Right Here, Right Now – Spotify

Right Here, Right Now – YouTube

I was alive and I waited, waited
I was alive and I waited for this

This song has been going through my brain all week. Maybe it was when I read about the Kentucky teachers following in the footsteps of those in West Virginia.

It was not supposed to be this way. The Wall fell and democracy was gonna reign, that’s what Jesus Jones’s “Right Here, Right Now” is all about.

The song was promoted by SBK, back when record companies were burgeoning, when new ones were being formed on a regular basis. With a crack promotion staff run by Daniel Glass, SBK made hits of one-offs no one else wanted to touch, like tracks by Technotronic and Vanilla Ice.

And Jesus Jones.

The fruit of a relationship with the U.K.’s Food Records.

And the irony is that “Right Here, Right Now” was not a big hit in the U.K.

But over here?

I remember going to see the band in Ackerman Hall at UCLA. The band lit into this number and heads exploded, the assembled multitude was freaking out like jumping beans, they just had to release that energy.

And SBK was folded into EMI which ultimately disappeared entirely.

As did Jesus Jones.

But it was not smooth sailing.

The internet came along and disrupted the music business.

And then movies and news, even though each of those industries refuses to read the memo.

There’s something happening here and it sure ain’t exactly clear.

Forget that the studios won’t go to day and date, the media missed Trump and now they’re missing what’s coming next. Gun control was supposedly impossible, and it’s not politics as usual.

A centrist Democrat wins in Pennsylvania and the analysis by the usual suspects is the party must run to the center, not understanding that this is how they got into this mess to begin with. Even I winced when Hillary Clinton said her favorite book was the Bible, who can believe in a liar like that? Whereas Bernie Sanders resonated with the heart and soul of the party, those who were not triangulating, those running on emotion, who felt the game was rigged and it’s better to turn over the table than try and fix it.

That’s what Trump ran on and won. He tapped into dissatisfaction.

And the dissatisfaction is rampant. As are the stories. The AP just detailed the failure of the tax cuts in Oklahoma. We’ve been sold a bill of goods, that those who are rich know better, are the job creators. Meanwhile, everybody in entertainment just wants to be rich too, not realizing that their power is in their voice, and that’s much more powerful than money.

So it was Ferguson. Then it was #MeToo. Now Parkland. The entire nation has been turned upside down.

A woman on the radio talked about revolution
When it’s already passed her by

The baby boomer establishment believes it’s still in charge. Feels that the story is fake news, the perils of technology, whereas those truly spearheading the revolt are using the tools of the future to get their message heard.

Bob Dylan didn’t have this to sing about

Dylan was complaining. We need complaints again. In our feel good nation all entertainment must be positive, characters must be likable, but the truth is we need interior resonance, which is how rap succeeded in the first place, by detailing the plight of the streets.

I saw the decade in, when it seemed
The world could change at the blink of an eye

It happens that fast, faster than ever before, that’s the power of the internet, this morning’s news is already passe by tonight.

Right here, right now
There is no other place I want to be

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Supreme Court was packed with righties, the Congress was controlled by Republicans, businessmen, the Kochs and Mercers were too influential.

AND THEN THE PEOPLE ROSE UP!

Right here, right now
Watching the world wake up from history

I don’t think we’re gonna get a protest song, one that dominates the culture, that we all can sing. First and foremost, today’s hit music is unsingable. Secondly, the music business is seen as whored-out. Hell, what else are “The Voice” and “Idol,” forget the contestants, what about the judges, the biggest stars in the industry couldn’t say no to more money and more exposure?

Meanwhile, the rank and file, the supposedly powerless, the generation that was all about selfies and self-promotion, united, rose up and got its voice heard. More eloquently than anybody in entertainment. As “stars” trumpet endorsement deals, promote everything from alcohol to luggage, the great unwashed took a page from their playbook and focused on the essence, the voice, the message and the performance.

It ain’t good. They pushed it almost to the wall.

But now we’re pushing back.

It’s better than any movie, any book, any song. You surf the sites, crack the newspaper, and there’s inspiration on every page.

I was alive and I waited, waited
I was alive and I waited for this

Right here, right now
There is no other place I want to be
Right here, right now
WATCHING THE WORLD WAKE UP FROM HISTORY

“Teacher Discontent Swells Over Proposed Cuts to Benefits”

“GOP confronts another failed tax experiment in Oklahoma”

There’s no buzz.

Last night I watched “Logan Lucky” on Amazon. That’s where the movies are now, since Netflix has gone into production. I ain’t gonna say it was great, it was paint-by-numbers, something Soderbergh has done before, and I expect more from him, but no one is talking about the film’s appearance on the service, I’ve gotten no e-mail, seen no tweets.

