The Individualist: Digressions, Dreams & Dissertations

He definitely wrote it.

And no one proofread it.

This surprised me. Rundgren’s a known quantity, he almost made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I figured it was finally time for his autobiography. You know, you hire a ghostwriter, tell your tale, sling a little dirt, and you’re done. Another exercise in capital attainment.

That’s not what “The Individualist” is.

The mistakes drive you wild, it makes the whole affair appear amateurish.

But I couldn’t put the book down.

This is not “The Dirt,” insider stories that make your jaw drop.

And the funny thing is…other than the end, when Rundgren owns up to his family obligations, you don’t really like him.

But you learn so much.

We know the career arc. You play bars, you have hits, you were on VH1’s “Behind the Music,” and now you’re playing sheds every summer to pay your bills.

That is not Todd Rundgren. He is truly an individualist. Experimenting, confounding expectations, alienating others while he satisfies himself.

Every page is a chapter. He says you can read it out of order, but I wouldn’t, it’s written chronologically.

And what you learn is his father never showed affection, he was bad in school, and when he left home at eighteen, he was gone for good.

And all the usual topics are not covered. How he learned guitar, the ins and outs of his career. Instead, what you get is how Todd felt during all of it.

We tend to think of these musicians as stars. You read “The Individualist” and you end up thinking of Rundgren as a musician. Which is kind of funny in today’s era. Yes, he takes digs at the internet world now and again, but he’s moving forward, and not always successfully, but he keeps going.

Talks about being in Nazz and failing, about taking Marlene to London and her disappearing. That might not mean much to you, but if you bought and listened to “Something/Anything?” you’ll understand.

Engineering and producing records under the aegis of Albert Grossman, paying the man what he didn’t deserve to go free.

Living with two women in one house at the same time. It’s not what you think. One has started playing for the other team. As for Bebe Buell…he’s got not a single good word to say. But you hear him struggling. He doesn’t think this is forever, but he can’t break it off.

And in the middle, after his success, he buys an around the world Pan Am ticket and visits Morocco and Turkey and Iran and India…even buys a moped to get around. This is not the rock star lifestyle, this is little different from the way you or I do it, or even college students, albeit with more money in traveler’s checks.

And Todd admits to going bankrupt.

And he’s not a love everybody kind of guy, he calls out the injustices and bad behavior he sees.

And there’s a lesson on every page.

But he sums it all up at the bottom of page 95. Something radically different from what we see in the music business today, something we’re yearning for, the individualist.

“Most people, if they have a calling, will likely not realize what it is. Conformity is still the foundation of most societies and if your calling takes you too far out of the mainstream you are on shaky territory and nothing is guaranteed. But if you can succeed at it you’ll find that many have tried and failed to survive on that barren plain and if you do survive you represent their hopes. Your calling is to hold that ground. You are the individualist.”

If you’re a Todd Rundgren fan, you should read this book.

If you’re not…you may not catch the references, but this is the journey of a man who was loath to repeat himself, who went his own way, a wizard, a true star.

He’s a beacon.

It was billed as “An Evening With.”

And it most certainly was.

The media focuses on recordings, but all the action is on the road. You keep on reading about the comeback of the recording industry, but to a great degree the two have diverged. Recording is about hip-hop, evanescence. Live is about all genres, and careers. Live used to be the stepchild of recordings, now it’s the main economic driver, where all the focus is. Used to be gigs were populated by label people, now the company can’t afford to buy tickets, that happened nearly a decade ago. Yup, today everybody pays. If you know someone, you can get good seats, but you’ve got to pay. As the saying goes, the tour used to be the advertisement for the record, now it’s vice versa.

And the thing about label people is they change. Not as much as they used to, then again, it’s a game of musical chairs, and a lot of them have been removed. And the only person with any power at the label is the head exec. The A&R people don’t have signing power, unless you’re talking to the President/CEO, you won’t get an answer. Whereas there’s a greater democratization of responsibility in the touring world. A young promoter can be a booker. A young agent can get acts gigs. Your apprenticeship is short. Either you can carry water or you can’t. And if you can…you have a job for life, or as least as long as you want one.

Then again, tonight Sam and Jay said that no one ever retires in the live business.

