That’s right, now I’ve got one too.

For those playing the home game, you should be aware that this is the second time around for me. About ten years ago, when people could relate the term podcast to the long-forgotten iPod, when Steve Jobs was alive and Apple dominated the music world, I had a podcast with Rhino Records wherein I analyzed tracks and covered the oeuvre of artists.

That hit a wall.

Maybe because its supporter, David Dorn, moved on to greener pastures, i.e. Apple itself, and the podcast format spun its wheels and seemed to be going nowhere.

Until radio consolidation and LTE and the on demand culture suddenly made podcasts surge.

The turning point was “Serial,” the NPR podcast about a convicted murderer who maybe shouldn’t have been, convicted, that is. That’s when those not paying attention were finally clued in, that this new longform concept was strangely intimate and riveting, a world where you could go deep when everything else seemed to be hit and run. You put on the headphones and enter a world seemingly disconnected from everyday life, but is somehow more real than regular existence.

I’ve been hooked.

Let’s see, have you listened to Esther Perel analyze relationships? Via a real therapy session? You should, she’s the go-to expert these days, with the CV to demonstrate authority. And if you’re an anti-Trumper, you’ve got to pull up NPR’s “Embedded,” where they’re now going deep on the players in the Trump saga, Trump himself, Kushner…you’ll learn stuff you never knew, in a world where you think everything’s being served up on a platter. And speaking of NPR, I’m addicted to “How I Built This,” was just listening to Ben & Jerry tell their story, although they did not admit that the distribution squeeze cost them their company. And the “Axe Files” and Bill Simmons… Simmons had Costas on and it was riveting, even though Bill interrupted too much at first, we wanted to hear Bob, but to hear Costas cover his late night show, his opportunity to go on after Letterman on CBS, the change in the culture…in a dumbed-down world it’s great to hear smart people pontificate. And the episode with Chuck Klosterman…we don’t think in the music business, we just count the dollars, but when Simmons wondered why there was no nostalgia for the aughts, Chuck said that the rock acts of that era were just derivative of what had come before, they didn’t push the envelope at all, and I said voila! You feel so lonely in this world, then you find out someone feels exactly like you.

And for every good podcast, there are ten bad ones. Actually, many more, but who’s counting.

So when TuneIn approached me…

Actually, they were not the first. Never underestimate the power of a great performance, I killed on the Recode podcast so a YouTube magnate tracked me down to do a podcast, but he had no experience, but he had youth and hunger, and I was gonna make a deal but then a radio chain piped up and we were at paper when TuneIn came to the table, and my conversation with John Donham, their CEO, closed me. Because he understood the process. He said he expected it to get better, to start off walking and then start to run.

And that’s how a new venture always works.

I know, I know, you expect your tech products to hit the ground running fully realized, but when it comes to people and their products, there’s development, and they’re never perfect.

So right now I’m utilizing the classic format, i.e. interview. But we’re gonna stretch out from that. Although certain doors are closed because of music rights, publishers want to get paid for everything, but Joe Walsh did agree to let me use “Meadows,” Saturday night he told me to use what I wanted, and to tell you the truth, his big riffs fit perfectly. I was thinking of “County Fair,” which is so meaningful, just the sound, but it’s a bit too slow, then again there’s “Welcome To The Club,” but anyway I used “Meadows.

And the podcast is gonna come out every Tuesday.

AND TODAY’S THE DAY!

The first episode is me being interviewed by my old friend John Boyle, Chief Growth Officer of Insomniac. Actually, at first I’m interviewing him, and I learned stuff I didn’t know. That’s one of my goals, to excavate the backstory, find out who these people are.

And then Boyle interviews me. So, if you want to know more about where I came from and who I am, this is the episode for you!

In subsequent weeks there will be more people, but I’ll save their identities for then.

For now…

If you’re podcast veteran, you know the drill.

If you’re a newbie, I’m gonna list four links that will allow you to listen.

As for TuneIn itself, there’s an app, you can listen for free to radio stations all over the world, and the company is VC funded and has lots of revenue and people either know it or they don’t. But now you do. You can pay monthly and get the NFL and MLB, but it’s free to listen to my podcast, just download the app.

Or just go to your Podcast app on your iPhone and search on “Lefsetz,” or just click on one of the links below.

This is an adventure. This is just the beginning. Come along for the ride and see where I go.

Thanks!

Bob

The Bob Lefsetz Podcast – TuneIn

The Bob Lefsetz Podcast – iTunes

The Bob Lefsetz Podcast – Google Play

The Bob Lefsetz Podcast – Stitcher

It was the first record I bought in college.

