This is not a music story.

We haven’t had that spirit here since 1969.  Since the conglomerates bought the indie labels.  Because there was so much damn MONEY IN MUSIC!

But no more.  Whose fault is that?

Don’t blame the consumer.  Don’t say Apple wouldn’t be successful if people stole their products.  At least people want Apple’s products!  Ha!

If you don’t think that the Internet is the best thing that ever happened to music you don’t have a connection.  Suddenly, the history of music is available at your fingertips.  And it’s only free because the rights holders refuse to embrace a model that comports with consumption.  It’s like Verizon insisting everybody keep their landline and demanding that people still pay a grand for a cell phone and a buck a minute for calls.  I thought music was about innovation and change.  Not at the label level.  Then again, the execs never made the music anyway.  It was concocted by a bunch of uncontrollable renegades following their muse, not the money.  And now the execs are in charge and the "artists" will do whatever they say.  The public has revolted.  There was no violence, but they destroyed Tower Records, decimated the CD and the major labels’ bottom line.  And for this we should be thankful.  Because you can’t have the new unless you get rid of the old.  In other words, how in the hell are we going to have innovation if Doug Morris is still in charge?

Ignore the hype.  Citi is not in the business of holding on to assets.  And they’re not ignorant, unlike Vivendi.  They want to sell.  At the highest price.  And you don’t get the highest price by saying you want to unload immediately.  That’s Negotiation 101.

And there are only two buyers.  No independent is that ignorant after Guy Hands’s disaster.  You need expertise to manage a music company.  Which is one of the reasons Roger Faxon will go.  Whatever expertise he has is in publishing.  As for Warner keeping him on…  They don’t want a cock in the henhouse, they don’t want anybody agitating for change.  Edgar and Lyor are old school.  Devious with a lack of transparency.  They don’t want the likes of Roger in the vicinity of their cash cow.  Roger’s gone if Warner buys EMI Publishing, which it probably will.  After all, what’s a record company without a publishing company?

Bertelsmann realized this.  Which is not only why they sold their record company to Sony, but they want back in.  Without the label.

Who’d want a label?  The glamour is in new music, but that’s a terrible business.  You invest tons for a meager return.  One in ten projects hits and you make a tenth of what you once did?  Who’d sign up for that?  If I ran any of these companies I’d shut new music down.  The value is in the catalog.

Which is what Warner knows.  They want to get their hands on the Beatles and the Beach Boys and…  No one exploits this stuff better than Warner.  Universal is all about new product.  Thank god Doug is gone, he had it all wrong.  We’ll see if Lucian can correct this.  Maximize what you’ve already got.

So Warner can’t have both publishing companies.  IMPALA will freak out and hold up the merger.  But they can probably have one. And EMI is better than theirs, Warner/Chappell.  So they sell Warner-Chappell to KKR/Bertelsmann.

Let’s say I’ve got this all wrong.  Let’s say Warner sells everything to KKR and cashes out.  Who gives a shit.  Bottom line, there’s going to be one less major label.  And don’t lament that you won’t have anywhere to sell your crap music, think about the opportunity!  EMI is going down not because of bad management, not that management was that good, but because it’s a bad business.  Why should we sustain bad businesses?  The newspaper does not deserve to live.  News does, but not the paper.

We’re cleaning out the dead wood for the revolution.  And in the new era it might not be about recorded music, but touring and merch and…  And this revolution is about acts being in charge of their own destinies.  Wilco just went independent.  They looked at each other and said WHY SHOULD WE GIVE WARNER ALL THAT MONEY!  Wilco sells their music, not the label.  The label can just get you on TV and radio, and neither wants Wilco.

And OK Go generates plenty of revenue with licensing.  Enough to feed a bunch of mouths.  But not all those at EMI.  You see bands don’t throw off enough money to support the old scale.  There will always be a few superstars, but not many.  And those superstars will want to do it for themselves, in their own vision.

So if you’re looking for a mommy or daddy to suck up to…  Those days are through.  You’ve been emancipated, you’re on your own, sink or swim on your talent and ingenuity.

This is a business story.  How a financier was so dumb he thought he could run a creative enterprise when he didn’t even know its value.  How a bank ended up with tons of debt when it couldn’t find anybody to sell it to when the market crashed.  Write this up in "Fortune", but it’s not suitable for "Billboard".  Is "Billboard" still in business?

There’s no cheating in music!

