booking limos.

And from there he goes to L.A. to Cohl to Pace to SFX to Concerts West.

And so much was off the record that I really can’t explain to you what’s happening at the tippity-top of the concert world right now. But I will say they had to cancel a bunch of Avicii dates in arenas. In secondary markets, not enough people wanted to go. But if it had been in a tent…

And the flight attendant comes over to tell us the patrons are complaining, that we’re talking too loud, which is of course astounding, since there’s so much jet and wind noise.

But we go back a few rows and continue and on one hand I felt I should go to sleep and on the other…hell, I was having a good time, and anything that ate up the time…

Eventually we did sleep, woke up to some quiche and sausage and landed in a torrential rainstorm. I thought the plane’s lights were blinking, but it was lightning. Again and again and again.

And right now I’m sitting in the Ritz-Carlton, staring out at rush hour traffic from an incredible room. With a couch and a large bathroom…I could live here.

Well, not quite.

And we’ll talk a bit of business, we’ll have a few good meals. And I don’t know how much of Singapore I’ll really see, then again, they say there’s not that much to see. But I don’t want to be one of those musicians who doesn’t know whether he’s in Cleveland, Dayton or Louisville…

This was supposed to be bad. A tired rock star giving the middle finger to bandmates who can’t tour without him.

But from the very beginning of the show, Jagger exuded a charisma and confidence that was incredibly endearing, even in the skits. Instead of looking desperate, he took the whole show up a notch.

And then he performed with Arcade Fire.

Half the magic was the brilliant execution of the stinging guitar riff. But it was more than that, this was a band, not in the least bit self-conscious, thrilled to back up the best frontman in rock and roll. Who delivered.

What is it with Jagger… He can barely enunciate on the Super Bowl, the live shows are creepy, then he goes on the Grammys and tears it up and delivers here. Huh?

This was supposed to be a victory lap. Old man on old show, both past their prime. But it turned into a tour de force.

It wasn’t perfect.

Great rock and roll never is.

But it had undeniable energy, just like the original British Invasion. You just wanted to get closer, the music eclipsed the antics of the comedians, it was everything.

Jagger showed us how to do it.

But he couldn’t have done it without Arcade Fire.

And this performance would get a standing O on "Idol", because magic is undeniable.

It would have been criticized on "The Voice", but those phonies have no idea what’s real.

But Tyler does. Jagger inspired him to hit his peaks.

And tonight Mick reminded the rest of us that money can’t buy you love and there’s no joy like making (and listening!) to music.

Video: Mick Jagger, Arcade Fire, and Foo Fighters on Saturday Night Live

What if I told you this book was full of tech talk, read like a manual and was filled with arcane details…would you read it anyway?

I DID!

Ken Caillat was smart enough to get a cowriter, unlike Carole King. And he’s not afraid to sling shit, some of the stories about Lindsey Buckingham will horrify you, like how he punched his girlfriend in the face. But what keeps you reading are the memories… Of when music was the most powerful medium on the planet, when it drove the culture and the highest personal achievement was international rock star, not banker.

I’m not saying if Fleetwood Mac started today they wouldn’t make a deal with Pepsi, wouldn’t go on "Idol", but it was a completely different era, that stuff was anathema, it was all about the MUSIC!

Ken Caillat remixes a single another engineer flubs and suddenly he’s driving his Audi up the coast to the Sausalito Record Plant, to record a follow-up to an album that’s not yet a hit. Sure, what Ken references as the "white album" had impact, but it wasn’t until after they started recording during the NoCal winter that it went nuclear, and the band’s manager/attorney Mickey Shapiro called and said if they could record just one more hit album, they’d be set for life!

Talk about pressure.

But Mickey was right.

John McVie drinks so much he has to leave early, but determined to get his bass parts right he shows up before everybody else, to rerecord them.

Everybody looks down on Stevie Nicks because she doesn’t play an instrument, not knowing she’d eventually become the biggest of the bunch.

Christine McVie’s got a cutting sense of humor, she’s full of piss and vinegar, she’s female, but she’s truly one of the guys. If this type of macho female appeals to you, she’s the paragon. Furthermore, she can PLAY!

Mick Fleetwood is getting divorced but trying to get it back together, which he finally does, and he lives for "transcension", the late night jam sessions fueled by pot, booze and cocaine that yield no usable tracks but feel so good.

As for Lindsey Buckingham… Over time, it becomes his band. Kind of like John Frusciante in the Chili Peppers. Everyone accedes to his vision. But neither Fleetwood nor McVie is happy he recut their parts when they were on vacation.

So they’re at the Plant, cutting basics. Hell, they replace just about everything on the tapes. To the point where they end up using the safety master, because the original 24 track is losing oxide on the tape heads. And they play as a band. In this dark room.

Meanwhile, Ken tries to pick up the booker and buys a Mercedes convertible with the new money he’s making. And comes home to the house they’re staying in to find two groupies in his bed…who he has his way with and gets crabs from.

Yes, it’s positively the seventies. When a record company lets you spend a year getting it right in the studio, and you do.

We know, because we bought the vinyl and were wowed. You see, "Rumours" just has a sound. Like you too were in the studio with them.

And Ken delineates how they got each and every one of those memorable moments. From hitting drumsticks on furniture to breaking glass in the iso booth. It’s everything that once was and we wish it would still be.

