It seems we all live so close to that line
And so far from satisfaction

“Song For Sharon”
Joni Mitchell

It’s hard to be an aging rocker. If you’ve got a fanbase, you can play your old hits in sheds, maybe arenas if you’re lucky, do endorsement deals, hell, even Iggy Pop has a clothing line, and live on the fumes, albeit financially lucrative fumes. But if you’re a fan…

I first met Gary Stewart in the Rhino Records store on Westwood Boulevard. It was a legendary place, because not only did they make recommendations, they’d insult you too, commenting on your taste. But if you went there long enough, you got to know Harold and Jeff and Gary.

And all three went on to further success. Harold Bronson created the Rhino Records label and with his partner Richard Foos they became the kings of reissues. And sometimes new stuff. They rereleased the Billy & the Beaters album, when the single “At This Moment” got airplay on TV. Harold was debating sending his gold record back to the RIAA, because the album never quite broke 500,000. That’s the kind of vibe that permeated the company, one of humor and seeing things from a skewed viewpoint. No one was puffed up, there was no attitude, and employees felt like it was home.

Jeff Gold went on to be a majordomo at A&M and Warner and then became the expert on rare records and memorabilia. He was into it from the beginning. Hell, he bid for a guest spot on “Seinfeld,” and you can see him sitting in the shvitz, and he also took a script that he gifted me.

And Gary Stewart…

Graduated from the Rhino store to the label, and I remember just after he got his job, being on the A&M lot, Gary pulling up in his car, thrilled that he had this new job, and giving me a copy of each title from his trunk.

Gary got excited. But he also liked to split the hairs. Sure, he was friendly, but if you wanted to argue about minutiae, he was the guy.

And eventually he graduated to Apple, and then went out on his own, and then back to Apple. And when you went out, you saw him. And he always got into it with you immediately. He’d ask if you were going to the gig. He’d tell you to go to this other gig. I remember him telling me I had to see Jason Isbell. But whenever you bumped into him, it was never casual, you just fell right back into the groove.

And one year I went to his Christmas “Losers Party.” Talk about a record collection! It snaked throughout the entire house. And there were a lot of women there, but I never knew Gary to have a girlfriend. But everybody knew him. I remember twenty years ago, at the beginning of the internet, on Match.com, when it was still free, I got into a conversation with a woman and when I told her I was in the music business she asked me if I knew Gary Stewart. That was him, interacting, being known, out and about.

But now he’s no longer with us.

His second stint at Apple ended last year and he was confronted with the question…WHAT DO I DO NOW?

It’s hard to stay in the music business, where people are willing to work for free, and those without families 24/7. If you’re in touring, you can have a lifetime career. But if you’re in recordings? They throw you on the scrapheap and replace you without thinking twice.

Now when this happened in the eighties, you went into the video business.

And when this happened in the nineties, you went into real estate.

But now there’s no longer a video business. And real estate is really competitive. So what do you do?

Go independent. But the rewards are slimmer than ever. I tell these people to give up, get a straight job, but they lose everything and still try to promote records, that you’ve never heard of. Hell, the classic acts selling tickets have got no chance of succeeding with new music, what are the odds for these acts?

Some get regular jobs. And they adjust. They view their stint in the music business like going to college. Something they did long ago, that yielded stories and good times, but is now over.

And I don’t know the exact details of what was in Gary’s mind. But my source says he was depressed, and seeing a therapist and on medication, and was open about it.

But it still didn’t make a difference.

When you’re so down, it’s hard to ask for help. A zillion people would have stopped by Gary’s house if they’d known. But they didn’t. And the truth is now more than ever, everybody’s caught up in their own little world, focused on themselves, and when someone passes, the Earth still spins, people go on with their lives.

You get a text, or an e-mail, completely out of the blue. That’s how it always happens. Sure, some people are sick and in decline, but others… You know, like the rock stars who O.D. Like Tom Petty. Playing the Hollywood Bowl one week, deceased the next.

And the details are so horrific. Jumping at midnight from a parking garage. Imagine the torture, the state of mind. And then imagine the thoughts while you’re falling. And that parking garage ain’t that tall, maybe eight stories, what happens when you…

But Gary died.

A woman I knew just drowned herself
The well was deep and muddy
She was just shaking off futility
Or punishing somebody
My friends were calling up all day yesterday
All emotions and abstractions

On Twitter. Then obits at the end of the day in “Billboard,” and “Deadline” and “Variety” and the L.A. “Times.” If only Gary had seen the love.

But he won’t. Death is final.

