TWO MONTHS??

We had to endure this story for all this time for Lori Loughlin to essentially get a slap on the wrist? Meanwhile, get caught with drugs and you go up the river for years!

As for her husband, Mossimo, he got five months, but it’s still de minimis, there was a threat of twenty years, but since these people are rich and famous they may not skate completely but their lives are minimally impacted while the general prison population resides in hothouses of coronavirus, with their lives at stake.

Oh, Lori and Mossimo are not going into the general population, this is not “Oz,” they’ll go to the country club prison, read, go online, and wait out their time. It’ll be little different from vacation other than the food.

Our system is screwed up. We’re busy focusing on these rich people gaming the college admissions system when the real story is…THEY’RE GAMING THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS SYSTEM!

Want to have riots in the street?

Tell private schools that twenty five percent of their students will have to sacrifice their first college choice so the slots can be filled with the underprivileged and disadvantaged. This is why the Democrats lose. They disproportionately make up this privileged class. They’re willing to lift those on the bottom up but they can’t sacrifice a whit, not whatsoever, it’s somebody else’s fault.

As for the truly rich, the Republicans, like Jared Kushner’s father, the rules never applied to them, they just buy a building and their kid gets in.

And what do you get at an elite institution? It’s less about what goes on in the classroom and more about the people you meet and hang out with. Would Mark Zuckerberg have come up with the idea of Facebook if he hadn’t run into the Winklevoss twins at Harvard?

As for Lori and Mossimo, they got bad legal advice from the start. Of course they were guilty, it’s even come out their kids were complicit, which they denied until they fought the charge and the investigation went deeper.

Then again, the legal fees are a drop in the bucket for these two. Look at their real estate holdings. That’s where celebrities make their money in L.A. today…a TV show may come and go, but if you own enough property, you’ll be okay.

And if Lori had offered a mea culpa from the beginning, she could have saved her career, on Lifetime, on “Full House.” America loves the repentant. I sinned, what was I thinking, give me a few lashes and let me back into the club. And speaking of the club…unless you kill someone or abuse someone sexually you’re never kicked out of the celebrity/rich/elite club. So, you got caught. Members are testing the limits constantly, that’s how they get ahead. Just think about Hollywood, it’s built on fraud. The studios owe money to the profit participants they never pay, no matter how successful the project becomes.

So, you hire a lawyer and obfuscate. Bad strategy in this case, since Lori Loughlin is a public figure to begin with, people are interested in her life, it sells ads. She threw gasoline on the fire. And, she got bad legal advice. Never forget, lawyers are business people too, they have to make money. A reasonable attorney would have assessed the landscape and settled soon. But then the attorney would have gotten paid much less.

As for Loughlin and Giannulli… What made them think they could win, when every other parent was convicted? What made them different? Oh yeah, they didn’t go to college, they don’t know how to analyze the issues, which is what you learn at the elite institutions they want their kids to go to.

So, this whole fracas has turned into a celebrity story when it should be framed as an income inequality/rigged system question.

As for discouraging shenanigans in the future… If the worst offender only got a handful of months in prison, maybe it’s worth the risk! Do you really think the arrests in Singergate are preventing rich parents from trying to game the system? They’re just finding a different way. Because an elite education is worth more than any real property, for the rest of your life you can say “I graduated from _________” It opens doors. It gives you the imprimatur of success. It’s priceless.

You’d think this was O.J., that people had died, with all this focus on Loughlin and Giannulli. But that’s America today, the sideshow becomes the main show so people won’t focus on the real issues. You can buy the Kardashian perfume, but you go to a school without supplies, with a low graduation rate.

Furthermore, these two won’t even serve their complete sentences. Loughlin will be in for six weeks, maybe only a month, she’ll be let out for good behavior or overcrowding or some such nonsense. If you think her attorneys are now off the payroll, you’re nuts. It’s kind of like curling, the lawyers are gonna continue to sweep the ice in order to change the speed and the direction of the stone.

And then, if they care, somewhere down the line Loughlin and Giannulli will pay someone to get them pardoned. Like Marc Rich or Michael Milken. Or maybe a good friend will do the same for no cash, like Donald Trump with Roger Stone. Loyalty is everything at the elite level, never forget, you circle the wagons and don’t let info seep to the outside. For all the TMZs and Housewives shows the truth is the public knows very little what goes on with the rich and famous. And the truly rich are smart enough not to be famous, so attention is not drawn to them.

Just imagine if these two were sentenced to five years. Even two. Whew! Penalties are never stiff enough for white collar crime. If only we’d sent some Wall Streeters up the river for a decade back in 2008, that would have changed things…instead, all the wanker bankers just bitched about their bonuses and went back to wreaking havoc in the financial system. And when things get bad, the government bails them out. Whereas if you’re a member of the rank and file you lost your job because of Covid-19, the federal government is sending you no more money and you’re on the verge of being evicted.

