So Peter’s sitting at Glyn Johns’s place listening to an acetate of the first Zeppelin album, when it wasn’t even sure what the band’s name would be, blown away by Bonham’s bass drum, never mind Page’s playing, and the phone rings. It’s Steve Marriott. He’s just left the Small Faces, can he join Frampton’s band?

Let’s go back a chapter. Peter’s playing with the Herd, but they’re being completely screwed, they fire everybody, and Peter goes to Steve Marriott for advice. Marriott says he’ll help him put together a new band and then Glyn Johns asks Peter to go to France with the Small Faces to back up Johnny Hallyday. That’s how Peter ends up listening to the aforementioned acetate. And the Small Faces have returned to England for a gig…that’s when Marriott’s call comes in, just after Glyn finished playing the first side of Led Zeppelin I.

So when Peter returns to the UK, what ends up being called Humble Pie assembles in Jerry Shirley’s mum’s front room, jamming, primarily on "Music From Big Pink", that’s all they all know.

And then the phone rings again. The rest of the Small Faces want to know if they can come by Peter’s basement apartment to talk.

Oh no. Yup! They want him to replace Marriott, but it’s too late, why couldn’t they have done it all together? Anyway, Peter tells them they’re gonna need two to replace Steve, which they end up doing, with Ronnie and Rod.

But Humble Pie ends up getting a deal with A&M for $400,000. You see Andrew Loog Oldham had advised Peter, to ask for $300,000. Peter was signed to Oldham’s Immediate, but it was going broke, Andrew was going to release him, and did. But when A&M expressed interest, Marriott blurted out an even higher number, and they got it!

Dee Anthony was the manager, Greg Ridley had worked with him with Spooky Tooth, Frank Barsalona was the agent, and Humble Pie started to play, constantly. Starting out at the bottom of triple bills. Eventually they moved their way up a spot. And then came "Rockin’ The Fillmore".

A&M had stuck by them for all those albums, but Glyn Johns told the group that Marriott was the focus, it was his tunes and that hard sound, and Peter decided to quit, on the eve of an unknown success.

Yes, "Rockin’ The Fillmore" was released and suddenly Humble Pie, with Clem Clempson on lead guitar, was playing arenas, and Frampton was back at the bottom of triple bills.

But his solo career was going steadily upward until "Something’s Happenin’", the album just wasn’t as good as the first two, road business was still decent, but record sales went in reverse.

So Peter’s with his girlfriend in the Bahamas, staying in Dee Anthony’s house on the beach, everybody involved with Humble Pie bought them side by side with their winnings, and Peter’s trying to write music. And he can’t.

Alvin Lee and his wife are staying in a bungalow down the beach, bugging him, wondering if he’s come up with something.

And then one morning, just before lunch, he writes…

"Show Me The Way". The intro comes first. Then the verse and the chorus.

He’s overexcited, he thinks he should stop, he goes for a swim, and then comes back and writes "Baby, I Love Your Way". As for the opening lyric, "Shadows grow so long before my eyes", it came to him when he saw the sunset.

Now he’s back in London and the Lees invite him for dinner and Alvin’s wife asks Peter if he ever came up with anything in the Bahamas. He plays her "Baby, I Love Your Way" and she calls out for her husband, tells him to come in the room and insists Peter play the song again, that’s when he knew he had something special.

But then they’re recording in Headley Grange, everybody in different rooms, not able to see each other, and when they’re done, John Siomos, the drummer, taps Peter on his shoulder and says… "That’s the best song I ever heard."

And the album comes out and is successful in Detroit, New York and San Francisco. It doesn’t go gold, but close, it sells 350,000+, more than all Peter’s previous albums combined. So they decide to do a live album, and it could have been in any of the above three markets, but ends up being in San Francisco.

And the rest is history.

Peter was proud of the album, he knew "Rockin’ The Fillmore" had led to Humble Pie’s success, he expected "Frampton Comes Alive" to do well, but not THIS well.

Dee Anthony calls him and tells him it went to number one.

And Peter’s touring endlessly.

But he’s getting that sinking feeling inside. How’s he gonna follow this up? He’s just not that prolific, that double album represented six years of work.

And then he’s on vacation with Cameron Crowe in Mexico and he loses his work tape.

But he comes back and writes "I’m In You", and the demo ends up being the single, and it goes to number one, but Peter’s living in a silo, he’s alone, with all his success but not enough inspiration.

