Now it’s a mighty long way down rock ‘n’ roll
Through the Bradford cities and the Oreoles

From Regine’s to the Hollywood Bowl, that’s right, Daniel Glass started out in the streets and made it all the way to the top, with a few bumps along the way, but unlike so many of his contemporaries, he’s SURVIVED!

In this podcast recorded live at the Music Media Summit in Santa Barbara you’ll hear his story all the way from Brooklyn and pre-med to a career within the same few blocks in Manhattan. Building up Chrysalis, surfing the wave at SBK and being a journeyman executive until he decided to do it all for himself, with Glassnote Records and Phoenix and Mumford & Sons and CHVRCHES, and now Jade Bird and so many more!

Listen to the story of a man who did it HIS way.

You’ll dig it.

A snippet:

Daniel Glass on signing Phoenix. Listen to this week’s podcast on TuneIn here: pic.twitter.com/8ocQEIyVYl

— Bob Lefsetz (@Lefsetz) June 5, 2018

Mott the Hoople’s “All The Way From Memphis” (the song quoted above)

Listen to Daniel Glass on…

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It’s got seven songs and it’s twenty three minutes long. This form factor is more important than the songs contained therein, which have unfortunately gotten mediocre reviews.

Yes, you self-satisfied white rockers, you need to admit it, you’re behind the curve. While rappers embraced the internet, giving their music away for FREE I say, HOW COULD THEY?, most famously on Soundcloud, the holier-than-thou white rockers, especially the aged, complained that the internet was ruining music and streaming was the devil.

But now streaming is single-handedly rejuvenating record companies, although most of the spoils are going to hip-hop.

When the future comes, EMBRACE IT!

You’re an artist not a startup. You don’t need double-digit millions from a VC to play, with your laptop and some skills you can post your music instantly online. Getting attention, that’s another thing. But let’s say you’ve already got attention…

Kanye’s making a bunch of these twenty minute albums, most famously with Pusha T, who’s riding a railroad of success he has not experienced in years. Next comes NAS, Teyana Taylor and a collaboration with Kid Cudi. That’s right, Kanye’s not worried about maximizing revenue, beating songs to death, touring them to hoover up all possible dollars, he’s gonna step on his own solo project by doing one with Cudi, HOW 2018!

Are you living in 2018? Do you know it’s about satiating fans, releasing frequently, like Drake, being innovative?

Let’s review history.

Albums came from 78s, a collection was called an “album.”

33 1/3 LPs contained twenty five to forty minutes of music and were then called “albums.”

CDs held 80 minutes of music and by god, the players filled them with execrable crap, justifying robbers on Napster who were sick of overpaying for one good track.

And now we’ve got streaming and an album can be INFINITE!

Think about that, it allows you to reinvent the format. Do you really want to put out 80 minutes of music in an era where even babies are overscheduled? No, you need to make it bite-sized, digestible.

Now the fascinating thing about “ye” is each track has almost the same number of listens, from 10-16 million on Spotify. Meaning people are not cherry-picking tracks, they’re listening to them all.

As opposed to Taylor Swift’s “Reputation,” whose hits have 100-300 million streams on Spotify, but whose album cuts have maybe 20-odd million streams, meaning most people are not listening to them, they’re cherry-picking the hits!

And I bring up Taylor because she actually had hits on her album, and “Reputation” has 15 songs and is 55 minutes long.

Back to Pusha T. His 5 song “Daytona” has from 4.7 to 7.7 million streams of each cut on Spotify, meaning people ARE LISTENING TO THE WHOLE THING!

Shinedown is experiencing a resurgence. Their 14 song 50 minute long 2018 album “Attention Attention” has got attention for the hit, but after that… “Devil” has 8 million streams on Spotify, a bunch of the album cuts don’t even break a million.

And it’s true, some heritage and niche acts have new albums with a relatively even number of streams, but that number is POSITIVELY ANEMIC! Meaning the hard core fans are streaming the whole thing and everybody else is ignoring it.

You can spend 23 minutes listening to Kanye’s new LP and be an expert, express your opinion, weigh in. But to have an opinion on almost anybody else, you’ve got to spend an hour listening to mostly crappy music. Furthermore, music seeps into your brain with repetition, and the shorter something is, the more times you can play it, and end up loving it.

This is big news. Hip-hop is pushing the envelope when it comes to format, which is another reason why it’s winning.

You can get on board now or be permanently left behind.

I listened to Ry Cooder’s new album. It doesn’t sound like anything else in the marketplace.

Then again he never did.

But back in the seventies you needed a major label to play, which he had, and he was the beneficiary of the Warner/Reprise Loss Leaders, double album samplers for two bucks. And with fewer records in the marketplace, he got press attention, although little airplay, and he built a career.

Today, today everybody’s chasing trends. In an era where the barrier to entry is low and there are so many media messages the consumer is overwhelmed.

What to do?
Run to the fringe!

Now this is not for the wannabe, this is not for the faint of heart, this is for the lifers, the truly dedicated who believe in themselves. Forget everything you’ve heard, all the metrics, the data, the social media hype, you’ve got to focus first and foremost on the music. It must sound DIFFERENT from everything else in the marketplace. Now, don’t change your sound to be different, you’ve got to be different to begin with, you’ve got to have a VISION, your time is NOW!

That’s right, if you’re experimenting, if you know where you want to go, if you don’t sound like the Top 40 or any radio format, this is your time, the people are hungry for you.

You see, today is the beginning of a burgeoning UNDERGROUND!

The anti.

