XM’s got a better buffer, but Sirius has better audio quality.

So, usually I’m on XM, because I abhor the dropouts.

Then again, my XM receiver lacks one feature, the button that would allow you to climb up the band station by station. I only get that with Sirius. And every once in a while, I decide to explore…when I’m burned out on my usual XM presets, when Howard Stern is in reruns, I run up the Sirius dial.

Which is how I found myself on the Pulse last night.

Yes, I’ve got both XM and Sirius in the car. A relic of the ancient days when their programming was different. Still, you tend to listen to the usual presets. And stumbling upon something new is thrilling. Especially when they’re playing unfamiliar music, that you like.

"Bully"
Shinedown

The station said 10, but I thought the hard rock station was further up the dial.

I’d like to say that Shinedown is breaking the formula, doing something completely new. Alas, the band is not.

But this is fully palatable.

It’s an amalgamation of hair metal and Linkin Park rock/rap and if you’re a twelve year old male or a matron who’s got tats and once rocked out, you’ll dig it. Especially the dynamics, from loud to quiet and back again.

Then again, the hair metal bands never tackled serious subjects…

It’s 8 AM, this hell I’m in
Seems I’ve crossed a line again
For being nothing more than who I am
So break my bones and throw your stones
We all know that life ain’t fair
But there’s more of us, we’re everywhere

Alienation is the essence of rock and roll. Because that’s the human condition. That’s what Shinedown has right.

And on one hand, I don’t think you can ever eliminate bullying, but calling attention to it is still good. Once upon a time, the nerds executed their revenge in a film, hopefully they can do that again!

Meanwhile, isn’t Robert Carradine a great actor?

HA!

"Wind It Up"
Barenaked Ladies

So they’re doing so much construction, I’ve got to shoot past the Mulholland exit and go all the way to Whole Foods, down in the flats of Sherman Oaks, before I double-back to my destination.

Which is when I heard this.

Which once again flummoxed me. This rocked too hard for the teen pop stations inhabiting the lower reaches of the Sirius/XM dial.

And I was still in the Shinedown mode, pedestrian rock executed well.

But accelerating up Woodcliff, I got hooked. I liked this even more than Shinedown. This was better than pedestrian. Who was it?

I looked down at the readout, one of the many advantages of satellite radio, and saw it was BARENAKED LADIES?

Forget the novelty hits. This is an intelligent band which writes music with great changes and harmonies. Doubt me? Listen to "Baby Seat"!

That’s how I got hooked. About a decade ago.

Then the band went indie too soon, leaving Reprise and releasing the album "Barenaked Ladies Are Me", which contains this track.

I love the lyric about the "mobile phone", these acts are all evanescent, why worry about your lyrics being timeless when you’re not gonna be.

Still, it’s the almost metal riff that hooked me initially.

And then the melodic verse with the stringed instruments working out underneath.

Then the anthemic pre-chorus before the explosive chorus itself.

Listen for the exquisite guitar work.

Don’t be too hip to like this.

To say it’s infectious is to be uncharitable. This is better than most of the hard rock you listen to.

And there’s even a wailing guitar solo!

I’m also including the live take which sounds like a modern day Doobie Brothers, and that ain’t bad!

"I Won’t Give Up
Jason Mraz

Jason’s last hit, "I’m Yours", was ubiquitous. But most hits don’t penetrate society to the degree the insiders in this business think they do. In other words, you can ignore not only Selena Gomez, but Justin Bieber and the rest of the hit parade.

So I never heard this before, from Jason’s new album. I was waiting for the buzz to reach me.

And I’ve got to applaud Jason for not repeating himself. Everybody’s too afraid to march forward these days, they play it safe, recording the same damn song until no one cares anymore and then going on an endless oldies tour.

I won’t give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I’m giving you all my love
I’m still looking up
Still looking up

Are you macho in the bedroom?

Everybody’s a child at heart. The only route to intimacy is openness and vulnerability.

These lyrics might look unremarkable on the page, but Jason doesn’t sing them with smug confidence, but a heartfelt desire to connect. He’s closer to the singer-songwriters of the seventies, Jackson and Joni, than the hacks of today’s hit parade.

It’s so simple. Yet when he amps it up at 1:47, it’s like Lloyd Dobler outside of Diane Court’s window, pleading.

And you know John Cusack is always cool.

I don’t want to oversell this. But if you’re someone with more questions than answers, who desires a magical relationship, you’ll relate.

