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?

Ratings

Image via Wikipedia

We're in the midst of a cultural shift.

A few years back, I became addicted to a Discovery Channel show about climbing Mt. Everest. Discovery is channel 3 on my Time Warner system. In fact, Discovery's got great placement on all viewing systems. Still, I could not find a single soul who'd seen the show until I talked about it on the radio and someone called in.

This was frustrating. The danger, the personalities. Mt. Everest is not an abstract concept. Was I the only one who could relate?

No. But maybe I was the only one who knew about it. Or had time to see it.

We've been living in a Tower of Babel society. Sure, we all speak English, but that's just about our only common bond. Hell, we don't even utilize the same news sources. The right watches Fox News, the left MSNBC. Even online... The right's got Drudge, the left's got the Huffington Post. And when it comes to popular culture, it's worse. "The Hurt Locker" won Best Picture and almost no one had seen it. But still, the Oscar ratings went up. They're the best they've been in five years. Not because of ten nominated pictures, not because of youngster presenters, not because of the quality of the show, everyone agreed it was sub-par, but because suddenly, everybody wanted to feel included, a member of the tribe.

This is vitally important. This is a 180 from where we've been going the last decade. Suddenly, the ratings for all these awards shows have gone up. Does this mean everyone tuned into the Grammy's was a Taylor Swift fan? Did everybody watch the Olympics because they favored Lindsey Vonn? No, everybody watched because they wanted to be a member of the group.

Call it Long Tail backlash. After diving incredibly deep into our own niches, we're now resurfacing. We want a community feel.

And it's funny how politicians and culture-perpetrators just don't get it.

The story isn't that we've got the Tea Party on the right and the disillusioned Netroots on the left, but that everybody wants a better economy and we want someone to lead us to it. In other words, ignore the hysteria at the fringes and play to the middle, it's VAST!

Just like in popular culture. Hip-hop/beats appeal to a minority of the population. Let's not judge this sound, let's just say that many people dislike it. And if you want to appeal to many, you've got to purvey something different.

Radio, after the Telecommunications Act of 1996, is all about niches. But we're niched out. We want one station we can all believe in, a few acts we all like.

Let's be clear. Not everybody watched the Oscars or the Olympics. The key isn't to appeal to everybody, but MOST people. And never forget that the fringes are the most vocal. If you pay attention to them, you're screwed.

Maybe it's time for more stadium concerts. Maybe that's why U2's trek is so successful. Sure, the music appeals, but it's a TRIBAL RITE! You can talk about the show in advance and with your buddies thereafter. And those who weren't included feel left out and will attend next time.

In other words, we may be on the brink of an explosion of mass culture. We might be ready for the next Beatles. Something that isn't calculated like "American Idol" that blows up overnight because of the ease of spreading the story online.

Think of this as Kardashians with talent. We all know who these nitwits are, but there's no real reason to pay attention. What if there were? Hell, we're paying attention to Snooki and Tiger because it gives us something to talk about, to connect with, both online and at the water cooler.

It appears to be human nature. We want to belong.

That's the story of the future. Not how we can rip off our concert customers, but how we can make them feel like members of a club. That grows and grows. Not how can we create something just like everything else, but something outside the niches that appeals to all. That was Lou Pearlman's genius. To create boy bands that could perform material that was catchy and appealed to all. Sure, the explosion was aided by MTV and CDs sold because it was pre-Napster, but isn't it funny that the idea came from the outside, not the usual suspects, and that the underpinnings, looks, harmonies, singable material, were so basic!

People go to see "Avatar" to belong, to be a member of the group, to get a chip so they can express their opinion. This is VERY important! Now's the time for mass, not niche. Now's the time to create something of quality, that is not dumbed down, that the public can rally around. Niches will never die. But the public hungers for mass appeal. Whether it be TV shows, music or anything which they can dissect and have an opinion about.

It's not about the winter. It's not about Twitter. It's not about texting. It's about a hunger for commonality. Pay attention.

Hurt Gorillaz

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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.

Innovative Marketing

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What's most fascinating about the late night wars is how few people are actually watching. Once upon a time, there were three networks, an appearance on Johnny Carson could break your career wide open. Today, five percent of America watches NBC during prime time. Back in the '52-53 season, it was thirty percent. Something's changed. But the reporting hasn't.

