My inbox is crammed with e-mails telling me how fucking slow the Radiohead site is running. Shades of the U2/fan club/ticketing debacle?

One thing I never forgot is a quote from Bob Reitman, who used to be GM at A&M. He looked me in the eye and asked, "Are you a writer or a publisher?"

I’m a writer. I’m incidentally a publisher.

Radiohead is a band. And right now they look like shitty businessmen.

They didn’t anticipate the crush? They didn’t buy enough server power? They aligned themselves with incompetents, people who hadn’t DONE IT BEFORE?

The Web… Funny how music rules it and the old wave bands are so retarded when it comes to it. LAY OFF THE FLASH! If it takes that fucking long for your page to come up, PEOPLE WON’T COME BACK! What do you want more, an award-winning design or return visits?

The Grateful Dead’s record company was run so ineptly that they went back to a major. Maybe Radiohead didn’t want to align with iTunes because the band only wanted its music sold as an album, but then why didn’t they make a deal with Amazon, SOMEBODY WITH ENOUGH INFRASTRUCTURE!

That’s what Apple and Amazon do all day. Fulfillment. Rag on TicketMaster all you want, but believe me, it ain’t easy to process all those requests. They ARE providing a service, however overpriced you might believe it is.

As are major labels. Chances are, if you’re savvy enough to do everything they do, you’re a shitty musician. They’re COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SKILLS!

If the majors had been smart, which they’re not, they would have become the distributors of choice. Made deals with EVERYONE! That’s their role. Releasing music and getting paid. No one does it better. It’s just now they want the lion’s share of the money and don’t want to account honestly regarding how much money came in. But, if there were a new company, operating transparently, on low margins, it would gain traction. Radiohead should not be doing this themselves. Sure, they’re breaking the mold, but they appear to be AMATEURS! And no matter how much you love them, your perception is eroded, they go down a notch in your book. You want to pay AND THEY WON’T TAKE YOUR MONEY?

Talk to Paluska. When he had those Phish festivals, not only were prices reasonable, THERE WERE ENOUGH TOILETS! The music might be the excitement, but it doesn’t get to shine unless all the other elements are in place.

Granted, the album’s not coming out for ten days. You can keep logging on. But as an e-mail said to me, what does this portend for the DELIVERY OF THE ALBUM? Is that gonna be as fucked up as the ordering?

This needed to be seamless. They should have been able to purchase enough server/computing power today. Someone there, whoever’s in charge, if there is someone in charge, has dropped the ball. Hire someone who knows what he’s doing. PRONTO!

I wasn’t even going to bother commenting about this. After the induction of Blondie and Patti Smith and the exclusion of the performance of David Lee Roth. But what’s fascinating to me is the BLOWBACK! All over the Net, people aren’t debating which of the nominees should get in, but who was LEFT OUT!

Donna Summer didn’t go rock until ’79, however much we love her, she belongs in the DISCO Hall Of Fame. Where Nile Rodgers and Chic should be enshrined also. Hell, want to honor Nile’s production work with the B-52’s, bringing them back from the dead, I’m all for it. But if it weren’t for Ms. Summer and Chic would there have BEEN that bonfire at Comiskey Park?

And the Beastie Boys… Well, rap is a bit closer to rock than disco, but who’s a bigger innovator… The Beasties or Alice Cooper?

I could go on and on about the unjust exclusions, but what’s fascinating to me is the cabal which runs this rapidly sinking organization/ship/museum seems to have NO CLUE how they’re fucking it up/eviscerating all its credibility.

If there are no more rockers to be inducted, DON’T! The Musee d’Orsay doesn’t install twenty first century paintings, that’s for a DIFFERENT MUSEUM! God, EXCLUSIVITY breeds credibility. It’s not about the annual induction ceremony, it’s about the Hall Of Fame itself. Which is less about the actual building than a state of mind. What kind of honor does it have when you induct people who DON’T EVEN ROCK?

Why not induct everybody who ever had a hit. Why not Liberace? He’s a predecessor of Elton John. And Frank… Sinatra’s hip amongst the young ‘uns now, and he was a teen star in his day, paving the way for everyone from the Beatles to the Backstreet Boys… Let’s let him in TOO!

God, they already let in Miles Davis, which proves that there’s no difference between jazz and rock… HUH? Tell THAT to a jazzbo.

Just because Jann Wenner created a magazine that once captured the zeitgeist of the sixties, that doesn’t mean he’s relevant NOW! Certainly "Rolling Stone" isn’t. If he wants to create a museum of popular culture, the US Hall Of Fame, since he owns that rag, so be it. Why does he have to fuck up OUR Hall Of Fame?

