My inbox is full of people defending the Stones, and that’s just sad.

First and foremost, my article wasn’t really about the Stones, it was about hype/publicity in general, although I did employ the Stones as an example. But they’re not the only ones, only the most egregious, especially because they used to be considered dangerous, as the other. Don’t let your daughter sleep with a Rolling Stone? Now your grandmother wants to sleep with a Stone and youngsters don’t care.

But the reason I’m writing this is I’m always stunned when fans defend their ancient heroes. You can’t say a single negative thing about them, they’re inviolate, based on what they’ve produced previously. Not only is that insane, it disappoints me that these people haven’t grown up, can’t think for themselves, still need to put others on a pedestal to make their lives complete. Because if their heroes had clay feet, where would they be?

We were young once, and oftentimes stupid and naïve. The goal in life is to experience, to take chances, to develop, to progress. But too many can’t do this, they can’t let go of who they once were, furthermore they’re afraid of the future. And I’ll place all this b.s. about the digital age in this box too. The smartphone is here, everyone’s now connected, it’s exciting, but you keep telling us to go on a digital detox while you still use your flip phone… The joke is on you.

But it gets even broader. Did you see the story in the news about electric cars being a political issue, that the right is against them? What, you want to preserve the dominance of fossil fuels and pollution?

“Electric Cars Were Already Having Issues. Then Things Got Political. The 2024 race for the White House reignites debate over EVs”: https://tinyurl.com/2z8kdrn3

But it’s even worse, because the Chinese are paragons of electric car excellence. They’re gonna eat up the market. Warren Buffett got the message, he invested in BYD, and he’s probably older than you are, but you’re inured to the past, you can’t let go. And not everything is us vs. them.

The most interesting story I read in the past two weeks was this:

 “China’s E.V. Threat: A Carmaker That Loses $35,000 a Car – Chinese electric vehicle companies like Nio are pulling ever further ahead, partly through government support but also through rapid technological advances.”: https://tinyurl.com/3vxkz5uj

That’s really all you have to know, the headline is enough. I’ll make it quite simple, in China the GOVERNMENT is underwriting, subsidizing, electric car development. In the U.S. we can’t even have a working government, never mind subsidize industry for the future. Hell, someone just wrote a whole book about it, excerpted in yesterday’s “New York Times Magazine”: 

“Longer Commutes, Shorter Lives: The Costs of Not Investing in America – For decades, spending on the future put the nation ahead of all others. What would it take to revive that spirit?”: https://tinyurl.com/2t8scj62

It’s simple, St. Reagan declared the government the enemy and the goal of the right is to eliminate federal spending, and on the left many want lower taxes too, the narrative has gone off course, far from the right direction, because it’s government investment that has made America what it is today, can you say INTERNET?

Yes, that was a government defense program.

Our government is gridlocked and we’re falling behind. We used to spend a ton on R&D, on fixing, on improving America. But no longer, because you earned that damn money and you’re entitled to keep it and the government wastes bucks. But this book makes it clear, if you spend you waste, not every investment pays off, just ask a venture capitalist. But no, we must not invest in anything.

This is not the country I grew up in.

But my generation, I’m disappointed in it. The Gen-X’ers too. Because they’ve refused to grow up.

You know, like the rock writers who still have long hair and wear a motorcycle jacket. Don’t you know the rest of us are laughing at you? You’re anything but cool, you’re frozen in time, and you never even rode a motorcycle, never mind never played in a band.

It’s bad enough that the bands are frozen in time, but do you have to be too?

That’s one weird thing about growing up, you realize these musicians are just people. Some stayed artists, kept exploring, like David Bowie, but most just rested on their laurels, once they made it they were afraid to risk.

These bands don’t care about you. Not whatsoever. In truth, most successful people, the rich you adore, never mind the musicians, don’t want to hang with you, they don’t want to be friends with you, they just want your money to support their lifestyle. They want to live behind gates, never fly commercial and vacation on private islands. They want nothing to do with the hoi polloi, despite constantly praising their fans. It’s a joke. But it’s on you.