And then I got a DM this afternoon that Bobby Gale was killed in a car wreck, last night coming home from a gig in Montreal.

I met Bobby the first time I went to Toronto, in ’89. He’d graduated from being a deejay to working promo for Polygram. Bobby was so passionate, and the kind of guy I connected with, that I could talk to.

But then his wife left him and his bank account was nearly empty…

But Bobby soldiered on. Never losing the passion. Always working independent records. Going back to radio, sending me the playlist. I won’t say Bobby was ecstatic, but he was devoted, he still believed. God, if I knew he was gonna pass I would have had Bryan Ferry call him. Bryan was his idol, he fashioned his look to imitate him, all these years later, still.

Now earlier today I was listening to a seventies rock playlist on Apple Music. One with some deeper cuts beyond the hits, but I knew every song by heart. And listening on headphones…I was astounded how good they sounded. Listen to the Eagles’ “Out On The Border,” with the guitar parts in each ear, whew! And it’s not even one of my favorite Eagles songs. And Rod Stewart’s version of “(I Know) I’m Losing You.” God, the keyboard intro.

And last night on the satellite I heard “Miss You.” Most disco has been forgotten, but ironically the rockers’ foray still stands.

And I was thinking about rockers crossing over into hip-hop today. Old acts, established acts, not new ones. People would laugh, they’d be excoriated.

And we read all about hip-hop, but there are so many people lost, who are not fans of those beats, wondering how to discover new music. And how many times can you see the warhorses trot out their old material anyway.

So you spin the old records and…

What?

You watch TV. Maybe get into food and…

There’s no place for the record junkies anymore, certainly not “Record Store Day.” That’s all about collectibles. Going to the record store used to be a religious experience. You came home, broke the shrinkwrap and heard notes you’d never heard before. Speaking of the Eagles, I bought “Hotel California” on the day it came out. And played it on my giant stereo I’d purchased less than a month before. With the JBL L100s and the Technics direct drive turntable and two channels of 110 watt power from the Sansui integrated amp, that sound was pure, it was before the loudness wars.

I was shocked. I was instantly into it.

Your discovery happened in your bedroom.

But now… You’ve heard the tunes already online, and most people’s stereos are a joke.

And you read the magazines, you were hungry for information. You were interested in what the players had to SAY! No one did endorsements, sponsorships were taboo, it messed with the music.

And you went to see bands no one had ever heard of in clubs, and you followed them into bigger rooms, if they ever got there.

You were tuned in. Music was everything.

But it’s not like that today.

It could come back, but maybe not.

I was talking to Jack Douglas the other day and he was saying how early sixties music sucked, where was Chuck Berry? And then came the Beatles.

We’re still waiting. The last time we had that spirit here was in 1991, with the release of Nirvana’s “Nevermind.”

And the last hurrah was Alanis Morissette’s “Jagged Little Pill,” back in ’95, but just recently a female writer criticized the album for being out of touch with the times, the woman not having power, but what’s wrong with giving head in a theatre?

We’ve scrubbed all the rough edges from the music. There could be no Aerosmith or Led Zeppelin today. And if you want to compare Ariana Grande or Rihanna to them, you’re probably at Coachella people-watching, where the music is secondary.

Yes, times have changed.

And some of us just can’t handle it.

It appears Gary Stewart could not.

But he will be remembered for his passion for the music, creating all those boxed sets, curation being king.

As Bad Company, an act he probably hated, once so simply sang:

I’m gonna live for the music
Give it everything you got
Live for the music
You know you’re gonna find a lot
To ease your mind

That was Gary Stewart.

Gary Stewart – Spotify

Yes, today, and every Thursday hereafter!

I’ve switched distributors from TuneIn to iHeart, but now we’re up and running with a bunch in the can and I know you will be titillated and delighted with the new content.

This week’s guest…Billy Bragg.

Yes, you know the name, but do you know the man?

You’d love to have him for dinner. He’s the anti-musician, very articulate with viewpoints explained and you’ll be reaching for his records when he’s done.

The podcast is available from all your regular distributors…

Ladies and gentlemen, start your listening!

Bob

Much ado about nothing.

Somebody not thinking twice at “Billboard” decides it’s not country and suddenly the entirety of country music is racist.

It might be, but the exclusion of “Old Town Road” is not evidence of that.

Oh, come on. Listen to the track, does it sound like country to you? Should Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus” have been included on the classical chart?

And the truth is the charts are obsolete. As is radio, which they serve.

