I have OCD. Otherwise known as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

Oh, you know the sufferers. They’re the ones aligning the silverware at the table, the ones washing their hands, the ones living in fear that you will discover their condition, which they’re ashamed of.

I spent numerous hours cleaning my records in the seventies. I thought it was about keeping the vinyl pristine. But really, it had to do with my OCD, needing my records to be perfect, in order to cope.

Now everybody has a bit of OCD, everybody wonders occasionally whether they left the stove lit. At the other extreme there are people who are essentially paralyzed, unable to function. I fall somewhere in between. I can get in an OCD loop and fall mentally off the grid, but I return…the obsession eventually fades. Actually, that’s kind of the treatment. You’re supposed to face your fears. Starting in tiny little doses. They call them exposures. To the point where you’re no longer bothered by the situation anymore.

I’ll give you an example. Yesterday we were skiing in Mammoth and the wind was blowing so hard, they couldn’t run the gondola. Which I find scary enough. There’s one point where it’s perched high in the air between two peaks and when it stopped there a few years back, I just about crumpled to the floor, to endure the five minutes before it began running again. I mean it could fall off, right? And I’d die! It’s happened! But, like I said, they couldn’t run the gondola yesterday, so they fired up Chair 23. Chair 23 goes straight up the face of what is known as the Cornice. The very topmost part of Mammoth Mountain, peaking at 11,000 feet. If there’s a more vertical ride, I want to know about it. But it’s worse. The lift is slow and there’s no safety bar! That’s against the law in Vermont. You’ve got to have a safety bar. But in California, there’s a school of thought that safety bars actually cause accidents, so they’re not required. So, the point is, with the gondola, scary enough in its own right, closed, could I ride Chair 23?

The bedrock of OCD is avoidance. Kind of like the people who won’t step on sidewalk cracks. They’re not sure what’s going to happen to them, but it’s definitely something awful, and they want to avoid it. I wanted to avoid riding Chair 23. But, after years of treatment, I knew I had to… Assuming Felice was up for it. And, unfortunately, she was. I now had no excuse. Shit, I was trembling on the way up Chair 3, in anticipation, a ride that usually never bothers me. And when we finally got on Chair 23, I sat right by the pole and hung on tight as we endured the fifty mile an hour winds as we flew too high above the slope. Hell, it’s so windy at the top of Chair 23 that they built a glass house for you to get off in. And when we finally emerged onto the slope… Believe me, you’ve never experienced such winds. I felt my helmet was going to blow off! But I was not bothered a bit, because I’d ridden Chair 23! I’d triumphed! If I could ride it in this fakokta weather, now I could ride it all winter… As long as I continued to practice. Like rust, OCD never sleeps.

But I wouldn’t have even made an attempt if I hadn’t faced my fear, er, OCD, the day before and triumphed. On our drive up Tioga Pass, to Yosemite.

We’d started off on a journey to Mono Lake. About twenty minutes north of Mammoth. And after waxing rhapsodic to Felice for years about the majesty of Yosemite, the sign told us that although the entrance was closed, the pass not being completely plowed out, you could drive twelve miles up to the park entrance.

I’m up for that. I’m up for adventure. And Felice is too. So I peel her Lexus off the main road and we start ascending.

I’m not thinking too much of it. Wondered for a second if we should have filled up at the Mobil station at the intersection with 395, but how could I run out of gas in twelve miles? I had almost half a tank!

And I’m cruising along, doing the fifty the speed limit allows, when suddenly we make a turn and mountains shoot up in the sky with a drama akin to the Himalayas. This ain’t no Rocky Mountain High. This is like the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau, but more. And as I’m staring in amazement through the windshield, one side of the road peels away. Now I’m not saying one half was washed out, it’s just that on the other side of the road, there was…nothing. And I started to freak.

Well, we’d driven a few miles by this point. How much further could it be? Then, off in the distance, I saw at an elevation two miles high, the road.

No, it couldn’t be. Can’t be the same road. How do you get there from here?

Numerous switchbacks. All clinging to the edge of these vertical mountains. But it was worse. On the way back, I’d have to drive on the other side! Right next to the drop!

My foot is receding from the gas pedal. My hands are trembling. I get the urge to either stop or drive off the cliff and end it right there. As for turning around… Like I’m going to inch closer to the precipice?

I felt like I was losing control. I couldn’t go any further. But there was no place to stop. And only a wimp would stop. But what if I lost control and we were killed? The tension was too much!

So I told Felice. She said we could turn around. But deep inside I knew I had to press forward, I’d had enough treatment, I knew what my doctor would say, this was a perfect exposure.

