She’s selling the essence, not the penumbra.

A couple of years back I had dinner with John Dick, majordomo of the research company CivicScience. He puts out a weekly newsletter everybody loves, you can sign up here:

http://www2.civicscience.com/l/165381/2019-08-30/bjv6tb

CivicScience consults Fortune 500 companies and John was struggling with writing the newsletter, it was a chore. I told him to make it personal.

Then everything instantly changed. The story about his daughter saying “I love Dick!” was priceless. Also the one where he talked about a family tragedy. You see it’s about people. First and foremost. Want to have success, especially in the arts, MAKE IT PERSONAL!

Everybody can relate, everybody is imperfect, has warts. Once you testify everybody else does too, they’re just waiting for the signal to open up, especially guys.

A few years back I went on the Summit Series cruise. You can research it. And although Brad Gerstner of Altimeter Partners told me I had the best presentation of the weekend at a subsequent Summit event in Utah, the hit of the cruise was Esther Perel.

Everybody knows who Esther Perel is today. Because of her podcast and publications and… She’s the relationship guru. Trained relationship guru.

But this was before all that.

I had to go see her, she had to do a bonus talk because people were turned away from the scheduled one. Esther was relatable, she wasn’t dictatorial, she told it how it was, and it was very interesting.

This morning in the “New York Times” I saw a story about Logan Ury:

“Logan Ury Says You’re Dating All Wrong – From her Oakland commune, a dating coach has made a big business out of her data-driven approach to modern romance.: https://nyti.ms/3tsZpLI

A COMMUNE? You mean hippies in Oregon wearing overalls? Takes balls to live in a commune in the twenty first century. This I had to read.

And that’s when I found out Logan went to Harvard. Yes, growing up on the east coast that still means something to me. A person can go to Harvard and be socially awkward, have no practical sense, but they’ve got to be book smart, they’ve got to be able to read, understand and write. Those are the necessary criteria for admission. So was this the average dating coach?

Absolutely not.

She’s not the usual charlatan. You know, the person who hangs up a shingle whose main goal is to get rich. Like the clairvoyants preying on the hopeful. You see Logan’s approach is based on data, science. And she’s got a degree in psychology. This ticks a few boxes.

As for the commune, Ury says “Research shows that people are happiest when they live in groups.”

Now I’m not sure I want to join a kibbutz, but one thing is for sure, I’m happiest when I’m in a group, especially when the pretexts of society are stripped away, when it’s just people. Where you went to school, how much money you have…take away the bragging and it turns out people are more alike than different, you can relate to anybody. Well, there is Gene Simmons…

Ury doesn’t believe in soul mates. If you’re not settling, you’re not doing it right. Think someone is a perfect match? All you’ve got to do is live with them. Logan is being practical, and so many of the unmarried are not. Reminding me of those great Jackson Browne lines:

“Without dreaming of the perfect love

And holding it so far above

That if you stumbled on to someone real you’d never know”

People don’t want to hear the truth. Not only from Jack Nicholson, but almost anybody. They’d rather hew to their delusional viewpoint.

And Ury’s research says “A recent one (survey) found that 88 percent of the app’s users would prefer to date someone who’s in therapy.”

There you have it! If you want to have a relationship you’ve got to have insight into yourself, otherwise how can you have insight into someone else? Going to therapy is hard for most people, they don’t want to admit to themselves that they’re imperfect, that they can’t do it all by themselves. The truth is you can’t, I’ll just leave it at that.

Now Ury is building a business on relationship coaching. I don’t know the woman, for all I know she could be motivated by money. But one thing I do know is people are looking for answers, especially when it comes to love.

So I decided to dig deeper, to go online.

And that’s when I realized that Logan Ury’s publicist deserves a bonus. Ury is everywhere, the “New York Times” is just the cherry on top. But it’s where I saw the story.

And not only are there stories, there’s Instagram and videos and…

I decided to check out Ury’s Instagram, “loganury.”

It’s all advice. It’s detailed. She’s on a mission. And she’s not obscuring it. Too many people are worried about their image. Who has got time for that? If you’re on Instagram you want Logan’s essence. And what is that?

One of her posts says your profile should be accurate, not aspirational. If you lie, what are the odds you’re going to get what you want?

“Look for a partner, not a project.”

People don’t change. Not that much. So if they tick a lot of boxes, they look great and they’re good in bed, that does not trump the fact that they cannot hold down a job, or are untrustworthy.

There’s a cool video, “How to deal with a ZQ (Zero Questions) dater.” She’s got a lot of good advice, but it’s the most practical thing that stood out… If you’re wary of dates with no questions, no back and forth, PUT IT IN YOUR PROFILE! Yes, put in your profile that you love being asked questions. Brilliant!

