Jamie Kitman

Little light music business on the side, but there's a new land Rover Defender for the first time in seventy years. Uh, the original coming out, and uh that's kind of a big deal. So I'm actually here covering it for Airmail, which is the new Graden Carter Alesander Stanley UM publication. Okay, how did you get that gig writing for them? Uh?

They called me up and asked me if I wanted to do it, and I was like sure, Um, you know, um, I would like to say I'm in three dying industries, uh, cars, music, and magazine. So uh, when somebody calls generally in the certainly in the writing realm, I'll hear them out and uh, it's uh, it's a pretty exciting publication and so it was kind of an honor to do it. Okay, Now, I certainly got their first edition free over the summer. Do you have any idea what's going on with the airmail? Airmail,

how many people are reading it, etcetera. Um. I was talking to my editor the other day. He said that they thought it was successful so far and that they were still having fun. And I said, well, it's only been out for a couple of months. I hope you're still having fun. But he uh he he indicated was good, But I don't really Uh, you know, it's hard to track that the metrics on something like that, and I'm

not sure I would understand them anyway. Okay, starting with the automobile thing, You're not only in Automobile Magazine every issue with a column, You're occasionally in the New York Times on the opinion page. What generates the most heat for you? Well, I mean it depends what you mean by heat. Um. When I wrote I think my first automotive up ed piece was for the Times was um, basically their first ever anti suv uh ed piece. Uh in n So that was gosh, that's twenty four years ago,

but um, twenty five years ago. Uh that that generated a lot of heat in the sense that suddenly I stopped being invited to car launches by manufacturers because uh that was in fact, they're great profidence and it just irritated them. I can tell you a story that combined

both of cars and music around that. Uh that was time to the uh New York Auto Show that year and land Rover Um, who are actually my hosts on this trip, We're launching their first ever Discovery model then and it was so important to them that they had hired Staying uh for it as he uh to come to New York and he was gonna um receive a

donation for his Brazilian rainforest charity. Uh while introducing the Discovery to the assembled media who were in town for the New York Auto Show, but also not just the automotive media, but the music press, which was a thing back then and had all these people. They were going to go to an art directed mound of dirt on at the end of forty Street by the Hudson River, and a Discovery was going to drive over it. Then Staying would get the oversized check and the photo op

and all that stuff. Apparently I found this out a year later from a uh sometimes uh freelance publicist for land Rover. She was like, Jimmie Kentman, you made for the most miserable day of my life. Apparently Sting woke up that morning and read this piece in the Time suggesting that actually SUVs weren't environmentally sound and that they really hadn't you know, no benefit to most people and were unnecessary and just eight more gas were more deadly in accidents, and he woke up and he refused to

show up. So uh, the end of the story is is that they ended up having to give his rainforest charity eighty thous dollars instead of forty. So I feel like I did my bit for the environment right there. Yeah, I mean obviously, although we still need more money for the rainforest right now. But this was that was when Jaguars, Jaguarren land Rover are still together but owned by the Chinese. Now right, that's no, they're owned by the Indians. Now

they're owned by Tata Motors. Can't keep straight who's owned by the Chinese and so who's owned by Indians and who's owned by Chinese. The well Jaguar land Rovers owned by the Indians UH. Also the new UM electric sports car company Pininfarina's owned by a different set of Indians, UH, and UH the Chinese owned Volvo UH and their new pole Star all electric brand which is just launching its first car, the poll Star one which I drove the

other week, which is awesome. And UH. They also UM own Lotus, the English sports car company UM, among others. And the actually the people who make London taxis now are owned by this same Chinese company, which is called Jelie.

And the thing about both of the Indians and the Chinese UH the make for interesting case studies as opposed to when American companies were buying of car companies, like when Ford bought Volvo and Jaguar and Aston, Martin, UH and GM, saab UM, is that the Chinese really seemed to stand back and let the engineers who made those companies worth buying in the first place do their job and you know, the executives and the product planners and things like that, whereas the Americans tend to have stuck

their fingers deeper into those companies in an effort to realize additional savings and things like that, with sometimes uh, negative results for the company that they bought. The the the most egregious example being SAAB, which was bought by General Motors, and you know what they did. They surgically

removed its brain. And you know, they sold a Chevy Trailblazer as a sub and it was, you know, an affront to everything that SAB ever stood for Now at the same time, I know you happen to have that SABERU the well that was you know, at least that was closer to what a SAB had sub you know, not been going bankrupt, what they would have been making, whereas the the Chevy Trailblazer SAB was just an abbommination. Okay, I says, I don't need to vend defend my car.

You know. Interestingly, I just taken to the sub rue place to be serviced. Well there there is no place exactly. But uh, I have a friend who owned two sobs and ran into that trouble, said he's never gonna buy Okay, I talked to him about buying a Tesla threason already bought two cars from a company that went out of business. I'm anxious, but we'll get to Tesla. Eventually they're great values car cars from companies that are either out of or going out of business. I mostly specialized in those.

What I bought new cars, great deals. Okay, what have you bought recently to you? Uh? Well, I actually I bought a Fiat was the first car I ever bought new car right after they had an announced going out of business. Eight now, I said, eighty two, I bought a Prussia and ninety two right when they went out

of business. Half rice um. I wrote a column in ninety four or ninety late ninety three I had just bought it Alfa Romeo, and I said, well, based on my drag record, they're probably going to go out of business, And six months later they did. Uh so yeah, I mean okay, but interestingly you but you know, fix it again, Tony. My sister had a Fiat, great car, but certainly you know, the body ended up getting cancer. When you get one of those cars discontinued, especially Pougeau that weren't that many

of them. How hard is it to get them serviced? Uh? It's harder than than some other cars, but not impossible if you're resourceful and having always been an old car fan Um. Finding obscure parts difficult, you know, to find things. You know, it's just been always part of my existence. There's actually old cars that it's easier to get parts for now than it was twenty or thirty years ago because because they people started to reproduce uh parts that

had gone out of production. There was there was enough of a business case for people old mgs for instance, you know, for people to make almost every part that was on one of those cars, so it became easier. Also, the Chinese will make almost any part um if there's a market for it, um and they can do it cheaply. Uh Sadly they're often of inferior quality, but you know they might get you back on the road, right, Okay,

So you're here for the land Rover Defender. Okay, I remember land Rover in the seventies, front of mine had it went all of fifty five, but it would climb anything. Okay. Then about twenty five years ago, a little bit longer, they came out with the range Roll. Now in l A that's a status car and it never goes off you know, off trail so to speak. What's your viewpoint on all that? Well, I mean that's actually uh Rover

really pioneered that market. The range Rover actually came out in nineteen sixty eight, uh in in sixty nine and in the UK and Europe, just didn't get sold in America.

It was a luxury car then it was it was it was more spartan than it is today, but it was considered a luxury suv and um UM I had an unusual window on that because I was born in Brooklyn, but I grew up in Leonia, New Jersey, which was the headquarters for British Leyland, which was the company that owned Rover by that point, and so I saw prototypes of those when I was a kid riding my bicycle around in their parking lot that they had were testing

in America doing hot weather testing for um, which in the New Jersey summer is is really believable because it was hot. But my view of them in general is that, uh, you know, uh, I've always liked range Rovers, but uh I like them better when not so many people were driving them, because there there's a certain person who really can make good use of that and I think, you know, reasonable efficient use of it, and then there are people who are just mostly wasting gas and taking up too

much space. So so I'm sort of ambivalent about that. The Defender, I mean, it really leads the more you think about it, it leads you to to the whole authenticity question, which is, you know what so much marketing of everything from you know, cars and high fi systems and bicycles and and music is about um because the Defender was around for so long that it kind of got a free path from everybody, myself included, because it

it just it was what it was. It was no nonsense work vehicle, and they didn't really the funds with it, and they weren't catering to you know, the latest uh you know mobile phone app. In fact, it had no telematics, no capability to deal with your phone whatsoever. Uh. And that was that was um, you know, gave it an incredible authenticity, which makes the launch and the new Defenders so um interesting. You know, I haven't actually seen it in the medal. I will tonight, but um, you know,

are they able to sustain that? Are they able to you know, to recreate that with this new car that is modern? You couldn't you couldn't build a car that that was that primitive anymore. It wasn't safe enough. Um, it didn't have the you know, facility to do things that everybody expects of their car. Now. The downside of the new things, which are going to be way more electronics and exotic medals and things like that, is that they're harder for people in the bush too to fix.

