Netflix: Occupied_Trailer

When the revolution comes, which side will you be on?

Even more interesting, which side WERE you on?

This is the story of billionaires, this is the story of impeachment.

Now I believe if a Democrat wins the Presidency all hell will break loose, the Trumpers will not accept it. And in a world where the Russians have hacked Burisma, to get info on Hunter Biden to use against a possible Biden candidacy, when the results come in it’s gonna be open season… Were the voting machines hacked? Can you trust the vote? Can you trust the news?

You certainly can’t trust the news anymore. Blame the internet. Blame the Republicans.

While the intelligentsia keeps lamenting the decimation of newspapers, that’s no longer the story anymore…the story isn’t reportage, but believability. Who do you choose to believe?

And it’s not only the ignorant right, but the educated left. Yup, I got e-mail saying I should not get the flu vaccine because it’s got aluminum in it. What next, no treatment for appendicitis, are we all turning into Christian Scientists?

So, if it’s in the NYT or the WaPo, it can’t be true. Yup, that’s what the right believes. And sometimes, up is down.

And the left can’t stop railing against Fox News, as if anybody on the right is listening to them complain.

And if you’ve got a name, and you stand up to the Administration, you’re inundated with blowback from the usual suspects, the same damn people, over and over. This is what bothers me about the mainstream news sources, they live in a bubble, out of touch with the rank and file, they’re behind a wall just like the CEOs. Oh, they’ll tap someone on the shoulder for their opinion, to get a story, but they don’t penetrate the scene. Actually, the scene penetrates you, if your name is big enough. And too many reporters’ names are not. Quick! Name the WSJ and WaPo White House reporters! You can’t!

And we’re living in a “2001” society. Where the machines have taken over. We keep reading about AI, but that’s not the issue. The issue is the aftereffects of the power of the platforms. Facebook has lost control, whilst trying to maintain control. Yup, Facebook employs subterfuge to hoover up your data, but is unable and unwilling to supervise behavior on its sites, saying it can’t when the truth is it doesn’t want to and won’t admit that it’s truly lost control of the content. It’d be like building roads and being unable to contain speeding, accidents. Or flying airplanes without air traffic controllers. And who is gonna tell the truth here and who is gonna believe it and..?

So if you sidled up to the billionaires, if you did it for the perks, believing you should not be left out, you’re gonna be in trouble. There’s a list, and you’re gonna be tainted. The tide has already turned, the mass is against the ultra-rich. The only way the billionaires sustain is if they arm up and shoot us.

As for the impeachment circus… History will not be kind to the Republican Senators who vote to exonerate Trump. They’re playing team politics, they’re afraid of Trump and their constituencies both. They believe that by doing the right thing they’ll end their careers, and it’s all about the personal in today’s world. As for the charges… Oh, come on. Trump trades aid for info. Kinda like Iran/Contra. If he’s not guilty, then I should be able to shoot people on the street, or at least rob a bank.

So today’s world is run by television. And I’m not talking cable news.

The truth is very few people watch Fox or MSNBC or CNN, never mind the antiquated network news. They’re busy watching the rest of the programming. They’re addicted to story, and that’s where the lessons are.

Like “Succession.” That’s where the average person learns how the rich behave, not in endless reporting in the paper.

And there are no lessons in music. That’s pure commerce. Or mindless hedonism.

As for books… The publishing business got exactly what it wanted, which is to keep its reach and influence marginal. What have I always told you, distribution is king? Well, Amazon had every Kindle book under ten bucks, growing the marketplace. The publishers got the right to set prices and raised them to the point where a physical book is often cheaper than a digital one, who’s gonna take that deal?

Yup, it’s all about reaching the masses.

And if you want to do this, you’re best off making a television show.

I take my TV watching seriously, very seriously. Because I don’t have enough time.

That’s what the film business doesn’t understand. Viewing is done by appointment, which is set by me, not them. That’s what’s great about the revolution in music distribution…I can listen anywhere, anytime, as long as I’ve got juice. And the ignorant still believe it’s about the connection, cell service, demonstrating that they haven’t kept up with technology, they don’t know you can synch tracks to the handset.

And those in power have not kept up with technology. Trump may tweet, but he’s got no idea how his phone works. He keeps telling us he’s gonna bring back manufacturing. What next, caning in schools?

So Jesper Berg wants to move beyond oil and gas. And Russia and the EU say no way!

So Russian invades Norway to secure natural resource energy production.

Jesper keeps satiating them, believing they’re gonna leave, that their stay is only temporary.

Bente is elated. Now her restaurant can stay open, all the rich Russians need to eat!

But suddenly she’s a pariah.

The news keeps telling everyone life is hunky-dory.