Billie Eilish made it with no radio at all. Maybe that’ll shut up all the wankers who e-mail me the over-the-air format is still burgeoning. Not when the younger generation wants nothing to do with it, not when it’s a reactive format as opposed to a risk-taking format. Yup, radio used to break records, now it wants proof before it adds them, and keeps playing those that are successful ad infinitum. If you’re listening to terrestrial music radio you must be brain dead.

The only chart that matters is the streaming one.

But “Billboard” even screws that one up. Leavening in sales. Using a ridiculous metric wherein x number of streams equates with a sale, which is kind of like saying x number of car miles are equivalent to x furlongs covered by a horse. Times changed, the future is here, why can’t the industry and its chart catch up with it?

Because radio and labels don’t want it to. They want to be able to brag about chart position, when the truth is it’s all about the Benjamins and building careers. Look at all the albums labels push to number one that immediately crater. Can you name one track off the last Paul McCartney album? I can’t even remember its name! Yet it entered the chart at number one.

This isn’t about racism, this is about publicity. Lil Nas X and his handlers are laughing all the way to the bank. This is equivalent to Ozzy biting off the head of a bat or Van Halen and the brown M&Ms. Something too whacked to be true popularized by the media that builds the band’s brand.

Come on, would you have heard of “Old Town Road” if there wasn’t this chart brouhaha? Probably not. And now that you’ve listened, do you have to hear it again? This is the number one track in America right now, and it’s little more than a novelty, equivalent to a ride on one of those horses in front of the supermarket. Hell, if you’re singing while riding one of those do you get to be on the country chart?

And country radio ain’t never gonna play “Old Town Road” anyway.

Complain all you want, about Florida Georgia Line and the rest of Nashville appropriating hip-hop influences. Laugh that hip-hop has such power. Cry that the TR-808 drum sound has infected country now too. Where is music that’s alive, that breathes?

This is kinda like asking Top Forty radio to play klezmer music. Hell, “Baby Shark” climbed the “Billboard” chart, I didn’t see it being played on radio. Then again, that’s another illustration of what’s wrong with the “Billboard” singles chart. You mix in sales, streams and radio? How does that work? If you want to know what’s being played on radio, go to Mediabase. If you want to know what’s being streamed, go to Spotify or YouTube. Case closed.

But that’s America today. Everybody’s motive is being questioned.

And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t stand up when you’re unfairly treated. But this was an off-the-cuff “Billboard” decision to exclude it, YOU’D HAVE MADE THE SAME CHOICE!

Which is why people are afraid of standing up and speaking their truth, they’re gonna be shouted down by the crowd. The tyranny of social media is what’s shutting people up. Meanwhile, we’ve got a President who says whatever he wants and got elected by doing that.

Play this song for a hundred random people and ask them if it’s country.

I’ll bet my bippy that not a single one will claim it is!

But evidence of its exclusion is proof of country racism.

As for Billy Ray Cyrus, he hasn’t had a hit in eons. If Debbie Gibson raps on a track and radio doesn’t play it does that mean the station hates women?

Have a sense of humor here folks. Don’t be so knee-jerk. This isn’t even a tempest in a teapot. It’s just another blown-up story in the endless tsunami of crap we encounter online every day. That’s the internet, where that which matters is mixed in with that which doesn’t and people have no idea of the truth and based on these false/fake/fakokta reports, they’re misinformed and testifying wrongly.

Let’s move on.

PLEASE!

Old Town Road

How’d he go from zero to hero overnight?

Identity, credibility, owning his viewpoints and expressing them.

Sound like a rock star? That’s what they used to have before everybody wanted to be a brand, when the penumbra became more important than the music.

The identity… You practiced, you didn’t emerge out of nowhere fully-formed. Duane Allman even took his guitar to the bathroom. It’s what you do when no one’s looking that counts. And the rock stars of yore specialized in saying no as opposed to yes. You couldn’t convince ’em and you couldn’t buy ’em and they channeled their songs from the heart.

The media has been wrong again and again. It said that Biden was a shoo-in and Bernie was too old. Anybody who follows Joe knows he has a tendency to blow himself up, and he’s mishandled this #MeToo/touching affair… You get two choices, deny or apologize. Anywhere in between does not register, we do not believe it, we cannot accept it.

And they said that Hickenlooper’s name was too tough, a hazard.

And they said a black man couldn’t win.

But now we’ve got a gay mayor who’s captured the hearts of the people.

Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist, don’t tell me you’re a Republican and you hate Buttigieg, you’re missing the point, you’re part of the problem. The point here is the media was out of touch and wrong.

Everybody keeps saying social media is the problem… What about the mainstream media? Not the one Sarah Palin attacked, but the one that is holier-than-thou and thinks it knows what’s going on when it doesn’t.

