"Take Me Out" by Atomic Tom LIVE on NYC subway

Who cares?

You know how you know something’s fake?  When you get e-mailed about it ad infinitum from the moment of its genesis.

They used to call it viral video.  Did you ever get a virus and get deathly ill in a DAY?  OF COURSE NOT!  Viruses sneak up on you, you’re infected and don’t know it, you start to feel worse, then suddenly, it’s clear, you’re fucked up.  Same deal with viral video.  It takes a while to develop.  If something explodes in a day, it’s fake, it’s being worked, it’s a publicity stunt. Or it’s news.  Or it’s completely irrelevant.

Why does everybody still think old school works?  That getting everybody to notice you once means you will last forever?

How about those bozos who stopped the freeway.  They think Top Forty rules.  Yes, if your desire is to be known by the most people instantly, sign with a major label, work with Dr. Luke, be like everybody else and get on the radio so people who don’t really care about music can know about you and the rest of us can read about you tangentially and never hear your music and instantly forget about you.

It’s the sixties all over again.  Top Forty radio is vapid, with the lasting effect of a lollipop, and real music takes forever to get traction, but lasts when it does.  Taio Cruz…  That’s a catchy single.  Do you really expect Taio to have a career, to matter five years from now, five MINUTES?

When you shove something down our throat, you only incite our gag reflex.  But since you suck so bad no one cares or you’re giving it one last shot before you go to college, you do it old school, the twentieth century way, when the last I checked, we’re living in the twenty first century.

Do you know that band on the freeway’s music?  God, I already forgot their name.  Them stopping and playing on the 101 is just like you e-mailing me an MP3.  YOU PISS ME OFF!  I’ve got to wait all that time to download it before I delete it. How dare you take up space in my inbox!  I’m going to work, and traffic is horrendous, and I’ve got to be exposed to your stupid stunt?

Have you read the research?  Most YouTube videos have a lifespan of a day.  So, if you’re planning to have a career on Tuesday and then give up and be an EMT on Wednesday, go for it, pull a stunt.  Otherwise, you have to do it the hard way, you’ve got to make great music.

You can’t listen to a song at double speed.  You can’t fast-forward and get it.  That’s the magic of music.  In a new world, it’s positively old school.  It takes time and dedication in a world where both are at a premium.  You’ve got to make it worthwhile for us to spend three and a half minutes with your track.  That may not sound like a lot of time, but if people can’t resist texting while they’re driving to the grocery store, even though it’s illegal, do you think you can force them to sit through your whole damn song?

I didn’t sit through the whole damn clip linked above.  Because the song didn’t hook me.  What’s worse, it looked exactly like what it was, Brooklyn hipsters trying to goose their career, accelerate themselves into the mainstream.  But I thought the point of being from Brooklyn was to be outside the game, to be hip and ahead of the game, to wait until the public catches up with you!

That’s how it works with all the greats.  Bob Dylan wasn’t successful with his first album and Capitol wouldn’t even put out the initial Beatles LP in America.  It takes time to find your niche and time for people to find you.  And even though in the modern world you can theoretically reach people instantly, it takes longer and longer to reach everybody, because everybody’s got a shit detector, and they don’t want to waste their time, and they’re waiting until their trusted filters all say you’re good.

None of my trusted filters e-mailed me about this band.  The fact that inane Websites that have to fill up their pages with something wrote about it is irrelevant.  It’s like a turntable hit, no one cares.

Maybe if they played a hit song on their iPhones, or used the devices’ tracking abilities to find their supposedly stolen stuff, I’d care.  But now I’m just glad their stuff was pilfered, so I don’t have to listen to these third-rate bards play music, so they can go back to school and be professionals and contribute to society.

Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist, I don’t really feel that way, but I am angry that my inbox was filled up all day yesterday and today with people associated with this truly mediocre product telling me it was an amazing story, that it’s now got 200,000 views.  It’s not the number of views, it’s the number of fans!  It’s the number of people who will take the time out to listen to all your material, go to the show and tell their friends about it.  Stunts are just that.  And they mean ever less in this era where everybody’s looking for an edge and nobody’s got the time to waste.

What do I know about Courteney Cox?

She started off as Ian Copeland’s secretary and love interest.  And then she was featured in a Bruce Springsteen video back when we were innocent and didn’t realize she wasn’t a fresh young thing plucked from obscurity, but an actress.  Then she was on "Friends" and became rich and famous.

And I don’t care.  You see I’ve been around long enough to know that actors are playing a role.  In other words, they’re not the people you see on screen.  Furthermore, if you’re not self-centered, if you’re not narcissistic, you can’t make it as an actor.  So those of us in contact with these people don’t see them as objects of affection, but two dimensional icons to observe and pass by like billboards.

Did I care that Courteney and David Arquette were breaking up?  Someone had an affair…who cares?

