"The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little."

Banksy

(via Eric Smith)

Cuts like a knife, as Bryan Adams would say…

Truth resonates.  And this does.  Especially about artists.

In New York City there’s a culture of critics who make artists so anxious they slow down and try to execute according to the critics’ desires.  That’s one of the reasons I left.  No one cares about what you do in L.A., they’re too into their own trip and shopping for more impressive wheels.

As for criticism in popular music, it died when Jon Landau left the field to manage Bruce Springsteen, critics are meaningless in music.  

And have just about become so in movies.

So what we’ve got now is musicians and filmmakers telling us how great they are, even though they’re positively mediocre.

People take too long to write songs and make records.  They’d be better off stopping what they’re doing and writing and recording another.  Some of the best songs of all time were written almost instantly and recorded in one take.  That’s what inspiration will do for you.

Don’t polish the turd, squeeze out some more excrement until you get to the gold.

Not that we want to see all the excrement, but we do want to see the gold.

Look at it this way, if you panned for gold by looking in one pan for hours, what are the odds you’d get rich?  You’ve got to dig down deep in the river once again.

Turns out there’s a plethora of Banksy quotes.  You can read them here:

Banksy > Quotes

The movie hype meant almost nothing to me.  Made me aware, but did not make me want to go.  I hate when people sell me things.  What I want sells itself.  What I want I hear about from trusted sources with no financial involvement.  After reading this quote sent to me by a reader, I’m intrigued, I’m gonna track that documentary down.

Advertising has deadlines.  It’s got to go, just like the show (that’s a reference to SNL, which I wrote about last week, did you read it?)  By not thinking their work is so important, advertising agencies are able to deliver greatness…some of the time.

That’s reality.  No one bats a thousand.

And as for how much time it took Steely Dan to make those classic albums, there’s an exception to every rule.

Duane’s dead.

But he’s positively alive in this clip.  As well as long departed Berry and exiled Dickie.

Shot before the breakthrough of the live album what’s utterly fascinating here is it’s the Fillmore East!  You’ve got memories in your brain, and that’s all they are, distant links to images past, and suddenly you’re confronted with pictures and you’re whole again, it’s like reconnecting with your birth mother!

Please notice everybody sitting down.  This was before the disrespect of "festival seating", i.e. "standing".  Under the ruse of getting people closer to the music, allowing them to move and groove and have beer spilt upon them, promoters oversold venues and suddenly you couldn’t see, you were constantly being bumped into and concerts became more akin to war than peace.

Gregg Allman looks like he gets laid three times a day…  Could anybody really be that good-looking?

And Jaimoe and Butch play the same, but look like their children.

But Duane’s never aged.  That’s the one advantage of dying, you’re frozen in time.

But this performance is not frozen whatsoever.  They’re not playing for the camera, they’re playing for the collective consciousness, they don’t want to reach somebody, they want to reach EVERYBODY!  Blow them away, get them to go home and tell everybody they encounter about the incredible act they saw last night.

Duane barely looks at the audience.  He’s not mugging, he’s watching his fingers on the neck of his Les Paul, he’s in that reverie where you’re locked in and get everything right, today they call it the zone.  That’s what’s fascinating about great music, it’s not done halfway, you’ve got to let go and run on instinct.

And Berry’s locking down the bottom.  Swinging from side to side, bouncing up and down, like he’s rowing the ship.

And you can barely see Dickie’s face for the hair.  There’s no stylist involved.  But he’s risen to Duane’s challenge, he’s wringing the notes from his SG.

And it’s like you’re at the station.  And suddenly, unexpectedly, this train comes barreling down the track.  You can hear it before you see it.  You perk up, pay attention, get caught in the groove, start to lament that its passing will be so brief.

You see rock and roll bands never stop and stay.  They alight in your burg for a short while and then blow out to the next stop.

And when they finally pull into sight, they seem not to notice you, they’re involved in their own party, based on execution, based on excellence.  It’s like you’re looking through a picture window, and your greatest desire is to reach in and touch.