Which was always one of the things that people liked about land robbers is that you know, you could be in the in the in the deepest jungle in Africa and with the you know, with this Swiss army knife, you could get a lot of stuff fixed and repaired. But you know, it ain't gonna be that way anymore. And it's just okay, how long has it been since they manufactured the original Defender Just about a year I think, like, yeah,

just a little over a year. And they did a run out edition that was very expensive in the UK that speculators all bought and uh many automotive journalists and

my acquaintance also bought. And how expensive expensive Well it was, Yeah, it was getting up in the fifty thousands of dollars, I would say, which you know, for for what's essentially like yeah, stripped down vehicles was enough The new ones, they will be more expensive, so that will be uh you know, it will keep them exclusive for some time.

I think we have bought the defender of the VIA generation in America, only there was a brief period they stopped selling what was its predecessor in nineteen four in America and in ninety three through you could buy it legally. There's a massive trade in cars that are imported from overseas, though many of them illegal, and there was in fact a very um well publicized effort on the part of the government too sees cars that had been fraudulently imported.

There's a twenty five year exemption on old cars that if a car is twenty five years old, it doesn't have to pass E p A standards and d O T standards. And this is of course before the Trump administration, where it doesn't matter if anything passes any standard because they don't enforce any of the rules anymore. But uh so you could bring in a twenty five year old

land Rover. What people did was, um they would get a serial number off of twenty five year older older land Rover, slap it on almost brand new one and bring it in. So l a is is uh littered with you know, two thousand and fifteen land Rover Defender one tens with all the trimmings um that are probably titled as a you know, as a or something like that. You know, it's interesting you bring up a lot of things. You talk about being in New Jersey and seeing the

models that are going to come out. I remember being in the library and high school. We'd read those car magazines. I never saw a f I grew up a never saw a famous person, never saw one of those covered cars. Have seen it occasionally in l A friend of mine had the last Defender seventy four and when we lived in Utah, because we were skiing and he wanted a vehicle like that. He brought it in to the company that service and they said, there's no such thing as

the seventy four. If you want to come out and see mine, and I remember we were Mammoth Mountain in May and there's nowhere to park. He literally parked it on the side of a mound of snow, nearly vertical. It's just amazing with those things could do. They they were great. Okay, so let's let's back up. Holy Okay, let's start with you brought the suv question in your mind, the fact that most of these vehicles are now crossovers, meaning that they have a cart bottom as opposed to

truck bottom, does that save them? In your eyes? It improves them? And you know, in in fairness, they're significantly safer, more economical, cleaner, better handling, less likely to roll over, less likely to kill the driver. Um then and other people than the SUVs of say the nineties were. Uh, it doesn't entirely save them because they're still they're big, they're bluff um, and they're tall with higher centers of gravity, so they actually get you know, worse mileage than an

equivalent car would get or something that was lower. Um. They don't necessarily have any more room than a car would have. They're just jacked up higher. And it's uh,

so that's you know, that's what's negative about them. And a lot of people will say, well, you know, in the electric future, when you know there's these new electric SUVs like the Mustang that was announced last night or the Rivian that's coming that, you know, it won't really matter, um, because you won't be using gasoline, but you will be using more electricity to power this thing. That's too heavy, too big, and very bluff um, so that it will still be an issue even then that you know, why

should you be using more electricity than less electricity? If we didn't care about that, why do we have laws that make refrigerators more efficient and televisions and other appliances. So um, so I'm concerned from that point. Also, Dynamically, they're a real step down from cars, you know, dynamically meaning how they handle, how you know, how fast you can go around a corner, on from the old school, which vout puts a value on, you know, how nicely

things go around corners. Uh. The SUV really was a paradigm shift, and that's what Suddenly people stopped caring about it. It was like the shift that I know that you've written about often where you know, high fidelity sort of became like what's that. You know, the whole generation of people who had been you know, you know, their predecessors had spent their entire lives in search of better and

better sound. Um, suddenly you know went out the window in in in favor of miniaturization and you know, like portability and and uh, you know, connectivity and things like that, so that it became a you know, high fidelity became a minority interest where it had been at least a bigger minority. Uh. Same with handling and ride and things like that. Then other an log in the in the car world was the shift from uh, smaller wheels to

bigger wheels. Now everything's got twenty inch wheels and big tires or twenty two inch wheels, and that runs against you know, the hundred years of automotive history where engineers and manufacturers learned and customers agreed that that all of that extra weight and height made for a poor ride quality. And so things got a lot bumpier than they had been. And and you know, a hundred years of trying to

make cars ride smoothly went out the windows. Okay, so if you see a car now almost all the cars have these very low profile tires, what are the advantages and disadvantages of those. Well, the advantages are are generally, uh, more grip um because there's less flex in the side wall, and you know, more confident handling, but mostly aesthetic beyond

that and uh and the same with the wheels. So I remember being at the GM proving grounds and in UH war in Michigan, and UH um, we were driving around in a Cadillac Escalade, and um we One of the things we were doing was driving a GM show car from the nineteen thirties called the Wide Job, which was a Buick and a really cool futuristic you know, two seater that was you know, eight ft long, but it had these tiny wheels, like thirteen inch wheels with big balloon tires, and um, I asked the guy who

was driving me around. I was like, well, you know, like, what was the idea with like thirteen inch wheels? Were riding in an escalator on twenty twos? And he's like, oh, ride quality absolutely, And I was like, well, why are then just this Cadillac, which is supposed to ride smooth? Why is it uh have twenty two inch wheels? And he was like, well, uh, you know people want them.

They look cool. You know. That's it. That's all I got. Okay, starting with handling the Cayenne and the Cayenne Turbo, the poor show how does that handle compared to a sedan? Uh? It Well, again, it's it's a lot. It's pretty heavy, so it's on the heavier end of what a sedan. My way on the on the you know, really probably a little past that, but it also is taller. Now that said, you know, they handle about as good as something that weighs, you know, fifty pounds could handle, you know,

after it's been jacked up six or seven inches. But uh, you know, compared to I mean the comparison that I find more emotional for me is comparing it to like a nine eleven or a Boxer, which handles great. Um, and it's you know, it's a different thing. The brand has has you know, fundamentally changed or at least large parts of it. Some of my colleagues will tell you, well, you know, they had to do that in order to be able to steal offer things like the nine eleven

and box there. I don't I don't buy that, but you know that's okay. I know this ridiculous point. But on a percentage basis, what percentage of the handling of a nine eleven would you get with a Cayenne? How

much are you losing? Oh? Uh you know, I mean non scientifically, I would say, you know, you're losing uh a lot, you know, I mean, you know, in terms of like how fast you could go around the track, Yeah, not as fast, and in find up slower, but the joy of driving something that's lets close to the ground and that's really it is not carrying any excess weight.

It is is substantial. I mean, you know, it's like people, you know how you know, like if if somebody weighs too much, you know, like it affects the way they move around it. Okay, So is there any hope? Is there any hole? Especially when the American manufacturers stopping making sedans, is there any hope for the sedan in America? Well? Interestingly, UM, the Japanese makers Onanda and Toyota and Nissan, UM, and uh,

the Korean makers haven't given up on that. And reading in the trade press in the last six months, while people are sort of scratching their heads, going like, well, why haven't they followed the Americans down this rat hole? Um, they say, well, our research tells us that UM millennials actually are buying more UM small cars and sedans than the SUVs, which is different than what older people are doing.

