“Mary Turner, pioneering KMET disc jockey who ruled L.A. rock radio, dies at 76”: https://lat.ms/42ybm2b

She e-mailed me a few times, very nicely in fact, which can be a rarity amongst those who have been there and done that. And I never met her, but I know her.

Every L.A. rock fan does, those who were listening to the radio during the heyday of classic rock, after all, she was the Burner, Mary Turner. I just read in the above obit that Peter Wolf gave her that moniker, I thought someone else had thought it up, but the story rings true, because Mary Turner had credibility, as one of the few women working in a man’s world, FM rock radio.

Oh, in New York there was Alison Steele, the Nightbird, on WNEW-FM, she started when the station was the city’s answer to KSAN in San Fran, back when WNEW was still a progressive station, but I moved to L.A. in ’74 and I was confronted with an FM dial much deeper than not only the one in New York, but anywhere else I’ve ever been. There were five rock stations, but Mary Turner worked at #1, the Might Met, KMET, 94.7, I don’t think I can ever forget not only the call letters, but the station number.

This was a different era. This was before Reagan legitimized greed. This was back when you could pay all your bills on minimum wage, and you lived for rock and roll, the music was everything.

It wasn’t like today, where you can miss something, find out after the fact a band you’re into played in town. You see the stations fought to be a show’s partner, and when they were they promoted ad infinitum. All you needed was the radio, it was the tribal drum, it told you everything you needed to know.

All the clichés, this is when they were fresh, like Two-fer Tuesdays, and Rocktober. Yes, someone came up with those and it was an innovation, you looked forward to them. Today classic rock is a calcified format, and KMET no longer exists.

You see KMET never got the memo, or if it did, it ignored it. The music was changing. KROQ was playing Soft Cell and the Human League in Top Forty rotation. The sound was new, and different, and it resonated with the listening audience. KMET eventually picked up these tunes, but it was too late.

KROQ still exists, up the dial at 106.7. But KNX, the soft rock station, 93.1, that’s long gone. As is KWST, the Led Zeppelin station, which played harder rock, at 105.9. And the last classic rock station standing is KLOS, 95.5, which was right next to KMET on the dial, but it was for those who weren’t in the know, it took fewer risks, it was not as hip, you turned to the station when KMET was in commercial, but it was not a regular listen.

Like KMET.

Alison Steele was cooler than we could ever be. But Mary Turner was one of us, who graduated to the airwaves. And in an era wherein it was a joke that the deejays didn’t look like their voices, Mary was blonde and beautiful, she was an L.A. icon, talking to us on the radio, spinning our favorite records.

And she did no shtick, she was neither a Top Forty deejay nor part of a Morning Zoo, she respected the music, which she was knowledgeable about, she was into it as much as we were, it was more than a job, it was a calling.

Eventually, Mary graduated to syndication. And then she married the syndicator, Norm Pattiz, who founded Westwood One. Norm was completely different from Mary, a visionary and a hustler. He called me into his office to offer me a show at PodcastOne, but as Irving would say, it was an eat what you kill deal, and that’s not the kind you want to sign. But as Norm was showing me to my seat in his office, the first thing he told me was that Mary was a big fan. He ultimately said he wasn’t sure about me, but Mary believed in me, and that was enough.

Now Mary was not the only legendary deejay in Los Angeles. But she was at the pinnacle. I just saw her obit on my phone and I was shocked, I went numb, that’s how much of a place she had in the firmament, in my heart and mind and those of the rest of the listeners. There she was, on a regular basis, same slot every day, maybe not on weekends, but you could count on her, she was there for you.

Radio wasn’t an appointment, it was a religion. It wasn’t just records and inane patter, KMET took a stand against paraquat, the scourge of youth society back in the day. You see they were spraying it on marijuana in Mexico, before everyone called it cannabis, when it was still dope, and the strong Mendocino strands were just becoming available. It was us versus them. Little did we know so many of us would become them.

Not everybody. You can see the lifers at the show, at the vinyl record stores, with their scraggly hair and their faded rock t-shirts. They never stopped believing, but they were left behind economically. Turned out the music might save your soul, but it won’t put bread on your table.

And then there are those who weren’t there and now wear motorcycle jackets to the shows and buy all the merch. We can see right through those people. It shows. If you leave early. If you don’t know all the songs.

Going to a show was not a celebration, it was akin to your record collection. The acts toured when they had new albums, which you purchased before the show, memorized and then went to hear live, knowing that most of the songs would never be played in concert again.