Put Duane Allman in "People" and no one would care (actually, at this point, "People" didn’t even exist).  He needs a haircut. But he cares more about his music than his look.  What’s beautiful about him is on the inside.  He didn’t need a good line of patter, he didn’t need to read Neil Strauss’s book how to manipulate and pick up women.  His playing was enough.  A magnetism so strong he was irresistible.

What would J. Lo say about this?

Her jaw would drop.  It’s out of her experience.

And Randy would not use the word "pitchy", he’d start testifying about his days playing the bass, talk about his inspiration, his influences.

And Tyler would metamorphose into the guy he once was, who played in cover bands waiting for his one big break, which happened three years after this video was shot.  Someone hungry, someone with something to prove.

The light show pulsed.  The music filled every nook and cranny.  I’d say this is like how it was, but this is LITERALLY HOW IT WAS!

The Allman Brothers Band
Whipping Post Fillmore East (New York, NY) Sep 23, 1970

________________________________________________

I don’t know how Wolfgang’s Vault gets this stuff.  A great deal of it has rights issues.  Still, you can protest and not watch or dive in.

And when you do, you’re mesmerized.

I want you to watch Lynyrd Skynyrd’s "Whiskey Rock-A-Roller":

Lynyrd Skynyrd
Whiskey Rock-A-Roller Winterland (San Francisco, CA) Apr 27, 1975

Ed King is UGLY!  He’s a bit overweight, he’s got a cigarette dangling from his lips, but he’s engrossed in the music, he’s wailing.  This is all there is, the music.  The lifestyle.  Back when that was enough.

And you can see why Ronnie Van Zant resorted to wearing hats, he’s got a receding hairline.  And he’s not pretty either.  But he can sing the notes.  He’s in a rock and roll band.  He’s practiced for YEARS for this.

It’s not the best performance, but you can feel the energy, it oozes off the screen.  That’s what we’re looking for, that’s what makes acts great, that quality of being alive.

And you can watch the Ramones to evidence your punk pedigree.

Better yet, catch Jethro Tull, who’ve somehow been forgotten, but were unique and great and the album cuts were as good as the singles, if not better.

And I’d recommend that you check out Manassas.  A criminally overlooked Stephen Stills project that is the best thing he’s ever done outside the Springfield and CSNY.

All the great cuts are here, "Johnny’s Garden":

Manassas
Johnny’s Garden Winterland (San Francisco, CA) Oct 7, 1973

And "Treasure", which was long enough to set your mind free and let you drift:

Manassas
Treasure Winterland (San Francisco, CA) Oct 7, 1973

But be sure to check out "Find The Cost Of Freedom":

Manassas
Find The Cost Of Freedom Winterland (San Francisco, CA) Oct 7, 1973

Wherein one man on his acoustic guitar captivates the entire Winterland audience.  You can’t whip this together in GarageBand, you can’t buy an axe at Guitar Center and play this the very next day, this is the culmination of hours in your bedroom while everybody’s outside trying to get their kicks.

The cost of freedom is being an outcast, not like everybody else, fighting for the right to do it your way, which is not approved, if anything, everybody else will catch up in years, maybe after you’re dead.

That’s what’s wrong with the music business today.  Instead of companies chasing the artists, they’ve ripped up the track on the other side of the station, they’ve forced everybody to stay where they are, to repeat themselves.  Explain to me how the winner of this year’s "American Idol" is any different from the ones who’ve won before?  So you look good and you can sing, SO WHAT?

Being an artist is so much more than that.

And if you search around the site, you can find Bill Graham introducing the acts.  He was not divorced from the stage, from the experience.  He wasn’t hiding behind a corporate name.  It was BILL GRAHAM PRESENTS, and he PRESENTED!

That’s the magic of the Internet, it’s excavated everything that was not only lost, but that we did not even know existed.  It’s like we’ve discovered a plethora of King Tuts, and they’re now available to be studied.

And you lament this?  You want limited distribution of CDs and radio control?

You’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

Sometimes you’ve got to get back to the garden.

This is your chance.

Wolfgang’s Vault–All Performers List

Albums are for fans, singles are for newbies.

Don’t make an album expecting to reach a new audience.  If you want to reach a new audience, focus on the single.

