So I asked him how he felt when "Incense and Peppermints" went to number one.<\/p>\n
The blase look I got in return surprised me.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, that’s what artists DREAM OF, and constantly recite the story of.\u00c2\u00a0 Hearing their song on the radio the first time.\u00c2\u00a0 Tingling when their track hits the top of the charts.<\/p>\n
But it didn’t surprise John Carter.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, he worked the request lines at one of the biggest top forty stations in L.A.\u00c2\u00a0 And bought five or six copies of the single every day at Wallich’s Music City.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, when the record finally peaked, he and his songwriting partner showed up for a meeting with the record company president and produced the FIVE HUNDRED singles they’d purchased.<\/p>\n
Ah, the old days.\u00c2\u00a0 As Carter says, when it was still all about hype.<\/p>\n
Yup, he laments the advent of the computer, and SoundScan, it ruined it.\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be a nice little business, that hustlers and scammers could work to provide themselves and their loved ones a good life.\u00c2\u00a0 Today?<\/p>\n
Well, Carter still believes it’s ultimately the same business.\u00c2\u00a0 One of creating hits and selling physical discs.\u00c2\u00a0 On this we disagreed.\u00c2\u00a0 But the ride, listening to the tales of someone who was there for forty years, THAT was riveting.<\/p>\n
His father was a wildcatter.\u00c2\u00a0 In Illinois and Indiana.\u00c2\u00a0 Made millions.\u00c2\u00a0 As Carter says, it was just a matter of what COLOR Ferrari he was going to get for his sixteenth birthday.\u00c2\u00a0 But then his dad hit some dry holes in Colorado and lost just about everything.\u00c2\u00a0 And Carter went from hoity-toity to hustler, or hanger-on, as we all were back in the sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 You see, Carter had been bitten, by the music bug.<\/p>\n
His mom encouraged him.\u00c2\u00a0 She was addicted to record-buying.\u00c2\u00a0 And when he showed such prescience at the record store, he got a job, offering him one free for ten of everything he ordered, since what he ordered sold.\u00c2\u00a0 And then his friends started a band, he wrote lyrics for their tune, and he ended up with a semi-hit, "Acapulco Gold".<\/p>\n
And then Carter hit paydirt, with "Incense and Peppermints".<\/p>\n
And a few years later, the big time truly came calling.\u00c2\u00a0 His phone rang and it was Pearl, saying she was gonna cut his and his partner’s song.\u00c2\u00a0 Something about a hundred pounds of woman and what she was gonna do to you.\u00c2\u00a0 And Janis Joplin kept calling.\u00c2\u00a0 Wanted Carter and his partner to come to the studio, to see their track recorded, the one that was going to be her single.<\/p>\n
And then Janis died.<\/p>\n
Carter’s partner was so fucked up by it that he went back to college.<\/p>\n
Carter moved to San Francisco.\u00c2\u00a0 Where he ended up working at a one stop.\u00c2\u00a0 And doing so well there, he got a gig as a promotion man with Atco.\u00c2\u00a0 He was constantly traveling up and down the coast with the likes of Zeppelin, Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer.\u00c2\u00a0 And then his buddy Bob Buziak got the gig as head of A&R at Capitol.<\/p>\n
Carter followed Buziak there and lasted eleven years.\u00c2\u00a0 Long enough to not only break Sammy Hagar, but engineer Tina Turner’s comeback and Bob Seger’s breakthrough.<\/p>\n
He’d helped Bob and Punch with "Smokin’ O.P.s".\u00c2\u00a0 And then, having gotten the gig at Capitol, signed Bob to the label.\u00c2\u00a0 And after working hard on "Beautiful Loser" and "Live Bullet", Carter was confronted by Jack Richardson as to why he wouldn’t put out what he’d done with Seger.<\/p>\n
Carter said he had no idea what Jack was talking about.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, he’d paid for no sessions.<\/p>\n
And then Jack put up "Night Moves".<\/p>\n
And Carter called Seger.\u00c2\u00a0 Who said the track sucked, it wasn’t representative, it had those chick backup singers.<\/p>\n
So Carter told Bob he was going to cut it with Sammy Hagar.<\/p>\n
Bob said cool.\u00c2\u00a0 But then called back a day later and said he’d reconsidered.<\/p>\n
Carter said fine.\u00c2\u00a0 But told Bob if it was released it would be the title track of the record, the single, and Bob would have to sing it at EVERY GIG for the rest of his life!<\/p>\n
And riding high on Seger and other hits, Carter was interviewed.\u00c2\u00a0 Who did he want to produce?<\/p>\n
Tina Turner.<\/p>\n
He ended up signing her.\u00c2\u00a0 For a pittance.<\/p>\n
But then Jim Mazza came in, and cut her, along with a bazillion other acts from the label.<\/p>\n
Carter got down on his knees and begged.<\/p>\n
And the rest is history.<\/p>\n