And you know, I mean I've been predicting this for years and that that people would that it was a fad that would go away SUVs. Of course it would appear on the surface that I was wrong. And and one of the reasons I started being invited back on car launches was that nobody listened to my op ed But um, um, the you know idiots. It's sort of axiomatic in that in the automobiles that uh nobody wants

to drive with their parents drove. So you know, station wagons went out in favor of mini vans because you know, station wagons weren't cool. And then um, you know, and then mini vans went out largely as SUVs rolled in to take their place. So something you would think would

replace that. And I would suggest that station wagons again still make more sense and minivans than most SUVs, being lighter, more nimble and having just as much room and obviously more economical in terms of of using uh, you know, gasoline or in the future. You know, you need to say one thing that an suv will give you. If you're have a large piece of equipment, a surfboard, a paddle board, skis whatever, it would be easier to transport

those in an suv. That's very few people. But right well, I mean that's that is uh people's uh justification often for why they buy too much car uh, you know, And It's probably their justification why they buy too much house and too much everything is that well, I might need it. So people go like, well, you know, we go up to the lake every summer. You know, it's like, you know, for the extra thousands of dollars you're gonna spending gasol and you could just rent a big truck

for your summer vacation. If that's true, you know, I might have to tell things. In nineteen uh ninety nine or two thousand, the New York Times magazine hired me to write a story about what we're then the new Lincoln and Cadillac pickup trucks, which the not very car focused editors just thought was markably strange that there would be these you know what were then, you know, primarily car brands, although the Escalade and the Navigator had already

come out. How why they were doing this? So I spent time in the vowels of GM and Ford talking to marketing people, and their reasons were I mean, they seemed remarkably frank that people didn't need these cars, but that they had tapped into this like you know, kind of like um deep psychology of of people, of of why they would buy them and you know, there was clearly something about writing higher up that makes some people feel comfortable, notwithstanding the fact that, uh, you know, when

everybody's in a big stuv you can't see over them anyway, you might as well be trying to look around them or under them. Um and that you know, it's sort of veghets and arms race, you know, like, well, you know, if if everybody is going to be in a Lincoln Navigator, I might as well be driving a Peter Built or ken Worth you know, eighteen wheeler and be have the the extra weight and height. But u um they should.

There was that, and they were happy to as you know, what underpins their whole conversation is what why they're happy to sell them is is that they persuaded people that they should pay more for things that ride higher. It's it's just a truism and the almost all marketing in America that the higher it is, the more you can charge for it, even if it's the same car. And

that's true with crossovers. So for instance, the four the recently canceled forward Focus was the basis of a Ford Escape, but a you know, really loaded up forward Focus might have cost twenty four dollars twenty six thousand dollars. The a loaded up escape is forty dollars and it has about five dollars more content, you know, maybe a thousand dollars more content. So you know, which do they want to sell? That's that's and that they'll always go, well,

what can we do? That's what you know the people want. But actually you didn't market any of the other things, you didn't develop them, and you know you've persuaded people that that's what they want. Now, there are people genuinely who need that, and there are people who generally who want it. But that's that's sort of the issue. But in any case, going back to being in the battles of Ford UM, they were talking about UM the sort

of psycho sexual dimension they want. Most of the buying decisions, I mean, this is sort of counterintuitive, but most of the buying decisions were UM made by women, a majority of them in car purchases. And they said that women in particular found UM minivans really de sexualizing because you know, you saw a mom at a traffic light, you know, you could see her kids in the back, and you just knew that you know, she did she did not want to party with you and um and that was

you know, upsetting to women. Um that you know, like nobody would eve and give them a second look. Not that they wanted to necessarily party with people, but that that was that that was upsetting to them. So with suv s, you were high up, people couldn't necessarily see what was back and they they started smoking out all the rear windows so you couldn't see the the the rug rats in the bag bouncing up and down, and that that made the women feel more powerful as well

as safer and things like that. So that was a surprise to me, and it raised the related question of why um um Ford was calling their new line of engines then the power Stroke. And I was like, They're like, you know, yep, And I was like, I was like, well that sounds kind of dirty to me, and they were like yep, you know. So uh that you know, so that they'll you know, they'll sto pretty low to to close the sale. So someone comes to you today, what are you tell them to buy? Well, I kind

of asked them what they need. I mean often I'd say eight percent of the people come to me already have made up their mind and asking because they want to be have affirmation. But usually, well that's the thing. They Often they'll go, oh, you know, I'm I'm calling to ask you what I should buy. But this has happened a lot in in the nineties. They'd go, uh, you know, I'm I know you're gonna think this is a bad idea, but I just bought or I just I really want to buy a Ford Excursion or you know,

some behemoth and uh. I was like, well, uh okay, and they're like, uh, you know, I just it's like, I have two kids. What am I supposed to do? You know? And I got like, well, I remember when I was a kid and people would have four kids in the back of their BW beatle and you know they managed to survive. Um, and they're just kind of sign off quickly, like conversation over but piece of people.

You know, they pretty much uh, you know, based on whatever you know, uh mixture of Okay, if someone comes to you today, let's just super for the sake of discussion, they want to buy a new car. Let's assume they're not predetermined. What would you recommend. Well, I mean for just an ordinary person, I think Sedayana or a wagon would uh there. You know. The great thing about today is almost nothing is terrible anymore. I mean the days which aren't that far off where you could buy a

car you just go, this is appalling. I mean there are still some Jeeps that I would say, we're appalling, but not as bad as they were. But uh so, really, any brand is okay. And if you um, you know, truly depends how much money you want to spend. But you know, uh, the Koreans are you know, shockingly good now and even there in the luxury realm they're cheaper, but you know, more or less as good as anything German,

and probably more reliable. I like all the German brands swell um and uh you know, and there are good American cars too, although you know, fewer and further between. Well. I liked the focus, the late focus up like hot rotted version of they did. It was that focus st that was great. Uh. And there was even better Fiesta, which was uh uh you know, very quick, and they killed that as well, so you know, And and the irony is is that they talk about, you know, trying

to stay with the young people. I mean young people, you know, like the drifters who were out like, you know, racing their cars at night. You know what used to be the hot rotters of another generation. You know, they're not in um Ford edges. You know, they're driving Civics and Corollas and you know Nissan Sedans and things like that that that uh, that handled, and so people sort of forget now that uh somebody was just saying this

last night. Uh, but the people who were, you know, of the hot rudders, it was not a majority thing. So there's there's this uh kind of notion about in the land these days that kids just don't care about cars anymore. They don't care about you know, a lot of stuff that you know, the old timers cared about. And my experience going around is that there's actually is still a lot of interest among young people and they're

really into it and they know stuff. You know, I think there's a segment, but pole to say it, when we grew up sixteen, getting your license that was like the number one thing. And there are I know a lot of people who have children who certainly didn't get their license at sixteen, and some of them don't even have it at age. My own son amusingly um my eldest son didn't even go to get a driver's license until like eight or ten months after he was allowed to.

My recollection is that I went three days before my seventeenth birthday in New Jersey just in case they changed the law, you know, and I could drive earlier. And of I was driving before then anyway. Uh. And he he, he used to tell me, like, you know, we'd be driving down the road and Heed point to like some Mitsubishi Lancer or some you know, phenomenally dull Sadan. He'd go that that would be fine for me if I ever had a car, But I don't. I don't want

a car. Well, long story short. He's now he finished university and he somewhere along the way he became an insane car not and he rebuilt an Alfa Romeo. And now he's actually apprentice to North America's leading rebuilder of SU carburetors, which are the British carburetors that were current from nineteen oh four to seven, same fundamental design and UH, which were on every Jaguar and MG and Triumph that there ever was pretty much and UH in those days,

and so UH through him. But elsewhere I I do meet young people who are into it, and well, certainly, we live in a country of three hundred plus million. Let's go specifically brand by brand, sure, Audie, Okay, forget in terms of handling other than they're one that's essentially Lamborghini. Uh, the R S four, I believe it is. How good is an Audi compared to a Mercedes? But you're thinking of the right, That's what I meant. But how good is the Audi compared to the BMW compared to the Mercedes?

