Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3TALvlL

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3TuI1Bn

1

“I looked out this morning and the sun was gone”

Fall didn’t arrive in L.A. until Saturday. It was endless summer, not that anybody was at the beach. That’s what foreigners don’t understand, it may always be warm in Southern California, but the residents observe the seasons, to the point that they wear puffy coats in fifty degree weather.

It’s been weird watching the temperature. I do it every day, it’s in the “Times,” I see whether fall has arrived in Vermont, how cold it is at my sister’s place in Minneapolis, whether it’s going to snow in Colorado.

It’s still in the sixties in northern Vermont. Used to be colder at this point. The end of October and November were hell. Too warm to snow, and the cold rain was miserable. But climate change has changed everything, the leaves even turn later.

And snow arrived late in the Rockies, but Alta got two feet over the weekend, and most of Colorado got nearly a foot. And more is coming. We’re not going to see the green grass again until spring.

But I was in suspended animation in SoCal, wearing my shorts and Polo shirts. Until…

As for the light, it’s positively scary. I left my house for dinner last night at 6:30 and it was nearly dark. And when I wake up in the morning, it is dark. I can sometimes see light in the distance, but something’s changed. And when something changes, you get reflective. You remember what was happening at the same time years ago.

Today I thought of the fall of ’76, when “More Than a Feeling” was all over the radio.

The seventies get a bad rap. The people alive during the sixties, the hipsters…many believe music died in 1968, certainly didn’t survive 1970.

You see the seventies were when music really blew up. When the mainstream realized how much money there was in it. When it became corporatized, but hands were still off, because the business was throwing off so much MONEY!

No one was complaining about the price of concert tickets. Successful acts weren’t bitching about distribution, being ripped-off, music drove the culture and getting a ticket at all was a minor miracle, you had to be there, inside.

And when you were not at the gig, you listened.

To the music on the radio. News? Talk? No one did. That was for old farts. Stations all had an individual outlook, they were not uniform, and they weren’t jive. The jocks were your friends. You even knew who the program director was, there were stories about them in the press, because they were stars, how did they gain such success? And the female jocks, like the Burner, Mary Turner, were bigger, had more mindshare, than the supposedly iconic stars of today. Believe me, as many people who adore Gaga and Beyonce, Mary Turner had more reach, not that she compared to the women in Fleetwood Mac, or Heart, or…

The musicians were gods. We all played instruments at home, but it was clear who was a professional and who was an amateur.

And you listened to radio for the new stuff. And if you liked it enough, or heard two tracks from the same record, you bought the album and played it until you knew it by heart.

We knew our music so much better back then. Because there was less of it, everything wasn’t at our fingertips, and what we bought, we listened to, constantly.

1976… The Bicentennial, which was a muted affair in the wake of the resignation of Nixon two years before. But also, a slew of classic records.

Like Aerosmith’s “Rocks.” Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ debut. And Rod Stewart covered Cat Stevens’ “First Cut is the Deepest” and was all over the airwaves, his credibility intact. And Steve Miller came back with “Fly Like an Eagle.” Bob Seger finally broke into the big time with “Night Moves.” Lynyrd Skynyrd asked us to give them back their bullets. Boz Scaggs went from nowhere to somewhere with “Silk Degrees.” At the end of the year the Eagles released “Hotel California.”

And Boston released its debut album. Which the cognoscenti pooh-poohed as corporate rock. They needed an explanation, a way to kick the band’s music to the curb, because it was just too good, it made hard rock palatable, there were melodies, changes, anathema to the tastemakers who were losing control.

But I can’t say I loved “More Than a Feeling.” I’ve NEVER loved “More Than a Feeling.” But I do remember hearing it on the radio, it was indelible, and ultimately all over L.A.’s multiple rock stations.

And I still can’t remember what made me buy the album. But it wasn’t “More Than a Feeling.” But what I do remember is playing “Foreplay/Long Time” ad infinitum on my new stereo.

2

Last night Richard asked me what my go-to Spotify playlist was.

And I told him I didn’t have one. That I’d graze the new music genre playlists now and again, but it was overwhelming. And occasionally I’d listen to playlists I’d created for my radio show, but really I picked and chose what I wanted to listen to. Statistically most people do this, but Richard didn’t believe me.

