This is literally bringing tears to my eyes.

Do you remember going to the record store?  Not today’s uber-hip emporia, giving the middle finger to digital, but the one in the sixties?  Maybe not even an independent, but a chain?  Like E.J. Korvette?

I do.

One hot summer I drove to Korvettes in Trumbull to buy the Beach Boys’ "Surf’s Up".  Because I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Beach Boys fan.  The only album I passed on was "Friends", and I kicked myself when it went out of print and was completely unavailable.  So, I bought every one thereafter.  Which led me to "Sunflower"…  This is the best of the post- "Pet Sounds" albums, everybody’s involved, from Carl to Dennis and I just LOVE "It’s About Time" so I was looking forward to "Surf’s Up" not because Brian played the title song on Leonard Bernstein’s TV special years before but because it was the latest opus by my favorite band.

I stopped at the Merritt Canteen for a burger, putting my purchase beneath the seat of the VistaCruiser so it wouldn’t get warped in the summer heat and then drove home, shut the door and dropped the needle on the vinyl.  Ecstasy.  Just me and the music.  Alone.

And now I feel the same way.

The labels loved the nineties.  When it was all MTV all the time.  The TV channel made stars and the public bought them.  There was an indie scene, but it wasn’t always the best acts and so many of them were left field.  But then post-Napster the majors tightened the screws even tighter, with the death of MTV they only put out guaranteed hits.  Radio became a producer’s medium and most of us who remember the heyday of FM radio and "Rolling Stone" tuned out.  Not that we didn’t want great new music, we just didn’t know where to find it.

But now the world has gone totally topsy-turvy.  All the GREAT acts are indie.  And the word of mouth online is deafening…if you happen to be riding down that highway.  If you’re on a different road, you never hear it.  Today, the John Grant story reached my freeway.

The album’s been out since April, but I didn’t even know the guy’s name, nor his old band, the Czars, but I’m listening only because Ian testified and I’d say my jaw is dropping, but it’s different from that, I’ve been transported right back to my bedroom on Farist Road in Fairfield, Connecticut, just me and my music, it’s like the seventies all over again.

You remember that era, right?  When music was EVERYTHING!  It drew the most creative minds, it was the only place you could find truth.  Sure, movies were great, but they were fiction, records were real!

I could wait a few days and fully digest this project, give you a review from a distance, but I want to capture the passion, the shock of hearing something so great. Something so honest, so authentic, featuring a guy who’s got a good enough voice who can write hooky changes and knows you don’t have to be in someone’s face to reach them.

I’ve only hit one mediocre cut so far, "Silver Platter Club".

Not that I loved the opener, "TC and Honeybear".

But the second cut, "Marz", BLEW MY MIND!

So intimate, it lives in your head, but makes you feel connected, because of its inherent humanity.  It’s so pretty, in an ugly way.  You know what I’m talking about. Mainstream media tells us pretty is on the outside, but we know it’s on the inside.  It’s not something that’s sold, it’s something that radiates, that draws you in.  It’s love…  You just want to get closer.

I’m playing "Marz" again right now.  It reminds me of going to the IMAX theatre.  It reminds me of gray days on the east coast.  Wearing my fall jacket, traipsing through the fallen leaves.  It’s got what Brian Wilson sells, but distilled in a modern way.  Everything is influenced by what comes before, but "Marz" is truly original. In the U.K. John Grant would already be a star!  They know artistry!  The press and the BBC don’t care first about commerciality, they don’t care if the act is ploughing new ground, they just want to certify GREATNESS!

And I was just about to write then.  But my e-mail program had not finished cycling through the last e-mail, so I let the album play.  And the next track was good, but the one after that, "Sigourney Weaver", was JAW-DROPPING!  Like so many great cuts, future favorites, I wasn’t immediately hooked, and then there was a change…

I’m new to this.  But I can’t help but tell you.  Because if you remember those days, alone on your bed, maybe wearing headphones, reading the album cover as you marinate in the sound, THIS ALBUM IS FOR YOU!

"Marz"

"Sigourney Weaver"

Jeff Bezos to Charlie Rose:

"Before if you were making a product, the right business strategy was to put 70% of your attention, energy, and dollars into shouting about a product, and 30% into making a great product. So you could win with a mediocre product, if you were a good enough marketer. That is getting harder to do. The balance of power is shifting toward consumers and away from companies…the individual is empowered… The right way to respond to this if you are a company is to put the vast majority of your energy, attention and dollars into building a great product or service and put a smaller amount into shouting about it, marketing it. If I build a great product or service, my customers will tell each other."

via Richard Greenfield’s blog (free registration)

I screwed up.  My e-mail told me.

I provided the right link, but I gave the wrong name.  The A8 is a mighty fine car…FOR A SEDAN!

Yup, the A8 is the top of the line sedan, the R8 is something all together different.  Twice the price, the R8 is a cousin of the Lamborghini Gallardo, as you can read here:

Audi R8 (road car)

I’ve been piloting an R8 all week.

Now you may not be interested in automobiles, but you will want to know that the Internet is one big correction factor, with surfers ready to inform a writer of each and every mistake.  This is a good thing.  Collaboration delivers accuracy.  This is the secret to open source software and is changing the way society works.  Young people, Netizens so to speak, know that information constantly flows and the truth is in flux, it’s something every one searches for together.  Of course, there are people like Andrew Breitbart who want to throw a monkey wrench in the system, but isn’t it fascinating that there were Web watchdogs who went to the original unedited tape and ferreted out the truth?

In other words, if you’ve got something to hide, you’d better erase your presence online.  Which is almost an impossibility these days.  In other words, lying cheating scumbags can no longer work their mischief unfettered.  The ticket shenanigans, with acts scalping their own ducats and the holdback of the best seats…the public knows the truth, and the touring industry is paying the price.

The record labels too.  In a digital era, they’re utilizing analog accounting.  They think everybody wants to make a deal.  But wannabe stars know that making a deal with a major is making a deal with the devil, you can’t get out unless you’re unsuccessful, and often not even then, and you’ll never get paid what you’re owed.  It was one thing when the label only screwed you on record royalties, now they want a piece of everything?

Honesty, truth and transparency…

Not that the Net operations of youngsters don’t try to test the limits, but whenever Facebook makes a heinous change to its privacy policy, the blowback is deafening.  This is a good thing.

Focus on the music.  Treat your fans right.  Eliminate hidden charges.  Let people get a good ticket.  Allow them to both listen for free and purchase $100 souvenir packages…  Not that you shouldn’t sell t-shirts as cheaply as you can…did you ever consider that they’re advertisements?  I mean it’s one thing to pay for an inert two-dimensional billboard, but if someone is wearing a rock t-shirt, they’ve got to really believe.  An anonymous paid for street team will promote crap online, but get them to wear the t-shirt of the lousy band all day long?  Mmm…  In a fashion-based society, that’s a no-no.

So, all this is a longwinded missive to tell you I made a mistake.  I do.  On a regular basis.  I’m human.  It pains me, but I’ve got to own up to the truth and take my knocks.  Only in this case, the truth is BETTER than the mistake!

Me In My R8