That’s how you judged someone’s record collection. By whether it contained Grand Funk Railroad or not. If it did, they obviously hadn’t gotten the memo, that Grand Funk SUCKED!

I don’t know how the word spread, but I do remember a one sentence review in "Rolling Stone". The critical backlash was close to immediate. A reaction to both the music and Terry Knight’s overhype. But, "Rolling Stone" wasn’t ubiquitous in 1970. And neither was FM radio. If you lived in the hinterlands, you might believe the hype.

But not me.

I even saw them in February of ’70. Opening for Sly Stone at Madison Square Garden. Right after the red album’s release, when they changed their name to Grand Funk. And by time summer hit, there was a new album, "Closer To Home". Which I had no problem ignoring until I heard "I’m Your Captain/Closer To Home" on a Sailfish, in the murky waters of Long Island Sound. Someone was blasting the record from the lighthouse…and under the bright sun, skimming along the nearly placid water, I realized I liked this record.

How could I square it? How could I admit it to myself? Did I have to keep cover it up?

Well, not if I went to someone’s house and they had the record. I’d drop the needle on the track.

Then Grand Funk faded away. And didn’t radiate. Needing to pull a rabbit from the hat, do something to keep their career alive, they enlisted Todd Rundgren to produce. And ended up with a masterpiece, "We’re An American Band".

You had to understand that Todd had cut it. It was thin and compressed on PURPOSE! This record was one step removed from "Todd", if not "Something/Anything". In the days before FM in the car, when this came over the AM radio you pounded the dash in time with the music pounding out of the speaker.

We’re an American band
We’re an American band
We come into your town
We help you party it down
We’re an American band

Suddenly, you could no longer hate Mark Farner, the shrimp with the endless hair. He was smart enough to work with Todd. Now I could let my secret out of the box. That I thought "I’m Your Captain/Closer To Home" was GOOD!

Grand Funk ultimately disappeared. They worked with a true hero of mine, Frank Zappa, had no hits and retired from the national stage. All that remained was the music. Well, three cuts. "We’re An American Band", their cover of "Loco-Motion" and "I’m Your Captain/Closer To Home".

Why does "I’m Your Captain/Closer To Home" work? Maybe it’s the simplicity. You can hear the drums. The bass is prominent. Sure, Mark Farner is over-singing, but his guitar playing makes up for his over-emoting. "I’m Your Captain/Closer To Home" was American stoner music. A ten minute track, based in the blues, when the Englishmen owned this format. "I’m Your Captain/Closer To Home" was about driving around in your Camaro drinking Budweiser. It wasn’t music for mingling with the opposite sex, it was about getting fucked up with your buddies. Until half way through. When they broke into "Closer To Home". When these bashers suddenly got SUBTLE! It was like the second half of "Layla", months before. What was a rocker became an ambling jam that set your mind adrift. By time you hit the end of the track, there were even strings. The guys had softened, the girls had come to the party and the lights were out and everybody was necking.

It might still be winter on the east coast. When I fired up the Bromley Website this morning, it was -2. But in Los Angeles, spring has truly sprung. And with the bright sun shining, I was driving in my automobile listening to XM’s Deep Tracks and I heard a live version of "I’m Your Captain/Closer To Home".

Stripped down, far from Terry Knight’s controlling hand, the band SMOKED!

Everybody listen to me
And return me to my ship

I wonder what a fifteen year old would say about this. It’s absent Jimmy Page’s pyrotechnics, Farner doesn’t possess Robert Plant’s wail. There’s not the dreaminess of Pink Floyd. At least not until the end. But the playing, it sounds kind of pedestrian…

The synthetic drums of the Top Forty are absent. There’s a beat you don’t find in indie rock. There actually seems to be a story, a message, the song is personal, not universal…but maybe that’s why everybody can relate to it.