I’m listening to that copy now.

When Crosby, Stills & Nash broke we all bought Buffalo Springfield’s “Retrospective,” we all wanted more.

And when “Deja Vu” was released some of us bought “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere,” but at the time you did not hear “Cinnamon Girl” on the radio, it was not yet the staple it was destined to be, but my favorite song on the LP was “Down By The River,” which I learned to play on the guitar and did so at the camp I worked at that summer. It’s always funny when people start singing a song they’ve never heard the recording of based on your rendition thereof. At the time I did not own Neil’s debut. It was a different era, you could not own all the music you wanted, and that you did possess you played over and over again, and knew it by heart, but at this late date Neil’s debut is my favorite, with “The Emperor Of Wyoming,” “The Loner,” “I’ve Been Waiting For You” (for such a LONG time!), and “The Last Trip To Tulsa,” do today’s kids, the latent Neil Young fans, know that almost ten minute number, I don’t think so.

So I’m at college. Feeling out of place and free and connected all at the same time. There are very few times when you’re thrown in with complete unknowns, like a rolling stone, and this was one of them, and my records kept me comfortable, but I was no longer in the land of E.J. Korvette, there were no discount shops in Vermont, but I needed “After The Gold Rush” so badly I paid nearly full price, only a dollar off, and brought it back to my dorm room at Hepburn Hall and broke the shrinkwrap. That confirmed the process, you’d paid your money, now you owned it, and you could see what was inside. Which was a picture of Neil Young on a couch surrounded by guitars. It’s hard to convey how cool rock stars were. They were not pop stars, but a new breed, who marched to the beat of their own drummer, who lived outside of the laws of the universe, we wanted to be them, we just wanted to hang with them.

And then there was the inner sleeve. At this point, 1970, you had to be a superstar to get your own. Otherwise you just got the generic label one. The one containing the Neil Young vinyl lists the artists of Warner/Reprise on one side, and the Loss Leaders on the other. Let’s see, Warner had Sacha Distel, I don’t even know who that is or was, and Jimmy Durante as well as Liberace, the San Sebastian Strings, Glenn Yarbrough and Black Sabbath, the Grateful Dead and Van Morrison. Reprise had Jim Kweskin as well as Jacques Brel, but also Joni Mitchell and the Mothers of Invention and Jethro Tull, actually there were more acts on Reprise than Warner, whereas the last time I checked the only act left on Reprise was Neil Young himself, and of course Frank Sinatra. As for the Loss Leaders they were double album samplers for two bucks. I ended up getting all of them, because I was always turned on to acts, they contained hits by acts whose albums I wouldn’t purchase, and they ultimately made you feel like an insider during an era when music was still scarce and you wanted to know, as opposed to the overbearing overload we’ve got today.

But also included in the pocket of the gatefold cover, which was becoming de rigueur, was a foldout lyric sheet, back when few LPs included these, the words, whether it be a financial consideration or fear of the artists of being revealed to be nitwits. But this insert stated Neil Young was serious, he was laying it all on the line, what he was doing was important.

So I dropped the needle.

That’s the revelation of hooking up my new turntable. Some records will stone you and others you want to take off immediately. Maybe it’s got something to do with the speakers I’m using, Thiel SCS4s, which are far from cheap and are super-accurate, but lack that big 12″ woofer of my JBLs to pound out the rock. We wanted to feel our music. But when the music is quieter, acoustic you almost can’t believe the immediacy and the warmth.

What struck me was J.D. Souther’s “Black Rose.” It was kinda like hip-hop today, you want to hear the tracks of the whole posse. Those who played, those who wrote. Only in this case most of these albums went unheard, they were for you only. I’ve got to put “Black Rose” back on.

This is the LP with J.D.’s renditions of his Ronstadt smashes “Faithless Love,” “Simple Man, Simple Dream” and “Silver Blue.” But my favorite cut on the album is “Your Turn Now.” “The night can make a promise of love, or it can make you a fool.” And one of the things that bonded me with F. was she owned this album too. When you went to someone’s apartment and saw they had the same semi-obscure LP as you you felt connected, you bonded. And I play “Your Turn Now” all the time, and I liked hearing the depth, the space of the vinyl version, but I was not prepared for what followed it, first “Faithless Love,” then “Baby Come Home.”

Faithless love
Like a river flows

When J.D. sings the words they’re melancholy, like he’s been through it and has ended up on the losing end.

