And you wonder why music is in shit shape.

When the problems of the world are blamed on west coast "hippy values" and money is king, you know we’ve strayed too far from the garden.

Last time I checked, it was these "hippy values" that blew up the music business, 400,000 people went to Woodstock, to get closer to the music. Loggins & Messina even did stadium shows. U2’s last stadium tour in the U.S. STIFFED!

Who writes this shit? Could it be that John Kennedy of IFPI has Paul McGuinness’ ear? It’s like Karl Rove’s in charge, let’s all get on message, the demon is the ISP!

While debate on net neutrality comes to a standstill in the U.S. Congress, Paul McGuiness and a bunch of MUSIC PEOPLE are going to effect change, get the ISPs to filter content. Well, what about when I e-mail my own composition? Or do I get a tracking number for that too?

Isn’t it amazing that an industry based on fuck tha police (and the fuzz was hated long before Ice-T freaked out Warner Brothers) now wants MORE policing, would like to BE THE POLICE?

That’s what happens when it’s more about money than music.

Shit, U2 moves its business to a tax haven, Bono goes VC and the band hasn’t released a great album in fifteen years, since "Achtung Baby". If this is the future, I want NO PART OF IT!

It’s got to be about the music. Money always flows from the music. And the more money you make, the more you try to protect it, like a fucking government, the more you turn off the people giving their hard earned income to you. Can’t you at least pay LIP SERVICE TO THE MUSIC?

Haven’t you listened to the "thieves"? They thought music was overpriced, that there was too much filler on a CD. Were they wrong and just making excuses for slicing and dicing, taking what they wanted? I don’t think so.

But Jay-Z isn’t listening to the consumer. He wants to keep the ALBUM alive. The album died with Napster. Cry in your beer about it, protest…. The equation is good music. If you make good music, people will want ALL OF IT! Don’t try to make them buy it YOUR way, let them purchase it all, for a reasonable price.

And what is that price? The labels want it to be more than iTunes’ 99 cents. Shit, it should be lower. Or, we could use the cell phone model. A bucket of tracks for a monthly fee. eMusic is a better business proposition than iTunes, but you won’t find major label content on it.

It’s been almost nine years, and Paul McGuinness and the old wave wankers STILL want to go back to the past. McGuinness lamenting record company workers losing their jobs… Where was he when U.S. automakers produced shitty cars and the business went Japanese? I don’t see Bono trying to save Chrysler jobs.

Maybe those people DESERVED to lose their jobs. Because they just weren’t innovative enough, they were just COASTING!

Music is desirable. People will pay for it if there’s a reasonable business model. It’s not about policing people back to the past, but enticing them with something easy, that eliminates the DESIRE to steal.

Instead of looking for another person to blame, the music industry has to face reality. That more people want more music, and they don’t want to pay 1990s prices for it. Come up with a new business model, sans restrictions. But the fuckers can’t even authorize Qtrax, a half-assed walled garden that’s incompatible with iPods.

Stop PROTECTING music and figure out a way to make it EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO GET IT!

You didn’t hear Osborne complaining that Gates stole his thunder. And the reason that Gates and Jobs were so successful is because they looked to the future, not to the past. How come Macs get cheaper and they do more, yet music gets worse and the people making it want more money? If only U2 put out something as good as OS X every couple of years. That’s software. Apple doesn’t sell it with DRM. Are the Silicon Valleyites the enemy or the BEACON?

For McGuinness to stand up at MIDEM and spew this invective is laughable, it makes him look like a blowhard. As for those applauding him, now you know why your business is in trouble.

Under the best of circumstances, how long would it take to bring the ISPs to their knees? Eight or ten years? Like they’re going to instantly capitulate. Like their users aren’t going to jump ship. Like they’re not in business themselves. And what is the legal basis for liability? Is it that rock solid? In every country? Hell, it’s a worldwide business.

You want to know why the music business is fucked? Because the iPod is cooler than almost all of the new music sold. It’s simple, like "Satisfaction", and it delivers the enjoyment of "Sgt. Pepper", day after day. Look at its VALUES instead of castigating it.

DO NOT FOLLOW PAUL MCGUINNESS! DO NOT WASTE ANOTHER DECADE IN A FUTILE ATTEMPT TO GO BACK TO THE NINETIES! ACCEPT REALITY AND DEAL WITH IT!

Don’t shed tears. The broke newbies who are reinventing this business aren’t. They’re accepting reality. Why is it that when people get rich they forget where they came from and are only interested in protecting what they’ve got?

