You’ll have a hard time finding another person who listens to the same new music as you. Of course you can go online, or go to a gig and find acolytes of the same act, but the odds of going to work, hanging with friends, and finding commonality in new musical tastes is extremely rare.

Playlists did not solve the new music discovery problem. We used to depend on radio to introduce us to new music, then we depended on MTV, now searching for new tunes you like is like looking for a needle in a haystack. How many new tunes can you listen to at one time anyway? And who are the creators of the playlists, which only work as background listening anyway. If you’re a dedicated music fan and you can listen to every song on a playlist…I don’t believe it. The only exception is Rap Caviar, which has lost some of its power and influence since Tuma Basa decamped for YouTube, what a mistake, but there is not another playlist that is acknowledged as great in the entire music ecosystem, and that’s just plain sad.

Repetition breeds acceptance. And in a world of unlimited choice there is little repetition so fewer tracks are embedded in one’s brain, new music becomes ever more disposable.

Sure, younger people listen to more new music, but they are just as confused as the older generations, or focused on very narrow tastes. The younger people are not better at fixing computers, and they are not multitaskers, no one can multitask, but people still talk about it.

Attention spans have not shortened. Evidenced every day by the extended amount of time, hours, that young people play video games and binge television. This is just an excuse developed by oldster creators who are angry no one is paying attention to their productions. There’s a run to greatness. And then there’s everything else. The middle has been hollowed out. Kids know what is great, and avoid everything else except for extremely niche product, that appeals to them personally, that they experience/wear as a badge of honor. It’s harder to separate yourself from others when we all have the same smartphone, but people still do try to differentiate themselves, ergo their unique interests.

People would much rather talk about streaming television than music. Adults rarely talk about music at all. Honchos in the music business rarely talk about music at all. They all want to talk about streaming television and politics, the drivers of today’s culture.

Most people with something to lose avoid talking about politics, unless it’s their brand.

Truth is nonexistent in America today. Finito. Which cheapens the value of the hype the entertainment business has historically traded on. Either people are numbskulls who’ll accept everything you tell them, or they are educated with the power of analysis and are constantly checking what is proffered to them. Unfortunately, fewer are educated with the power of analysis than ever before, which is just how the rich and powerful like it.

Most people don’t listen to the songs at the end of the album. The album model was based on vinyl, two sides, with four prime positions, opening and closing track on each side, you knew the act would put their best stuff there. But now with just a string of songs the audience doesn’t know where to focus, so they start at the top and fall off somewhere along the way, if they even go that far.

Don’t confuse money with power. The media focuses on Netflix’s numbers constantly, talking about how many people are left to subscribe. It’s kinda like cell phones. Now everybody has one and the old leaders, are still the leaders. Verizon, with the historically best service, has had the largest market share for years, and maintains that position. Just because an industry runs out of new customers, that does not mean it has no future. Netflix has first mover advantage, makes the most product, and I don’t know what the upstart streaming services are thinking, it comes down to Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ and HBO Max. As for Apple, the company has so much money it stays in the game. As for Amazon…yes, it’s buying MGM, but so far the company has never truly focused on visual entertainment, they’ve treated it like everything else in the store, an endless cornucopia, caveat emptor. Furthermore, it’s essentially free with Prime. Brands are everything in a world where individuals have sold their souls for cash. Netflix has the best brand, people believe in it. And Disney and HBO Max have legacy power. Amazon? Video is the poor stepsister. And Hulu keeps losing product, how soon until it loses subscribers? As for streaming with advertising…there are always cheap people, but the real business is in people paying every month, and they’ll only pay a limited amount of money.

Buzz happens slower than ever before. And the media is not in control of it. The old movie advertising, all the tricks to get people excited about something? Gone. Now hits pop up organically, and spread via word of mouth. “The Tiger King,” “Squid Game”…even Netflix had no idea of their reach and power. And yes, streaming TV shows gain traction relatively quickly, but music takes forever to gain hold.