Yes, I got these statistics from the "New York Times". But mostly the article on NBC/Conan/Leno was a rehash. It was as if you'd never paid attention to the story previously, as if you'd never read TMZ, had no Web connection. Trying to get the story right ended up making it so bland that only the most dedicated would ever read the article. But in the past, we read, because that's all we had. The Sunday "Times" plunked down on our doorstep, there was no Web.

But what made me fire up my computer was Stephen Elliott's essay "The D.I.Y. Book Tour" on the inside back page of the "Book Review".

Ever wander into a bookstore during a reading? The room can be packed with bodies, but oftentimes there's no one there but the author and the proprietor. But this is how you sell books. By going to where the people buy them.

"The Adderall Diaries" is Mr. Elliott's seventh book. It got good reviews. But the concept of going out on the usual suspect book tour depressed him, he "didn’t want to travel thousands of miles to read to 10 people, sell four books, then spend the night in a cheap hotel room before flying home. And my publisher didn’t have the money for that many hotel rooms anyway."

Sound like the music business? You can't even get a deal with a major label, and if you do, they take a plethora of rights and are reluctant to spend cash. And if they do open their wallet, it's to put you on TV, to meet radio programmers, who are inundated with talent and rarely care about you. They're worried about their own jobs, not yours. There's an unending supply of wannabe acts. If you don't make it, so be it.

Mr. Elliott decided to try something different:

"Before my book came out, I had set up a lending library allowing anyone to receive a free review copy on the condition they forward it within a week to the next reader, at their own expense. (Now that a majority of reviews are appearing on blogs and in Facebook notes, everyone is a reviewer.) I asked if people wanted to hold an event in their homes. They had to promise 20 attendees. I would sleep on their couch. My publisher would pay for some of the airfare, and I would fund the rest by selling the books myself."

Few people want a free book. What I'm saying is, only those people who truly wanted the free book would ask for it. Try this experiment... Stand on a street corner and try to give away your unknown CD. It's a difficult proposition, almost no one will take it. And those that do are probably afraid to deny you and will never listen to it anyway.

The readings that resulted were far different from in-store experiences. Some attendees were completely out of the loop when it came to famous authors. But the attendees couldn't get enough.

"The readings mostly went very long, over an hour with questions, and people didn’t leave. We were often up discussing until 1 in the morning."

The audience was rapt with attention, involved.

"All together, I sold about 1,100 books (not counting copies of my older books, which I was also selling) at 73 events. Seven hundred of those were books I purchased wholesale, a few hundred more were sold by local booksellers invited to the readings."

That's a lot of books. And you can bet those who read Mr. Elliott's book will continue to follow his career. After all, he came to their friend's house, they met him! It would be like seeing a new band in your buddy's living room.

But new bands would rather get radio airplay, or appear on TV. Both of which are difficult to achieve, are highly impersonal and rarely pay lasting dividends. But those are the established ways of breaking. But it's even worse, just like network TV, fewer people are paying attention.

You might feel good getting your album reviewed in the paper, even the "New York Times". But does your audience really learn about music from a traditional media outlet, where you can't even hear it?

Lost in the outcry about the death of traditional media is the fact that the audience has scattered, fewer people are paying attention, it's harder than ever to truly reach your potential audience, get them to check you out and close them. And it's actually converting people that counts. Radio statistics mean nothing in the abstract, nor do media clippings. It comes down to whether you have fans. But how do you get those fans to begin with?

Large music institutions are no different from NBC or the "New York Times". They keep tightening their belts and complaining that things are not the way they used to be. They're never going back to the way they used to be. We're never going to be limited to three networks again. If you want to succeed in the future you've got to throw the old rule book out, you've got to go directly to the people.

But this isn't sexy. You want to tell your mother your record was spun on KDRECK in Albuquerque, you don't want to tell her you played for thirty people in a living room. But the latter will probably pay more dividends.

But it's not as simple as finding a small place to play. You've got to tailor your act to your audience. Beat-driven extravaganzas don't work in living rooms. Nor does heavy metal cacophony. Acoustic music, with stories, featuring songs that work without production connect one on one.

Sure, people love to dance. They even love to head bang. But the audience for dance music loves the record more than the act, which sucks if you're the act. As for metal music... You just need a bigger place to play. Or one that befits your music. A large garage, with a keg of beer.

But whatever you do, your music must be inviting to the audience. Don't tell people that you've got it right, that they're wrong and they need to acknowledge your greatness. You've got to be so good, so in the pocket that people will call their friends to stop by, as opposed to making excuses and leaving themselves.

