What a crock of shit this is.  God, how can we save the earth when we can’t even save the MUSIC BUSINESS!

Maybe you weren’t alive back in ’69, but let me tell you, the reason Woodstock was so appealing, why everybody was enticed, why it went from who cares to a must go was the LINEUP, they had fucking EVERYBODY!  Joe Cocker is getting traction on FM radio with "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window"?  Shit HE’S gonna be there.  The Who, cresting big time with "Tommy"?  THEY’RE gonna be there.  The legendary Jefferson Airplane.  The outre Country Joe and the Fish.  It was a HAPPENING!

I wouldn’t cross the fucking street to see the lineup at the New York Live Earth show.  And phone me when Genesis and the Police hit the London stage, then I might tune in.

God, remember when music had power, when music could change the world?  How the fuck is the world gonna change with these lame acts:

Kanye West.  Oh, the press loves him, but we all know the only rapper with cred, the one everybody truly wants to see, the genius, is Dr. Dre.  And he ain’t on this bill.

AFI?  Well, if there were more superstars, I’d give this band a pass.  They’ve got a cult audience.  Then again, they were supposed to break through big time last year, and they didn’t.

Kelly Fucking Clarkson?  Where’s the cred here?  Who’s gonna follow this chick ANYWHERE?  Isn’t she the one who won the TV talent contest, and then sang a hit written by a fifty year old in Sweden?

Akon.  Hit of the minute, forgotten tomorrow.  Maybe forgotten by time this concert actually happens on 7/7.

KT Tunstall.  Love her, but she’s a club act.  She’s swallowed whole by a venue like Giants Stadium, her music becomes MEANINGLESS!

Alicia Keys…  An overrated hack.  Yup, she ripped off "It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World" for her one big hit and she’s only marginally more important than Whitney Houston, Clive Davis’ hype of a decade previous.  Come on, sing a couple of her original songs, I DARE YOU!

Ludacris.  Loved him in "Crash", but isn’t he ALREADY A HAS-BEEN?

Bon Jovi.  "Slippery When Wet" is the best hair metal album ever cut.  But Jon Bon Jovi is a smiling idiot, he’s WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS BUSINESS!  Never takes a stand for fear of alienating a potential audience member.  THIS is the guy who’s gonna deliver us from the sun’s rays?  I don’t think so.  I wouldn’t follow this guy ANYWHERE!

Sheryl Crow.  Come on, you knew she’d be on this bill.  God, she can’t be left out, she can’t be FORGOTTEN!  Who’s she appealing to here?  Soccer moms whose kids are already in college?  Like her audience is gonna tune in to this travesty?

Melissa Etheridge.  I liked her better when she was an alienated lesbian decrying the sad state of gays in society.  Then she became the poster girl for homosexuals, the one Bill Clinton trotted out again and again, and she lost her edge.  And a good deal of her fan base too.

Dave Matthews Band.  Stars.  Who don’t do endorsements.  Who people believe in.  Better it be JUST the Dave Matthews Band than the rest of these hacks.  Didn’t we learn that with the package tours of the late nineties?  That one plus one doesn’t equal three, oftentimes not even two, but one at most?  Put Neil Young or the Allman Brothers atop the hippie bill at H.O.R.D.E. and business goes DOWN!  Their fans won’t come out.  They don’t want to endure crap, and they think they’re gonna get a short show.  Yeah, like Dave’s gonna play for three hours here…

Rihanna.  That’s what we’ve got a RAINBOW COALITION!  MTV is history.  Yup, originally MTV was rock only, then it expanded to Michael Jackson and black music.  But now all the scenes are ghettoized again, people interested in Rihanna don’t give a shit about Dave Matthews, and vice versa.

Fall Out Boy.  Well, at least they’re big NOW!

Roger Waters…  Live 8 gets the whole band, and Live Earth gets the guy who can’t sing.  Laughable.

Smashing Pumpkins.  NOBODY CARES!  The band is not doing the promoters a favor, but just the opposite, the Pumpkins need EXPOSURE!

