Back when music was scarce, when it wasn’t free, when if you didn’t buy it you couldn’t hear it, unless you sat by the radio and hoped the station had taste as broad as yours, which was never ever the case, dedicated musos combed the cut-out bins.  That’s where we bought what we wanted to hear but weren’t willing to pay for, at least not full price.

That’s where I discovered the Move.  They kept canceling at the Fillmore East, but when I finally bought an album I got it, and was primed for ELO.

And then there was the Kinks’ "Lola versus Powerman and the Money-Go-Round, Part One".  It’s a timeless treatise on fame that includes more keepers than the title track.

And one day in Westport, at the back of a Sam Goody store, I bought the Stories album "About Us".

This was mere months before the band had its one and only hit, the ubiquitous "Brother Louie".  But I purchased it because Michael Brown was in the band.  Yes, that Michael Brown, of the Left Banke.

And there’s not one song with the creepy wistfulness of "Walk Away Renee" and "Pretty Ballerina", but "What Comes After" comes close.

I know every lick on "About Us".  Because I transferred it to cassette and promptly drove cross-country.  Repetition breeds integration.  "About Us" is part of my life.

And if Ian Lloyd were on "American Idol", he’d blow the rest of the contestants away.  He had a voice like Steve Perry’s, pure and high.  But it was Michael Brown’s material that made the band sing.

And it’s all good.

But there are two incredible tracks, "Love Is In Motion" and "What Comes After".

For years you couldn’t hear this music, it was unavailable at any price.  But now, through the magic of YouTube, you’re going to get a peek into my life.  My seventies life.

"What Comes After"

"Love Is In Motion"

I’m creeped out.  I just finished watching "Mildred Pierce" on HBO and it reminded me of someone I know in the music business.  More than one, in fact.  People who know where they want to go and will do anything to get there.  They’re loyal only to themselves.  They’re playing a game.  With people instead of cards.  And everyone knows if you want to win at cards you’ve got to see the future, you’ve got to plan for contingencies, you’ve got to be a couple of steps ahead of everybody else.  Playing it close to the vest while you execute your moves in secret, when no one is watching.

I wasn’t brought up that way.

I’d love to tell you this edition of "Mildred Pierce" demands your time.  But that’s just the problem, time.  Given so much time, Todd Haynes stretches the story out at such a languorous pace that it saps out the life.  And believe me, it’s all about life. Marriage, divorce, opportunities, sacrifice…  And there’s no manual, only a code.  Which most of us get from our parents. But the goal is to do them one better, which leaves us in uncharted territory, how do we make our decisions?

Great art resonates.  And that’s what’s wrong with entertainment today, it doesn’t.

Great art is all about feel.  Capturing lightning in a bottle.  It’s not about perfection, trying to satiate an audience, but getting it right for yourself.  And when you do, the whole world resonates.

Once upon a time, movies were about story.

Once upon a time, music was about music.

But today it’s not.  Today it’s about money.  What does it take to make it?  When Veda accuses her agent of making a deal in his own interest, it proved to me that nothing’s changed.  If you think the label and the agent, even your manager, is on your side, you’ve got another thing coming.  We live in an era of self-interest.  How am I going to get as rich as Lloyd Blankfein if I worry about you?

And the bankers are worse than the music executives.  They bankrupt people and shrug their shoulders, saying it’s just business.  Isn’t that what’s wrong with America, it’s just business?

Business gets to trump the individual in politics.  Not only in lobbying power, but in speech and cash according to the Supreme Court.  Business has no compassion, it’s all about the bottom line.

Trust.  Friends.  Family.  They’re the core of our society.  Otherwise you’re alone, a renegade with money, but little else.

But in today’s world the media tells us money can buy not only love, but happiness.

But this is untrue.

I dedicated five hours of my life to this iteration of "Mildred Pierce".  But it was worth it.  For the final scenes.  Of betrayal and connection.

To hell with the corporations.  To hell with the self-dealing executives.  We’ve got each other.  And those who recognize this are truly on the road to wealth and happiness.

Grammy Chief Defends Award Cuts

It’s the hated Mike Greene who made the Grammys what they are today.  He wanted a big tent, he wanted a large membership, he wanted equality, if not pure independence, from the major labels and CBS.

But Mike Greene is gone.

And now we’ve got a caretaker.

What do you do when your President has lost touch with the rank and file, when the organization no longer reflects your interests?

You resign and start a rival organization.

This is rampant in sports.  Sometimes it works, like the AFL, sometimes it half works, like the ABA, and sometimes it’s a joke, like the McMahon football league.

But McMahon did not have the players.

I’m not sure I’m down with awards.  Please watch this video for amplification:

Richard Feynman – I Don’t Like Honors

But the truth is the Grammy organization does not reflect the interests of independent artists, especially when they don’t make mainstream music.  To rail against an organization tied in with CBS is to miss the point.  Maybe the Grammys are broken.  Maybe it’s time to start over.