Now the truth is all of this is not about finding the perfect partner, but getting your skills up, so if you do bump into someone at the grocery store, or meet someone at a party, you don’t freeze up, you use the tools you’ve been taught to interact. There’s a good chance you’ll meet your love off an app, but there’s also a good chance that you won’t meet anybody if you never go on the apps.

As Logan says:

“‘I’m not presenting myself as a guru,’ Ms. Ury said. ‘I tell people: I will create a system that helps you tackle your blind spots and change your decisions.'”

And Ury’s story is relatable:

“…she was pining over a guy whom she referred to in her book as Brian. She’d made out with him during one of her six trips to Burning Man and had glommed onto him; he rebuffed her. He sent her occasional texts, and she sobbed about his dismissiveness. It was the kind of dynamic she sees her clients repeat again and again, clinging to the illusion of a connection.”

Oh, you’ve been there, the unrequited crush. Eventually you get over it, but you can be hung up on these people FOR YEARS!

And finally, Ury appealed to me because:

“‘I’ve done online dating. I’ve ghosted, I’ve been ghosted, I’ve gone on 8.5 dates in one week,’ she said. ‘I feel like I’m the perfect level of attractiveness — it’s not like I’m so beautiful where it’s like, “Oh, dating was so easy.” You have to be someone people can relate to.'”

Ury knows who she is, that she’s not so desirable that she’s beating men off with a stick. Like most of us. And if you only focus on the exterior, you’re gonna miss a lot of great people.

I’m not in the dating market, and I hope to never be again, but I am absolutely fascinated by relationships. Who people are, what brings them together. I can listen to these stories forever. (However I cannot listen to the same damn story told by the same damn person who never takes action.) Which is why I read this article and Googled Logan.

That’s all there is, people. Your toys won’t keep you warm at night. Some of those billionaires are the loneliest people you’ll ever meet. They can’t trust anyone, and they can’t climb down from the totem pole. Yes, in relationships everybody can be a 10. You’ve just got to stop being aspirational and accept yourself. And know that everybody’s idea of a 10 is different.

If you’re in the market, you should check Logan out, just to get your brain going if nothing else. There’s so much to see, so much to learn.

GO FOR IT!

Tom Petty didn’t want to be the guinea pig, he didn’t want MCA to sell his next album for $9.98.

Although there was radio action on “Breakdown,” Tom Petty’s first two LPs were not commercial juggernauts. He was still somewhat of a secret. Unfortunately going in the wrong direction. You can only be the new thing once, and when the build is at a feverish pitch and your second album is not as good, it’s hard to recover from that.

But Tom and the Heartbreakers (Who should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as their own group if the E Street Band is, but being mainly from Florida and living in California there’s no chance. Didn’t you know they only make serious music in New York?) employed Jimmy Iovine and released a blockbuster, “Damn the Torpedoes.” One must ponder whether the LP would have been as big if it were released by ABC, Shelter’s prior distributor, but in any event Petty didn’t like being traded and declared bankruptcy and that story has become industry legend. But the story of $9.98? That seems to have faded away.

Records were an addiction. This was just before MTV was launched. Sure, there were casual customers who only bought one, based on what they heard on the radio, but the business was driven by those who couldn’t resist purchasing two, three or five. I wouldn’t say records were cheap, but unlike in the U.K. they were not ridiculously expensive, one can argue quite strongly that the U.K. remained a “hits” business, i.e. Top Forty, because singles were affordable and albums were not. A trip to the record store was a weekly ritual. You watched the papers for sales. And if you were paying suggested retail…you were one of the very few. The key was how much of a discount you got. The new releases were always cheaper, which is kind of funny, you’d think they’d be more expensive, and the catalog stuff was the most expensive. But you’d wait for the all label sale, when the entire inventory was at its cheapest. Or if you lived in the metropolis you went to certain indie outlets were the albums were always cheap. Fans were aware of the price of records. And were they going to take a risk for a buck more?

Petty, a customer himself, knew many wouldn’t, so he agitated for the standard $8.98 price on his album, which really meant that savvy customers could buy it for five bucks.

Ironically, “Hard Promises” was darker and not as commercially successful as “Damn the Torpedoes,” and “Long After Dark” even more so. Then Petty put out “Southern Accents” and “Don’t Come Around Here No More” ended up being gigantic, driven by a ubiquitous video with Tom in a giant hat. Tom made the transition from the seventies to the eighties, from AOR to MTV, he started to become the Tom Petty of legend, not that everybody was on the same page until the release of his solo LP, “Full Moon Fever,” in 1989. I’d like to be free fallin’ right now!

