Well, that’s classic rock.

There’s so much info in the pipeline today that anything important oftentimes goes unheeded, or flows down the river with the overwhelming detritus of what is called internet news and most people remain unaware of it.

I wake up every morning and read the news on my phone and am agitated and inspired, wanting to point out stories/information I fear will go unnoticed. But then as the day goes on I slink back into my life and the information recedes and then, the next day, the whole process repeats. We live in what I’ve endlessly referred to as a Tower of Babel society, where we all listen to different music, watch different TV show, are exposed to different social media and big time media keeps telling us it’s the same as it ever was. According to big time media “Succession” is a hit on the level of “M.A.S.H.,” everybody saw the finale and it’s all the country can talk about. And Taylor Swift is as dominant as the Beatles or the Stones were in their era, never mind Culture Club and Duran Duran during the eighties and Nirvana in the nineties, when this is a complete falsehood. No act has that kind of penetration today, NONE! Which is another reason to ignore the manipulated charts published in media, tools of the labels, too often skewed by the sale of vinyl. The Republicans have nothing on record labels when it comes to disinformation.

Speaking of which, Elon Musk cried yesterday that Twitter had a 50% drop in advertising revenue and that this advertising deficit and heavy debt prevented the company from being cash flow positive. Now wait just a minute, isn’t this the same guy who told us all the advertisers were back and that Twitter was about to turn the corner? That’s Musk’s idea of freedom, the right to post outright lies on Twitter. What a great service!

And then there’s that story in today’s “New York Times,” talk about horrifying…

“Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025 – The former president and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies.”: https://tinyurl.com/mzznjpa9

Read some of this. That’s a free link. Scared yet? Most of the country not enough. Meanwhile, if Manchin runs under the No Labels banner it’s toast for Biden. I was at a family lunch last week and I asked the assembled Democrats who wanted Biden to run, and not a single person raised their hand. How can the DNC be so out of touch?

And then I segued to Emily Nussbaum’s article about Nashville in this week’s “New Yorker”: 

“Country Music’s Culture Wars and the Remaking of Nashville – Tennessee’s government has turned hard red, but a new set of outlaw songwriters is challenging Music City’s conservative ways—and ruling bro-country sound.”: https://tinyurl.com/67sxvsxu

This demands a read too. As an antidote to the claim that Nashville is the new Los Angeles, but more harmonious with more opportunities when it comes to music. And for the politics.

And classic rock rules.

Well, not exactly, but it’s experiencing a renaissance, rock’s streaming percentage is going UP!

“Why Is Rock So Big

“Overall, rock has grown most of any genre year over year in consumption units, with 11.2 million more units in 2023 over 2022. That growth, however, is almost entirely from catalog — 10.3 million of it, compared to 900,000 units of growth from current releases.”

That’s from the “Billboard,” behind a paywall. Once again, you’ve got to pay for news in 2023. The twenty five year old conception that everything is free online was and still is completely wrong.

R&B/Hip-Hop is still the number one genre, but rock is #2, and R&B/Hip-Hop’s numbers are going down, and rock’s are going up.

And as you can see in the above quote, the rock consumption is not being driven by new music, but old.

Wait just a second, wasn’t this old fart music in the rearview mirror with its creators in the grave or close to it, on their farewell tours?

Needless to say, you won’t get the idea that classic rock is so prevalent from the news media, populated by young writers who hate the past, make fun of the classic rockers and want to promote new music. But could it be that the new music is not as good, not as appealing as the old music?

Despite all the blather about Frank Sinatra today, he was the enemy until the late eighties and then the nineties. Sure, he had a couple of hits in the sixties, which we knew as a result of the all-dominant AM radio, but boomers gave him no respect and didn’t listen to him.

Bette Midler covered the Andrews Sisters’ “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” in 1972, but almost no boomer could sing another song from 1941.

The past was anathema, truly history.

