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“I’m gonna add some bottom

So that the dancers just won’t hide”

Awards shows never run on schedule. Even when they’re taped for TV. There are stops and starts. After all, it’s all about what the home viewer sees on their flat screen.

But that was not the case last night. The show started on time because it was simulcast on Disney+. And there were no breaks, no retakes, because not only was the show live, there were no commercials.

So we were jolted alive when the lights came up and Stevie Wonder and the assembled multitude launched into “Dance to the Music.”

The power of the original cannot be denied. And the funny thing was last night IT WAS JUST AS POWERFUL! I’ve seen tribute covers, too often it’s about going through the motions, doing your bit and getting out, another notch in the belt of celebration that is ultimately meaningless.

But not last night.

“You might like to hear my organ

I said ride, Sally ride”

How many times have you heard this on the radio? You know the flourishes by heart, the beat, the sound…and they were all replicated last night. A better performance than I’ve EVER seen on the Grammys. Not that they’re competing. But when the Grammys created those “moments,” the mashup of stars, one and one often yielded less than two.

But not last night.

So Stevie, yes, Stevie Wonder, who was eclipsed by Sly Stone at this point in time, Stevie didn’t really come into his own until the seventies, when he burst into a supernova, is sitting at the keyboard like he’s in a bar earning his keep for the night. There was a horn section… It was positively MESMERIZING!

And it was clear that it was Flea in the back, playing his bass, noodling around as he does with the Chili Peppers. And you know it’s coming, you wonder how it’s going to go down, but then Michael Balzary runs up to the microphone and utters the words atop this screed and then plays those fat, distorted notes on his bass and it was positively transcendent.

We live in an era where the script has flipped. When it’s all about live as opposed to recordings. It’s about the experience, feeling it. And I’m a jaded f*ck sitting right down front marveling that Lenny Waronker is at my table and I’m positively jolted, my legs spring me up to attention, the power was unbelievable. And from “Dance to the Music” it went into “Everyday People” and then “Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin”,” finishing with Stevie and Jennifer Hudson imploring us to take it HIGHER!

The sixties flashed through my brain. Not only the energy, the music, but the spirit, the optimism, the hope. Music was lighting the fuse that blasted the younger generation into the stratosphere. Sly Stone melded rock and soul and who knows what to create this amalgam of sound you couldn’t get anywhere else. He and the Family Stone were totally original. For a few minutes last night time stopped, nothing else mattered other than being there in the moment, AND WHAT MORE CAN YOU ASK FOR?

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I know, I know, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame gets a ton of sh*t. And I don’t want to defend it, I’ve got my own complaints. Then again, the fact that Bad Company was finally inducted…an honor way overdue to the point where even though alive, Paul Rodgerrs is too compromised to come out and sing and teach the audience a lesson, show them what true pipes, what true singing ability and nuance are all about. But, but, BUT…Simon Kirke was pounding the drums, Joe Perry, in all his splendor, was throwing off those Mick Ralphs riffs, and Chris Robinson was proving he’s a better rock frontman than seemingly anybody plying the boards today.

“Feel like makin’ LOVE”

I can’t write the sound of the machine gun fire that echoes that line, but you could feel it in the building last night. A power…the power of rock and roll.

And then Bryan Adams came out and sang the breakthrough hit, “Can’t Get Enough,” bringing us back to the summer of ’74.

And… You knew that everybody on stage had lived through it, had driven in their car with these Bad Company songs pounding out of the dashboard. This was like making your bones in the garage, turning it up and letting it wail, believing you’re on the road to stardom.

Not that every performance was as good, but there was only one bad one, and it was Chris Cornell’s daughter. There, I said it.

But what I’m really saying here is the show was amazing in that no one was phoning it in, everybody was delivering and there were no down moments when you got up and spoke with your neighbor…I didn’t even want to get up and go to the bathroom, I didn’t want to miss anything. That’s for home, when you pause the show and take a break, but live you’re in the moment, and it’s only the moment that counts.

The big surprise, two of the other great performances of the night, were by acts you might question being in the Hall.

Salt-N-Pepa… Nineties MTV flashed in front of my eyes. And that’s what that era was about, hip-hop… Sure, it started with grunge, but then rap dominated. And these women had something to prove, three decades ago and last night. They spit out the lyrics, it was beyond a victory lap, it was a demand for attention, and they got it.

And then came OutKast…

Who doesn’t like OutKast?

