This is SO good I want you to stop what you’re doing right now, IMMEDIATELY, and go to the store and buy this book.\u00c2\u00a0 Because this is the most authentic account of how it really was.\u00c2\u00a0 And why it can never be this way ever again.<\/p>\n
We were glued to the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 When we saw acts on TV we wanted to be them.\u00c2\u00a0 We combed our hair in front of the mirror for hours, struck poses, bought newfangled clothes.\u00c2\u00a0 We wanted in.\u00c2\u00a0 To a glamorous world based on the soundtrack of our lives, where a hit record made everything work.<\/p>\n
Hell, he even talks about the kiddie records.<\/p>\n
Did you have kiddie records?\u00c2\u00a0 You remember, pressed in pink and yellow plastic, Disney songs, cartoon ditties?\u00c2\u00a0 Those were my first singles.\u00c2\u00a0 And thereafter I bought a Ruff & Reddy album.\u00c2\u00a0 The record was how you brought a little of the magic home.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s how you belonged, by owning the vinyl.<\/p>\n
And we formed bands.\u00c2\u00a0 Members flowing in and out, depending on their abilities, their girlfriends, the draft.\u00c2\u00a0 The Vietnam war affected the culture more than anything.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only did you ultimately rebel against it, you chose your course of behavior because of it.\u00c2\u00a0 You stayed in school for the deferment.\u00c2\u00a0 Dropping out could literally be a death sentence.<\/p>\n
And the business was all regional.\u00c2\u00a0 Clear Channel was not blasting the same uniform crap across the land.\u00c2\u00a0 You might not know what was going on a hundred miles away, that was like a different country.\u00c2\u00a0 You were living in a village.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody was a rube.<\/p>\n
Except for those in New York City.<\/p>\n
Billed as a book about Morris Levy, the famous mobster who ran Roulette Records, James’s book is really about coming of age, discovering not only music, but sex and the city.\u00c2\u00a0 We were infatuated by the music, it sculpted our lives.<\/p>\n
It’s all here.\u00c2\u00a0 From Elvis to the record shops to the Beatles to "Where The Action Is".\u00c2\u00a0 Tommy describes the Capitol campaign for the Fab Four in December of ’63, when almost no one had heard of the Liverpudlians.\u00c2\u00a0 There was a series of teasing cut-outs adorning the countertop in the record store where Tommy worked, the Beatles didn’t face forward until "I Want To Hold Your Hand" was finally released.<\/p>\n
Yes, there was hype.\u00c2\u00a0 And marketing.\u00c2\u00a0 Tommy Mottola was just the last gasp.\u00c2\u00a0 Jimmy Iovine is running on fumes.\u00c2\u00a0 Even he’s getting out of the Pussycat Dolls business, you just can’t pull the wool over people’s eyes that easily anymore.<\/p>\n
But the sixties were the era of manipulation.\u00c2\u00a0 And dishonesty.<\/p>\n
You know why record companies don’t pay accurate royalties?\u00c2\u00a0 BECAUSE THEY NEVER DID!\u00c2\u00a0 It’s historical!\u00c2\u00a0 You kept your road money and…\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t it funny that the labels want a piece of that now, while they STILL don’t account accurately.<\/p>\n
At least you used to be able to renegotiate and get a big advance.\u00c2\u00a0 Now it’s almost impossible to do that.\u00c2\u00a0 Because records sell a fraction of the copies they used to.\u00c2\u00a0 And music no longer drives the culture.\u00c2\u00a0 Music was everything in the sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just one of many things in the twenty first century.<\/p>\n
Mark Zuckerberg?<\/p>\n
In the sixties he would have played in a band.\u00c2\u00a0 Steve Jobs would have been the manager.\u00c2\u00a0 The best and the brightest were in music. It was the only way to get out, the only way to escape a life of drudgery.<\/p>\n
Tommy James captures the era so well, you’re struck by how different it was, how it’s gone and can never come back.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like there was never another Beatles, never another Bob Dylan, there can never be another classic rock era.\u00c2\u00a0 Because no one wants to get involved for so little money, because those with money and education rule and the rest of us are just pawns, because everyone isn’t glued to their transistor, waiting for another hit, not only a hook-laden song, but a burst of adrenaline, an incredible feeling of being alive.<\/p>\n
The stars lined up and it all came together.<\/p>\n
And those stars have not been aligned for a very long time.<\/p>\n
I gave up reading the rock biographies.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re too self-satisfied, too "Behind The Music".\u00c2\u00a0 But this is something different.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the story of not only Tommy James and the Shondells, but America.<\/p>\n
If you were there, you will be nodding your head in agreement, constantly saying "yup!" as you read along.<\/p>\n
If you weren’t, you’re gonna get an accurate glimpse of how it truly was.<\/p>\n
Buzz made me buy this book.\u00c2\u00a0 All good.\u00c2\u00a0 And when I finally picked it up this morning, I just could not put it down.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve read better writing, but never a better story.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it’s my story.<\/p>\n
And yours.<\/p>\n
You’ll learn more reading "Me, the Mob and the Music: One Helluva Ride with Tommy James & The Shondells" than you will in a year’s worth of "Billboard", days of poring over music blogs, hours of listening to record company bullshit.<\/p>\n
I’m barely halfway through, but as I turn every page, I keep nodding my head and saying I’VE GOT TO TELL MY READERS ABOUT THIS!<\/p>\n
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