Tell you what. You sit behind the drums, you play Don’s part. I’m sure someone can sing along with the streaming words. And you don’t need to be a wizard to play Mark’s leads. I’m saving Mel’s bass part for myself. Yes, "I’m Your Captain/Closer To Home" is a perfect ROCK BAND song!

You can’t play along to Alicia Keys. Nothing Timbaland does. But you become positively enmeshed and ultimately enraptured by this song by these journeymen rockers. Even the least classic of classic rock possesses a magic that can’t be denied. It’s good to go back to the garden.

I admired the Beatles, was positively gaga over them. I had a special relationship with George Harrison, the quiet, brooding one, but I wanted to be Mike Smith. Mike Smith and Dennis Wilson, to be honest with you.

Dennis Wilson’s carefree attitude came across in the pictures on the back of the Beach Boys albums. It seemed they were snapped just as he’d come out of the surf, or jumped out of a jeep. They weren’t posed, it’s like they caught him in action, like he was always moving too fast for the photographer. Brian might have been the certified genius, but I moved to California because of Dennis.

But it took years for me to make it to the Golden State. And ensconced in Connecticut I lived through rainy weather akin to England. We were inside, we were clad in shirts and trousers as opposed to bathing suits. It wasn’t so much about fun as style. Not exactly style, but something deeper. Who you were was very important on the east coast, still is. Who your parents are, what your c.v. is. Still, you go a lot further if you look good. And to me, no one looked better than Mike Smith.

Caught up in Beatlemania, I purchased the next best thing, the Dave Clark Five’s debut album, to be closer to "Glad All Over" and "Bits and Pieces", which they used to stomp their boots to on television. The album cover was cheesy. Black and white with a bit of orange. But despite the low rent design, Mike Smith shined through, leaning back from his organ, in his tight white pants and black jacket. I never got that tall, I don’t remember ever being that skinny. But I wanted to be.

I played that first Dave Clark Five album over and over and over again. Until I finally convinced myself it just wasn’t that good. I got into the album groove immediately, singles didn’t make sense, economically they were a rip-off. If you played "Meet The Beatles" long enough, you loved every track. But I never came to love every Dave Clark Five track. But, I did cotton to two album cuts, "Do You Love Me" and "Chaquita".

And maybe that’s why I bought the follow-up, "The Dave Clark Five Return!" Maybe I figured the hit to shit ratio could only increase. But I was wrong. It was one of my least played albums. Bookended by the only two good tracks, "Can’t You See That She’s Mine" and their cover of "On Broadway". But Mike looked cool on the cover. And I looked at that cover quite a bit.

There were a few more hits. But I never bought another album, I felt ripped off. But not by Mike, but the label. They must have made him do it. He’d emerge as a solo, he had all the talent.

But this never happened. The Dave Clark Five became a curio, available in the CD marketplace only briefly. Thank god for the Internet, where you can download these songs instantly. The music is being kept alive.

But Mike Smith is now dead.

I didn’t know him. Maybe it’s better this way, all I’ve got is my memories. When being in your twenties seemed ancient, when we went to school and debated bands, when I saved all my money to buy records. Music was a secret society, owned by the youth. Our parents didn’t understand, and we couldn’t convince them otherwise. They laughed at the Beatles. They told us to turn the music down. And then everything flip-flopped, we and the music triumphed. And in the process, all the quaintness, all the vitality, was eviscerated. It was all about the money.

I doubt Mike Smith had much money. But back then, music was temporary. Not in terms of its longevity so much as it wasn’t a career. Going to school I dreamed of being a rock star, but I knew it could never happen. The odds were too long. I didn’t have the looks. My upbringing was too middle class. Yet my heroes were these Limeys who struggled, who seemed to do everything on a lark, who having less at risk appeared to be carefree, they could follow their mood, their heart’s desire. And that’s what drew us to them. They were alive.

But, like I said, Mike Smith died. Today.