But today…

The funny little thing is that the classic rockers bitching about streaming payouts are the same ones who are benefiting from streaming, it’s keeping their music alive! This didn’t happen in the past, records went out of production, they were not stocked by retailers, they faded away. But not today!

Today’s customers can sample/listen to anything, all they need is a hankering.

And, once again, rock’s resurgence is not based on new music:

“Consider the rankings in terms of current share: rock (10.32%) slides to third place, behind pop (10.69%) and barely ahead of country (10.16%), with Latin coming in fifth at 7.84%. And its current unit growth year over year of 900,000 is significantly behind country (4.5 million), world music (3.3 million) and Latin (2.5 million), although at least it’s still growing, while R&B/hip-hop and pop are not. ”

“Billboard”

Wow, new country music is nearly as big as new rock music! Because, as Tom Petty said in concert, today’s country music is the rock music of the seventies. Tom was decrying the marginalization of the classic country sound, but ultimately the melodies and changes and memorable choruses of today’s country, lifted straight from old rock, are what so many in the public cotton to.

This is not pop with one chord and literally no changes.

And it’s certainly not today’s rock. Hard-edged and marginal, cult music for the brain dead and those living in an alternative universe where the 21st century never happened.

Now I’m all for evolution, that’s what made rock so great. But if you were starting today, I’d begin with three chords and the truth. Melodies, bridges, singable choruses…all sung by someone with a palatable voice. It’s just like in politics, rock has gotten so far from the center that the whole world is distorted.

And you wonder why music gets no respect.

It’s a backwater of people creating brands. Afraid of their customers. Not willing to go on record about anything unless it’s the essence of their image.

But you won’t hear any of this in boardrooms.

At the labels, they scour social media to look for those who’ve already got a base who they can make stars, whereas in the heyday of classic rock the labels led, found new and different talent and promoted it. Steve Jobs said the public doesn’t know what it wants and it’s Apple’s obligation to deliver it. The labels have abdicated that power.

Quick, who runs the record company?

You don’t know and you don’t need to know. Sure, you’ve got Lucian Grainge and his triple-digit million payout and the successful Monte, but after that? There is no Jimmy Iovine, never mind Mo and Joe.

So…

Everything I’ve said here goes unreported in big media and the public has a skewed view of the music landscape.

Furthermore, rock is seen as dead. And it’s true, new rock is dead, because it skewed too far from the garden.

But if you get back there…

Is it any wonder Joni Mitchell is singing and triumphing again?

We’re not going back to Woodstock, then again a lot of those values built the modern music business, pay heed.

P.S. You can get a lot of this “Billboard” information as part of your Apple News+ subscription. Don’t be cheap, lay down the $9.99 a month.

Re: The Forgotten Girls

Bob as usual, whenever you delve into politics, you completely mis represent things  because you are a delusional follower of Marxism. That is absolutely not what conservative values are about. True these towns are screwed up for many different reasons, and conservative with money care, and help a poor person no matter what. Liberals on the other hand only line their pockets. Remember Black Lives Matter. No, of course you’ll spin it but we all know better or how about the green new deal where we’re going to use clean renewable energies even though we don’t even have a power grid to maintain our current state, let alone, adding millions of new electric vehicles, and other devices to the grid. You take every opportunity you can to push your Marxist propaganda and have lost at least 50 Percent of your audience. No maybe some still continue to subscribe like I do but you are a true piece of shit for using your platform to spread the elite Marxist propaganda. Fuck you is all I can say.

Respectfully
Johnny Vieira

“The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America”: https://tinyurl.com/mryc7n8c

This is the real “Hillbilly Elegy.”

If you want to understand the rural MAGA mentality, this is the place.

What we’ve got here is Clinton, Arkansas. Not Fayetteville, the hip Arkansas, not Little Rock, the urban Arkansas, but nowhere Arkansas, where people have no money, drop out of school when they’re pregnant and the cycle of poverty continues and everybody believes it’s God’s will and you will be saved by the Almighty.

