We stopped by at the restaurant so Felice could say hello to Michael.\u00c2\u00a0 Dominick Dunne was in the corner, everybody was wearing a suit, and I wondered if I had it wrong, if I’d been stuck on the shore like Allen Ginsberg in the eighties, his appearance and style befitting the fifties.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got the education, maybe I should just get with the program.<\/p>\n
But after lunch we stopped by Q Prime and found Cliff Burnstein, hair a-flowing, in a worn brown sweater and jeans and I felt I was home.<\/p>\n
We started the day at Sirius.<\/p>\n
Well, we arrived last night in time to have dinner with Jay Marciano at Soho House.\u00c2\u00a0 Funny how you read about these places in the "New York Times" and "New Yorker" but they don’t really come alive until you get an e-mail to meet in the meatpacking district.<\/p>\n
New York is different.\u00c2\u00a0 Enter someone’s apartment and you wonder how long until you can get out, no matter how rich they are, there’s no ROOM, but just outside their front door there’s so much OPPORTUNITY!\u00c2\u00a0 The threshold for participation is so much lower than in L.A.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t have to get in your car, drive across town, find a parking place, deal with the poseurs and finally experience what you came for.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, on a whim, you can leave and BE THERE!\u00c2\u00a0 And it makes you feel so ALIVE!<\/p>\n
And after a night at the Parker Meridien with heat so high I felt I was crawling in the Sahara we marched off for our assignation with Steve Leeds at the aforementioned Sirius Satellite Radio.<\/p>\n
I’ve been an XM booster.\u00c2\u00a0 But I’m wondering if I should jump ship.\u00c2\u00a0 Sirius has tighter playlists, worse sound and worse reception, but it’s got the BUZZ!\u00c2\u00a0 XM plays it close to the vest.\u00c2\u00a0 Hugh Panero is penurious.\u00c2\u00a0 And then makes dumb deals like the one with Oprah when he ultimately opens up his checkbook.\u00c2\u00a0 And the dominant satellite service is in Washington, D.C., such a lame paragon of popular culture that it’s lost its baseball team more than once.\u00c2\u00a0 No, the pulse is in New York.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe Los Angeles.\u00c2\u00a0 But desiring to be close to the government, XM is in D.C.\u00c2\u00a0 Where acts drop by…well, when they’re routed through.\u00c2\u00a0 That could be the story of the future, how XM lost the lead.<\/p>\n
There was the Volkswagen deal this week.\u00c2\u00a0 And Mercedes-Benz and BMW are both Sirius outlets.\u00c2\u00a0 And XM’s in bed with the fading GM.<\/p>\n
And Sirius has got Howard.<\/p>\n
You could feel him in the building.\u00c2\u00a0 As we walked the halls, peeking in at Shady 45 where illicit activity is blocked from the hoi polloi by a curtain.\u00c2\u00a0 And as we saw the young, hip girls working out at the Cosmo channel.\u00c2\u00a0 This is HOWARD’S place.\u00c2\u00a0 This is where it’s HAPPENING!<\/p>\n
And when Patrick Reilly gave us a tour of the King of All Media’s digs, I felt the kind of pulse people normally feel at Graceland.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though I’m not that big a Howard fan.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, that was when he was on terrestrial radio.\u00c2\u00a0 When he was more of a buffoon, more of an everyman.\u00c2\u00a0 Now he’s serious.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, this time, it’s personal.\u00c2\u00a0 Fuck the FCC.\u00c2\u00a0 Fuck Les Moonves.\u00c2\u00a0 Howard’s got something to PROVE!\u00c2\u00a0 And we’re always intrigued by passion, we want to get close to the flame.\u00c2\u00a0 And Howard is on fire.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s WILLING Sirius’ success.\u00c2\u00a0 And when I looked at the monitor and realized he was at the center of the hubbub in the studio on the other side of the door, sitting on a couch, his back to us, I felt that flip in my stomach, that excitement, that one usually feels in the presence of rock stars.\u00c2\u00a0 Back when there used to be rock stars.\u00c2\u00a0 Back before all we had was sold-out endorsers.<\/p>\n
And it was funny catching Steve Leeds’ history.\u00c2\u00a0 We all followed our passion.\u00c2\u00a0 This music.\u00c2\u00a0 We worked for next to nothing, we started labels, we did whatever we could to get in.\u00c2\u00a0 A business that’s almost impossible to STAY IN!<\/p>\n
Running into Pat St. John in the hallway I was reminded that this WAS just radio.\u00c2\u00a0 A job.\u00c2\u00a0 With deejays.\u00c2\u00a0 WOLD on steroids.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, when I saw all of Cousin Brucie’s photos adorning his studio I was reminded that radio once RULED!\u00c2\u00a0 It was the pulse.\u00c2\u00a0 It was the Internet of its day.\u00c2\u00a0 Before the behemoth corporations sucked out its soul.\u00c2\u00a0 And two of the perpetrators of this decline were Lee Abrams and Mel Karmazin.<\/p>\n
But Patrick told me Mel has gone on record that Sirius’ music channels will NEVER have commercials.\u00c2\u00a0 NEVER EVER!\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas Lee Abrams’ brilliant programming philosophy, based on both respecting and exciting the audience, seems to be in its waning days over at XM.\u00c2\u00a0 Channel 49, Big Tracks, sounds like imitation Sirius.\u00c2\u00a0 Narrow playlist.\u00c2\u00a0 Idiotic bumpers.\u00c2\u00a0 Just the old crap minus the commercials.<\/p>\n
I turned down a gig on the radio at Sirius because I didn’t believe in the programming philosophy.\u00c2\u00a0 Back when XM was doing everything right.\u00c2\u00a0 Now I’m wondering if I made a mistake.<\/p>\n
