The best thing I saw was a demonstration of Steve Stewart’s Songhub: https://songhub.co Yes, the manager of Stone Temple Pilots has solved some of the biggest issues in royalties, data and creation by starting from the bottom up, with the songwriters as opposed to the publishers, who embrace change at about the speed of the labels, which is not fast.

Songhub allows songwriters to collaborate. And it stores your files. And you put the split right into the software. This has been necessary, but no one outside the business has done it because they didn’t see the big bucks, Songhub is something that only someone from the inside could create. A home run. Check it out.

As for the attendees…

There’s a blue chip assortment of speakers. Really, I’m impressed. But the audience hasn’t changed much. Wannabes trying to get ahead.

Rock and roll rule #1… THERE ARE NO RULES! If you’re looking for someone to tell you how to do it, you’re already lost. You can go to a conference to learn the landscape, the basics, but the household names invented their jobs, they’d be successful at whatever they did. Music business college is a rip-off. It’ll teach you how to be a middle manager, until you lose your job. Never ever forget that to succeed in the music business you have to attach yourself to talent. Unless you’re attached to talent you’re going to get squeezed out, or not rise high.

As for the talent, with so much in the landscape, do we need you? Would you be sitting at home dreaming up a new search engine? Then why do you think people are clamoring for your me-too music, which has no basic utility.

First, create it. If there’s no reaction, forget it. Don’t blame the audience. Change or be broke.

Second, once you have traction, don’t look for someone to grow you, GROW YOURSELF! If you do so, you’ll be inundated with people who want to work with you. The labels no longer build anything from scratch. So unless you have a CV, a history, fans…no one will be interested anyway. It no longer matters how good your music is, but whether people react to it. Let me put it a better way, you can create something great and nothing can happen. Nada. If you build it, they will not come. Not only do you have to light the fire, you have to tend it, add logs to keep it burning, have it glow so much that you get people’s attention. Don’t look to the Beatles or Taylor Swift for a pathway, those avenues are closed off. The Beatles hit in the sixties and Swift broke when country radio was still strong and she crossed over to Top Forty TEN YEARS AGO, when that format, when terrestrial radio still mattered. The active audience doesn’t listen to terrestrial radio at all, forget the disinformation campaign from the industry.

Think about where you go online. And if you don’t go anywhere…the joke is on you. If you’re not fluent in YouTube and Instagram and TikTok you’re not going to make it. Consider them the record stores of yore, of the FIFTIES! Yes, when you could go into a booth and spin a record and decide whether you wanted to buy it. SINGLE records. You need that one track that catches people instantly, if you don’t have it, don’t expect any traction until you do.

And if you have expertise in the business, that does not make you a good artist. We’re short on revolutionary artists, not revolutionary businessmen. It all comes from the art. We’re one superstar away from the entire landscape changing. Focus there.

And I ain’t gonna give you false hope. Ed Bicknell talked about Dire Straits doing 240 dates a year. You have no idea how punishing that is unless you’ve done it. To make it in music requires all your money, time and effort, period. If you don’t want it more than anything, if you’re not willing to roll the dice on yourself, if you’re not willing to forgo the perks of adulthood, stop and GET OUT!

Ed interviewed Bill Silva. And got Bill to talk about the financial ups and downs of his concert promotion career. Entrepreneurs walk a fine line between bankruptcy and success. And it’s more about relationships than how smart or rich you are.

Last night at the awards show Kingfish played, and immediately everyone in the audience was nodding their head along to the music. Instantly. Kingfish set a groove, and the people fell into it. I’d like to tell you the song was as good as the playing, but the playing…

It was basic. No synths, no hard drives. No different from half a century ago, from the bluesmen before that. Kingfish is in a long tradition of blues players who lit up the world until the plot was lost and hair bands dashed for cash and hip-hop took over.

Kingfish’s blues is made for a live performance. Because it is live. Kingfish squeezes out the notes and grimaces and you feel it.

As for the Pursuit of Happiness celebrating Jake Gold’s induction into the Hall of Fame… That too was revelatory. This was the noise that addicted us, and it was a noise. From the garage, from the basement. Todd Rundgren cleaned up the sound for wax, but live…it reminded me of Cheap Trick, noisy and to the point. Funny how the roots of rock and roll are right in our face.

And today it’s all about the software. If you’re arguing about distribution and/or payments, you’d better be a superstar, otherwise I don’t want to hear it. Your focus is wrong. There’s not enough money on the recording side if you get a de minimis number of streams, and there’s never going to be. Music is so far advanced, it’s light years beyond TV, we’ve figured it out, all the music in one place for a low price. The pipes are there, all they need is software, i.e. the music.

