I went to the Hollywood Bowl last night to see Brett Dennen.<\/p>\n
Not really, the headliner was Jason Mraz.\u00c2\u00a0 But Jason’s manager, Bill Silva, said I should check out the opening act, he said "I think Brett’s amazing if you haven’t seen him!"<\/p>\n
I didn’t see him.\u00c2\u00a0 Planned on it, but the 101 was a clusterfuck.\u00c2\u00a0 First we thought it was that police car with the pulled over car that caused traffic to be backed up onto the 405.\u00c2\u00a0 There appeared to be no signs of damage, but you don’t need a wreck to stop traffic on the freeway in L.A., hell, a police car on the OPPOSITE side of the freeway can gum up cars on your side.<\/p>\n
But after accelerating for a quarter mile past the black and white, we ended up gridlocked again.\u00c2\u00a0 Took us over an hour and a half to cover what usually takes twenty minutes.\u00c2\u00a0 To the point where when we got to the Bowl, Mr. Dennen’s set was history.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, Brett reappeared at the end of the show, towering over Mr. Mraz as they performed a number from the middle of the audience.\u00c2\u00a0 But the guy on the flat screen by the bathroom when we arrived was G. Love.<\/p>\n
I’d like to tell you I can pick these guys out of a lineup, but with a hundred thousand albums released last year, it’s hard to even know who’s ruling the hit parade.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t know this was G. Love until he said so, after we’d taken our seats, a few numbers in.<\/p>\n
The vocals weren’t right.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not saying the engineer didn’t twiddle the knobs correctly, I’m saying that G. Love would never win "American Idol".\u00c2\u00a0 But the band was in a groove.\u00c2\u00a0 And then G. Love sat down and wailed on the guitar.<\/p>\n
I got it.<\/p>\n
Only fifteen years too late.<\/p>\n
Harvey Leeds worked me on G. Love & Special Sauce for years.\u00c2\u00a0 And it being Harvey, I actually played the records.\u00c2\u00a0 But I didn’t get it.<\/p>\n
You see G. Love is not a recording artist.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s a musician.\u00c2\u00a0 With an act that you understand if you see him live.<\/p>\n
But according to Michael Rapino, the average concertgoer attends a show between one and two times a year.\u00c2\u00a0 What are the odds they’ve seen Mr. Love?<\/p>\n
Let me restate this.\u00c2\u00a0 For my entire life it’s been about the record. You tune in the radio to hear what’s good to know what records to buy.<\/p>\n
Now you avoid the radio and no one buys shit.<\/p>\n
So how do we break bands?<\/p>\n
We don’t.<\/p>\n
The average person talks on the cell in his car and music is positively inconsequential, it’s the bumpers they hear on television.\u00c2\u00a0 Beyonce may have made one of the best music videos of all time according to Kanye West, but most people haven’t seen it, and don’t care if they ever see it.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re playing video games, they’re downloading apps to their iPhones.\u00c2\u00a0 Music’s a sideshow.\u00c2\u00a0 Except for the dinosaurs, they’ll go to see the classic rock legends.\u00c2\u00a0 Or they used to, before tickets cost as much as a mortgage payment.<\/p>\n
Radio may never be vital again.<\/p>\n
So where do you get exposed to new acts?<\/p>\n
The gig.<\/p>\n
But the gigs are too expensive!<\/p>\n
Make no mistake, the touring business was built by the record companies.\u00c2\u00a0 The disappearance of the club scene?\u00c2\u00a0 The not so secret reason is the labels supported the clubs.\u00c2\u00a0 They put the new bands on the road and bought all the tickets.\u00c2\u00a0 A much slower way to break a band than to get them featured on television.\u00c2\u00a0 So, labels spent money trying to hit grand slams.\u00c2\u00a0 And the club business died.<\/p>\n
And then the labels could barely hit home runs.\u00c2\u00a0 And not only did they stop buying club tickets, they eliminated expensive videos and made new acts sign 360 deals.\u00c2\u00a0 But even though the labels share in ticket revenue and merch, they don’t promote the show.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the land of the agent and Live Nation, or AEG, or Seth or Arny & Jerry.\u00c2\u00a0 And despite the protestations of all those involved, agents and promoters, they’ve been riding on the coattails of the labels forever, the record companies built the acts, not the agents and promoters.<\/p>\n
