"Fire & Ice"
Pat Benatar
Live on the King Biscuit Flower Hour

Chrysalis was a wannabe major. After having its wares marketed by other companies, they went solo in the U.S., they set up their own shop, it became a full-service label. You’d think they’d purvey more English art rock in the vein of Jethro Tull, which established the label, but the company went pop, and most of the artists were American. We had Nick Gilder. And eventually Huey Lewis & The News. But what broke Chrysalis big as its own entity was Pat Benatar.

The debut Pat Benatar album, "In The Heat Of The Night", opened with a rocker with all the passion Courtney Love wishes she possessed, "Heartbreaker". But what made the album was cut 2, Pat’s cover of John Cougar’s "I Need A Lover". Oh, John’s original version was a killer, but heard intermittently on FM radio. You see he was on a label so far removed from the mainstream, he got no traction. And he deserved it. There was this eerie subtlety in this heartland rock track. It sounded like midwesterners drinking beer and picking up their instruments to play only for themselves. Whereas Pat’s take was FEISTY! This was a city girl who was PISSED! And didn’t mind TELLING YOU! Patti Smith might have represented the downtown underdog, but it was Pat Benatar who spoke to the masses. She embodied girl power. All packed into this tiny frame. When Pat sang you paid attention.

Well, a few of us anyway. The first album wasn’t a monster. The mania started with her cover of the Rascals’ You Better Run" on the second record, and then suddenly "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" became UBIQUITOUS! Oh, it was kind of stupid, kind of cliched, but the way Pat SANG IT! FIRE AWAY!

Pat Benatar was a trained singer with the pipes of Mariah Carey who didn’t need to demonstrate her prowess, didn’t need to write her own lame material, but triumphed by playing within the rock and roll structure. Singing killer material. KILLING KILLER MATERIAL!

Pat Benatar became SO big, such an icon to women, skewing ever younger, that it was easy to reject her.

And I never bought another album after the first Mike Chapman produced and Peter Coleman engineered effort, which still sounds fresh to this day.

But Pat was perfect for MTV. She had a foothold. She was a monster. We saw her when we were riveted to the box, watching those original videos. We saw not only the stupid dance video to the non-rock, off point "Love Is A Battlefield", we were also privy to Pat Benatar fighting World War II in "Shadows Of The Night".

Have you listened to "Shadows Of The Night" recently? As good as the best of Bon Jovi. It’s got dynamics, it gets to your gut. Rather than starting at 10 and reaching for 11, Pat starts subtle and then EXCLAIMS, she turns the song into an anthem!

And not long thereafter Pat Benatar burned out. Could have been all the success, her time just might have been up, but she never came back. She was done. No matter what she recorded, it didn’t hit.

Someone e-mailed me about a live version of Steve Miller’s "Baby’s Callin’ Me Home" and I fired up my P2P program to look for it. Turns out it came from the King Biscuit Flower Hour. And, as the cut was downloading, I decided to search for other tracks from the live concert show that was a staple of FM radio. And that’s how I found this, a live version of Pat Benatar’s "Fire & Ice".

Fire and ice
You come on like a flame
Then you turn a cold shoulder
Fire and ice
I wanna give you my love
But you’ll just take a little piece of my heart
You’ll just tear it apart

Oh, the mixed signals. Maybe we should carry around traffic lights. And when we come across a member of the opposite sex, when we exchange glances, when we have a conversation, we should flash the color of our emotions. Red for Stop. Green for Go. And Yellow for Caution.

Oh, the women get to choose. And, in this song, Pat’s interested, she wants to play. But is it just too RISKY?

Men can ask, women can say no. That’s part of the game. But a woman who makes the move, she’s risking so much, since the man sees this as YES! It’s not casual, it’s not meaningless, she’s opening up her heart, and is probably willing to part even more.

She’s seen him burn ’em before. Is she different? Is there any way to KNOW?

No.