Yes, it’s ours. Just like the Iraq war is ours. Even though Bush started it, he doesn’t get to stay in office to finish it. We want someone new. Oh, the RULES say we get someone new. Aren’t there any rules dictating that Wenner’s run has been LONG ENOUGH?

Radiohead In Rainbows

Is this real?

I’m standing in Gelson’s, shopping for dinner, and my BlackBerry starts to go wild. All with the above link. About a new Radiohead record.

Then I get in front of a computer and I read that there’s been a hoax. That the site purporting to count down to Radiohead’s release is fake. But now everybody is saying the story at the ABOVE link is REAL! That the new Radiohead album comes out in ten days and you can pay whatever you want. It’s even on the Record Of The Day site.

Huh?

I got a call from the AP just last week. Asking me what Radiohead would do. I said they’d use the English indie model. License the record to a major for a limited period of time for a ton of bread. You see majors OWN physical distribution. And that’s where the lion’s share of recorded music revenue still is, in CDs, at Best Buy/Wal-Mart and the other brick and mortars left. The majors can get the product in the store and you can get paid. They need the billing. You still can’t do it alone, even though it’s been thirty plus years since the Dead failed with "Wake Of The Flood". Hell, PEARL JAM made a deal with a major.

But what if they’re not? What if RADIOHEAD is giving the major labels the middle finger? What if they’re saying WE’RE RICH ENOUGH! That the Net allows you to go straight to your audience. FUCK the middleman who says he’s so necessary.

R.E.M. went for the cash They could have gone indie. Turns out re-signing with Warner was a good move, for they never sold tonnage again, despite getting PAID for selling tonnage. Springsteen went for the check. As did Neil Young.

But none of the foregoing acts are in their prime. They’re riding off into the sunset. They don’t have a hold on the younger generation. Boomers in Bimmers are the fans of these acts, none of whom can sell big numbers anyway. They’re all on victory lap tours, raking in the dough for retirement. Radiohead doesn’t have their dough…shouldn’t they be going for the CHECK?

Isn’t that the majors’ advantage, they’ve got the money, they can write the CHECK?

Who leaves money on the table. Certainly not the agents. They don’t want StubHub to steal a single dollar from their bottom line. Fuck image and credibility, THAT’S MY MONEY! I’m gonna make a deal with Cadillac. I’m gonna whore my product out on TV. Radio won’t play my music, I can’t get it on the Top Forty, MY HANDS ARE TIED!

It’s not like Radiohead’s living in a different world. But they’re playing by a different rule book. One that says the money flows from the music, that people have to believe in you, that you’ve got to treat them right.

Shit, you can barely get a ticket to a Radiohead show. The venues aren’t big and the demand is incredible. They’re doing it all wrong, don’t they see??

Well, obviously they don’t.

This is big news. This says the major labels are fucked. Untrustworthy with a worthless business model. Radiohead doesn’t seem to care if the music is free. Not that they believe it will be. Because believers will give you ALL THEIR MONEY!

This is the industry’s worst nightmare. Superstar band, THE superstar band, forging ahead by its own wits. Proving that others can too. And they will.

This is what happens when you sell twenty dollar CDs with one good track and sue your customers for trading P2P. This is what happens when you believe you’re ENTITLED to your business. This is what happens when music is a second-class citizen only interested in the bottom line.

There’s no testimonial to Jimmy Iovine on inrainbows.com. No thanks to Rick Rubin, never mind Lyor Cohen. Radiohead doesn’t need those stinkin’ badges. They’re THINKING FOR THEMSELVES!

What did that button say back in the sixties? "Question Authority"? That’s what Radiohead is doing here. They’re not holding back, saying their hands are tied, but are forging into the future.

You can’t make a TV show by yourself. Certainly not a movie. Not that anyone can see. But you can make a record all by your lonesome, it doesn’t cost that much. And you can say exactly what you want, you don’t need to clean it up for Wal-Mart. And, you can distribute it yourself online. That’s what Radiohead is doing.

Will they make a deal with a major for physical distribution? Will they do it themselves? Or will they leave ALL that money on the table? Shit, that would blow MY mind.

new Radiohead album available to pre-order now – and you can choose how much you pay for it
You can pay as little as 1p for the download album, but a 45p credit card charge will be added.

Do you like "Exile On Main Street"?

Sure, "Tumbling Dice" was the single. A disappointing one at that. Indecipherable. But the double album was WORSE! It was like you were listening through steel wool earmuffs. One play through and you went HUH?

