There are no rules, the infrastructure’s been built, now is the time to follow your vision, don’t listen to naysayers, don’t listen to me, you will break through with your art if you are an artist, most people are not, they just want attention, they just want to be rich and famous, but if you know where you want go and how you want to get there, if your music is unique, not derivative, if it’s ear-pleasing, if people catch on, you will have an army following you, irrelevant of the radio, irrelevant of playlists, irrelevant of press, the tools are at your fingertips, GO!

If you’re not hip-hop, don’t sign with a major label, they won’t be able to do anything for you, but they probably don’t want you anyway. This does not mean you should add a featured rapper, this does not mean you should add drum machines, this just means you should know who you are, the greatest artists are not malleable, if you don’t fit into the system, don’t try to mold it to yourself, it doesn’t work that way, if anything you will bend, not them.

You’re your own publicity machine, and probably record company too, if you’re not prepared to do the hard work of selling yourself, don’t even start. If you’ve got a mythical idea of a huge machine that you just need to plug into to get ahead you couldn’t be more wrong, today it’s all about grinding, you start with your friends and families, you trade opening slots with other acts, if you’re not a networker you’re not a successful musician today. Note, I’m not saying you’re a hypester, a spammer, just that you know people who will help spread the word, and if they won’t, make new music they will circulate or get new friends.

The most important person on your team is your agent. Sign with someone who can get you work, it’s just that simple. You can have an agent without a manager, sometimes that’s the best way to go, for if you gain traction you can get a better manager. Odds are you won’t get a first tier agent at first, but despite all the hype about record companies, today’s music business functions on promoters and agents, they see what reacts, they spread the buzz, if you play and people show up and love you, or even if few show up and you slay them, you’re on your way.

It’s about songs, it’s always been about songs, if you’re not a writer you’re at the mercy of other writers, and they don’t want to give you their best material. Your first songs will suck, everybody’s do. Then you’ll get better and think you’ve arrived at the destination but later you’ll look back at this work and laugh. Start NOW!

Never underestimate melody, changes hook people, if they can sing along, if what you’re doing is memorable, it’s an easier route to success.

Ignore the trappings. Getting attention is much easier than having a career. The newspapers constantly review records that go straight into the dumper.

Practice, whatever you do. Play, sing, make beats, experience counts. And push yourself, remember it’s 10,000 hours of HARD PRACTICE! And if you’re bragging to everybody how hard you’re working you’re a wanker, everybody who’s successful worked hard.

Never underestimate the power of free, if you’re not willing to give it away, you’re not willing to be successful. People will give you ALL their money, never mind their bodies, if you make it. Load people up with freebies, whether it be music or tweets or…

Don’t employ social media unless it’s you and you have a voice. If you see tweeting as a sentence, don’t. Same deal with Instagram and Snapchat. That doesn’t mean another band member or your significant other can’t participate in your stead, as long as they’re honest as to who they are. You’ve got to have an identity, you’ve got to be vulnerable, for every hater you’ll have tons of fans hanging on every word. Everybody’s lonely, everybody’s looking for truth, everybody’s looking for someone who can understand them, when done right this is what your music does, provide a link between you and the listener, as does your social media presence.

Mystery is history. Illusions are passe. Everybody’s trackable online. Don’t lie, don’t employ artifice, your career will be shorter.

Play wherever anybody wants you, even if you’re not being paid or being paid bupkes. You’re looking to infect someone. One fan can make a huge difference, can bring people to your next gig, turn people on to your music.

Don’t think of streaming as revenue, think of your presence on services as land mines, this is the greatest time for unknowns ever, used to be you had to be on the radio or have your music bought to be heard, now anybody can click and listen.

Don’t complain. No one wants to hear it. You’ve got no leverage, no power, when you weigh in on streaming payments and other (theoretical) inadequacies people laugh, leave those battles to the big boys, hopefully you’ll be a big boy (or girl) soon!

Be nice, but don’t be a doormat. Be able to say no, but don’t be a prick.