So do you stand on the sidelines, or PLAY? Isn’t that not only love, but life! There are no guarantees, no safety net, but what’s across the chasm, it’s so DESIRABLE! You have a burning in your soul, in your loins. But if you end up losing you’ll feel worse than unsatisfied, you’ll feel broken. And there’s not enough duct tape in the world to put you back together instantly. Anybody who can digest rejection and pass it right away WASN’T THAT INTERESTED TO BEGIN WITH!

So, how do you cope? How do you make your decision?

You put on a record. You get up your gumption. And with the music inside you, you make your move. The lyrics are your mantra, if you sing them over and over in your head, you’ll be your best self.

But sometimes that’s not good enough.

"Strapped For Cash"
Fountains Of Wayne

Well it was Saturday night, I was sitting in the kitchen
Checking out the women on Spanish television

Did you ever find yourself lingering on Telemundo, or Univision? They’re talking a mile a minute, you can’t understand a word, but they’re so PASSIONATE! It’s intriguing. There’s an excitement, a drama absent from American soaps. You want to jet inside the box and participate, see what’s HAPPENING!

The women are so DIFFERENT! Didn’t they get the MEMO? They’re supposed to have tiny butts, and no thighs. And their hair shouldn’t be all teased-up, and they should wear less makeup.

Oh, you don’t watch for long, but while you do, you’re intrigued.

Got a call from Paul who was just let out of prison
He said hey listen, there’s something I’m missing
I said I’m on it, honest, it’s on its way
You’re gonna get your money in a couple of days, okay?

It’s like a Steely Dan song, maybe "Don’t Take Me Alive", but it’s thirty years later, and there’s an irreverence Fagen and Becker never possessed. It’s the same Jewish irreverence, but being more highly educated, having gone to Williams, Adam Schlesinger and his cohort Chris Collingwood can slum it a bit more, they don’t have to prove their erudition, their intelligence.

Then again, they are. Adam and Chris are not playing by the rules. There’s no moon in June, the lyrics aren’t vapid, they assume the listener THINKS!

But who catches the lyrics ANYWAY?

Well, you somehow can’t help yourself with a Fountains Of Wayne song. They’re living musicals. It’s like the band is performing in your living room, telling its story. And you want to hear it.

So what happened after Paul called?

So I headed out west to invest in the races
All the goddamn horses kept falling on their faces
Didn’t fare much better at the Taj Mahal
Chalk it up to bad luck and free alcohol
And now I’m laying low, you know I’m trying to stall
But I don’t know how much longer I can dodge the calls

This is a MOVIE! The first act took place at the protagonist’s home. He was just wasting time, watching TV, daydreaming. And a phone call changed his life.

He had to take action .

You can see him at the Taj Mahal. A hack would have said "casino", since potential customers in Timbuktu would not be familiar with the Atlantic City gambling emporium, but Fountains of Wayne is not making its music for EVERYBODY, but those on a similar wavelength, from a similar background. Context is everything.

And then comes the final act:

Six bodybuilders pulled up in a Pinto
Next thing I know they’re coming through the window
Hate to keep you waiting, I know times are hard
Now would you prefer a Visa or a MasterCard?

It makes a difference it’s a Pinto. It adds levity. And the schlemiel, just before he’s gonna have the shit beaten out of him, offers up his credit card, not knowing this is a cash-only world. We all know people like this, who tell the cops they have all this cash in their pockets because they’re meeting their connection to make a dope deal (a true story, I know someone who actually told the cops this).

Not everybody is partying with Paris and Lindsay, playing on a world stage. Most people can walk through life without obstruction, no one cares what they’re doing. This general public needs more than the part anthem "Sexy Back". What if you’re too anxious to go to the club? "Sexy Back" sounds like shit alone in your room. Where’s the music that speaks to YOU?

Yeah, where IS this music? The stuff that makes you feel good even though you’re not rich or beautiful?

And how do you get exposed to the music of this stripe that DOES exist?

