Today’s Rarities

“Old Mister Time”
10cc

I’m a huge 10cc fan. I bought the first album when it had traction across the pond, but none here. “Rubber Bullets” was the best Beach Boys-style track I’d heard since “Back In The U.S.S.R.” But the band didn’t have a hit in the U.S. for years, until they released “I’m Not In Love” on “The Original Soundtrack” in ’75. And then they promptly slipped back into irrelevance. The follow-up, “How Dare You,” had no impact, and then the band split in half and it was Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman who continued under the moniker 10cc and they had a huge hit on “Deceptive Bends” with “The Things We Do For Love,” a masterpiece that those who did not know the band considered throwaway pop, but do you know how hard it is to write a hit, one with a sing-songy chorus, that resonates, that just isn’t of the moment? NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE!

Being a huge fan I purchased the follow-up “Bloody Tourists” when it came out in ’78. The opening cut, “Dreadlock Holiday,” was a smash seemingly everywhere but the States. I knew every note on “Bloody Tourists” by heart and went to see the band at the Santa Monica Civic and sat in the fifth or sixth row and was elated, the surprise was Rick Fenn and his exquisite guitarwork. But it’s “Old Mister Time” that plays in my head when I think of “Bloody Tourists.” Eric Stewart ultimately sang with McCartney, he had such a pure voice, and it’s evidenced here. This is the kind of music from the album era that doesn’t fly today, moody stuff that is made just for you to listen to, alone in your house.

“Johnny Hold Back”
Charlie

Terry Thomas is now known as a record producer, he worked with the Brian Howe Bad Company, with its bombastic yet satisfying tracks “Holy Water” and “How About That,” as well as Foreigner and Tommy Shaw. But first he was the creative spark behind Charlie, which failed in America because it was on the Janus label, back when what label you were on truly mattered. This album, “No Second Chance,” is the best one and it’s playable throughout and if you dig this, listen to the title track and “Guitar Hero (False Messiah).”

“L.A. Dreamer”
Charlie

What the hell, this is the key track from the follow-up to “No Second Chance” entitled “Lines,” from back when singing about L.A. was a thing, remember “Hollywood Nights”? (In those Hollywood Hills!)”

“Sunset People”
Donna Summer

When I practiced law back in the seventies, my boss represented a couple of band members who had written songs on “Bad Girls.” I’d always dismissed Donna Summer as disco, back when that was a bad word, but one of these players gave me a copy of the “Bad Girls” double album and other than the title track and the opener “Hot Stuff,” this is the cut that resonated, it’s so moody, once again, mood has no place in today’s hit music.

“Blue Desire”
Silencers

I lobbied for this band for years, but it didn’t help, but Jimme O’Neill is a star in France and moved there to capitalize on it, go where your audience is.

I still remember the first time I heard “A Blues For Buddha,” the second LP, the opening cut was coming out of the speakers as I sat in a car with RCA promotion man Kevin Sutter in the garage at the Le Parc Hotel. The song was “The Real McCoy,” and I got it IMMEDIATELY! “A Blues For Buddha” became my favorite LP, I couldn’t stop playing it. And then I went back to the debut, with the radio track “Painted Moon.” Most people think the first album is better, I could argue that, but start with “Blue Desire,” if you like that then play “A Letter From St. Paul” and “Possessed” and…THE ENTIRE ALBUM!

That’s the first album, “A Letter From St. Paul,” “A Blues For Buddha” is not on Spotify.

“What Comes After”
Stories

Back from when a pure voice was not excoriated, Ian Lloyd sings better than anybody who ever appeared on a TV singing show. If you like this, also listen to “Love Is In Motion” from the same LP, “About Us.”

“Cinnamon”
The Storys

I’m shocked! This is finally on Spotify, after I checked for a decade. This is CSN music, Southern California, country-influenced stuff. Listen at least to the chorus and hang in there, if you make it all the way through you’ll need to hear this track again, and again and again.

“I Am So Ordinary
Paula Cole

Long before she had the title track of “Dawson’s Creek.” Listen to the lyrics, a perfect description of what it’s like when you believe you’re just not good enough.

“Long Road Out of Eden”
Eagles

It’s been thirteen years since the Eagles released their first new work in decades via Walmart. Many bought it, no one seems to remember it. It’s the title track that’s the keeper, if you’re a fan of “Hotel California,” if you’re a fan of Don Henley’s lyrics/insight, this is for you. Once again, made for a dark room at night. This is an epic, and all ten minutes of it satisfy.

Now we know why the underclass voted for Trump.

You’ve got time on your hands, fire this up. Log in to Netflix and then click on “Dirty Money” and then click on “Slumlord Millionaire.” Watch and you’ll think the system is rigged against you.

And it is.

