Stop Draggin' My Heart Around

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers via last.fm

"Leather and Lace" is my favorite track on Stevie Nicks' solo debut.

But it's not the best.

"Leather and Lace" has that vibe that's fallen by the wayside, you know, the one where a woman in a long dress takes you into the dell and reveals her inner truth as you stare into her eyes and fall in love. Today's female artists are in your face, competing with the men, kicking you to the curb, or so wimpy as to be disposable, completely irrelevant.

But as much as I love "Leather and Lace"'s intimate feel, its circular nature, what puts it over the top comes halfway through, when Don Henley starts to sing:

"You in the moonlight
With your sleepy eyes
Could you ever love a man like me"

This is who we wanted to be. A sweet man, with substance inside, a certain solid quality. And you could infer a sexual meaning to what I just said, and maybe that's just the point. Sex today is portrayed as rough, you take your woman, or vice versa, but reality is more about those who are self-conscious, yet are finally honest with another human being and end up connecting, coming inside.

Take that either way you want to. Metaphorically or sexually. That's just the point. When done right, sex is an opening up, a connection. But our society is too fearful to portray it that way. Movies are laden with special effects, but sometimes songs get it right. And "Leather and Lace" does.

The reason "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" triumphs is not because of Tom Petty's vocal, however great it might be, but the riffs, the underlying song. It's Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers backing Stevie Nicks, as she reveals her frustration with a certain intimacy, that doesn't want for power.

"Baby you'll come knocking on my front door Same old line you used to use before"

Truth. She's busting him.

But that's not the complete story...

I had to go to the bathroom. Which is why I entered City Market solo. Felice, her brother and my two college buddies were ensconced in the store, deep into the belly of the beast, long after dark, when the food emporium was almost empty, except for the catatonic cashiers up front.

And I hear something in the background, over the sound system, a record playing.

It's like the song scooped me up and took me for a ride.

Suddenly, there was a bounce in my step. I'd missed the explosive opening riff. But that groove was so wide, it swallowed me whole, carried me away.

"Leather and Lace" is a great song.

"Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" is a classic.

Not something they sing on "American Idol", not something that can be sanitized and sung at pep or political rallies. It sits at the nexus of rock and roll and its audience. When the most important item you owned wasn't your cell phone, but your stereo. You came home and CRANKED IT!

Yes, I turned up "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" so loud the neighbors freaked. But who could resist? You just wanted to get closer, you just wanted to be enveloped.

As necessary as Ms. Nicks is to this rendition, it's Tom Petty and his Heartbreakers who shine. What mutation happened on stage, in rehearsal, that made them come up with this sound? Yes, it's uniquely theirs... They listened to the same British Invasion tracks we did, but with these influences they created something unique. That nestled perfectly alongside the rest of the FM hit parade. Bands didn't go to Timbaland to get the same sound as every other outfit, they crafted their own!

"It's hard to think about what you've wanted It's hard to think about what you've lost"

You bet. That's what I told Ron the night before. Life was about closing doors. Yup, as you're watching TV, as you're wasting time, doors are shutting behind you like crazy. There goes your chance to be a movie director, there goes your chance to be a famous author, there goes your chance to have kids. They tell you life goes by fast, but they don't tell you how hard it is to accomplish a single thing. They don't tell you how hard it is to be a rock and roll star, one with a career, who lasts.

I don't want to think about what I wanted. It freaks me out to think about what I've lost. But when I heard "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" in the supermarket Friday night my life worked. By spending those endless hours listening to the radio, the stereo, digging ever deeper, I'd come across this great record, which I'd played so many times it was in my DNA, to the point when it came over the sound system the other night it was better than being greeted by an old friend, it was like being welcomed by God.

Yup, that's what's in those rock and roll records.

Don't listen to the charlatans telling you to go to a house of worship, where you'll be instructed what you can and cannot do.

Rock and roll is a big tent. It allows all comers. Any height, any skin color. Just put on the record and turn it up. You'll see something that eludes every edition of the Bible. You'll see life itself, in all its glory, the warts and the inspiration.

Screw instant stardom. Tom Petty played more gigs in bars than most people in today's hit parade have played in their entire lives. Malcolm Gladwell said the Beatles were so good because of all that wood shedding in Hamburg? Tom Petty and his band are so freakin' great because of all those hours in Gainesville. Listening to the radio. Practicing. Gigging.

We baby boomers know the difference. Because when the Fab Four hit, we all picked up instruments, formed bands. But we gave up when it got tough, we went to college, but Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers PERSISTED!

Intention – The Bolder Dimension of Songwriting

Paul McCartney via last.fm

My buddy Wayne asked me to share this with my friends. It is a well written article about Songwriting that all songwriter's might enjoy.

Wayne Cohen, veteran multi-platinum selling ASCAP hit songwriter, producer and educator, owner of publishing/production company Stand Up Songs.

Wayne teaches individual and group songwriting tutoring sessions at his NYC Stand Up Studio and via Skype.

One of my song tutoring students recently sang me a song she was working on called ‘Listen You’, which I thought was a cool idea about missing that special someone. She had strong lyrics for her chorus, but the chorus chords she had were in a minor key just like the verse had been. The minor chords worked great in the verse, but the melody fell flat at the chorus. I call this kind of chorus melody problem flat lining, as in, the melody didn’t lift enough for a chorus. I suggested that she go to the relative major key for the chorus, and that the melody needed to be ‘happier’ to pay off the manic lyric idea she had set up. This eventually made for a killer chorus for that song.

This started me thinking, if the question is, ‘how do you write a breakthrough song?’

This experience with my student reinforced my conviction that having an intention when writing is the answer. In other words, if you can imagine the result you want before you get there, you have a much better chance of achieving that result.