You don’t only have to feel the music, you’ve got to have something to say, you’ve got to have influences. And although music itself is important, so are movies and books and the internet…to be a great artist you must be fluent in the CULTURE! Which no one under fifteen is. I don’t want to hear that you’ve been doing it since you were five. God, those people are all over social media, and they’re quite good, but they have nothing to SAY!

And nothing has really changed. The audience needs entertainment, is hungry for entertainment. Your job is to create something as good as “Baby Reindeer,” a hit around the world, done by a newbie. I don’t care whether you like it or hate it, you can discuss “Baby Reindeer,” have an opinion on it. We’re looking for the same thing in music, but you’re not providing it.

Or to quote Don Henley…

Let’s just say we haven’t that spirit here since 1999. Never have so many had so little to say.

I’m trying to scare you, jolt you alive, be the antidote to your friends and family. I want to be the army drill sergeant in a world where no one making music is fit for the army, they’re that different, that outside the mainstream.

We want truth, honesty. We want a beacon. We want to go down a new road. Can you take us there?

Then we’ll be right alongside you.

And not a single person believes it’s for personal reasons.

You can’t lie in the internet age…BECAUSE THE INFORMATION IS OUT THERE FOR EVERYBODY TO SEE! Just go online and see the screenshots of seas of blue dots on the Ticketmaster pages. Oh, you don’t know because you don’t care? NEITHER DOES ANYBODY ELSE!

J.Lo can’t sing. Music was a brand extension, from an era when you could convert success in one vertical into another. Good luck having success in any vertical today. Which is why the major labels can’t even break an act, especially when talent grows online via the personal efforts of influencers. The starmaking machinery… Man, that’s broken.

So J.Lo and her handlers are delusional. They think she has fans. Who are desirous of overpaying to see her. This is a great demonstration of the government’s misunderstanding, make that LACK OF UNDERSTANDING, of the concert market. It’s supply and demand, baby, and if people don’t want to go, they don’t. No one has a gun to their head forcing them to buy a J.Lo ticket. But when more people than tickets want to see a hot act somehow it’s the system’s fault. This is how the government loses credibility. Don’t overreach in the information age.

Then again, 20% of the population believes Biden is responsible for the evisceration of abortion rights. Are they just plain stupid, or are they exposed to “news” that is so biased and incorrect that they don’t know the truth, or is there so much misinformation out there that they’re just confused. Go on X/Twitter, it’s become a cesspool of misinformation. Scroll for a while and you start to question your own beliefs, that is the power of misinformation.

And why should J.Lo tell the truth when Trump does not. Maybe if you lived in the right wing bubble you thought his press conference the other day evidenced truth, but the “New York Times” went point by point, popping the bubble, and other news outlets, TV channels, cut away because not only did they believe it was propaganda, it was billed as a press conference and no questions were allowed.

And if the President lies, why shouldn’t some measly entertainer? I mean politics is more important than entertainment, right?

No. The people feel powerless in politics. Not only two expired men running for the highest office, but a sold out, do nothing Congress. And therefore they’ve taken their shots at J.Lo.

Anybody could have seen this coming. Except for J.Lo and her handlers still living in the last century.

J.Lo was built by artifice and we now live in an era of authenticity. Yes, if you want to succeed and stay you’ve got to be selling authenticity, credibility. You’ve got Noah Kahan testifying as to his mental health, Zach Bryan singing straight from the heart, and doofuses from the past, from the monoculture, from the MTV era, believe that nothing has changed, when nothing could be further from the truth.

People don’t even respect movie stars anymore. They’re empty vessels, they’re ACTORS! There’s no truth there. Musicians are the ultimate spewers of truth, when done right, music comes straight from the heart. But no one believes the written by committee tunes of J.Lo come straight from anywhere other than the cash register.

As for Taylor Swift…like her, hate her, ignore her, but no one is questioning that her songs are testimony about her life. Even BTS broke based on revealing honesty.

This was my point about Kate Hudson’s music career. That dog doesn’t hunt anymore. Her music is good in an era where it has to be great to break through the noise. And she looks like an interloper in music. A dash for cash. She needed to reposition herself along the lines of Taylor Momsen, come from the bottom up in music, build a career fan by fan and stay at it. Music can’t seem to be a lark, it’s got to be a COMMITMENT!

And then there’s the Black Keys. Their frontman is not warm, you can’t identify with him, he’s not brooding in a Thom Yorke way, but in a get off my lawn way. Very talented, but he needs hits to fill arenas. Succeed once and you can tour forever. But it might be in clubs, or people’s houses. Your success will sustain if your career is built without hits, like with the Tedeschi Trucks Band, because there are no casual fans. The looky-loos fill out the big halls for so many performers. And then they move on to the next act when it is hot. How many hard core music fans does J.Lo even have? She was selling fashion, in videos, stardom, in an era when competition was nowhere near as fierce as today, when relationships and cash went a whole hell of a lot further than they do today.