And there are those insightful lyrics:

And every new love
Never turns out like it seems

Why is that? Someone from afar seems simpatico, then you get close and realize what you had before was far superior, even though you’ve been dissing the person incessantly.

But then came the piece-de-resistance, “Baby Come Home.” The funny thing is you can know songs by heart but it’s not until a life event transpires that they reveal their true meaning. When you broke up with someone, at least in the pre-internet era, you soothed yourself by playing your records, they were your friends, they kept you warm.

…If you could trust me
Try to believe me
Listen to me when I say
When I say that love
Is a burning fire
And it will not fade away

Is this true? I’m not sure, but I think so. You can break up with them, not see them for forty years, but you still share something, there’s a thread between you, even if it’s unspoken, you run into them and they start reminiscing and you can’t get back together, but it’s kinda like “Same Old Lang Syne.”

But deep in the night
When nearly nothing’s going right

When you can’t sleep, when you keep listening to these records over and over again, you can’t stop thinking of them, all you can do is pray that they come back. And now you’re old enough to know you can’t call, you can’t make contact. And if you wait long enough they always call you, maybe you even get together, but you can’t rekindle the magic, too much time has passed by, you’ve built a new life, you cannot go backwards.

But I was talking about “After The Gold Rush.”

But that was how it was back then. The side ended, you flipped the record over and when that was done you put on a new LP, depending upon your mood, and once you put it on you rarely took it off, you let it play through.

And my favorite song on “After The Gold Rush” is “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” and I never really liked the second side opener, the Don Gibson cover, “Oh Lonesome Me.” But listening to it now I’m envisioning a bar with a small stage and few in attendance and Neil Young pouring out his heart, that’s the way music used to be made, not in your face, but off the radar, you were peeking at it through the hole in your speaker. Sound quality does make a difference, one of the reasons hip-hop rules is it sounds good on the newfangled equipment, earbuds reproducing squashed electronic files.

Whereas there was a warmth to “Don’t Let It Bring You Down.” A story told from person to person.

And then after “Birds,” the scorcher, “When You Dance I Can Really Love.”

This was back before I’d had a serious relationship, when I was living at a college where almost nobody had a relationship, but we all wanted one so bad.

And over the ensuing months, “After The Gold Rush” became popular on campus. But I was first, but there’s no gold star for that, especially now, in the age of clutter.

And my roommate and I played along to “Till The Morning Comes,” he on trombone, me on guitar.

And I love the other short cut, “Cripple Creek Ferry.”

And now the legendary cut is “Southern Man,” but this was four years before Ronnie Van Zant sang that southern man didn’t need Neil Young around.

And what I’m saying is our memories are tied up in these songs. And hearing them on the radio is one thing, playing the MP3 or the stream is another, but the religious ritual of playing the vinyl is transcendent.

It’s difficult. I don’t recommend it. And most people don’t have their original records, they sold them when CDs came around, supposedly they were superseded. And to tell you the truth, they have been. But I built my collection LP by LP, I paid for each one, they’re a representation of my life. And when I finger through them it’s like Albert Brooks going through his Rolodex in “Modern Love.” I love my records. They’re the only thing that have stood by me as time has gone by, they’ve outlasted girlfriends, family members, everything changes but they don’t. It’s akin to venturing into a time capsule, going back to where you once were. And the truth is you can never really go back, thank you Don Henley, but when you visit the building blocks of your identity you feel complete.

That’s what original vinyl with first rate reproduction delivers.

Humanity.

The haves make singles and the have-nots make albums.

I know, I know, that sounds counterintuitive, but it’s the reality.

Ask yourself if you’re in the hit business, if so, you’re a have.

If you’re not, you’re a have-not.

And at this point hits are hip-hop influenced, pop is dying, but we’ll include it too. Rock is now niche. Imagine Dragons are the only act populating the top of the chart, if you even consider them rock.

So, if you’re in the hit business, where most of the focus and the money goes, you live and die by the hit. Albums are irrelevant. Just ask Katy Perry. Hers sank like a stone. Don’t even bother to make them. Just jump from hit to hit, or stiff to hit, no one cares anymore if you have a stiff, Bieber was on a run of stiffs before he came back a blazin’. It’s about a steady stream of product, always trying to succeed. And the hip-hop ethos fosters this. There’s a culture, a community, people are always paying attention, finding out what you’re doing next. As for pop, one of its problems is it lives in a vacuum, there’s no crosstalk between tracks. And it skews young. So you’ve got to work it hard just to keep people’s attention. That’s what we’ve learned in the modern era, you need a support system, without it, you’re done.

And the support system of the have-nots is their fans.