Then I turn on Howard Stern and Mr. Arquette is testifying.

Have you ever been left?  I know it’s hard to leave, but it’s nothing like being left.  It’s like you’re playing third base and the pitcher picks up the ball and goes home.  Like you’re the quarterback, waiting for a hike, but there’s no ball.  You’re ready to give it your all, you’re still in the game, but there is no game.

And then you start to reel.  You love ’em.  You hate ’em.  But you’re ready to love ’em again if they love you.  But they don’t.  That’s the secret of being left.  The person doing the leaving checked out long ago, you’re the last to know, literally, they’ve discussed it with all their friends, even have a plan in order, by time you find out it’s a fait accompli, and it’s devastating.

But it’s worse if you’re a public figure.  Because your humiliation is public.  It’s intensified.  Which is why everybody lies.  Respect our privacy.  It was mutual.  BULLSHIT!  It’s never mutual.  If someone doesn’t want to leave more, if someone isn’t calling the shots, you weren’t in a relationship.  But in this phony world we live in, people accept the b.s.

But David Arquette did not want to hide behind the curtain.  And he wanted to get ahead of the story, and tell the truth.  That sure, he slept with that woman, that waitress, that….but he’d been separated from Courteney for four months.  He didn’t do anything wrong.  He went on Howard Stern to tell his side of the story.  Not versus his wife, Courteney Cox, but versus the press, that loves to beat up and judge anybody who walks into the agora and gets attention.

I know, I know, it’s the price of being famous.

But old school fame ain’t what it used to be.  It’s just too damn phony.  But David Arquette was being brutally honest.  Laughing, crying, what did Joni Mitchell say, it’s the same release?

The longer he talked the more you thought he was an idiot.  Then again, he said he wasn’t verbal and it was 4:20 in the morning.  But if you ran into him on the street after this performance, you’d slap him on the back, say hi, treat him nice, want to be his bud, because we’ve all been there, it’s part of the human condition, heartbreak.

We’re living in two worlds now.  The mainstream world and the real world.  And the real world plays out online.  And the mainstream world hates this.  Hates that it’s being challenged by this upstart.  But those participating online know the mainstream is pompous and oftentimes doesn’t get it right.  And the high and mighty mainstreamers are not interested in what the hoi polloi have to say.  They want their money, but not their opinion.  But now the average citizen has power.

I’m not talking about the Tea Party, white people backed by rich men protesting that they’re losing control of the country.  I’m talking about people who just don’t get how the rich can bitch when they can’t find a job, how congressmen are beholden to corporations, not people.  How the Supreme Court said corporations are better than people, much richer and able to support political candidates.

But it’s not only about Washington, D.C.  We’ve got the TV networks and the newspapers and the right wing bloviators on talk radio who excoriated David Arquette to the point where he apologized.  I don’t know what for.  He’s their fodder, he sells their magazines, now they’re going to tell him how to behave?  It’s his story.  It’s his truth.  If you can’t be honest, what have you got?

America.  The land of the duplicitous.  Where people lie and kiss butt and play a game whose rules were written not by the players, but the string-pullers, who jerk the players around.

But the players are sick and tired of it.

Yes, we’ve got to give Howard Stern credit.  He got the story.

And there’s no story without David Arquette.

And the facts were interesting, but not as great as the performance.  David Arquette gave the performance of a lifetime.  With Howard Stern as director and Robin Quivers assisting.  You just couldn’t turn it off.  Every human emotion was evidenced.  It was a roller coaster you refused to get off.  I would have poured quarters in the dashboard to keep the story going.  Because you just can’t get this honesty anywhere else.

Oh, you can get it from your buddy.  In the bar.  On the phone.  But when it comes to entertainment, it’s all phony all the time.  Fake reality TV shows.  Movies made for people who don’t exist.  And music so vapid, so whored out to labels and radio and TV and the Fortune 500, as to be impossible to relate to by normal human beings.  Sure, some will dance to the track for a while, but then the cuts are discarded, they’re meaningless.  The mainstream trots out sales figures, trumps up the story, but no one cares.  Otherwise Katy Perry would sell out stadiums, who’s gotten more publicity than her?  But it’s dishonest.  God, you almost think Katy showed cleavage on "Sesame Street" so her performance could be banned and she could get a ton of publicity.  I don’t really believe that, but then again, do I?

But listening to David Arquette on Howard Stern…  He didn’t call his publicist, or if he did, he ignored him.  There was no filter.  There was straight honesty.

Music used to specialize in this.  But music radio can’t compete with talk radio.  And no one can compete with Howard Stern, the King Of All Media, because he’s put in his 10,000 hours, he’s tapped into the zeitgeist, he’s honest, he not only excavates the truth from his guests, but from himself and his ragtag bunch of cronies.

