If you build it they will not come.

Your challenge is getting noticed.

So you may be sitting at home, in your beautiful house, with your beautiful wife, asking me…DIDN’T YOU SAY JUST THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE?

Yes, in the last decade. Things changed. Bob Dylan sang about that, but no one seems to realize the puck keeps moving, and media ain’t hockey, the rules change too.

In a world where people are overwhelmed by content, they don’t want to hear about yours. And the problem is great content gets cast aside as well as horrible content. You did the work and nothing is happening, what’s up?

It’s not your fault. You just have to find a way to run the gauntlet.

If you’re a musician your greatest asset is your friends, your fellow musicians. You can trade favors and trade secrets. They’ve been there before you, they can recommend others, they can give you a leg up. How hip-hop has figured this all out and other genres have not is beyond me. Feature an up and comer on your track and suddenly they’re known too. Great managers realize this. Used to be you let the agent and promoter decide on the opening act. Now you manage the act, give the headliner a piece of the action and build this new act underneath them. This is how Five Seconds Of Summer was built under One Direction and Hey Violet! under Five Seconds Of Summer. Opening for other acts in stadia and arenas pays dividends, because they get to SEE YOU!

Assuming you have a manager to put this all together.

You need a representative. Without one you can’t get ahead.

If you’re a live act, maybe you focus on an agent first. One who gets you gigs.

But you only sign with those who are passionate. Better to be with the second-tier rep who cares than the first-tier one who doesn’t. It’s gonna be a lot of work no matter who’s involved, who is going to really do it, not give up when the going gets hard.

But once you’ve got your team, the hard work really begins.

First and foremost, you must be great where and whenever the rubber meets the road, you must deliver, but so many concepts pooh-poohed the last decade…are not so onerous today.

Credibility…

It only matters once you’ve flown above the fray. If you can only say no, you won’t get ahead. Seemingly every classic rock band who said no said yes to endorsements/promotions before they hit it big, just check YouTube for the adverts. If no one knows who you are, it doesn’t matter what you believe.

A story… Once you’ve got people’s attention, you must have one. Willing to do anything to make it from a broken home is not one. You must evidence an identity, that’s what the social networking era has taught us. But Instagram is lowest common denominator, it’s just how you look, whereas an artist wins by evidencing how they THINK! And don’t be afraid to offend, unless you’ve got a strong point of view, chances are the passionate early adopters will not, adopt you that is.

Meanwhile, you need a steady stream of product. In this fast-moving world you never want to abandon your hard core, satiate them as you continue to troll for new fans, otherwise they’ll move on to something else.

Next comes streaming services. It’s where it happens first, and where you find out if you win or lose. You must be with handlers who have relationships, who can get you on playlists, where the streaming companies can find out if you react. Radio is way down the line. If your handler/representative talks about radio first, abandon them, they’re built for the past, not the future. Sure, radio can reach mass, but long after streaming services, it’s for the least interested, you’re looking for the hard core to make you happen and stay with you. Furthermore, many radio formats are nearly meaningless. You can be on AAA or Active Rock and be number one and play clubs, and that just sucks. You’re a second-rate character in a third-rate world and life is too hard to end up in a backwater, you’ve got to shoot higher. You want to be on the Spotify Top 50. If you’re not playing for all the marbles you’re gonna get almost none, that’s the world we live in. Set your sights high, better to fail in the center ring than succeed outside the building.

As for newspapers and TV…

The newspaper is for other business people, not to make fans. The goal there is to get others in the business of bartering, booking and selling talent interested. Which is why all press must not be standard who, what, why, where and when. There has to be an angle, without one no one is hooked. And statistics about how far you’ve already come. Everybody lies, you should too, entertainment is built on falsehood, either your project will succeed or be forgotten about.

And television is way overrated, there’s just too much of it. Unless you get lucky and have the theme song for a hit cable drama that’s played every week it’s a long shot. As for appearing on late night shows, there’s no buzz, a video at best.

And meanwhile you should be making them, YouTube is your friend. If you say otherwise none of the above applies, you’ve already made it.

Sure, the work is most important.

But that’s when the job is just beginning.

There’s endless product and ever more gatekeepers, how do you break through? Just putting your stuff up on the internet is not enough. Just spamming everybody you know is not enough. Building success is a job and a science unto itself.

