“‘Have You Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd’ (Trailer)”: https://tinyurl.com/2k99mp63

Now this will change your mood. It and the music of Pink Floyd are the antithesis of Wham! Anything but obvious and simple. This film and Pink Floyd have an ethereal quality, there’s no context, they exist on their own and you can either buy in or reject them. But if you dive in…beware, you might not end up where you started.

This film does not delineate what happened with Syd Barrett. Oh, there are facts, but what was going on in Syd’s head? That remains elusive. Psychosis usually arrives in one’s late teens to mid-twenties. But although there are doctors in this film, that element is never addressed. There were people who burned out from LSD, acid casualties. They indulged regularly and never came back from where they went. Is that what happened to Syd? This film does not tell you.

But it does tell you about the psychedelic sixties.

At the turn of the last century the script flipped. There was more action at home than there was out. A deeper, more scintillating experience. And the oldsters denied this, pooh-poohed it, saw screens as vapid addictions, the same way their parents judged the youth and their music in the sixties.

It’s hard to describe the sixties if you didn’t live through them. You can listen to oldies radio, 60s on 6, and think it was just one continuous thread of hits, first American and then British and…it wasn’t really that way at all. The Beatles incited a revolution. It went beyond the music. You were told to think for yourself, by these blokes who were unrestricted by society, who were pied-pipers for the younger generation. And they caused so many to pick up instruments and play.

And by the latter half of the sixties there was a confluence of art, music and movies, all swirled into one, like an ice cream cone at Carvel. A veritable candy shop, with too many offerings to consume, but you wanted to taste them all.

But to gain the full experience you had to be out of school and living in the city. We knew we were one step removed. We couldn’t wait to grow up and partake. To live in the city free from our parents and experience all life could deliver, pushing the envelope into new territory. This was back when living was cheap and you were urged to love everybody, very different from today.

So if you were in the city and you went out…

You could not capture the scene on wax or film. You had to be there and experience it. The Acid Tests, the noodling music, the underground films and the emergence of cutting edge above ground movies.

And not everybody was hip. Some were afraid. Others lived too far away. But if you got the memo, you searched out information, pieced together the story from newspapers and magazines. It required work to be hip, but it wasn’t work at all.

So Syd Barrett went to art school. That paradigm seems to have died with the Talking Heads. And it’s why David Byrne is still revered today. That view from one step removed, not begging for acceptance, constantly challenging the audience, that is art.

So the people who changed the world back when were middle class. They weren’t starving. They wouldn’t do what they were told just for a buck. They weren’t building brands. As Bill Graham so famously said when he managed the Airplane, whenever the band made money they wanted to stay home and smoke dope, they didn’t want to work. It was your life and you wanted to live it.

So Syd came from a culture of exploration, commercialism was not paramount. You didn’t want to sell out, you didn’t want to be burdened by the audience, you wanted to do your own thing and be recognized for it. You wanted to lead people into your own private universe, not to control them, but to open them up to the possibilities.

So Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd were the paragon of psychedelia in London. You had to go to their show to experience it. And it was not locked down, synched to hard drive, it was different every night, experimental. There was a light show and no dance steps.

And all of this is in the movie.

As well as all the people who had contact with Syd. Roger, Dave and Nick. And Storm Thorgerson, who he grew up with. And other childhood and adult friends. They’re still alive, somewhat worse for wear, and they’re testifying. Well, some died before the film was finished, but the amazing thing is they don’t seem to have sold out, they seem to have made lives pursuing their dreams. These are not has-beens working at the 7-11, but thinking people.

So you’ve got to know “See Emily Play” didn’t break through in America. As a matter of fact, the first time I remember hearing it was on David Bowie’s “Pinups” album. You see, it influenced Bowie.

And the Pink Floyd of today is very different from Syd’s era. Everyone acknowledges that there’d be no Pink Floyd without Syd, but once he was gone the band was no longer burdened, and inspired by Syd’s ethos, they became one of the biggest bands of all time.

Syd Barrett was an enigma in America. And although this film sheds some light on his story, he still is. We knew “The Madcap Laughs,” by 1970 we knew who Pink Floyd were, Syd’s previous membership in the group, and I already owned “Ummagumma.” There was not a news blackout, Syd was referenced, but he never came back like Peter Green, and then he died. Not from abuse, but pancreatic cancer, which was a death sentence back then and mostly still is.