Funny how most people don’t associate California with physical beauty, with vistas. They have no idea of the majesty of the Sierras. But these peaks are as magnificent as the Tetons, and there are more of them. And to illustrate the drama, Mt. Whitney and Death Valley are only eighty miles apart. Yes, the highest point in the continental United States and the lowest are just that close. Meaning these mountains absolutely tower! It’s ten thousand feet from the top of Whitney to the valley floor. It’s staggering.

And I felt like I was going to stagger. I was lightheaded behind the wheel. Worrying about losing it as we climbed ever higher.

Finally, we got to the Pass. A solemn plateau, with a never-ending range of mountains emerging. We strode around the log gate and we were inside. In Yosemite.

This is not the Yosemite most people are familiar with. They’re aware of the Valley floor. Which is even more spectacular. But the loneliness… Actually, that’s not true. The feeling of being at one with nature, of being closer to God, is no more palpable than it is here, at the seeming roof of the world.

Felice was giddy. I couldn’t stop staring. It was so cool!

And also a twelve mile ride back to 395, to reality, down this treacherous mountain road.

But going down, it didn’t seem quite as treacherous. Granted, I left the car in second gear and went about twenty five miles per hour the whole way down, but I wasn’t frightened. Well, except when we stopped at a turnout and the information plaque appeared to be right at the precipice. I sunk into a crouch as I approached it.

And when we got to the bottom, I felt I had triumphed. I felt that there was less in the world that could overwhelm me, stifle me, prevent me from moving forward. If not to my destiny, then my heart’s desire.

And we drove north to Bridgeport, where I saw a shriveled guy rejected for a Marlboro ad buy three hundred dollars worth of lottery tickets at the Shell station where I paid $4.79 a gallon. And when we eventually stopped at Mono Lake, I found out that birds stop there for R&R on their way back and forth from the Arctic to Argentina! Proving that Los Angeles shouldn’t have let the water level sink by fifty feet, endangering wildlife that had endured for millennia.

And when we got back to Mammoth, touring the real estate, we encountered a couple of bears. They were looking for garbage, but ended up foraging amongst the bushes. They were so close!

And I thought about my dad, who never encountered a road he felt was impassable, whether it be Pike’s Peak, Loveland Pass or a snow covered I-91. And skiing the next day I had a smile on my face. This life is something else. If you just get out into the landscape, break through your anxieties and challenge yourself a bit, you are rewarded with exhilaration!

Or, to expand upon what John Muir said on the plaque just below Tioga Pass, when you’re high in the mountains, your fears fall away.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature’s sources never fail.

John Muir – "Our National Parks"

Back when concert tickets and albums were almost the same price, I’d buy the new record before I went to the show. That’s what would happen. The band would go on the road and play most of the new album and a few old hits. If you didn’t know the new material, you were lost in a cacophony of sound. Shit, how great is hearing unfamiliar music live? Pretty shitty for most folk.

Therefore, when people go to the show today, they only want to hear the hits. They don’t want to hear anything new. And when you do fire up your new compositions, they immediately go to the bathroom, got get a drink. New material is like the obligatory drum solo of yore, signal for a break.

Therefore, every act that is not a flash in the pan is an oldies act. The customer, paying an overinflated price for a ducat, feels he DESERVES to hear the hits. That’s why you charged him so much, right? That’s why your new music must come with the ticket, it must be included, just like the TicketMaster fees, only this time the charge will be built in, it will be transparent to the end user.

I know, I know, you can’t do this. You need a big SOUNDSCAN NUMBER!

No you don’t. Maybe your dying label does, but you don’t. That’s an old scorecard, for a dying game. If anything, you should be interested in your BigChampagne numbers, how many people are trading your tracks. That’s the true indicator of popularity.

If all the money is in touring, why are you trying to sell your music? Doesn’t it make more sense to give it away, in the hope that people will have a better concert experience?

You want to grow. But your audience won’t let you. They don’t want to hear anything new. But if the $100 ticket came with the new material, the audience would be motivated to play the new stuff, in ANTICIPATION of the show. After a while, this will become the new behavior, people will know to listen to the free new music, because that’s what the act is going to play!

Even the Eagles. How many hits do they have? That’s all people want to hear. But the band finally made a new album, they’d like to stretch out on stage. How do they keep the audience from being disinterested? By making sure each and every customer has the new music in ADVANCE!

Now the Eagles are not a perfect example. They got a huge check from Wal-Mart. But that paradigm is going to dry up, not quite as quickly as Radiohead’s name your own price scheme, but quickly. Because physical formats are on their way out. It would be like Wal-Mart selling Smith-Corona typewriters cheaply in order to get you in the store. Huh?