George Costanza rules. If you want to succeed in today’s world, just do the opposite of what everybody else is doing. Be credible, turn down sponsorships and endorsements. Go the other way, people will notice it and respect you for going down the road less taken in a world of me-too.

TikTok brings classic rock back from the dead. As well as overlooked recent tunes. No one is in control of the process, it’s spontaneous, but it’s powerful, more powerful than any other platform of exhibition.

Web3 is about removing the power from the tech gatekeepers. Will it go down that way? Questionable, but some of the biggest players in the sphere want it to go that way.

The value of crypto and NFTs are debated constantly in the media, but almost all the stories miss the point. For the younger generation, crypto and its offshoots, like NFTs, are the new music. It’s the late sixties all over again. The oldsters are completely out of the loop, they know nothing. This is exciting to the younger generation, there are many opportunities, and seemingly everybody is playing. You might not own any crypto, but twentysomethings do.

The future is unpredictable. Just when you think you know where things are going, the unexpected happens. Not so much the war in Ukraine, but the resolve of the Ukrainian people and the single-minded leadership of Zelensky. Everybody in America gets into politics to get rich. It’s better than entertainment. Get elected and you can trade on your donors forever. Zelensky is not about this. He’s Mr. Smith, but he certainly isn’t in Washington.

Don’t expect the story to be on Fox News. Stop waiting for it and its viewers to wake up to the truth, they don’t even see it! Fox News is a controlled ecosystem just like the news in Russia. That’s the truth, just like Trump is an autocrat. I mean step way back, this is a guy who thinks the rules don’t apply to him, yet people are so caught up in the red versus blue they can’t acknowledge this. Once you undermine the game, there is no game, remember this.

Everybody believes they are powerful, everybody believes they have a voice, and they exercise it online. Raise your head and it will be chopped off. This is the world we live in, if you think you’re better than everybody else you’re in for a rude awakening.

No one trusts the legal system anymore. They shake their fist and say they’re going to sue…but the last place you want to be is court, it’s time-consuming, expensive and you’ve got no idea of the result. Actually, the legal system is for the rich only. It only works if you’ve got money. And if you’ve got money, you can bury almost anybody. I’m talking civil, of course the hoi polloi get caught up in the criminal legal system. Hell, we need people to fill all those for profit jails!

Everybody wants a smaller government until they need it, then they want relief from the disaster they experienced.

The rise in gas prices is the greatest incentive to buy electric cars…if there were inventory the numbers would shoot into the stratosphere. This is the turning point, this is the inflection point, from now on it’s all electric. I don’t want to hear about government support, I don’t want to hear about precious metals for batteries, the public can sense and see the future. A car is their second biggest investment. And they don’t want to be at the whim of the oil companies. Yet why people keep having to drive ever bigger trucks… Once again, don’t expect people to be rational.

Nothing is foolproof. Spotify went down a couple of weeks back, and Apple did just last week. This is not a reason not to believe in services. Hell, you’ve been paying for cable for decades and think about how many times that went out! The truth is products are built better than ever before, they work right out of the box, and tech reliability keeps improving.

If you believe Social Security will collapse, you believe the U.S. government will collapse. Want to take those odds? I didn’t think so.

Everybody’s an expert, and almost nobody knows the score. With so much information available online, why does misinformation rule? People still live like it’s the pre-internet era. They’ll tell you what’s best when you can go online and easily suss out what’s best yourself, and it’s rarely what people tell you it is. People are attached to what they’ve owned and what they’ve experienced, they don’t want to admit they made a mistake, or even that they’re wrong. So if you have an important decision to make, call your friends last, go online first. I’d say the same thing about bloviating about politics, but…people don’t want to find out they’re wrong. And why can’t they even Google to find out the veracity, the trustworthiness of the site/people they are quoting? It’s mind-blowing.

People are either lying about being poor or lying about being rich. It’s cool to be poor and it’s cool to be rich. The poor are downtrodden and the rich are overlords. When the truth is most people talking like this are neither poor nor rich, just average. There are truly poor out there, too many, but they don’t brag about it.

