“I’m a long distance romancer

I keep trying ’til I get an answer

Gimme gimme one more chance

She’s a greater little operator”

I didn’t know it was written by Mickey Jupp!

So I was reading today’s “Los Angeles Times” and there was an interview with Nick Lowe. Wherein he said he never wanted to record “Cruel to Be Kind,” that his A&R guy at Columbia, Gregg Geller, made him. That he just threw off the vocal.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2026-03-26/nick-lowe-biggest-hit-cruel-to-be-kind-was-almost-never-recorded

And that turned out to be Nick’s biggest hit in the U.S., assuming you can call something that was an alternative FM staple a hit. Then again, years later Curtis Stigers’s version of Nick’s “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding” was included in “The Bodyguard” soundtrack and that sync has provided a living for Lowe all these decades later (which he claimed in a prior interview). Once again kids, when the big bad businessman tells you to sell your publishing rights, just remember, you never know when you’ll get lucky. And this luck is not built into the multiple they’re paying you today, because it’s unforeseen. Life is short, but it’s also long (of course if you’re aged, your mileage may be different).

But what I did not know was that “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding” was originally recorded by Brinsley Schwarz, when Nick was in the band. I knew Nick’s history, but you’ve got to know that pub rock never broke in America, some of the records were ultimately released over here, but none got airplay. I actually bought Ducks Deluxe…do you remember Ducks Deluxe?

And did you see that Andrew Bodnar of the Rumour died? Back in January, but the obit was only in “The Guardian” a week ago:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/mar/30/andrew-bodnar-obituary

Now the thought was that Graham Parker was going to have a renaissance after Judd Apatow included his songs in “This Is 40,” but that didn’t happen. Just like Jonathan Richman didn’t break through after he and his music were featured in “There’s Something About Mary,” which was an iconic picture of the era. But Richman never got the traction Parker did, he’s still unknown by most. But for a minute there, Graham was up front and center, with the hipsters during his Mercury tenure, and then the press when Clive Davis snatched him up and paired him with Jack Nitzsche and the album “Squeezing Out Sparks” was released. People say that’s the apotheosis, but I never agreed with that, it’s really all about the first two, “Howlin’ Wind,” produced by Nick Lowe, and “Heat Treatment,” which was produced by Mutt Lange before we knew who he was, before his breakthrough with AC/DC (along with one track, “Back Door Love,” produced by Lowe). Now all these years later, I’ve got to admit that “Howlin’ Wind” is better, but I loved, loved, LOVED, “Heat Treatment”…two songs especially, the white reggae “Something You’re Going Through” and the anthemic closer “Fool’s Gold.”

But the true breakthrough was Elvis Costello and “My Aim Is True,” which came out in 1977. Now although Nick Lowe was the producer on all of Costello’s albums from the first through “Trust” (where he shared credit with Roger Bécherian), it’s the first that stands out for me. Because it lacks the Vox organ of the later albums, the backing group was not the Attractions, but Clover…which featured John McFee, now of the Doobie Brothers, and Sean Hopper of Huey Lewis and the News (Huey was in Clover, but not on the Costello album). The backup did not detract from the lyrics, Costello’s delivery, which on subsequent albums it tended to do, the band was competing with Costello, even though I know most people don’t agree with me.

SO, Elvis Costello was the new wave breakthrough. As big as the Ramones are today, at least on t-shirts, punk didn’t triumph until Nirvana in the nineties. And sure, there was a new wave scene in New York, but Blondie didn’t really make it until 1978, after leaving Private Stock and working with Mike Chapman at Chrysalis, and even though their debut was entitled “Talking Heads: 77,” it wasn’t until the RISD band worked with Brian Eno on their second album, “More Songs About Buildings and Food” that they were taken to the river in 1978.

So, wherever it started, the new wave was seen by most people as an English thing. And after Costello broke down the door, Stiff Records followed up with Ian (“Wake Up and Make Love to Me”) Dury and Lene Lovich and Wreckless Eric and England had not been so hip since the sixties. Skinny ties, short hair, the antithesis of the bombast of the headbangers and corporate rockers.

And at the center of all this was Nick Lowe.