You've got to think for yourself. You've got to know most people over thirty five telling you how to make it have no idea what's really going on. You've got to know that you've got to start extremely small, and that growth to ubiquity might never occur. But if you're good, if people like you, your audience will expand, you'll make more money, you'll be satisfied, you will have built it yourself, reliant on no fat cat, fearful of no one pulling the plug.

"The D.I.Y. Book Tour": http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/books/review/Elliott-t.html

"NBC's Slide to Troubled Nightly Punch Line": http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/business/media/17nbc.html

"More Than A Rough Patch": http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/01/17/business/17nbc_g.html

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.

More R&R Hall Of Fame Concert

Cover of Give It Up

LOVE HAS NO PRIDE

A revelation.

Have you ever been left?

It hurts bad enough to go first, you're wracked with guilt. But when you're left behind, you're truly at loose ends. You were the last to know. Usually your beloved decided to move out, to dump you long before. They're over the emotional hump. You're just beginning.

How many times have I heard "Love Has No Pride"?

Written by Eric Kaz, I was first exposed on Bonnie Raitt's second album, "Give It Up". Twenty years later, Bonnie cut an album just as good, maybe even better, "Luck Of The Draw", but for a long time "Give It Up" was my favorite, and the best.

Although Chris Smither's "Love Me Like A Man" is usually cited as the album's centerpiece, the end of first side killer, I was more enamored of side two, which began with "Too Long At The Fair".

Now unavailable in its fast, vinyl version, the slowed-down digital take still haunts.

And then we're straight into Jackson's "Under The Falling Sky". A tear in a way the original is not. Then the oldie, "You Got To Know How". Then the unexpected blitz of "You Told Me Baby".

Only Bonnie can deliver this material. Intelligent, with an edge. We've got wimpy girls and slow-witted ones too. But women with a mind, who aren't afraid of speaking it...whew! That's the essence of Bonnie Raitt's appeal. She's your fantasy girlfriend.

And then comes "Love Has No Pride". The slow album closer. The wimpy radio song.

Until just now. When I saw Bonnie perform it with Crosby & Nash at Madison Square Garden. It was a little slower, and it was all about the message.

"But if you want me to beg, I'll fall down on my knees Asking for you to come back I'd be pleading for you to come back Begging for you to come back to me"

Yes, you eventually do sacrifice your pride. After long torturous nights, on both sides of the raging debate in your head. You swallow your pride, you're honest. You call them up and reveal your truth.

But it makes no difference. They're already gone.

This is a real story, one we almost all live eventually. Grasping...for air.

Sure, it's about the song. To create something so exquisite leaves the rest of us marveling. But it's more than the changes, more than the words. It's comes down to the delivery. World-weary, having plied the boards for four decades, Bonnie Raitt delivered "Love Has No Pride" in such a way that I both related and was creeped out, I try to keep those emotions buried.

It was the highlight of the first half of the show.


THE PRETENDER

"I'm going to be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender
Where the ads take aim and lay their claim To the heart and the soul of the spender And believe in whatever may lie In those things that money can buy Thought true love could have been a contender Are you there?
Say a prayer for the Pretender
Who started out so young and strong
Only to surrender"

When these words poured out of the FM speaker in the fall of '76 the term "yuppie" had not yet been coined. Greed had not been legitimized. We were just emerging from the hangover from the sixties. Politics were taboo, but we were in a period of self-discovery.

Whilst Jackson was singing about human emotions, charlatans like Werner Erhard were selling personal development programs, insisting that they could wipe away a lifetime of hurt, a lifetime of bad deeds in a weekend. We wanted to be content, we wanted to be happy idiots.

We now are.

We live in a world of consumerism. People are not concerned with family life so much as what money can buy. And this goes for the religious zealots too. The "Atlantic" placed part of the blame for the economic crisis at the feet of the religious right. Telling their flock that they were entitled to a life of plenty.

Jackson delivered his number in an understated fashion. But when he reached the above lyrics he belted them out, over an audience of winners who overpaid to be up close to what once was.


GREAT BALLS OF FIRE

I keep my distance from Jerry Lee Lewis. I remember that exhaustive story in "Rolling Stone" wherein the suspicious deaths of those around him were delineated.

But years later, in the twilight of his life, delivering his rockin' original purely solo, the words stood out, they evidenced their truth.

"I'm real nervous, but it sure is fun"

Who hasn't been anxious about asking that girl to dance? Worried that the momentum built up in your head won't sustain.