I mean you’re in your fifties, sixties and seventies and you’re still looking to Mick and Keith for guidance? Mick, a man who loves money and the fabulous lifestyle much more than you. And Keith is a bit more admirable, but he seems to be the only drinker and drugger who survived, the rest of them succumbed to their vices.

But maybe you’re drinking and drugging yourself, thinking you’re cool. They call marijuana (or its bogus highfalutin’ name “cannabis”) dope for a reason, because it makes you stupid. Come on, that’s one of the amazing things about growing older, all the stoners of the past, they’ve gone straight. And so many drinkers are now sober. And you know why? Because they realized these substances were impairing their lives, killing them. But you still revere the rock and roll lifestyle. I get it if you’re a teenager or a twentysomething, but at this age? You’ve got to be kidding.

You see these people grew up and you didn’t. I mean if you want to go to the show to hear your favorites, be my guest. But don’t tell me about the deeper meaning. It’s a show, that’s it. There are people to believe in today, but they’re not musicians.

And then the inane e-mail about how Spotify killed the music business, it’s the devil! Now let me get this straight, the physical world of twelve songs for more than ten bucks on a plastic disc was going to survive? The iPod didn’t survive, and it was launched in the twenty first century! The landline has been superseded by the cellphone. But no, music must remain static, the way it used to be, because… Nothing stays the same except you!

It’s one thing if you’re in one of these bands and you blow back after I diss you, I completely understand that, although I’d never do it, that’s rule number one of the internet, you never respond, never fight back, it just pours gasoline on the fire. But it’s the people not mentioned, who aren’t in the band, who never worked for the band, never worked anywhere near the music business who defend these musicians so prodigiously.

You can’t say anything negative about a star of the past because..?

You can say negative stuff about a politician, or a movie star, but since a musician once spoke from their heart, impacted the culture, they get a pass for all time?

Believe me, it’s scary growing up, maturing. Talk about satisfaction, I can name a bunch of streaming series that deliver more than the work of any musician. Because music has changed. As the world has changed. Musicians used to be as rich as anybody in America, that’s no longer the case. And to make money they’re whoring themselves out, which was my point to begin with, which is damn sad, assuming unlike them you grew up.

Are you really that immature? Are you really wearing blinders?

Let’s see, you have aches and pains. You can’t run as fast, if at all. But in your brain you’re still twenty years old, living under a paradigm that evaporated half a century ago.

That was my point. We live in a new world, and you must adjust for a new world. But the key thing if you’re an artist is not to sacrifice your values, assuming you had any at all to begin with. Those are the bedrock, the attitudes, the beliefs, who you are at the core. I mean the Stones hanging with Jimmy Fallon? Make me puke.

What did John Lennon sing?

“I just believe in me, Yoko, and me, and that’s reality”

Lennon was in the biggest band in the land, in the entire world, and he could see the emptiness at the core. That it’s all about the individual, that the mania is bogus.

“And so, dear friends

You’ll just have to carry on

The dream is over”

Don’t you get it? You were told to think for yourself (by George Harrison too!) and you just couldn’t do it. It was too heavy a lift, too much responsibility.

Now Joe Walsh once said that the challenge wasn’t dying at twenty seven, but living. Who knows what John Lennon would be like at eighty. He’s lucky, his image is frozen in the past. But Walsh was a serious alcoholic and cleaned up. I once sat in a bar with him in Vancouver and he was drunk and nasty, but that’s not the sober Joe at all, and he can still play, even better.

And Don Henley cut his hair. But you’re still wearing it long. Why?

I’ll make this simple…

GROW UP!