I want to be where it’s at.<\/p>\n
And it appears, stunningly, that Sirius is becoming where it’s at.<\/p>\n
As for all you satellite radio naysayers…\u00c2\u00a0 Call me when HD Radio is in cars.\u00c2\u00a0 What, in the next DECADE??<\/p>\n
And with our heads spinning we exited the McGraw-Hill building and went to Felice’s mother’s apartment and then Michael’s.\u00c2\u00a0 And then to the Carnegie Deli.<\/p>\n
Oh, I didn’t need to make a pilgrimage because of Rob Reiner’s mother’s performance in "When Harry Met Sally", but because you just can’t get good pastrami in L.A.\u00c2\u00a0 And you can’t get this kind of experience either.\u00c2\u00a0 Jostled up to the unmarried nebbish brothers discussing taking classes with their mother.\u00c2\u00a0 The touristos from Florida in close proximity on the other side.<\/p>\n
And then with nascent heartburn, we ventured down Seventh Avenue to the Q Prime offices.<\/p>\n
Funny how here on the sixteenth floor in a nondescript office building beats the heart of popular culture.\u00c2\u00a0 Cliff was telling us hilarious stories of Metallica on tour in South Africa.\u00c2\u00a0 We were discussing the Pellicano case.\u00c2\u00a0 I felt like I was at the nexus.\u00c2\u00a0 The kind of place reporters want access to, and never get.<\/p>\n
And after catching up, we went into the music room.\u00c2\u00a0 Where Cliff played us a couple of cuts.\u00c2\u00a0 First, one by the Lost Prophets, produced by Bob Rock.\u00c2\u00a0 It was so great to hear something COMMERCIAL after being subjected to such outside DRECK!\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, most of the atonal crap is just that.\u00c2\u00a0 What you call innovation is usually just not up to snuff.<\/p>\n
And then Cliff played the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ new single, "Dani California".<\/p>\n
The verse went on too long.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not even a Chili Peppers fan.\u00c2\u00a0 Every time I’ve ever seen them they’ve been untogether, except for the ’92 MTV Video Music Awards.\u00c2\u00a0 But when they hit the chorus of this song I was reminded of the days of yore.\u00c2\u00a0 When records got us through.\u00c2\u00a0 Pounding out of the dashboard of our cars.<\/p>\n
Oh, the landscape is fractured.\u00c2\u00a0 All exposure sells records, but MTV is nowhere CLOSE to the pulse it once was.\u00c2\u00a0 You might tune in for the train-wreck, but not for the music.\u00c2\u00a0 You go to the Net for that.\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe terrestrial radio, which despite a decline in listenership still has a major presence.\u00c2\u00a0 With satellite not having made significant inroads yet.<\/p>\n
The language we used to speak in.\u00c2\u00a0 Of platinum discs.\u00c2\u00a0 It died with "Album Network" and the rest of the trades.\u00c2\u00a0 The music business is Iraq.\u00c2\u00a0 Or certainly Bosnia in the Clinton years.\u00c2\u00a0 All balkanized, unclear.\u00c2\u00a0 All you can hope to do is release something that CONNECTS!\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, the major labels can jam crap down our throats, the kind of stuff that’s cherry-picked for the single on iTunes, but the real bands, made for real fans, where do you START?<\/p>\n
With the music.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s still a desire for real music.\u00c2\u00a0 Great music.\u00c2\u00a0 That will keep you company when you can’t fall asleep, when you’re on the long drive to someplace you’re both eager and trepidatious about going to.<\/p>\n
And "Dani California" is unspooling on the Genelecs and I find my body moving, my hand slapping my thigh, and I let go of the old paradigm.\u00c2\u00a0 How many stations will spin it, for how long, how many copies will be sold…\u00c2\u00a0 I’m just thinking of the teenagers and twentysomethings who are gonna buy the album, and play the hell out of it this summer.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether on disc or iPod.<\/p>\n
Remember when fans were HUNGRY for new releases?\u00c2\u00a0 Before everything was available online before it was released and we realized it was crap?\u00c2\u00a0 Before the single was the only good track on the album?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, that desire is still there.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re in it for the career, for the long term, forget the marketing plan, forget the imaging, just focus on the music.\u00c2\u00a0 Believe me, great music is never ignored.\u00c2\u00a0 It usually sells soon, but if not there’s always somebody trumpeting it DECADES later, inspiring you to download and check it out, based on the passion with which it’s been sold to you.<\/p>\n
Listen to Steve Leeds for an hour, and you’ll have a love for the business.<\/p>\n
But that business, the one he grew up in, that’s one gone.\u00c2\u00a0 A new one is coming.<\/p>\n
It’s based on exposing a ton of stuff.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s based on consumer choice.<\/p>\n
But first and foremost it’s based on the music.<\/p>\n
Music is more powerful than any of the people lunching at Michael’s.\u00c2\u00a0 Trumps all those people in "Vanity Fair".\u00c2\u00a0 It’s better than even "The Sopranos".\u00c2\u00a0 You drop the needle on that record and you go on a journey eclipsing the vision of Walt Disney.\u00c2\u00a0 With a new ride every time you spin the disc.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s religion in those grooves, those bits, and I’m a believer.<\/p>\n
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