Slava Rubin was a cofounder and CEO of crowdfunding platform Indiegogo and in addition to being a founder and managing partner of investment firm humbition, he is now executive chairman of Vincent Alternative Investments, check it out: www.withvincent.com We discuss Slava’s history, but we also go deep into alternative investments, i.e. NFTs and other assets you can purchase all or just a slice of. If you want to know all about cutting edge investments, this is the place!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/id1316200737

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/The-Bob-Lefsetz-Podcast

How small do you want to be?

No one, and I mean NO ONE, has ever grown a larger audience as a result of a crowdfunding campaign or presence on Patreon, it’s just a way to milk your already existing fans for more money. And it’s fine if you like the cash, but don’t delude yourself into thinking your impact is growing, in fact it’s declining.

Same deal with Substack, all the hoopla about charging for newsletters. There are fewer than one hand’s worth that reach as many…as even I do. Yet, they get all this press. They have an inherently limited audience, and if it’s about the message, which it should be, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. As with the freemium model.

Come on, Jay Z did an album with Samsung, he got paid, but the exclusive meant most of the public never heard it and it went straight into the dumper. In a world where your goal is to have impact and power, why would you put up a wall? And if you’re focusing on business model first, you’ve forgotten the law of all the startups of the past twenty years… They focused on excellence, building an audience, and then they figured out how to monetize. If it’s just about money, why don’t you open a hardware store… Oops, scratch that, you can’t compete with the big boxes, but there are a hell of a lot easier ways to make bank than as an artist. And no matter what Gene Simmons says, there’s not an artist alive whose deepest desire is not to reach more people, it always supersedes money, ALWAYS!

Everything’s upside down, and most people have no perspective. The arts are about POWER! Sure, there are a handful of performers making good money, but nowhere near as much as the techies or the bankers, and most artists’ commercial peaks are short, their revenue goes down, then again there’s no barrier to entry, anybody can do it, but that brings out the worst, try listening to the millions of Spotify tracks with fewer than ten plays, you’ll shoot yourself!

Meanwhile, Patreon is run by Jack Conte, who used to be half of Pomplamoose. He’s now telling creators to do what he couldn’t, i.e. make money from his art, even though Pomplamoose was actually pretty good, and very innovative with its marketing. If you want to make money, follow Jack’s lead, get out of the creative sphere completely, sell tools! Kinda like those people selling shovels and tents during the gold rushes, they’re the ones who made all the money.

And why even put forth the illusion there’s any value to what you’re doing. OnlyFans is much better than Patreon, just put up nude pictures. And you’d be stunned how many women are doing this, they’re all over Reddit and other social media platforms trolling for bucks. And the truth is almost none of them are making money, it’s a buyers market. So, Patreon really only works if you’ve already got an audience, and now your plan is to limit it, because Patreon’s model is you provide exclusive content, and once it’s no longer freely available…

As for all the writers leaving publications for Substack… Did you notice that Ezra Klein left Vox for the “New York Times”? Ezra started Vox, but it just didn’t work, he was at a major paper previously, the “Washington Post,” and now he’s gone back. Same deal with Kara Swisher, she started her own company Recode with old “Wall Street Journal” friends and then jumped to the “Times,” where she has much more impact.

In a Tower of Babel world, you want to be on the platform with the most impact. Which is why all the holdouts eventually went on the iTunes Store and then Spotify. Why limit your audience?

Sure, there are a few stars. But they’re very few. Andrew Sullivan was going it alone and had a limited audience, then he went to “New York” and had a guaranteed income and reached many more. Sure, he was fired from “New York” for his views, but now he’s got an independent newsletter and I ask you…other than reading how much money he is making doing it, has anybody talked about his content recently? No!

Do you know how hard it is to reach people these days, to build an audience, NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE! Conte left Pomplamoose to build Patreon, and his other half in life and music, Nataly Dawn, continued making music under her own name…to crickets! People knew Pomplamoose, not Nataly Dawn, she was almost starting all over!

