“The Horses and the Hounds”: https://spoti.fi/3yT0756

1

“Cashin’ in on a thirty year crush

You can’t be young and do that

You can’t be young and do that”

James McMurtry was once the young buck making his statement supported by Columbia Records. Back when getting a record deal was everything, when the stars were still big and the record industry was still a thing, before it all blew up into a million pieces where it’s every act for itself and only a very few get major label money and even if they break have a fraction of the impact of those from the days of yore.

McMurtry made two LPs with the Mellencamp camp. And especially the first was magical, but McMurtry does not have a radio friendly voice, and neither does Bob Dylan, but at the turn of the decade, from the eighties to the nineties, it was all about your look and your voice and if you possessed neither, as in you weren’t beautiful with a pleasing voice, not only did you get little MTV/VH1 airplay, but little radio play either, in an era where Top Forty on FM playing the video hits eclipsed a dying AOR which was challenged by R.E.M. and ultimately Nirvana which they were late to if they played them at all and after languishing in a backwater they either flipped format or went classic rock.

In other words, there was no place to hear James McMurtry. In an era very unlike today, when it was truly all about the hit and without one good luck whereas today if you’re not in the Spotify Top 50 hits are not really a thing although you do need a track to catch people’s ears as you build your career brick by brick into an edifice that will support you as long as you stay on the road and harness the power of your fans. This is the new paradigm and if you don’t make Spotify Top 50 music you must hew to it.

Then leaving the Indiana crew for South Carolina McMurtry made an album with Don Dixon (where’s he been lately?), which had a softer but equally intriguing sound and then after its release in 1995 James was promptly dropped from Columbia and thrown into the land of the independents, where a label might give you money to make a record, and then deals a small amount of promotion and takes the lion’s share of the income if there is any. And at this point acts of this vintage put their albums out themselves, they have to pay to make them they might as well get all the revenue if there is any and so many of the old label people lost their jobs and have hung out their shingle and can be hired to get the word out for you. But don’t expect to make a big impact, once again the most important thing is to know who your fan base is, be able to reach all of them in e-mail, and then deliver blistering live shows and hope the word spreads.

So James McMurty has lived through this entire epoch, into today when many of his contemporaries do house concerts, when most don’t even bother to put out new music, they just can’t get a jones to do it to little acclaim.

And the truth is if you’re not a fan of McMurtry you’re probably not going to cotton to “The Horses and the Hounds,” because all of the trappings have been excised, you’ve got James and his songs and some noisy guitars and an occasional organ and backup vocal and that’s it, it’s the opposite of the Columbia albums, it’s like McMurtry is wearing blinders, just going forward, irrelevant of what anybody thinks, irrelevant of whether anybody’s paying attention.

And I must admit the first time through I did not get “The Horses and the Hounds,” but then the above lines from “Canola Fields” stuck with me. A thirty year crush? No one in the Spotify Top 50 can sing about that, they’re not old enough. You have to have some miles on you. From your high school days to the shenanigans of college to playing the field to getting married and divorced and then thinking back to the way it used to be. I can’t tell you the number of guys I know fantasizing about thirty year crushes, even though if they make contact it never works, but the fantasy keeps them going.

“There’s not much movin’ on the romance radar

Not that I’m cravin’ it all that much

But I still need to feel every once in a while

The warmth of a smile and a touch”

2

“We’re nearly twenty years older

It’s not like what we thought it’d be

We never talked this over

You can’t lay it all on me”

Back when we used to buy albums one by one, when you laid down too much cash to feed your addiction, you played the LPs until they revealed themselves, until a track stuck out, and “What’s the Matter” is the track on “The Horses and the Hounds.”

I was lying on the couch listening on headphones as I surfed the net on my iPad, I certainly wasn’t paying attention to the lyrics, but the changes felt so good, like driving alone in your car with the top down and your hair blowing in the wind knowing your life is far from perfect but this one moment is bliss.