Ben It's uh in uh, my current rankings have changed. There was a time where BMW was unassailably the driver's car of the three of those brands. Um and um, that's changed. Um. They you know, the famous tagline was BMW S for the Ultimate Driving Machines. I'd like to call them the pen ultimate driving machine now because they really have taken their eye off the ball. It's just not you know, Well, let's go back to BMW, who

is number one? Well right now I would say, i'm i'm I feel like it's fairly closed, but I might give Mercedes the odd uh as being the one I would most like to own. But I just had an A seven last week in New York and was driving on the highway from some distance and it was pretty great. Audis are pretty great. Uh and uh, you know they're all fine, and they all make SUVs that I despise, um, but their cars, which are you know, what the TVs are based on, are are are better than they were.

Mostly BMW has taken its eye off of of that last degree of excellence. Let's just grown so much that they're really uh there. I mean, Volkswagen group that depends in great measure on Autis being successful because they're essentially you know, good volkswagens um that have been upscaled a lot and and they charged a lot more money for them, so it's a huge profit center for them. You know, it's estimated that Volkswagen bakes barely any profit for for

the Volkswagen group. Autie makes you know, the lions share of it. And then they also owned Porsche, which is hugely profitable, and Lamborghini and Bentley, and so that those companies are generating most of the profit. Uh. They because of that. This is particularly true now with BMWC. They need more more and more volume of stuff and they want to sell stuff that's more expensive, so they have you know, massive amounts of of Uh. They have huge

product lines. Um. And they're making lots and lots of bigger and bigger SUVs, which is exactly the wrong direction they know on some level for them to be going in in terms of the environment and and the mandates that you know, bud for Trump are coming down everywhere in the world. Um and um. So there seems to be a notion of foot at all the car companies now that we've got to make as much money as

we can to get ready for this transition to electric cars. Okay, so BMW, because as you say, they have an incredibly wide line forgetting the SUVs, the standard Sedan's your bitch with them is uh, they're they've gotten bigger and bigger and bigger as so you know, they're less dynamically, um amusing to me than they were. But so I would if I was gonna buy a BMW, I'd get a three series, which was the you know, the smartest one, which is now the size. It's bigger than the old

five series. So they get bigger and bigger and bigger. And the station wagon model is very handsome. Uh. Auties Uh, starting with BMW, do they not? Because BMW every all the car magazine seemed to say that the M two was like the ultimate driving machine. It's it's pretty great. It's pretty cramp though for my money, and it's still is is pretty heavy, but yeah, it is the it is the funnest one. I don't know that I'd recommend

it to everybody. It's for somebody who doesn't have three kids and isn't Let's assume I want to buy an M too, okay or three? Your ship has come in. No, no, no, If you want to buy an M two or M three, M five, are there equivalent Outies or Mercedes that are just as good or better. They're pretty close. Yeah. They You have the MG line of Mercedes, C classes any classes and uh S classes uh and the out RS models which are like the R S four, R six

those are those are hot, really hot cars. So if you have to buy one of the three brands, which would you buy? Oh, golly, um that I can't choose. Okay,

let's go, let's go. Let's go across difference between Toyota, Nissan, Subaru the rest of the Japanese companies, well, I mean it's hard to separate them from their current predicaments, which are in Nissan's case, like complete shake up of their corporate governance and the sort of simultaneous realization that they've sort of been getting their sales for the last several years to make themselves look more successful than they were. Uh,

similar problems. Uh leaving Japan with f c A, the Fiat Chrysler where they were building cars and parking them and you know, registering them and jetting their sales. So uh, those those there there was that for those companies. Nissan is suddenly about to not be profitable and that's you know that that really changed their Okay, well when we talk about I'm gonna buy one, oh well, I mean, uh, I like Subaru. Still they for my money, they've gotten way too big. They just get bigger and uglier with

each iteration. But um, but I'm sympathetic to them. Uh. Toyotas are probably you know, your best bet overall in terms of reliability, and um, some of their cars are are quite good. I think you know, the new Corolla x S. I think it's called it's a hatchback for do or Corolla, and it's you know, it's aimed at young people. Is actually remarkably you know, a pleasant car to drive and pretty sporty. But I mean, you know they've uh w r X subarus are pretty pretty groovy.

Um and uh I would also probably recommend that you look at Days and Kiya's too before we get to the Koreans. Okay, if we got to consumer reports every year, Toyota and Lexus dominate. Okay, do you think that's a significant dominance and reliability or do you believe whatever? I think there's uh there, they are very reliable. I think that a lot of those surveys, though, are kind of they're they're kind of closed loops where people are happy

because they think they're happy. So they're happy, you know, they think this is gonna be great, and so they're perhaps more forgiving of of things than they might otherwise be. UM. Now, certainly in the consumer reports, ratings are more um probably more telling than you know, like the JD Power ones, um, where where it really does depend you know, they're like initial satisfaction, you know, Yeah, I mean so some really unreliable,

crappy brands had great initial satisfaction. Hummers for instance, which incidentally, there's a rumor is going to come back as an electric vehicle for general motors. Um so, uh, you know, if you wait long enough, everything will happen. Okay, But I come from the arrow where you wouldn't buy an American car. I'm talking about once you get the seventies sixties,

we all all our parents had American cars. I have a friend and bought a volt and he's had a long stream and still owns uh German and Japanese uh cars. He says, you know, it loosened up just like an old American car in a good way or a bad way. Yeah. Well, I don't see many people driving American cars with two or three hundred thousand miles on them. I know plenty of people with Hondas with two or three hundred thousand. Yeah, you'd be surprised, though. I've I've run into some of

those American cars with high miles. Uh. You know it's sunds like the engines can be very good in in in terms of durability. Um. But yeah, and there's some really the Chevy Bolt, which is the all electric one, feels great. But what it's like with three hundred thousand miles, I can't tell you. Um. But uh, but in general, yeah, no it's not. You know, American cars they sell because of people's you know, patriotism. You know, they're misca, so

they tend to be cheaper. And that's what I was gonna say, is but if they were the same price, I think, you know, you're a professional, but I would say the Japanese cars are more reliable. Yeah, absolutely, and that's why, Um, the American cars, well, there are no more American cars. There's American Trusty. Are the Korean cars as reliable as the Japanese cars? Um, my personal impression is yes, I don't. I don't have the statistics. I mean,

I love I once. You know, I was at a rental place about ten years ago and the only they had left was Hyundai, and I cursed them as Sunday is zero. By time I was ready to turn it back in, I would have bought it. Yeah, you know,

it's just amazing how it's turned. You know. One of the things about the automobile industry and a lot of I guess it's true in a lot of industry is probably making steal um that who you know, the people who spend the big money the most recently are going to necessarily have the most efficient uh production, UM you know, UH systems and and the best equipment and stuff like that.

You know. So what what happens is when you fail to reinvest sort of on a regular basis, you're just you're just always going to be behind on on terms like that. So the Koreans, you know, in some ways or probably ahead of the Japanese for the fact that they spend all the money more recently. So buy or lease? Uh, there are situations where leases are a good idea. UM. The UH it's mostly like when you know it's a

business purchase and you can write them. UH. It's also a good idea in the sense that if you're uh you have to be concerned about your monthly payment that it's gonna cost you less, but you know it's it's it's slightly somewhat more worth it to buy than lease if you're just if you're just a private citizen, you know you will have more money left at the end, even if it costs you more per month. UH. And then you also you own your car, and that's you know,

that's worth whatever it's it's worth. The one of the trends in the industry that uh, you know, the average person may not be aware of. UH. Is that because cars have gotten more expensive, UM significantly really in the last ten years. Is that least terms UH and UM are and and car loans are going out much further so because often people would be way upside down for a long time, UH and have and monthly unaffordable monthly payments.

