Trailer: https://bit.ly/3slXasx

It’s on Hulu.

Unlike music, you can’t get all visual content in a single place for one low price. Instead, you have to subscribe to umpteen services, which nobody does. In truth streaming is a better model than cable, because subscribers don’t have to subsidize marginal channels with their money, and can pay just for what they want, but the end result has been Balkanization, to the detriment of creators and viewers.

That’s right. Tell a TV producer they can be paid if they don’t make the show and that is almost never satisfying, they want to see their project on the screen. But what if it’s made and most people don’t even have the opportunity to see it, never mind choose to.

Which is why things are so much better in music. It’s all there, you can get the history of music for one low price, and what do the creators do…BITCH! They want a controlled system like the old one, based on overpriced CDs made by very few people. Now they’ve been let in the door and want to make the old money, even though in the new model it comes down to how many people are listening. And there’s the thought that a million plays should be equal to x amount of money which makes no sense whatsoever, that’s like judging the energy efficiency of an internal combustion engine by comparing it to the motor in an electric car. The paradigm has changed, it’s impossible for a gasoline engine to have the efficiency/MPG of an electric one. Which is why the entire industry is moving to electric. You’re screwed if your business model is based on the internal combustion engine. The public wants better mileage. Should Ford and GM be allowed to live in the past? So far, Tesla has been eating their lunch with a clean slate emphasizing software, you don’t see traditional car companies complaining that we must go back to the old model.

Which is all to say most people will never watch “In My Skin,” because most people don’t have access to Hulu.

So a person needs access, and then there must be desire. With a cornucopia of programming, the individual must CHOOSE to watch “In My Skin.” What are the odds this English program can compete with the ballyhooed “Mandalorian” or “Tiger King” or “Squid Game”? Very low.

It’s even worse in indie film. Every week tons of new pictures arrive, and go unseen. You mean I have to troop out to the theatre and waste all that time and money to see ONE FILM? Indie film belongs on streaming services. Day and date. Then it could regain some impact, but the makers refuse to do this. ALSO, streaming platforms cannot digest all this material, unlike in streaming music, so certain indies will be left out completely, will go unseen, irrelevant of their merits, unless people are willing to overpay, even on on demand streaming. No, you must be on one of the big streaming platforms or you might as well not exist.

So “In My Skin” is a BBC program, consisting of two five episode seasons, released in 2018 and 2021. It’s shot in Wales, so the accents can be hard to decipher, especially that of the main character, Bethan, so I advise keeping the subtitles on.

And “In My Skin” is not a theme park ride. Unless you consider everyday adolescent experience to be one.

You see Bethan’s father is an alcoholic, her mother is mentally ill, and Bethan oftentimes has to act like the adult of the family, all while trying to navigate her regular school and friend life. For those of us who grew up in a stable two parent family it’s quite an eye-opener, we read about this stuff but rarely experience it.

Not that “In My Skin” is a documentary, anything but. What you’ve got is a high school. How do you navigate high school? And what is the number one criterion of secondary school navigation? POPULARITY! Popularity trumps everything. Any smart kid will trade grades for popularity. And Bethan has friends, but they’re outsiders, and live up to the image, they don’t want to be part of the mainstream…but secretly Bethan does. And when she gets the chance… You’ve been there, you’re PINCHING yourself. Smiling on the inside as you do your best not to screw up, savoring the moment, hoping it will last.

And what is your future path when your parents are out to lunch?

You’re rooting for Bethan to go to college, but she’s influenced by a friend, friends have so much power when you’re a teenager.

And there’s anger, and revenge. And issues of friendship, what do you owe your friends, does it trump your own desires?

“In My Skin” is not “The Sopranos,” riveting from the very first moment, you’re not always on the edge of your seat. But life is not like that either. Not that “In My Skin” is ever slow. Yet there are moments of gravitas that will bring tears to your eyes, and you will not feel manipulated.

Are you skinny enough? After popularity comes appearance. And Bethan isn’t stick thin and internalizes this, even though she looks fine to most people. But the standards of high school are unforgiving.

Gabrielle Creevy as Bethan is a ten, you think she’s really the character.