Don’t confuse this with the long tail. We’re not talking marginal niche. We’re talking something that could explode if everybody heard it. Which they won’t immediately, because that’s not how hype works. What we’re talking about is something that starts slow but burns hot. That gains adherents immediately. Passionate ones, who support you. Something that you only need to hear once, or maybe twice, to be converted. This was the Beatles. This was Queen. This was Hendrix. This was seemingly every legendary act of yore.

Whereas today we’re loaded up with Me Too acts.

Playing pop.

Pursuing rap.

Making metal.

If you’re easily classifiable, forget it, it’s about the UNCLASSIFIABLE!

And my goal here is not to inspire those who are nowhere, but to encourage those who feel defeated because they don’t fit in.

We lived in a monoculture in the MTV era. Before that we weren’t all listening to the same thing. And the irony is, now we’re not listening to the same thing anymore either. Despite all the Kanye hype, despite all the hype about Beyonce at Coachella, many people are not paying attention and don’t even know their music. As for the white rock acts, their audience is even smaller. And I’m not telling you the new left field music will be even bigger than they are, then again Hendrix was never on the Top 40, Bobby Sherman was much bigger.

You don’t create a new search engine. You don’t create a new social network. You don’t create a new shopping site. You don’t create a new dating site. BECAUSE THEY’VE ALREADY BEEN DONE! Why are you replicating the music that’s already out there? Business people don’t do this. Artists should be leaders. And just that, artists as opposed to business people. Artists test limits, go to unexplored areas, wait for the public to catch up with them, as opposed to being lowest common denominator trendmongers.

It can happen. And it will happen. It’s just a matter of when.

We had the Wise owl.
The commercial is probably somewhere on YouTube. I remember seeing it on Saturday morning, during cartoons, Wise was the potato chip of choice.

And it came in a bag with said owl and blue coloring. Do they still make Wise? I hope so, I’d like some, you see… Back then we were turned off by the brown spots, THE GREEN SPOTS, but we ultimately came to learn…

Those were the best parts.

Wise was replaced by Lay’s, with a humongous advertising campaign. The chips were not perfect, not like Pringles, but they were sans major brown and green spots and suddenly, Lay’s were what you bought, kinda like Budweiser, before the craft beer revolution.

And that’s what this is all about, the potato chip revolution, but before we get there, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Charles, as in Charles Chips. A deliveryman came to your door every Friday afternoon. First, just chips. Then pretzels. Eventually cookies. They’d come in a tin. A giant one, in case of the chips. And you’d sit there eating them to your heart’s content. I like to eat until satiation, don’t you? Forget the social x-rays, the anorexics, who are constantly starving, holding back from eating. Then there are those telling us not to overdo it… I LIVE TO OVERDO IT! If it’s worth doing, I want to do it to excess. You name it, eating, skiing, music… Hell, that’s one of the reasons I had to give up drinking. That and the law…

And I can’t say Charles Chips were as memorable as Wise. But then came the aforementioned craft chip revolution. The small batch, small bag, expensive, supposedly handmade items.

Why do they come in such small bags? This is where Costco is a godsend.

And the flavors!

But before that we have to get to the ridges. Good for dip, good for chips? I’m not so sure. I like chips with or without condiments. But I see ridges as a separate category, kinda like a subset of religion. Kinda like Reform Judaism chips as opposed to Orthodox. And the difference between those two branches of Judaism has to do with the degree you practice traditions. I’m a Reform Jew, but I’m an Orthodox chip eater.

But they’re bad for you, so I see them as a treat.

But everything that is bad for us we used to eat with impunity. Summer meant french fries, at the beach. Ice cream every day. No one eats all that stuff anymore, unless…

They live in the hinterlands and haven’t gotten the message and aren’t worried about judgment.

But then there’s health. This stuff catches up with you. The nephrologist said I had heart disease. Wha??? But then I realized that scan Dr. Karlsberg performed… Yes, I have some plaque, I’m better than 60% of the men my age, but the other 40%..? What did they do, is it genetics?? I don’t know. But I do know I’m gonna die, and the older I get, the more I want it to be later rather than sooner.

And I cannot eat just one. So, I hold back.

But when the dam breaks…

Usually at a party. Kate used to have one every holiday, Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day, and she always bought chips, and I always scarfed them down, you’ve got to live a little, right?

But I try to hold back.

But today…

We’re visiting Felice’s mom, who’s recovering from back surgery, and we’re out on the deck and Felice breaks out a bag of Kettle chips…and they’re the dreaded sea salt and vinegar variety…and…

Coatings, tastes, some of them are ridiculous, they don’t appear in the wild, but sea salt and vinegar…I can see a sailor on old Cape Cod, staring into the wind, all piss and vinegar, with some salt thrown in from the spraying water.

And this is when I get back to Pringles. Potato chips in a can. All perfect. That’s so last century. Modern architecture, everything was slimmed down, excess was excised, we didn’t need orange juice, we had TANG!

And then, there was a backlash, we wanted to go back to our roots, the country, artisan. And although this eventually got Chipotle in trouble, I’ve never heard of someone getting sick from a potato chip.

And I see the bag and…

It’s like being an alcoholic. You can’t resist. But it’s not alcohol, can I have just one?

I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna take the plunge.

So I insert may hand into the bag and forage for an intact chip, I love the remnants at the end of a bag, but in this case, if I’m only having one…

And the next debate is whether to daintily consume it, or put the whole chip in my mouth at once.

I decide on the latter behavior.

And when the flavor hits my taste buds…

I’m brought back to old Cape Cod. To Wise. To Charles Chips. To every potato chip I’ve ever eaten. I’m thinking how the little moments make life worth living. I’m staring out at the ocean and I’m saying…

This is as good as it gets.

Wise commercial

Charles Chips