Know that nobody is that big anymore, nobody reaches everybody, which means the odds are not against you like they used to be, it’s easier to gain an audience and sustain than ever, although it’s harder than ever to move up the food chain, if you’re not a lifer, don’t even start, if you think you’ll give it a few years and then decide whether to go to graduate school, go to graduate school right away, cut out the middleman.

Not everybody was born to be a professional musician. Some of the best payers don’t have the constitution. Be self-savvy, if the other band blows you off the stage, maybe you should give up, find somewhere where you can truly shine.

The best work is done when no one is paying attention. If you’re online spreading the word all the time, you’re not honing your act.

Capture inspiration, a true artist is in tune with this, they know when the bell goes off, they lay it down then and don’t self-edit. They look at it tomorrow and see what they’ve got. Oftentimes it’s genius. And don’t let you or anyone else cock it up. When you’re channeling the gods, you’re incredibly powerful. Legends yearn for these moments. Sure, some people hone songs over time, but most don’t, they wait for that spark, CAPTURE IT!

You can’t read the story unless you’re a subscriber.

The best article I read on the plane out here was about Fashion Nova clothing, a brand built on Instagram. Cheap clothing with tons of varieties sold by models both known and unknown,

You want to be a Nova girl. Big or small. This is not the highfalutin’ fashion industry, not the one with runway shows, this is for real people, who buy and wear fashions, oftentimes inspired by the celebrities on Instagram, like Kylie Jenner or Cardi B.

Let me start all over again, this article was in the latest issue of “New York” magazine, the one with Elizabeth Warren on the cover. In case you haven’t noticed, periodicals have changed their formula, used to be that magazines subscriptions were cheap, supported by ads, the key was to drive circulation up, for a guaranteed readership. But then ads tanked and the economics no longer worked. Now per issue price can be close to ten bucks, and a subscription is fifty or more dollars, instead of 40% of that.

So most people stopped reading, they were satiated with surfing the web, or oldsters addicted to print stuck with the newspapers and…

It’s astounding what people don’t know.

Me too, I don’t know everything, no one can, but the key to understanding this world is to hoover up information, which is why by refusing to read his briefings the President is doing our country a disservice.

So I’d never heard of Fashion Nova, which is fine, because so many stories in the rags are publicity plants. Even in the “New York Times,” every Sunday they feature a story about a book or a potion with no track record that promptly goes into the dumper.

But that is not Fashion Nova.

The owner reacted to the marketplace.

He started off selling jeans, in one store, in the San Fernando Valley, at the Panorama Mall if you live close.

And at first it was high-waisted jeans, but he listened to what his customer base wanted.

This is the flaw the music business unveiled and still hasn’t owned. This is the birth of Napster. It was not about theft of music so much as overpriced CDs with only one good track. Hell, it’s been proven in this almost no piracy era that people still don’t want the album, even when they’re paying for it on Spotify, but the artists keep making them and the labels keep distributing them, EVEN THOUGH PEOPLE DON’T WANT THEM!

But it’s hard to change, right?

WRONG!

Second, Fashion Nova’s products are cheap. Its proprietor, Richard Saghian, knows he’s selling dope, it’s about getting people addicted, which is why when you talk about price points and protection you’ve missed the memo. In fashion and entertainment it’s all about heat, have a hot product and you can sell not only it, but…merch, fragrances, sponsorships… The track is the gateway drug, it’s what gets people hooked.

And there are a lot of products, which is why if you’re putting an album out every other year and touring it you’re delusional.

You put it out and see what works and then double-down. Fashion Nova offers a thousand new styles A WEEK! That’s right, put out a lot of music! And the products are cheap and not so well made. Today’s music is not made for tomorrow, just for today, when you ask if they’ll play the tracks of 2018 at weddings and bar mitzvahs twenty years from now, you’re missing the point.

And you’ve got to let everybody play.

