Bassist extraordinaire Colonel Les Claypool has regrouped his Fearless Flying Brigade for its first tour in two decades. This is Claypool’s story, from picking up the bass at 14 to Primus to Oysterhead to wine-making to… Les will entertain you!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/les-claypool/id1316200737?i=1000612610024

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/ff11192e-740a-4d8e-92b6-fb946c315810/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-les-claypool

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/les-claypool-303101494

https://bit.ly/3nYYRxA

Will there be guitar heroes again?

Sure, we can find teenagers online who can play the licks, copying the greatest hits of classic rock, but the raw innovation, that journey into the stratosphere, that originality, is that history?

Now I checked, this video is also on YouTube, posted thirteen years ago. But I’m not going to search for Van Halen playing the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” But based on TikTok clips I’ve watched, this video was just served up to me while I was doing my back stretches preparing to go out for dinner with Luke.

Now if you’re a baby boomer you know “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by heart. But you also know that intro and solo were done on synthesizer, somehow Eddie Van Halen manages to play them on the guitar. EFFORTLESSLY!

You watch him and he’s not even looking at the strings, at his fingers on the neck, it’s like Eddie knows it instinctively, AND HE PROBABLY DOES!

Now if you want to put your analyst hat on you can say that Alex’s drums are a bit loud and you can’t hear Michael Anthony’s bass, but Sammy sings as effortlessly as Roger Daltrey, hitting the notes no problem.

Then again, Sammy doesn’t have the sense of humor, the intelligence in lyrics that David Lee Roth has.

We can argue over which era of Van Halen we prefer, but one thing’s for sure, the essence is Eddie Van Halen.

Sammy’s tried, but he’s never been able to equal the success without Eddie. Ditto DLR, who had a big solo hit with his cover of “California Girls” right after the monstrous “Jump,” but then he ultimately faded away while Eddie carried on, unscathed.

Music touches you when you aren’t paying attention, when you don’t expect it, when you’re doing something different, when your mind is elsewhere. And then this sound enters your brain and it’s not intellectual, it’s more of a feeling, your whole mood changes, your whole attitude, you feel connected, powerful and optimistic. That’s the power of music, ultimately indefinable but something we’ve all experienced.

And not every song does it, not every performance. And sometimes what is great slides off us, even sounds bad when we’re not in the right mood, but if you’ve slowed down enough, are not distracted, and it all comes together, it’s one of life’s great feelings.

Just wanted to tell you.

P.S. If you want to watch the clip on YouTube: https://bit.ly/44TnRr0

He’s got no online strategy. No identity. Joe seems to be hiding from the country.

Don’t tell me otherwise, that just means you’re in the bubble. You’re operating under the old paradigm, you devour the words of the mainstream media and talk politics with similarly minded people. Which is why you were flummoxed when Trump won in 2016. You didn’t know anybody voting for Trump!

I knew plenty. Because my inbox was inundated with the words of Trump supporters. Still is. These people are relentless.

The Democrats used to control the internet. They took a victory lap after Obama’s victory in the 2008 election. But everything evolves faster on the internet. Those days are history. Today the right owns the internet, furthermore, they’re constantly pushing back, saying they’re getting a raw deal! Yes, the most shared stories on Facebook are right wing stories. But don’t let the facts get in the way of a good narrative.

This is Biden’s problem. The facts are actually quite good, but the narrative is terrible. The right has defined him as a bumbling old man who is afraid to give press conferences who already has one foot in the retirement home. As for Kamala Harris? She’s defined as a do-nothing who failed in her one area of concentration, immigration. Of course you can rebut all this, but once again it’s all about the narrative, not the facts. The people who know the facts are already convinced, but those who don’t, how do you reach them? ON THE INTERNET!

2024 is not 2020. 2020 was a referendum on Donald Trump. Biden was somewhat of a cipher. The most moderate man available who also appealed to Blacks. The Democrats played it safe. But now Biden has a record. And as soon as you have a record, you’re vulnerable. Period.