And the two drivers of Michael Bublé’s career are over seventy, Bruce Allen and Don Fox. I’m sure they don’t like their age revealed, but in the management and live businesses, experience counts. You know where all the dollars are. What works and what doesn’t. And the elder statespeople of our business were around while it was still being built, before consolidation, they’ve learned lessons unteachable these days. How you keep promoters alive, and how loyalty is everything. Used to be you’d give back to the promoter if he had a loss, you had to keep him in business. And you stuck with the people who got you there. Not anymore. Play for Live Nation, a public company, and you’re never gonna give money back. And acts go with the highest bidder.

But there are still renegades, like Don Fox. Who started with acts like ZZ Top and is now promoting Bublé, who couldn’t be more different. But really, it’s the same, how do you build an act?

And no act ever made it big without a great manager. Used to be they were all independent. Now, they might work for Red Light or Live Nation’s conglomerate. Used to be you sunk or swam on your wits. You were responsible for staying alive. You had to keep your antenna up. If you haven’t ever faced financial ruin, struggled, you’re not battle tested, you’re not any good when the going gets tough.

And the going got tough for Michael Bublé. His kid got sick. Very. He didn’t tour for five years. He gets kudos for keeping his priorities straight, but absence of this length is usually death in the music business. It’s what have you done for me lately, especially now when album cycles are so much shorter.

But Bublé’s tickets have sold faster than ever. Why?

Because of his dedicated fan base, because of his show.

Bublé said he started in nightclubs at sixteen. It took him ten years to get traction. This is very different from a porn star deciding to make a record. This is about hard work, refining your craft. Bublé’s career is build on music and showmanship, not social media. If the music is the cherry on top of your personality, you’re not gonna last that long, your music isn’t gonna resonate with people.

And the music Bublé is singing is one hundred eighty degrees different from the hit parade. It’s made up of songs, without electronic beats, with melodies, that you can sing along to. They’re classics, or in the classic style. You can let your mind drift and remember staring out the window at the snow coming down. Or being on the beach. Or finding new love. The music sets your mind free, it’s just not grease for a party.

And that’s what too many people think a gig is today, a big party, where you shoot selfies, where the audience is the star. But that was not Bublé’s show. It was clear he was the star, everybody was locked on to him, not each other.

And there were thirty eight people on stage besides Michael. THIRTY EIGHT! Professionals are doing the math. That’s gonna hurt your bottom line. But Bublé is spending for the effect. A bank of horn players, a bank of string players, I can’t remember seeing this many people on stage since I’ve been to the symphony. Usually you get some long-haired guy in the background playing a synth. But this sound was real.

And the staging was jaw-dropping. Winky told me to watch out, and he was right.

I almost can’t describe it. The band was in a shell, a miniature Hollywood Bowl.

And behind Bublé was a record. Yup, a big vinyl record which occasionally spun, with a needle emitting sparks. But it also doubled as a video screen. And when it rose to the ceiling, there was a cyclorama of a hi-def screen behind the players. And sometimes video footage was shot from two different angles. Which truly allowed you to get the feeling.

And there were screens at the other end of the building, at the end of the runway in the middle.

And the highlight was when Bublé said he was going to recreate the nightclub. He had a combo on the far end of the walkway and lights descended from the ceiling and it truly felt intimate, in an arena.

But the highlight was the stories. It takes a lot to go on, most people get nervous and speed up and then sing. But Bublé told jokes, made fun of himself, was sincere, talked about his personal troubles… You felt like you knew him. He was carrying no airs. He was just being honest. Hard work got him to where he was, to the point where you wanted to pay to see him.

And the best joke of the night was when he talked about living in Westwood and not wanting to drive to Staples Center. It could take two hours. So he thanked those who did come. Who even filled up the upper deck, above the three rows of skyboxes.

And if you weren’t there, it doesn’t matter. If you don’t like this kind of music, it doesn’t matter. It’s 2019, and everybody’s living in their own silo. The goal is not to be the biggest band in the land, but the biggest you. You build it on music and showmanship and loyalty. You deliver for the fans so they come back. It becomes a rite. Because the man is the same, yet the show is always different.

And usually “An Evening With” just means there’s no opening act.

