The first Capricorn Records album I purchased was "Livingston Taylor".

My older sister bought me James Taylor’s debut for my birthday, it was the rage at BU.  That Apple album finally came out on CD, and unfortunately its production has not worn well.  But, at the time, it was my absolute favorite.  With the interludes, the way one song slid into another.  And my favorite track was "Carolina In My Mind".  It’s not the version you’re familiar with.  It’s played faster, with optimism.  Every morning I woke up and immediately cued up the record on my turntable.  To the point where my father even started to sing along.

And not long thereafter, I journeyed to Boston and saw JT at Harvard.  You know how you see an act and you get goosebumps, know you’re experiencing something special?  That’s what it was like.  Just James sitting on a stool, even playing "For Free", the soon to be released song from his girlfriend Joni Mitchell’s album, "Ladies Of The Canyon".

JT mania really didn’t hit until the fall.  He wasn’t on the cover of "Time" magazine yet.  Every Taylor hadn’t released an album.  Now, we only had Livingston, who was legit.  I needed more of that touch your soul sound.  I bought the record.  And immediately became enraptured with "Carolina Day".  Which still tickles my fancy decades later.  As for the label?  Wasn’t it just another Atlantic Records imprint?  Akin to Cotillion, which was the label of record for the "Woodstock" three disc set?

No.

But we didn’t know that yet.  We had to wait until the following winter.  When the Allman Brothers Band finally got traction.

I heard "Midnight Rider" on the radio this morning.

I’m very rarely up in the morning.  But even scheduling two months in advance, I could get an appointment with Dr. Brackmann no later than 10 a.m.  And elated that my hearing hadn’t deteriorated, I cranked the radio on the way home. And at the intersection of Alvarado and Hoover, the southern rock sound started pouring out of the speakers.

It took me years, but I finally realized "Midnight Rider"’s got the beat of a horse’s gallop.  It sets you in a groove akin to riding on the back of a palomino.  You know how riding is, you’re lolled into a trance, your mind is set free. "Midnight Rider" has the same effect.  That’s why we were all closed on the Allmans.  It was like they snuck up on us and became our best friends while we were unaware.  It just felt natural.

And by August, when "Fillmore East" finally hit the racks, the Allmans were suddenly the hottest, the hippest band on the planet.  Even though they’d had nary a single, never mind a hit.

Maybe it was Bill Graham’s anointment.  They’d closed the venerable East Village emporium.  The final act on the final night.  The Allmans were for driving, for relaxing, for getting high and contemplating your life.  They weren’t mindless.  Our music wasn’t mindless.

And the Allman Brothers were on Capricorn Records.

At this point, we knew the label was masterminded by Phil Walden.  In an era when music news was scarce, we scraped for every bit of information.  This guy who was Otis Redding’s manager, his best friend, he was the king of a new sound, southern rock.  If it was on Capricorn, you paid attention.  Until Captain Beyond.

I’ve heard Captain Beyond on Deep Tracks.  All these years later, they were pretty good.  But what were they doing on Capricorn?  Was Phil Walden getting too big for his britches, thinking he could conquer every genre of music?

But then came the Marshall Tucker Band.

Gonna take a freight train
Down at the station, lord
I don’t care where it goes
Gonna climb a mountain
The highest mountain
And gonna jump off
Nobody gonna know

Can’t you see
Oh, can’t you see
What that woman, lord
She been doin’ to me
Can’t you see
Can’t you see
What that woman
Been doin’ to me

The opening track on Marshall Tucker’s debut was "Take The Highway".  It took off like a shot.  That’s what we learned from the Stones, your opening track had to be aggressive, and utterly fantastic.  And "Take The Highway" qualified.  The band fired on all cylinders.  And this guy, he had a voice akin to smoked honey.  It had brawn, but smoothness.  You were enraptured, whether you were a girl or a boy.

And then came "Can’t You See".

Somehow, all these years later, Marshall Tucker is seen as a COWBOY band.  With hats, singing shitkicker music, like "Heard It In A Love Song".

Forget all that, forget everything after the first album.  Actually, you only need the first two cuts on that very first album.  "Take The Highway" and "Can’t You See".