You’re on your own. No one is looking out for you. If you don’t know this yet, you’ve been sheltered by your parents, or they are rich. America is a giant casino, which is rigged, and those who own it don’t want you to win, no matter what they say. Las Vegas doesn’t advertise its truth, that the whole city is built on losers. The odds are against you. So, if you want to win learn the game, the facts. Because if you get ripped-off or lose, the odds of someone coming to aid you…are close to nil.

The world runs on sex. Pure and simple. The richest people with the best pedigree will risk it all for sex. Then again, is sex what life is really all about? I mean if we weren’t focused on sex, there’d be no new generations. But if you can’t understand what is going on, look at the sexual element. And the monetary element too. People do their best to hide their truth but it’s evident, you’ve just got to look harder.

The world runs on information. That’s the beauty of the internet world. You can be sitting at home, without portfolio, but if you read and gather information you have the ability to play with the successful. It takes effort, but the information is at your fingertips, you’ve just got to read it.

People are impressed by the knowledgeable and articulate. If you think it’s all about how you look, fashion, you’ve immediately taken yourself out of the game, unless you’re so good-looking that you can trade on that alone, and that’s a matter of genetics, and almost no one wins that lottery.

Don’t do what everybody else does. The competition is too rough.

Don’t tell people they’re better than that. That just makes you look bad, that you think you’re better than them!

Don’t apologize unless you mean it. Apologies have become nearly worthless in our society. They’re get out of jail free cards. Stand your ground, and if you’re wrong admit it. Because character is everything, live long enough and you’ll find that out.

I don’t plan to watch. Which is astounding if I look back to the past. The Oscars were a ritual. My mother would stay up late watching them. She was a movie buff, she used to go to these Judith Crist weekends. This was back when being a fan was enough, you didn’t need a badge, you didn’t go online and try and become a star yourself. The world has changed a lot, but the Oscar telecast has not. Hell, the movies themselves have changed but the Oscars have not.

Everything comes and goes, like MTV. Youngsters would find it hard to believe that when MTV launched we’d stare at it for hours, usually at a friend’s house, because it wasn’t yet available in ours. It was new, it was different, it demanded all of our attention, it drove the culture, and then it didn’t. Kind of like the VMAs. That was an awards show, with an irreverence lacking from the Oscars. And although the VMAs still exist, they’re completely irrelevant, a marketing vehicle. That’s what the Grammys turned into too. A way to expose talent. Once it was learned there was a bounce from an appearance, everybody wanted to be on, performing their new song so it could run up the chart. But the audience was turned off by this, and there’s no longer a bounce. Turns out in the streaming era everybody who is interested has already experienced the music. It’s only the out-of-touch brain dead who learn something from an awards telecast. Not to mention, in today’s world of deep niches, nothing is universal and most people don’t care about most things, think about that.

But it’s the same damn Oscar show every year.

I’m not saying the nominees don’t want to win, I realize people tune in for the fashions, but the movies themselves have changed, as have stars, the world is different, but in Oscarland, it’s completely the same.

Kind of like in music. None of the classic acts can get any traction with new material. The old fans don’t want it and the youngsters have more than enough with what’s out there already. Music moves forward, you have to accept this. You can also accept that music today is in a bad space, but that does not mean it will be so forever. But one thing is for sure, we’re going forward, not backward.

And speaking of going forward, the movies today are all about superhero/comic book/action adventure tentpoles. That’s okay, it just doesn’t square with the Oscars, which are supposed to be about artistry as opposed to commerciality, and in films the two diverged decades ago. You cannot square what is popular with what is good, what is art, what the Oscars want to reward. The Oscars are still living in a twentieth century world, and it’s 2022.