It’s your responsibility. Even though you were born without advantages, and your hometown continues to go down the drain as the tax base craters and you entertain yourself with drugs and alcohol while you live a shortened life.

Deaths of despair. You’ll read about them in the elite press, now you’ll fully understand them.

Yes, the elite, the enemy. You hear politicians talk about the real America, American values, a return to when America was great? This is what they’re talking about. It’s not great at all, these people are being duped. Then again, they’ve got one advantage over almost half the country, they’re white, and that makes them superior, no matter what you think.

Now by this point those on the right side of the bench have already tuned out. But this book isn’t for them. Because either they don’t read books or they’re taking advantage of those being written about. Yes, lower taxes, all that hogwash, is benefiting them as it continues to hurt the base. Voting against your interests? This is the place!

So what we’ve got here is Monica Potts, yes, that’s her real name, and her best friend Darci. They’re smart, funny, the leaders of their class. But Monica goes one way, and Darci the other. Monica’s mom wants her to get out, and Darci’s mom? She exercises no control over Darci, she’s serving her husband, not that Darci would listen. Then there’s the mother who lets her daughter get married at fifteen to get her out of town, believing she is saving her. Monica stays on the straight and narrow, but as Darci hits high school, she goes boy crazy (the book’s term, don’t think I’m holier-than-thou, judging here), and starts to party with ever older boys (men), and school becomes secondary…

If you grew up where I did, in the suburbs in the fifties and sixties, you’ll marvel how different this is. I was born knowing I was going to college. My parents tolerated little. I had to do well in school. It wasn’t that it was strict, there was plenty of fun, but the goals were clear, life was laid out in front of me, become a professional, or else…

Living in California I’ve told all my friends that their kids should apply to the elite schools, assuming they’re qualified, because if they get in, the school will foot the bill. They didn’t believe me. They saw those price tags and blanched. Better to go to the state school. Almost no one is leaving Arkansas to go to school. And then there are people who never leave Arkansas whatsoever, I mean why?

But Monica falls into the east coast system by accident. Spends a summer in NYC at Barnard. And ends up going to Bryn Mawr, only because her mother had heard of it, she hadn’t and had never been there until she stepped foot on campus. But it changed her life. Because once you’re on the leafy grounds you’re coddled, the administration cares about you, there are all these services, mental health and more. As for therapy, it’s a sign of weakness, don’t you know?

And the city… Everybody says not to go, it’s a hellhole. This is what they’ve been told, growing up and from Fox News. You can’t stay alive in the city, you’ll be robbed and killed, better to stay home where you are safe, where you die from drugs and alcohol and other misadventures.

This is not a hard book to read. And people are reading it. But I wish more would. I learned more about the rural, MAGA mentality in the few hours it took to read “The Forgotten Girls” than I ever have reading “The New York Times,” “The New Yorker” or watching Fox News. This is a report from the heartland, someone who actually lived there, who grew up there. This is not a reporter taking notes with an agenda.

Monica got out, went to Bryn Mawr and Columbia Journalism School. But she moved back to Clinton. Now works remotely for 538. She’s back there, she reported this story.

And it’s not histrionic, not over the top dramatic, but ultimately you’ll learn more from “The Forgotten Girls” than “Educated.”

“Educated” is a horror movie. “The Forgotten Girls” is a train-wreck. “Educated” blows your mind, whereas “The Forgotten Girls” sinks in gradually and then stays with you, because these people aren’t rawly batsh*t crazy, but they’re not like you or me, unless you live in these circumstances.

Now the book is peppered with studies, facts, it’s not pure narrative. Which lends authority, but makes the book just a bit more difficult to read. But don’t let that turn you off. If you want to know what is going on with all those blind Trump-lovers, the people who support the elected officials and their nonsense in the House of Representatives, whose positions seem looney-tunes and can’t be changed, you need to read “The Forgotten Girls.” Not as a sentence, this is not schoolwork, this is not an assignment… It’s just fascinating. See how the other half lives.