As for her mother…Jo Hartley is stupendous. In America, this is a plum role for a slumming Nicole Kidman or Charlize Theron, you know, beauties who are looking for serious roles to win awards and burnish their image. But Hartley is not a model, she’s just normal. But she emerges to become three dimensional. You see people on screen and you think you want to be with them, but you’ve got no idea who they really are. And in truth beauty is one small factor in the overall mix, and becomes less important once you’re in a relationship.

As for Di Botcher, the grandmother… That generation is always portrayed as warm and fuzzy, sans edges, but in reality they’re just grown up people, and based on class and education they might be little more than adolescents. Botcher is warm, but her language is so base, so unfettered, that it’s refreshing and revelatory, this is a real person!

“In My Skin” is a private experience. It’s not a tentpole picture you want to see in a full theatre. It’s personal. You watch it and get caught up, identify, it’s like the best art, it reflects humanity, makes you feel more human yourself.

I heartily recommend it.

Turns out buying your way into the future is a bad strategy.

The biggest story this week for me was Facebook (I refuse to call it “Meta,” I’m on the fence with calling Google “Alphabet”) dropping out of the crypto game.

Facebook wasn’t first. Facebook had infrastructure. But when confronted with the concept of Facebook moving into the crypto sphere, seemingly everybody said NO WAY! This is what happens when you have a scorched earth policy towards competitors. When people have seen your trick and are now gun-shy.

We saw this with Apple and TV. The producers and distributors saw how Apple revolutionized the portable music player and smartphone markets and they decided to freeze Apple out. Just before he died Steve Jobs said he had TV figured out, could he have executed? One thing is for sure, Tim Cook could not. And trying to maintain its margins Apple has hobbled its market share. They’re giving Rokus and Firesticks away. Which is why when competitors came on the market Jobs dropped prices on iPods dramatically. He wanted to own the market, and he did.

Until he destroyed the market with the iPhone. That’s right, Steve Jobs disrupted HIMSELF! (Well, Apple.) This is exactly what Clayton Christensen preached, because if you don’t, someone else eventually will. And then you’re screwed.

This is what happened with Facebook.

Social media went to images, it purchased Instagram. Knowing the landscape of digital communication, Facebook also bought WhatsApp, which U.S. residents still don’t know the power of, it RULES the rest of the world. Forget iMessage. There are a couple of territories where other platforms are dominant, but really, the footprint of WhatsApp is stupendous.

And then comes Musical.ly. It was seen as for kids. Thought was it was a fad with limited appeal. It didn’t offer the smorgasbord of services that Facebook did. It was a sideshow. But then Musical.ly was sold to ByteDance and it became the MAIN SHOW!

Let’s be clear, Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook when he was in college. He had his feet planted firmly on the ground, he knew the college vibe. Furthermore, the analog blueprint had been established, just move the print facebook online. The programming was the hard part.

And with help from savvy Silicon Valley players Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard and built Facebook into a monolith, all while maintaining control.

Now you’ve seen Zuckerberg on TV. Smug and self-satisfied. But in truth he’s no longer on the street, he didn’t see young kids using Musical.ly, it was in plain sight, but he MISSED IT!

What did Zuckerberg actually start? He got the idea for Facebook from the Winklevosses… In reality, his rep as a seer is not too good. This is not Steve Jobs looking into a future no one else could see and pulling a rabbit out of a hat. And, in truth, a lot of Jobs’s ideas were refinements of already existing products, but the makers of those didn’t have the knowledge, money or savvy to blow them up into worldwide phenomena.

The tech trail is littered with broken down companies, either out of business or sold to others. Compaq, never mind Gateway, Sun…and too many social media platforms to mention here. They were one trick ponies, they couldn’t navigate the future. In tech legacy is irrelevant, there is no catalog, you can’t go on the road and play your greatest hits, no one is concerned with the past in tech, there’s no demand.

That’s right, Zuckerberg could have seen the potential of Musical.ly, but he didn’t. The same way MySpace didn’t see the key was to standardize the interface and get rid of anonymity.

And once something gains traction online, it can’t be beat, unless the enterprise stumbles significantly. There’s a first mover advantage in tech, keep stoking the fire and you continue to win.