I think lack of intention is one of the things that is crippling the music industry. I see creators in many fields (not just songwriters) influenced by the culture of immediacy that we are living in. I believe some songwriters are influenced away from writing a breakthrough song, expressing a riveting clear universal emotion with catchy melodies, and instead are focused on making trendy tracks that sell immediately. I think the craft of songwriting is suffering as a result, and this shortsightedness is contributing to a lack of certain songs’ longevity on the charts.

But keeping this idea of intention can be a tricky business when writing a song, because sometimes you don’t want to question that magical part of writing from pure inspiration. Great songs can seem to fall out of the sky and flow through the writer.

However there are so many facets of songwriting that can be improved by conscious thought. There are many examples of this, not the least of which is McCartney’s now clichéd story about ‘Yesterday’ starting out as a song he dreamed called ‘Scrambled Eggs’. After further consideration, the title and subsequent lyric story of ‘Yesterday’ had just the right feeling for the melody he dreamed. The title and lyric fit like hand in glove. But he worked at it ‘til he had something great. And that was all because of his intention to write a great song. Luckily he didn’t settle for ‘Scrambled Eggs’.

So, you ask, how can we take an OK song and make it better, with the right intention?

As a starting point, here is a quick intention checklist to run your songs by.
Intention Check List:

1. How do you want the song to feel?
2. Does every aspect of the song feel the way you want it to feel?
3. Does the lyric develop within a section, and from section to section, to express an urgent coherent story, the way you want it to?
4. Does the melody have the right flow, i.e., does it climax and subside where it needs to? (from the verse into the chorus, etc..)
5. Is there rhyme scheme consistency and development in the right places?
6. Have you mapped your melodic rhythm by using slash marks to count the number of syllables (for ex., map the V1 melody so that V2 will have the same melodic rhythm)?

Feel free to drop me a line and let me know how you did with the checklist…I’m curious! You can hook up with my buddy Wayne here: wayne@standupsongs.com

The Real Crisis

Image via Wikipedia

The biggest crisis facing the music business isn't pricing, of either music or concerts, but the lack of a filter telling people what to listen to.

You may decry "American Idol", but at least it assembles a mass of eyeballs to pay attention to new performers. Yes, the music is well-known, but the performers are not. How can we get people to pay attention to new music?

Not via record reviews. That paradigm is shot. There are no trusted reviewers. And there's so much product. Hyped to high heaven because the purveyors want to get rich. And it costs so much to listen to it.

Yes, in time. Time is very expensive. Who wants to spend it looking for a needle in a haystack? And how much new music can one listen to anyway?

Actually, the original concept of Top Forty was not beat-infused, genre-specific mindless tripe. It was akin to what Gene Simmons says Kiss delivers, but we laugh about. What does the painted band begin its shows by saying..."You wanted the best, you got the best?" Or maybe it's "deserve the best"... The point isn't to laud Kiss, which needs no benefits, its hard core keeping the band alive, but to point out that if there was a radio station, Website or TV show that truly played/delineated/showcased the best music, people would be attracted to it and new music would flourish. Hell, that's what happened with Top Forty twice...in the sixties and early eighties.

But this would require leaving most music out. And refusing to play games with those with deep pockets, i.e. labels or rich individuals like Sam Adams. The same great cuts would have to be banged again and again. And if there was no good new music, then the old would have to be continued to be featured.

Don't tell me radio is dead. Don't tell me everyone's got their favorite Website. Don't tell me it's solely about word of mouth. I AGREE, I'm just pointing out an opportunity, for an entrepreneur who truly cares about music and wants to make a fortune.

It's not about the iPhone app. It's not about the ads on the Website. It's not about technology at all. That's what's been wrong with the past decade, it's been about science and marketing, not music. Everybody wants to get rich. From the wannabe acts to Tim Westergren and Pandora to the endless purveyors of music distribution platforms. No one's focusing on the music! And that's why we're hurting.

Sure, there's good music out there. But how do you get people to pay attention? Certainly not by allowing makers to spam, with endless unsolicited notices, and even MP3s, clogging up your inbox. It's about culling the best. And letting people know about it.

And it's got to be very good. Because few have the time.

But so many have the desire.

Ask people where they find out about new music. Baby boomers will be dumbfounded, college students will talk about friends and a small universe of acts and the prepubescent will rave about the hits on today's radio and in gossip columns, but what happens when they reach adolescence and want something meatier?

This is a huge crisis. And it's not unsolvable. But it does require a lot of thinking. And a lot of listening. The solution is less about building infrastructure than analysis. We all want great music, who's gonna serve it to us?

ALEX CHILTON

Image by ojimbo via Flickr

THE LETTER

My introduction to rock music wasn't on television, not even radio, but the jukebox, at the Nutmeg Bowl. After a couple of strings I'd find myself peering through the glass, studying the tracks, waiting for my parents to pick me up.

That's where I first heard "Dawn (Go Away)" and "I Get Around".

I heard "Pretty Woman" on the jukebox at the JCC.

And I heard "The Letter" on the jukebox at Bromley, the ski area where I spent my youth in Peru, Vermont.

The old wooden base lodge, built by Fred Pabst with his beer money long before ski areas were about real estate, featured an alcove, in the very back, where worn out at the end of the day we listened to the jukebox.

"The Letter" is one minute and fifty two minutes long. Tell that to today's artists filling up entire CDs. It was and remains solely about quality. And "The Letter" was quality. A great song, with a brilliant intro, but what put it over the top was the vocal of one Alex Chilton.

"Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane
Ain't got time to take a fast train"

This was before air travel was de rigueur. When you still dressed up to fly, were scared shitless the plane was going to crash and the ticket cost a fortune.

"I don't care how much money I gotta spend Got to get back to my baby again"

URGENCY! That's what you heard in Alex Chilton's voice. No, he didn't write the song, but he made it his own. This wasn't an "American Idol" contestant singing for a record contract, one got the idea this record was cut on a dark rainy night and leaked out by accident. In an era where so much of what was featured on the AM band was sunny, there was a darkness to "The Letter". Chalk it up to Memphis. Or Dan Penn. Or both.


