I’m sipping Flor De Cana and lime juice, it’s three a.m.

Maybe on the east coast.  But in L.A., it’s just shy of midnight.

I should be winding down, loading up my car and driving to Felice’s house for some shut-eye.  But I’m all revved up, buzzed, even though writing’s ultimately gonna keep me up all night, I have to.

I know these people who live in the West Valley.  So far out, it’s got a different area code.  Could even be a different time zone for all I know.  They may not lunch at the Palm, you might not see their names in "Hits", but they’re in the music business.  They’ve all got jobs, but their work is secondary to their avocation, putting on house concerts.  And one of these music lovers decided to go big time, to put on her own acoustic music festival on the Santa Monica Pier.

On one hand, it was a mistake.  This is a professional business.  You can’t compete with those who’ve dedicated 10,000 hours.  They know how to rip you off, scam you in a way you can’t foresee.  But Renee Bodie wanted to put on a festival that no one else would, and therefore she had to do it herself.

I was stunned that the sound was so good.  It’s so hard to get it right outside.

Richard Thompson reminded me of the days when an executive like Hale Milgrim would sign an act like him to a major label.  Natalie MacMaster was a real surprise.  I went from not caring to running right down front, needing to be closer to her magic.

But I was absolutely stunned by Bruce Cockburn.

I was talking to Russ & Julie, Renee’s West Valley counterparts, when I heard the P.A. system go live.  I walked out to hear Renee give her thank yous.  And then Bruce took the stage.

I bought my first Bruce Cockburn album back in the seventies, at Grammy N’ Granny, my favorite record store in Westwood.  Back when the record emporium was my shul, when I made a weekly pilgrimage every Friday afternoon.  I’d say I was their best customer, but Ken Russell used to come and buy an armful of soundtracks at a time.

Then Donnie Ienner gave Bruce a big time chance twenty years back.  But even though those Columbia albums are stellar, they didn’t break through.  Bruce Cockburn works the margins.  He’s not an acquired taste, he’s just a prisoner of the cognoscenti.  If you know…

I thought I knew.  But I HAD NO IDEA!

Bruce walked on stage wearing a thigh-length jacket that would keep the sand from your insides in the Sahara.  I wasn’t sure if it was a look, or whether, like the rest of us in attendance, he was fighting the unseasonable cold.

He picks up a green guitar, yes green, and starts playing in a unique way.  How he’s picking the notes, I can’t exactly tell.  He’s got both a lead and a bass line happening simultaneously.  It’s riveting.  I’m immediately transported to that place only music can take you.  One where the rest of the world doesn’t matter.

I’m slapping my thighs, caught up in the groove.

And then Bruce plays "Last Night Of The World".

I’ve got three versions on my computer, NONE of them are as good, as great, as the one I heard tonight!

The radio’s playing Superchunk and the Friends of Dean Martinez

Old acts are supposed to be old farts.  I don’t know how many people in attendance knew who these two referenced acts were.  But when Bruce sang this line, I swooned.  You see "Last Night Of The World" is one of my personal favorites.  It’s the song I play when things are imperfect, when I see the challenges, but have enough oomph, enough chutzpah, to carry on.

Midnight it was bike tires whacking the pot holes
Milling humans’ shivering energy glow
Fusing the space between them with bar-throb bass and laughter

Today a show is spectacle.  Handlers say the MTV generation demands it, that music is not enough.  But they’re wrong.  One man with one guitar can move the world.  Those in attendance tonight remember.  With their graying hair and lumpy bodies, they had to come out for that hit, that only music can give.  Bruce is thwacking the guitar strings, punctuating the licks with lyrics.  It’s a concoction only an alchemist can create.  Where before there was silence, now we were experiencing something exquisite, far more valuable than anything Tiffany can craft.

If this were the last night of the world
What would I do
What would I do that was different
Unless it was champagne with you?

What would you do if it truly was the last night of the world?  Log on to you bank account and see how much money you have?  Go sit in your automobile?  Luxuriate in your mini-mansion?  That would be sad.  If it’s truly the last night of the world, possessions, accoutrements no longer matter, we’re all equal.  It’s time to go out in the streets amongst the people and communicate, and party.

If it’s the last night of the world, I want to be at the gig.  A Bruce Cockburn show would be perfect.  Because it would make me feel fully alive before I die.

I’ve seen the flame of hope among the hopeless
And that was truly the biggest heartbreak of all
That was the straw that broke me open

I awoke to a tweet asking me if "the state of music has ever been THIS bad?"  I responded that tech drives the world today.  And that’s truly heartbreaking to those of us who remember when it was the opposite, when you had to listen to the radio, to records, to know what was really going on.