America, what a country.

Recreating the Sound: The “Ramble On” Acoustic

We used to be gearheads.

I’ll admit this quarantine lifestyle is getting to me. It’s not that I’m not busy, it’s just that every damn day is the same. Get up, read the news, answer the e-mail, check up on the news and…

Well, maybe record a podcast, or my radio show, depending on the day. And then at night read and/or watch a streaming series.

But the strangest thing is I’m a late night person. And what I love is to be so burned out, overworked, that one night I stay up until I’m caught up, until I’m relaxed, knowing that the next morning I have nothing scheduled. But now, since every day is the same, I know if I stay up until four that just means I screw up my schedule, wake up later…it doesn’t pay to stay up.

Oh yeah, I love the nighttime. Oh, I’m gonna bitch when the light fades, as autumn arrives, but it’s only when it’s dark that my brain starts to light up, that the creativity sparks, that the pressure of the world fades away and I can be myself.

Now in the old days, let’s say twenty years ago, I had less on the schedule. And it’s much better being busy, but back then I could surf the web long enough to become relaxed and get inspired. Sometimes that happens again today, during the Covid-19 era.

So, I read the new news, today’s news on my phone. Answer all the e-mail. Check all my sites…skiing, music, straight news. And then…what am I gonna do with the rest of my time? I start thinking of these YouTube skiing videos I want to watch and I go to the site and staring me straight in the eye is the new Rick Beato video.

I’ve got major problems with YouTube. Not the ones musicians have, usage, how much they’re getting paid, but primarily the fact that you cannot turn off autoplay. Oh, you can turn it off, but then it slips back on. I’ve researched online, it’s a known problem, which Google doesn’t want to fix, they want you to watch more. And then a couple of weeks back, they put a scrim over all the videos, with an ad, making you click more to see what you want. Drives me nuts. They’re just trying to drive subscriptions. Oh, that’s another thing, you have to constantly click that you don’t want to pay for their service, don’t want to subscribe. I’m not giving them my money on principle. I like that Google/YouTube hosts all these videos for free, but these bumps in the road are akin to the fees at hotels and on concert tickets…just make your offer, tell me what you need, and let me decide whether to partake or not. Otherwise, you’re just pissing me off.

As for the suggestion to watch the Rick Beato video…

I don’t believe in the algorithm. I never use Netflix’s. Drives me crazy. I wanted to check out the Sam Jay comedy special but since I hadn’t watched any standup comedy recently I no longer had a bar for that. To tell you the truth, I research before I watch anything, otherwise it makes no sense. Streaming series are a commitment, I don’t want to watch for hours and realize something is junk. Oh yeah, I’m also pissed-off at Netflix because they got rid of their star rating system, now everything gets a high rating, absolute b.s., I’m already paying, can’t you help me out?

But Beato has been in the news lately. Most notably the “Wall Street Journal.” He gets recognized, he sells t-shirts. And there’s something self-satisfied about the guy, but I must admit it’s hard to click off his videos.

Most are gimmicks, top twentys. But today’s is different, Beato is trying to reproduce the sound of “Ramble On.”

Now, of course, we’d prefer to have Jimmy Page tell us. But the truth is it probably wouldn’t be as good. He wouldn’t nitpick like Rick does. And the fan experience is quite different. It’s a treasure hunt. One of the few in this Google world where there are no rare records, where everything is available…how did Jimmy get that sound?

Oh, you know the sound. There’s something about “Ramble On.”

Sounds. That used to be a big part of making records, getting sounds. These sounds made some of our favorite records so. Like that wailing guitar in the intro to Supertramp’s “Bloody Well Right.”

Now this video, which only launched yesterday, hasn’t broken a million views yet, and there’s one, “Top 20 Acoustic Guitar Intros Of All Time” which is bubbling under ten million. And I don’t think “Ramble On” will come close to that because it’s for a different type of listener, not a casual fan, but someone who needs to get closer, like we did, in the sixties and seventies.

Funny thing about rock and roll, it’s passé. Oh, people are making rock music, it’s just a caricature of itself. But the classic sound… If you’re infected, there is no cure. You can only get Led Zeppelin one place, and there’s nothing quite like it, the sounds, the playing, the vocals…the same band which did “Black Dog” did “Ten Years Gone,” never mind “Ramble On.”

“Led Zeppelin II.” I prefer the debut. Not that “II” isn’t good, it’s just that the initial LP is darker, more straight ahead, less obvious. Now Jimmy and the gang made up for this by going totally left field on “III,” but we’re talking about “II.” I burned out on “Whole Lotta Love” in a week, if I never hear it again that’s fine with me. I bought the album the day it came out and within a week I was done with it and never really returned to it until I was in a condo in Mammoth in ’75 and it was on the 8-track, and I remembered how great the album was.