And TikTok is a standalone product, but to compete Zuckerberg made Reels part of Instagram, a crappy integration and a messing of the mind of the user. What is Instagram? Pictures or short videos? At some point you can’t cobble the past into the future, you need to start over. Which is akin to Steve Jobs getting rid of legacy ports. Maybe if Reels was a separate platform…

But ByteDance was savvy in other ways. It nurtured its creators, and made it so a nobody could become a somebody overnight. Zuckerberg is hands-off when it comes to his users, as for paying them? He’s notably reluctant.

And then Facebook ran out of new customers.

Maturity, it’s a bitch. Not that you can’t see it coming. There’s a limit to how many people on Earth will subscribe to a music streaming service. You can raise the cost, there will always be new subscribers, but not in healthy numbers. Apple and Amazon are protected, their music streaming services are a zit on the tush of these companies. Whereas Spotify…music is all it has got, that’s why they went into podcasts. You either grow or you die, and if you’re not moving forward, Wall Street goes thumbs-down and your stock crashes, like Facebook’s today.

Not that the stock price accurately reflects the present value of the company. Wall Street, especially with most of these tech companies, is legalized gambling. The stock price frequently has nothing to do with the value of the company. Then again, how stupid were investors that they couldn’t see that Zuck would hit a new user wall?

And then we’ve got Apple.

Why do people hate Facebook? The lack of privacy, you’re the product. You post all your data and pay for the privilege. Without you and your content, there is no company.

But not at Apple. It’s not an advertising model. It’s a product model. And now Apple has also gone into services, but once again, the key driver is not data and ads.

So Apple allows iPhone owners to block tracking and it’s…HEAVEN!

Zuckerberg decried this, Apple delayed its no-tracking introduction, and then launched and the inevitable happened, Facebook has a $10 billion loss because ads can no longer be targeted as specifically. Hallelujah for the consumer, rats for Facebook.

And the iPhone has 50% market share in the U.S., but much less in the rest of the world. It’s an exotic item, the margins are huge. And in truth, the iPhone has many advantages, including its vetted app store, but it never competed on price, so how long until the iPhone fades away? It’s gonna happen. It’s VHS vs. Betamax all over again. Cost is a key factor, it frequently supersedes better.

And then there are companies that can’t see the future, like RIM/BlackBerry. It could not foresee smartphones that used a hell of a lot more bandwidth and in some ways were not as secure. But Steve Jobs bet on offloading a lot of web surfing to Wi-Fi. And, every single year they improve the iPhone, otherwise it would become stagnant and die.’

As for Sony and its Betamax?

Sony threw the long ball and became a gaming company. The PlayStation revolutionized gaming, it’s just that console gaming is now having a hard time competing with internet gaming. That’s a battle that is still in the air, a victor has not been declared, it’s the reason why Microsoft wants to buy Activision. But this time, the government has seen the trick, and they may not let it happen. These tech companies are a step ahead of Washington, D.C., maybe two or three, but the blueprint in many cases is now obvious, they all want to become monopolies. Which some administrations are concerned with and others are not, which is why Zuckerberg got so close to Trump, he wanted the government hands-off.

So, this saturation of customers shows that the go-go internet we’ve been privy to for twenty five years is now mature. And when a business is mature, prices go down. And you do your best to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

You need a different kind of CEO. We first learned this with Apple and John Sculley. These tech companies don’t need managers, they need FUTURISTS! Tim Cook can run the supply chain better than anybody else in tech, but can he come up with new ideas and refine them and make them so desirable the public eats them up? Hasn’t happened yet.

Also, the future is software, not hardware. How do you compete?

And how do you compete with the youngsters on the street.

Shawn Fanning, a teenager, disrupted the entire music business. Ditto with Daniel Ek. The established players wanted nothing to do with the future, and they thought they had enough power to make sure people went their way.

But they forgot about the customer. The customer will switch on a whim. Think about what the customer wants, because that is where the world is going. When Spotify launched most customers couldn’t see they wanted streaming music. But then they experienced it and loved it!