Re: The Syd Barrett Movie

The most-played recording in my entire collection (which ain’t tiny) is Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Sheer genius.

A few months after Barrett departed, we did a TV show with Pink Floyd, who were in the US for the Philadelphia Music Festival at JFK Stadium in July 1968. We were opening for Ray Charles and Nina Simone, they were opening for the Troggs and the Who. There was a massive downpour in the middle of Pink Floyd’s set. I was really concerned someone would get electrocuted, but the promoters stopped the show. It was subsequently cancelled when lightning hit the stage (!).

In the 80s, I ran into Nick Mason in Frankfurt. He remembered the Philadelphia Floyd concert for the obvious reasons, and also remembered us from the TV show. I asked him if he had any idea where I could find the single “Point Me at the Sky,” which was never released in the US. It didn’t even chart in the UK, and was seemingly impossible to find. Written by Gilmour/Waters and produced by Piper alumnus Norman Smith, it was sonically very much a bridge between the Barrett era and what was to follow.

When Nick returned to England, he was kind enough to copy his record on tape, and send it to me. It was quite cool to hear the needle from his record player drop on the record. (It’s so true that many times, the musicians who are highest up on the food chain will bend over backwards for fellow musicians. Joe Walsh, George Martin, and Howard Jones have all written forewords for my books. All I had to do was ask. Think that would happen in 2023?)

This was a little under 40 years ago and we didn’t have smartphones back then to immortalize our existences, but IIRC in Frankfurt Mason was playing in a one-off band with David Torn and Jack Bruce. But don’t quote me on that. I may have been in an altered state at the time 🙂

Craig Anderton

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Re: SAG-AFTRA Strike

As a music industry vet turned television writer, I can’t stand hearing musicians complain about Daniel Ek. They have no idea how lucky they are that he is the one in charge of the big platform in their business. Imagine if it was Disney or some other corporate enterprise. Ek gives a higher percentage of profits to artists than anything else in music’s entire history, and anyone can upload their material to the platform, with all the exact same advantages and tools as Taylor Swift. Watch Bob Iger say that we writers and actors are ridiculous for just asking not to be replaced by AI, all while being worth nearly half a billion dollars personally, and tell me you’d rather have him in charge of music.

Trevor Risk

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Re: SAG-AFTRA Strike

Spot on Bob. I’ve been working in media for 17 years as a programmer, in media operations, and as content strategist across linear and digital media with stints at Comedy Central, Conde Nast, and Red Bull Media to name a few. I have many friends in both SAG and WGA though I’m not I’m not in either. There is a truth about the media industry that needs to be said: there are no “liberal” owners in Hollywood. There are corporations that care about profit margins and stock price. An example of this is that mid level executive positions are being filled by people with investment banking background not by people who have experiences building audiences and developing content. Why? They are looking for acquisitions and focusing on the stock price. Audiences and content come last.

When I started at MTV Networks none of the executives had MBAs – they just had experience. Now, MBAs run the show. Why are streamers like Mr Beast killing it with eyeballs? He’s grown an authentic community. Same with right wing media. Say what you will about Ben Shapiro, and I’ve said lots, he’s built an engaged fan base over at the Daily Wire without relying on Wall Street. Don’t know what it’ll take to change things other than breaking the vertical integration models or investors willing to wait a bit longer to see a return on investment.

One last note. I think Netflix going into originals will go down in history as the beginning of the end. Netflix turned from being a partner (like Blockbuster was) to another competitor. It started this arms race in the streaming world and created this false reality backed by Wall Street that you needed a streaming service to survive and juice the stock. But here’s the thing that anyone with experience knows yet Zaslav and Iger seem so surprised about. Streaming is f*cking expensive. As someone who has operated OTT and streaming channels, I know this, why didn’t the MBAs see it? Maybe they need to get their eyes off the ticker and care about the consumer.

There are no movie moguls, only corporate stooges. Sorry for the long reply.