Tonight I had hope.  And I’d been hopeless.  There were no paparazzi, no TV cameras.  I thought I was at the Santa Monica Pier for an evening of entertainment.  But that’s not what I got.  What I experienced was the ESSENCE OF LIFE ITSELF!

You play these records at home.  Over and over again.  You go to the show and the performances don’t quite capture the magic, they’re perfunctory.  Without the studio wizardry, they just don’t measure up.  BUT NOT TONIGHT!  My favorite song came early in the set, before I expected it.  I could barely contain myself.  I was singing along so loud I was afraid of irritating my neighbors, I was bouncing in my seat like I was spastic.  That’s what music does, it takes over your body, you’re no longer in control, YOU’RE POSSESSED!

I’m looking up at the sky.  With those clouds off in the distance, and the full moon illuminating the surrounding the landscape.  On one hand, I’m so far from home.  Where I grew up, the ocean was on the other side.  Where you went to college, who your parents were, they were all that mattered.  Rejecting that, I got in my car and drove to the land of the Beach Boys, where all could be accepted, where a bit of fun with your work was not taboo.  L.A.’s where you come to reinvent yourself, where you come to take chances.  Renee Bodie took a chance and started her own festival.  I was the beneficiary.  Bruce Cockburn’s performance of "Last Night Of The World" was the best thing I’ve heard all year.

This YouTube performance is good, but nowhere near as great as tonight’s performance.  Because playing solo, Bruce Cockburn had to carry the entire tune, he had to be the engine that kept the song moving forward.  Tonight, he was a veritable FREIGHT TRAIN!:

LA Acoustic Music Festival June 6 – 7

That’s Flom and Steven for those scoring at home.

Jason Flom specializes in signing cartoon characters.  Steven Tyler IS a cartoon character.

Only problem is, the road to riches for newbie cartoon acts is broken.  You can’t make a video for MTV illustrating your excesses and end up selling ten million copies.  Who cares if the music is forgettable!  Isn’t that the essence of TV stardom, the evanescence?  Hear anybody talking about Tim Allen recently?  Or Chandler Bing?  What was Chandler Bing’s real name…WHO CARES!

But Steven Tyler is a legitimate rock star with a string of hits under his belt with his band Aerosmith.  Whose latest management team has garnered the band tons of dough, but has done nothing to burnish the act’s image, promote them, build them other than a cash-in with Guitar Hero.

Yes, Aerosmith was first.  They made a fortune.  But you can’t play the game with your friends!  It’s solo mode only!  That’s like being on Facebook with no friends. HUH?

Howard Kaufman may know how to extract big bucks from concert promoters, but that’s it.  And eventually, you burn out the marketplace.  Aerosmith ticket sales are off.  Fleetwood Mac is soft.  Def Leppard is past its peak.  Overpriced seats for the same show year after year go unfilled.  The public has moved on.  How do you get the public back?  BY ADDING SOME EXCITEMENT!

Where is the Web play with the Fleetwood Mac tour?  You’d think the iPhone is some futuristic gadget from the "Jetsons".  Where’s the special hook-up section at the gig…boomers are divorced, they need to get laid too…all triangulated via Craigslist or the band’s app.  Where are the salacious messages texted by the audience on the big Verizon screen during the show.  Where is the contest where an audience member gets to take the stage and sing "Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around" with Stevie Nicks?  You might say this is sacrilegious, I’d say the religion’s long gone, with the band’s hits behind them.  The new century is all about getting the audience involved, and Howard Kaufman is only interested in taking a check!

Believe me, Jason Flom likes a check too.  But suddenly, he’s realized the old game is up.  Sure, he made a deal to bring Lava to his old mentor Doug Morris’ Universal house.  But what about that deal with Cherry Lane?

Jason’s trying to survive.

Is Jason twenty five, has he spent 10,000 hours online?  No.  But he’s tenacious, and he realizes if he’s going to continue to be a force in the music business he must change his ways.  Which is why he’s suddenly gone where the action is, MANAGEMENT!

Anybody can book a superstar’s tour.  That’s what an agent is for.  But career direction?

Assuming he’s willing, and by signing with Flom and the guy from Nickelback’s team it appears he is, there are HUGE opportunities for Tyler in the marketplace. He’s our number one American rock icon.  He’s our Mick Jagger.

Does Tyler want to whore himself out to corporations?  Jason can certainly facilitate that.  But what’s more interesting is what Jason did with Antigone Rising…the first new act promoted by Starbucks.

How successful the album ultimately was is irrelevant.  The point is, Jason pulled off the deal!  He got in touch with all the parties, wooed them and got it done. Have you seen Jason in action?  He’ll call everybody he knows, not be afraid to look uninformed, and then synthesize all the data he collects into a plan that is positively today, that he wills to work.