That’s right, anybody can be a Fashion Nova model. You put up your look on Instagram and wait to get found by the company, to gain fame and discounts, this is reality television without the networks. There’s no lead time, you’re discovered and you’re featured, and you know it’s not forever, you just feel good for a moment or two and then you’re on to the next thing.

And you don’t have to be tall and thin. Fashion Nova sells skin-tight clothing for the curvy, and I don’t mean the mildly curvy, but what the charts say is obese. Because the overweight are people too, they’ve got to wear clothing too, they’ve got money to spend too.

But for far too long we’ve had an elite that believes it dictates. Primarily in news media. But in music media too. It’s been all about major labels and terrestrial radio, but that is changing, not that anybody wants you to know. An active user doesn’t wait for radio, by time it hits the airwaves they’re over it, you don’t want the casual fan, but the true one, that’s how you make your bucks.

And no one cares about your pedigree.

And sure, it’s driven by influencers, but they come and go and savvy brands remain.

We keep hearing how Facebook is in trouble, then you read about a brand that was built on the Facebook-owned social network Instagram. And for those lamenting the future, there’s no Fashion Nova without pics and video online. So you think you can stay with your old phone and slow speed but the truth is 5G is going to provide endless business opportunities, which entrepreneurs will take advantage of, not usual suspects.

This is the Clayton Christensen formula. You’re gonna be disrupted by someone doing a worse job at a cheaper price utilizing new technology, so you’re best off disrupting yourself. Amazon is killing physical retail. Fashion Nova is killing “aspirational” brands. Come on, who has the cash for the big brands, who wants to spend on the big brands when you can buy multiple items and look like a queen instantly!

And a king too, Fashion Nova is moving into men’s fashion.

And I wouldn’t have known all this if it weren’t for ponying up for “New York” magazine.

And “New York” lets you read so much for free, but not this.

And I’m sure there are people reading this slapping their foreheads and laughing at me, wondering how I could be so out of it.

I AM!

But we all are.

But even more important than collecting information is seeing how it’s all put together.

New platforms engender new business opportunities, they create new stars.

And today anybody can be a star, it’s like the Me Decade reconstituted. You’re the principal in your own movie, which is not linear, but is paraded all over social networks. And just like real movies, there are only a few superstars, but the barrier to entry is nonexistent, you can play, you could possibly be a Nova Babe.

Don’t laugh, this is the story of tomorrow, the joke is on YOU!

Fashion Nova

You expect nothing to change. Your mental movie says one thing, but reality is something else.

We started the day in New Canaan. At the Philip Johnson Glass House, which I studied in college but had never been to before. I recommend the tour, in this case led by the type of woman who doesn’t exist in California, at least not L.A., an upper-crust WASP with an edge, who kept telling us not to ask questions about the future while we were still in the past, i.e. don’t ask about the swimming pool outside the house while we were still in it. But she implored us to quiz her, and therein lay the conundrum.

As for Philip Johnson…

He was rich. Never underestimate the power of money. He created a weekend empire where he entertained his buddies, it was an endless salon. Andy Warhol was the only friend allowed to stay over, and the Velvet Underground played, and it’s hard to believe this happened just half an hour away, but that’s the way it used to be, before the internet, people had privacy, you could not truly peer into their lives, they certainly weren’t tweeting, and there was no TMZ to track their every move. In other words, Edie Sedgwick was yesteryear’s Kim Kardashian, and you had no idea who she was until they wrote a book about her, meanwhile, she blew her money in pursuit of fame, she didn’t make any.

And then we went to Pepe’s Pizza. I know, I know, we should have gone to the original in New Haven, but my mother is handicapped and parking there is challenging whereas in Fairfield you can walk right in.