The mistake Jared Kushner made was to marry into a famous family and then become part of Trump’s inner circle. The truly rich know it’s best to keep your name out of the news, publicity delivers trouble. But new money wants acceptance. Or at least new players with old money want acceptance, so they buy and bully their way into the inner sanctum of society and no one busts them, because the story sells advertising for media and those at the tippity-top don’t throw shade at each other, it’s an unwritten rule of the club, violate it and you’re out forever.

So, Jared Kushner runs his father’s real estate company. The only thing is it’s based on fraud and milking the tenants. Do I think the Kushners are the only real estate barons who do this? OF COURSE NOT! But like I said above, Kushner stepped into the spotlight and this is the result, bad publicity and a hit to the bottom line.

Well, he’s leveraging his White House connections to get government loans and…

We can argue about the behavior of this President and his entourage but it doesn’t matter, because whatever is said the water is muddied by his acolytes, today there are so many outlets with so many opinions, you yourself can even become a broadcaster, that truth is an elusive concept. Sure, Trump capitalized on it, but think of all the falsehoods people spew all day long from information, oftentimes discredited, they garner online. Like vaccines cause autism. There’s absolutely no evidence this is true, the research of the doctor who came out with the initial report has been discredited. But if you send someone to Snopes, they say that site can’t be trusted, so here we are…to the point that even his lack of foresight with the coronavirus might not hurt Trump, I think it will, but maybe not.

Because of the elites.

The left wing, the Democrats, have forsaken their core constituency, working men and women. All you’ve got is highly educated weasels dividing up the pie themselves, who might pay lip service to those below them, but really have contempt for them.

There’s this guy in Kushner’s apartment complex in Baltimore… He’s struggling, being hit with late fees on his rent, but he voted for Trump. He says it’s because Trump’s a businessman, but…

One do-gooder does a better job of holding Kushner and other real estate barons to account than the entire New York City government, with tons of people in the building department. So, when Republicans say the government is ineffective, here’s your evidence. And why should you pay taxes for such an inefficient enterprise? Better to keep that money for yourself, after all, unlike the elites, you need it, it’s the difference between having a roof over your head or not.

Of course this guy is voting against his interests, but when you see him attempt to read you remember him from school, assuming you even went to a public school, before all the elites sent their kids to private schools or established charters that left the dumb and bedraggled out.

So if you went to public school, you remember elementary, wherein all the students hung together, wherein you knew everybody, wherein everybody was kind of equal. But, you knew certain people were smarter than others.

And then you get to junior high, now called “middle school,” and then high school and they bring in more students and they separate the classes based on intelligence and it’s obvious who the losers are. And they’re not happy about it. The smart kids run everything, and insult the dumb all the while. These elites are the exact people running the Democratic Party, do you know what these laborers in underpaid jobs say? SCREW YOU!

But it gets even worse. The Republicans have gutted the IRS so even the rich aren’t held accountable. The Kushners don’t even have certificates of occupancy for their buildings, they break the fire code, but the government never cracks down on them, why fund the government at all? And when the Kushners are finally fined, it’s chump change.

The rich Republicans hide. Like Robert Mercer, one of the biggest Republican donors. He was outed for supporting Trump (and spending so much money), and there’s now been press about his riches and donations, but the only press we really get about funders is George Soros is the devil. That’s right, the Democrats play defense as the Republicans go unscathed. Hand it to the Republicans, they’re organized. Forget the Supreme Court, Trump has remade the entire federal court system, populating it with right wing judges, frequently very young, sometimes with no experience.

But this is the weeds when you’re working for a living, have mouths to feed, if you’ve got any free time at all you just want to fire up the flat screen and be entertained, you don’t want to delve into the doings of the rich people who control the government.

The truth is almost all of the great fortunes were not made completely legally. Corners were cut, and what’s even worse, relationships with the government or lack of government oversight usually let these builders get away with it.

The elite have gotten their way, they’ve nominated Joe Biden. Joe ain’t gonna make them suffer, it’ll be business as usual, and Joe can express compassion for the underclass, but will he do anything for them? OF COURSE NOT! The poor will get some token relief and the rich will just keep on raping and pillaging.

Now if this were the sixties and there were only three networks this documentary would have huge consequences. But today, with four networks, a bunch of cable outlets and numerous streaming services nothing gets to the top of everybody’s mind…NOTHING! This is how the music industry thinks so small. The Spotify Top 50? The hit parade has less penetration than ever before, as for the other genres people are interested in…it’s too much effort to make that money so the major labels abstain, and since there are so many marketing messages newbies can’t get their message heard anyway.

But now we’re all at home. And the funny thing is we’re so weirded-out by the isolation that we’re connecting with everybody we know, whether it be by text, e-mail or phone. And we’ve got free time, which we never had before, too much free time. So, things can get traction that never would before.

