They got it right.

When so many get it so wrong.

Of course I’ve got complaints. First and foremost, those who were left out. Then again, those who pay for the writing of history control it. And the people involved did a mighty fine job. If you were there, you’ll resonate. If you weren’t, maybe now you’ll understand.

Most people believe the business was always here. That it arrived fully formed. As if there was no development. They lived through the tech tsunami… Then again, most people don’t remember when you had to be your own mechanic in order to compute. Now the devices just work. They didn’t. And there was no Genius Bar, you had to be your own genius.

And the people who built the rock and roll business were just that, geniuses.

Never number one in their class. Never the most popular. Always outsiders with a twinkle in their eye. Willing to take a risk, not knowing what was on the other side, but believing in their hearts…the journey was worth it.

It began with the Beatles.

Because before that national tours were not organized, and the caravans that existed were comprised of lineups of acts. The belief was that an hour plus show of one act would bore the attendees. But the attendees ate it up. Because music was everything, it delivered meaning, it was the only thing we had and we were glad.

So what this film does is give Frank Barsalona his due. He opens and closes the film but truly, his story should dominate, he built the touring circuit, he built the bands. The record companies and the radio stations think they did, but the truth is classic rock was built on the road, and you had to start somewhere, usually at the bottom of the bill, and Frank put you there, by trading much bigger horses. If you delivered, word spread, momentum built, you were on your way. The hit record was just the icing on the cake, oftentimes unforeseen, can you say FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE?

And the promoters were all young guys who gave up their path to join the circus. They were not playing it safe, not going into finance, not becoming a doctor or a lawyer as you did for insurance back then, but living on their wits.

And it was so fulfilling.

It’s hard for a young ‘un to understand what once was, even though many of the bands are still plying the boards. But if you watch this documentary, you’ll get it.

But will people see it?

It’s so hard to break a film these days, to break anything, that there’s a long lead-up of marketing to gain accolades and attention to get you to view it. But this is a documentary that should skip theatres and go directly to Netflix. After maybe screenings at legendary rock clubs, the ones that still survive. It needs to hide in plain sight so you discover it, so you watch it.

Sillerman rolled up the promoters more than two decades ago. Just as the internet hit, long before social media. Some in the business have only known Live Nation. And the one thing about Live Nation is they’re not promoters, there are hardly any promoters left. There are people who rent out halls and put tickets on sale, but few who actively work to get butts in the seats. It’s too hard, it’s just too much effort, and the people in charge work for the man and are too far from the epicenter and although they have little upward mobility, their jobs are safe.

Nothing was safe back in the day. Not the bands, the promoters or the labels. You were fighting for it all day long. And all night too. You worked 24/7 and you enjoyed it. Because you serviced the people, you allowed them to have a good time.

And although there are great songs and clips and pics, there are a couple of times when your skin tingles, like Ron Delsener setting up Simon & Garfunkel in Central Park and then hearing the duo sing “America.”

Now nobody drives cross-country. Everybody has the answers, nobody’s looking for anything, just promoting themselves. But way back when that was the ethos of the younger generation. We were searchers.

So I could walk you through from Delsener to Law to Magid to Belkin to Granat to Graham, but either you know the names or you don’t. Either this movie is second nature, or brand new.

But the most fascinating thing is said by Peter Rudge. Who mentions that he’s been through thirty or forty presidents of Columbia Records, but he’s still dealing with the same handful of promoters.

There’s an excitement, a rush when the lights go down.

And it doesn’t matter if you’re sitting in the front row or the upper deck.

You feel the surge of adrenaline. The speakers start to pump and you become euphoric. This is the place, this is where it’s happening, there’s nowhere you’d rather be.

If anything, I wish this film were longer. Maybe a ten part series. Kinda like a Ken Burns production, but not made by him, he sanitizes everything, takes it too seriously. But music always had a streak of irreverence. And this flick is only the tip of the iceberg. These stories need to be told.

And some of them I’ve heard differently, like how Graham lost the Stones.

But that’s rock and roll, it’s an oral tradition, you learn on the job, all the awards and certifications are b.s., there’s no school that can teach you. But if you were there, it was the most important thing to you.