Not that I think the Oscars should be fixed. They had their run, that’s it. They’ve been superseded by streaming TV. Streaming TV liberated creators, suddenly everything was fair game, and on a smaller screen it’s about plot as opposed to image. Movies have become special events, kind of like the circus, before that was put out of business, because it was out of date and out of time, what was permissible in the past is not necessarily permissible today. Going to the movies used to be a ritual, an interest akin to sports. You knew who the actors were, you were aware of the past greats, and the films addressed and moved the culture. But they haven’t done that for a very long time. Think about it, we had a slew of Vietnam movies, from “Apocalypse Now” to “The Deer Hunter” to “Coming Home” to… But we haven’t had a slew of films about the dot com crash, or the 2008 meltdown. No big budget studio efforts that try to make sense of the past. There was “The Big Short,” which was excellent, and did not use a traditional style, kudos, but it was just one movie.

And then there’s the indie sphere. Which is kind of like music. With the means of production so inexpensive, everybody is making a movie these days, and everybody believes their film is worthy of attention. It’s positively overwhelming to the consumer. Furthermore, the films play at festivals for eons before they’re released generally. They’re already passé, moribund. As for the audience? There is one, but they want to see them at home, on the flat screen, built in to a service they’re already paying for. The independent business is so rearguard, it’s nearly a circle jerk. In today’s attention economy, the indies put up so many barriers to seeing their pics that they go unseen. I’m not paying fifteen bucks to see one pic when that will buy me a month of Netflix. As for going to the theatre, it’s too slow for me. The movies don’t start when I get there and I’ve got travel time and I can’t pause them and I know there are dedicated moviegoers yelling just the opposite right now, but they’re in the minority. What’s the metaphor, you skate to where the puck is going? Well, it certainly isn’t going to a healthy independent theatre experience.

Change is hard. And it often happens when you’re not looking. But if you don’t change, you become moribund, stuck in the past, which may be comfortable, but leaves you in the rearview mirror.

Let’s talk about the excising of all those awards from the telecast.

The question is simple. Are the Oscars an awards ceremony or a TV show? Awards ceremonies are supposed to have gravitas, have meaning, which is why everybody’s pissed off that these awards will not get airtime. But they do detract from the flow of the show, so should they go? Well, as soon as you get rid of them you undercut the essence of the Oscars. But like everything these days, it all comes down to the money, and that TV cash…

And when the money is first, the public knows it and bakes it into their decisions. I mean the Oscars are undercutting whatever credibility they still have. As for the Grammys adding nominees after the fact, these people are so inside they can’t see the outside whatsoever. The public is laughing, you just showed the truth, that the awards are worthless.

And most awards are. The funny thing is what is awarded most, which gains the general consensus, is not what is remembered, even lauded in the future. And there are so many awards shows, aimed at people who got a trophy just for participating, that winning means nearly nothing.

That’s the world we live in.

Want to have an awards show where you honor popcorn pics? Be my guest. But trying to mix them with artistic films is like bringing Megan Thee Stallion to the symphony, it’s a different thing.

Now the truth is I don’t have enough time. That’s what the internet era has wrought, a tsunami of information, a lot of which I’m interested in. Do I want to waste four plus hours seeing some awards show? No. I’ll just read who won and move on, like everybody else, no one seems to remember who won.

I mean first we’ve got the news. It’s endless, and right now there’s Ukraine and Web3 and the film business has its head stuck in the sand like none of this exists. And who cares what actors have to say about the big issues anyway, they’re just playing a role. And there’s an entire gossip industry built on such issues as whether Jennifer Aniston wants a baby, will have a baby, or will get back together with Brad Pitt. That’s commerce, not news. Like most of the tentpole pictures. It’s fine if people want to pay attention, but not me. I mean once “The Towering Inferno” was part of the culture, but today we’ve got so many options we have superior stuff to consume, and interestingly we all want to consume different stuff.

I guess that’s another problem with the Oscars. There’s no longer a monoculture, that went out with the last century, where the Oscars are still living. We’re all in a different space and we all think our opinion is worthwhile and maybe awards shows are history, just like late night TV.

Did you see that Jimmy Fallon just got a new producer? That used to be big news, they wrote books about late night TV. But now fewer people than ever watch the shows and they don’t move the needle. I mean the goals of the past mean nothing today. Remember when every comedian wanted a sitcom? Today there are few sitcoms and the ones that air play to tiny audiences and you’re not furthering your career whatsoever. Things change.

