30x?!!!!

It’s the twilight of the gods. Pete Townshend said rock and roll would never die, but one thing’s for sure, its performers will. No one lives forever, and after the deaths of David Bowie and Glenn Frey, we knew it could come, not from bad behavior, not drugs and alcohol, but the vagaries of life, drawing the wrong genetic number, getting cancer or rheumatoid arthritis.

So what about the music? Even though modern rock is a footnote in the overall sphere of new music, classic rock still lives, everywhere, from radio to jukeboxes to streaming services to commercials to that speaker at the drive-in…will this continue?

What you have to know is the superstars who sold their rights for a lump sum ultimately regretted it. The two biggest examples being Elvis Presley and Led Zeppelin. Colonel Parker wanted his cash, and he thought the value of Elvis’s catalog had peaked. Peter Grant didn’t think Led Zeppelin was for the long term, he sold out the rights, thank god the internet came along and gave the band the opportunity to renegotiate. As for those people who’ve sold and are happy…scratch the surface, it’s more complicated than that. They own it, they can do what they want with it. And on one hand this is good, it might keep the music alive, on the other the use might not align with your identity/personality/career strategy. But if you’re dead?

The truth is most acts have not survived. For every Doors, there’s a Jefferson Airplane. Not everything from the past is worth a fortune.

As for selling your royalties, Josh Gruss of Round Hill Music told me he expects to make the money back in seven years. Some acts are just that broke, they need the cash, but unless you’re 85, why would you do that? Don’t forget musicians are historically terrible business people. But you know the maxim, everything is for sale, and if the price is high enough…

So they’re saying between $500 and $600 million. That’s a lot of cash, but the devil is in the details. Sell, and you pay 20% in taxes, whereas your yearly royalties are taxed at regular rates, as much as 37%. So…

It’s a calculation.

Let’s do the math. Bruce Springsteen is 72 years old. Is he gonna live another thirty years? Highly doubtful. There are some who live to 102, but very few. So this is the deal of a lifetime, he’s got to take the cash. And let’s not forget, when he and his wife die his heirs will have to pay significant inheritance tax, meaning if Bruce didn’t sell now, his children almost definitely would have to sell upon his death.

So anybody who says Bruce shouldn’t have taken this deal runs on emotion, not fact.

However, the big question is…what will Bruce Springsteen’s music be worth in the future?

Yes, Bruce’s songs are iconic, but you can’t cover “Born to Run,” or “Born in the U.S.A.” Those are records, those are Bruce’s. This isn’t Bob Dylan, or even Paul Simon, with umpteen covers. However, covers are not the only way you can make money on a legacy catalog. Hell, Cadillac offered the Doors $10 million to use “Break on Through” decades ago, and the band turned it down! The price is only going up. And hedge funds don’t invest unless they foresee a HUGE return. They don’t want 5-10%, they’re looking for a huge multiple, just like Bruce.

Now one thing we know, as long as there’s a copyright law, at least in the U.S., you’re gonna get paid (Disney keeps lobbying to have nothing expire, most notably Mickey Mouse). This is the silver lining of streaming. And it seems every couple of years there’s a new opportunity to monetize. No one foresaw TikTok, and all these social media companies are now licensing music. So there’s runway, in the short to medium term, but the long term? Elvis’s merch sales are down. His fans are dying. Nobody is forever. Well, maybe Frank Sinatra and the Beatles. And who could have predicted the Doors would hang around this long. But will your band last, will your songs last?

You don’t want to sell. These are your creations, these are your babies, you want to manage them, hold them closely. But now you’re confronted with death. No one lives forever. Like I said above, emotionally it might not make sense, but intellectually, financially, it certainly does.

Now I bet some of the previous sellers are now kicking themselves, thinking they should have held on. It’s always an issue when to sell. We saw this with SFX, what is now Live Nation. At first prices were extremely good, then they were stratospheric, but if you waited too long, the value went down. (And let’s not forget Sillerman sold SFX to Clear Channel, he got his money, and the music business has a history of consolidation, who is going to own your rights in the future? Certainly someone you have no relationship with, never mind whether your interests align.) We have no frame of reference, no history, no classic rocker has been dead so long their audience is gone, so we can properly compute the value of their works. Classic rock could be forever, or when Generation X is gone, it could take a swift fall. Then again, classic rock is just not music, it represents an era of experimentation, when the culture went hand in hand with the music, when musicians moved the needle in every day life, when music was everything. That is not today, which is why today’s music has a shorter lifespan. Think of the paintings and sculpture of the Renaissance, they’re forever! Could that be classic rock? Just may be, especially if there’s enough melody

So it’s weird. Despite Springsteen’s quote today, the label has always been the enemy, it doesn’t pay accurate royalties, the faces keep changing, you can never trust your label. So on one hand you get your money up front, on the other you lose control. Wasn’t classic rock all about control?