Rock and roll doesn't only speak to your genitalia, it also speaks to your head and heart.


LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH

In concert, the CSN show is pure nostalgia.

But strangely, their segment worked on HBO. Because of Stephen's playing.

Anybody can have technique. You can pull up prepubescents on YouTube who can hit all the notes, replicate famous solos, dazzle with their speed. But it's he who develops his own sound, that we hear and recognize instantly, that are truly Hall of Fame material.

Thirty nine years ago, Stephen Stills was the biggest act in the business. His solo album sat on the mantel of baby boomers throughout the land. Revisit it, you'll be stunned.

Stephen's worse for wear, but it's still him. Dig him now, he won't be around forever.


SUPERSTITION

It was written for Jeff Beck. Stevie delivered it to the guitar maestro and then had second thoughts, he decided to record it himself. "Superstition" was Stevie Wonder's breakthrough. All these years later, "Sunshine Of My Life" is the most famous track off "Talking Book", but it was "Superstition" that exploded Stevie Wonder, let him leave the "Little" appellation behind.

Sure, he'd put out "Music Of My Mind", had even toured with the Stones, but "Superwoman" got very limited airplay. But the clavinet underpinning of "Superstition" could not be denied. Stevie Wonder rode the track straight into the American mainstream, where he went on to deliver on the promise, releasing three more albums just as good as "Talking Book", and they don't get any better.

Meantime, Jeff Beck ultimately cut an abysmal, bottom-heavy take of "Superstition" with Carmine Appice and Tim Bogert and then went jazz-rock, and was forgotten by the hoi polloi.

Until last night.

I credit Harvey Goldsmith.

Beck's been great forever. Never lost a step. As hot today as he was in the Yardbirds, as he was when he worked with Rod Stewart. His fleet fingers are dancing over so many records. But only when Eric Clapton had to pull out of this Hall of Fame gig did Jeff Beck get his chance. I'm sure Harvey made it happen.

And boy did Jeff deliver.

Yup, almost four decades after Stevie Wonder retrieved his career-breaking hit, he called Jeff Beck on stage, to wail, to play along.

And boy did he. Wail.

This was not nostalgia. This was not quaint. When Beck worked out, it was positively 2009, positively alive. Live long enough, and maybe you get your due.


BRUCE

It's tough. He's become an institution. If you criticize him, you're Un-American. His followers have become like Palinistas, their man can do no wrong.

He worked really hard. But his voice was lacking... Maybe he'd done too many dates. He was great on "Pretty Woman" with John Fogerty, but he lacked the transcendence we've all seen him deliver in the past.

But the E Street Band? They killed!

Clarence nailed his sax solo. Roy tickled the ivories. And Max Weinberg evidenced restraint. He didn't call attention to himself, he just provided the underpinning.

"The rangers had a homecoming in Harlem late last night"

That's why we go to the show. To go home. To where we're understood, where we're our best selves.

I went to the Bottom Line on a sweltering June night back in '74, a year before "Born To Run" was released. "The Wild, the Innocent, & the E Street Shuffle" had become my favorite album. I had to see the man perform.

It wasn't difficult getting a ticket. But I got there two hours early, ate an overpriced salad in a plastic boat, just to be within mere feet of the stage. I could have sat in the very first row, but I left two empty chairs between me and the platform, I wanted to be far enough away to get pristine sound, to take it all in.

The stage was crowded with players. The songs on the albums came alive. But the moment of transcendence came deep into the set, on a brand new number, "Jungleland".

"The midnight gang's assembled and picked a rendezvous for the night They'll meet 'neath that giant Exxon sign that brings this fair city light"

It used to be Esso. It had only been Exxon for a year or so. Standard Oil of New Jersey coming up with this non-word that they could brand their company with throughout the world.

You see Bruce Springsteen was new, he was ours. He didn't endure the war, he didn't grow up in poverty in some godforsaken gray city in England. He was a baby boomer. Born into the land of plenty, New Jersey.

What a complicated place, the Garden State. In places gorgeous, in others a dump. But it's got the beach. The land of romance.

Yes, Bruce Springsteen grew up in Asbury Park. Where money wasn't short, but support was.

Our parents had grown up hard. They knew how to provide, put food on the table, they just didn't know how to relate.

Bruce sang of this. Of hopes and dreams.

It's not about this song or that, it's about what he represented. Liberation from a society that said you had to go to the right school, had to look a certain way.

