For Lesbians, TikTok Is ‘the Next Tinder’

The code phrase is “Girl in Red.”

In the seventies it was “Holly Near.”

But in the seventies everybody knew who Holly Near was, I doubt you’ve even heard of Girl in Red, never mind heard the music.

There’s been a cornucopia of TikTok news in the past few weeks, this article is not about that. Whether you can use the service in India, whether the U.S. government wants to ban it, what is going on in Hong Kong.

But one thing is for sure, TikTok now owns participatory video. If you’ve got something to say in moving images, it’s where you go. Facebook was caught flat-footed. The original service is for oldsters, but by buying Instagram and stealing the stories idea from Snapchat, the company ended up ruling the social media landscape anyway.

As for YouTube… It was so busy trying to replicate Hollywood that it didn’t realize the future was coming from the bottom up, not the top down. This is the same thinking that felled Quibi. The story of the internet is that those without a voice now have one and those who used to dominate have much less impact. And, the internet is all about niches whereas conventional media is about dictating to the masses.

Do you see newspapers touting the TV ratings anymore? No. They’re irrelevant, because they don’t include streaming services, Netflix refuses to be rated, so who cares what’s number one on network when network is a sideshow. Same deal in music, a thin layer of single-genre music is hyped and the rest is deemed irrelevant, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Now one of the problems with the internet is algorithms. Not only do different people get different results from the same Google search, the more you participate on Instagram and TikTok the narrower the range of voices that will be served up. In other words, these social media services are narrowing the niches, to the point where participants don’t even know about other genres, to the point where some women thought TikTok was only for lesbians!

So, if you’re not sure if a woman plays on your team, you ask if she likes Girl in Red.

She’s from Norway.

We’ve got an international business, even though the American industry wants to deny this. Tracks are monstrous outside of the U.S., but their American labels won’t push them here, because they didn’t sign them or they don’t believe they fit into the narrow construct that hit radio promotes.

So I decided to listen to Girl in Red.

I started with the most obvious, “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend.”

This sounds NOTHING like hip-hop, pop or country. Sounds closer to Liz Phair than Ariana Grande, but it’s got 80 million streams on Spotify, and almost 10 million on YouTube (proving that YouTube is not the pariah it is labeled by the music industry, turns out most people want to go to a dedicated music streaming service and even pay for it).

So, at first “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend” sounds garagey, second-rate. But the more you listen to it you become endeared to it, you’ll find you nodding your head, when it finishes you want to hear it again, assuming you made it through the first time, which many people won’t, but when was it deemed that music must appeal to everybody, that paradigm died with MTV. Also, there’s no doubt that Girl in Red is singing from her heart, that she’s not influenced and abused by the system, insisting upon cowriters and featured performers and sweetening…if anything the music is raw, and that’s part of the appeal.

And, as for the politically correct police…

I don’t wanna be your friend
I wanna be your bitch

This is what music used to be, cutting edge in its own world those not clued-in are unaware of while it changes the culture.

And there’s no hidden meaning here, she wants to be the girlfriend of Hannah. There’s no way you can see this as boy/girl love, it’s single sex only.

Now the song referenced in the “Times” article above is “We Fell in Love in October.” It’s less raw, more dreamy as opposed to in-your-face.

Smoking cigarettes on the roof
You look so pretty and I love this view

This is not brand-building, this is mind-releasing, mood, making you remember those reflective moments that felt so good.

We fell in love in October
That’s why I love fall

Fall is the reflective season, and you always remember when you first connected, when your relationship started.

“We Fell in Love in October” has 88 million streams on Spotify, almost 20 million on YouTube.

Marie Ulven Ringheim, aka Girl in Red, stylized as “girl in red,” is only 21. She hasn’t even put out an album! Her first will come out via AWAL this year. But she’s released two EPs and a seeming plethora of singles. Enough to gain attention, enough to win awards.

Weren’t you supposed to labor for a year or two on your album and then promote it for two or three?

Maybe in the seventies. Actually, youngsters aren’t even aware of that game.

And Girl in Red is no Billie Eilish, with a stylist dictating her look and a major record company grooming her for years for her big break for the big industry. Girl in Red is positively cottage industry.