CRY LIKE A BABY

Anybody can have one hit. But can you do it twice?


NEON RAINBOW

A cross between the New Vaudeville Band and Petula Clark, if the Box Tops hadn't hit before, "Neon Rainbow" would be what we call a guilty pleasure, something outside your favorite genre that you want to hear again and again, that puts a smile on your face. "Neon Rainbow" sounds like it was recorded in black and white, and that's what makes it so great, you infuse your own colors into it.


RADIO CITY

I used to go to Andy's room to listen to the Kinks' "Everybody's In Showbiz" and the Velvet Underground's "Loaded".

"Everybody's In Showbiz" is a forgettable Kinks album, but it contains "Celluloid Heroes".

Today everybody knows "Loaded", but dropping the needle on "Sweet Jane" was a revelation, especially after that ethereal intro. The Velvets were supposed to be incomprehensible.

But one day Andy told me I had to listen to a new record, a group formed by the lead singer of the Box Tops.

The songs on "Radio City" had a certain power, and a certain intimacy. Like the Box Tops records, they seemed to be made without the audience in mind.

That's rare today. That's the first thing purveyors ask, WHAT'S THE MARKET? Put it in a slot for me, make it easy. If it's like nothing that came before, I can't sell it.

And, you guessed it, "Radio City" never sold.

But I drove cross-country with that album. The explosive guitar intro of "Back Of A Car" sounded like nothing else in my cassette box. The track was cut by someone who'd listened to a hell of a lot of English records, but there was definitely an American sensibility.

And "Way Out West" went up and down the scale with power.

"And why don't you come on back from way out west"

She didn't dump him. She moved on. But he's still here. Thinking about her...

Used to be California was a completely different state of mind from the East Coast, never mind Memphis. There was no Facebook, no e-mail, no SMS...just very expensive long distance phone calls. And when this track was cut, no one even had an answering machine. Way out west was out of mind. Yet he's still here, in the same neighborhood, going to the same clubs, listening to the same radio stations. She's living, he's dying.

Then there was "September Gurls". Just like the English cats, but better. "September Gurls" was too perfect for the radio. It was made for the garage, for headphones, just for the listener. Of which there weren't many.


THIRTEEN

Big Star broke up. They had no chance. This was before the resurgence of indie labels in the nineties, people shied away from something on Ardent.

And there was no airplay.

And the bands that were succeeding were BIGGER! From Boston to Journey, it was about playing to the last row, not the first. You wanted all the money, not some.

So I found Big Star's first album in a cut-out bin at Music Plus. No one wanted it.

But on that very first early seventies record there's a gem in the league of "Walk Away Renee". It's entitled "Thirteen".

"Won't you let me walk you home from school"

That's how it starts. It appears casual, but you had to get up the gumption, screw up your courage to ask. And carrying her books you feel like you're sitting on top of the world.

"Won't you let me meet you at the pool"

This is public. She's got to let you not only into her head, but her entire world.

"Maybe Friday I can
Get tickets for the dance
And I'll take you"

Most people listening to this record had never been on a date. But it was their utmost desire. They lived vicariously through this lyric. It got them through until they too could find romance.

"Won't you tell your dad, 'Get off my back'
Tell him what we said 'bout 'Paint It Black'"

Rock and roll was ours. Our parents didn't wear designer jeans and work out at the gym. They hated the Beatles and the Stones. But to us this music was everything.

"Rock 'n roll is here to stay
Come inside where it's okay
And I'll shake you"

Can she leave behind her Barbies, her cheerleading and enter his world? Can she risk the power of emotions?

"Won't you tell me what you're thinking of Would you be an outlaw for my love If it's so, well, let me know If it's 'no', well, I can go I won't make you"

He's not about to compromise. He wants someone to enter his world. We all want someone to enter our world. We want to show off our trophies, both physical and emotional. We want to share not only our victories, but our point of view.

And that's why Big Star is so important. The band expressed emotions, both musically and lyrically, that squared exactly with ours.

This made it tough for radio. Radio plays to a theoretical everyman. And Big Star was personal.

But that's why Big Star lives on. You may not recall who scored the winning goal at the basketball game, but you can never forget with whom you shared your first kiss.


ALEX CHILTON

We have a fantasy that our heroes live on a higher plane, live a better life than us...that they're surrounded by bucks and babes.

But watching Alex Chilton perform you were struck that his life was much more difficult than yours. He had to go from town to town, playing to appreciative, but tiny audiences, who loved him, but that love won't keep you warm at night, it won't pay your bills, it won't pay your health insurance.

My internist told me heart attacks are preventable. If you get treatment. Change your diet, take the appropriate drugs, get monitored.

But I doubt that Alex Chilton had the cash, never mind the wherewithal.

And now he's gone.

Never to be forgotten by a small coterie of fans.

Is that enough?

I don't know.

But I do know that Alex Chilton did it for the rest of us, not brave enough to take the risk, we who prayed in our basements for girlfriends as we studied for the SATs to get into a good college so we could become professionals. And we love him for it.

"Thirteen": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pte3Jg-2Ax4

Lesley Duncan

Image via Wikipedia

The best Elton John album is "Tumbleweed Connection". Released on the heels of "Elton John" and the huge success of "Your Song", "Tumbleweed Connection" had no singles and itself was soon followed by "Friends", "11/17/70" and at the end of the year, "Madman Across The Water". Casual listeners are unaware of the record, but fans hold it dear. It contains Elton's original showstopper, "Burn Down The Mission", his take of "Country Comfort", which Rod Stewart had just done, "Son Of Your Father", which Spooky Tooth was placing its ultimately failed hopes in, and...

"Where To Now St. Peter?"