And his sister is somewhat resentful, which is understandable after caring for him for the last decades of his life. And Syd was around, but nobody visited him and then he died.

So what did we learn?

That we have more questions than answers.

And you’ll have so many questions that you’ll want to watch this movie again.

Will this movie influence younger generations the way we were influenced by so much of the past, from W.C. Fields to the Marx Brothers to the bluesmeisters…

Well, you’re either a member of the club or not, on the bus or off.

This film opens doors. Where you go once you pass through is up to you. That’s what our music delivered, a starting point, an instruction booklet, and then we were on our own.

This is a weird movie. It’s not that it’s not for everybody, but more that not everybody is interested. Today too much is surface. If you have money you’re not only rich, but intelligent, you know better. We didn’t used to feel this way. And just because you had hits that did not mean we placed our faith in you. We were looking for something more, something three-dimensional that we could believe in.

This is a peek into what once was.

You know whether you have to take a look.

But those who do not… That’s evidence of who you are. And we’re judging you just like we did in the sixties. It’s about more than long hair, it’s about what’s inside your brain, how you think. People were hungry for knowledge, wanted to be in the know. To be conservative was to be dead. Change was embraced.

I’m sorry if you didn’t live through it. But this film will give you a glimpse of the way it used to be.

People don’t like the streamers. The only company with any good will left is Netflix, which even I am less than enthusiastic about since it canned the woman who made the highbrow halo productions for someone green-lighting middle of the road, dumbed-down fare, the kind that caused the networks to lose market share to the cable companies, especially pay cable, like HBO. AND WE’RE PAYING FOR STREAMING!

At first cable providers were the most hated corporations in America. Then the major record labels. I won’t say that streamers are number three, but they’ve been hurt by focusing on what Wall Street wants as opposed to what their customers want. But it’s even worse. The people who run these outlets are grossly overpaid. Tell me how Zaslav makes triple-digit millions while cutting production and telling HBO viewers they’re second class citizens. Does he think we don’t know all this? Following entertainment is like following sports, people know the players and their maneuvers, and the end result does not look pretty.

Amazon… People hate the company anyway. But if you sign up for a streaming outlet via the Prime app…good luck figuring out how to cancel. Re the FTC lawsuit, the response has been that if companies make it too easy to cancel, people might cancel by accident. This is the kind of insane gobbledygook that turns customers against companies. Furthermore, it’s not that hard to ask again if the subscriber wants to cancel, that’s normally how computers work. You go to delete and it asks you if you’re sure. But Amazon, et al, know better? Give me a break.

Apple… Highbrow product dripped-out over months. And they just raised the price. I won’t pay. It’s an insult, no matter how much I love and am part of the Apple ecosystem.

Disney? A dearth of new product. It’s child fare and “Star Wars” stuff. I mean really?

Paramount and Peacock… Really? You want me to pay for this stuff? I’ve got to be the most avid TV addict to pony up. These outlets are like auto dealerships filled with old cars with crank windows and no A/C. There’s no there there.

Furthermore, it’s all Balkanized. Like being pecked to death by ducks. Quote me an overall price, for everything. This is what saved the music business. Certainly not the major labels, but Daniel Ek, who wouldn’t even launch in America until he had all three majors on board. He was worried about the customer first. And you can naysay all you want, but Daniel Ek single-handedly saved the recorded music business. The majors certainly couldn’t do it. They were inured to the past. Ek incentivized the labels with stock, which in some cases was promptly sold. Think about that…you don’t even believe in the future of your distributor. You’re so myopic, it’s about today’s bottom line as opposed to the future’s.

As for hating the major record labels… This has stopped, because everybody can play. The tools of creation and distribution are in the hands of the consumer, and marketing is too. As for online promotional outlets like TikTok…that’s where the youth spend their time, that’s the main competition for streamers. But the elements of TikTok that adhere it to its audience? The big swinging dicks in streaming don’t want to employ them: honest, authenticity, credibility… Mindless escapism? There’s an audience for that, but that’s not what’s propping up TikTok, humanity and creativity are propping up TikTok.

As for unions…

There’s a renaissance.