“Blood pressure’s up, I gotta take pills

If the food don’t kill me, the alcohol will

I know it ain’t healthy but this is what I do

Same thing I was doing back before I met you”

They marry you and then they want you to change, even though you never said you would. Suddenly you’re the enemy when you used to be God.

Not that it’s easy being home with the kids when your significant other is gallivanting on the road, having the time of their life, at least you think so.

So if you want to check out “The Horses and the Hounds” start with “What’s the Matter,” it’s the most palatable, the track that is most easily understood, musically anyway.

But if you go deeper, you should check out the track that comes before, “Ft. Walton Wake-Up Call.”

“She woke up mad, she’s trying to pick a fight

Got a phone to my ear ’cause I’m trying to book a flight

And she’s crazy as a goddamned loon

And the airline’s drowning in the belly of the beast

And they’re all bogged down from the weather in the east

And we’re not going anywhere soon”

It’s a story, you can see it in your mind’s eye. But is it politically correct? Well we expect our acts to tell their story in the lyrics but McMurtry is not the protagonist in all these songs, and the truth is people are flawed, or at least they’re not worried 24/7 about how they come across.

But the chorus is the piece-de-resistance: 

“I keep losing my glasses

I keep losing my glasses

I keep losing my glasses

I keep losing my glasses”

He can’t see his phone, he can’t see the menu, he’s over forty, over fifty, and he needs those damn reading specs, or bifocals. You won’t find this refrain in anything in the Spotify Top 50, and that’s the magic of “The Horses and the Hounds,” it’s written from an adult perspective, and this is extremely rare, almost nonexistent, the last time I encountered it was on Emitt Rhodes’s final album, “Rainbow Ends,” where he was finally old enough to own his faults, to tell his truth, just like taking those blood pressure pills in “What’s the Matter.”

In a country where youth is exalted, McMurtry is singing for the rest of us, who are not on the verge of death but are definitely over the hill in the eyes of the media, it’s almost like we don’t exist, the classic acts dye their hair and get plastic surgery to resemble who they once were while you look out into the audience and see a lot of gray hair, if you see any hair at all. As for appearance…it can never truly cover up biology, what’s going on inside.

So just like the generation it’s made for, the spotlight is not shining on James McMurtry’s “The Horses and the Hounds,” there’s no way it’ll be ubiquitous, so you can either compromise in a futile effort or own your identity and play back your insights to people who will get them, create that fan base you hope will keep you alive.

You’re not a star, you’re a musician. Channeling truth is your goal. Sure, the music must be palatable, but no one is interested in the ditties of the Gen-X’ers and baby boomers. Yet it seems too big a risk to own the miles on your body and mind, but the truth is in low moments that thirty year crush is what’s keeping you alive, isn’t it great to have art that reflects your inner feelings, where you are today? YES!

Maybe Kanye never should have put it out.

If you haven’t been paying attention, Kanye West kept tweaking his album, and he held multiple listening parties in preparation for the final release. As a matter of fact, he’s still arguing with Universal over the final release.

Anyway, the listening parties in Atlanta and Chicago were boffo at the b.o. Millions.

And then the album came out.

The instant reviews were positive, but by the next day not so much.

If you go to Metacritic, where they list and then average all the reviews, “Donda” has a 53 out of 100 from the critics and a 6.3 out of 10 from the public.

These are not good numbers.

Then again, if you check the U.S. Spotify Top 50, Kanye is all over it. It’s literally half of the chart, 25 out of 50. Internationally not so much, where “Donda” has only 11 of the 50 spots. Proving that it’s a great big world out there, and in the myopic USA we oftentimes don’t see what is happening overseas. But the bottom line is this is amazing penetration. Not seen since the release of Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous,” which has a 72 out of 100 critics score on Metacritic, and a 6.4 out of 10 from the public. Then again, country music fans don’t tend to post on Metacritic, in the eight months since the release of “Dangerous” only 8 people have reviewed it, whereas 2,333 users have already reviewed “Donda” in less than a week.