Like Graham Parker, his music didn’t really fit in, but his name was on all the records and when his first album came out, we bought it. But I always preferred the second, “Labour of Lust,” it was less precious, a bit more in your face.

Yes, “Labour of Lust” started with “Cruel to Be Kind,” but it truly took flight with the second track, “Cracking Up,” with its descending line and irreverent vocal. That’s one thing about Lowe, he had a sense of humor, he oftentimes delivered his tunes with the wink of an eye, and you’ve got to be smart to be funny, Lowe radiated intelligence, but unlike those before him, he didn’t lead with it, he didn’t lord it over us.

And after “Cracking Up” came “Big Kick, Plain Scrap.”

But the song I liked just as much as “Cracking Up,” they being the two best on the LP, was “Switchboard Susan.”

“Switchboard Susan, won’t you give me a line”

You’ve got to know, even back in ’79, switchboards were in the rearview mirror, they went out the window along with prefixes… Forget area codes, our home number in Connecticut started with “Forest,” you had to dial FO before the rest of the numbers. And on TV, we always were told to dial “Murray Hill”…

“I need a doctor, give me 999”

This was a regular theme back in the day, before acts were brands, when they saw themselves as the other, outcasts, with emotional problems.

“When I’m near you girl, I get an extension

And I don’t mean Alexander Graham Bell’s invention”

A good turn of the phrase, but a bit obvious for Lowe.

And then at the end:

“Hey babe, you’re number’s great

38-27-38”

This always seemed a bit base for Nick, but now that I know the song was written by Mickey Jupp, it all makes sense. You remember “Juppanese,” don’t you? Another Stiff act with a sense of humor.

Well I just learned today that Jupp’s version of the song was produced by Nick Lowe, and his band Rockpile provided the backup. But Jupp considered it “sh*t from top to bottom” and Lowe got Mickey’s permission to add his vocal to the backing track, and voila!

And it’s the instrumentation that puts Lowe’s version of “Switchboard Susan” over the top… It’s the lead guitar work that echoes, adds a coda at the end of the chorus. And repeats with a solo later in the number. It’s a thin sound, but it feels so right, it’s like the instrument is answering the lyrics, commenting on them, the guitar adds meaning.

And that solo, it’s almost like out of the circus, but it’s perfect for the whole number, because it’s FUN!

Now ultimately Mickey Jupp saw the error of his ways and recorded his own version of “Switchboard Susan,” and it’s good, but it doesn’t have those guitar tweaks:

And I knew the Searchers did a cover, but I never knew Gary Brooker did one too:

But even crazier, my old friend Per Gessle redid the lyrics in Swedish for his band Rockfile, before Roxette:

So can Mickey Jupp live off of “Switchboard Susan”?

Well, the stunning thing is Mickey Jupp is still alive, he’s 82. And he’s still making new music, when so many superstars of yore have given up.

As for Elvis Costello, he’s now respectable. However, if he used the n-word today like he did back in that bar in ’97, would he pay the same price as Morgan Wallen? Even crazier, it’s the Costello fans who have contempt for Wallen, who won’t forgive him.

As for Nick Lowe… He married and divorced Carlene Carter and then slowly faded into the woodwork. He’s made more records, for ever more indie labels, and he goes on the road now and again, but he can go to the grocery store unnoticed. He could walk the fields of Lollapalooza and I don’t think anybody under the age of 40 would recognize him.

But if you were around back then, you’ve never forgotten him.

Sure, he was behind the board on some great albums, but he also recorded some great tracks.

Like “Switchboard Susan.”

We are all looking to make it. And we employ signifiers, status markers, to indicate that we’ve crossed the threshold, that we are no longer trapped amongst the great unwashed, that finally we are SOMEBODY!

And one of the main ways you felt settled, that you were not only on your way, but part of the firmament, was seeing your name in the news.

It’s a thrill when it first happens. You mean you want MY opinion, you want to write about ME? But as time goes by, you find out it’s meaningless, because everybody is expressing their opinion or promoting their wares all day long online and your triumph gets lost in the shuffle.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with publicity, and sometimes it even gooses projects and careers, all I am saying is it won’t sustain a career. And longevity is everything today.