I’m baffled by those who make a full length project the basis of their marketing campaign.  Hell, I’m baffled they’ve got a campaign at all.  You mean you want me to stop and listen to this much bad music?  Okay, okay, don’t get offended, but it seems that so much is shite, wading through the crap is a full time job, and I’m only gonna listen if a buddy tells me to and then only one track.  If you’re incredible, I’ll want more, but only in bits and pieces.  It’s not like I go to Ben & Jerry’s, order a cup of Phish Food and decide I like it so much that I go back to the counter and order TEN!  I might buy a pint at a later date, but that’s it.

Actually, I love Phish Food, and I buy pints on a regular basis.  Imagine if they only made the ice cream once every two years. And I had to keep up with the marketing to know it was out.  I’d have to be one hell of a fan to care.

In other words, if you’re putting out an album every couple of years you’re reinventing the wheel, you’re marketing from ground zero over and over again.  You’ve even lost touch with your fans.  You need a steady stream of product to keep people interested.  But the main point is do not release ten tracks at a time for ten bucks, that’s positively archaic thinking based on the CD and major label profitability schemes.

Think of it this way.   Do you constantly worry about the size of your hard drive?  Do you think about coming up with a bevy of files that fit it perfectly?  That’s what making an album is like.  In a world of unlimited storage, you’re still trying to fill a floppy disk. It’s a ridiculous pastime.

Concentrate on making music.  Focus on making the best music you can.  And release it when it’s ready, don’t hold it back as a result of some sales scheme.   Once again, that’s major label thinking for dead bands.  That’s how they sell the Stones or the Beatles or…  All that hype about the "Exile On Main Street" anniversary set…  Have you heard anybody talk about it recently? It’s set in amber.  Whereas the music of a working band must be in the ears of listeners on a regular basis.

The flaw in this thinking is especially prevalent in the work of classic acts.  They finally put out an album and no one cares. They think it’s still the seventies.  That radio is waiting and everybody is listening and visiting the record shop every Saturday thumbing through the new releases.  They’re baffled when their album stiffs.

Usually, the music is not great.  But there might be one gem included.  Why not put out only that?  Something that good has a chance of being spread via word of mouth.  You might get some traction.  Otherwise, it’s the best player on a losing team.  It’s like being a bad baseball club with one superstar, playing in Iowa, with little or no media coverage.  Your album is a team.  No one wants to play with a loser.  But unlike in sports, you don’t need nine or eleven members on the team to play the game, in music you only need one!

We’re getting there.  At some point artists will catch up with the audience.  But for a decade now, not only have labels been behind, so have the music makers.

Look at the statistics for new acts.  They sell singles more than albums.  Katy Perry’s album sales are anemic, she stands on the strength of her single hits.

Oh, that’s right, you’re an "artist".  Show me where in the manual it says an artist makes music in sixty minute chunks.  Or that people listen to it that way.

I’ve got no problem with you combining ten tracks and selling them as a CD at your concert.  Or as a double vinyl package. That’s about selling a souvenir, not music.

But please, stop making albums.  It’s a waste of money.  You lose momentum between projects.  No one listens to most of the music.  You’re in the music business, not the album business.

And the music business is about three or five or even ten minutes of glory.  An experience that cannot be denied.  Concentrate on constructing that.  Then you’ll grow fans.

Or just make albums for the few people paying attention.  But don’t expect to be much bigger than you are now.

I’m having a hard time adjusting to Los Angeles.  When I left Colorado yesterday, it was dumping.  And there’s nothing like a snowstorm to make you feel fully alive.  The precipitation quiets everything, and in the silence you can almost hear your heart beat, it’s purely primitive, it’s just you and the elements.

Whereas SoCal is all sunshine and traffic.  Back in the city everybody’s got somewhere to go, something to achieve, savoring nature, life, is out of the question.

And I’ve been sitting here listening to songs on my headphones, creating my own reality.  I don’t want to walk outside.  I don’t want extraneous influences.  I want to revel in my own private world.

And listening to tracks I realize staying power has to do with honesty.  And charisma.  My favorite songs weren’t made to be hits, the Top Forty wasn’t even in the equation, even though some of these cuts achieved single success.