I see nothing in McGuinness’ speech that reflects the concerns of listeners, of music consumers. Except for a desire for more lossless downloads. But shit, they can buy CDs and rip them. And NOTHING IS PREVENTING THE LABELS FROM SELLING IN THIS FORMAT!

When I listen to a record, I don’t think how fucking rich the artist is. I don’t think about the insurance on his ten automobiles, the food for his eleven kids. My mind is stimulated, I think about the good times in life, sometimes even the bad ones. Bittersweet memories indeed.

Music is the most powerful artistic medium. Why do these bozos always have to concentrate on the bread instead of the tunes? Why don’t they get in bed with their fans instead of blaming everyone but themselves for the shit shape they’re in?

Paul McGuinness just pulled a Metallica here. Another uninformed rich music industryite with no idea how the Internet and technology truly work is only going to end up a sideshow, with egg on his face. Metallica has spent almost a decade trying to come back from the brink. Will it take McGuinness that long? It will take the music business at least that long if they listen to him.

The future is in licensing new ideas. Not complaining. Those technologists are your friends. And the sooner you realize it, the sooner your business will revive.

Give Neil Portnow credit for convincing the WGA that big time movie and television producers are a similar enemy to thieving consumers.

That’s right.  When I see kids on the street, stealing music, I get pissed that they’ve got money for Ferraris, vacations in Bali, but THEY WON’T PAY FOR MUSIC!

Or do we give credit to Patrick Goldstein, who chided the WGA brass for killing the Grammys, the main fund-raising event for NARAS.

I don’t understand those WGA guys.  Giving waivers here and there.  Who IS the enemy?  CBS is laughing all the way to the bank.  The WGA just delivered a Sunday night victory to the network!

Really, Neil Portnow almost earned his exorbitant salary here.  Mike Greene couldn’t have pulled this off.  He was more about alienating the powers-that-be than making friends.  Then again, Mr. Greene did his best to make the Grammys relevant, whereas Mr. Portnow is presiding over a sinking ship.

Music’s greatest night?

Then music must be in shit shape.  Because I want no part of this smorgasbord of vapidity.

They say it’s about representing ALL KINDS of music, that it’s a big tent.  But then how come only the major label priorities seem to get screen time?

I don’t want to put the blame on NARAS.  They’re a zit on the ass of an industry that’s an elephant run amok in Alaska, totally out of its environment.  When music is becoming decentralized, when everybody is making it, trading it online, we get Vivendi’s Levy telling us big label business is good and that the CD has nine lives left.

Really, Mr. Levy goes on about MARGINS!  What about the ten percent drop?

MIDEM has turned into a circle jerk.  Everybody wanting to get paid, the only people left out are those who count, the people actually listening, the customers.

I don’t know that TV exposure delivers cred.  And credibility is key to longevity in the twenty first century.  If you’re a real musician, don’t throw on a tux or a fancy gown, go down to the juke joint and PLAY!  Get the booze flowing, improvise a bit, try to connect with the patrons.  Don’t worry so much about selling as DELIVERING!

Who are those Grammy performers playing for?  Bud?  Or the fat cats in the audience?  I don’t think they’re playing for music fans.  Because real music fans just aren’t watching.  Only the casual buyers, who are so out of it that they go out the next week and purchase albums that have been out for eons, which somehow they’ve never heard of, or haven’t been motivated to buy.

Neil Portnow deserves kudos here.  But he’s saved a television show, not the music industry.  The people who will save the music industry are not going to watch this show, they’ll be too busy breaking acts that are too outside or too far from double-platinum for the string-pullers looking for this television show to pull them out of their slump.

As for the WGA…  Writers deserve a piece of Internet revenues.  But the only way they’re going to get it is to make the movie studios and TV networks hurt.  By constantly granting waivers, they’re just weakening their position.

CLIVE

We used to own the rock stars.  But we never owned the executives.

But once upon a time, the executives were fans.  But when they started believing they were more important than the acts, the business went downhill, rock died.  It was only about the money, the soul was gone.

We were a necessary part of the rock equation.  We built the stars, not MTV, not even radio.  We were respected as opposed to ripped-off.  We had soul.  And part of our essence was our irreverence, our ability to question authority, to cry foul.

Read this reminiscence by "Creem"’s Bill Holdship.  It’s priceless.

A Creem editor remembers …
… or Clive and Kordosh

CARIBOU RANCH

Colorado used to be a fascination.  Just read "Atlas Shrugged".  And in the early seventies, rock stars embraced it too.  Remember the cover of Stephen Stills’ solo debut?  With him in his hiking boots, in the snow?

That was the early seventies, the back to the land movement.