Apple and Amazon fighting unionization is a bad look. Especially when Apple is worth three trillion. The little people should be left out? But it’s the little people who sustain your business, the customer. Ignore the customer at your peril. And working at the Amazon warehouse is like being in prison. Amazon is on the verge of running out of available workers who have not already worked for the company. It’s like today’s “Wall Street Journal,” the pompous writer who said Florida’s anti-immigration law problems will be solved by the market. Yeah, when you pay farm and service workers twenty or thirty dollars an hour, which they’re never going to do, hell, the minimum wage in the Sunshine State is eleven bucks. Truth is so many of these jobs the immigrants do American citizens don’t want to. The work is too dirty, too intense and too poorly-paid for them to be incentivized. Ever pick crops? I have, it’s back-breaking, almost any job is better.

So what we have here is an elite that believe their sh*t doesn’t stink and they’re better than us. That they earned their status and their riches. Rubbish, it’s all on the back of us, the public, the consumers, and you constantly want to screw us in the process.

Bankers… What exactly do they add?

Private equity. You buy, lay debt on the company and frequently it crashes under said debt, even though you made money! People lose their jobs, but you come out smelling like a rose. This is the story of Warner Bros. Discovery. The company is loaded up with tens of billions in debt. Which didn’t exist until AT&T decided to buy Warner Bros. and… You must pay. Wall Street must be served. Zaslav cut foreign TV production. Meaning you won’t see no “Squid Game” on Max.

The tide has turned. Income inequality… We’ve felt powerless for years. Give us an opportunity and we take action.

That reporter saying Threads is the new Google+… Yes, this was said in the “New York Times,” how ignorant can you be? People didn’t have a problem with Facebook, they didn’t need Google+, thus it failed. But people HATE Elon Musk and his Twitter experience, otherwise triple-digit millions wouldn’t have signed up for Threads. Sans Musk’s purchase of Twitter, Threads is dead on arrival. But that guy…

Doesn’t matter if you feel differently. Believe me, my inbox is filled with people citing the Twitter Files and all kinds of b.s. to defend Twitter and Musk. I won’t even bother going into the details, but the truth is in the number of Threads signups, people were dissatisfied with Twitter. And the truth is users want content moderation. And if you look into the Twitter Files you’ll find no smoking gun, Twitter’s regulators were dealing with both Democrats and Republicans looking for moderation, and wrestling with what to do. But no, we must have FREEDUMB!

You don’t have the freedom to yell FIRE! in a crowded auditorium.

No one has unlimited freedom, even though these rich bozo elites think they do, that they’re above the law.

What Musk and his minions want is chaos, so the truth can’t out, and so they can control the narrative.

So just like with Twitter you’ve got all these anti-union people with loud voices. But the average citizen… They’re on the other side. They wish they were a member of a union. That they had greater pay and protection. And sure, you can  point out flaws in past unions, but… This is another thing that drives me crazy, the bad apples in the Democratic party are held up as evidence that the whole party must be thrown out with the bathwater. There are bad actors everywhere. Even you have made mistakes. But politicians can’t even admit them, for fear of being excoriated by the party police. Just like we can’t have new taxes.

Of course the streamers have costs. But should the actors pay for the streamers’ overproduction? What a concept, we overspend and then we’re rescued. Everybody in America would sign up for that, but it’s not offered. We’re supposed to be responsible. But when corporations screw up? It’s our money that bails them out! Keeping the airlines in business. The subsidies to oil and gas companies. Carried interest benefits for billionaire hedge funders. But nothing can change, that’s the America we now live in. Gridlock. While in other countries they build roads and other infrastructure and… You want the fire department to show up, the police too. You want to drive on the roads. But you shouldn’t have to pay for it? That’s what taxes pay for. As for waste… Even you waste. You’ve purchased products you haven’t used. But the government should be held to a higher standard?

America is angry. And as James Carville famously said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Everybody is worried about their finances. We’re dying to stick it to the man. And when we get the option, we salivate and act. That’s what the migration to Threads was all about.

Should SAG-AFTRA get everything it wants? The WGA? Of course not. There should be honest negotiation, which has yet to happen. The landscape changed. There are buyouts, no residuals, shorter production schedules. But it’s all dependent on the workers at the bottom of the pyramid. The streamers can’t excise them, they’re the fuel that makes the operation run. 