The first side ended with the laconic "My Father's Gun". Well, it started out like a tale from a hayseed with a stick of straw emanating from his mouth, but eventually it devolved into the rhythm of a paddle-wheeler on the Mississippi, blend a margarita and listen on your back porch as the sun sets, as this epic unfolds.

But the second side opened with something we hadn't heard from Elton previously, an intimate piano figure, an ethereal vocal... Listening to "Where To Now St. Peter?", you truly felt like you were floating down a river.

"I took myself a blue canoe
And I floated like a leaf
Dazzling, dancing half enchanted
In my Merlin sleep"

Floating is the operative word. "Tumbleweed Connection" arrived during Christmas vacation, when I returned to Berekely, I saw the Record Club of America box over the shoulder of the mail clerk. Also included in the box were "Gasoline Alley" and the very first Rod Stewart album, eponymous in the U.S., entitled "An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down" in the U.K. And I loved them both. But when I dropped the needle on "Where To Now St. Peter?" I resonated, like this track was made just for me, it took me away from my studies, I felt like Elton lived next door and dropped by to play a tune long after dark.

And it being the winter of marijuana, and long days on the ski slopes, I'd drop the needle on the second side of "Tumbleweed Connection" to hear "Where To Now St. Peter?" and it would slide into "Love Song". This was long before CD players, long before remote controls, long before endless repeat.

There was a percussion element that sounded like a scratch, believe me, I checked. And a song unfolded which sounded like nothing else on the album. Because it wasn't written by Elton, but one Lesley Duncan, who duetted on the track with him.

There's a story here. I don't know what it is. Aspiring stars don't cede that real estate, they don't give up those royalties. Yes, unable to move from my bed, I heard "Love Song" again and again, I broke open the gatefold cover and read the credits, I knew who was responsible.

This is the genesis of album rock. It wasn't about the radio so much as the limited music we acquired and our inability to get up off our rear ends. The needle slipped into the next groove, and over time we became fans of what followed.

And what follows "Love Song" is "Amoreena", a song with such a swagger, you want to put on your guns and amble down a dusty Texas street.

Then there was the quiet "Talking Old Soldiers" and the tour de force of "Burn Down The Mission". Side two was my favorite. I'd put the play ratio of side two to one that month of January 1971 at ten or twelve to one. It took quite a while to sink in how great "Comes Down In Time" truly was...you see it was located on the first side.

"Love Song"'s key feature is its intimacy. As if it were playing in your head as you strolled through the park on a spring morning. It's not the best song on "Tumbleweed Connection", nor is it my favorite. But I know it. Like I know a member of my family. Because, believe me, these records rode shotgun with me through my life, they were right there in my saddlebags.

Lesley Duncan just died.

http://themusicsover.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/lesley-duncan/

http://www.nme.com/news/elton-john/50225

Hurt Gorillaz

Image via Wikipedia

In the sixties, cars only lasted a few years. Assuming your automobile did not need repairs when it rolled off the truck, like the Chevy Lance's father purchased that had no reverse pin, or the Chrysler my father bought that caught fire on the way home from the dealership, it was only a matter of time before you ended up at the gas station, where there was a mechanic to change belts and perform other surgeries required to keep your motor running. And although we occasionally hear of cars overheating on the Grapevine, the needle on most cars' temperature gauge barely moves. Despite Toyota's recent woes, cars, if not quite bulletproof, are expected not to break. You can drive Hondas for 200,000 miles trouble-free. Automobiles may be expensive, but you can keep the same machine for a decade, quite happily.

But those days of the lame Vista-Cruisers were half a century ago.

Let me put that in perspective. When my family owed lame cars in the sixties, they'd only been making cars for sixty years. Now, they've been making them for fifty years more! Those cars of yore were only halfway through the life cycle. Those pieces of shit were a long time ago!

Just like classic rock.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like classic rock as much as the next guy. I saw the Who perform "Tommy" at the Fillmore East. Did you?

But that was back in '69.

And that was forty years ago.

And now it's 2010.

Yup, TWENTY Ten. So many years have gone by that we now know how to pronounce the year, we're in the teens in case you weren't paying attention. Hell, no one could come up with a name for the first decade of the twenty first century until it was over, and if you call them the "aughts" now, you'll still get mostly blank stares.

In other words, it's time for new music.

Let's be clear. Kids know nothing. They listen to the hit parade before their pubic hair grows in. If you're that young, or a parent subjected to Radio Disney, you know a lot of current material. Most of which will curdle the milk of an oldster. But oldsters want new music. Something more than the bland Susan Boyle, who proved that we're willing to lay our money down, if you just tell us what to listen to.

And that's the big problem. Not so much the lack of good music, but the inability to find it, to connect with it.

Which brings us to the Gorillaz.

Not a big fan of Damon, not a bit fan of the band. But searching for something new on the satellite yesterday, I heard "Stylo".

Have you heard this track?

Dial it up here:

http://www.bu2z.com/video/gorillaz-stylo.html

It sounds like Kraftwerk is playing in a roller disco while a hip-hop deejay is spinning vinyl in the background, all the while an MC toasting above.

This is great. Not phenomenal. Not Gnarls Barkley "Crazy" stupendous, but extremely fulfilling. Because it just FEELS GOOD!

Great music is like pornography. To paraphrase that Supreme Court justice, YOU KNOW IT WHEN YOU HEAR IT!

We can argue over the disco roots, can decipher and analyze the lyrics, but the key point is you feel so fucking good listening to this song.

Which was leaked a month ago.

Yes, I'm going to be inundated with e-mail from hipsters, telling me I'm late to the party. I could make excuses, say that I knew the song had leaked, I just hadn't listened to it, but that's not the point. The point is hipsterdom is irrelevant. Now we're all hipsters. Deep into our own niches. And don't tell me your niche is better than mine. That's so twentieth century. But how am I going to find out what's good in your niche when I don't even have enough time to explore my own?