But the resistance? It is flourishing. And then the question…who on the inside is really on the outside?

Never ignore hearts and minds. That’s what the right wing revolution was all about, that’s why Trump got elected. The white nationalists, those left behind by globalization, they wanted to be acknowledged, they wanted to be recognized, have input, however deluded they might be.

Concomitantly, on the left throngs supported Bernie Sanders. Who right now looks like he’s gonna be the nominee, despite the mainstream informing us again and again that the now fading Biden is the people’s choice and the only electable candidate. Sanders fans are sick and tired of being screwed and are worried about the future, can you say “climate change”?

That’s what Jesper Berg is trying to do. Save society from itself.

But the Russians don’t want this, never mind the EU. As for the U.S? It’s no longer the world’s peacekeeper, it’s staying out, worried solely about its interests.

So Norway is on its own. Who is gonna save Norway?

Or, should I put it who cares about Norway other than the Norwegians?

Yup, “Occupied” is not far-fetched. It’s just a tiny step beyond today’s reality. We live in a global economy, isolationists are screwed. As for those doing the screwing…they’re not worried about the rule of law, they’re just worried about getting what they want. And the result justifies any means.

Come on, it’s not that different in America. Reality is whitewashed. The poor are subjected to cameras everywhere, never mind facial recognition. Commit a crime and you’re going to jail. But if you’re rich, if you’re a white collar criminal? You skate! Just ask Trump himself, who has decimated the IRS, never mind filed false tax returns (read the NYT story for edification: nyti.ms/2Nsq5aq). Yup, your heroes have clay feet. Believe in yourself, nobody else cares about you.

So when you watch “Occupied” you will not stop thinking about reality, truth, today. What would you do? Would you stand by frozen, would you be an opportunist, or would you fight for your country and way of life?

Funny thing, when the chips are down, you’d be stunned what becomes irrelevant, what you’re willing to sacrifice for the cause.

And judgment day always comes. Yup. The choices you made will impact your future. And everything’s on hard drive, nothing eludes those seeking it. They know what fundraiser you went to, they know who you had dinner with, they know everything about you and it’s gonna come back to haunt you, unless you’ve led a clean life.

Yup, when it’s all said and done it might come back to morality, the straight and narrow.

For now, watch this show and get back to me.

The track is “One Day She’s Here.” It’s funky!

Did you watch the Chiefs game? I didn’t, I don’t think I’ve watched an iota of football this year, but I’ve read about Patrick Mahomes, I’ve been following him ever since he broke into the league, you see he’s revolutionized the game. The ground attack, the gut it out play of yore, is history, now it’s all passing, and Mahomes gave it the final push. Yesterday the Chiefs were down 21 after the first quarter, looked like it was over, who can come back from that, especially in a playoff game? Well, Mahomes moved the ball down the field for 28 points in the second quarter. I would have liked to see that!

Reminded me of Steph Curry. An unknown, at least to me, and then he scored 54 points in one game against the Knicks back in 2013 and I had to tune in, I had to see what all the mania was about. Curry changed the game completely, with his 3 point shots. He’s been a marvel to watch. I’d given up on the NBA after wasting too much time watching back in the nineties, but Curry pulled me back in.

This is what we’re waiting for in the music business, an act that comes along and revolutionizes the game. That attracts the attention of not only those paying attention, but those who are not. We haven’t had that spirit in music for a very long time.

Maybe the last time it was Lady Gaga. Well, although uber-talented, most people became aware of her antics, the penumbra surrounding the music, and one can argue that she didn’t make music that appealed to everybody until the remake of “A Star Is Born.”

Before her, or contemporaneous, depending on how you calculate, was Adele. She was a phenomenon, sold literally ten times the number of albums as her closest competitors. Everybody knew her name, she permeated the universe, she put a dent in it, at least with “21,” and what have we had since?

The Beatles exploded the music business. Nothing like them had been seen before. Frank Sinatra did not write his own songs, he didn’t push beyond traditional genres.

And after the Beatles… Well, we had the British Invasion. And then for years, decades, we had a plethora of great acts, drawing attention across the world. And sure, today your music can be heard worldwide, but it’s hard to draw attention to it, it might end up going unheard. But if there’s mania, something great, the sky is the limit.

And it is not “Yummy.”

The story of today is how Justin Bieber tried to manipulate the Spotify numbers. If only it were a better record. His previous work stood out. Yup, you didn’t have to be a Belieber to love “Sorry” or “Love Yourself,” they rose above all the rest of the crap on the hit parade.

Now breakthrough acts don’t come from nowhere, they’ve always paid their dues for years before they become a phenomenon. Then again, what we’ve got today is social media phenomena, it’s so much easier to do that than to make great music, to play you’ve got to PRACTICE! Marcus King has been playing since he was 3, almost always off the radar. And prior today I never got him.