Don’t listen.  Put him down.  The point is, Howard’s got rabid fans.  They built Sirius radio.  You should only have people who care so much about you.

I got into this sitting on the tarmac in Syracuse.  Turns out there were three tunnels dug.  And the one that won, the one that reached the stranded miners first, was American.

There’s a drill bit with hammers.  Which kept breaking.  But this Pennsylvania company kept replacing the hammers and ultimately achieved victory over its competitors.

Not that it’s a competition.  But in a crisis, it’s all about can-do.  Naysayers are pushed aside.  We only have time for winners.  Does it take a crisis to unite people?

We’ve got a crisis in America.  No jobs.  And those with the money want to keep it.  And we can’t even help the working stiff.  Chris Christie cancels the tunnel to Manhattan crying about money, stranding his constituency ultimately on the freeway.  Our whole country is going to hell in a handbasket.  Our infrastructure is crumbling, but like an old Freddie Prinze routine, everybody says EEZ NOT MY JOB!

It’s not my job to educate the public say the religious zealots who send their kids to parochial school or school said children at home.

It’s not my job to fix roads I don’t travel on.

When did our whole country become about me, me, me?  If it doesn’t benefit me specifically, if it’s mainly for someone else, screw it.

What about society?

It’s hard to believe in Obama, because the President doesn’t lead.  It’s like giving the halfback the ball and having him stand behind the line, debating what to do.  And when he finally runs, when he bumps into defenders he keeps apologizing, trying to play nice, trying not to offend anyone.

And then we’ve got the idiots on the sidelines who think they can run the government.  Yes, I’m talking about you, Christine O’Donnell. You may not be a witch, but where have you demonstrated that you’re familiar with the issues, that you know how to legislate?  Or that you’re in touch with the public?  Yup, ban masturbation, that’s a great starting point.

So we’ve got the ineffective, can’t do Democrats and the I won’t do anything Republicans, both in thrall to the rich folk who fund their campaigns.  Unless the rich folk, like Meg and Carly, decide to run the country themselves.  As if we want our country run by corporate titans.  Where’s the care for employees demonstrated by the Fortune 500?  A government is for all, it’s not for profit.

But down in Chile, in a crisis, everybody threw in together.  We’re stunned by the technology, the fortitude.  We applaud the human spirit.  We believe problems can be solved.

Will it take life or death to solve our problems here in America?  Is that what it’s gonna take to rally everybody around a cause?

I don’t have any children, should I not pay for schools?

If you don’t drive a car should you not pay for highway repairs?

We live in a society.  And right now our society is not cohesive.  It’s about the haves and have-nots.  Those who want to be in everybody else’s personal business under the guise of freedom and those who want to be able to pursue happiness in their own individual way.

Our country is not about money, it’s about people!  That’s why we’re riveted by the rescue of the Chilean miners.  Because it’s about life and death.

Just because no one’s dying in this election cycle don’t think it too is not about life and death.  There’s just not one crisis we can all point to to bring us together.  But people are starving, people are homeless, people can’t get work.  Are we not gonna help them?

Led Zeppelin was reviled by the critics.  Garnering little mainstream press, the band’s first album built momentum over the spring and summer of 1969 and then in the fall, the band released the less than creatively entitled "II", "Whole Lotta Love" blistered onto the airwaves and suddenly, Led Zeppelin was the biggest act in the business.

How did we know?

Ticket sales.

This is very different from today.  Where GaGa sells out venues and is lauded by the press as a genius.  We can debate whether GaGa is, but one thing’s clear, she’s not changing the business.  Nothing she’s doing is helping other artists whatsoever, except for maybe proving that expensive videos have a home online.

But Zeppelin was different.  Managed by an old wrestler, it soon became apparent that every gig would sell out, that tickets would be unavailable.  This was not the fake sellout of today, where media gives the impression tickets are unavailable.  You really couldn’t get a ticket to see Led Zeppelin, and if this was so, why was the promoter being paid so well?

Go to the racetrack.  The favorite pays poorly.  Because it’s easy to bet on the favorite, based on previous races you know the odds are good.  So, if a promoter was booking Led Zeppelin, why should he be compensated as if he promoted Joe Wannabe, when it was evident that all tickets would sell out?

Suddenly, the split went from 50/50 to 90/10, in favor of Led Zeppelin.  And ever since, stars have garnered the lion’s share of the box office.  Thank Peter Grant.  Unafraid of the old school promoters, he demanded almost all of the money.  Sure, a promoter was entitled to a profit, but only a slim one, since it was a no-brainer to promote Led Zeppelin.

Record labels have stated forever that they’re necessary.  That they must take the lion’s share of the money, since they’re taking all the risk.  But this didn’t work for superstars, no matter how well they were paid, the label did better.  But the label pointed to its failures/costs and there was no other way to sell music and get paid than to utilize the major label distribution system.

