This is what the internet has wrought.

We’re used to a top-down society. One in which the elite dictate, and the hoi polloi obey. You claw your way to the top and then you’re home free, inviolate. But homey don’t play that no more.

Let’s start with the media. It decided which stories would be distributed. It decided whether there would be spin or not.

But now it’s spun out of control, because everybody’s got a voice, and they’re choosing to use it.

Gain a profile and be ready for the feedback. Anybody who regularly interacts with the public knows this. They’ll be subject to hate tweets, contradictions, insults, to the point where they’ll be questioning their opinions and their motives. You can say you don’t read bad reviews, but that would mean you’ve disconnected from the internet, which is how you achieved your fame to begin with.

It was Trump who tapped into this phenomenon first. Or was the first person to do it on a national level. Facts were irrelevant, as were norms of conversation, profanity was used, insults were okay, and the media didn’t know how to handle this. It turned out Trump had a better handle on America than the media, and certainly Hillary. They were just going along like nothing had happened, like it was all about expertise and politics was a club, meanwhile they ignored the effects of globalization and income inequality.

Trump was aided by Steve Bannon and Breitbart. Little organizations with more power than the established media outlets.

And then came Facebook, a public company wherein Mark Zuckerberg has total control. That’s about stock and voting rights. The company may be public, but it might as well be private. Mark rules.

And then we have this latest Pelosi video, created by the site “Politics Watchdog,” that most have never heard of. And suddenly, Mark is in the crosshairs, he’s been punked, he doesn’t know what to do.

This is the story of Chance the Rapper. But the truth is today’s musicians want the fruits of fame, they don’t want its power. So they buy into the ancient system to their detriment. Then again, there are those who are using streaming to their advantage, knowing that radio is where the inactive consumers live, that everything breaks on Spotify, so suddenly the dominant music genre is hip-hop, and rockers are flummoxed. Then again, they haven’t had the spirit of innovation in rock since 1999, or before, they just thought it would coast along merrily, like the Democratic brass and Hillary.

You see one person can amplify their message for free online, and they’re immune. Try to fight back. The mob will annihilate you. And you can’t sue, because these individuals are judgment proof. Send them a lawyer letter and they’ll go berserk, doubling-down with their message.

It’s an era of tumult. There’s consolidation on the internet, four or five companies in control, depending on how you count, but they have enabled the individual to have a voice.

You constantly hear Twitter is trash. Mostly by people who can’t understand the service and don’t use it. But comedians make their bones there, it’s how they stay in touch with their audience and influence others. You too can go viral if you’re in the marketplace every day. A surgical strike rarely works. And if it does… “Old Town Road” was built on Tik-Tok, and it’s gonna be one and done, no different from fidget spinners. Meanwhile, those truly impacting the culture on a regular basis are ignored until they suddenly gain mass and can’t be.

They’ve weeded out the wannabes. You were supposed to have a blog, then be on MySpace and Facebook, and you found out posting didn’t deliver the return you expected so you stopped. But not everybody. Ergo the influencers, on whatever platform they are on. Like Olivia Jade, she had an audience and you had never heard of her! And Rick Singer upended college admissions, one guy with an idea, and everybody is positively stunned that the game can be rigged, but there are holes in the admissions process just like there are holes in software, ever hear of hackers?

So this is your time. It can’t be one tweet, one post, you must play regularly. But you too can rise up and change the course of history. Yup, that’s the power of the internet.

And you cannot only disrupt negatively, but positively too. Like David Hogg and the school shooting survivors. When Laura Ingraham attacks you, you’ve won. She doesn’t realize that despite having a pulpit, she’s vulnerable, that the backlash can work against her.

Meanwhile, the media outlets reach fewer people than ever before. Ingraham reaches all of 2.6 million viewers, in a country of 300+ million, and only 515,000 are in the target demo of 25-54, the eyeballs advertisers want. Then again, it’s the older white viewers Fox appeals to who are the least internet-savvy, who don’t know the world is changing.