And the musicians went back to the land too.  To a Rocky Mountain high.  At 8,600 feet above Boulder, near Nederland.  That’s where they came to record at Caribou Ranch.

We knew about it from the credits.  This place in the middle of nowhere that these cosmopolitan rockers went to lay down tracks.

It was owned by James William Guercio, of Chicago fame.  But Chicago wasn’t the first act to record there.  That was Joe Walsh.  When he left the James Gang and recorded "Barnstorm".

He recorded "The Smoker You Drink…" there too.

The albums recorded at Caribou seemed to live in their own special place, their own unique world.  Maybe that’s why we loved them so much.

It wasn’t only Stephen Stills and Joe Walsh and Dan Fogelberg, but Elton too.

The sun went down on the Caribou recording studio back in ’85, but Mark Brown of the "Rocky Mountain News" recently got a peek.  With stories that will bring you right back to that era.

Read the words, watch the videos and listen to the audio.

But look at the picture of Stephen Stills in front of his guitars.  Back before you went on "Cribs" and showed your home, first and foremost you were a musician.  The tools of your trade were most important.  We lived to hear the products of this woodshedding, this creativity.  We’re still listening and learning today.

Special Report: The Legend of Caribou

I bought "Quadrophenia" the night I saw "Billy Jack". Before the mania, before the backlash, when the film’s cult was just forming and I wanted to discover its essence.

I stopped in the fall darkness at Korvette’s. Purchased six or seven records and then drove to the movie theatre in New Haven. I kept the bag of discs propped up in the front seat of my ’63 Chevy beside me. They couldn’t hit the floor. They were like children to me…

I remember buying one of those ice cream cones. You remember, with the chocolate confection sawed at the top of the yellow shell, with a piece of paper on top. I wanted to remember my youth, going to the flick on Saturday afternoon and seeing "Spartacus", when a cone like this cost ten cents.

The movie was interesting. Foremost for the fact Tom Laughlin made it himself. And when I got back to my parents’ house in Fairfield, I broke the shrinkwrap on "Quadrophenia" and looked through the extensive booklet. This was back when artists were into giving you more rather than less.

And when I got back to my dorm room in Middlebury the following evening, I dropped the needle on the first disc. And heard an ocean intro that sounded like it had been made on an ARP synthesizer. I was disappointed. I guess I wanted the "Overture" from "Tommy". My favorite Who album, if not the best. Even back in ’73, we knew "Who’s Next" was the best.

But many people now say "Quadrophenia" is their favorite.

I’ll say it’s my favorite rock movie. But favorite Who album?

Then I heard Phish’s version of "Sea and Sand" on my iPod this afternoon. This is the track that hooked me on "Quadrophenia".

Back before CDs, back before too much music on one disc, back before albums were basically filler, we played our records over and over again, waiting for a track to reveal itself. And over fifty percent through "Quadrophenia", in the second band of the second disc, I got hooked. By "Sea and Sand". This one little section:

The girl I love is a perfect dresser
Wears every fashion, gets it to a ‘t’
Heavens above, I got to match her
She knows just how she wants her man to be

Have you ever had a crush?

Oh, they truly begin in seventh grade. When your hormones have been raging for a year or two. When they thrust you in with a plethora of other kids from the town, back before junior high was replaced by middle school.

The object of your affection was exotic. She wasn’t the same girl everybody else desired. But there was a way she wore her sweater, combed her hair, turned her head that made you swoon. You thought about her walking home from school. You looked for every chance to connect, but you avoided almost all of them, feeling something akin to stage fright, you were worried you were going to blow it, say something stupid, drive her away.

You stood in front of the mirror. You looked at your zits. How could she pay attention to you? You thought about what you wore every day. You tried to make yourself desirable. But it never seemed to work. She ended up going for some dork, who wasn’t half the man you were.

Listening to Phish’s rendition this evening, I was reminded that notes make hits, but lyrics make classics. Well, the combination of the two. You could feel the angst in Pete Townshend’s music, and the lyrics contained all the anger and frustration of adolescence.

I came downstairs and fired up my PowerBook. What tracks did I have from "Quadrophenia" in my iTunes library? "Sea and Sand" was there, but "The Real Me" caught my eye.

The Who can never be the Who again because Keith Moon and the Ox are gone. Listen to "The Real Me". Entwistle is dancing ALL OVER IT! Oh, Pete slashes a guitar figure, but Entwistle is playing a bass MELODY underneath it all. It’s like Pete’s the rhythm guitarist and John’s the LEAD! It’s like while everybody is paying attention to the singer, the bass guitarist, caught in a trance, not worrying if anybody is paying attention, is creating HISTORY WITH HIS FINGERTIPS!

