I was sitting in the shrink’s office telling him about Friday night.\u00c2\u00a0 The
on-sale debut of the new "Harry Potter".<\/p>\n
Felice and I drove to Village Books around 11 p.m. and encountered a line
down Swarthmore, of kids who probably had never been up at this hour before,
unless it was two years before, when the LAST "Harry Potter" book was released.<\/p>\n
They were dressed up as characters from the series.\u00c2\u00a0 Kate served theme-based
refreshments.\u00c2\u00a0 They may have LOOKED like lemon bars and TASTED like lemon bars but they were labeled with some secret code you’d only be able to decipher if
you’d read the books.<\/p>\n
At a minute before midnight, Jeff held up the speaker of the portable karaoke
machine, I started counting down the seconds into the mic, and when the date
changed we opened the door and people POURED IN!<\/p>\n
It resembled nothing so much as rock and roll.\u00c2\u00a0 Lining up at an absurd hour
for tickets to an event that only fans were aware of.\u00c2\u00a0 NEEDING to belong.\u00c2\u00a0 It
was almost as if Bill Graham was back from the dead, with the free food and the
orderly camaraderie.\u00c2\u00a0 And the books sold like tickets to the Fillmore.\u00c2\u00a0 By
time Oliver Platt came in as the last customer, just shy of one a.m., four
hundred books had left the store.\u00c2\u00a0 I can’t say the tome wasn’t hyped, that modern
marketing methods were not employed, but the RABIDITY, it was PALPABLE!<\/p>\n
And as we stood around doing a post mortem, I started conversing with Lea.\u00c2\u00a0
Down from San Francisco, just in time for this event.<\/p>\n
And when I got to this part of the story in the shrink’s office, a song
started going through my head.<\/p>\n
Ah! Leah! Here we go again.<\/em><\/p>\n I told the shrink that I wanted to leave right then.\u00c2\u00a0 Go home and listen to At that price, I stayed till the end, but when I got back in front of my I had no problem finding "Ah! Leah!"\u00c2\u00a0 Which I’ve got on CD somewhere.\u00c2\u00a0 But I sat in front of my computer for an hour and a half.\u00c2\u00a0 Clicking.\u00c2\u00a0 Looking for And when you get this frustrated, angry that the days of the original Napster And I was having trouble.\u00c2\u00a0 But then I searched on the album title, "Fortune I clicked through.\u00c2\u00a0 And there they all were.\u00c2\u00a0 All the album cuts I loved.\u00c2\u00a0 It There’s a good chance you’ve got no idea who Donnie Iris is.<\/p>\n Well, he was in the Jaggerz.\u00c2\u00a0 Who had that big hit thirty five years ago with You know the kind of track that’s SO good you’ve got to go out and buy the "Ah! Leah!" had power.\u00c2\u00a0 And a memorable riff.\u00c2\u00a0 And even the changes were It’s a modern day wall of sound.\u00c2\u00a0 With ENDLESS backup vocals sweetly singing.<\/p>\n That’s Donnie’s trademark.\u00c2\u00a0 Employed in the almost better "Sweet Merilee".<\/p>\n I ended up buying the subsequent "King Of Cool".\u00c2\u00a0 And, the follow-up, the Back in the day, we LISTENED to the album.\u00c2\u00a0 It was rarely over forty minutes "Never Did I" is the kind of track that gets you moving, involuntarily.\u00c2\u00a0 The "Stagedoor Johnny" is overdramatic.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s got another one of those I just needed to hear them.<\/p>\n Oh, I could have fired up the vinyl.\u00c2\u00a0 But, I wanted files, that I could play This site had BOTH of them.\u00c2\u00a0 And live versions of "Ah! Leah! and "Love Is For a minute there, I thought this page had EVERYTHING!<\/p>\n But this was no thief.\u00c2\u00a0 This was a CURATOR!\u00c2\u00a0 If it was available I mean how else are we going to keep the music of these secondary artists I know that because I listened to the interview with him on the site.\u00c2\u00a0 Taped Made me feel excited.\u00c2\u00a0 Got me in touch with who I used to be.\u00c2\u00a0 A dedicated I sat in front of my computer for half an hour listening.\u00c2\u00a0 I couldn’t even Well, it turns out Donnie still plays.\u00c2\u00a0 But what’s he living on?\u00c2\u00a0 What does Donnie’s a musician.\u00c2\u00a0 Who had one big hit and some semi-hits.\u00c2\u00a0 And now all And it turns out Donnie is aware of this site.\u00c2\u00a0 He mentions it in the That’s what fans are.\u00c2\u00a0 The linchpins of careers.<\/p>\n I guess if you don’t have careers you don’t need linchpins, don’t need fans.\u00c2\u00a0 Thomas H. Lee and Andy Lack don’t know what fandom is.\u00c2\u00a0 They know what MONEY But the "Today Show"’s got no fans.\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody who’ll stay up till an ungodly Not all art does the blockbuster sales of "Harry".\u00c2\u00a0 But you never know So, here’s the URL:<\/p>\n