But now the agents and promoters have the steering wheel.\u00c2\u00a0 Building acts via recorded music may be history.<\/p>\n
Oh, not completely.\u00c2\u00a0 Jason Mraz sold out the Hollywood Bowl because he had a monster hit.\u00c2\u00a0 And, unlike many of his Top Forty brethren, he’s got multiple albums and multiple years in.\u00c2\u00a0 But most of the one hit wonders, if they can tour at all, it’s only when they’re on the hit parade, and now, more than ever, not that many people want to see them.\u00c2\u00a0 People want to see acts that are real.\u00c2\u00a0 Acts that have something to say.\u00c2\u00a0 Acts with staying power.<\/p>\n
You can’t make it on record sales anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s not enough money involved.\u00c2\u00a0 Just check SoundScan, you’re lucky to sell a tenth of what you used to.\u00c2\u00a0 So, to survive, you’ve got to work on the road.\u00c2\u00a0 But people have to want to see you.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got to pay to see you.<\/p>\n
So, not only do ticket prices need to come down, we need people to see live music the same way they go to the movies.\u00c2\u00a0 On a whim. Frequently.<\/p>\n
The pendulum has swung back.\u00c2\u00a0 Recorded music is the zit, live music is the ass.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone knows those Top Forty records are fake, except maybe the prepubescent kids who can’t afford a concert ticket anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 You employ the usual suspects to create a beat-driven concoction that works well in a club.\u00c2\u00a0 Top Forty music is a Malibu, a Chevy that will get you to your destination.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas live music is a BMW, the ultimate driving machine.\u00c2\u00a0 The ride, although evanescent, is an end unto itself.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not only about getting to the destination, but enjoying the process.<\/p>\n
That’s the live gig.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s how you feel at the moment.<\/p>\n
Then it’s gone.<\/p>\n
We’ve killed recorded music.\u00c2\u00a0 By overpricing it.\u00c2\u00a0 By releasing nothing new and innovative.\u00c2\u00a0 By putting it out on the ill-sounding CD.\u00c2\u00a0 What difference does it make if you hear it as an MP3?\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just a facsimile of real sound anyway.<\/p>\n
You want to go to the gig.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about live.<\/p>\n
This is an incredible sea change.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about propping up the major labels, but propping up musicians.\u00c2\u00a0 Giving them a chance to display their wares, to make it, to survive.<\/p>\n
We’re not talking about going to Lou Pearlman’s dance camp, singing the songs of others, we’re talking about honing your chops, not your looks, so that people will ultimately revel in the sound.<\/p>\n
We’ve got a fucked up live business model.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s few gigs at too high a price.\u00c2\u00a0 We need more gigs at a low price.<\/p>\n
But the festival model is a good step.\u00c2\u00a0 It does allow people to experience new acts.\u00c2\u00a0 But we’ve got to get more than camping music lovers to attend festivals.\u00c2\u00a0 So they can hear how good these acts are live.\u00c2\u00a0 So they become fans.<\/p>\n
I have no interest in hearing a G. Love record.<\/p>\n
But I would be interested in seeing G. Love live again.<\/p>\n
In other words, I’m a fan of the band, not the music.<\/p>\n
And isn’t that great, a complete reversal of the nineties paradigm, wherein the record was bigger than the act!<\/p>\n
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I went to the Hollywood Bowl last night to see Brett Dennen. Not really, the headliner was Jason Mraz.\u00c2\u00a0 But Jason’s manager, Bill Silva, said I should check out the opening act, he said "I think Brett’s amazing if you haven’t seen him!" I didn’t see him.\u00c2\u00a0 Planned on it, but the 101 was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-shows","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-Bs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}