From: Richard Griffiths

Subject: Jim Steinman

I was so sad to read about the passing of Jim Steinman this week. I feel privileged that I got to work with him and could call him my friend.

Bat Out Of Hell is one of the top 10 selling albums of all time,  here in the UK. Over 50 million worldwide. I can still picture in my mind the performance Meatloaf did Two out of Three Ain’t Bad on the Old Grey Whistle test back in 1977, with Steinman in band .

I was hooked from that moment.

In 1983 I was running Virgin Music in London, and I heard this song on the radio. Total Eclipse of the Heart, by Bonnie Tyler. I knew it was a smash. I did some digging on publishing situation, and found out it was available. I got in touch with his lawyer, who came back with the question,”Jim Steinman wants to know what you know about Jim?” To which I replied “I know more about Jim Steinman than Jim Steinman knows about Jim Steinman!”

I was invited to fly to NY and meet with Jim and his manager David Sonnenberg.

We met early evening in Jim’s apartment on the east side. He came in, shook my hand and said “Do you like red wine?” I told him I did and from that moment a wonderful business and personal relationship grew.

In 1988, the last thing I signed to Virgin in London, before I went to run the LA  office, was a concept album of a four girl band called Pandora’s Box. It was a total stiff.

However years later, 1995, I’m the President of Epic in NY and we were just starting to have success with Celine Dion. I’m in an AnR meeting with her manager and Paul Berger from Sony Canada. We’ve been playing all sorts of songs and Paul says, “We need a big power ballad to show how amazing Celine’s voice is” I told them to wait a minute while I went to find something I wanted to play them. I came back with the cassette of Pandora’s Box and played them It’s All Coming Back to Me Now. The rest is history!

I don’t think Jim Steinman has ever really been fully recognised for being the unique genius that he was.

And one of the greatest dinner guests you could ever hope for.

RIP Jim.

_______________________________________

Subject: Re: Steve Cropper-This Week’s Podcast

Dear Bob,

“Legend” – possibly the most overused term in the modern entertainment industry, but Steve is the real deal!

I was 21, and working for a UK promoter, on a tour for the Blues Brothers Band. I’d managed to sell every date on the tour. 2000-5000 seat theatres.

At the last minute, our tour manager got sick, and I was thrown in at the deep end. I turned up at Gatwick to meet 15 musicians with nothing but an itinerary (home made) and a tour bus.  Quite an induction for my first ever tour!

Fortunately for me, I didn’t actually know that much about them – Steve Cropper, Duck, Eddie Floyd, my great (late) friend Alan Rubin.

I soon realised after a day or two on a tour bus (and copious amounts of fried chicken later) who these guys really were.

We would watch a video (old VHS) on the bus and every time we put something on, Steve would say “yeah, watch this one, I have a song in it.”!

I was wet behind the ears, but ended the tour with dozens of stories about Otis, James Brown, a who’s who of legendary musicians.

People often comment on how people are “wonderful human beings” etc, but in Steve’s case, it’s 100% true – I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a more genuine and kind hearted individual. We checked his share prices every morning at breakfast,  and he would never let me pay for anything, even though it was me who was the TM.

It’s a rare commodity that someone has his abundance of talent and such a beautiful personality to boot.

Best Wishes from Scotland

Dave Rogers

_______________________________________

From: Edward Stasium

Subject: Re: Strange Brew

Hey Bob,

LOVE ’Strange Brew’

Albert King recorded and released  ‘Oh Pretty Woman’ as a single in August 1966.

’Strange Brew’ was recorded in April of 1967.

Please check out the guitar, especially the solo at 1:13

Influence!

