It just pisses people off.

If you make a mistake, own it. You’ll get a whole hell of a lot more respect for that rather than trying to explain why you were right and should not be culpable.

Nobody knows everything, and you’re not expected to. So, admit what you don’t know, it enhances your reputation. Funny, I find the more successful someone is the more they’re willing to admit they don’t know something.

You’re defending yourself, but it’s not a court of law, there’s no advantage to this. The person you’re talking to is rolling their eyes, they think you’re a child. Being an adult means accepting responsibility.

Defensiveness pisses people off and ends conversations, to everybody’s detriment. Only if you’re open and honest can there be a conversation, where things can be learned and a consensus can be reached.

If you are defensive people won’t want to interact with you, they’ll leave you out of discussions, gatherings, business…because it’s just too much of a hassle to have you around.

You can always learn new tricks. Being defensive illustrates that you think you know it all and are impervious to criticism.

You’re oftentimes being defensive about things that the other person isn’t even thinking about or doesn’t care about.

Oftentimes what is very simple becomes complicated because you are defensive. What was going to be an easy interaction is now long and tense because you’ve got to explain what you did and why.

Accept blame, it actually feels good. If you’re always trying to be right, you’re wrong.

Don’t confuse defensiveness with standing your ground.

You’ve got to let some things slide. Even if the speaker is wrong, sometimes it’s best not to say anything. Oftentimes the point is irrelevant, or evanescent, but if you defend yourself in some bogus search for truth, then the interaction becomes memorable.

You may think life is a competition, but in reality it’s an interaction. Life is all about interacting with other people, learn how to do this and it will be to your advantage. I’m not saying you can’t have a contrary opinion, but you also need to know not to hammer it.

There is no box score, no one usually cares that you’re right other than you, and oftentimes you’re wrong, because you can’t see the entire picture.

Your superior or boss will like you more if you admit fault, take responsibility, than if you try to weasel out of it. You will be labeled difficult and your rise in the entity will be hindered.

Conversation is two-way, defensiveness makes it one way, and that’s not a conversation.

What do you expect someone to say in reaction to your defensiveness? Do you expect them to get into the details with you, which they usually don’t care much about? Do you expect them to apologize, say you’re right, when the matter is almost always trivial? What are you trying to achieve here?

You’re gonna be wrong. Otherwise you’re not living life. Own it and you’ll go up the ladder as opposed to staying where you are, if not getting kicked off entirely.

If your boss is an a-hole, accept it. Trying to prove to them that you’re right and they’re wrong is worthless. Try to work for someone else. The funny thing is most people know who the a-holes are, and unless they own the company, their tenure is limited. Life is long, don’t let momentary hurdles get in your way.

Go to therapy. The more you know about yourself, the better you’ll interact, the more you’ll succeed in life. But the funny thing is the defensive people are the ones who don’t go to therapy, even though they need it the most. You see therapy is an open process, where you’re supposed to learn about yourself, gain insight, change to your advantage. But if you can’t hear you’re less than perfect, it doesn’t work, but that doesn’t matter, because like I said above, these people don’t even go.

Therapy is a badge of honor for Millennials and Gen-Z. People want to date others who’ve done some work on themselves, who have some insight into themselves and others.

You get to choose how you interact. Think about that, how do you want to engage such that when the conversation is over you’ve got the best chance of getting the result you want? This is the antithesis of defensiveness. Defensive people don’t think, they just react. And the rest of us are sick of it.

Mr. REO Speedwagon. Kevin is open and honest, he’s your best friend. This is the entire story, from Illinois to leaving the band to “Hi Infidelity” to “Ozark.” A great listen.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kevin-cronin/id1316200737?i=1000621745239

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/0a39f5ee-7deb-41f3-8cdc-019c6ff2a536/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-kevin-cronin

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/kevin-cronin-305424402

Focus on sales, they’re disproportionately counted on the chart.

Although you can sell CDs and files, focus on vinyl, people buy it as a souvenir and oftentimes don’t even listen to it, but the chart doesn’t care.

Make unique, multiple vinyl. So fans have to buy more than one disc.

Lie. There is no music business police. And reporters are not skilled enough nor have enough time to ferret out the truth.

Blame the ticketing company for everything. They can’t bite back, because you’re going to go on tour again and they want your business. Furthermore, they know they’re paid to take the heat.