Regards,

Jonathan Smith

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Re: SAG-AFTRA Strike

You’re spot on; at least in my case. I signed up for Threads specifically because I hate Musk. I won’t buy his cars either.

Regards,
Mark Feldman

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Re: The Wham! Movie

Hi Bob

I absolutely loved the movie !!!

I was lucky enough to be in the top of the pops audience at 15 with my best friend Sophie whose Dad worked at the BBC.

We stood right at the foot of the stage and were blown away by this new band Wham singing their song Young Guns and we fell in love with George immediately!!!!

It was a perfect moment in time I’ll never forget it.

I still think “everything she wants” is one of the best pop songs ever written .

God Bless George and his incredible talent !

Lauren Christy

Re: The Wham! Movie

As someone who worked for CBS Records UK in the early 80s I found this movie delightful, bringing back loads of memories of being a 20 year old A&R guy.

However, before I joined the record company I worked as a writer for the Daily Mirror at a time that tabloids were just beginning to cover “pop music.” My boss wanted me to identify the new acts that were on the cusp of breaking big. I identified Wham and interviewed George and their label, Innerrvision Records.

Imagine my surprise when I was watching the movie to see my article had made it to Andrew Ridgley’s Mum’s scrapbook and I could just see my name at the bottom of the page.

The smile I already had on my face watching this film grew even wider. Glad you liked it too Bob.

Gordon Charlton

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Re: The Wham! Movie

That movie was amazing but for me what was the MOST amazing was Andrew Ridgeley!

For a partner to not have a massive ego and to allow and support his friend to grow and leave him behind is unheard of.

In 1987 when the great Jamie Cohen was at Columbia he called me to talk about working with Andrew and I thought whaaaat??

Andrew he said was wanting to make a funk rock style record but I wasn’t too excited. We all thought Andrew was Fredo from The Godfather BUT was I wrong. After I watched that film I had so much respect for him that I wanted to write him a letter telling him so.

As for George this is a story most don’t know. I was on the set of Top Of The Pops with Was (Not Was) in 1987 ( I played on Top Of The Pops many times or should I say lip synched on…with Was (Not Was) and Terrence Trent Darby) but one day on set at sound check a stage manager said out loud in front of everyone…Stevie Salas there is a call for you from George Michael’s office. I was like Whaaat? Don Was pulled me aside and encouraged me to get back in touch with them which I did.

That’s my Wham connection…and truth be told I hated Wham in the 80s but I fell in love with them after seeing this film.

Stevie Salas

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Re: The Wham! Movie

Young women never felt so confident, clever and shining as in London in the eighties. It was probably like the 20s for sheer fabulous girl drive. Never mind all that feminist griping- we were going places and insisting on it!  Maggie Thatcher wasn’t one of us – not even like our mums –  she was practically a housewife herself locked into a ancient stale class-ridden world and horrendous tan tights. We were going to invent a whole new Britain (ha Tony Blair!) and the gorgeous, forthright American goddesses like Tina Turner and Farrah Fawcett were our guides.  We didn’t care what school you went to or what your accent was, just what you were wearing, what you were drinking or snorting, and your record collection (a first date must was perusing their vinyl for egregious LPs like Crystal Gayle or Joan Baez).

I worked for J17, Smash Hits, and Looks magazine and wore long Amish style Laura Ashley dresses with a massive petticoat billowing out and a picnic hamper handbag one day, and what would be considered deep goth today. All the blokes stole our makeup and you could never find your black eyeliner. No one really talked about being gay, because people mixed it up a lot, but if you were 100% you kept it mostly quiet from your bosses.

And Young hip London was small and very accessible. For example, of my best friends from university one worked in PR for Peter Gabriel and the other married a fine artist whose main client was Simon Le Bon. We even wangled a pass to pose on Simon’s sailing yacht right after the Live Aid Marathon. We were professionals not groupies but still – it was hard not to plant a huge kiss right on the back of Sting’s still sweaty neck. We thought about Trudy even though she seemed ancient and weird. Everybody was part of the same club and we all belonged so long as you dressed up, were interesting and entertaining, and mostly upbeat and alive. It was the opposite of Morrisey and his wingeing.