So, looking at recent history, there’s mania after initial release, but Kanye’s new albums fall out of the Spotify Top 50 quite quickly. Make no mistake, Kanye’s going to make bank from “Donda,” at least for a while, but looking at recent history, it won’t sustain.

But interestingly, Kanye is not bothering to play today’s insider game that renders the “Billboard” Top Ten inaccurate and ultimately worthless, where #1 is manipulated by selling high-priced vinyl and other packages. Kanye is actually selling a Stem Player on his website, but this doesn’t count on the chart. In other words, Kanye knows the truth, he’s bigger than the chart. If you’re playing the chart game you’ve already lost, you’re not as big as you think you are, you’re actually working against yourself, you’re marginalizing yourself, you may be appealing to the media but the music business is driven first and foremost by fans, from the bottom up, as opposed to yesteryear when majors anointed albums, manipulated all important radio and determined stars from the top down.

Kanye has got a huge fan base.

But just imagine if he’d never released “Donda” publicly, to streaming services, at all. Then we’d have true mania, you’d have to go to the show to hear it. And Kanye is constantly changing it, so every night is different!

To play a record costs much less than putting on a complete show/stage performance. But people were paying beaucoup bucks to be inside the stadium, it was an event, they did not want to be left out, one could brag they’d gone. This is radically different from the prominent paradigm today, where acts rehearse, get the show down, align it with triggers for production as well as music and it’s the same in each and every burg. Most shows are just an advertisement for the underlying record(s), whereas with Kanye it’s all about him and once again, he’s creating an event.

This is how it used to be, primarily before production and the feeling that one must replicate one’s MTV video on stage. Shows lived and breathed, set lists were not always identical, each gig was special.

The jam bands have continued this tradition. People go to multiple shows, they’re completists, they don’t want to miss a thing. Which is another reason why the Dead & Company tour is so huge. Better to get this coverage in the “New York Times” Style section than be number one in some lame article reproducing the chart:

“When the Parking Lot Is Its Own Strange Trip – Outside Dead & Company shows, a tradition started by the Grateful Dead lives on, vivid uniforms and all.”: https://nyti.ms/38JiHBG

There’s no new recorded music at all. Everything’s an oldie, but no performance is identical. There’s a culture, a scene, which is what the photos in the above article represent. By going you become a member of a club. And believe me, those who went to Kanye’s listening party felt the same way. Never mind all the Phish fans.

All the money is on the road anyway.

So Kanye plays his record and…

Videos and audio recordings don’t come close to replicating the sound, never mind finding it impossible to capture the vibe of the event. And if professional “tapers” get involved, you generate a huge cadre of traders, needing to hear last night’s show, needing to hear everything!

Kanye can’t go on the road and do listening parties anymore, the album is out. Now he has to tour with a complete show. But if he never released the album to the public…

All this bitching about recorded music revenues is missing the point. The script has been flipped, the truly valuable acts, the ones that sustain and make all the money…the recordings are ancillary, they’re just the kindling. In most cases these acts don’t even need new music to tour! And the music is primary, absolutely. This is completely different from videos with product placement, endorsements…it’s all about the music.

And the event.

Kanye took a risk.

Maybe someone else will too.

It’s the left you have to worry about.

For years, we’ve been told to fear the right. They’ve got the guns. They’ve got an echo chamber of Fox News and right wing radio. They even believe in QAnon. You don’t want to anger them because they’re gonna show up at your house, they’re gonna camp on the statehouse steps, they’re going to invade the Capitol.

Now the insurrection…people told them to do it. It’s not like it was a secret. Almost no one expected them to breach the Capitol, but everybody knew a rally was planned, to support the inane belief that Trump had been cheated, that he’d actually won the election.