You’re not going to hear it on your iPod. That device only plays what you already know. No, you need someone to introduce you to new stuff.

I had a hard time digesting this new Fountains Of Wayne album. But Mike Marrone, on XM’s Loft, extracted the one track that reached me. Hearing it in the parking lot at Ralphs, I was immediately hooked.

"Love Is The Only Way In"
Robert Randolph & the Family Band

Strasburg turned me on to Robert Randolph. He delivered a burned CD to me in the hall of the St. Regis in Aspen must have been six plus years ago.

People like Strasburg don’t give a shit about CD sales. They only care about grosses. Used to be the agent and the promoter were at the asshole end of the business. Just fielding, just delivering live the priorities of the major label. But suddenly those priorities could no longer sell tickets. And there was a parallel scene. It started with the Dead, then the Allman Brothers took up the torch. And Phish and the Dave Matthews Band carried the flag forward. It was about playing more than records. It was about going to the shows and being carried away by the music, not the PRODUCTION!

It wasn’t a once a year event. It wasn’t Madonna backed up with dancers and vocals on hard drive. It was a bunch of twenty and thirtysomething musicians. Wearing onstage the same duds they inhabited offstage. They took the stage and plugged into their amps. And music started to come out. They didn’t start with their big hit. They didn’t HAVE a hit. They were reinventing it every night. Trying to create a unique experience, that satiated both them AND their audience. Otherwise it’s boring! Isn’t playing the same songs in the same order over and over again boring? Isn’t that more akin to theatre than music?

But this scene. The mainstream press didn’t get it. After all, these acts, except for ultimately Dave Matthews, they didn’t sell any RECORDS! Therefore, they couldn’t be that GOOD!

But tell those who went to see these acts live. Those still going to Bonnaroo. They’re POSSESSED! There’s a joy at the show that is the ESSENCE of the music experience.

I saw Robert Randolph on the Grammys. How is that supposed to translate? Has music EVER been good on TV? Especially played in a barn with a million other genres? Well, maybe the Beatles were great on Ed Sullivan, but it was something new, it wasn’t an awards show circle jerk.

And I saw Robert Randolph gigging with the Allmans at the Beacon last year. Truly good. But that was the Allmans’ gig.

Late Wednesday night, I was driving in my car, pressing the buttons on my XM radio, and I came across this record on XM’s Cafe.

I found myself shimmying and shaking in the seat of my Saabaru. When I got to my destination I couldn’t turn the radio off. I couldn’t get Strasburg out of my brain, how he was RIGHT!

I was in the groove.

You can’t break music like this on television. Certainly not on Top Forty radio. Call-out research can’t quantify it, it’s not something intellectual, but something you FEEL!

Shit like this gives me hope, makes me want to go to the gig. Because it’s about the music, the experience. That’s the way it used to be. You were INVOLVED!

But now all the old systems have broken down, we’re rebuilding. And we’ve got to start with not how you look, not whether you fit the slot, the niche, the potential marketing possibilities, but the MUSIC!

You’ve got to concentrate on the music. It’s got to reach people in their heads and hearts. And if it does, you’re on the road, to success, to riches.

So can you still get rich playing music?

In the nineties we had megastars.  Boy bands that sold diamond, over 10,000,000 copies of their albums.  They could even sell two million in a week!

Did online theft kill those sales, or was it choice?

What does it mean to be a musician?  Is it the same thing as being a star?

We certainly learned what it took to become a star.  You had to be attractive and be willing to do what your handlers told you to.  And you had to play ball, deliver to MTV and terrestrial radio whatever they wanted.  If you got lucky, you became not only famous, but rich.

But anybody can become famous today.  That’s not that big an achievement.  It’s staying power that counts.  And, if you don’t stay, can you make any money?

Sure, we can round up thousands of wannabes to try out for "American Idol", but do they represent the heart of the music business, are they still what people want, or is the whole game positively old school?  Thirty million people watch each show and maybe the winner, if lucky, can sell a couple of million records?  With all that exposure, based on the nineties MTV paradigm, they should be moving TEN MILLION records.  What happened?  Did the public steal the music business?