As the studios and the press trumpet theatrical films, none of them has the impact of “Stranger Things” on Netflix. One guy with a vision upended the entire viewing landscape, when Reed Hastings’s outfit is attacked by Steven Spielberg, you know Netflix has won. It jut makes Spielberg look old.

And the truth is most innovation no longer comes from baby boomers. Who grew up in an era without billionaires, who just did not dream big enough, who played by the rules and thought they won but it turned out they didn’t.

No one has life-long employment anymore. You’re your own brand, in the gig economy, looking to navigate your own employment path. Loyalty yields no dividends.

You’ve got to think for yourself, manage yourself, be an individual.

Isn’t it funny that the greatest success is achieved by those who don’t fit in? Wall Street can’t stop beating up on Tesla, then Dan Neil in the WSJ says Audi’s electric offering is nowhere close to those of the electric-only company. Audi shoehorned a battery pack into a gasoline platform, it didn’t start with a fresh piece of paper, and Tesla did, and eclipsed Audi.

There is a first mover advantage. Head starts do count these days. If you’re late to the party, you’re oftentimes ignored.

So today it isn’t about money, but power. Want to go up against the Koch Brothers? Don’t try to become a billionaire, you can never reach their total, agitate online. This is how Bernie almost eclipsed Hillary. By taking small amounts from everybody instead of the fat cats.

And the truth is you can win on truth or falsehood. Truth resonates with so many, but so does falsehood. But you must have passion, you cannot be a wuss, you’ve got to be willing to double-down, you’ve got to have a profile…

But then you’re subject to the same slings and arrows as the big boys (and girls!)

You can make a difference, now more than any time in history.

People don’t want to vote because it’s not empowering, they feel too far from the destination. Motivating people to play is incredibly difficult, since they have so many options. The media has anointed Biden as electable, but there’s not a single voter excited about him, and that doesn’t play in 2019.

And this is also why music has less impact than it used to. Music is hard, you’ve got to practice off the grid. But you can display your wares online as soon as you learn to read and type. And you get a faster reaction. And you don’t have to drag people to a gig, your message can spread online. You can tune it on feedback.

Everything’s gone topsy-turvy, and it’s those who recognize this who’ll win.

Fouls are nearly irrelevant. Those bad actors in Virginia? They’re still in power. The news cycle is fast, just wait it out. Don’t react, just put your head down and continue to play when the conflagration is over.

You can get what you really want, but you must try, try and try.

So instead of sitting on the couch depressed, it’s time to act.

But they keep telling you you’re powerless.

But you’re not.

Could “Echo In The Canyon” bring the Mamas and the Papas back?

Stranger things have happened, the Doors emerged from their strange days and waning popularity as a result of Danny Sugerman’s book. And Queen’s legacy was not burning brightly until “Bohemian Rhapsody” was featured in “Wayne’s World.” Hell, I’ll argue the scene in “Reality Bites” made “My Sharona” the cultural staple it is today.

Brian Wilson has gotten his accolades. Hell, there’s a new movie of him driving around with “Rolling Stone” editor Jason Fine. And all the members of CSNY are still around, they have not left the cultural firmament, even though Stephen Stills’s rep needs to be boosted. But the Mamas and the Papas?

This was before free-form FM. This was when we were all listening to Top Forty. When a hit was truly known by EVERYBODY! Oldsters and youngsters, even those who didn’t like it, waiting for something else to come on the radio next. Tracks didn’t build over time, they made it to the top of the chart within a month or two, and then were replaced by new ones. We were hungry for more, in the era of singles, and we were satiated.

“California Dreamin'”…I certainly was, all the music and movies came from the Golden State. I’d bug my mother to move there. And when I graduated from college I did, and it did not disappoint.

So “California Dreamin'” was recorded on November 4th 1965, and released on December 8th of that same year. It wasn’t held back for a marketing plan, it was either in the grooves or not, you got a record on the airwaves and got a reaction or you didn’t.