Not everybody recovers from hiccups in the road. They can stall a career. You want to make it easy for fans to continue to follow and appreciate you. Like Titus Welliver in “Bosch.”

That’s the reason to watch, Titus is so damn good. Tom Cruise is mostly external, Titus Welliver is mostly internal, but there’s an external element too. You know guys like Titus, who go their own way, not caring what anybody thinks, who seem to be plugged in in a way no one else is, who radiate weird loner charisma. It’s more of an anti-star than a star. It’s the difference between Metallica and the Spotify Top 50. What becomes a legend most? Metallica!

So I got hooked on “Bosch” six summers ago, recovering from shoulder surgery. It was like discovering a new band, where you had to go back and devour all of the catalog. And then I waited every spring for a new season.

Yes, it’s a formula. But you can’t stop watching Titus. And the supporting cast too, it’s quite an ensemble.

But now Amazon, in all of its “wisdom,” has moved the “Bosch” sequel, “Bosch: Legacy,” to Freevee.

HUH?

I’m such a fan that I knew that Amazon’s IMDb TV was rebranded as Freevee and you had to go there to watch the new season of “Bosch.” BUT NOT A SINGLE PERSON I INTERACTED WITH KNEW THIS! They were all fans of the show, they were positively shocked, shocked I tell you, when they found out there was a new season. As far as being on Freevee…they’d never heard of IMDb TV!

But it gets worse, it’s not on Freevee all over the world.

And you know how it is in today’s world, you can’t get the word out. And even if people got it, they had to know to download a new app, and that you didn’t have to register to watch it, but you know Amazon wants all your data. To HELP you. Yeah, that’s right.

So since it’s on Freevee, that means there are…COMMERCIALS!

I pay for Amazon Prime, one of the perks is the streaming TV without commercials, and now you take my favorite original show from the service and exile it to the hinterlands and make me watch adverts after having made the journey?

I know some people are cheap. Actually, a lot are cheap. But most of them will pay for convenience. Which is why they pay for Spotify instead of continuing to steal music. Sure, there’s a free tier with advertising on Spotify, but it’s hobbled, it’s not fully-featured, it’s for casual users only, to be able to pick and choose what you want to hear you need to pay. You need to pay for everything good in this life.

I don’t want to see no stinking commercials.

Talk to a young ‘un, they don’t know what a commercial is! Well, they refuse to watch ’em. And where would they see ’em, they don’t watch network, they don’t even have a cable TV subscription! But they do have a Netflix account, even if it might be their parents’.

Clamp down on password sharing, why not. It’s like when cable went digital, you could no longer steal HBO by removing a filter.

So Amazon was building momentum, a catalog, of “Bosch.” Hell, most of the legendary TV shows were not gigantic out of the box, not only “Seinfeld,” but “Breaking Bad.” It’s harder to reach people today, but the key is to hook ’em, which Amazon did with “Bosch,” and now they’re throwing all that good will away, putting “Bosch: Legacy” on Freevee? The people paying for Prime are the same people who don’t want to watch commercials!

Amazon could realize the error of its ways. And put “Legacy” on the main service right now, most people would have no idea it had been previously released.

As for the commercials on Freevee… They’re less in number than they are on network/cable, but that’s like saying five bee stings are better than twenty, when in truth you don’t want to be stung at all!

Commercials disrespect the art.

We can finally air visual product sans reformatting and editing. Yes, the aspect ratio of your flat screen is akin to the one in the movie theatre, that all the producers create for. And, there are no longer time restraints, in streaming a movie or series episode can be as long as you want. This is liberation!

But the powers-that-be, out of touch with the public, think otherwise.

Have you seen “Tehran”?

The first season was pretty good. But I haven’t watched the second yet, I can’t watch anything week to week, you forget too much, it’s not the same experience. And is there any buzz on “Tehran”? NO! Maybe if they had released it all at once there would be. The only damn show with buzz on Apple TV+ is “Ted Lasso.” Meaning they must be doing something wrong. Forget good reviews, there is no word of mouth, because Apple is stifling it. To think that Steve Jobs was about breaking norms, being ahead of the customer, and Apple is going backwards.

But in any event, watch “Bosch: Legacy.” Titus can carry the show alone, but the usual suspects are there too, Maddie and Money, and even cameos from Crate and Barrel. And there’s a breakout star, Stephen Chang, who is so unknown he doesn’t even have his own Wikipedia page!

