Felice wants an Equus.

We’re sitting around the table at dinner, shooting the shit, and Stephen starts complaining that his Smart Car is just too anemic, he puts the pedal to the metal and nothing happens for seconds, he’s got to buy something new.  Therein, the great L.A. car debate is engendered.

Felice drives a Lexus GS300.  A 2002.  You could drive that car forever, but she’s beginning to become annoyed by the rattles.  And you can’t buy a new Lexus.

BECAUSE TOYOTA DOESN’T CARE ABOUT PEOPLE!

If George Bush, according to Kanye West, doesn’t care about black people, Toyota is unconcerned with the proletariat. We want our automobiles to give us a fighting chance, we don’t want them to kill us.  And it takes years to change production lines.  Whatever Toyota says, those killing machines are still in the pipeline.

So do you buy a BMW or Mercedes?

Nah.  There’s too much image wrapped up in those.  And their repair records are heinous.  Who wants to pay that much and have trouble?

My recently graduated from college nephew bought a Hyundai.  It’s the go-to automobile of Generation Y.  Because it’s cheap and good.  It just works.  And you can’t say that about too much in this world.

Apple’s great.  But Apple’s expensive.  It’s for the elite.

Hyundai is for the people.

Therefore, maybe doing an ad for Hyundai is not like pimping for other products.  Actors will endorse anything.  Hell, Gilbert Gottfried is hyping a long shoehorn. Howard Stern asked him if he ever used the Shoedini.  Gilbert says they gave him one, but it’s in a closet somewhere, he’s never tried it out.

That’s modern advertising.

Or is it?

These Pomplamoose/Hyundai ads are head-turners.  Because watching them, it’s not clear whether the ad is for Hyundai or Pomplamoose.  You don’t have to Google the ad, to find out who did it.  Then again, maybe you do, because you’re unfamiliar with the duo, but they just got better exposure than any video on MTV, Vevo too. They got to play their music and be themselves and get paid, all at the same time.

But they’re whoring themselves out, right?

Well, the difference here is they’re in business for themselves.  They’re not signed to any label, we don’t see the same string-pullers behind the scenes.  Therefore, we applaud Pomplamoose’s victory.  I don’t believe in advertising, then again, I’d do an endorsement for Dannon Coffee yogurt, I use the stuff, I’ve already eaten three today!

What we’ve got here is a marriage between a cool band and a cool car.  The car company is so cool that they were fine with putting their machine second.  Sure, they’re trading on the hipness/cachet of Pomplemoose, but somehow these ads seem to be showcases for the band.

This is a win/win/win.

Hyundai gets to be associated with a hip brand.  Pomplamoose gets paid and gets exposure.  And Pomplamoose fans are excited abou their heroes’ good fortune and new people are brought to the tribe, not because Pomplamoose is jammed down their throats so much as they’re viewing something unique/hip, that entices them.

Very few products have the positive image of Hyundai.

And very few artists are as cool as Pomplamoose.

And very few advertising agencies can convince their clients to essentially make an ad for a band.

But consider my rule broken.  This is one case where I’m giving a thumbs-up to endorsement.  I’m thrilled that two hip entities have joined forces to benefit each other.

And I wouldn’t be ashamed to cruise around in an Equus with Felice.  We’d look smart.  Frugal.  And they even come to your house to pick the car up for service, what could be better than that?

Pomplamoose does a cool "Up on the Housetop" in a holiday commercial for the Sonata

Pomplamoose kicks off the holidays with a VideoSong of "Jingle Bells" in a campaign for Hyundai

Hyundai Equus

At least that’s what Kevin Smith called it.  The inaugural Starfucking Smodcast, with Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman.

What does it take to make it?

Tons of effort.  And a dream.

Kevin Smith is such a good interviewer, he makes me feel inadequate.  Not only can he ask the questions we want the answers to, he can fill the pauses with little fillips of insight, gems that satiate your taste buds while you wait for the next response.

Kevin wanted history.

Actually, he pulled up Amanda and Neil’s Wikipedia entries and they reviewed them for accuracy.  That’s a conundrum, Wikipedia is now the go-to site for background information, but it’s so often wrong.  Until recently, my entry said I had kids and it still references a wife.  I’ve never had offspring and haven’t been married in this century, but I seem to be the only one who knows.

That’s one of the reasons Smith started the Smodcast.  He was frustrated at the response re the Southwest incident, where he was labeled as being too fat to fly.  That wasn’t the story, but that’s what the media said.  So Kevin retreated into his own little world, with his own not so little audience.  He’s not making movies anymore for you, but for his fans, who he can count on.  Listen to this podcast, #5, "THE EPIXHD TOO FAT FOR FORTY SMODCASTLE PRESS SCRUM" it explains his philosophy.