So you have uh six and seven year leases and and you know car loans now which were unheard of. You know certainly what you know UM in the in the last century. You know, in part because you know your car probably wasn't gonna last six or seven years. Okay, we're used the smart shopper buys a two year old, low mileage off lease car from from a dealer in terms of probably the least hassle. But but the first

two years r when the big depreciation happens. And most cars, you know, if they have twenty miles on them, have a ton of life left, So that would be the the smart move. Do you buy a certified or uncertified if you can afford it. Certified, it's good. It's just less hassle, more seamless operation, and uh, you know you have a warranty. That's that's usually is very good for a long time. That's a certainly a growing segment of sales or certified cars. Okay, used to be the rule,

don't buy a car first year they changed the model. Uh, you know, there's probably some validity to that, although they you know, they have a generally have a pretty good idea of what's good and bad about a new car. But in this century, certainly with the explosion in electronics and cars, there are a lot of cars that were being sold that they hadn't figured out the bugs yet.

The Sea class Mercedes early in the century, I mean they were they were still writing code for those back in in short guard while cars were here on their flat bed way on their way back to the dealers for you know, inexplicable problems that were related to unfinished code, UM and faulty code and things like that. So, uh, cars are being asked to do so many more things now that um um there. There's just a lot to do. And of course the Germans wanted, who are very competitive

with each other. The minute one of them enters a new market segment, Uh, they all follow. It's it's like clockwork. Uh, they have a lot, you know, they're stretched. It's pretty thin. Okay, what about Tesla, Well, you know a noble uh project. You know, it's you know, good cars. I would say, uh, you know, great in some respects uh that for whatever reason, I've never been like, you know, a true believer like I'm. They don't excite me. I don't aspire to own one.

At the same time, I admire them great for what they proved could be done. And I also I'm not a true hater, which the automotive world is pretty much split up between Tesla drives UH car companies, but particularly American car companies crazy because you know, four in GM can they can make billions of dollars of profit and their stock goes down and Tesla is you know, is its market cap is higher than GM some days and they don't you know, they haven't made a profit really ever,

except by selling tax credits. They don't sell you know, like a fraction of the cars. And yet people give them all the breaks. So the car companies, you know, being an American car executive has basically been kind of like uh uh you know, some kind of slow form of water torture for the last forgetting Tesla fan, I'm not as sympathetic to the car manufacturers in America as you are. They've consistently refused to make change. So at this point they're hanging it out in suv Land. As

soon as the bubble bursts, they're fucked. Yeah. I mean, Bob, I you're a pal, So I won't I won't take offense at that remark that UM, I'm I've been you know, I've been complaining about how stupid they are since i first started UM. In an up end in the l A Times, I predicted GM's bankruptcy following its uh most profitable quarter ever. UM and Automobile Magazine refused to run it, and Uh I was able to. I said that what we see here is is that they are not UM

they've given up on cars. Uh, they hadn't given up like they've given up now. But it was the exact same thing, and all their money was coming from SUVs and pickup trucks, and one of three things we're gonna happen, or some combination of uh, you know, the there'd be a gas crisis and it would be a problem. Uh, there would be Japanese competition, you know that they were

going to just catch up and make SUVs and pickup trucks. Uh, and the fashion would change and all of that came to pass in the ten years later when uh, you know, in the early two thousands were of course rocky, but when they went bankrupt. Okay, so let's talk about a first. Let's break it down a little bit, the shift to electric How do you see that playing out slower than

um we might hope. I mean, I should start by saying that I was never anti electric, but I was sort of skeptical, and then I actually got to spend time with electric cars and they can be great. Uh. And uh I had actually an electric Volkswagen Golf for a year in New York. I put fifteen thousand miles on it. I calculated I skipped fifty five separate trips to the gas station, which was you know, its own reward. Um. And I loved it. Uh. And it didn't even have

the big ranges that cars have now. Uh, there's something about being an electric car that's so relaxed. Seeing you've drive through some horrible traffic and you're you know, a distance to get somewhere and you just get out. You're not hearing that, you know of an engine for uh, you know, an hour or two. Is is really makes you feel better? So it's it's quite luxurious in that sense. Um, but I think that uh, the internationally there certainly is a huge push for that to happen. It probably has

to happen, you know, it's beyond argument. Although if you this was a call in show, we'd have eleven Yeah, who's waiting in this agreement? Me? But I'm not interested in them? But uh, but it's beyond argument that the electric cars are more efficient. Even if you live in a state that burns coal, you're still better off in

an electric car than you are buying gasoline. And of course, you know, the oil companies people when I was a kid, you know, people used to go, well, and you know, in the seventies like what what's worse like the GM or XI mobile and people go, I don't know, you know. Now, to me, it's clear that the oil companies are the evil list of of the evil corporate actors, worse even than the car companies, who are you know, amazingly bad themselves.

But the wild companies were the words so so starving them of of money for gasoline is uh is would be a fine, you know thing to do with your life. So when does the fleet go all electric? I think that, you know, uh, increasingly. And it's hard to tell what the effect of Trump has been, which has been, you know, completely negative on the world in every respect. But um, the people used to think it was going to happen like next year and the year after that. Uh. You know,

I think we'll be seeing uh, internal combustion engines. I see engines or i c e. As they call them, uh into the you know, Uh, I don't mean we'll see uh, we won't see a lot more electrics. I could say, I could see thirty When will they stop manufacturing? Volkswagen has said that they're gonna stop designing anymore now, but nobody necessarily believes that, but they have that. Volvo

said that they're gonna go all electric. Um and uh, but their first electric car is a hybrid with a gas engine and a big battery pack, so the poll Star one. But so so I would say that, you know, you will see more and more electric cars. You know. The what's lacking is infrastructural investment, you know, charging stations and more of them, and you see hopeful signs. I think it was Shell said they were going to spend

five billion dollars to put charging stations into shell stations. Uh. And I have every confidence in the oil industry that they will whatever the next fuel sources, because um hydrogen is not dead yet uh and fuel cells, UH, that that whatever happens, that the oil companies will figure out a way to sell it to us. Yeah. I mean they'll, they'll, they'll. Okay, so let's go drill down to Trump. He on an environmental level, he's battling the state of California. How did

you see that playing out? I don't know, sadly. A lot of it I think has to do with the Supreme Court. But I see a lot of uh, positive futures in states standing up that you know, are for cleaning up the air against them. So I think it's going to go on and on and on. But when he's replaced, I think that a a more sensible administration, even a Republican one. I mean, he is, he is beyond,

absolutely beyond the pale. I mean, George Bush was terrible for the environment, Dick Cheney and fracking, which just led to a kind of a third win for gasoline powered cars and cheap us and all that kind of stuff. Uh. Even he you know, cleaned up diesel in America, not to a point where it's actually good for you, but it's it's was way less bad than it was. Uh Trump, It's not that he's just against regulation. You get the feeling.

You start getting the feeling that he's for pollution. He's actively for it and if there's anything he can do to make the air dirtier, he'll he'll do it. Um. And that's uh, that's pretty dispiriting. Um. People at the e p A Are like, if you could even get somebody to talk to you, their shell shocked, um and keeping their heads down, you know, waiting for him to go because Um, it's put the United States really out

of step with the rest of the world. It's actually put American makers, who were embracing it at a competitive disadvantage in the world, certainly China, Electric Volkswagen World. We're you know, we are paddling to third world status is as hard as we can. Okay, what about self driving also, Uh, their imminence has been greatly overstated. I would say they're they're gonna come, but there's so many issues involved with them that um it is uh, you know, they're they're

a lot further out. I mean, Tesla predicted that they would have one in two thousands, seventeen and this year, and it's now, it's going to be in a few months, and they're still not as self driving as they were supposed to be. You have to have a driver. A lot of UH companies have have gone back to the

drawing board to think about it harder. Now there, I think it will happen, but it is one of those things that really leads you to wonder, like, you know, is it really worth it in a in a in a sort of scarcity environment, even with the huge deficits were ready to run now, like, do we really want to be investing what has to be trillions of dollars in making it so people can like party in their car? And um, well, I don't. Look, I don't have the

same perspective. I believe these things are inevitable. I believe you'll call up a vehicle. No one will own a vehicle. It's just about the time. Oh yeah, I'm not I'm not saying that they're not. But the reality is is that there are a lot of negative things about that. An interesting analysis in Business Week saying yes, if we go to driverless cars, they're gonna be some accidents and

they're gonna kill some people. But if you don't go to driverless cars, which on some levels are much safer, we're gonna kill more people because people are getting killed and we're still gonna have to go through this. We will, we will find out about that. I think the accidents will be uh more spectacular in some ways. You know, twelve hundred people exit the Jersey Turnpike to go to the same parking spot McDonald's at a hundred and ten miles an hour, then uh and six hundred people die.