I find it ironic that the bankers who bought up the good seats at the Garden are such Boss fans. If they were made fun of in school, at least they got straight A's, so they could go to an Ivy League school, so they could rape and pillage as an adult. Bruce was a loser with a capital "L". Winning nowhere. And through hard work and belief in himself, he triumphed.

And he's been on an endless victory lap for decades.

Because he didn't foresee this. That little Bruce Springsteen could win, be a legend, rich in cash and adulation.

He married an actress. Went to psychotherapy. Got divorced. Remarried. Had a family. Went solo. Went folk. Reformed the band and has been trying to find the proper direction ever since.

But at least he's still alive, he's still kicking.

So many of the greats are no longer here. They used dope to get through. They were loved, but they couldn't fit in. On the surface they looked like kings, but inside they lived a life of pain.

The ending of "Jungleland" was a triumph. Of sheer power. Of a man who played by his own rules and won.

And that's rock and roll.

Jon Bon Jovi / John Mayer, What's The Difference

Image by sushla via Flickr

If older folk still buy music and younger people steal it, why did John Mayer sell almost twice as many albums the first week out as Bon Jovi?

Yes, according to hitsdailydouble.com, John Mayer sold 301,204 copies of his new album, "Battle Studies", this week. Whereas last week, Bon Jovi moved 165,871 copies of "The Circle".

Ready for some truly horrifying news? This week "The Circle" fell all the way to number 19, selling 50,153 copies, a whopping drop of 70%. Whew!

What's the difference between John and Jon?

One is living in 2009 and the other is living in the last century.

Jon Bon Jovi was positively old media, tying in with NBC.

John Mayer was new media, appearing in concert on Fuse and tweeting up a storm.

It doesn't matter the total reach, it matters who actually watches and what the perception is.

Fuse would be canceled, the entire channel, if its programming was on NBC. To say the ratings are anemic would be charitable. But Fuse airs music, unlike MTV. And most people watching the shows featuring Bon Jovi on NBC don't give a shit about the man's music. In other words, Jon's shoving it down the wrong people's throats.

Jon Bon Jovi has a fawning documentary on Showtime.

John Mayer is all over Twitter.

Did you watch any of the Bon Jovi doc? Shot like it was footage for "America's Next Top Model", everyone looked beautiful and spouted humble platitudes, like we were still living in the eighties and rock stars were established on MTV and made a freaking fortune. Whereas the truth is everybody's scrambling, giving concert tickets away in some instances. Bon Jovi reflecting is like Lloyd Blankfein saying Goldman Sachs is doing "God's work". Huh?

Laughable.

If you Google "Bon Jovi Twitter", the first result is: http://m.twitter.com/backstagejbj a page that doesn't exist. The second result is http://twitter.com/bonjovimerch

Wow, someone in JBJ's camp doesn't understand Twitter. It's not for selling, its for CONNECTING!

Meanwhile, the Bon Jovi merch page has 1,540 followers.

Google "John Mayer Twitter" and you get the following page: http://twitter.com/jOhnCmAYer

John Mayer has 2,657,425 Twitter followers. Furthermore, he's following 72 people, so you get an idea of what he's into.

Bon Jovi's old school, playing behind a wall, just like Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine, rarely coming out to play and only in circumstances they can control.

John Mayer is new school. Putting it all out there unfiltered, getting into arguments with Perez Hilton, never backing down, not afraid to look like a tool.

It's the honesty that grabs you. That's why people are following John Mayer, that's why they care about him. Furthermore, in an era where album sales represent only a fraction of your fan base, you want to get attention where you can. Not by batting people over the head, telling them they must endure you, but being so provocative, so interesting that they want to tune in.

Nobody plays the new media game better than Mr. Mayer.

He makes a deal with BlackBerry and it looks cool. Kind of like a rapper, ripping off the man, because you know he uses a BlackBerry anyway! Whereas U2 makes a deal with BlackBerry and you see dollar signs, you see promotion, you see a deal. If you endorse a product you truly use is it a sell-out?

The classic rock acts would probably say yes, you don't want to tarnish your image.

But Mr. Mayer is at the bleeding edge of a new paradigm, where the rules are being made up as we go. He's so overexposed that he's establishing a new way of doing it, you almost feel like he's a guy at your high school, that you know him. Does anybody really know Jon Bon Jovi? Who never has a bad word to say about anyone?

