John Boyle Part 2

gonna be a big year. This episode, I want to go back a bit so you can learn a bit more about me. In my inaugural episode, I had my good friend John Boyle from Insomniac interview me so listeners could learn a little bit about my background. If you haven't heard episode one, I strongly recommend you go back and check it out. John and I could talk for hours, and we did. For the sake of time, my producers

recommended we split up our conversation into two episodes. However, in this spirit of my letter, I don't want to leave anything on the cutting room floor, So picking up where we left off, here's the rest of my conversation with John. I want to make the point John that first and foremost is about perseverance. It's like you talk about skiing. I would go ski if it was ten below, if it was raining out, when no one else would go.

That's how I became such a good skier. I was skiing at the Middlebury College snowball, and I knew I was better than everybody else. But I didn't expect to go to utahm be world class. But it was because I would go every day no matter what. But speaking of the writing, it's funny how there's you know, little things that affect you that you don't realize at the time.

When I was a senior in high school and I went to a regular public high school, but the teacher had a sabbatical and he came back and he made us right for five minutes every morning, and if we didn't have a new idea, we had to write the last three words of what we had written. In addition, my mother made me take typing okay, which ended up being a beneficial thing such that no one else writes the way I do. What I mean by that is,

and I just read. I just read the new Jennifer Egan book, Manhattan Beach, and she says, oh, I write a terrible first draft and I rewrite it. And you read about writers all the time they say, oh, it's about rewriting. I don't do it that way at all. I wait till the mood strikes me all over the gun to my head. I could write no problem, you know, Craiker record really loud and it comes out. I view it like action painting, like Jackson Pollock. And I've learned

because I've been doing a long time. If I change it at all, I fuck it up. Okay, So I reread everything twice, sometimes three times, but never less than twice, and I'll find, you know, obvious mistakes, a tense or spelling. But I don't change anything else because I realized I wasn't in the exact same mood I was when I was laying it down. So the key is to have

this role element. Now, if you go back to some of the greatest records of all time, they were, you know, famously Keith Richards, The Rift to Satisfaction came to him in the middle of the night. He had a tape recorder, sang it to the tape recorder, and then they cut it the next day. Some of the greatest records of all time have been cut in fifteen minutes. I think so much of today is over labored. People are looking. You know, great writing is a little bit like music.

What I say about music is the most anybody can say is it had a good beat and that could dance to it. You put a five year old in front of the TV and watches the TV program, they can say, oh, the characters I didn't like. The plot was unbelievable. But unless you like are highly trained musician, which nobody in the music business is, you can't analyze on that level. It's about an impact. It's about the zest. There's a lot of poorly recorded songs, but they hit

you that way. So I've continued to do it, continued to do it. By the same token, I do have a passion for it. It's a strange world we live in. Because I grew up and when there was a middle class environment. I mean, this is really a big theory of mine. Okay, today we live in a world of halves and have nots. And it's also in the music business.

There are people making a lot of money. If you were you know, one of the top acts in the music business and adjusted dollars, you're making more money than anybody ever made in the history of the music business. But if you're not at that level, certainly, if you're at the lower level, you're starving. In a way it used to be can get a record deal, you can live off the label for a while. That doesn't exist anymore.

But people know how hard life is. So I talked about when I graduated from college and I was a ski bump. Nobody does that anymore because they know if you don't immediately try to get a job and get a career started, you're already falling behind. So what we have in the music business, and people hate me when I say this, is it's people primarily by the lower class under privilege. I'm not saying these people are not rawling intelligent, but the people who are highly educated, they

don't want to take the risk. It's a really long shot making music. Okay, they'll say, you can even all the time. Well, I'm gonna do this for two years and then I'm gonna go graduate school if it doesn't work out. No, you have to be willing to do it for forty years. Okay, But the differences in the sixties, all the music was made by middle class people. No one ever wanted their kid to be an artist, but there were always people who went down that path. I

remember being at the public high school. They're always guys who were a little cool, girls who were beautiful, but they were in their own category. They didn't hang with the rest of us. They became musicians, they became artists, and then when they hit the crux point, like the Jefferson airplane, they had middle class values. They wrote a song, you know, up against the wall, motherfucker, okay from We Can Be Together from Volunteers. Nobody will do that anymore.