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/48bk7zfw

“Space Captain”:

Joe Cocker – “Mad Dogs & Englishmen”

 

“To Cry You a Song”

Jethro Tull – “Benefit”

 

“Don’t Let It Bring You Down”

Neil Young – “After the Gold Rush”

 

“Fire and Water”

Free – “Fire & Water”

 

“Brand New Day”

Al Kooper – “Easy Does It”

 

“Gallows Pole”

Led Zeppelin – “Led Zeppelin III”

 

“The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show”

The Band – “Stage Fright”

 

“Stray Cat Blues”

Rolling Stones – “Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out”

 

“Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers”

Firesign Theatre

 

“Hollywood #1”

Thunderclap Newman – “Hollywood Dream”

 

“What Now America”

Lee Michaels – “Barrel”

 

“Mother’s Daughter”

Santana – “Abraxas”

 

“Box of Rain”

Grateful Dead – “American Beauty”

 

“Do For the Others”

Stephen Stills – “Stephen Stills”

 

“Gasoline Alley”

Rod Stewart – “Gasoline Alley”

 

“Domino”

Van Morrison  – “His Band and the Street Choir” 

 

“Have You Seen the Stars Tonight”

Jefferson Starship – “Blows Against the Empire”

 

“Superstar”

“Jesus Christ Superstar”

Rock stars are just like you and me. They beg for publicity and will do anything to get attention. Even worse, it usually doesn’t work.

Do you know the Rolling Stones have a new album? You probably do, Mick and Keith have been everywhere. But despite the hype, you probably haven’t bothered to listen to “Hackney Diamonds,”  of its twelve songs, only five have more than one million streams on Spotify, three just breaking that number, and “Angry” and “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” released weeks previously, have ten million and four million respectively.

Now compare this to the Spotify Top 50, the Global Daily Top 50, wherein the number one cut, “Seven,” by Jung Kook and Latto, got five million plus streams and number 50, “Ella Baila Sola,” by Eslabon Armado and Peso Puma, got nearly one point seven million streams. Once again, these are in one day! It’s like “Hackney Diamonds” doesn’t exist.

Except in the publicity world. The three remaining original Stones, which are really only two, have been featured everywhere, and it makes me wince, because once upon a time the Stones were considered dangerous.

Now, not everybody has taken this path. Robert Plant has been on a crusade to undercut his golden god image from Led Zeppelin and create a new, more credible one as a roots singer. And Paul McCartney… Well, he was always considered somewhat lightweight, personality-wise, and he’s continuing in the same role. Then again, he needs to be everywhere, he needs to remind us he’s a Beatle, but the Fab Four made it on mania, the Stones were the anti, maybe even the Antichrist.

This is what rock was based on. This was part of its draw, what made it classic. The hitmakers existed in their own world, separate from the rest of us. The rules did not apply to them. They tore up hotel rooms and their handlers whipped off hundred dollar bills to pay for the damage. They bedded women ad infinitum, just being a star seemed to make everyone desire them, and they slept ’til noon and did drugs and now…

They’re just like you and me. And it’s creepy.

They don’t lead with their music, they lead with the hype. They’re little different from the social media influencers, except these online denizens do it better.

Yes, the influencers know the game, don’t show up every few years, but every day. They know who their audience is and they play to it and no one else. Furthermore, when they try to cross over to the mainstream, they almost always fail. Because most people don’t care. But most people don’t care about anything! This is why I want you to read Taylor Lorenz’s book, because you probably won’t know almost anybody in it but they’re making a ton more dough than all those wankers bitching about Spotify payments. They’re young, they’re not burdened by legacy constructs, they’re inventing and doing it their way. Whereas…

Mick Jagger is on SNL. And my one takeaway was that he’s got bad teeth. Keith fixed his, albeit with too-white veneers or caps. I knew it was him at the Hollywood Bowl because when he came out on stage his teeth beamed. Somewhere in between the two is truth, is reality.

And even fiction is more truthful than reality. In “Nada,” the surprise star is Robert DeNiro, yes, in an Argentinian TV series. And up close and personal you can see that he hasn’t whitened his teeth. His hair is gray on the verge of white and DeNiro looks like a real person, unlike all the old musicians who get plastic surgery to look the same age as they did when they had their hits, decades ago. DeNiro has authenticity, these rockers do not. The rockers with surgery, and you can always tell (the only two people who ever got plastic surgery and still looked like themselves were Susan Sarandon and Christie Brinkley, and now the latter has crossed that threshold with too much work), don’t seem to exist in the real world, they seem frozen in time. Ultimately it’s the songs that are the stars, which is why Journey can still do such great business sans Steve Perry. Then again, if Perry was in the band it would be different, because Perry hasn’t whored himself out left and right.