And when the rest of the voices come in at the end, it’s like that Foreigner song "I Want To Know What Love Is" without being bombastic. Yes, love is a religious experience.

P.S. I’ve also included the demo, which is included on the album, to show you where the song came from.

P.P.S. I’ve also included the Bonus Commentary, which is a bit too stultified, and in days of yore, I wouldn’t recommend doing this, but today you’ve got to come down off your pedestal and connect with your fans, give them everything that you’ve got. Distance, intrigue, mystery…that paradigm rarely works anymore.

So this morning, I looked up the Pulse, I wanted to see what it was, what kind of station played stuff that rocked and soft stuff too in an era where niches never cross.

Turns out it’s one of those weird stations that not only plays a breadth of material, it’s not all brand new, it can go back a decade.

You can see a playlist here:

sirius thepulse

And I’m still not exactly sure what the station is.

But I will tell you that I love being exposed to new music and finding out it’s good, that’s what life is about, new experiences.

Then again, I’d be even more interested in a station that featured music just as winning that was testing limits.

Spotify playlist

Previous Rhinofy playlists

The first time I heard Donna Summer I was living in Utah. We stopped by Al’s cousin’s house. She played "Love To Love You Baby".

I hated it.

I had to.

Back when rock still mattered, disco sucked.

Which makes it hard to explain why I loved Prince’s "Dirty Mind", but before that, I ended up doing legal work for writers on Donna’s "Bad Girls" album.

It was my first job in the legal business. These musicians were flustered. Donna had fired everybody, and in the process, their royalties stopped. The Bogarts were out, her affairs were a mess, and they didn’t want to say a single negative word about their boss, but they needed the money, they wanted the money, because even if you have just a piece of a song on "Bad Girls"…it’s a lot of bread.

And one day one of these guys delivered the album.

And I listened.

I was blown away.

Sure, you had that disco beat, but "Hot Stuff", the album’s opener, was every bit as hot as the opening cut on a Stones record. And she was just as sexy as Jagger. All attitude, all sultriness, and when she sang HOT, HOT, HOT, HOT, STUFF, you got all energized, your hormones began to rage, you ran out the door and started looking for action.

And then the segue into "Bad Girls"… This was the sound Quincy Jones perfected with Michael Jackson, but every bit as good. Layered with horns and whistles Donna wasn’t a diva, but purely embedded in the track.

And unlike too many of today’s acts, it was not a one note album. Donna penned "Dim All The Lights", which sounded exactly like that, an after work, early evening live for the night life story. Primping and then dancing, going from slow to fast to back again, it just felt right.

And "Sunset People".

If you gave Donna Summer a chance, she was just as good as everybody said she was, if not better. I was instantly closed, I became a fan.

That’s the power of music. No amount of publicity, no amount of social networking can penetrate our souls and attach themselves to our DNA like music.

And when the brouhaha blew past, when my guys started getting paid, Donna made an album with Q. She’d signed with Geffen, as part of the initial triumvirate of Lennon, Elton and her. But the original Giorgio Moroder album disappointed and the second was rejected. Needing something bigger than the business Quincy and Donna made a record that was neither fish nor fowl, it satisfied neither the dancers nor the rockers.

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t great.

It took me years to understand the genius of the initial single "Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger)". Its magic was subtle, and Donna’s hits were always directly in your face.

And maybe that doomed the album’s commercial success.

But if you played the album, you heard…

"State Of Independence". A track that seemingly everybody knows, but you never hear on the radio, that no one ever talks about. Written by Vangelis and Jon Anderson of Yes, it’s an almost six minute tour de force. From disco to church, by time they’re done it’s like your whole neighborhood has been infected with joy and is out testifying in the streets.

But my favorite has always been "The Woman In Me".

Dancin’ close, feelin’ restless
It’s a slow sultry night
It’ll be a lifetime ’til sunrise
If you don’t stay with me tonight

We’re preoccupied with intimacy, with sex. We want to be close, we want to exchange…talk, touch, fluids.

I feel your breath caress my shoulder
As your heart reads my mind
You don’t have to tell me anything
I can see everything in your eyes

This is the essence of life. The closeness. The bonding. It doesn’t matter if the economy sucks, if the Yankees lost, when you feel this connection, you feel positively alive, you tingle.