Ditto with Netflix’s streaming offerings. Although Netflix has got the same maturity problem as Facebook, they’ve run out of new people, at least in big numbers. The market is saturated.

But at least Netflix was there first, and continues to innovate and stick to its guns. Netflix drops all episodes of a show at once, BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT THE CONSUMER WANTS! HBO, Apple and Disney do not. They think they can control the customer. They use old models. Well, we drip it out week by week and we create water cooler moments and… Huh? People don’t even go to the office anymore, never mind drink from a water cooler.

And the studios refined the movie business for profits and killed it in the process. Make fewer pictures, spend a lot to make a lot, tentpoles, with sequels… But most people didn’t want those movies. So they stopped going to the movies all together. As for moving new pictures to streaming platforms during Covid, as HBO and Disney did…the creative community complained, they wanted what was good for THEM, they had no idea of the future.

I wouldn’t bet on Meta owning the metaverse. Because the history of the internet tells us again and again that new ideas are hatched by nimble nobodies tapped into the zeitgeist, often delivering what most people had no idea they wanted. Zuckerberg keeps telling us he’s going to rule the metaverse while he burns cash… Maybe the metaverse develops in a different way. Maybe through gaming first. Maybe it launches in a simple version with many fewer bells and whistles. Zuckerberg building for the metaverse is akin to Detroit pivoting to electric cars. It keeps saying it is and it continues to be much too slow. And Detroit think cars are all about hardware, whereas Tesla has proven the secret sauce is software. Did you read about that Tesla recall, for cars rolling through stop signs? THEY DELIVERED AN OVERNIGHT SOFTWARE UPDATE! Owners didn’t have to bring their cars to the shop. And during the chip shortage, Tesla’s engineers rewrote the software so they could use more generic and available chips. I don’t think this is in Mary Barra’s wheelhouse!

When you’re in control of a lumbering giant, eager to protect margins, you’re on your way to extinction. You must sacrifice now to even exist tomorrow. Like Adobe going from a sales to a subscription model. You get those free software updates over the air, your product was not immediately dated when you bought it, it’s a win-win. Except for maybe those employing legacy software. But can you even open your programs on your new computer? Tech moves forward, you may be in love with your 3G phone, but momentarily it will become completely unusable.

So Mark Zuckerberg has proven he has feet of clay. At most he was a two trick pony. Facebook, and then buying WhatsApp and Instagram. And everybody hates him, so they’re not playing nicely with him and they’re rooting for him to lose. And he probably will.

We admire those who can do it more than once. Elon Musk with PayPal and Tesla and SpaceX. Anybody can get lucky once, but can you do it multiple times? Take multiple hit acts to the top of the chart? This is why Steve Jobs was revered, he did it over and over and over again.

Mark Zuckerberg is no Steve Jobs.

Kevin Godley was 1/4 of 10cc, then he and Lol Creme left the band to explore their musical invention the Gizmo and then after that the two became cutting edge video directors at the advent of MTV. Kevin and Lol directed the video for Duran Duran’s “Girls On Film,” the Police’s “Every Breath You Take,” Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit” and many more. Since parting ways with Lol, Kevin has directed videos for U2, Phil Collins, Alabama 3, Paul McCartney…

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kevin-godley/id1316200737?i=1000549882838

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/d0e6face-203d-4eed-b658-63b3449e9c40/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-kevin-godley

Subject: Re: Re-Rogan/Spotify

Your responses to your Spotify/ Neil Young/ Rogan coverage has been quite an eye opener for me.

 

Sad to see these idiots defend misinformation – here’s some sad facts that make me so want to move out of this country

“U.S. Has Far Higher Covid Death Rate Than Other Wealthy Countries” :https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/01/science/covid-deaths-united-states.html

Vince Bannon

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Subject: Re: Re-Rogan/Spotify

I think the most depressing thing in this entire feed is all these detractors hitting you with the “fake news” on Russia. First, it’s got fuck all to do with the discussion, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Second, Trump Campaign connections with Russian Intelligence are matters of public record, signed off on by a GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee, but *that* doesn’t seem to matter either. And that’s the depressing part: the echo-chamber hearing impairment for the Party of 2+2=5 is apparently irreversible.  So climate change isn’t a problem even though it’s an enormous problem, Biden didn’t win even though there’s a shitload of real-world evidence he did, Trump wasn’t thick as thieves with the Russians, even though he was thick as thieves with the Russians, the vaccines don’t work even though the vaccines do work…”You can’t make me believe anything I don’t want to believe” is a helluva thing to base the future of our country on.