Neither of them were singles.  But within a few years, there wasn’t a baby boomer who hadn’t heard them.  Sure, there was radio play.  But someone always had the record.  You’d hear the tracks at parties, in dorm rooms, apartments.  When you were toking up, when you were kicking back and having an afternoon beer.

It was all about how the music made you feel.  And "Can’t You See" made you stop everything you were doing and relax, and get into the music.  There’s the acoustic guitar intro, the flute, and the GROOVE!  Actually, it takes almost thirty seconds for the band to settle into said groove, and another thirty before the vocal begins.  There’s electric guitar picking.  Bending of notes.  My girlfriend would like foreplay this good.  And when the singing begins, you’re SOLD!

But the song isn’t compartmentalized, it’s not a ditty, out in a little over three minutes.  It stretches.  On for over six.  You REVEL IN IT!

But that was my last Capricorn hurrah.

Maybe it was the death of Berry Oakley.  Or Gregg Allman testifying against that roadie.  Or maybe I just graduated from college.  I loved those Lynyrd Skynyrd tracks, but I fell off the Capricorn bandwagon.  And soon, so did everybody else.

Phil Walden helped Jimmy Carter get elected President, but his musical empire started to fail.

And now not only are Duane and Berry gone, but the Caldwell brothers too.  And Phil himself.  The king of southern rock is history.

Southern rock was everything the Grateful Dead were supposed to be.  The Dead were sloppy, their voices were substandard.  Whereas the Allmans and the other Capricorn bands were rehearsed.  It’s as if Phil had never forgotten his roots with Otis Redding.  You had to be able to play, you had to be able to slay the public, you had to convert them with one listen.

And I was converted to another one of Phil’s charges the other night.  Wet Willie.

Oh, I knew "Keep On Smilin’".  A good-timey track, the only time the band got it right.  Wrong!

There was Grinderswitch.  Sea Level.  Too many substandard southern rockers.  At least that’s what I thought.  You see we couldn’t hear too much of this stuff.  You had to buy it to truly hear it.

But through the miracle of satellite radio, three decades on, I was finally introduced to Wet Willie’s "Dixie Rock".

Come on play some good time music
Just the way we used to do

Maybe I underestimated Phil, maybe I had it all wrong, maybe he truly was on the pulse.  Maybe I gave up on Capricorn TOO EARLY!

There’s a studio take of "Dixie Rock", but in classic southern rock tradition, you’ve got to hear the live rendition.

Fire up the doobie, buy a case of Boone’s Farm.  Grow your hair out, and get ready for that Les Paul, it’s gonna pick you up off the couch and make you COME ALIVE!

I pull up in front of Felice’s house around midnight, and I can’t get out of the car.  I’m shimmying and shaking in my seat.  Nobody’s watching, it’s just me and the music.  I can relax and be myself.  The music has set me FREE!

These rockers were southerners, but they were our brothers.  They marched to the beat of their own drummer.  They took no bullshit.  And they wanted to impress us, by showing us how great they could play!

If you’re getting tired of trouble
If you’re feeling down and out
Listen to the funky shuffle
Way they play it way down south

Chris Rock: Music kind of sucks. Nobody’s into being a musician. Everybody’s getting their mogul on. You’ve been so infiltrated by this corporate mentality that all the time you’d spend getting great songs together, you’re busy doing nine other things that have nothing to do with art. You know how shitty Stevie Wonder’s songs would have been if he had to run a fuckin’ clothing company and a cologne line?

RollingStone: Plenty of rappers say, "I’m not a rapper, I’m a businessman."

Chris Rock: That’s why rap sucks, for the most part. Not all rap, but as an art form it’s just not at its best moment. Sammy the Bull would have made a shitty album. And I don’t really have a desire to hear Warren Buffett’s album – or the new CD by Paul Allen. That’s what everybody’s aspiring to be.

We live in a weird time. No one knows who’s smart – we just know who makes money. "Hey, somebody invented Viagra! We don’t know their name, but we know Pfizer, because they make the money." That guy made a pill that keeps your dick hard, and nobody knows who the fuck he is. The pharmaceutical companies are like fuckin’ record companies. There’s literally the Bo Diddley of medicine walking around, not getting his royalties. He signed all his fucking pill publishing away.

("Rolling Stone", Issue 1039, November 15, 2007, page 157)

One of my favorite quotes about the movie business comes from Lynda Obst’s book, "Hello, He Lied":

"If the writer gives good meeting, he’s a lousy writer."