Eventually all albums were sold for $9.98. And then CDs for twice that price. And the labels were rolling in dough, laughing all the way to the bank after selling catalog all over again and cutting out singles if they hit, forcing consumers to purchase the whole overpriced album, can you say “Chumbawamba”? And then came Napster.

Don’t force the public to do what it doesn’t want to. You only build resentment. And I resent the fact that “Bosch: Legacy” is on Freevee!

Elliott Murphy was one of the new Dylans of 1973, along with his friend Bruce Springsteen. But despite being on three major labels, Murphy never broke through in the States. However, Elliott was big in France, so he moved there in 1989 and has been living the life of the independent troubadour ever since, making records and touring to acclaim all over Europe. Listen to the story of how one man was spit out of the machine but found a way to survive by doing it himself.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/elliott-murphy/id1316200737?i=1000565794856

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/7cf40a66-ccf2-4020-899b-a9fca10562d8/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-elliott-murphy

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/elliott-murphy-203922764

Subject: Re: The Model Is Broken

RE: The Model Is Broken.

Bob, you’re killing it, mate. Superbly reasoned piece and within it lies the awful truth…or is it that awful? Yes, in many ways, but change is always a new pair of boots that need breaking in.

The message at the heart of even this sea change is the same; write a great song and sing it well. It might not make you rich but then again, it just might and you can probably sleep a little better knowing you don’t suck. Then get up and try to do it again.

Keep firing

JD Souther

___________________________________

From: Michael Cantor

Subject: Re: The TikTok Backlash

Another testament to TikTok’s influence: My 18yo daughter and I saw Billy Joel at MSG 10 days ago. He played “Vienna” and “Zanzibar” among the usual hits. Even for big fans , those are relatively obscure songs (especially Zanzibar). My daughter knew them both because those are his 2 big songs on TikTok!

Best,

Michael

___________________________________

From: Matthew Sterling

Subject: Re: Running Up That Hill

RE: Running Up That Hill and other ‘net-driven resurgences…

My kids are 14 and 11. When we’re in the car, I let them play whatever they want on Spotify. The other day, in the midst of a larger shuffle of modern hits they had going on, Matthew Wilder’s “Break My Stride” came on. I laughed and asked where they’d heard it before. They both looked at me, as teenagers are wont to do, like I was from Mars. The following exchange took place.

“Dad, this is, like, the biggest song from the 80s.”

“Ha! No, it’s not. This was maybe Top 40. A one-hit wonder. Guy made more money producing No Doubt.”

“Wrong, Dad. This song is huge. Everybody knows this song.”

“No way. Check the streams. I bet it has 5m-10m, tops. Check out ‘No One Is To Blame’ by Howard Jones. That was probably a bigger hit.”

(Pause for 14yo to check stats. Meanwhile my 11yo is singing along to ‘Stride.’ Knows every single word.)

“8.8m streams for your song.”

“Exactly. Now check the streams on ‘Break My Stride.’ No way it’s more than Howard Jones.”

(Pause for 14yo to check stats. 11yo still singing along to ‘Stride.’ Even knows the bridge!)

“Umm… 289m streams.”

(Pause for me to prevent driving into a ditch.)

“What the fudge?!? How is that possible?!? ‘Break My Stride?’ That defies all logic.”

(Pause for both kids to pull out their phones and show me various TikTok / Memes utilizing ‘Stride.’ I think a deer jumps over a fence in one while the song plays in the background.)

“See, Dad? Everybody knows this song. It’s one of the biggest hits of the 80s.”

(Pause for me to insist we put on ‘No One Is To Blame,’ which they begrudgingly tolerated until the second verse.)

Never underestimate the power of the teenager to dictate the future, and casually (perhaps even unknowingly) rewrite the past. It took me a solid fifteen minutes to explain to my kids that Matthew Wilder, while a very successful musician with an enviable career, is not a household name on par with the biggest stars of the 80s. One of the reasons it took me so long to explain is because Michael Jackson’s “P.Y.T.” and “Rock With You” both have around the same number of streams as “Break My Stride.” Let that sink in.

The power of teenagers. Same as it ever was.

___________________________________

From: adam barnes

Subject: Re: Distribution Is King

We are moving away from the “importance” of press in an album cycle – at least on an independent level. What’s the point? I know it’s all about clicks clicks clicks. Has been for a while, but even more so now. The new head honcho at Rolling Stone only cares about these, and rightfully so, it is the only business model they have left. Gone are the days of putting the music star on the cover of music’s favorite magazine and being able to slip in some emerging (amazing) artists to discover.

