If you weren’t at Coachella are you a loser?\u00c2\u00a0 Hopelessly out of touch?\u00c2\u00a0 Living in a world where the memo never gets to your inbox?<\/p>\n
It’s Bon Jovi night on "American Idol".\u00c2\u00a0 Funny to think that Jon Bongiovi was once a hungry musician from New Jersey who would do anything to make it, and now will do just about anything to stay on top.\u00c2\u00a0 Jon worked at the Power Station, his uncle’s place.\u00c2\u00a0 He wrote songs.\u00c2\u00a0 He made demos, he assembled a band.\u00c2\u00a0 And when hooked up with Desmond Child and Bruce Fairbairn he recorded an album that captured the zeitgeist of the late eighties, when the hip and the mainstream merged, when Generation X threw off the restrictions of its baby boomer big brothers and grabbed hold of the reins of popular culture.<\/p>\n
That’s how you made it back in the eighties, you got your mug on the MTV.\u00c2\u00a0 Exposure sold records.\u00c2\u00a0 But MTV is now meaningless.\u00c2\u00a0 Just ask teenagers, it’s got nothing to do with music.\u00c2\u00a0 Kind of like the major labels.\u00c2\u00a0 That sound they’re purveying has got nothing to do with music, with art, and really just centers on money.\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t that what they say?\u00c2\u00a0 They’re only making what sells?\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about musicianship, Clive Davis finds a beautiful face, puts it together with the usual behind the board suspects, and a new star is born.\u00c2\u00a0 But the public no longer respects said stars.\u00c2\u00a0 What are you to do if you want to play in the mainstream?<\/p>\n
That’s exactly the point.\u00c2\u00a0 There is no mainstream.<\/p>\n
Coachella is not mainstream.\u00c2\u00a0 And neither is Bonnaroo.\u00c2\u00a0 The Live Earth concerts try to be, and that’s why they leave one cold.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re playing to the mainstream, you’re screwed.\u00c2\u00a0 Because no one lives there.\u00c2\u00a0 No one is that uninformed, that unhip.\u00c2\u00a0 Except maybe the prepubescent kids soon to reject what they now embrace.<\/p>\n
The major labels are still trying to figure out how to get paid for their wares.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve been arguing about it for eight years.\u00c2\u00a0 Trying to prop up the CD, suing their customers and arguing with Steve Jobs.\u00c2\u00a0 All the while, fewer and fewer people are paying attention.<\/p>\n
The ruckus about Net Radio fees?\u00c2\u00a0 It’s positively sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about us vs. them.\u00c2\u00a0 How dare you fuck with us?\u00c2\u00a0 How dare you deprive us of what we’re building, what we’re enjoying!<\/p>\n
In order to survive, the major labels have to change their paradigm.\u00c2\u00a0 Sign acts for less, make records for less, sell more music for less and be willing to make less up front themselves, be invested on a percentage basis as opposed to earning fat salaries.\u00c2\u00a0 But it appears that the majors don’t want to save themselves, they’d rather just cry about losing what they’ve got.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the scene moves on.<\/p>\n
There’s a festival on every block this summer.\u00c2\u00a0 Even one in Baltimore, sponsored by Virgin Mobile.\u00c2\u00a0 Starring the Police and Cheap Trick as well as the hipsters of Coachella.<\/p>\n
So, if you flew all the way to Palm Springs are you a he-man of the universe or a laughable loser?\u00c2\u00a0 If you went to have a good time, and did, more power to you.\u00c2\u00a0 But your attendance at Coachella is no longer a badge of honor.\u00c2\u00a0 Because there no longer are any badges of honor.\u00c2\u00a0 The scene’s been democratized, it’s positively niche.\u00c2\u00a0 If you expect those new acts that played at Coachella to break out, I’m laughing.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s not what it’s about.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just one person’s vision\/scene, Paul Tollett’s.\u00c2\u00a0 Nothing more, nothing less.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite the hype in the major media, Coachella is not representative of the country at large, never mind the world, it’s not where you break acts, it’s jus a scene.<\/p>\n
As is Lollapalooza in Chicago.\u00c2\u00a0 And Bumbershoot.\u00c2\u00a0 And Summerfest.\u00c2\u00a0 And JazzFest.<\/p>\n
Want to know what the recorded music landscape will look like in the future?\u00c2\u00a0 Just look at today’s live music landscape.\u00c2\u00a0 Rejecting the overpriced, performed to hard disk indoor extravaganzas, the audience prefers to go outdoors, where it gets more cluck for its buck.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the story of festivals.\u00c2\u00a0 You get to experience a lot.\u00c2\u00a0 And, it is an experience.\u00c2\u00a0 A festival is like a night at the Fillmore East, as opposed to an assault in a hockey rink.<\/p>\n
In the future recorded music will feature far fewer winners.\u00c2\u00a0 Just more acts making a living.\u00c2\u00a0 With fan bases, and not much more.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than argue about DRM and raising the price of tracks, to save themselves recorded music purveyors must realize the days of diamond sales are done.\u00c2\u00a0 And you’ve got to sell something interesting.\u00c2\u00a0 And you’ve got to give people a lot, for a little.<\/p>\n
It’s not about Coachella being a new Woodstock, it’s about 2007 being a revolution in the touring industry.\u00c2\u00a0 With festivals creating a buzz, an excitement, unseen for years.\u00c2\u00a0 Will some acts break out of these extravaganzas?\u00c2\u00a0 Probably not.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless they play every one of them, and add to their fan bases.\u00c2\u00a0 One performance is not enough.\u00c2\u00a0 It gets lost in the shuffle.\u00c2\u00a0 For everybody raving about Coachella, there are many more shrugging their shoulders, not even paying attention.<\/p>\n
Then again, Bon Jovi had better songs than so many of these new acts.\u00c2\u00a0 But when these young ‘uns get their material together, all but high water marks like Mr. New Jersey will be unable to tour, they will be pushed aside by acts people believe in.<\/p>\n
That’s the main criterion, belief!\u00c2\u00a0 You can play every festival because they all have different audiences.\u00c2\u00a0 Appear on "American Idol" and other mainstream outlets and the multiple impressions eviscerate belief.<\/p>\n
I don’t want to denigrate Paul Tollett, that’s not my point.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that it’s not only him.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s he, Marc Geiger and Michael Rapino that are the new kingmakers.\u00c2\u00a0 The promoters and agents now rule.\u00c2\u00a0 The label guys…\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t really want to work at a label, do you?\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no risk, no innovation.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s all outdoors.\u00c2\u00a0 At a one time only performance.<\/p>\n
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