But we'll we'll, we'll find out about that. Um and I agree with you that it's gonna happen. But in the process, what's getting short shrift is mass transit, Like where's all the money for the subways to fix the

and build trains which remain more efficient. It's great if everybody is in there little pod, but if you still have everybody a little pod, there's still gonna be more traffic and more energy consumption than there would be if people rode a clean bus or a well, no one's gonna ride the bus because it takes so long trains are an interesting thing, certainly in the metropolis. They're not being improved because no one wants to pay taxes. But keep going here. How many cars do you presently own?

I own an embarrassingly large number, but somewhere around uh twenty three I think, which is actually down from what it was. But I have an excuse that. Um. I started a picture car business in New York and uh, which we hope to go national. We're working with the classic car insurance company Haggardy UH and we've been doing um um Mrs Mazel and uh Deduce and other TV shows around. Anyway, we have a database of thousands of cars and we supply old cars. So okay, but let's

forget their cars. You have twenty three cars? What are they? They're nothing that I would recommend to. Uh, So what are they people? UM? I have Launchia and some Fulvia UM and a Flavia Uh that's dead. I have a bunch of Poe's and mg s and uh Lotus Cortina and Volvo old Volvos and um some Jaguars and uh you know where are they're in? Uh in New York back not in the city, but in a big garage and a bunch of them are sort of in pieces and shops around the area. Okay, and how does one

deal in terms of driving? How does the insurance work? Well? Through Haggardy, But there's other carriers, there's Classic Car insurance. It's very cheap. So for all those cars, the total insurance bill is probably like four thousand bucks a year. Really, yeah, because you know, you're their limitations on use. You could only go miles a year. But like, yeah, I mean I'm lucky if I get a thousand on on some of them. Um, and uh, you can't you know, drive that.

You're not supposed to drive them to work. You're not supposed to uh uh you know, um commuting them and things like that. But uh but yeah, no, it's a really it's a really sensible option for somebody to Okay, so what's your test cars? I get a different car dropped off every week to my house and they pick it up at the end of the week. Every week, every single week. Yeah, I probably drive like well, sometimes they have two. It's like se I probably new cars

a year. I actually dropped off an Audi A seven at the airport when I came here, and I'm picking up a Jeep Gladiator, which is the new ge pick up based on the Wrangler. When I get back to town, let's assume you drive into one. Do you necessarily right about each one? No? No, they don't care. Uh they might. You know, there's certain cars like if you ask for a nine eleven turbo and then didn't do anything, they'd

remember that. But who is they companies that to all the companies they're all at the airport generally have a well, they have fleet managers who are approximate to major cities and often to airports. Uh. And they you know, they drop them off, pick them up. They'll either drop him at the airport, they'll pick up drop him at your house. They'll pick up one before. So there's four or five companies in New York that do that. So you deal with them and the companies themselves. Okay, so what are

some companies? What are Since you drive so many cars, your personal experience big winners, big losers? Uh? In what sense? Personal satisfaction? Oh? Um? I love, I love um sports cars that are uh, nimble and on the smaller side. I love. My most exciting car of of two thousand nineteen was the New Lotus of Oura GT for thirty or something like that. Just awesome car. UM. I drove a Ford that's been discontinued in America, the Fiesta RS in France, uh in September for a week and it

was fabulous. And they made a terrible mistake and not bring the car to America. In my view, um, you know, better than the car that we had and loved before it. Um. So those those were h two standouts. UM, but you know, you drive some The new poll Star was very impressive. UM. And you drive you know, I mean how you know what gear head wouldn't want to drive a McLaren or Ferrari. You know they're awesome. But uh so those have been great.

But I actually, um, I'm really interested in the bottom end of the market, so I drive, you know, the cheap cars too, and and I'm often really impressed by Oh gosh. Uh. I really liked the Honda Clarity, which is a hybrid. It's a hybrid. There's also a fuel cell version, but in California, and they've sold six or something like that. They don't really want to sell them. Um and uh. I drove the new Civic Sin that was pretty pretty fun. Um and UM gosh, Uh what else?

The M two was great? Uh? The BMW so yeah, I mean there's I just had a The Jeep Wrangler the other week, and I had initially lukewarm reaction to it. I thought it was it was a lot better than I thought. Actually, by coincidence, I was delivering to uh the set of an Apple TV show a G sixty three Galanda bag and Mercedes from two thou eighteen, which is it's actually been updated and is better since that. But in every respect except like straight it had speed

and the quality of the materials. The Jeep was more pleasant than the Mercedes was, which cost trip all the money. Yeah, but the Mercedes was always considered a joke. It was you know, people bought those for status, but no one ever said they were a smooth rod or a car where they were wor smoother. Before somebody had the idea of putting them on twenty three inch wheels with seven hundred horsepower engine in them, which is just like the

stupidest idea in the world. People don't know about the Glanda Vagum that it was actually the show of Iran's idea. He went to Mercedes and said, if you could build me something that was sort of like this. Um we we we would buy them from me for our army, and so they did. It was originally kind of a military vehicle and then but it was much more more austere and you know, sort of work vehicle. Then just a style in vehicle. So are you a car person or a music manager? First? Uh? I like to say

I divide my time music eight percent, uh cars. So I have a fractured social life. My you know, my family is often piste off at me because I'm in right, I have to write, you know, at night or over the weekend to make it happen. But they actually dovetail

really nicely. Um. I always remembered when I was managing okay go um we were at Capitol Records, and you know, the person who was really gonna make something happen was the then president, Andy Slayter, who was you know, friendly guy we uh we shared uh, a lawyer who was a dear friend of both of ours. But he, you know, he was a busy guy and and and had a

lot of stuff to do. And you know, in the in the major label business, you know, how much attention and executive can pay to you is you know is you know, perhaps properly but but certainly typically is allocated based on like how many records have you sold? And if I just wanted to go in and talk to him about my band, I might not get that much time. But if I said, hey, Andy, you know at the new DV nine aston outside and uh we could, I could get him in the car for two or three

hours and you know we could we could talk some business. Um. So that was often I found the job of the manager's figure out what floated somebody's boat, and some people were really into cars. And it was also just you know, convenient because like, uh, I'd be getting flown out to l A to a car launch and then I could go meet all the labels that I probably wouldn't have gotten to if it was up to my bands to buy me a ticket or for me to buy my Okay,

so today, who are you working with? We're working with they might be giants. Um. We work with a band called the rad Traads, who are a rock and combo largely out of New York. Right now, Uh that two brothers, theve Adams um from Chicago. We were Cuban Americans or the the kind of it was. It was their thing.

