You just did not love me enough to believe me
Enough not to leave me
Enough not to look for a reason to be unhappy with me
And make me regret ever wanting you
But those days are through

Steve Leeds called me to speak at this class he’s teaching at William Paterson University.  And when we were through discussing the logistics and the ins and outs of satellite radio, he asked me what I was listening to.

I hate this question.  It feels like a test.  Like I’ll be judged on what I come up with.  But then Steve talked about not knowing all the records he comes across in the store anymore.  I felt a certain kinship.  And that’s when Steve volunteered he loved listening to "Raising Sand", and that he’d gotten into Alison Krauss at this late date.  And I asked him…HAVE YOU HEARD HER COVER OF "BABY, NOW THAT I’VE FOUND YOU"?  You know, the old Foundations song?

I loaded iTunes and played it over the speakers.  And as Steve was flattened, I looked at the other Alison Krauss tracks in my library.  Her cover of Little Feat’s "Oh Atlanta", the great original from the "Twister" soundtrack, "Moments Like This", and…"It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference".

Was Steve a Todd Rundgren fan?

I heard that sigh, that sound of recognition that a lansman feels when coming across a member of the tribe in the middle of the desert.  I fired up the track.

Do you remember the last time I said
If I ever thought about lying
I’d rather think of dying instead

How many versions of Todd’s debut on Ampex were there?  For a while, they were ubiquitous in cut-out bins.  Then they disappeared.  As for the follow-up, what I consider to be Todd’s magnum opus, "The Ballad Of Todd Rundgren", that was even harder to find for a while.  But then came "Something/Anything?"

At this late date, "I Saw The Light" is remembered as a hit.  But it wasn’t.  Eventually, "Hello It’s Me" was.  But it was bittersweet for those that remembered the silky original on the very first Nazz album.  But between and around those two famous tracks are gems.  Listening is like finding diamonds in the middle of Iowa.  How did all this great music find its way on to a two disc set on tiny Bearsville Records?

Which disc do you play?  The first or the second?

The second’s got the heavy metal ballad "Black Maria" that blows everything Bon Jovi has ever done off the map, even though it was recorded when Mr. New Jersey was barely out of diapers.  And the can only be done in America "Dust In The Wind"…  Inhabiting a no-man’s land between rock and schmaltz, one that sounds bad on paper but makes you want to stand up and sing along when you hear it.

And the second record has even got the comedy classic "Piss Aaron", and the groupie lament, "You Really Left Me Sore".

Still, at this late date, I love the first disc more.  For its sweetness, for its intimacy, for its charm.  Sure, it begins with the offhand hit that Todd used to be able to write at will, the aforementioned "I Saw The Light", but how about the love song to Marlene?  He was in love with her, even though she was only seventeen.  And "The Night The Carousel Burnt Down", which seemed to be the soundtrack to a date Todd had gone on with this girlfriend.  It was a story.  Not about melisma, not about playing to the last row of the house, but a private moment cut in his home studio, alone, now shared with his soon to be adoring public.  Then there’s "It Takes Two To Tango (This Is For the Girls)", which turns a cliche into an infectious lighter than air confection.

But sandwiched between "I Saw The Light" and Todd’s paean to Wolfman Jack, before the deejay became ubiquitous, is "It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference".

And maybe you remember the last time you called me
To say we were through
How it took a million tears
Just to prove they all were for you
But those days are through

I’m not sure whether it was the movie "Wall Street", or the rap explosion, but suddenly our country went all macho.  A strange turn of events after the seventies, when men were encouraged to get in touch with their feminine side.

Today’s stars seem to be proud about stepping out.  Brad Pitt has seemed to survive two-timing Jennifer Aniston and ultimately marrying Angelina Jolie.  Trading up seems to be legal.  Who’s left behind…that’s just the cost of working your way up the food chain, the ladder to the top.  Just ask all those men Madonna left in her wake.

But how about the guy who’s devoted?  Who wouldn’t step out, who wouldn’t leave?  Who has moral character, who’s not a wimp, but is TRUSTWORTHY!

Well, certain women can’t trust any guy.  Maybe their father abandoned the family.  Maybe they were abused by a high school boyfriend.  But this certain type of female is always questioning, always sniffing the ground, to see if you’ve been faithful.

That’s what "It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference" is about.  The devoted guy.  Who just can’t prove his love to his skittish girlfriend.  He wants to hold on tight, but she’s always wiggling from his grasp, to avoid being hurt.  They say there are no good guys out there?  I’d suggest you check your criteria.  You’re looking for a bad boy with choir boy traits, an oxymoron.  Someone who’s not dashing and dangerous, who you can count on…is that enough?  Not for so many.