It’s so easy with you
I don’t need an excuse
To be the woman in me
It’s so hard to believe
That I’m feeling so free
To be the woman in me

Half of our population is repressed. They don’t want to have sex and they don’t want you to get any either. Women are supposed to be demure, subservient and led by men.

And on the other side of the street, especially in this pre-AIDS era, there was a plethora of women who were questioning everything that had come before, they wanted to be free to not only dress how they wanted to, to do men’s jobs, but feel free.

And this is what Donna Summer embodied. Gloria Steinem led the intellectual charge, but no one exuded the liberation of women more than Donna Summer. She was in control of her career, her instrument, and she didn’t need to be more than men, but she needed to be equal.

To make money, to make love.

Baby there’s so much
No man has ever touched
Of the woman in me

Females can’t do it alone. Love is a partnership. They want to be met halfway. They want to be able to flower and explore. They want to be sensual, they want to have an orgasm, like Donna Summer.

Like the dark side of the full moon
Never shown what I’m showing to you

Finally, women could cut loose. Give it all. Be every bit as demonstrative as men. Donna not only gave them permission, she pointed the way.

Since her original audience was gays and females, despite all the accolades, Donna Summer has still not gotten the kudos she deserves.

Unlike today’s acts, she grew, she took chances, she did not operate on only one note. And unlike the melisma milkers, she did not sit above the song, but was positively inside.

And sure, she said some silly things as she got older. Don’t we all.

But she survived.

Which is hard to do when you’re the biggest star in the world.

I’m not sure her music lives on. I’m not sure anything lasts besides Frank and the Beatles.

But if you were alive in the era, you remember.

It’s a sad day indeed.

She didn’t O.D. She played it out.

Which is what we’re all trying to do.

Before we’re gone.

"The Woman In Me"

A Band Battles Ticketmaster on Sales Fees

Methinks the plethora of people e-mailing me this story didn’t get past the headline.

This is a false fight. This is not about Ticketmaster fees so much as allowing the band to sell more tickets by itself, surcharge free.

Do you understand that?

Let me explain… Bands have fan clubs. They want fans to get good seats. They want to sell these seats themselves. They don’t want fees on these seats. Ticketmaster will allow 8% of tickets to be sold this way. But no more.

Because the buildings need the profit.

As do the promoters.

You can’t say anything negative about the acts. Concert promotion is now akin to politics. Did you know Obama was a Muslim? And that he cheated his way into Harvard and never graduated?

The fee problem belongs to the acts. Because they get almost all of the ticketing revenue before surcharges. That’s what the "New York Times" article says, if you read it to the end.

If String Cheese were really concerned about fees, it would go to all-in pricing. Bury the fees in the total price, then everybody wins.

But that’s not the battle they’re really fighting.

So String Cheese is just muddying the waters. Spreading disinformation into the equation. Making Ticketmaster the big bad enemy once again.

I hate fees.

But there are no concerts without profits.

Let me ask you, if a band takes 90+% of the gate, how is the promoter supposed to make a profit?

Maybe you failed high school math. Maybe you believe the man is always wrong.

You want to know the truth?

The only profit in concert promotion is in the ticketing. That’s why AEG went into the business itself. If there were no profits in fees, they’d just continue to use Ticketmaster, ever think about that?

Do you expect Ticketmaster to budge, to take a loss just for its image?

That would be like Philip Morris ceasing to sell cigarettes.

That’s Ticketmaster’s business. The fees. A great percentage of which are kicked back to the buildings, the promoters, even the acts, if they’re powerful enough.

You think the acts are your friends.

But oftentimes they’re not.

Speaking of friends, everybody in the String Cheese camp is one of mine. But truth trumps loyalty. I’m calling b.s. on this one.

TAXICAB CONFESSIONS

He lied to the government to get free health care and then his wife had an affair.

People in New York are different. Everybody in Los Angeles is trying to be famous, or luxuriating in the outdoor lifestyle. In NYC, they’re either on the track to get rich or they’re getting by. Life is harder here. Which is why your story is so important, it’s all you’ve got.

I always talk to the drivers. I guess I feel guilty. I’ve got a problem with the master/servant thing, I assuage my guilt by conversing. And sometimes you hear the most amazing stories, like tonight.

Life isn’t like TV. Everybody isn’t beautiful and everything isn’t wrapped up neatly in a bow at the end of an hour. Life is messy. Quandaries appear more often than solutions. Did she step out because you ignored her or was it a character flaw? You beat yourself up inside. And even though TV lore says to kick her out and smile smugly, it rarely goes down that way. You want the family, you want compassion…

But not always with her.