Admit who you are instead of railing against the haves. Have-nots are all about their fan base. Hip-hop fans are on the prowl for something new, rock fans, not so much. They’re dedicated to their favorites. So you want to satiate them, they need a body of work. And since it’s so hard to gain people’s attention in the have-not world an album garners you more attention, reviews, press, which alerts your fans and has the potential of reaching new ones, whereas single to single only works if you’re building up to something phenomenal, in size, not necessarily quality.

Have-nots are probably not gonna have their magic moment. You never know, trends could change and sounds could change and it could be your time. But not soon.

The music business has completely changed. The majors are not interested in art, only sales, more than ever, because it’s so hard to make a sale. It’s like the movie business, one film makes it every weekend and the others fail, even though the studio spent nine figures. And there are fewer zeros in music, but it’s very expensive to launch a project, so the companies are risk-averse. Change always comes from the independents. And then the majors go into business with them. So if you’re a change agent, more power to you, you’re the life blood of the industry. But it could be a very long slog to recognition, if it happens at all. Hell, the Ramones spearheaded punk but we didn’t have platinum punk until fifteen years later, with Nirvana, and it took even longer for those Ramones LPs to go gold. So you can be talented and unrecognized, accept this.

And the real money is with the haves. Who get radio airplay, hundreds of millions of streams and sell out arenas. Whereas have-nots play to much smaller audiences, who don’t go for the flavor of the month so much as the career. Furthermore, if the have-nots try to stunt, try to play with the haves, hiring ringers to get to the top of the chart, they end up with egg on their face, their hard core abandon them, so you don’t want this.

A have-not is in it for a decade or more. Building a legacy.

A have is in it for right now, they may not have another hit.

So the more attention and money you make, the less important the album is. Sure, you want to have more material for newbies and fans to play when they’re converted, but you can make more on one hit single than nine album tracks combined.

As for the have-nots… You’re a dying breed. Based on the old saws of the seventies. To bridge the gap you must create a new sound, break the hip-hop hegemony, instead most rock acts are retreads.

As for country, as the dear, departed Tom Petty said, it’s the rock of the seventies, so seventies rock rules apply. But the funny thing is country fans are adopting streaming faster than rock fans, who are calcified.

It’s a changing landscape. If you’re an innovator, the rules don’t apply. But if you’re a journeyman, they do. Don’t try to jump out of your own lane.

Life’s been good to me so far.

I first saw the James Gang at Staples High School, in Westport, Connecticut, in the spring of 1970, they were opening for Rhinoceros, and when Joe sat at the organ and played the intro to “Take a Look Around”…

I was elated.

Steph turned me on to “Yer’ Album,” the band’s debut. It was over by then, but having my driver’s license I decided to give it one more shot, I drove to Dorset to play mini-pool as she ignored me and that record played in the background, at least I got something out of the night.

And when I got back to Connecticut I immediately bought “Yer’ Album” and became infatuated. And the funny thing is I still listen to it, regularly, it roots me, makes me feel like I’m part of something, on a giant continuum, which warms my heart in an era where society has been blown apart, where we’re all here and we cannot connect.

It was at the No Name and it was a who’s who of somebodies.

I immediately ran into Kenny Passarelli. Who just looked like an older version of his same self. Funny how it is, some have lines in their face, and others retain their youthful good looks. And then I talked to the birthday boy himself. I reminded him of his quote, I read it in “People” magazine a few decades back, wherein he said the challenge was staying alive, that dying was easy. And believe me, that’s true. You feel the same inside but the world changes and your friends disappear and just when you’re completely weirded-out, you’re suddenly comfortable in your own skin. The penumbra dissipates, it’s just an endless river of hype, and if you get on your float and let the current move you along you can actually enjoy the ride. It’s when you want to go against the river’s wishes that you get in trouble.

And then Don Was and Benmont Tench.

And Ken Ehrlich and his wife.

And Felice started a conversation with Stewart Copeland and that’s when I looked around and realized the room was a who’s who. Everybody from Bill Maher to Paul Allen. From Jerry Moss to Sherry Lansing. From Jim Keltner to Jeff Lynne. From Tom Hanks to Richard Lewis. Everybody was recognizable. That’s what fame will deliver, the inner circle, somewhere we all want to be and rarely get access to.

I felt privileged to be in attendance. Especially when people knew who I was. Joe’s wife Marjorie came up to me and my natural instinct was to state my name, to explain who I was, that I was not an interloper, and she said of course she knew who I was, they were big fans.

So maybe I’m inside. Or half in and half out.

And it’s been a long way to the top of rock and roll.

