1

It was my generation.

And I’m not quite sure how I feel about that.

It’s not like the old days, there’s so much activity in the mountains in the summer you’d almost think you were living in the city. Subsidized performing arts centers, name talent, and a ton of semi or non-talent, you open the “Vail Daily” and there’s an endless list.

And there’s a free concert series in Beaver Creek every week, Andy said he went to see Asia there, without one original member.

Richie Furay is the genuine article. With a pedigree. The only guy with that high a profile who didn’t break through to stardom. You had Stephen Stills and Neil Young and Jim Messina in Buffalo Springfield. The Eagles expanded on that sound. Furay ultimately teamed with Chris Hillman and J.D. Souther in the ill-fated Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, but the act broke up because Richie’s wife told him it was either her or the band, and Richie chose her. The scuttlebutt was that it was J.D. who broke up the act, but Richie told me he was checked out during the recording of the act’s aptly-named second LP, “Trouble In Paradise,” which was released with a whimper.

But that first Souther-Hillman-Furay Band album, I played the sh*t out of it. I recorded it for a cross-country drive. I remember this fisherman singing “Border Town” as he skied the bumps at Alta, I was stunned he knew it, I thought it was more of a secret, then again, the album did go gold.

And in the middle, of course, there was Poco. Richie’s band that never lived up to its rep commercially until he left.

And there you have it. Rock history, FROM FIFTY YEARS AGO!

That’s right, Richie Furay is eighty. Doesn’t look it, but the stunning thing is he still has his voice. And he played acoustically with his daughter on backup vocals and a young guitarist and the harmonies…were better than Crosby, Stills & Nash’s ever were. Oh, those albums were sweet, but live, at Woodstock, on “4 Way Street,” I thought it was nearly impossible to get three part harmony right live until I saw Yes, which wasn’t known for harmony, but nailed it nonetheless.

I mean all these years later, Richie still has it.

But it is all these years later.

Now the thing about these free shows, on the ice rink in the village of Beaver Creek, is people get there early, to set up chairs, to be close.

And they were all of my vintage.

And they knew who Richie Furay was.

I saw a woman dancing and singing to the heavens along with “A Good Feelin’ to Know” and that’s when I realized, they’d lived through the era just like me, when music was everything, when of course you knew the hits, but also the music of the quality acts you heard occasionally on FM, but never on AM.

The initial Poco album is a classic, “Pickin’ Up the Pieces,” which got great reviews when it came out but was dwarfed by Crosby, Stills & Nash. There was a trade, Epic got Richie and Atlantic got Crosby and Nash and…Furay believes if Poco had been on Atlantic things would have worked out differently. Then again, Leslie West believed if his manager didn’t nix his appearance in the Woodstock movie, he would have become legendary. And the truth is Mountain was pretty big in its era, but now the band is almost completely forgotten, I don’t hear about young people streaming Mountain songs.

And I don’t hear about them streaming Poco songs either.

2

I initially stopped after “From the Inside.” It was clear, the band was never going to break through. I was stunned when it ultimately did, when it moved over to ABC from Epic, but by then Rusty Young was a lead vocalist, which was unfathomable to early fans of the band. And I love “Heart of the Night,” and “Crazy Love” is a staple, but no one ever talks about the opening track on the first ABC album “Head Over Heels,” entitled “Keep On Tryin’,” composed and sung by Timothy B. Schmit with a voice so pure so airy so right sans commercial success it’s no wonder Timothy B. ultimately decamped for the Eagles.

So back in ’65, after a Vermont washout over Christmas, my parents took us to the Concord, where no snow would not nix a good time. I skied three of the four days, the fourth it rained, and one of the perks of the hotel, other than endless food, was nightclub entertainment, and the star was Neil Sedaka, who was by this time a has-been. We had no idea who he was. We were all Beatlemaniacs. This was my first exposure to someone touring after their prime. It was kind of creepy, then again, who would have expected that Sedaka would have a comeback in the seventies!

At the time of that show, Sedaka was twenty five. Over the hill.

And there were all the acts my parents talked about, that they went to see in NYC. They took us to see Ella Fitzgerald… All these acts on late night TV we’d never heard of, which unlike Neil Sedaka, never came back.