Ironically, another track also infiltrated the playlists and dominated Christmas when the Top Forty was frozen, but it was much darker. That was “The Sound of Silence.” But we didn’t expect either group to sustain. I mean really, with the name “Garfunkel”? One hit wonders…that was what the American groups were after the assault of the British Invasion.

But mere months later, in March of ’66, the Mamas and the Papas came back with “Monday, Monday.” This cemented their place in the firmament. Suddenly everyone knew the group members’ names. Was it Michelle Phillips who started the long straight hair revolution? From overworked beehive to something more natural?

And in June, “I Saw Her Again” burst on to the airwaves, and despite its story of duplicity, it was upbeat and singable and suddenly, the Mamas and the Papas were truly stars. With a catalogue that was not just of a piece, they had range and depth and they were big, one can argue Cass’s size and Michelle’s looks were iconic and talked about and therefore they floated the act to the top of the monoculture.

You have no idea of the impact the act had. Suddenly, those who didn’t pick up guitars like the Beatles, the choir members, were forming groups with harmonies and I remember vividly going to a high school assembly and hearing two girls and two guys singing “Monday, Monday” and being transfixed.

Now the group didn’t last. Blame is put upon Michelle Phillips and her wandering eye (and body!), then again, Fleetwood Mac was never the same after “Rumours.” But they made records and the Mamas and the Papas did not.

You bought the albums for the hits, and I didn’t, but I certainly knew the songs from the radio. “Words of Love” with its carnival feel. “Creeque Alley,” telling the story so everybody knew…this was when info was scarce, Papa John was letting us know the facts when everybody held back and that just bonded us to the group and made us want MORE!

But the song that encapsulates the era only made it to #20 on the chart. And therefore mostly album buyers knew it. But when I stole all the hits on Napster, I became enamored of “Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming To The Canyon).” It was both wistful and energetic. Telling the story of those in the canyon, enticing those who hadn’t already gotten the message that they had to move out west, where life was free, where it’s still free. Life is rigid in the east, but in L.A., you can go where you wanna go and be whoever you wanna be.

Now I sing “Twelve Thirty” in my head on a regular basis, it gives me hope, that the era I lived through, both socially and musically, can return. And if it doesn’t, at least I lived through the glory days.

And today, sitting at the kitchen table, a line kept going through my head…

YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!

And I wondered, could I listen to the soundtrack of “Echo In The Canyon” online? I called out to Alexa, but she played something else, but then I was more specific and I heard the jingly-jangly intro. And then Jakob Dylan’s vocal. Which was less sweet and melodic than the original, with less sing-song, ending up less infectious, but then out of the ether comes this burst of sound:

That a girl like me can love just one man

The story is in the movie, how Michelle steps out on John and he ends up writing this song, but…

It’s implied it’s with Denny, but no, it’s RUSS! TITELMAN!

I know Russ, with his great production credits, but to think at this time this studio rat with little success could woo Michelle away from John…

Yes, I Googled the song, then I fell down the rabbit hole. Read the “Vanity Fair” story, even though I remembered most of it from my first read-through over a decade ago. You see, I wanted to know MORE! And in the internet era, you can find it. Hell, there’s even a page that decodes “Creeqe Alley.” I had to tear myself away from the iPad after an hour.

All because of Jade Castrinos’s vocal. It penetrated me. It’s these subtle elements that hook you. Not that Jade’s vocal is subtle, anything but, it’s much more dynamic and in-your-face than the original.

Which most people think is by the 5th Dimension, where the grammar is corrected to “whom.”

Turns out the Mamas and the Papas version stiffed, and it was released as a single BEFORE “California Dreamin,” P.F. Sloan testified that this proved you never knew what would be a hit because he thought “Go Where You Wanna Go” was a smash…

As it ultimately was.

The story of the Mamas and the Papas is every bit as fascinating as Freddie Mercury’s. And Michelle Phillips is still alive. And when she tells the story of the group in the movie you’re infatuated.

Especially if you didn’t live through the era, which was the one of free love, before AIDS.