Cheers… Ed

_______________________________________

From: Lewis Gersh

Subject: Re: Slava Rubin-This Week’s Podcast

Bob,

I led the first VC round into Indiegogo when it was only the three founder team, we had a great moment that speaks volumes of Slava and the team. They had pitched me early on and I was very interested but as a deal it wasn’t ready yet, so I referred them to a renowned valley “Sherpa” who helps coach promising startups get prime time financing ready. Eventually, I did go to terms to lead the first round and it was not an easy sell, we were fielding many objections to “crowdfunding”. Suddenly mid-round magic hit, metrics started taking off, literally up and to the right, and the round becomes way oversubscribed. Then Slava calls, some investors I had referred had then referred others who then counter-offered against my term sheet, more money and higher valuation. My reaction on the call was coaching Slava his first obligation as a founder is always to do what’s best for the company and it’s shareholders, and if it means throwing my deal under the bus, I will be very disappointed, but supportive. I told him he also has to wonder about the character of the guys undermining my deal which is what got them to the table in the first place. Slava said throwing my deal under the bus is NOT what they want to do, but they would like more money in the round and don’t want the dilution. I said ok, how about we split the difference, you choose the amount off additional capital and we will raise the valuation to offset half the dilution for it – founders and investors equal on the impact. Slava, Danae and Eric agreed, virtual handshake bonded, and we began a relationship of loyalty/trust that was infinitely more valuable and resonated through the culture of Indiegogo. And it’s great to see that culture has continued to proliferate. Cheers.

_______________________________________

From: William Goldsmith

Subject: Re: Patreon/Substack

Hi Bob,

My direct experience says you are totally right on this. Many of my peers in the Internet radio space went the subscription-only route years ago. Others went with the freemium model. Of the dozen or so independent webcasters with any kind of sizeable audience, only three (Radio Paradise, Accuradio & SOMA) kept their streams freely available — Accuradio with advertising, Radio Paradise & SOMA relying on voluntary support.

I don’t know how well Accuradio is doing (unless you’re Facebook or Google, selling advertising is a really hard way to make money these days). Both RP & SOMA are still thriving — with passionate, loyal, larger-than-ever audiences that support us, even though we are much more low-key about that sort of thing than public FM stations.

A couple of the others are still around, with audiences that have shrunk to a small fraction of what they once were. The rest are long gone.

I have no doubt that our experience (like yours) translates directly to any endeavor where the relationship between creators and their fans is important. Mess with that relationship — by adding friction to it of any kind or via heavy-handed attempts to monetize or manipulate it — at your peril.

 

—

Bill Goldsmith

Radio Paradise

www.radioparadise.com

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Subject: Re: Where Are The Record Companies?

The “show must be paused” initiative was taken seriously by Record Store Day. We stopped and reassessed everything that we could influence and are now making a concerted effort to empower Black owned record stores. In doing so we discovered that just as recently as about 10 years ago there were around 100 Black owned record stores. Today there are about 25.

We are doing two volumes of Record Store Day vinyl records we call “Songs For You,” with tracks kindly donated from H.E.R., Roberta Flack, Freddie Gibbs, Run The Jewels and fourteen others.  Our goal is to raise money, support and awareness for these Black owned business.

While working on this project, the one recurring theme in my conversation with the owners of these Black owned record stores is the positive impact that they have on local organizations, schools, community sports teams, etc. All of which they pretty much do on their own as there is little or no support coming from record companies anymore as it has been pretty much lost with the advent of streaming.

The net result is money is literally streaming out of the neighborhoods with nothing left behind for the community. Zero. Nothing for libraries, nothing for schools, nothing for the local sports team, nothing for the churches.

For the “Songs For You” project, we went out to ask for help and Vans/Off The Wall took a stand and gave Record Store Day the financial and critical support needed to make it possible.

https://www.vans.com/rsd

I hope this inspires someone else out there to do what they think is right in the space they work in, with the people they work with. That’s all any of us can do.

Michael Kurtz

Co-founder, Record Store Day

_______________________________________

From: Hilary Rosen

Subject: Re: Where Are The Record Companies?

This is not the industry of old.  We stood up didn’t we? We fought. We gave executives and artists platforms on voting, on censorship, on gun control, on racism, on LGBTQ and feminism.  We had agendas bigger than ourselves that was reflected in the music. But it requires leadership.  People need authentic and passionate leadership.  I think the industry is currently led by good people with good hearts and open minds who understand that we are in fraught times and speaking out is risky and potentially loaded with repercussions they can’t always control.  And they worry that the responsibility to get it right feels too big to step out. But it’s a choice. 