Used to be very few people could make it. Could get a record deal, never mind get on the radio and become a star who can sell tickets. Whatever your innate talent, the work of a whole team enabled you to climb the ladder, which is why you see award winners constantly thanking their handlers.

But awards don’t mean much either. I hope you’re thrilled you won, but in a matter of months, seemingly no one remembers your victory. Furthermore, there are a lot of Grammy winners who make their money elsewhere, not in music, or have given up completely. That’s what an award is worth. So if that’s your goal…

I was reading the “Wall Street Journal” yesterday and I saw a friend was quoted. He’s not a public figure, I don’t think his inclusion resonated with a broad swath of the public. For a second there I thought how they didn’t call me, but that’s just a step on the ladder, a momentary feel-good experience. Most people, after they’ve had that brush with publicity, felt good for a moment and have seen the return was relatively minimal, go back to doing the work.

And it’s all about the work.

Ah, that’s a cliché. Let me try to restate it in other words.

If you want to last a long time in today’s world, you’ve got to keep on creating, because there’s so much news and so much of it reaches so few people that most have already forgotten about you, if they knew about you in the first place.

There’s nothing wrong with a feature in the “Times” or the “Wall Street Journal”… But be wary, these outlets are never completely positive. That David Geffen documentary? The one on Jimmy Iovine and Dre? They were love letters, because THEY PAID FOR THEM! They know it’s all about control, kudos.

But if you give up control, beware.

However, let’s return to basics. Most people are looking to get noticed. They want to get out of the hole that they’re in. They want to throw the long ball, they want to believe there is some grand poohbah out there who can reach out and anoint them and their career will be made. Today this is patently untrue.

Let’s start with the number of news outlets.

I know, I know, I’ve lauded Apple News+, but if you read the general feed your eyes will glaze over, it’s all clickbait headlines…and when you click through, there’s very little there.

You even get the same thing in the Google News!

All these outlets fighting for attention have caused people to look elsewhere for information, first and foremost their friends and family, real, or those they’ve met online. It’s like we’re living in the 1800s, prior to modern communication methods. The mainstream has worn out its welcome, been excoriated by those who don’t agree with it, on both the left and the right, and has never meant less.

But we’re not talking about general news here, we’re talking about you.

You’re looking for a leg up, you’re looking for it to be made easier. IT’S NEVER GOING TO BE MADE EASIER! The major label can’t break you, if it will even sign you. Terrestrial radio can’t break you, it takes its clues from Spotify and other streaming media. And Spotify is a great democracy influenced by word of mouth, both online and offline. Social media can drive a hit more than terrestrial radio. But there’s no direct pipeline, no one you can pay to get millions of views.

So…

Paying for streams, for views on YouTube…unless your plan is to leverage these to make a deal with a larger entity, save your money. Your fans don’t care, and it’s only about your fans.

Now I’m not saying fans are irrelevant, it’s just that now there’s a direct conduit from you to them, and you must feed the beast, constantly. Your only hope of growing is via your fans, and if you’re not top of mind, they’re not going to do the work for you. And some fans spread the word and some do not, and you don’t know who is who, so you have to keep spraying bullets and…

Sounds hard, doesn’t it?

It’s VERY hard.

Anybody can get noticed for a minute or two. Every week in the “Times” Sunday Style section they hype a book or previously unknown person and it’s almost like the kiss of death, they’re never heard from again.

TV entertainment news? If you think active consumers are even watching broadcast/cable TV, you’re dreaming. That’s not the bleeding edge, and those who make a difference, who change the world, are always harvesting information on the fringe.

So, you’ve got to keep on working, or you’re going to be forgotten. Most of the public does not know your one hit wonder and there’s a tsunami of product and you’re not going to get many streams in the future.

Now wait just a minute you say… I won, I triumphed, I SUCCEEDED!

Maybe by old school metrics.

There’s no overlord with fairy dust spraying it on the lucky few.

No, you’re not only the creator, you’re the fairy too.

And be wary of getting away from your mission. That brand extension might be a mistake if it takes your focus from the core work, if it undercuts your credibility.

In other words, unless you’ve got a plan to get in quick and get out nearly as fast, the world has completely changed. It’s not about momentary vertical success, it’s about continuing to be in the landscape. For year after year after year.

