Is Coachella about what happens on the stage or off? About the music or the audience?

Both.

But we’ve been vastly underestimating how important the non-music experience is.

I’m not talking about food. America has turned a corner. No one wants to eat boiled hot dogs and limp french fries at an event anywhere anymore, I’m not even sure toddlers will eat that crap.

I’m talking about the attendees themselves.

In yesterday’s “New York Times” there was a story about how the cancellation of Coachella is killing brands.

“For Festival Fashion, the Music has Stopped – Festivals like Coachella have been postponed, leaving scores of online fashion retailers with a mass of unsold inventory and unpaid suppliers.”

You go to show off. You need a wardrobe. And in today’s era of cheap fashion-forward clothing concertgoers buy outfits and accessories just for the festival, AND THEN THEY THROW THEM AWAY!

This can’t be understood by oldsters, who were taught clothes were to be worn until they wore out, or at least saved until that style came back. Today clothing is like a meal, an experience, worn briefly and then discarded.

You can’t go to Coachella in your cut-offs and t-shirt, YOU’LL BE IGNORED!

It’s all about attention today. Which is quantified online. And if you’re a teenager, chances are you have no status other than your appearance, so you double down.

And acts are not the only ones being paid at Coachella, brands pay influencers to flaunt their products at the festival, you can read about it here:

“Macaroni recipes and hand washing videos. How influencers are adapting to the coronavirus crisis”

Forget that more than a few of these influencers make six figures a year, their incomes are driven by advertising, and with everybody staying at home, people are not buying, and ads have plummeted.

But the advertisers are looking for opportunities.

Now everybody keeps saying how nothing will be the same after Covid-19. I think they’re wrong. They said the same thing after 9/11, and all that really happened was flying became more of a hassle. More people will work at home, technology will stop being denigrated, other than that, it’ll look pretty similar. Sure, some changes will be accelerated, but they were in the pipeline anyway.

Multiple people have been e-mailing me this article from Bloomberg:

“People Are Paying Real Money to Get Into Virtual Zoom Nightclubs – Can a novelty for the bored-at-home last after the coronavirus pandemic?

That is another trend that will be accelerated by the coronavirus…more and more, news will not be free. Oh, your neighbor can voice their opinion on social media, you’ll find out if a bomb was dropped, but anything beyond that…someone will have to pay for.

People want news. And right now they’re addicted. And most newspapers are going out of business, leaving the big three, the “New York Times,” the “Washington Post” and the “Wall Street Journal.”

Read this article from last week:

“News Media Outlets Have Been Ravaged by the Pandemic – Roughly 33,000 workers at news companies in the U.S. have been laid off, been furloughed or had their pay reduced. some publications that rely on ads have shut down”

And when these other outlets die, even the biggest, like Gannett, power will be concentrated in the above three publications, the NYT, WaPo and WSJ…and then they’ll have leverage. They survived by spending, most notably the WaPo, with the infusion of cash by Bezos, whereas every other outlet has been stripped to the bone, there’s even a hedge fund buying up papers like the “Denver Post,” stripping them bare and making the profits now, while they still exist, and writing off their futures.

So, just like in tech, just like in every business, once there are fewer entities, prices go up. Facebook and Google can’t live without news, it’s one of their main drivers. Now they can get news from many outlets, but soon they will not be able to.

Which brings me back to that Bloomberg article.

Bloomberg has a soft paywall. You only get a couple of articles free, then you’ve got to pay. The decision makers pay, the rest of the world remains ignorant. A sad state of affairs, but never forget that Stewart Brand said…”Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive.” Now the tide is turning towards the latter.

But getting back to the content of this Bloomberg article, entrepreneurs are filling the role of traditional concert promoters.

Let’s face it, concert promoters were in their heyday until this lockdown. Prices, attendance, grosses…they’ve gone through the roof! And there’s almost no innovation, you build it and they come.

But now they’re not coming. Ezekiel Emanuel says no concerts until the fall of 2021, Garcetti says at least not until 2021 begins. And we know that concerts will come last, because of the close contact of the people. So, is everybody just going to sit on the sidelines for over a year?

Of course not, the entrepreneurs won’t let that happen, they’re eating the big boys’ lunch.

Forget livestreams, the novelty is over, who even cares about this weekend’s two hour event. Yup, you boil the essence down for consumption, squeeze it tighter, and fans are not interested, only looky-loos. We need real concerts, real festivals, real events.

Believe me, people will pay to see their favorite acts online. And that should happen NOW!

Sure, a lot of big name talent is tied to Live Nation and AEG, but a lot of it is not. The field is ripe for the picking by anybody with a great idea and a little cash.