I told Richard I had certain go-to tracks, like “Foreplay/Long Time,” and he looked at me and laughed.

You can’t admit you like Boston.

But this afternoon, with the sun out, going through my e-mail after dropping off Felice’s rental car, I was in a sunny mood and I needed sunny music to accompany me on my mental ride.

And that’s when I put on “More Than a Feeling.”

“I lost myself in a familiar song

I closed my eyes and slipped away”

I was right back in the fall of ’76. I was in my 2002, on the San Diego Freeway, the music was blasting and nothing else mattered.

“It’s more than a feeling

When I hear that old song they used to play”

That’s what youngsters don’t understand. That music was social media, videogames and streaming television all wrapped up into one, it was EVERYTHING! And when we hear those old songs, we’re taken back to our youth, when we were still optimistic, when our entire lives were in front of us as opposed to being behind us.

“So many people have come and gone

Their faces fade as the years go by”

Actually, they don’t fade, I can see them clear as day, but people are dropping like flies. It’s very weird. I haven’t quite felt lucky that I’m still alive, but I’m sure that’s coming down the pike, with the attrition.

And most were not prepared, it was relatively sudden. They had no time for a victory lap, for long term reflection, to sit at home, drive on the freeway with these classic tunes blasting.

And we all look bad. We hate looking at ourselves in the mirror. And then there are those who get plastic surgery, as if we can’t tell.

“And I begin dreaming

‘Til I see Marianne walk away

I see my Marianne walking away”

In the back of your mind…you thought you’d reconnect, you’d see them again, maybe even get back together. But while you weren’t paying attention, that dream died. And it was just a dream. The funny thing about people is they change, not only in looks. When you’re with them they’re one thing, and then the subsequent influences and vagaries of life turn them into someone else. There’s still some common ground, but a lot less than was in your memory. As for how they look, they’re always frozen in time in your mind, they never age, and then you encounter them and just like you, they’re older, they’re different.

And then there are those mistakes you made, the faux pas. You’ve winced for decades, wanting to take your actions back, apologize, even though you never have. You realize you might as well shed the cloak, absolve yourself, because those people are gone, it’s now your life only, you’d better be wide awake as the days go by, because the calendar may run out of pages.

“When I’m tired and thinking cold

I hide in my music, forget the day”

There was no lyric sheet, I was never sure whether it was “goes” or “cold.” Now you can just look it up online, not that it’s always perfectly right.

But if we got depressed, if we felt down, we always had our records. One for each mood. We’d drop the needle and they’d take us away. It was aural heroin. We needed nothing more than the music. And although many owned headphones, it was really about buying the biggest, most powerful stereo system you could afford, and blasting it, forcing out all the bad thoughts. That’s what you needed, shelter, food and music. You owned a car, and then a stereo, it was one of your most expensive purchases. You dreamed about it, scoped it out at the multiple stereo shops, and when you got home and set it up, turned it on and heard the music emanate from the speakers, you were ELATED!

“And dream of a girl I used to know

I closed my eyes and she slipped away

She slipped away”

It’s all slipping away. And the worst thing is you’ve lived so long you have a hard time remembering. Were you actually at that show or not?

But you never forget the music, those records.

3

So I’m sitting in front of my Mac, something that didn’t even exist back then, home computers were not a thing. And I’m looking out on a perfectly clear day with “More Than a Feeling” blasting and I’m mesmerized, in a trance, and I can’t believe how damn great the track is.

It’s like a lost art, a lost formula, no one can do this anymore, write an anthem.

After grunge, rock went down the rabbit hole. It’s noisy and edgy, made for a select few, not everybody.

Sure, maybe the hair bands took it too far at the end of the eighties, but that does not mean what came before wasn’t good, won’t sustain.

I looked at Spotify, “More Than a Feeling” had 602,878,327 streams.

The Weeknd has five tracks over a billion, one two billion, one three billion, but the rest of the songs have streams in the neighborhood of “More Than a Feeling,” if not less.

Not that anything else by Boston hits those heights.

It’s funny that the number two most streamed track is “Peace of Mind,” with 156,110,123, I wouldn’t have predicted that. “Foreplay/Long Time” has 95,995,662.