Then again, Perry’s new album, he had one a few years back, don’t you know, stiffed. And the Stones are fearful that their album will do so as well. Then again, Perry did not put his out under the moniker “Journey” and it did not get good reviews, unlike “Hackney Diamonds,” which is perceived as a return to form, the best Stones work in decades.

And either you care or you don’t.

But it seems that the Stones care more than the audience.

Kind of like Van Morrison. He constantly puts out new music to near crickets, but it doesn’t bother him, he still does prodigious business on the road. And you’ve got to give credit to Van the Man for being a unique individual, going his own way, with inane statements about the coronavirus and more.

Oh, don’t tell me you agree, believe me the aged audience that still cares all got the jab, they do their best to rationalize Morrison’s ramblings in order to go to the show. As for Clapton… He played a show for RFK, Jr. I didn’t go to his Crossroads guitar festival as as a result. I don’t want to give him a dime. This guy has lost the plot and is using his pulpit to spew false information, we must protest this in a world where truth is elusive. Even worse, Clapton keeps doubling down. Eric looks like a doddering old madman, whereas that’s part of Van’s personality, he was always seen as difficult and crazy.

To make it even more complicated, let’s venture into the hip-hop world, where boasting and getting paid is part of the ethos. Unfortunately, this has rendered so much of the oeuvre a cartoon. And think about it, the most successful rapper is Drake, who appeared on “DeGrassi,” he’s cuddly and safe and that’s all right, but if you think it’s the way it used to be, you’ve got memory problems.

Now in truth a lot of the hip-hop world is still dangerous. You wonder how these people live in mansions and have a number of exotic automobiles? Because a lot of their income flies under the radar, they show up at a club to rap to tape and… And then there’s the sponsorship, the endorsements, they’ve figured out a new way to get paid, read “Rap  Capital” by the “New York Times”‘s Joe Coscarelli, your eyes might bug out. Then again, “Rap Capital” is a tome that isn’t that easy to read, and you’d rather rag on influencers and hate on Taylor Lorenz than listen to what she has to say. Ain’t that America, where you decry the other side and don’t even investigate what they have to say.

So what’s a poor boy to do?

Certainly not play in a rock and roll band. Odds are you won’t be heard and if money is your thing, there are so many better, easier ways to make bank, like at the bank itself! As for getting laid… With smartphone cameras everywhere, you can’t do what you used to. The old lifestyle doesn’t exist anymore.

So what do the Stones do? Become all warm and cuddly. So you’ll like them, so you’ll go see them. Whereas most people go to see them because they’re afraid this will be the last tour, and they want to relive their memories. It’s positively calcified, but they’ve got a new album!

In a world where there’s so much music you don’t even bother to listen to it. Come on, in the old days you would have bought “Hackney Diamonds” on Friday and played it incessantly thereafter, waiting for it to reveal itself.

Now?

Why bother. I mean a record isn’t going to change the world. And the musicians are sold-out whores who will do anything for a buck. There are people standing up for their beliefs everywhere, but the Stones have neutered their personalities and…

Maybe this is who they always were, maybe the image is a fiction. Then again, they did have to cleanse Keith Richards’s blood in order for him to go on tour.

Yes, what a long strange trip it’s been. If you died early, your image is intact. But if you continue to live, you can’t make new music that matters, you’re in limbo, so what do you do?

Let’s be clear, Don Henley gets it. The Eagles don’t put out new music, he admits what the band is, him and a bunch of sidemen, and they go on the road and render perfect renditions of their hits. They don’t need to be in your face constantly, because they know the people will show up at the gig anyway, that all the hype and publicity has got nothing to do with it.

And they’ll show up at the Stones shows too, no one will listen to “Hackney Diamonds” and decide now’s the time to lay down triple digits to see the band, they decided whether to go or not years back.