They're afraid to rock the boat. Oh I'm an alienate part of my audience. Oh I won't get on the radio, et cetera. Oh I want to get sponsors. It's not even the same mentality. So it's worked to our detriment. So my point being, as I said, here you go, Okay, I'm a writer. I have a lot of perks the average person doesn't have. Yeah, you go on the private jet. There's nothing bad you can say about it. It may cost thirty dollars, but it's great. I can go to any event I want to. I hear if I write

about any famous person in the world. I hear from them, but I don't have a you know, a figure bank account, never mind a seven figure bank account. So these choices you make, you know, you still believe you want to get that. But it used to be we were all in it together. Okay, A musician was as rich as anybody in America. That's no longer the case, and musicians are no longer the the cultural architects. Absolutely, music doesn't people. What I hate about the music business is their mantras

that people believe in. Oh, if you talk about today's music not being as good as the old music, they say, oh, it's just because you're old. No, if you go back to the sixties and seventies, it drove the culture, okay, and it doesn't mean as much. Doesn't mean there's not good music out there. Okay, there aren't good records, but it is a different scene. These are people, you know, it's like the acts themselves. They get holding a plastic surgery to get a hair transplants. They want to look young.

They want to look like the audience, even though the audience, uh to a lot of these old acts looks old. No music was all we had we had television and music, we didn't have the internet. You know, they talk about people practicing. Dwayne Alman even took his guitar to the bathroom. Today people want to be famous like two weeks after they get an instrument, if they can even play an instrument.

All right, so let's let's talk a little bit. We've we've talked about your history, right and your experience in your past and where I think you've become incredibly relevant. Although you were I think you're very relevant early on, but I think maybe in the last ten to twelve years as technology is involved, and you've really taken a strong voice in technology and how how this has played on it. Music is a canary in the coal mine. It's the harbinger for digital disruption. For nothing else, a

song is a small file. Amazingly, we worked it out in the music business. We have Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, Title, Apple Music. You can get everything you want for one low price. It is essentially killed piracy. As Michaelijah used to say, ten percent, people will never pay forget that ten percent. The key in streaming is it's an on demand element. We're never going on beyond on demand. You don't have to own anything. It's there when you want.

All these other industries have not caught up. If you look at television, Disney is not going to have their own standalone app. I mean, I'm paying ten nine Netflix, I'm paying Amazon with Prime how many? I mean it's like being pecked to peck to tatty. Right. I don't pay for Hulu because it's like enough already. It's like being pecked to death by ducks. Where music you can get everything at one low price. But so called web two point oh was all this social media? Okay, so

that was my space. What people don't understand and is a lot of these things are fats. The most famous the music business is Turntable FM, which was huge for about three weeks. Seth Goldstein exactly. We've know him from the electronic music world. So when you hear people going on about Snapchat and musically or whatever and you feel out of it, don't feel bad. The younger generation is

always going to have their new hula hoop. What we know from all of these social media sites is you're never going to lose touch with anybody you ever met. It used to be you can move to California leave all the people on the East coast behind. You can communicate. The scariest thing now is what you know. We had ten years in internet, probably from the year let's call two thousand to two thousand ten or twelve, where it was all about gadgets. The first gadget was the iPod.

It is now about software. You might want to get a new phone. It really doesn't do anything radically different from what or old phone did. In addition, we see consolidation. This is right in front of our faces, okay, such that if your Snapchat and you don't sell out to the behemoth, they're gonna imitate you the Snapchat of the same as for Snapchat stories that are Instagram stories. So it's about Facebook. Facebook didn't buy What'sapp and Instagram, it

would be on the way down. But now it's about the power of those things. The story is about the elections and the Russians, but that is not really the story. There's an excellent article Borreen down interview jarn Lanier in the New York Times, and he started talking about Facebook has an algorithm. We don't know what it is. I mean, the Russians bought it right exactly. They determine what everybody

sees on their page. So I write a certain amount about politics, which is a little bit about banging your head against the wall. The people who react, they are reciting facts from sites I am unaware of. Not only is there Bright Bart and Fox It Fox is only powerful with the old sters. There are all these SPEs such that we cannot communicate on the same information. I even saw Billy Corgan today going on about record labels stealing from the artists. What do we know. They just

Spotify negotiat a slightly lower rate. They did pay seventy pc of their income to right Soldiers. Now it's a little bit less than that. And it's like ten points go to publishers, which is a song on the rest goes to the label. They pay that out. There's no subterfuge whatsoever in the remaining Yes, the label owns the percentages and interest, and we can argue whether that's good or bad. Okay, such that if you put your song up on Spotify by yourself your chance of wrapping. You're

making a fortune. But if you have a deal with the label where they pay you ten cents on the dollar, it's bad. But my point being that the acts are ignorant. They don't know what's going on. We are still funny and the public as they were into every day I get the email, well, I'm not gonna sign up for streaming. What if I'm gonna sell range? They don't know. You can sing thousands of tracks to the device such that if you're on the top of amount Everest and you

have jewics, you can listen. This is a good thing. For the first time ever, the music business is ahead of the public. So music business is ahead of these other things. But Facebook has too much power. And the interesting thing I'm thinking about today, Okay, does this apply to the music business. There's a whole culture in hip hop, But do we have it such that certain acts are known and certain acts are not known just as a result of social media limitations? Well that was a lot, okay,