Now if you read the Bloomberg article, what you find is these Zoom nightclubs work because of the AUDIENCE, not so much the performers. The audience gets dressed up, the audience is on camera, the audience interacts with each other, the music is just a setting.

Just like at Coachella.

So this desire to show off and interact could be easily harnessed. By EDM deejays and solo acts…and even bands, eventually. And, just like today, where there’s a festival for every genre of music, you go and meet like-minded people and dress accordingly.

Jimmy Buffett?

Most people don’t care, but those who do know how to get outfitted, to put on their Hawaiian shirts and have boat drinks right by their side.

Telluride Bluegrass Festival? I’ve yet to go, but I love that music, and would wear my jeans and sit in front of the screen.

So, true live music is not coming back for a long time. But just like people are interacting even more, albeit online, during this crisis, there’s a yearning to go to the show. People will pay. But, once again, it has to be an experience. Maybe make everybody cook and show off what they’ve made, there are a zillion ideas for creative people.

But just like the digital disruption of the past thirty years illustrates, change always comes from outside. At first it’s laughed at by the big boys, it’s cheap and crude…and then the upstarts supersede the big boys.

All the news is about how WME will survive. All the talk is about banks and loans and…same deal with Live Nation and StubHub. Couldn’t the people working at these entities stop crying in their beer and start innovating?

They said recorded music was gonna be free and go extinct.

Well, it turns out twenty years later that many are willing to pay for it, and there’s a plethora of people making it. Furthermore, without retail stores, with music being streamed virtually, business continues, revenues continue to come in.

And they could come in for the live business too, if promoters just started thinking out of the box. Your time has come, now you have to work hard for the money.

But one thing’s for sure, people want to spend to attend and interact. Music and live events have been burgeoning for a decade because of this. And in today’s quarantined world, the desire is even greater!

No way, I thought.

Now I’ve been wrong pretty consistently for the past year. I thought a centrist had a chance, and then Elizabeth Warren ate up the airwaves and dominated the polls. Then, Warren shot herself in the foot, by kowtowing to the center, changing her Medicare for All plan, refusing to answer how she would pay for it for far too long, and then Bernie Sanders took the progressive flag and ran with it, and with victory in sight, the DNC and the media circled the wagons, kicked out every Biden challenger and got behind Joe. And it worked!

But no one is excited about Joe. What’s worse is he’s got no traction in today’s Covid-19 world. And when he tries, he fails.

Old Joe wrote an opinion piece in the “New York Times,” how he’d address the coronavirus…AND HE WAS EXCORIATED! You don’t have to read Biden’s original piece, it’s boring, but if you want to, it’s here:

“Joe Biden: My Plan to Safely Reopen America – An effective strategy to beat the virus is the ultimate answer to how we get our economy back on track”

But you do need to read the blowback:

“Critiques of Joe Biden’s Coronavirus Plan”

Now the amazing thing is Joe Biden did his big coronavirus reveal and…crickets. I saw no mention of it outside the “Times” itself. It’s like a classic rocker playing a new tune and the only people who heard it were in the arena, at least those who did not go to the bathroom. We’re hanging on Trump’s every word, but we don’t even want to listen to Joe, even if we’ve decided to vote for him. Joe is the safe candidate, the compromise candidate, the consensus candidate, he’s like the horse created by committee, which is a camel in case you don’t know the aphorism.

Joe’s got no media traction, he doesn’t know how to make news. And he’s too old to figure out social media. The only sunlight he’s gotten recently has been when Bernie, Barack and Elizabeth endorsed him.

And when asked point blank whether she’d accept the VP nomination, last night Elizabeth Warren gave Rachel Maddow an instant, emphatic YES!

But I didn’t buy Elizabeth until I read the piece in the the “New Yorker Today” last night:

“The Case for Joe Biden to Pick Elizabeth Warren As His Running Mate”

Biden has already said he’s picking a woman. But we expected it to be someone significantly younger, who had the same middle of the road positions. As far left as he was gonna go might be Stacey Abrams, but even she’s considered an outlier. Maybe Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, that’s a state in play. Or Amy Klobuchar, she’s got more mindshare. But then I’m reading the article and thinking Gretchen and Amy won’t add anything significant to the ticket.

Now usually the VP is an afterthought. Except for maybe Nelson Rockefeller, who wasn’t even elected, but appointed.

And sure, Biden was picked as the old steady hand to guide Obama, but Biden had failed running for president and he did not come with his own, built-in cadre.

But Elizabeth Warren?

The only people who are attacking her, who hate her, are those on the right, who are never ever going to vote Democratic anyway!

So, all the theoretical baggage Warren has evaporates. Oh, they’ll chant “Pocahontas, Pocahontas!,” but that did not prevent her from being a frontrunner in the Democratic race for quite a while.