We all listened to these records. I’d say they changed our lives, but they were our lives. We knew not only the tunes, but the stories of those who made them. They were like best friends, even though we’d never ever met them.

So after schmoozing, catching up with Luke, there was a video.

And then there were speeches.

Joe Vitale recited the road shenanigans. The glue gun stories. All that legendary stuff you’ve read about, Joe was a progenitor.

And Bill Szymczyk said “Barnstorm” was the peak of his career.

And then Barnstorm took the stage.

It was a little space. The instruments barely fit. I’d say it resembled junior high school, but even there they would not punish the band with so little foot space.

And then Vitale, now in his t-shirt, hit the drums, Passarelli fingered the fretless bass, and Joe Walsh WAILED!

In the sixties bands sounded bad. There were inadequate sound systems and the players were not seasoned and it was a facsimile of the music.

This was the music itself.

It was just astounding, not only does Joe never miss a note, he can recreate all those sounds you believed were studio confections.

You hear the intro to “Rocky Mountain Way” and the guitar is a bit fatter, and the riff is chugging along and you can’t believe it, you’re pinching yourself, you’re ten feet away and your life flashes before your eyes, all the times you heard this track, driving in your car, at home with the stereo blasting.

His roadies are swapping guitars. He’s pushing the pedals. And you’re just stunned the sound is so exquisite, so right, even the voice box effect. You’re seeing an arena-sized show in a bar. All led by a guy who’s been at it for decades, who dedicated his life to rock and roll.

That’s what we did. We didn’t realize it at the time, we just had to get closer.

And then came “Life Is Good,” which Szymczyk said Joe wanted to leave off the album. This was after “Hotel California,” Joe filled the hole, he was bigger than he ever was.

But then came the original breakthrough, “Funk #49.” I can hear it in my brain as I write this. It’s one of the few tracks that is even more legendary, more part of the firmament than it was when it came out. You see there are few iconic riffs, and isn’t it astounding that Joe has written so many of them?

I was tingling. You rarely get to see a master at work this close up. We all played in bands, most of us sucked, we gave up, how did Joe Walsh get so damn GOOD?

You realize there’s no comparison to today’s “musicians.” They’ve got 10,000 hours in social networking, whereas the stars of yesteryear, the ones who still have careers today based on their efforts back then, practiced and rehearsed in obscurity until they were ready, off the grid, with no attention, and then they got everybody’s attention.

And it’s hard to keep it, attention that is. There are always new acts coming up. Ones who want to replace you. You can’t hold the brass ring very long.

Except if you’re the Eagles. America’s biggest band, just check the statistics, who are ironically better in their new incarnation.

And then Ringo sat behind the kit and did “Boys.” I played that one on my guitar. It was on the VeeJay album, “Introducing the Beatles,” the one we all bought after purchasing “Meet The Beatles,” when we needed more.

And then came an iconic track from that American debut, “I Wanna Be Your Man.” That’s right, it’s a Beatle, all these years later, playing the drums the exact same way, with fists closed, bouncing ever so slightly on the stool. A man who’s famous around the world, based only on a song. Politicians are forgotten, titans of industry too, but not musicians.

And Lukather was telling me how many hundreds of millions of streams Toto had on Spotify. He was thrilled with the new world, and he could whip off the lines in “Birthday” like he recorded then in Abbey Road.

And then the confetti rained down and dessert was served and I got the history of the James Gang from Jimmy Fox, talked politics with Jackson Browne, and got into it with my new best friend, Sarah Buxton, who co-wrote Keith Urban’s “Stupid Boy,” the song that got me into country music, although her original is entitled “Stupid Girl.”

And Kenny Passarelli filled me in on what he’s been doing all these years. He started out as a classical player, but the pull of rock and roll…

It was just too strong, we couldn’t resist it. It wasn’t music, but something more. It was religion, it was freedom, it expanded our brains, it made us feel good.

But it had to be made by somebody.

And without business people you’ve got no success.

But someone has to write and play the tunes.

What does that feel like? How do you soldier on when everybody knows your name, when everybody’s paying attention?

Just ask Joe Walsh, he wrote the book.

That Ringo helped prop open, that we all read, that we’re all still reading, it’s our Bible.

I blasted “Walk Away” in my dorm room at Middlebury.

I listened to “Meadows” as I drove over Vail Pass in ’76.

When it’s warm in the fall my brain sings “Indian Summer.”

And I live in the city.

Tonight I was welcomed to the club.

Back to where I once belonged.

You know the feeling…

Because you’re a member too.