I mean Spotify, you posted about Sony's earnings. The labels seem to feel, uh that there's a renaissance coming, and by the way, I kind of think there is no The renaissance is happening. Starting eighteen months ago, revenue started to go up in there, all attributable streaming. When people email me, streaming is the death of the music business. It's exact. It's the saver of the music. When you see people email or post what they're terrible. Payments are

pent of the time. It's false. They're confusing publishing as a post to recorded revenue. They don't say what percentage of a song they have, They don't talk about the labor, they don't talk about any of that stuff. So when you see the statistics I just explained, Spotify pays the vast majority of their revenue directly to rights soldiers. Okay, when the right soldiers say revenue is going up, what do you think is going on? You think there's a mystery. Yes, if you are an act and you used to live

on selling CDs. An example I use here is that being until Tuesday, Amy ma'am, she was a critics darling her luxury, which no, after this, you may hate me. So she had a deal such that I remember in the early seventies they was talking about their five thousand records a year and how terrible that was. There's too much products. But if you could get over to the hurdle and you could get a record deal, they would make you famous and they would hopefully get you on

the radio. It was a club. That club has been broken open such that the people like Amy Man who had one hit with till Tuesday but really didn't have another hit, they had an advantage of the publicity. Okay, those people's sales have been dramatically decreased as a result. People don't buy a CD, they go to streaming. Turns out they were not as big as everybody thought. The fact that everybody is listening to Post Malone or listening to old Gaga tracks or the Weekend, it's not my fault.

The point is they don't want to listen to you. I got an email the other day about Fleetwood Mac, and it was fascinating to me because I checked these things pretty closely. You go to a lot of classic acts and the number of stream they have is diminimous. It may barely break a million or two million. You go to Fleetwood Back it's triple digit, millions hundred plus because they're fucking great. But as I say, exactly so,

the point is where it gets out. How come the way my fifteen year old daughter is streaming Fleetwood Mac exactly? So the point is if it's good and they know it will rise above the problem is most people you're not good enough. You're competing against the history of music of all time. You send me your metal record. I can listen to led Zeppa, which was originally called metal any day of the week. I don't have to listen to your record. Are we gonna talk about Sure, go

for it. I'm kidding, Actually we will. So in light of everything that's going on and the opening up so Spotify streaming, it's opened up the world outside of China, right, China house the wall, okay, but India, Asia right, So I mean I kind of think major labels are really important. Again, Oh, you got multiple things going on there. Let's sorry about the world. Sitting with Steve Stout and he was saying, hip hop is the sound of the world. It's no

question about that, no question. But he said, anybody on any street corner can make it. Okay, And it didn't used to be, but now every country has its own hip hop scene. The other thing was the paradigm of worldwide domination was established with Miles Copeling in the police. Father was in the c i A. They've been to all these places. They took the police there. Now you could have a worldwide hit just being on Spotify Desposito

okay as example. Now, the other thing the Desposito is there is a version with Justin Bieber is involved, but basically it's in Spanish. Okay. All the things that everybody ever thought about are blown out. If you have a great track, it can succeed, and it can succeed around the world. But what does the major label give you give to a bank not as good as it used to, and it gives you promotional capabilities only in a very narrow thing. They're good for hip hop, even pop music. Recently,

Katie Perry has failed in that field. To even Taylor Swift has failed in that field. So if you have the world's greatest band but it doesn't fit in that genre, they don't want to sign it now, they don't want anything to do with it. So you're on your own. So what the label has is the power to blow it up in traditional media, which is print, which bleeds onto online, TV and radio. Never underestimate all three of those, but all three of those are declining in power. Now.

