1

There was a moment there when she was hip.

I became aware of her back in ’69, with her song “Beautiful People.” I can’t tell you where I heard it. Possibly on AM. But probably on FM. By that time I was totally hooked. There was the progenitor in New York, WOR. And then WNEW. And WABC, with almost no commercials. And slow-talking deejays. The same people who’d been on AM were completely different on FM. Like Scott Muni. “Number one in the nation, the Scott Muni show!” That was his jingle in the drive-time slot on WABC-AM. On FM he had this deep voice… Ultimately he was known for his work on FM, but for those of us who lived through the transition…

And there was a station in New Haven. And WDRC in Hartford. And even the University of Bridgeport had an FM station, with contests. We used to call and compete.

It was a whole subculture, and Melanie was part of it. We had no idea her last name was Safka. That kind of information was not available. And I didn’t know anybody who owned the album, the one with the large letters and her picture on the cover, although I saw it in the bin every time I went to the record store, which was a lot.

And then came the Woodstock movie.

That’s what made everybody hip. Sure, boys grew their hair long right after the Beatles hit in ’64, but you’d be surprised how many people were still square. Protesting against the Vietnam war? It was a lot, but it wasn’t everybody. And when it came to the counterculture, many were afraid. It was taboo. As for drugs, hadn’t Art Linklater’s daughter jumped out of a window on LSD?

But one of the big stories about Woodstock was how peaceful it all was. Don’t forget, this was an era of rampant assassinations. And riots. Put 400,000 people together in a field sans enough food and water and the fact that there wasn’t mayhem was a huge surprise to the mainstream.

And believe me, Woodstock was on the front page of newspapers from coast to coast. But it’s one thing to read about it, it’s quite another to experience it. Which is what started to happen at the end of April 1970, when the movie was released. It was platformed, i.e. it didn’t play everywhere all at the same time. It only showed in a few theatres, and you had to make an effort to go. Take the train into the city. Make a pilgrimage. For this multi-hour tribute to our generation. We felt powerful. Then came Kent State in May and we became disillusioned, that’s when the Back to the Land movement began. But one thing’s clear, love and the music sustained.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young became even bigger than they were. Ditto the Who. But the movie also injected John Sebastian’s career with a shot of adrenaline. Richie Havens went from cult to top of mind everywhere. Arlo Guthrie was brought back from “Alice’s Restaurant” and obscurity. And Melanie had performed at the festival, but was not in the movie. But then she released “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain.”

So not only did everybody see the Woodstock movie, they bought the three record set. And converted to albums from singles. This was the turning point. Sure, there was “Sgt. Pepper’ before this, but that was the Beatles. And “Sunshine of Your Love” had crossed over to AM in ’68. But with the success, the imprint of the Woodstock movie, those who were on the fence, who’d been afraid to jump in, did, and started to marinate in the music, the essence of the culture.

First came “Woodstock.” The Joni Mitchell song turned into a hit by the aforementioned Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, with its indelible guitar figure.

But the next big Woodstock hit was by Melanie.

“We were so close there was no room

We bled inside each other’s wounds

We all had caught the same disease

And we all sang the songs of peace

So raise the candles high

‘Cause if you don’t we could stay black against the night

Oh, raise them higher again

And if you do we could stay dry against the rain”

There were two versions. The 7:39 album cut they played on FM, and the 3:49 single on AM.

We’d had this situation before. Most specifically with “Light My Fire.” You were hip if you knew the longer version, if you heard it on FM, if you owned the album. Ditto on “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).” FM blasted the long version, made you feel like you were a member of the club when you heard the short version on AM.

Furthermore, “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)” was anthemic, in the same way the Edwin Hawkins Singers’ “Oh Happy Day” had been the summer before. Actually, the Edwin Hawkins Singers were the chorus on “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).”

And the song was alternately upbeat and dark. Exuberant yet contemplative. It became part of the firmament. With an imprimatur of gravitas.