I’ve been reading Matt Taibbi’s book, "Griftopia".  Love the attitude, but most of what’s in there I already know, except for the explanation of the gas price increase back in 2008, remember that?  I do.  Suddenly I was debating driving an extra mile or two to save a dollar or so, just wasn’t worth it, gas cost too much.  Some said it was overconsumption, too many greedy Americans driving SUVs, others decried regulation, the inability to drill for more oil, but the real story is it all had to do with bets on a new commodities index.  How did this happen? Goldman Sachs asked for private rulings from the CFTC, then created a game predicated on commodity prices always going up, which they don’t, but for a time there, you could barely afford to go anywhere.

Don’t think that Wall Street is playing by the rules.  To the degree there are any left, they lobby and cajole to eliminate them or create exceptions.  But you can’t do this in music.

I’m not talking about the labels.  As soon as a streaming service takes hold you can bet your bippy Lyor Cohen and Jimmy Iovine will pay people to scam the count, that’s the way this business works.  But what they’re selling…that can’t be rigged, that can’t be faked.

Let’s be clear, you can imitate, you can rip off what’s been done before.  You know that Kia that looks like a Benz?  But it doesn’t drive like a Benz, and Kia certainly ain’t gonna create the next breakthrough, they’ve got no one on board to do that, no one investing in testing the limits, it costs too much for too few dividends.

Why did we want to play music?

The Beatles.

Sure, everybody in the U.K. picked up an axe to escape the factory, but in middle class America we bought Fenders because we wanted to be just like the Fab Four, we wanted the music to come out of us, we wanted the girls to fawn all over us.

And soon there was a schism.  Started in 1967, although one can argue the Beatles began it even earlier, with "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver".  Suddenly, it was no longer about the one hit wonder.  It was about the statement.  Created by people who’d paid their dues.  The original British Invasion was over, replaced by a plethora of players who could truly do just that, expatriate Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, all the FM staples.  They had one thing in common, they could play.

Their stories were all the same.  They bought records and practiced in their basements and bedrooms until they were good enough to get a gig.  And then they gigged long enough until someone noticed them.  And then they got a chance.  And some of them broke through.

That’s a long hard road.  That’s not like Snooki getting on "The Jersey Shore", or Kim Kardashian getting enough plastic surgery to look like a Barbie Doll.  There’s no short cut.  And you’re starting from scratch.  How many of those bankers would be rich if they couldn’t start out at the aforementioned Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley?  Never forget, Steve Jobs started out in his basement.  Without rich parents or a college degree.  Just passion and hustle and…

Jobs was just like the musicians, only he was peddling tech, not tunes.  Still, the sky was the limit.

A reader e-mailed me a video.  Of the Eagles on the BBC.  The concert I wrote about and downloaded over the weekend.

My jaw dropped.

It was like being transported back to ’73 instantly.  Better than "Almost Famous", better than reading about it in "Rolling Stone", this was exactly it.

The clip begins with "Train Leaves Here This Morning".  But what’s stunning is the band is sitting on stools singing all the music. ALL the music.  There’s no one in the background, nothing on tape.  And the harmonies are ALMOST perfect.  And when something is almost perfect it’s just like life itself.  Perfection is not human.

And Bernie Leadon is wearing a UCLA t-shirt.  I don’t think he thought much about it.  It was probably at the top of his suitcase, or the only clean thing he had.  You see it wasn’t about the look, but the music.

When Glenn Frey sings about sleeping in the desert tonight you know why all the girls ran to grab their sleeping bags.  We’ve been hearing how Glenn was so cool for years, how he was a ladykiller.  You get it here, it’s not the "Miami Vice" guy hyping gyms, it’s that guy on the couch who you can’t wait to zip apart, who you can’t wait to get inside of you.

This is a band.  Remember bands?  They rehearsed until they got it right.  And when you get it right, you’re undeniable.  People clamor to sign you.  Not because you’re making the music on the radio, but because you’re making music so GOOD!

And there are some snide comments.  How do bands stay together?

Actually, they don’t.  Because one person can no longer take it.  You might say to not quit, but musicians aren’t looking for security, they’re following their muse.

And when Randy Meisner sings "A Certain Kind Of Fool"!!!!

You see him smiling, and then what comes out of his mouth…WHERE DID HE GET THAT VOICE?  How does it sound so right? He’s like a choirboy having sex for the very first time.  You get why we needed to get close.  You don’t want to have dinner with Lloyd Blankfein, but you can’t wait to just be in the VICINITY of your favorite musician.

And Bernie’s guitar has got that distortion that’s just a bit different from the studio, which is why you go to the show, because it’s just a little bit different, it’s a one time only performance.

And Glenn is playing lead.  There’s no hired hand.  And he can DO IT!

And when Bernie picks his banjo at the beginning of "Earlybird"…  How’d he get that good?  PRACTICE!  You remember practice, don’t you?  All the Olympic athletes do it.  And standing in front of the mirror perfecting your ‘do is not practice!