That’s the revelation of "Quadrophenia". John Entwistle’s playing.

Not that one wants to push Moon’s drumming aside. Did you ever see him play live? It was like there were two drummers on stage, like he was playing with eight arms. Sure, he had an outsized personality, but somehow Moon’s drumming was SUPPORTIVE! He was the coal car behind the engine, a necessary element. But his coal car threw the fuel into the boiler ALL BY ITSELF! Moon was the supporting actor who makes the movie gel. He played looking at the other three members of the band, he filled all the holes. He was why this three piece had the aural presence of an ORCHESTRA!

Can you see the real me? I’m trying so hard to reveal it. That’s why I write this shit. I crave attention. I missed out on something in my youth. Just like everybody picking up an instrument and saying LOOK AT ME! But too many of those musicians were afraid to write exactly what they felt. But not Pete Townshend. Hell, when I first listened to "The Real Me" not only had I not seen a psychiatrist, I thought therapy was BULLSHIT! Our heroes, the rockers, the musicians, were wise beyond their years. We learned from them. We expanded our minds.

And the tracks you hear most from "Quadrophenia" are "Love, Reign O’er Me" and "5:15", but the most important song on the album, the truly stellar number, is "I’m One".

I knew the track, but my sentiment was confirmed when I heard Pete’s take on "Deep End Live". But now, when I listen to the studio original, I get it!

Every year is the same
And I feel it again
I’m a loser – no chance to win
Leaves start falling
Come down is calling
Loneliness starts sinking in

Today’s pop stars are winners. Akin to head cheerleader and high school president. They’ve only known success. They’re the best-looking, and oftentimes they reinforce how fucking great they are.

Whereas our stars of yore were losers. Outsiders. Who were looking for a way to triumph.

Rock fans weren’t those playing by the rules, those winning at the traditional game, they were the outcasts, the ones who defied their parents and grew their hair long. They finally had leaders, who encased their message in wax. These musicians had the same frustrations as the audience did. That’s why they became stars. We elevated them to this exalted status because we were thrilled that they were speaking the truth, that we had someone to IDENTIFY WITH!

But I’m one
I am one
And I can see
That this is me
And I will be
You’ll all see
I’m the one

Our rock stars had something to prove. Springsteen to his father. The rest to the girls they couldn’t speak to, the teachers who said they were losers. Deep down inside, they felt they were WINNERS! And they were gonna SHOW ‘EM! That pure desire, that’s why they made it. This wasn’t about money, this wasn’t about being a star, this was about proving all those naysayers WRONG!

Where do you get
Those blue blue jeans
Faded patched secret so tight
Where do you get
That walk oh so lean
Your shoes and your shirts
All just right

Pete feels INADEQUATE! Oh, he’s speaking through a character, but it’s this gangly guy with the big nose who’s truly talking. Do you look into the mirror and think you’re ENTITLED? Then you’re not a real rock star. Great talents are plagued with self-doubt, they soldier on because there’s no other option. To accept their fate in the factory, in the cubicle, is a living death.

I got a Gibson
Without a case
But I can’t get that even tanned look on my face
Ill fitting clothes
I blend in the crowd
Fingers so clumsy
Voice too loud

The only one who says you’re great when you start out is your mother. If you’re lucky. You’ve got no support, only desire. And this desire causes you to practice. You’re not good-looking enough, you can barely talk to a stranger, you can’t pitch yourself. But your talent…that can show through. If you just spend enough time refining it, so it’s UNDENIABLE!

We listened to "Quadrophenia" and were exposed to the human condition. We didn’t need to go to a show to get it, we just needed to sit in front of the stereo, alone. This wasn’t music to dance to, to hang with your buddies with, this was like reading a book, a solo endeavor, that you TREASURED!

"Tommy" doesn’t hold up.

There’s not a better rock album than "Who’s Next".

But "Quadrophenia" is an integral part of the canon. It’s when Pete Townshend shed his skin and let his truth out. Not worried about what anybody else thought.

Without a hit single, without a tour, there was little scrutiny. "Quadrophenia" was not "Sgt. Pepper", wafting out of every window during the season. Hell, windows are closed in the late fall, when "Quadrophenia" was released.

It’s the broad works that are trumpeted, that get the accolades. But it’s the personal works that touch us, that stick with us.

I was reminded when I heard a COVER version of "Sea and Sand". And I marveled that the members of Phish, barely alive when "Quadrophenia" was originally released, recognized its greatness. Unexpurgated truth, delivered by inspired musicians, lives on. Forever.