You can't compete with the major label because what's keeping the major label alive is their catalogs, especially on streaming services. Catalog, right, is your old material which they own, and they're never paying another dollar and just reaping money. The greatest example on this is movie business. Karralco was the most successful independent company of all time. They had the Rambo movies, etcetera. They went out of business because they didn't have the

catalogs to carry them through. Now, to explain history of the music business, which no one really wants to know anymore, there was an act Bobby Womack, and a few decades back he had an album on Beverly Glenn Records that was a million seller, right, that's what it was called. People would sit here and say, wow, he must have made a fortune. The success of the record put the label out of business because the old model was you shipped to retailers and you get paid at best six

months hence usually twelve months. Hence they continue to order product as you have a hit record. So in theory, you're saying, it's costing me a dollar to produce this record, I'm going to make money, but when that record falls off, they don't pay you. This is why when you read in media that retailers blow up and how much money the labels are own, they're always behind the only reason they get paid at all is they have a continue in you as flow of product, whereas in streaming it's

not that way. Everybody gets paid. This is very important if you're starting independently. So if you are part of the hip hop scene, this is the deal with Chance, who did it without a label. So let's talking to Daniel Glass. He's talking about the hip hop people. The standard amongst a lot of labels, now not the majors, but is fifty split. So the hip hop people come they want because they think they can do it themselves. We can argue whether they can. So the major labels

will never go away. They are necessary, but there are opportunities elsewhere. But don't forget the major labels have to go through a transition. If you go to a major label office, now there's one or two people making an incredible amount of money and then everybody else is a worker be underpaid. So no one with the brain is going to work there because there's no upward mobility. But eventually the younger generation is going to get in, and what do we know, it's not like old hippies. They

like money, but they're big believers in transparency. So the new model will be more equitable. I mean CD baby, they they distribute songs to Spotify and all the other services, and they do still sell c ds. They pay you every two weeks. How come the major labels pay you every six months. That can't go on. By the way, have you seen a major label statement like a royalty statement?

I mean it's a disaster. Well, not to mention the fact it's argued over twenty to forty hours by two high priced lawyers and they allow some low level royalty employee to make the statement in the label's favorite But there's no transparency, like even on the streaming income, you don't know who's coming like, you have no no trans exactly. But that will change because the outsiders, the Indians, forced

them to. So give me an example of another full on indie artist that has gone big besides Chance the rapper. We have to look forward, not back. The barrier to entry is incredibly low. You and me can make a record right here, right now and get it on Spotify to borrow. Okay, anybody can make music downside of that is very hard to get noticed. But what we've seen because you can just go in the desktop version of Spotify. If you hover your mouse over the three lines of

an album, you'll tell you how many plays it has. Also, you go to the US stop fifty, you'll tell you how many players. All of those tracks are hip hop. They all come from a culture. You do not need the major label to become part of that culture. You only need the major label to blow you up further. So, where there's culture, I don't really think you necessarily need a major label or you need a fairer deal from the major label. How many ocs have hits? Are are

getting tractions that aren't associated with the major label? Okay? What we have now? By the way, I don't mean it sounds like the old it's a it's a good question. The answer is obvious. No one of the Statue of Chance. But Frank Ocean he had those two albums. You can argue there that he did it. But we're in this huge transition where all the money is coming from streaming.

It's transparent and they pay and it's growing. Right. The other traditional things which are murkier, radio and television other than SNL, any television appearance doesn't mean anything anymore. All the traditional tools the majors come with are not really beneficial at this particular point to many artists. So it's about what's on the come. The major levels have incredible strength, but their black holes. They're gonna have to be more transparent,

more fair. Are they still doing um, three sixty deals? They are still doing three sixty deals. But you know this is this is one of the problems of the music business. And this is not secret information anymore. Why it works in music business, it's all about leverage. If you come in with certain number of views on YouTube whatever, blah blah blah, you can write any deal you want. There's no such thing. It's not like you know in the Muppet movie. You know, right a the industry a

standard contract for a cermit in the Muppets. So this is one of the problems in music. That is one of the good things about chances. How do we blow it up? How do we make it different? Okay, by the same token, there are a lot of things are inexplicable. I want to see this act Glass Animals. They sold out the shrine. Everybody knew every word. You check every chart you got going, you see nothing. Nothing. So you say,

you know, I talked to some people. They say, well, it's festival appearances, but so far the undercard to coach hell that nobody ever breaks through, So we don't have the answers to so much. There never istually been so much information where we don't really know what's going on, all right, So you just bring up Glass Animals. You wrote about an act that I like a lot, Gretivan Fleet. I went saw him at the Tube door. They're fucking great.