Oh, by the way: the guy who linked an “actual medical doctor” who Rogan quotes? I opened the link. The guy’s a fucking osteopath. Who’s going to break it to his newest fan?

All the best,

Berton Averre

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From: Kenneth Williams

Subject: Re: Re-Meat/Pop/Covid

Without out going into too much detail. To date I’ve lost 5 close family members to Covid. A husband and wife actually died within hours of each other. They’d refused to get vaccinated. Florida living, Trump supporting, conspiracy believing black people who have left their adult children with their mouths open and too much grief to bear. Those were my wife’s aunt and uncle. My children’s Grandmother died in nursing home. A former girlfriend of mine died last week in hospital. Today a friend of mine Dad died today. Covid is no joke. Play stupid games, get stupid prizes.

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Subject: Re: Re-Rogan/Spotify

Free Speech?

The Supreme Court ruled yelling “Fire” in a crowded move theater is not protected speech. You can’t go out spewing lies that harm people and the public good.

Vincent “Rocky” Rockland

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Subject: Re: Re-Rogan/Spotify

Well Bob, there’s a lot of replies here from the walking potato crowd that will inevitably age poorly. These people who commented with such vitriol to your piece can’t discern the difference between baby shit and buttermilk pancakes. The people here who linked YouTube videos as the empirical truth of quack cures couldn’t be more on brand.

Emotional maturity has been in jeopardy in this country for years, maybe it plateaued, maybe we never had much to begin with…but the freedumb crowd displays the same maturity of a child’s tantrum in a store when denied candy. They’re ripe pickings for the grifter model…A Face In the Crowd bunch if ever there was.

The quack docs have a degree and their misleading statements have been debunked repeatedly. The efficacy of vaccines have been vetted through double blind peer reviews, the science gold standard. Every one of these people who attended public school since the late 50’s have had multiple vaccines, and the shots now total into the billions with a B…the probabilities of a vaccine induced fatality falls somewhere between getting killed by an asteroid or discovering a unicorn.

AFA Rogan…he’s a lampshader. He qualifies all his “just a regular guy and I don’t know nothing” bullshit to preface his disinformation, it’s the equivalent of “I was just kidding” while encouraging people to self immolate. If fragile white men weren’t so terrified of their self imposed irrelevance, Rogan would be back hocking boxing gloves and we wouldn’t be having this sorry excuse for discourse.

Trent Keeling

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From: John Brodey

Subject: Re: Re-Rogan/Spotify

Wow, you weren’t kidding.  I suppose you didn’t even bother with some of the more vitriolic emails.

The ones that just name call and make no sense are not worth bothering with.

It’s a fact that really smart people can be stupid at times and make serious mistakes.  History is filled with examples.

What happens with those who are not so smart is that their inability to think critically makes them more susceptible to making errors in judgement.  They’re intellectually lazy.  I’m not being dismissive just stating the obvious.  How do you support a semi fake rich blowhard who has done nothing for the man on the street and yet you criticize the liberal leaders who created most of the legislation benefiting the average Joe over the last 100 years.  In case nobody realized it, anybody with real power and position is very wealthy, on both sides.  

I wonder how many of your critics are white and entitled.  They want our generation to die off (funny, they’re next) but that won’t assuage their anger when they find out that it reduces them an ever shrinking ethnic minority.

As for mistrust of government?  Conspiracies? How is a government that can screw up retreating from a military defeat suddenly capable of masterminding a cabal of dark forces to enslave the populace?

Science?  People fear what they don’t understand and fear leads to doubt.  Another plot?  Virology is a real thing and scientists are continually working on the evolution of variants.  In the end a lot more people have survived the pandemic thanks to the vaccine than were ‘cured’ by Ivermectin.  You hear someone say it worked and bingo, you shoot past the part where facts show that it is an anti-parasitic and viruses aren’t parasites.  What’s next, using crazy glue to treat hemorrhoids?