this song.\u00c2\u00a0 I needed to hear it.<\/p>\n
computer I was stunned to find out that I didn’t have "Ah! Leah!" in my iTunes
library.\u00c2\u00a0 So I fired up my favorite P2P program and started downloading.<\/p>\n
the album tracks, "Stagedoor Johnny" and "Never Did I"…I just couldn’t find
them.<\/p>\n
them.\u00c2\u00a0 To no avail.<\/p>\n
are gone, when EVERYTHING was available, I fired up a well known search
engine.\u00c2\u00a0 Which allows you to find MP3s.\u00c2\u00a0 On Webpages.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the last resort.\u00c2\u00a0
Sometimes it works.<\/p>\n
410", and they CAME UP!<\/p>\n
was like winning a radio station contest, but BETTER…for instead of having
to wait forever to receive my prize I got it RIGHT AWAY!<\/p>\n
"The Rapper".\u00c2\u00a0 Kind of an insidious tune.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t love it, but I certainly
knew it.\u00c2\u00a0 And was stunned that the singer of that track was the guy I was
hearing on rock radio over a decade later, with "Ah! Leah!"<\/p>\n
album RIGHT THEN?\u00c2\u00a0 Not even CARING what the rest of the record sounds like?\u00c2\u00a0
THAT’S how good "Ah! Leah!" is.<\/p>\n
good.\u00c2\u00a0 But what put it over the top, what infected you, was THE CHORUS!<\/p>\n
aforementioned "Fortune 410", named after the model number of Donnie’s eyeglasses.<\/p>\n
long.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn’t about a single and then filler, rather, after the Beatles, an
album was a STATEMENT!\u00c2\u00a0 You wanted to delve in, on a voyage of DISCOVERY!\u00c2\u00a0
And what I found on "Fortune 410" was "Never Did I".<\/p>\n
kind of song you can’t conceive of in advance, but the type you hear that
feels SO RIGHT!\u00c2\u00a0 So right that I’ve never forgotten it.<\/p>\n
CHORUSES, with the endless backup vocals.<\/p>\n
endlessly.\u00c2\u00a0 And I looked up the greatest hits CD on Amazon, to find out if
these two tracks were contained, whether I should search my house for it, but
they were absent.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s how I ultimately found myself combing the Web.\u00c2\u00a0
Finding this veritable TREASURE TROVE!<\/p>\n
Like A Rock".<\/p>\n
commercially, the track was absent.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you couldn’t buy it at any price, you could
take it for free, to keep Donnie Iris’s legend alive.<\/p>\n
alive?\u00c2\u00a0 The labels that own the material don’t care, they say there’s no market.\u00c2\u00a0
But there is.\u00c2\u00a0 Hard core fans.\u00c2\u00a0 Who want to turn others on to their
favorites.\u00c2\u00a0 And, if the stuff is readily available, who knows, kids might surf by and
find it.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, Led Zeppelin was one of Donnie Iris’s favorite classic
rock bands.<\/p>\n
from the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, it was in depth.\u00c2\u00a0 It was an aural GOLDMINE!<\/p>\n
believer.\u00c2\u00a0 Who wanted to know EVERYTHING about acts I was interested in.<\/p>\n
answer e-mail.\u00c2\u00a0 I was hearing this guy’s life story.\u00c2\u00a0 Donnie’s probably pushing
sixty.\u00c2\u00a0 So many of the oldsters are.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re past their peak.\u00c2\u00a0 What are their
lives like?<\/p>\n
he use to buy toys for his grandkids?<\/p>\n
that’s left to him is his music, hell, I doubt he receives any royalties, even
if they’re due him.<\/p>\n
interview.\u00c2\u00a0 But rather than squash it, send this guy a cease and desist letter, he’s
ADVERTISING IT!\u00c2\u00a0 THAT guy is helping him out, he’s a key element in his career.<\/p>\n
But that’s a tough way to do it.\u00c2\u00a0 Because, if you’ve got fans, they do half
the work.<\/p>\n
is.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t know that WITHOUT fans, there’s a hell of a lot less money.\u00c2\u00a0
They think it’s about OVEREXPOSURE!\u00c2\u00a0 That to sell records you get on the "Today
Show".<\/p>\n
hour, WAKE UP at an ungodly hour, JUST to see it.\u00c2\u00a0 The "Today Show" is commerce.
\u00c2\u00a0"Harry Potter" is art.<\/p>\n
exactly what art is going to go gonzo.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the story of the late sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 Who
KNEW these acts would become so big?\u00c2\u00a0 They were just building careers.\u00c2\u00a0 Not by
selling out, but by testing limits, EXPLORING!<\/p>\n