If you need the publicity, say the gig is sold out even if it isn’t. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but if it’s a big space and/or multiple dates odds are you won’t reach sellout anyway, so you might as well get the benefit of saying it is sold out. Also, this does create a mania driving people to get tickets. And sure, they might go to secondary sites where you won’t get the uplift, but they will also go to the primary site, where seats are available. On authorized resale the the primary sits right next to the secondary, and many concertgoers don’t care or don’t know the difference.

If you can sell out quickly, turn off Ticketmaster’s resale exchange. It makes it look like tickets are hard to get, and the public can’t see how many tickets scalpers have (and how many fans have purchased multiple tickets planning to scalp tickets themselves).

Break records on a constant basis. Invent new categories if you need to. Remember the words “most” and “fastest.” Most tickets ever sold in Wyoming! Fastest sale since the Beatles! You want to beat the Beatles, that’s the ultimate goal, that gets people’s attention, even though the charts are different and you have nowhere near the impact of the Fab Four.

Come up with a name for your fans, even if they don’t call themselves that, it makes you look you’ve got a huge fan base and it is rabid.

Complain. Not about how you’ve been hurt, but how your fans have been abused. Primarily focus on ticketing, but you can come up with any way they’ve been abused.

Mobilize your fan base. It will do anything for you. The more people act, the more they’re bonded to you. Have them defend you against any perceived negative feedback.

Have your operation be mysterious, it makes it look like you’ve got geniuses working for you who can do what no other act has never done before.

Never give the press direct quotes. Nor should you put out press releases. When you’ve got something to say, say it online, where it can be amplified by your fans, so that media can hear about it from the buzz online. It makes it look like you don’t care about the media, when in truth you do!

Stay in the news on a regular basis. It’s easiest if you’re regularly breaking records, the press eats this stuff up and repeats it. And you ultimately get a cumulative effect, you must be huge because you keep breaking records!

Make people afraid of holding you accountable. This is what your rabid fan base is all about. People in the business, the hoi polloi and even media must be afraid of losing out in the future, losing access, you want them to be complicit in the game.

Reward those who come through for you. Whether it be business people or radio or the streaming outlet. Call them, text them, make them believe they have a relationship with you.

Don’t get in petty online wars, it ultimately makes you lose. You don’t want train-wreck publicity, you don’t want to be seen on TMZ, you want to be above that.

Have photos taken with other stars. Primarily musicians, who have a greater aura than actors or ballplayers. The media loves to run these pics, burnishing your image as being fabulous and knowing everybody.

Bring musical stars out on stage to perform with you, but only occasionally and only sparingly.

Never be surprised, never appear dumb. You want to appear to be in control without being controlling.

You want to put out albums on a regular basis, which you can then manipulate via sales to the top of the chart so you can get the resulting publicity. No one cares if you fall from number one the next week. Everything is about being number one, if you’re not number one, don’t publicize it.

Make it look like media is not serving you, even though that’s your goal. You want your story to be so big that they must report it as a public service.

Whatever you do, make fans want more. This isn’t like in the old days, where you hold back. Rather in the modern era you keep selling, people want to evidence their brand loyalty. Vinyl, for the charts, merchandise, whatever can bond the fan to you, do it. And if it is merch, it must be limited. You can only buy it NOW! Don’t limit quantity, just time frame.

You want to appear to be bigger than the system, therefore it looks like you’re not gaming it, even though you are!

They’re still doing it. Even though Jeff Hanna is 76 and Jimmie Fadden is 75. Musicians never stop, unlike civilians. Everybody I know not in the music business is talking about retiring, or is already retired, whereas musicians ten or twenty years older are still plying the boards, because they love their jobs, along with that audience hit you can only get on stage.

Greetings from Vail, Colorado, where it is not as warm as it is in the rest of the country and there’s enough name brand entertainment to have you believe you’re living in a small city. Strasburg had String Cheese in Dillon on Wednesday, Thievery Corporation on Friday and Old Crow Medicine Show on Sunday in Vail and in Beaver Creek, they had the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on Saturday night. And the experience is much better up here in the mountains, because the venues are so much smaller. As for the economics…if you know anything about performing arts centers there are subsidies and boards and the bottom line is that the Vilar has 150 dates a year, and don’t forget that that the spring and fall, especially May and October, are shoulder season, and essentially dead.

