Tune in Saturday January 17th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

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There is an argument between a live-in couple that is so accurate, so true to life, that I literally jolted upright and stared straight into the screen, because I’d been there and done that, more than once.

Now if this were an American series on Netflix everybody would be talking about it.

Actually, I was evaluating this latest season of “Blue Lights” as I was watching it. Rather than seeing it as exotic, a BBC production set in Belfast, I tried to watch it as a native would…to see if the show was really better than all American productions or…

Now the truth is “Blue Lights” is not the best English show I’ve ever seen, not even the best in the cop genre, for that I’d probably go with “Line of Duty,” but just when you’re settling in, entering the third episode of six, it gets intense. That’s when you know you’ve got a good show, when you can’t divorce yourself from it, when you’re involved, when you care about the actors and what happens.

So a few of the actors are too good-looking to be street cops. Maybe that’s my American bias, where good looks are only second to wealth in terms of advantage, but Nathan Braniff as Tommy Foster…I’m straight and I can even see his appeal…he’s got a magic, a charisma based on his looks that the average person does not possess. And maybe it’s the perfect coif, but Siân Brooke as Grace Ellis…she seems like she should be at a society party, wielding great power as opposed to down on the street. As for the two other woman street cops, Katherine Devlin and Dearbháile McKinney…I think their good looks are on purpose, they’re both babes playing against type, they’re cops because they want to make a difference. And isn’t it the people who want to make a difference who are always in the line of fire, the ones those with wealth and power look down upon if for no other reason than their remuneration is low and they’re in the line of fire, like social workers, like cops…

Now this is not London, this is Belfast. And the actors are from Ireland, the accents will blow your mind, as well as the constant use of “wee”…you’ll probably want to leave the subtitles on. And having been to Belfast…it’s eerie. The war between the Catholics and the Protestants…there are certain places you just don’t go. It’s palpable, with walls and barbed wire and if you’ve never been there, you might not believe some of what happens in “Blue Lights,” but you should.

So, this season focuses on drugs and their dealers and runners. And that’s not a new topic, but it’s well-executed here, and not everything that happens is predictable. But a running theme is the personal danger the peelers are in, and the choices they make.

The peelers… Cops in Britain are called that after Sir Robert Peel, who started the modern police force. And there’s an inscription “NO PEEL” hammered into a door at Oxford’s Christ Church in 1829. It’s eerie, right there in Harry Potterville, as if it was etched the night before.

And everybody in Belfast hates the peelers. 9/11 flipped the script in the U.S. Firemen and policemen (and women) were now seen as heroes, and if you came of age in the sixties, this is confounding, for they were the enemy…as they still are in Belfast.

And it’s a constant war between the public and the peelers, and the peelers aren’t always in control…to a degree they’re barely hanging on.

So, with the intensity, the acting (with no LOOK AT ME! elements) and the script… “Blue Lights” is no American show. It’s a definite cut above. The fact that the media was consumed for months over the last iteration of “White Lotus”… That Hollywood production isn’t in the LEAGUE of “Blue Lights.”

But “Blue Lights” is on BritBox and it’s foreign, if even in English, so it’s too heavy a lift for most Americans. But irrelevant of press, truth shines through. “Adolescence” was the best TV series last year, it was recognized by the Golden Globes, however worthless that organization might be, but it still has not penetrated the national consciousness in America, and I don’t suppose it ever will, although it’s there for the watching.

Anyway…

Right before the argument between Stevie and Grace, Grace has a moment…

Grace has a scene, gives a speech, not a soliloquy, she’s directing it at a perp, but it’s lengthy with pauses and emotion and unlike Meryl Streep, you do not see her acting. It’s pretty amazing.

And what Grace reveals in that interlude…

Stevie is unaware of. That’s the basis of the fight.

Secrets in a relationship, you don’t want any. Because they undercut the bedrock of the connection. So, when Stevie finds out that Grace has withheld… He’s indignant, he can’t get past it… And then, Grace says this is exactly why she didn’t tell him, for fear of his reaction…and it ratchets up from there, to the point where the entire relationship hangs in the balance.

I mean if you don’t have fights in relationships, that just means one person is not speaking their truth. But after you’ve been together for a while, in excess of a year or two, there’s an underlying bond you count on, and if anything threatens that, it shakes you up, throws everything into question. You’re talking, maybe not with your voices raised, but there is an intensity, and it starts to dawn on you, this could be it, this could be the trigger for the end of the relationship.

And the following morning when Grace walks into the kitchen, not quite lovey-dovey, but open and not arguing… Stevie still isn’t over it. He throws her statements from the night before back at her. I’m getting anxious as I write this!

And that’s the essence of art. The little things. The truths that resonate. That’s what we’re looking for, that’s what we connect with. It’s not about professionalism, not about the look, but the essence, which is too often absent from American TV. I watched “The Pitt,” I am not in the medical field, but it was long and drawn out and not for one moment did I not think it was Noah Wyle. I mean this is the best you can do?

