Los Angeles could be the most hated city in the country. Of course there is Houston, crippled by its lack of zoning, but L.A. is bigger, second only to New York, and it’s in California, which has been successfully vilified by the right wing. So why should anybody live here?

As the story goes, L.A. has no center. And is therefore incomprehensible to city dwellers. But that’s its magic. The sense of decentralized possibility.

Go to Chicago, any metropolis, and there’s a mayor and a group of business people who run the city, they lord over it. There’s a hierarchy, there’s nearly a feudal system. But in L.A? No one is in charge. For all the blowback about Mayor Bass, the truth is the office has limited power and is ultimately beholden to the Board of Supervisors. Not that I know for sure how it works, despite having lived here for half a century. That’s L.A. in a nutshell, everybody’s into their own trip, there’s no cohesiveness. Which means no one is paying attention, and you can get away with things. And you can be nobody from nowhere and somehow burst on to the scene fully-formed, not only impressing the town, but the entire world.

And all this is encapsulated in “Sugar.” Which is the best shot show on television. You should sign up for Apple TV just to see it. But first buy a top of the line OLED set. And while you’re sitting there in your cocoon you will ask yourself why you’d ever bother to go out to the movies.

Now in the old days, all the television and much of the movies were shot in L.A. And people had a feel for it, which is one reason so many people moved here. Now, as a result of government incentives, production has gone elsewhere, mostly overseas, but Canada too. Yet L.A. is still here.

And what you’ve got is broad boulevards and neighborhoods that you can only discern after you’ve lived here a while. And you can feel the Latino presence. You cannot separate yourself from it. Furthermore, so many Anglos marry into it.

Now the other thing about L.A. is it’s got no weather. Of course the temperature varies, but within a very small range. And there can be some precipitation during the winter, but when the rest of the country starts hunkering down sometime in September or October or even November, it’s still fall here. It’s fall for nearly six months of the year.

And you know the vibe of fall. It’s about dying, not rebirth.

The focus on L.A. is the sunniness and the celebrities, whether A-list or D-list. But if you live here, those are just people you see at the supermarket. There’s a darkness that permeates the place, especially after the sun goes down, it may be pitch black, but it’s still warm and…

You wander.

There is a downtown, but almost no one goes there, never mind walks there…I mean who would, it’s too dangerous. Of course there’s L.A. Live and Disney Hall, but really, the action takes place elsewhere. And not so much in public places, but inside homes. You don’t go out to party, you go to someone’s abode to do so. And it never lasts all night. Because you’ve got to get up in the morning…to work out, to work, you need to be on it.

Perception is that L.A. is hedonistic, that people don’t work, never mind read, but this is patently untrue, L.A. people are working all the time. Hustling when they’re not in the office. You see it’s a mobile society, and you want to get ahead.

But there is no game board. You get a piece, but where you go and how you win is up to you.

Such that the narrative in “Sugar” is not universal, but particular. It’s just another city story, one of a zillion. In many ways it’s got the vibe of “Dragnet,” and the interstitial movie clips remind one of nothing so much as “Dream On,” and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. But up until recently, everybody in L.A. knew the references, the talent, both on the screen and behind it, because the movie business was bedrock.

Of course it’s not the same, but the truth is L.A. is influencer central. They group together and live in houses…

As for the music business, it’s still as present as it ever was, only it’s different.

Of course AEG and Live Nation and Universal are all located here. But really, it’s about the players, who’ve now gone underground. The club scene is kaput, as is the major studio business, never mind the big budgets that supported them, but everybody’s got a Pro Tools rig, a home studio, and they’re working all the time. You can make a record in your bedroom elsewhere, you’re just lacking the top-notch players, the community. As for Nashville… That’s a completely different vibe, homey. There is nothing homey about L.A. It’s every person for themselves, it’s just that there’s enough elbow room for you not to impinge upon others.

So it’s happening here, but if you’re an outsider, it’s not palpable. You can go to Grauman’s and see the handprints, you can see all the stars as you walk down Hollywood Boulevard, but a regular Angeleno hasn’t gone there and done that in decades. That’s for tourists.

Once again, the center is not findable. It’s all about scenes. And by time the media gloms on, they’re passé.

But how to convey this to nonresidents?

You can start by watching “Sugar.” Not for the plot, never mind the alien angle, but for the vibe.

It’s perennial nighttime in Los Angeles. What I mean is no one is breathing down your back, everything is possible.

But no one has got your back other than your friends. Good luck depending upon the police, in a vast territory where gangs run rampant.

So you’ve got to be on guard.

And it can be scary, but also titillating.

Most shows are shot fast and flat, it’s the nature of television. But not “Sugar.” “Sugar” gets L.A. right. You view downtown from a distance, you don’t go there. And sure, there’s the beach, but since it’s there all the time you don’t go there regularly either.