Doesn’t matter whether you like the music or not. Doesn’t even matter whether you listen to it. What Girl in Red demonstrates is despite the charts/radio playlists getting ever-narrower, the truth is music is exploding, there are few limits, and audiences for so much, and by only focusing on what will hit immediately on Spotify and radio the major labels are missing the plot, are out of the loop, are marginalizing themselves.

The success of Girl in Red is organic. It’s for those who care. Who are dedicated. Who don’t care what you think.

ISN’T THAT GREAT?

That’s how we got into this mess!

If you read one article this week, make it this:

“The U.S. Is Lagging Behind Many Rich Countries. These Charts Show Why”

We may not be the greatest country in the world. If you keep patting yourself on the back you become complacent, and problems go unsolved…because you don’t think they exist in the first place, or you say they’re de minimis.

We need to SCARE people!

Enough with college, enough with SPORTS!

Colleges can’t open, no way. They’ll be hotbeds of Covid-19 infection. Everyone who has actually been to college knows you learn the most outside of class, it’s the experience meeting new people from new backgrounds that enlightens you and broadens your horizons. Do you really think everyone’s gonna go to the lecture and then quarantine themselves in their room? Hell, they can’t even keep the younger generation out of bars, but somehow in college they’re going to become nerdy introverts needing no stimulation, never mind human contact?

But the dirty little secret is the institutions need the cash. Not every one, but almost all of them. They’re like the governors who allowed their states to open too soon, and look what happened.

Ditto on sports. You cannot open the sports pages, cannot read any sports news without learning a player is infected. Come on, they’re really gonna play NBA basketball? And already major stars of the MLB are opting out of the season. And getting back to education, supposedly 60% of professors don’t want to teach live, they’re afraid of getting infected. So why would the students be on campus? Oh yeah, they’ll let the part-timers, the non-tenured, teach, who need the money, just like those working in the grocery store.

We need to tell people how bad it is, so they’ll wake up and do the right thing.

I’d start with Trump, but he seems incapable of doing the right thing. Over the weekend it was leaked that his new ruling philosophy is that Covid-19 is not that bad, and we can endure it. Tell that to your granny!

Or there’s that other story in today’s “New York Times,” illustrating that everybody thinks they’re immune, when they are not:

“Why You’re Probably Not So Great at Risk Assessment”

People tell me how rigid their self-quarantining has been. And then it turns out they went to a dinner party, the next door neighbors are friends, they can’t have it, and you can’t get it outside and there’s no way they’re at risk. So, I ask you, who in hell is getting infected?

We blew it. We scared everybody into staying home and then all we did was argue about the economy and push states to open too early. Like Gavin Newsom. The first governor to shut down his state, he didn’t have the courage to say no, we’re not going to reopen, so California is a hotbed of infection.

And forget not being able to go to Europe, you can’t even go to states like New York or Vermont…they demand 14 day self-quarantines.

Oh, but that doesn’t apply to you, you don’t have it. Yeah, right.

And if you’re paying attention to the news you know that the version of the virus in the U.S. is much more infectious than the one in China. People don’t necessarily die with more frequency, but it spreads more easily.

We need everybody in government to tell all citizens to STAY HOME! No excuses, it’s a matter of life and death, if you break the code you get fined. End of story.

But we need leaders!

Andrew Cuomo went from zero to hero overnight by grappling with Covid-19 and testifying every damn day. Before that many New Yorkers, especially Manhattanites, hated Cuomo! Proving that if you think the Aaron Burr strategy is gonna work here, you’re wrong. Take a stand, be vocal, it’ll actually benefit you. The Democrats have to stop running out the clock. It’s four months until November, and Inauguration Day is in January. We’re just gonna let people die willy-nilly until then, assuming Biden wins anyway?

Come on.

America used to have a can-do spirit. Why can’t that be harnessed here?

Why can’t news outlets lead with pictures of the dead? Take some responsibility. Have an effect. Tell the stories of infection.

Trump keeps telling us everything will work out. And his lackeys in the Republican party just echo his sentiments, to the point where we can’t even get people to wear masks. That’s ridiculous.

And it turns out people were infected at the Tulsa rally, on both sides of the stage. And now Kimberly Guilfoyle, who just the night before was speaking to a group in close quarters without masks.

