If I get one more e-mail from an act telling me that their worthless music was featured in some lame TV show I’m gonna puke.

I don’t give a flying fuck that some hipster music supervisor with no budget featured a few seconds of your lame track.  And neither does the public.

In an era where music lives online, where careers are built from the bottom up, on the road, do you really think that minimal TV exposure is going to give you your big break?  Actually, e-mail me that your stuff’s been in TV and I know you’re desperate to make it, not willing to put in the hard time it takes to build yourself on the road, in some cases as long as a decade!

Bottom line, do people like your music?  One fan can spread your story  more than  a zillion impressions in mainstream media.  But you’re looking to quantify your success, bring something home to show mommy and daddy.  But the landscape is more amorphous, more confusing than that.  You probably won’t know you’ve made it until you can buy a house.  And chances are it won’t be featured on "Cribs", which isn’t even on MTV anymore, is it?

Don’t tell me about the VMA ratings.  As if the number of people watching determines whether something is good.  They didn’t tune in for the music, but to ogle celebrities, oftentimes celebutantes, famous for nothing.  If your goal is to be featured on TMZ and PerezHilton, this is your game, but this has got nothing to do with music.

What I just can’t understand is why people think they’re good.

One thing was better in the old days, only the great got to be exposed on a wide scale.  Sure, there were the evanescent pop idols, but the acts who you were subjected to ad infinitum on FM radio were light years better than these idiots e-mailing me about their TV placements today.  Grand Funk Railroad, a band reviled in its heyday, is better than anything on MySpace, the filter of yesteryear weeded out the utter crap.

But as lame as the purveyors are, that’s how confused the public is.  People are looking for what to listen to.  And they can’t trust radio, with too many commercials and jive jocks, or newspapers, with hipster writers recommending albums that may sound good to an English major, but elude the rest of us.  The only people they can trust are their friends.  And, in case you’re online deficient, in today’s world oftentimes your friends are people you’ve never even met.  Furthermore, amongst the younger, Twitter-addicted youth, there’s a collective consciousness that defines what breaks through on a mass level. And this collective consciousness has got a shit detector nonpareil.  They remember " The Macarena", they can enjoy a trifle, but if you want to be embraced, if you want to last, you’ve got to be real.  And they don’t abandon their favorites.  But getting into their bosom is tough.

It’s much easier to play by the old rules.  But get a song in a TV show and try to book a gig.  Gonna be very difficult.  You’re better off playing at the local bar, with a ratio of 80% covers to 20% originals.  Not only will you be honing your chops, you’ll be garnering an audience, if you’re good.  And people will spread the word and bring others down to see you.

If you’re waiting to ride on the magic carpet of the music supervisor and major label A&R man, be prepared to be dropped off very soon, usually not far from where you departed.  They’re about money, not careers.  And if they get any traction, they’ll jam you down the audience’s throat like an online stalker.

Oh yeah, have the tables turned completely yet?  No!  Most music is still acquired in the CD format.  But that’s paid for music.  It’s dwarfed by stolen/traded music.  AC/CD was kept alive by P2P.  Pink Floyd too.  Kids discovered this music and then told all their friends all about it.  Are you as good as AC/DC?  AC/DC is so good, they don’t even sell their music at the iTunes Store.  They haven’t played live since the turn of the millennium.  The music itself is keeping the band alive.

Is your music that good?

No.

So, either give up or admit to yourself that you’re a journeyman.  That you’re not John Lennon, never mind Paul McCartney. Almost no one is.  There’s room for a mediocre lawyer, a competent physician, but not an average musician, not in the Big Top, not in the arena world.  You’ve got to be legendary.  So give up now, or keep trying to get better.  But know that true greatness is innate.  And most of the legends were struggling, starving and playing for years before they got even a tiny break.

While Steve Jobs has been pontificating in NoCal, I’ve been reading the newspapers.  I was struck by an article in the "Wall Street Journal", saying that the Justice Department appears to be gearing up to sue Google.

Do you use Google?

As Dave Matthews would say, I use it everyday.  There’s just nothing as good.  Google is so good, it’s a parlor trick, with the "I’m Feeling Lucky" button delivering exactly what you’re looking for.

I also employ Yahoo search.  For the different results it delivers.  But most people stay with Google, which I too use most of the time.  Because online, ONE SITE DOMINATES!

I just don’t understand how the music business titans don’t get this.  There’s only one Amazon.  Only one Google.  And only one iTunes Music Store. To try and create a competitor is a wasted effort, unless it’s utterly superior.