You get in your car, and it may not be a ’63 Corvette, but wheels are important in L.A., and you go out for tacos, other ethnic food, not to restaurants that have a profile, but the endless stands and holes-in-the-wall in your neighborhood.

But, having said that, L.A. is a first class city. Its restaurants, its food scene can only be compared to New York, at least as long as you stay in the States.

So that’s the conundrum. It feels like a suburb, it feels like you’re living a life of domesticity, but just around the corner, or over the hill, the world is being changed, oftentimes by people you’ve never known the name of previously.

And this isn’t San Francisco and tech, a one horse town based on education and smarts. No, L.A. is based on wiles. How you interact with people and your desires. Your personality, not so much the one you show to your friends but an external identity, an image, that you will utilize for advancement.

And if you’ve got the bug… If you live here… You laugh at the naysayers. You don’t have to convince them they’re wrong, after all you’re here and you know how great it is.

Then again, if you’re basing your life on your parents and education, those mean nothing here, unless your parent is a celebrity.

So it’s easier to come to Los Angeles and dismiss it. After all, it is spread out and incomprehensible.

But in truth it’s the future. No one here is baked in their ways, no one wants to return to the past, everybody is searching for the new, we’re addicted to the new. And others eventually get it, but by that time we’ve already moved on to the next thing.

So does this sound like a place for you?

If you’re not scared by the above…

Then again, so many arrive here to make it and don’t and then leave.

But those of us who stay here… We know it’s not like any other place. You’ve got the contrast between suburb and city, the mountains and the sea, and good weather all year ’round.

Seeing the streets, the vistas in “Sugar,” makes my heart palpitate, I get excited, because I know this is the place.

And I am here.

I wanted the Sammy Hagar book, what I got was typical paint-by-numbers rock biography that delivered information, some of which I wanted to know, but didn’t answer the true question that motivated me to read this book in the first place…

WHO EXACTLY WAS JEFF BECK!

This is why I don’t read most music books. Because the people who write them don’t think about the audience, don’t know how to write a book. A book isn’t about information, it’s about READABILITY! People have to want to read it, otherwise, they won’t.

These are some of the tricks of the trade, that not only rock critics overlook, but too many of the products of the MFA world too, who are so busy rewriting their tomes as to make them so dense as to be unfathomable. You’re writing fiction? PLOT IS FIRST AND FOREMOST! Doesn’t matter what fancy words you use, analogies, it’s all about story, story, story…not so hard, right? Well it seems for many it is. Which is why when people find something good, they tell everybody about it. Kinda like “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” or “Daisy Jones & The Six.” If you sat down with them, you found that they intrigued you and cut like butter, unlike “Blow by Blow.”

Jeff Beck is the best rock guitarist who ever lived. Funny how now that he’s dead, more people are coming around to this take.

I was convinced at the 1983 A.R.M.S. concert at the Forum. It featured sets by Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. And Beck blew the other two off the stage, it was no contest.

And Jeff had peaks, but…

Rep on him was that he was difficult. But the two times I connected with him I was stunned how humble and open and direct he was, the antithesis of most musicians, never mind stars. He looked me in the eye and connected first as a person, there was no attitude and no issue of status.

But I barely had this brush with fame…

So who was this guy?

Everybody was surprised when Sammy Hagar’s autobiography (well-written in Hagar’s voice by Joel Selvin), became a national bestseller. A true bestseller, as in the “New York Times” chart. That’s one thing about entertainment, people will always tell you how high their work is on the chart… But it turns out that the chart is for sales in Antarctica for Bulgarian goose farts.

Now Sammy’s book jumped right into his life, his story. Of course we wanted to know all about working with Ronnie Montrose and Eddie Van Halen, but first and foremost, who is Sammy Hagar, and how did he find himself in these circumstances?

This book…

I was eager to know more, since so much of what Beck did happened on the less than commercial fringe.

And I got each and every band and people he worked with and I learned stuff, definitely, but who Beck was???

There is mention of his significant others, but other than one flight instructor, the details of how they met and what brought them together and what the relationships were like… I read the entire book and Beck remained an enigma.

And after finishing I’m still not sure of my take on Jeff…

Did it all just come down to personality, did Jeff have trouble staying the course, was he his own worst enemy, or was he always in search of the next thing, trying to keep it interesting for himself?

Now both of those are in play here…

But there’s a bigger story, why did Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton become so big and Jeff didn’t? After all, Beck shared Peter Grant as manager with Page and Zeppelin for a while.

I mean you’ve got to laud the guy for constantly changing it up. Or was it that he just couldn’t keep it together?