And today the mayor of Atlanta, and possibly even Bolsonaro of Brazil.

But it’s going away. We quarantined for three months, that’s enough time.

If your boat has capsized do you say you swam for three hours and that’s enough, you’ll just drown, even though you can occasionally see the shore?

This is not rocket science here. The solution is not elusive. Which is why every first world nation has done so much better than the U.S.

Test and trace!

Where is the Democratic tracing program? Pelosi and Schumer, put forth a bill! Maybe you can shame some Republicans to signing on. At least make the public familiar with the concept, it’s an educational process.

Same deal with testing, both for Covid-19 and antibodies.

As for freedom… What did Kris Kristofferson say? It’s just another word for nothing left to lose? Well, you’ve got plenty to lose. And our country has plenty to lose. And it turns out the only people truly suffering are those who can’t afford to lose, the downtrodden who are working the necessary gigs who are dying disproportionately to the coddled whites.

Enough with the toppling of statues. I’ve got no problem with that, but it’s kinda like Republicans running for office on social issues. Let’s not obfuscate, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.

What was that TV show about the incarcerated, SCARED STRAIGHT? It worked. Why can’t we scare people straight on Covid-19?

I want to keep on hearing how horrible it is. How it’s so easy to get. How the country must shut down until this problem is solved. How we messed up once but we can get it right a second time. I’m talking about an all-out effort.

We’ve got to trump the inane saying they won’t wear masks. We must make them feel the peer pressure. We must make them believe they are at risk.

Instead of saying he’s gonna run for President, Kanye should use his bully pulpit to wear a mask, and hype that. Same deal with Jay Z.

And Luke Bryan. And Miranda Lambert.

Ignore Fox News, supersede it! Fox doesn’t usually lead with the Covid-19 story. Don’t criticize the outlet, just amplify your message. To the point people can’t ignore it! How about some billionaire buying ads on Facebook saying how bad Covid-19 is. How about the music industry SHUTTING DOWN social media for a day. Or, imploring everybody to post the faces of the dead, like Adam Schlesinger. Or just a picture of a damn mask.

Our nation is so decentralized no one believes they have any power. The only one with ubiquity is Trump.

But the dirty little secret is the Donald is losing impact, because he’s lost the plot. What he says and what he does is so ridiculous, that you can’t even pay attention, people are tuning out.

Argue with me all you want, but the virus doesn’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, rich or poor. It’s coming after you!

As far as getting back to business… Surveys tell us most people are afraid to go out, therefore business isn’t good. As for staying on topic, in one’s own lane, all day long people e-mail me about Covid-19. The RULERS of the music business are concerned about this. That’s what they e-mail me about, not when concerts are gonna start again, BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT GONNA! Enough with this hogwash about drive-in shows, all this false hope. The economics don’t work. They’re part of the problem.

We’ve got to stop everything!

Maybe shut down television for a day to make an impact.

Yes, I’m talking BROAD strokes! Not another benefit concert, but something that envelops our whole damn nation.

It’s time.

Right now things in America suck. I haven’t seen anybody face to face other than a doctor since March. Because I don’t want to get it. A friend of mine…

Her sister’s daughter went to Colorado to visit a college friend, she came back home and she infected her sister, her mother, her grandpa, her grandma, her cousin, her aunt… You see you’re infectious long before you show symptoms, if you show them at all! And this grandpa was in the hospital for a week and…

If you think it can’t happen to you, you’re ignorant!

Come on Garcetti and Newsom, let’s see if you can really lead, do what’s right as opposed to what is expedient. We need leadership. We need someone to make the hard choices.

I want to hear all day long how dire it is out there. How vacationing is dangerous. Everything is dangerous. And we’ve got to follow a delineated plan to find our way out of this mess.

Otherwise, we’ve got chaos and death. And even if you don’t die, talk to anybody who’s been infected, it’s a rough ride.

Our country must be made up of eagles, not ostriches.

STAY HOME!

But that doesn’t work without the aforesaid testing and tracing. And just because you were tested two weeks ago, that does not mean you are Covid-19 free today. Hell, you could get infected just after you had the test!

Amplify the negative, don’t even talk about the positive. Let’s change the national mood. Then, just maybe, we can get a grip on this.