Fleetwood Mac has two tracks with just a few more streams than “More Than a Feeling,” “The Chain” at 756,375,597, and “Go Your Own Way” with 698,380,929. And then there’s “Dreams,” boosted by that viral TikTok video, with a bit over a billion, 1,080,992,932.

Stunningly, “More Than a Feeling” has more streams on Spotify than any Eagles track other than “Hotel California,” with 1,160,429,874.

The biggest Steve Miller cut, “The Joker,” only has 368,939,215.

Aerosmith has two cuts that exceed “More Than a Feeling,” but neither is from what most people consider their classic era, starting with “Get Your Wings” and going through “Rocks.” “Dream On,” from the first LP, has 667,316,905, and the soundtrack cut “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” written by Diane Warren, not the Toxic Twins, has 770,411,220.

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers have nothing close, except for Tom’s solo effort, “Free Fallin’,” with 513,318,964.

Rod Stewart blew all his credibility with those standards albums he did with Clive Davis, and now, years later, most people don’t want to listen to the classic stuff, “Maggie May” has a mere 263,431,618 streams. Rod the Mod only has four tracks in nine figures, another whose first three digits begin with 207, and two others with 156 and 132.

Frampton does not come alive on Spotify, nothing on his classic double album even hits nine figures, only two hit eight.

Bob Seger is nowhere close, with only two nine figure cuts, one that begins with a 2 and another that begins with a 1.

“Sweet Home Alabama” is bigger than “More Than a Feeling,” with 997,936,625 streams, “Gimme Back My Bullets” has 18 and a half million.

So what we’ve learned here is “More Than a Feeling” is gigantic, has a huge place in the firmament, it’s never died and is still being kept alive.

But you can’t get an insider to testify about the group. No one ever lobbies for the band to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, everybody’s too cool to admit how great that debut was.

What came after did not reach those heights. Primarily because of the war with CBS, which wanted new product when Tom Scholz wanted more time.

But that debut…

The opening cut was “More Than a Feeling.” Talk about an album opener…

Scholz created the Rockman so other acts could have what he had, could get that sound.

Scholz created the whole thing alone, he adored the James Gang, he was influenced, he was a fan.

And then he rang the bell, broke the bank. Everybody else was worried about trends, most not making it to the top, or making excuses why they failed in the marketplace and then this nobody, a college graduate, from MIT no less, comes along and wins the sweepstakes!

I still recall as I wander on, it’s as clear as the sun in the summer sky how great “More Than a Feeling” and Boston are. It may be a long time gone, but it’s not forgotten, not by me, not by almost anybody, it won’t die.

This music is part of me, part of my DNA, it’s ridden shotgun in my life longer than almost every human being. And in retrospect it’s the apotheosis, this height was never reached again.

People tried to imitate Boston, but that truly was corporate rock and then disco came along and then the entire music business crapped out.

It was resuscitated by MTV, but before that no one cared how Tom Scholz looked, or Brad Delp, we made the pictures in our minds.

And now this music is like the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Much music from the twenty first century has already forgotten. And none of it reaches as many as “More Than a Feeling” once did.

The music just took you away and put a smile on your face.

IT WAS WAY MORE THAN A FEELING!

You’re right Bob. The dream dies hard. I offer The Call and Tommy Ferrier. My sister-in-law is Tommy’s sibling. Every penny Tommy (and the band) made always went back into producing the next album. He’d make 200k on one album and plow it ALL back into his music. Tommy, now in his seventies (outlived Been), still would like to get on stage and rock. It really is a great high. Anyway, short of that, Tommy is now a maintenance man at an apartment complex and happy. He just got married in Hawaii last month. Interestingly, Tommy and his sister were both adopted and Tommy’s biological mother was a concert pianist. Perhaps there is something in the genes.

Matthew Grandi

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Being out of the industry has kept me out of much of the loop, so it was a nice surprise to get your newsletter about John Waite’s doc. I met The Baby’s at their first gig (Manhattan Theater Club) in NYC. I was involved (aka dating) Bob Kulick at the time, working for Aucoin Management and having the time of my 20 something life…The Baby’s put on an amazing performance, (we saw so many others break out in that venue, The Cars, Cheap Trick, etc) but when women started tossing diapers and pacifiers on stage, I knew it wasn’t just about the music…but the music was pretty f..king awesome…

Decades later I would be involved with the sale of Chas Sandford’s catalog, which contained the iconic “Missing You”,

and I personally felt the twinges of pain I knew Chas felt as he signed those papers and received his check…I remember there being tears…on all sides, it was like selling his “baby”. I also have the memory of an ex-lover leaving that tune on my answering machine after an ugly breakup.

