We won.<\/p>\n
I’ve been reading this coffee table book about the Eagles.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately, there’s not much in it I don’t know, but the pictures are fascinating.\u00c2\u00a0 David Geffen before dental work.\u00c2\u00a0 And Stephen Stills too.\u00c2\u00a0 When no one got up close and personal with a rock star unless they were having sex.<\/p>\n
By time they formed the Eagles, the four band members were seasoned.\u00c2\u00a0 They’d been in multiple groups.\u00c2\u00a0 They’d made records.\u00c2\u00a0 This time they were gonna make it work.<\/p>\n
So David Geffen signed ’em and sent ’em off to Aspen, to play night after night, honing their chops.\u00c2\u00a0 And then they opened for Yes and Jethro Tull, two bands who sounded nothing like them with audiences that didn’t care about them.\u00c2\u00a0 This is not a story of winning over the naysayers, rather it was about enduring the abuse, gaining experience that would be drawn upon for years.\u00c2\u00a0 You can only be unknown once.\u00c2\u00a0 What you learn then is used forevermore in your work.\u00c2\u00a0 But breaking through is the hard part.\u00c2\u00a0 And the Eagles broke through on their very first album.<\/p>\n
But not to the degree it appears in retrospect.\u00c2\u00a0 Really, it was only when they jettisoned the controlling Glyn Johns for Bill Szymcyzk that they became America’s biggest band.\u00c2\u00a0 "Desperado", both the single and the album, were relative stiffs.\u00c2\u00a0 And "On The Border" languished in the marketplace upon release.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, it was "One Of These Nights".<\/p>\n
What happened on those nights?<\/p>\n
We read about it.\u00c2\u00a0 And we died to live it.\u00c2\u00a0 Died to be inside.<\/p>\n
In the pre-Internet era, when only rich people had video cameras, when film was not yet digital, when there were no blogs, barely fanzines, the rock and roll world was a cutthroat business where rapacious scoundrels ripped each other off and the successful acts lived bacchanalian lives more akin to Fellini’s "Satyricon" than "Leave It To Beaver".<\/p>\n
Yes, it started with the Beatles.\u00c2\u00a0 A zillion bands were formed in their wake.\u00c2\u00a0 And the idea was to use your creativity to make it in this alternative universe.\u00c2\u00a0 Where you could literally rape and pillage, live like kings.<\/p>\n
Yes, the photograph that struck me most in the Eagles book was the shot of them in the private plane.\u00c2\u00a0 This was back when many Americans hadn’t even been on a plane!\u00c2\u00a0 And this wasn’t the tiny pencil-thin private jet of today, but a converted commercial airliner. Maybe there was waste involved, but the Eagles and Zeppelin and the other huge bands of the day could pay for it.<\/p>\n
And everybody wanted in, everybody wanted to get closer.<\/p>\n
That’s what the eighties were about.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, greed was legitimized, the baby boomers could hoard their own.\u00c2\u00a0 And then came the giant separation between classes.\u00c2\u00a0 The rich emulated their heroes, they got private jets, hookers and groupies and cocaine.\u00c2\u00a0 They learned all this from the rock stars.\u00c2\u00a0 These same people who could move audiences with a glance, who campaigned for political candidates, who seemed to be in charge of their own nation.<\/p>\n
The Tea Party?\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be the Music Party!\u00c2\u00a0 Only this one kept growing and was larger than any other.\u00c2\u00a0 Jimmy Carter needed the Allman Brothers to get elected.\u00c2\u00a0 You ignored the musicians and their culture at your peril.<\/p>\n
But suddenly you could make more money playing baseball.\u00c2\u00a0 And then basketball.\u00c2\u00a0 And your expenses were lower.<\/p>\n
And Apple went public and Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak got rich overnight.<\/p>\n
And the rules on Wall Street were loosened and a whole coterie of nameless people got rich.<\/p>\n
And how did all these newly minted millionaires act?<\/p>\n
LIKE ROCK STARS!<\/p>\n
And then the wannabe musicians weren’t in it for momentary good times, they desired world domination from the outset, dues-paying was for pussies.\u00c2\u00a0 Just get me on TV.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m worth it.<\/p>\n
So we’re starting all over.\u00c2\u00a0 Knowing that you can’t get as rich playing music as you can in other endeavors.\u00c2\u00a0 But music is one of the few spheres that allows complete self-expression.\u00c2\u00a0 The new acts don’t even have labels, certainly not ones that tell them what to do. They’re on their own.\u00c2\u00a0 Playing.\u00c2\u00a0 And they’re enjoying the late nights of dope and sex in between the long rides cooped up in vans and buses.<\/p>\n
We’re rebuilding the scene.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re focusing on the essence, the music, because really, the rest is just trappings.\u00c2\u00a0 And there are better places to get these trappings than music.\u00c2\u00a0 If you want cheesecake go to the strip club.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you want someone who says something, who stands for something, go to the show.<\/p>\n
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