But um that's that's about it. Um and uh, I probably spend less time doing that, and the people who work in the management business spend more time doing a lot of that stuff, a lot of stuff, and managing bands is sort of ministerial. Um and uh I guess I realized that, um, I really didn't have anymore what it took to be going out to rock clubs at one o'clock in the morning and East Brooklyn to see bands that we're never gat a record deal, uh never

gat a publishing deal. And uh you know that life was was you know, short enough that um I just I just didn't have, uh that that to break. So how did you get into music management to begin with? Um? I was um uh Well, the the short, long story is I went to an alternative high school, which was the thing in the seventies, sort of a hangover from Summer Hill and those experiments. And it was a public school,

but we had classes. We had some core teachers, but we also had classes that were taught by townspeople in the town of Leoni in New Jersey. As it happened, the guy who a young or guy who rented the house the cottage behind the house that was next door, which was like a converted garage was a uh record uh a. And our guy at Columbia, his name was Tom Merman, who went on to be Mr Producer. Great she did Nugent now runs A B and B in Massachusetts.

I've stayed there really Yeah, so in any case, he was, uh, we we did this class. This is probably in nineteen five or four, and um at the end of it, he said, you know, there's like sixteen kids in this class, and really only two of them have any business thinking about a career in the music business. But you're one of them. And uh so, um he was. He was sort of was like halfway between my parents age and me, and he was cool, you know, um and uh So. I sort of took that to heart and kind of

kept my eyes and years open. I went I worked at newspapers for a couple of years. After I got out of college, I went to h law school, and I guess the summer my first year in law school, I was down in New York clerking um and uh for the state Attorney General and uh a friend of mine from college invited me to see this these guys. He was working with, and it was the band they might be Giants, who I thought were great. They were like, if you took away the guest list, there were negative

three people. He was in Hell's Kitchen when it was really shitty and uh um. But they reminded me of the Everly Brothers. They sang incredible harmonies together, which was super uncool incidentally when I was in high school to

be in the Everly Brothers, but I was. And I also liked the Four Seasons and the Bgs and some other things along with the more traditional fair um and so I was kind of a harmony guy and I could just see they had that, and so I sort of made it my business to befriend them, and over the next couple of years, while I was finishing law school, UM I would give them free legal advice. And because I sort of came from a media background, my dad was television critic in New York for thirty seven years,

um I UM, and I had worked at newspapers. I sort of understood how press worked and stuff like that, and I kind of ended up getting like a permanent ability to put people on their guest list. And uh so I did that a lot and then while living the rest of my life. And then um, I I

knew this guy. His name was Art Lugoff, who owned a great famous jazz club in New York called the Village Gate, and Um, he he was a neighbor and friends sort of friends with my parents from the kind of like kind of left journal scene in New York and the Village Gate in the middle late nine eighties was um suffering from the fact that interest in jazz had really was declining, and he'd have shows that were you know, I remember going to see the Dirty Dozen

Brass Band there and there were you know, like fifteen Japanese tourists and me and my friend I was in. So he was he was like one day he's like, hey, kid, you know, if you if you didn't bring any in here, you know, give me five hundred bucks in the bar

and it's yours. So I went to the Um John and John from the MP Giants and said like, uh, you know, we you know you're playing for a hundred people a night in the Um East Village you know often, UM, and you know you're you're selling out these shows, and I think we could make a move to the West Village. Mean,

that's what a different time it was. And they they were like, you know, and and we could go do this show at the Village Gate and it wouldn't cost us but five hundred bucks and then the rest of the money's hours. And they were like, you know, you know, if you want to do that, you can do that, but we don't. We're not. We get a hundred and fifty dollars at night, that's their deal, and pay us a hundred fifty dollars and you know, you know, we'll

do We'll show up. So we uh. They're live. Sound guy who was the friend who introduced me to them

and who ended up producing their first records. He he agreed to go partner with me on this show and we we you know, we took ads uh and it was going well and then through no fall to our own um the New York Times wrote a preview story and we ended up um UM selling like, you know, eight hundred tickets and at the end of the night we were at backstage sitting there with um you know, thousands and thou eight thousand dollars, seven thousand dollars something

like that, more money than I'd ever seen in my life in in cash and Uh. I was like, you guys, gotta take some of this money. And they were like, no, you know, we've made a deal. It's a hundred fifty dollars a night, which was very menshi of them. And uh for and we had done two shows and uh, but do you want to be a manager? And I was like, yes, I do. So I had recently, Um,

I had clerk for a judge after law school. I was the clerk for the Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, which was suddenly took a my mediocre law career and made me really employable. And I had

the previous summer. Uh, Matt also started selling stories to Automobile Magazine and I had persuaded them then and their owner, Rupert Murdoch then to send me to every baseball park in America and at Corvette Roadster in the summer of eight six, culminating in uh the World Series between the Mats and the Red Sox, which I got to see it every game of which is awesome. I saw the your game. I was there. Uh and um. But in any case, UM, while I was doing that, I had

this epiphany. I had accepted a job back in New York at a fancy firm, and I also accepted another job working for the new Jersey State Attorney General. And uh, I had to decide which when I was actually going a job for, and then it had an epiphany that

I should show up for neither one. Pulled over the side of the road in Utah and called from They used to have pay phones that you could call from your car, low pay phones, and I called and I was like, I can't be there on Monday, and they were like what, and you know, they were like Tuesday. I was like, yeah, they were like Wednesday, and I think, you know, actually never, so I never uh took those jobs.

I came back and within a few months I was managing them might be giants and that went so well that, uh, you know, I ended up managing bands, which had it not gone well, I would have been out of the music business probably, And uh, the great thing is is that they continued to do amazing. Well. They've just put a tour up which is their best quickest selling tour

in their entire career, which is awesome. You know, they get you know, millions of streams a month, and uh, you know, they have the most uh, and that was sort of the inside I had about them was that they would have a career as long as they felt like having a career. And and they've at many stages, you know, I've not agreed necessarily with their choices, which

they like. They were kind of things they could have done that were the conventional wisdom, you should do this, you should open for this shitty band because you'll get in front of you know, ten thousand people a night instead of one thousand or two thousand. And they just just did you know, they pleased themselves. They're they're really I mean, you're right about this all the time. But

they were totally real artists and they didn't care. They weren't associated with any haircut or clothes style or stuff like that. So it was like they never wasn't like they were going to go out of style because they were an in style. And uh, they have a rabid fan base you know, around the world, so they you know, they tour Europe successfully, in Japan and Australia, and uh,

it's been great. I've I've between that and writing about cars, I've seen the world and um, you know, I feel pretty great that it was like, you know, my personality development, Um kind of was arrested at the age of twelve, and I have been able to spend my life going to rock shows and um driving cars. So you know, I wish I was I was heavier. So you have like decades where they might be giants. That is rare. How come they didn't fire you or have never gone on.

I think in part there because they you know, uh, we liked each other. But I think, uh, you know, I didn't really you know, make you know, like real prima Donna stands that if they didn't do what I wanted them to do. I think, you know, I was I was like there, Bill Barr, you know I did. I was there ko you know, I did what they wanted to get done. And um, I was good at the business part of it, having been to law school and knowing about licenses in the early days we were

you know, it was in with with indie labels. Go like c D rights. No, it doesn't say in this contract that you have the right to make this new thing called a c D. And people go like what you know, and you go like, yeah, and I went to law school too, so I must be true and they go, oh, ship And I remember going to like rough trade in England to get their first album put overseas, and they were like, here's a contract you'll have. Your

lawyer looked that. I was like, oh, I am a lawyer, and they'd go like, here, don't take this contract and so uh uh so we they were just uh uh So we were able to you know, back in the days where there were territories and things like that, we were able to license stuff over and over again. And I was also I think they're most ardent cheerleader. So you know when Birdhouse and Your Soul was it was a top ten hit in England, that was down to us.

You know, it was down to it being a great song, but it wouldn't have been the only great song that got ignored before. Um and so that was something that I never worked with bands that I didn't like, but um uh, if I really believed in it, it would put me in a good position to advocate for it. So we managed the band the Laws that had the great hit there she goes. But and you know, I really liked the president of London Records. He's a great guy,

but he was like, how do I know this? It wasn't Roger was actually a gentleman named Peter Cupkey still who's sweet guy actually had tried to side the name of Giants to Atlantic and um, but he was you know, he was necessarily nervous because that was the mood at PolyGram and he was like, well, how do I know it's It's like, how do you know it's a hit?