They’ll come out and do their hit numbers and…

They did eventually, but…

Big Boi strode up to the stage in a big fur coat and shorts…talk about the rock and roll ethos. And then he and André 3000 started to take over the entire building. Shouting out to their friends and family in the audience, then demanding they come up on stage! There are about a dozen people up there, even a kid in a tux who couldn’t have even been six. And André 3000 is talking about the village that allowed them to create this music, how they were a product of their environment, how everybody helped… And we white guys are now sitting there as outsiders, it’s no longer our Hall, our ceremony, it’s been totally hijacked. It was palpable. It was both jarring and impressive. How did they do this? How did they make the show their own? And they did it without being overly dramatic or rehearsed and then…

The assembled multitude started to play the hits and…

If you’ve ever doubted that hip-hop could work live, if you were there you were proved wrong.

I’m standing there wondering how this looks on TV. The screen flattens. Removes the energy. You’re removed, but in the presence of the performance… This was rock and roll, this was the only place you could get it, not on YouTube, nowhere else, you had to BE THERE!

And funny it was in the Peacock Theater, a barn with an echo, made me yearn for the Universal Amphitheatre of old, but when music is played outside…it’s a different experience, you don’t feel it. But when the notes bounce off the walls…you’re all in the pressure cooker, caught up in the sound, you cannot remove yourself, you’re involved, and you love it!

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Jack White gave a heartfelt speech… It seemed like he was fighting back tears. He exuded a normalness, the guy next door who made it big, he had the outfit but none of the airs, it was endearing.

But he, never mind Meg, a no-show, didn’t play. And as good as the tributes to him were, his act is unique, only he can really do it.

Ditto with Warren Zevon. The Killers and Waddy gave it their all, but the real star of Warren’s segment was David Letterman. This guy just couldn’t help being funny. It made you miss him. He’s in another league from today’s late night hosts. He’s quick and self-deprecating and above it all at the same time. And you could tell he loved Warren. And they played the famous clip where Zevon said to enjoy every sandwich.

Listen, the performances, other than the aforementioned clunker, were all good. It was a treat to see Derek Trucks sting the leads on the Joe Cocker songs. But there were two other highlights, HIGHLIGHTS!

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The first one was Cyndi Lauper…

Now Cyndi has just come off a long tour, so she decided to perform herself. And she held the audience in her hands.

She starts with “True Colours” and then two-thirds of the way through, she gets to the line…

SO DON’T BE AFRAID!

And she stopped, cold, and thrust her arm in the air. This was a moment of protest, of meaning, that is absent from not only the new generation, but the public in general. This is the power of music. Wow. Goosebumps.

And the band…

Everybody was so well-rehearsed, every act, there were no clunkers. I’ve never seen performances this seamless at an awards show… But they were all firing at 10, they weren’t just going through the motions, they felt it.

Even that rhythmic drum coda at the end of “True Colours,” that was there…

And Cyndi’s speech was good too, but the other highlight of the night for me…

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Brian Wilson… You just can’t say enough. If you lived through it… It’s why I live in California. I just had to get CLOSER!

And I was not the only one.

So the lights come up to Elton in front of his keyboard and Reg is telling a story. And Reg has been everywhere and done everything. So he saw no need to amp it up. He spoke about going up the hill to meet Brian when he first came to L.A.

And then he started playing “God Only Knows.”

Only this wasn’t the version we all know. It was slowed down. So that the words had added meaning.

And Elton is singing…

No one can sing like Carl Wilson. And even Elton doesn’t sound like he used to. But he gave the performance I’d say of a lifetime, but he’s given so many of them. But let’s just say this one…Elton was as good, if not better than he’s been all century. He’s making the song his own. And ultimately the key line resonated:

“God only knows what I’d be without you”

Not only Elton, but me and so many more. It was a different era. The youth started to take over the narrative when the establishment was unaware. What the hell was going on on the west coast? The girls and the beach and the fun, yet Brian could sing about being in his room with the gravitas of the most dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker on a rainy day.

Now the funny thing is so much time has passed that…

A lot of the people, or members of bands they’re honoring, are dead. You only wish they were alive to see it, to experience it.

But they’re not the only ones.

And the acts up on stage are thanking record executives those in the audience have never heard of, but were players around town back in the day. Soundgarden thanked Jim Guerinot, as they should have, Jim turned me on to the band, but Jim was not in attendance. The business has shifted, evolved, there were some record execs there, some other heavyweights, but this was not the clusterf*ck of yore. I’d say the only ones who’d survived intact, who still meant anything, were the musicians, the acts themselves. But really, it comes down to the music. The music survives.

Will today’s music survive?