If you’re doing this for an annum or two, before you go to graduate school, don’t even bother, go enroll at the academy. Because it takes longer than ever to gain a following, and you never quite know when you’ve made it, if you’ve made it at all.

Read the news. The trades. Look at who is featured, who is promoted, but don’t feel left out. That’s a moment in time. Used to be it was a rarefied world, only a few could get ink, now EVERYBODY can get ink.

That’s true. If you’re old enough you’ll remember what a thrill it was to be on TV. You told your friends to look for you at the baseball game. Now you don’t even mention it, because it’s no big deal. The barrier to entry is so low, it’s not hard to get on TV, and so many of the people who cross that threshold are nincompoops. Why is it the “Housewives” are always getting in legal trouble and divorced? If they were that rich, this wouldn’t happen. No, they believe if they are on these shows they are stars, whereas truly they are laughingstocks, fodder for the machine. You know the number one rule of reality television…DON’T BE ON IT!

So it’s just you. In the wilderness. Trying to grow a fan base. Even a hit isn’t going to mean you’ve got a career. No, you must do foundational work, one on one. You must nurture your image, not do anything out of character. People need to be able to trust you. And what the press says or doesn’t say about you is essentially irrelevant. Certainly here today and gone tomorrow.

Of course there are people who make it a full time job to appear in the press, but that does not mean they’re rich, that they’ve even got a career, or even fans, just that some people see their names on a regular basis.

But so many still want to believe. That if they hire publicity and promotion people,  if they get their name out in the news, they will be winning.

Today winning is something you feel inside. No one else can claim victory for you. No one else can anoint you with pixie dust. There are social media influencers making more money than most of the people in the Spotify Top 50, even though very few know their names. Young people acknowledge this change, old people pooh-pooh it, because they don’t like having their cheese moved, they don’t like the evisceration of rules. There must be rules, right?

There are no rules, you make it up as you go. And chances are those jumping the track, doing the out of ordinary, never mind extraordinary, are going to win.

So if you’re railing against the system…

You’re the system. Only you. It all comes down to you.

Keep producing. Doesn’t matter what the general public thinks, just what your fans do. And if you’re good enough, you’ll grow a fan base and sustain it. But that’s too heavy a lift for newbies, they want someone exterior, in the firmament, to say they’ve made it, that they’re a star.

But that paradigm went out with the internet. And the internet’s been around for thirty years.

So it’s time to acknowledge where we are. A Tower of Babel world where you’re the act, the bus driver, the social media maven…one in which you wear all the hats and if you want to have a conference, you look in the mirror.

But never forget, people are still looking for great, and there’s very little great out there. So if you are truly great, people will find and promote you…just don’t expect it to happen overnight.

The records that were hits at the same time as the British Invasion.

Tune in Saturday April 4th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

1

To tell you the truth, I finished this book almost a week ago, and I forgot most of what I wanted to say about it. Primarily the business insights.

Not that I don’t remember the facts. Not that I haven’t internalized the messages.

In any event, this book is not for casual fans, casual readers. If you came to the Mac after Steve Jobs returned or later, you probably won’t get far in this tome. But if you were there at the beginning…

I was not. At the very beginning. Because it was all about the Apple II.

And that lore is repeated here, the creation of the Apple I, the Apple II team’s frustration that it was considered a second class citizen whilst generating all the profits, keeping the company alive well into the Macintosh era.

But I came in in 1986. With the Mac Plus…

The original Mac was close to unusable, it only had 128kb of RAM…

Now let me see… This machine I’m running has 48 GIGS of RAM. 128kb was infinitesimal. Months later came the Fat Mac, with 512kb, but the Mac Plus had a MB of RAM. However you still had to swap floppies. The screen was still small and black and white. But if you bought in, it was a religion. Like being a fan of your favorite band, but deeper. Maybe because you were there early, you were intrigued, and you knew these machines would change the world.

Computers were not rare in 1986, but most of them were PCs…which really didn’t have an effective Windows interface until 1995. In other words, they were not very usable. They were business tools.

But what really blew up computing was AOL. Didn’t matter what platform you were on, they all worked with AOL…and people ran out and bought computers just to play.

