Jim Messina left, Richie Furay jumped ship for momentary success with J.D. Souther and Chris Hillman, and Messina and Furay’s replacements, Timothy B. Schmit and Paul Cotton, carried on with original members Rusty Young and George Grantham to a new label, never to have success until Timothy B. jumped ship too and a band that was barely Poco finally started getting radio traction.

I love "Heart Of The Night".

Not as much as the debut, one of those perfect albums that was a bit too twangy for a nation that embraced the sanitized country of Crosby, Stills & Nash.

But I’ve got a secret place in my heart for Timothy B.’s shining moment, before he left for the greener pastures of the Eagles.

Most acts can’t sing live as well as they do on record.  This is not only the curse of the auto-tuned mafia, but even the vaunted CSN had a hard time nailing those perfect harmonies live, just check out that Woodstock performance. But Timothy B., with his long hair from the seventies, the man presently in the background who used to be in the foreground, still has the pipes, which he demonstrated so well last week in the desert, at the Stagecoach festival.

We live in a networked society.  Information passes from individual to individual, not top down from gatekeepers to the hoi polloi.  And when I got the below message about Poco’s performance last weekend, I had to click through.

Dial up this video.  Click the HQ button, yes, this video was shot in hi-def.  And click the button to the right of HQ, to blow the image up full screen.

This performance was not made for fame, not even that much cash.  But in it beats the heart of rock and roll.  An aged band reunites for the DVD, they bury old hurts for the revenue.  But watching this performance, you think Poco just did it for the joy.

I’ve been thinkin’ ’bout
All the times you told me
You’re so full of doubt
You just can’t let it be
But I know
If you keep on comin’ back for more
Then I’ll keep on tryin’
I’ll keep on tryin’

That’s what bands do, they keep on tryin’.  Sometimes for decades.  If you come, they’ll play.  You’re the reason they do it, they can’t give up.  Sure, they need the bread, but even more the rush, the energy coming from their fans up over the lip of the stage to them.

It’s got little to do with magazine covers, the trappings are the goal of the wannabes, who want the big record deal and the TV exposure, who need fame more than musical satiation.

But the real bands do it for the music.  It doesn’t make sense without the music.  It’s not about hair and makeup, it’s about picking one note after another.

And I feel so satisfied when
I can see you smile
I want to confide in
All that is true
So I’ll keep on tryin’
I’m through with lyin’
Just like the sun above
I’ll come shinin’ through
Yes I will
Keep on tryin’
I’m tired of cryin’
I got to find a way
To get on home to you

That’s what the members of Poco did last weekend.  They got home to their audience.  It’s a long strange trip, but when you’re in it for the music, it’s worth it.

"Keep On Tryin’" begins about a minute in

From: Amy Primeaux
Re: The Idolmaker

Do you really care about this stuff?  As a fan of real music, as I believe you to be, how can you stand to spend so much time paying attention to this crap?

I saw something last weekend at Stagecoach that I thought I would never see, and it was beautiful.  It was the reunion of a very important, but inexplicably not massively successful band–Poco.  Forty-one years after they began, the current band members got together with most of the former members and celebrated their history.  The reunion included Timothy B. Schmit, who hadn’t performed with Poco in 32 years.  But the highlight of the reunion was the performance of the band’s original drummer, George Grantham, who suffered a massive stroke on stage five years ago.  He was able to sing with his old bandmates again.  Something most people, including perhaps himself, never thought would happen.  Among those loyal fans there who knew the story, there was not a dry eye.

The participation of Schmit and Grantham at this event was only announced about three weeks beforehand, and yet many fans flew across the country to see it.  The performance was not perfect, since there was not a lot of rehearsal time.  But the music was still great.  As a fan who only found Poco about eight years ago, I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had the chance to see this reunion.