And in the eighties, there started to be the comedy circuit in Florida. Aged acts playing to aged fans. Maybe it started earlier, but that’s when I heard about it.

Sad.

But I was young.

And now, the acts that aren’t dead are still out there, playing to us.

Mostly retired. All about lifestyle. Not in the mainstream and not concerned about it. After all, it’s been half a century, more.

But all that music of my parents’ generation, it was disposable. Sure, not Sinatra, some of the big bands, but really, it was music of the time, there’s always popular music, but that’s different from…

The British Invasion.

The San Francisco Sound.

Singer-songwriters.

Prog rock.

Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Stones…

Our acts were icons. Untouchable. We played their records in our bedrooms, in our dorm rooms, you went to the gig on a regular basis, it was a religious experience, all about the music, no one shot selfies and many of the venues did not sell beer, although that did not mean we were not high.

Musicians were the new baseball stars. But with brains. We idolized them. We listened to what they had to say. They were beacons in a tumultuous era.

But then it became all about the money, music once again slid back into entertainment as opposed to art.

Which leaves us with our memories.

3

“Kind Woman.” Do you know that one? If you were more than a casual fan, you do.

And the aforementioned “A Good Feelin’ to Know” resonated with me for the first time ever.

I was a Poco fan, but when Epic sent me the two CD “Forgotten Trail (1969-74)” package in 1990 I became a devotee, long after the band’s status had been set in stone, listening to the music with no context, context was created, it was a really good band. Actually, I recommend two two CD compilations, this Poco one and “Free – Molten Gold: The Anthology.” You’ll be stunned how good Paul Kossoff was. Free was much more than “All Right Now,” never mind featuring possibly the greatest rock singer of all time, Paul Rodgers. 

Richie was not a nobody. Like failed singer-songwriters singing down in Florida, at the Villages, other retirement communities, this guy was right up front and center when we were all paying attention. And he’s just as good.

Not that you know all the material. The solo stuff…

And Richie got deep into Jesus, and if that bugs you, you’re going to wince when he goes on about God during the set.

But I stood up to take a look. The first two-thirds of the space were all people my age, there were no youngsters up front, only in the back.

Now nobody likes a deal like a retiree. Especially free.

And the set started at 5:30. You could call it an Early Bird Special.

This is what it’s come to.

But even after waiting for half an hour for the crowd to thin out to say hi to Richie, people were still lined up to talk to him, to buy merch, to get a photo, to get an autograph. These are the same people who won’t go to the grocery store during rush hour, whose line up days are through, even though they lined up for tickets way back when.

And I look as old as they do. I’m no different from them. I couldn’t square it, made me want to go back to L.A. and sit in the Forum, go to a theatre show, hang with the insiders, anything but this.

It’s just like my parents’ generation. We had our acts, they meant so much to us and they won’t mean much to anybody after we’re gone. Most of rock history, kaput!

And the funny thing is most of rock history is now being written by people who weren’t there in the first place, in some cases not even born. Not only do they often get the facts wrong, the nuances they miss completely. They rely on the charts from an era where Top Forty meant nothing and some of the best acts were rarely heard on the radio.

And if you try to tell anybody younger how it used to be different, they laugh and say it’s the same as it ever was. Then again, if that’s so, why is there such hoopla over the re-release of “Stop Making Sense”?

This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, many are past being able to fool around.

You had to go to the Mudd Club, CBGB’s, being home was death, it all happened outside, at the club, whereas today the entertainment at home is nearly always superior to that outside.

It’s fading away. It’s on its last gasp. Do you embrace it or stand up and protest like the Nazi in “The Producers,” telling everybody they don’t understand how it was, what it meant.

I don’t know.

It’s so much more civilized!

It’s not quite like flying private, but you’re much less worn out and you end up with so much more time. You can fly and get right back to work.

Assuming JSX flies where you want to. And that’s not many places.

It used to just be a west coast thing, but now there are flights from the New York metropolitan area to Florida, and I’d recommend you try it.