Anyone who’s been in the trenches of a music addiction knows the beauty of the high but very few have ever experienced the ugliness at the other end, the come down, the crash. The last time I saw John was when he performed at a club in Redondo Beach, I hadn’t seen him since that gig at Manhattan Theater Club. And you’re right, I had no idea who he was, until he started singing.

Can’t wait to see this!

Best,

Sher Bach

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At the height of “Missing You,”I set up an instore autograph session with John at Tower 4th & Bwy, when such events were still out of the ordinary.  Hundreds of autograph seekers, mostly female, swooned.  His guitarist Earl Slick sat at the table with him.  John was a nice guy that day.  Gentle, shy, and relaxed.   Paul Lanning

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Really looking forward to this, Bob.

When I first got to NYC in the mid ‘90s and had a day job in the restaurant business, I met John at a famous restaurant in midtown. He was sitting by himself at a bar table.

I recognized him immediately and told him I was a keyboard player.

“This must be fate,” he said. “I’m looking for a keyboard player.”

He gave me his address. And I dropped off my latest album for him to listen to.

I didn’t get the gig… probably because my album was jazz! But it sure was fun to try. All those years after its release, “Missing You” was still stuck in my head like an ice pick.

Now that’s the power of a hit song.

Jon Regen

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I read this one twice –  because it was so good. I’m probably the only person I know who actually saw The Babys live… My first job was at the Dr Pepper music Festival in Central Park.   1979.  I was underage hawking soda in the audience… 15.   It was July in New York, and the band was wearing black leather head to toe. All we could think of was “holy smokes…. These English guys are *gonna die”*.  I went looking for photos from that show and I can’t find any… But I found this. And this is amazing:

RADIO COMMERCIAL – DR. PEPPER (THE BABYS): https://bit.ly/3gEWPyU

With Gratitude,

Matt Peyton

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Bob, always enjoyed Head First, Change and Midnight Rendezvous. Solid and credible pop rock songs. No need to overthink or over analyze the Babys or John Waite. Much like Eddie Money and the Tubes, John’s songs elicit a favorable response from my friends that listen to my Spotify playlist.

Bar Andrew: https://spoti.fi/3zbgnkV

Andrew Paciocco

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Hey Bob – Thanks for letting us know about this. I’m going to have to watch it.

I can relate.

In the late eighties I was the drummer in a band called Hearts & Minds and we were signed to A&M. To give a sense of the company we were in, about the time we were signed, Soundgarden and Blues Traveler had just been signed to A&M too.

This is it, I thought. I’m going to be a rock star. I had the long hair, the snake skin boots, the tight jeans. Lots of rock star jewelry.

We toured a bit. Signed autographs!!  People actually asked for our autographs!!  WTF!!! We opened for some known artists. We had some big shots at A&M tell us we had a hit. I got endorsements! We made a video. We made a record at John Mellencamp’s studio.

Next thing you know, in the middle of the tour, we get a call. We’ve been dropped. Polygram had bought A&M and the roster was trimmed. We were casualties. BAM! Just like that.

I tell you what though…I still wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. At the time, you still were at a pretty high level to get a record made and released by a big label. No regrets. A treasured experience. Getting dropped from another label with another band was not as cherished of a memory however!  Doooh!!!

I still play, but now I’m taking advantage of the online space to do so.  Yes, it’s unbelievably different now. But I’ve adapted. Accepting the reality of now—that’s allowed me to keep going, and still live in a house, have a family, and all that good stuff.

Anyway, I’m gonna cue up the Waite movie. Looking forward to it.

Best,

Mark Feldman

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I saw John live about 5 or 6 years ago at my hometowns local “Summer Concert Series” in the park.

They built a stage and now we get 8 to 10 free concerts every summer. 

This town, mind you, is in the Midwest, about 45k people. No one WANTS to play our town. So we get these “has beens” and legacy bands with one original member. The ones that fit our budget. Oh we have had some “big” names…Brett Michael’s was HUGELY popular! They brought him back for 2 or 3 years! Night Ranger one year, Dennis DeYoung, Wang Chung, etc…you get the picture.