So we found out Amanda comes from a broken home and she wrote one of the Dresden Dolls’ most noted numbers, "Half Jack", for her real father.  Who heard it live in D.C. for the first time.  And her mother was pissed she didn’t write a song about her.

Even better was her parents complaining that she was banging on the piano too much in the basement.  Quite the antidote to those stage parents pushing their progeny into showbiz.

The stories were flying fast and furious.  How Amanda was a living statue for four years.  Kevin asked what I wanted to know, could she make a living at it?  Amanda said she made more than all her friends, on a good day $450.  Wow!

And she met Brian, the Dresden Dolls’ drummer, at a party in her house where she was performing at the piano, something that had taken her years to feel comfortable doing in public, and they started the band.  Did they have a relationship?  OF COURSE!  They slept together, made music, and made love.  They were two halves of the same being, they were never apart.

Whereas Neil was more isolated.  He was the guy with the book.  His parents would pat him down before a Bar Mitzvah, not only looking for the book, but the hidden spare.  He’ll take a book to the bar.  He resorted to reading the newspaper upon being introduced to Amanda’s father at dinner, the aforementioned Jack.

But both Amanda and Neil had a dream, from a very young age.

Amanda wanted to be a rock star.

Neil had a list, comprised of being a comic author and so much more.  His mother said it was nice, and now he’s done it all.

And now the two of them, Amanda and Neil, are traipsing around the world in love.

The Smodcastle only holds a hundred people.  And it was packed to the rafters with those paying a hundred dollars to get in.  You see modern entertainment is quite narrow.  A core of fans will pay seemingly unlimited amounts to be close to their heroes.

Like those people who paid $1000 for the special package of Amanda’s ukulele Radiohead covers.  She made a hundred grand.  God, there are people on the pop chart who haven’t netted a hundred grand.

But she’s doing it all by her lonesome.

Well, not really.  She’s got a full time Webmaster/tech guru, Sean.  They’re constantly trying new ideas.  Asking the audience what it wants.  Taking risks.  All of this anathema to the machine which Amanda played victim to in her previous incarnation as a major label recording artist.  Major labels want to play it safe.  They want insurance.  Risk is forbidden.  And the concept of asking the fans…  Did you see that piece on L.A. Reid in the latest "Entertainment Weekly"?  He thinks he’s the new Clive. He thinks he knows.  That’s not true, the artist knows!  And a modern artist is in touch with his fans, it’s a symbiotic relationship.  All those old middlemen, radio and TV and print…they don’t care about artists, they just need grist for the mill.

And Neil Gaiman barely flies on my radar.  I don’t read comic books and I didn’t see "Coraline".  But I know he’s a god in his world.  Which was reinforced when he and Kevin told tales of Comic-Con.  That’s the modern world.  It’s not about making it in someone else’s sphere, it’s not about being anointed by those who don’t care, but by those who do.

Not that Neil hasn’t won awards.

And he told tales…

His first book was about Duran Duran.  Written from press clippings acquired from the BBC.  It was a huge hit.  He planned how to spend his earnings.  But in two weeks, the publisher went bankrupt and he didn’t get paid.  And he didn’t do anything for the money ever again.

That was the mantra of the evening.  Life was too short to do that which you did not love.  And Neil even went on to say that that which he’d done for free, expecting no dough, ultimately paid dividends years later!

And there were tales of the movie business.  Making a deal and being flown to the Mediterranean for a weekend of sailing where the crew included…Simon LeBon.  Like Neil said, as soon as you get involved in the movies, life becomes surreal. Days went by, Simon and Neil bonding, finally he couldn’t handle it anymore, he told Simon he’d written that book…  Turns out Duran Duran loved it!

And Kevin told his stories too.  About being infatuated with Batman and making up calling cards with the logo and putting one on the windshield of his beloved and writing upon it that she should look up, to where he was standing in a trench coat atop the pharmacy where she was employed!

Kevin labeled Amanda an art chick.

But all three of these characters were art chicks.  Following their muse.

And yes, Amanda realized she could never be a pop star.  But she’s happy in her niche.  And the estrogen in the audience was happy with her.  Kevin had never seen so many women in the Smodcastle.

I’ve seen a million interviews.  Live and on TV.  The subject is promoting something, and certain topics are taboo, and truth rarely comes out.  Kevin’s only interested in the truth.  He extracts it.  And one got more insight into the struggle to be an artist last night at the Smodcastle than at any panel at any music conference ever.