Check out the routes here: 

jsx.com

Now the bottom line is the major airlines are trying to cancel JSX, claiming that it is skirting regulations and is employing pilots with a lot less experience. Which I didn’t think much of until I landed in Rocky Mountain Airport but didn’t. We almost touched down and then the pilot pulled back up. Sure, it was raining, but that does not usually make a difference. And then we flew straight for a long time and went on this very, very long arc, that had me anxious something was wrong with the plane.

But there wasn’t. I asked the pilot as I got off. He was so young I was stunned. He said something about weather and…

That’s as much as I got.

So if you live in L.A. you’ve been hearing about JSX for years now. It almost seems too good to be true. The private jet experience at economy prices. Well, not always that cheap, but not that expensive. As a a matter of fact, if you’re renting a car, it works out the same, because car rental prices are jacked up at the big airports, to pay for all the taxes and fees. Now you can rent a car right at the minor airport you fly into, but I don’t recommend that, unless money really means nothing to you, the prices are stratospheric, especially if it’s a multi-day trip.  I always take an Uber to a local joint, but the funny thing is at Rocky Mountain you can drop the car off at the airport, don’t push me on the logic.

As for car rental…

You’ve got to have an American Express Platinum card. Maybe other premium credit cards have the same perks, but I get this Amex card free with this account I have. I’m not going to sit here and rationalize the normal $695 price, but the bottom line is if you work it, you can get all that money back through perks.

Not that I’m a points guy. Life’s too short. I learned this from my mother, who refused to cut coupons. I’m not saying I’m trashing my points, but I’m not constantly trying to add to my total, by shopping here and there, they constantly send out e-mail re bonuses.

But with an Amex card you get instant status at multiple car rental joints, and you can sign up for this plan wherein you get primary insurance on your rental car, from dollar one, for a flat rate of somewhere between $19.95 to $24.95 per trip. PER TRIP/RENTAL! Up to 42 days! You sign up for this perk and every time you rent the charge is activated, with no additional effort, which means you can drive headache free. Check out the details here: 

https://feeservices.americanexpress.com/premium/car-rental-insurance-coverage/home.do

Now if you’re a road warrior you already know all this, and much more. You’re probably laughing right now. Okay. But I don’t fly every week, at least most of the time. And normally it’s on someone else’s dime and I’m not renting a car.

So back to JSX. They fly from secondary airports. Although the hub in L.A. is in Burbank.

And believe me, the whole experience is not luxurious. You wait in a hangar, literally. Although other airports are more decked out. But not as good as an Amex Platinum lounge at the regular airport.

But that’s okay. Because check-in is insignificant, you’re not treated like you’re going to blow up the plane.

And here’s the kicker…

YOU CAN CHECK IN UP TO 15 MINUTES BEFORE TAKEOFF!

Read that again. You’re not blowing your whole day before you even get on the plane.

As for the plane…

It’s a jet. An Embraer. Built in Brazil, but not the kind I read about crashing while I was on today’s flight. Yes, JSX has free WiFi, and it’s not glacial.

And on the plane…

There is no overhead bin. Seats are more akin to a commuter jet than even an economy seat on a major. And on one side you can feel the curve of the plane by your feet. The aircraft is not that small, there are thirty seats. But I don’t want you to think you’re living it up. It’s all about convenience, and time.

You can only take one item on the plane, although two bags are checked free.

And the bags are available within minutes of landing. Sometimes right by the ramp.

So, the only time you’re really burning is when you’re in the air, which in many cases is shorter than the time you spend getting to and fro from a conventional airport.

Now the thing about flying is it’s become a game. How cheap can you get your ticket. When in most cases, paying just a bit more delivers peace of mind. Like on Southwest…

I love Southwest. It keeps changing, but for around twenty bucks you go to the front of the line and can get on early…

After all the pre-boarding, which is offensive. How many of these people are really handicapped? I’ve read about fliers getting on the plane via wheelchair and getting off walking with no problem.

And then there’s the saving issue.

One person in the group pays extra and saves seats. I had an incident regarding this. I went to put my computer bag in the overhead bin, right by a divider so it wouldn’t slide, and the person in the row in front of me slammed the door shut before I could put my bag in.

Then she did it again.

I couldn’t figure out what was going on, the bin was empty. 

Then she said she was saving it.