In the early days, my favorite cut was “Living Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman.” But even back then it was obvious that the acoustic numbers were the heart of the LP. Right after “Whole Lotta Love” came
“What Is And What Should Never Be,” which eventually exploded, but this was Zeppelin’s trademark, from quiet acoustic to explosive electric and then back again. But even better were “Thank You.” And “Ramble On.”

“Thank You” was majestic, as if it were being performed in the king’s castle. Or out on the plains with no one around. But “Ramble On” was different, it was positively alive, not reflective so much as marching forward, back when being in your twenties wasn’t about selling out but finding yourself.

So, Rick Beato is trying to recreate the acoustic guitar intro to “Ramble On.” He starts with a photo of Jimmy Page in the studio. The chord he’s playing. The guitar, the mic. He’s trying to put it together, how did Jimmy get this magic sound?

And he’s in the studio.

The studio, that used to be the holy grail, where the music was made. To get inside meant you were a member of the club, or at least a provisional one. Most people could not get inside. To this day I’m mesmerized when I go inside. All that gear! All of Rick’s guitars!

And the engineers, all the rest of the help, never treat you right, this is their job, you’re an outsider. Who got you in…the player or the producer will be friendly, if it’s someone else, you’ll soon have to leave. But we are in Rick Beato’s studio for the duration.

So, it’s a Vox acoustic guitar. With a bolted-on neck. From ’69. All of this is important to the sound. Which Rick and his engineer now try to capture.

And they don’t get it. Now I’m nitpicking. It’s close, but it’s not the real thing. And then Rick starts to tweak the sound in Pro Tools. So many options. He’s getting close, very close, but still no cigar.

And then Rick goes back into the studio and VOILA! He figures it out, he’s got to play the guitar closer to the bridge.

And now he’s strumming and I’m smiling, I can’t believe it, he’s replicated the sound of “Ramble On”!

He didn’t write it. And he’s not getting paid for this video, Jimmy and his mates are. Rick’s cool with that, but he is angry that his videos are taken down when he’s making no money and the acts are. He’s got a whole extended clip about it, that’s how I became aware of his videos, someone insisted I watch it. And I had a bit of sympathy for Rick, but the truth is…the rights owners rule. Then again, if the rights owners, the players themselves as opposed to their hired intermediaries, knew what Rick was really doing with their work they’d okay it, since their efforts are being respected and they’re getting paid for their use.

But I’m watching this clip and I feel at home.

It’s hard to feel at home in the music business today. There’s just too much music and too many special interests and too much blather. Someone sent me that article about the guy who went on vacation and got overwhelmed with new music and went back to the oldies:

LISTENING ANXIETY: Struggling With An Overwhelming Flood Of New Music

I get it. It just takes too much effort to check everything out, can’t someone lead the way? So far, no one’s been able to do this.

I know, I know, a similar paradigm exists today. You try to get the beat. You get a topliner. But it’s different. Forget even judging. They’re two trains running on two different tracks. And today’s music is social, a club, whereas back then the creation involved very few people, the band and the studio hands, to get the sound down that affected us all. The reach of a hit was unbelievable, the tracks were burned into our brains. Come on, you can sing “Ramble On” to yourself right now! And much of the rest of the Zeppelin catalog, whereas most people can’t do that with any hit of today, never mind an album track.

What we’re talking about in this video is the source of creation. Jimmy had the inspiration, how can we get closer to that?

That. You can’t buy it. It’s not for sale. Oh, you can purchase the end result, the record…but the journey to it, no way. It’s a better plot than most movies. How do we get to genius. How do we recreate something that was probably done spontaneously. And when Rick gets there, your day is made. At least mine was.

Lawrence Lessig is one of America’s preeminent legal scholars, a law professor at Harvard, he also ran for president in 2016. Listen as we address the legal issues surrounding the presidential election, social media and antitrust. This is up-to-date legal analysis that is a must listen!

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“AWAL says ‘hundreds’ of its artists now earn $100k+ a year from streaming”

Daniel Ek spoke about the number of artists making bank on Spotify and he was excoriated by seemingly every musician over the age of 50 and the wannabes who probably never will be.

Welcome to 2020, where it’s all about groupspeak. God help you if you say anything negative about Biden and Harris, you’ll be ostracized by people who say we must defeat Trump and you’re a stupid person who must shut up and get on board or leave the community.