And how much money do you need?

Then again, you don’t want to just give it all to the government. The government essentially pays you to invest, to give some away, it’s one of the drivers of the economy. Then again, when you get really rich, how much can one person, one family purchase?

So Springsteen’s kids will inherit a ton of cash, but they won’t own any of the music. And cash? You can spend it all in a day. Music rights have almost a guaranteed return, ergo the 30x above. But stocks, other investments? They can go down as well as up. And never forget, Steve Bing died essentially penniless, with under 100k. And he was not a dumb guy.

So, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. When the prices get insane, it’s hard to say no.

But once again, the valuations are by people who specialize in money, not music. It’s not feel, it’s math. There are a limited number of catalogs available. Is it key to have critical mass, or has Merck Mercuriadis driven the whole rights business right off a cliff? Remember when the internet came along, Napster? The labels had huge deals with legacy acts, they had to pay millions up front for albums that couldn’t possibly make a return equal to what was laid out. Stuff happens in the future you can’t foresee. Like Black Friday or 2008. You could lose money on all your stock, but if you still had your music assets, royalties would be paid.

On the surface 30x appears out of control. Springsteen just can’t say no. On another, it’s the death of the dream. The money was always there, but it was never up front. Hell, Bruce wanted to keep ticket prices low. Now the money’s right in your face and it affects credibility, it’s hard to create art with the dollar signs in sight. That’s a business proposition. And music is a business, but it survives on the efforts of artists. And the value of music grew to such heights because of classic rock. That’s why it’s classic! But when Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young sell out to the man, it breaks your heart. You can understand it, but still… The man was always the enemy. Corporations are the scourge of America. And now Sony owns the work of Bruce Springsteen, the poet laureate of the streets? That’s just sad.

Uber-manager Ken Kragen, who steered the careers of Kenny Rogers, Lionel Richie, Trisha Yearwood, Olivia Newton-John, the Bee Gees, the Smothers Brothers, Travis Tritt, Gallagher and more, sadly just passed at 85. After Kenny Rogers died in 2020, Ken did a podcast with me about Kenny that was never aired. In fact, it’s more about Ken than Kenny, so in tribute to him I am posting it now. If you’re interested in going deeper, you can listen to my podcast with Ken about his life and career posted on September 12, 2019.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ken-kragen/id1316200737?i=1000545158860

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast?

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast

“Twisted Business: Lessons from My Life in Rock ‘n Roll”: https://amzn.to/3yxz8x3

Jay Jay French is a hustler. A New York hustler. The top of the heap. A survivor. A human cockroach who cannot be ignored and cannot be killed. And that’s why he made it.

Every band needs a hustler. Sure, some bands become big and can the initial hustling manager for the big, established one, but the established ones started out as hustlers too, that’s how you make it in this business.

That’s why I’m against music business education. You can’t teach someone to hustle, they’re born to it, it’s the environment, their family, their parentage. They didn’t start hustling when they formed a band, they were always hustling, like Mr. French, he started out as a dope dealer. How else could he afford equipment and tickets?

Scratch the back of music industry icons and you’ll find a plethora started by dealing drugs. Most notably Doc McGhee, who used the skills he developed to turn Bon Jovi into a monster act. But it’s not only McGhee… It’s a good background. It’s sleazy, it’s a cash business, and you never know when you’ll be ripped off. Just like rock and roll. And neither side of the trade trusts each other, i.e. the band and the label. The label is not your friend, never ever ever, remember that as they wine and dine you, they end up billing you for the cost anyway.

So Jay Jay dropped out of high school. It was impinging on his lifestyle. This is after getting kicked out a few times for his revolutionary behavior. Yes, this was the sixties. If you’re not a limit-tester, if you’re not questioning authority, if you’re not pushing the envelope, good luck trying to make it.

So Jay Jay joins a band that goes through umpteen formulations before it finally gets a record deal, ten years later, and it’s like Spinal Tap, one label folds, an exec dies on a flight back to the U.K… Your one big break is never one, not in the music world. Your failures far outweigh your successes, it’s only the superstars who get to say no, and they’re always worried they’re going to fall out of favor with the fans. Yes, the manager, and hopefully someone in the act, is paying attention to ticket counts, you want to catch the dip in the bud, try to turn it around. As for Twisted Sister… They had mega success and blew up the band.