He gets rid of a lot of people, but a lot of people abandon him too. They work with him for a while and then move on, especially after he cancels dates.

There’s reference to head problems after physical accidents… But that does not ring true, not without more evidence.

Now if you ever saw Jeff Beck…you were stunned, you’ll never get over it. Especially the latter days, when he played without a pick…which they mention here, but not exactly why he made this transition.

And if you want to know more…

I read this book, I finished it, that’s how hungry I was for information.

There’s a slew of these books. Written by fans, rock journalists, who cobble together all the data, all the information from the act’s history, but they end up feeling external, they don’t know these people.

And believe me, knowing a bunch of them, especially the icons, so often they’re completely different from the public rep and perception.

You see when you reach the top, people are gunning for you. They want to tear you down. Most of the time because they think they deserve your job, but they don’t have the skills and perseverance to put themselves in position, never mind get it.

And then you meet these people and they’re upbeat and friendly and…

Some of those with legendary reputations, that the media lauds, are absolute pricks.

So who was Jeff Beck? Prick or tortured artist?

I still don’t know.

Last night I went to a gig and the opening act was bad.

I don’t mean terrible, completely unskilled, but if you asked someone to leave the house for this…they wouldn’t.

Oh, some people did. This was a club, holding a few hundred, and it was not full and this woman did her best to entrance the attendees, it’s just that her material wasn’t any good. She looked like a refugee from the seventies, bleached blonde hair and Ziggy Stardust silver suit, and she played angry, noisy music verging on punk, but unless you needed loud, angry noise…

Oh, there were songs, but…

I’m sitting there thinking about seeing Little Feat in the same venue. An underplay, not long after I’d moved to Los Angeles, it wasn’t hard to get a ticket, I went with my new friend Danny from Star Sporting Goods. He was the hiking expert. Word was he lived alone in a single apartment, that he was the son of a single mother and… This wasn’t who I’d been exposed to back on the east coast, but he was friendly and…I guess that’s the difference between east and west. At least where I grew up. You were on the college track or you were headed for the dumps. Education was everything. Divorce was rare. I’m sitting in the balcony wondering what Danny is up to today and… One thing about getting older, you realize that you’re never going to encounter these people again, they could even be dead. In addition, all the regrets you have, about misspeaking, behaving badly towards another, evaporate. I won’t quite say you become comfortable in your own skin, but you realize there’s a limited amount of time left and all the stuff you thought was going to happen never will.

So I used to go to clubs on a regular basis. To see acts I was enamored of. To experience the latest hot thing once I moved to Los Angeles. You wanted to marinate in the sound, you wanted the visceral experience, and I’m sure there are still shows like that today, but the truth is unless an act is going to deliver a peak, ten on a ten scale or close, people just aren’t going to come, with so many options at their fingertips at home.

Now I ran into a few people I knew. And that was very satisfying. I guess I was convinced that my generation had moved on. It used to be a floating party. But everybody got older and the scene changed. The acts are on their umpteenth reunion tour if they’re not retired or dead and pop and niche rock and hip-hop fill the rest of the dates. Especially at the summer venues, it’s oldies on parade, and it’s kind of creepy.

But, going used to be everything.

Now Will Page wrote a great article in the “Financial Times,” unfortunately behind a paywall, but the headline tells you most of what you need to know:

“The ‘go big or stay home’ economy reshaping live music – Consumers will spend multiples of an annual streaming subscription for three hours of music at a giant stadium”:

https://www.ft.com/content/3a2a3e6c-8fc9-47e7-bc88-3f3e64b65d21

This is not only in music, with the best accessed as easily as the mediocre, never mind the bad, people gravitate to the best. And they want it easy. Page makes the point that a stadium show is much more palatable than a festival. And there are a lot more stadium shows, but there are a lot more people. And the truth is you may not have even heard of many of these acts selling so many tickets.

And speaking about articles behind paywalls, Ralph Simon sent me this, from the “Economist”:

“Forget the World Cup. Culture is becoming more fragmented – Farewell to the monoculture”

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2026/06/11/forget-the-world-cup-culture-is-becoming-more-fragmented

I was going to do a whole piece on this, might still do so, but the salient point is despite the world having access to everything, acts reaching every nook and cranny via streaming music, the market in each nation is dominated by local repertoire, more than ever before in the modern era. In the old days, there were universal stars, made by MTV and radio. You’d think that the best and the brightest would be able to get even bigger, because of world access, but the opposite has occurred. As streaming has grown, acts have had less success overseas. The days of U.S. and U.K. acts dominating worldwide are toast.