This pissed me off.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle. Someone called the flight attendant. And when told the story she said, and I quote, “You can put your bag wherever you want.”

That solved the problem, but not really.

I like an aisle seat. If you pay the twenty bucks or so you always get one, because a lot of the pre-boarders stick together, as do people with a lower number.

But abuses of the system have made Southwest change its policy, now you’re going to have to reserve your seat. It used to be equitable, Southwest was like a flying bus, the attendants were irreverent, but the public ruined it, everybody wants an edge, no one can abide by the rules, whereas the rules used to work so well on Southwest.

On JSX… Doesn’t matter if you’re first on the plane or last, because with no bins, there’s no storage issue. Once again, the process is civilized.

Oh, did I mention you can take your pet on JSX?

I’m not a pet person, but for many this is mega-important. There were three dogs on today’s flight. Very well behaved, I didn’t hear a peep, but could this ultimately be a problem?

So the bottom line is the average person isn’t going to pay the little bit extra for JSX. They just can’t rationalize it.

And to tell you the truth, on some routes I’ve had a hard time myself.

But now, after today’s flight, I’m now going to take JSX whenever it’s available. For peace of mind if nothing else. It’s a no-stress event.

Maybe it’s getting older. When you’re young you’ll wait in line for hours, you’ll camp out. When you’re old you want no hassle. You’ve done it the old way, and after decades you feel entitled.

You should check out JSX.

Spotify playlist: https://t.ly/outZb

1

Positively awful.

And I was in such a good mood driving from Vail to Beaver Creek, listening to John Mayer’s channel on SiriusXM. This show bummed me out completely. I wouldn’t hire this band to do a Bar Mitzvah, never mind a wedding.

Every single member of the Atlanta Rhythm Section is dead except for the original lead singer, Rodney Justo, who quit the band before you ever heard of them, after they recorded one album for Decca and one album for MCA, two of the worst labels in the business.

And although I was aware of “Third Annual Pipe Dream,” (what a title!), I didn’t join the fan club until 1975’s “Dog Days,” I heard the title track on the radio and had to own it.

“The dog days were scorchers

Southern torture”

It’s the dog days right now, maybe you should check out this song, which has been lost to the sands of history.

But the real triumph was 1975’s “Red Tape,” with “Another Man’s Woman,” every bit the equal of the other southern rock bands, but with a lot less traction.

Yes, the Atlanta Rhythm Section was on Polydor. Not quite as bad as Decca and MCA, but still pretty bad, even worse than RCA, which was a Mickey Mouse label.

The key was the twin guitar interplay between J.R. Cobb and Barry Bailey. These were session cats, they could nail it, in the studio and live.

I know because I saw them, at the Roxy, right after their breakthrough with “A Rock and Roll Alternative” and its single “So Into You.”

You used to get rock bands at the Roxy and the Whisky. Not anymore, there’s just not enough money in it, rock in general. I’m not talking about metal, what is now called “Active Rock,” which is supported by its narrow, yet deep, devoted fans, but regular rock.

There are no more bands. At least that’s what the media keeps telling us. Everybody’s a solo act. Hell, who wants to split the money? Never mind trying to keep the band together, which is a huge chore, and if there are hits it gets even worse, because then everybody starts arguing about the money.

But back in the seventies, you could go see a band that could barely fit on the Roxy stage, and they’d tear the roof off the joint. And going to the club was a cultural rite, you went often, to hear the up and coming acts. Now a concert is an overpriced show where you go see an act in a barn and shoot selfies. The culture is gone.

And thereafter the Atlanta Rhythm Section had a few hits. The aforementioned “So Into You,” “I’m Not Gonna Let It Bother Me Tonight” and their most well-known and successful single, “Imaginary Lover,” never mind a remake of “Spooky,” whose original version was also produced by Buddy Buie, and featured J.R. Cobb.

The Atlanta Rhythm Section is now known for ballads, for soft rock, but boy could that band play. And it was all about the playing, their powerful bass player Paul Goddard looked straight out of math class, with his horn-rimmed glasses, a nerd if there ever was one.

2

So don’t think I didn’t do research before I went to tonight’s show. I knew most of the members were dead, but it turned out Rodney Justo was still alive and touring with the act and that was worth the effort, I’d never seen him, I wondered how he’d do Ronnie Hammond’s numbers.