And since the election, southern states have clamped down on voting rights. The Republicans changed their strategy, they realized they couldn’t win on the national level, and therefore they focused on the states. And now we’ve got the Texas six week abortion law. And open carry. And voter suppression, under the guise of voter security.

So if you’re inside the bubble, you’re smiling, pinching yourself, it hasn’t been this good in eons, maybe forever!

But it’s not only the rank and file, it’s the news institutions. “The New York Times” has been neutered. As has been Fauci. If it’s run by the left, it’s no good. Ergo supporting Trump in his deal with the Taliban to pull out of Afghanistan, but excoriating Biden when he actually does so. And we can debate the smoothness of the extraction all day long, but these flip-flopping officials and pundits wanted the U.S. to stay there! And there are foreign policy hawks on both the left and the right. Afraid of the bogeyman, they never say no. Communism was not only going to come to Vietnam, further dominoes were going to fall thereafter. They say our exit from Afghanistan sets the table for Chinese influence. Then again, if the Russians and the United States couldn’t make lasting progress in Afghanistan, maybe no one can. The territory has been fought over for centuries.

And McCarthy is telling corporations not to cough up data on the January 6th insurrection. It’s a full court press. If I write anything political, it’s the right I hear from, they’re working the refs 24/7, trying to make you doubt yourself, about speaking up. The right sets the agenda and the left cowers. Hell, look at supposed Democrat Joe Manchin, he’s more afraid of the Republicans than he is of those in his own damn party!

As for the legal system…

People have little faith in it anymore. The richest, most prominent people, lie on the stand, and the appointment of judges has become completely political. Ergo the Supreme Court. Which resulted in yesterday’s decision not to stay the enforcement of the Texas abortion law.

But the Democrats are mostly silent. Unsure exactly who their constituency is, afraid of pissing off the progressives and at the same time afraid of pissing off a theoretical middle. If you’re looking for leadership, you’re not going to get it from a Democratic politician.

But then we had that pesky little event last spring. A policeman kneels on a black man in Minnesota who then dies…AND ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!

What do we know, George Floyd was no picnic, he didn’t have a clean record. Then again, did you read about Beverly Hills’ crackdown on crime? They arrested 106 people, 105 black and 1 Latino. It’s hard to be a person of color and not have a record.

Anyway, George Floyd dies and there are protests not only in Minnesota, not only in the United States, BUT ALL OVER THE WORLD!

We can argue all day long about the ultimate results of said protest, but one thing is for sure, the world came out in force, far in excess of any protest on a right wing issue. Because this one man died.

Remind you of the Arab Spring?

One college educated fruit vendor in Tunisia gets pissed about harassment and lack of opportunity and he sets himself on fire and the whole region is destabilized. After decades of in many cases iron fist rule. Unfortunately, after brief democratic experiments authoritarians moved in, but I’m talking here about the conflagration. It’s not like there was a build-up, it’s not like anybody could see this coming, just like no one could see the protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

Which is a talking point for the right. Look at the destruction! That was their response re the Capitol invasion on 1/6. It’s always a false equivalency, they start talking and won’t shut up and hope to tire you out. But were the George Floyd protests really like 1/6? Let me see, was there damage to infrastructure last spring? Absolutely! Did anybody demand that the entire system of government be thrown overboard, invade the Capitol and threaten to kill elected officials? Of course not. It’s not even the same conversation. But on the right…

But the right is now self-satisfied. Hell, McConnell stacked the Supreme Court. But soon they’re going to stack one too many things on the edifice and the left will awaken and tear down the entire enterprise. I can’t tell you when it’s going to happen, but between the ridiculous recall in California, with so much money spent by a minority in what appears to be a completely fruitless effort, and the endless push of their agenda, the right never sleeps, if you think the left is completely somnambulant and will suffer any indignity, you’re just plain wrong.