Check out the Power of the Placebo. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect

Despite the battle lines being drawn, one thing we can all agree on is that this house is going to burn to the ground and nothing can stop it.     

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From: Dan Navarro

Subject: Re: Re-Neil Young/Spotify

I am jumping on the Neil Young bandwagon, I admit it, I’m following here. The saturation on your mailbag brought it home for me. Will Spotify care? Of course not.

I mean, like Spotify, it’s easy, great interface. but I hate how they pay, hate that they fought the rate increase a couple of years ago, while Apple Music agreed to it. Hate that Daniel Eck is a multi billionaire and my community is being called crybabies for to get paid. I hate Apple’s interface, and just found out Amazon Unlimited is way cheaper for Prime members. So Imma give it a shot.

An old friend, a great working studio guitar player, is at death’s door from Covid, and is anti-vax, anti-mask, “you’re all sheep”, that shit. And he’s dying. Me? I’ve vaxxed and been exposed twice in the past month, have had eleven negative tests since Jan 5 and no symptoms. And I’m on the road around strangers almost every day. Go figure.

So, yeah, I’m the sheep, following Neil into the meaningless protest. But I’ll wave to those other fuckers from the finish line. Oh, wait, maybe I won’t. They’ll be dead.

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Subject: Re: Censorship

Bob,

I’m in Paris right now. I’d say 90% of people are wearing masks outside, regardless of social distancing, and you have to show your proof of vaccination, and booster if you have it, to do anything, masks indoors and on all public transport are obligitaire.

No one is rioting and protesting their freedom here (as far as my limited French tells me). Sure, am sure there are people who are opposed, but what the general sentiment seems to be is that the sooner we get vaxxed the sooner a version of real life can return. Seems sensible, non?

I still cannot get my head around how basic this all is and yet the conservative right holds firm due to bad facts (and the left rolls their eyes at them). Everyone’s an expert on Covid now because they read an article on Facebook from the Daily Sceptic.

The mind simply boggles.

Lindsay Faller

Amsterdam, NL

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Subject: Re: Re-Rogan/Spotify

40 years ago, while a senior in high school, I got a great job driving a taxi in Rochester Minn.  Drove many late shifts and ferried 100s of medical professionals and/or families visiting loved ones at Mayo and its sister hospital, St Mary’s.  About 10% of this segment of my fares wore cloth masks, after work or after patient visits, on their way home or to their hotel.  At some point in time, curiosity got the best of me so I got into a conversation with one of these mask wearers and was informed “I’m trying to protect others I encounter because I’m around infectious patients”

There was no mandate, no policy, no orders, and no consequences to not wearing a mask.

I’ve always viewed that time in life and those interactions as the height of societal respect demonstrated by caring people who went out of their way to exercise caution.

That’s why I wear a mask during these times and while my described experience may have been rather unique, the societal respect part is timeless.

All the political posturing over masks is intriguing – in the end, wearing a mask around others is neither hard to do nor is it a sign we’re giving up our rights.

It’s a matter of common respect for others.

Dennis Pelowski

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From: Gary Lang

Subject: RE: More Spotify/Young/Rogan

I was a VP at Amazon. Amazon’s entire existence is based on customer obsession first, then the businesses we got into after. We would never pay Joe Rogan to disseminate misinformation to our customers. Never.

 

Spotify is a business, but is Ek obsessed by his customers if he’s willing to put out information that results in the death of them?

 

Sorry, but saying it’s a business is not a pass for bad behavior that harms customers and destroys the commonwealth. You won’t see Amazon or Apple host an idiot going on and on about Ivermectin.

 

And you jumped the gun saying no one will follow. Give it more than a day.

 

I’m into HD anyway, so good riddance. 

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From: david ferris

Subject: Re: Re-Meat/Pop/Covid

Hey, sir. A note on the legendary Pop. I’m D.X. Ferris, a writer from Pittsburgh, who’s been in Ohio a couple decades now. You gave me a quote about Donnie Iris once.