So what we do know is the post-pandemic concert boom is over. If you build it, they may not come. This does not mean that concerts are not a unique experience in an era where experiences are everything, just that the consumer is more discerning, and thinks twice before throwing down inordinate amounts of cash, especially to see someone who can’t really sing anyway.

And they’ve canceled 40 festivals in the U.K.

No one needs to go to a show, NO ONE! Especially in an era where music can be listened to for free and streaming television shows oftentimes have more gravitas than what is on stage. You have to be hot, you have to have that je ne sais quoi that makes people want to come. They’ve got to believe the experience will change their life, it just won’t be an excuse for the performer to buy another house.

Even worse than the cancellation of J.Lo’s tour is the mainstream news articles talking about the fan backlash. Nobody cares. We don’t need a deep dive analysis of a has-been. She was cruisin’ for a bruisin’, asking for constant attention and respect when there was no reason to give it to her, of course this is going to come back and haunt her. It was just a matter of when.

That’s what makes entertainment so fascinating. You can go from zero to hero, from the bottom to the top, nearly instantly. This is not the same in other high-paying verticals. Want to be a doctor? You’ve got to study for umpteen years. Want to be a hit artist? Record something on your laptop and upload it to Spotify. And then complain you’re not a star.

No one would complain that they’re a high school dropout yet no one sees them as a doctor. But in entertainment? You make it up as you go.

So, we’ve got all this misinformation. That streaming doesn’t pay upcoming talent when in the old days that same “talent” would be working at Walmart. You’re not entitled to be a successful, highly-paid artist, just like J.Lo is not entitled to sell out arenas. People have to like you, want to pay attention to you, lay down their cash for you, and that’s a harder lift than ever before in this era of plethora.

But if you read the news, you’d think that Spotify is the devil. Not its competitors, just Spotify. Because Daniel Ek, who changed the landscape, who rescued the labels, is now a billionaire. Whereas Apple and Amazon are faceless, just me-too music companies built by enterprises famous for something else. But Ek? He’s putting acts out of business. He doesn’t pay. And he’s a billionaire to boot. There must be someone at fault here, there must be a rip-off involved.

Just like with Ticketmaster. It must be Ticketmaster’s fault that prices are high. As for the fees, they all go to the company, don’t you know? And anybody could sell tickets better than Ticketmaster. None of this is true, but it’s accepted knowledge not only in the public, but the news and the government.

God, ignore the criticism today. Assuming you have faith in yourself, know what you’re doing. If I listened to feedback, I wouldn’t be able to write a thing. And more misinformation crosses my transom than ever before. I’ve got all these authorities spewing hatred and inaccuracies at me because the truth doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t match their emotions. Placate these people at your peril.

Then again, look how far Trump has gotten telling lies, giving the people what they want.

But if we went by the popular vote instead of the Electoral College, Trump wouldn’t have a chance, nowhere close. The rules are saving him.

There are no rules in rock and roll. And that’s exactly the point. The spoils go to those who break down barriers, who do something new. The aforementioned Zach Bryan isn’t selling dancing and production like J.Lo. That was great in the MTV era, now the audience has moved on, wants something different.

The ball keeps moving, the game keeps changing, and those in power and the media hate this, they expect things to stay the same, when the internet has come along and turned over every table, changed everything.

And what is mainstream media’s position?

THE SMARTPHONE MUST DIE!

Yes, get off your phone, shut it down, go back to the way it used to be. You know, when you couldn’t call up an Uber, when you had no idea what temperature it was, when you couldn’t take notes instantly… I could go on and on, but the media won’t hear it. The same media that expect us to be interested in the music of the has-been known as J.Lo.

Hell, what you did yesterday means less than ever before. Just ask Justin Timberlake, he might have brought sexy back, but now people think he’s an old dad with nothing to say who they don’t need to pay attention to. Used to be Timberlake could sell out arenas himself, now he’s planning to go back on the road with NSYNC.

Once again, you don’t care. And that’s just the point. You’ve got a feed, personalized to you, on your smartphone. It’s what you’re interested in 24/7. And you’re faulted for this. You should pay attention to the mainstream, you should get with the program, you should do it the old way so the old players can maintain their lifestyles.

WHY?

Trailer: https://t.ly/KjJBD

This is a really good series.

You know I usually go for the foreign stuff, because it tends to be more visceral, it’s easier to lose yourself in the foreign shows, and we’ve been on a streak of international series that I don’t think should be your first choice if you watch what the algorithm serves you, but still they were very good.