And when you hear Henley sing "Witchy Woman"…it takes you right back to the first time you heard it, when you had no idea who this guy was, only that the sound reminded you of times when anything could happen, both good and bad.

Still, it’s got nothing to do with any specific notes, although it does have a lot to do with the songs.  They wrote ’em.  And they weren’t their first.

But what is striking is the fact that you’re watching a band.  A living, breathing thing.  Something that developed.  Something that exists in the minds of the players, not the label.

This is the way it used to be.  Inspired journeymen woodshedded to the point where they established a vision.  And then they rode that vision to unknown places.  Watching this ’73 show you can’t see "Hotel California" in the future, but it happened.

They’re impossibly skinny.  They’re not dancing.  A stylist would be yearning to clean them up.  As would an engineer.  But you can’t clean up live.  It’s messy.  But it’s so SATISFYING!

I don’t care if you hate the Eagles, you’ve got to watch this show.  Because this is how it used to be.  Create a 24 hour cable channel with all this heretofore unexposed greatness and watch catalog sales explode.

This is not "Glee", this is not covers.  This is not a tribute.  This is like stumbling upon the Dead Sea Scrolls.  And you’re  yearning to know the backstory.  How did they come up with this shit?  Did they practice the harmonies?  Did they get along?  How do you write a song?

They watched the Beatles and formed the Eagles.

We watched the Eagles and…

And when you’re that good, you write your own rule book.  You become so successful that you tell the label the way it’s gonna be. The agents and promoters work for you.  Money and sex and drugs rain down.  Because you’re delivering life.  People want to be closer to you, you just  can’t get enough.

Goldman Sachs is not building America, one can argue strongly it’s destroying it.  And at the center, all there is is money, nothing real.  But you can be broke and still sing "Take It Easy".  And when you lower the car window and put your elbow on the sill while the radio blasts your favorite song you feel more alive than when you’re at the bank, you’re right where you want to be.

I don’t know if these days will ever return.  It was so hard to get noticed.  But there were fewer people vying for attention.  And radio was about music, not commercials.  And it wasn’t bad if you looked good, but we hardly ever saw you.  At best, from a distance, at the show.

But we went to the show.  We had to.  Just like we drank and ate.  There was no choice.  And although there were programs and t-shirts, they were only on sale because fans needed totems, tangible representations of the experience.  Because the music was enough.

The Eagles – Live on BBC T.V – ’73

Sony backs Doug Morris to show music industry he’s a long-player

Who gives a shit what some nobody in the U.K has to say about the most legendary recording executive still working in the business.  The biz is a closed club built on relationships and the opinion of an interloper is irrelevant.

Then again, it’s interlopers who decimated the cash cow.  Call it Shawn Fanning.  He didn’t ask anybody’s permission.  He just took the music.  In an era when executives still had their e-mail printed out, when not only were they not tech-savvy, but they didn’t realize they’d abused both their customers and their clientele and given a chance for revenge, they’d both take it.

It’s not only the customers, stealing willy-nilly and now listening on  YouTube, the world’s number one music service, but the acts. There isn’t a superstar who’ll sign with a major label unless the terms are so heinous the label won’t make any money anyway. Then, still…  Until the business model of the labels is to give most of the profits to the acts, at least half, the exodus will sustain. It’s like plantation owners trying to keep slaves in an era of emancipation.  Sure, some people might stick around for food and shelter, but most will say huh?  

But the recording contract is worse than slavery.  They kick you out while you’re still alive but keep almost all of the future profits, well at least those from recording.  And if you make a new deal, working for your owner is not enough, they want a percentage of your fun in the little off time you’ve got, they’re charging you to have sex and fun in the contract known as the 360 deal.

Doug Morris has proven he can sign hit acts and market them in the old school way.  A necessary talent for future success.  But is it the only one?

Insiders know Doug’s skill is not developing talent.  History will record that Doug’s innovative paradigm was research.  Tracking records at radio and retail and latching on to developing acts.  He signed 2 Live Crew, not Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen.  That was John Hammond, and Doug Morris is no John Hammond, not a person who can see a diamond in the rough and polish it for mass consumption.

And now radio and retail mean less than ever before.  Is there anybody who thinks indie stores and terrestrial radio are going to make a comeback?  So the question is, what is the new game and will Morris be good at it?

Based on the last ten years, one has to say no.  From Jimmy and Doug’s Farm Club to Pressplay Morris has missed the mark.  As for Vevo…good in theory, but check the balance sheet, it’s a disaster, with profits far in the distance if on the horizon at all.

As Jason Epstein said in "The New York Review Of Books":

"Technological change is discontinuous.  The monks in their scriptoria did not invent the printing press, horse breeders did not invent the motorcar, and the music industry did not invent the iPod or launch iTunes."