If the musician is a good businessman, he’s a shitty musician. Sure, there are exceptions. Supposedly Steve Miller. But this rule runs pretty true. Which is why something resembling a record company is going to be necessary in the future. Musicians make the music, someone needs to sell it.

Right now the major labels are so busy fighting for their lives that they’re offering unreasonable deals to acts. Sure, take a piece of my touring and merch, but let’s be in it together! Let’s have a joint venture, sharing profits 50/50. But the majors don’t want to do this. They want the old heinous royalty terms PLUS a share of your income. So, any act with a reasonable manager, or an already established career, is saying no. So, the major labels are declining in power and influence. But just like Microsoft took over from IBM, new entities will emerge. And they will be run by people of the younger generation, with wholly different values from the baby boomers and Generation X.

Despite what you read in the press, the under twenty five set is willing to work, and hard. They want profits, but they play fair. Digits don’t lie. The key is to make sure the digits fall your way. This is the opposite of music business history, which is all about payoffs and screwing artists.

iTunes artist royalties must be higher. Much higher. Careers must be primary rather than short term revenue. The businessmen must be on the side of the acts. Which hasn’t been the case for eons. Even attorneys side with the majors, after all, that’s who ultimately pays them.

Will it be a manager, or an indie label or a concert promoter…

Probably all of these things! The new entity will be low on infrastructure, but will play on every front.

But it all comes down to the music. You have to create something that truly moves people, that gets inside their brains. They’re interested in how rich you are, but not as much as how you hurt, how you feel. That’s the essence of music, feeling. The feeling’s been eviscerated.

Once again, if you want truth you’ve got to listen to an outsider, a comedian. We all know Chris Rock’s truth delineated above. But if you’re white and you say it, you’re a racist. Not that white music is much better. Rap was the last rock and roll, new and dangerous. Whereas rock has been sold-out for decades. You’ve got to take chances to create something great. If you’re not willing to risk, get out of the way.

And if you’re impressed by the bucks, then I guess you’d marry for money. Oh, that’s right, you believe in love. And so does everybody else. We want to love our bands, and their music. But they must be lovable! And what makes us lovable is our imperfections. Not laser-sculptured bodies, but rough edges. Which is why Jessica Simpson can barely sell a concert ticket and Neil Young can sell thousands of ducats forty years later. It’s about the essence, not the sheen. It’s about truth, not phoniness. It’s about being unique, an individual. Artists are supposed to be separate from businessmen, wary of their methods. When the two merge, you get shitty art. Like we’ve got today.

Art must be beholden only to the creator’s conscience. It must be made out of pure desire. It must possess the essence of human life…truth, justice and HONESTY!

I’m sick and tired of the constant debate about Radiohead’s business model. It WASN’T a business model. It was a one time stunt that is not the future of the music business and will only be replicated by fools.

Want to make some money? Sell t-shirts. Charge for gigs. Create a fan club (that actually delivers something besides tickets). Because as 2007 draws to a close, it appears most people now believe music is free. And want to hear it before they pay for it!

You take a test drive before you buy a car, don’t you? You go to the Apple Store and fiddle with a Mac before you order one. What makes you think the same rules don’t apply to music? Music, when done right, isn’t disposable. The only stuff you don’t try out before buying is shit that’s cheap, that you instantly use up. You don’t care that much if you get ripped off. You’ll just never buy that product again.

But music is different. Music, when done right, hits you EMOTIONALLY! It’s not inert, it’s made by people. It’s more than the sound. There’s a culture, that you may choose to bond with. Yes, it’s a choice, as opposed to what the major labels presently think. You don’t hammer your audience over the head, you INVITE them to partake.

Does a drug dealer make you pay upfront? No, a new customer always gets a taste free. To see how fucking good the drug is. The goal is to ADDICT the customer, so he’ll keep on paying until he dies. This is the way it used to be in the music business, in the sixties and seventies, when bands had CAREERS!

That’s what you need, a career. Because you just can’t make it as an overnight star anymore. You can’t sell enough records, no one wants to see you…the only people interested are those who don’t count, the casual buyers. Our whole business has been dumbed down, the rough edges shorn, so the casual user will partake. Drug dealers don’t get rich on the person who gets high once a year, they need people who partake EVERY NIGHT!

