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.

He’s got a new autobiography, “Life’s Too Short.”

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/darius-rucker/id1316200737?i=1000664710803

 

 

 

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/d040cd30-232d-4955-b795-c51cf9de1988/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-darius-rucker

Most Jews are not one issue voters.

Do you park your most effective governors in the VP slot?

There’s this belief that the VP is entitled to the nomination after the President’s term is up. Biden was mad he didn’t get the nod in 2016. And in retrospect, he might have won if he’d run. But Trump didn’t think twice about Pence this year. So the question is, if Harris wins, does her VP automatically get the nomination after Kamala’s term(s) is up?

Now normally there’s a primary, but it didn’t make any difference on the Republican side, Trump didn’t even bother to debate, and on the Democratic side…Biden and his team and the party scared off anyone from running, ultimately to our detriment. (Then again, this short campaign leaves Harris fresh and unbattered.)

So…

I’d rather see Josh Shapiro or Gretchen Whitmer as president than Kamala Harris.

I know, I know, the ship has sailed. I get it. But these are two of the brightest lights in the Democratic party, do we really want to take them off the stage for four to eight years? And god forbid Kamala loses, will this tarnish her VP?

So there’s all this disappointment that Shapiro is not the VP.

Not me.

Sure, Pennsylvania is in play. But Nate Silver, who was pro-Shapiro, vocally, also wrote that the VP doesn’t really make that much difference. Yes, Pennsylvania is a swing state, but it’s not the only one. Harris would have to win more than PA. But…

Shapiro is for vouchers, there’s the sex “scandal” in his past, and he’s Jewish…

We Jews have been persecuted for centuries and are pessimistic. Ask a Jew, do they really want a Jewish candidate? Of course they’d like a Jewish president, but in order to be one, you have to win. And is America ready for a Jewish president?

Sure, in 1960 they said America was not ready for a Catholic president, and Kennedy won.

And no boomer believed growing up that we’d ever have a Black president, yet Obama won two terms.

But it’s not only Shapiro being Jewish, it’s also the fact that Kamala is a woman of color.

Believe me, I don’t think there was any antisemitism involved. After all, Harris is married to a Jewish man. And I can’t speak to Harris’s process, I can only speak to my own viewpoint and that of my fellow Jews.

Yes, I know Jews who are voting for Trump on his support of Israel and that alone. But I also know frummies, I know a lot of super-Orthodox Jews who have viewpoints radically different from my own. I’m not saying they can’t live how they want. Then again, the way some groups take over communities, live on welfare and don’t educate their children…

Jewish infighting. If you think Jews are a monolith, you’re not one.

And unlike Christian religions, Judaism is based on questioning. You don’t have to believe in God to be a Jew. All opinions are welcome, at least inside the camp. As far as outside…

Yes, there are pro-Palestinian Jews. Many from younger generations who did not live through 1967, never mind Munich and 1973, but they’re not jumping to the Republican side with the nomination of Walz, if anything they feel more comfortable with Walz than Shapiro on the issue of Israel.

But the rest of us…

Jews are about intellectual curiosity. About helping each other. Does this sound like the Republican ethos to you?

I’m not going to delineate every quality of the Jews. And there are heinous Jews. And Jews who vote Republican. But the majority of Jews vote Democratic, and if you think the fact that Walz is not as vocally pro-Israel as Shapiro means they’re going to vote for Trump or RFK, Jr., or sit out, you’re delusional.

Jews are practical. Because we’ve been victims of antisemitism forever. If a Jew tells you they’ve never experienced antisemitism they’re lying to themselves. I’ve experienced antisemitism from my earliest years, and it’s amped up since October 7th, but that does not make me a one issue voter. I want antisemitism to go, but my loyalty is not to Israel first, but the U.S. There’s this canard that all Jews put Israel over the U.S. That’s completely untrue. However, I must honestly admit that I like that Israel exists, that I know there’s a country where I can go and be accepted if antisemitism gets too far out of control. And if you don’t think this is possible, you’re probably a Holocaust denier.

As for Walz…

You can’t argue with his resumé. He didn’t grow up rich and he’s got a long history of standing up for the hoi polloi.

That’s what a lot of this Harris mania is all about. People feel like there’s someone standing up for them. And it isn’t even so much about Harris herself but the belief that something finally gave, that the dam has broken, that the old generations have been pushed aside, that we’re in a new era and someone intelligent can see who we are and what our needs are.

This is where Trump and Vance lose. Even the concept of MAGA. Not only was America not so great in the past, we’re all living in the present, with the future coming down the pike every day. Where’s the plan, where’s the hope. That’s one of the reasons Obama won, hope. Which is evidenced in Harris’s campaign, that things can change.

Biden was running against Trump. Believing if he just painted Trump negatively enough, he would win. That was not a strategy for victory.

Harris’s campaign seems to be running independently of Trump at this point, it’s got its own momentum, it’s dismissive of Trump, as if he doesn’t count, which is what the “weird” campaign is all about, like you can’t take Trump and Vance seriously, they’re cartoons, not worthy of your time and attention.

The momentum shifted just that fast. And it could shift back, that’s the nature of politics, and sports. But so far, Trump has been employing a scorched-earth, self-immolation campaign. He’s an out of control spinning top. He’s not the alternative he was in 2016, a man running against the system, he’s an egomaniac believing only he matters and victory is everything. You can’t win without the team, and politics requires a huge team, and Trump keeps taking aim at his compatriots.

As for Vance… A phony with no experience. An out of touch flip-flopper.

I’m not sure if it’s about issues or identities.

The bottom line is, can you teach old dogs new tricks? Can you convince anybody their beliefs are wrong? Have you ever tried to change the mind of a Fox viewer?

X is a cesspool. Not only pro-Trump/Vance, but filled with conspiracies and ad hominem attacks. I read an extensive post about Pizzagate earlier today. Yes, Hillary and the Democrats are running a child prostitution ring out of a pizza parlor? You’re not going to convince these people to vote for Harris.

So as far as informing the public…I’m not sure that makes a huge difference.

But if it comes down to identities… This is where Walz triumphs.

Shapiro would have outshone Harris, he’s no one’s number two.

But the ace in the hole is Walz’s oratorical powers. Man, this guy was meant to give speeches and relate.

I want you to watch this video:

https://tinyurl.com/mr22pra9

Just a few seconds will give you the flavor. This is not a natural born politician, this is not Joe Biden who spent his life in politics, this is a plain-speaking high school coach/teacher who you can relate to, who you can bond to, who you can get behind, who you feel good about. This guy is one of us, which Trump and Vance are not, and if you want to, you can even question Harris’s bona fides in this area, but not those of Walz.

So stop overanalyzing the VP pick. I’m down with Walz, and if anything he’s a net positive.

Minnesota is a great progressive state in the middle of the country that is seen as a red morass. Prince came from Minnesota, and continued to live in Minnesota. Al Franken came from Minnesota.

Can you criticize Walz and his positions? OF COURSE! It goes with the territory. But Walz is a good mouthpiece.

Harris added fuel to the fire. Right now she’s running ahead of Trump in the race.

Don’t discount those who hate the Democrats, those who embrace the values Trump espouses. But that’s all about hate, disparagement, whereas the Harris/Walz ticket is about hope, and the future.

This Jew is optimistic.