Quite a headscratcher. But when I discover something as good as "Stylo", I'm hungry like the wolf for more good new music. I started pushing all the satellite buttons. Which is how I discovered Hurt's "Fighting Tao".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGlhTotwaeM

It's a funny thing about heavy music. You're drawn in, you dial it up because you're alienated and angry, but when you listen to it all your problems fall away, you feel happy and powerful.

Tell me "Fighting Tao" is derivative. Tell me it's akin to Tool. Even go deep and say Hurt changed its sound after the band lost their major label deal. All I'll say is as an angry fuck, music like "Fighting Tao" is the aural rabbit hole I like to dive down into not only to recharge my batteries, but energize me. Anthemic rock, beholden to few restrictions, long-haired guys exploring in their basements with their amps turned up to 11.

But, ironically, it's the soft passages that make "Fighting Tao" so good, juxtaposed against the full force screaming.

Somewhere in my memory bank, I'm aware of Hurt. But if I've ever heard any of their music prior to last night, I couldn't pick it out of a lineup. But when I heard it long after dark on Octane, I couldn't change the channel. I was waiting for it to get bad, but it never did, it only got better.

You get to a point where you can't live in the past.

Then again, when the present becomes too confusing, that's where you retreat. That's what the NFL did. And nostalgia can be comforting. But it's not as exciting as discovering something new that touches your soul, that shines like an exquisite diamond in between your ears.

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.

COPYRIGHTS & WRONGS-A Guide to protecting your music....2

Image via Wikipedia

IN THE WORKS....

Musicians, songwriters, and recording artists typically encounter two types of copyrightable work: the first is the particular arrangement of notes and lyrics; the second is, the song itself. This is usually referred to as a musical composition, an underlying work (when referenced in relation to a sound recording), or just a song.

A song may have multiple writers, lyricists and arrangers, and the copyright can be split among them on a percentage basis. If you are writing with a partner or you involve others in your creative process, be sure to discuss early on how or if you will divvy up the copyright. Some songwriters assign all or a portion of their copyright to a music publisher who has agreed to market the song for them.

The second type of work you need to protect is the sound recording itself. A song may be recorded by any number of people so each recorded rendition is copyrightable. Even if you write as well as record the song, you need to protect your composition and your recording with separate copyrights. And, as with a musical composition, there may be others involved in the recording process, such as producers, who are entitled to a portion of the copyright. When an artist is signed to a record label, the label often retains the copyright of the master recording.

More tomorrow....

Paper Sheds New Light On Music Listening Habits

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A good friend of mine shared this information with me and it was important enough to share with you. I field 100's of questions a day asking the big question, "how important is radio today?" Here are some facts you can use as you try to determine your various strategies on promoting your next single.


Paper Sheds New Light On Music Listening Habits
November 03, 2009 -
Digital and Mobile
By Glenn Peoples,

Nashville: A new paper by Council for Research Excellence (CRE) with support from the Nielsen Company dispels many of the myths about how people today listen to music. From broadcast radio to MP3 players, some popular notions about listening in the digital age appear to be horribly off the mark. "How U.S. Adults Use Radio and Other Forms of Audio" is the result the tracking of 752 days of audio media usage of participants in five markets -- Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia and Seattle - in parts of Spring and Fall of 2008. The study includes both users and non-users of media devices.

Myth: People don't listen to the radio anymore. According to the study, broadcast radio by far has the broadest reach and commands the most listening time. Broadcast radio has a 79.1% reach and gets an average of 122 minutes per day from listeners.

Myth: Young people don't listen to radio less than older adults. The CRE found that 79.2% of listeners from 18 to 34 listen to broadcast radio, and they average 104 minutes per day. Radio's daily reach amongst younger listeners is only slightly lower than its 80.6% amongst 35 to 54 year olds. That older group averages 107 listening minutes per day - just three fewer than younger listeners.

Myth: Nobody listens to CDs anymore. CDs and cassette tapes are second in reach (behind broadcast radio) and get an average of 72 minutes per day from users. CDs represented 16.1% of daily listening time in the study, over twice that of satellite radio and over three times the share of portable MP3 players. CD listening is higher for consumers with lower incomes and less education. However, the reach of CD listening is the same whether or not the listener is technology oriented.

Myth: Young people are over CDs. Young listeners actually listen to CDs more often than older listeners, according to the study. Just under half the 18 to 34 age group listen to CDs every day, and they average 78 minutes per day. Only 36.2% of the 35 to 54 group listen to CDs daily, and they average just 74 minutes per day. Myth: The iPod has killed off radio and CDs. Portable MP3 players had only an 11.6% daily reach and a 4.9% share of all audio. Even among the 18 to 34 age group, MP3 players account for only 7.5% of each day's listening time.

Myth: The computer is the new stereo. Only 10.4% of the sample used their computers to listen to a digital file while only 9.3% streamed audio on their computers.
Myth: The Internet is where people discover music. The two ways to listen to music on a computer - a saved file or streamed audio - represented very little of the study's listening hours. Files accounted for only 4.1% of the study's total daily listening. Streamed audio amounted to only 3.8%. The daily reach of each was about 10%.

Myth: The digital crowd has given up on other formats. Over four-fifths of people who listen to MP3 players listen to broadcast radio and they average 97 minutes per day. People who stream audio on their computers average 98 minutes of broadcast radio per day.

TAYLOR SWIFT RESPONDS

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First time I was in the shower. When I listened to the message toweling off, I thought she said "Erica". Listening again it was clear it was Ms. Swift, who sounded troubled, like there'd been a misunderstanding involving love. And maybe that's the case. She felt I loved her, had I turned against her?

That's what she said when we finally spoke. That she thought I got her. And it frustrated her to think that I believed she used auto-tune.

She denied it. Emphatically. As only as a nineteen year old can. I believed her. But it still didn't address the underlying issue. Could she sing? Exactly how good a singer was she?