For the white clam pizza. Now that’s something you’ve never had, that’s something unique to the east coast. And a tomato pie with sausage, mushrooms and anchovies. We never ate plain pizza as kids, we always loaded it up. And Bridgeport/Fairfield is laden with great pizza to the point where Domino’s, Pizza Hut and Papa John’s are a non-factor, you can’t sell dressed bread in the land of the real thing. And what separates east coast pizza from the rest is the crust, if you don’t want to eat it it’s not done right. It’s firm, it’s crunchy, it’s tasty. But Pepe’s is the apotheosis. The pizza is thin and you just cannot stop eating it.

And then we drove through the old neighborhood.

Someone is living in our house, even though it’s got the same address. That’s a head-spinner unto itself, there was a girl peering out of the living room window, but I can only guess as to what transpires where I spent my formative years, with a sticky, smelly septic tank before there were sewers.

And the truth is the houses seem closer together, although not smaller. I walked to school, every day, I can remember on two fingers the number of times my mother picked me up, not even during the hurricane when we were sent home early. And it seemed a longer trudge than it does now.

And on our street the houses look the same.

But on Barry Scott Drive, every edifice has been enlarged. I remembered everybody who lived in each domicile, the Romes, the Westons, the Gallaghers, those people with the first built-in pool. But now all those families are gone.

And you used to be able to toboggan from our house to the street three backyards away. But now neighbors have erected fences, out of wood in this case, but the new thing in this area is plastic fences. Which rarely fake you out, you know they’re not wood. Whereas if you had a wall in the fifties and sixties you were ostracized, we kids roamed the neighborhood, from one yard to another, yes, there were a couple we knew to stay off of, but we ruled, back before letting your kid out of your sight was a crime.

And the cut-through from Fairfield Woods through the neighborhood was still there, that’s where I went to elementary school, and junior high. I remember riding my bike home through the houses.

But where we played kickball with Mr. Conley?

It’s now a parking lot.

My first grade classroom, right next to my kindergarten?

It’s still there, but they’ve built a giant addition to a school that was pretty big to begin with.

And the hill where I first donned skis? It’s gone, turned into a parking lot, and the chain-link fence that marked the boundary between the schoolyard and the houses is obscured by foliage.

That’s the big surprise, along with the late model cars in the driveway. There’s so much greenery, you just can’t see what you used to, whereas the neighborhood was open and carefree, now it resembles an arboretum on steroids.

But that’s what happens in fifty years.

There’s no traffic.

I know, I know, if you go on the 95, it can be gridlocked, BUT THERE ARE ONLY THREE LANES! But my mother lives on Park Avenue, on the Bridgeport side, the main artery from Sacred Heart University to the beach, and…I never have to wait to enter traffic, I can pull a U-turn, it’s positively sleepy whereas in Los Angeles traffic is so bad that everybody employs WAZE and even the backstreets, thank you Bruce, are bumper to bumper.

You don’t need a jacket at night.

Oh, you might wear a fur during the SoCal winter, but the truth is my first year in California I wore my jean jacket, when that was a thing, all winter long. But during the summer? You always have to bring a wrap. Not only for the overchilled movies, but for the nip in the air, whether it be on the Westside or the Valley. I just locked the car and strode across the parking lot a half hour shy of midnight and I was revelling in the lack of a need for a jacket, this is the summer I remember.

You can be rich or be an artist, take your choice.

Today we went to the Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills. I never knew Tarrytown had such a long downtown, I never knew White Plains had high rises, but I do know the Rockefellers had tons of money. Did I ever tell you I went to college with Eileen Rockefeller, David’s daughter? Not that we were best friends, not that she’d remember me, but we did have some conversations, I remember she had a loom in her dorm room. And as a matter of fact, in the basement of the house on the hill, where Nelson’s art collection is, they have tapestries of Picassos. That’s the stunning element of Kykuit, the artwork, both outside and in. Anybody rich can build an edifice, maybe even a golf course, assuming they have enough property, the Rockefellers had 4,000 acres, but do you have the taste to acquire great art? Nelson liked to think he had talent because he knew where to place sculptures, but being inspired to create the work, that’s the thing. Today every artist wants to be a Roc-A-Fella, but the truth is you never can be. Dr. Dre may have reached a billion, but he cannot compete with Zuckerberg and Bezos, never mind Gates and Buffett. But money is no match for art. Steve Jobs is nearly forgotten, he won’t be remembered but Picasso will, the Beatles probably too, that’s the power of songwriting, that’s the power of melody. So, do you want to leave your mark or accumulate cash? Those are different paths, what it takes to get rich is cunning business skills. Do you know any truly rich people? That money was not easy to earn, they had to compete, kill a few people along the way, not that they are not smart. But we understand business, we can see the path, but art is incomprehensible, and the greatest art is about testing limits. Me-too is nowhere. We’re interested in those who challenge conceptions, who test limits, who take us to new heights, like the aforementioned Picasso as well as Motherwell and Calder and Warhol in Nelson’s subterranean collection, never mind the Brancusi and Maillol outside…