2

Only months later, I went to college. The freshmen moved in early, on a Wednesday, for orientation. On each floor was a Junior Fellow, who was supposed to greet and look over you. On my floor it was Jim, who saw my record collection and started thumbing through the albums, started talking music, telling me he was a bigwig on the college radio station.

And at this point, I still had respect for my elders.

So Jim took a liking to me and insisted I come to his room to hear his stereo. And what did he play to demonstrate it? “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).”

3

And now Melanie was a star. Verging on being a superstar. She released a cover of “Ruby Tuesday” that got traction around the world. But even better was the B-side, which got FM play, the song “What Have They Done to My Song Ma.” That was a pretty good number. It’s not like I loved Melanie, but I had some respect for her. She wasn’t Laura Nyro, or Joni Mitchell, but she wrote her own songs, I didn’t judge her.

Until…

Beware of getting what you want. In 1971 Melanie released a single that went to number one around the world. Which meant we heard it incessantly, because most cars still didn’t have FM radios. And if a track was that big, it was in the air. You’d hear it coming out of shops. It was around, it was everywhere. And that song was…

“Brand New Key.”

“Well I’ve got a brand new pair of roller skates

You’ve got a brand new key”

Just writing those words makes me want to punch somebody in the face.

Melanie had been a deep thinker, anything but light. And now she’s released this adolescent, no, strike that, kiddie song about roller skating and… I mean this was long before roller skating became hip in the latter part of the decade. We’d outgrown our childish ways. And this woman with this sing-songy number and vocal machinations was bringing us back, banging us on the head over and over again.

I HATE “Brand New Key.” Then and now. If I heard it then or I hear it now I push the button, I turn it off, it’s intolerable. It’s not the only one, but it’s right up there, one of my all time major tuneouts.

But it killed her career. FM stopped playing her. Now she was in the Top Forty world, where you lived and died by the hit. And Melanie never had another one. Now it was just the opposite. If we saw a new Melanie album in your collection not only did we wince, we judged you negatively. Yes, back in the days when we used to visit each other in our houses, before we connected virtually, we studied your record collection, and judged you for it.

And soon Melanie was in the rearview mirror. A curio compared to Led Zeppelin and the other monsters of rock. There was no news, it was almost like she’d disappeared. You might hear one of her songs on an oldies station, then again, at that point the oldies stations were playing songs from the fifties. It was like she didn’t even exist.

And it’s not like there was any news. Music news was scarce. And it’s not like Melanie was doing anything of note, it’s not like anybody cared. She was akin to the one hit wonders of the sixties.

But then, she started to reappear.

4

Melanie was fat. And there’s no bigger crime against humanity in America. Frequently when a woman is outed, whatever they say, they instantly go on a diet and try to regain the form they were known for. Like Kelly McGillis.

But not Melanie. She wore these long flowing robes and never apologized. She owned who she was. And I give her credit for that. She did not apologize, she was just Melanie. And made some new music and went on the road and you had to respect her for that. Unlike so many of her peers, Melanie had grown up. And appeared that way when you saw her in the press. She wasn’t airy fairy, but down to earth. She’d had children. She’d survived.

And then this week she died.

And I immediately thought of listening to “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)” in Jim’s room. They put me on the college station, then they squeezed me out. It was a cabal. And whereas I had a show every Saturday morning during the fall, which was hard to get up for but perfect because everybody listened, and another every other Thursday, now during the spring semester they said I could be on maybe once every other week. I did this and then gave up. Funny how I’m on the radio now and none of these people are.

But it’s all grist for the mill. We’re all over seventy now. Most are done. They’ve retired. Which is very weird. They worked hard, they’ve had enough, they’re living off their nest egg, which they built over decades.

Not me. I ain’t got no nest egg. I didn’t start to make any reasonable money until recently. Forget having to work, I WANT to work. But the rest of my generation is peeling away. And it’s strange.