I told her I couldn't talk right now. That I was rushing out to a doctor's appointment. If she wanted, we could speak about two hours hence, when I came back. But there was the eight hour time difference, and the day was evaporating. Although she'd left me her cell phone number, unfortunately one digit eaten by the machine, I told her to e-mail me with her address, and as soon as I got home I'd let her know, we could talk.

But then doing the math, worried we'd be unable to connect, having to get up early to do interviews, Taylor got into it. How she didn't even know how to use auto-tune, had never used it. Then again, she admitted to fixing some mistakes in the studio.

Then I asked her, what about those high-priced concert tickets online? What was going on there? I'd printed an e-mail saying in Philadelphia that tickets were going for far in excess of a hundred bucks and then, within minutes of my publishing said letter, the whole tour page disappeared online, replaced with dates that had already played as opposed to those coming up.

She told me she had no idea. She'd have to check into it. And I ran out of my house and got behind the wheel.

This was not the first contact I'd received from her camp. I'd gotten a long e-mail from her father. Not histrionic, not criticizing me, but also emphatically denying she'd been auto-tuned live. That was off the record, but now since his daughter has weighed in...

And maybe that was true. Because she was so horrible in the opening of the CMAs. Oh, that's a strong word to use. It's just that she was so far from perfect, anywhere but on the note, on pitch. She was definitely naked there.

As she was during the first song on SNL. Not the opening segment, wherein Taylor said, like many writers to me opined, that she was trying to imitate Phoebe from "Friends", but the full band number. She wasn't quite as bad as she was on the CMAs, but she was not up to the level of a professional. The second song was better, but the backup vocals were covering up quite a bit.

So, like I said. Even if she didn't use auto-tune, there was still the underlying issue, could she sing? She admitted fixing things on record...

Then, after my appointment, I got an e-mail from the guy who leases the audio equipment for her tour, one Everett Lybolt, GM of Sound Image. This was pushing me over the edge. They protesteth too much! Furthermore, Mr. Lybolt went on to criticize other performers on the CMAs for not being live.

Who the fuck knows.

Taylor said I could come to the gig, check all her equipment out.

Like I'm really going to do that. Like it would prove anything. And I never wanted to be a member of the CIA.

And then I get home to a hanging tag from FedEx. My new laptop has finally arrived from China. I missed the delivery by fifteen minutes. I call the delivery service, asking for a resend, and while I'm being transferred between operators, another person is looking for me. But they hang up, then ring again. It's Taylor. Who I tell to hold.

This was unexpected. I figured she'd accomplished her mission.

But she wanted to get back to me with information on the tour dates. As a reader had informed me, the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia does not use Ticketmaster, Comcast sells the tickets. And isn't it funny now that Comcast has joined the Ticketmaster/Live Nation cluster fuck, with Irving supposedly offloading assets to the Roberts-controlled venture so the merger can go through.

Taylor told me her site had been hacked. That the link should have been to comcasttix.com. But the hackers had redirected buyers to gotthetix.com. That's why ducats for her show were priced far in excess of a hundred dollars. She implied that this had been discovered days ago, but in any event, she said it had now been fixed. Anyway, if you go back to her tour page now, the spring dates have reappeared. With Philadelphia and most other markets being shown as being sold out.

The truth?

Who the hell knows.

But there's your story.

But what about our earlier conversation. About Taylor's singing?

I told her she was quite good in the skits on SNL. And she was. Best non-actor guest host in recent times. But I told her, like that CMA opening, the first song...her voice was not good.

Taylor laughed. Said she could handle being criticized for having a bad voice, for missing notes. But she couldn't live with being criticized for being inauthentic.

Those songs are written in real time. About real people. Her co writers edit more than contribute. Her next album she's not planning to write with anyone. Not now, anyway.

And speaking of collaboration, she said she's got no manager. That she and her team have weekly meetings, where they go over career details. If she's on the road, she's conferenced in. The decisions are hers.

Like playing Gillette Stadium?

Absolutely. It's something she always wanted to do. She figures she'll do two or three stadium gigs next summer, that's all. She's salivating over building the show, deciding who will appear with her.

As for SNL, the call came through William Morris. They phoned and told her to hold for Lorne Michaels. Her heart was palpitating, she didn't figure it was about hosting SNL, and when she got the word, she was flying.

Then we discussed her career. And music.

I felt I was getting some stock answers. As I listened, I put myself in her shoes, wondered what it must feel like to get asked the same damn thing again and again. But I wanted to know. Did she see herself as a singer, an actress or..?

Definitely a singer. With a body of work that delineated the various periods of her life. Her first album was about being 13-16. Her second...

So I asked her what her favorite album was. Not because I was making a list, but because I wanted to know where she was coming from.

She thought for a moment, then said Shania Twain's "Come On Over".

I said Mutt Lange was the best living record producer, a true master. But had she ever listened to Joni Mitchell?

There was some hesitation. Then Taylor said no.

I told her to buy "Blue" tonight. Quoted her some lines from "A Case Of You".

And quoting that classic number, I went on to recite lines from Jackson Browne's "The Late Show". Told her I didn't want to overload her, but she should buy "Late For The Sky" too.

Taylor told me she'd seen Jackson live acoustic.

I guess I wanted to know if Taylor Swift wanted to be a star or an artist. That's why I wanted to know her favorite album, I wanted to know her hopes and dreams. Did she need to be in the spotlight, or was it about the work, testing limits?

She's the one who's got to figure it out.

Right now, she's the biggest star in America. Trumping U2, Springsteen, even Kenny Chesney and the Stones. And it's all based on these songs. Straight from the heart. That's why the little girls relate.

One day those girls will be women. A cusp where Taylor Swift is presently residing. Will she make the wrong choices?

I told her you can't say yes to everything. You can make some mistakes, but too many wrong steps can crimp your career.

