Rock Stars

Did the Beatles plan on dominating the world?

No, they just wanted to escape a life of drudgery in Liverpool.

But their music became a mania. Suddenly, not only were they rich and famous, they had innumerable groupies beckoning.

Like Tiger Woods.

When the Beatles hit, even into the heyday of Led Zeppelin in the seventies, if you wanted to get rich, you were a rock star. Baseball's reserve clause had not yet been broken. The NBA did not yet have Magic and Bird, never mind Michael Jordan, it was almost a sideshow. As for golf... Arnie Palmer was a swinger, but he was more about endorsements than lifestyle, and at the time, nobody wanted to be icy, pudgy Jack Nicklaus.

No, you wanted to be like the English cats. Or the players from San Francisco. Who'd practiced for years so they could now get up at noon, do drugs and get laid seemingly whenever they wanted.

It all came down to the music. Jimmy Page didn't pick up the guitar with a desire to be famous. No, music was a calling. And after seeing the Beatles on "Ed Sullivan", boomers picked up instruments, took lessons. They did not get plastic surgery to appear beautiful, take media training so they could expose themselves well. It was all about the tunes.

It hasn't been about the tunes in eons.

Sure, there were starmakers all the way back to the days of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis. But what drew us to the stars of the classic rock era was the seeming lack of manipulation. Playing by no rules, creating opuses sometimes an album side long, these musicians put the music first. Unlike athletes shilling for Aqua Velva.

Things turned bad with corporate rock in the midseventies. Too calculated, it was supplanted by disco and then in late '79, the whole business imploded, only to be resurrected by MTV, which evidenced completely different values from the FM radio that preceded it. Suddenly it was all about image.

And now MTV might be dead, but conventional wisdom is image triumphs. That's what TV wants. That's what the magazines want. That's what TMZ and Perez want. Radio was something you listened to. All the foregoing media enter through your eyes.

So right now, Mariah Carey might be parading around Aspen, but she's not staying there based on her new album's sales, they stink, she's living off the past. Even Alicia Keys. All these heavily-hyped artists, the Cliveisms, they're built for stardom, but today stardom doesn't permeate every nook and cranny, and so many are turned off by the hype, and music sales suck. And seemingly the more popular you are on the hit parade, the fewer people want to see you live. Dave Matthews hasn't had a radio hit in eons, but he was the biggest tour grosser of the decade.

But, of course, Dave Matthews has been around for fifteen years, he was the beneficiary of the old game. What about new artists?

What about new artists?

If you want to be a "rock star", be an athlete. Or a tech entrepreneur. That's where the money is. And groupies like money.

If you want to be a musician, you must flush image down the toilet, be three-dimensional, write from the heart and make yourself accessible to fans.

Yes, today's musicians are the opposite of the titans of yore. As opposed to being crafted with no edges, sculpted to perfection like Janet Jackson, who also can't sell a record, they're lumpy, with warts, they're completely human. And they write about their humanity. And they make themselves available on Twitter and other social media.

I'm not talking marketing. This isn't so much about selling as a redefinition of what a musician is. Sure, first and foremost you play music. But how do you get an audience?

How do you get friends? Real friends?

It's very difficult staying alone in your room, not interacting online. If you want to be part of the community you must venture out, whether it be into the real world or cyberspace. You must make yourself available. You must be ingratiating. You must be open and willing to share.

Who does it right?

Taylor Swift. Her songs couldn't be more personal. They're not bland statements denuded to the point where they can be sung by and related to by everybody, rather they're distinctly her.

John Mayer tweets his personality. Go to http://twitter.com/jOhnCmAYer and read, you'll end up thinking you truly know him. Furthermore, on his blog he stood up for James Cameron, who called a fan an asshole (http://www.johnmayer.com/blog/permalink/5379). Mayer didn't believe it was a fan, but an e-Bay whore. But the point is, Mayer took a stand. That's how you grow your audience, by having a personality, just like them.

Will musicians ever become rock stars?

Not like the athletes. The athletes have got all the money and all the TV time. If you want to get rich and screw, start shooting hoops. And isn't that fascinating, no one thinks they can play in the NBA without a wealth of court time, but people think they can succeed in the music game without paying their dues whatsoever.

And athletes don't succeed by revealing their inner lives, they make it via their robotic skills. The opposite of musicians. And did you ever think that whoring yourself out to corporations works for athletes but not musicians for this very reason? Because it's not about who athletes are so much as how skilled they are at their sport?

In other words, if you're pursuing the rock stardom that's bandied about in public today, you're pursuing artistic and commercial death. A "rock star" today is someone who's winning in the commercial world, which is the opposite of art. A true rock star is beholden to nobody. Hell, these athletes play for a team, or their sponsors. Which is how the major labels killed music. Because you were playing for them instead of playing for yourself.

Sure, eventually new acts will grow and dominate. But the ascension will be very slow. The rocket to outer space paradigm of MTV is history. Shit, isn't that the point of reality TV? Anybody can be famous for fifteen minutes?

You want to be famous for much longer than that.

Old thinkers will use the old tools. Radio and TV.

You're not opposed to those, but you focus on a direct connection with your fan.

Do your friends abandon you willy-nilly?

Of course not.

Then again, you think twice before you screw a friend, before you cancel plans.

So put your fans first. Establish trust. And practice!

Because it begins and ends with the music.

Widespread Panic At The Orpheum

Britney Spears via last.fm

Are you catching the Britney brouhaha Down Under? Turns out she MIMES!

She's got to. In order to deliver on the audience's expectations. She's got to be the Britney from TV. Perfect in every way. Dazzling them with her dance moves. And it's almost impossible to dance like that and sing. Have you ever talked to one of those jerks who calls you when he's on the treadmill? You wonder if they're going to have a heart attack during the conversation!