No, the public tuned out the mainstream.  The public wants something different.  And without this concentration of ears and eyeballs on the usual suspects purveyed in the usual way, sales have dropped.  And they’re NEVER coming back.

I believe the overall music business pie, the total revenue achieved, can be greater than it’s ever been, if the acquisition of music online is paid for instead of slipping through the fingers of an industry that only wants to sell songs a particular way.  Shouldn’t be tough to get everybody to be a music customer, if the buy-in price is low enough, if they can sample and acquire a mass for a reasonable fee.  But is everybody going to buy the same limited amount of product?  Absolutely not!

We’re back to the days of musicians.  Oh sure, there will be a few mostly vapid stars perched atop the economic heap, but very few.  Most everybody else will have to work hard for their money.

We’re living in the era of niche.  Broadcasting is dead.  Just ask NBC, which reported its worst prime time ratings EVER!  People can now get what they want, exactly what they want, and they tune out everything else.  So, if you’re trying to assemble a mass, you’re screwed.  Hell, just look at the SoundScan numbers.  What, there’s one platinum release this year (Norah Jones)?

The major label model is history, except for the few superstars left.  Everybody else is going to have to slug it out in the trenches.

Everything the major depends on, the cross-promotions, the marketing, the airplay…almost all of it’s falling on deaf ears.  And those who’ve sold a record once?  The only people who might want their future product are diehard fans.  That’s what Paul McCartney doesn’t understand.  The failure of his solo albums isn’t a result of a lame label, or a lack of innovative marketing, people just don’t CARE!  It’s not like he’s going to sell millions at Starbucks.  Actually, the more he hypes the fewer he’ll probably sell.  Because scorched earth marketing makes you look desperate, especially if you’ve already had traction.  Just ask Jay-Z.

Should Jay-Z make another album?  Not unless he’s into it for the music.

Seems like Jay’s last record was a business exercise.  To clean up in the fourth quarter.  So he could have bragging rights re dollars, and his label could report good numbers.  Only problem is that not only do we no longer live in a hip-hop nation, not enough people are paying attention, there’s no MAINSTREAM!

All the institutions the business depends.  Gone.  Tower Records was just the first obvious domino.  Look at terrestrial radio, the ratings are constantly declining.  MTV?  It’s in trouble.  Both the "New York Times" and "Los Angeles Times" have reported the story.  And you know you’re in trouble when the mainstream press pillories you.  MTV’s  solution?  Get more in bed with its fans, make them part of the show.  If you think that’s a successful strategy, you’re just not old enough.  MTV gave up its core competency, its raison d’etre, MUSIC, for money.  Yup, music didn’t get good enough ratings, so they went where the bucks were.  But suddenly, there are not enough bucks in useless youthquake programming.

Same deal with the major labels.  It used to be about signing quality MUSICIANS!  And developing them over a period of years/albums.  But if you could gussy up one act, and sell millions of copies of their initial record, WHY WASTE ALL THAT TIME?  Well, that paradigm worked for a while, but now it’s finished.  Because the lowest common denominator stuff flogged so hard just doesn’t resonate with the public anymore.

If you’re in this business to get rich, get out.  Because the road to riches just got very windy, there are potholes, and unpaved sections, and there’s no map.  Now you’ve got to play because you love to.  And hope that you can garner a fanbase, that will deliver enough money so you can survive.

Oh, some acts will more than survive.  There will be new Dave Matthews Bands.  But they’ll be smaller.  Dave had a loyal college audience, but MTV and VH1 crossed him over to the mainstream.  You can’t cross over to the mainstream via big time media anymore.  You can just grow your base.

You can’t work at the label, they’re firing people, they can’t pay their bills.

The major management companies?  Well, the dinosaurs can tour till their dead, but many of them are nearing the statistical age when they will be passing from this earth.  Developing new acts that will generate millions in commissions?  Essentially impossible.