What is enough?  What really counts?  Is it looks?  Or companionship?  Or  trust.

Trust is number one.  You’ve got no relationship if the other person is not there.  Commitment reigns supreme.  And it’s dependent upon the underlying trust.  And if it’s not mutual, there’s disgust.

Alison Krauss does not rearrange the song.  But she turns it into a dreamy lullaby, albeit with a black underbelly.  There’s mood, but the underlying emotion, the underlying anger, is gone.  It’s a performance, not her song.

But it’s Todd’s song.  And his story.  And he’s PISSED!  And although he possesses an inferior voice to the Nashville angel, his take triumphs, because of its raw, naked emotion.

But both versions kill.  And they’re both put over the top by this one change, deep in the song.  When the key drops and truth is revealed.  Alison underplays.  She goes intimate.  She makes you think.  Whereas Todd gets intense, he becomes INDIGNANT!

Those days are through.  He’s finished.  He gave her everything, but it wasn’t enough.

They say certain people just can’t be pleased.  That’s the woman in this song.  She believes in a fantasy world, with angels and fairies, with film star boyfriends who are so devoted and truthful that they never go to work, but stay constantly by her side.

In order to survive, in order to be happy, you’ve got to let go.  You’ve got to have faith.  Sure, you must make judgments, informed ones.  But after you’ve made your decision, you’ve got to cease micro-managing.  That’s when your partner flowers.  As does your relationship.

The truism of the web: people talking about you is far more effective than talking about yourself.

No, Ian Rogers of Yahoo didn’t write the above aphorism, Seth Godin did.  Check out the entire post under the title "Blogs and self promotion" at:

Seth Godin’s Blog

Could it be that the days of self promotion are done?  Is that what killed big time rap music?  My inbox tells me rap is alive and well, just sans bluster and underground.  Turns out if you’re telling everybody how great you are, no one takes you seriously.  OTHER PEOPLE have to say how great you are.

This is anathema to mainstream corporations.  They’re based on marketing.  That’s what major labels became, marketing machines.  There’s nothing organic about the procedure at all.  What can be organic when you’ve got to move millions of pieces of product this quarter so your stock price doesn’t tank?

The music business has rarely been about thinking.  It’s about bluster.  And intimidation.  If you don’t know this, you haven’t hung out with the old guard.  Where if you don’t feel a bit scared, then you’re not hanging with winners.  I had dinner with the deposed head of a major corporation recently and I was STILL frightened, even though he was sans power base.  You see it’s baked into his personality.  Where nerds were never frightening.  And nerds are inheriting the earth.

I wouldn’t quite call Ian Rogers a nerd, he’s not a geeky Bill Gates, even an out of touch Mark Zuckerberg.  Ian’s first and foremost a music fan.  But he’s got the nerd knowledge base.  And when he talks you’re not bored, rather you’re inspired by the pearls of wisdom.

Ian’s done with digital scarcity.  Which is the major label paradigm.  He references his manifesto re this on his Website.  And that’s what I want to tell you about, his blog entry.

Sure, it covers the Aspen conference.  You can read the screed and feel left out.  But the reason I’m pointing you in this direction is so you explore the ideas of music distribution in the future, and not just argue whether this band or that is any good.

The new seers are different from the old ones.  Sure, they care about their favorite acts, but that’s not their only concern.  They ponder how the music is going to get to the listeners, and who those listeners are.  In a way never contemplated by the powers-that-be, who have done such a good job of squandering the future of monetization of recorded music.

Doug Morris said he had no idea who to call?  He should have called Ian Rogers, or a bunch of equally noteworthy young techies.  But they didn’t have the right parents and they hadn’t worked in record retail, they hadn’t paid their dues, they didn’t approach the selling of music in the traditional way.

Ian tried to make nice with the majors.  He’s done with that.  So is the public.  Whose side do you want to be on?  Those with the keys to the castle, who don’t want to let the hoi polloi in, or the fans who actually support this music?

If you’re following the shenanigans of septuagenarian Clive Davis, never mind his inferiors, I feel sorry for you.  That’s about massaging an act and hyping it via old wave marketing techniques.  Word of mouth isn’t selling Alicia Keys, just raw promotion.  That’s the old wave record business in action.  Nothing inherently wrong with it, just that if it survives in the future, it will be a tiny sliver of the market.  Snow doesn’t come down from the sky Charlie Brown, it comes up from the ground.  You have to pull it up.