Most of the people complaining about category reduction don’t make it to the big show anyway. So why do they need the Grammys?

All the indies should unite for a new show.  They should use new technologies to spread the word.  Like those brick and mortar record stores that won’t go out of business and their Record Store Day.  Say whatever you want about these establishments, but it’s fascinating that they get unique product and appearances from desirable acts.

Why isn’t there Folk Music Day, with house concerts across the nation and attendant press? That’ll do more for the cause than an ignored Webcast.

You have to understand that in the modern era it’s not about trying to change those in bed with corporations, but utilizing new tools to build something new, that changes the world.  That was what e-mail was about.  Then came the World Wide Web.  Now we’ve got mobile phones and texting and Facebook and YouTube.  If you build it, they truly will come.  But you must persevere and execution must attempt to be flawless.

Do you really think the Grammys will be relevant in the future?  When a hit product like the Flip camera rises, succeeds and fails within four years?

The Grammys are poised for future success just like the major labels.  Which they are not.

A great musician is always tweaking his craft, always looking for new ideas, taking chances. Now, with modern technologies, it’s a revolutionary era.  Don’t chide old men clinging to an old system for leaving you out, build anew.

My mother broke her hip.

It wasn’t because she was aged and it gave out, but because the former MD, an anesthesiologist, an eightysomething woman, forgot to put her car in park and it rolled back and hit my mother’s walker and my mother fell and…

When I got the news I went numb.  My mother could barely walk to begin with.  And I’d just seen her in Palm Springs.  She’s so feisty, but since my dad died she doesn’t handle the traumas so well and could she make it through this?

And she’s the world’s worst patient.  But maybe that’s good.  Because she checked herself out of rehab early, insisting she wanted to be home, which shows will and determination.  But she’s so frustrated, once the shock wears off you’re confronted with the reality, but my sister’s there right now and the report was my mother had turned the corner.

And ever since my dad died, which was a long time ago, almost twenty years, my mother has called less.  She doesn’t need us.  She’s got her friends.  As they said about Reggie Jackson when he played in New York, my mother is the straw that stirs the drink.  People rally around her.  Because she’s funny, yet acerbic, yet caring and is always coming up with things to do.  She’s a culture vulture who wanted to go on a cruise on a river in Russia until my sister put her foot down, insisting if she did so, went on this barge with no elevator, she’d go to court to get a conservatorship.

Which is why it’s so hard for my mother to be incapacitated.  She’s a doer.

But she’s had some dark moments in the wake of this accident, and I’ve been calling every day.  To let her blow off steam.  To share what we have in common, like golf.  My mother can’t stand that she can’t play.  But she still watches.  She loves sports.

Unlike my dad, who threw like a girl and couldn’t care less.  But he took me to the game.

But the person who was my surrogate dad, the gentleman who was athletic and cool in ways my father was not, was Harry Sheketoff.

I always wondered why my mother wasn’t married to Harry instead of Moe.  I was too young to know that opposites attract, and that my father was perfect for my mother the same way Selma was perfect for Harry, they complemented each other.

But even though Harry had trouble first, needing bypass surgery in his sixties, he was the man who survived.  My father was beaten by cancer when he was seventy.  But despite failing kidneys and further heart surgery, Harry soldiered on, he had nine lives.

Until today.

Calling my mother for the routine check-up, she told me she had terrible news.  Her voice was quiet.  I assumed it had to do with her health, that she’d fallen again.

"Harry Sheketoff died."

Just like that.  Judy, his sister, had called from St. Vincent’s Hospital.  They’d picked him up in an ambulance and…

Selma was just in the apartment.  Everybody still alive moved from Fairfield to these towers in Bridgeport, it’s like summer camp.  Not assisted living, everybody’s independent, but they organize bridge games and parties and go to each other’s for dinner…they look out for one another.

But nobody lives forever.

Not Harry, not Muggs, not me.

And that’s completely weird.

Because if Harry can die, so can my mother, the aforementioned Muggs.  And someday I’ll be gone too.  Yup, that day will come when they start dropping like flies around me.  I can see it with my mother’s friends.

And Ginny’s friend.  The famous singer married to the famous dancer.  He’s in his nineties now.  He’s outlived not only his wife, but all his buddies.  He’s waiting to die.

Makes me realize you don’t want to live forever.  That that would be terrible, a sentence

And someday Felice’s mother Ginny is gonna be gone too, she’s older than Muggs, albeit in perfect health.  But unlike Harry, sometimes you’re healthy and the next day you’re gone.

Then what?

What am I gonna do when my mother’s gone?  When that generation is wiped out?

And who goes next?  Me or one of my two sisters?

And at some point in time we’ll all just be pictures in a frame, unknown, like my mother’s mother’s mother, in that black and white shot in Russia that used to hang in the hall of the three family home in Peabody…