So when I saw John Waite on the announcement list, I was stoked! Finally a legend! Ok I am a HUGE Babies fan! Apparently not many more around here are…it was not well attended…maybe 150-200. Brett Michael’s drew thousands, for context.

John and his stripped down band (drummer, bass player and one other guitar player besides John) SLAYED IT! When I first saw the band, no keys, no horn section, I thought, “Man, he ain’t gonna play The Babies hits! Boy was I wrong! He did them ALL! He also did his solo hits and Bad English hits! Played them all old school rock n roll like! He was in great voice and seemed genuinely happy to be playing for an audience! It was the highlight of my summer!

I can’t wait to check out this documentary! Thanks for the heads up!

Long Live Rock n Roll!

Mark McMain

Myself included.

This may seem obvious, but it’s a big change from even a few years ago. You see there’s so much in the pipeline, so much more happening.

And why is this important? Because people proffer themselves as experts and you listen to them 24/7.

Let’s talk about the jam band scene. Unless you’re in it, you don’t know about it. Are you familiar with the music of Goose? Have you even heard of the band? They’re the hottest new/burgeoning act in the jam band scene, but you won’t see them in the Spotify Top 50, none of the places where you traditionally went to find out what was happening.

Hitsdailydouble is radio-focused. Mostly stuff on major labels who will pay them to promote it. If you don’t fit that niche, and everything is a niche these days, you’re unaware.

But if you subscribe to “Relix,” and go to a few festivals, have friends in the scene, listen to SiriusXM’s Jam On, you know.

How do I know? Promoters. Promoters are the best source of information when it comes to what is truly happening these days. If you can sell tickets, that means you’ve got a fan base. And many acts with a fan base are rarely, if ever, featured in mainstream media.

And then there’s hip-hop. Listen to the end of my podcast with Joe Coscarelli. There’s a hip-hop scene in Milwaukee now, one in central California. I had no idea until he told me. Turns out that rappers are like the rockers of yore, but instead of playing clubs in their hometown, they’re in their bedrooms leasing beats, rapping over them, and putting them online.

As for online… Forget YouTube and TikTok, 60,000+ tracks are added to Spotify each and every day. Most of them are worthless, but not all of them. How do you separate the wheat from the chaff? Playlists might help, but they’re not the definitive statement.

And then there’s radio. Stations and high paid label promotion people will tell you how important it is in moving the needle, and then you can’t find someone who listens to terrestrial stations.

Yes, there’s disinformation along with misinformation.

What does this mean?

Trust yourself. Trust your experience. Forge your own path.

Zach Bryan is totally indie and then the biggest new act, certainly the biggest new act in country music. I wrote about him and I heard from many people who consider themselves clued-in who’d never heard of him, never mind listened to his music.

Rufus Du Soul plays the Hollywood Bowl? Once again, most people have never heard of the act.

You can be doing quite well and be relatively unknown, this is not the way it used to be.

In the pre-internet era, a pro in the music business knew every record. They may not have heard it, but they at least knew the backstory, what it sounded like. Today records go top ten that they’re completely unfamiliar with.

I could expand this into politics, and I will for a minute. He who speaks loudest, and it’s usually a he, is believed most, irrelevant of the veracity of their words. Institutions are not trusted. And if you confront the delusional with the facts, they won’t cop to the truth, no way. And believe me, politics is much more important than music.

Oftentimes a #1 position is manipulated. A show listed as sold out was in a scaled-down venue. So you not only need to know the landscape, but the tricks!

Never ever has music been more ripe for disruption than now. Everything’s on the table, there are almost no rules. And the pros oftentimes are as ignorant as the hoi polloi.

Music is a game of creativity. If you’re imitating others, you’ve already sacrificed. But if you follow your own muse and gain an audience, you can be successful, just don’t expect anybody but your fans to acknowledge this.

I won’t say no one knows anything, but no one knows everything. So take everything the self-appointed poohbahs say with a grain of salt. Check their qualifications. And if they start weighing in on everything…either their knowledge is very thin in many areas, or they’re lying outright.

The music business is one of intimidation. Everybody is a bully. They want to convince you you’re wrong and can’t make it. Don’t listen to them.

