Once upon a time, I worked in the movie business.

I fell into it.  First, as an attorney, then working for Charles Band, an independent producer, who made many films, all on a shoestring.  How do you make a movie?  I know how.  First and foremost, you start.

That’s how you got into the entertainment business way back when.  You started.  You went to gigs, met people, networked, went to UCLA Extension and took any job to get into the game.  I know, I know, there were people like Joel Silver, who came to L.A. believing the industry deserved them, but the rest of us were just trying to find a toehold, just trying to be INVOLVED!

You could do it in New York, but really you had to be in L.A.  There was no Internet, no YouTube, no Pro Tools, you had to lift yourself up physically and come to the west coast and hang out.  Ask Irving Azoff, ask all those other famous names.  You had to leave your comfort zone, and try to make it on a wing and a prayer.

And in case you didn’t know, the entertainment business is full of shit.  Endless meetings with castles built in the air which collapse as soon as you walk out the door.  Although it takes you a few years to realize this.

And somehow I found myself in Lionel Conway’s office on Sunset Boulevard back in the mid-eighties.  Oh, he’ll never remember.  But back then anybody in the film business could get a meeting with anybody in the music business.  The thought of getting your track in a film…

And Lionel’s talking to me and my sidekick like we’re legit, like we’re really gonna pay to put any of his songs in a movie, and then…he insists on playing us something.

This is a fate worse than death.  Sitting there silently as a publisher, an act, any purveyor plays you music.  They want you to jump up and down, do cartwheels, tell them the track is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and you just want to leave.

The funny thing is, most people say the music IS the greatest thing since sliced bread, the two parties bullshitting each other over the desk.  That’s STILL the entertainment business.  Tell ’em it’s great and snicker on the way out.

But this song Lionel played us, it was FANTASTIC!

Sometimes I’d like to quit you
And find somebody who don’t know me quite as well
Yeah like a gypsy, she would be my jewel
Spend my days in a lovin’ spell

But it wasn’t the verses, it was the GUITAR SOUND!  And the CHORUS!

Lionel pushed the button on the tape machine and it was like a chainsaw started ripping up the speakers.  You know that perfect rock sound, that alienates your parents, but feels so good?  This was IT!
And the chorus…

Isn’t it enough that I still love you?
Isn’t it enough to make you stay?
Don’t make me suffer, baby
Don’t throw it all away

Actually, you may know this song.  A few years later, Patty Smyth had an MTV hit with "Isn’t It Enough".  But the track had the character of a party anthem and she oversang.  Didn’t ruin it, but the magic of the Danny Wilde original was buried.

Yes, Danny Wilde, that guy in the Rembrandts, the one who sang the theme song to that Jennifer Aniston sitcom, "Friends".

Hell, they didn’t even write it, and it ruined their career overnight.  Which is why when your manager/label/publisher tells you to take an opportunity and it doesn’t feel right, you shouldn’t.

But by time Mr. Wilde had his one big hit, he’d been at it for two decades.  In bands, then solo and then back with Phil Solem and…

We were trying to make it on the business side.  And across the fence were musicians, who also came to L.A., clerked in record stores, waited tables, fixed electronics, all for a chance to make music at night, get a deal and MAKE IT!

Great Buildings, Danny’s previous band, issued a record on Columbia.  But it didn’t hit.  But he didn’t go to law school, didn’t get an MBA, he didn’t go straight, he continued to woodshed and came up with "The Boyfriend".

That’s the name of the album containing "Isn’t It Enough".  Two years after I heard it in Lionel Conway’s office, it was released.  On Island.  Before the label was sold by Chris Blackwell to Universal, before it fronted rap records, back when it was still a scrappy indie.

And I played that vinyl record through and through, over and over again, until it turned gray.

That’s what happens when you overplay a disc.

But I couldn’t buy another one.  A friend sent me a cassette.  But there was never ever a CD.  One of my great thrills of the Napster era was stealing the MP3s.  The cassette I made from my record had no highs, the pressure pad on the factory cassette had fallen off, now I had unbreakable copies.