Spotify

Pandora

Tune in tomorrow, July 7th, 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

Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band – Official Trailer

The first half of this film is utterly astounding.

Watching Ronnie Hawkins boogie on stage is worth the time alone. From back in the era when records were just the starting point, just the blueprint for a live performance. Those days are returning in the non-Spotify Top 50 world, but I’m not sure we’ll see the days of the Band again, timing is everything, and back then the world was both smaller and larger. As in we were not all connected and you could function under the radar, honing your chops, and then emerge seemingly fully-formed on the landscape, with no one knowing the dues you’d paid, and be known by everybody.

It’s not that the second half is not good, but we know most of that story.

We thought we knew the beginning, but we did not, in this movie it is fleshed out.

Robbie Robertson needed it. Worked and practiced harder than anybody he knew. And despite being legendary as a songwriter today, he was the hottest picker in Toronto. Today we have rap battles, back then they were axe battles.

So, Robbie single-mindedly pursues his dream and travels to Arkansas to audition for the aforementioned Hawkins and then goes on the road where Levon Helm teaches him the ropes, where he gets paid in…I don’t think you can say the “p” word anymore, but Hawkins does, says there will be little cash, but tons of the p-word.

And they’re paying dues in the trenches ad infinitum. They’re in their own little R&B world, but then word starts to spread. That’s the ugly little truth that no one acknowledges, you can hype yourself to high heaven and probably not gain any traction, but if you’re truly great they search you out, they want to know you, most of the heavies in the scene are students of the game.

So, John Hammond brings Robbie to a session and he meets Bob Dylan and the rest is history, only…

The history we know is from “Don’t Look Back.” And today many people say that Bob was not booed. Robbie contradicts this, but Dylan cares not a whit, he’s doing what he wants, the audience be damned.

Time has faded away, but the only other person I know who did this was Neil Young. He was the king of the soft rock set with “Harvest,” then he went on the road and played raucous rock and roll, brand new, unrecorded numbers, and the arena crowds were dumbstruck. Funny how he’s the one with the career today. And Dylan too. When most of their peers have faded away.

Not that you do not have to seize opportunities. Hawkins is going into the studio yet has no material, so Robbie writes two numbers, which get recorded. Robbie knew what he wanted, he worked hard to get it. And this whole movie proves the power of songs, they are what last, a great band is nothing without them.

So, the Band, then named “Levon and the Hawks,” goes out with Dylan and Levon doesn’t like the scene and quits but when it’s all over the remaining four move to Woodstock and rent Big Pink and Dylan comes by and they record the Basement Tapes. That was a big deal back then. Dylan had disappeared. And suddenly, others are recording his songs, like Peter, Paul & Mary with “Too Much of Nothing,” and the Byrds with “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.” Never underestimate the power of a manager. You can’t make it big without one. Albert Grossman also represented Peter, Paul & Mary. And eventually Dylan reappeared with “John Wesley Harding” and “Nashville Skyline,” but in the interim the newly-christened Band was woodshedding, creating “Music From Big Pink.”

Levon came back, but the key to success was they had time to create, they weren’t working every night on the road. John Simon reflects that they were on salary, but when it started and who paid is left unsaid. Did Grossman pay while he was searching for a record deal, or was it after the Capitol contract was signed?

But when no one is paying attention, when you’ve got the desire, when there are no outside influences, that’s when you can stretch out, test the limits, create and be your best self.

That’s hard to do in this internet era.

And, once again, you’ve got to be able to afford it. Meaning if music is something you do on the side, if you’ve got a day job to pay the bills, good luck making it.

And then the scene devolves into drugs and there’s a war between Levon and Robbie and…

Maybe you were alive back then, maybe you weren’t. But one thing is for sure, the Band were singular, there was not another act like them, they created their own niche, they did not need feature performers, they just had to do their thing, and the audience embraced it. Not at first, without a hit single no one penetrated the public that fast back then, but it would build, to the point everybody knew you, and when the second album was released…

That was the peak.

But too much success leads to excess. How do you deal with the attention, how do you deal with the stage fright, what happens when you have a lot more money than sense?

Alcohol and drugs.