But when the band took the stage…

There was no one that old in evidence, at least on stage, most of the audience was from the era before these players were active, when the band had its original hits.

Well, this is weird. I did research on my phone, everything pointed to Rodney Justo still being in the band. But a recent review, well, from last December, said he’d missed a gig because he was ill and… Has he ever rejoined? After all, he’s seventy nine, the road may go on forever, but not everyone can drive it.

Okay, okay. These weren’t twentysomething ringers, they were old enough to have experience. And they plugged in and…

Couldn’t really play the music. One guitarist approximated the sound, but the act never came together. They had long hair, the look, but their countenances told you they’d rather be anywhere but here. This was a gig for money. They didn’t even try to get the original sound down.

And then one of the guitarists stepped up to the mic and sang.

I wouldn’t let this guy do lead vocals in a garage band, never mind that he sounded nothing like Ronnie Hammond, NOTHING LIKE HIM!

I’d checked out the set list, and they hewed to it, and one of my other favorite Atlanta Rhythm Section songs, “Doraville,” was featured, and that’s one reason I went. The original cuts a groove, it powers forward, Ronnie’s vocal is sweet, you can see Doraville in your mind’s eye. But all I could see when this band of jokers played the song was a turd.

AND THEN IT GOT WORSE!

I’m wondering what the audience is thinking. Are they that starved for entertainment? Then again, the show was free.

I just couldn’t stay. And you can count the number of gigs I’ve left early on one hand. If I go, I’m in for the duration.

But this was offensive.

It was like the owner of the name booked the show and called some blokes who rehearsed once and hoped that the audience wouldn’t get angry.

I mean it would be one thing if they were a good cover band, BUT THEY WERE NOT!

3

Just this week, “Rolling Stone” did a story on bands with no original members:

“Zombie Bands Attack! These Touring Groups Don’t Have a Single Original Member – From Lynyrd Skynyrd to the Four Tops, our rundown of bands that continue to tour without a single classic-era member”

https://t.ly/BS_If

Stunningly, this article is not behind a paywall, like most of the magazine’s content. And speaking of the magazine, not only did they go monthly from weekly, their summer issue is a double, July and August combined, which means whatever brand value the moniker has, it’s not as a magazine. Other than “The New Yorker,” which sustains as a result of a stratospheric subscription price, I’m not sure any magazine will exist in a few years. Renew at your peril.

But it doesn’t matter what’s in “Rolling Stone,” whether it be behind a paywall or not. There’s just too much information, too many articles, and you realize they’re usually written by people who don’t write well who know little about the subject, so why bother?

If you want an expert, go online, maybe even to Reddit, the people there are much more knowledgeable than the ones writing for magazines. Even social media experts are usually better than periodical scribes.

All to say that the fact this bogus iteration of Atlanta Rhythm Section is awful won’t make any difference. It’s not like they’re headlining arenas, they’re playing soft ticket shows, places that need to fill out their schedules. As for word of mouth, there is none.

And stunningly, this terrible version of the Atlanta Rhythm Section has more gigs lined up. But not a ton, you know these players can’t sustain themselves on this impersonation alone, this is just one of the many things they do to stay alive.

But that’s how far we’ve come.

But having said that, the Atlanta Rhythm Section’s success is half a century in the rearview mirror. That’s right, fifty years. Not quite, but close.

Are all the original members up in heaven, or hell, proud that the name is being carried on?

At first I think yes, but then I think there are people who might see this troupe and believe that the original band sucked, and nothing could be further from the truth.

But nothing lasts forever. Literally nothing, get old enough and you realize this. Even Michelangelo, Renoir, the Beatles are just a blip in time.

Don’t take yourself too seriously…

Then again, that’s a quote from Todd Rundgren’s “Chain Letter,” just one of the many classics from “Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren.” If only today’s songwriters and producers listened to it the hit parade would be much better. But there are even Todd fans who don’t know this album, whose original release was on Ampex.

So is it all just grist for the mill?

Well, if you actually saw the original Atlanta Rhythm Section firing on all cylinders, with precision, after Duane Allman was dead and buried, you’d say no.