If you’re not paying attention, right now there’s a fight over the future and soul of newspapers. Does “Tribune” sell to Alden, which maintains its margins until extinction, i.e. cuts costs, i.e. reporters and more, until there’s nothing left and then they throw it away, or do you sell to someone who wants to maintain the newsroom, hopefully invest money in head count. The “Washington Post” was in a slide to irrelevance and then Jeff Bezos came along and bought it and invested money in it and it is now solidly in the big three, i.e. the “Times,” the “Wall Street Journal” and itself. Meanwhile, have you been reading about the “Journal”? Behind a paywall with aged readers it is sliding into irrelevance, so they commissioned a study talking about changes necessary to interest the younger generation and women and what did the publisher do…IGNORE IT! https://nyti.ms/3uO4ahi  God, we saw this in the music business, if you think the ball doesn’t move, hopefully you’ve got enough money to retire, because you’re gonna be gone soon.

You want to be on the platform with the most eyeballs. The “Times” heavily promotes its podcasts. What do you know, listenership is high, the “Daily” is almost always in the top five. That’s the power of the platform. And speaking of the platform, Nate Silver decamped from the “Times” to his own site, which ESPN/ABC/Disney is trying to sell, but no one will pony up the bucks, and now he’s barely relevant, never mind miscalling election after election.

There was a time when you went independent and built… BUT THAT WAS ALMOST TWENTY YEARS AGO! Now you want to be with the platform, to give you a leg up, to give you visibility.

As for charging, limiting your audience… I make much more money than I did when I charged. Because of forwardability! There’s no friction online, if you like something, you send it on, and that leads to more subscribers and further opportunities for me! And I make more money than just about all the people selling their newsletters, as their revenue goes down, because old customers fall off and new customer acquisition is so damn expensive. But since the people writing about Substack, etc., are in the news business, writing for these publications, they can’t see the forest for the trees, they’re just wondering whether there’s money for them. 

Come on, Jim Fusilli was the music critic for the “Wall Street Journal” forever, I haven’t seen his name in years since he left the paper. The platform has the power, not him! Same deal with radio and streaming platforms, radio can survive quite well without Morgan Wallen, these platforms don’t need any act, they survive and thrive anyway.

Never forget, it’s not about the crumbs. If you’re going for the crumbs, you’re thinking too small, and to make it as an artist you’ve got to think big, VERY BIG! You’ve got to go for the whole enchilada, not just a bite. And you have to maximize your options. Come on, rappers put out free mixtapes, gave it away for free on Soundcloud, and now hip-hop dominates streaming platforms. Rock is a joke, rockers are still demonizing streaming. If someone moves your cheese you go where it went, otherwise you STARVE!

Turns out most people chronicling the game have not idea what it is, never mind how it’s played. At best they’ve been trained in their vertical. But if you hang with the truly powerful, who are oftentimes rich, it’s a better lesson than any college class ever, because they can see the entire landscape, they’re two steps ahead of the other insiders, and so far ahead of the hoi polloi that they’re ultimately unreachable. If I write about anybody in the world, ANYBODY, they read it. They might not like it, they might not ever read anything I write ever again, but they know who I am and they’re aware of my message, never mind those who like my message and spread it further. Could any of this happen if I went behind a paywall…OF COURSE NOT!

Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. If you’re not willing to starve in pursuit of all the marbles, stop right now, you’re doing it wrong. Sure, you can survive on the crumbs of gigs at local performance spaces and in hospitals, if you like it, more power to you, but never ever confuse yourself with the people dominating the conversation. Dream of being big enough to become a platform yourself, while you’re tying in with other platforms, making your wares easily accessible to all.

Kinda like Spotify. Turns out the old people making it before the internet… Most people don’t want to listen to their music, they want to hear that of the stars, not those propped up by the labels who never hit. But the oldsters can’t accept their fate, refuse to reinvent themselves, meanwhile the young wankers glom on to their legion of complaints, and the powerful become more powerful.