But what does the audience expect? A show, a tightly choreographed presentation, something you watch and ooh and ahh to? Or a musical performance, that penetrates your body and mind?

Last time I checked, I didn't see Widespread Panic on TV. Look at MediaBase, they're not in the Top Forty either. By nineties standards, they don't exist. But it's 2010.

In the MTV-era, you had to look good. Your video had to be visually interesting. To the point where in the nineties, they wouldn't trust so-called "artists" with creative issues, too much money was at stake. Write with the usual suspects, the pros, to create something we know we can sell. And we'll employ one of the usual suspect directors to create a sleek clip. Hell, if we don't get it right, we'll scrap it and redo it! You only get one chance to make an impression. If it's not exactly right, you're toast. Kind of like the new album by Mariah Carey and the pushed-back opus by Alicia Keys. The initial singles stiffed, and the labels wanted to whip up a frenzy in order to sell a hundred thousand albums right away! Thus, the release delay. If you're phenomenally lucky, you can ultimately sell a million. Still, you might mean nothing on the road. Is this a game you want to play?

Sure, there are old warhorses like Ms. Carey, but most of the acts are brand new. Thrown up against the wall and then discarded. They all have one thing in common. They want to be FAMOUS! They're no different than the idiots on reality TV. They want to appear on TMZ and Perez. Then they'll think they've made it. But that making it is very different from the old paradigm.

In the old days you played music to get out of the mines, to get away from having a boss, so you didn't have to wear a suit and tie to work. Shit, you ultimately have more freedom going to college and learning how to code than subjecting yourself to the starmaking machinery today. Look at Justin Timberlake. He sacrificed Janet Jackson. He couldn't admit he was complicit in Boobiegate and that it was no big deal. He issued a lame mea culpa the same way a truant student tells a principal what he wants to hear. Whereas the rock stars of yore had a foolproof reaction to bullshit, to the system...THE MIDDLE FINGER!

Hell, John Lennon said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus and didn't bother apologizing. He tried to explain, but the media wasn't listening, because it was too dumb. Whereas in the sixties, before the Born Again conflagration, there was no doubt the Beatles were bigger than Jesus. But you can't speak the truth. Hell, you still can't speak the truth! Just look at our inane political system!

Let me ask you...

If I told you you could wear whatever you wanted, your jeans, your favorite shirt, hit the stage to adoring fans whenever you played and get all the dope and sex you wanted, would you say yes?

This was the equation back in the golden era of classic rock. And it was all centered on the music. If you were good enough, you could rape and pillage across the world, for years, in the case of Robert Plant and Mick Jagger, FOREVER! Just by being yourself, you earned the keys to the kingdom, you lived in an alternative universe, even better than the real one.

Widespread Panic lives in an alternative universe. One where everything the dying media says is important is irrelevant. They hold the record for sell-outs at Red Rocks (with 32). They've been at it for twenty plus years, and they're bigger than ever.

Twenty plus years... Many of the Top Forty idiots aren't even that old. Do we really think they know how to play? That they've got something to say?

Now I won't say the Panic show was without visuals. There was a giant disc behind the band that featured geometric shapes, turning and twisting like at the Fillmore. And there was a plethora of animated spotlights. But the attraction was the music, plain and simple.

Nobody dressed up for the gig. The audience looked just like me. Wearing jeans. Getting psyched up for the gig had nothing to do with makeup, nothing to do with outfits, it was about head space. Were you willing to show up, relax your mind and float downstream?

Aided by substances both legal and illegal?

Sure, everybody seemed high, whether each and every one of them was or not. You see, they wanted to be set free. That's what the music used to do, that's what you're missing at the Britney show. Britney's delivering a movie, Widespread Panic is delivering a dream.

There was a drummer and a percussionist. A keyboardist dropping in delicious fills. Dave Schools held down the bottom like he had a monopoly on mud in the delta. But what was most fascinating was the guitar interplay between John Bell and Jimmy Herring.

Jimmy's amps said "Fuchs" and "Tone Tubby". This was not generic, the equipment had been hand-selected, to deliver this exact tone.

There was no click track, nothing was prerecorded. But the band instantly found a groove and laid down in it, pulling the entire audience along. And the electricity was palpable. It was like every attendee was plugged into a socket, causing them to twist and turn, jump and groove to the music.

Music. That's what's been sacrificed. You didn't used to go to the show to hear the expected, but the unexpected. The band was good enough to pull you along whether you knew the material or not. It was an ADVENTURE!

That started at 8:15 and ended at midnight. You couldn't complain you didn't get your money's worth.

So here's the part where you tell me what Widespread Panic is missing, how it can be changed into a Goliath, a household word. But the band DOESN'T GIVE A FUCK! Don't you get it? THEY'RE DOING IT THEIR WAY!

And their way is pretty good, better than yours, because almost a quarter of a century in, they can still work, they can still live the lifestyle, they can still feel the rush of the audience's applause.

You can play the old game. But it doesn't pay the dividends it used to. Rihanna may be big in the mainstream, but more people want to see Widespread Panic. If not today, definitely tomorrow.

We're rebuilding. And we're starting with music.

It's a much slower build. Flash, explosions, sexuality get instant attention. But do you really care who won the third season of "Survivor"? "Big Brother"? The endless string of one hit wonders run together. Those who make music first and foremost, who follow their instincts, their creativity, are the ones who stand for ages.

You may get screams at a Britney show, but you don't get the passion you experience at a Widespread Panic gig. At a Panic show fans feel the music. They want to get closer. They don't want to watch, they want to be a part of it!

And listeners are key. Great performers feed off the energy of their audience. How can you do that when your entire act is on hard drive?