You see it’s about the people.  They’re a special breed.  And those who last are not about the money, because it’s too hard for it to only be about the money.  They were always a little bit off, always living in an alternative reality in their heads.  And it’s only when they laid this down that they found out huge swaths of people identified.

Come on, how many of you have been surrounded by bodacious bods as you run around in $100,000 worth of steel? Whereas you know heartbreak, and anxiety…  Neil was inspired by twins he saw on the train every day who he never spoke to.  Now that’s life!

Kevin said it’s gonna be a regular series, Starfucking.  We’ll see what comes next.  Meantime, when this podcast goes live, I’d check it out.  Even if you’re not a fan of any of these people.  The conversation just oozed with humanity, about life with excitements and dead ends, triumphs and losses.  We’re all trying to get along.  And it’s art that keeps us going.  Imperfect people telling imperfect stories.  Those we can relate to.  Shiny is for Hollywood.  Shiny is a force field that you just can’t penetrate, which is why so many are rejecting the mainstream and digging down into the niches, because burrowed beneath the bullshit is where the real people live.

Don Ross: CRAZY (Gnarls Barkley)

I like this.  I did not at first.  At the beginning, I thought it was pedestrian, just another guy looking to get famous doing a cover. Then, he hit the chorus and I started to get this feeling inside, around the :42 mark, it was like catching someone’s eye across the room, and then at :58, it was like getting into a conversation with that person.  And thereafter, the connection continued.  I’d been on a parallel line with the song, now I was enraptured.

The big story online today is Shirley Halperin’s interview with Scooter Braun, the manager of Justin Bieber.  

"THR: What was the most common reason they gave you when turning him down?

Braun: They all said the same thing: that he’s too young and no one’s broken from YouTube. ‘Where’s the platform? Go get a TV show, you can’t compete with Disney or Nickelodeon.’"

The Brains Behind Justin Bieber: A Conversation With Scooter Braun

That’s the way it used to be.  Or as Eric Hoffer so eloquently puts it:

"In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."

Slide 60: Learning in a Networked World

You can break from YouTube.  If you’re really good.

Sunday evening Justin Bieber won a ton of awards at the AMAs.  I can’t tell you exactly which ones, because I didn’t watch.  I know the AMAs are fake.  A Dick Clark show created to compete with the Grammys.  If you win one of these and you get a rush of blood to the head you’re sorely mistaken, consider your appearance a public relations move at best.  One that pays ever fewer returns, the AMAs ratings fell precipitously, to their lowest level ever:

2010 American Music Awards broadcast lowest-rated in AMA history: report

In other words, the mainstream game is failing.  Which does not mean the indie game is going to step in and steal its thunder. Rather we’re seeing a compression, from both ends.  Ubiquitous promotion yields fewer dividends and you can employ the indie tools to gain significant traction.  How significant?

Well, I never ever would have heard Don Ross’s version of "Crazy" prior to the Net.  I’ve never experienced a terrestrial radio station that plays this kind of music.  And with no exposure, there’s no word of mouth.  But now you can put your music online and if you’re good, word can spread.

But Don is still old school.  Go to his site.  There’s no streaming, no free downloads.  My friend Marty Winsch says his client Corey Smith’s sales at iTunes go up when he gives the same music away free on his Website.  In other words, you’ve got to be fully old school or new school.

Old school is sell your soul to a major label.

If you’re doing this, you must make music that can be played on the radio.  You’ve got to be willing to do what the company says.  You must promote the hell out of yourself in order to try and get people to pay attention to you at the same time you’re causing a backlash and make very little money all in the name of fame, which pays fewer dividends than ever before.

New school is do it yourself.  With a team that you control.

You give away your music.  You stay in touch with your audience.  You keep giving them more and more, for free, in the hopes that the bond will get stronger and they’ll support you, buy your merch and recordings and come to see you live.  But new school depends on two things:

1. Being good.

2. Having friends.

You’re building a tribe from the ground up.  It’s very slow.  You’ll slog for years before you find out if you’ve made it.  But once you have, your fans will continue to support you, you’re not flavor of the moment, you’ve built something.

You can study and ace one test, but that won’t get you into Harvard.

You can get plastic surgery and try to look young, but that’s not gonna work when you’re in your late thirties and trying to snare a husband, when there’s a constant stream of fresh-faced twentysomethings vying for attention.

If you do it new school, you’ve got to have substance.  It’s what’s on the inside that truly counts.  But, like getting into Harvard, that requires a lot of hard work, over a period of years.

