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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.

This is a terrible book.

But I finished it anyway.

You see I was there. When the Beatles broke, when FM radio ruled, when Led Zeppelin sold out stadiums and musicians were independent thinkers as rich as anybody in America.

But those days are in the rearview mirror. There’s a music business, that’s for sure. But it’s mature, it’s about entertainment and dollars whereas back then, it was EVERYTHING!

Sure, there was a renaissance with MTV. But ultimately it was about visuals, not music, and one thing’s for sure, before that it was about the music. In an era where you didn’t even have to put the band’s name on the cover, the audience knew who it was.

And Napster was utterly fascinating, but it was about technology, music was just the fuel, no different from the gas in your car. We ooh and aah over your vehicle, we don’t have long discussions on petrol.

Now there was music before the Beatles, but the Liverpool foursome blew up and then revolutionized the business, by refusing to conform to strictures, ultimately releasing a song with only one chord. And their manager, Brian Epstein, was notoriously bad at math, his deals were execrable, but it didn’t matter if the band was underpaid for wigs and lunch boxes, you see there was just that much money in the music, to the point where they no longer had to go on the road and play it. And when that got boring, they did. McCartney and Ringo ply the boards constantly today, because first and foremost they’re musicians, their stardom is secondary.

And no one embodies this ethos more than Robert Plant. Who has no problem appearing bedraggled and trying new things. He’ll give you a bit of what you want, but he’s on his own path. He’s eviscerated his charisma, and become a party of one in the process. A beacon. Dylan is removed and mysterious, Plant is up front and available.

But he was once the biggest rock star in the world.

Funny how history turns on you. It was Page’s band, but Plant was the front man. And it’s Plant who survives. Jimmy’s loaded, but he doesn’t know what to do all day. Kinda like Peter Grant… After you manage Led Zeppelin, what’s next? NOTHING!

It’s the thrill of the chase, the building of something, the energy is palpable when Zeppelin comes together and starts selling records and tickets. Meanwhile, Grant grows into the role. Makes it up as he goes. And despite uproar from the mainstream, unlike Zuckerberg and Facebook Grant and his charges don’t change a thing, they don’t blink, they don’t give up, because they’re selling music, it’s all based on substance, which lasts to this day.

And the holier-than-thou reviewers excoriated the band.

And promoters tried to rip them off.

Meanwhile, the lemmings, the public, just could not get enough.

This is unlike traditional business, where an enterprise is built to last. In music, the tunes are built for now, and if they survive it’s a surprise. Ironically, the more time-stamped, the more immediate the tunes are, the longer they last. Art is run on instinct. And once you second-guess yourself, you’re history.

So this is how it was then, and how it will never be again.

Those over forty want a return to yesteryear.

Those under forty never knew how it once was. They’ve got no idea what a rock star really is. They think it’s about money and TMZ. But back then, these men making the music, and they were mostly men, couldn’t do much else. And their handlers spoke for them and everything happened on the fly.

Until it crashed.

It always crashes.

So why did I finish this book?

Because I was looking for nuggets, stuff I didn’t know. Like Grant’s daughter marrying Denny Laine… Really? And Peter having contempt for the musician, who was essentially broke.

And the most significant point in the whole book is Grant’s wife leaving him for their farm manager, and him never getting over it. No matter how rich and powerful you might be, that does not ensure love. Women want men who will listen to them, and be there for them. Turns out Grant was a great raconteur who loved women who loved him, but he was too caught up in his own world to be available, and it bit him in the ass.

But that’s what being a rock fan is all about. Getting hooked by the music and then vacuuming up knowledge, which won’t get you into college, which won’t get you a gig as a professional, but will bond you to like-minded people, millions.

Music gets no respect. Otherwise, how could a publisher allow this paste-up job to hit the shelves? With no proofreading. Mo AUSTIN? How can I trust anything in this tome?

But I trust Led Zeppelin.

I hear “Dazed and Confused” in my brain all day long.

“Your Time Is Gonna Come” is my go-to ski song, it emanates from my lips when I’m swooping down the slope elated.

And the dynamics in “Ten Years Gone”… That was Page’s secret sauce, the dynamics.

What do you do when your skills leave you? When you just cannot get it up anymore?

Some drink themselves to death. O.D.

Others sit around telling stories.

And despite so much info, most go unheard. Because they’re private, because they’re offensive, because they would cause lawsuits, because you had to be there to get them.

It’s no different from the rest of us. Telling the stories of the bands we saw and…

Ultimately, that’s all we’re left with, our stories. Possessions mean nothing.

But the music…

You can talk about a film you’ve seen.

But you can sing a song.

And the song remains the same, never forget that.