Now if you read the BuzzAngle report, you’ll find “Chris Stapleton’s ‘Traveller’ album was the biggest Country album over the past five years with more than 1.3 million album sales and the fourth most purchased album over the past five years.” The music didn’t sound like what was on country radio, and when Stapleton broke through all his contemporaries testified, loved when he won awards, because not only did they acknowledge his talent, he was a giant middle finger to the country music establishment, especially radio, you didn’t have to do it their way to succeed!

And those who normally don’t pay attention did. Stapleton was even on Howard Stern.

So Marcus King is playing music derivative of sixties electric blues. He’s not really breaking any new ground, but astoundingly the material on his new album is more than serviceable. It always comes down to the song, Clive Davis was right about that. And it seems like a lost formula. So many acts, especially rock bands, have skill, but they’ve got no songs!

So I was reluctant to listen to the new music. And the fact that Dan Auerbach cowrote and produced…I saw that as a negative, as I’m not really a Black Keys fan, and he’s the flavor du jour, but you can’t put lipstick on a pig.

But stunningly, the Marcus King cuts that have already been released from “El Dorado” all resonate.

How can this be?

This music is far from the Spotify Top 50. We’re told every youngster wants to be a rapper or a DJ, but Marcus King is only 23.

Not that King is unknown, assuming you’re deep into the “Relix” world. But none of those acts seem to break out of that ghetto, no matter how lucrative it might be.

I mean listening to Marcus King is like being transported to back when, and he doesn’t sound like a remake, or a copy. Sure, he’s not pushing the envelope, but if you like this kind of music you’ll listen to the songs and be dancing around the house, you’ll be elated.

Hip-hop won the internet. But that was years ago. Now everybody under thirty is on the same page. They’re not attached to CDs, they’re not bitching about streaming payouts, hell kids in today’s Army weren’t even born when the Twin Towers came down! Yup, time keeps passing.

Now in the limited, pre-internet world, sales made sense, the rankings made sense, because the scene made sense. But today, with Bieber asking his fans to put his music on endless repeat, what chance does a non-hip-hop/pop track have to break through? Essentially none.

Which is why it’s gonna take a long time for different genres to gain traction. You’ve already got to be a fan of this music to come across Marcus King on a playlist, which means there’s little of the virality that breaks acts today.

But there could be.

One Day She’s Here Spotify

One Day She’s Here YouTube

Tune in tomorrow, Tuesday January 14th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

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

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

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“No Saints, No Saviors-My Years With The Allman Brothers Band”

You sold your soul for rock and roll.

Well, at least your life.

For the last twenty years, we’ve been deluged with tales of college dropouts going to Silicon Valley to change the world and get rich.

They used to go into rock and roll. And money was not the primary driver.

Reading this book you’re stunned at the low payouts for concerts. Forget inflation, they’ve been far outstripped by today’s fees.

The experience has changed. Now you don’t save ticket stubs, you shoot selfies, and broadcast them on social media. Used to be attendance was a personal badge of honor, you told the tales of attendance, but it was the inner mounting flame of the music that got you there.

And you’re going to go back again.

When the baby boomers die, rock and roll will return.

Yup, if the delta bluesmen had money and social media they too would have decried the efforts of the English cats. So today you’ve got acts like Greta Van Fleet abhorred because they’re an imitation of what once was. They called them John Mayall’s BLUESBREAKERS, get the point?

So the problem with rock is it got too far from the garden.

Of course there was the Seattle reset, a replacement of the sold out ethos of the hair bands.

But before the advent of MTV, rock cratered because it became all about the Benjamins. It was labeled corporate rock, and in many cases it was.

But the eighties saw the flourishing of derivatives of new wave and ultimately punk but one thing was for sure, there was melody. Hell, Black Sabbath looks like nursery rhymes compared to today’s metal.

Now you might have seen the article in today’s “Times” about hologram tours:

Old Musicians Never Die. They Just Become Holograms.

One thing’s for sure, today’s classic rock performers who are not already dead soon will be, or will be unable to perform. But the hunger to see them, to experience their music, will remain.

This is what those focusing on today myopically don’t understand.

We talk about the Renaissance, even though that was half a century ago.

The sixties and seventies were the musical Renaissance. Maybe even some of the eighties too.

Come on, the Stones and the Eagles sell out stadiums. Look at the touring numbers, they’re dominated by old acts, and it’s not only old people going to see them. People want a hit of what once was.

Yup, when the boomers die, it will be cool to hearken back to what once was, to listen to the music of the seventies, never mind the sixties, all of which is available online. People will hear it and play it and then be inspired by it. And it won’t be about paint by numbers, but a feeling.