A few of us died before our time. But most of us are still here. A little bit worse for wear, but it’s not like we’ve got one foot in the grave. And although people love to talk about travel, and food, and of course their grandkids, which I also don’t have, not wanting to get diverted from my career path, I find what they want to talk about most is music.

Yes, they go to the show. They tell you who they’ve seen. They wax rhapsodic about the gigs they attended in the past. They tell you gossip, as if they know these acts personally. It’s like they’re twenty one years old again. But now with even more available time to marinate themselves in their passion.

Some are interested in new music, but most are not.

And most of their heroes are still on the road, assuming they’re not dead. And they’ve got the money to go see them. And they’ll never tell you a show is bad. It’s what they live for, who’s going to denigrate their life itself?

So they’re living in the past.

But the conveyor belt keeps moving.

Now people born in the twenty first century are legal to drink.

Some of the grandkids are having kids, making you a great grandperson.

But you still see yourself as young.

And then Melanie Safka dies at 76.

5

It’s one thing for Christine McVie to die at 79, another for Jimmy Buffett to die at 77. Especially Jimmy, he’d built an entire empire, he’d left his mark. It’s like his life was an endless victory lap. He was a cultural institution, who crossed all lines. And he lived life to the fullest. He was cut down before his time, but he’d had cancer for a while and…well, 77, that’s close to 80, right?

But 76??? That’s not that far away!

So when is it going to happen to my friend group?

Well, Gary Smith just died. Which is so weird, because I don’t have to go that far back in my e-mail to see him corresponding totally alive.

And I knew Gary, but I didn’t talk to him every day. How about my inner circle. It’s only a matter of time before one of them becomes sick and is on their way out. It could even be ME!

And unlike Jimmy Buffett, I cannot say I’ve achieved all I want to. Not that Jimmy didn’t have further desires, but like I said, he’d left his mark.

It’s creepy.

And everybody is in denial.

You pass, and then we stop talking about you. Even some of the greats. Life is for the living, and you’re dead. And gone.

Now “Beautiful People” was the sixties. But “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)” was the seventies. I was grown, that was my decade.

But it was fifty years ago.

The eighties were MTV. But the nineties? Where did they go?

And the aughts were Napster and internet innovation. The teens were a bit less frantic and interesting but then we had Covid and everything is different now, absolutely everything. Over this four year period I got old.

Now I don’t feel old, but I am closer to death. And I can see so much of society’s b.s. as such.

Sure, the people running for President are older than I am, but that’s no consolation. As a matter of fact, it’s hard not to detach from the horse race. I’ll vote, but it’s so overwhelming and we feel so powerless.

But once we felt so powerful, like we could move mountains.

And what empowered us was the music and the people who made it. They were our signposts, they were our seers.

And for a moment there, Melanie was one of them.

But now she’s gone too. But she had not only hits, but a family. She died before her time, but she’d achieved at least some of her goals.

The rest of us, who still want to climb the mountain, leave our mark, time is running out. Or is it? Do we act like nothing’s changed, like we have all the time in the world? Or do we freak out and get down to it.

I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ll ever know. But these passings are becoming ever more shocking. And I know at some point it will be my time. And the world will continue to spin without me.

And that’s just plain weird.

Concert promoter for Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, George Strait, Kenny Chesney, Eric Church, the Lumineers…

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/louis-messina/id1316200737?i=1000642896616

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/7e512285-657f-4d1a-bb2d-82d7e29a095c/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-louis-messina

“Coachella tickets went on sale on Friday, Jan. 19. And four days later, tickets for the festival’s first weekend are still up for grabs —  for the first time in a decade.”

“Coachella Festival sees slowest ticket sales in 10 years”: https://rb.gy/h2dbwd

This is not a Coachella story, this is a music business story. It’s a harbinger of what’s to come. In other words, we’re minting very few mass appeal stars, never mind superstars.