Yet for all they have accomplished, this band still cannot seem to gain the attention and respect they deserve from either the public or some in the industry.  Jan Wenner wants Madonna in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but not Poco?  That’s why I stopped paying attention to the RRHOF a few years ago.  But it still rankles that there is such an institution and Poco is not part of it and probably never will be.  There’s a story there, and I think it is a lot more interesting than whatever the American Idol flavor of the minute is.  Now here are some YouTube videos worth watching:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y-fnSFdl1Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VQelAO0Uf8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4giaSIVLMuM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th7b9rrpJ_U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEDVhOPzKBM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv4xM3_ETlE

Amy Primeaux
Ocean Springs, MS

My favorite promoter is Don Strasburg.  He doesn’t care about the label, none of the traditional metrics L.A. insiders triangulate, he’s into artist development, the desire of people to see a band and the increase that results.  If you want to know who’s up and coming, or who is not truly dead, get ahold of Strasburg, like a great music exec he doesn’t have to think about the answers to these questions, his instincts, based on years of promoting shows, from his days at Colorado College forward, allow him to give an instant answer.  It’s a classic example of Malcolm Gladwell’s "Blink".  A true expert knows the answer right away, his training delivers the goods.

Which is one of the problems at major labels.  The training the executives have gotten there no longer squares with a changed music landscape, where record sales are a diminished part of the equation, and oftentimes don’t generate significant touring and merch revenues.  I’m speaking of the thirty and fortysomething execs, not the baby boomers who lived through the days of the Beatles, Zeppelin and Boston, the killing of rock by disco.  Rather those who believe U2’s "Joshua Tree" is the best album ever.  Who were addicted to MTV, but had favorite acts before the channel ever launched.

I can hang with the promoters of yore.  Too many are into the business deal, what is the gross.  Same deal with the agents.  Kind of like this article about the declining revenues at residency shows in Vegas:

No Gans, Celine or Elton — What Next, Las Vegas?

It’s an interesting debate, a discussion, supply and demand, ticket prices, economics…but it’s got very little to do with music.

One can go back to the early heyday of the Fillmores and say people went for the scene, but even though one wanted to be there, at the happening, the focus in the late sixties, especially the seventies, was on the music. That’s what I remember about going to a show.  I wanted to hear the SONGS!  I did not go to meet girls, I didn’t need a friend to accompany me to attend.  The concept of sitting in the dark listening to those songs I played in my living room positively thrilled me.  That’s what I believe the concert experience is.  But speaking with Strasburg, I wonder if the younger generation feels the same way.

Don says the youngsters are all about the good time.  Sure, the music is part of the attraction, but it’s about the hang.  Let me go to the show and connect, with the known and unknown.

You can expand this concept.  Top Forty music is not about the music, it’s not about sitting on the floor with the album cover and digesting the tracks.  Rather it’s about spinning the cuts at the club, they’re the grease that helps you get laid.  So are young ‘uns even looking for the same experience baby boomers cherished?

The younger generation’s got Facebook, they’re IM’ing and texting all the time.  Each kid in town knows every other kid, even if he or she goes to a completely different school.  It’s about a gang, a tribe of people all going to a location to hang.  Have things changed so much that whatever we had before was lost?

Think about the absence of chairs in venues.  You never stood at the show in the sixties, nor during most of the seventies either.  The Whisky had a pit right in front of the stage, but the rest of the club was filled with seats.  You sat down, maybe had a drink, and paid attention.  It was about the music, not rubbing shoulders with wannabe partners.

People might stand for the encore at the arena, at other hard seat venues, but mostly there was a respect for the sound.  A show wasn’t an extravaganza, unless that’s what the act was truly purveying.  Alice Cooper was all about theatre, but the other acts didn’t compete on this level.  If you went to see Clapton, the music was enough, no one expected anything more.  Now, big acts are afraid to tour without all the production, they believe the audience EXPECTS IT!

Two weeks ago, I saw the band O.A.R.  My friend Steve laughed when the singer said the next track was from their "new album".  Does anybody give a shit about the album anymore?  Does anybody give a shit about any of the tunes the band is playing, or is it more about being there, the vibe?

I don’t think O.A.R. could write a hit track, not even if Diane Warren and Desmond Child were locked up in the same room with them.  But it doesn’t make any difference, that’s not what they’re selling.

O.A.R. is selling tickets.

And Don Strasburg says tickets sales for younger acts are based on the experience on the other side of the stage, the good times not of the players, but the attendees.  This seems backwards to me.  I’ve gone to shows that have been one tenth full, but some were the best gigs I ever attended.  Could a youngster have the same experience today?  Is that experience even on his radar?