I don’t think the future is Jason breaking new acts.  Because right now, it’s hard, there’s not that much money there, it’s not where the action is.  But rehabilitating old warhorses?  That can be done.  If you’re innovative!

Irving Azoff’s got tons of ideas over at Ticketmaster.  But needing to raise Ticketmaster’s image and finalize the deal with Live Nation, Irving just can’t get into the trenches with so many of Front Line’s acts like he used to.  So there are opportunities for new players, who are willing to think outside the box and deliver what some of Irving’s team just cannot come up with.

Do I know the plan?

No.

But I know that Steven Tyler must have been unhappy.  And I know that Jason Flom must have pitched him.  And I know that Tyler wouldn’t have jumped unless there was a true management partner involved, i.e. John Greenberg from Nickelback.  And that Tyler wouldn’t have made a move unless he planned TO DO SOMETHING!

Anybody can play live.  Anybody can get on TV.  Anybody can release a record no one buys.  But can anybody have an impact on the culture at large, can anybody make a big splash?

Odds are best with a proven name.  With no negativities attached.  Steven Tyler is the perfect rock star.  Not only can he still sing his hits on stage, he’s smart and personable and wows you one on one.  There are numerous opportunities here.  Certainly greater than singing "Dream On" in sheds every summer.

But more fascinating is Jason Flom’s move.  Jason can see what his contemporaries cannot.  That the old game is dying.  He’s not giving it up entirely, he knows there’s a process of evolution.  So now he runs a record company, but is also a manager.  And a publisher too.  Endless pennies paid over decades are just as good as dollars paid today, but never again.

Jason, unlike his old label brethren, is not a liar.

But he is not sans ego.

Can he subvert his to truly serve Tyler?  Can he come up with an innovative plan, not only execute it?

We’ll see!

Jason Gets Tyler

If Susan Boyle can get tens of millions of hits on YouTube, how come a new music act can’t?

Don’t think Ms. Boyle shocked Simon Cowell and the other judges with her appearance on "Britain’s Got Talent".  They knew exactly what they had.  And manipulated it and exposed it to greatest effect.  You’re gonna go on TV looking like you just came out of the shower?  You’re gonna get no media training?  The judges will have never seen you before?  They don’t take risks like that on TV, everything’s calculated, manipulated, for best effect.

Something that the music business is expert in.  Only the end result has not been about music, not for a very long time.  It’s about getting someone really pretty, who radiates sex, explicitly or implicitly, and matching them with a song so bland and meaningless, or so rhythm-heavy as to have no recognizable melody, and shoving it down the public’s throat.

Do you really think people are that stupid?

Obviously some are.  That’s why this crap is selling.  But it’s not selling much.  With only one platinum album so far this year, it seems most people don’t care.  Is music history?  NO, people just don’t want what’s being sold!  Believe me, if there was a new Beatles, it would be every bit as big as Susan Boyle.  Only one problem, a new Beatles doesn’t exist.

Most people don’t want that Top Forty crap.  It works if you’re twelve, or looking to get lucky in a club, but you can’t sing it.  Or, if you can sing it, it’s meaningless.

I heard "Take It Easy" on the radio yesterday.  Just the intro guitar sound alone put a smile on my face.  And you can just see that girl in the flatbed Ford.  "Take It Easy" doesn’t exist in some rarified universe, one in which plastic surgery is a requirement for admission, rather it sounds like it’s sung by the guy sitting next to you at the bar.  Do you really think we can have no anthems again?

Sure, they’ve got to be sold.  But we’ve got to be selling the right thing!

We need melody.  We need pure voices.  You may see this as a sellout, a step back from the punk and alternative ethos, but neither of those genres mean much anymore.  They’re like hula-hoops.  In a world where the bicycle has been banished.  We’ve got  ton of niches that special interests can love, but no Obama, who can get everybody’s attention.

What kind of fucked up world do we live in where the President is bigger than any rock star?  Not one I’ve lived in previously.  But Obama doesn’t pander, he assumes a bit of intelligence, he speaks the truth.  Meanwhile, the musical acts are so whored out you believe they’d change any position for a buck.  As for hating Obama…  WHO CARES!  You’re paying attention!  Rolling Stones fans hated the Beatles, not everybody loves  Susan Boyle, BUT THEY’RE PAYING ATTENTION!

Beatle records have verses, and choruses, even bridges.  Is it so hard to write in this format?  When John sings you feel an emotion that touches your heart. There’s a richness to Paul McCartney’s voice.  Hell, it’s these same elements that shot the boy bands to fame.  Great voices and great songs.