But when I hear "Can’t You See That She’s Mine", he’ll forever be alive. As the coolest guy in the room, a slave to nothing other than music. And girls. We played the records at summer camp. The bands performed them at Bar Mitzvah parties. We tried out our nascent lines on the opposite sex. And no matter what happened, no matter what failures we experienced, when we listened to the tunes, we were kings.

What I find funny is that Universal is left out of the action.

Isn’t Jimmy Iovine the most powerful person in the music business? Or is that Clive Davis… They’ve both got scorched earth publicity campaigns. Clive says he’s the godfather, every hit record has to pass through him. Without his imprimatur, you’re irrelevant. Jimmy? He’s your buddy. You want to be on Jimmy’s team, right? Hang at his house, take those loving phone calls. He’s a winner.

But let’s kick it up a level. To Edgar Bronfman, Jr. and Lyor Cohen. Doug Morris and Zach Horowitz. How did they let the music business slip through their fingers? Didn’t they have their eye on the ball? Which ball?

The labels have a problem. It’s hard to charge for music. Oh, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s hard to break an act, the reach is ever smaller and sales results can be one-tenth of what they used to be. Furthermore, what’s to prevent newbies from entering the business and gobbling up market share? The majors’ control of distribution used to protect them, but with brick and mortar fading, they’re fucked, the playing field has been leveled. Meanwhile, they’re kicking and screaming like contestants on "American Idol", all emotion and very little substance.

Will people pay for music in the future? I believe so. But, the major labels have devalued music, made it free, by clinging to an old business model. And now the revenue is coming from elsewhere. In other words, WHO GIVES A SHIT IF PEOPLE STEAL THE MUSIC IF THEY COME TO THE SHOW AND BUY MERCH!

But the labels now say they’re in this business. With their 360 deals. But what do they deliver for these newly-acquired rights? I’m scratching my head. Looks like a land-grab to me. And to so many attorneys. But if you want to play live, you need a ticketing company, a promoter, someone to guarantee the date financially. All roads lead straight through Live Nation, AEG Live and their much-smaller competitors. Furthermore, the big companies have further advantages, known as ASSETS! They own/control the buildings! All of this flows to the advantage of the act. Costs are lower. Losses can be spread over many controlled gigs. Assuming the agent and manager can continue to beat up the promoter, getting a high guarantee. All the money is in live, and the labels are in RECORDS! How fucking stupid is THAT!

It’s a war between the Canadians and the Americans. That’s the battle between Live Nation and AEG. The Canadians, despite their low-key demeanor, believe they’re just that much smarter than the Americans. But Michael Rapino is a young ‘un, how much has he seen? Well, Cohl’s seen plenty. But he must be pretty fucking frightened if he’s suddenly accepted the chairmanship of Live Nation. He wants to protect his investment. SO HE CAN SELL IT! Which he’s done multiple times before!

Cohl and cohorts are not full-service promoters. They skim from the top. But AEG skims from the top too. And has got better assets. While Live Nation is rebranding shitholes "Fillmore", AEG is investing capital in Nokias and the O2. Which deliver a halo to the entire enterprise. People hate Clear Channel/Live Nation. But they don’t hate AEG, certainly not the same way. AEG is peopled by all those buyers they’ve dealt with FOR YEARS! The underlying loyalty is to AEG, not the rotating cast of characters at Live Nation. Certainly Irving Azoff’s loyalty is to AEG.

Not that Irving will say that. And truth be told, Irving’s on nobody’s team but his own. He’s manipulating all the players, they’re all tearing their hair out, because suddenly, Irving controls TOO MANY ACTS! And it’s a business of talent. He who controls the talent truly wins.

Rapino tried to make more equitable deals, he wanted the acts to share in the upside. Only problem was Howard Kaufman, Irving’s partner, didn’t want to do this. So he froze Rapino’s company out. Confronted with the prospect of his decaying amphitheatres going empty, without Jimmy Buffett, Chicago and ultimately Def Leppard, et al, Rapino caved. Rapino has to give Kaufman, and his partner Azoff, what they want.