And as perfect as the Eagles are, that’s how rough the Stones are. But that’s what the Stones are selling live, and it works, they’re better than they’ve been in years. So if you haven’t gone in a while, I implore you to, if you care.

But as for the belief that these are bad boys aligned with the devil, doing drugs in dungeons, that ship sailed long ago.

Meanwhile, you’ve got people living on fumes, trying to emulate the lifestyle, still with long hair and leather and that’s creepy too.

You must live, you must evolve, but that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your identity.

And you don’t need to beg for attention. I saw the three remaining Stones on the cover of “Hits,” which most people are unaware exists, never mind in print. And if you’re on the cover that means Dennis and Lenny are getting paid. I mean do you really need to stoop that low? Oh, someone said they were connected at radio, which doesn’t even break records anymore anyway, that happens online.

Which means if you’re going to promote your record at all, you figure out who your fans are and market directly to them. This shotgun approach, trying to reach everyone, banging us over the head with your new project, just angers us. We get it, you’ve got new music, next!

The Stones could have been true to form, to identity, could have been dangerous, but they were afraid, so they blinked.

Maybe you don’t care. Then again, you’re not listening to “Hackney Diamonds.”

But my point is not about the Stones anyway, they’re just the latest exponent. My point is the old paradigm is dead. Which is one reason today’s music is not as good as yesterday’s. Bill Graham complained that every time the Jefferson Airplane got paid they wanted to stay at home and smoke dope, they didn’t want to work. Which is why whatever I write here people will respond by saying look at the money! Whenever I analyze the nuances that’s the response. Look at how much they’re making! Which is exactly the problem. When you put money first, you lose your soul. And if you’re doing it right there’s enough money for everyone anyway, never mind that oftentimes it’s not that much, you can’t buy a private jet, you can’t even fly private!

The records are inviolate. You can hear “Sympathy for the Devil” and still remember the danger. Ditto seeing the band on stage doing “Midnight Rambler” in ’69 or ’72. Your memories are frozen in time.

But everyone grew up. You’re no longer in thrall to the rockers, they’re just entertainment. Something to do on a Saturday night. Your lifestyle is pretty good itself, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to pay the sky high ticket prices. Yes, you’re just as good as Mick and Keith. An equal.

And that’s not the way it used to be.

I was not the oldest person there, and that is rare.

The Bellwether is a cool venue. An edifice built by Another Planet and Michael Swier, proving that as big as Live Nation is, there is still room for competitors. And when it comes to small venues, the Bellwether is so far superior to the Novo that they should tear the latter down and start over.

It was sold out, meaning people still have an attraction to Mike Campbell. And nobody had their look on, and nobody was on their phone, it felt like nothing so much as the seventies, when rock ruled.

The seventies, they get a bad rap. Corporate rock. Disco. But they were very different from the eighties, when MTV made acts worldwide phenomena we all knew, when we ended up living in a monoculture, when mainstream was everything.

Now it’s just the opposite. The mainstream is niche. And if you’re not mainstream, you’re on your own, sans support.

For all the hype about the Spotify Top 50, the Swifts and the Beyoncés and the Weeknds and the Drakes, the real action, the real excitement is elsewhere, acts that don’t dance, don’t dress up and don’t even have hit records, but live they resonate, in a world where live is ultimately everything. And I mean truly live, if you’re doing it to hard drive, if it’s the same every night, you’re doing it wrong. It’s got to be alive, it’s got to breathe, it’s got to be different, people have to believe they’re having a unique experience, that if they followed the tour to the next gig it wouldn’t be the same, the only community, the only similarity is in the room where the show is happening, and that makes you feel involved, and special. I could say this is the paradigm the Grateful Dead invented, but they were not the only ones. And they ultimately had a hit. And before they crossed over on MTV, they got airplay on FM radio when we were still listening, whereas today FM is a backwater, if you listen you probably sign up for the streaming service with commercials.

Now in the seventies rock ruled. There were different strains of rock, from heavy to progressive to straight ahead, but in any bar in seemingly any town there was a band playing on the weekend. And their goal was to be so good that they could get away with playing original material. And you’d go to the venue to drink, that’s for sure, but also to hear the band, you’d talk about this band with your friends, even though it might never get a deal, might not ever be able to play in the next state.