Circa 2005, I wrote a music news column for the Cleveland weekly paper. I had a chance to call Mr. Popovich for something. I left a nervous voice mail, because he’s a legend. He returned my call almost immediately — he quickly explained he did so because he recognized my Southwest Pennsylvania accent. We were from the same neck of the woods.

I’m sure he had better stuff to do than take my calls, but he was always generous with his time. And not just with big, accomplished people and cool industry types. That’s the kind of guy he was.

Love the show and newsletter. Thank you!

— df

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From: Johnny Palazzotto

Subject: Re: Re-Meat/Pop/Covid

Bob, Don’t know why i missed your Steve Popovich story.  He was

instrumental in dozens of success stories involving CBS artists.

My stories with Steve are from the first and second Loggins and Messina LP’s and tours. Every city on our first tours were covered by a CBS promotion person. Sal Ingeme in Boston was a favorite. Martin Mooney in Cleveland. My best story was day before Carnegie Hall. Steve invited me up to his office in Black Bart.  Also there that evening Al Gallico, the music publisher out of Nasville. Steve knew my involvement in pitching songs and asked if I had any suggestions for Al who was looking for songs with Steve for Lynn Anderson. I suggested “Listen to a Country Song by Jimmy Messina and Al Garth. I think it was a big hit for Lynn and  another prime example of the impotance of Steve Popovich to the music industry. I MISS STEVE POPOVICH.  Johnny Palazzotto

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From: John Brodey

Subject: Re: Re-Meat/Pop/Covid

There was nobody quite like Pop.  He had the air of a man possessed while being impossible to dislike.  He was relentless.  When I was MD at BCN, we (I) had held off adding the album to our library.  I didn’t mind theatrical aspect but it just didn’t have the right vibe for the station.  Pop would call every week and ask; how about now?  In the end, we were the only reporting FM station left who had not added the record.  It got a bit awkward.

Finally Meatloaf was coming to town and Pop called and said he was coming to town and planned to kidnap me and take me to the show at the Paradise.  I relented and said okay.  The show was tour de force and totally different.  Karla D. was fantastic.  He knew what he had and sprang the trap.  He got his add which closed out the record.  I actually apologized to him and like his usual self he said; it’s all good.

Soon thereafter I was shocked to get a platinum plaque, so I called and said Steve I don’t even deserve a thank you on the Meatloaf success.  He said; no man you made it special.  Who is that forgiving and passionate?  One of the best of that era.

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From: Wendy Waldman

Subject: Spotify

Complicated issue. My music partner and co manager whom you’ve published before, Mark Nubar, made this very clear observation:

“My biggest issue with all of it is window space. Independent artists finally have a place with Spotify where people are shopping at the mall. Now Neil Young wants to blow the mall up. It’s actually infuriating. Indie artists live on islands. With our own records and our own artists and our own record labels. Bridges and boats and planes connect people to our islands. Spotify is a much needed bridge, boat, and plane. It is very difficult to attract audiences without at least some kind of an infrastructure that a place like Spotify provides. “

Bob, this is my dilemma too, and the dilemma of all the artists I work with as I  am an independent record producer. I have some name recognition but nowhere near the platform Neil has- I don’t necessarily have the luxury to pick and choose-as the labels no longer service my kind of music nor that of my artists, yet the audience continues to want it. So without Spotify, there’s no platform and we are once again set back by years.

I like Neil and Joni very much but it’s been a long time since they’ve been down here in the street with the indie artists— some quite famous in fact but nonetheless none of them breathing that rarefied air that becoming a millionaire rock star in the 70s afforded them. I’m a lifelong musician as you know, and I’ve been at the majors, have had some hits etc but there is no doubt whatsoever that I am an independent artist and producer and have been ever since I left Nashville. So, I agree with Mark- we need these bridges. Even the prominent indies need them as none are a match for the millions a few dudes have from the classic era.

Dilemma indeed.