John Mayer.  Sheryl Crow once removed.  Like I’m supposed to believe in the guy fucking Jessica Simpson.

The Police.  The one certified killer headliner…

Hell, let’s fly across the pond to England:

Beastie Boys.  Maybe they’re playing in the U.K. to hide the fact that very few care in the U.S. anymore.  They peaked OVER A DECADE AGO!

Black Eyed Peas.  Make me puke.  They can only appear if Alanis comes out and does her parody of "My Humps".

Bloc Party.  Legitimate.  They’ve got traction in the U.K., they get a pass.

Corinne Bailey Rae.  Bloc Party once removed.  She has a career, but nobody’s gonna follow her ANYWHERE!  This is just another promotional performance, who can believe what a woman who writes such vapid lyrics has to say?

Damien Rice.  "Cannonball" was years ago.  He’s past his peak.

David Gray.  Damien Rice with a few more memorable tracks.  He’s over in the U.S., although he does have some fumes in the U.K.  But he’s not a stadium act.

Duran Duran.  Legitimate superstars.  And hipper than Bon Jovi, which has NO EDGE!

Foo Fighters.  Maybe if Dave Grohl reunited with Krist and Courtney Love sang.  Foo Fighters are a second-rate band that wouldn’t even be on a bill like this twenty years ago.

Genesis.  The Police of the U.K. show.  Coming back from retirement.  Stars.

Keane.  God, they’ve got no career momentum.

Madonna.  Surprising she’s not best friends with Sheryl Crow, she wouldn’t miss an opportunity to hype herself, she’s got to be at the PARTY!  Too bad her music is completely meaningless now.  Even Lourdes is more cutting edge.

Paolo Nutini.  There’s a story here.  How such a new act gets on this bill.  Someone was owed a favor here.

Razorlight.  Reasonable traction in the U.K., okay.

Red Hot Chili Peppers.  Stars.  Even bigger in the U.K. than the U.S.

Snow Patrol.  I dig them.

As you can see, the U.K. lineup far exceeds that of the U.S.  Still, it falls curiously flat.  You see we just don’t have STARS ANYMORE!

Oh, they could reunite the acts of the past.  But you’d have to pay Jimmy and Robert.  And too many of the oldsters are TOO OLD!

Yup, this is what the modern era has delivered us.  Few stars.  And even fewer you can believe in.  Only Bon Jovi seems to have survived MTV.  And in the modern file-trading era, no one’s bubbled up in the U.S. yet.

This ain’t no Live Aid, this ain’t no national holiday, this ain’t no stay inside and watch the tube all day affair.

God, just look at the Live Aid lineup:

Status Quo
Style Council
Boomtown Rats
Adam Ant
INXS
Ultravox
Loudness
Spandau Ballet
Bernard Watson
Joan Baez
Elvis Costello
The Hooters
Opus
Nik Kershaw
The Four Tops
B.B. King
Billy Ocean
Black Sabbath
Sade
Run DMC 
Sting
Rick Springfield
Phil Collins
REO Speedwagon
Howard Jones
Autograph
Bryan Ferry
Crosby, Still & Nash
Udo Lindenberg
Judas Priest
Paul Young – Alison Moyet
Bryan Adams
U2
The Beach Boys
Dire Straits & Sting 
George Thorogood & the Destroyers/Bo Diddley/Albert Collins
Queen
David Bowie/Mick Jagger
Simple Minds
David Bowie
The Pretenders
The Who
Santana/Pat Metheny
Elton John
Ashford & Simpson/Teddy Pendergrass
Elton John/Kiki Dee/Wham! 
Madonna
Freddie Mercury/Brian May 
Paul McCartney
McCartney/Bowie/Pete Townshend/Alison Moyet/Bob Geldof
Tom Petty
Kenny Loggins
The Cars
Neil Young
The Power Station
The Thompson Twins
Eric Clapton
Phil Collins
Robert Plant/Jimmy Page/John Paul Jones
Duran Duran
Patti LaBelle
Hall & Oates/Eddie Kendricks/David Ruffin
Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger/Tina Turner
Bob Dylan /Keith Richards/Ron Wood

Fuck the Live Earth lineup.  They’d be better off trying to recreate this TWENTY YEAR OLD SHOW!  Even the complete has-beens are better than most of what’s on today’s bill.  Come on, who wouldn’t rather see Ultravox than Akon or Kelly Clarkson?  And doesn’t Status Quo still tour?