We can debate that all day long, but one thing is for sure…

They created the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to honor an era, an unforeseen era. No one knew rock and roll was going to take over the world, become the dominant sound. And it was more than that, it was a cultural movement. This wasn’t the music business of yore. The acts now wrote their own songs, straight from the heart, and ultimately played their own instruments, and they were all about pushing the envelope…you dropped the needle on a new record wondering where you’d be taken, the musicians were leaders.

And they were musicians. Sure, a lot were stars, but they were not brands. They sold t-shirts, but the music came first.

And the funny thing is despite the image…you’d be surprised, a lot of these people who cut these legendary tracks are broke, or close to it. They’ve got to work for a living. Or did before they died. You need to put food on the table. The execs end up comfortable, the musicians not necessarily so.

But the sound, the power.

It remains.

Last night Bill Maher said the average price of a Taylor Swift ticket was over $4000. Really.

My favorite story on this came from Tony Wilson. His first job out of Oxbridge was in a television news department. On a Saturday night he collected the European football scores and the newsreader got them wrong. Tony swore to me that he delivered them correctly, but that’s not really the point. On Monday he was confronted by the big boss. Who said he usually fired people for this offense. But he was going to give Tony a break this time and this time only. And then the boss said that no one cared about the late night European football scores, it’s just that viewers felt if the station couldn’t get it right about something so simple, what were they getting wrong about the big stuff?

Now I have sympathy for Maher. As in a talk show host cannot read everybody’s book and know everybody’s backstory. He interviewed Kenny Chesney at the top of the hour and it was as if Bill had read Kenny’s Wikipedia page and had been briefed briefly by his staff. But that was a relatively softball discussion, whereas when you sit down with Bill O’Reilly and Representative Jared Moskowitz…

Bill O’Reilly reminds me of Gene Simmons. Most celebrities who build their image on pointed anger, sharp retorts, are as normal as you and me off camera. Usually even nicer. You can connect in the green room, have a fruitful discussion. But not these two! O’Reilly couldn’t take Maher’s banter as playful, he had to dig and then self-aggrandize, talking about numbers for his town hall, all the while speaking as if he was the only authority extant. As for Jared Moskowitz…this guy is a star. The more he talked the more I nodded my head.

So what do you want Live Nation to do? What do you want Ticketmaster to do? What do you want the acts to do?

Got to give kudos to O’Reilly on this, he said it was all about supply and demand, and it is. People want to go to the show. Furthermore, the acts have to keep prices relatively low or otherwise the public will scream, and then the secondary market hoovers up a bunch of tickets and resells them, sometimes for thousands…but most people don’t pay anywhere near that price.

Sure, some of the wealthy pay these inflated prices to sit up close and personal, so they can tell their buddies. Or so their children can see their favorites. We can discuss all day long the issue of income inequality, how some can afford the best and the rest of us are left with scraps, and that’s true for some tickets to the show, but not ALL!

Most people are paying face price. Which could be $200, give or take. And you might think that’s a lot, but how much did you just spend for dinner?

We could make the tickets $75 by tying them to the purchaser, but the public doesn’t like this, then they can’t scalp their own tickets. There’s no solution to this problem…even when the promoter says they’ll give you your money back if you can’t use them, if you’ve got a conflict on that date. No, people say MY MONEY, MY TICKET! I can do whatever I want with it!

So the acts try to charge as much as they can without pissing off the public. But in almost all cases with household names, they’re still cheaper than their true worth. Ergo the secondary market. Raise the ticket price and the bots and the rest of the secondary market disappears, or close to it. And that’s what should happen. BMW doesn’t price its cars artificially low so the less fortunate can afford them. People want them, they pay for them.

And sure, BMW is a luxury item… Then again, there are many luxury items that the hoi polloi pay for. And the truth is the average Joe will pay a high price to see his favorite. That’s how much they want to go.

So… You’ve got the public, you’ve got government, everybody is beating up on ticketing companies and promoters. Not the acts, because the dirty little secret is the ticketing companies are paid to take the heat. You don’t see Ticketmaster or Live Nation complaining that the problem is the acts, which it is. We can argue all day long about fees, but without them there is no show, almost all of the profit in big shows is in the fees. Because the acts take all of the face price. Which is fine, but then the acts turn around and complain about the ticketing company, say they’re on the side of the fans, they wish there were no fees…talk about duplicity. And when promoters try to go with an all-in price, it’s the acts that scream, they want the perception that the price is lower, that it’s not their fault that prices are high, the added fees are the problem.

And then you’ve got Bill Maher saying the average price for a Taylor Swift ticket is in excess of $4000. That would mean the average gross in a fifty thousand seat stadium, and the Eras Tour played in stadiums, was $200 million! Business is good, but not that good. There’s all this press that Swift is a billionaire, if those were the grosses she’d be a MULTI-BILLIONAIRE!