"Isn’t It Enough" is the best song on "The Boyfriend", but it’s not the only good one.  The second cut, "Body To Body", has even a fuller riff, enough to throw a crowd of thousands into a frenzy.  And I have a special place in my heart for "He Can Have You"…

Well he can have you, ’cause I don’t want you
What do I need with a girl who’s only gonna make me cry?
Well he can have you, yeah he deserves you
All I want is a lover who will satisfy me

Note the undertone.  He really wants her.  Emotionally.  But she tortured him.  Intellectually he knows he’s done. Can the little head obey the big one?

Today it’s different.  The content of the song is secondary to…making it.  Fame eclipses music.  Andy Warhol is bigger than Bob Dylan.  It’s about your fifteen minutes.  Even if they occur early in your life and the rest of your days are a vast wasteland.
And the reason I’m writing all this is because I was on an MP3 blog and I saw a reference to the Rembrandts, which made me wonder what Danny Wilde was up to, which led me to his Website, where you can download "The Boyfriend" for free!  Better than that, the MP3s ARE STRAIGHT FROM THE MASTER TAPE!  "Isn’t It Enough" breathes in a way it has not since that hot summer afternoon in Lionel Conway’s Hollywood office.

So go to: Danny Wilde – The Boyfriend

If you’re on a Mac, you download the tracks by holding down the Option key and selecting Download Linked File from the submenu (after, of course, clicking your mouse on the rip-rate you prefer…)

And when the music pours out of your speakers, you’ll know how it used to be.  Before sampling was king, when you needed to know how to play the guitar, when you practiced and practiced, trying to reach the zeitgeist.

And when you did, you might still not pass through the filter.  Still, "Isn’t It Enough" got MTV play, Danny Wilde’s got a coterie of fans, who smile every time they hear "The Boyfriend", like me.

And the Beatles join the iTunes Store just in time for Saturday’s iPad launch.

The deal…  Just like with Apple’s purchase of Lala, no hard numbers have been released.  But both Citi and Terra Firma are happy.  Citi gets its money back, and Guy Hands gets to save face, Terra Firma’s covenant breaches become irrelevant, there’s no need to raise and inject new capital and by selling to Jobs, et al, Hands gets to spin the concept that this was his plan all along.

Yes, the catalog license was just a ruse.  Because, after all, everyone knows that Mr. Hands is smarter than Doug Morris and Mel Lewinter.  Lucian Grainge?  He’s a glorified A&R guy with a bean counter mentality.  Hands played the Universal boys like a fiddle.  Do you really think he’d place the Fab Four’s music in the hands of such charlatans? When he can put it in its rightful place, in the bosom of Steve Jobs, and see it live forever?

What we do know is Apple’s got more of a future than major labels.  Which is why the Cupertino company is smart enough to immediately close down new music development at EMI.  It’s about the catalog baby, unless you can stunt.  Which is why Damian Kulash and OK Go are coming back.  Yes, that was part of the deal, Jobs insisted. Upon launch of the 3G iPad, there will be a new OK Go video, to bump sales thirty days after the Wi-Fi launch.  And, one year from now, when the 3-D iPad launches, the OK Go Rube Goldberg video will be free in 3-D for all purchasers.  Along with a gratis copy of "Up" in 3-D.

A 3-D iPad?

3-D TV makes no sense.  Sitting on the couch with those doofus glasses.  But every 3-D iPad will come with WHITE glasses!  Can you imagine the rage?  Haven’t heard from Kanye recently?  That’s because he’s part of the 3-D iPad launch!  He’s going to promote the white glasses!  Dr. Dre and Beats headphones?  Come on.  Monster compared to Apple?  Iovine’s no match for Jobs.  Whatever happened to that Jimmy sponsored high quality sound for computers…go the way of SACD and DVD-A?

Anyway, despite turning EMI into a catalog company, there will be a road open into the new Apple-owned EMI (for the record, the EMI name will be dropped…no, it won’t be called Apple Records, because of the Beatle conflict, the record company will just be another division of Apple Inc.)  Apple has brokered a deal with SonicBids, wherein wannabes can submit music to be used in iPad promotions.  One wonders how this works, because of the low quantity of music ultimately required and the vast number of submissions, but that hasn’t stopped SonicBids in the past, so…

In other words, Apple will be in the new music business, but only for songs they can use to cross-promote Apple products.  Furthermore, if you make a deal with Apple, you cannot tie in with any other company.  Steve loves his walled garden.  So, if you’re contemplating a deal with Procter & Gamble, don’t waste your time with SonicBids.