And then I caught some of Letterman’s Clooney interview on Netflix. Which was surprisingly good. After I crawled through the offerings to find it. And that’s when it hit me…

Virality is dead.

What I mean is the goal, especially since “Gangnam Style,” was to do something so out there, so extraordinary, that it would spread on the internet like wildfire and become a huge success.

But that paradigm is dead. We’ve all got too many marketing messages, too much product.

Look at music. You can get a review in the newspaper and there’s no effect. You can go on late night TV and there’s no effect. You can go on SNL and there’s no effect. UNLESS, you screw up. Kinda like that dog dying on United this week. We’re all ears and eyes for something unrelated to politics and entertainment, something that’s about humanity, and dogs are man’s best friend. But if it’s a usual suspect project, you hit a brick wall.

Now back in the last century film distributors advertised their wares heavily on television on Thursday nights. We thought it was superfluous, we already knew about the new releases. But now, if you don’t do this, you get no traction. That’s what happened with “Logan Lucky,” Soderbergh didn’t think he needed to spend, and he didn’t, the film’s ad budget was much smaller than its competition, and therefore the flick failed. Of course, there was the fact it wasn’t a superhero flick, but the word didn’t get out, you’ve got to get the word out.

Only you can’t. There’s no way to reach everybody!

Used to be printing the top ten in the newspaper got people interested.

But then these looky-loos realized they didn’t like the music featured and gave up. As for films, only one, at most two, films are successful each week, why go to see a loser, when there are new films next week?

So you can’t light a fire that ignites everybody.

But marketers still believe you can.

In music, what appears like virality, is oftentimes an after the fact clean-up victory lap. Like Cardi B and Post Malone. Yes, they ended up with a ton of media attention, but that was AFTER they were ALREADY a huge success online.

What this means is your ascension will be slower than ever before. Instant success is nearly impossible. And if it happens too fast, for whatever reason, you’ll fall back to earth almost quite as fast.

So there was a monoculture. That was what MTV in the last part of this century was all about. You get on the service and everybody knows your name.

Then the internet killed that and the key was to get everybody on the internet talking about something.

And that worked for a while.

But now, just like we no longer send jokes to each other in e-mail, we don’t forward cute videos or any of that crap, and if we do post them on our Facebook page most people ignore them, because they’re being dunned to pay attention all day long and they just ain’t got that much time.

So world domination is passe. You can’t even dominate the United States. They keep telling us what is big yet we haven’t heard about it, and the irony is we don’t care.

You’ve got to do the hard work and appeal to a core which sustains you. The rest is nearly unachievable and is gravy at best.

They came for the popsters, that’s the story of the last year, they all failed in the marketplace. Because there’s no there there, no built-in audience to spread the word.

And this was after they came for the rockers and every other genre other than hip-hop and country.

And hip-hop and country are their own backwaters, the BIGGEST genres, but they don’t spread outside their borders. Come on, remember when Shania Twain crossed over, from country to pop? Even Taylor Swift? Now both their new projects are dead in the water. As for live business, that’s about hard core fans, look at Gaga, she hasn’t had a hit in eons, and many fewer people are required to sell out venues than to dominate in the cultural discourse.

We’ve all hit a wall.

The question is whether we’re looking to be directed, does the public want to be told what to watch and listen, or is it happy in the niches?

We’re in a transition period.

But if you expect your project to spread like wildfire, nearly instantly, to all people.

You’re dreaming.

Come on home girl, he said with a smile
You don’t have to love me yet, let’s get high for a while
But try to understand, try to understand
Try, try, try to understand, he’s a magic man

It was 1976 and FM ruled. Everybody had a dual-band radio in their car, with maybe an 8-track under the dash. Lee Abrams had codified FM and the entire nation was listening, radio was truly the heartbeat of America. There were English bands, like Led Zeppelin, and American bands, like the Eagles, and acts that straddled both, like Gary Wright. But female-fronted rock bands?

That was a shallow pool.

Fanny had gotten a big push five years before, but had never broken through.

But when you heard the above lyrics blast out of the speaker…

You were immediately closed. It was truly a magic sound.

Heart went from zero to hero overnight, at least that’s what it seemed like to us, the listeners. On an unknown label, Mushroom, with an unknown producer, Mike Flicker, they were an instant hit.

Although Nancy Wilson had been making music nearly from birth.

That’s the one thing that struck me so much in our conversation, that she’s a MUSICIAN! Not only can she play, but she has that sensibility, a like-mindedness with other players.

Also Nancy is fully conscious of Heart’s career. The Capitol days with outside songwriters, the videos wherein she played the femme fatale as Ann was shuffled into the background. It was a long hard slog…

And she loved every minute of it.