And for many of us…

It still is.

Tune in tomorrow, Tuesday November 27th, on Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

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

Twitter: @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

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The Luck Of The Draw

We’ve de-emphasized songwriting.

That used to be the holy grail, to write a song that encapsulated life, that’s why music was the most powerful artistic medium, its ability to nail exactly what we were feeling.

Last night I was listening to Seth Godin’s podcast about marketing. And Seth’s smart, but marketing is the penumbra, it’s the sell, not the essence.

And after that finished, I had an urge to hear Bonnie Raitt, the Queen of America before she slowly started to fade, because we all do, get older and get smaller in the rearview mirror until we’re ultimately unseeable and then gone. Some are remembered, maybe by accident, like Journey and Queen, as a result of usage of their numbers in screen endeavors, the rest just live on in the hearts of those who were there when it all went down.

Now I got on the Bonnie Raitt train back in ’72, with “Give It Up.” I played the second side, with “Too Long At The Fair” and “You Told Me Baby,” every day while I skipped lunch and slipped on my long underwear to go skiing at the Middlebury College Snow Bowl. And last night, I immediately heard a live take of Joel Zoss’s side-opener, the aforementioned “Too Long At The Fair,” nicked in the days of Napster, and then my iPhone switched to…

“One Part Be My Lover.”

People are complicated, inexplicable. You think you know them, and then they surprise and confound you. What was together is now broken, like my marriage.

They’re not forever, they’re just for today
One part be my lover, one part go away

That’s not what she said, but it is how she acted. She said I could never leave, that this would last, but then she wanted to push me away. And I ain’t no saint, but I like to obey the rules, but this was a game I’d never played before. And when she ultimately left, all I had was my music.

Not too much later she can’t meet his glance
You see her start pulling away
Over and over like fire and ice
One is color, one is grey

It’s when they’re pulling away that’s the worst. You grasp for thin air. You’re holding on to nothing. You’re standing on the edge of the cliff, and then they’re gone.

That was nearly thirty years ago. But some things you never forget, the experiences are emblazoned upon your brain, like the struggle thereafter.

Broke down and busted on the side of the road I felt alone, but when I listened to the title track of Bonnie’s “Luck Of The Draw” I felt connected.

These things we do to keep the flame burnin’
And write our fire in the sky
Another day to see the wheel turnin’
Another avenue to try

When Paul Brady wrote these lyrics it was the pre-internet era, everybody was not trying to get rich quick in Silicon Valley, rather the easiest place to go from zero to hero was Hollywood, although the odds were long with no safety net.

Tomorrow’s letter by the hall doorway
Could be the answer to your prayers

Now it’s an e-mail, not even a phone call. We wait for contact. Although the truth is today everybody’s selling, and those who sell best are those who create worst, because they’re two different skills. What we’ve got now is boasters, tireless self-promoters, where we used to have artists. But there’s no room for artists anymore, when it’s all about your gross and if you’re not topping the chart you’re irrelevant.

But it didn’t used to be that way.

But don’t blame Spotify.

Blame America. You just can’t make it as a bartender anymore. Your day job does not pay the bills. You can’t scrape by trying to be a musician or a songwriter, what if you have a health problem, what if your car breaks down, then everybody just runs right over you and tells you it’s your own damn fault, that you should have bought insurance and not gone down the road less taken.

And most people don’t have the courage to march into the darkness. But it’s their journeys we want to follow.

This is about more than money. More than splits. Everybody argues for what they’re entitled to, they just ignore what gets them to the party in the first place, excellence, testimony from the heart.

The internet killed the sideshow.

You remember the sideshow, populated by acts who got record deals but just could not create a hit. The list is endless. Little Feat. Bonnie Raitt before she lucked out nearly twenty years later.

The sideshow was kept alive by media, word of mouth and scarcity. Hit fans were grazers, the same people addicted to playlists today. Whereas true fans were students of the game who had a comprehensive knowledge of the entire scene and drilled down into that which they found worthwhile. Ergo the battles of taste. All true fans hated the grazers, and the true fans argued and had contempt for each other and their tastes. There was a coherent scene. That which was mainstream, and that which was not.