That’s New York. Sure, there are bankers ruining the world, but everybody else is just in it together, trying to get along.

BANKERS

I had lunch with two.

They’re always thinking…

Which is so different from the wannabe famous folk. Who are just me, me, me all the time. Was it right for Tim Cook to declare a dividend? Is a tech dollar the same as a bank dollar? When I go to lunch with music people, all they do is sell me. It’s an endless tsunami of hype, I expect them to whip out their Square at the end of the meal and charge me.

This was a welcome respite.

They may make a lot of money. But oftentimes, these bankers are the best and the brightest. Which can make them intriguing.

Then again, there are good people working at the major labels…

Ha!

Q PRIME

I’m gonna tell you a secret. You wanna get ahead in this business?

Don’t talk business. Leave music out.

My conversation with Cliff Burnstein was about travel, to places where they had no Internet. And foreign flicks. And politics. You think everybody’s a buyer, and if you just sell well enough, you’ll get a deal.

Wrong.

First and foremost people want to know you’re trustworthy, a well-rounded person. That’s what you learn at a liberal arts college. Not that you need to go to college at all. But if you’re on a singular mission to get rich, there’s a good chance you won’t be.

Q PRIME II

Cliff did say that I contradicted myself. That I send missives how to use social media and then sent an e-mail saying music was paramount and the rest was irrelevant.

I told him he wasn’t privy to my e-mail. Where I’m inundated with people who can market themselves incredibly whose music sucks.

The oldsters should be hip to social media.

And the wannabes…should focus more on the music.

INTERNET WEEK

It’s all about tech.

And I had to tell them tech was subservient to music.

Everybody wants to be in entertainment, they’re not lining up to be garbage men. It’s hard to get into the music business and it’s almost impossible to stay in.

And the business is run by kings.

And they’re not Lucian Grainge and they’re not Irving Azoff.

We call these people artists.

The artists control this business. Wanna have power, wanna last? Write a hit song. It’s ever so much harder than coming up with a great business idea. Sure, you’d make a great manager, sure you’d like to help. But can you find a hit act? That’s how you get ahead in this business.

And, for the record, the acts fuck you.

SOUND CONTROL AWARDS

Steve Stoute gave one to Scooter Braun. Both men were extremely eloquent. I rag on Justin Bieber all the time, but I’ve got to give Scooter credit for managing him.

Scooter said you start small. That just before he broke big with Bieber, he thought he was an idiot, that he’d lost his way.

That’s the world of music, that’s being an entrepreneur.

This business is all about wildcatters. Crazy people who wouldn’t fit in anywhere else. If you’re a worker bee, find another career. If you got kicked out of school, if you’ve got rough edges, if you’ve got a personality that can articulate your vision…you’ve got a chance.

Cliff Burnstein could be mistaken for a homeless person. But he’s one of the foremost thinkers in our business. He’s got his sixties values intact, it’s what’s inside that counts. He couldn’t work for the man, the security guard wouldn’t let him inside!

And Scooter Braun looks like someone just out of college. Big companies don’t give the reins to people like this. But Scooter grabbed the reins and rode his horse all the way to the bank.

And one thing that Scooter said that was so interesting… The authorized Bieber music is just a small piece of the puzzle. It’s fan-generated content that’s driving Bieber’s success. He’s owned by his audience, which keeps spreading the word.

The business has had it wrong for so long. You’ve go to empower these fans, not hold them back/restrict them/sue them.

As for Scooter’s deal with Universal… I’m disappointed in him. What did we say way back when, you’re either part of the problem or part of the solution? If you think you can change a major label from the inside, you’re dreaming. All the innovation in the twenty first century has come from outside pressure. As for Scooter’s tech bona fides… You’re better off with one of the nerds in attendance than him.

Scooter’s great with the artists.

The nerds are great with code, good with tech vision. Hell, Scooter doesn’t have time to ride the pony of tech innovation. In a world where Google and Facebook are challenged by mobile, what are the odds that Scooter has the answers?

Then again, neither does Lucian.

This business is always the same. Outside forces come out of nowhere to change it. And as the baby boomers age, and the millennials grow up, the torch is being passed. It will be their business soon. And it will look completely different. Fans will not be adversaries, acts will trust their handlers, deals will be fairer.

Because that’s the world the millennials grew up in.