I write all this to illustrate the generation gap.  The classic acts are selling the tunes, but unfortunately, they haven’t written a good one in decades.  It’s all nostalgia, which is creepy.  Did you go see your parents’ acts in the sixties? Absolutely not.  So the electricity of a show, the feeling of a happening, is completely absent.

The younger acts are either chasing the elusive, little dividend paying Top Forty hit, or are selling the experience. So when you listen to the favorites of the jam bands and the alternative rockers and don’t hear anything resembling a hit song, you’re usually right.  It’s about the vibe, the attitude, the culture more than the song, the verse, chorus and riff.  We’ve got scenes, but few superstars.  Not only do we have no Cat Stevens, we’ve got no one resembling Peter Frampton.  Who could not only rock, and play, but sing songs that were catchy, that stuck to your bones AND your brain.

The industry can either lead or follow.  We can deliver what the audience expects, or reeducate people.  But you’re not going to get a lot of sympathy from the usual suspects.  The labels want something they can sell, instantly.  And the promoters want something that will sell tickets, instantly.  Used to be the label bought out clubs, provided tour support to get acts started, but that’s when FM radio play was key and you could break rather quickly on the combined effects of touring and airplay.  Now, developing an act takes incredible time.

So, O.A.R. is on the road for a decade, and no one over forty cares.

And major labels hype Top Forty wonders and no one over twenty five cares, and almost no one wants to see these "performers" live.

Oh, what a sad sad state we’re in.

That’s what Tommy Mottola did so well, following in the steps of legendary, antiquated, Clive Davis.  He created an IMAGE!  You didn’t sell who the person actually was, but who the audience wanted them to be!

Everyone was aspirational.  If only you could party with Mariah…  You had no idea she was a junk food junkie in real life, hell, you had no idea who she was, other than the girl with the voice prancing in the videos.

This Susan Boyle story is amazing.  A prepackaged video is released by Simon Cowell, fanning the flames of her obscurity to ubiquity story.  Unfortunately, it’s not true.  She’s been trying to make it for eons.  New videos keep surfacing of the way she was…

That’s today’s clip, Susan’s rendition of "The Way We Were". You’ll be stunned, she’s thin, almost fuckable.  As for her vocals?

Not quite as good as her version of "Cry Me A River" from 1999.

Nor as good as her take on "Killing Me Softly".

We can analyze the impact on the Susan Boyle juggernaut, but more interesting is the impact on those with more talent, who are not beneficiaries of train-wreck publicity/hysteria.

If you’re trying to remake someone, trying to project a perfect image, not long after you release your finished product, Awful Plastic Surgery will post the before pictures.  And then TMZ and Perez will pick up on them and spread them (hell, I found out about the "Way We Were" video on Mario Lavendeira’s site…he reaches the target demo, those interested in music, possibly better than ANYBODY!)

Eventually, your complete resume will end up online.

Not only where you went to school, but your summer camp pictures, videos of you in the talent show…  Your old love will unload your story on Facebook…

That’s the price for playing in the public eye.

But it’s even worse.  That’s the price for being a PERSON these days.  Unless you’re willing to live in a dark closet alone, your life is public property.  The only question is, does anybody other than a small circle of friends care?

Get injections for Trout Pout, word is on the street almost immediately.

Fuck up in concert because you can’t really sing and a homemade video revealing your screw-ups will be online the next day.  Have you been following the Britney mistakes?  She may be trying to rehabilitate her image in the straight press, but anybody who follows her online knows she’s looney-tunes.

Madonna falls off a horse and blames it on the paparazzi?

Truth outs.  Photographers were nowhere near the accident.

This is a SEA CHANGE in publicity/image-making.  In other words, you can no longer spin the public.  You can have friends in the press, but didn’t you hear that newspapers are dying?

So you have to ask yourself what you’re selling, and focus on THAT!

In the music world, we focus on music.  On one hand that sounds simple, on another REVOLUTIONARY!  Because it hasn’t been about music in oh-so-long, certainly not in the mainstream.

Looking good has just gotten demoted.

If you’re a product of handlers, the truth will out.  If you can’t sing a note and are auto-tuned, if you have ghost writers, you’d better be proud of this, because the public is going to know the truth soon.