But don’t complain when you get no recognition either. Either what you’re doing is working or it’s not. It’s in your hands. If you’ve got no traction there’s something wrong with your music, your plan, your marketing, your social media campaign.

You start from scratch. And you build it from there. And if you’re young and plugged in chances are you’re more hip than the established players, who don’t want their vision clouded.

Kids were hip to TikTok way before the labels, the entire music industry. They pooh-poohed the progenitor, Musical.ly, and thought it was history when it rolled into what became TikTok and they couldn’t have been more wrong.

It’s chaos out there and you’ve got to establish your own roadmap.

There are experts. But you’ve got find them and test their knowledge to qualify them.

Instead of thinking there are fewer avenues of success, fewer successful genres, think just the opposite. There’s room for everybody today. And there’s room to change hearts and minds and make fans.

Once again, it’s not top-down, but bottom-up.

And many times those at the bottom are more in touch with the landscape than those at the top.

Don’t doubt yourself. Go forward.

But be prepared to slog hard.

And to learn.

“The Hard Way”: https://www.johnwaitefilm.com

Now that was depressing.

We believed in the dream…

But now the dream is over.

I own a a Babys album. It was always hard to believe in a group with that name, but “Isn’t It Time” is magical. To hear how that track came to be is disillusioning.

I normally don’t watch this stuff. It’s hagiography on a budget. Look that word up, you’ll think of it whenever you see these career retrospectives, even of legends. It’s all positive, it’s all up, up, up! Or if there is, god forbid, a down, there’s a renaissance, to a height just as high as ever.

What B.S.

But Solters told me this movie was different, that John was being honest. And since it’s Larry…

I gave it a chance.

Messed me up.

You see we believed in the rock and roll dream. It started in the sixties, with the Beatles. It was an alternative universe, a clean break from our parents’ generation. If you made it, you were as rich as anybody in the world, but lived by your own rules. We may not have reached that destination, but the fact others did made our lives complete. Yes, there was an alternative path.

And then I see a nearly seventy year old John Waite with long hair and a young blonde girlfriend with big boobs and I ask myself… Is this 1982 or 2022?

Ron Nevison cut his hair. He’s decided to own his age. But he’s a behind the scenes guy.

Richard Marx came later, his hair was never that long, and he looks up to date here, but when he talks about butchering the song he’s going to play live with Waite… I winced. Believe me, if it was gonna be that bad they wouldn’t have performed it. Meet a famous musician and you’ll find someone reluctant, worried about how they look, how they sound, their image.

But it’s all irrelevant in the age of social media. Artifice no longer works. Unless you take the Angelyne route and it’s only pictures and not only no voice, but no story. She may have been an enigma, but no one in the public eye is today.

But really, the change happened long ago.

You see in the sixties having long hair was a statement. And then the Allman Brothers, never mind the San Francisco acts before them, started to wear their street clothes on stage, illustrating the music was everything. But then the eighties came along and MTV burgeoned and the boys were wearing spandex, stage outfits, your look was important, and then Nirvana came along and killed that paradigm, with Pearl Jam rushing through the sieve, but while we rockers thought the music was on the way up, in truth hip-hop came along to crush it.

You see we’ve got perspective.

The 27 club, all those artists who died early. They’re frozen in time, they never aged. But getting old happens to the best of us, and it’s then you realize we’re all equal.

Oh, there are the billionaires, but even though they profess to love Springsteen and other acts, they’re not part of the club, no way. Steve Jobs was, he idolized Bob Dylan, he pushed the envelope, but the rest were nerd techies. Nothing wrong with that, it’s just that it wasn’t and still isn’t rock and roll.

And today calling yourself a “nerd” is a badge of honor. Yeah, if these people ever encountered the nerds of old, out of step with no friends, pariahs, they wouldn’t embrace that moniker. Go on TikTok, see all the beautiful women claiming to be nerds, don’t believe it, you still can’t get laid.

We believed in the music because we certainly weren’t having any sex.

You see the rock and roll hard core, the true believers, were outsiders. They didn’t fit in anywhere else. Everything everybody else wanted, we did not. We didn’t want a house and a wife and a job and some kids, our number one desire was TO GET THE HELL OUT OF TOWN! To go somewhere where like-minded people lived, like Los Angeles.