Progress happens.

There’s a carriage house, with carriages, you know, the horse-drawn kind, that’s how John D. got to Kykuit. But then the automobile came along and soon no one will own a car and then at some point the car will be superseded, by what, I don’t know. And I know you’re in future shock, and I know you lament the loss of the past, but the truth is the future keeps on coming down the track, faster and faster, and those who adapt win, and are happy in the end. That’s how you know you’re too old, when the tech and the changes overwhelm you, you’re done.

Everybody wants to talk about Trump.

Last night I went to a dinner party with seven women, most of the conversation was about Trump (and the death of a synagogue!) Tonight I was at a restaurant and the owner couldn’t stop talking about Trump, wondering how many illegals were working at the President’s clubs. The restaurateur says the truth is America runs on immigrant labor, workers who oftentimes pay taxes, even though they never collect social security.

You can see world class talent in Fairfield.

It used to be another suburb, no one commuted to New York, I won’t say my hometown was a backwater, but if you wanted to see a show you had to drive to NYC, or maybe New Haven, now we have the Fairfield Theatre Company, with two rooms, one a 700+ cap and the other 200. Furthermore, it’s not a dump. That’s right, too many clubs are warehouses and nothing more, no amenities and dirty toilets, even backstage FTC was first class, surprised me, but not as much as…

Australian bands can PLAY!

Castlecomer, that was the band playing in the small room, to not a big audience, another rock band trying to make it. But hearing them perform through the walls, I could tell their music was good, and almost all of these unknown bands are bad. The drummer… The pounding was powerful, it drove the music forward, but when we emerged into the venue I found the frontman to be doing the act of someone performing to thousands. That’s the mark of someone who’s gonna make it, someone who closes the few in attendance knowing they will never forget them.

Castlecomer played 500 gigs before they were anybody. The frontman was an attorney who gave up the practice to write songs, because really you can’t do both. He wrote “Fire Alarm” the night he quit his gig. It attracted attention, the band flew to SXSW and were courted by labels and are now signed to Concord. “Fire Alarm” has 6,000,000 streams on Spotify, which means the band is not making any money, but they are getting attention, building a fan base. And if you see them you’ll be closed. But rock in the States is a backwater, there’s little room for new stuff on commercial radio, and it never crosses over to the mainstream, yet I enjoyed sitting there listening to an unknown band perform, reminded me of the way it used to be, way back when, in the seventies, before Netflix, when being home was a drag, when you had to go out, and there was no deejay playing records, there weren’t even any sports bars, you listened to bands. Now only the hard core is interested, the looky-loos, the casual fans, have moved on to other pursuits, but the hard core remains, and from this hard core emanates a rebirth. Only takes a spark to start a fire, but people, fans, communicators, are the oxygen, they make the whole thing go, they make it blow up.

More…

And the truth is although it’s the same country, the east coast is very different from the west. It’s beautiful, but somewhat calcified, kinda like Europe, there’s a ton of tradition, but it’s hard to break out of, whereas in California, the west, it’s new, everything’s being invented for the first time, there’s more freedom. Then again, some great art comes from those reacting to the status quo.