It’s not about saving what we’ve got, it’s about dealing with the new reality.

People have choice.  And they’re hard to reach.  They want something that resonates.  And what resonates with Peter might be anathema to Paul.  You’ve got to get the music into people’s hands, oftentimes initially for free.  You can’t push it, people have to pull it.  Which means it can’t be sold on mania, but quality.  And when you get traction, you have to build slowly, you’ve got no choice.  To try and take a short cut, to sign with a major and be the beneficiary of all their marketing, NO LONGER WORKS!  The major can’t blow up your indie act, there’s nowhere to do it!

It’s cottage industry once again.  The landscape will be populated by those truly into music, not those eager to earn a buck.  The old institutions will be shadows of their former selves.  Not only the major labels and management companies, but Live Nation too.  Live Nation depends on charging a fortune to see stars.  But what if there ARE NO STARS?

We’re not building new stars.  Not of the magnitude of the past forty years.  We’re building acts, that have to charge reasonable prices, that have to be in bed with their fans, have to treat their constituency with TLC JUST TO SURVIVE!  And the acts come first.  Without acts, you’ve got no labels, managers starve, and Live Nation’s stock plummets.

You might call it a crisis.  It’s just reality.

Music will survive.  It will be healthier than it’s been in a long time.  But scanning the landscape will be like flipping through the three hundred channels on your cable system.  You’ll recognize three or four things, but most of the rest will be foreign to you and you won’t be interested.  But it will be WORSE, because technology limits the number of channels on a cable system, whereas ANYBODY can make music and put it up on MySpace.

There are opportunities galore.  But to get rich quick?  No, that game is HISTORY!

Was Napster a partner or an enemy?

CD sales were down 32% from the comparable week last year.  Was this foreseeable?

The world started to change in 1995, when AOL took hold.  Think back to that time.  People who had previously been afraid of computers, who saw no need for them, were trooping down to big box office stores to buy machines, just to be able to PLAY!  Oh, they might not have needed a spreadsheet, didn’t even want to employ word processing software, but they wanted to talk to their buddies, after all, communication is human nature.

And then came broadband.  Which infiltrated colleges/universities just before the turn of the millennium.  File-trading started at schools of higher education because students had the pipe.  But, not long thereafter, the public wanted and got the pipe too.  To the point where it is said 80% of Americans now surf the Web at high speed.  And this high speed begat YouTube, for without it the service doesn’t work.

Were these hidden phenomena?  Was someone researching in a lab, out of the sight of the general public?  No.  But nobody in the music business cared to pay attention, they were riding fat on profits of expensive CDs of vapid acts sold via MTV.

And it was these shitty acts with only one good track per album that provided the true tipping point.  People could now steal the music, and they felt justified in doing so.

People shouldn’t steal (technically copyright infringement in this case).  And music shouldn’t be free.  But has the landscape changed so much that a return to the old paradigm is impossible?

Suddenly, not only your next door neighbor is a friend, but everybody you go to high school with, personages in foreign countries oceans away.  Look at MySpace, or Facebook.  Do you think they could be held back?  Do you think you can tell high school seniors that they shouldn’t be able to learn about their new college classmates online?  Do you think that will fly?  Of course not.

These are the conditions within which we find ourselves.  Does it make any difference that DVDs have region codes if Europe is right next to the United States online?  And, if you build region codes into files, will they sustain?  Or will a group of hackers, akin to those who built Linux and other open source software, break any protection scheme immediately?  And, even if the law in one country prohibits this activity, is that the case in the rest of the world?

I was sitting in the Sherman Oaks library reading "Time" when I came across a quote from Thomas Friedman’s "The World Is Flat".  I’m not that big a fan.  I tend to skip over Tom’s editorials in the "New York Times".  But this paragraph was so prescient, so insightful, that I checked out his book, and was riveted.