Until today.  You might need a major label’s marketing and promotion division (even these can be hired independently), but you certainly don’t need their distribution.  Anybody can distribute product online.

So how did the major labels react?

By asking for more money.  Signing their death warrant.

The only way for the major labels to survive is to put in place more equitable deals, with transparent accounting.  As for the hit to shit ratio, they’ve got to spend less on new acts, and make sure more hit.  If Pixar can succeed with each and every movie, why does a major record label only succeed one out of ten times?

In other words, talent has all the power.

You must read Malcolm Gladwell’s story "Talent Grab" in the October 11 issue of "The New Yorker".  It chronicles the inflation of talent pay, using baseball as the primary paradigm.  Used to be the owner made all the money.  Now it goes to the players.  And what changed?  The injection of Miller, who convinced the players that the owners were not benevolent dictators, but adversaries who were ripping them off.

You see the last forty years have been about talent getting the lion’s share of the dough.  And that’s what killed the major labels.  As soon as there were alternatives, the superstars went elsewhere.  And will continue to do so.  Unless the labels make fair deals.  But if they cut fair deals for stars, they’ll have to cut fair deals for wannabes, and unwilling to set a precedent, they’d rather stand on ceremony and fade away.

Talk to lawyers.  And so many managers.  They complain about the labels, but they say their hands are tied.  But not Irving Azoff.  He rants and raves, squeezing more money out of the labels.  Which makes the other managers look bad.  Then Irving rolled up a lot of managers to become more powerful than any label.  But Irving is no longer solely in the management business, he’s in the promotion business now too.  And as the "Wall Street Journal" so eloquently put it, concert promotion is a river of nickels.  How can Irving turn the behemoth around?

Any new product Live Nation invents, Front Line is going to want the lion’s share of.  If Irving doesn’t deliver this, the acts will bolt. The modern history of the touring business shows the promoters trying to create new revenue streams outside the agent/act’s purview just to eke out a living.  Hasn’t Michael Rapino stated that the extras, parking and ticket fees, food and beverages, are the only profitable area?  That Live Nation breaks even, at best, on the talent/gate receipts?

Then again, only superstars sell out.  And few of them do anymore.  And many old acts, long in the tooth, don’t come close to selling out.  And new acts can barely draw anybody.  So, are the wheels about to turn?  Are stars still going to get their 90/10, in the case of Jimmy Buffett, sometimes over 100% of the gross?  Yes.  Because promoters need them in their buildings.  They know they’re gonna make a profit.  A thin one.  But a profit is guaranteed.  But mid-level acts?  New and developing acts?

In this case, the promoters have it all wrong.  Rapino has said that Live Nation has to pay the acts or someone else will…AEG, casinos, JAM, IMP…  But AEG is not about risk, it’s about paying for superstars.  Casinos have pulled back.  And JAM and IMP are not everywhere.  What if Live Nation/Rapino suddenly stopped overpaying developing and mid-level talent?

Sure, other promoters could swoop in.  But a bad deal for Rapino is a bad deal for everyone.  In other words, promoters could wise up and start paying all acts not guaranteed to sell out less.  They’re going to have to, to stay in business.  When are they going to begin?

Is Irving Azoff so powerful, is talent so powerful that it can dictate in all facets of the business?

Maybe not.  If that paradigm plays out, there will few left to pay.  Or there will only be stars.  Or, new acts will use new promoters, who will end up owning the business.

We’re at a turning point.  No act that can sell records is going to make a major label deal.  Only wannabes will.  But the deals are so heinous, new entities are arising that are partners with the acts as opposed to adversaries.

Suddenly we need promoters to invest in acts, to develop acts.  And they must be able to make more money along the way.  The SFX roll-up resulted in a vacuum.  No one would go into concert promotion because they knew that once a developing act made it, they’d go with Live Nation or AEG.  So, will new promoters enforce loyalty via contract, if I build you you must continue to play for me, like Doug Weston famously did at the Troubadour?  Will Live Nation start building new acts to ensure its survival?  Because he who owns the new acts owns the future, and Live Nation is getting out of the new act business.  Live Nation did not promote the Electric Daisy Festival, Insomniac Events did.

Music is going to resemble America.  Winners and losers.  Winners will make a fortune, like A-Rod, but journeymen may only make a minimum salary.  In order to survive on the business end you’ve got to bring more to the picture than your money, and you’ve got to deliver results.  A promoter must promote if it wants to keep the act, just not put tickets on sale.  But for this activity, a promoter will be better paid.

The major labels ran into the rocks.  They’re essentially unsavable.  Their proprietors keep bitching that the old days won’t come back.  Will Live Nation execute the same game plan?  Living in the past at the sake of the future?  We’ll see.