And then there was the famous "Rolling Stone" cover. Peter didn’t want to do it. Scavullo insisted, said he wouldn’t use it. Then Peter’s on an airplane and sees it and instantly says to himself "It’s over, my career is shot." There went all his credibility. (Meanwhile, he called A&M and insisted "Rolling Stone" change the shot, they did, for some copies).
You can see both here:

Rolling Stone Magazine released 2 different versions with Peter on the cover

And after refusing to be in "Sgt. Pepper", Robert Stigwood says he’s signed McCartney to be in it, and Peter thinks if a Beatle is in it, he can be too. But McCartney never signs a contract, he’s not in the film, Peter knows it’s a mistake from the first day of shooting, but it’s too late, his career’s down the drain.

Peter Frampton went from being the biggest star in the world, to a has-been. How does he cope?

By severing business relationships, controlling his own destiny, by artificial help, and then he wakes up one day, a decade on, and realizes he’s nearly broke, he’s got to go back on the road.

And slowly, but surely, after being with a bunch of managers and even managing himself for a while, he can now sell out small amphitheatres, he’s on his way back. To where?

WHO KNOWS?

Everybody told him not to do an instrumental album.

But it won a Grammy. It was another step up the ladder.

Sure, he’s willing to play the hits, but he doesn’t want to only be an oldies act. He’d like more success, who wouldn’t, but really he just wants to play.

There’s a feeling he gets when he plays guitar. He’d like to say family is number one, but he admits to himself now it’s the music. And it’s certainly not the money, he’d play for free.

He’s constantly asked his favorite moment in life, the absolute peak.

It’s not "Frampton Comes Alive", but playing acoustic guitar with George Harrison with Phil Spector in the booth during the "All Things Must Pass" sessions, it doesn’t get any better than that.

Yes, his album was the biggest selling of all time, but Peter Frampton says now is the best time of his life. He’s been clean for ten years. He can feel. He’s got a good relationship with his kids. And he’s playing. And the crowd is reacting.

Sure, he’s Peter Frampton, and when he was in Santa Barbara the other day and some tourists came up to him and his daughter, he winced inside, thought "here we go again". But it turned out they were intrigued by his daughter, who appears in "Bridesmaids", they had no clue who Peter was.

As it should be. We’re all just people. On the planet. Trying to get along.

You can’t take it with you, not the money or the trappings. It’s all about the feeling inside and the memories.

Peter’s got a plethora of stories.

As for the feeling inside, he still gets it.

"Mass appeal radio, saturation radio play, is still the single most powerful connective roadway for an artist to fans… Mass appeal radio is still the one last barrier that has to be broken down… It’s a very symbiotic relationship between the major music companies and the major radio stations. Once that link is broken, then I think the game is over, then I think the Internet reality, the ability to do all of the pieces of the puzzle, to get from an unknown artist to someone who can sell serious numbers of recordings, that’s when I think that game will be in a whole new dimension."

–Al Teller

Radio’s next.

People think the major labels’ power is their money. That’s wrong, it’s radio. Radio is still the number one way to break an artist, just meet with a major label employee or old school manager, they’ll tell you this.

But they don’t seem to know this era is coming to a close.

The big insider news this week was the firing of promotion people at Warner/Reprise and the entry of an outside force to run the department. In the old days, this would be big news. Today, it’s barely a ripple in the water. Because everyone knows promotion is less about skill and more about juice. It’s as old school as it gets. There are relationships and favors and…money. It’s the opposite of the Internet paradigm, it’s an infrastructure built for a dying industry.

If Al Teller is doing anything in the music industry, I’m unaware. He can argue that he was at the advent of the new world with Atomic Pop, but that failed and he’s left a lot of ill will in the business. But you should watch this video. Al’s incredibly dry, verging on boring, but he certainly knows his shit. You’re sitting at home decrying the ancient powers, wondering why you can’t compete, after watching this video you’ll be stunned at Al’s experience and knowledge of the landscape. It’s not something you can learn in a book, it’s something you learn over time, by doing.

Now it’s your time.

The major label monopoly was based on control of distribution. That’s gone. Now you can be completely indie and get paid, which was almost impossible to do prior to the iTunes/Internet era.

But you still can’t get your record on the radio. Insiders believe that as a result of Spitzer, it’s actually more difficult to get an indie record on the radio. Even though so much money has been drained from the system, cash, drugs, CD players and flat screens, the stations don’t want to deal with any indies, they’re fearful of liability.

So, you’re closed out.

Of the old system.

Can the present style of radio survive? Will people listen to hackneyed delivery of songs they don’t want to hear when music has become an on demand item?

No.

Got that?

No.

We just don’t know what the replacement is.

But as soon as we figure out how to turn people on to new music, so they don’t have to listen to the radio, they won’t.

Ignore all research to the contrary. It’s self-serving crap by those with a vested interest. The same people who said people would never listen to MP3s and are still buying CDs. Music radio is in its death throes. It’s going to collapse overnight. It’s just a matter of when.

What comes next? Is it Pandora? Did you see the new Pandora-style interface introduced for Spotify this week?