Distribution is king, NEVER EVER FORGET IT! You never want to limit your distribution, NEVER EVER! So go behind a paywall at your peril.

https://bit.ly/3slTJ2K

Somewhere Keith Richards is smiling, if not outright laughing. Without him, Mick Jagger appears completely out of touch with no soul. Mick may be the front man, but who is behind him turns out to be the essence of his success.

This is not the first time Mick has tried to go solo. And he always fails, even with the biggest push behind him. His Columbia albums of yore were too slick, anything but down and dirty, as if made by a posh guy who went to the London School of Economics… Whew, that’s what he did, right? Is that who he is? Has he been hanging with the rich and famous so long that he has lost his perspective?

Even worse is Dave Grohl. This track reveals the flaws of Mr. Rock Music up front and center… Dynamics? THERE ARE NONE! So, it’s loud and in your face, but it’s easy to reject, easy not to pay attention, furthermore, it’s all so SAFE! Rock and roll used to be dangerous, but Dave Grohl is the guy you want to bring home to mom, explain that to me please.

Of course this track has no traction, not even a million plays on YouTube as I write this, the fact that he’s a Stone is irrelevant in a marketplace where status and hype are secondary, if relevant at all, to the music itself. The penumbra has never meant less, can you deliver the goods?

Where has Mick been camping all these days? We’re looking for something gritty, insightful, that captures our feelings. Instead we’ve got a rich guy playing the guitar expressing emotions…not at all. Yes, the lyrics say something, but the delivery is all one note.

As for the lyrics… He almost appears to be pulling a Van Morrison, anti-lockdown. But upon further reflection it appears… Well, it’s not exactly clear what he is saying, other than lockdown is ending. But I’d rather dance in the streets to Martha and the Vandellas than this crap.

And it’s not the 1960s anymore, where I’m forced to listen to what I don’t like until maybe I do, like it that is. It’s painful to make it all the way through “Easy Sleazy,” I only did because I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss something, so that I could write this screed with full authority, but you aren’t missing anything if you check out early.

And “sleazy”? That’s not a word I think of when I contemplate the covid lockdown, nor emergence from it. Sleazy is late night in the dark high on drugs, it’s never sleazy with the bright lights on, and this track is nothing if not bright.

Come on, listen to the intro to “Gimmie Shelter”… “Easy Sleazy” is just the opposite, but one can argue today is darker than yesterday, now is not the time to be mindless.

As for singing about what is happening now… It works with gravitas, just ask Neil Young, with “Ohio,” never mind Marvin Gaye with “What’s Going On.” As for more recent numbers capturing the zeitgeist…it’s hard to find them, at least successful ones. We’re told by the successful to write a song with a score of people and dress well so you can tell the audience what they’re missing out on, so they can envy you, when the truth is they should run in the opposite direction. There’s no truth-telling like there was with N.W.A. and Ice-T and the seers of yore. I mean the cops just killed somebody in Minnesota, shouldn’t the song be about that instead of partying?

Once upon a time Mick Jagger captured the zeitgeist, now it’s nowhere to be found in his life or his lexicon, he’s lost touch. Now is when you make a statement, this track no different from George Bush telling everybody after 9/11 to go out and shop, to keep the economy humming, the real issues? Oh, of course “Easy Sleazy” goes deeper than that, but its message is so confusing, there’s so much irony, that it goes straight over the heads of those who do listen, and it’s not like the focus is on the lyrics anyway, they’re overwhelmed by the buzzing guitar sound.

A sound Keith Richards never employed.

Keith Richard was the anti-gunslinger, the anti-guitar hero. Forget playing a lot of notes in a small period of time, he frequently played no notes at all! It was about chords, sound, closer to the Edge than Yngwie Malmsteen.