Then again, I'm fifty six and she's nineteen. Growing up is about taking chances, making mistakes. But I didn't want her to listen to oldsters, telling her what to do, telling her it didn't make any difference as they skimmed from her pond.

We talked about Louis Messina and American Express. This was not some backwoods bimbo, an uneducated nitwit who was clueless when it came to business, but she knew only so much of the inner workings. But that which she did speak about she had a command of. When I broke new ground, she could follow. Taylor Swift is smart.

So where does that leave us?

Did Taylor Swift work me?

I've been worked before. I recognize it when I see it. Tommy Lee insisting I print his e-mail before he responds again. He was looking for publicity. Taylor seemed to need set the record straight. For herself.

Then again, there's an entire career in the balance.

But songs trump singing all day long. Anybody can sing, especially in this auto-tune era. But being able to write a great song, one that grabs fans lyrically and melodically, that's truly tough. And Taylor Swift has accomplished that.

So, I'm a huge fan of the albums.

And I'm convinced she's vocally challenged. But the way Taylor handled that in our conversation, by not skipping a beat, by admitting she's less than perfect, that she can handle the criticism, won me over.

A GOOD MUSIC EDUCATION IS PRICELESS

Cover via Amazon

To be successful, a music publisher must be thoroughly educated about the complexities of the music business. Here are three books I recomend:

All You Need To Know About the Music Business, 6th ed., by Donald S. Passman (Free Press, 2003). This is a must-read for music publishers, especially those who are also performing musicians or aspiring recording artists.

Music, Money and Success, 5th ed., by Jeffrey Brabec and Todd Brabec (Schirmer Trade Books, 2006). Reviewed in November 2007 issue of EM, this is the most comprehensive reference book for music publishers and other industry professionals I've read to date. The last chapter contains five sample contracts.

This Business of Music, 9th ed., by William Krasilovsky and Sydney Shemel (Billboard Books, 2003). Considered by some to be "old school" and short on dollars-and-sense advice, this book never-theless includes excellent chapters on copyright law.

We have 3 more segments to complete this music publishing series. Following that we will begin a series on Copyrights and Wrongs and for those of you interested in our real estate series, we will do that simultaneously.

If you have friends that are on your MySpace, FB or Twitter pages and feel that they would benefit from this series, please feel free to email them with a link to share this valuable information with them at http://composer62.blogspot.com

More tomorrow....

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

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After you have a few song demos ready to pitch, its time to develop a list of contacts who will be willing to listen to them. This is the most difficult aspect of music publishing, as literally tens of thousands of people vie for the attention of the industry's decision makers, who can't possibly communicate with them.

There's no one way to make industry contacts, but here are some strategies in brief. Enter your best songs in prominent songwriting competitions (see the online bonus material "They're Playing My Song" at emusician.com); a contest win will often give A & R managers and producers incentive to listen to an otherwise unknown writer. Try to perform at one of the songwriter showcases sponsored by your PRO; industry contacts often attend these and may approach you if they are impressed by your performance and writing skills.. Attend songwriting conferences at which A & R reps and producers are scheduled to participate. And ask any well--connected friends you might have to introduce you to their contacts. Networking is a must.

Several excellent industry directories are available that list contacts' names, job titles, addresses, and sometimes direct phone numbers (see the sidebar "The Direct Approach"). Make a separate list of the personal contacts you've already made, and update it often. Present this list by any polite means possible to those new contacts you want to make. Everyone wants to hear a writer who is already being listened to by other top dogs in the industry. Your list will grow in rolling-snowball fashion.

Unless you're already extremely connected, you'll need to subscribe to tip sheets (also known as pitch sheets) that list which artists are currently looking for songs to record for upcoming projects.

A song typically has to be a hit before it has a shot at being used in a national advertising campaign. The exception is a song that is a "work made for hire," or one written by an employee or subcontractor for a production company handling the ad campaign.

To get an unknown song placed in a TV or film project, you need to know what projects are in development or production. A list of domestic and foreign projects can be found at variety.com. Successful placement is also likely predicated on your living in or near Hollywood, where you can form the necessary relationships with TV and film studios, music supervisors and the like.

Alternatively, seek out a music publisher who already has film and TV industry connections and negotiate a revenue sharing agreement in return for them placing your songs. Just be sure to limit their entitlement to only those revenues generated from the TV and film placements they negotiate (and possibly any album). A good directory for finding film and Tv oriented publishers to collaborate with is the Music Industry's Film & Television Music Guide.

More tomorrow....

THE DIRECT APPROACH

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Industry directories are a must-have for music publishers. While they do not guarantee successful relationships with important industry decision makers, they do provide you with the information you need to make that first contact. The following list provides the name of each directory, its publisher's web site, and, where applicable, notes of interest.

A & R Registry, the Music Business Review (www.musicregistry.com). A comprehensive international directory of A &R staff and company executives for major and independent record labels. It also includes a useful list of music conferences and conventions.


Music Attorney, Legal & Business Affairs Registry, the Music Business Registry. A comprehensive international directory for contacts working in entertainment law.

Film & Television Music Guide, the Music Business Registry. An international directory of record labels, music publishers, film and television music departments and trailer houses, music supervisors, music placement and video game companies, composers, composer agents, orchestras, music editors, score mixers, music clearance departments, and more.

In Charge, Music Row (www.musicrow.com). This is the most comprehensive and up-to-date directory for the country music industry I've seen. Subscribers to the company's excellent Row Fax tip sheet also gain access to Music Row's expanded online directory.

Pitch This Music Directory,Pitch This Music (www.pitchthismusic.com). While this is a very limited directory for the Nashville area, it contains some exclusive, invaluable listings I've not seen elsewhere.

Producer & Engineer Directory, The Music Business Registry. Contains thousands of domestic and foreign listings for producers, engineers, and their agents.