Oh, it’s not like "The Secret".  It’s not small and thin, easily digestible.  It verges on being a tome.  But within its covers is a complete explanation of how today’s world works.  Not only in business, but politically, both nationally and internationally.

Napster was the best thing that ever happened to the music industry.  It was not an enemy, but a savior.  Sure, it had to be determined that as initially structured it was a haven of copyright infringement, but after that was established, it had to be monetized.  Instead it was killed.  Along with every other site/software that wanted to distribute music via the Web.

As stated previously, people had the computers.  And ultimately the broadband.  And now even the storage device, the iPod.  This convergence of conditions created a demand for cheap, plentiful music files.  But did the labels see this need and fill it?  No, they tried to ignore it.  Pissed off that the game had been changed without their involvement, the major label cartel behaved like terrorists.  Blowing up the lives of their customers via lawsuits.  Rather than admit that its customer base had moved on, and try to service that base, the labels felt humiliated, and pounced.  To no real effect.  Just like the 9/11 bombers didn’t stop commerce, but were only a nuisance.

That’s what Friedman’s prescription for the Arab world is.  A discussion of ideas, a building of infrastructure, a bringing of these countries into the modern world.  But he believes their religious policies are holding these nations back.  Just like the flawed beliefs of the major labels are holding them back.

In the new flat world, everybody’s a partner, it’s a horizontal structure as opposed to a vertical one.  The labels should be in partnership with Silicon Valley.  They certainly should be negotiating the best price, as Dell does with its suppliers, but they should also be pressing for GREATER efficiencies, and further abilities.  There should be collaboration between the labels and the techies.  Instead, Steve Jobs is the enemy.  I ask you, what if there was no iTunes Store?  Do you foresee any other digital sales?  No, Steve did the labels a favor.  Albeit a minor one, since it doesn’t speak to a changed universe, wherein people can acquire, and DESIRE, a vast quantity of music at a low price.

Napster reached a fever pitch, both in users and press, seven years ago.  I ask you, what progress has been made since?  In distributing music utilizing new technologies in a way people want to consume it.  Sure, Apple is delivering ownership, but with DRM and onerous prices.  Who’s selling unprotected tracks in quantity at low prices?  That’s what the public wants, that’s what they’re acquiring, for free now.  And how many people scared away from P2P would sign on and trade, become music fans, if the RIAA ENCOURAGED this behavior as opposed to lambasting it?

You can’t believe conventional wisdom, the songwriters testifying in Congress, all those in the food chain who decry innovation.  The examples in Friedman’s book are mind-boggling.  Republicans writing more regulations to keep jobs in the U.S. so they can win elections.  Going AGAINST their party charter, and COSTING their constituents more money.  Yes, there’s been more b.s. slung in the music battle than truth, but the truth wins in the end, people have not stopped trading files and CD sales have gone through the floor.

It’s a changed world.  And the world will keep changing.  If the old players don’t get up to speed it’s not the worst problem, new entrepreneurs will find a way to create a new business.  But the old players are a drag on the system, they’re lumbering giants inhibiting legitimate progress.

The days of dictation are done.  The labels and their MTV and terrestrial radio cohorts are no longer all-powerful.  If a record sucks, people won’t buy it.  They know that it sucks from Web word of mouth, from hearing the tunes online, DOWNLOADING THEM BEFORE THEY’RE FOR SALE!  The solution is not to try to inhibit the exchange of information, but to deliver higher quality product that the audience raves about as opposed to decries.  Oh, it’s tougher.  Then again, it’s tougher being IBM in a changed world.

We’re all in it together now.  A lot of the acts have learned this.  Rather than play stars, they post on their Websites, they interact with fans as equals.  Only when the label sees itself as equal to the consumer, only when the label sees the coder as a friend who can add to the value chain, will progress be made.  The customer with tech tools has created a new, more efficient supply chain.  That cuts out fat and costs.  They’re doing the music business a favor.  They’re not the enemy, but their savior.  Then again, the pressure to constantly innovate, to ride the wave of change, is tough for old players inured to old systems. 

