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

Canada

Image via Wikipedia

DA PLANE

I do my best to fly American. Yup, that loyalty program works. If I'm Gold, which I am, I don't have to pay for bags and...I can get upgraded...which happened just last week!

But not to Toronto. The front of the plane was booked. I had to sit in the back.

Not too bad. I'm just gonna sit on the aisle and read my magazines all the way to Canada.

Then again, having priority access, being able to board the plane early, I'm in that hellacious anxiety-filled limbo, waiting to see who is going to sit next to me.

Yup, I get on the plane right away. Need to. To put all my stuff in the overhead bin! Not that I'm traveling with that much, but I want a little legroom, I don't want to put my computer underneath the seat in front of me.

So, they're loading from back to front. And I'm just behind the wall in coach... I see obese people go by... I'm losing sympathy for Kevin Smith. Or should I blame the airlines, with impossibly skinny seats and no legroom befitting a population of Lilliputians...

And finally, they're loading my zone.

And one of those guys who looks like a leaking barrel... He's towering over me.

And he's with this woman, I'm not sure it's his wife, because he's all over her, and usually years of marriage eviscerates that behavior, and they're debating whether he should sit in the middle or on the aisle and ultimately...he tells her he's gonna sit by the window.

Yay! Victory!

Then again, his significant other is a bit wide in the hips. No, that's an understatement. She's fat too, just not as fat. But then they start nookying around, as if they're going to join the Mile High Club right there in the cabin, without a blanket, and she's leaning against him, and her avoirdupois is...infringing upon my territory.

That's how you start wars. Hell, it's bad enough that the guy in front of me put his seat back all the way as soon as we leveled out.

So, feeling encroached upon, I pushed back once or twice. I mean she's leaning her ass right against mine, like I'm a cushion or something.

And she never gives me room, but ultimately gets up to pee, and goes to first class, which is a no-no, and she comes back and the guy goes to pee too and she waits in the aisle and when they come back, they switch seats!

Well, at least his hips were narrower, but all his fat is oozing over the armrest, I feel like I'm going to be crushed by the Marshmallow Man.

I get it. Fares have to be cheap or people won't fly. You've got to pack in a bunch of people to make the numbers work.

But we're a fat as hell country trying to squeeze into a skinny world. Kind of like a middle-aged matron sporting a spare tire trying to fit into a size 2. At least the fashion designers wised-up and made a size 10 the equivalent of a size 14.

So what's the answer?

I don't consider myself a member of the fat police. But either we've got to get people healthy or we need bigger airplane seats.

Then again, I read a great analysis in "Newsweek". Stating that it's not really the politicians' fault, blame the electorate, which wants tons of services for no money.

Yup, I don't want to pay any taxes, but fix my roads, give me my entitlements...

To tell you the truth, I would have rather stood up to Toronto. Like the CEO of Ryanair suggested, however facetiously.


VINCE BANNON

You know Vince, right?

Was a performer, a promoter, a record exec and now works for Getty Images.

People steal images for their Websites. So what does Getty do? It makes them available cheap, so people will go legit. Hell, they've got a whole site where the hoi polloi can post their own photos for usage, with a bunch of instructions attached, like NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOUR FAMILY PICTURES!

If only the labels got the message...

You want to be a distributor for everyone. And you want to make music so cheap, it doesn't pay to steal. Hell, stealing takes time.

If you think a buck a track is a good deal, you're probably not buying any...

Piracy isn't a battle to be fought with lawsuits, but pricing and ease of use.

Then again, everybody knows this except the rights holders, which is why the major labels are in decline.


MUSIC MANAGERS FORUM

They had a dinner, honoring Anne Murray's deceased manager and Sam Feldman.

Sam said some interesting things.

Like how it's the same as when he started. You put up posters and you build your act in the clubs. We're starting all over.

Sam also railed about 360 deals. Managers hate 'em. At least managers who are not so eager to commission the meager monies that come in on today's new deals. Shit, you can make more money playing the slots in Vegas.

Or, as Jake said... In a 360 deal, is the manager working for the label? The labels wants you to forgo commissions while you're building the act, but the manager's starving...

The majors believe they've won, 360s are the standard. But have they really lost. Have they got a perfect world where they rule but few want to play.


BILLY CORGAN

Yup, forgot, I read "Rolling Stone" on the plane.

Yes, I still get it. But everybody I told about this story in T.O. does not. The magazine has never meant less.

Anyway, Billy knows he's a has-been. He's using spiritual techniques to try and remain optimistic, that he can break through again.