You see most of creativity, most of excellence, happens between the ears. That’s the essence of rock and roll, that’s the essence of the Ramones, you don’t need to be highly skilled to get your message down, to make a great record, but you certainly have to think about it. It’s about channeling God, capturing lightning in a bottle, if you do it right the zeitgeist is right there in the grooves. If you find the zeitgeist in “Easy Sleazy” you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones.

Come on, compare Nirvana with Foo Fighters, Cobain with Grohl. And this is less of a put-down of Grohl than an exaltation of Cobain. Anybody can go through the motions, but to ascend to the pantheon you need a certain vision, a certain attitude, a willingness to push buttons and test limits…can you say “John Lennon”?

You can also say “Keith Richards.”

Keith has led anything but a perfect life. Better to watch the movie than live it. But he’s never wavered from his focus on creating the best music, with the essence of life, attitude and truth involved. Has he always succeeded? No, but he’s never failed on the level of Mick Jagger.

Mick needs Keith’s pull to keep him in line, to focus him, to bring him down to earth. Just like Bono needs the Edge. It’s Edge’s guitarwork that anchors U2, not Bono’s lyrics, they’re just the cherry on top. Bono goes out and tries to save the world, but he’d have no voice if it weren’t for the Edge, who’s got almost no voice at all.

Mick thinks being a rock star is being famous. Riding the crest of the wave, being held up by the people. But if he did a solo show he wouldn’t be able to crowdsurf, no one would hold him up! Especially the ancient who are only going on name value.

“Easy Sleazy” is drivel. And the best thing about today is drivel can be completely ignored, can fall out of sight nearly instantly. Which this will do.

Mick… Check with Keith, check with someone with their feet truly on the ground before you take action, make another misstep.

As for Mr. Grohl… So you played with a Stone, who cares? At this point we’ve all had brushes with greatness, this song is barely better than a selfie. Now it’s about the work.

And you’ve got to work harder.

“We Stand For Democracy”: https://nyti.ms/3tmZK0o

This cements Michael Rapino’s stature as the most powerful man in the music business.

That’s right, for decades the power laid with the labels. But now it’s all in touring, the events business, where people can have a human experience in a land of impersonal digital. You may see a list of top-streaming songs and scratch your head, but if you look at the acts grossing the most on the road, they’ll be much more familiar. Sustaining is hard, but it’s what it’s all about. Having enough mindshare that people want to experience your music again and again and again. And so many of the big grossers never even had a hit! You see they’re selling an experience, they’re in tune with the times, unlike those running the record companies.

Risk. Boldness. Those are cornerstones of not only corporate preservation, but creative activity. What did Bob Dylan say…”he not busy being born is busy dying”? Where is the birth at the three major label groups? They sign very few acts and in most cases only sign that which has established itself. The acts take the initial risk, by forming and playing, staking a claim online. But really it’s the touring industry that comes next, the agents and the promoters. And CAA and UTA signed this statement, but not WME… Why? You’d expect Ari Emanuel would be there first, after all his brother Rahm worked in the White House and was mayor of Chicago.

Was Rahm too busy? That’s no excuse, politics, democracy, is the story of today, not corporate profits and entertainment. When you’re fighting for the soul of your country you pick up a rifle, you don’t stay home. But you might offend someone, a potential audience member. But if you’re not willing to offend a potential customer, you’re not willing to bond to another. As for being passive… Come on, even corporations making inert items signed on, why not those who base their revenue on creative activities?

Maybe Michael Rapino is out front because he’s Canadian, where the American dream is more alive than it is south of the border. There’s less of a sense of elitism in the Great White North, more of a sense of being in it together, never mind the country supporting its people with health care and its musicians with grants. Yes, Canada knows the power of music. The U.S? Not so much.

So here’s the story. All these new voting laws are based on misinformation spread by our old fabulist in chief, Donald Trump. The lieutenant governor of Georgia even said so! https://cnn.it/3wUnFXi Yes, that’s the world we now live in, where legislation is based on a lie. It was the most secure election in history, Biden clearly won, but Trump refused to accept this and via the disinformation portal known as Fox, never mind Newsmax and underground online outposts, the falsehood was further disseminated, to the point where people believed it, and still believe it. That’s the country we now live in, where emotions trump facts, never mind facts being fungible.