I wish I was excited about the Oscars.

Then again, there was that news about a month ago, how all these foreign language series are being watched in not only America, but around the world. That’s exciting. Around the world creators are striving for our attention, doing new things, testing limits, and there’s an audience for all this, whereas another Marvel movie? I mean it’s juvenile, whereas most of these foreign streaming series are not.

So I don’t know where the world is going, but one thing I know for sure, it is going. And if you want to drag it into the past, if you want to protest about change, the joke is on you.

If you have a profile, people are pissed when you change. But artists can’t be beholden to their audience, no way, otherwise they’re not artists.

I already know what the Oscar telecast will contain before I turn it on. Oh, a few jokes, a few faux pas, boring musical numbers and some winners, that’s it. Interested? I mean I can literally name a hundred things I’d rather do with my time.

Or you could go smaller, take the route of gravitas, meaning, but the Oscars still think there’s such a thing as one national mind when a healthy chunk of the population truly believes Trump should be president, that victory was stolen from him. Maybe you forgo the big tent, the big net, and only appeal to the fans.

But that would require living in the future.

The Oscars are all about the past. Own it, don’t try to convince us otherwise, because we’re not buying it.

But we’re buying plenty of stuff, if you want to push the envelope and get us excited.

But the Oscar telecast does not.

Next.

Dann Huff was a top session musician, then guitarist and singer for the band Giant, and is now an elite record producer in Nashville. Dann goes deep into the practicalities and creative process of making records, and if you’re at all involved in the recording process, if you’re an act and want to have success, you need to listen to this.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dann-huff/id1316200737?i=1000555092935

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/df719603-3f28-4aaf-84a0-e550d8d83a1a/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-dann-huff

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/dann-huff-201677475

RE: SACRIFICE

I have been wondering for some time what the differences are between a Russian and an American oligarch. The only thing I can think of is that in Russia the government tells them what to do but in the USA the oligarchs tell the government what to do. But in the end is there any real difference?

Zack Schindler

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Great piece, Bob. I remember Ken Kesey once said in an interview that Americans no longer know how to forebear. He was comparing the Baby Boomers and younger Americans to earlier generations. People who lived through the Flu of 1918, the Depression, and World War II knew sacrifice in their bones because they had so much firsthand experience with loss and hardship. That hasn’t been the case in our buy-now/pay-later culture for decades.

I’ve often wondered what kind of shock would recalibrate the scale. There was a brief moment of unity right after 9/11, and some people felt called to serve their country, but then George W. told Americans to go shopping. A global pandemic didn’t do it. I shudder to think what it might take at this point.

Stay well.

Matt Kohut

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I agree with this sentiment. but young people today think they can become billionaires via crypto trading, or being on Tik tok or an IG influencer. To achieve financial independence via practicing law on my own took years and huge risks were required. The kind where you say to yourself, well if this doesn’t work out I guess I will just go BK and start over. That kind of risk made me sacrifice getting married and having kids, which I don’t really regret now but as a youngster, I assumed I would get married and have them.  Had to break up with girlfriends I could have had a nice life because of that.

Brian Barry

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Bob, you CAN have it all.
You just can’t have it all at once.

Peace,
Susan Dorsey

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RE: DON HENLEY PLAYLIST

This one was -is impossible as I love everything Don has ever done. Honored to have played on record with him a few times and he is still an old friend.

Don could sing the alphabet and make it great.

+ Eagles rule

Luke

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Some truly great songs/vocals in here. And they hold up.

Tom Johnston

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Subject: Re: Proud Mary

I played guitar for John for about a year. My first gig was in St. John, Nova Scotia in front of 10,000 people. I had never experienced anything like it in my life. I was used to a 45 minutes to an hour and a half gig, tops. These were pushing 2 1/2 hour shows easily and filled with hits! My favorite Fogerty song has to be “Long As I See the Light,” but “Proud Mary” was a roof raiser as was “Born On The Bayou” (although I got relegated to congas because I was the new guy!) But, every night watching these people sing along to these songs blew my mind. Some of the greatest songs ever written and here I was playing alongside the person that wrote them. And the songs are so basic, but timeless.