But that was almost thirty years ago. Do today’s generations, many birthed in this century, know this?

No, just like we couldn’t fathom the introduction of television in our parents’ era.

Anyway, I had no allegiance to Apple. All I knew was I wanted to start a newsletter and needed a computer to do so. And it didn’t take much research to find out I needed a Mac, with PageMaker, and a LaserWriter.

This was a different era, not quite the hobbyist era, but the machines were not foolproof, unlike your iPad and iPhone. Not only did they crash, they might not reboot. The Mac wasn’t truly user-friendly for everybody until the introduction of Mac OS X, based on Unix with the Mach kernel.

Not that you need to know that, not that today you need to know how your car runs. But for almost all of my life, you had to have a rudimentary knowledge of how your automobile functioned, because it would break! Computers were even worse, although they rarely physically broke, they just stopped working.

And you had to figure out why.

That’s right, there was no Genius Bar, really very little tech help at all. You had to sit in front of the computer and figure out what was wrong, and it could take you hours…I found it nearly impossible to fall asleep until I’d solved the problem, gotten my computer back on the right track.

Needless to say, those are not these days.

2

So forty years ago…

Not only was there no internet, techies were considered nerds, geeks, they were not respected by the hoi polloi, who were infatuated by MTV. But once you got bitten…

I used to say it was like having a math problem on my desk. Only there was no test, I wasn’t graded, but when I figured it out the level of satisfaction…

And what the Macintosh could do, and what the PC could not!

So if you were around in those days, you’ll be intrigued, you will be riveted, because Pogue brings it all back. The system updates, which you had to go to the store at first to get. The step by step innovation. The dark years and then the renaissance.

Now this is not the first time this territory has been covered, but it has never been covered so well, because David Pogue is one of our own, he’s not only writing about the Mac, he LIVED the Mac!

The best books ever about the Mac and Mac products were authored by Pogue, and I used to buy the “Missing Manual”s and read them cover to cover. You’d be stunned how powerful these machines are, most only use a tiny faction of their ability.

And the software too.

I read all the manuals, also from cover to cover.

Do you know if you double-click the top of your window, it will shrink it down to the dock? I could list tons of tips, but most are not used and not cared about. It’s almost an insider’s game. But…

Those early days, do you remember Conflict Catcher?

All the breakthroughs and bumps in the road are catalogued by Pogue. In an upfront, breezy style. He makes Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs look like the doorstep it is. Content is secondary to readability, and Pogue is very readable. And as much as he knows to leave in, he’s not afraid of leaving a bit out. It’s a book. Made to be read from start to finish. If you do so, you’ll know Apple’s history.

But how many people need to know this?

3

Apple was the little engine that could. The true breakthrough was the iPod.

But before that, during Jobs’s hejira with NeXT…

The problem with Sculley was he was a marketer, of a completely different product. Pepsi could sit on the shelves for a while. Computers lost value every day they were held in inventory.

Also, Sculley was a publicity hog, who wrote a book and liked being perceived as a visionary, even though he was not. We see this story again and again, do not believe the hype. Which is easy to garner. Can you say “Theranos”? No, the true people to admire are those who are doing the work, whose names are out there, but oftentimes say no to press, it slows them down, never mind that the press always gets it wrong, ALWAYS! Because unlike Pogue, most writers are not familiar with the territory.

Was Jobs a terror?

Yes.

And he was milder when he came back.

But he had a vision, and he didn’t believe in consumer research. He was about the bleeding edge. A lot of this has been documented, which is why the second half of the book is less interesting.

As for Tim Cook and the players in power today…

Yes, the petty wars are delineated, but the real point is they are not superstars, they are not visionaries, those only come along once in a while.

Like a classic musician, Jobs is focused on getting it right, in a world where everybody is taught to compromise to get along, where no one wants to stand out, upset the apple cart. Jobs focuses on product, believing the rest will take care of itself.

And prior to his return and their replacement, those who sat on the board saw Apple as a traditional business. They wanted to sell it, before it cratered, before Jobs came back and reinvigorated it.