But that was a long, long time ago.

But I can still remember how it used to be.

And tonight’s performance by this ragtag bunch was nothing like it.

Ergo the Kendrick/Drake beef. It could not have happened without the internet. Old systems were not prepared for daily releases, never mind even more frequently. But online, you can post instantly.

It was said at the turn of the century that Napster would be the death of the major labels. That did not turn out to be the case, but Spotify, et al, along with YouTube and TikTok, the internet in general, is destroying the major labels and the only thing they seem capable of doing is doubling-down on their previous paradigm.

Everything was fine and groovy during the AM heyday of the sixties. Top Forty ruled. There were a limited number of hits and singles were everything.

And then along came FM. Which played completely different music, and featured album cuts, and suddenly albums became more important than singles.

And then came MTV. For a minute there, the old acts triumphed, but new acts harnessed the power of the medium to success. The breakthrough was Duran Duran… An expensive, exotic video could drive a hit to the top of the chart. It became about visuals. It became about the track. The single was once again triumphant. Sure, the goal was still to sell albums, but the labels achieved this by cutting out singles, if they were released at all, and making customers buy the entire album. This is one of the reasons Napster triumphed, finally you could get the song you wanted without overpaying for the rest of the dreck. Assuming you downloaded back then, you first went for singles you wanted to own but could never rationalize buying the album for, like “Liar” by Argent… I was never going to buy that LP, even though I purchased the act’s third album “All Together Now,” I yearned to hear the song on the radio, it had an indelible place in my mind, and now I had it and could play it whenever I wanted to, and I did.

And for a while there, it appeared that the internet was all about the single. But something has happened in the ensuing decade, since the launch of Spotify, the album has become more important.

Don’t get me wrong, singles are still stratospheric. But dedicated music fans want more, and they don’t even care if there is a single.

But the major labels refuse to feed this growing sphere, believing that a hit single is everything, the only way to drive consumption, and therefore it’s best to focus on moonshots, massaging the product, trying to create something that climbs the Spotify Top 50, when hits have never meant less.

Let me be clear, I don’t want to denigrate hits, there’s nothing wrong with a successful song, but this paradigm of single hits is not the one that will grow the business, and it’s not the one that hard core music fans want, the ones who spread the word and keep the business going and growing.

On streaming services everything is equal. Majors and their sycophants don’t want to admit this. They don’t want to acknowledge that they have no power. But there’s no dominant terrestrial radio like in the days of yore, there’s no dominant music video medium, like MTV, all tracks begin from the same starting line.

And when this is the case we find that the audience wants a broader spectrum of acts and musical styles.

We only have to look at every other vertical online to see this.

News… Numerous sources, with no overarching outlet.

A zillion different influencers and videos on TikTok.

This is the world we’re living in, one of overwhelming choice, one in which you don’t have to consume that which you don’t like, only that which you do like, and the majors are putting out fewer records in narrow genres. Sure, hip-hop and pop might be the largest genres left, but they’re shrinking, and the majors are yielding every other style of music to the indies.

The last universal hit act we had was Adele.

As for Taylor Swift, she actually made her bones in country, in a controlled market, she’s more akin to Coldplay and the Dave Matthews Band than the acts of the past decade or so.

No other act sounded like Adele and no act has come along to replicate her success. Think about that, Adele is unique, to the point where she can’t be copied.

But don’t expect more Adeles, and certainly not more Taylor Swifts. Because the market has fragmented, and no one in the record business wants to admit this. They want us to believe that everybody is consuming the hits, just like in the past, when nothing could be further from the truth. And when you point this out, you’re a hater. Look at Swift’s chart success, look at her grosses! Yes, but how many people know her music?

And I only single out Swift because she is at the top of the heap, she is the industry’s darling, the acts below her have even narrower reach.

Why do Spotify, YouTube and TikTok succeed? Because they’re all things to all people. Once again, distribution is king, and they’re distributors.

But as far as purveyors go…

Music is akin to tech in that if you’re not innovating and growing you fall by the wayside. Unlike tech, in music your past still has value, but the music business runs on the new, and this is where the majors are faltering.