But the only people who want you to listen to music every night are those at Apple. Selling you iPods that can hold your entire collection and run for hours. The concert industry doesn’t want you to come on regular basis, you can’t AFFORD IT! And the record labels have overcharged you for crap for so many years that you no longer trust that there IS such a thing as an album playable from beginning to end.

The significance of "In Rainbows" isn’t its tip jar sale structure, but the fact that the band did it alone, without a major label.

Radiohead looked and still looks cool. Radiohead looks like it’s in bed with its fans. Radiohead knows its customer is the one on the street, not the one in the boardroom. That it must please the fan, not the businessman. Sure, they cleared a couple of mil here, more power to them. But if you think you can replicate this stunt, you’re dreaming.

First and foremost, you won’t be first. So, no matter what you do, it won’t be cool. Second, you’re not as cool as Radiohead, they’re the coolest band in the world! Your music is not perceived to be as good, so fewer people are interested and fewer will pay.

If name your price was such a good business model, why doesn’t GM employ it? Or Time Warner? Marketing is about establishing VALUE! The labels, the business at large, have done a good job of eviscerating value. The only hope for revenue in the future is for people to believe they’re getting their money’s worth.

I don’t care that most people didn’t pay for "In Rainbows". And you shouldn’t either. Radiohead is an anomaly. Your problem isn’t getting a ton of people to pay for your music, it’s getting a ton of people to HEAR your music!

Look at the Eagles. They did a one time deal with Wal-Mart. You can’t replicate this paradigm because Wal-Mart doesn’t need you. The only bands who can generate this kind of traffic…can be counted on one hand. Still, only 700,000 people bought "Long Road Out Of Eden". Good for the band’s pockets, positively shitty in terms of footprint. "Long Road Out Of Eden" is the last twist on the old paradigm, charging in the neighborhood of ten bucks per album.

The Eagles sell out. But, they could insure constant sellouts for years if they distributed TENS OF MILLIONS of copies of "Long Road Out Of Eden". Gave it away free on their Website, with newspapers, as premiums. That’s what you’re gonna have to do, because in the near future, Wal-Mart won’t even SELL CDs.

Are you getting me here? It’s less about charging up front than wide distribution. I got e-mail from people who told me they didn’t even know there was a new Eagles album until they read it in my newsletter. Better yet, I got an e-mail from a sophisticate who said she didn’t know Annie Lennox had a new album until she saw an online ad on a news site.

How do we spread the word? THAT’S the question. How can we get people INTERESTED! When society is fractured, and we all don’t listen to the tribal drum of terrestrial radio or network TV. It’s less about figuring how to charge for physical discs, or keeping margins up, than finding customers who are interested.

Pretty face with a catchy beat just isn’t enough anymore. The nineties are done. Consider giving the album away as a marketing cost. You’ve got to do something to get people interested. Or else, you’ve got no business.

Just talk to the major labels… They’ve got no business.

You’re smarter than that. You’re making good music, you’re empowering your fans. Follow those aspects of Radiohead’s success. Their march to their own drummer, their refusal to hew to the hit radio paradigm. Radiohead created an online ruckus because of its ten year investment in the BAND! It was all about the music, unfettered by commercialism. I’m stunned this many people even wanted to pay! But pay they did, because they RESPECT Radiohead.

Focus on credibility. Focus on the music. Focus on the fan. Then the money will come. People will beat your door down to give you money. It may not be for recordings, but you’ve got plenty else to sell.

For Radiohead Fans, Does “Free” + “Download” = “Freeload”?

So I’m sitting in the waiting room at the House Ear Clinic reading "Men’s Journal" and I come across a BlackBerry ad featuring Terry McBride.

A few months back, I saw one featuring John Mayer.

Why do we hate John Mayer? Is it the overemoting? Or the ridiculous tattoos? Or the Jessica Simpson fixation? Oh, I remember why, it’s the incredibly wimpy MUSIC! It’s the calculation that bugs me. If you’re a blues-rocker, why didn’t you START OFF as a blues-rocker? Seems to me you followed the market. Didn’t do anything new, didn’t open my eyes, just gave me more of what I already knew. Unlike my BlackBerry.

When did you know you needed mobile e-mail?