Did you read all that hype about the new search engine, cuil.com?  What a waste of time that turned out to be.  Slightly different interface delivering less information which wasn’t what I was looking for.

Does Google need to be stopped?  Interesting question.  Peter Paterno doesn’t believe in antitrust.  He says the giants always falter.  And it appears he’s right regarding Microsoft.  Not only did they miss out on Google, they didn’t foresee Apple’s resurgence.  And by utilizing aged Jerry Seinfeld in incomprehensible ads, they’re only illustrating how out of touch they are and how far they’re going to fall.

But irrelevant of your viewpoint on monopolies, you MUST understand that EVERY retail outlet is a click away online.  In real life, location and convenience and price matter.  Online, everybody’s in the same neighborhood and everybody’s got a low price, comparison shopping can be done by bot!  You distinguish yourself by the extras.  In Amazon’s case, its trustworthiness.  The company’s been around forever, will deliver your product and will take it back.  The company at the same price or marginally cheaper?  Will you even get the product?  Are they an authorized dealer?

MySpace Music is a complete waste of time.  A failed effort before it’s really gotten started.  Because it won’t be better than iTunes.  In order to beat Apple, you’ve got to be better or cheaper.  Hard to see how MySpace can sell music more cheaply, since there are fixed costs having to do with publishers, etc.  As for better…  Shit, MySpace itself is such an horrendous user experience that to think they can out-Apple Apple is LAUGHABLE!

This battle has been fought and won.  Per track downloads is owned by Apple.  At least until record companies, publishers and acts decide to play with LOWER prices, allowing third parties to distinguish themselves, and a new Steve Jobs comes around the bend, to fight Apple.  There’s not even a new Steve Jobs in the computer world, what are the odds one’s going to show up in online music?  Where the margins are low and the labels are ancient, trying to protect their old business model and not allowing anybody to make any money?

Yes, you could lower prices at a new store, and keep them high at Apple.

Then again, Apple can eat away at its own margins…

And, removing copy protection at other stores hasn’t lessened Apple’s market share.

Furthermore, if you think a hand-held player better than the iPod has been delivered, seventy plus percent of the public disagrees.

You need a better player and a better service.

But the labels want to hamstring all partners.  I can’t comprehend Nokia’s Comes With Music, how can the public?  You get the tunes for how long? And you can transfer them where?

After a better player, the service that needs to be delivered offers up all you can eat for a low price, unrestricted.  That’s it.  That’s the future of the music business, that’s what we’ve got today, it’s just that the industry is not being compensated for acquisition.

Online retail is not like the physical world.  One company dominates in almost every sphere.  Give up the ghost on this one, and incentivize new partners to create innovative offerings.  But seeing as how the labels think innovation is a dirty word, that computers are the enemy, out to steal their business, this won’t happen, at least not until they lose their power and new rights holders are negotiating.

So can we all agree that MTV ruined music?  Changed it from something you hear into something you see?  From aural to visual?  From life force to entertainment?

You know how you know MTV is done?  THE PAINT IS NO LONGER DRIPPING OFF THE LOGO!  The original team fought for that, it was their cheekiness, their evidence of revolution, the flickering flame of the irreverent sixties.  But that era is truly done.  This show couldn’t be more whored out.  Is Verizon V-Cast a band?  God, I didn’t know you could suck a cell phone company’s dick, but MTV is doing its best.  To think we used to revere bands, not brands.

Speaking of Brands…  Russell is not for this audience.  He’s too smart for these dumb blowhards.  At least those in the audience.  These dolts have watched so much television that their synapses are fried, they can no longer think for themselves.

As for the show being at Paramount…  It reminds me of nothing so much as "Our Gang", with Spanky, Alfalfa and Darla putting on a show. Everybody looks so small on the big screen.  We’re not watching this on our mobile phones, but fifty inchers, and you just look desperate and small, like you’ll do ANYTHING for the money.  If your manager doesn’t tell you to STAY OFF TV, FIRE HIM!

In an era of YouTube, of user-generated content, this show is an anachronism that makes one weep.  Twenty five years?  It’s time to can it.  The VMAs used to be the countercultural event of the year, the hipsters’ award show.  Now, it’s so establishment, so lame, as to have fallen to the bottom of the heap.  At least people are drunk and go off script on the Golden Globes.

Speaking of scripts…  I hope that opening with Britney and Jonah Hill was improvised, for that wouldn’t even qualify as an SNL outtake.  Then again, SNL’s been lame for decades.