Think about it.

P.S. Social networking is for satiating your fans, it’s not where you break your career. Sure, there are exceptions, like Khaled, but just like with Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” or PSY’s “Gangnam Style” once people have seen the trick it can never be replicated. As for promotional stunts, rarely do they succeed, it’s more about hard work.

Hanging with a bunch of douche bag insiders for a week?

WORTHLESS!

Performing on the telecast or winning one of the top four awards?

PRICELESS!

Welcome to 2018, where you just can’t get your message out. There’s too much noise. How are you going to cut through that clutter?

By appearing on the Grammy telecast.

Forget the declining numbers, forget the passage of the tweetstorm, don’t confuse your career interests with those of television and advertising. Your goal is to get your act seen and your music heard.

And the barrier to entry is nonexistent. As long as you can motivate people. That’s the hardest job today. How do you get people to click?

Don’t confuse the Grammys with the Oscars, totally different animal. Despite all the press, the Oscars are passe, movies don’t drive the culture, not even close. And you can’t click and hit play and watch the movies instantly after the telecast, most are unavailable, except in theatres, you’ve got to pay, and people forget. Whereas music is all about instant gratification. And this is a good thing. With a barrier to entry so low, you can hook people and then… Think like a tech company, gain fans first, then figure out how to monetize them. Putting the music behind a paywall is anathema. You’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. How you gonna get them to come to the show and buy your merch if they’ve never heard your music? Sure, YouTube can pay more, but not everyone is gonna subscribe to a streaming service, thank god for the Spotify free tier, back in the radio days not everybody bought music and that’s true today, although the value proposition is so good that over a hundred million people pay to subscribe.

Once again, you’ve got to get on the show. Which means you need a hit or a good manager or both. It’s a negotiation. U2’s new album is a complete stiff, but killing it on the telecast will help them sell tickets, their main driver. And despite you and me knowing that hip-hop drives the culture, many people tune out. But when they see rappers on the telecast…at least they’ll know what the rest of us are talking about, they too can become part of the discussion, they might even become fans!

And the great thing about music on television is it sucks. Especially if it’s loud and raucous. Which means you have to go to get the real experience. This is just an advertisement for the gig. And if you laugh, you’re missing the point. Everybody on this show has an audience, and after their heroes appear, they’re gonna talk about it endlessly, spreading the word.

And a nobody could become a star. That’s what happened to Chris Stapleton. He appeared on the CMAs and overnight he was anointed, winning helped too, seemed like all of his brethren dug him.

This is what occurred with Bonnie Raitt thirty years ago. But thirty years have passed. It’s about consumption, not purchase. We measure the after-effects differently. We want to know if people listen, if they’ve become FANS!

In the old days it was easy to keep up. A number one was known by everybody. Flip the radio dial and you could get an appraisal of the landscape in an hour. Watch MTV for an equal length of time and you knew what was going on. Now it’s all a mishmash, a cornucopia of influences with none seeming to dominate. The Spotify Top 50 is very different from the Mediabase chart, but the reason record companies focus on radio is because of the same thing here, it’s the easiest way to reach mass.

But radio is dying. Never ever listen to the prognosticators saying otherwise. They’re all in the industry. Just ask anybody under twenty if they’re listening. We live in an on demand culture and you stream not only at home, but in your automobile. Waiting for your favorite to come up is so twentieth century.

But we are human. We congregate, we want to be part of the mass. So we watch this show for various reasons. Insiders to rate and react, hipsters to judge, fans to swoon and outsiders to see what is going on. Get out of your bubble if you want to know the impact. We like rankings, we like coherence, we like to take the pulse of art and society.

So if you’re not on the telecast and you’re not up for one of the big awards, stay home, it’s a meaningless circle jerk wherein you think you’re important but you’re not. If the big acts have a hard time getting universal traction, what are your odds? Oh, so you want to put “Grammy Winner” on your bio… Well, think of all the greats who never won. And the organization has historically gotten it wrong time and again.

But if Kendrick wins instead of Jay Z this year…

His fanbase is only gonna get bigger. Because if everybody’s into it…

Maybe you should be too.

He’s not happy.

But that’s the ethos of an artist, not a businessman.