Spotify Gets Pandora-Style Web Interface Called ‘Echofi’

I’d be lying if I told you I knew exactly what the new way to turn people on to music will be. I’ve got ideas, I believe it will be Web-based, more about human choice than algorithms, but it’s gonna be developed by someone in it for the game more than the money and suddenly we’ll all be using it and terrestrial music radio will collapse just like the record companies.

If Al Teller knows it, someone who bleeds Columbia Red, don’t doubt it, just own it.

Ian Rogers does a very good job of interviewing Al here. Despite not having first hand knowledge of the landscape, he tees it up for Al to tell the truth of the business, which he knows.

And the truth is radio is the final lock, and when it’s picked, it’s over for the old school. It’s what they depend on. You can raise money on Kickstarter, but you can’t get on terrestrial radio. But once terrestrial radio becomes meaningless…

The CD was supposed to last forever, but it turned out people abandoned it.

Tower Records closed.

Rebecca Black is a household name despite radio’s refusal to air her song.

It’s a brand new world. Learn what you can from the oldsters.

But the innovation is up to you.

"Sooner or later that brick is gonna fall out of that wall and it will be game, set, match. It’s just a question of time."

–Al Teller

This Week In Music–Al Teller

(The discussion of radio beings around 18:00)

You’ve been sold a bill of goods.

You read "The Long Tail" and believed a new era was upon us, an egalitarian one in which everybody got to play and be recognized, where music was plentiful and those making it survived financially…but this is untrue.

Consolidation is always lurking.

Happened with record companies. Happened in live entertainment. And it’s going to happen in the new world.

Or another way of putting it is there’s only one winner online. One Google, one Facebook, one Amazon, and there’s only one iPod. As for the iPhone… Android may have penetrated the marketplace but what is fascinating is that the contenders have all collapsed, Windows, Nokia’s Symbian and RIM, and they’re not coming back.

The titans can be toppled. But usually this only happens with a paradigm shift, i.e. the shift from physical to digital. It’s killing the major labels. But don’t think what eventually emerges won’t be similar, a limited number of players purveying a limited amount of music.

No, it won’t look exactly like today. MTV’s out of the music game and it looks like the same thing might be happening in terrestrial radio. The new music will not sound like the old, but only a few acts will rule.

I know you don’t want to hear this.

But put yourself in the shoes of the listener. He’s confronted with chaos, he wants someone to make sense of the clutter, and the person/site who does this will have all the power and ultimately all the money.

Hipsters will hate these people. Because what will survive won’t be edgy, different and unlistenable. A level of quality will pervade, whether the records are made by committee or by individuals breaking new ground. Skill and inspiration, what a concept. It’s what listeners want, even though players might recoil at the thought of this.

Because it leaves them out.

Yes, you can make your music with GarageBand, even sell it on iTunes via Tunecore. You think you’ve made it, but you’re nowhere.

And with everybody able to hear your music instantly, word spreads pretty fast that you’re mediocre. You just can’t shove what people don’t want down their throats. This is a sea change in advertising, in music. The product leads, it must be intrinsically good.

So, like the Marines, we’re looking for a few good men, and women. Very few. You’ve got to be insanely great, it’s hard to become a Navy Seal and it’s going to be almost impossible to make it in the music game.

Niches will survive. You can play and get traction like in no other era. But your odds of blowing up, crossing genres, is extremely limited.

Because new people understanding the new rules are going to roll up the new acts. And everybody’s interested in money. They just haven’t got time to sell what’s bad, it’s too difficult, when people can sample and move on instantly.

So we’re coming to an era of consolidation. There will be a limited number of sites/players and a limited number of bands. And the public will like this.

The only people left out will be the wannabes, who thought it was all going to be easier, those sour grapes individuals who always thought the man was against them.

No, you just weren’t good enough.

And you’re not going to be good enough tomorrow.

And with good being the main criterion, it’s less important what kind of music you play than your ability to infect people and grow an audience. Anybody can make it. It’s about self-starting as opposed to getting a check from a major.

But at the end of the day only a very few will triumph, will be ubiquitous.

And the people in control of their exhibition will be few in number, and they’ll control all the acts.

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. Just with less smoke and mirrors and transparent accounting. Get ready.

Read this book. Even if you’ve never been to a Broadway play, even if you’re not Jewish. Because you’ll find out what it takes to make it. And the costs thereof.

If you’ve got a well-adjusted family life, you’re not famous. You’ve got nothing to prove. Wendy Wasserstein’s mother married her brother-in-law when her husband died. And didn’t tell the subsequent children. Placed a mentally challenged brother in a facility and barely mentioned him again. But all you need to know is when Wendy told her mother she’d won the Pulitzer Prize, Lola said, "You won the Nobel Prize?"