David George

Moozer Music, Inc.

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Subject: Re: Elton John Favorites Playlist

I love this list… I have been ever so lucky to play almost all of them with him.

Quite a few years ago, there was a set list that Elton wrote out by hand. It was songs he wanted to play I assume, for a show where he didn’t perform mostly the hits.  There is about 28 albums and maybe 3-5 songs from each one. Would have been pretty cool if it ever materialized.

Lot’s of them are on your list.

Thank You Bob,

John Mahon

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From: Chip Lovitt

Subject: Re: William Hurt

Wow! A great but sad tribute to a great actor. My father used to joke that you go from reading the “funny pages” pages in newspapers to the sports pages or the news, and eventually you turn to the obits…Like Paul and Artie sang in Old Friends, how terribly strange to be 70…I didn’t quite get that line back when I first heard Bookends. Anyway, nice piece!

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From: Jose Sala

Subject: Re: Even More Covid

One of your readers  (Trent Keeling)  mentioned how orderly things were in Puerto Rico regarding Covid.

I have lived here all my life.

Mandates were generally lifted 2-3 weeks ago, and still everybody wears them in most places, especially inside. No drama.

Its just common sense and being considerate of others.

What makes us this way vs what I see wherever I go in USA? My theory:

– basic values that stem out of Family and to a degree, Religion

– that our people truly care for each other: friends, neighbors or strangers (ask any tourist)

–  the reality that we struggle thru catastrophic events TOGETHER continually (hurricanes)

When you put those 3 together, you have a “cohesive society”. 

Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz used that phrase in a speech here to describe our people.

These 3 elements are visible now in Ukraine.

Joey Sala

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From: marc brickman

Subject: Re: Podcast is up!

hi bob,

thanks again for letting me be myself.

i did make a mistake when i spoke about 

Lou Kellman/ NFL films.

Lou’s nephew was Ed Sabol. 

founder of NFL Films.

Morris Kessler was founder/designer 

of SAE audio here in LA.

xo,

marc

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RE: JOHN OLIVER ON TICKETMASTER

From: Russ Turk

I paid $315 each for McCartney at MetLife stadium in NJ. Floor seats, section 14 on the aisle. I have no problem with that price and those seats. It’s McCartney and even at close to 80 years old, it’s Paul Freakin McCartney. I’ve paid about that price to see him for the past 15 years every time he plays NJ or NYC. How many more times will we be able to see a Beatle play the Beatles live before our eyes? Worth every penny.

Turk

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From: Bill Nelson

Haven’t seen the J Oliver bit.  I was looking for NCAA Tournament tix on Ticketmaster.  Nothing but “verified resale tickets” which always reminds me of “certified pre owned” vehicles acquired in trade or at auction.   I know. It’s different.  But it’s the same.  Kind of.  And you’re right.  People will bitch and moan about high prices for tix.  But they’ll (we’ll) pay up cuz we wanna fuckin go, like, YESTERDAY!  I saw the Eagles recently and, yeah they charge what the tix are worth.  But I still paid more.  No regrets.  And I’ll pay “more” for upcoming shows cuz I like taking my youngest son, who will be seen in public with me if I pay.  So I pay……all of it, merch, beers, whatever.  The memories, are worth the bucks.

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Hi Bob,

The fans love scalpers? The only way to stop ticket touting is to inflate prices?

It’s an interesting perspective. But there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

In the UK, I’ve been overseeing a campaign called the FanFair Alliance since 2016. It’s supported by managers and teams for many of the world’s biggest artists, and won backing from the vast majority of the UK’s live music business.

Our work has helped secure many important legislative and regulatory changes, and a much improved enforcement of consumer protection law.

The situation isn’t perfect, but here’s the upshot.