It's fascinating. Usually stars won't speak the truth. They're delusional, being ripped off again and again yet believing it's sunny when it's raining out.

But Billy knows that people made a fortune on his music... And now, he's yesterday's news. Few want to see him. Same as it ever was. Which is why you can't be on the side of the labels, who take the lion's share of the money. Athletes have brief careers too. But they pay a lot in sports, the stars bring in the cash. Used to be you could make tons on the road, now the label wants a share of that too? Ridiculous.

Meanwhile, there's a long story on Shaun White, the preeminent snowboarder, in "Rolling Stone" too. You want to know what his passion is? Music. The hip shit, beats and such? No, Shaun loves Zeppelin, he's learning the guitar. The Top Forty nitwits are the sideshow, never forget this. The mainstream and the hip merged in the MTV era, but MTV finally removed "Music Television" from its logo, those days are THROUGH!


OLIVER

Can't remember his last name, can't remember the venue, but both made an impression upon me.

First, the club. Two rooms. Comedy in the front and music in the back. ON A WEDNESDAY NIGHT! You can feel the heartbeat in Toronto. In L.A? They're bumping asses, trying to get in TMZ.

And Oliver, who made it into the Top 22 on "Canadian Idol", don't hold that against him, did an acoustic set. Shit, he could sing well, play and you could follow along, and sing along.

This is music.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Beats are music, and that alternative dreck is music too. It's just that in this post modern world in which we live, people are doing derivations of derivations that the public can't relate to. Let's go BACK to the garden. Shit, Zeppelin, et al, were influenced by the blues. A great blues number still works. Do you really have to mess it up with speed, time changes and screechy vocals? Think about it. The best cars have the simplest exterior design. Think of the classics, stop trying to be hip.


RALPH SIMON

Worth knowing. Clive Calder's old partner. But unlike Clive, Ralph's still in the game, would be even if his old partner had cut him in on his score.

Ralph flies all over the world brokering mobile deals. He cemented the deal between U2 and BlackBerry. In the lobby, Ralph introduced me to this guy from India who paid Warner a bunch of money for mobile rights. Conversations with Ralph are deep, not just statistics.

And I told Ralph that the U.K., where he resides...is completely different from America.

In the U.K., people follow music like horse-racing, they're fans of the game. No one gives a shit about the game in the U.S.

In the U.K., radio still matters.

Radio matters less than ever in the U.S. You can be a radio star and play clubs, whereas someone without radio play can live off their tour receipts.

Point being, in the U.S. we've got utter chaos. And the rest of the world is following us. Everybody's making music, potential listeners are overwhelmed, there are no filters and there's no organization.

Filters will rule. People want to be told what to listen to. Online. Shit, they're not going to listen through endless b.s. to hear their favorite song on Pandora, that radio service has the lifespan of MySpace, it's about reading about something and hearing it INSTANTLY, clicking on it! Shit, you can even do this now, with LaLa and YouTube, never mind Spotify. But what you listen to... That's where the game gets interesting.

And recommendations won't come from computer algorithms, but people. Computers will decide what we listen to when you can have sex in an orgasmatron...


LUNCH

An A&R man told me how new bands manipulate the system. They cut a radio guy in for points, get airplay and then trumpet these spins to the label. It's all fake.

Then again, this same guy didn't say all new music was bad, just ABOVE AVERAGE!

Eureka, THAT'S IT! People send me decent stuff all the time. But one listen is enough. Or, as the publisher in attendance stated, like Steve Jobs' credo, music must be INSANELY GREAT!

Make that the filter. Before you recommend something, is it INSANELY GREAT!

That leaves just about everything out. But don't complain, face the facts. The public is so overwhelmed, they've only got TIME for insanely great.

Apple releases one or two products a year that they've been working on for years. And nobody in the building was born yesterday. You've got people who've been coding since before they grew pubic hair! That's what it takes to make something insanely great. So think about it, you just learned GarageBand, cut a song and made a deal for Tunecore to put it on iTunes. THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT'S GREAT OR THAT WE CARE!

The Long Tail means everything is available, so your friends and family can buy it, not that we, the general public, care whatsoever.

Ask yourself, in an era with infinite music at your fingertips, DO YOU WANT TO PLAY IT AGAIN?

Prior to this century, music was expensive, we had little, we played it again because we had no choice.

Those days are history, gone completely. Everything's available. How do we get people to pay attention, to spend time?

By being INSANELY great!