Sure, at the end of the day, it’s about hits, great songs.  But really, have their been that many of these recently?  And has the definition of a hit changed?  Is it still something you can cut a snippet out of that will play well in terrestrial radio call-out research, or is it something that a listener will download off the Web and play over and over again like "Stairway To Heaven" or "Bohemian Rhapsody" that may NEVER get mainstream airplay?

Building stars is a changed business.  What a star is is different.  The system has changed the art.  But looking at the usual suspects purveying the old mantras giving lip service to new technology, you’d think otherwise.

Yep! The bullshit aptly described and decried – blame it on the "industrialization of music" that occurred during the "rock revolution" when the bottom line (instead of art) became what mattered.

This "creeping capitalization" and the transformation of "the music business" to the "entertainment industry" have suborned all values to the over-riding necessity of profit.

The "need for greed" informs the minds of all who administer the whole edifice. Naked greed, based upon the exploitation of the ignorant consumer who is (essentially) told what he wants and needs, is the order of the day. WHEN did this happen? When people like Allen Klein (an accountant) took over from people like Andrew Oldham (a visionary) and re-ordered the priorities. The "dream" was replaced by "the scheme"!  Money and power, money and power – the ethics and morals (and the tastes) of the military-industrial complex now rule in the sphere of popular music – we sell our children shit, but no problem, it’s a living!

It’s destructive shit, low level culture of the most primitive type, but no problem, it’s a living. It suborns all the values that liberal democracies hold dear, encourages young people to see legal systems as inherently oppressive, glorifies the consumption of noxious chemicals that harm the human body, but no problem, it’s a living! We take the music from black disaffected street gangs, re-
process it, and sell it back to the ghetto whilst the mindless savagery of the lyrics and the psychopathic intensity of their delivery give our young people a swaggering machismo that finds its outlet in gun-related mayhem all over the country. Never mind! It’s a living!

A living for who? Popular culture has been hi-jacked and co-opted to the grand "visions" of the capitalist system – which is just as it should be in a capitalist economic scene. That’s why we have acts and not artists on shows like this, because music has become comodified. It is now no longer any different from the techniques used in the selling of any commodity which rely upon a mis-informed and essentially ignorant consumer base. We get what we deserve. THAT is why the music industry is in trouble – it has not led people forward culturally but rather exploited the very consumption-base upon which its fiscal health ultimately relies. In doing so it is rapidly losing its audience, for they have moved on of their own volition to file-sharing bands who can’t even GET a record deal, and who (often) don’t even WANT one, as they can be viewed as a "cred kiss of death". All very sad; all very inevitable.

Shoot the accountants and lawyers and give the business back to the visionaries and dreamers, and re-build the fucking thing. Tear the old house down – it’s rotten with the wood-worm of an old English church! Beyond repair! You think I’m being overly dramatic? Look what’s happening – the kids are taking the control back for themselves, the kids are experimenting with a NEW form. The "executives" of the music industry drive by in their limousines and haven’t got a clue about what’s happening on the street.

I’m glad I’m writing a book about a period in the industry rather than participating in such an immoral and hopeless mess. BUT, other forms WILL arise! I am endlessly optimistic! They will be local cultural forms, specific to areas, just as they were with San Francisco and Seattle, and just as they are in Brisbane and Perth in Australia.

The centre can no longer sustain itself, the Empire is collapsing in the face of its own inherent contradictions (like the decline and fall of Rome) and on the periphery the natives are stirring! The next ten years are going to be interesting – CD’s and the like are finished – we are just watching the prolonged agonies of a dying form. Live Earth is but a money-grabbing piece of tomfoolery – some of the natives will love it!

That’s where I’m coming from!

Sam Cutler

p.s. I might be "mad bad and dangerous to know" but at least
MY ear is attuned to what’s happening on the street, which is where
(after all) this shit came from in the first place!