And speaking of playing, we still did. The Beatles started that. Soon, everybody had a guitar, everybody knew how to play, at least a few rudimentary chords, we banged it out in the garage, we sang along at parties, it was radically different from today, unless you were at the Bellwether last night to see the Dirty Knobs.

Now the difference with the Knobs from those bands of yore is Mike Campbell is a veritable superstar. And he didn’t make it on speed, like the Yngwies and other guitarists of the eighties, he made it on style, on taste, and it’s a thrill just to see him play anything. And when he takes the stage, it’s palpable, this is the guy.

And with Ferrone on drums and two lesser known but just as skilled sidemen, the Knobs hit it from the very first note, they are tight, and it’s a revelation, because this is the sound, the one that infected us, that rooted us, that meant everything to us.

Sure, there have been shows forever. But music meant much more to the boomers and Gen-X’ers than it did to the generations both before and after. You know if you were there, if you weren’t, you deny this. Or, you’re a wanker in the business trying to look hip.

And the audience did not, try to look hip that is. I didn’t see one outfit, no one dressed up, it was like the Allman Brothers and the aforementioned Dead and so many of the bands back when, they wore their street clothes on stage, the music was enough, more than enough.

I mean my generation doesn’t look so great. But even though we’re in Los Angeles, that image thing, the Kardashianism, it wasn’t evident. No plastic surgery, no injections, no three digit coifs…most of the women were like the men, in jeans, dungarees, nobody was looking to make a sartorial statement, they were there for the music.

And you know rock and roll when you hear it. But it’s such a rare event these days. You can go to the amphitheatre and see the legacy acts, but that’s something different, that’s nostalgia, you want to hear your favorites and reminisce. But Campbell and the Knobs were playing all original material, for two hours. And you didn’t need to know it to get it. The changes, the picking, the sound, that was enough.

The records are secondary in this world, nearly superfluous. It’s all about the live show, you can go not knowing the material at all and have a fine time, whereas it used to be just the opposite. You memorized the records before the show, to be plugged in.

So, I’m involuntarily throwing my arms in the air, I’m grooving, and this is completely unexpected. I mean it’s not like the Knobs are going to play the Super Bowl, I’m here in a club, but the music centered me, connected me to who I always was, even though I was wary that those days and that feeling were in the past.

So, the Dirty Knobs are far superior to a bar band. But it’s not about stardom, but the music. It was extremely enjoyable, until…

The four musicians left the stage after almost two hours, you know, before the obligatory encore, and nobody kept applauding. I was wondering if they’d just turn up the lights, whether that would be it, but that almost never happens. They weren’t clapping, but they weren’t leaving either. They knew the band would come back on. And when they did…

Mike had three guitars propped up in front of the mic. He said these were the axes he used on the originals, that they’re too valuable to take on the road, but since this is a hometown gig… And he picked up the first guitar and…played the very first track from the very first Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album, “Rockin’ Around With You.” Whew!

Campbell doesn’t have quite the pipes of Petty, but the interesting thing is he talks the same way, with the same accent, it’s not Petty and it’s not a facsimile, the Knobs make these songs their own, but you know them by heart.

And what an interesting choice. You’d expect “American Girl,” or “Breakdown.”

You see it was Tom Petty’s birthday, and the band was playing his material in honor of that date. And just when you figured they’d stop, they went on. And on. And on. The Dirty Knobs played ten Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers numbers, more than anybody could expect, and they were not the usual suspects. The most obvious were “You Wreck Me,” “You Got Lucky” and “Even the Losers.” The words of the last two truly resonated. All these decades later you can visualize what they’re based upon. And you can see the economy of the songwriting. Today they throw everything in, Tom and Mike left a lot out, in song and production, which made the records transcendent, as fresh today as yesterday.