1. Unlike North America, British consumers have at least some transparency when they use sites like viagogo and StubHub. For instance, they must be told where seats are located, or if there’s restrictions around the use of a ticket. They must be shown fees upfront. Pressure selling techniques are banned. Speculatively listing tickets (ie fraud) is unlawful. And if the seller is a “trader” (ie a business, rather than a fellow consumer) they must be provided that info too. In short, you need to understand what you’re buying and who you’re buying it from.

2. As a result, artists and promoters can enforce their T&Cs – making clear that commercial resale is prohibited, while allowing fans to resell for the price they paid or less. Technological innovation (e.g. mobile-only tickets) further enhances these strategies.

3. The UK now supports an increasing range of capped consumer-friendly resale services. Every major primary ticket agent – including Ticketmaster – offers this kind of service, alongside specialist resale platforms like Twickets. This is the direction our market is moving.

4. Consequently, artists and promoters have been empowered to disrupt and prevent exploitative online ticket touting. If they want to, they can set the “market price”. They can successfully implement anti-touting strategies. And they can guide their audiences towards consumer-friendly alternatives for resale.

5. On the flip side, legacy platforms like viagogo and StubHub are in decline. These sites are entirely artificial constructs anyway, and wholly reliant on two things: a small number of large-scale commercial resellers and a dominance of paid-search on Google. Remove the touts or the advertising, and the whole business crumbles. They’re also plagued with non-existent or speculative listings. These sites don’t serve a demand – they simply increase scarcity, or, more truthfully, the illusion of scarcity.

6. With greater transparency, we can see that the value of “secondary ticketing” has been massively over-inflated. When the UK’s business regulator, the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA), investigated the merger of viagogo & StubHub, the two Parties claimed the value of tickets resold via the UK’s online secondary market in 2018 was worth up to £2.5bn.

The CMA’s estimate?

£350m.

Less than 20% of what viagogo and StubHub will have potentially told their investors.

And this is a business reportedly looking to IPO with a $13bn valuation!

Best, Adam

Adam Webb

AL1 Communications

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From: “Allen S. Miller, MS, DC”

Subject: Re: Brandi Carlile Responds

Dear Bob.

I go back through my father an ex-LAPD detective, to the days when gay men were arrested in Parks. I was a bodyguard to Dinah Shore in the early late 70’s and early 80”s and it didn’t dawn on me at the time, how pivotal this amazing woman was in this movement. We had many guests from her show up to the house for dinner, and it was a safe haven for everyone that had been on the “couch”. So many at the time were fearful of the atmosphere and could not enjoy an average evening out with their partners, or enjoy the simple act of holding one’s hand in public. Rock Hudson, Danny Kay along with straight actors and actresses all under one roof laughing and enjoying Paulines cooking.

This atmosphere was unique at the time. I am at a complete loss as to why, what Brandi desires is not the rule. I don’t understand the fear, and anger that exists, as this is a no-brainer. How did the paranoid few make things so hard on those that just want to live, be happy, coping with the insanity of the world that roles over us. I’m sorry, I just don’t get it…

One more thing, Ms. Carlile’ interpretation of Elton John’s, Madman Across the water was just amazing, and it gives me chills just writing this. It was a fitting and respectful cover while adding a standalone sound of her own to this song, while showing great respect to Elton John. A wonderful tribute to him his music and hers.

Thank you as always,

Allen Miller

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From: Hugo Burnham

Subject: Re: LGBTQ Protests

In our miniscule way, not meaning shit in the bigger picture of weight to throw around – we are selling bits of smashed-up microwaves, worn/broken drumsticks (with ’These Drumsticks Fight Fascists’ hand-written on them), and branded guitar/bass picks at our merch table – and donating the $ to Planned Parenthood. If someone brings us an album or a grabbed Set List to have signed, it’s, “Of course! But will you please go and make a contribution to P.P. at the merch table for it?”

We also have branded condoms ‘For Your Top Left Pocket’ (- for those that know why…)

Hugo B