If you’re a touring act, you’ve got to stop thinking of your new music as a revenue source. Rather, it’s an investment in your career, its vitality, its longevity. The key is to get it in as many hands as possible so your sphere of influence, your customer base, doesn’t shrink, but GROWS!

It’s not like a classic act can get any significant radio airplay. As for appearing on "Today", "Ellen" and "Leno"…a great percentage of the target audience doesn’t watch those shows. And, those that do, housewives in the case of the morning and afternoon shows, are they really going to get a babysitter and invest hundreds of dollars to come see you? No, chances are your audience is those not watching the tube, those who leave the house, those with a LIFE! How are you going to reach these people with your new music?

As it is, you’re announcing your tour almost a year before it happens, getting all that revenue up front, before anybody else does… If you give away the music with the ticket, the audience has a long time to become familiar with it! Hell, the dropping of the album and the on sale date happen simultaneously!

I hope this is Live Nation’s plan. They’re not gearing up to be a full service label, are they? Hiring promotion people, et al? Just record these albums and give them away!

Maybe not a complete album. Maybe just the four or five tracks you plan to play in concert.

It’s a new world. It’s time to adapt to it. The goal is to build from the ground up. Do everything you can to get fans exposed to your new material and bond them. Don’t worry so much about the casual buyer. He’s hard to reach, he probably won’t buy a ticket, never mind a t-shirt, you can’t make enough money on him. Milk your core. Via a symbiotic relationship. You don’t get paid for TV. It’s too hard and expensive to get on the radio. Cut out the middle man, go directly to the fan!

If the Internet is so damn fast, why is exploitation so SLOW!

In other words, if the Beatles can release three albums in one year, why does Mariah Carey have to wait three years to release ANOTHER!

One can argue that Mariah’s new record, E=MC2, is already over. As is Madonna’s "Hard Candy". If movies are pulled from theatres in mere weeks, what makes you think the public is not burned out on overhyped music JUST AS FAST!

Sure you want to hear Mariah’s new track. But do you want to hear it SIX MONTHS STRAIGHT? And then be fed ANOTHER cut off the album you purchased eons ago and have already shelved? Who is this rollout for? Certainly not fans, but THE CASUAL BUYER! Yup, we’re gonna keep on beating the same damn drum, hopeful that someone who’s been living under a rock, with no TV, radio or Internet access, will finally enter civilization and say FUCK, there’s a new Mariah Carey album!

By these standards, why don’t we just start working classic rock albums all over again. Singles from "Sgt. Pepper"! There were none to begin with… We’ll start off with the title track, it’s upbeat, good for the summer… And we’ll ready "She’s Leaving Home" for Christmas. Next spring we’ll go with "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!" March, spring, get it! It’s windy, the snow has melted, fly a kite! We can tie in with kite manufacturers, get a display in Wal-Mart. And then, at the end of summer, we’ll go with "Lovely Rita". And "Good Morning Good Morning" after that. Yup, that’s what every dickhead promoting an album today says…IT’S GOT FIVE SINGLES! So why don’t we go back to the legendary discs, that truly have five singles! But we don’t, because everybody’s heard them, everybody’s burned out on them, they want something NEW! Don’t you think RADIO LISTENERS want something new? And fans?

No, on YouTube, you can only watch/listen to the authorized single. If someone puts up another cut from the record on the video service, which they do all the time, because it’s NATURAL to want to hear everything by an act you’re a fan of, YOU MUST NOT LISTEN! You must adhere to the industry’s rules! Radio must only play the track the label has selected for promotion. Who came up with this fakokta system?

Record companies, looking to maximize profits. Turning music into a commodity rather than a passion. How many times have you winced when a deejay has introduced NEW MUSIC FROM YOUR FAVORITE ACT and it turns out to be something from the album you bought last year? They think we don’t notice, that we don’t feel duped, that we don’t believe the deejay is phony, owned by a corrupt system. You wonder why people have embraced the Net/iPod? BECAUSE IT’S THEIR CHOICE!

I don’t sit here and say… I must wait for new material by my favorite artist until the corporation has maximized revenues… I just want more NOW! And if those under rocks finally come to the city, they can enjoy ALBUMS AND ALBUMS of material! And I can say that I was there first, I saw them live, I know every record.

But NO! We all must be hooked on the very first album. Record company economics demand it! If success is not achieved, there’s not even going to BE a second record. And the labels are crying in their beer that customers have disintermediated their product…bands are saying they only want fans to hear the music the way they want to present it.