Old school: You're afraid of pissing anybody off, you're Justin Timberlake at the Super Bowl, apologizing.

New school: Dixie Chicks. Screw with me and I'll give you the middle finger.

In other words, it's been a long strange trip, but we're suddenly back in the sixties. It's about artistry, it's about music, it's about honesty. You don't triangulate, construct a phony identity for public consumption. You're better off being your real self. Hell, the Internet will tease out your flaws anyway, why not admit them?

Jon Bon Jovi utters irrelevant platitudes and John Mayer sings "Who says I can't get stoned?"

Politicians have to lie about doing dope. But artists are supposed to speak the truth, and the public has to deal with it. Which is why we love our artists more than any political figure.

"Who says I can't get stoned
Call up a girl that I used to know
Fake love for an hour or so
Who says I can't get stoned?"

A weird variation on drunk-dialing. Maybe her number is still in your cell. Maybe you've got to IM her, maybe you've got to pull up her Facebook page. But you're sitting at home, thinking about what used to be. Can you act on it?

That's a question confronting everyone online. Do you make contact or let the sleeping dogs of the past lie?

Bon Jovi, Mimi, all the stars of the MTV era are still living in it, oblivious to the fact that the nineties were ten years ago, and that in Internet time, a decade is equivalent to a century. It's not a three year cycle, you're on a day to day regimen.

"Any tweet that takes more than 90 seconds to write is not a tweet worth sending."

John Mayer

Yes, we used to make records in an afternoon and get them on the radio in a week. Now, TV and movies are more topical than music. Let it out, go knee-jerk, don't massage, don't focus on the marketing plan, focus on the music.

And stay in touch with your audience CONSTANTLY!

"Who Says": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZwVjys2bQI

Bon Jovi Circle

Cover of Lost Highway

How do we want to spin this? That few want Bon Jovi's new music or NBC is in the crapper?

Yes, follow the stories. NBC/Universal may end up being controlled by Comcast. This has got more to do with Vivendi exercising an exit clause than NBC sucking, but the network does. Blame it on Jay Leno at 10 or a general lack of creativity, but the ratings are terrible, the network is far-removed from the leaders of the pack, just like Bon Jovi is far-removed from the audience.

Jon Bon Jovi even did the Actors Studio. I guess it speaks more to the lost credibility of James Lipton than the becoiffed one's lack of a distinguished film career, but still...what's next? Bon Jovi suiting up for the Jets? Or the New England Patriots?

You've got to give us a reason to care. And most people don't anyway. So, you're speaking to your core audience at most, and it turns out these people don't want new Bon Jovi music, they just want to hear that Tommy used to work on the docks.

In case you missed the memo, "Circle", with all its shenanigans, the incredible hype, the $3.99 offer, sold 163,000 copies last week. Which might sound somewhat impressive, since the album debuted at number one, but their 2007 country effort, "Lost Highway", also entered at the top of the chart, yet it sold 292,000 copies! Meaning that even though they were selling out, being crass commercial marketers, going country was a better idea than playing the mainstream game. Sure, sales have dropped in the past two years, but not THIS much!

Bon Jovi got it all wrong. They should have put out ONE song. Woodshed until they got one right. Then licensed this one cut to the NFL or ESPN and had it banged ad infinitum. Most of the NBC hype fell on deaf ears. Today's story is we avoid anything we're not interested in. We had to sit through Bon Jovi on MTV in the eighties, today we flip the channel or surf to another site.

Speaking of sites, Bon Jovi even advertised on CNN!

Who took the band's money? Who is so out of touch with today's market conditions? In a time of upheaval you don't play by the old rules, you revolt and do something completely new. And believe me, lining up with a major TV network is positively last century. That shotgun approach, hit everybody and hope they're interested, leaves you with a ton of wasted impressions, people who don't give a shit.

It's all about the tour. That's where the money is. So, I'd juice up the tour. Whether it be by playing "Slippery When Wet" from start to finish, the only album people truly care about, or creating a live extravaganza like Kenny Chesney's multi-bill stadium shows. Every hair band come back to life! You know the female Bon Jovi audience, the act's main driver, loved Slaughter and Cinderella and Winger and White Lion too...

And where's the online contest? Find the right clues, and you get a song written just for you, the winner!

Where's the promotional tour where you show up at diehard winners' houses? Yup, you compete online and then Jon and Richie show up unannounced, like the Publishers Clearing House, and perform "Wanted Dead Or Alive" in your living room.