Don’t worry about Coachella. Ticket sales are slower, but the ducats will still sell. Yet what does this mean?

For years Coachella headliners were boomer and then Gen-X favorites. Hell, it started out as an alternative music festival. And then it was boosted by the Sahara Tent/EDM scene.

But Coachella evolved. It used to be a gathering of the tribe. Of all those dedicated to music, who lived for the music, who had to make a pilgrimage to the desert to experience the latest and the greatest, to be hip. But over the years it became a rite of passage for Los Angeles teenagers. A spring awakening affair. Come on, you’ve seen all the hype about the stars and their outfits. What you were going to wear, the selfies you were gonna shoot, became more important than the music on stage.

Which meant that Coachella could sell out before any headliners were announced.

But now…

I’ve got to give Paul Tollett credit. He moved into this century, the present. He knew who his audience was. He stopped appealing to oldsters and focused the lineup on the youngsters who really came to the festival.

But those youngsters changed. Now Mr. Beast is bigger than anybody on a Coachella stage. Influencers have a tighter bond with their audience than musical acts. And everybody is a star themselves, posting. They don’t need the physical environment, they’ve got an endless world online. This is akin to the decline of the movie business, other than event films why do you have to go to the theatre when it’s a better experience at home? Even worse, now the superhero movies are stalling. I mean how many times can you repeat the same formula?

You can take a train to Glastonbury. And the English music market is more cohesive anyway. People follow music like sports, they know who is number one, and they’re still minting new stars in the U.K., but most don’t cross over to the U.S.

But taking a train to Coachella?

No, Coachella is a commitment, an expensive commitment, you don’t go on a whim.

Which is an advantage that Lollapalooza in Chicago and Outside Lands in San Francisco have, but neither has the gravitas, the image or the gross of Coachella. That’s right, Coachella is the highest grossing event IN THE WORLD!

Once again, don’t worry about Coachella. They’ve got a ton of income streams and they’ll sell all the tickets anyway, whatever is left is going to move after the first weekend starts to play, if there is any inventory left. But what is the future?

Well, nothing lasts forever. Not that I think that Coachella will die. But usually it’s those involved who are the last to know before anything is over. The public mood shifts, it’s nearly imperceptible, and then it is. I mean let’s be clear, the Coachella experience is far from perfect. Even if you’re a VIP there are a ton of people there, you’re being elbowed. This is not Bottlerock, an exclusive, upscale, much smaller affair. Coachella is mass. So therefore it must have mass appeal.

But Doja Cat? Oh, she’s all over the media. This is the kind of act the press likes. That streams, that makes news. Tyler, The Creator? He’s been in the marketplace for years now, but he’s never been ubiquitous. And as many hosannas as Lana Del Rey receives, she is not a mass appeal artist. As in her cuts are not at the top of the Spotify Top 50.

But then there’s the undercard. Absolutely horrifying. Too many acts you don’t know and don’t care about. Usually there’s a tier of stars right under the headliners, but not at Coachella this year.

Peso Pluma on Friday? A star, but definitely not the crush of this audience. And then Lil Uzi Vert, who peaked a few years back. And then Justice? And it goes downhill from there.

And on Saturday you’ve got Blur, which never really broke in America and doesn’t appeal to the target audience of this festival, Blur skews older, like Gen-X older. And then there’s Ice Spice, the flavor of the moment, and from there, Gesaffelstein?

And on Sunday there’s J. Balvin. But then Jhené Aiko. Don’t read beyond there, even a sixteen year old won’t know most of the acts.

As for the special guest… No Doubt? How many hits did the act really have? Gwen Stefani is 54 years old. Sure, she’s been on a TV game show, but look at the demo, it’s old, like very old, like doesn’t even go to any shows at all old!

So, watcha gonna do?

Well, all of Coachella’s competitors are buying insurance. As in older acts. Whereas Coachella’s lineup is more of a statement, a sign of the future.