The band’s got a private plane. They fly to gigs between recording. They’re lunching at Martoni’s and other legendary watering holes, all the time trying to get a sound on tape that will be just one step better than what came before.

Meanwhile, John’s depressed Christine’s got a new boyfriend and Lindsey won’t sing his lyrics in front of Stevie for fear he’ll piss her off.

The level of creativity and risk-taking is awe-inspiring. Sure, they ultimately were about getting perfection, but until they fleshed out all the parts, they’d try anything. After all, they were musicians, they were kings of the universe.

And who knows why a certain performance works. And keeping all the parts on 24 tracks is challenging. And they’ve got enough money to live large, but not to live frivolously, not yet.

Lindsey is the mad genius.

But Fleetwood and McVie are incredibly solid.

And without Stevie, the whole thing doesn’t work.

And Christine is the glue between the old and the new.

Imagine I told you to leave everything behind, your job, your family, your house. Imagine I told you we were gonna run away with the rock and roll circus…would you come?

That’s what these people did.

They didn’t give it two years and then go to graduate school. Lindsey and Stevie had already failed, they were broke when they hooked up with the rest of the band, who were true journeymen…they could work, but they were not rich. And then the five of them went on a trip and ended up at a destination none of them could foresee, playing to stadiums of people who just couldn’t get enough.

And I was one of them.

And so were you.

"Rumours" was the soundtrack of our lives. Sure, there were a few other records, like "Hotel California" and even "Boston", but "Rumours" was the only one you heard EVERYWHERE! At the guys’ houses and the girls’. It accompanied you at home, on the road and in bed.

The first half of "The Chain" was rewritten at the very last minute.

"I Don’t Want To Know" replaced the too long "Silver Springs", they cut it, both the new track and the old, without even telling Stevie. You can imagine how that went over.

"Songbird" was cut live, because that was Ken’s job/experience, that’s what he did on the road with Wally Heider.

Most of the songs started off with different titles.

And if you’re looking for this book to be a tour de force rendition of those days, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Maybe those days can never be recaptured. Maybe we just all have our individual memories.

But if you were a fan back then, what you wanted most was to get closer. You wanted to be backstage, you wanted to go to the studio, you wanted to have sex with the band.

Some did.

For those who did not…

You’ll get the idea reading "Making Rumours".

If your idea of heaven is waking up at noon and spending all night in a windowless recording studio, if nodding your head to the right sound is what your life is about, if you want to know how they made this legendary album, which sounded not quite like anything that came either before or after…

Then read this book.

"Making Rumours"

P.S. I have to reiterate this is not a gossipy tell-all of those days. Although you’ll get insight into the personalities and hear a few stories, this is mainly the viewpoint of the producer. If you don’t care what kind of mics were used and how long a delay they put on THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR YOU!

History never repeats
I tell myself before I go to sleep

"History Never Repeats"
Split Enz

They’re testifying online about "I Feel Love", the Donna Summer hit from 1977. So I decided to play it. And instantly realized this sounds just as modern today as it did when it was cut, that this is the sound filling the Sahara Tent at Coachella, making the little kids go wild while their parents stand still in front of stultified rock acts on the main stage.

Yup, we’ve got a white concert business and media marginalizing the exploding EDM scene, ignoring music that has a direct lineage to the hits of twenty five years ago.

Doing a little research, I found out that Bronski Beat covered "I Feel Love" in 1984, that everybody from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Madonna to Blue Man Group have done the song.

In other words, the musicians know.

But too much of the audience did not.

If you were alive back then, you know the extent to which disco was demonized. The music wasn’t, and the audience was comprised of marginalized men who just didn’t count.

But now, all those dyed-in-the-wool rockers have rewritten the history book. They like this sound.

I certainly do.

So when you say you hate EDM, you’re just revealing your prejudices and ignorance. Sure, not all of it is good, then again, not all of disco was great either.

But "I Feel Love" survives. Hell, it was one of the main inspirations for the never to die "Blue Monday" by New Order.

Then again, "I Feel Love" went to number one in the UK, and stayed there for four weeks, in a country where everybody still listened to the big station. There was no disco sucks movement across the pond, hell, these were the people who picked up our dying blues scene and revitalized it in the sixties. And kept electronic music alive all these years.

Yes, EDM is nothing new in the UK and on the Continent.

So it’s time to get off your high horse and listen, and realize it’s not all mindless drivel. That electronic music is the opposite of what we’ve been selling for so many years. It’s not mass-produced cheese made by usual suspects more interested in bank accounts than music. Rather it’s peopled by limit testers who bond with their audience all in service to the beat, the groove, inspired to have a good time. You do remember fun, don’t you?

We didn’t see it coming.

But we should have.

Because it’s the exact same thing that happened thirty five years ago.

Like I said, Donna Summer doesn’t get enough credit. She and her compatriots, Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, invented this sound.

Tell me all about the innovation in the Foo Fighters…

Spotify link

P.S. Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist, Dave Grohl did test limits with Nirvana, but the point is you can’t point to the innovation in rock because there is none. Whereas in EDM…

P.P.S. The EDM artists understand the new game, just read this post by Deadmau5:

some advice on rollercoasters and shit