And then there’s Bruno Mars. The talk this week is about his stadium dates and how many tickets he sold. And I’ve got nothing against Bruno per se, however, I listened to the new single and it’s POP! There’s always been pop, but it was looked at askance by those creating art…those on FM as opposed to AM, the classic rockers as opposed to the popsters.

It started to change back in the MTV eighties…to the pre-Beatle Top 40. All hits all the time. Everybody was trying to make a pop hit, and now pop dominates and everybody says to respect it…but this is like respecting the tech billionaires because they are rich. What we’re looking for is honesty, truth, reality, not surface…like we get in this argument on “Blue Lights.”

And I used to find this honesty in music much more than other media. Music made more money than movies, despite getting no respect, music paid for the Warner cable system. Makes me crazy the people who still respect the movies…that’s not where the action is today, and it’s certainly not in music, it’s in streaming television.

And the public knows it.

Guitarist Alex Skolnick got his start with Testament, but has broadened his interest to jazz with the Alex Skolnick Trio and has played with Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Metal Allegiance and…

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/alex-skolnick/id1316200737?i=1000745276889

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/2c7259dc-cd5f-4fbb-9dae-8375b21f5ae8/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-alex-skolnick

I did this podcast yesterday with Kenny Greenberg…

If you don’t live in Nashville you may not know Kenny, but… At this point he’s Kenny Chesney’s guitarist, amongst a ton of other credits. And I’m asking Kenny Greenberg about the difference between Nashville yesterday and today, since he’s been there since the seventies.

Well, the publishers aren’t handing out deals like they used to. It wasn’t hard to get a publishing deal in the past, in addition, they’d pay for a band and demos and…

All that’s gone.

So now, a lot of people are making their demos with Suno, AI.

Last week I got this e-mail from Jack Tempchin. You know Jack, he wrote “Peaceful Easy Feeling” and co-wrote “Already Gone” and many others. And unlike a lot of writers who had hits in the past, Jack is still writing, prodigiously. He goes down to the beach and makes up songs and…

This is what Jack said:

—-

From: Jack Tempchin

Subject: Jack Tempchin’s new album MAGIC MIRROR

Hi Bob

My songs performed by AI.

I sure would appreciate it if you have time to listen to it.

Thanks!!

Jack

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-magic-mirror/1865153708

Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/albums/B0GD543MNM

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/2H6VfAUCGSnGpbQmBkdjQr

Tidal: https://tidal.com/album/485722599

Youtube Music: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nYLmFkXPt7vLDfg-OEjVkRbHjjUNU_uRQ

—-

From: Bob Lefsetz

Re: Jack Tempchin’s new album MAGIC MIRROR

Listening…

Are you joking or is this really AI?

If so, what were the prompts?

—-

From: Jack Tempchin

Re: Jack Tempchin’s new album MAGIC MIRROR

It really is AI. Done with Suno!

I sang and played guitar, or most of the time just sang with no instrument into the SUNO app.

 

A lot of the time I don’t use a prompt and see what SUNO creates.

On ONLY LOVE KNOWS I used a prompt.  I just said “swing” and it created a big band Frank Sinatra arrangement.

On BACK IN THE 60’S I told it to do 60’s acid rock with Wa Wa guitar.  I sang the song into it  acapella and I actually sang the WaWa guitar parts.

Two interesting facts.

It actually changes the mood of singing and playing during the song based on the Meaning of the lyrics. It hears what you are singing about and gets sad or happy with the vocal and arrangement in response to that.  Pretty amazing.

The other thing is that SUNO has a “remix contest”. People who enter the contest for the $1000 prizes all remix the song chosen for the contest. They chose my song ONLY LOVE KNOWS.

What that means is that they take my song, which was written by me  and recorded by SUNO (I don’t use SUNO to write or help write the songs) and they put that song back into SUNO with different prompts that they create. They make their own arrangement of the song.

 

So this something amazing. It is a way for people who are not musicians to interact with their favorite music in a way that has never been possible before! They make their own versions of the songs they love.

I did not realize that this is a huge thing that is happening all over the world.

Over 4000 people remixed my song. There are versions in every style from all over the world.

Bob, I can’t thank you enough for listening to my album.

Jack

—-

So with this in the back of my head…

Kenny Greenberg tells me that many people in Nashville are now making their demos with Suno.

He’s in the studio with Chesney, and Chesney pulls up a demo and says he wants to cut the song. And he wants the sound of this particular instrument replicated exactly.

And then Greenberg tells Chensey IT’S A SUNO DEMO! And that those aren’t real instruments. And the sound Chesney likes and wants re-created is a blend of a guitar and a keyboard and Greenberg will do his best to reproduce it, but it won’t be exactly the same, because it can’t be, because that’s not a real instrument!

Now let me be clear, although Kenny Greenberg laments the fact that publishing companies are not ponying up money for real demos anymore, and he finds some of the sound of the Suno demos cheesy, he’s not decrying AI. He believes it’s here to stay, that it’s a tool.

So that’s the way it is today.

Consider this a message from the front.