Live Nation and Kevin Wall are operating under the illusion that it’s still 1985, that we live in one big happy world united by music.  We don’t.  You want stars, we’ve got ’em, they’re just not musicians.  Steve Jobs is bigger than any of the acts on these new bills.  And he’s STILL HOT!  He’s not on a nostalgia tour.

What a sad sad state of affairs we’re in.  When there’s no music to believe in.

I say wipe the slate clean of the labels, the video channel employees and Live Nation too.  They’re just trying to prop up what once was, even though the underpinnings are completely rotten.  We’ve got no belief in major music today.  Nothing that can sell a lick that anybody cares about.  So why should we follow these tools of the system when they stand up and tell us to fight global warming?  Aren’t these the SAME culprits whored out to the Fortune 500 companies who are PERPETUATING THE PROBLEM?

I saw the movie.  If you want to get me riled up, let’s all march on Washington, protesting the policies of George W. Bush.  Or stop buying SUVs.  Do something that counts rather than watch these idiots, slaves to the system, either live or on the Web.

Where’s John Lennon when you need him.  Gimme some truth.  Tell me that music’s been ruined, that there’s nothing to believe in, and we’ve got to start all over from SCRATCH!

The reason Imus lost his gig was not because he did something illegal, but because he offended advertisers.  Oh sure, one could say he offended listeners too, but how many of those ranting and raving about his language listened to his show to BEGIN WITH?

Bottom line, Imus has fans.  And now those fans are shit out of luck.

Maybe Imus will take his money and go home.  But that’s not the American story.  America is about rehabilitation.  And, Al Campanis had no fans.  There’s a market for Imus.  But where?

Not on terrestrial radio.  The usual suspects are too scared.

But how about the wild west of satellite radio?  It’s a natural home for the I-Man.

But all the spin says he’s not gonna go.  Because satellite has advertisers too.  But not enough to make a difference.  Who needs the FRIENDS of Oprah, who needs to build from scratch when you can start with a legend, who brings HIS OWN AUDIENCE!

That’s what Sirius did with Howard Stern.  And it was a master stroke, without Howard Sirius would already be bankrupt.

But now it’s XM that’s in trouble.  The service has got no buzz.  XM needs to be dangerous, it needs to leave a mark, it needs Imus.

Now chances are if Imus resurfaces on satellite, he’ll go to Sirius, after all he’s got a preexisting relationship with Mel Karmazin.  But if XM loses Imus and the merger doesn’t happen…  How is the service going to recover?  Read today’s "Wall Street Journal", there IS no radio talent left out there, nobody XM can put on the airwaves to counter Imus and his audience.  Imus is one of the last best players.  Along with Tom Joyner.  Put Adam Carolla on satellite and you’ll get a big yawn.  Put Imus on, and imagine the PRESS!

Oh, you know Mel will weasel.  Say it’s got nothing to do with content, but feeding demand.  And how can you battle with a service that’s got so many edgy voices to begin with, from Eminem to even Martha Stewart.  But can XM thread this needle?

Sirius is Howard Stern, XM is..?

This is XM’s final bite at the apple, will they fuck it up?

You know if there were no merger pending, they’d be all over Imus.  But this is what consolidation brings you.  BOTH services can keep Imus at arm’s length, since he’s got nowhere else to go.  Like Clear Channel’s gonna make a deal with him.  That’s the fallacy of Mel Karmazin’s theory about competition.  There’s no podcast market, Imus isn’t gonna make it on iPods, and he’s too dangerous for terrestrial radio conglomerates to make a deal.  Oh, he could syndicate station by station, but what hard work when he can instantly reach the whole country, MORE of the landscape than he presently does, if he goes to satellite.