And speaking of "Wanted Dead Or Alive"... Where's the live rendition from Phil, from "Deadliest Catch"? With a video to match? This barely alive skipper with a Marlboro habit should be featured, just like the song that leads off this series so well.

In other words, where's the creativity? Shit, Josh Freese got more ink and had more penetration of the public consciousness with one good idea than Bon Jovi achieved playing by the old rules.

Because creativity rules. And when you get to superstar level, the acts are creatively bankrupt. Just playing by the old rules, looking for a paycheck. Even though so many broke the rules in order to achieve their success.

You've got to risk. You've got to take chances. You've got to realize we live in 2009, not 1989.

Used to be music was the cutting edge artistic medium. Then, you had a better chance of seeing present-day reality in "Law & Order" than hearing it on a record album. Shit, "South Park" still takes chances. Why can't Bon Jovi?

The best Bon Jovi bit of the last ten years, eclipsing all of their music, was their interview with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Why didn't they have Triumph do their new interview? Make a deal with YouTube to get it on the home page?

As for the album itself... It may trigger a revenue-producing event, but it's a circle jerk between the act and the label. It's about music. Create some music that we truly want to hear, that we can sink our teeth into. Otherwise, it's all just marketing. And you can't sell what the public doesn't want.

Bon Jovi and NBC Universal Team Up For First-Ever Artists In Residence Project: http://www.nbc.com/news/2009/10/15/bon-jovi-and-nbc-universal-team-up-for-first-ever-artists-in-residence-project/

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1z09v_triumph-the-insult-comic-dog-bon-jo_animals

GIRL CAN'T HELP IT

Image via Wikipedia

There are so many things wrong with Sirius XM I don't know where to begin. But it all starts with the programming.

Distribution is king. But arrangements have already been made with all the car manufacturers. Sure, it's important to get on new platforms, but if Sirius XM is banking on its iPhone app for profitability, it might as well go bankrupt now.

XM used to be a cult. Millions strong, people frothed at the mouth when they discussed it. Did you hear this? That? Now, we hear too much of what we already know, which we've already heard. What kind of crazy screwed up service is it where there are a hundred plus stations and everybody complains they're hearing the same damn songs over and over again?

I tried to battle perception, to fight the tide, because despite its failings, Sirius XM is still my listening of choice in the car. I don't talk on the cell, I just want to bask in the music. But how many times can I hear Ringo's "It Don't Come Easy"? And the promos... They're just as bogus as what's on terrestrial radio, as if we need to be sold on the service, as if they're programming for theoretical aliens who've never heard music before. The stations are riddled with every radio cliche known to man. Exactly the crap that Lee Abrams excercised on XM. It's so jive.

Still, some of the XM stations are still brilliant. Like Deep Tracks. And the Loft. But Outlaw Country is a shadow of XM's X Country. And the regular country station is riddled with repeats. Worst is the Bridge. Even housewives like to have sex. Listen to the station, all the rough ends have been shorn off. I like soft rock, but when I hear the promos, I wince. I want surprises. Delivered by normal people, who believe in music, not research, who don't follow the trades, but spend time checking out music themselves.

And then I stumble upon something like "Girl Can't Help It".

They've neutered the decades channels. The same damn songs again and again. Nothing unknown, and ultimately, nothing unexpected. But then you hear something you don't know, or barely know, and you have that magic radio moment, when you feel like you want to point your car towards Reno, some destination unknown ten or twelve hours away, just so you can be alone in the car, listening to the radio.

Where do we want to begin with Journey?

Do we want to state it was a completely different band before Steve Perry joined? Or say that we hated the people who loved them? Or that so much of the music was meaningless?

Or do we just want to say that Steve Perry had an incredible voice?

One of my favorite Journey songs is a Steve Perry solo work, "Oh Sherrie". And I'll admit to even coming to like "Wheel In The Sky", "Any Way You Want It" and "Lights" in their heyday. But I threw out the "Escape" cassette someone gave me. I was afraid someone would see it in my glove box.

And then came the "Sopranos" finale.

Not much was happening. Everybody was having dinner. Maybe Tony was about to be clipped. All we know is there was tension. And playing over this creepy moment was a powerful, sunny song by a band we'd never align with the best TV series of the twenty first century. Then again, Tony did not have eclectic tastes. He was positively mainstream. He remembered his eighties heyday, getting high, driving along to the tunes. So, maybe "Don't Stop Believin'" was a perfect fit.