But tonight you truly felt you spent time with Michael Bublé. You truly felt it was a one of a kind experience. That in another city you didn’t hear the same raps, it wasn’t the same woman from the audience doing a duet, the show was fluid, to the point where you had a unique experience in a digitized world of 0’s and 1’s.

And I will tell you I think we’ve gotten too far from the garden. That songs with melody, that you can sing along to, proffered by those with good voices who can deliver them, never go out of style. As a matter of fact there’s a hunger for this sound.

And that’s what Michael Bublé delivers.

P.S. Another highlight of the night was Lee Zeidman’s war against the Birds. And Limes. And the rest of the scooter companies. He wants a plan, to keep them off the L.A. Live property that he’s responsible for. He doesn’t want them littered on the campus. Getting in the way of paying customers. He suggested continuing to charge customers who drop them in undesignated places, but the purveyors said this would be a “bad consumer experience.” So Lee has taken matters into his own hands. He’s confiscated a hundred and twenty five scooters that have been littered on his property. He wanted to throw them out, but the waste management company said he couldn’t, because of the batteries. He’s getting no relief from the city council and the owners have not asked for the scooters back. One person can make a difference, by standing up to the man. In this case, it’s Lee Zeidman.

Howard Stern has a new book. He’s been talking it up for weeks. And now he’s confronted with the question of publicity. What should he do, where should he appear. And being the media-savant he claims to be, Howard only want to appear on shows that SELL BOOKS!

This is different from the pre-internet scorched earth paradigm. Used to be you told your publicity agent to get you ink everywhere, to create a feeling of momentum, but today there are so many messages, no one cares.

Especially when non-events get ink.

Like the re-release of Keith Richards’ album “Talk Is Cheap.” I’ll give credit to the publicity team, they got placement in major newspapers, where the aged target audience still goes, but the truth is most of the audience didn’t want the project the first time around, it was seen as a middling effort, one step above a stiff. If it wasn’t Keith, no one would remember it. And at this point, almost no one does. As for rebuying it… Are you kidding me?

And the King of all Blacks called to tell Howard that he should appear on “Real Time,” because that show sells books. And that was a good point. Because Bill Maher dedicates a whole segment to authors. Then again, if you’re not selling a political book…

Of course you want reviews in book review sections… Then again, is there where the Howard Stern audience lurks?

You’ve got to be smart.

And you’ve got to self-promote.

This is what old artists agitate against and young artists understand. You preach to your audience and if you do something worth spreading, they will.

I know, I know, this is contradictory to expectations. You want to go worldwide.

But no one is that big anymore. We live in niche culture. Be happy anybody cares at all. You create your vertical and monetize it.

That’s the Billie Eilish story. The videos were monstrous before this initial album came out. She was working it. You’ve all got to work it.

And sure, phenomena come down the pike now and again, but it’s rare these days. And little sticks.

So by talking about his book on his show every day Howard Stern is creating his own excitement. And today everybody has a platform, everybody should be in contact with their fans on a regular basis. It’s part of your job. The data is the most important thing.

Nothing is as powerful as e-mail.

But if you tweet and Instagram IT MUST BE YOU! If you’ve got a company doing it either you’re dead or your career is about to be.

Furthermore, books are one of the few things that still require an entry fee. As do movies. But music and TV come as part of a bundle, i.e. Spotify and Netflix. You have to convince someone to listen and watch. Not one of the tracks on Richards’ reissue of “Talk Is Cheap” has broken a million streams on Spotify. Some are in the very low four digits. What was this about?

Don’t count on the media to be an arbiter. The media shovels product on a daily basis, they don’t care if it sticks. Keith Richards himself would have to promote the record, and he’s too big to do this. So why do it at all?

And even if Howard Stern hits number one on the NYT chart, most people will not read his book. It’s not like the nineties, when we had a small culture and were all interested in the same things. Today, even your friends have not seen the same TV shows. But if Stern’s fans truly believe the book is worth a read by non-fans, they’ll tell them. Stern is self-promoting and he’s activating his user base. That’s how you do it today.

And chances are you’ll never go nuclear.

But you can survive. You can make money.

It’s just that most people will have no idea you exist.

Tune in today, Tuesday April 2nd, on Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

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

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