And now you know why the satellite services got into trouble to begin with.  Competition, outspending each other.  That’s why they want the merger.  To pay people like Imus LESS!  Imus fits satellite the way "The Sopranos", "Entourage" and "Big Love" fit HBO.  Stuff so edgy that you’ve got to keep it out of the reach of FCC oversight.

These duplicitous fucks in satellite radio want to deny a fair price for talent, and want to deny listeners the content they desire.  That’s what this merger is all about.

But maybe there’s a chance that the merger won’t happen.  As insurance, Imus must go to XM.

It’s a natural fit.  XM is in D.C., where all those politicians Imus interviews are located.  They can move him down to Washington and build him a special studio, just like Sirius did with Howard.  They can get endless ink.  As long as they don’t wait too long.

The tide is turning on Imus.  The backlash has begun.  Sure, what he said was bad, but what about everybody else?  He can come back.  And everybody will be watching.  They’ll want to know what he has to say, whether he’s changed, whether he’s cleaned up his act.  This is not Howard Stern leaving terrestrial at the height of his popularity, this is a niche guy most of the public didn’t pay attention to who now is the biggest story in the media.  All eyes are on him.  You’ve got to CAPITALIZE ON THIS!

Oh, I wouldn’t bring him back on the air immediately.  I’d make the deal right away, but let him serve a suspension.  Then I’d rehabilitate his image, get him in "People", all over the TV talk shows.  Retaining his edge, his personality, but saying he fucked up and certain things are beyond the pale.  And then, he’ll be on XM and the media will cover everything he says.  And thereafter, XM will have an identity.  As the Imus station.  They’ll stand for something.  Sure, in a perfect world they could stand for something better, but they’ve fumbled the ball till now.  They could have been the music service, but they never got that message across.  Instead they’ve got Snoop who’ll play for anybody who’ll pay, an old coot fired from NPR and Oprah’s buddies and baseball.  Baseball’s a good one, but what if you don’t LISTEN to baseball?  You’ve got to have something more.  You’ve got to have Imus.  You’ve got to take the ball from Sirius.  You’ve got to get the mo.

This is XM’s defining moment.  If they don’t get Imus and the merger doesn’t happen, they’re toast, they’re a distant also-ran.

Now’s the time to throw the Hail Mary pass.  Does XM have the balls?

Hip-hop will not come back.

Hip-hop was of a time and place that no longer exists.  Built on a foundation of truth about the inner city, it resonated with blacks and whites because of its truth.  But it was blown up by nineties society.  When we were all in it together, when the hip merged with the mainstream, when we had no choice.  There’s no longer one scene, but many.  Furthermore, like the major labels, big time rap consolidated and became about only a few themes, bitches, hos and cash.  With choice, people went elsewhere.  They’re not coming back.  Hip-hop will survive, but as a shadow of its former self.

Video has moved to the Web.

You’re better off breaking on YouTube than MTV, or anywhere else on television.  Because clicks on YouTube have the imprimatur of the public’s choice.  People are sick of being dictated to by the man, they want to make their own choices.

Singles are death.

Unless you can convince the public to believe in the act, and want to purchase everything it ever does, you’re fucked.  There’s just not enough money in singles.

The cost of production has gone down, irrevocably.

You don’t want to be in the studio business.  Sure, you can make a better record in a big room with state of the art equipment, but who is going to BUY that record?  Economics dictate that production costs be lower.  And with the new computer tools, they can be.

The major labels will lose market share.

What they do best is find bland talent and utilizing carpet bomb marketing, they try to sell it worldwide.  There is a business here.  It costs money, that indies don’t have.  If you want to be ubiquitous, you’ve got to be on a major label.  But not only does this reach for the brass ring come with costs to your career, most types of music just can’t be sold in quantity anymore.  So we’ve got indie niches.  Until the majors enter these indie niches, they will forever lose market share.  The networks merged with the cable channels.  Will the majors take over the indies?  Only if they’re smart.