For some mothers, it’s never enough, you’re proving yourself to them day after day, and you might never win, the carrot might never be yours.

And we’re bombarded with those whose trajectories head straight to the sky. But Wendy’s ascent was more bumpy. She left Manhattan to go to Mount Holyoke, in western Massachusetts, which is a fish out of water story which could inspire a hit play. As a matter of fact, it did! Wendy was always mining her own life for material, thinly fictionalizing that which had happened to her.

And she graduated to a mother who said she should go to law school. Who always wondered when she was going to get married, give her grandkids. Through a quirk of fate Wendy ended up at Yale Drama School. Where the professors pooh-poohed her and she graduated without honors. One of the teachers continued to give her bad reviews, refused to acknowledge her talent despite one major success after another. The prognosticators hate to be wrong. They don’t want to switch horses in midstream. Which is why it’s so hard to win when you’ve been painted a loser, which is why so many successful people are bitter. The only one who believed in them was themselves.

But Wendy could work it. She knew everybody and hooked them up and asked for favors and made sure her name was in the "New York Times". She set herself up for success, she made sure she was in the game.

And she also made sure she didn’t get sidetracked. She wasn’t going to sacrifice her career for a man, for a family life. It always bugs me when people want it all, a family, a career, success. As you get older you realize it’s almost impossible to be successful in one endeavor. You labor and labor, seeing what you missed recede in the rearview mirror, unable to give up.

And don’t forget, Wendy’s brother was Bruce. The M&A king. She decried his brusqueness and his focus on the material, but she also enjoyed the perks. You see life is complicated, especially when you get closer to your goal. Suddenly, the distance between you and them closes, you’re mingling, do you want what they’ve got, can you get it?

And Wendy always had more questions than answers. Could she have it all? She continued to try and have a baby far into her forties, without a husband in sight. And when birth finally came, she didn’t slow down, she was over-obligated, afraid to miss anything, her daughter would have needed tons of therapy even if her mother hadn’t died.

I guess what I’m saying is if you’re the son or daughter of immigrant parents, if you’re another generation removed, if you’re Jewish, you’ll relate to this book.

The formative years are all in the sixties and seventies, when we were all in it together, when it wasn’t about what you inherited so much as getting by on your wits and hard work. You had to make something of yourself or settle.

Most people settled. They got those big degrees and sold out. They rationalize it by going to the theatre, the ballet, the Oscar-winning movies. But deep inside they treasure those who made it. Because they realize these successes did what they could not, lay it all on the line, with no safety net.

You only get one bite at the apple, you only get to live once. Winning is about losing more than triumphing. The victories only come after an endless string of defeats. The darkest hour is truly just before the dawn, but that dark hour can last years, can even be decades.

Don’t equate fame with success. Anybody can be a household name, just look at "Jersey Shore" or "American Idol". But to truly have a place in the firmament, you’ve got to labor in obscurity until the mainstream meets up with you, usually by you bending the mainstream just a bit in order for it to finally see you.

You can’t ask for attention too early. And when you finally have those eyeballs upon you, you can’t disappoint. And after all the accolades, you’ve got to earn continued attention, there’s no free pass, oblivion is just one poor effort away. It’s not like being a doctor or a lawyer, where years in the firm count for something.

Then again, they’re ousting partners these days. You think you’re playing it safe, but nothing’s safe anymore.

And we look to artists to illuminate the way. To say that which is uncomfortable, to make us think. You know you’re on the right path when as many hate you as love you. When you don’t compromise to maintain success.

It’s a long hard road few are cut out for. You can read endless treatises, there are charlatans who will take your money, telling you they’ve got the answers, that if you listen to them, you’ll make it.

But this is untrue. Our greatest successes forged their own paths. And it was tough. But we revel in their masterworks.

And yes, Wendy came from a privileged family. So many of our great artists do, they don’t have to work in the mines to put bread on the table. But there’s no entrance requirement, everybody gets to play. You’ve just got to have something to say. And the skill to deliver it.

And maybe Wendy Wasserstein’s plays will fade as time goes on. The Muscular Dystrophy Association made more money from its telethon when Jerry Lewis was gone. Time is a cruel mistress. But Wendy stated better than anyone the human condition of female baby boomers, the tug between domesticity and career. That’s what made her famous.

Not so wealthy. Bruce paid the big medical bills.

So you get to choose who you want to be. Just know that if you’re an artist, you’re on your own, you’re not necessary and no one’s paying attention. And even if you’re a tireless self-promoter, that does not mean the underlying work has value. Marketing and advertising is a skill, but that’s not art.

Very few can do it. It’s available to all, but few are cut out for it.

Read this book, you’ll get an idea of what it takes to make it.

Wendy And The Lost Boys