French blames it on the single, a cover of “Leader of the Pack.” But it’s more than that, the perception of the band had morphed, from heavy metal to cartoon, and their hard core audience became wary of them, they moved on, leaving Twisted Sister bankrupt, truly.

Also there were personality conflicts. It was an equal partnership but the focus was on Dee Snider, who eventually failed as a solo act anyway. You can count the number of front people who’ve left their band and gone on to greater success on one hand. Phil Collins is the exception, not the rule, and he continued to keep his day job, in Genesis.

So everybody knows the band, but Jay Jay is broke. He ends up selling stereo equipment while he regroups. He owns the band’s name, he shares the revenue with members equally, but he’s the one with the head for business, and he cares more than all the outsiders they employed before, Jay Jay also became the manager.

So his love life… God, just surviving that would be tough. The two-timing women. The wife who leaves him when Twisted implodes. You may want to be rich and famous, but significant others may be drawn to you because of those qualities, as opposed to your personality, and if those edifices crumble, they oftentimes leave.

So there you have it, classic music business story.

Well, not completely. TWISTED SISTER WAS COMPLETELY SOBER! Drugs and alcohol may be cool, but they’re a huge impediment to success. You want to be clear-headed. Furthermore, everybody lies to look cool. They talk about their hard time in high school, but they graduated, but like I said, Jay Jay truly did not. And then you have the wannabes imitating the legend, the perception, not the reality, and then they exhibit bad behavior and O.D. and… It’s called music BUSINESS, focus on BUSINESS, it’s about the money, don’t ever forget that.

And everybody needs some.

So now Jay Jay has reinvented himself as a motivational speaker. I kid you not. Every convention needs one, even though they make no difference to the assembled multitude, because you’re not them. Their rules might have worked for them, but you have to find your own rules. Actually, Jay Jay eventually says this. But towards the end of chapters for every letter of TWISTED.

Are you laughing?

Jay Jay is not. He’s serious. This is no laughing matter. This is about survival, this is about money, there is no safety net.

So most of what he says is obvious, except for one chapter, the second “T,” trust. Do what you say you’re going to. Your credibility is key. Deliver on promises. Contracts are irrelevant, the lighting and sound companies that provided gear for Twisted Sister in the beginning did it on a handshake, they wanted the band to survive, you’ve got to support the up and comers, just as long as the band came through, paid every week.

You’d be stunned how many people can’t do the basics. Show up on time straight and do what they’re supposed to do. I know, I know, it sounds basic, but there’s a crisis in America, maybe in the rest of the world too, I don’t know, but here… Then again, you deliver at your job and don’t make more money and don’t get promoted and there’s no trust between you and your employer anymore. There’s a divide in America, and it’s not only between Democrats and Republicans, it’s also between the haves and the have-nots, the rich and the poor. The rich repeat the myth that they’re geniuses, not lucky (and if they’re such geniuses, how come they can’t repeat the success, almost none can), and that their wealth will trickle down to the little people. Yeah, right. That’s statistically been proven wrong, but few are listening. The dream of striking it rich and paying low taxes is the only one the hoi polloi have got.

So, used to be being a rock star meant you were rich and famous. Well, Twisted Sister never got rich, but they were certainly famous. But today there are easier ways to be rich and famous than becoming a musician. But a musician, or people who call themselves that, need no training, no education, there is no barrier to entry, now, more than ever, whereas most professions have high hurdles.

But a guy like Jay Jay will always find his way.

Will you?

Probably not. Because you don’t need it that bad, you didn’t grow up in poverty. Those with the least have the biggest desire. And desire is just as important as talent. You’ve got to keep on chooglin’, and most people give up. Although Jay Jay says when your dreams far outstrip your pocketbook, when you can’t make ends meet, change your dream. Which is good advice. I hear from too many starving musicians who tell me they’ve put in their 10,000 hours, the system is against them, they’re gonna make it. Hmm…no. The world has spoken, it doesn’t need you. Maybe if you had a hustling manager, a better agent…but it’s incumbent on you to build the relationships, being able to play is just one element. And players are a dime a dozen, what makes you special? Twisted Sister was special.

So really, this book needed to come out in the eighties. Back then Twisted Sister was still in the public consciousness, buyers would have been plentiful, books by working musicians were relatively rare. But now? Every person who had success once has or is writing a book. But the public cannot digest all of them, almost all of them fail.