Now there are like-minded people everywhere. And you can find them online, pretty quickly. But your club, no matter what brings you together, will never have the penetration and impact of John Waite. That’s what one MTV hit could do for you, make you a worldwide icon. He couldn’t leave the house, he employed a bodyguard.

But if you saw him in the grocery store today, you wouldn’t give a second look, you wouldn’t recognize him. Unless, maybe he was wearing rock and roll clothing, which makes you stand out, but you’re a period piece.

John Waite didn’t fit in. All those people working at Goldman Sachs and Apollo? THEY SPECIALIZE IN FITTING IN! How else can you do well enough in high school to get into Harvard? Believe me, a C average and 500s on your SATs doesn’t get you into Harvard, no matter who your daddy is.

But the rockers had no safety net. They journeyed into the wilderness.

And most didn’t make it.

And just like Maynard G. Krebs stuck on the island, instead of beatniks today we have rockers in skinny black jeans and leather jackets, who think they’re still cool not realizing we’re laughing at them behind their backs, I mean GROW UP!

Just as bad is the male rockers who dye their hair and get plastic surgery. We know how old you are, you’re asking us to suspend disbelief, why? The songs are ageless, but not you. Your music used to mean something, but now your identity is turning it into a joke, you’re not credible, no way, and back then credibility was EVERYTHING!

So come on, what is John Waite’s image? Pretty boy with a pretty voice, someone who gets along, a minor figure in rock and roll.

But that is not who he turns out to be. First and foremost, HE’S DIFFICULT! His girlfriend says he’s got no friends. This is a guy who prays at the altar of rock and roll and still believes, even though that paradigm is dead. He’s still making albums, I don’t know who is paying for them, but I didn’t even know they came out. He’s got a fan base that hangs on every word, buys every product, but that base is very small. I’ll make it simple, if you see an old rocker working a day job that means their career was not successful enough to sustain, because believe me, they’d rather be playing music.

And not only is Waite edgy, he’s honest. He takes down Bob Ezrin, even calls him a See You Next Tuesday (think about it, it comes from “Sex and the City.”)

And Ron Nevison… Wow, he admits he was working for the record company. If you think people are on your side, you’re gonna find out they’re not. But all these years later, you’re glad you had a hit. And John undercuts Ron’s story. John ultimately gains the upper hand by saying if Nevison was so bad, why’d he use him for the next album?

And keeping a band together is nearly impossible. John gets into a fistfight with the Babys’ guitarist, and then they’ve got to kick the player out of the band. Look at Michael Corby’s Wikipedia page, he’s never done anything significant in music since. But at least he’s still alive, whereas many squeezed out in the game of musical chairs are not, having drunk or drugged their way into oblivion.

And the Babys make all those albums for Chrysalis, they had million sellers, hits! And how much is John Waite making? $200 a week. When it’s all over, he’s got $6000. And he had to cough up his publishing to keep the band alive.

Credit Ron Stone. Who sees something and puts the pedal to the metal and breaks the Babys, after the original manager, Adrian Millar, falls by the wayside after demanding the band return from the U.S. as a pawn in his battle with Chrysalis, and they don’t. Stone spent $600,000 breaking the Babys, and it was all charged back to the band by the record company, as were the videos, the act has never gotten out of the red, been paid royalties, TO THIS DAY!

Yes, this is the old major label game the wannabes of today are lamenting is dead. There’s an illusion that if you got signed you were rich. But this movie delineates that you could be successful and still be nearly broke!

And Bad English is completely skipped over, other than the music. Maybe Waite feels the same way I do about the band, corporate rock, a band built in a boardroom, not out in the street. Like Audioslave. Good musicians in their original bands, but together it was ersatz.

Of course there are those who believe in both of those acts. And that’s just an illustration of the way it used to be, that core belief in the act by the fans.

But most fans never ever get to meet their heroes. If they did, they’d know a well-adjusted musician who is insightful, conversational and good to hang with barely exists. At least the stars. They sacrificed everything to make it, and that takes a special kind of person and it changes you. John Waite may have rough edges, but without them, without the desire to do it his way, Ron Stone says Waite never would have made it.

So you remember the eighties, right? The MTV era? When Reagan legitimized greed, baby boomers sold out and the bands were bigger than ever before? Their music reached EVERYBODY! And there’s that Don Henley story about being way off the grid, encountering native people and one points at him and says HOTEL CALIFORNIA!