Lucy Van Pelt may not be right about precipitation, but she’s got the future of the record business nailed.  You’ve got to pull, HARD!  And you’ve got to pull for a very long time before even part of the landscape is covered.  People like Ian Rogers understand this.  They are inheriting the music business.

Talking To The Music Industry Again, The Aspen Live Conference

Are you a fan of music or stars?  If you’re a fan of stars, despite the celebrity culture we seemingly inhabit, your legion is diminishing, music is returning.

Music is a bellwether.  Music leads the way.  Despite the capitulation of the industry, despite the endless polishing of vapid turds, music is the most vibrant medium, the one that we look to for truth.  You can write and record a song in minutes, you don’t have to ask anyone for permission, you don’t have to hit up your parents for production fees, never mind a movie studio.  There’s a direct connection from you to your listener’s heart.  Assuming someone’s paying attention.

While the film industry grapples with declining disc sales, and tries to establish another physical format, the music world knows that the disc is dead and that online is king.  After all, Napster hit at the end of 1999.

Like I said, music is first.

Sure, there are ninnies interested in popular culture, who want to wear the badge of major industry hypes, but music, real music, the kind that touches people, not the momentary stop traffic hit, has gone underground.  All that you lament has been gone from the game, everything from songwriting to mistakes…it’s back.  Despite the major media being clueless.

You don’t follow the music industry anymore, you don’t listen to the radio and you don’t really care who’s number one, you’re a fan of an act.  And those not interested in your act don’t give a shit.  It’s not about crossing over, it’s about the great divide.

Don’t feel bad if you don’t like the records reviewed in the newspaper, the ones talked about by the hipsters.  They think there’s a mainstream scene.  But that’s gone.  Propped up to a degree by touring dinosaurs and what’s left of over the air radio, but it just doesn’t count.

I was about to write about an Ian Matthews song, a cover of Jules Shear’s "Shadows Break", from "Walking A Changing Line", one of my favorite albums.  And I found out that the now monikered "Iain" released a live album, you can hear the samples here:

Artist: Iain Matthews
Album Title: Nights In Manhattan (And Points West)
Label: ItsAboutMusic.com

you can even buy the MP3s on Amazon.  And thinking of that long ago decade known as the eighties my mind stumbled upon John Kilzer, whose first album slayed me.  It didn’t break through, but that was back when being signed counted, when it gave you a hand in the game, a shot at stardom, before the game imploded and it all became meaningless.  And I learned that you can hear Kilzer’s "classic", "Memory In The Making", on MySpace, on a page a fan established for him:

John Kilzer MySpace

And, if you try YouTubing Mr. Kilzer, you’ll find not only his video for his lame attempt at a hit, "Red Blue Jeans", but a cover of his greatest song by..?  2,614 people have viewed this musician’s cover

Memory in the making

of a song by a musician who’s dropped out of sight.  But the song lives on.

That’s what a great song does, live on.  Kind of like Willis Alan Ramsey’s "Satin Sheets", or Steve Young’s "Seven Bridges Road", the arrangement of which by Ian Matthews the Eagles supposedly lifted and rendered an off-handed classic.

It’s not about chart position.  It’s not about sales.  It’s not about gold albums.  It’s about hearts and minds.  Are you in people’s hearts and minds?  Do you touch them, do you affect them?

That’s all that counts.  The rest, the trappings, are bullshit.

How many people want to see Buckingham Nicks? Yes, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, performing their ’73 Polydor debut.

Control freak Lindsey doesn’t even want the album out on CD. But it’s ALL OVER the Net.

Over the last twenty four hours I’ve been subjected to two stories about the Rock & Roll Fantasy Camp. In "USA Today" and the L.A. "Times". What a crock of shit. Rocking isn’t something you can buy, it’s not a career choice, it’s not something you can boil down to money and freedom, it’s about PASSION, it’s about having NO OTHER CHOICE! Which may be why these rockers do these gigs, for the money, because they’re not prepared to do anything else in life, and when the hits dry up, so does their income.

Unless you had a shitload of hits. Which Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks had. Decades ago. And, in a few years, when their Fleetwood Mac scorched earth reunion tour wears off the public consciousness, maybe they’ll be able to rape and pillage in that incarnation once again. But until then…

Lindsey can make records for an ever smaller audience, trying to prove he’s relevant. Stevie can do her hits along with Don Henley or another blue chip star from the era. But both are running on fumes. Time to reinvent themselves.

But what a bringdown, from being an arena act to…playing theatres?

LiveNation, AEG and TicketMaster are swinging for the fences. They’re trying to cook up new ways to if not fatten their bottom lines, at least maintain them. That’s the wrong strategy. They should be focusing on good music, on placating the audience.