And it’s the left that’s got the numbers on its side. Forget the electoral college, Democrats won the Presidential election popular vote handily in both 2016 and 2020. Gerrymandering and an antique system wherein North Dakota gets as many Senators as California has resulted in the tyranny of the minority. And history is laden with revolts upon said paradigm. When the majority of the public is on the side of the government, not so much. But when an authoritarian is clamping down on the majority, blowback happens not only in Tunisia, but in France, remember the famous phrase “let them eat cake”? It’s hard to even get unemployment in many red states, including Florida. As for the canard that unemployment checks were keeping people from getting jobs…turns out in states where government payments were not stricken, the jobs numbers were nearly identical to where they were, and this is not only the “New York Times” speaking, but the “Wall Street Journal” too.

And then there are the states that refuse to take federal money for Medicaid. Now the truth is people are hurt by this, individuals, you can stand on principle all day long, but these policies have effects. Just like wars kill people, done deal. You want to go over there, you want to die? I didn’t think so.

So what is going to break the left’s back?

Sotomayor went ballistic on her fellow Supremes. Let’s not forget, supposed right winger Roberts voted with the Dems. And if the playing field had been level, Kavanaugh and Barrett never would have been appointed, it would be two Democrats, and the Texas laws would be stopped. Don’t think those on the left aren’t aware of the weaseling of McConnell. You think people are ignorant, but they’re not that ignorant when it affects them personally, and if you’ve never been worried your girlfriend is pregnant, you’ve never had sex.

But the same party that says their bodies are inviolate want to have dominion over yours. Forget the logic, it hasn’t worked up to now, they don’t see the hypocrisy, because that’s not what it’s about, truth and justice, it’s just about getting what they want.

And they’re afraid that vaccine passports will be akin to giving Hitler power over them, but then they turn the entire populace of Texas into government agents, tattling on others, sounds exactly like East Germany to me.

But the left sits here and takes it, over and over and over again. To the point that the right is patting itself on the back. It’s working! Fight every point of the left’s agenda, manipulate the game so you win.

But this isn’t sports, it’s people’s lives.

So am I worried about living in an authoritarian country run by the Trumpers? ABSOLUTELY! But after the enactment of the new Texas laws I know we’ll never get that far, not at first. The right believes the left are pushovers, that they can do anything and get away with it. But now the metaphorical battered women are dying. And those in a similar position are agitated and on guard, they know what they’ve got to lose, and they’re ready to rise up when just the lightest feather is added to the right wing pile. It won’t be a major event that wakes up the left, it’ll be the smallest thing, which will have major consequences.

In the south one Black woman didn’t want to sit in the back of the bus and the entire region erupted, they came from the north in support.

And these new laws affect everybody. If you don’t know a Catholic family with an abortion, you know no Catholics. Because when push comes to shove, they know the baby will ruin the person’s life. As for rape and incest? Almost no one is anti-abortion re those. As for open carry? Statistics tell us even in Texas they’re against it. But the right keeps pushing and pushing and when they get away with it they push a little more. It’s a scorched earth policy, every issue is black or white. You’re on their side or you don’t count. They’re organized, the left is disorganized, but there’s a lot of disgruntlement on the left.

The arts are secondary to politics in today’s world. If I write anything political I get light years more e-mails in response. And isn’t it interesting that the right always says to stay in your lane, when they’re certainly not staying in theirs.

If there’s not an adjustment, there’s going to be a realignment. It’ll be something relatively trivial that is going to wake up the beast, it’ll be like the George Floyd protests on steroids. And they’ll far outweigh the numbers on the right, who won’t even see it coming.

But it is.

Suzi Quatro is a trip! You’re gonna dig this podcast even if you’ve never heard any of her hit singles or seen her on “Happy Days” or read any of her books or seen her on stage or listened to her radio show… Suzi is open and honest about everything, displaying her Detroit roots despite living in the U.K. for decades. Suzi needed to make it, and she’s still out there doing it. It was a blast talking to her!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/id1316200737

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

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