But it gets worse. Are you following Tucker Carlson’s recent promotion of replacement theory? And then he doubled-down when castigated by the Anti-Defamation League. Then again, you’re not Jewish. But very few are pure white, you came from somewhere, and they’re eventually gonna come for you, just you wait. The same way you’re against masks and vaccines until papa gets Covid-19, or anti-abortion until little Janey gets pregnant. But then you’re on your own, no one is listening to you. After all, isn’t this the essence of freedom, having the state tell you how to live your life? Yes, the contradictions are plentiful, don’t try to make sense of them, because you can’t.

And the Republicans learned that they could not overturn Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court, so they attacked on a state level. You may live in a blue state, but all the meanies are red, and in so many red states it’s essentially impossible to get an abortion. The clinic is far away, you’ve got to go twice, you’ve got to be able to afford the procedure… These are the exact same hurdles these laws are trying to put in place for voting. Sure, you can get abortion… Sure, you can vote… We’re just making sure it’s all official, that no one slips through the cracks. But the end result is the procedure is impinged upon, there’s a huge attrition factor, of people who just don’t have the time and the money to jump through all the hoops. In other countries they vote on Sunday, when most people are off work. But if it’s Tuesday and you work all day and at the polling place you go to there’s a multiple hour line and the governor doesn’t extend the voting hours…are you really gonna stand there? Which is why you could vote by mail, but that’s un-American, you must vote in person, on Tuesday, the same way you must listen to CDs and watch network television. But even the right have streaming outlets and smartphones… Can’t we at least live in the present?

Innovation… We’ve learned that you lead the audience, that if you get ahead you are safe, if you’re behind you’re constantly challenged. This is how the labels missed disruption twenty years ago, they chafed at it, tried to stop it, railed against it. But did they win? Of course not! It wasn’t until Spotify came along, a product that some people still cannot understand, and the people came to it and streaming won and revenues went up.

Which is why Live Nation keeps trying to push the envelope. Tickets on smartphones. And there will be vaccine passports, just you wait. The point being that this is best for the AUDIENCE! As for being best for the acts… Live Nation gives almost all of the ticket revenue to the performers, this is the reverse of the major label model. Furthermore, the company gets heat that Ticketmaster is ripping off the public with its fees when everybody inside knows the only profit is in the fees, because the acts take all the ticket money. And Ticketmaster doesn’t take anywhere near all those fees, the building must get paid, and the promoter, and sometimes even the act itself! But we live in a post-truth society. And it’s the acts who want it this way, they want the blame to go to Ticketmaster. And the fans are even worse… StubHub built in the fees and sales went down. People always want to spend the lowest amount, even if it turns out they’re paying the same damn amount. Crazy. As for developing acts playing clubs… At least Live Nation books them, as for the fees…at least the band is still getting paid, and the club has to stay in business or there’s nowhere to play. But never underestimate the ability of a wannabe or those on the way up to complain that the world is unfair and they’re not adequately compensated. We see this with streaming/Spotify daily. Yes, major news outlets keep saying Spotify should pay less successful acts more. HOW? You can’t pay a penny a track. Why don’t you pay a penny to your cable company for every minute you use the internet? Add it up, you’ll go broke!

So in a world where the acts are mercenary, it falls on the corporation to do the right thing. And now, more than ever, it’s the edifice that remains, not the act. I mean how many tickets can Lil Nas X sell? It’s a train-wreck, a novelty act. I’m not disrespecting it, I give him credit for pulling an Alice Cooper and pissing off the ancient populace, but you slow down to see the commotion, and then you accelerate right out of there, you’ve seen it, there’s no reason to see it again.