There’s no feeling in computer code.

Yup, in a digital world it’s the human that becomes valuable.

Expect a reset, not only back to rock and roll, but literature, story.

Computers can’t write story. And that’s why streaming TV is burgeoning, we’re all addicted to tales, and when the film business stopped talking about real people, there was a vacuum, and television filled it.

Yup, on one hand we’ve got technology out of control, like a bad sci-fi movie… Facebook and so many of the outlets are overwhelmed by consequences that they did not foresee, because the proprietors did not graduate from college, did not read enough books.

Today college is a glorified trade school where you start thinking about your resulting job long before you graduate.

But in the classic rock era… It was just preparation, time to set your mind free, to experiment. You figured out what you were gonna do after graduation, if then, if you didn’t hitchhike cross-country or save for a trip to Europe or…

Now of course today’s society is much more economically difficult. You can’t make it on minimum wage. And this is one reason people are up in arms about income inequality. I mean at least give us a few more scraps, so we can expand our horizons. Yup, there’s a backlash against tech, against elites, against CEOs, against globalization, because they pushed it too far, for their own greed.

The music was for us.

So, Willie Perkins was the Allman Brothers’ road manager.

He’d gone to college, he had a job at the bank, but he threw it all over for rock and roll, for $140 a week (the band members got $90), just to be a member of the circus, just to get closer to the music.

Yup, you start reading this book and you remember how it once was. When there were no smartphones and we were all disconnected and we went to the show to connect.

Funny thing is we can associate online, but we still go to the show to connect.

And that’s how the Allman Brothers broke.

You can’t get national reach anymore. Impossible. Unless you’re Trump or you shoot someone. People keep trying… Ha, in today’s “Times” there’s a story about Steve Martin’s new single…GOOD LUCK! Hell, once you’re promoting in the paper you know you’re screwed, either it starts virally online, spread by like-minded thinkers, or it doesn’t even begin.

So, you start on the road, playing live. That’s where the scene burbles.

But there are so many fewer places to play, and canned music and deejays fill the slots. And those at the advent always ask the same question…where’s the money? IT’S NOT THERE!

After being lauded by your parents, after being coddled, no one wants to sacrifice, at least no one with a brain, forgetting the nitwits who go on reality TV and then back to nowheresville where they came from.

The road less taken is far more difficult, and most people are not up to it.

But some are.

So, we’ve got faux contenders, wannabes. If you’re not a great singer, you’d better be the best lyricist…but in so many bands, this is not the case. It’s like everybody should get a trophy, when in truth only a few can grab the brass ring.

And after their heyday, the Brothers were broke. Sure, they liked the money, but that’s not why they did it. And then they didn’t go straight, they continued to play, in clubs, not arenas.

Some things never change. There will always be a hunger for music with melody played by human beings.

And there will always be a hunger for those who push the envelope, break the formula.

And sometimes it’s just a reconstitution of the formula. The Brothers had two lead guitarists and a frontman on a bench.

Now when you drop the needle on “Fillmore East”…

“I woke up this morning, I had them Statesboro Blues.”

Blind Willie McTell wrote it back in 1928. And forty-odd years later the Allman Brothers Band reinvented it.

And through the magic of the internet, you can hear the original, just one man and his guitar. It’s the same song, but a vastly different record.

Now the same thing is gonna happen in the future, after we believe rock is long dead and gone. There’s gonna be a coterie of youngsters who reject the pop sound, who become addicted to numbers ignored by others. They’re gonna learn how to play them, then they’re gonna perform them, and seemingly overnight the TR-808 and the jive of the hit parade will crumble and this new sound will take over. Happened with the Beatles, it can happen again.

And we’re getting to the starting point, the Doors came back, as did Led Zeppelin, but today the hits aren’t even hits, they’re far from ubiquitous, and what came before is just history, albeit encased in amber, at least the recordings.

And when I read Willie Perkins’s book I immediately got that jolt, that hit of the way it used to be, both in the music and the business. When you had to get paid in cash, when you handcuffed your briefcase to the bathroom pipe, when you’d do anything to get into rock and roll.

Music can move mountains when it’s done right.

And right is always a bit off-center.

The pebbles are there, you can follow the trail.

But being a musician is nothing like being an influencer, a social media star, a Kardashian. It’s not about getting rich, but avoiding a day job, living a different lifestyle, that feeling when you’re on stage and all the players lock in and you’re levitated into the stratosphere.

And the audience comes with you.

The audience is waiting, it always is. It moves faster than the media, it’s got more members, looking 24/7. Giving people what they want is a road to death. It’s the disruptors who triumph. And usually it’s only one or two, and then others are inspired to take risks too.

I know, I was there.

But those who were not, they’re gonna want to get close.