Hilary Rosen 

Vice Chair

SKDKnickerbocker

1

I don’t know anybody with polio.

Back in the fifties, before parents became their children’s best friends, when if you refused to toe the line you were hit, almost all of us were abused children by today’s standards, we were inundated with mantras, repeated over and over again, what to do, what not to, what to watch out for… These were not meditation mantras, that concept hadn’t even flown on the radar yet, these were akin to warnings, our parents didn’t want us subjected to the horrors of what came before.

Like polio.

Little kids notice all irregularities, all imperfections, all differences. That person with the foreign accent? They were a Holocaust survivor, if you looked, but don’t let them catch you doing so, you could see the numbers tattooed on their arm. This was back when people still believed the Holocaust happened and tattoos were anathema, on drunken sailors who’d had a wild night out. Despite letting us leave the house without supervision, our parents wanted us to be safe. There was never any question about this. And the government had the last word. No one questioned health, science… As a matter of fact JFK had us all exercising, it was a new world and we youngsters were going to leave our mark!

Now when you’re a little kid there’s nothing you hate more than an injection. They call it a “jab” in the U.K., but over here they were always referred to as a “shot.” And you’d refuse to go for your annual checkup if you were going to get one. At least I did, I’d place my feet firmly on the floor, I’d start to cry, I’d have to be dragged and…I wondered when the shots would stop, they always seemed to have a new one. But the Sabin vaccine was oral.

At this point I’ve got no fear of needles, I’ve been poked so many times I got over it. The truth is back in ’76 I got mononucleosis, and had my blood drawn constantly, you get to the point where it’s no big thing. I still get my blood drawn on a regular basis, but now it’s for leukemia as opposed to mononucleosis, and sometimes the phlebotomist misses the vein, but it’s never too terrible. When my younger sister Wendy got shots, they froze your arm, they sprayed it. It didn’t make any sense to me that it worked, maybe it was all psychological, but no one ultimately refused their shots… You needed that tetanus booster, what if you stepped on a rusty nail? Well, today’s supervised kids probably never will, but the free range children of the past, we had to be protected from the ills of the world.

But not any longer.

So in third grade word spread that we were gonna get the polio vaccine. This didn’t make sense to me, I’d already gotten the shot at the doctor, there was no need to get it again. But no one would listen to me, so I lined up and like everybody else I swallowed a plastic spoonful of pinkish liquid and I was covered. Didn’t make sense to me, that something you drank could protect you, but it had no side effects, it was painless, and no one didn’t take it. As a matter of fact, it was macho to take it, you didn’t want to refuse. But today macho equates with bullying and parents believe they can protect their children from every negative consequence, but the truth is bad behavior has just gone underground, it hasn’t gone away.

2

The vaccine didn’t work for me, I’ve got no antibodies.

The truth is I take Rituxan, and that’s the one drug that interferes with the efficacy of the vaccine. Rituxan wipes out all your B-cells, for six months, and it’s your B-cells that create antibodies. There’s a 36 times reduction in the efficacy of the vaccine for people who take Rituxan. I was tested, more than once, I’ve got none, antibodies that is. Maybe I’ve got some T-cell protection, but no one knows for sure, so I’m still home, at this point it’s been over a year.

Now maybe I’ll have B-cells by July 1st. Rituxan is strong for six months and then fades, but not all at once, it could take two years. As for being vaccinated a second time…no one knows if this is a reasonable route. As a matter of fact, nobody knows much, and I’ve talked to all the experts. As for the pemphigus foliaceus, the skin condition that requires the Rituxan, it makes it easier to get Covid-19 and harder to get over it. So, I don’t want to get it. You might think you’ll recover, no big deal, but I know too many people who’ve died, I’m playing it safe.