The credible acts of tomorrow will not sell out.

And credibility will equate to "career".  If you want people to believe in you, if you want to be able to play music for a decade, you cannot make a deal with Procter & Gamble, or even Jagermeister for that matter.  The more you take the cash from anyone but your core constituency, your fans, the more these same fans can’t believe in you.  Go for the slow build, not the fast ascent.  Artist development is not only in the hands of the label, but the act itself.  If you’re looking for shortcuts, you’re negatively impacting your career.  If you’re good, people will find you, you’ll develop.  Then again, most acts aren’t any good.

Music is not cool.

I just did two hours on this last night on KLSX.  The only callers who said music was cool were those into heavy metal bands you’ve never heard of.

Doesn’t matter what you think of music, its image hasn’t been tarnished, it’s been TRASHED!

The whole industry is in trouble.  As a result of the RIAA suing its customers, hip-hop being a joke and the selling of vapid, no-talent singers who don’t write their own material and sound like an imitation of Mariah Carey, if they can sing at all.

People have tuned new music out.

Yes, there is great new music out there.  But the casual listener is not exposed to it, and therefore has tuned out, and is into other entertainment media.

As for modern music like Justin Timberlake, that’s seen as a vehicle to bump bodies in the club, it’s not something you want to listen to on the stereo at home.  And until that desirable listening experience comes back with new music, and people haven’t changed, they still want it, kids still sit in front of their computer or fall asleep with their iPods to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, we’re fucked.

Music should be paid for.

Music shouldn’t be free.  But the major labels made it so.

You can’t pull people back into the past.  You’ve got to monetize the way they presently acquire music.

This is immutable.

The more P2P is demonized, the less revenue comes in, the more the business of selling music goes into the toilet.

People only want to see stars.

Oh, you might want to see the Decemberists, but most people don’t know who they are and don’t care.  And the Decemberists have got TRACTION!  There is not a healthy live music scene.  Live music is like blockbuster movies.  Everybody wants to see a very few acts.  Not that we should blame them, there aren’t many good acts out there.  And tickets are too expensive and a show is no longer about the music, but the production.

A greedy industry is looking to get all the money and is not looking to the future, when there are no superstar new acts that anybody wants to see.

Melody never goes out of style.

Beats might be selling, but there is ALWAYS room for a well-sung song with a melody and hooky changes, which people can sing along with.  Those who realize this will end up with all the money.

What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where a TV show is better than any mainstream music released this year?

Music used to be cutting edge, music used to touch your soul, you used to look to music to help you understand yourself, point the way.  Now you’re better off watching "The Sopranos".

Oh, of course, last season was a bummer.  But you’ve got to give David Chase credit for TRYING SOMETHING DIFFERENT!  Which Bono and U2 refuse to do.  Musical acts used to test the limits when they were at their peak.  That’s why Neil Young’s a legend.  "Time Fades Away" was a fuck you to all the wimps expecting a new "Harvest".  Now, you’ve got to get the fans in a club, you’ve got to get them on a cash gravy train, you’ve got to have your hands in their pants.  You’re ripping them off every which way and yet you still expect them to believe, ain’t that a laugh.

I remember driving down the freeway hearing Marvin Gaye’s "Sexual Healing".  Even Alanis Morissette’s "Hand In Pocket".  Where are the one listen tunes of today?  That make you run to the record store, to purchase, to play?  Sure, there’s good stuff out there, but it’s not TRANSCENDENT!  Oh, we had Marshall Mathers for a while.  But he’s no Syd Barrett.  He stopped making music and just did stupid things.  We want to scrape his remains off our jackets.  But we’re constantly peering in on "The Sopranos", we want to see what Tony and the gang are up to.