I mean like, this is probably one of the greatest songs ever and it's of course it's a hit, and it's already hit in England, so like, you know, that's pretty easy to figure out. And so yeah, and it was a hit and not as big a hit as it should have been, but uh, because they didn't want to spend the money on top forty radio and stuff like that. And of course the laws were insane themselves, but which didn't make it any easier. But that was

you know, I mean like believing in something. Uh is you know that that right off the bat makes the difference between of effective manager and ineffective one. I think, Um, they you know, but they were the John's were always uh, you know, we worked with a lot of great bands. We've managed the Meat Puppets and Yola Tango and uh, the Laws we did Edwyn Collins when he had to hit the United States. We just looked after him in

the States, and uh Fredy Johnston, who was great. And so why is it in because you know, for most managers it ends at some point, what's what happens there? Uh? Well, uh, in a couple of cases, Uh, basically, uh, people decided to manage themselves. Uh. Really a terrible mistake. I mean I'm always like, you know what, like find another manager, Let's find you a good manager that you like better.

But h but don't not manage yourself. That's you know, it's just like the the if a manager is not making their fifteen or uh for you, you know, it's like it's rare. I mean, that would be a really bad All it takes is somebody to call up and say, you know for a baby band, you know, you want five hundred bucks for this gig, or we'll give you five hundred bucks. You get it up to seven fifty dollars, you've paid for your commission and then so uh, it's

it's really shortsighted. There's also too many jobs for a band to do. If if they think that they have the time to keep their books and to book their gigs and do all this ministerial work that is, you know, get the visas and stuff like that. Then you know,

that is anti art, that's the anti creativity. And so that was one of the things with the Johnson I think they were I was liberating to them, is I was like, quit your fucking jobs, you know, like that was like the first thing that they did when they got a manager, even though they had been successfully running

their own operation. That's one reason that it kept going is that, I mean, they're both like brilliant guys, but um, one of them in particular was just like I mean, he he was indefatigable and and they really really wanted it,

and he and they wanted it on their terms. And when I meet bands where there's no you know, but nobody has megalomaniacal tendencies, nobody thinks that the world will be a sadder place if they're not in front of three thousand people or ten thousand people, you know, shaking their ass um then there's a band that's probably not going anywhere. You know. It takes that in in so many areas of life, somebody who really really really really really cares and they don't if you want to tell

me I suck. You know you're wrong. You know I'll prove to you you're wrong. And that's you know, obviously, being on kind of a left of center artists, there's lots of people who want to tell you you suck, even when you know minutes after they tell you that

they did it. You know, I remember trying to sign them to a major label after they've had success at alternative radio and MTV and people calling, oh, those guys, I I love them even when I hated them, you know, or uh and so yeah, okay, before we go, just a couple of quick car questions. Bentley's Rolls Royce worth it unique cars basically gussied up Volkswagen. What do we got there? Well, I mean they are, uh well, Rolls Royce is a gussied at BMW and Bentley's guess a

volks It. The thing is is that Volkswagen and BMW are you know, among, if not the greatest UH car companies in the world, and so their technology when they let you pull out all the stops is pretty awesome. Um, you know, it's it's it's sort of perverse that these two English companies were bought by Germans, right, uh, but and they very much um, you know, try to preserve parts of their Britishness. But at the same time, you know, you feel German all over them, which is you know,

that's really no bad thing. But as I say, for your money, are you getting something? No, I think really somewhere probably now I used to say fifty thousand, but now it's probably more like seventy or eighty thousand. You stop really getting any benefit other than whatever the perceived status advantages or things like that. Okay, let's go to the other end. The Ferraris, Lamborghinis, McLaren's. What's the best of that? ILK, I probably, I probably like the Ferraris

the best. But they're all so much more competent and and reliable and safe than they were. But they're just you know, uh, to me, they don't they're not really what UM turns me on and I find as there. You know, they used to be quite rare, and now you know they they've been bought by companies that have the ability to sell five thousand of them a year instead of you know, three hundred or nine hundred or two thousand. UM that they're they're common and to me

they're just kind of a little embarrassing. Um. The I was in Hamburg with a friend who's a car guy who's driving me around, and he said, I'm gonna take you to Russian Street and I was like, what's Russian Street.

He's the street where all the Lamborghinis are. And they're all these you know, like you know, rich Russians, you know, and you know, hanging out in front of their Lamborghinis and they did you know, and you see that in London, um on the Edgeware Road, you see, you know, the the mirror plated Lamborghinis and and uh Ferraris and you know it's just you know, it's just it's just vulgar

really to me. But you know, I I celebrate automotive diversity, and you know, I think whatever people want to do, you know, uh, for the time being, that's what they ought to do, you know, any future for Aston Martin Busin this week this week we're just talking about the stock is. Yeah. Well, you know it's it's they have a really bold plan, which is you know, one part real,

you know, two parts fairy dust. So uh, I think they're they're smart guys, and you know, it's really it's given how you know, you know, all these companies like to the fact that they survived. I've survived. Aston Martin has been around almost a hundred years and you know they've never sold that many cars, Uh, is a miracle and um and so you know, I kind of wish them all the best. Building a brand that that means anything,

you know, that's that's a multibillion dollar undertaking. If you were to try now, you know, twenty billion dollars wouldn't be even to begin to be enough to to actually make a brand that anyone cared about. And then you know they wouldn't care about it the way they care about Aston Martin. So I always say brand is a terrible thing to waste, and I think that, um, they you know, I wish them every success. And you know, the difficulty is is that as technology changes that the

investments that are required to be relevant are phenomenal. So what you see, you know, Aston has partnered a lot with Mercedes to use a lot of their engines and you know, various things and when it comes to autonomous cars and electric power, so you're gonna see I think, you know, though, they will become effectively parts of bigger cod Okay, what's the next merger. Well, the one that is, it's been they're working towards it is the U P s A, which is Burgo and f C A, which

is Fiat Chrysler. So P s A is now UH Persia Sito and um um Opal which they bought from General Motors and ironically um it turned to profit after twenty losing years within six months of being got uh so um that that's going to be a big one. That will create the world's fourth largest carmaker. That's exciting to contemplate for fans of any of those brands that are are planning to come back to the United States. Um okay, but it's like, say, well, we see further

and further consolidation. I think we will. In Japan, there's pretty much the Toyota orbit, which is UM Toyota, Subaru, uh Suzuki I think is working with them, and UH Mazda is also doing a lot of stuff with Toyota. And then there's the Nissan world, which is Nissan and Mitsubishi, UM and UH. I think that those companies could end up being intertwined more. And I think that, yeah, I think that that we could see. I think it wouldn't be the weirdest thing in the world to see the

American companies end up merging with somebody else. I think they should survive. Okay, lightning round, don't don't evade this small car. What do you recommend? Well, I like the golfs, even though they're canceling the regular golf for America. Okay, that's any answer. Next step up Sedan Oh uh gag uh in the in the low priced realm. I like Monster six is um in higher priced realm, I would be happy with Hey, probably with the E class Mercedes. Okay,

more luxurious. Um. I really liked the X Jays Jaguar, which is also canceled but coming back as an electric car in a year or two. But more luxurious than that. He's he's he's uh no in that category. Other than the jack Bars, it's more like serious. Uh. Oh golly, um, I wish I was more inspired right now, I can't. I can't say I'm not. I'm not really um um, Well, I would never see myself only one. Uh. There's something

about the Rolls Royce Phantom that I find. It's it's more bespoke than the Bentley's So I sort of prefer that, and it's getting redone any second. Uh, But so I would say, you know, for the for the big fuck you car, I'd say, there's you know, nothing says fuck you quite so loudly as a phantom. And there we have it. Jamie Kentman, automobile expert music manager for decades. Jamie, thanks so much for being Until next time, it's Bob left S