Well the future is going to be very few superstars and a lot of thin verticals.

Of course Taylor Swift could sell out Coachella with no one else on the bill, period. But Taylor Swift had her first hit in 2006, when the target audience still had CD players.

And Pink plays stadiums. But her first hit was back in 2000, before many Coachella attendees were even born!

And Def Leppard/Motley Crue/Journey in some combination can also sell out stadiums, but those were never Coachella acts, those acts never got respect from this audience.

As for Morgan Wallen?

He’s a country act. And he’s playing Stagecoach, the weekend after Coachella, the poor stepsister.

But look at that lineup!

Friday you’ve got Eric Church. And then Jelly Roll, Elle King, Dwight Yoakam…

And on Saturday you’ve got Miranda Lambert, Post Malone, Willie Nelson, Leon Bridges, Ernest…

And On Sunday you’ve got the aforementioned Wallen along with Hardy, Bailey Zimmerman and even the Beach Boys.

As for the No Doubt slot, you’ve got the constantly derided yet bigger fan favorite Nickelback as well as Diplo and Wiz Khalifa! And even Guy Fieri, who reaches more people in more demos on TV than Gwen Stefani!

Yes, there’s more action, more excitement in country music than hip-hop and pop. Because there’s more authenticity, and there’s still a controlled radio market. Expect the scene to fragment as terrestrial radio continues to fade, but unlike hard rockers, country fans stream their favorites.

That’s the story of the past year, country and Latin.

But all the news is about hip-hop and pop. But where are the new stars?

Of course there’s Zach Bryan, who at this point is a stadium act. But he too is really country, not a hard drive in sight, more authentic than what the pop and hip-hop acts are selling.

So just like the music industry said CDs were forever, that no one would want files, never mind streaming, these same wankers are saying we still live in a Top Forty world minting ubiquitous stars.

Well, Drake and the Weeknd could headline Coachella. But if you’re looking for universal hip-hop and pop stars, new ones, its slim pickings.

Maybe the entire music ecosystem has to adjust and give the people what they want. Maybe Stagecoach is two weekends.

But one thing is for sure, those who think they’re in control no longer are. They can promote these cartoons, who are akin to the superhero movies, and there’s an audience for them, but it’s far from everybody.

Now I became aware of this soft sales story last night. I got an e-mail about it, and then started Googling, there was only one story, the one linked to atop this screed. Ditto this morning. But now, just hours later, TMZ has gotten on the case. Ultimately just repeating the “SFGATE” story, but TMZ and its stories reach more people than the Top Forty pop and hip-hop wonders.

And now other outlets are picking it up.

So what we’re going to have is a negative public perception, irrelevant of any truth. Yes, there’s a trend here, but Coachella represents more than its lineup, those tickets will move.

But as we move into the future, as the classic acts retire, who is going to headline these festivals? The major labels can’t even break an act, never mind a superstar. And just because someone has streams that does not mean people are dying to see them perform live. And oftentimes the owners of these online hits have no live performance skills anyway.

But will there be an adjustment? This is the same music industry that stumbled blindly into the future and was decimated until a young techie from Sweden saved it. So don’t expect those in power to make any changes. They’re laying people off at Universal, it’s not like the fat cats are going to sacrifice any of their salary. Furthermore, the company is sitting on its catalog, which will pay dividends for decades and decades.

No, this is a fat and satisfied industry. You can build stars on the road, but recordings turn them into festival headliners. And if labels don’t take risks with new kinds of music, build worthwhile acts from close to scratch… Be ready for a course correction, the winds are blowing the business off its usual path and no one even recognizes it, they won’t until it affects their pocketbook, a day late and a dollar short, as per usual.

“TransElectric: My Life as a Cosmic Rock Star”: https://rb.gy/s679py

You might not know who Cidny Bullens is, but you should read his book.