Oh, there was a rendition of “Listen to Her Heart,” the failed single from the second album. Yes, you heard the song on the radio, especially in L.A., but the band was poised for greatness and somehow “You’re Gonna Get It” did not improve the band’s status. It was good, but…a year and a half later “Damn the Torpedoes,” burst out of the dashboard with “Refugee” and the rest is history.

“You don’t have to live like a refugee”

The perspective was not only different from the boasting prominent in today’s music, but it was also different from the bombast purveyed by the English and heartland rockers. Tom Petty was slight, he wasn’t the macho cool dude, he was a thinking person, he didn’t see the world the same way as the bloviators.

Which leads me to the absolute highlight of the evening.

Now I saw Petty and the Heartbreakers at the Whisky. I heard “Breakdown” and “American Girl” on the radio in L.A., before the rest of the country cottoned to the sound. But if you want to talk about the first album, if I’m going to request a song from the first album, it’s either going to be “The Wild One, Forever,” or “Luna.” They’ve got that late night with too much humidity in the air feel.

But they did not play those last night. They played one I least expected, “Fooled Again (I Don’t Like It).”

“Looks like I’ve been fooled again

Looks like I’m the fool again

I don’t like it, I don’t like it”

Picture it, it’s easy. Petty is the victim. He thought he had something, but it was too good to be true. Not only did he lose it, he wasn’t even aware of how it was going down. All he can do is protest, tell his story in this song. And it starts off slow and quiet, but then it builds, evidences all the anger…

Now unlike the Dirty Knobs songs in the first two hours of the performance, everybody in the hall knew the words to these Petty songs. Because that was the era, you bought the albums and you devoured them. And sure, you might have seen the band live, but mostly you knew the songs from the records.

Now Mike got the audience to sing along to his own songs, got everybody to say F*CK THAT GUY! It’s not like there was an undercurrent of talk, people were paying attention, but let’s be honest, they came because Mike was Petty’s guitarist. So when Mike gave them what they were looking for, more than they were looking for, they were elated.

I certainly was.

And the thing about those Petty records is you could hear everything, the kitchen sink was left out, so when Mike strums the chords and Ferrone pounds the beat on the drums, it’s positively primal, but it’s everything.

“Strange voice on the telephone

Telling me I better leave you alone

Why don’t somebody say what’s going on

Uh-oh, I think I been through this before”

This is not the football player, not the cheerleader, this song is sung by the other, who is living their life in the shadows, but it’s just as meaningful as yours.

“You never said you had no number two

I need to know about it if you do

If two is one I might as well be three

It’s good to see you think so much of me”

I’ve felt this. I’ve been fooled, more than once, and in certain cases by the same girl. I remember when I saw my more than crush kissing other guys at the party, out in the open, all I know is she wasn’t kissing me.

Never mind more than crushes that involved some connection, some physical activity, that I thought were leading to more, but it turned out this uber-desirable woman lived with an upper classman.

“I don’t like it

I don’t like it

I don’t like it

I DON’T LIKE IT”

This music spoke to us, it was personal. It was not made to dance to, to party to, to shoot selfies to, it wasn’t background noise, it was positively primal.

And when it was all over, it was quarter to midnight, the show had lasted two hours and forty five minutes. But this was not Springsteen giving us his all, trying to overwhelm us, beat us into submission, it was clear that Mike and his compatriots loved playing, and as long as we showed up and stayed they’d do so. It’s tough to soldier on, but Mike is playing clubs, because that’s what a musician does, play, the money is secondary.

And I can’t say the tickets were expensive. But maybe that’s just the point, it was a show, not an event, and there’s a difference. The music blended with your regular life, was part of your regular life, it was rooting, and that was more than a surprise.

And I got home and was hungover, and am still not completely centered, even though I didn’t drink an ounce of alcohol. You see I was transported, to what once was and I thought could never again be. I thought maybe I’d moved on, because nobody was delivering what I was looking for, the essence, more than stardom, more than a jukebox, but living breathing rock and roll.

The kids don’t get it, otherwise they’d have been in the audience last night. But if you’re of a certain vintage, of a certain age, you know exactly what I’m talking about. And if you go to see the Dirty Knobs…

You won’t be fooled again.

It’s the real deal.