He was broke before Gaga, his wife pawned her ring, he was struggling, and then…

This was after going to Job Corps for a year and getting his GED, working for DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince after getting a record deal and failing. He was a concert promoter, he met Puffy, he interned for the Bad Boy, and what was his one big break…HE DIDN’T HAVE ONE!

You think it’s about getting that job, meeting that person, that your life will work if you do, but usually…

It does not, you just have to keep on keepin’ on.

Being Lassiter’s assistant and listening in on his phone calls gave Troy an education, he learned that it’s not all business, that you’ve got to be a person first, and be liked.

And after managing Eve and selling out to Sanctuary and going independent once again, Troy met Gaga and won.

But it wasn’t easy, cowriters and the label wouldn’t let her keep her best songs, he had to fight for that. And they had to prove to radio she was a hit via socials. But once it started to happen…

Troy was called up to Silicon Valley where he met the truly rich. Where no one would look him in the eye in a sea of Asperger’s, and it was not a zero sum game, but one where everybody could win, and then he came back to L.A. and started working at Spotify.

Well, that’s a fast overview of an almost twenty year career, and he was only spending two days a week in the Valley, but Troy believes the good times are just beginning, there’s a lot more people to reach with music, and the data doesn’t lie, it’s all about personalization, making people feel the site is a club they want to belong to, and helping artists along the way. By paying them every month and…

That’s right, artists need cash, and Spotify can provide it, providing an intermediary doesn’t get in the way. Times are changing. Labels, managers and streaming companies will not look the same in ten years. Spotify is connecting tours and superfans to sell tickets. Radio is fading, the majors still play to it, but is it to their advantage?

It’s all about where we are going, not where we’ve been, one must not think with the old mind-set, with the old metrics, the first week means nothing and a million streams is nowhere. But Spotify editors are finding unsigned acts to trumpet constantly, and Troy’s phone is ringing with labels that want to sign them.

And…

Troy sat there for two hours, answered not only my questions, but those of the audience, he was open and honest, and if you think that Spotify is the devil…

You shoulda been here.

P.S. Troy got the biggest response when he said that Netflix was kicking the music industry’s butt. He meets with labels who keep telling him about acts they’ve broken. And then Troy tells them to get a car and drop said act in front of a school and see what happens when another car pulls up with a cast member of “Stranger Things,” all the students are gonna rush to the actor. That’s right, those kids are ubiquitous, known by everybody, the supposed new hit acts…not so much.

A woman speaks truth to power and…

The right wing excoriates her and the left wing apologizes for her.

THIS IS HOW WE GOT HERE!

America can’t handle the truth, at least this is what the media believes, until a businessman becomes President by appealing to racists and misogynists and instead of analyzing his success, reporters kowtow to this same minority instead of acknowledging that despite talking heads’ huge salaries most Americans are suffering, worried about their future, and speaking the truth about that.

They attack us, but we can’t attack them.

That’s the lesson we learned last night. Somehow, the Administration is off limits, while the pussy-grabber in chief excoriates everyone not on his team on Twitter every damn day, and never forget, HE GOT ELECTED!

Meanwhile, the Democrats take the bait, they debate whether Nancy Pelosi has to go and keep talking about Hillary, which is like continuing to discuss the girl who dissed you at the dance and then moved away, WHY?

The fact that Michelle Wolf’s routine is national news speaks to the power of truth, she skewered everybody, even the news media itself, triumphing financially via Trump, and all we get are stories how she was out of line.

To tell you the truth, she wasn’t that funny, and I’m a fan of her HBO show, but rather than fall on her sword, like Kathy Griffin, she’s doubling-down, responding to her haters on Twitter, THIS IS HOW Y0U WIN!

Those who appeal to everybody appeal to nobody.

We don’t live in one great big tent, it is not a Great Society, everybody’s high on opioids because a pharmaceutical company lied and had to get rich, but somehow it’s the user’s problem, by time we’re done all we’ve got is the rich and the poor and it’s your problem if you’re poor, and you know you want to be rich, admit it, you envy them, at least that’s what they want you to believe.

They want to keep you down. As far as that leg up, now they’re cutting the support from that stool known as education. Public education, BAD! Teachers’ unions, BAD! Taxes, BAD AND WASTED! What is the end goal here, a world where it’s every person for themselves with no compassion? A return to serfdom?

No health insurance, you have the right not to buy it!

Everybody gets a gun, to protect them from the government!