Over at AEG… Irving built it and then gave Randy Phillips the keys to the kingdom. If you don’t think that’s worth something, then you haven’t watched enough Mafia movies. And Jay Marciano, who oversees Madison Square Garden and Fuse…he used to run Irving’s Universal Concerts. They’re homies.

So, you can be sure, the loser in this proposed conglomeration is Live Nation. Saddled with debt, owning too many bad buildings, peopled by the "B" team in too many instances.

As for Phil Anschutz? Financially it makes sense for him. But how he escaped the Qwest fiasco intact eludes me. Then again, innocent until proven guilty.

Barry Diller? The supposed smartest man in the entertainment business? He might have pulled one over on Edgar Bronfman, Jr., but he’s being tortured by John Malone. He’s about to lose part of his empire. Diller may have engineered a huge payout for himself, but he’s another Clive or Jimmy, a tireless self-promoter whose accomplishments don’t quite square with the legend.

Cablevision? Shit, Jim Dolan plays in a BAND! Managed by Irving Azoff…isn’t that fascinating. He gets further into the business and now can leverage his Fuse channel, which many people don’t even know exists. Yeah, hype acts and then rake in the dough at the gig. While Doug Morris is trying to squeeze MySpace, Dolan, et al, have figured out a way to profit from hype/exhibition, which they OWN! Doug and Jimmy start FarmClub and Pressplay, AEG, Cablevision and Ticketmaster create a behemoth!

Ticketmaster? They had to do buy in. To fuck with Live Nation if nothing else. Looks like TM has entered the future. Purchasing a ticket reseller and now making this deal, assuring future revenue.

As for the agents, managers and acts… The fewer places you have to sell your talent, the worse it is. That’s why the XM/Sirius merger should not go through. But it will. As will this combination.

As for the public… Will this consolidation result in lower prices? No. The public will get very few advantages.

It takes a ton of bread to erect a building. And continue to run it. A kid may be able to steal an MP3, but he’s never going to steal Madison Square Garden.

Let’s see how this shakes out. Will this new consortium figure out a way to break acts? As the major labels decline, who will control this process? It’s harder than ever to BREAK on the road, since the economics suck. Will acts continue to break via recorded music and then fall into the hands of AEG? Can a new concert promotion company be founded to compete? Only with a fuck of a lot of money. And didn’t that Wall Street analyst say the business was a river of nickels?

This is a watershed moment. You just lost another person to sell your talent to. Irving Azoff gains power in the music business that David Geffen never even dreamed of. And those people making music on their computers? It’s all going to have to flow through the concert promoter, assuming the act is successful. And successful today is predicated on playing live. So, that begs the question, HOW DID THE MAJOR LABELS GET LEFT OUT?

Sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on Lincoln Boulevard I heard Elvis Costello’s "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes". I was driving to Loyola to speak to John Hartmann’s music business class. I was in a sour mood. I wanted to tell his students to STAY THE FUCK OUT! Why would you want to be in the music business, with its sharks and rotting financials. But this record made me forget all that. It reminded me of hearing Elvis for the very first time and seeing him days later at the Whisky. Where his intensity was palpable and he and the Attractions almost got in a fight with an unruly patron, Elvis holding his Jazzmaster over his head, ready to clonk this dude, Steve Naive having broken a beer bottle, ready to cut the guy up. We didn’t have this kind of rocker on our side of the pond. Who, when heckled by the audience, broke through the curtain to defend his honor.

The heckler was ejected and the show restarted. But I felt I’d witnessed an event. And was thrilled when "Time" wrote about it the following week. I felt that television was irrelevant, that what I was witnessing live and on black vinyl was the true pulse of the nation.

