That’s how long it takes to become world class.

That doesn’t mean you’ll be rich or famous.

You might be a world class kiteboarder. Or a world class mountain climber. Or a world class shepherd. You might be respected by your peers.

But everyone else might not even shrug their shoulders at your accomplishments, they might not even care.

In other words, if you play jazz music, don’t expect to be on "The Voice", don’t expect to be on Top Forty radio, don’t expect to sell out arenas coast to coast.

And if you’re a jam band, focusing on improvisation, ditto. You might be able to sell out some sheds, but has the jam band era passed?

I must reiterate that this is a key point in "Outliers", Malcolm Gladwell’s book that popularized the theory of 10,000 hours to excellence. You could be ahead of your time. Or past it.

Folk music burgeoned in the early sixties, there was even a folk music TV program, "Hootenanny". It’s been a backwater ever since. I’m thinking it could come back, as an alternative to the polished studio b.s. now dominating. I could delineate a number of great folk artists, but hopefully they’re not delusional enough to think they’re gonna become world famous this week.

Think of it like tech. Once upon a time, everybody needed a dot matrix printer. Then they shifted to lasers. Then inkjets. And now printing itself is in decline, just check HP’s numbers. Did HP suddenly lose expertise in the field? No, times changed.

I disconnected my fax machine years ago. If you produce a state of the art fax machine today, what’s it worth, what’s the demand? It’s a fading market, like typewriters.

You may be the king of designing Flash websites for computers. But we’re shifting to HTML5 on mobile handsets.

Lessons:

1. We live in an MP3 era. If you make twenty minute opuses, it’s gonna be hard to e-mail them, virality will be decreased. This was not an issue in the vinyl era. Then again, AM radio wouldn’t play long songs then FM would then FM wouldn’t. We could still schlep our copy of "Thick As A Brick" to friends’ houses, but in order to play the game, Jethro Tull made an edit. Still, we’re moving to streaming, so ultimately length is not going to be that important.

2. We live in a lo-fi era. You can focus on sound quality, but most people can’t hear it. There’s a chance hi-fi is coming back, but do you really have to spend so much money recording what people can’t hear?

3. There’s a vinyl resurgence. But that’s fashion, no different from the return of Hush Puppies at the end of the last century. Sure, vinyl sounds better than MP3s, but Hush Puppies were damn comfortable. Vinyl’s a niche. Pandering to those who want souvenirs. You can exist in this market, but it’s never going to dominate, despite all the hoopla in the press.

4. Power ballads had their day, as did the melisma-makers… If you’re a hair band in spandex singing power ballads now, good luck! And if you imitate Mariah Carey I’ve got to tell you something, the nineties are over, even Christina Aguilera has a hard time making the charts, never mind Mariah herself. As for imitators like Jessica Simpson…she’s more famous for her clothing line and having a baby than her music.

5. Record companies used to support clubs. Now they don’t. If your career depends on touring small venues for a long time, building your identity, cred and audience, you’re gonna have to fund it yourself. Even worse, there’s nowhere to play.

6. Virality amongst youth is more intense than it is amongst adults. Kids will find the latest and greatest and spread it almost instantly. It could take years amongst adults, if ever. So if you make adult music, know that your career is going to grow very slowly…not because your music is bad, but because it takes that long for old people to get the message.

7. A TV appearance used to yield great dividends. Now it means almost nothing. Because of the plethora of cable channels and the unending additions to YouTube.

Note, none of the above have anything to do with the quality of music. Success depends on the situation.

Furthermore, never forget it’s 10,000 hours of hard practice. If you’re not frustrated, sweating, about to put your fist through the wall, angry that you can’t go out and hang with your friends, go to the movies, date, then you’re doing it wrong.

If you make a great record you don’t have to tweet, you don’t have to be on Facebook, you don’t even need a website.

Over the course of the last decade the debate has flipped. From cranky oldsters complaining that they don’t want to do it the new way to wet behind the ears newbies who are computer literate but are second or third rate musicians.

We can smell the hype. We know when you’re working it.

Your fans don’t come first, they come second. You’re first.

If you don’t want to respond to e-mail, that’s fine.

If you don’t want to stand by the merch table at the end of the show, that’s perfectly o.k.

You don’t have to explain the lyrics or blog.

You just have to make great music.

But that’s the hardest thing of all to do.

Let’s put it this way. Dane Cook became successful by spending all day on MySpace, interacting with people. But I’ve yet to find a single person who thinks he’s funny. Try listening to his routines. They’re like your high school buddy who’s funny over french fries trying to play to everybody, it makes you wince.

There’s a huge gap between amateur and pro.

Do you have to tweet to hit .300?

Do you have to be on Facebook to post a triple double?

Do you have to be nice to everybody in the stadium to throw a touchdown pass?

OF COURSE NOT!

Everything’s upside down.

One thing Dick Clark had right, about the most people can say about music is it had a good beat and I could dance to it. We know when something impacts us, when we believe it’s great. And when we find something this good, we want to get closer, we want to tell everybody we know. Come on, do you want to screw movie stars because they called you at home or because they’re beautiful and in great flicks?

Social network if you must.

But it’s no substitute for incredible music. At all.

What do the fans want?

By now you’re familiar with the story of the Pebble, the iPhone/Android connected wristwatch. The manufacturers asked for $100,000 on Kickstarter. So far, they’ve raised $7,447,226.

Why?

BECAUSE PEOPLE WANT THE WATCH!