Maybe you still don’t know. Maybe you live in China, where e-mail has been supplanted by texting (should I say "txting"?) But, if you’re a businessman. Or a housewife. If your idea of communicating is more than a few cryptic semi-words, you need mobile e-mail. And the device of choice, the only one that truly works, is the BlackBerry.

Oh, I know you love your iPhone. But, you don’t get push e-mail of corporate accounts, not in any authorized fashion. And we need our e-mail INSTANTLY! As for those using the ridiculous Treo, hopefully this missive will convince you to trash it. Did you read that expose on the Treo in the "New York Times"? The Treo is the OPPOSITE of twenty first century tech. It just doesn’t work. It crashes. The OS is positively ancient. And the e-mail isn’t instantaneous. Oh, Verizon supposedly has a workaround, but who’d even bother to try.

Speaking of Verizon, can you hear me now? If you’re on T-Mobile, I know you’re cheap. Yup, you. You can’t resist a bargain. You want all those minutes for no money. It’s just that I can’t HEAR YOU! Because you’re in one of the many dead zones the company ADMITS it has.

Or maybe you’re on Sprint. Same technology as Verizon, CDMA, but with a lot fewer towers. You may not have gotten the memo, but others have. Sprint is hemorrhaging customers.

And if you’re on AT&T… AT&T hasn’t been reliable since the eighties.

You need Verizon because you’re a BUSINESSPERSON! You need a CONNECTION!

Of course, you can’t travel with Verizon, because the rest of the world is on GSM, but that’s why you’ve got the BlackBerry 8830, which works on BOTH networks (albeit at a ridiculously high price, since you can’t replace the SIM card).

And that brings us right back where we started. It’s about efficiency. It’s about making your life easier. It’s about being WOWED by technology.

When you set up your BlackBerry account and e-mail starts flowing to the device you can’t believe it. It’s too good to be true! How does it work!

You’re freed from your office. You feel grounded. And you’re suddenly pissed EVERYBODY ELSE DOESN’T HAVE A BLACKBERRY!

If you don’t have a BlackBerry you just don’t get it. But owners do.

Like Terry McBride.

I’m against endorsements. Even though idiots like Mr. Mayer think they’re a way of life, that you HAVE to take the money, like it’s a drug. I thought it was ridiculous when every star did a Gap ad. When was Gap cool? But I can understand endorsing the BlackBerry. Because the BlackBerry is everything the music used to be. Something you can’t foresee that makes your life so much RICHER!

Too much music is now entertainment. It doesn’t surprise, it doesn’t elate. I remember hearing "Sexual Healing" on the radio the first time. I had to push the buttons, in a desperate effort to hear it again. The last time I heard a track like this was Gnarls Barkley’s "Crazy". Since then?

The BlackBerry found an UNFORESEEN NEED and filled it. This is like showing up at the record company with a demo NOTHING LIKE what’s on the radio and saying THIS IS GONNA BE REALLY BIG! But the label doesn’t want stuff like that, it wants shit just like what’s already on the radio. And use a name while you’re at it, WILL YOU!

BlackBerry wasn’t part of Microsoft… RIM was north of the border, in Canada… They were doing this ALONE!

And, like a developing act, my 8830 is nothing like those original black clunkmeisters. And if I see anybody with one of these originals, or its blue plastic replacement, I laugh. It’s like seeing someone on an airplane with a CD booklet. What, you can’t afford the future?

The BlackBerry isn’t priced like a Ferrari. It’s not prohibitively expensive.

But interestingly, the money’s not in the device, but the service. The extra forty bucks a month for data. You’d think the labels would learn this, that the music is just the tip of the iceberg. Oh yeah, they want in on touring and merch, but they don’t want to readjust their DEAL! Give me 50 percent and I’ll sign that contract…otherwise I’ll go it alone.

I’d like to say the BlackBerry menus are as good as the iPhone’s. I’d like to say its usability rivals a Mac’s. But this isn’t so. Maybe, in the future, I’ll be using an Apple device, on Verizon. But for now, I’m part of the Berry team. Along with Terry, John Mayer and that housewife at the ball game.

Oh, I’m not thumbing constantly. But no matter where I am in the world, I’m in touch.

And I’m excited about this.

We need to be excited. We need to be thrilled. The money comes AFTER THIS!