Radio, records, shows… That was our culture. Movies too, but not TV, except for maybe SNL. Once upon a time Lorne Michaels wasn’t full of himself, the grand pooh-bah, rather he was trying to bring the youth audience back to TV, late at night, when they were available, with a show that was hip in a way that TV had never previously been. It was beyond funny, the show had an attitude, cultural impact. It was the seventies version of “Laugh-In,” but with credibility. You watched and then you talked about it, ad infinitum. Mr. Mainway? John Belushi as the samurai? They were bigger than today’s musicians, because they were authentic in a way no one is today. Because they knew that money was second to cultural impact, and the way you wove yourself into the fabric of society was by being innovative and true to yourself, they were our heroes.

We had many heroes. And the only ones who were rich were the musicians. Because if you were a successful musician in the seventies, you were as rich as anybody in America. And selling out was anathema.

Mary Turner greased the skids. She turned us on to new music, she accompanied us in our cars, we even played the radio at home.

I can’t detail everything she did because the job of a deejay is to be dependable, there at a finger’s touch, to deliver, to keep you dialed-in, not changing the channel.

That’s who Mary Turner was.

How weird is it that Norm died back in December, and now Mary is gone too. Norm died at 79, Mary at 76. Mary’s listeners think they’re forever, but the Big C rarely loses the battle. And it could hit you when you least expect it.

The era is closing, body by body. The heroes of yore are dropping on a regular basis. They’re gone.

But we remember.

I remember Mary Turner.

Tune in Saturday May 13th, to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

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

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/41tMcR3

YouTube: https://bit.ly/42wWwce

I subscribe to this newsletter from Ashley Carman at Bloomberg. It’s entitled “Soundbite,” but mostly it’s about podcasting, which has been in flux recently. Seems that everybody with a big name who’s been given a podcast is having an extremely hard time gaining traction. Turns out being a star is not enough. It’s tougher than ever to build an audience.

But this week’s newsletter was mostly about the music business, streaming. And fraud. You can read it here:

“Why Warner Music Operates a Covert Spotify Remix Account – Artists and labels are quietly releasing multiple versions of their own songs on streaming platforms to box out the unauthorized competition”: https://bloom.bg/3MkCMSD

The headline story is interesting, how the majors have playlists of sped-up songs as a kind of subterfuge, to look cool… There’s more to it, you can read the details.

The other story is about outright fraud. Acts piggy-backing on others’ hits and getting the royalties.

I’ve got to tell you, I can’t say I’m overly moved by fraud. It is disillusioning, that so many are scamsters, that deception is rampant, but fraud has always permeated the recorded music business. That does not mean it shouldn’t be addressed, shouldn’t be stamped out, I’m just saying the issue punches above its weight because after years of turmoil in music distribution it’s been figured out, streaming has won, now it’s all about software, i.e. the music. But creating hit music is much more difficult than addressing distribution problems. Then again, if you create a hit will it become one, if it’s “in the grooves,” will it blow up?

The story about this outright fraud, linked in the above newsletter, is here:

“Music Streaming Has a $2 Billion Fraud Problem That Goes Beyond AI – With user-generated content surging on music services, bogus tracks may now account for 10% of all streams”: https://bloom.bg/3pw2889

(If this link doesn’t work, load the newsletter from the first link and click through from there and it will appear.)

The track being ripped-off in the article was “Hey Kids,” by Molina, who they said was a a Danish-Chilean singer. It was released by the label Tambourhinoceros. Household names, right? The Chilean-Danes are buzzing up the chart, thank god for the independent labels. Huh?

The track was released in 2018. In 2022 it started to get 100,000 streams a day. What was driving the action all these years later?

I DON’T KNOW!

But I was fascinated, so I clicked the embedded video of “Hey Kids” and I was stunned, from the very beginning I was hooked, IT WAS GOOD! Do you know how often I find a track that I get from the beginning, that I want to continue to listen to? ALMOST NEVER! A lot of what is successful is mediocre and pushed down our throats by the machine, which is why you can listen to these playlists of new music and your eyes will roll up into your head. HOW COULD THIS BE?

I mean I instantly knew “Hey Kids” had something. It deserved its success. But why did it take so long, and what made it finally gain traction?

Was the cut blown up by TikTok or vice versa?

So I went to Molina’s TikTok page, filled with user-generated videos: https://bit.ly/42Peg2h The song worked perfectly. Sure, it wasn’t the entire song, but the parts used worked. Furthermore, if you listen to the whole song it’s more than the excerpt, much more! How did these people know to use this song?

And supposedly people are using it on YouTube too and…

Let me be clear, “Hey Kids” is not the usual Spotify Top 50 fare. But that’s very narrow, and that’s not where barriers are broken, where envelopes are pushed. Not that “Hey Kids” is revolutionary, but if you’re listening at home, boy does it resonate.

Maybe not for you. But that’s fine.