Musicians are using Kickstarter the wrong way. They’re focusing on themselves instead of their fans. Most are asking for funds to record albums. Their pitch is give me this money because I’ve been screwed by the system and can’t get enough to record properly.

No wonder so many music-focused Kickstarter projects fail. No wonder those that succeed have so few backers.

How do you create something that people truly want to own? How do you refocus your pitch from yourself to your customers?

Kickstarter has a role for beginners, but its true use is for those who are already established.

It all comes down to the idea.

You remember the idea, right? That riff that entered Keith Richards’ head in the middle of the night that ended up as the bedrock of "Satisfaction"? Too many pitching on Kickstarter don’t know that inspiration is just as important as perspiration, if not more. Tons of work on a lousy project…still yields a lousy project.

You’ve got a favorite band. How much would you pay for new music by this congregation?

A new Metallica song. For a buck.

A new Eagles album for five.

A Kiss album for the same price.

And the reason I’m focusing on these ancient acts is because they’ve got reps, ga-ga fans, and they’re all out of their deal. They can take a risk. They’re the ones who should be on Kickstarter. Delivering not only finished product, but a view into the process of creation.

Even better, the ideas should be interesting unto themselves.

Metallica shouldn’t say they want money for a new album, but money for a musical biography of Aleister Crowley, with special musical guest Jimmy Page. Or a manifesto on Harley-Davidson motorcycles or tattoos.

Don Henley is going to deliver an autobiography with the new Eagles album. It’s the only place you’re gonna get it.

And Gene Simmons is going to allow buyers to purchase merch they can get nowhere else, bobble-heads of the women he’s screwed or their original manager, Bill Aucoin, who knows.

Kickstarter is about cutting out the middleman.

It’s not about begging, it’s about delivering.

Kickstarter is for when you’ve already got a platform. Or when you’ve got a new music idea that’s so riveting that you’d rather do it without venture capital investment, if you can even get that.

But your idea must be really damn good.

Maybe it’s an Internet TV show.

If you guarantee appearances by famous people, if you don’t say give me the money and trust me, people will line up.

People want to know what they’re going to buy.

The more you can delineate it on Kickstarter, the better chance you’ve got of being funded.

The Pebble

Bob,

As one-half of the band on the original Boz Scaggs track "Baby’s Calling Me Home", I thank you for recognizing the veracity of the vibe.  It was recorded late in the evening in the winter of 1967, after the rest of the band had gone back to rented digs on Eaton Place in London, and Boz, Glyn Johns and I were alone at Olympic Studios. The complete story is in my biography ("A Life in the Music") — it was my first recording session, my first time in earphones, actually, with Boz playing 12 string and singing into the dark shadows of the huge studio — but suffice it to say I had John Coltrane on my mind when I played that little harpsichord solo.

Best,

Ben Sidran

_________________________________

Susan Tedeschi Derek Trucks Band – Anyday – June 14, 2011

I know, I know, you’re turned off by the audience recording. But hang in there! It’s not when Derek plays the famous riff, but when he goes slows down and goes mellow that you’ll melt. Proving once again, it’s not about the recording, but the essence.

Meanwhile, individuals make a difference. Anybody can learn to play the guitar, but there was only one Duane Allman.

_________________________________

"Pleasant Valley Sunday" – THE DEMO!

This will jet you right back to the sixties, erase the lines from your face, make you feel good about being a music fan all these years.

I had no idea this album was even released, I was researching Carole King’s autobiography and I saw the link.

That’s how far we’ve come, we don’t even know stuff is out!

"Pleasant Valley Sunday" – THE DEMO!

_________________________________

Rapper charts, thanks to Web fans

"They decided to use a distribution model that emulated other independent artists, like Lil Wayne and Drake, who were online sensations in their early days. But they also strayed from the model, concluding that some artists discouraged downloads by forcing users to register, or jump through other digital hoops.

‘We wanted it to be one step: You click the button, you get the record,’ says George."

People won’t forget you if they like you. Why has everyone become a spammer? I won’t give you my e-mail address, not my real one, because I won’t stop hearing from you and the people you give/sell it to. I don’t need to hear your music that bad, and if I do, I can just go to YouTube.

You want to make it easy. You want to make it painless. You want to establish trust.

Yes, you can give it away for free. Because if it’s good, and very little is, dividends will be paid down the road.

And Hoodie Allen’s start was a hit on the Hype Machine. Then again, did he work that?

He’s certainly working the press now. You don’t get in "Daily Variety" by accident. And who are you impressing, me? I don’t need to hear no white boy college frat rap.

That always cracks me up. You get viral success and you go positively old school. I don’t matter, nobody but your fans does. Unless you want to make a deal with a major label and stop being yourself.

And I’m a bit turned off by all the social networking, responding to every tweet. Unless, once he make it, he stops. Kind of like those classic rock acts doing TV adverts in the sixties and then swearing off commercialism.

In other words, we can smell a rat.

Stats don’t matter, music does.

People will clamor for you if you deliver great music.

Or, you can become a marketing exercise studied by business schools. But when was the last time a business school was a hotbed of musical creativity?

So, I applaud Hoodie for not asking for e-mail addresses, if this is true.

And I applaud him for not reaching out to me personally.

But I’ve been inundated with missives from his minions. Why don’t I write about him?

For the same reason I don’t need a feature in "Time" magazine, it’s an unnecessary victory lap. It’s something you show your mother. No one who cares about you or me reads "Time". Be a king in your own world, that should be enough.