Robbie says that’s what killed the band, drove a wedge between him and the others. Do they have a contrary opinion? Well, Richard Manuel and Rick Danko are dead, and Levon Helm’s opinion has become public fact, he fought cancer, his voice was impaired, he held concerts in his barn, he was not hanging with the Hollywood elite…was Robbie guilty or innocent?

Brandi Carlile writes the songs, but she shares ownership with her bandmates, she doesn’t want disharmony over royalties to break up the act.

Then again, when you’ve got five people in the band and a record deal from the sixties, how much money were you making? Plenty in the sixties, a pittance today. These rock stars had to work to be rich, and most of them were ignorant as to cash, and when they finally woke up, got off the road and got clean, they were broke, oftentimes with royalty streams sold or stolen from them.

“Once Were Brothers” is definitely Robbie Robertson’s story. He becomes more likable as the film proceeds, but we may never know the true history here. But he deserves credit for including Levon’s take.

As for the talking heads?

Most of them are superfluous. I don’t care what Bruce Springsteen has to say about the Band, or Peter Gabriel either. I guess Eric Clapton had it right, he wanted to join the band, he asked to jam…but was told the Band did not, jam that is. You can get close, but you can never get in, you can never join.

And you cannot inherit this success, you’ve got to earn it.

And once you peak, you usually can never create at that level again. Would Robbie’s solo albums be better if the Band was involved, if he didn’t sing? Probably. Would they have shaped the material to equal the quality of the initial trio of Band albums? Doubtful. As it was, I don’t know a single person who can quote anything from “Islands,” never mind even come up with any of the tracks.

So what we’ve learned here is rock and roll fame burns very bright for a very short period of time. You spend a lot of time outside the spotlight getting ready, then you’re subjected to the starmaking machinery, which then spits you out in favor of something else. So, you record new music no one listens to, lose your record deal and go on the endless road, playing usually to a dwindling crowd of aged acolytes, who remember when.

But when back in the sixties and seventies was not like other eras. Money was important, but it was not everything. Self-expression and self-realization were the keys. And you looked to gurus to guide you. And the biggest gurus were musicians.

Does this movie work if you were not there, if you were not a fan?

Maybe, assuming you’re a student of the game. But especially in this hip-hop era it seems like ancient history. Then again, Bob Dylan was inspired by Woody Guthrie and Eric Clapton and the rest of his contemporaries in the U.K. were inspired by the Delta bluesmen.

Levon waxes rhapsodic about Memphis radio.

At that time, hits were regional. What they played in Memphis was even different from what they played in Nashville, never mind New York. The sound was fresh, ground was being gained by people who only wanted to play, they had no interest in becoming a brand, they were hooked on the music and the lifestyle, they had no interest in showing up in a suit at the crack of dawn to stroke those in the boardroom. No one ever did a story on how much money the Band made, that was not relevant.

So today there’s a documentary about everybody. But this one is a cut above. Because it had a budget, maybe because Marty Scorsese was the executive producer. Then again many executive producers have no input on the content. But they had the cash to come up with footage, also this was an era where there were photographs, and some moving pictures, even in color, of the Band. So you can see the story, it comes alive.

So, what we’ve got is less nostalgia than inspiration. You get a window into what once was. And you’re forced to ask yourself who you want to be. A friend of Robbie’s wanted to own a bowling alley. You can’t do everything in life, you’re lucky if you can do one thing. What do you want to dedicate your time to? I read in the paper today that no one wants to work. Nothing could be further from the truth. There’s a sliver of people who live to work, whose creations thrill us, make our lives worth living, whether it be Steve Jobs pushing the limits of technology or the Band making records.

But it is a lot of work. And you never know when, or if, you’re going to get the rewards. But some make it. Some become legends. Not everybody has the chops or the desire, but if you do…we can recognize it, like Van Morrison kicking at “The Last Waltz.”

Robbie says it was not supposed to be the end.

Then again, he says they needed a break, primarily from the drugs.

That’s not the way the media spun it back then, the story was it was over.

But one thing is for sure, they never did it again. It was five people at a certain moment in time who could not do it without each other. Lightning struck. It illuminated the world. We paid attention. And the burn is implanted in our brains, we will never forget. “Once Were Brothers” will remind you. And if you’ve still got some juice in the tank, it will inspire you.

P.S. It’s “free” on Hulu. Subscribe.