The biggest story in music this week is not Taylor Swift, certainly not Lady GaGa, not even Greyson Chance showing his 13 year old chops on "Ellen".  No, the big story is the Buffalo Springfield reunion.

Are you going to San Francisco?

Sure, that’s a Scott McKenzie lyric, but I can’t tell you how many times that question popped up in my inbox the last two weeks.  Was I going up to Shoreline, for the Buffalo Springfield reunion?

It’s kind of surprising that there’s an act yet to get back together, but that’s the case with the Springfield, a band that had one hit and wasn’t recognized for its greatness until its successor act, Crosby, Stills & Nash, broke and everybody hungered for more of this sound and purchased Buffalo Springfield’s greatest hits album "Retrospective" which included not only the CSN-similar "Rock And Roll Woman", but Neil Young’s extended "Broken Arrow" and "Mr. Soul" and…

CSN and sometimes Y were the biggest band at the turn of the decade, but Neil Young ultimately emerged triumphant, and despite the critical drubbing, I love the initial Souther, Hillman, Furay band album and if you don’t own the two CD "Forgotten Trail" Poco compilation, you’re missing out.

Every one of the surviving Buffalo Springfield members is still working, albeit intermittently for Richie, but they hadn’t been working together until last weekend, and now the Net is blowing up about it.

But no one else is.  It’s like a secret story.  I’m sure there’ll be a story in "Rolling Stone", but that’s too long after the fact.  Then again, "Rolling Stone" broke from its anachronistic ways to follow this story on its Website.

So on one hand it’s just like the sixties all over again, word of mouth is king.  But will this word sustain or die out?

Interesting story…

If this were broadcast live on television, it would have been this week’s biggest entertainment story. Or a live show on HBO.  Did Neil nix exploitation or did no one even think of it or were they waiting to see how it all turned out before they booked the obligatory tour?

There are a zillion YouTube clips.  I’ll link to a few.  But none of them are exactly like being there. And that’s what you wanted to be after viewing them.  You truly felt like you missed out.  And in today’s on demand/DVR/instant replay world you almost never feel that way.

And everybody is owning their age.  Stills, in remarkably good voice considering the recent CSN dates, looks like he’s dressed to go to dinner, not play in front of thousands.  In other words, it’s about the music, not the trappings.

And that’s a beacon to the rest of the world.  Create something great and it lives forever.  And you know what is being produced by the major labels is not built to last, hell, even a GM car will outlast one of today’s hits.

So we’re getting back to the garden.  This performance was not built on hype.  By time it happened, we were not already tired of it.  It snuck up on us, passed by word of mouth like the need to attend Woodstock.  The mainstream was out of the loop.  But those who needed to know did.  This is the way it used to be, and this is the way it is right now.  Hype is not everything.  If this show had been hyped, we’d have already forgotten it.  But now people are still discovering it.  It feels like we’re in the middle of something.  Like Stephen sings, there’s something happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear.

"For What It’s Worth"

"Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing"

"Rock And Roll Woman"

"On The Way Home"

"I Am A Child" & "Kind Woman"

Steve Perry & 43,000 Friends NEVER ‘Stop Believing’ in the GIANTS

Some things just make you feel good.

I’m going through today’s e-mail and someone linked to this clip.  Just another use of the national anthem, "Don’t Stop Believin’".  Hey, it’s great the Giants won the National League Championship and are celebrating, but there’s nothing new here.

And as I continue going through my messages, as the track plays in the background, I’ve heard enough so I go to close that window so I can check out another YouTube clip a few messages down. And when I go to click the close button, I’m confronted with something utterly surprising that does not compute, supposed recluse Steve Perry singing his own song.

Well, we can’t hear him.  He’s got no mic.  But he’s leading the charge, he’s got his hands in the air, they’ve got his visage on the big screen and I’m stunned how every rumor is untrue.  He’s out and about, he’s not obese, he’s there with a smile on his face owning a song that’s been embraced by a younger generation that never experienced Journey and people like me who barely tolerated the band back then, admitting we liked "Lights" and maybe one other track on the local AOR outlet that we had to endure to get to our favorites, and those who never stopped believin’.

On paper, this might barely touch you.  But when you watch this video, your heart will start to palpitate, you’ll get all tingly, you’ll enter a zone whose entry key is only music.

(Let the clip play, from the beginning until at least fifty seconds in, then you’ll get it.)

Bon Jovi 2011

At least Bob Dylan changes the arrangements.

Isn’t this how we got into trouble?  Do you really expect fans to overpay forever to hear the same damn songs?

In other words, you need new material that people want to hear or the tickets have to be cheap.  You might stop at Quiznos or McDonald’s every day, but you only go to Bermuda once every couple of years.  Very few people love one vacation destination so much that they go there exclusively, in other words, one year Bermuda, one year Jamaica, one year the Virgin Islands…and then maybe even Hawaii.  Then again, who can afford to go on vacation anymore?