As for baggage… Believe me, Hunter Biden and Ukraine have not died in the eyes of Republicans, they’re the new Hillary’s e-mails!

You don’t need to satiate everybody to win, that’d be too bland a candidate to succeed anyway. No, what you need is to excite Democrats to come out and vote. AND ELIZABETH WARREN WILL DO THIS!

I’d finally get excited about the ticket. All the Bernie Bros…they’d sign on. And even Bernie Sanders himself, he’d campaign vigorously if Warren was on the ticket.

So, in one fell swoop, the Democrats would consolidate the party and be on the road to victory. As for Biden-lovers who dislike Warren, believing she’s too far left…that’s not gonna make them vote for Trump.

And one thing we know about Warren is she can eviscerate people in an eye-popping way. Hell, she killed Michael Bloomberg’s candidacy in one debate, he had no idea what hit him! Warren is our attack dog, with good values…everybody’s broke, the “stimulus” is going to the corporations and the rich and we need Medicare for All, or something like it!

As for Covid-19… Read those letters in the “Times.” She got better reviews for her coronavirus plan than Biden!

“Congress Needs a Plan to Confront the Coronavirus. I Have One. Government action is essential to save lives and to rescue our economy. Let’s get back to work.”

Yup, Elizabeth Warren has a plan for EVERYTHING! Laugh all you want, but in an era where Trump seemed to have no plan at all for fighting the coronavirus, Warren’s position looks PRETTY, PRETTY GOOD, as Larry David would say.

And since Warren has a gig, as a senator, she’s at the center of the action, she gets ink, she gets attention when Biden gets none.

Bernie will stop arguing for a push left for the platform. He’ll be instantly quieted, made part of the team. And wait until they unleash Warren on Pence, it’s no contest, TKO.

Biden will be bad with Trump, it’s scary to contemplate a debate.

But if you study history, duels always have a second, hopefully a strong one.

The Democratic convention has already been postponed, most likely it will be canceled, it should be canceled, its only advantage would be an economic boost to Milwaukee and a trip for the delegates, it’s basically a waste of time.

So, Biden should nominate Warren NOW, TODAY, in the middle of the crisis, when everybody’s paying attention.

Biden nominates Warren and she’s in the news every damn day. She’s already a player, time to elevate her to the big leagues.

Once again, I thought it would never happen, that Biden wouldn’t go this far left, he wouldn’t nominate anybody as strong, if not stronger than he is.

And I was fearful of Warren’s baggage, but the whole Ukraine affair didn’t keep Biden from winning the nomination.

This is the way to go, we’ve just got to convince Biden and the DNC.

And just like the media killed Sanders, they could elevate Warren, making it a fait accompli.

Hell, the “New Yorker” is first, who’s next?

John Watson started in A&R at Sony Music and then went on to manage Silverchair, Missy Higgins, Midnight Oil and more. Listen to how a guy from Down Under breaks acts internationally. (Recorded live at Australian Music Week.)

iheart

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This is basic math. And just like with masks, obvious.

It comes in waves, my pissed-offness. I wake up in the morning and I immediately go to my phone, for the latest news. And then I go to the physical papers to read yesterday’s news. And then all day long I have incoming, from friends and subscribers, their heads twisting, wondering just how this can be.

You’ve got to read this story in the “Washington Post,”

“Trump’s attempt to enlist business in reopening push gets off to a rocky start”

Only you can’t, it’s behind a paywall.

Did you read the insane news that staff from the L.A. “Times” is being furloughed? I thought the owner was a billionaire, Patrick Soon-Shiong is buying a hospital, he can’t afford to pay his newspaper staff? The journalists are our friends in this fight. This is not a matter of opinion, this is a matter of fact, and the only people who can distribute these facts are journalists. Your opinion? My opinion? They don’t mean much if we don’t have the facts.

And speaking of facts, the story on Laura Ingraham’s show last night was the encroachment upon our freedoms. Yup, that we can’t leave our houses and die (and infect others!) willy-nilly. That’s what happens when you listen/watch Fox News, you end up knowing less than nothing. Just like Trump is getting his comeuppance, so is Fox, it will never be trusted again.

So, you’ve got wankers in Michigan and Oklahoma protesting that business must open! You know Trump is in a snit with the governor of the Wolverine State, and therefore it’s license to pile on.

Speaking of playing favorites, you might have heard that Nebraska gets 300k per coronavirus case while New York gets 12k. Can you explain that to me? Oh, of course, Nebraska is a red state!

And yesterday Trump said he was all powerful and the governors and the legal experts pushed back.

Undeterred, Trump today said he was gonna shut down Congress so he could fill his administration’s vacancies, but the truth is he never even nominated people.