Now I remember one of the lessons I wanted to impart… Don’t underestimate expertise. We see this all the time in the music business, since you don’t need a degree to be in it, no one has any respect for those who work in it. Average citizens believe they can find talent, they can do ticketing. But again and again outsiders fail, because the expertise cannot be quantified, it is built over time, it’s something you feel, it’s something innate. Even as simple as picking the hits. I’d say at least ninety percent of what people e-mail me, saying it’s great and deserves further attention, does not. I’m not saying they can’t like it, but they don’t have the seasoning and the vision to know what will spread to the public.

But it’s not only in music, in politics people have contempt for expertise. There’s this belief everybody can do everything. Then why did it take Steve Jobs to come up with the iPod and iPhone?

Breaking rules all the while. Getting rid of legacy ports on computers, getting rid of the physical keyboard on the iPhone. People are attached to the past, and if you’re busy serving them you’re going to be left behind. Jobs knew the iPhone was going to destroy the iPod, but rather than keep the music player alive, Jobs insisted on pushing the envelope, he was not willing to rest on his laurels, giving competitors a window to leapfrog Apple.

Hell, me-too is everywhere. When was the last time you heard a successful record that was truly surprising, completely different? Labels don’t sign those acts anymore, it’s too heavy a lift. They want it easy. Just like the movie studios, whose lunch was eaten by Netflix. Let me see… You raise the prices, you make fewer movies in obvious genres and then you complain that the theatre experience is dying? Believe me, people will show up for something unique and different. Then again, something might have to percolate in the marketplace for a while to catch on, but these flicks play in theatres for a minute and are then available on TV, which is a better experience.

User experience. That was Jobs’s main focus. But in most avenues of life, this is denied. Purveyors are trying to whittle down and control human behavior, keep it in the past, which is a fool’s errand.

4

The press is all over Apple’s 50th.

But it’s kind of like a lifetime achievement award… Once you get that, you’re usually done.

I get a new iPhone every year. But recently, the changes have been miniscule, almost irrelevant.

Apple is making a ton of money on services, and maybe the days of hardware breakthroughs are done, then again, the days of tech wowing us died over a decade ago, now tech is the enemy.

But the story of going from Motorola to Intel to in-house chips… Once again, the company is always thinking about the future, whereas in entertainment, everybody seems to be constantly blind-sided. Kind of like George Bush and 9-11. Who could envision they’d fly planes into buildings?

Then again, entertainment executives are all about lifestyle, accumulating and displaying. The company is something to milk.

Oh, I just remembered another thing that struck me… This happened again and again, but foremost with the original Macintosh team.

Yes, Jobs asked for the theoretically unachievable, which they always delivered, but once the Mac was released…most of the members of the team were so burned out, they couldn’t work for months, if ever at this level again. Most left Apple. None set the world on fire once again. They’d been to the mountaintop, they’d experienced the ride and the rewards, they just weren’t up for doing it again, like a hit act that cannot create hits anymore.

There are a lot of lessons in Pogue’s book. Not that he bats you over the head with them. But almost no one is going to read this book. They might buy it, but the average punter just doesn’t care about the minutiae of tech, the history of creation. Kind of like cars. You may love Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, but how many people want to go back seventy or a hundred years and hear about the arguments and decisions regarding what kind of engines and suspensions to use, the failures…

However, the thing about Apple is unlike any single car brand, unlike any musician, period, the company’s products and services touch a broad swath of the public. Sure, Android might be bigger internationally, but all the innovation is on the iPhone first, which has over fifty percent market share in the U.S.

And now with the MacBook Neo, Macs are no longer expensive. The last hurdle has been eliminated, you can enter the cult on the cheap.

And once you do…

You get locked in.

And the love for Apple sustains. This is not a musical act or TV show that ultimately peters out. We expect Apple to continue to deliver, to lead us into the future.

Did it miss AI?

I’m not even gonna get into it. Could be their philosophy of licensing turns out to be the best.

But one thing is for sure, Apple is not a one trick pony. So many use their products and they think they know what goes on inside the gold mine. In truth they don’t. And, in truth, they don’t really care that much, they have no need to know.

But if you do…

P.S. Don’t buy the e-book unless you’re going to read it on an iPad… There are numerous color photos.