The story of the week is the expose on the Murdochs in the “New York Times Magazine.” How they could waste a year and deliver so little at such length is beyond me, but the article did illustrate the power of the media… As in “The Sun” might have pushed Brexit over the line. And when you tune in Fox News, it’s like an alternative universe. The conspiracy is on the left, to bring down Trump, and the result of the Mueller report should be a special prosecutor, to look into the Dems’ heinous behavior. Yup, they actually said this. And if you watch, you believe. Hell, you believed all the stuff your parents told you, didn’t you?

We live in a misinformation society. The TV is all talking heads, analyzing what the newspapers break, and the papers have their heads up their tushies and can’t see what is truly happening, they’ve got blind spots, they live in an echo chamber. No reporter’s got a name, so they’re not subject to blowback. I know this because I get it. Say anything political online and you’re gonna hear from the trolls, but those pontificating for the big boys are clueless.

But in such a fractured media world, how did Buttigieg get traction?

Well, politics is the only movie we’re all paying attention to. I read “Shazam” won the weekend, I can’t tell you what it’s about and I don’t care, the title says it all. I think it’s some kind of superhero movie, a fantasy for the masses too dumb to know they’re pawns in the game.

As for records, we’ve got the curious case of Billie Eilish. I like everything about it but the tunes. I mean they’re all right, but this is what the industry comes up with? We used to come up with jaw-droppers on a regular basis. Now we’ve got people following in footsteps playing to ever narrower niches. Imagine if some act decided to play to everybody, by doing it in a new way. That was the story of the Beatles. Everybody was asleep, Capitol even passed on the first album, but Brian Epstein pushed and the band broke through. It always comes down to one person who believes and pushes, without them you never make it.

But today’s musical acts shoot low. As long as the Soundcloud/Spotify crew approves of them, they’re satiated as they sign up sponsors and create hair products.

And then you’ve got the curious case of Beyonce, who waited a year to release her rave-reviewed appearance at Coachella. What, is this 1969 and Woodstock? You strike when the buzz is hot. But no, they had to get the marketing right. He who delays loses these days.

My point is we’ve got no Buttigieg in the music business. Maybe Ed Sheeran, but all the media does is piss on him, mainly because he’s so successful. Goes with the territory these days, but he’s selling songs when everybody else is selling beats, and he sings from the heart, what a concept.

But what this all means is you too can be a hero overnight.

Used to be you had to align with the machine. But the machine has lost its way. In every entertainment medium. Everybody’s so calculating, that nothing rings true. That’s the story of Hillary Clinton, she just didn’t seem authentic. Oh, don’t tell me she was the most qualified person for the job, I think so too, but if this was about credentials, Trump never would have won, but he did.

By saying what no one else would. They can swear on HBO, but not in the “New York Times,” why? Trump uses the f-word, whose ears are we protecting?

So Buttigieg went to Harvard and served in Afghanistan with the Navy. Hard to argue with that CV. Oh, I’m sure Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson and Trump will, but that’s not the point. You can’t convince those whose minds are closed, but those whose minds are open…

And Buttigieg stood up to Pence, who keeps getting a pass despite views outside of the mainstream. Hell, give George Clooney credit for standing up to the Sultan of Brunei. You want to be stoned for being gay? It happens there first, and here later. Like anti-Semitism. We thought it was something in Europe, but now it’s in the open here. And some people shrug. But the point is no one is immune.

And Buttigieg is gay.

And most people don’t care.

Gen-X and millennials grew up with gay people on MTV. You see, the media has influence, young and middle-aged people have got no problem with gay people, only old set in their way and marginalized people do. That’s the conundrum of America, how we’re moving forward and backward at the same time. We’ve got computers in our hands, but we’re using them to spew hatred and argue like we’re in grade school in the last century. Does anybody remember PROGRESS?

I’d like not to think of politics all day. But it’s the only story we all watch and talk about. We’ve all got something at risk. We’re all afraid of what the future will bring, no matter what side of the spectrum you’re on.

We stopped paying attention to movies. They’re niche products for the marginalized.

As for TV… It may be a golden age, but it’s still a one way medium. They make it and you watch it and even “Game of Thrones” garners a relatively small audience.

And music is all niche. The only ones with universal mindshare are the classic acts

Because we’ve got no Buttigieg.

He didn’t change his name for consumption.

This ain’t Hollywood, this is real life.

And the question is, if the media missed Buttigieg, focusing on Biden, what else is the media missing?

Plenty.