Everybody has access to a Netflix account. Take an hour of time and watch this documentary. I don’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat, this is how the world works, and the more people talk about it the more possibility there is of change.

Which brings me back to Bernie Sanders. The elites decimated him. Sure, the young didn’t come out to vote, but why should they when the game is rigged, when the elites gang up to preserve their way of life. And let’s not debate Sanders, just the things he stands for. Should everybody have medical insurance? OF COURSE! Do the corporations abuse their power? OF COURSE! Should there be no billionaires? OF COURSE!

But the rich have all the power and they’re not letting the poor in on the action. But if we all watch this show and talk about it…

That’s another reason why the poor vote for the right. Without hope you cannot sustain, you cannot go on living. So, if you can dream of becoming a billionaire, that resonates, at least there’s a target, others make it, why can’t you?

You can’t. It’s like playing the lottery, almost no one wins.

And as all sophisticates know, the lottery is just a tax on the poor. Those who have money don’t play it because the odds are too low. But if you’ve got nothing, playing feeds your hope.

And then the money is supposed to help schools but they siphon funds from the school budget and the end result remains the same.

Sure, we’ve got to get rid of the Orange Menace.

But we need change.

I’m telling you, I’m losing hope.

“Sgt. Pepper”

Tune in tomorrow, Tuesday March 17th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: LefsetzLive

I know we’re all overwhelmed and burned out on the news, but I’m going to call your attention to a few stories that might interest you. I spend all day reading, it’s my favorite thing to do (other than skiing), and it’s funny how every story now changes within 24 hours, and so much is not only dated, but irrelevant, especially the prognostications, especially about the economic impact. I get it, I get it, we’re all affected by the stock market in some way, but the hoi polloi are still gloating, however uninformedly (I know that’s not a word), over the crash, laughing at the headlines as the rich see their fortunes disappear.

Speaking of which, I first bring your attention to this opinion piece in the “New York Times”:

“Don’t Feel Sorry for the Airlines – Before providing them any assistance, we must demand that they change how they treat their customers and employees”

You should read this. But to boil it down, American Airlines raped the public for profits and then employed these billions in a buyback scheme to drive up the stock price and now, AND NOW, the airline wants a government handout. We squeezed into tiny seats and overpaid for baggage and change fees and now we’ve got to give them money? Isn’t it time to ask for something in return?

And speaking of the corporations and the system screwing us, you should read this:

“America Is a Sham – Policy changes in reaction to the coronavirus reveal how absurd so many of our rules are to begin with.”

Bottom line, you can now bring a bottle of Purell that’s 12 ounces on to a plane. Did we really have to scrap all our shampoo bottles and… (I’ve had to throw out new bottles of contact lens solution that have been just over the 3.4 ounce limit.)

And it’s so funny to see Trump caught with his pants down as he lies and keeps telling us what a great job he’s doing. Is this the moment when Americans finally realize that their country may not be the greatest in the world, or that it has been superseded in certain areas by others?

The U.S. essentially ignored the coronavirus crisis, but not every country did. South Korea learned from being behind the curve on MERS, so they were ready for the coronavirus:

“Virus Testing Blitz Appears to Keep Korea Death Rate Low-Country is testing at fastest global pace as cases top 5,000 – Faulty, limited testing in Japan, U.S., could worsen outbreak”

Important result: The mortality rate in South Korea is under 1%, the lowest in the world (except for Singapore which has been hardly infected).

Yesterday, APA agent Craig Newman held a virtual concert with his daughter Sadie on Facebook Live. Tummler par excellence Craig had us riveted for an hour, when it’s frequently hard for me to pay attention to name talent for that long.

This is the new thing, virtual concerts. Coldplay did one on Instagram today and now Neil Young is gonna do some and… Fifty years after the sixties, it appears that music wants to be free once again, the economic angle has been decimated, so why not focus on just satiating the fans? John Mayer, the digital native always pushing the envelope, broadcast last night. In 2001, we all turned on the TV to see Jimmy Iovine’s 9/11 concert. Now, we all fire up our apps. It won’t be long before spammers clog up this channel, figuring it’s a way to get traction under the rubric of “giving back,” but for now, we’re still on the cutting edge and expect some great acts to do great things, at least they should.

And speaking of great things, you probably read that Universal is gonna put their movies on pay-per-view while they’re still in theatres. Funny how necessity eliminates perceived barriers. With few theatres open to exploit these films, and people afraid to go to those that are, these flicks are soon to become distressed assets, best to dash for cash now. And, in these topsy-turvy days SOME studio should break out one of its yet to be released films for pay-per-view, something most people want to see. They should make it an event, something we all want to watch because we’re looking to converse with our fellow citizens about something we can all relate to other than the virus.