BUT HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

P.S. “Hey Kids” has 76,224,123 streams on Spotify

P.P.S. You can sign up for Ashley Carman’s newsletter here: https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/soundbite

You can’t go from mass to grass roots.

In the pre-internet era, mass was everything. Broadcast/cable TV is a pre-internet paradigm, which is why it is fading. The only thing we need to see in real time is sports, or maybe breaking news. Then again, breaking news is better online, where you can hop from site to site, to get a three-dimensional view of the situation. Why settle for the viewpoint of one outlet when you can have the benefit of many?

This is the mistake many up and coming acts make today. They think it’s about mass. But mass is instant, mass is now, mass is rarely forever.

That’s the history of instant successes, of those dependent upon hits, sans smashes…their audience withers. Whereas if you come from the grass roots…you maintain. Furthermore, there is no mass anymore. Everybody’s in their own silo. That’s the beauty of the internet, you don’t have to spend time with that which you are not interested in. Listen to the radio without pushing the button, enduring the commercials, are you kidding? And even if a boomer might do this, even watch “Succession” in real time on Sunday night, the younger generations don’t play that way. Younger people are busy, heavily scheduled, they don’t want to waste any time. Therefore they watch television when they want to, on demand, and HBO/Max and other outlets dribbling shows out week by week can’t train them otherwise. They want it all and they want it now. You’d think legacy players would have learned the lesson of Napster at this point, don’t give the public what it wants at your peril. Move forward, hopefully ahead of the audience, don’t try to hold people back.

So Tucker Carlson is a creature of mass, a beneficiary of not only the imprimatur of Fox News, but its built-in audience. I know people who keep MSNBC on all day long, they’re some of the least informed people I know. If you want to know what is happening, read the papers, go online, there’s much more information. The values of the boomers are so last century. Whereas the youngsters…

So, many people don’t even know that Tucker Carlson started the “Daily Caller,” and that Kaitlan Collins worked for it. Carlson could have stayed there, been a bigger Kos, but he wanted more, and went to Fox. One can say Tucker paid his dues, but he didn’t make his bones on the internet, like Matt Drudge. Tucker is starting all over on Twitter.

Not completely, but he’s going from mass to grass roots, on demand. And to get someone to pull you up on demand…is a very hard thing to do.

It’s not only television shows that are on demand, music is too. How do you get someone to pull your song? It’s nearly impossible. Oh, you can pray that you get on a playlist, but that doesn’t build careers, no, you build careers from the ground up, person by person, grass roots. And it’s a slow process but this audience will never completely abandon you, sans some huge faux pas.

But everybody wants it instantly.

But that’s no longer the world we live in.

The other night I was at a restaurant and I proffered that only one person there would be able to mention the name of a song, one single song, from the new Taylor Swift album. But the person I pointed out, the early twentysomething across the aisle, was flummoxed. Oh, she did know that Taylor Swift had a new album, but that was all. And Taylor Swift is one of the biggest acts in the business! This is not a judgment on either Swift’s music or career, this is just an illustration of what everybody thinks is mass is not. Your goal of world dominance, a household name, babies singing your songs…that’s a fantasy.

So Tucker Carlson goes to Twitter…

Big problem, his audience is not on Twitter. Older people inured to broadcast television are not on Twitter, because if they were there would be no reason to watch news on TV! So the hurdle of getting Tucker’s audience on Twitter…is too high for most people. You have to get an account, and then follow and find Carlson. Furthermore, there is no appointment time. Which is why Howard Stern hyped his move to Sirius for nearly a year before the jump, he had to prime his audience to come with him. Carlson laid none of this groundwork. Carlson has been at the tippity-top of the traditional news business for so long that…he’s completely unfamiliar with the internet and how it works. Bill Maher self-satisfiedly puts down the internet every week, he does not know that this is a bad look, makes him appear ignorant, after all, who wants the opinion of someone who never goes where the facts are? You can live in the bubble, but if you want to opine you’ve got to leave it.

Like RFK, Jr. My inbox is full of fans. Saying he’s their candidate. I’m stunned, even RFK, Jr.s’ wife went on record that she doesn’t agree with his antivax beliefs. Furthermore, RFK, Jr. does not have a legacy of elected office, so one would think he’s not even qualified. But somehow, RFK, Jr. is polling at about 20% compared to Biden. And today I saw an ad for him in the “Wall Street Journal.” I was stunned, it was pretty convincing. RFK, Jr. is all about fighting for the little guy, public service, that resonates like Trump’s statements in 2016, only RFK, Jr. is perceived to be more credible. The truth is RFK, Jr. could give Biden a run for his money. And then where would the DNC be? They anointed Biden too early. Everybody thinks he’s too old. I was at the eye doctor yesterday, a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. He said every time he sees Biden he winces, he sees him slowing down, he’ll vote for him, but…isn’t there an alternative? 