Sideshow acts rarely played arenas, never mind stadiums, but they had loyal fan bases that kept them in action and alive, to this very day in fact.

Whereas hit acts’ careers waxed and waned on the basis of their chart performance. They could sell tickets when they had a hit, when not, they couldn’t.

MTV was an interim step. It blew up careers and rained down more money than ever before in the history of the music business. Everybody wanted in on the action. So for the better part of two decades we had a monoculture. And then the internet blew the paradigm apart. We were sick of having so little choice. We hated being dictated to by so few gatekeepers.

And now we’ve got an incomprehensible scene made up of hitmakers with less reach and influence than ever before, and a zillion acts who are mostly unknown fighting for attention.

Meanwhile, the press, like the government, is so far behind it’s got no clue. Posting the hit charts when SoundScan is eclipsed by the Spotify Top 50 and everybody with a clue knows it. Meanwhile, record companies are businesses, and they want to focus on hits. Used to be you’d invest, wait for the outside, the sideshow, to find its moment. But with no one at a label who has skin in the game, with quarterly reports and bonuses key, no one wants to wait. It’s not about investment, but cherry-picking that which has traction and trying to blow it up. It’s kind of like sports betting, but in this case the label has rights, at least for a little while.

So I’ve established the game has changed and the media is out of the loop and the purveyors don’t care, but what about the public?

You ignore the public at your peril. Those who acknowledge the needs of the people triumph in the end. Which is why the music business is moribund.

The people want more music. Hyped and distributed in a comprehensible way.

The barrier to entry in music is incredibly low. So if you wade into the sphere you’re immediately overwhelmed by product. Everybody is overwhelmed, even the professionals. There’s just too much music to comprehend.

So we have to prop up the sideshow.

The business has to pivot to paying attention to a limited number of acts who don’t create traditional hits, in this case being hip-hop or pop, and maybe country, who deserve attention. Playlists should be shorter. Most acts should be ignored. The scene must be made understandable to listeners. So they can dig in and digest new acts, marinate in their music.

Right now we’ve got a free-for-all, a tsunami of hype, and it’s turning off the populace at large. The business is in denial. But it’s heading for the dumper.

What kind of bizarre world do we live in where an excoriated film about ancient rockers is the only thing with universal appeal? People care about Freddie Mercury and “Bohemian Rhapsody,” most are unaware and don’t care about what passes for hits today.

It’s not that we need a farm team, but an alternative.

The music business has a long history of promoting alternatives, alternative rock to begin with. Seattle overthrew the hair bands. Isn’t it interesting that we haven’t had a new sound THIS CENTURY!

Meanwhile, there are endless press releases about this act or that breaking a “Billboard” record… It’s as if we’re promoting the results of the AYSO.

Now change always comes. Usually from outside, from those not inured to the old ways.

As for the techies, they aren’t about music, and this is definitely a musical issue.

We don’t need to promote every act, just a few.

But hype is broken too. Our entire system is broken other than distribution. We know how to get the music to everybody, we just don’t know how to promote what deserves it and de-emphasize that which does not and get the general public excited about new acts and new tunes.

Hell, music doesn’t even represent what it used to. It used to set your mind free, give you insight into the times. Now it’s mostly machine-based wanking with platitudes and boasting laid on top. Try selling that to Netflix, the service wouldn’t be interested.

But if you buck the system the climb is just too steep. You need help. You need attention. Most don’t deserve it, but some do.

This isn’t about fixing the Grammys.

It’s not even about fixing the charts.

No one used to care who won a Grammy, the charts were irrelevant. Quick, what was the peak of “Purple Haze”? “Stairway To Heaven” wasn’t even a single.

And Kurt Cobain wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t punk.

Whereas today acts are only true to the almighty dollar.

This can be fixed, and it won’t be tough. Just adjust the angle by a degree or so and the whole picture changes.

I’m not talking about emphasizing a minor league. I’m talking about pointing the spotlight on acts that deserve it. Who might not fit into the round holes. Isn’t that what artists are, square pegs?

Let’s find them, anoint them and expose them.

It’s everybody’s responsibility. We’ve got to create a paradigm that works for modern times. Lord knows, we haven’t got one now.