So what does this mean for music?

The story since the purchase of Lala has been cloud-based listening.  But now that Apple owns not only the Beatles, but the Beach Boys and the Band (what Steve refers to as the "Three B’s"), the company plans to drive down the price of music at the iTunes Store.  Yes, within thirty days, every EMI track will be a dime.  The major labels wanted higher prices??  Let them wrestle with LOWER prices!  Yes, music will be a loss leader, all to sell iPads, iPods and iPhones.  Everybody knows the money’s in hardware.  Furthermore, with streaming imminent, why not blow out MP3s?  It took Universal ten years after Napster to drop the price of the CD to ten bucks?  Apple can see that ownership is near extinction, they want to blow out product while they can.

As for the Beatles…  They will only be available in Apple Lossless format.  Yoko Ono insisted.  It’s a way of separating John from the legacy of Phil Spector, who famously wore that button "Back To Mono".  By only making high quality files available, fidelity will be luscious, you won’t get the compressed Wall of Sound and Phil can rot in jail, where Ono believes he belongs.

But, you say those lossless files take forever to download, they’re bandwidth hogs!

Not Apple’s problem.  You pay for your Wi-Fi.  And good luck downloading via AT&T on 3G, which is why Jobs will reveal the Verizon iPhone and iPads before the 3G model actually launches.

Controlling the music game, owning EMI and retail, forcing the other three major companies to play on his terms or die, Mr. Jobs is now moving into the touring sphere, where the majority of today’s music money resides.

A deal has been brokered with Live Nation.  With every concert ticket, you get a free download of the show within twenty four hours, IN VIDEO!  Well, not every concert, just those acts controlled by Front Line.  Yup, starts with the Eagles.  Then Van Halen, who will be back on the road, although Valerie Bertinelli will not be singing backup, Perez Hilton’s information is incorrect.  Irving’s plowing ahead with those acts who’ve collapsed all their rights and can make these deals.  Yes, that was Terry McBride’s concept, and his old charges the Barenaked Ladies, having a deal with EMI, will immediately make their concerts available on iPads too.

With so much power residing in Azoff and Rapino’s empire, acts under contract to labels will clamor for their companies to grant iPad concert rights too.  Soon, well, in two or three years, you know how slow the majors work, every concert ticket will come with a video.  Expect audio first.  You know how the majors like to dip their toes.  Then again, Jobs has hired Hilary Rosen to whip the labels into shape, telling them this is the second coming, to get on board NOW, not to screw up like they did ten years ago.

Then, there’s the true breakthrough.  iPads at the show.

Yes, your iPad is your ticket.  The screen will display a giant bar code.  And this will thwart scalpers…like they’re going to buy a boatload of iPads?  Then again, just like acts scalp their own tickets, there’s rumor of a back door deal between Azoff and Apple to do just this, sell discounted iPads to brokers, Azoff getting his money directly from Apple…

And once you’ve got your iPad at the gig, let the games begin!

Sure, you can tweet, and update your Facebook page.  But, for an extra fee, you can get backstage video, every fan’s true desire.  For even more money, you get a personal greeting from the band member of your choice, to keep forever (or as long as your iPad works…)  There’s been talk of a further opportunity, one involving intimate involvement with performers after the show, but so far this has only been legally cleared in Nevada.  Then again, Las Vegas is a burgeoning concert location.

Will iPads dominate at festivals?

Interesting question.  Do you want Coachella Crud on your iPad?  Or Stagecoach Schmutz?  There’s talk of a new device, much smaller, called the iWrist, but with such a small screen, it may be unworkable.

As for now, Steve Jobs illustrates his mercurial nature once again, doing the unexpected, swooping in and seizing an opportunity available to all, but making it work as a result of synergy.  Yes, Microsoft kicked the tires.  And Elevation Partners too.  But Microsoft has got no hardware, no way to maximize the value.  It made no sense for Ballmer to overpay.  Sure, he could put Beatle pictures and music on Bing, but that’s hard to truly monetize.