Britney looked fabulous, but giving her an award is like honoring Doris Day.  A has-been who’s completely irrelevant, unless you live in Perez Hiltonville.  Hell, this show should have been canceled and put on the Web.  Certainly better than the Paramount lot…

What, do they think it’s 1950?  That kids revere the rock, the one in the Paramount logo?  Viacom owns both, MTV and the movie studio…  Even little kids know this.  But I think the real reason they didn’t have this in a real venue is they’re afraid they wouldn’t be able to sell it out, or in the alternative, the audience would be uncontrollable, wouldn’t exclaim on cue.

What was up with the Jonas Brothers playing acoustic?  This isn’t Crosby, Stills & Nash wooden music, but a camp singalong by amateurs.

Katy Perry looks like a TV confection, and didn’t even get to sing her whole song.

I would ignore this whole damn show if it wasn’t evidence of how out of touch those steering mainstream media companies are.  How they have contempt for their audience, think everybody watching is fucking dumb.

But that’s the story of the Internet.  How smart people actually are.  How they want to play.  Voting for Video of the Year is not playing, it’s ripping the audience off for the texting fee.

The future will not be televised.  The revolution is happening now.  And this whole Top Forty, dancing fool SoundScan concoction will be engulfed by the earth like an old building being engulfed by blowing sand.

Not a moment too soon.

I’m switching to "Entourage".

You get me closer to God

I saw them bust a bootlegger.

One of the problems with feeling safe is that you’re not.  Unless, maybe, you never leave  your house.

After swerving around a black Nissan with steam pouring from under its hood, I ascended the freeway ramp leading to Randy’s Donuts, Manchester Boulevard and ultimately the Forum, previously known as the Great Western Forum, and before that the Fabulous Forum.

Actually, it’s not so fabulous anymore.  Kind of run down. Forty years old and soon to be hit by the wrecking ball, when the value of the land finally appreciates.

But back on the freeway off-ramp, I’m engulfed by bootleg t-shirt vendors.  They start pounding on my car.  I’ve locked it, but the sunroof is open.  It’s not like I can go anywhere.  If they want me, I’m theirs, I’m toast, I’m gridlocked in place, and I don’t think they take credit cards.

After the first wave passed, obviously not afraid of the decelerating cars, their economic futures not bright, I pondered the concept of merch.  The new bands, the Disney Channel wonders, boast of their dollar per head figures.  But a decade from now nobody will be wearing their Miley Cyrus t-shirt.  It’s got months of usability, at best.  Whereas a classic act’s t-shirt’s wearability all comes down to DURABILITY!  Actually, the older the better.  It shows you were there way back when, before the hoi polloi got the memo.

But I don’t think the hoi polloi ever did get the memo.  Except for the viewers of the band’s bizarre videos during the nineties on MTV.  Nine Inch Nails has existed outside the mainstream.  I’d say that’s the act’s appeal, but Trent doesn’t work it.  But he does refuse to pick up on the opportunities, that all those people boasting of stratospheric per head merch numbers say you MUST take!

Nine Inch Nails’ breakthrough moment came in ’94.  At the imitation Woodstock.  Where Trent entranced the audience and pulled the largest audience of the festival.  David Letterman wanted Nine Inch Nails on his show.  He said so every night.  Even BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN finally did Letterman.  Dave was hip.  He, himself, was one step removed from the establishment.  He had attitude.  But Trent wouldn’t only not appear, he wouldn’t respond.  Because Nine Inch Nails is not fodder for the machine, it’s an artistic outlet for Trent and is only for those who truly care.

Which didn’t include this bootlegger on Manchester Boulevard, three blocks from the Forum.  A black and white came racing around the crawling cars, two officers jumped out, threw his cache of t-shirts on the ground, spun the man around, handcuffed him and threw him in the back of the police car.  You’d think he’d committed a crime against the state.  And I’m against bootlegging.  It’s bullshit.  But I do wonder what all these purveyors do for work during the daytime.  And is this the best deployment of police assets?  Furthermore, the audience attending a Nine Inch Nails show KNOWS these are bootleg t-shirts.  It’s not either/or.  Actually, it’s cheap and evanescent along with $35 authorized.  I saw people exiting the building with both.

The audience.

It wasn’t clean-scrubbed, but it wasn’t scary.