I don't think they have a song, but if they had a Welcome to the Jungle or smells like Team Spirit, could there be a movement there? What do you think? I mean, what what is the state of rock? And you like this band? I know you like. Let's go back one step to Sam Smith with Barnett, who's head of Capitol Records, and he was saying this is too much for the record came out. He said, if this record is successful, it will open up new avenues for other artists to go through. I don't know if that's

absolutely true, but what do we know. The biggest act in the world is Adele and she doesn't sound like any of these acts, so it shows that there is demand for something other than hip hop as far as rock goes. What is interesting about Greta Van Fleet. For those of you who have not listened, it sounds like a total Zeppelin ripple, So you will laugh at first, but especially the two middle tracks, you will say, wait, they're good songs. They which every other Zeppelin rip off

they can play, but they don't have good songs. So if you sit here and you are cynical, you say terrible. But then if you think, wait a second, if you look at all the English bands, we revere, they were all listening to old blues records and jumping off of that. So for somebody twenty years old today to be listening to a forty seven year old record, which is what LEDs actually forty eight years the initial led Zepplin record, what's different about that? And reconstituting it. So if you

ask me, I will say, rock is dead? Why is rock dead? Has become too South referential. I remember when Black Sabbath came out, and that was as far as anybody thought you could go. If you want to listen to what is called metal at this point in times, it is so far out there. The average person is never gonna be like ho. So you have a Dell. A Dell's got a great voice with songs you can sing to. How come no one's repeating that formula that we have what Sam Smith is a little exactly Sam

Smith's a little bit. So does that show a great opening? As far as rock and roll we have the rock and roll is the biggest sound today. If you really want to think, as Tom the Deer Departed Tom Petty said, and he said it negatively. Country music is a rock and roll of the seventies. I'm watching the c M a s And the opening number, uh, Keith Urban comes out and starts to whale Well, and you go wow. If you listen to one of my favorites was like

Keith Thurban Stupid Girl. And if you think country sucks, listen to this Stupid Boy, the original Stupid Girl that it was rewritten by him. Stupid Boy. He does like a three minute solo at the end. It's like straight out in nineteen seventy two, and it's great. So there's hope for that sound. But there are too many sounds that are too far off the mainstream or the core. And I think we have to to quote Joni Mitchell, get back to the garden. Well, you know when I

went to the Gratis show. What I noticed is in the front there were a lot of really young girls and that's a great sign, right And the rest of the audience, we're a bunch of dudes in their thirties and forties. I saw the same thing. But what I would say is different is if you know your radio format, and many people don't. The only format that matters is Top forty, which presently is is hip hop with mostly pop. There's Hot a C which is a softer version that matters,

but it really doesn't. Then there are these other formats Urban Urban is really a Top forty at this point, Triple A. It's forty exactly triple uh A Americana all that ship they have a tripe. It doesn't matter. But the reason I'm saying the chart for rock is called active Rock Highway Tune which was number one by Greta van Fleet for weeks didn't break two million streams on on Spotify. And also it's the rockers or anti streaming

the audience. More country people stream van rockers. They have to get with the programs, so everybody's gotta get on the format first and foremost that Canna rock band, whether it's Greta or any other rock band, can they write a song that will have the We haven't had an impactful rock song since Welcome to the Jungle and smells like teen Spirit, and that happened within a two year period. Unless you want to call Atlantis Morris set rock. You ought to know all those tracks. But your point is

well taken. But the other point is those were great records. There used to be ridiculous. There used to be tower records on Westwood Boulevard. The main tower was on Sun Said. I remember being there one time in because if you lived in l A, you were hearing the hype about guns and roses for years. I'm there, there's a record playing over the sound system. So while this is a great record, only twice in my life that in Genesis, Wind and Weathering that I ever buy the record that

was on the in house system. So the best track of the first decade of the century in my ballpark is narls Barkley Crazy you only eat here at once? I cannot mention you know what about time funk you up? Problem with that is to me, it's too much of a rip off. It's too much of a Marvin I don't wanna get the legality. I don't think it's copyright infringement, but it's so it's so reminiscent of that. I'm just not a new top. By the same token, there's certainly

country the Brothers Osborne stay a little longer. You listen to the second half where they're really wailing in the extended version. I listened to that again and again. But there aren't enough great records. Al right, commercial radio terrestrial radio terrestrial right right, you know, the data still says that it's the number one form of discovery. Fuck the statistics. The statistics are manipulated so the people who paid for

them will feel good. Okay, anybody will tell you. Research will tell you where you've been as opposed to where you're going. And if you read all these reports, which they do, they always say the younger generation is not unique. There's an overall volume. Your generation is not listening. This does not square with the times I've been thinking about

this a lot. Relative to automated cars. Okay, because we now have light rail in Los Angeles, I don't take the light rail that frequently for varying reasons, because it's not on demand. It's like the movies. I don't know. There are a couple of movies that I would like to see. It doesn't start when I get there. Okay. So when you have UM on your Internet or your own iPhone or whatever, you can listen to what you

want when you want. Now, if radio or culture role like it was fifty years ago, where there was personalities and they actually chose the record to be one thing. But these are playlisted by one guy for the whole country. It's so phony. No one can listen to a torrestrial radio. So the younger generation, it's how you're gonna keep them down on the farm after they've seem PERI you know, it's an music isn't on to me. And I'll give

you a classic example. Beginning of this century. Everybody's bitching, even justin timber Lake on the v M A s MTV has gotta play more videos. Tom Freston was head of the music television at that time. I said, Tom, what about this. He goes, We're never gonna play videos again. Video is an on the man item on the internet. He was right. Music is an on demand item. You want to listen to Howard Stern, that's great. Radio to rest to satellite is different because there's so many channels.