I mean really.

As for the public being unwilling to forgo Hollywood, and therefore being on the streamers’/producers’ side? There’s tons of entertainment out there already. People are not willing to throw everybody under the bus to get momentary satisfaction. Hell, jobs were shipped overseas… This is what the blue collar backlash is all about. The left helped eliminate their jobs but did not protect them for the future. As for the right, their solution is to own the libs, which is no solution at all. We all need progress. We all need to come to the table. All this hogwash about everyone needing to be self-reliant is just that, hogwash. Shi*t happens, which is why you need the government. Which is why you need health insurance, but you think you’re immune. Same deal with car insurance. Everybody thinks the problem won’t happen to them, and then it does.

You’ll want more pay. You’ll want more job security. These union fights are for you, don’t ever forget it.

Of Yes. Need I say more?

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/jon-anderson/id1316200737?i=1000621004013

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/3bee3d46-bc13-45a2-a874-73537a4ec618/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-jon-anderson

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/jon-anderson-305237766

Trailer: https://tinyurl.com/26vjsvcj

It’s FANTASTIC!

Not that I was eager to watch it. The e-mail started to come in last week, absolute raves. So I read the reviews and said…maybe, but not right now. But watching a disappointing comedy special tonight Felice suggested it, and WOW!

Started off cheesy. I mean the titles. Like the Motley Crue movie. A wink, a fabrication, a step away from the real nitty-gritty. But momentarily thereafter…

This is a document of an era. The MTV era.

But even more it’s a document of the post-punk world of Britain.

It’s a smaller country than the U.S. And therefore there’s more of a feeling of being in it together. Music is followed like sports, like horse racing. Everybody reads the charts. Which are a mash-up of all kinds of genres. And stuff that is gigantic over there never makes it here, frequently unjustifiably, like Rag’n’Bone Man’s “Human.”

The label screwed that one up.

Used to be the label was everything. Wham!’s breakthrough was an appearance on “Top of the Pops.” The doc says it was a phone call out of the blue, but anybody on the inside knows it never works that way, that the label worked the TV show until the opportunity arrived.

And then Wham! delivered.

Times were different. The sixties were about revolution. The seventies, licking our wounds and cynicism. And the eighties were about hedonism.

Then again, Margaret Thatcher ruled from ’79-’90. Not that the average person in Americas knows much about her and her conservative government, how she broke the backs of unions and musicians and the underclass resented her, to this day. Today politics is everything. You might be misinformed, but you’re aware of the players. Ergo, Brexit. The perpetrators are out of government, the country is suffering economically compared to the EU and the musical touring business has been hindered in both directions, Britain to the EU and EU to Britain. But the nationalism of the ignorant drove Brexit. And the same uninformed wanting no part of the EU were supported by the EU and didn’t even know it, kinda like the Republicans who bitch about the government and social programs when they’re the beneficiaries thereof. Voting against your interests, it’s the twenty first century way.

So Wham! was huge in England.

But it took a while for them to cross over to America and MTV. This was before the channel was a worldwide phenomenon. Today you can make it from anywhere. Who knew Latin was gonna be this big? Other genres from other countries will come down the pike. Back then, especially as the eighties played out, you were either on MTV or you weren’t, you were either a hit act or marginal. That was the power of MTV. Nobody has that power today.

Nor do the labels.

Sure, the labels rejected Wham! at first, but Wham! needed a label to make it. And the band signed an horrific deal. Sure, people will sign anything to make it, but today musicians are much better informed, they know you need an attorney, and the royalty standards have improved. 2%? Nothing on twelve inches? Today an act can get 50% after expenses, or release the music themselves and make even more. And although terrestrial radio is not yet dead, it’s less powerful than ever before. It was the bastion of the major labels, still is, it’s where hits were solidified. Now active customers don’t listen and acts are broken online in ways the major labels do not control. It’s very different from yesterday, even though the oldsters like to tell us it’s just the same.

And speaking of different…

I’m not sure you can find an American or Briton conscious in the eighties who does not know “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.” Nothing is that ubiquitous today, NOTHING! Everybody aware back then could sing the chorus and still can, that’s how catchy the number was and still is.