Palm’s got the device, but no money and no traction.  Bono and Paul McGuinness met with Guy Hands, but refused to put any of their own money into the deal.  Guy told them U2 might be the biggest band in the world, but he couldn’t sell the company on faith.  As for trusting Roger McNamee…that just elicited a laugh.

As for Google…  That was the reason for the Jobs/Schmidt summit last weekend

Jobs, Schmidt sighting a detente — or misdirection?

One, it distracted the press from sniffing out the EMI deal.  Two, it signaled a division of spoils, wherein Apple gets music and Google gets search.  Like two Mafia bosses, they divided up the landscape.  Then again, Google was worried about worldwide exploitation of the Beatles, the band is still seen as subversive in China.

So the major label era is finally finished.

Steve said there’s no way he’s paying "Hits".  Indie promotion is truly history.

Rob Stringer is cock-blocked.  Yes, he wanted to sell to Apple first, but his brother nixed the deal.  Sir Howard still believes he can resurrect the moribund Sony brand.  Ain’t that a laugh.  Although there is supposedly a PlayPad in development.

Lyor Cohen…  That’s why he’s selling his townhouse.  He knew, he’s out.  As for Edgar Bronfman, Jr….it’s like that old Paul Simon song, "Something So Right"…

When something goes wrong
I’m the first to admit it
I’m the first to admit it
But the last one to know…

So it’s Steve’s world.  We just live in it.  All you Apple haters can either get on the bus or be left behind.  Tech rules. And techies are smarter than music business people.  Even hedge funders are smarter than music business people. Come on, can’t you give Guy Hands credit, he played this beautifully!

Note: Clive Calder was outbid for EMI by Apple, he saw no reason to pay so much, he had no synergy, but expect him to buy both Warner and Sony in the aftermath, which he will run on the cheap, with Billy Ocean as head of A&R.

I get e-mail every day giving me shit for not offering solutions.

It’s very simple.  Make good music and don’t rip people off.

I know, I know, you want it to be more complicated than that, you want multiple entry points, you want to believe it’s about Twitter or Facebook or Spotify or…

Usually, anything but music.  Because music is hard.  Requires a ton of practice and moments of genius.  Speak to creators.  They know when they nail it.  The Stones don’t think everything is "Satisfaction" and U2 doesn’t believe everything they cut is "I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For".

Then again, I’m doing it again.  Pointing to those who’ve already made it.  You haven’t.  You’re frustrated.  You want to take your anger out upon someone.  You want someone to listen, to take you on a trip, from obscurity to ubiquity.  If it were that damn simple it would happen every day.

We’re in a fallow period in mainstream music.  No, I don’t want to talk about jazz or klezmer, or hear about the obscure person who makes a living playing music most people don’t give a shit about.

Kids would rather spend their time in the world of technology.  It’s easier.  A great idea triumphs.  Come on, you don’t know a teenager with an Internet idea?  Tell that kid to sit down at the piano and bang out a winning tune.  Can’t be done.  Because music is more than conception.

In other words, conception comes after tons of practice.  Only after paying your dues, learning everybody else’s music, becoming completely comfortable with the territory can you achieve moments of insight, that allow you to create brilliant work almost instantly.  Yup, it’s just that simple.  But the preparation’s hell.

And the reason music doesn’t drive the culture is the public doesn’t believe it’s vital.  Come on, if you want to know what’s going on do you play a record or surf the Web?  Used to be the artists were uncompromised, searching for truth, now they’re completely sold out, looking for endorsements from the same corporations the public abhors.

Huh?

Now I’m doing it again.  I’m getting too deep.

I’m just saying EVERYBODY knows a hit song when he hears one.  And if you can write one, you’ve got a momentary flash of notoriety.  If you can write a few, you’ve got a career.

If you can’t write any, you’re a nobody, complaining that no one will pay attention.

Shitty sports teams have shitty attendance.

Meanwhile, the athletes on those teams have years of dedication and practice invested in order to suck.  Do you really think just because you pick up an instrument and want to be famous you should be?

We live in an overwhelming world filled with over-zealous marketers trying to sell us mediocre wares.  But if we find one good thing, we tell everybody we know about it, we want others to share in the joy.