This wasn’t an audience there solely so it could tell its coworkers on Monday morning.  You know how I know?  NO ONE LEFT!  The show was two hours and ten minutes, and EVERYBODY stayed until the encore was done.  If you’ve ever been to ANY event in Los Angeles, you know this is a HUMONGOUS achievement.  I can’t tell you how many people I know who left Dodger Stadium BEFORE Kirk Gibson hit his legendary home run, to beat the traffic.

They were mostly twentysomethings and thirtysomethings.  Basically 25-35.  If they weren’t so dedicated, you would be fearful Trent’s audience is aging out.  But these people NEEDED to be there.  Whether it be the two guys hanging by the soundboard in NIN jumpsuits.  Or the girls in full goth regalia.  Or the lumpy-bodied outsiders.  These were not America’s insiders.  Not its conventional winners.  This wasn’t the TMZ/PerezHilton crowd. It wasn’t about flash, but what’s on the inside.  This is the generation stealing your business, taking all your money with their computer excellence while you while away your hours getting plastic surgery and going to lunch.

The biggest celebrity I saw was Tony Hawk.  Who stood and shimmied and mouthed EVERY WORD!  Well, up until the very last number, when he disappeared, probably fearful of being mobbed.

And it was surprising how tall Tony was.  And how entrancing Trent’s music is.

Can’t say that I’m a huge fan.  It’s not something I put on when I get home.  But after bullshitting with Rick Mueller, after standing in the back of the auditorium, taking it all in, I found myself moving forward.  And as someone who’s been squished and has a healthy respect for GA crowds, you know this is not a course of action I take lightly.

It’s like you’ve been injected with a serum.  That is testing your joints.  Your head rolls from side to side.  Your limbs pop and lock.  You need to get ever closer.

And that’s what truly hooked me, about twenty minutes into the set, "Closer".

The drum drop-kicks.  The bass pounds.  The synth starts to pop.  The wall of lights as large as the Grateful Dead’s sound system starts to gyrate and Trent leans into the mic and sings…

HELP ME
I broke apart my insides
HELP ME
I’ve got no soul to sell
HELP ME
The only thing that works for me
Help me get away from myself

That’s what we’re looking for.  HELP!  To make sense of this confusing world within which we live.  The media says one thing, but we feel another. We want understanding and release.  Trent delivers both.

I want to fuck you like an animal
I want to feel you from the inside
I want to fuck you like an animal
My whole existence is flawed
You get me closer to God

You’d think something as inside, as powerful and almost violent as Nine Inch Nails, would be a guy thing.  But the ratio was at least 50/50.  You should have seen the women WRITHING!  As if possessed by a spirit.  Each and every one was in a trance.  Popping and locking, swiveling almost involuntarily.

I kept needing to get closer.  There were no video screens.  No giant images of the band so those in the upper deck could get a glimpse of the singer’s face.

But, suddenly, they did lower a hi-def screen.  And the band installed itself in front of it.  And as it played, stripped down, flame-like bubbles encased them on the screen.  You almost weren’t sure whether they were BEHIND the screen.  The images MERGED!

I needed to get closer.

Then they were behind the screen.  And there was this amazing rain effect.  Then, after that, with Trent playing almost solo, there was this weird computer-generated effect, like you were on a foreign planet where the topography had power and you might never make it back.

Actually, this was the only point at which Trent’s visage was blown up.  But it was almost indecipherable.

This wasn’t throwing money at the stage.  This wasn’t superstar production.  This was performance art.  This wasn’t some tech guy saying what was available, what he could sell the band, but a creation, an INSPIRATION, straight from the artist.

It’s twelve hours later, and I’m still not right.  My life’s been changed.  By a guy who refuses to play by everybody else’s rules.  Who’s pushing the envelope instead of trying to close it.  This is not something you see only once.  This is an act you’re devoted to, you have to go to each and every show, to see what Trent comes up with next.

He didn’t speak until just before the encore.  The show was the thing.  The only political commentary was an image of Bush morphing into McCain. Same as it ever was.

And that’s why the music business is so fucked up.  Because, just like in that famous Talking Heads song, it’s the same as it ever was.  But if you think you’ve seen it all, if you think no one is testing limits, that everybody’s a sold out whore, check out Nine Inch Nails live.  Or maybe you shouldn’t. It’s not for the faint of heart, the casual user.  You’ve got to be in touch with your needs, your desires, you’ve got to be open to letting go, you’ve got to keep your mind open and go with the flow.  To a place heretofore unknown that will open an unmapped sector of your brain.