The system is COMPLETELY UPSIDE DOWN! Start with the fan. Continue to satiate him. Give him more, CONSTANTLY! Let the buzz spread the word on your act. If almost everybody in America got the word "Speed Racer" SUCKED, do you really think no one’s going to find out if you release something GOOD?

Those at the top of the food chain keeps saying it’s about the music. It ain’t about the music, it’s about COMMERCE! If you’re a musician, go make more music. Don’t go traipsing around on promo tours to bought and sold radio stations, don’t sit for inane interviews with the press. Rather stay at home and keep woodshedding, allowing fans in. Everybody wants access. Why are you keeping people at arm’s length?

If Freddie Mercury could sing "I want it all, I want it all, I want it all and I want it NOW!", what makes the execs and artists who are fans of Queen believe that fans want less, on an ever slower basis?

One of the reasons Clive Calder was so damn successful is he realized boy band fans wanted MORE PRODUCT! His charges put out a record every year. They fed the machine. Everybody burns out, or at least declines in popularity, eventually. Strike when the iron is hot! Don’t wait three to five years for your next album. Don’t play on antiquated media time… Play on new media time. The day your album is released, if not sooner, all your fans can own it. They’ll devour it in about a week. Right thereafter, the countdown begins for something new. Your fans will talk about you, their favorite act, for maybe six months, at most. Then they’re going to start talking about someone else, they’re going to move on! Don’t let them move on, keep them hooked. By giving them MORE! They’re the key to your success. Not Leno, Letterman, "The Today Show", "USA Today", "Rolling Stone"…

Fuck the gatekeepers. Their power disappeared with physical media. They died with the Web. Don’t put on the brakes, MASH THE ACCELERATOR!

What if you released your album and no one cared. Worse, imagine that no one even knew it was out.

With the plethora of information floating in bits and bytes and dead trees throughout the universe, the odds of your release making an impact on the target audience are close to nil. If you’re lucky, someone will read a review somewhere and be aware your record came out. Chances are, they won’t even know it came out.

Then there’s the "superstars". Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Madonna… To speak in advertising language, their marketing plans are incredibly inefficient. A lot of time, ink and dollars are spent trying to reach their fans, but most of it is wasted. Most people don’t care, and those who do are bombarded with the same message again and again. Ultimately turned off.

What’s an act to do?

To realize the focus should not be on the media, but the fan. Just like the Internet rid the music business of the need to manufacture and ship, this same Net allows an act to forgo interacting with the media, to go straight to the fan. You must go straight to the fan.

We’re speaking of the aforementioned e-mail list here. Yes, you’ve got to collect names. But how?

By making it a better offer, a better business proposition.

A Website is no longer just a repository of information, it’s the front door to your fan club. You may be a musician, but second to that, you’re running a club. You have to spread the word on your music, you have to create demand for your tour. This is especially true for so called "heritage" artists.

Elton John laments that he can’t sell a record, that no one’s interested in his new music. That’s not true. He’s just going about marketing his music in the old way.

Elton needs to find a track, and give it away for free on his site, for an e-mail address. Sure, said track can ultimately be acquired for free via P2P, but the track isn’t the only thing the fan gets… He gets $5 off a concert ticket. Discount merchandise. Hell, you’re selling direct, the profit margin is huge already! You’ve got your own store, developing your own fan base.

The problem is the old acts believe they’re too big for this. They just want someone to write a check. And now that record companies are not interested, they want it to be Live Nation or another promoter. These complaining acts are not investing in their careers. They want someone else to do all the work. You wonder why no one’s interested in their new music?

New, developing acts, that are not "radio-friendly"… And almost no act deserving of a career is radio-friendly today, listen to Top Forty radio, the only format that really sells tonnage, for edification. Do not look to record companies to do the work. There’s no one there to do the work. Sony gutted its Net division. You’ve got to do the work. There is no man behind the curtain.

I’m not saying you have to give up the old ways completely. There’s nothing wrong with radio play or record reviews…they just have less impact than ever before. Shit, people don’t even write songs about the radio anymore.

How can you get your fans to feel a connection with you? How can you create a bond? How can you create a base that will always deliver? This is the Marillion model. Getting the fans to pay for the record. Other acts, squeezed out of the system, are attempting the same thing. But, the next wave will be giant artists. The ones who fill arenas and sheds playing their old hits. These acts have to hunker down. They may still think they’re stars, but really, stars today are Heidi and Spencer, and they’re working it!

Maybe the musician can’t do it himself. Maybe he needs a team. But do not focus on radio and print to help you along. The public, your fans, don’t have time to wade through the clutter. They’ve got to hear from you directly. They’ve got to have a direct investment in your future. They’ve got to feel like they’re INVOLVED!