But those songs were meaningless.  Written by behind the scenes men for adolescents.  Whereas the Beatles and the Eagles were men, singing from an adult perspective.  Rather than another barely pubescent child singing about love with no knowledge, how about the words of someone who’s been there and done that!

Sure, modern media allows endless niches.

But the Super Bowl ratings are still gigantic.  And the original "Survivor" finale was too.  Word can be spread instantly on something new and different and good. Imagine if all the buzz were about something truly great.  Imagine if the public tuned in and said…SHIT, THAT’S GOOD!  A whole country could know about a new musical act OVERNIGHT!  And if the act had the goods, it could SUSTAIN!

This is what happened with Elton John.  One incredible hit song and two great albums released almost on top of each other.   There was MANIA!

We need authentic artists.  Who are making STATEMENTS!  Ones other than I NEED MONEY!  Artistry involves having something to say.  And you only have to listen to the Black Eyed Peas hit to know today’s acts have nothing to say.

Let’s utilize the new media to truly break stars.  Maybe have a TV show where we exhibit new acts every week, with the performances instantly available on YouTube, Hulu…EVERYWHERE!  Maybe make it a competition, who can knock off the reigning champion.  Maybe the public votes, maybe it doesn’t.  But the public is certainly involved.  There’s instant merch.  Made to order IMMEDIATELY!  You can order a t-shirt with the band’s name and yours online and get it within the week.  You can interact on the social network with the band.  There are homemade video competitions.

Maybe the original TV show does not get incredible ratings.  Maybe it premieres in the summer when expectations are lower and the landscape is less crowded. But never forget, we’re talking about LAUNCHING stars.  It’s about starting a CAREER!  Not making everybody aware of a singer, but introducing an ARTIST! Someone with warts, who’s not afraid of offending the powers-that-be, maybe speaks up about gay rights, yet is so great musically that everybody pays attention.

Mainstream doesn’t have to be crap.  We just need people interested in quality to take over the process.  Maybe it’s not about record companies at all.  Maybe the star is built by Live Nation, or Ticketmaster.  It’s not a Clive Davis overmanaged act, but an edgy, imperfect performer who has got so much charisma and so much talent that we can’t help but watch and get involved!

It needs to be a tribe.

Instead of running Oprah’s new TV network, Tom Freston should be in charge of resuscitating Sirius XM.  Because he was there when MTV blew up as a result of the "I Want My MTV!" campaign!

FM radio was biggest when it was a club.  The station filled all your needs.  Not only  musical, but informational too.  The deejay was the ringleader, the news was alternative, it felt like being in a room with the Little Rascals.  You knew about the shows coming to town, you knew the new tunes, you BELONGED!

All that is gone on Sirius XM.  The growth of the service, the buzz, is history.  What they’ve got now is a replication of what’s on the FM band, but sans commercials.  With all the research they’ve done, don’t they realize people hate terrestrial radio and are tuning it out?  Why?  Because of the short playlists, the endless repetition and the jive deejays.  All of which have been transferred to most Sirius XM channels.  It’s hard to spread the word on the service, because not only do most people not want to pay for radio, those that ARE paying are PISSED!

Satellite radio isn’t going to be sold by the media.  It’s going to be sold by its fans.  Until the fans are motivated to spread the word, Sirius XM is screwed.

Where’s the Sirius XM social network?  Where are the bumper stickers, quoting Howard Stern?

NOW is the time to play up the Howard angle.  When we’ve got a vast wasteland in the mainstream and Howard is better than ever.  Where’s the site with Howard clips, other interactive features to grow his presence and audience?

As for music…

Do we really need to hear "Won’t Get Fooled Again" on Classic Vinyl?  Certain tracks NEVER need to be played again.  What gets a listener motivated is when he hears something that jogs his memory, that he wasn’t expecting.  Instead of analyzing tune-outs, the team at Sirius XM should be analyzing TUNE-INS!  What makes people fire up the service, what makes them keep subscribing?  You can’t live on fear.  You’ve got to be focused on growth, not loss.

No more cliches.  No more stupid bumpers.  If satellite radio is not hip and different, not an exotic club that you feel proud to be a member of, it’s got no future.

Sure, there are economics involved.  But the key element of Sirius XM’s survival is the programming.  And too much of it is repetitive, without hooks.

Where’s the stunting on Sirius XM?  The type of event that built MTV, but is absent on satellite?  Like giving away an artist’s house, or allowing a fan to be a roadie or…

It’s about buzz more than superstardom.

I love satellite radio.  It’s light years better than any computerized service.  But it’s got a bad image and now the programming is too mediocre on too many stations.  It’s like they’re living in the twentieth century.  There’s no hipness, no edge.

They’re doomed unless they motivate and involve their audience.