Last time around Bon Jovi didn’t sell out, and blew out and gave away tickets.  What in hell makes the band think business will be better next year?  What are the indicators?  When a product fades in the marketplace, the only way to juice sales is to reboot, refresh…  Instead, we get Bon Jovi doing "Wanted Dead Or Alive" and "Livin’ On A Prayer" one more time.

I guess they could always do albums.

Then again, after "Slippery When Wet", then..?

If you’re a major act going out next year for a big ticket price, you’d better reevaluate.

First you can drop the price.  Dylan doesn’t charge much.  If it’s about your greed, needing to make money to keep up your payments, you’re in trouble.  It’s got to be about the music.

And since you are a musician, you’ve got to do a different show.

What if Bon Jovi went out acoustic.  Every number with wooden instruments as CSN&Y used to say.  Maybe the venues would be smaller, but people would overpay for this, it’d be a special event.

I’m not even sure social networking can goose the same show anymore.  People have seen this.  Win a contest to get on stage, write a song to open up the gig…  That’s so 2010, and soon it’s gonna be 2011.

Cut the hubris.  2011 is the year to do something different, or stay home.

If you don’t, be ready to be victimized by the Web.  Yup, that’s what happens.  You can no longer give away tickets quietly, if there are empty seats people snap pictures and put them online DURING the show.  As a result, demand is driven down for future dates.

It’s tough being a star.

But things are good if you’re a musician.

Do people really want to overpay to see Steely Dan one more time?  Donald Fagen is better off building the Dukes Of September, at least it’s new, it’s vibrant, it’s not cast in amber like the shows of too many overpriced acts living on their laurels.

She looks old.

I’m truly in shock.  I’m not sure how great Debra’s performance is, but watching her on screen is truly astounding. She looks like a woman who’s over fifty, and no one in Hollywood is over forty, they believe you’ve got to be young to count, and they lie about their age as they go for plastic surgery as the population just gets older and older, with baby boomers reaching retirement age.

In other words, who can you get more excited about, Willow Smith or Elton John?

Although Willow says she worked really hard, she has no experience.  And it’s experience that rounds out the personality, delivers three dimensions that people can react to.  Ever have a friend give you advice?  That’s what happens when you get older, you’ve been there, you’ve done that, you’re comfortable in your own skin. Unless, of course, you’re not.

I did this BMI event with Evan Lowenstein last week.  And when the photos came back, I was positively frightened.  Sure, Evan’s a hunk, but he’s also twenty years younger than I am, next to him I looked like a wrinkled prune, I could barely look.

But I can’t stop looking at Debra Winger.  She seems experienced.  Like she’s got stories.  Like she’s had victories and losses.  Those wrinkles in her neck and those lines above her lip and those furrows in her brow…they evidence someone who’s lived.

It’s so hard to buck the trend, so hard to be different from everyone else.  But what’s the point.  Tommy Mottola lies about his age so he can ultimately be irrelevant?  If you keep trying to keep up with the young ‘uns, you’re putting yourself in an emotional cul-de-sac, because only by aging can you gain wisdom, only by owning your true self can you truly enjoy life.

I’m not saying Debra Winger’s gonna start a revolution.  Everything seems to be going the wrong way.  But when confronted with honesty and truth, it’s shocking.  That’s how far we’ve come, we can be captured by someone’s mere countenance.  Watching Ms. Winger I couldn’t stop asking myself if she’d gotten the memo, how strong she had to be to go her own way.

But today even rock stars get plastic surgery.  Ozzy and Gene Simmons have admitted to it.  But you’d be stunned to learn who’s had a nip here and a tuck there.  They think they’re winning, but they’re not.  Bob Dylan’s face looks experienced and he’s singing like an aged man with the wisdom of years on the planet, whereas most other old acts, if they create new material at all, try to have it not only sound like the days of yore, but infuse it with the same drinkin’, druggin’ and womanizin’ perspective that they no longer live but think they must inhabit in order to maintain cred.

We don’t want you to be an icon.  We want you to be a beacon.  And those are two very different identities.  One is two-dimensional, blinding us with its light.  The other is positively three-dimensional, illuminating the way ahead, illustrating life in a way we both know and don’t.  Isn’t that the essence of the best songs?  We both know them, but don’t?

I know people like Debra Winger.

I don’t know anyone like Nicollette Sheridan and the other wicked witches who are afraid of getting old.

If you can’t own yourself, your body and your soul and your age, what makes you think we’re going to be attracted, that we’re going to care?  The road to great art is paved with honesty, and first and foremost you must be honest with yourself.