So reveal the truth first.  It’s not about holding back, but delivering more info.  If you reveal all your warts on your site, people will soon ignore them, will stop playing a game of Gotcha! and focus on what you’re truly selling. Rather than holding information back, publicity reps need to focus on getting info OUT!

Susan Boyle’s publicity is mega, but those truly interested, outside of Britain, are a niche at best.

This week, the number one album is by Rick Ross, it sold a grand total of 157,544 copies.  Pretty stinky in a nation of 300 million.

But let me speak a language you’ll understand.  The vaunted Miley Cyrus?  The soundtrack of her supposed hit movie?  After five weeks in release, it’s got a cume of 658,835, and the movie’s already slipped to number 8, on its way to oblivion.

So all that publicity, it doesn’t deliver the success of yore.  There are no diamond sellers like in the nineties.  We all take a peek at the train-wreck, most of us move on.  Those that last have substance, they’re not creatures of some marketer’s dream.

We live in a changed world.

This is significant, on both sides of the equation.

1. Coran finally gets another hit act, it’s no longer DMB and the wannabes at Red Light.
2. A rock manager finally gets a big country act.

You might shit upon country, but that’s where the action is.  They’re singing songs.  Can you call that crap on Top Forty songs?  I’d call them RECORDS!  There are few melodies and too many drum machines.  Those cuts are made for bumping and grinding.  Country music is made for listening.

I’m with that "Newsweek" reporter, who marveled at all the references to kids

Murder On Music Row

Country used to have an edge.  My buddy Pete Anderson would love to bring it back.  But I’m thinking we’ve just got to move the needle a little bit, and suddenly we’ve got the rock business we used to have, the one that triumphed in the seventies.

Kenny Chesney may already be the number one American touring act.  But his last album stiffed.  We can argue all day long about its contents, but more interestingly, radio is no longer the country driver it used to be.  Country listeners have iPods, SiriusXM, online stations.  Are they really going to sit through all those fucking commercials on the terrestrial band?

I say no.

So this unshackles country music from its traditional backbone.  Suddenly, all those Music Row maestros become less powerful.  It was about playing ball with the majordomos, who controlled the gatekeepers.  But if the gatekeepers are declining in power, concomitantly, the labels mean less.  But there’s still a demand for country music.  Where is the audience going to go, RAP?

And with the decline of radio, there can be a broadening of the format.  Not every track has to be family-based with Christian values, suddenly, the field is more wide open.

But too many of the old players are stewed in their old juices, beholden to the old names and games.  But Coran Capshaw is not.

Coran knows infrastructure.  Not only did he build the Dave Matthews Band, he built MusicToday.  He’s got ATO.  He knows every aspect of the business inside and out.  And the business is now playing into his hand.  It’s about YOUR team, not influencing intermediaries.  It’s a direct connection between you and your fans.  The DMB does this best.  To have Coran and his team supervise fan ticket sales, ticket club doings for Tim, is a great step forward.  It’s not only direction with Coran, Red Light gets down in the pit and moves the ball.

But Coran’s never had another success.  He inherited Phish, but all the other acts he’s got with a name are has-beens.  Can Coran leverage Tim McGraw to a wider berth?

It’s all about touring.  Tim’s a superstar.  The old boy network is gone.  Suddenly, Nashville goes from backwater to mainstream (even though headquartered in Charlottesville!)  If they just took off the cowboy hats and lost the banjos they’d be closer to Lynyrd Skynyrd than Dolly Parton or George Jones.  When are the country acts going to go after their rightful audience, boomers who lived through the seventies and younger people who want melody!

Miranda Lambert’s "Gunpowder & Lead" is a better rock track than anything by the Hold Steady or TV On The Radio.

Keith Urban can play the guitar better than anybody in Nickelback.

Taylor Swift may be young, but she’s a better singer-songwriter than all those twentysomething waifs north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

The future is in country, or something quite like it.

It’s not the final resting place for has-beens like Bon Jovi or wannabes like Jessica Simpson, but a phoenix ready to rise if it’s taken seriously, adds a bit of true cred, emphasizes electric guitars and is willing to have an edge.

Kid Rock figured it all out.

And now Coran’s got skin in the game.

It’ll be fun to watch!