Now Regeneron, the company that produces those antibodies that helped save Trump, says they now can be used preventively. Yes, they’ve tested it, it’s given via injection. But they haven’t tested it with immune-compromised individuals, and there’s a shortage of the drug anyway, never mind having it approved for this use.

So I’m left waiting.

Now everybody could wear a mask and Covid-19 would be wiped out in about a month. But masks are now an issue of freedom, that state senator in Alaska wouldn’t even wear one, and is now banned from the airline.

Or, everybody could get vaccinated.

Trump did, get vaccinated that is, but he won’t campaign for all his minions to do so.

So…

You can deny the existence of Covid-19, live your life willy-nilly and get it and be deathly sick like Ted Nugent.

Or you could up your odds of survival by getting a vaccine. Who wouldn’t take this route?

Oh, all the individuals smarter than the scientists. Even worse, they’ve all got some “doctor” or website supporting their position. Forget that pregnant women have gotten the vaccine, those with cancer too, these healthy individuals are convinced they’re at risk and they won’t let anything invade their body. But if they get the virus, they’ll be trying to use all their connections to get the Regeneron antibodies. But we no longer care about the individual in America, we don’t care if you die. But the truth is you might, and the party, your tribe, will march on without you.

3

West Virginia is paying young people to get vaccinated, a hundred bucks. Hopefully this will help, the governor says this is cheaper than continuing to test, but most people aren’t concerned with the math, we live in a country where how you feel is the most important thing, damn facts.

So how did masks and vaccines become a political issue anyway?

You want to argue about taxation, I get it, you’ve got a different opinion. But if we’re trying to save your life and you refuse to do so? How do you argue with that?

And in today’s world you can’t change anybody’s mind. Confront them with facts and they just dig in deeper. Then again, everybody’s scared. And they think there’s no one to protect them, so they cling to their tribe, it feels better to be part of a group.

And today’s news is all about the census, no one can fathom why birth rates have fallen. IT’S SIMPLE! It’s too damn expensive to raise a kid these days! Now if you know economics, a country can only continue to thrive if it replenishes its population at a relatively high rate. If not, the country turns into Japan, supporting oldsters and in stasis economically. In other words, if there are fewer births, the people with all the money, the billionaires, will make less. But they’re scared just like the anti-vaxxers, they want to hold on to the money they’ve got. Everybody’s cowering under the umbrella, waiting for a deluge every day. Is that any way to live?

Not that you can live on your emotions and instincts alone. Apple is building a campus in North Carolina, but the truth is to get a job there, one of thousands, you need a degree, which eliminates so many, who rail against the system in the name of protecting their freedom.

We’ve got to get everybody in the nation vaccinated. Hell, look at me, I’ve got cancer and pemphigus and I survived the shots easily with no permanent side effects. But it’s the healthy they’re going to negatively impact, kill… What happened to science?

As for your freedom…what if it affects everybody else, what if it affects me?

I just can’t understand it. I lined up for that Sabin vaccine, polio was eradicated in my generation. If it weren’t for the drug Gleevec, a medical breakthrough, I’d be dead right now. And if I were still alive, the itching from my skin condition would have me on the brink of suicide, but Rituxan takes care of that.

The truth is you can refuse to get shots, you can refuse to go to the doctor, and you know what is going to happen? YOU’RE GONNA DIE!

Beth Stern, Howard’s wife, is as skinny as they come, but she’s on the verge of diabetes, based on her diet. She wouldn’t have known this if she didn’t go to the doctor and get a blood workup. Beth has the ability to adjust her behavior, but if you’re ignorant, like Warren Zevon, refuse to see the doctor, you’re gonna have a very short lifespan, the kind they used to have decades ago, before all the medical breakthroughs. Sure, someone might live to ninety, but it would be a very rare occurrence, unlike today.

Somehow authority has been undermined, along with science. If you know a lot you’re to be laughed at. And the worst thing is to hang it out alone, you must be a member of the group or you’ll be excoriated.

And the truth is online you can find a website to defend any position, and probably a whacko professional too. This is how we got into this climate science mess. They can find some expert who says change is not happening so you must ignore the plethora of those who say it is!