The right wing press says the show’s success depends on violence.  Well, if that were true why doesn’t every TV show, every movie with blood succeed?  No, the physicality, the excesses, are just a backdrop to the family story.  This is us.  More than we ever were on "Seinfeld" or "thirtysomething", certainly more than we ever were on "Little House On The Prairie" or "The Brady Bunch".  America is about individual fiefdoms, known as families, and how you try to stay connected while establishing a separate identity, as you try to accumulate wealth.

Oh some substitute status for wealth.  But oftentimes they’re the same thing.  That’s what we revere in our celebrities.  Not their talent, but their access, their lifestyle.  We want to play too.  EVERYBODY wants to play.

And everybody bends the rules.  But HOW FAR?

Tony Soprano is just the hothead down the street, with a temper, except for the fact that he’s a mafioso.  Oh, you know the kind of guy, he makes small talk when you run into him at Fountains of Wayne, but then you get an agitated phone call, telling you to make sure you take in your garbage cans, that your dog doesn’t take a shit on his lawn.  The line between civility and chaos is fine in American society.  And the culture of the street is not the same as the culture of the university.  It’s not about civil discourse, but STANDING UP FOR YOURSELF!

Bobby Bacala was no different from an underling at the office, who’s been kowtowing to the boss for too long.  Tony went too far.

But doesn’t everybody go too far when there’s alcohol involved.  Oh, Monopoly is fun when you’re ten.  But when the game transpires over hours in the heat of an evening drenched with spirits, there’s going to be trouble.  And it won’t be about truth so much as a release of tension.

Or maybe it’s just my family.  The explosive moments.  It could be totally calm and then my dad would erupt like a supernova.

And what’s up with Meadow.  Is she going to be a professional or is she going to take over the family?  Because loyalty is key in our society.  Did you catch how offended she was over Tony’s arrest?

And Anthony, Jr.  What do you do with a kid like this?  Who can’t go to school?  Who’s good at heart but who is so easily influenced by others?  If you don’t have a similar member of your family, you don’t have a family.

But the greatness of the episode came in the foreshadowings that didn’t come true, that didn’t come to pass.

You saw that kid playing in the lake, and you just knew she was going to drown.  But then Tony said what you were thinking, and Carmela told the story of the pool party and it never happened.

And when Tony pulled off the highway for Bobby to take a pee, you were sure he was going to beat the shit out of him.  But when they reappeared with the Canucks, Bobby was unscathed.

We didn’t feel like we were being tricked, we felt like we were being respected.  And this drew us in further.

What do you do with a sister like Janice?  Who’s got an eternal chip on her shoulder?  Always believing she is the best and the brightest and your success is not only unjustified, it should be HERS?

Watching "The Sopranos" is watching us.  And we’re forever riveted by our own story, how did we get here, how is it going to work out?

Traditional entertainment serves us a fantasy, believing like Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men" that we can’t handle the truth.  But it’s what we’re confronted with 24/7.  We hold it inside because we don’t see it reflected in the media.  We feel completely alone until we watch "The Sopranos".

It doesn’t cost much.  Just a few extra bucks on your cable bill.  You don’t have to pay to park, and you don’t have to be worried about being elbowed aside by the hoi polloi.  If you want to be a VIP, you lay down for a plasma or an LCD set and are able to watch it in HD.

And Sunday night at 9 PM, as you nestle on the couch with your popcorn and Coke, you start hearing that song, never a hit, but better than anything on the Top Forty.  And your adrenaline starts to pump.  Tony’s put the money in the toll.  He’s on the New Jersey Turnpike.  And then he turns into his driveway, the music screeches to a halt, the image fades to black, and you’re inside.

That’s what we’re all looking for, to be inside.

It’s not about gloss, or shine.  Tony is overweight.  Carmela doesn’t fit the image of a babe.  But they’re three-dimensional in a way none of the usual suspects are.  We know them, we are them.  Living compromised lives, yet still trying to fulfill our dreams, all the while laughing, eating and having a little fun, in the bedroom, at the restaurant, in front of the TV.

This is the kind of art we marvel at, that we can’t get enough of.  One containing truth, about the human condition.