Like "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald".  It sounds like you too are doomed on Lake Superior.  Well, maybe not doomed, but the possibility is there.  The images are better than those in any Spielberg movie.  Gordon Lightfoot nails the experience of the futility of fighting nature.

And then there’s Tom Rush’s "No Regrets".  Breakups are so confusing.  You can focus on blame, but the real issue is loss.  We human beings are really just animals.  We grow close and feel the absence when our partner disappears.  Whether we do the leaving or not.

And then I heard "Like A Rolling Stone".

No, not the famous Bob Dylan rendition, but my favorite version, slowed down, so the lyrics sink in.

I’ve written about Michael Hedges’s version of "Like A Rolling Stone" previously.  But you couldn’t hear it, not the take that rivets me.  There are covers on YouTube, but nuance is everything.  You can play the same song every night, but you tingle when you get it exactly right, you know, and so does the audience…

"It’s nice to be an entertainer, you know it?
At least while you’re on the stage."

Michael Hedges is not plying the boards anymore.  Going home from a gig he met a tree.  But this rendition of "Like A Rolling Stone" is purely alive.  And now through the magic of Grooveshark, our favorite questionably legal music service, you too can hear it:

Like a Rolling Stone
Michael Hedges
Live 07/06/97 Bear Valley, CA

At some point in the future, rights holders will embrace the ubiquity of music.  Will beat the bushes to get every version available for listening, realizing it ultimately benefits them, and the fight to keep music down is futile.

How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

That’s what it’s like being a musician.  It’s a leap of faith, now more than ever.  No one’s interested in you.  You can make an album, but it’s purely for fans, of which you’ve got few.  It’s a calling.  You need to do it, otherwise it’s just too hard.

How can you be so good that people want to pay attention?

You can buy insurance, work with someone already famous, so your music sounds just like everybody else’s, so you can advertise the connection.

Or you can realize you suck and it’s going to take you years to get good and you’ve got to endure the abuse, if you’re not completely ignored, until you get good enough.  And then you’ll only grow if you’re different, and we live in a world where people want insurance.  Self-reliance is a scam people want to employ to cut taxes, but they truly want a safety net.  There’s no safety net for a musician.

I like that Hedges changes the groove, slows the song down until it’s something different.  A relative in whose face you can see the ancestor, but it’s not the same.  There’s more than one way to be original.  Michael Hedges makes "Like A Rolling Stone" his own.

And with the lyrics slowed down, they make sense, they penetrate, whereas they slide by as part of the parade in the original. Instead of someone yelling at you, they’ve got you one on one and they’re all calm and you can’t escape their truth.

And there are guitar accents for emphasis.  And at times Hedges almost yodels, drawing your attention.

And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find you’re gonna have to get used to it

That’s what being an artist’s all about.  There are no guarantees.  It’s like there’s a fork in the road, and you go left when everybody else goes right and all you’ve got are the clothes on your back and twenty bucks in your pocket.  If you go right, you’re on "American Idol", you’re working with Dr. Luke, you’re not living on the street, you’re not alone, you can certainly see the direction home, whereas the path behind an artist is erased, which is why you see old wannabes playing covers when their hair is gray, they can’t go back.

Are you ready for this level of truth, of honesty, of desperation?

Yes, being an artist is the loneliest life you can ever lead.  Even if you make it, only a small circle will know who you really are. But your energy will be so electric that people will be drawn to you, while you’ll be pissed you’re famous and can’t live a normal life.

But you were never normal.  Artists never are.

But the thrill of being an artist is you don’t let others get your kicks for you.  That’s the audience, living through you.  If you’re not on an adventure, if you’re not testing limits, no one cares.

So now you know why we’ve got so few artists.  Because few are up to the challenge.

But we’re beating the weeds incessantly looking for them.  To illustrate life, to point us the right way, to nudge us forward.

When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose

Yes, this is the song with the famous line.  Are you willing to have nothing?  And to stuff down your envy?  Are you willing to put all of it down on the roulette wheel of life, betting on yourself?

We’re looking for a few good men and women.  People who don’t volunteer, who aren’t looking for acclamation, but were going down the road anyway.

You know who you are.