From there?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, a bunch of two year stints at other labels.\u00c2\u00a0 And now he’s in management, the last stop for all oldsters kicked out of the major label system.<\/p>\n Oh, he’s had success.\u00c2\u00a0 With E and the Eels.\u00c2\u00a0 And most noticeably Paula Cole.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s a struggle.\u00c2\u00a0 Applying the old rules to the new world.<\/p>\n But it was this misconception of the new world that confused me.\u00c2\u00a0 Carter quoted Munns saying that almost none of the tracks downloaded P2P were ever listened to.\u00c2\u00a0 And the more we talked, I realized Carter wasn’t exactly clear on the differences between P2P and IM and hard drive swapping and ripping.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, you have to PULL with P2P, you just don’t download for the hell of it.\u00c2\u00a0 You may not listen to EVERYTHING you take, but Munns’ ninety nine percent never touched?\u00c2\u00a0 That was just plain wrong.<\/p>\n And Carter went on to state that nobody he knew, none of the kids of his friends, were downloading P2P at all, that it was a myth.\u00c2\u00a0 I told him about the fifteen year olds I know with thousands of tracks stolen via the Net and it was like I was speaking of WMDs in Iraq.<\/p>\n But the physical business?\u00c2\u00a0 Carter was a maven.<\/p>\n He said you had to enhance the package.\u00c2\u00a0 That when in a cost-cutting move they got rid of the gatefold and the posters on "Dark Side Of The Moon" they got ninety percent returns.\u00c2\u00a0 That some people were buying the record JUST FOR THE POSTERS!<\/p>\n And I agree here.\u00c2\u00a0 Physical product is evidence of one’s addiction.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s an ever-decreasing piece of the pie.<\/p>\n But what was truly fascinating was the downward spiral of his "Incense and Peppermints" royalties.\u00c2\u00a0 Carter said NOBODY WANTED "Incense and Peppermints".\u00c2\u00a0 It was just a bonus.\u00c2\u00a0 Something you got along with "White Rabbit" on the compilation CD.\u00c2\u00a0 But now that you can buy JUST ‘White Rabbit" ALONE on iTunes…\u00c2\u00a0 Fewer people were bothering to BUY "Incense and Peppermints".<\/p>\n There’s still room for John Carter and his brethren in this business.\u00c2\u00a0 People searching out that perfect radio single, produced by acts they nurture, who will rain down money for a period of time.<\/p>\n But that’s an ever-narrowing slice of our business.\u00c2\u00a0 One owned by the major labels, who else could afford the cost, never mind has the radio\/media relationships?\u00c2\u00a0 The future is long tail.\u00c2\u00a0 Finding your profitable niche, just like one of the three hundred cable channels.<\/p>\n But that’s a scary business.\u00c2\u00a0 One not based on lunch, but starving, as you work on sweat equity, building your empire.\u00c2\u00a0 Veterans have no time for this, it completely eludes them.\u00c2\u00a0 It would be akin to getting them to drive a Toyota Echo.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s in their PAST!<\/p>\n But the heyday of this business is IN the past.\u00c2\u00a0 When renegades like John Carter, people who lived by their wits, who couldn’t fit into mainstream society, broke all the rules and created art that had the country mesmerized.<\/p>\n Here’s hoping that era returns.\u00c2\u00a0 But if it does, it won’t look the same.\u00c2\u00a0 And, much younger people will be in charge.<\/p>\n Because the Internet, and accurate data, and files, are here to stay.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, Apple Computer announced a 32% increase in year to year sales of the iPod today.\u00c2\u00a0 Those players are not being filled at the iTunes Music Store.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s no longer about saving to buy an LP every three or four weeks, it’s about creating DEMAND, getting people excited about checking stuff out from an inexpensive, LIMITLESS pool.<\/p>\n The old guys are just trying to replicate their physical business online, grudgingly.<\/p>\n But those days are through.\u00c2\u00a0 This iPod mania is like the Net boom of 1995.\u00c2\u00a0 Prior to that year, computers were for geeks.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, everybody got a box to play online.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody’s buying an iPod.\u00c2\u00a0 The key is not to lament this fact, but to figure out a way for everybody to have a ton of music on his device.\u00c2\u00a0 Make it so that EVERYBODY has "Incense and Peppermints" on his iPod!<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So I asked him how he felt when "Incense and Peppermints" went to number one. The blase look I got in return surprised me.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, that’s what artists DREAM OF, and constantly recite the story of.\u00c2\u00a0 Hearing their song on the radio the first time.\u00c2\u00a0 Tingling when their track hits the top of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-7M","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}