But she’s not, because the average ticket price is nowhere near that. Not even $1000.

But it makes a better headline if it’s north of $4000.

And while we’re at it, why don’t those kids get off the damn phone!

Bill Maher has been anti-tech for decades. Isn’t it funny that he’s now got a podcast, Club Random? So he wants people to spend over an hour listening to him and a guest, shouldn’t they put the damn phone down and go out and play?

Talk about being late to the party. The oldsters adopt last, if at all.

It’d be hysterical if they didn’t take their position so seriously, if the government wasn’t run by oldsters…

Where does it stop? No e-mail? No texting? No research on the web?

And anointed entertainment? You can watch it if it’s on a streaming service like Netflix but not if it’s on TikTok? This is utterly ridiculous. Talk about supply and demand. Make something off the phone better than what’s on it and people will clamor for it. But right now, a personalized feed on your phone, a fountain of information, is mesmerizing.

But that does not mean a lot of that information is not incorrect.

Once again, if we can’t get it right about concert tickets, good luck convincing people of the truth on political issues…ranging from taxes to government spending, the list is endless.

And if you’re playing in this sphere…

This is what oldsters don’t understand, what old time/mainstream media doesn’t understand. They used to go uncorrected, they used to be able to get away with this. They’d weigh in on a topic they’re unfamiliar with and it would go unchallenged. But the truth is there’s an expert online in every vertical, you can go to them for answers, for the truth, and when the mainstream gets it wrong, it undercuts its credibility. If you’ve got a White House reporter and you’re telling me what goes on in the room with Karoline Leavitt, I believe you. But you don’t have full time reporters in a plethora of areas and when you stumble into them you often get it wrong and those truly involved in this world shrug their shoulders and laugh.

It’s a worthless effort to try and correct somebody. Maher went for dinner with Trump in the White House and got a lot of blowback. He didn’t analyze that blowback, didn’t consider whether he was fully-informed, whether he’d thought it through before he went, no he just got indignant, defending his action.

That’s America, and it’s not only Bill Maher.

Is Ticketmaster perfect?

OF COURSE NOT!

But it’s only the most hated entity in America because everybody is dying to go to the show, and since they’re a big fan of the act they believe the price should be cheap. I can say I watch every Yankee game on TV, does that mean I’m entitled to go to the stadium for $1.50? Even $10?

This is an America run on emotion, not facts. And there can be no progress if we don’t start from agreed upon facts. And when bloviators like Maher self-satisfiedly get it completely wrong…that just adds fuel to the fire.

So, if you’re interacting with the public, try and get it right, or stay out of the way. Furthermore, if you do get it right, be prepared for blowback…that’s the world we now live in. Even if you’re right, people don’t like it. They won’t only criticize your take, but your identity.

Sometimes the truth is unpopular, but that does not mean you should not utter it.

Then again, we’ve got a president who lies on a regular basis.

And now I’ll get e-mail from Trumpers saying he doesn’t.

That’s the world we live in. One in which even politicians, especially politicians, are afraid of speaking the truth because the uneducated masses, or those with an agenda, will contradict them.

What you end up with is a Tower of Babel society.

And here we are.

In light of the end of daylight savings time.

Tune in Saturday November 8th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

The circle is complete. As the baby boomers fade into the sunset, everything they experienced, from the sixties even into the eighties, has been scraped from history. Music is no longer about meaning, but pure entertainment. In the pre-Beatle era we had Fabian, Bobby Rydell… Now we anoint pop stars whose songs are written by committee with fake gravitas, believing that if the industry and its media compatriots pump up the volume enough the public will care.

But it doesn’t.

Oh, don’t get me wrong… People are fans of music. Especially youngsters. But what said music represents is very different from what it represented to the boomers. It’s background, or else it’s a culture to invest yourself in in a vapid economy. You can love BTS, but don’t try and convince me they’re a landmark group making music for the ages. It’s for you, fine, but it’s not for everybody.

And that’s the case with so much of what is purveyed these days.

Actually, we’d be better off having an awards show trumpeting touring. Because that’s where the rubber meets the road, can you sell tickets?

Then again, seemingly the worst of the acts have brain dead fans.

Everybody has thrown their hands up in the air. Saying they’re powerless. The labels admit they can’t break an act, so they don’t sign any, unless they’ve broken themselves. As far as searching the nation for viable talent that can grow, ultimately creating meaningful, lasting work…they’ve completely abdicated this responsibility. It’s too heavy a lift. The odds are too long. It’s too expensive. All we hear from labels is how they’re diversifying. Their core competency, signing and breaking music, has been abdicated.