You can push the buttons and there are no commercials. But what about all the middle class people and poor people driving to work every day. This is the same thing people talk about flyover people, the assholes in Los Angeles and New York saying, oh, the flyover people. You've been to Iowa. They got they got a hundred mega bit down the internet. They got the same hundred and fifty channels. There is sophisticated as you and me. So if we want to really because everything is gradual. Everything

is gradual until it falls off a cliff. So when people tell you, hey, it's not coming yet, okay, I use the example of digital photography. We heard for ten years that digital was going to replace film. Never happened that. In one year, everybody got rid of their film cameras and it was digitalument exactly. So it is the same thing. I'm not saying terrestrial radio is gonna be over tomorrow. Yes,

we have to get to the point with internet and cars. Okay, other than Audi and BMW, Internet and cars is not really here now, not to mention that we haven't gotten to five G, etcetera, etcetera. So some things have to change. I would say the big argument for radio is it's not about music turning into something else. Hi, everyone, Bob left Sets here. I just wanted to take a moment and thank you for listening to my podcast. My goal is to make your life more interesting and exciting. I

want to give you information and entertain you simultaneously. If you have any interest in music, technology or pop culture, you're gonna want to sign up. So search left Sets on your tune in app or where you get your podcasts. As my father would say, that's l you like Edward, FF like Frank, s like Sam? You like Edward? Do you like Tom's? You like Zebra? I have to spell that every time I call a doctor or make a

reservation and go down the rabbit hole with me. Alright, So I want to move on to another subject, the age old argument of uh, content versus distribution. We've had this conversation before. What's very interesting right now? As you have Netflix? Um, I think Apple just signed Jennifer Jennifer Aniston Jennifer Aniston massive, right, and you got Hulu? Okay, wait, WHOA, let's separate the issues. I want to talk broadly. You go, we just say y'all know. I try to ask Bob

a question and he just takes it over. So, okay. People have said for years content is king. That is absolutely fucking wrong. I hammer this again and again. If you read me, you want okay, Really, distribution is king. It is very simple. If you make the best record of all time and no one can hear it, what difference does it make. It's a person who gets it to the end listener who is king. What do we know in the music business. We have these streaming services.

I believe one will end up with the market past right now. I've been on Spotify. I wouldn't say that's the finest number two Amazon? Really? What about Apple? Apple's problem is they've already marketed to everybody they have the credit card of so where are they going to get new sub titles? These are will continue to be success full in France, at least for a while. But Amazon, they have a lot of stealth stuff. Okay, if you have Amazon Prime and an Echo, you can listen to

music without paying an additional fee. They will tell you if you ask for something that they cannot give you, they will tell you, hey, for three you can get or whatever it is. You can get all the tracks on your Echo. You can also pay more. You can get all your tracks everywhere. So they are marketing to

a hundred million people constantly. Well, and you're you're a big proponent of this because you have the system, you have the new Sona system with UM Well, I gotta tell you, you you know this is people have been talking all along about their kids are in the car, and they start the kids in the car start talking about telling the car what to do via Alexa. I literally have this in my house. Last Wednesday night, I told the TV to turn off. I didn't even I don't

have it plugged in another smart thing. But I have everything else in my house voice controlled. And you get to the point you expect everything to be voice controlled. And I gotta tell you, for some reason, I had Spotify hooked up to my Alexa and I switched the default to Amazon. I was messing with it yesterday. Didn't get one song wrong. Once you experience voice control, you will never go back. So distribution, you believe wins over content.

But if you're talking in television, don't forget. If you go back to earlier in our conversation, one of the flaws we have is in the music business. We figured out there's no content difference between Amazon, Apple Spotify. It's all the same content. There's a little number of Spotify sessions, but exclusives are completely gone. In television, they always think they're different. Okay, same thing in the movies. So what happened was Netflix got all the content and they built

their service. Then they started with original content. Now everybody wants to compete with them, hence the Apple deal. Okay, but before you get there, let's talk with Disney. Disney wants to have their own independent app. Okay, I want to pay an additional ten dollars a month. What am I getting? If you follow the news, they were thinking about buying twenty century Fox just to add to the content, So I get the Disney channel where the ratings are

going down, just like a nickelodeon Fox Sports. Well, right now, let's just talk what they have right now. Okay. If they have Disney and they're talking about ESPN being a standalone thing, people don't want to pay separately for everything. Okay, so Netflix has already established a beach head. These are Internet rules either not entertainment rules. Intertent rules are there's a first mover advantage as long as you continue to innovate.