And almost all of them are done the same way. The act dictates and then a third party transcribes and oftentimes the end result is barely readable. The Frampton autobiography? Worst written major book I’ve ever read, it’s atrocious. Books have to flow. And readers know when you repeat yourself… I mean does anybody proofread these tomes? Jay Jay’s is better than most, but there are times he repeats what he already said, like telling the story of his brother being a teacher. There’s so little money involved that the worker bees do a shoddy job of cutting and pasting and…if you really care, you could do a better job, right?

But Jay Jay’s is better than most. It’s highly readable. You’ll get hooked. It does bog down a bit somewhere in the middle, where it’s business sans anecdote, but the story and anecdotes are great. Yes, Jay Jay is busy taking credit, for things like the first heavy metal Christmas album, and licensing heavy metal songs, but really, who cares? This is just stuff you say to make yourself feel good. Jay Jay does it less than most, but it’s still in there.

But Jay Jay is not warm and fuzzy. He’s not laid back. His book is unlike those of the classic rockers. It’s not a tale, it’s in-your-face. Hard core. No B.S.

Does Jay Jay really do two motivational speeches a month?

Who knows? That’s the main purpose of this book, to get more speaking gigs. And it’s probably serves that purpose pretty well.

But for me… It was that indelible track “I Wanna Rock.” Sure, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” is more famous, but “I Wanna Rock” is an anthem. Pure. Gut-busting. That’s rock and roll. That’s what drove the business. That’s what had us buying the records and the tickets. Jay Jay was there, on both sides of the equation, as a fan and a performer.

And if you were there too, you’ll identify.

But those times are dead and gone. Spending 300k on your new video? No way. Then again, rock is now a fringe genre. At this point the players in that world have lowered expectations. But for a while there, you could play any kind of music and make it to the top, be world famous. And that’s what Twisted Sister was, world famous, you cannot take it away from them, and achieving that? Nearly impossible!

Blame the movie industry. If you stop making adult films adults fall out of the habit of attending them.

Yes, Hollywood is now for cartoon superheroes. Comedies are too risky, these conglomerates want a guaranteed return. They’re risk averse. Never in the history of the film business has it been less about art.

As for risk-taking, that’s all on the flat screen. Which has increased in quality to the point where it’s a better experience for most people. You’re alone, without the riff-raff talking on their phones, there is no garbage at your feet, the image is pristine on the screen AND THE MOVIE STARTS WHEN YOU WANT IT TO! Never mind being able to pause at will.

We live in an on demand economy. Everything is delivered when you want it. People are acquiring fewer possessions. Kids don’t have driver’s licenses and their parents are happy that their immature bodies are being ferried by Uber. The world changes, Hollywood has not.

Yes, in hindsight those studios that delivered their pix to streaming services day and date are the futurists here, the winners. Forget all the bitching from agencies and talent. First and foremost, scripted entertainment is an ever-decreasing percentage of major talent agencies’ revenue and profitability. They saw the handwriting on the wall, they diversified, but when it comes to movie distribution everything remains the same? Meanwhile, Netflix lays beaucoup bucks at the feet of talent, with little interference, that’s the future, and if you want an ongoing percentage negotiate with them, not the moribund movie studios. It’d be like the music business insisting everybody go back to CDs. The economics changed, because of technology and the public’s desires. The way out was to embrace the future, i.e. Spotify, with its ultimate benefit of endless payment for streamed tracks, the catalog is more valuable than ever before!

So Spielberg is an unknown quantity amongst Generation Z, and amongst a lot of Millennials too. “Jaws” was 46 years ago. “E.T.” 39. And “Jurassic Park” is now a franchise that is not associated with him. Those are Spielberg’s greatest hits, and they’re in the past, but to the aged titans in the film industry he’s a god. That’d be like saying young people love Bad Company and Boston. Sure, there’s an audience, OF AGED PEOPLE!

But Bad Company and Boston weren’t remakes. Imagine a cover album of their tunes today, dead in the water. We see this with tribute albums, they almost universally fail. Doesn’t matter how good they are, people want the original.

So… If you want to promote a film today you don’t do it via reviews. The positive reviews for “West Side Story” were an insider circle jerk. An hermetically sealed system that didn’t reach anybody under the age of forty, and didn’t reach many above that age either.