And that’s a point of the film, what a great songwriter and producer George Michael was.

And his father didn’t believe in his career and he was gay and closeted…

The people who make it need it. They’re not normal, they’re flawed. They believe the success, the adulation, will fulfill them, cover up that hole inside, and when they finally realize it can’t, they stop being able to deliver. But before that, they’re DRIVEN!

Like George Michael.

He needed it. He reveled in it. He wanted four number ones in one year. And the power of the audience, of being on stage, is evident time and again in this movie.

So the film is a time capsule. But in this case, there’s footage and photos. Yes, the eighties were documented. This separates the Wham! movie from the documentaries from earlier eras. It’s all right there to see, no imagination is needed, you’re just overwhelmed.

And China is still backward.

And publicity is everything. Press, TV news… They’re nearly powerless today, especially for developing acts. You put it out there and try to engage your fans.

But a difference between yesterday and today is in the old days you had to build your career over time. Today, one album and you can be playing arenas. The road work was important for Wham!, as it is for developing acts today, but George Michael lived for the studio, for the hit records. Today live is everything. It’s the visceral experience everybody desires in a digitized world. It’s unique, you can own it.

And to see Wham!’s contemporaries… Especially recording the Band Aid single. Everybody is so young. Sting is somewhat dorky. Bono is wearing that ridiculous hat. Phil Collins can still play the drums. It’s a window into what once was, and now no longer exists.

You watch the Wham! movie and remember why you wanted to be in the music business, why you NEEDED to be in the music business! Music was everything, all wrapped into one. The music, the look, the money, the meaning, the edginess… Music was pushing the envelope in ways no other art form was. And if you made it, you were more famous than anybody in the world, politicians, never mind business people.

This is not “Behind the Music.” This is not a false arc. This is the story of two guys who wanted to make it, and worked hard to do so. That’s the power of youth, the ignorance and the lack of experience. You believe in your talent and push on. And back then there wasn’t the constant sour grapes. Most people couldn’t even get a record deal, whereas today everybody can be on Spotify. And Wham! had number ones and was still broke. And then they hired Simon Napier-Bell.

A good manager is crucial.

And I love “Father Figure” from George Michael’s solo career, but I can’t say I was a big fan of Wham! I go for something more meaningful. But what is clear here is that George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley were incredibly self-aware, they knew what they were selling. There were no false airs. Ultimately it was good time music, for partying. And the eighties were all about partying.

You’ve got to see this movie, even if you hate George Michael and Wham! It’s a window into what once was, which you didn’t know everything about. It puts the act and the eighties in context. If this were still the eighties…

MTV would make the Wham! movie an event. Everybody would know about it. It would be the talk of the youth.

But we haven’t had that spirit here…for decades.

And the Eagles are a good analogy to Wham! Don Henley never would have made it if it weren’t for Glenn Frey. And as the act evolved, it was clear that Henley was the superior talent, and Frey was down with that. Ridgeley is self-aware. He went for a ride with one of the greatest songwriter/performers of the era, and he’s thrilled about it, anything but bitter.

Of course Glenn Frey was much more talented than Andrew Ridgeley, but the bottom line is it’s very hard to keep an act together. They break up even if their fans want them to stay together. You see it’s not a business venture, but an artistic quest. Artists don’t play it safe, they evolve. They’re willing to change, to put it all on the line, risking everything for their vision.

Today hits require more money than ever before. As a result, there are cowriters and remixers and everybody’s trying to buy insurance. But the moment in the Chateau, when George Michael is talking about pulling the line from deep within, being amazed at what comes out, unaware it was there and stunned that he’s got it in him…that’s the essence of creativity. You’ve either got it or you don’t. Andrew Ridgeley didn’t have that, so he had to retire.

As for George Michael, he became one of the biggest stars in the world, but that was not enough. He stopped making records on principle, wanted off Columbia, and the label broke him, he never recaptured his glory. And then he died at a young age.

You think you want what George Michael got. But almost nobody really does. It requires an incredible amount of hard work. The aforementioned drive. It’s not for the well-adjusted. You must sacrifice so much. And when it’s all over everybody knows your name yet you still might feel hollow inside.

Watch the movie.