Yes, the nation was activated back in 2020. To keep the evil Trump at bay. What are they activated about now?

Well, you can talk all day about the abortion issue, but it doesn’t seem to resonate with men. Sure, some are sympathetic, but for most it’s not a defining issue. Like guns. People won’t vote for a Democrat merely because they’re pro-gun control. We don’t have that kind of rabidity on the left, primarily because no one feels powerful, no one feels they can make a difference. Reports are people of color feel ignored by the Democratic regime. This is how the Democrats lost the blue collar, what have you done for me lately?

I’m not saying that abortion ain’t gonna pay dividends for the Democrats in 2024, but I wouldn’t count on it swaying the election. Don’t talk to me about filibustering in South Carolina… Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, giving states the right to codify abortion laws, the availability of abortion keeps decreasing. If you call this winning, you don’t know anything about competition.

For years the young have been pooh-poohed. We hear they don’t vote. That elections are decided by the aged.

Now we do know the aged vote, they punch above their weight in election participation, but what we’ve learned in the past few election cycles is that the youth vote in higher percentages than they used to. Primarily because THEY KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON!

If you’re a member of the youth, you’re pilloried by the old 24/7. You’ve got a short attention span, you have a bad work ethic, you’re narcissistic and you spend too much time on social media. Put that damn phone down.

Do you hear those on the right saying this? Do you think the “Wall Street Journal” is filled with these screeds? No! Because the right knows the internet is where you spread your message. And you don’t talk down to the youth, you embrace them.

I mean come on, if I read another Ivy League blowhard testifying in the “New York Times” as to the detriment of smartphones and the internet, I’m gonna puke. Man, this is why the Democrats look bad. So, you’ve got a good education, you make a good buck, you read books and see foreign movies. You keep telling us you’re better than we are, and that you know better, when the truth is just the opposite, these people are IGNORANT!

Ask yourself if you’re ignorant. I was out for lunch with two high-powered people in the music business the other day and neither one had been on TikTok. NEITHER ONE! It’s not like the barrier to entry is that high. But they’re busy with other things. Fine, but don’t expect to know what is going on with the youth.

The youth brought Napster. Which evolved into streaming. And if you think this is bad, you’re not a consumer. Sure, old acts who made their bones in a controlled system might be making less from recordings, but not everything is positive in evolutionary change. Just like the internet today, it’s ushered in a Tower of Babel society. Most people in America haven’t even heard the number one song, never mind being able to sing it! But the industry and the wankers who report on it refuse to acknowledge this. They keep testifying and printing a manipulated Top Ten that most people ignore. It’s not the twentieth century anymore.

TikTok is where the youth live. Will they be living there in 2028? There’s a good chance they will not. Everybody thought Facebook was forever, now if you’re on Facebook it’s the equivalent of having an Android phone, when that green bubble shows up everybody else rolls their eyes! Oh, so you’re an iconoclast and you don’t care. Fine, but you’re part of the minority, and it’s the majority who have sway in elections.

Biden needs to post on Twitter every single day, multiple times, evidencing a personality, not bland proclamations. Why? Because this is where reporters live, they’re trolling for news 24/7. You never know what will go viral, but when it comes to hard news it usually starts on Twitter.

Most people never even go to Twitter. Talk to your friends, are they active? It’s a laugh, the social network punches way above its weight. But that’s where stories start.

But stories live on other platforms. Where is the twentysomething, or even the teenager, making daily TikToks for Biden? Once again, not policy so much as personality. Bill Clinton won by playing the sax on “Arsenio” and going on MTV and answering the question, “boxers or briefs?” It’s kind of like that old Sam Kinison joke, telling concerned people to stop sending food to starving people in Africa…instead they should send suitcases! Because these Africans need to MOVE WHERE THE FOOD IS! Clinton knew this, and not only did he go where the youth were, his appearances humanized him. Made him more relatable. If you find Joe Biden relatable, you must be a relative.