So if you look at the iPod, etcetera. The iPods advantage was FireWire transfer, which was high speed transfer and a better interface that was open to everybody was in the marketplace before. They did not pick up on it. My Space had a terrible interface. Okay, they could have fixed that. They did. Facebook came in. Facebook is constantly innovating. Spotify is constantly innovating. They're not resting on their laurels. Netflix is constantly innovating. So to compete with them, you

have to start from brown zero. You have to have content, you have to be better. That's a huge hurdle decline. So if you look at Amazon, Amazon's problem. Amazon is now switching up their TV offering to try to have a Game of Thrones. That is not their problem. Their problem primarily is no one knows what Amazon streaming is, even if they're paying for it. You know, Transparent wins all the awards. Not even a million people watch Transparent. I think it happens to be a great show. You

get so many other things. It's like the Apple streaming app. Okay, to figure out what my library is and what streaming is is way too difficult. This is Clayton Christians in the innovator's dilemma. What you do is you disrupt yourself. You start the new business across the street, and then at some point shift everybody into the new business, and you forget about the old by trying to appeal to the old. Simultaneously, you hurt yourself by trying to appeal

to the people are buying tracks. There should be two apps. You have iTunes listen to your tracks. Then there's Apple Music streaming oldly. All right, So out of all of this technology wise, who do you think wins? Okay, let's be very clear. Most people believe there are four players. The guy far Hid mons you in the Times close their five players. He includes Microsoft. Amazon has one retail.

No one can compete Walmart. In the paper today, they're gonna make the products more expensive online than they are in the store. Who the funk wants to go to the store if you have Amazon Prime, Okay, I don't ask me about the ecological and the element whatever. I want to go to the store. Don't forget I've been living a long time. Frequently when you go to the store, they don't even have the product, So you've wasted a trip. Amazon owns, right Amazon, and then no one knows what's

going on. Know what you want, what you're you know what you're looking for, right? So I mean I had to go. I was getting calling oscarpy, I had to go get broth and jello. You're in the you're in the grocery store where you're gonna find that happened to be outside my normal neighborhood. How am I gonna find that stuff? It's easier to order it online. So in terms of retail, that's another thing. We said Amazon's gonna

crush physical retail for fifteen years. It's only been in the last twelve months that this has literally started to happen. So that's Amazon. I am not a big believer in Apple. I own a zillion Apple devices. I've been on Apple since eighties six. Unlike movies and television, there's no catalog in tech, it's what have you done for me? Lately? Apple has a huge advantage. They have people locked into

their ecosystem. All the devices work together. But when we go to the next thing, whatever it may be, and there is going to be the next thing beyond the phone, okay, will they be the leader? First of all, they're not the leader in numbers. This is one of the things that makes me crazy. I hear this all the time. It's like with the Taylor Swift album. They talk about the money. Oh, we're in the first week of Taylor Swift cell. She's gonna sell the album. It's about longevity.

There's a new number one every week. If the songs are not continuing to play on streaming services, it means you're already done. So. Yes, the iPhone makes all the profits in the handset business today, but Android trumpet in terms of usership. By the way, my iPhone is all sucked up right now. There's a lot of stuff that's sucked up on my iPhone now that it doesn't go back from landscape to portrait and everybody emails, oh you

locked it. Believe me, I'm not that stupid. There's a lot of little stuff that didn't used to be screwed up. I'm not about to jump to Android, okay, But it's about the power of the individual. I was reading the New York Times today about a woman who tracks the power of social media in terms of little verticals. She ended up being hired by the Senate to inform them how to ask questions to Google, etcetera. One person can make a difference. Who is that person in Apple? He

doesn't exist. That was the power of Steve Jobs. So that is Apple. Google has shown their hit to ship ratio is terrible. Okay, they had the glass, they fucked up whatever. So when people tell me, it's like, ok glass, Okay, so Google tell me I can't even hear that without laughing. Okay, people tell me, first of all, who's gonna wear them? The nerds at Google didn't realize they look terrible. And then if you just saw Snapchat wrote off a huge

amount of money for Snapchat glasses. So it's just like when A O L. When MSN network came in, they didn't beat a O L. Okay, I don't necessarily think Google is gonna come in. Facebook is very sharp and they're not afraid to spend money. So in that hierarchy, you know, I put Amazon above Facebook and Google. Facebook and Google are very strong. Alright, let's move into something a little more serious. Our world it's pretty fucked up, right. Um,