What we do know is overnight Journey became legitimized. Enough time had gone by for the haters to admit their guilty pleasure. We could all admit this was a damn powerful song. We didn't want to stop believing, in the power of great art like the "Sopranos", of powerful rock and roll like "Don't Stop Believin'".

So I'm about a mile from my house, pushing my satellite radio buttons. And I hear a somewhat familiar hook. I know I've heard it before, but I can't really place it. I look down at the radio readout to see it's Journey's "Girl Can't Help It". Huh?

The song keeps building. It's missing some of the perfection Clive Davis insists upon. But when the tension is released, it's exactly like coming. That's what a great record is, a sexual moment.

"Ooh, there's a fire in his eyes for you"

Who knows why you broke up. But you can't seem to get it back together. You'd talk about her more, but your friends are gonna avoid you if you do, and you need them to get through. Still, you lie awake at night, thinking only of her.

"And when he calls her
She tells him that she still cares"

That's the problem. You know it's going to hurt. But you can't help but try and connect. And the problem is the feeling is about as good as ever. But the conversation doesn't end up with you getting back together, but still apart, your guts ripped open once again.

"Girl can't help it, she needs more"

The curse of modern society. No one wants to settle, no one wants to get less than he deserves.

"Hasn't found what he's lookin' for"

He felt that when they broke up he would crawl from the wreckage into a brand new car. But he didn't realize how much they truly shared, how hard it is to get that far with anybody.

"Ooh, nothing stands between love and you"

Except everything.

There are millions of members of the opposite sex. You're surrounded. But you feel positively alone, you're lonely. What to do?

Turn on the radio. Listen for that song that describes your plight.

And oftentimes, when the track's a hit, when you first love it, the words don't apply at all. And then, in your moment of despair, you rediscover it.

These are the moments I'm looking for. The unexpected. "Girl Can't Help It" is not a Sirius XM staple, I heard it at eleven p.m. on the west coast. There's no problem hearing "Don't Stop Believin'", but that won't get you through the night. You need something just for you. And radio, when done right, is just like that. A hot medium, where you get the impression you're the only listener extant, and the deejay is spinning the records just for you.

If Sirius XM is going to recover from its tailspin, it's going to be as a result of its programming. At this point, even Dell and HP make slick computers. But Apple triumphs because of the software. Not only the clean OS, but the built-in apps. Just open your ears, you can't avoid the cacophony of lemmings testifying. Satellite radio's throng was never quite as large, but it was just as rabid. But now it's like the Sculley era, the late eighties and early nineties in Macville, when only the true believers held on. Until Steve returned.

I'd say to bring back Lee Abrams.

Because to Lee, it wasn't about picking records, it was about a love for radio. The experience of tuning in and finding your one and only friend.


You can hear "Girl Can't Help It" by Googling it and clicking the LaLa button to play it.

Or you can go to YouTube to hear the same studio version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6mxYRwA0FI

Or, you can dial up this "live" take: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoD-ex6LMwA

Yes, that's the dogg himself, Randy Jackson, playing the bass. Check the hair!

And yes, that's still Neal Schon on guitar, who started off with Carlos. As in Santana.

And fronting the band is the guy in tails, with the 80's 'do, Steve Perry.

But what you want to check out most is the crowd.

We used to have no problem pulling tens of thousands to the gig. When you didn't have to pay an arm and a leg to get in and the songs literally drove the culture.

"They're still standing in the rain
He can't help it, and she's just that way"

We're still waiting. We remember the power of music. We're waiting for it to come back. To be about the music as opposed to profits.

They're just that way. Like the bankers. Worrying how to make their nut, which has got many more zeros than that of the listeners.

Used to be the music was enough. To not only satiate the audience, but rain coin on the players and their handlers.

It's still enough.

We don't have a theft problem, we've got a music problem. What's the modern song that's going to end the "Sopranos"?

"Ooh, there's a fire in his eyes for you For you she cries Ooh do you know she still cries for you"

The businessmen don't talk about the music. And the players are either concerned how to break into the chart, get paid, or are so busy doing solely what they want that no one else can relate.

Still, right now, I don't give a shit.

Because when you listen to a song as great as "Girl Can't Help It", no matter how flawed it might be, its magic lifts you up from your seat, causes you twirl around the room like Stevie Nicks, makes you feel like it's JUST GREAT TO BE ALIVE!

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....