Of course, the right populates social media with inaccuracies and indignation. I’m not saying the left should proffer inaccuracies, but outrage? I’m down with that. There’s so much to be outraged about. The right is touching land mines 24/7, but some Democratic strategist somewhere said not to fight back. Before he got caught up in sex scandals, my guy was Anthony Weiner, because he FOUGHT BACK! He stood up to these bullies. The only people on the left who will stand up to bullies aren’t elected! Like James Carville and Paul Krugman. I hate Chuck Schumer because he’s got no balls. Nor is he evil like McConnell. Chuck is bland. It’d be like being behind by four runs and the batter refusing to swing away, willing to bunt at most. I mean what game are you playing? We’re far behind, GO FOR IT!

And when some elected official on the left does so…they’re isolated and excoriated.

Like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Marjorie Taylor Greene is looney-tunes, but do you hear anybody on the right saying so? They either support her or shut up. But we shoot our own on the left. I mean you may not like or agree with AOC, but if she was so bad, why was she elected? And don’t tell me it was in New York, because the truth is active, enlightened youth live in the metropolis and they’re like-minded! As a matter of fact, after the last election cycle Ocasio-Cortez bitched that the Dems didn’t properly utilize the internet, that if they’d handed campaigns over to her, the candidates would have won! She was laughed at by the cognoscenti and nothing happened.

Who are these cognoscenti? Just because you studied the Great Books in college doesn’t mean you’re up to date. A good education prepares you for interpreting the future, but if you don’t engage with the future your opinion is worthless.

As for AI…

Yeah, like the government has ever demonstrated that it knows ANYTHING about tech. Congress grandstanded for Napster and Ticketmaster and…didn’t take action. And did you notice that most of the high profile people against AI are in the game? Talk about self-interest. And I want you to show me one thing that’s been eviscerated online, that no longer appears or is talked about. Hell, you can Google porn. As for child locks, the children know how to beat them. AI is here and it’s coming down the pike. Prepare for it, don’t try to outlaw it. Yes, guardrails would be good. Then again, we don’t want laws made by the ignorant, like Act 230, which made all the internet providers immune. Or even the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that allowed radio consolidation, and homogenized and ruined the medium. Yes, lawmakers were lobbied by radio station owners while most of us were asleep. Meanwhile, new outlets came along to supersede terrestrial radio: satellite radio, podcasts, streaming… Same deal with AI, if you think you can stop the future, you’re wrong. Make laws, but very carefully. Does Silicon Valley hire legislators to code? OF COURSE NOT! These elected officials are bought and paid for and when it comes to things like this they think the average Jane and Joe are not paying attention and they bend to the donors who pay the most and that’s not you and me folks, but fat cats with an investment in the outcome.

How about educating our youth so they can argue factually with those on the right? A daily list of topics. This is what the right does internally, but on the left? We throw our hands in the air if we react at all.

Steve Jobs famously said he was creating TOOLS!

That’s what the internet is, a tool. And if you want to build an edifice, you need to use the tools.

And just like you wouldn’t plow your field with a horse today, traditional media no longer does the trick.

Everything I said above? The right knows it. They’re laughing at the left as they run circles around the Democrats. Whose hearts are in the right place, but don’t organize and take action. Not online, where it all goes down today.

Sure, Biden won by hiding during the pandemic. But he won’t be able to do that in 2024. How come everybody on the right is talking about Trump eating potential candidates alive on the campaign trail, but nobody on the left is concerned with Biden standing up to Trump himself? As for Kamala… She was piss-poor in the 2020 debates, she received few votes. She’s got no constituency, not one of any size.

We hold the above truths to be self-evident. If you’re online for hours a day and are plugged into society, America.

If you’re not?

YOU’RE OUT OF TOUCH!

https://spoti.fi/42l6cXf

This is why you never sell your publishing.

I knew Luke Combs covered Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” I made a mental note to catch it at some point, but it wasn’t front of mind, not something I had to do right away, until I saw this:

https://bit.ly/44PNXuH

That’s a TikTok clip. You should watch it. This shows the power of the platform. Because of Combs’s authenticity. Combs breaks all the rules. He’s not movie star beautiful, he’s not wearing spandex, but jeans. And you can’t even see any tattoos on his arms. And he’s telling a story almost anyone can connect with, about his dad, about growing up.