Yet if you were a rock aficionado back in the seventies, and devoured all the information you could lay your hands on, of course you know who Cindy Bullens is, she’s the backup singer who toured with Elton John and was going to break big with her powerhouse rock vocals.

But she didn’t.

Mary Weiss died the other day, you know, of the Shangri-Las. “Leader of the Pack” is what you hear most these days, but I always preferred its predecessor, “Remember (Walking in the Sand).” It was a hit during the summer of ’64, it battled the Supremes’ first Top 40 crossover hit, “Where Did Our Love Go?,” for chart dominance. Both great cuts, at the time I preferred the Shangri-Las tune, although now my preference has flipped. In any event, back then I saw the acts as equals, but they didn’t turn out to be. The Shangri-Las stalled out, and the Supremes became icons. But I’ll never forget seeing Mary Weiss with her long blond hair and boots on TV. But Mary didn’t write the songs, and therefore she rode out her days as an administrator at an architecture firm. You see you’ve got to earn a living.

So Cindy Bullens is plucked out of obscurity by Elton John, she’s living the high life on the Starship, singing on stage and snorting coke all night. But then it ends. She makes an album for UA, which is soon gobbled up by EMI, and the record sinks like a stone, and then where is she?

I’ve never seen this arc better depicted. These household names, and they were that back then, have hits on the radio, we know who they are, what they look like, and then they descend into obscurity, most times with no cash. They work day jobs. You run into them. You can’t square it. What are you doing HERE? We think if you’re an icon once, you’re an icon forever. But that’s not the way it works.

So Cindy gets the rock and roll bug. She goes to see the Stones. She runs away to make it. It’s hard to convey to today’s youngsters the power of the sound back then, what it meant to us. It wasn’t music, it was everything…our culture. The rock stars eclipsed the sports stars we’d been devoted to previously on our transistor radios and we just couldn’t get enough of them.

So Cindy ends up in L.A. Well, after going to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. You only hear about the winners. But Cindy got no starring roles and decided to decamp to Los Angeles and work at a gas station until she could make it in  music.

And then she met Bob Crewe.

Now let’s be clear here, Cindy was pushy. She had chutzpah. She walked through closed doors. And it paid off for her. Would you be able to do the same? Read the book and ask yourself, because that’s what it takes to make it.

So, Cindy ends up meeting Bob Crewe and…

Bob Crewe has been almost completely forgotten. But he was a wunderkind. Who wrote and produced the Four Seasons hits with Bob Gaudio and worked with Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels and even made a hit with the otherwise laughable hairdresser Monti Rock III. But it wasn’t like today. Those behind the scenes weren’t lauded, but those in front of the camera. Today Crewe would be in the league of Max Martin, et al. Back then, especially after the Beatles launched and acts wrote their own material, most were unaware of him.

Crewe made it up as he went along. But he taught Desmond Child to start with a great title, like “You Give Love a Bad Name.” The song writes itself thereafter.

So Crewe is infatuated with Cindy who starts working for him and ingesting as many drugs as he does. She sings on the “Grease” soundtrack, is nominated for Grammys, and then scores the gig with Elton, who she tells off at the end, regretting it ever since, even though Elton seems to have forgiven her.

And then she falls in with Crewe’s brother Dan, who is also gay. And records are made and fail and then they get married. Which makes no sense, of course, because they’re both gay.

But is Cindy gay? She feels she’s a boy from her earliest years. And ultimately she transitions into a man and becomes Cidny.

Okay, this is where you tune out, you can’t take this. But this is a sincere portrayal of the angst, of the torture of feeling you’ve been born in the wrong body, that you’re the wrong sex. And it’s not from some unknown, but Cindy Bullens. I own that UA album (although I think I bought it as a cut-out).