But, if you were going to see the Stones, the first victory lap, most people weren’t clued in in ’69, you had to buy and digest the album. And staying up all night listening on headphones in preparation for the gig, "Exile On Main Street" revealed itself to me. Starting with "Soul Survivor", then "Let It Loose" and "Casino Boogie". This was when Bill was still in the band, before the cheerful but better with Rod Stewart Ronnie Wood replaced the exquisite Mick Taylor. Back when the drugs were just as important as the money. Listening was entering a room completely unlike today’s hipster joints populated by airheads like Paris and Britney. This wasn’t back stage, this was OFF THE BEATEN PATH! A den of drugs and destruction. THIS was the rock and roll lifestyle. Purveyed not only by the Stones but Zeppelin, Sabbath and a million other rock bands. They didn’t give a shit about TV, they weren’t preening for magazines, they were giving the world the MIDDLE FINGER! And we LOVED them for it!

That ersatz band of aging Britons, that’s not the Stones. Somebody else is the Stones now. Someone who’s in it for the music first and foremost, someone who believes that one note can save us all.

If I was lucky, I could live in my car. Because the stereo there is the best one I own. Purely state of the art. And I’m driving to Brentwood the other day, listening to XM’s X Country, and this song I’m just about to turn off hooks me. It’s Mary Gauthier’s "Camelot Motel". And then, just by the country club a guitar explodes out of the speakers. A la "Exile On Main Street". You know when the Marshalls are finally fired up and the guitarist strums and the whole space fills with sound. And then the drummer is banging so hard it sounds like the report of a gun and a girl sounding like she’s had too many whiskeys starts to slur over the track, just like Mick. This is Buddy & Julie Miller.

I saw them on the Down From The Mountain tour. But that was safe. This ain’t safe. This is DANGEROUS! Remember when rock was dangerous? BEFORE BON JOVI?

It’s not about image. It’s what comes out of the speakers. And "You Make My Heart Beat Too Fast" is pure rock and roll.

But you’ll never hear it.

You don’t subscribe to XM. Satellite radio is a rip-off, right? Who gives a fuck about Howard Stern? It’s the same cats who ruined terrestrial. But it’s not. But the marketing message was so fucked up that the companies are gonna have to merge to survive, as a meager alternative to their terrestrial brethren.

And Buddy & Julie are players, not businessmen. For some fucked up reason, they believe they’ve got to charge for each and every copy of their tunes. That’s how you make it, right? By selling your music!

But you can’t sell it if no one’s got a fucking clue who you are!

It’s not like they’re household names. It’s not like they’re gonna get Top Forty airplay. "Vanity Fair" ain’t about to feature them in a fashion spread. And a photo doesn’t capture the essence ANYWAY!

"You Make My Heart Beat Too Fast" is over half a decade old. And I hadn’t heard it. Satellite radio got me there. Satellite radio got me into country. I wouldn’t even CATEGORIZE "You Make My Heart Beat Too Fast" as country. But that’s where you’ll find it. IF YOU’RE AN XM SUBSCRIBER!

But you’re not. Statistics tell us that. So you read this and you want to hear the track. But you can’t. It’s not on MySpace. It’s not anywhere on the Web. And if you pay first, YOU’RE A FUCKING IDIOT! I bet in excess of fifty percent of my audience will shrug their shoulders upon hearing "You Make My Heart Beat Too Fast". But those who like it will be ENRAPTURED!

We need to lower the threshold of exposure. We’ve got to lower the price of admission. EVERYBODY SHOULD BE ABLE TO HEAR EVERY TRACK! They should pay for this privilege, BUT VERY LITTLE! To encourage them to sample and listen MORE!

And it’s not like "You Make My Heart Beat Too Fast" is easy to find P2P. Took me two days. You see P2P doesn’t hurt small artists, THEY WISH THEY WERE BEING TRADED!

There is great music out there. You just can’t hear it. And this is exactly how the major labels and their associated publishing companies want it. They want to preserve the old CD model, even if it’s now called iTunes and they’re only selling individual tracks as opposed to albums. They don’t want to let the indies in. They want it to be the same as it ever was. But even the cat who sang about that hasn’t impacted the culture much since. Then again, who’s even HEARD David Byrne’s recent material?

Buddy Miller wrings something exciting, something SENSUAL from his axe. I’m now a fan. I won’t miss him and his wife the next time they come through L.A. Isn’t this the way we want it to be? Don’t we want to make fans of MUSIC? Who want EVERY track and the t-shirt? Who wouldn’t DREAM of missing the gig?