The promotion should have started on TikTok, forget the critics. The active audience is on TikTok, and TikTok is about dancing, just like “West Side Story”! Youngsters are active, oldsters are passive. To get an oldster off the couch is nearly impossible. An oldster will question the ticket price when a youngster doesn’t think twice, if they want it they do it. So to succeed, “West Side Story” needed to appeal to the younger generation, and on its surface it did not.

All we saw were stories about Rita Moreno. But the last time she’s been in the public eye was “Oz,” about twenty years ago. However talented she might be, kids don’t know her and don’t care. But they could have been sold.

And don’t tell me there’s no market for movie musicals. What about “High School Musical”? If you build it they probably won’t come, if you market it to them there’s a good chance they will.

If you’re marketing to adults you’ve got to make it easy. You’ve got to make it a value proposition. They move slowly and wait for word of mouth. And by time word of mouth gains traction for a movie, the film has left the theatre. The movie business no longer moves at the speed of adults, it’s much faster. Boomers remember when films played for six months. Started in theatres in New York and L.A. and then platformed out across the country over weeks. Today they open in thousands of theatres, make most of their money up front and then disappear, to the flat screen. And that’s so fast that unless you’re truly passionate, you can wait for the appearance on the flat screen. And you don’t want to pay an on demand fee, it must be baked into a service you’re already paying for.

You can rail against the rules, the law, the future, but no one has ever won proceeding on that basis. You can only win by embracing not only the present, but getting ahead of the public. Putting features on streaming services got people in the habit of seeing their films there. To build the service you needed more films. I signed up to see “Hamilton,” with my free account from Verizon for Disney+, but when that was over I was done, there was no further product appealing to me. Disney is a youth company. The era when Michael Eisner took over and they created Touchstone and made “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” is long gone.

Steven Spielberg doing an updated, improved version of “West Side Story”… I ask you, WHO IS WAITING FOR THAT? Spielberg is about action, not gravitas. He’s got no history with music, he’s not Bob Fosse. And despite “Schindler’s List” he’s got little reputation for highbrow. He’s not in the wheelhouse of the aged cognoscenti who go to foreign films in theatres to feel better about themselves, to brag, wearing their attendance as a badge of honor. As a matter of fact, the revered makers of adult films are almost all gone. The hero directors of today…Michael Bay? Christopher Nolan?

“Licorice Pizza” would be culture shifting if it were on HBO, with its imprimatur and hype. Opening in a couple of theatres over the holiday, it’s a minor experience, only elite insiders care. Hell, Netflix did a much better job of hyping “Power of the Dog,” a much more difficult viewing experience, and more people will end up watching it than would have ever seen it on the big screen, and when awards season hits, and it starts just about now, “Power of the Dog” is just a click away, you can make an instant decision, get instant satisfaction, and if you don’t like it, you can immediately turn it off and not feel ripped off.

It’s not like boomers are not invested in higher brow, non-superhero entertainment. Look at “Succession”! This stuff used to be films. Albeit much shorter. “Succession” is better at an extended length.

As for all this hogwash about the theatre experience… It sucks. As for the big screen, it’s like the recording industry talking about the quality of CDs. And now you can stream at CD quality, EVEN BETTER! But people chose convenience over quality. Isn’t this Clayton Christensen 101? The newbie starts cheap and inferior but good enough, gains traction, gets better and kills the old institution.

As for budgets… Talk to record labels about recording budgets. They’re a fraction of what they what once were. Sure, it’s great to be able to spend half a million dollars in an A-level studio creating your opus, but the economics changed and that paradigm has evaporated. As for the youngsters dominating the charts, they have no experience with that era, AND THEY DON’T CARE! They make records in their bedrooms and they top the charts. Everybody’s happy except those who can’t get over the fact their cheese has been moved.

The failure of “West Side Story” should not come as a surprise to the film world. They created the atmosphere where it was doomed. You stop servicing an audience and you expect them to show up on demand, based on brand name? Brand name actors mean less at the box office than ever before. And when it comes to directors, the only one who gains adult notice is Quentin Tarantino, because he always twists the format, delivers something different, unique. As for Scorsese, another insider lauded by the oldsters, he’s a TV director now. And he’d better make better films if he wants youngsters to pay attention, “The Irishman” was a slog, assuming you could get through it.

Yes, today it’s less about image than story, which is what the flat screen has delivered. And isn’t the essence story? Story has taken a back seat too long in Hollywood, but on TV it’s up front and center, where it always must be to ensure a warm reception by the public.

Things changed. It was happening before the pandemic, Covid just accelerated it, put a stake in the heart of the old game. Accept it.