And back on the nightlife tip, I read a review of the new book “Up All Night” in today’s “Wall Street Journal”:

“‘Up All Night’ Review: The Life of the Party – Nightclubs have historically been places where different classes and communities mix it up on the dance floor”:

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/up-all-night-review-the-life-of-the-party-acdcafb8

https://apple.news/A91uqG14NStOfp8D8AT6NwQ

I’m gonna quote from the article:

“‘The once habitual “big night out” has become an increasingly fringe activity,’ Imogen Willetts writes in ‘Up All Night,’ her lively history of nightclubs through the ages. People are staying home, she says, because of bleak economics, dating apps, streaming services and the fear of being caught behaving badly on camera phones—all leading to a sharp decline in nightlife.

“In the United Kingdom, three nightclubs close every week, Ms. Willetts tells us, while the New York City mayor’s office reported in 2019 that 30% to 40% of all ‘nightlife owners didn’t expect to be in business in three years’ time.'”

But all we keep reading in the U.K. press and in the halls of the music industry is that clubs are music’s lifeblood and must be kept alive. But what if people don’t want to go?

In the old days, I’d see an act live and then have to tell everybody to go see them the next time around.

As far as going to bars and hearing unsigned bands… I got over that not long after I was old enough to drink. The mediocrity and unfamiliarity made no sense to me, I’d rather sit at home and listen to records. As for hanging out and trying to meet people… Thank god for the internet, I wasted so much time looking for unfound action in venues in the old days.

So if you’re sitting at home, thinking of going out… You’re not even going to check the listings, because you know if it was worth seeing, you’d have already heard about it. Things are different for name brand talent, but clubs are about up and coming talent.

The headliner last night had fans, he had skill interacting with the audience honed from years on the road. But the interesting thing to me was the age of those in attendance. There might have been a few in their thirties, but most were older, older than the act itself!

These were the people who grew up needing to go out, young people don’t have that need. These were the people who know the heat of a live show. As far as younger generations… The truth is they’ve grown up in a pop culture, they view a concert ticket almost like a guarantee. If I pay this much you not only have to play the hits, you have to have production and… The music itself is not enough.

So…

I’d tell you I want to go out, but I’d like to tell you there are things I want to see. I want to hang with people. But it’s not like I’m turning down invitations. Of course I get invited by PR people and managers and agents to go see their latest hype. But the odds of it being worth my while… I’ve got to get in my car, drive there, pay to park, wait for the act to come on when…

I’ve already listened to the music online and it was far from overwhelming.

As far as a show so dynamic that it must not be missed. I’d like to tell you that that’s part of the hype, but really, it’s all transparent… Please show up and help me make money, PLEASE!

Forget that I’m reluctant to do this, the audience is even harder to motivate. For all the bluster about the success of the film business this summer, the bottom line is it’s very few movies and all have gotten good reviews, there’s a buzz. And then there are films like “Moana,” dead on arrival. People will show up at the theatre the same way they’ll show up at the stadium, for stars, but they won’t show up for everybody. And both the movie and music businesses somehow believe they will.

So if you want to charge people to see you…

You must be so good that not only do attendees have a good time, but they need to tell everybody about your show. You can hone your chops, woodshed on YouTube, but not live. You’re stepping right into the maelstrom, you’ve got to deliver.

Now at least in the movie business, this summer’s big successes are unforeseen Gen-Z hits. “Obsession” and “Backrooms” were new and different, never mind in the case of “Obsession” being really damn cheap, less than a million bucks to make. They weren’t successful because of promotion, but word of mouth, there was a buzz. The music business used to specialize in this, and we did get Angine de Poitrine, and that’s good, but not from the usual suspects, it was an indie project broken by noncom radio on YouTube. Furthermore, Angine de Poitrine is not Nirvana, it’s truly niche, but where else are these acts that are different and generating so much buzz?

It’s not only the labels that are playing it safe, but the acts themselves.

Last night’s headliner, with good reviews but no help from a major label, never mind a manager, passionately spoke about the state of America, how we felt as individuals, it was alive and real in a way too much of the music world today is not.

What do they say? Everything in politics is local?

Well, the Democrats were so focused on Biden and then Harris that they missed the sentiment of the country, and these same people are now missing the Democratic Socialist uprising.

And we’ve got a somnambulant, lemming Republican party paying fealty to Trump as he loses the hearts and minds of almost everyone in America.

And the mainstream press is always behind the curve, the oldsters always find out last.

In the old days, Bob Dylan sang:

“Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?”

Back then the street was important, but now the street lives online, on YouTube and social media, and traditional powers refuse to delve into this overwhelming world and try to figure out what is going on.

Based on last night, based on statistics, I say good riddance to small clubs. First and foremost because the people don’t want to go. Second, the talent purveyed isn’t worth spending money for…but even worse, it’s not worth spending time for. We are all limited, we have a million options, if it’s not great, we are not interested.

And this applies to everything.

Tune in July 18th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

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