Now in the old days, music fans would know all the nominees. No longer. But it’s even worse, if you’re driven to check out the nominated work…you’re not impressed, you don’t want to hear it again.

As for the endless categories… It’s akin to the scene at large, endless cottage industry, when this is a business that has always been built on stars. But today a star is a brand. An enterprise. The music is just a starting point, it’s not enough by its lonesome. And mistakes are anathema. A show has tons of production and a lot of the music is on hard drive.

And the joke is on the industry itself. Because it has relinquished all of its power. Music is not supposed to run alongside society, it’s supposed to poke it, make it nervous, make people question preconceptions, engender change.

And that does not mean dressing up in costume and speaking to the frustrations of the audience. That’s a part of it, but even if you do that…those who did so in the past lived outside the system, these acts just want to profit in the usual ways.

Never mind the complaints about streaming compensation and ticket fees…

Have you seen the grosses for less than superstar acts recently? This is not an industry that likes to air its dirty laundry, but when you look at the blue Ticketmaster dots for a lot of these shows…people just don’t want to go.

As for anthems, perennials, music that will stand the test of time… That ship sailed long ago. Everything is about today, and today only. And if it makes bank it can’t be criticized.

The biggest new act is made up of cartoon characters. Think about that. But the Academy refuses to recognize this. It’s the year of “KPop Demon Hunters” and Morgan Wallen, period. No one else had purchase on a huge swath of the American public. To give the nominated acts awards is to participate in a circle jerk. There’s no there there with most of these acts. Other than their grosses.

It could change.

But one thing is for sure, we need change for the business to be healthy once again.

And it all comes from the acts themselves, who have the tools at their fingertips. But their beliefs are out of whack. Not only do they aspire to be pop stars, many make music with substandard vocals and complain they don’t break through. God, when you formed a band in the garage back in the day, finding a lead singer was key to success. The person had to be able to SING! And the songs had to have melodies, changes…the basics were paramount, but not anymore.

You can tell how cynical these nominations are by the number of acts in the categories. We want winners to command the lion’s share of the votes. But with eight or nine nominees you can win with less than 20% of the vote, there’s no consensus there. But if someone is excluded someone bitches…the label and you’ve got to be fearful some minority or afflicted group will complain you’re being biased.

Now awards shows have been tanking for years. The Oscars are nearly irrelevant, at most a fashion show, but fashion influencers online have more power than these two-dimensional actresses.

The Grammy organization can point to its new CBS deal and suddenly better ratings and say it is winning. But money isn’t everything and the ratings are anemic when you consider the number of potential viewers.

It’s a sideshow. When music used to be the main show.

We can debate all day long how we got here. Did MTV make image paramount? Did the promotion of Mariah Carey and other popsters, along with TV singing shows, create a paradigm youngsters imitated, despite it having the nutritious value of cotton candy?

Now if you’re in the business today, you’re a believer, that’s how you get paid. But if you’re outside it…

Bernie Sanders is a bigger star than any nominated act. Maybe you hate him, but that’s just the point. He’s got beliefs different from his compatriots and he’s sticking to them, and money is not his personal goal. He stands for something. And even in his eighties people believe in him.

Really, you’re going to believe in these two-dimensional often frauds nominated for these awards?

Things change. Television used to be a wasteland, now it’s the primary artistic force.

Movies used to engender public discussion, they were part of the national debate. Despite all the press hoopla for “One Battle After Another,” the public isn’t talking about it, not even as much as it did “Kramer vs. Kramer,” never mind “Apocalypse Now.”

But you can’t say this. You’re labeled lowbrow as the powers of yesteryear keep telling us we’ve got to go to the theatre, that’s the only way to experience movies…talk about disconnected.

And if you criticize the recording industry and its music the pushback is intense, after all, this is how people are making their living.

Nothing can change. Even though it already has, and we’re all paying the price.

Music triumphs when it’s artistry. And being able to sing and write music goes part of the way, but for that je ne sais quoi…we need outsiders changing it up. We need more than a pretty ditty. We need culture.

And there’s more culture in “KPop Demon Hunters” than there is in almost all of the big time nominees.

Then again, it was created by outsiders given money by a renegade outfit, i.e. Netflix. Our hit music was driven by outsiders. Not anymore.

How can we inspire youngsters to greatness?

By stopping promoting this tripe and helping them along the way with education like you get in the BRIT School. By investing in that which has merit but is not obviously commercial.

But really it all comes down to spontaneous generation.

But there must be influences.

With influences like these, expect a long, dark tunnel ahead.