And there’s all this news about Universal going public. Now let me see, are the acts going to participate in this upside? OF COURSE NOT! Work in Silicon Valley and you get stock options, sign to the label and you get a bad deal and the company ends up owning your work in perpetuity. There’s no manufacturing, no shipping, no returns…but the labels still pay crappy royalty rates. Furthermore, they want 360 deals. Which is why they have less power and less impact than ever before. A ton of their market share comes from distributing indie labels.

So, the labels’ business circles the drain while Live Nation throws the long ball. Without their catalogs, the labels are moribund, that’s their true asset, and despite all the hoopla about the Spotify Top 50, the profits are in the catalogs. But there is no catalog in live performance. You’re fighting the battle each and every day, you can’t rest on your laurels. Also, in the live sphere, the company willing to pay the most gets the act. You can steal any act from Live Nation, just be willing to pay more!

AEG didn’t sign this letter, probably because Phil Anschutz is a right winger. But just like they out gay people, now they out right wing people, who think they can fly under the radar as they donate money to politicians to pay fewer taxes as they fly these elected officials around on their jets and load ’em up with perks so they can never say no. It’s called leverage. And in a world where no one wants to sacrifice… God, even Jeff Bezos endorsed higher corporate tax rates, but the record labels on democracy…CRICKETS!

We waited for an antiwar anthem, then we waited for an equal rights/BLM anthem…and they never came. It’s hard to write something universal when your entire appeal is niche. And the truth is the acts are smaller than ever before, their reach is nowhere near what it was in the pre-internet era. You can hype people, but that does not mean they’re paying attention, that they’re listening…

So it falls upon the umbrella organization to make a stand. It falls upon the company which reaches everybody to stand up and do what is right.

And what are the risks really?

Sure, a radio station can survive without playing the Dixie Chicks or Morgan Wallen, but are fans really gonna stay home and go to no shows because the promoter is Live Nation? Hell, Ticketmaster is the most hated company in America and that hasn’t stopped the live industry from booming, at least before Covid. That’s the truth… You can talk about deleting your Facebook account, or stopping purchases at Amazon, but the reality is those companies are too embedded in the national fabric for people to give them up, boycotts don’t work… Like Trump saying to boycott Coke with a Diet Coke on his desk!

You’ve got to push to get what you want in this world. You’ve got to take a stand. You’ve got to be informed, you’ve got to do what is right. It’s the Democrats who are asleep, not the Republicans. Yes, Biden won and has a left wing agenda, but the statehouses are overwhelmingly red, and the Republicans increased their numbers in the House of Representatives. And Moscow Mitch single-handedly tilted the Supreme Court to represent a minority of the population, just like the red state officials in the Senate. And now these same “losers” are tilting the playing field even more in their favor, in plain sight, but self-centered unwilling to risk wankers are so afraid of offending the ignorant that they refuse to stand up for what is right, to protect their business interests in the future! Yes, this country falters and your business will go downhill. You think chaos/a revolution can’t happen? Did you believe a virus could shut down business in excess of a year?

Used to be we relied on artists to tell us the truth, to pull us in the right direction. But today’s artists are all about money and lifestyle. They’re vapid. In petty conflicts. The message is be mindless and try to get in bed with a brand that will pay you. It’s hysterical, no, it’s sad when you pull back the lens and see the landscape. The well to do, the elite, the upper middle class and beyond, all buy insurance via education and relationships, they’re not only ahead, but they’re never left behind. Meanwhile, those without hope, at the bottom, are playing the lottery, wasting their money trying to become rich and famous, doing their best to sell out to the elite. And when they don’t succeed, instead of looking at the game, they pounce on straw men like Spotify and Ticketmaster, which are really just fronts for more heinous players paid by them, like the labels and promoters and the acts. And it’s not like the story is not out there, but people just won’t believe it. Which is why you’ve got so many people believing the last election was riddled with fraud. If things don’t go your way…it can’t be you, it can’t be your message, it must be the system and those in control of it, how can you lose?

Very easily.