There I am, repeating myself again.

But you don’t want to believe that.  You want to believe it’s about getting an MBA, or having a spiffy business plan, or Daddy’s Money.

It’s about the music.  Now more than ever.

"The week before the health care vote, The Times reported that births to Asian, black and Hispanic women accounted for 48 percent of all births in America in the 12 months ending in July 2008. By 2012, the next presidential election year, non-Hispanic white births will be in the minority. The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven’t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935. Their anxieties about a rapidly changing America are well-grounded."

Frank Rich

The Rage Is Not About Health Care

"A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday took a look at the Tea Party members and found them to be just as anachronistic to the direction of the country’s demographics as the Republican Party. For instance, they were disproportionately white, evangelical Christian and ‘less educated … than the average Joe and Jane Six-Pack.’ This at a time when the country is becoming more diverse (some demographers believe that 2010 could be the first year that most children born in the country will be nonwhite), less doctrinally dogmatic, and college enrollment is through the roof. The Tea Party, my friends, is not the future."

Charles M. Blow

Whose Country Is It?

Does it remind you of the music business?

In other words, are the major labels the Tea Party?  Wanting things to return to a past that is so far distant that not only is it never coming back, many people aren’t even aware of it?

CDs?

History.

Files rule.  E-mail me all you want about how you love the silver discs, but you’re in the minority, you’re a Luddite (and don’t cite sales statistics, illegal acquisition of files online dwarfs ALL sales.)

Albums?

Gone.  Yes, you can reminisce, wax rhapsodic about the concept discs of yore, but you’re never going to get people to pay a lot to get an hour’s worth of unheard music again.

Terrestrial radio.  People hate ads.  They’re a tune-out.  The concept that people will willingly sit through minutes of unwanted sales spiels is gone.  Lobby against the DVR while you’re at it.  And the iPod.  Oops, rights holders tried that, didn’t work.

We’ve got a generation that believes music should be plentiful, and cheap.  And no matter how much you want to deny it, their ranks are growing every day and baby boomers inured to the old world are dying.  Or, to quote Bob Dylan, "He not busy being born is busy dying."

Doesn’t matter what Doug Morris says.  Nor Lucian Grainge.  Nor…does Mitch Bainwol still run the RIAA?

As for Bono and his manager protesting that people must pay for music…  Compare the number of people who go to the U2 show to the number who listen to music…  Even Sarah Palin has fans.  And Susan Boyle sold a hell of a lot more albums.

In other words, if you’re lobbying to drag us back into the last century, you’re fighting a losing battle.  Doesn’t matter if you believe you’re right, if you think file-traders are thieves, your minions are dwindling.  Hell, elected officials would rather take the money of Silicon Valley and the electronics manufacturers than that of the content creators…hell, they’ve got more of it!

Don’t get emotional.  It serves no purpose.  Don’t lament your job is evaporating.  Figure out how you can function in the new world.

There will always be people who shepherd talent to the market.

How will they be remunerated and how much?

Interesting questions.

The old days of the label getting the lion’s share of the money are dead.  Forget 360, that’s a tiny minority, how many people even have a major label deal?  360 is with the manager.  Who may take fifteen or twenty percent, but no more. Talent is in control.  How do you get a share of talent’s upside?

Major labels have historical rights that are worth something, but they might as well shut down new music development. Or restructure it with a lot less cash involved.  Because it’s a losing proposition.  There’s less revenue coming in and acts are doing it for themselves.

As for exhibition…  The concept of keeping the listener prisoner is gone.  You’ve got to entice people, prove your worth, there can be no bait and switch, you’ve got to be a partner with consumers.  How long has it been since the industry’s done that?  Not only the labels, but the touring outfits.  You can’t get a good ticket and you never know what the final price is until you’re just about to check out.

But the touring business thinks the gravy train will last forever.  Not noticing that fewer people paying more money for fewer shows is not a paradigm for ongoing success.

Then again, how many superstars do we have left?  How many acts that can truly live like rock stars?  You’ve got to be a musician today.  There may never be a rich and famous contract.  Only drugs and groupies and the high of playing live music on stage.