I speak to a lot of publicists and artists about this – and we all were stumped for a while. Where is all the support we used to receive? Well, if only the clicks matter and you’re emerging you better be ready to pay to show you are worth it. There is just too much happening and the publications are trying to pull back and run what they know will get that ad revenue.

We’ve been entering this for a while – but you have to have the buzz before considering a publicist at this point. You are better off tailoring your team with folks that can help you put a plan together to achieve this buzz (whether it be on social media, or DSPs, or just making a HIT) – and if you get to a spot where you have so many journalists and people reaching out that you need someone to filter what is right and wrong and to get your “buzz-worthiness” out there, then pull the trigger.

It’s all changing…same goes for music videos – I’ll talk about that some other time.

___________________________________

Subject: Re: Re-Billy Strings

Hey Bob,

Thanks for finding Billy Strings,

I’d like to echo Pete Wernick aka Dr Banjo and other’s sentiments. This is a whole world unto itself- Bluegrass. And it’s existed for a very long time. As my friend saxophonist extraordinaire Marc Russo said one time “Oh Bluegrass- the “other Jazz”. People learning Bluegrass music growing up ARE like Jazz artists, they put “20,000 hours” in learning their craft. They/we make for the most part pretty meager wages but that’s not why they/we do it. I was in a band called The New Grass Revival through the ’70’s & 80’s. Our last show as a band was opening for The Dead at Oakland Colliseum ’89.

Two years ago we were inducted into International Hall of Fame. I’ve been touring with The Doobie Brothers now since 2010 so I really don’t tour that circuit anymore. Bluegrass is a world of amazing artists dedicated solely to a truly American art form. Billy is for sure the REAL DEAL as is his band, and he’s as sweet as he’s been described. Now, go check out The Punch Brothers, Green Sky Bluegrass, Tony Rice, Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, The Infamous String Dusters, Molly Tuttle, I’m With Her, Sarah Hull, Dale Ann Bradley. It’s a world so well worth wandering into.

Kind thanks,

John Cowan

___________________________________

From: Dan Millen

Subject: Re: Re-Billy Strings

Damn… lost control of my inbox this week.

Adam King summed it up.

Patrick Effing May, Crossover Touring.

Pat is – like Billy – a development story of his own.  Affable huggable and when he says “trust me” you trust him. Slugged it out in the trenches booking $500 jambands in menu venues and did things his way which always involves taking care of his acts AND his promoters.

It says a lot about an agent / agency when an act goes from nothing to six figure grosses and still stays with the agent.

Oh, and one helluva bass player too!

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Subject: Re: Go All The Way 50th Anniversary

Bob,

Thanks for the great Raspberries piece. We heard a lot of similar comments at the reunion shows, how people didn’t listen to their records at first but as their musical tastes expanded really came to love the music. And then when Stevie Van Zandt, Jon Bon Jovi, Paul Stanley, Matthew Sweet, and so many other musicians came to the shows, we started to realize the profound influence the band had on some of their peers. Those reunion shows – basically a series of 16 one-offs, weren’t easy to pull off. Quality was job 1. No rented gear for these shows, so the crew, also the original guys from the ‘70’s – trucked Jim Bonfanti’s original Ludwig drum kit, Wally Bryson’s original Gibson double neck, Flying V and Rickenbacker guitars, all of which were played on the original recordings, and the fresh new Vox amps – to every show, coast-to-coast. The band wanted the shows to be as authentic as possible for the fans, budget be damned! As a result, the vibe and the electricity at those shows was palpable! Throw in 2 hour long meet and greets at every show that included a pic with the band and a ticket for $100, and you had a concert experience for the band’s longtime loyal fans that blew their minds! Again, it was all to thank the fans who waited over 30 years for the “classic” version of the band to reunite. Unfortunately there was never any high quality live video of the band back in the ‘70’s, which fueled their legendary onstage rep for decades, including a mythical 1973 Carnegie Hall show, that of course wasn’t recorded. But now we’ve recently found a 2007 reunion concert recorded in HD that is, well, pretty damn great, and so far we’ve posted two tracks  “Tonight” and “Go All The Way” – on the band’s YouTube channel (RaspberriesOnline). We hope to be posting more video tracks there in the coming year, so the fans can get a very real idea of just how great this band still was live, even 30 years after they last played together! Cheers!

Al Kaston

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From: Joe Walsh

Subject: Re: Hacks-Episode 6

Hey Bob-

Good job looking at 

grand-slam hit songs.

My advice to young artists-

1) If you’re going to write a

song that lasts forever:

RECORD IT DOWN A

HALF-STEP NOW!

so you can sing it when

you’re my age.

Walsh