And we’ve all become business people.

In the limited rock press, a fraction of what it is today, filled with press releases and the mass opinions of the great unwashed, Elliott Murphy got traction with his 1973 album “Aquashow.”

But it was on Polydor. And therefore destined for the dustbin. Yes, it was a major label, yes, he had a record deal, but sometimes you play with one hand behind your back and you just can’t break through.

And then your moment is passed.

Elliott switched labels, even put out music on Columbia. But the sound was changing, he was no longer the new thing, he drank and took drugs and finally put the whole thing to bed on his last promotional tour, he just could not be disappointed one more time.

So he went back to college. He was gonna become a lawyer.

Instead, he moved to France, and became a legend. Probably one most of you have never heard of.

But his fans keep him alive.

This all went down prior to the MTV era, never mind the social network era. Before that, you could only be so big. As big as you were during the AOR heyday of the seventies, it was nothing compared to the eighties when MTV penetrated the populace and everybody knew your name, when suddenly there was no time for non-stars like Elliott Murphy.

But that changed the paradigm. Money became ever so much more important, along with looks. To the point where the whole scene flipped over into pop, which was anathema before this. You didn’t want to be lowest common denominator, you wanted to make a statement, you wanted the people to come to you, not vice versa.

But those days are through. Of course there are exceptions. But very few with success. You see today you can yell loudly and be heard, for a minute, before you’re tuned out, but that does not mean anything you say is worth listening to.

So when everybody wants to make it in America, Elliott Murphy moves to France and has a hard time. His middle years. Too old to die young, yet too young to be a legend. He’s working. And recording. And writing. Because this is what he does.

And he doesn’t bitch.

If you can make it work, you soldier on.

Otherwise, you give up.

Some drink themselves to death, O.D. But you’re faced with challenges and you make a choice. Sometimes you’ve got to give up. Sometimes that’s the brave thing to do. Before you throw your life away. I know too many people who threw their lives away for rock and roll. They never finished school, they have no 401k. All they’ve got is their memories, and they wonder what happened to them. Back when a song was everything and a show was under ten bucks.

Elliott was buds with Bruce and Billy Joel, they’re in this doc. But really, it’s about Elliott. How he soldiered on when no one cared other than his fans.

He talks about playing for them instead of the execs.

Making records because he has something to say.

Wanting to write a new album right before the show, play it, and then discard it and do it all over again.

You’ll learn more about being an artist, being a musician, having a career, in this documentary than you will in most every other rock doc, because it’s not about the facts, but the emotions, the feelings, as all great art is.

Strangely you can’t turn this show off. Because not only is it shot well, it’s personable. You’re right in Elliott’s living room and mind. And the longer you stay tuned, you realize there’s something there, not only the original single “Last Of The Rock Stars,” but new material, like “On Elvis Presley’s Birthday.” He says it’s his most famous song these days, but I’d never heard it. But as he sings/talks about driving around with his father on January 8th your mind starts to drift, you start thinking about your own father, about the times when the world was not so networked and you rattled around in your own brain. Hell, is social networking just a way for us to feel less lonely?

And the Europeans love the music without knowing the lyrics, without knowing the language.

But there’s something in the music.

There is something in the music. To a great degree we’ve lost touch with. No one wanted to be a brand back then. They wanted to make a statement, they wanted to be heard. The trappings were just that, you were interested in the essence.

But then it all got co-opted, the big boys and the money. Just like the internet today. Does anybody really believe they can compete with the Big Four, who seem not to have our best interests at heart?

But, once again, that’s commerce, not art, corporations, not people.

Art when done right evidences life. Makes you think about your existence. Makes you contemplate your place in the universe.

We need artists to not only make sense of it all, but to make it worth living.

Not all artists can be household names.

But that does not mean those on a lower plane have little to contribute.

Elliott Murphy has hung in there long enough, paid enough dues to now be considered legendary. As he says, he’s on his victory lap. There was a pot of gold at the end of his rainbow, but it was chocolate, not cash.

You never know what you’re gonna find, where you’re gonna get, if you’re an artist.

Elliott Murphy is an artist.

And that’s why I can’t stop paying attention.

Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel interviewed for
THE SECOND ACT OF ELLIOTT MURPHY

Trailer THE SECOND ACT OF ELLIOTT MURPHY

“On Elvis Presley’s Birthday”

Maybe we’ve got it all wrong. Maybe the record isn’t the advertisement for the live show, but the live show is the advertisement for the record!

Think about this. It’s only been a hundred years or so that we’ve had recorded music. But prior to that, for millennia, music triumphed.

And it wasn’t until the late sixties when the album format burgeoned that there became so much money in recordings. Which ultimately went through the roof with CDs and the rocket ship of MTV. Suddenly, we were living in a monoculture and everybody was paying a high price for a plastic disc with only one good song.

And then the whole thing crashed. Credit the internet, credit Napster, and ever since everyone in the food chain has been complaining we just haven’t made the revenue on recordings we once did.

But live business has gone through the roof.

Why?

Because of a culture change, because of a societal change, so much of what we consume became commodities, we all had the same items, which were relatively cheap, we were looking for something to separate ourselves from the pack, to stand out, and to communicate with others.

Ergo the live experience.

We haven’t analyzed this, only basked in its payoff.

We think festivals are about headliners when the truth is they’re gatherings of the masses akin to Woodstock. It’s where you go to commune with others, in a world where you’re often at home, in front of a screen.

And we’ve hit peak festival and many will survive, but not all.

And the idea of going out to the local bar to hear music is anathema. Who wants to hear that much bad stuff, especially when you can be titillated at home.

We’ve got endless cash to go see superstars in concert. But how do you become a superstar?

Traditionally you make recordings, assemble enough of them where you can go on the road and repeat them.

But it didn’t used to be this way. It used to be you went to the show to see the act explore, to hear something different, unique. Prior to the MTV era when the public expected a production akin to the video.

And now…

The biggest act in the world is “Hamilton.”

Its Soundscan number is almost equal to Taylor Swift’s. Furthermore, it’s got multiple companies on the road. It’s basking in bucks. Why?

Because of its story, because of its uniqueness.

You can listen to the music at home, but it’s nothing like being there. This isn’t just songs, it’s story, you’re caught up in it, you can never get enough, assuming you can get tickets, you go again and again and again. WHY AREN’T WE MAKING MORE OF THIS?

Instead we’re focused on hitmakers du jour, propped up by producers and topliners, music made by committee, and one educated Puerto Rican American is inspired by a biography and comes up with a musical by his lonesome which is staged in collaboration with others and all we can do is marvel at his genius, deservedly so. This is the magic that created classic rock, which blew up the business, and it’s right in front of our very face!

This is not so different from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, touring every year to boffo at the b.o. The recordings are secondary.

We’ve figured out online monetization of recorded music, streaming won, yet we haven’t analyzed the underlying product. While record companies are investing in tech startups, they are not investing in music, in creativity. Do you really think “Hamilton” can be the only one?

P.S. Phish gets its fans to come back multiple nights with surprise content. You feel if you don’t go, you’re missing out. Sure, it’s all ultimately videoed and up on YouTube, but still you need to be there, to see what happens next.

P.P.S. Jazz and blues and even rock were built upon improvisation. Playing the hits note for note is passe. We need to train the audience to come to hear something new. It’s not about the new track that sends you to the bathroom, but EXPLORATION! Believe me, no one went to the bathroom when Eric Clapton stretched out in Cream.

P.P.P.S. Record companies should be CONTENT companies. And the goal of their business should be to own rights which rain revenue in the future, and they’re all not in recordings. Instead of having songwriting camps to create hits, they need to nurture talent to stretch out and do something new. Not only create musicals, but productions… Never forget that Genesis built a loyal audience on production, the hits came MUCH later. And Peter Gabriel hasn’t had a hit in eons but he continues to sell out when he tours because his audience expects something DIFFERENT, not only production, but reworkings of legendary songs, with new players and instrumentation.

P.P.P.P.S. The recordings are just the beginning. Hearing them rendered note for note live is actually a lame experience. What can you add to make one plus one equal three?

P.P.P.P.P.S. Story is king. It’s what created the album concept, it’s what’s making TV the prime creative outlet today. Why not inject story in music?

This is an almost two year old article and the numbers have only gotten better:

“‘Hamilton’ Inc.: The Path to a Billion-Dollar Broadway Show”