A good example is this article in today’s “Washington Post”:

“The convention shows Democrats don’t care about young voters – The way to lure young voters into a Democratic coalition is to include people who genuinely appeal to them”

Read the comments, they’re full of vitriol dismissing the writers’ words, stating that the convention is wonderful, despite ratings being down, and we must rally around Biden and stop saying this nonsense. But how can we get to truth if we do not have a discussion? Talk to anybody in tech, anybody in the recording studio, it’s oftentimes the most left field ideas that bear fruit, despite most of the left field ideas being justly disregarded. So now it’s not only the right that requires full adherence, but the left too. If you need a trigger warning to go to college maybe you shouldn’t be there.

So, the fact that some people are making money on streaming and others are not is not sexy. It’s kind of like Lake Wobegone, every artist is above average and entitled to a comfortable living. What next, everybody should be able to play in the NBA and earn seven figures?

AWAL also states that “dozens” of its artists make more than a million dollars a year on streaming. Think about that, translate it to the major labels…do these three conglomerates have dozens of artists making seven figures a year in streaming royalties? Actually, that’s doubtful. Which shows what a major statement AWAL’s is.

Then again, AWAL’s model is different. The artist owns his or her rights and gets the lion’s share of the income. This is the new paradigm. Kind of like Kobalt and its dashboard that single-handedly brought publishing into the twenty first century. Old entities are opaque, new entities are transparent. If the company you’re with won’t give you access to the data, maybe you should be with a different company.

So, if you’re signed to a major label, you’re coughing up at least half of your royalties, and if you have an antique deal, probably much more! But the used-to-bes are the ones who are bitching loudest. But it’s their own damn fault, they’ve got lousy deals, or they were just born at the wrong time. But don’t extrapolate the experience of these oldsters to today, it’s apples and oranges.

Furthermore, there are different kinds of streaming that pay different amounts. On demand and radio are different. So, a paid-for stream on Spotify is much higher in value than a radio stream on Pandora.

And then there’s ownership…

If you wrote a sixteenth of a song, but don’t even own the publishing, your slice is probably 1/32nd, and if it’s a radio royalty…that’s how you end up with all those bogus columns online about low payments.

But, streaming comes down to popularity. Do people really want to listen to your music? If not, you’re gonna be broke. Come on, how many records did you buy in the physical era you played once? How many overpriced CDs did you buy to only hear one track? Don’t blame the public, people are paying for music, they just might not be paying YOU!

As for the media outlets…if you expect them to understand streaming economics, you also expect the U.S. Congress to understand ticketing. Ticketmaster must be the enemy, otherwise I’d be able to sit in the front row for $50!

But these, once again, are not sexy stories. So, you make music and you made 100k a year from streaming. Who wants to print that? News focuses on the negative, ever notice? You want to believe you’re lucky, that some poor other sot got hurt or killed. You want to believe someone else is at fault for your situation. No one wants to accept responsibility.

Once again, I’m not saying you’re not entitled to a roof over your head and food on the table, but you are not entitled to a successful career in the arts. You need no degree, you just say you’re an artist. Imagine, should I just say I’m a BMW mechanic and am entitled to six figures? Or a doctor entitled to more? Or a computer programmer? You need no skill to be a service worker, and that’s why those jobs pay so poorly. Everybody’s dreams can’t come true!

Read this MusicAlly article, it’s like the Antichrist, it’s opposite everything you’ve heard, opposite the popular narrative. AWAL artists are making twice as much on recording as they are on touring. And revenues are going up! More artists are making more dollars from music. HOW COULD THIS BE A BAD THING?

But the system MUST be broken. I’M NOT GETTING RICH!

So, what happens is what always happens. The system breaks, it bifurcates, into insiders and outsiders. Do you expect Daniel Ek to reach out to the creative community again, painting a rosy picture of revenues? OF COURSE NOT! He’s now music industry enemy #1, because he had an idea and made a billion. How come Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre had an idea and made the same amount and are lionized? And isn’t everything about ideas? When it comes to art, execution is secondary to conception, that’s what an artist is, someone who expresses ideas. Which is why you can make money covering the work of these artists, people want to hear their music, but they may not want to hear yours.

Then again, in a world where facts are fungible, most people won’t believe the AWAL numbers either. It doesn’t feel true to you so it can’t be.

And it gets even better!

“‘If you have $100k and control your rights, the value of the masters is a million dollars in the saleable value of your rights,’ Kobalt chairman Willard Ahdritz told Music Ally, adding that by this calculation, AWAL already has some artists with catalogues worth $100m+.”

But since you’re left out, the system must be rigged. They do call it MUSICAL CHAIRS, however in this case it’s not about luck.

Streaming saved the recorded music business, plain and simple. The numbers demonstrate it. Just like MTV saved the recorded music business back in 1981. But people would rather cry in their beer. They can’t adjust to the new system, maybe the new system doesn’t have a place for them.

THIS IS GOOD NEWS! READ IT AND REJOICE!