In other words, if you’re looking to Mr. Morris and the labels to invent the future, you’re sorely mistaken.  Change comes from the outside.

Does this game even work?  Everyone knows the money’s on the road.  Maybe recording revenues will never be the major piece of the pie again.  And whose side do you really want to be on?  Despite protestations by the execs, the labels and the acts have an adversarial relationship.  In other words, Jimmy Iovine’s got a lot more loyalty to Doug than any artist.  If you want to find someone in bed with the artists, who they trust, it’s Irving Azoff.  What did Don Henley so famously say?  "He may be Satan, but he’s OUR Satan."?  I don’t hear any acts testifying about Morris this way.  And Irving is the most powerful person in the business, not Doug.  Doug missed this complete sea change.  As did Rob Stringer and Sony Music.  As did Sony itself.  Its profits and power eclipsed by Apple.  It’s Apple that overcharges for a premium product that the public can’t get enough of.  That used to be Sony’s turf.

Back when Sony innovated.  Brought out new products that lasted for a decade or more.  Unlike Doug, who gave us Chumbawamba.

Sony has got two choices.  Either ramp down new music development and become a licensing house or blow the place up and start over.  Because continuing to do it the old way ensures economic marginalization.  Breaking acts the old way just isn’t cost effective, especially when you overpay the execs.  Newbies share the wealth with their charges.  They only make it when the act does.  Like managers.  Let’s see Doug work for a $1 and stock, like Steve Jobs.

Don’t make me laugh.

The old model has been destroyed.

Who will invent the new model?

Unclear.

Doug is 72.  Irving’s 63.  They’re not going to be around forever.  Those who rule in the future won’t win on intimidation as much as loyalty, trust and honesty and a knowledge of the landscape.

If you’re in it to get rich quick, you should develop a game for Facebook.  Music is now long term.  The rewards, if they exist, will be evidenced years down the line.  When Doug will be too old.  And it’s Mo who was in it for the long haul, not Doug.

Funny I saw a live electronic band doing a rework of the aloe blacc dollar song on friday and all 700 kids knew it like second nature

Don Strasburg

Huh?

Actually, it’s Aloe Blacc, but I wouldn’t know anyway.  But Google is my friend, so I fired it up, wondering if the search engine could make sense of Strasburg’s BlackBerry scribblings.

Lo and behold, the track came right up:

Aloe Blacc – I need a Dollar

Wait a second.  This is GOOD!  INSTANTLY!

So I go to Wikipedia to find out more.

Aloe Blacc started out fifteen years ago as an MC in Emanon.  I know that act, but none of their material.  And he had a solo album in 2006, but it’s 2011.  But "I Need A Dollar" is new.  Whew!  I’m not that out of it.  But I’m pretty out of it.

We’re all out of it.  That’s why there’s need for a filter.  That’s where all the money is.  But right now, we rely on friends, like Strasburg.  Strasburg testified to me in Colorado all about the success he’s having with electronic groups, he’s my go-to guy when it comes to breaking live acts.  But how did he know about "I Need A Dollar"?  Was it because it was the theme song for HBO’s "How To Make It In America"?

I get HBO.  But I’ve never watched that show.  So I click through and find out it’s about the fashion scene, which I care not a whit about, I’m not gonna watch a show about that, I’ve been wearing the same clothes since college, ha!

But then Wikipedia tells me "I Need A Dollar" was an iTunes Single Of The Week.  But I don’t need a free song when everything’s free on YouTube.  But maybe Single Of The Week is not free, who knows, I never buy anything from iTunes and it seems almost nobody else does either:

Music Industry Braces for the Unthinkable

But the real reason I’m writing this is this song is infectious.  It’s not Gnarls Barkley’s "Crazy", but it’s better than anything that Cee-Lo has done since, better than "F___ You", just because you use an expletive in the title, that doesn’t make a track great.

And Aloe Blacc sounds a bit like that dude who sang "Chocolate Rain", but the more I listened to the song, before I researched, I realized this was positively professional.  The horns.  The backup vocals straight off a Fine Young Cannibals record.

And we all need a dollar.  At least I know I do.  I just balanced the checkbook, weird to see the money deplete.  Still, it’s Aloe’s vocal more than what he’s singing.

This sounds nothing like Bieber or Drake, the members of the Canadian Club, it’s not purely reliant on beats, it’s like a bunch of cats listened to the songs played in the basement in "Quadrophenia" and decided to update the sound.  This is like what Duffy was doing, before she went off the rails.

So consider this a turn-on.  I wouldn’t say this is normally my kind of music, but great tracks transcend genres, wasn’t that Strasburg’s point?