But records don’t sound like that anymore. Not usually. Records are made for a market. If they can’t get Top Forty airplay, big labels aren’t interested, and the dirty little secret is the indies are just smaller scale players who’ll hype your record less, get it distributed in fewer stores and STILL won’t pay you royalties. What’s a lonely rock and roller to do?

I’m not sure. Because I’m not a musician. I’m a member of the audience. And I’m a fan. I love something new and different, but it’s got to hit me like those Elvis Costello tracks of yore. I’ve got to jump to attention and stare at the speakers, wanting to part the cloth and GET INSIDE! But people tell me I’m an old fart, that I just don’t get today’s music. To step aside and let the younger generation take over. But I’m just like the younger generation, I’ve got a shit detector nonpareil. And something’s got to pass my test in order for me to be interested. And Duffy’s "Warwick Avenue" passes with flying colors!

I stole it. Because I wasn’t sure if I liked it. Wasn’t sure if Duffy was a one hit wonder. This is what you do. Fire up your P2P program and take every available track. This is anathema to Paul McGuinness and the old farts. I’ve got to pay first. Shit, you’d think these guys never did drugs. Doesn’t the dealer give you the first hit free? And, if it’s good shit, you’ll not only buy, you’ll become addicted and cough up ALL YOUR MONEY! You’ll go broke being a drug addict. And I almost went broke collecting records. I know people who ate boiled hot dogs rather than go out to dinner, just so they could buy records, by people long dead, who never made it big. We want to encourage this behavior, get the whole WORLD addicted to the aural crack. But the powers-that-be are stuck in the old model. Selling bespoke clothing in an era of ready-made. Why sell to a few when you can reach EVERYBODY! Oh, not everybody is going to like every act. I know people who HATE U2. But, if you expose a bunch of people, and your music is good, you’re going to make quite a good living.

We’ve got to believe it’s a real act, not a one hit wonder.

Duffy’s "Mercy" is the hit. The other heavily exposed track, "Rockferry", is good. But the killer to me is "Warwick Avenue".

I just loaded it on my iPod. It came up on random. I didn’t even know what it was, I was in the mountains long after dark. But, I didn’t need to push the button to fast forward, I stayed along for the ride. The mood was exquisite, a private moment in the fog that was universal. Then there was that point, two-thirds of the way through the song, when Duffy lost control, not in orgasm, but PAIN! No one had a finger in her pussy, rather she was wailing from her heart. She was telling her story, not for the back row, but herself. This was a declaration of freedom, despite the inherent misgivings.

This was no Alicia Keys faux universal anthem. Not no-talent Jordin Sparks singing the crafted turd of a million songwriters. Not Mariah Carey and the melisma crew. Music is not a competition, it’s about personal expression. "American Idol" is truly a competition. But so is Top Forty. The big business. Who’s got the largest gross. Who sold the most CDs. Who’s got the most most! Let me tell you, "My Aim Is True" never broke Top Forty, many AORs, caught up in corporate rock, wouldn’t even play it. But when the public at large got a glimpse of this true believer on Saturday Night Live, Elvis Costello gained a place on the landscape.

Now in the seventies, Duffy would go on a club tour in a couple of months. I’d immediately drive to the Roxy and buy a ticket. I’d get there an hour in advance of the show, to acquire a good seat. When she sang "Warwick Avenue", I would be titillated. I’d go home tingling. I’d tell everybody I knew about the show.

But when she gets over here, she’ll do a ton of TV. Play much bigger venues. It’s big business. The culture is gone. You’ve got to start small. You’ve got to let the audience build you. The audience must own you, not the media.

There’s a backstory here. How this record came to be. But it’s irrelevant to the listening experience.

This sounds like nothing on American Top Forty radio. That makes it fresh. Tell everybody you know. Own it before the robber barons start their full court press.

Long intro, good image, decent sound: Duffy – Warwick Avenue live from Later… With Jools Holland 
Shorter intro, worse image, but louder sound: Duffy – Warwick Avenue (live at Later…)