And these are classic songs, they’re not only of the era, anybody can sing them and they’re still fresh. Because there’s melody and meaning and they’re everything that today’s era is not.

That’s how the Doors came back. Queen too. Because their greatness was no longer achieved and we had to go back to the source, the progenitor.

Funny how life works, you never know what will be remembered, what will trigger that remembrance. But for the past week, I haven’t been able to stop playing the Mamas and the Papas.

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California Dreamgirl

Creeque Alley by The Mamas and The Papas

Director of the new film “Echo In The Canyon,” Andy produced albums by Fiona Apple, Macy Gray and the Wallflowers as well as being President of Capitol Records and a manager. Andy tells us how he got here as well as the backstory of the movie.

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I was introduced to Joe Chambers. I told him about getting squeezed at their free concert in Boston Common, and stunningly he remembered it and started reminiscing.

Then we got into a long conversation with Richard Foos about Gary Stewart and…

We were at Tom Hayden’s widow’s house for a benefit, the fusion of Get Lit and the Ash Grove Music Foundation. Get Lit brings poetry to inner city schools and the Ash Grove Music Foundation… Actually, Ed Pearl, the proprietor of the Ash Grove, was in attendance, they showed a short film about him and one was brought back to the time when music was dangerous, before the Beatles, when folk music ruled and we all knew it and sang it and…

Ultimately we heard some of the prizewinning poets, but we were really there to see Jackson Browne.

But first was this woman Barbara Morrison. She sat on stage, she’s had both legs amputated, and when she opened her mouth… They may have singers on TV, but they don’t have the music in them. Barbara reached deep down inside and she was testifying, and the assembled multitude could only sit there in rapt attention. You can command a room with just your voice, if you know how to do it.

And Jane Fonda gave a speech about the camp she and Tom opened up, about literacy and…

I think that’s a California thing, where you stay friends with your ex and their new spouse(s). It was Barbara Williams’s home, i.e. the new spouse, and the two got along famously.

And there were other singers, and John Densmore accompanying Luis Rodriguez and then…

Jackson took the stage, with two backup singers. He tells a good story, off the cuff, it’s much more than HELLO CLEVELAND! And he led off with “Some Bridges,” from his overlooked LP “Looking East.” Have you heard the title cut on his acoustic album? He changes the groove and it’s infectious.

And he played “Off of Wonderland” from his 2008 album, “Time The Conqueror” and ’86’s “Lives In The Balance.” He said one of the schools wanted to do a gospel version, and added a new verse, and he was flummoxed that they’d chosen this number, but he said to give it a go, and they did, and he even sang their additional verse on Sunday.

Now you’ve got to give Jackson credit. He was infected with the gene of giving back way back when, which most others seem to have lost. Music and causes used to be aligned. Jackson shows up at benefits all over SoCal, and he does it for free, you’ve got to applaud that.

But the quid pro quo is he gets to play what he wants, these album cuts, which is great for the diehard fan.

And when it came time for the final number, I thought it would be one of his hits, maybe “The Pretender,” or “For Everyman.” So when he called the previous performers to the stage to sing “Will The Circle Be Unbroken,” I was a bit disappointed.

But that was the highlight of the afternoon.

Music can move you, it’s just not entertainment.

And in my world, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band made the most famous version of “Will The Circle Be Unbroken,” that three record set is a revelation from this distance. But…

Barbara Morrison was testifying once again, and Joe Chambers, in jeans, t-shirt and white hair, was reaching down deep with his bass voice and it sounded like he was wailing in church. And that’s when I realized…it was a religious moment.

I was standing. There were only about fifty or sixty people there. But we were all enraptured by the sound coming from the end of the living room. This was better than any of Jackson’s hits. Everybody was in the groove, the room was levitating. Suddenly all my problems faded away. I started singing, I couldn’t help myself. And when it was all over and I came to I felt like I’d had a dream, been taken to a place where people mattered more than money, where humanity was more important than algorithms, where music could change the world.