Wendy Waldman

_____________________________________

From: Steve Popovich

Subject: Meat

Bob,

I hope this email finds you well. Thank you as always for the kind words in regards to my father as you have always been a supporter of his. I was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Meat. He moved here to Nashville a couple years ago. It was right after I reactivated Cleveland Int’l he reached out and wanted to meet in person. He came over my house and we sat down and talked about what I was doing with the label and he mentioned he had one album left in him and he wanted to put it out on Cleveland international. You can imagine how excited I was to have that opportunity as for me it was like everything was coming back around full circle. Unfortunately shortly after our meeting Meat was in Dallas, had a horrible accident where he fell off a stage, went through months of recovery, then COVID hit etc. and sadly we never did get it done.  All it is now is a great story that I have.  Since his passing, I have seen and read from people claiming to take credit for his early success.  Barry Gordy once said, if the lion don’t take credit for the hunt the hunter will, and thank God my father saved everything pertaining to his legacy.  The making of Bat has been documented over the years some good, some not the case where my father was totally left out.  I am happy to inform you that we have begun work on my father’s documentary and I have some incredible interviews not to mention the story directly taken from my father and am pleased his story will finally be told once and for all.  His legacy is far more incredible as to how he championed Meat Loaf but also the incredible signings he had while vice president of A&R while at Epic records not to mention his earlier career while he was the first ever Vice President of promotion under Clive Davis.  As Clive said in Pops documentary, “Steve knew how to take Columbia Records from #3 to #1!”  He was a man of honesty and integrity and who championed the creative community. He was not a “suit” and that is a huge part as to why people loved him so much.  To anyone contesting his belief and being the one responsible for Meat Loaf in the beginning can kiss my ass. Long live Meat may he forever RIP and God bless his family and fans.

“Be stubbornly passionate about your beliefs”

-Steve Popovich Sr.

_____________________________________

From: Stan Goman

Subject: Re: The New Music Dilemma

Bob

I agree with your letter except I would point out that Tower Records paid all vendors big and small on time. All stores took records on consignment from local acts and always paid within 30 days. 

I am very proud of this and the support we gave to the indies.

Stan Goman

_____________________________________

Subject: Re: The Joe Rogan Video

Hi from Sydney, Bob

Our airports are open again – time for another tour?

There is something darkly appropriate about Rogan not even being able to fact-check Joni Mitchell v Rickie Lee Jones.

I guess all white chicks with berets look the same?

We live in a post-empirical era.

Sure, there are cultural warriors on the left who push undergrad post- modernism to the point where you are now expected to describe women as “people who menstruate” (and JK Rowling gets a bus- load of strife for calling B/S on that), but its Rupert Murdoch who has elevated the culture wars to the point where every public health issue gets reduced to some purile argument about “freedom” . Its as though Americans are still running around in Tricorn hats, waiting for the next attack from the British,  thinking that small-pox is simply God’s will.

The difference between the left and right- wing war on facts is one of scale and impact.

Citizen Murdoch has made billions of dollars monetising social disadvantage, resentment and downwards envy. He pushes a particularly Australian form of anti- intellectualism, described best by the Australian historian Donald Horne in his 1964 book “The Lucky Country”.

He now pushes that anti-intellectualism through Fox News and even his high brow outlets like the WSJ – with skepticism about climate science and doubt about medical expertise. Even to the point where it now threatens democratic institutions.

You can blame Facebook for sure, but new media relies on old media to generate the content -hence the morbid spectacle of Tucker Carlson acting like he knows more about epidemiology than Tony Fauci, or Sean Hannity thinking he knows more about climate science than NASA.

But be warned – we Australians have had a good 30 years of prior exposure to Murdoch, and another 40 years of his mean old Dad, before Rupert handed in his Australian passport to advance his US business interests.

Murdoch’s business model, since the late 70s, has been to pit middle- class voters against workers/unions, workers against the unemployed, and all of the above against migrants.

He converts downwards envy and resentment against academic or scientific “elites” into advertising revenue.  Murdoch himself describes his TV personalities as “entertainers” not journalists because that’s what they are – a 21st -century version of George Orwell’s “two minutes of hate”.

It’s a delicious irony that the Republicans losing their shit in your email box, wishing you would just stick to class rock, seem happy to be lectured on patriotism by an Australian Billionaire who sold his passport to make a few more bucks.

Bryce Wilson

Sydney