That’s the reach of music. Very few acts are that ubiquitous, but those acts from the eighties… Come on, we all know the Culture Club hits, never mind those by the Police and Genesis, they were EVERYWHERE!

Nothing is everywhere anymore. Oh, you might see mainstream stories and ads, but the penetration is a fraction of those acts and songs from the pre-internet era. You couldn’t escape “Missing You.” This week’s number one on Spotify is Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s “Unholy.” I bet most people reading this have never even heard it. The industry is lauding this major success, and it hasn’t reached a fraction of the people that Herman’s Hermits did.

And the system is codified and calcified. The media that no one reads or sees and doesn’t care that they don’t. The network TV appearances that have about as much impact as broadcasting on social media from your basement, maybe even less. If you’re expecting the system to do something new, you don’t know the main goal of the system is to maintain its power. It’s about pushing down competitors, not changing in the wake of their success.

Everybody’s indie these days. There are a zillion musical genres and a zillion acts and almost all of the players are working, hard, for a living. Which is why if you want to be rich and famous, you get into branding, you sell out, you whore yourself out to Madison Avenue, Wall Street… How about all those celebrities who hawked crypto? They got paid, their fans went broke, there is no credibility. And what does this have to do with music? NOTHING!

And let’s be clear, John Waite is about the music.

He’s not first generation, he was inspired by the Beatles, just like me, just like so many of us. He drank the kool-aid and actually made it. Most did not. But he’s never ever going to have another hit. Kudos for still making new music, most of his contemporaries have given up.

And then he cries over his duet with Alison Krauss. I’ve never even heard their duet of “Missing You,” or if I have I’ve forgotten it. But to Waite, this is evidence he still counts, is still a musician, is still in the game.

You’ve got to give John Waite huge props for making this documentary. No one else has ever been this honest. And sure, he’s got some excuses, like the record company going out of business, but he’s got insight into that, he says EVERYBODY HAS GOT EXCUSES! Talk to an act that had a stiff record on a major label, they never say it wasn’t good enough, that it wasn’t in the grooves, they always blame somebody else.

But at least there was a line of demarcation between amateurs and professionals. Today, everybody plays.

And YouTube covers of “Missing You” are included and what went through my head most was REMEMBER WHEN THIS WAS A THING? People would e-mail me the work of their kids, or maybe something they stumbled on, wasn’t I impressed, wouldn’t I help spread the word? Now everybody knows these videos mean nothing. And to get any traction at all requires a ton more work, and probably the ability to write hits to begin with. The song, it does come down to the song, which is why Diane Warren, who wrote the big Bad English hit, is not only richer than everybody in this movie, but many people who are household name stars.

And just when you’re wincing, at the end, John is up on stage singing.

And suddenly, instantly, you’re brought back to then, when, that’s how powerful the songs were and still are. They were part of the fabric of our youth, our young adulthood. We didn’t talk about websites, we talked about records. We’d play music and do nothing else! Almost nobody does that these days, but that’s testimony to how powerful the sound was and how little else there was to do!

If you’re on your way up, if you’ve got the dream of becoming a musical star, YOU MUST WATCH THIS MOVIE! Because this is the truth. It’s disillusioning, and John Waite had more success than everybody but a special few. He dedicated his life to rock and roll. You want to see the whole arc, where he’s been, where he is now. It busted up his marriage and didn’t make him rich. Are you willing to forgo everything to have what he’s got?

I highly doubt it.

People don’t want to work that hard. And they’re not willing to give up much.

But once upon a time, so many did. No one talked about trying to make it for a year or two and then going to graduate school. No, most of the acts didn’t go to college, or didn’t graduate. They lived on their talent, wits and raw desire. But also you could live on little back then, today so many are scrambling just to put a roof over their head.

So ultimately, “The Hard Way” is less about John Waite and more about us. We get to see the man behind the curtain, we get to see how it all went down, and you never want to see how the magician does their trick, you think you do, but you really don’t. You just want to believe in the magic.

I miss it.

But it’s gone away.

I can’t bridge the distance, it’s heartbreak overload.

But it’s my life.

And it’s probably yours.

What a long strange trip it’s been.