So Cindy finds herself married to a gay guy who wants children. They move back east, and ultimately end up in Westport, Connecticut with two girls. So now Cindy’s head is spinning. She’s in a sexless marriage with her best friend, she’s over thirty and the music world, her passion, has passed her by. But then she tries. And deals with being away from her kids, who don’t understand.

But Cindy can’t understand. How she’s living as a Fairfield County housewife. She used to be a rock and roller. People think she’s a guy.

So she ends up recording more music but it fails commercially. She even signs with Danny Goldberg’s Artemis. If you’re out of the loop, reading the book you’d think her debut for the label was a giant hit, based on the media, the TV and radio and live dates… But believe me, it didn’t have huge impact. But it had more commercial impact than everything Cindy did thereafter.

And that first Artemis album is one Cindy cut with her own money, about the death of her young daughter from cancer.

And this is Cindy’s new career, connecting with the bereaved, those from Columbine. And more.

And ultimately Cindy throws in with Wendy Waldman and Deborah Holland and they become the Refugees and it’s all groovy.

Only it’s not. This is not the seventies anymore. You probably don’t know who the Refugees are either. They make albums, they play live, but you’re not seeing them in the Spotify Top 50. You see as the years went by the game changed, unless you’re Elton, a bona fide star, you’ve either gone straight or gone cottage industry, living off house concerts and merch sales. You might be able to eke out a living, but if you’re in it for the fame, you’re never going to get there.

And then Cindy transitions, into a trans man.

Okay, there are a plethora of music biographies, rarely written by the star themselves, sometimes, like Linda Ronstadt’s, not even revealing the dirt you buy these books for. They’re all the same, and almost always unsatisfying.

But not only have you never heard of Cidny Bullens, you certainly don’t know her book. But it’s a better read than almost all those star bios. But since Cidny is not a star herself, her book was published by the Chicago Review Press, sans the promotion clout of the big outfits, and its impact in society has been minimal. But it’s a fascinating read. And it’s more than music, more than rock and roll.

Here’s someone who was bitten by the bug, made it all the way to the show and then…well, not nothing, but definitely not the something he wanted.

You get into your sixties and seventies and this is who you are, there are no do-overs, and you can only correct course so much, ultimately all you can do is march forward. But you never really change, you’re the same person you always were, that’s what Cidny realizes when he reads his ancient diaries.

So what we’ve got here is a person. Who was tortured. On the inside! And could talk to nobody about it. Who felt she didn’t fit in, who wasn’t even sure who or what she was.

And all we hear is the anti-trans hype.

But I’ve got a trans nephew.

It’s not like these people are happy-go-lucky and change genders on a whim. And even when you feel comfortable in your new body you have to learn a whole new set of societal mores. A woman can coo over a baby in an airport, if a man does this it’s creepy.

Now in truth, ultimately everybody is forgotten, it’s all plowed under, it’s grist for the mill and then there are all new people with similar dreams who follow the same arc.

Cindy is touring with Elton John and then Cidny is training people at the local Y and fulfilling orders in a warehouse. You’ve got to eat. And you need socialization, to fend off the depression, if nothing else.

And I must admit, I’ve delineated many of the highlights here. But there’s so much more, what Cidny felt, what he is feeling. This is not VH1’s “Behind the Music.” This is someone laying down their pain so others can feel so not alone and still others can maybe understand.

Rock and roll is a cruel game. And nearly impossible to stay in. This is the story of someone who played and survived. But it wasn’t easy.

Like I said, you’ve probably never heard of “TransElectric,” but I’m telling you now you should read it. And it makes me want to see Cidny’s one man show. This is my generation. One that dreamt of everything and then tried to live out our dreams and it wasn’t always pretty. And we still wonder, we still have questions, how did we end up HERE?

Doesn’t matter that you don’t know who Cidny Bullens is. He talks about stuff you know, but even more Cidny testifies, does his best to convey and explain his life, and it’s been very complicated, and it hasn’t been easy.

I don’t write about every music book I read. Most don’t deserve your time.

But this one does.