Meanwhile, the only ones with freedom are the rich and powerful who excoriate you if you raise your voice.

You’ve got to learn from Fox News. When you’re attacked, don’t fold, don’t play into the hands of critics, if you believe your message, stand your ground, that’s how you gain adherents. And with successful shows not even reaching a thirtieth of the population if you think you need everybody on board to win, you couldn’t be more wrong.

Now I’m not talking about a drive-by, like Kanye’s quips. Kanye is like Trump, he’s doing it for attention, hell, both he and Trump may be mentally ill. But if you’ve got something to say, and you believe in it, let your freak flag fly. The fact that others can’t handle it just proves the point, you’ve struck a nerve.

This is about platforms, power and truth.

Coachella is irrelevant, Beyonce triumphs there and few know and even fewer see it. Hell, her performance was removed from YouTube, in an era where your enemy is obscurity you want to make your works available, you don’t want to miss your moment, believe me, Trump will say something insane soon and we’ll all forget about Michelle Wolf’s performance.

You climb the ladder, you pivot, this is what Michelle Wolf has done, from finance to writer to standup special. She paid her dues, in a world where everybody believes they should triumph right out of the box and if they don’t it’s the audience’s fault, somehow they didn’t get it, no one takes responsibility, everyone points fingers.

But now Michelle Wolf is a household name, for one news cycle she got everybody to pay attention, she bought a ticket, cashed it and now she’s got a career. If she made nice, there’d be no story.

So take your opportunity. Don’t bunt, swing for the fences.

And if you’ve been wronged, don’t fall on your sword, stand up and fight. Hell, it’s not like women haven’t been abused for years, it’s just that when they stood up and said so en masse, the white men in power backed down.

For a while anyway.

The fight is constant. They want you to blink. They want you to second-guess yourself. They want to define the game.

But success comes from blazing your own path, and truth cuts like a knife through butter. Somehow Kellyanne and Sarah get to lie every day, obfuscate with the nation in the balance, and they’re untouchable?

NO WAY!

A Pirate Looks At Forty – Spotify

One song can make a career.

And it’s not “Margaritaville,” the anthem of good times, it’s “A Pirate Looks At Forty.”

F. was from Tallahassee, back before hanging chads and FSU championship teams. Back then it was more like Georgia than Miami, probably still is, haven’t been there for decades, but for a while I experienced it, and Florida is different.

She drove to L.A. with “Hard Nose The Highway” and “A1A,” she testified about Jimmy Buffett and I thought he was just the wimpy guy singing “Come Monday,” boy was I wrong. Then again, I had no idea what A1A was, probably most of you still don’t, but if you watch “Bloodline” you realize there’s a whole ‘nother lifestyle out there, far from the city rat race, it’s tempting, but beware, it’s populated with drinking and bad behavior, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Oh, who am I kidding, that’s how you get in trouble, and sometimes it goes on your permanent record.

Now we never played the “A1A” 8-track in F.’s car, because we rarely drove in her Mazda, and I didn’t want to listen to it anyway. But when I saw “Son Of A Son Of A Sailor” in the promo bin at the record store, I bought it for her, and got hooked on the title track. It felt like a lifestyle I’d led in the hinterlands, far from the fast lane, where you know everybody and pursue a dream that seems far from the mainstream, but which is everything to you. The mountains, the water, they call to you. To this day, when I see mountains my heart pitter-patters, they promise adventure.

And that album contains the hit “Cheeseburger In Paradise,” but I didn’t become a certified Parrothead until the double live album follow-up “You Had To Be There,” wherein Jimmy changes the lyrics of the opening cut, the aforementioned “Son Of A Son Of A Sailor,” singing that his cast is no blast and it feels like he’s pulling a trailer and you instantly become a fan, of a man who’s willing to mix it up and show some personality. And that double LP is full of hits and humor, stories, and the definitive version of “A Pirate Looks At Forty,” it’s the one that closed me, that pushed me over to the dark side, that made me a fan.

“I wrote this for an old friend of mine down in Key West who just couldn’t quite find his occupation here in the twentieth century, couldn’t work at Sears…”

I can’t find mine in the twenty first.

Actually, they sold us a bill of goods back in the twentieth, told us we could be all we wanted to be before we found out life was hard and we had to sell out, even though we didn’t want to. We did, and have regretted it ever since, it’s why we go to the shows of the classic rock acts, to remind us of what once could be.

Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call
Wanted to sail upon your waters since I was three feet tall

Some of us want to be firemen, others nurses or sanitary engineers, but usually we cast aside childhood dreams, but a few of us don’t, we get an urge, we get a desire, and it sticks with us.

Watched the men who rode you switch from sails to steam

It’s all about the passage of time, it’s the secret of life according to James Taylor, you think you matter but you don’t, you’re just part of a long continuum, the only thing that’s constant is change, evolution.

Yes I am a pirate, two hundred years too late
The cannons don’t thunder, there’s nothing to plunder
I’m an over forty victim of fate

Ever think you missed your moment? Or that your moment never was? You can see it clearly in your brain, but you just can’t touch it. It’s like being a beatnik in the twenty first century, when no one can afford to be.

And I have been drunk now for over two weeks
I passed out and I rallied and I sprung a few leaks

They drink in Tallahassee. I learned how to do this in Vermont. Back before the attention economy, when we had time to kill, Catskill, and didn’t know how to fill it, when we bought Michelob on the weekends and Schlitz on the weekdays and strove to have the night of our lives as we sipped and discovered we never had it, although we did have some good times. But the southerners were not ragers, it was more of a lifestyle, you drank to cope.

I used to drink to cope.

And so did F.

And there were good times and bad times, just like in that Led Zeppelin song. Laughing and crying, it’s the same release. You’re eating Mexican food in the Valley snuggling and storytelling and then you’re home staring at the ceiling arguing in bed, could switch just that fast, that’s the power of alcohol.

I go for younger women, lived with several a while

This line emanated from my radio as I pulled away from the Bel-Air Hotel after midnight tonight, my stereo was on the Margaritaville channel, where I’d been listening to a live Jimmy Buffett concert on the drive over, I loved hearing Mac McAnally sing “That’s Where I Come From,” Jimmy’s always featured players in his band, and Mac is one of the best.

And I knew the songs streaming out of the stereo on the way over, but long after dark it was “A Pirate Looks At Forty” that set my mind adrift.

Jimmy’s built an empire on it. He’s convinced a plethora of people if they come to his show they can forget about their life for a while and dream of a better one, full of fun, where they’re desirable and happy and everything works out.

Though I ran ’em away, they’d come back one day
Still could manage to smile
Just takes a while, just takes a while

He’s living the dream, punching above his weight, achieving the impossible, flying on a wing and a prayer, his personality and his smarts, his charisma, are delivering what those playing the game cannot get, he’s a screw-up, but he’s irresistible, don’t we all want to be this pirate at forty, fifty or sixty?

Mother, mother ocean, after all the years I’ve found
My occupational hazard being my occupation’s just not around
I feel like I’ve drowned, gonna head uptown
I feel like I’ve drowned, gonna head uptown

Maybe he’s blown not only his chance, but his life, but still…

He’s gonna continue to march forward. Because that’s all you can do in life, keep on keepin’ on.

While the powerful and popular are purveying platitudes, Jimmy Buffett is speaking truth, and it’s truth that resonates and pays dividends. You think your fine automobile and billfold will get you what you want, but life is not two-dimensional, it’s all about who you are. Character is king.

Eventually we broke up, after too many long drunken nights.

But the alcohol remained, until I got into too much trouble and had to stop, and I’ve never taken another sip, not that that was the plan, I just had to pull myself up from the hole I’d fallen into. And when I’d done this, I’d gained perspective.

But I never forgot where I once was. Sure, I marveled that I survived, how many mornings did I run out to see if my car was in one piece, and I’m not proud of these stories, but they happened, and if I want to revisit those days I listen to “A Pirate Looks At Forty.”

I’m not really a pirate, and I’m no longer forty, and at times I feel a failure and at others a winner, but when I listen to this record I know I can keep putting one foot in front of the other.

And that’s all you can do.

Head uptown and get drunk, even if it’s on Vitamin Water.

Where Have All The Good Times Gone – Spotify

I heard Bowie’s version on Deep Tracks the other night.

I was driving in the dark, on the twisty roads in the hills, and it sounded so good.

It never sounded that good before.

I bought “PinUps” and was sorely disappointed. You see I’d gotten in early, for an American, I’d been in London and Ziggy was blowing up and I bought the album and saw the band at Boston’s Music Hall before most people had any idea who he was, in less than two years he played Madison Square Garden, I was there too, but this was when it was a badge of honor to be in the know and you followed bands on the way up, Bowie ascended faster than most.