Meanwhile, since Combs is a country singer, you’d think his father is a yahoo from down south. But he’s from Akron, Ohio. And Combs says he listened to all kinds of music. That his dad’s first concert was Pink Floyd and the James Gang the night we landed on the moon. Whew!

And the story goes on…

And ends before Combs plays the song!

By conventional music business wisdom this is a missed opportunity. The audience is right there, hooked, it’s so hard to gain attention in today’s economy. But that is not what Combs is selling here. He’s not selling at all! He’s giving a view into his identity, and when an artist does it right, you can relate. I ask you, how much of the Spotify Top 50 can you relate to?

Now “Fast Car” was a hit in 1988. That’s thirty five years ago. Almost two generations. What are the odds Combs’s audience is familiar with it? Low. It’s brand new to them! And when a song is great, it’s ever green.

And if you hear this story, you’ve got to play the record, and I immediately went to Spotify and did.

It’s not that different from the original. Oh, a few words are changed to fit Combs’ modern, male identity, but that riff… You listen to it and think about how hard it is to play, about Combs practicing it long before he broke through. And it resonates just as much as it did back when, it’s got the same dark feel… Turns out “Fast Car” is forever. Like Toto’s “Africa,” an afterthought on the album that has 1,423,651,528 Spotify streams in its original iteration, never mind the 75+ million of the Weezer cover and the multiple versions on YouTube. There’s money there… A LOT of money.

Now this could not be predicted. These are not Beatles records that never went away. Meanwhile, Paul McCartney knows the value of publishing, that’s why he bought all those companies. But some of his contemporaries are blowing out their songs, even their royalty streams for their records, convinced that this is a once in a lifetime period, that they’re pulling the wool over the acquiring companies’ eyes.

Now they don’t account for a cover of “Fast Car” decades after its initial release when they value a catalog, they look at the past, not the future, no one can predict the future. These companies look at what you’ve earned, oftentimes decreasing over years, and then they pay you a multiple. Maybe you’re even a superstar and you get north of 20x, but probably not if you’re someone with one hit, that’s been lying somewhat dormant. This is a banking transaction, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, where do you think all that money comes from?

And you get that chunk of change…

Your manager takes a cut. And the government takes a huge piece. And then what do you do with the money? Anybody who tells you you can get a guaranteed 10% a year, never mind more, is lying. There are no guarantees. And the people making more than 10% know they’re taking a risk, which is why they diversify, they don’t have all their cash in high risk ventures. And everybody in the market took a 30% haircut a year ago. And it hasn’t come fully back. So not only is your asset worth less, you’ve given up that yearly income, so you have to drain money from the asset in order to put food on the table. Because you’re never going to get paid again. Sure, you can go on the road, but maybe you can’t. There’s not a demand for every act out there. And the economics might not work, not every musician can play solo, the audience might expect a full band, never mind the travel expenses, never mind the fact that it’s hard work, not so much the ninety minutes you’re on stage, but the other twenty two and a half hours in the day, away from home.

But the above screed won’t make a difference. Because if you’re a great musician, you’re almost always bad with money. And vice versa, those great with money are not great artists. So you see that pile of cash. And your team is telling you to take it, after all they get a commission, and everybody else is selling, and then…

You hear one of your old hits on the radio. But instead of smiling, you’re wincing. Because as the track runs up the chart you’re not being paid, the publisher/bank is. You feel ripped-off, all that hard work you put in to making it, the experience of writing the song, whatever fame you still have, it’s completely irrelevant, when it comes to money you’re gonna get none. And I ask you punk, how is that gonna feel? LOUSY!

P.S. When you click on that TikTok link you’ll be asked to log in, just close that window, it’s unnecessary, you can watch the clip without registering.

P.P.S. As of this writing Luke Combs’s version of “Fast Car” has 52+ million streams on Spotify, it’s already reached #2 on the country chart and it’s not over yet.