All the hard work at the label has got little to do with you.  It’s relationships with radio and TV and songwriters and producers. Which is why they can abandon you so easily, and you end up being famous for being famous, not much more.

Who won last year’s "Dancing With The Stars"?  The year before’s?

I know nothing about Don Ross.  I can see by this clip that he’s not a looker.  But when he plays "Crazy" I get energized, I feel alive.  That’s the essence to hooking someone.  Putting humanity in your music.

P.S. I believe there’s an element of self-promotion in Dave Stewart’s drunken rant, but it’s worth noting anyway:

NEWS – Stewart’s drunken rant at AMAs

Then again, is Mr. Stewart part of the problem or part of the solution?  Because to try and rebuild the mainstream game by reconstructing the major labels/system is like trying to convince MTV to air more music videos.  That ship has sailed, it’s not financially prudent in an era where clips can be played on demand online.  It’s no longer about fixing the old, but keeping the kindling lit on the new.  No one is in control.  The music world is being reinvented as we sit here.  What triumphs will be a concoction of artists, business people and fans.  Artists will not be pretty faces with one hit, business people will make a lot less money for a very long time and it’s the fans, those who live for music, who will ultimately infect the general public with the great music of tomorrow.  The fans are Malcolm Gladwell’s connectors.  If you want to learn about the music business, you’re better off reading Gladwell’s "Tipping Point" and "Outliers" than any music business book.  Because all trends are the same, it’s just that when music hits, it’s got traction nothing else possesses.  Assuming it’s music with the humanity of Don Ross’s cover of "Crazy".

Whoa!

I’m sitting here trying to catch up on e-mail before I hit the rain-soaked freeway and the tonality of the following e-mail, the humble quality, the fact that this guy said he was just about to give up in light of the brilliance of the linked performer made me click through.

Bob,

Not sure if you have ever caught this guy before, but he is amazing. I damn near threw in the towel with the music I was playing, ’cause when I heard him – he was doing what I had in my head. This may not be the best clip, but it shows the energy he puts into his music. I always try and catch him when he comes through Austin.

Malcolm Holcombe – Sittin’ Sad – Backstage: Tennessee Shines

Take it easy, but take it!

Aaron Franz

And I’m not watching, I’m in my mail program as the clip is unspooling in the background.  But this dude is rambling to the point of incomprehensibility and Aaron said this wasn’t the best clip so I click through to Safari to turn it off and…THE GUY STARTS TO WAIL!

You know it when you see it.  It’s something you feel.  Deep down inside.  It’s like there’s a tiny flame and suddenly a breeze comes in and turns it into a fire and ultimately a conflagration.

And it happens most when you least expect it.  And you hope and pray you’re not let down, that the performer can sustain your interest, that there’s not a lame chorus, that he doesn’t disappoint you.  And you’re hanging in there, like walking on ice from your front door to your automobile, hoping to make it without falling.  But if you slip you’ll just have another disappointment in this endless series of moments we call life.  Whereas the performer has probably lost your interest forever and will fade away and not radiate.

But when it’s right…

Music is something you hear.  It’s not something you see.  And when you hear it, it makes you feel human.

This is completely different from what they’re selling on Top Forty radio.  That’s not humanity.  That’s artifice.  There’s a market for that.  But less of one than ever in these troubled times.  For all the lemmings following the antics of these twits desirous of getting rich there’s a plethora of people who’ve rejected music, because it just doesn’t touch them.

But if you’re not touched by Malcolm Holcombe, you’re not alive.  And it isn’t about blowing him up, parading him in "Parade", it’s the cumulative effect of multiple Holcombes that creates a scene that makes people pay attention to music, become enraptured, talk about it, devour tracks like they’re food.

How does this barely coherent guy manage to knock it out of the park?

But isn’t that the way it is.  The best artists are troubled.  They can’t show up on time.  All they can do is this.  Lay down their story in song.

Corporations hate these people.  They want performers who will show up in the early a.m. for "Today", who won’t cuss and get drunk at inopportune moments.

Cursory research tells me Malcolm Holcombe once had a deal with Geffen Records. That’s not important to me.  It’s not about history, it’s about performance.  Watching this clip makes me want to see him live.  Sure, I might like a record.  But the sound he gets in this room, that’s the one I want.  The undiluted, unfiltered honesty.

I can’t do what Malcolm Holcombe does.  That’s one of the things that draws me to him.

Just listen.  This is what we’re looking for. This is our roots.  This is the underpinning. And without a basis, without music that can be summed up on one guitar in an empty room, we’ve got nothing.  Hearing this makes you a fan.  Not only of Holcombe, but music.