However, a very small moment stays with me for its incongruity in that time. Top down motoring across Piccadilly one day in my sweet white golf cabriolet ( a convertible which was rare then in London) I pulled up next to Andrew Ridgley and wouldn’t you know he was driving his convertible red Ferrari at the traffic we were side by side at the long light outside Simpsons and could practically touch each other with our tops down.

He didn’t even take a glance and I was crushed – not that he didn’t fancy me, even peripherally, or that girls weren’t his thing, just that he was so serious and unlike his playful image which was so rendolent of the times. As with Starsky and Hutch all my friends were either in one camp or the other – super hairy wide boy rough masculine true ‘men’ (George) or sweet wimpy cute semi posh ‘boys’ like Andrew Ridgeley, Rick Astley, and even Hugh Grant wannabe Rupert Everett. And everyone came to play.

Johanna Santer

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Re: My Hometown

Bob,

My band formed in 1981 in Jamestown, NY – western, western, NY State. Thirty miles from the shores of Lake Erie. We started with local shows to small crowds most of whom had no idea what we were doing (neither did we!), then we finally played the Big Town, Buffalo, NY and kept going from there. We’ve been everywhere, man, including Fairfield, CT at FTC. What a cool town and a great venue!

My family arrived in Jamestown in 1875. Furniture makers and undertakers from the motherland, Sweden. My great grandfather had a band called The Ideal Mandolin Orchestra. I have a photo of them from 1903. I grew up in the house my paternal grandfather build. I walked to the same schools my mother did. Like many rustbelt towns, Jamestown fell on hard times during the 70s urban renewal. They built a mall 3 miles out of town in 1970 and that was the death of downtown. Now the Mall is kaput and it’s a constant struggle for business downtown but we’re doing okay. It’s my town. I love it. The worst weather disaster we get is 3 yards of snowfall over a weekend in January. But it’s beautiful, quiet and you can ski! 4×4 baby.

I own 70 acres of mostly wooden land 15 miles outside of town that I paid $450 per acre in 1992. I built my house on that land and it’s heaven except for deer season when the shooting starts. Freaks my dogs out something terrible.

I enjoy visiting LA, SF, NYC, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Atlanta, Denver, Honolulu, Seattle, Sao Paulo, London for gigs, but would never want to live anywhere but in my hometown.

Steven Gustafson

10,000 Maniacs

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Re: Bridgeport

Bob, I grew up in Bridgeport, lived there until I was 18, then New York for a decade, now have been in CA for 10 years.

I had to stop and start while reading your dispatch because I found it brought up so much for me – such complicated feelings about my hometown! My grandparents owned a liquor store on the West Side for 47 years. I went to Notre Dame in Fairfield. I, too, just went back east for two weeks (the humidity was real) and every time I’m there I try to imagine moving back east, roll it around in my brain for a bit, feel the pull from both coasts. But then I get back to CA and get back to work and feel like this is home, too.

Thanks for your thoughts on this. Going to go back and read it in full and absorb.

Lauren Goode

@laurengoode

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Re: Mailbag

The podcast with Dwight! Just immense! His empathy for all things is palpable and kudos to you for letting him find his way in sharing the stories about his family and his music-discovering youth. Not sure if folks can fully appreciate the mind blowing event of a kid from eastern Kentucky / southern Ohio betting all his chips on moving to California and then achieving the level of success that Dwight has. I listened to all 4 hours TWICE. Awaiting the follow up…

Damon

DAMON JOHNSON

(Brother Cane / Lynyrd Skynyrd)

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Subject: RE: Mailbag

James Montgomery the real deal.

 

Duke and the Drivers simply your average bar band.

 

“Check Your Bucket” indeed. Why punk happened.

 

Oedipus