If you don’t choose your alternative, someone else will. RFK, Jr. is building a base while every other potential Democrat is sitting on the sidelines, fearful of alienating Biden and the DNC.

If I hadn’t gotten that plethora of e-mail, I would have never been hip to the inroads RFK, Jr. is making. I’m lucky, I’m in touch with a cornucopia of citizens 24/7, I hear all the different viewpoints, whereas most in traditional media are living inside the bubble. In addition it’s a full-time job keeping up, and you can’t keep up, but if you don’t dedicate a good amount of time, you’re out of the loop.

The younger generation? The supposed short attention span people? Stop accusing them, they’re constantly grazing to get a feel, to take the temperature, that’s the modern paradigm, get on board.

Turns out people believed in Fox more than Bill O’Reilly. Than Glenn Beck. And it’s no different for Tucker. They were built by the machine. The Avett Brothers don’t need the machine. Nor do Tedeschi Trucks or Phish or Warren Haynes. Because they all made it via the grass roots. Their audience is keeping them alive. And the audience is looking for them! These acts were not pushed down fans’ throats, the fans found them, they followed them, they’re invested in them. But despite the hype, time and again it’s been proven that fans are less invested in the mass acts. Because the masses are fickle. And the true followers don’t want to be associated with the mass, so they abandon the act.

So Tucker Carlson is starting all over. Not at the bottom, but close to it.

And Tucker made the classic mistake of someone who’s been fired, believing they must get back in the game instantly. This almost always leads to mistakes. Your mind is not clear, you’ve got to assess the landscape. That’s what Barry Diller did before he built his ragtag internet empire that made him a billionaire. Tucker should have licked his wounds and done research, gotten a feel for the world today. Come on, who else has made it broadcasting on Twitter? NO ONE! So Tucker needs to invent the paradigm along the way! YouTube, people subscribe. TikTok is where the eyeballs are. Twitter? Evanescent short messages. Not the place for Tucker.

And even if he cross-posts on YouTube, you’ve got to get people to pull it. Which is why TikTok is such a success, because of the algorithm, it feeds you the product.

And to see all the bloviators reporting on and endorsing Tucker’s Twitter move… Illustrates to me that they’ve got no idea what is going on in the social media sphere. Because if they did…

But they’re too busy doing their jobs.

Meanwhile, the ratings for Fox News are anemic anyway. Network ratings are in the toilet. Cable news? It’s a joke! People hear about Tucker, but do they actually watch his show? Almost none do. So if he goes to Twitter…these none-fans might check him out, if even that, but odds are they’re not going to become hard core fans and check every post.

Look at the highly-hyped acts. BTS. There are no casual fans. Just addicted fans and people who don’t care, won’t pay attention and won’t listen. There’s enough money for BTS to get rich, never mind those behind the act, but the money is coming from a very small percentage of the public, unlike in the old days when there was limited product and if radio in the sixties or MTV in the eighties played you you were known by everyone.

This is the world Tucker is living in. And he’s got fewer fans than BTS. And BTS is EVERYWHERE! Sure, on television one place might be enough, but especially if you don’t have a strong online presence, you’ve got to be everywhere today. Unless you’re starting from the ground up, grass roots, because then people will pull your content and tell others about it and you will continue to grow. But this process is slower than ever before. Chances are the major label doesn’t even sign your kind of music. And it can’t do much for you. And if it does succeed in pushing you down people’s throats, it alienates them. Come on, think of all the acts you’re sick of and you’ve never even heard their music. But the endless hype is turning your stomach!

So you can go from grass roots to mass. It’s just that it takes longer than ever before and mass success does not look like it used to. It might be very lucrative, but your overall mindshare will be less, because of the endless options, the difficulty of getting people to pay attention.

All we’ve got is time. You’re looking for our attention. You’ve got to earn it. And it’s very difficult to do and grow a significant audience. Everybody is looking for shortcuts, but they usually come at a cost. And if you’re a product of the machine, you live and die by the machine. Fox is the machine, it excised Tucker Carlson.

Tucker’s been sent to the minor leagues. But it works the other way around, you start in the minor leagues and then graduate to the big leagues! Essentially no one makes it if they go in reverse. Oh, they can always find a team to play ball for, but they’re not going to be seen by many nor make much money and most…just give up.

I don’t expect Tucker Carlson to give up, but if he was smart, he’d look for another mass job. And grow from there. To build it from the ground up, to start all over again, is just too hard, it’s a fool’s errand.

Come on, how many faded acts propelled by the machine into superstars came back independently to the same level, even close?

I can’t think of a single one.

I rest my case.