The truth is there’s no center, no backbone to America anymore. No shared beliefs. We can’t come together on anything, because somehow that’s sacrificing, even if it’s to your benefit.

I know I’m not gonna change any minds, the people who need to wake up probably aren’t even reading this. But I’ve lived through history, I’ve seen the benefit of vaccines. As for vaccines causing autism…one ridiculous doctor fakes results and then Jenny McCarthy refuses to accept the truth so even people with brains take her side?

Kennedy was all about the best and the brightest.

Now it’s about the worst and the dumbest.

What a country.

Tune in tomorrow, April 27th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive

“Oscar Ratings Crash To All-Time Low; Viewership Falls Under 10M For First Time Ever”: https://bit.ly/3eyc9IL

This is what happens when you lose touch with your audience.

Confronted with a decline in awards show ratings the TV industry has singled out once in a lifetime events as the cause. Nothing could be more untrue. If anything, Covid-19 would make people more prone to watching. They just don’t want to watch this.

And this situation reminds me of the record companies. Who felt that Napster was all about people stealing, refusing to acknowledge the flaws inherent in their business model. It’s hard to think back to an era where the public had to pay fifteen bucks for one good track on a lengthy CD, but that is what was going on in the nineties, and as soon as the public found an alternative, people exercised it.

Same deal with visual entertainment. There are no ads on Netflix. And it’s about story. Who wants to watch self-congratulatory two-dimensional actors for three plus hours? Well, we’ve got our answer, not many.

The show had no gravitas. That was it’s only traditional pull. That you were peeking inside an exclusive event. But if you attended last night’s soiree at Union Station…you couldn’t wait to go out for a smoke, to the bathroom, to sit there for all that time was akin to being at an endless religious service, and just like most people no longer believe in God, most people don’t believe in movie stars either.

The Oscars had a chance to change the paradigm, but the organization refused to do so. As for the minor differences from previous shows…you have to address the carcass, otherwise you’re doomed.

So what have we learned?

The masses won’t watch anything with commercials. And no one DVRs live events (well, except for a de minimis number of diehards we can ignore). So we’ve got the worst of both worlds here, endless commercials in a one time event that has no delayed viewing interest and no repeatability.

Movie stars are now small. Sure, there are inane youngsters caught up in the “glamour” and the outfits, but that’s a very small percentage of the population.

Everything is niche these days, and if you try to go broad, you lose the essence.

Lead or play to the audience. It wasn’t like last night’s show was a must-see extravaganza, testing all limits, destroying what came before for something new. No one who didn’t see last night’s show felt they missed anything. If it’s a live event, it must be special, it must be like the concerts of yore, if you weren’t there, you missed something.

The audience must feel it is involved, that it has something at stake, otherwise it’s just a show. As for caring who wins… That game was eviscerated with the MTV Video Music Awards back in the eighties. It’s about the show, not the awards. And everyone forgets who won anyway, unless they do something outrageous during their acceptance speech.

There was no train-wreck value, nothing you couldn’t take your eyes from. They do call it “show” business, but there was no show involved. Some of the criticism was that it felt like a banquet at the end of a business convention, I must say that’s true.

But the problem runs deeper, the movies have lost touch with their hold on America. If the business is one of moving the culture, then green light more of those pictures. Instead, there are a few highbrow pics trotted out for these awards shows that most of the public ignores and never sees. As for Frances McDormand saying we need to see “Nomadland” on the big screen… Why? It already played. And is available on demand on Hulu. What could be better? Go to the theatre, why?

Just like music must be heard on an overpriced CD. Doesn’t the Academy realized the public has moved on to something better?

As for where it’s moved, Clayton Christensen said the disruptor is always cheaper and inferior, but good enough. But then it gets better and supersedes the original. In other words, TV used to be crappy, cheap but crappy. Now Netflix is cheap and better than the movies, and the only people who don’t understand this are those in the Academy!

This is fascinating to watch. The problem was never diversity, the problem was the product.