What’s it like to be a woman on the road?

Well, at first she was involved with the brother of the Magic Man.

And then…

What’s it like to be a woman in a rock band?

Well, in many ways it’s no different from being a man, except you have to send that negative signal to keep the guys at bay.

We go deep here. Through not only the early days in Washington, going to college and dropping out to join Heart, but also to the Lovemongers, having her twins, taking two years off and then going back on the road, BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT SHE DOES, THAT’S HER JOB!

And speaking of jobs, her latest gig is with Roadcase Royale, opening for Bob Seger.

But if you want to know what one of the progenitors felt, someone who was infected by the Beatles and took it all the way to the limit…

TUNE IN!

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You don’t do that anymore. Nor do you turn it forward.

Back in the seventies, when going to the movies was still a thing, and L.A. shows were at eight sharp and after ten, I went with my girlfriend for a pizza at La Barbera’s. It was torn down and been replaced by an apartment building, but in the days of yore it was considered the best pie in Los Angeles, not that it was that good, this was before L.A. captured the culinary zeitgeist, before Nancy Silverton put her spin on pizza at Mozza, when you could get something round but it was mostly bread, a far cry from what I grew up with in Connecticut, where the crust is thick and crisp, the underpinning thin and there’s an oil slick on top of the tomato sauce. For the best iteration, with even a thinner skin, go to Pepe’s.

And we’re munching along, having a good time, and when we get up to leave the place is empty and dark, how could this be at five of nine?

Turns out we missed Daylight Saving Time. It was actually five of ten, and there was no way we could make that movie.

Now back in the dark ages, half the year was Daylight Savings and half the year was not. One yearned for that weekend in April when we turned the clocks forward, for that extra hour of sunlight. As for the fall… No one ever went to school in the dark, although that did happen during the oil crisis, when going to Daylight Saving Time in the winter was supposed to save energy. That’s one thing they can never get straight, whether Daylight Saving Time saves energy, they’re still debating its merits. As for me, I LOVE IT! I’m scared by sunrise, it’s so creepy, because usually I see it from the other side, having stayed up all night. I love a good sunset, but unless I’m in a foreign land and the sunrise is a thing, I avoid it.

Then again, it takes a few days to adjust, I was stunned today when I looked at the clock on my Mac and saw it was 6:30 and it was still light out, but that brings me to my point… MY MAC CHANGES TIME AUTOMATICALLY!

Changing the clocks…is that still a thing?

My computers change automatically. My Echos change automatically. The cable box changes automatically. My iPhone changes automatically. Hell, I was reading my Kindle late Saturday night and wireless was turned off and IT changed automatically, HOW DID IT KNOW?

But the big clock in the hall is stuck at five after seven, you know, the one that speaks to that signal in Colorado, this has happened before, it’ll probably start working in a day or two, but now I can’t rely on it when I normally do, imagine if all the clocks that synch to signals didn’t!

I had to change the hour in my car. Do you still have to do that in a Tesla, which famously downloads updates overnight? I drive a 2005, and I’m not trading it in just so I can get the new tech, it’s got satellite radio and a turbocharged engine and that’s enough for me, unless I win the lottery I’m still gonna drive it, especially in the land of valet parking. No one wants to break into my car, if it gets damaged I’ll live, well, not really, but the concept of a car evidencing your status… As for drivability, I’ve got that covered, mine’s a four wheel drive sports car, I don’t need any more, although it is damn noisy.

But the clock in the kitchen, I had to update that. But it’s from the eighties.

And my answering machine… I had to reset that too. AN ANSWERING MACHINE? EVER HEAR OF VOICE MAIL? Of course I’ve heard of voice mail, but I don’t use it, you see I screen all my calls via said answering machine, and the truth is almost all the calls are robotic, most of the time they hang up upon receiving the message.

As for the junk calls on my iPhone, for some reason they’re always from Gardena and I block the number each time. Hell, I haven’t gotten one in weeks… Which means, of course, I’ll get one imminently.

But I’m thinking about it and I’m thinking if you’re a young ‘un, who probably doesn’t even own a wristwatch, you don’t even have to think about Daylight Saving Time, other than the loss of an hour, all your gadgets adjust for you, your computer, your mobile, your Apple Watch… It won’t be long before turning the clock back will be a phrase that generations just don’t understand. Kinda like a skip in a record, then again vinyl is coming back, or a phone booth. You take these concepts for granted, and then there’s a technological breakthrough and they evaporate. Of course there’s a transition period, but how long will those clocks of yore continue to function?

La Barbera’s On Wilshire