And to be honest, I found “Aladdin Sane” a disappointment. But can I say my favorite cut on that LP is the closer, the slowly-building anthem “Lady Grinning Soul”? No one ever talks about that one.

And “Diamond Dogs” was a gutter move, playing to the masses, an almost lowest common denominator endeavor that made you wonder if Bowie would ever return to form.

And then came “Young Americans.” A totally different sound, a surprise. And I still cannot listen to its biggest hit “Fame,” although I will tolerate the title track. The groove of “Fascination” hooks me, but my absolute favorite is the second side opener “Somebody Up There Likes Me. It’s the longest cut on the album, at 6:36, it starts off with a flourish, announcing the arrival of the king, and then Bowie starts to croon with emphasis, a unique combo of Englishman and James Brown, and as the track unfolds you cannot help but get on board, as Bowie gets ever more intense, throws in everything but the kitchen sink, and then you’re smiling and thrusting your arm in the air and…

That is not “PinUps.”

The problem with “PinUps” is the renditions are faithful. I thought he’d redo the originals, make them his own, but they were mostly pale imitations of his influences, sans magic. This was no Joe Cocker or Bryan Ferry reinventing what once was, this was a throwaway, which I’d paid good money for, making it so I couldn’t buy something else, and although I’m a completist, or was, before the internet, needing to own everything, I rarely spun it and was angry about it until the other night.

But the truth is even the Van Halen cover is better, that’s become the standard these days. Also kind of a cheap shot, the Dave influence, but the originals made up for the obvious remakes, then again, the band started with “You Really Got Me,” and both were Kinks songs.

The Kinks…

They were on Warner Brothers before the label became iconic. They had giant hit singles on the radio when few people bought albums, as a matter of fact, all I had was the “Greatest Hits.” Then they stopped touring and really didn’t come back until 1970 and “Arthur” and “Victoria.” And ultimately Clive Davis made them a hit act, touring arenas, on Arista, but that was something different, that was after all the “plays,” that was after Ray Davies went on his personal hejira that most people were not paying attention to, but if you were…

Now my favorite sync on “The Sopranos,” other than Alabama 3’s opening cut, was the Kinks’ “I’m Not Like Everybody Else.” This was not the original, but a live rendition, from the U.S. version of the album “To The Bone,” which has disappeared into the ether, it’s on no streaming service, meaning you can’t hear the incredible title track either. Tony wasn’t like everybody else, that used to be the goal, individuality, and Ray Davies was and is an individual.

Now the original “I’m Not Like Everybody Else” is the b-side of the single of “Sunny Afternoon,” which does not get the props it deserves, it’s as modern today as it was back then.

And “Where Have All The Good Times Gone” was the b-side of “Till The End of the Day.”

Well, lived my life and never stopped to worry about a thing
Opened up and shouted out and never tried to sing
Wondering if I’d done wrong
Will this depression last for long

The same depression that seems to have driven Avicii to suicide.

You don’t hear about depression in today’s hit music, everybody’s a winner, how are you supposed to identify?

YOU CAN’T!

That’s why music has lost its hold on popular culture, why it is not the driver, you resonate more with the people on TV.

Well, once we had an easy ride and always felt the same
Time was on my side and I had everything to gain
Let it be like yesterday
Please let me have happy days

LET IT BE LIKE YESTERDAY! How many times have you wished that???

Ma and Pa look back at all the things they used to do
Didn’t have no money and they always told the truth
Daddy didn’t have no toys
But mummy didn’t need no boys

When you’ve got nothing, oftentimes you’ve got everything. Not worried about possessions, keeping up with the joneses, you’re living on your wits, truly honestly, the more comfort you get, the more you get distracted.

Well, yesterday was such an easy game for you to play
But let’s face it things are so much easier today
Guess you need some bringing down
To get your feet back on the ground

Kinda like “Positively 4th Street.” This is a diss track. But not for the person’s personality so much as their airs, their veneer needs to be punctured so they’ll float back to earth. John Lennon did this, most famously re Paul McCartney. The English didn’t want anybody to be too big for their britches, especially if they came from nothing, like most musicians.

And now it’s no different from how it once was, in that everybody keeps wondering where have all the good times gone, people think technology killed society and they just want to go back to what once was, only in this case no one in their twenties is offering this insight, this wisdom.

Won’t you tell me, where have all the good times gone, when pop musicians had a brain and offered insight far beyond their years.

“I’m Not Like Everybody Else” (Sopranos version)