Yes, I hate to say this, but last night’s show could be relabeled the Woke Awards. I’ve got no problem with boosting women and people of color, but if you watched the show that seemed to be its focus, overcompensating to the point of losing touch with America. This is what happens when you listen to criticism and adjust. Everyone who plays online knows that you don’t do that, certain people can never be satisfied. More women and people of color on both sides of the camera? Excellent! “Black Panther” showed there is an untapped demand. But last night’s show was more like an Oberlin reunion than a Saturday night at the multiplex.

And Questlove… He’s the Dave Grohl of hip-hop. Safe and lovable. Can’t they get anybody else, as opposed to the usual suspect?

And if you know a great swath of the public is turned off by the performers’ politics, why did you start off with them?

I’m not saying to tone it down so much as to understand the arc, entice your audience and hold on to it.

Then again, none of this can be said because the woke police have made it so no one can comment on certain issues. Men can’t weigh in on rape. White people can’t talk about issues of color. There’s a prescribed agenda, a set of rules everyone must adhere to, irrelevant of their inner beliefs. This is how the Democrats lost control of D.C. Trump came along and said the unsayable, spoke to the underrepresented. Forget that his opinions were heinous, forget that he was the worst president of all time, not only not addressing the big issues, but pushing the nation backwards, the truth is he tapped into dissatisfaction, which Hillary certainly did not. I don’t want to litigate the past, unlike Fox News, but what Hillary was promising was four more years of what we already had, and that was not appealing to great swaths of the population. Which is the same thing we’ve got with this Oscar telecast. No matter how much they tell us it’s different, we tune in and it’s the same damn show, one we’ve rejected previously.

The truth is it’s unfixable. As a result of being on network TV with advertising, as long as the Academy wants that check, the telecast is doomed. As for playing to the one who pays the bills… Look how well that turned out in the music business, the labels were driven by their relationships with retail…and then retail ceased to exist, turned out the customers didn’t want to go to a store to purchase overpriced CDs.

But the public does want to pay for music, just in a different way. Streaming has escalated recorded music revenue. People will pay attention if you modernize your product and its distribution.

But the truth is on streaming services the single rules, not the album. And acts drop a lot more product. The systems of old no longer apply. And the labels have been dragged into the future, even though the aged artists keep complaining that someone moved their cheese, as if we could go back to a business model that did not work for customers.

Movies… It turns out people want more of them, which is why Netflix with its doubled-down production slate satiates the public.

Turns out people want long form series.

Turns out documentaries can triumph, they just cannot be preachy.

Is there a market for superhero/cartoon movies? Of course, but the truth is the hip-hop/pop of the Spotify top 50 is shrinking in market share.

Thus we have the great bifurcation, between what was and what is, between yesterday and today. There hasn’t been a generation gap this big since the sixties, but the self-satisfied baby boomers believe they’re inherently hip and know it all and are in touch.

For twenty years now everything’s been up for grabs, all institutions and systems have been in play. Why should it be any different for the movies?

The second most interesting story of the show was how Chadwick Boseman didn’t win. Turns out the producers couldn’t fathom this, placed the Best Actor award at the end for a feel good finish. But it turns out the producers were out of touch with the voters, and Anthony Hopkins won. This is not the way the Oscars are supposed to work, the sentimental favorite is supposed to win.

But the most interesting story of the Oscars telecast is the horrible ratings, a 58% decline overall, a 64.2% decline in the cherished 18-49 demo.

The 18-49 group doesn’t remember an era when the Oscars were a must-see, they don’t even remember an era when going to the movies was a must-do!

If this were a sports team, the public would be up in arms, people would lose their jobs.

But the Oscars is like politics, always behind the times, fighting the last war, to the point where the public has given up. Yes, the parties lose and then they just do the same damn thing over again the next time. As for the congresspeople continuing to pay fealty to Trump… Let me see, did anybody watching 1/6 truly believe it was a safe rally where no one was hurt and all the bad actors were antifa members? We’re supposed to disbelieve our eyes and ears? This works for some people, after all, 9.85 million people actually watched this show.

But most didn’t.

Play to them.