Now if you want to see an act in the Spotify Top 50, the mountains are not the place. Acts can only play a limited number of gigs, and they focus on the metropoli, where there are more bodies and more money, then again in the mountains the locals may be struggling, but not the tourists.

So the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has survived by pivot. Instead of just doing the same thing over and over, they went from “Mr. Bojangles” to country roots with “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” to smooth singer songwriter to country hits to…now. They’re still making albums. Is anybody paying attention?

No.

Which is why I was amazed when Jeff introduced the song “Bless the Broken Road,” as a Dirt Band original, from the overlooked album “Acoustic” from 1994. It was released by a major label, Liberty, but it wasn’t until Rascal Flatts recorded the song in 2005 that it went to number one, earning the Grammy for Best Country Song. You see a hit song is a hit song is a hit song. And that’s very different from a record. Some hit records are great songs and some are not. And a lot of today’s tracks may be hits, but no one would consider them great songs. A great song is so good that it doesn’t matter who sings it. Kind of like the Dirt Band’s opener “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” an unreleased Bob Dylan song that the Byrds used to open the groundbreaking “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” and many others have covered. It might not have appeared on the charts, but it lives strongly in people’s hearts.

Another highlight of the show was the band’s performance of “An American Dream,” the Rodney Crowell-penned opening tune from their 1979 album of the same name. You see I own that record. I went on a three album run, before the band decamped for Nashville and the country sound, when the smooth singer-songwriter sound was a revered staple as opposed to an in-joke, like yacht rock. Denigrate it all you want, this sound is still selling tickets prodigiously, keeping the creators alive.

I would have been thrilled if they’d performed “Harmony,” from 1980’s “Make a Little Magic,” but I guess I’ll have to wait for that one. Then again I’m going to give you links to the Jeff Hanna/Bob Carpenter track sung by long-standing band member Carpenter, as was “Bless the Broken Road.”

“Whether I’m right or I’m wrong

Too weak or strong

Sure seems plain to me

Too young or old

Too shy or bold

We all need help

Just to move the stone”

These are the ashes from another generation, when love was still believed to conquer all, when we still believed we were all in it together.

I don’t think a cover would make the Spotify Top 50, maybe it could make it in the country market, but one thing for sure is this was a hit back in 1980, even though you couldn’t see it on the chart. Check it out:

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/3sp3md33

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/mwfurfrf

But at this late date we no longer expect to hear deep album cuts live, only the hits. So when you’re in the audience and hear a song you know by heart but don’t believe anyone else is aware of it’s a special thrill, it makes your night.

Not that it was only the songs, the musicianship was notable in its own right.

There was Ross Holmes on fiddle and mandolin, known for his work with Mumford and Songs and Bruce Hornsby, earning a well-deserved standing ovation for his efforts on an extended solo.

And Jeff’s son Jaime, who paid his dues with the Mavericks and Gary Allan, performed an extended acoustic guitar solo that thrilled me.

As for the bass…

I figured it was just some road guy, some Nashville cat hanging in the deep background. But it turned out to be soft rock staple Jim Photoglo, who was a staple of L.A.’s soft rock station KNX-FM, 93.1, when that sound was still a dominant force. Jim co-wrote the Dirt Band’s huge country hit “Fishin’ in the Dark” with Wendy Waldman, a number one for the band back in 1987.

Not to take anything away from drummer Jimmie Fadden. Who pounded the skins and played the harmonica simultaneously, a seemingly impossible feat. Also, Jimmie was really into it. As if it were still the sixties, when music was everything and to be a musician was to affect millions and elude the straits of standard life. We envied these people. They were anything but faceless.

And the band played a few songs from the three “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” sets, including the title cut, which as an encore bled into the Band’s “The Weight.”

That’s another song like “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” that everybody knows but was never a hit. Made it all the way up number 63, which means AM radio is not where most people were exposed to it.

Nor was so much of what we were addicted to even played on FM, these records are part of our DNA, they enriched our lives, they made us who we are.

So the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band goes on to another town. Playing to believers, those who remember when our music transcended everyday life, when it was life itself.

They’re still doing it and we’re still here. Much older, a bit battered, but young at heart, because we remember.

The music keeps us alive.