There seems to be a concept in the big time music business that customers are pirates, rip-off artists who can’t be trusted. This is patently untrue. They’re FANS! The key is to tap into this fandom.

Labels count. If not, then "Crying In The Night" off the very first Buckingham Nicks album would have been a hit.

Listen for yourself.

If you’ve got good computer speakers, ones that don’t distort, that allow you to crank it up, go to: Buckingham Nicks – Crying in the Night (45 mix) – Crystal

Assuming you’ve got piece of shit speakers, check out this link instead:
Buckingham Nicks-Crying In The Night (Single Version). It’s loud and distorted, but so is everything you’re listening to, at least you’ll feel the punch.

Now both of these takes are the single version, with Lindsey’s electric guitar. You really want to hear the album take, with the acoustic. It’s warmer, more intimate… Isn’t everything played on an acoustic?

She was that kind of lady…

You know, the one who made your heart stop, who tied your tongue. One night she paid attention to you, maybe you slept together, maybe you even lived with her, you thought you’d met your soul-mate. Then she disappeared.

"Crying In The Night" is about her. Do you have the power to resist?

Life is a one time only gamble. If you play it safe, all you’ve got is regrets. But if you take a chance, will your friends pull you out of the abyss one more time?

This isn’t about Stevie Nicks being delicious, or Lindsey Buckingham either for that matter. It’s about two musicians willing to do ANYTHING to make it. Not going to law school, but waiting tables and practicing. Thrilled just to have a deal, to pour out their truth on wax. That was the seventies dream. And when you got the album home and broke the shrinkwrap…what came out of the speakers was your new best friend, it could SAVE YOUR LIFE!

"Crystal" was on that first Buckingham Nicks album too. Check it out at:
Buckingham Nicks (1973)

I ALWAYS trust my first initial feeling. If you don’t, you’re too calculating, too locked up. Life is about feeling, about instinct. And if you ask me, "Crystal" is the best track on Buckingham and Nicks’ debut with Fleetwood Mac. Hear it here in its initial incarnation.

But I don’t love the original "Crystal" as much as "Frozen Love", from that same Buckingham Nicks debut. "Frozen Love" has all the mystery, all the intensity of the duo’s later work with Fleetwood Mac. It’s an epic, that sets your mind adrift. You listen and the rest of the world doesn’t matter. Check it out at: Frozen Love

Don’t ask me what inspired rhiannon185 to put images of Sharon Tate from "Fearless Vampire Killers" to Buckingham Nicks’ music. But I’m sure she’s a fan. Of an album that hasn’t been available in decades. At least not legally.

But every computer-savvy fan of the long deleted album immediately downloaded every track upon the advent of Napster.

So many of those fans have now been scared away by the RIAA’s tactics. But now home made videos are available on YouTube. It seems no matter how hard they try, the RIAA can’t kill music. The public is just too dedicated, the music is too entrenched in their lives.

We could talk about what inspires fans to create videos to their favorite songs. We could talk about copyright issues. I’ll just say this music is alive. In the hearts of fans.

Buckingham and Nicks should forget they were in Fleetwood Mac. They should forget about the coke-fueled seventies. They should just focus on the fact that they’ve got FANS! HARD CORE FANS! And the way you make it in the twenty first century, the way you play the music business game, is to PLACATE THESE FANS!

It’s no longer about charts. It’s not about gold albums, quantifications. It’s about BONDS!

Lindsey Buckingham can refuse to release "Buckingham Nicks" forever, but it won’t make the music unavailable, it won’t keep it from the fans. The seventies are over. No music is rare. BUT THE PERFORMANCE IS!

Lindsey and Stevie should take their act on the road. If you go, you get a CD of the debut with your ticket. Otherwise, you’ve got to download the album on iTunes, when it becomes available the same day. Or, you can choose to get a vinyl copy instead. It’s your choice. Along with your $200 ticket.

Oh, I’m not saying that should be the price. If the duo can sell out Madison Square Garden, cut the price in half. But I doubt they can play arenas in most places. Best to book theatres. And an exorbitant price is cool in this case…BECAUSE THIS IS TRULY A ONCE IN A LIFETIME PERFORMANCE! That’s when you charge a lot. When it’s never going to happen again.

I could talk about the press, the excitement. But that’s secondary to the ecstasy of the fans in attendance. This will be the highlight they’re looking for.

All you old rockers… Get out of the RIAA’s pocket, stop fighting your constituency. There are riches in that thar’ Web. If only you embrace your opportunities. You’ve got a hard core of fans. PLAY TO THEM!