First is “Yosi, the Regretful Spy,” on Amazon Prime. It’s Argentinian and based on a real story. The government sends a spy into the Jewish community fearful it’s going to build a colony in the hinterlands, and then the Israeli embassy is blown up. There are two seasons. You’ll become invested in the characters.

Actually, before that we watched “The Interpreter of Silence” on Hulu. What we’ve got here is a trial bringing Nazis to justice for their crimes during the Holocaust and the interpreter learns the truth about what happened and more. “The Interpreter of Silence” is dark. And set in sixties Germany. It’ll seem real. Whereas “Yosi” is more of a tale, a lot denser, dealing with many characters, their emotions, and there’s plenty of action.

And after those two, we watched “Past Lies,” a Spanish show also on Hulu, sans the gravitas and the ultimate quality of the preceding two, but I must mention it alongside “Under the Bridge” because in both series you think it’s all about finding out whodunit, but then it’s not. What you’re waiting for is revealed earlier, and then there are other plot lines, other twists.

“Under the Bridge” is an American series on Hulu which got middling reviews when it was released a couple of months back. But word of mouth has been building. I did not know they dripped out episodes week by week, I cannot watch that way, I binged the whole thing, the continuity is crucial, there’s a mood you get caught up in, and now you can watch it all too. Assuming you subscribe to Hulu.

The hook of the hype is Riley Keough, Elvis’s granddaughter. And she is very good, but she is not the essence of the show, that is the teenagers, who are so believable it’s astonishing. You rarely see such spot-on performances, even in movies. You believe the characters are real.

And “Under the Bridge” is based on real life, it hews pretty closely to what actually happened, but wait until you’re finished with it to do some research, which you’ll be dying to do.

So it’s about whodunit, but once again you find out most of what happened early on. And then it becomes about the characters, their motivation, their choices.

Chloe Guidry as Josephine Bell is positively astounding. You know people like this, assuming you grew up in the melting pot of public school. Someone who not only thinks they’re cool, but is. Who is the queen bee. But also you get the teenage outlook, Josephine believes she’s one step away from the Mafia in New York, she’s following in their footsteps, which is laughable, but tragedy ensues, and Josephine never breaks character.

And Javon “Wanna” Walton as Warren Glowatski… It’s such a fine line to walk, a sensitive villain. But Javon never breaks character, he rides the razor’s edge. It’s pretty incredible.

And then there is Izzy G. as Kelly Ellard, who is just plain bad. A follower of Josephine yet much more messed up. Josephine might manipulate Kelly and everybody else, but Kelly is just a bad seed. Who can lie through her teeth. Who can appear the good girl. Who ultimately seems to have no moral compass.

So this all happens in Victoria, B.C. That’s right, on an island off the coast of Canada, where everybody dreams of growing up and emigrating to Vancouver, the big city, real life, the mainstream. Victoria is beautiful, but psychologically inbred. I’ve lived in the hinterlands, in rural areas, and everybody’s in everybody’s business, you get caught up in the daily drama whether you want to or not.

Though the population of Victoria is not so sparse. It’s suburban. And beautiful. This is not the bright lights of Hollywood, this is the rich greens of the forest, snow on the mountains, rain and the vast bodies of water surrounding the land. So the feel is anything but bogus. And when you think the show is going off the rails, which is very rare, you have to pinch yourself and remember that it’s all real. Not all, but what isn’t isn’t really relevant.

And then you’ve got Reena’s parents. A South Asian couple who’ve experienced racism, despite their best efforts to fit in. Canada looks cohesive and happy until you pull back the surface. And then you find all the problems with the First Nations people, which even plays here.

I hate to break it, but I don’t think it will ruin the series whatsoever, Lily Gladstone’s Cam is a fiction, that person doesn’t really exist.

But the rest of them do. Josephine is really Nicole Cook. Everybody else is acting under the name of the real person.

Once again, this is real.

And it deals with teenage life. Not in an exploitative way, it’s just that being a teenager is often hell. Are you cool? Are you bullied? It’s a fragile ecosystem from which you cannot remove yourself. You’re all together at school, and even if your plan is to keep your head down, that strategy oftentimes doesn’t work.

So too many American shows are all about the look, with name actors who are beautiful but don’t act that well. That is not “Under the Bridge,” which may not be the best streaming series you’ve ever seen, but it’s really damn good. It deserves attention, you will be wholly satisfied with the viewing experience, you will not be angry that you wasted your time.

Therefore, I wholeheartedly recommend it. You’ll go down the rabbit hole, you’ll binge it, and then you’ll be eager to talk with others about it. We call that art. And on that level “Under the Bridge” works. This is a show that is not a heavy lift, that does not employ subtitles, it’s something you can get into very easily. And then you get hooked, you can’t wait to go back and finish it.

Start now.

Tune in Saturday June 1st to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz

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