Believe me, people are making new music of different stripes all day long and distributing it via the platforms above. However, the best and the brightest are not going into music because it’s seen as a backwater that no longer drives the culture. Today’s recorded music business is akin to Biden and his ultimate replacement by Harris, Sure, there were fans of Biden. And his circle, his seconds, were saying everything was great when it wasn’t, just like the major labels. And as soon as the screw turned, when Biden stepped down and Harris replaced him, there was this incredible excitement and surge of support.

That was the Beatles. They didn’t sound like anything that came before them. They revolutionized the business. They were inescapable, they owned it. They were not created by idolmakers, they were not empty vessels, and they kept on pushing the envelope.

Where are these beacons in music today?

I can’t see them.

So there’s no one to follow.

The public has been sold the canard that divas are everything. That brand maximization is everything. That merch is a great revenue source. There’s no road for and appreciation of people who are just musicians. And therefore inspiration is stilted.

But that does not mean there isn’t a latent desire for more on the part of the public. But it’s got to be different. This was the key to success of Netflix, its hit shows could not be seen anywhere else, not even HBO. Netflix threw the long ball, made shows the public could not even conceive of. The major labels?

Robert Kyncl has it wrong. He shouldn’t have made Elliott Grainge head of Atlantic, but a talent buyer. All the innovation, demonstration of career traction, happens live these days. When I talk to Don Strasburg he tells me about acts selling tickets that not only have I not heard of, but don’t have major label deals. This is where the rubber meets the road, at the box office.

As far as finding the rapper du jour, putting him or her together with the producer du jour, after having the song written by committee… That could possibly drive a hit, but the odds of having a career are not long. Furthermore, the more people you put on the project, the more it loses its soul. In tech it’s been proven that small teams write software faster and better than large teams. The same rule applies to music, both involve inspiration and creativity.

It all comes down to the talent. If you can find it, it’s not that hard to sell. In other words, the major label skill set has never meant less. It’s finding an act people want to listen to, want to embrace, that is hard. But rather than looking for this, the majors are looking for shortcuts, instant success, essentially doing the same thing they’ve done for decades.

But the majors believe their catalogs make them immune, just like the movie studios. And in the past this was true, the largest and most successful independent movie company, Carolco, went bankrupt without a library of old films. And the movie studios put out fewer and fewer high concept films in narrower genres and then…

Netflix came along to eat its lunch. Aided by cheaper flat screens at bigger sizes and higher resolutions. And Covid… Which put the stake in the heart of the theatre business.

In other words, the studios were cruising until they crashed.

Which is the story of Warner Bros. Discovery, which just took a $9.1 billion charge because its traditional TV business cratered. Zaslav cut production, was so busy balancing the books, retiring debt, that he lost control of the entire enterprise. What is TNT without the NBA? Marginalizing HBO. The list goes on and on. It’s not like the handwriting wasn’t on the wall, Zaslav was inured to the old model and it was dying. As far as matching the NBA’s new offer, Warner Bros. Discovery can’t, because Amazon has assets and capabilities WBD does not!

How do you lose a fortune? Very slowly, and then all at once.

This is how Biden lost the nomination. This is the future of the major labels. What they are providing is not what the public wants. The public wants a vast cornucopia of music, not all of it accepted worldwide en masse. Then again, it is a worldwide market, and streaming has made distribution and monetization cheaper. The systems keep changing, the audience has abandoned the past and the major labels are still doing the same as they’ve ever done.

Point me to one other business where this has worked. Eventually you hit a wall, you’ve got to change.

Maybe Greenwald had to go, maybe she needed to be replaced, but Grainge is closer to her than anything that squares with the new business.

And if you know the road titans… They’re anything but flash. Rapino, Marciano, Capshaw, all the people making beaucoup bucks via the road, they’re not in the gossip columns, they don’t show up in the right places and it’s rare that you even see articles about them. They know the penumbra is irrelevant, they’re focusing on the business as it presently exists. Look at Irving Azoff… He once ran a major label, had his own independent with a major, but now he’s building and managing venues with Tim Leiweke as the Oak View Group.

You’ve got to put your finger to the wind, you’ve got to read the tea leaves, the world changes and if you don’t change with it…

You die.