And if you read the “New York Times,” the “Washington Post,” even the “Wall Street Journal,” you’ll learn all this. But no, if it’s in a paper it must be fake. Better to trust those you have a relationship with, Rush, your friends, your buddies on Fox.

And I know, I know, the left is tearing its hair out. Then again, the left had a rousing victory in Wisconsin the other day. Does this presage victory in November? I think so, but nothing is clear, because Democratic turnout was high because of the Presidential primary.

So, Trump could be evicted and both houses of Congress could go blue and…it’d just be a matter of time before they flip again. Those tax and spend Democrats are gonna push it too far, and then because they’re sick of paying taxes, Americans will give the reins back to the Republicans. However, if the Democrats play within boundaries, they’ll still be excoriated, so why not try and gerrymander and get some pork while you can? (Meanwhile, once again the Republicans are framing the debate. The nature of government IS taxing and spending!)

It’s hard to have faith in the system.

But one thing is for sure, we need the system, despite what we’ve been hearing for all these years from the right. You’ve got to prepare for a crisis. If you lose your job and you can’t pay next month’s rent…either you had a very low-paying job, which is quite possible, or you thought the gravy train would never end. The Republicans want to blame you. But one thing’s for sure, doesn’t the buck stop with the government? I’m not saying that the government should make everybody absolutely whole, but I am saying with the best and the brightest it should be prepared for contingencies. Then again, even the airlines were unprepared, they blew all their income on stock repurchases.

So I don’t know about you, but I want to live through this experience.

And for me, that means taking no risks. I can’t live in a bubble, but I can be smart and do my best not to come in contact with a carrier.

And it would be very simple to achieve this. By having everybody in America tested.

The first tests manufactured failed, and Trump blamed it on Obama. I thought Hillary was the culprit, it was in her e-mails, but the second rule of credibility, after being honest, is to own your mistakes. If you’re always right, if you never lose, we stop believing you, because no one wins all the time.

Yup, America is so sick of winning we’re willing to DIE for Trump!

As for putting young people on the frontlines… Sure, their odds of getting infected are low, but not nonexistent. And young people need old people, for shelter and food. So, students come home and…THEY INFECT THEIR PARENTS! So, the whole system breaks down.

But we’ve got to open America for business!

No, they do that in South Korea, where they tested everybody, where they were prepared for a pandemic!

So, if you read that WaPo article, you’ll find that people on Trump’s blue ribbon panel were never asked to be on it. And they keep telling Trump it’s too soon to open!

This is kind of like Chernobyl. Do you want to enter the reactor?

We don’t have that level of self-sacrifice in America, no one ever wants to die. So, you’ve got to make it as safe as possible.

But, safety takes a backseat, the right has convinced the public that the problem with torts is the greedy attorneys, when that is completely untrue. The attorneys keep the corporations in line, and the amount of money they cost the corporations is de minimis in the overall picture. But the people at home are stunned when they see a seven or eight figure judgment.

No one is keeping anybody in line. Except for some governors and mayors. There’s no oversight. Make too many mistakes on the test and you fail, they kick you out of college. Blow governing and you get a free pass. Can you explain this to me? And that three branches of the government, the checks and balances…Dick Cheney hacked away at it and Trump has taken it even further.

And don’t give me that quid pro quo nonsense. Of course the Democrats have made mistakes, of course they haven’t always been morally perfect. But it’s like comparing the kid who burns down the school with the one who stuffs the commode with toilet paper. The level of egregiousness is just that much worse. And just because you’ve got some high-paid talking head saying it’s otherwise, that does not make it true.

So forget all the problems at the end of the story, let’s go back to the beginning. Which involves self-quarantining and tests.

Most people are staying home, at least in California and New York.

Now, ramp up the tests, whatever it takes. Yes, save the ill first, but then we’ve got to find out who has got it and who has not. And then we can start talking about opening up the country for business. We want to make this decision based on science, which is anathema in the White House.

There, I said it.

Let me tell you how this works folks, the right are working the refs 24/7. They’re always telling you you’re out of line, they’re always telling you to be quiet, their goal is to inhibit you so you don’t speak.

But one thing is for sure, individuals are gonna make a difference here. And the coronavirus knows no political party.

Look at the ruckus made by Greta Thunberg. Forget the climate deniers, more people are talking about climate change than ever before.

We need someone to stick up and form an army. Someone who’s got no skin in the game other than that they’re human. Someone who doesn’t want to be part of the media/political circus as a career, just someone who knows right from wrong who can stand up and rally the people.

I ain’t going out until it’s safe.

And despite all the publicity about those who will, most of you are like me. We are the majority. We want safety. We don’t want to take undue risks. When are we gonna get control?