Music Publishers Registry, the Music Business Registry. Do-it-yourself music publishers will find this international directory helpful in locating publishers for sub publishing and administrative deals. An administrative publishing deal is essentially one where a larger company handles royalty collections and disbursements, and sometimes licensing and promotion, for a smaller company such as your own.

Signing off for the weekend. More on Monday....

Copyright Registration

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Once your music-publishing company is set up, you'll want to protect all the songs currently in your catalog from potential copyright infringement before making any preexisting demos broadly available for other people to hear. Protecting your songs entails establishing a creation date for each with an unaffiliated third party. One way to do this is to register your songs with the Copyright office.

Registration forms can be downloaded for free (www.copyright.gov/forms). Use form PA (Performing Arts) for registering sheet music with the Copyright Office. You can use form SR (Sound Recording) to register both an audio recording of the song and the underlying composition--melody, lyrics and arrangement--at once. The recording needn't be the fully produced version of the song; it only has to clearly convey the music and lyrics in order to protect the underlying song.

When you register your new songs with the Copyright Office, make sure you list your publishing company (not yourself) as the copyright owner, noting in the appropriate section of the registration form "transfer of all rights by the author(s)" as the means by which your company procured copyright ownership from the songwriter(s). By registering your company as the copyright owner, you give it the authority to issue licenses and collect revenues for the song's use by others.

You'll also want to transfer to your publishing company any songs previously copyrighted under your name. You may record this transfer with the Copyright Office, but it's an expensive way to go. The only practical reason to record copyright transfers with the Copyright Office, however, is to protect yourself from conflicting transfers (that is, someone else claiming that the song's copyright was transferred to them and not to you). This is moot if you're the only author of the song, as nobody can register a conflicting transfer unless you gave them your contractual consent to do so.

A valid, no-cost solution for transferring a song written solely by yourself to your publishing company is to draw up a simple document--signed by you and listing the title of the song being transferred--that agrees to the transfer (see online bonus material "From Me To Me" at emusician.com). You may then freely substitute the name of your publishing company in lieu of your personal name on all copyright notices for the song, such as on CD's and lyric sheets.

More Saving Strategies tomorrow...

Flyin High Again

Ozzy Osbourne via last.fm

Conventional wisdom is musicians are fungible. If one dies or quits, you just get another. But players are not like cars, which you crash and then replace, they're not like workers on an assembly line, in the best cases they're unique, which is why we love them so, which is why their legends live on long past their deaths, which is why when bands pick up and go on without them, they're oftentimes missing a crucial element.

Ozzy Osbourne's album with Zakk Wylde, "No More Tears", is almost a masterpiece. The last worthwhile thing the Ozzman has done, it's listenable from start to finish. But after that, nada.

But, before that...

Ozzy was seen as washed-up. A fat joke.

And then he hooked up with Randy Rhoads.

Mr. Rhoads had played with Quiet Riot, which had only managed success in Japan. This was years before "Cum On Feel The Noize". Randy bolted from the initial incarnation along with Rudy Sarzo and joined Ozzy's backup band. And you couldn't pass a Saturday night in Los Angeles without hearing "Flying High Again" on the radio.

Ozzy's vocal is enticing. But it's Randy's buzzsaw guitar that shreds your brain, makes you jump like a snake chopped into bits, across the room, to drop the needle on the track once again.

They say today's acts are just as good as the classics. I won't say it's an impossibility. But just because you top the charts, you're not as great, as talented, as endearing as those who came before. That would be like equating "The Da Vinci Code" with "Anna Karenina".

But it's not only Mr. Rhoads. A man I never knew and have no personal affinity for. It's also Keith Moon.

Like "Flying High Again", I heard "The Real Me" on shuffle on my iPod.

Let me start with John Entwistle. The Ox who never moved on stage. He stood stock still. But his fingers positively danced over his bass strings. Up and down. He was channeling sounds we were unaware of, transmitting them to the audience. He was such a virtuoso, hit the notes so effortlessly, that he never got the credit he was due.

Sure, Daltrey could sing. And Pete not only wrote those songs, he came up with the riffs. But the underpinning was Entwistle. And Moon.

Did you ever see him?

At this point, Ginger Baker was seen as the best drummer in rock. After all, he played with Eric! But the Who was always one step behind. They peaked after not only Cream, but the Beatles and Hendrix too. With "Tommy". Which they performed in its entirety twice, at the Fillmore East, in the spring and fall of 1969.

To watch Keith Moon was better than any Disney ride. He didn't seem human. He locked on to some vibration. And then he hit the drums in sequence, crossing his arms, positively scrambling like a spaghetti-limbed automaton. More powerful than anybody, louder than anybody, and more inventive, more CREATIVE than anybody.

The band's apotheosis is "Who Next". A better album cannot be named. But if you want to hear great playing, check out "Quadrophenia". Where the instruments exist in their own spheres, air between them, yet come together to render a delicious whole.

The Who, like Ozzy, is still on the road. Give credit to the musicians for carrying on. But both acts are missing something. The players that made them great, that cemented their reputations.

And that's sad. But although we can no longer see these legends live, we can listen to the records. And that's why they still sell, are still stolen, are so desirable today. Because listeners can hear that undefinable genius.

Anybody can play, but not anybody can be great.

Anybody can learn scales, technique, but that doesn't mean they add to the canon, that they transcend what became before, that their work burns itself into our brains and never leaves.

This music used to be the most important cultural element. TV was a joke. Movies a collaborative effort that simulated reality. But when these players, these great bands, took the stage, it was life itself!

That's what sold the records. That's what sold the tickets. You couldn't even get in the building. Desire was just that great. To see these twentysomethings testing limits, having honed their skills in basements and clubs when few were paying attention, only to get so good that they transcended everybody else. Sure, they wanted money, chicks, but the music was an end unto itself. There was no big media machine. Only the high of playing with your bros on stage, for an adoring audience, which could never get enough.