you've been you've been pretty outspoken about this. You were very involved in the sixties and seventies. We got some crazy ship going on. Right now, Let's start from the began. Let's look from the Democratic perspective. This is what I love about Bob. I can never finish my question. Tell me if you know you can interrupt me. No, actually I I only asked my questions that you can interrupt me. Just the problem with the Democrats is they used the

old Bill Clinton concept of triangulating. If you we've already established if you were researching, it will tell you where you've been. If Bernie had started a year earlier, he would be president today. What Bernie did was speak English. I remember after one of his uh victory speeches in the primary season that a Republican commentator he goes, if I weren't a Republican, I would vote for Bernie. They did not realize what a pear. We live in a

different world. I don't want to talk about that, but I can tell you about myself talking to Debbie Wasson and Stults. She was in the pocket for Hillary. Forget Russia, forget all that crap. If the Democrats want to win, they have to speak English, we have to find a candidate, etcetera. That's a huge development. The next thing is jerrymandering. Okay, jerrymandering is a huge problem. Then to go into Jerry Springer said on Howard Stern, I'm a big believer liberals

always win in the end. We have gay marriage, we have all these things. So in the long term, what the Democrats and the Republicans failed to see is many people have been left behind. It is not only the blue collar worker. It is a so called middle class. If you're an educated person and you're not a financier or a techie, good chance you're struggling yourself. Okay. Now we have highly educated city dwellers who have no sympathy for the downtron and say, oh, they're doing dope, etcetera.

So there's contempt on the left for so many people. Do you think those people don't read it as far as it is on the right, it's a party controlled by rich people, the Koch brothers. They've literally been running on social issues and appealing to people of disadvantages. So it's not all the social issues okay, of course. But the more interesting thing now is what is the landscape. Andrew Sullivan, I think he's a blowhard, but he was a gay Republican. It first hard to believe. He wrote

an article New York Magazine about a month. It was endless. You can't read it, but the concept it was good. We live in a tribal nation, doesn't matter what you say. Person is on one side or Malcolm Gladwell ship right here right. So then the other thing is you cannot convince somebody with facts. You can show them the facts I've had, they cannot switch size. So we have a disinformation society. The best news source in America, probably the world, is the New York Time Times. I can sit here

and point to you flaws with the New York Times. Okay, they have bureaus everywhere more than anybody else. The New York Times. The right wing has completely neuter the New York Times, even though they get their agenda from the New York Times. If you bring it up, they say fake news. Okay, even though we know Fox is biased such that we cannot agree on the facts. So if you get someone on the left like myself ranting and raving about the right beliefs, we are not moving the

ball at all. So the ball has to be moved outside the limelight. We're almost in a Mr Smith goes to Washington Arrow. We need somebody really pure. I really don't believe Mark Cuban will be elected because I believe just what we have in Minnesota where we had Uh the wrestler as governor, people see this is a professional job, irrelevant of whatever businessman's beliefs are exactly, So I don't believe we're gonna have another celebrity. But is a lot

of contempt for Washington. We need honest people who are literally proffering solutions for other people. But we live in a country where nobody wants to sacrifice. No one can lose their job, So the Liberals are bad on this. Liberals come up with a lot of stuff that is just worship. Bring manufacturing back to America, you know, we'll bring manufacturing back when you want to pay two thousand You want to pay two thousand dollars for a flat screen?

I was at somebody's house the other day. They said, we have a TV outside, So what do you do when it rains? If it gets funked up up by a new one? For Twitter and thirty six dollars. My wife works for a big apparel company, and like it's like if they had to manufacture their goods here. It wouldn't be possible not to mention the fact that I was just reading about some of these companies go down because fast fashion used to be bought clothes, expensive clothes.

Last time people buy t shirts an old Navy for seven dollars, where for a few times throw them away. They're not going back to that. The good paying jobs that we thought there were are not coming back. There's nothing we can do about it, right, all right, so did Russia medal? Of course, I don't believe we should run the election again. I just believe we have to.

We realize that Facebook et cetera not Benige, and how are we gonna go into this thing, and how we're gonna solve this problem of being influenced by these sites? So um Vegas. I can't believe it. It's like we're gonna write a newspaper. Okay, Vegas is a terrible situation. If I ran the world, there would be no guns. Okay, I can understand. I can understand bose and arrows for hunting, and I on some level I seem like maybe we should make an exclusion for that. But if you read

the New York times once again quitting it again. The number of mass deaths correlates with a number of guns in the population. That reduced the number of guns of population to Australia, there were fewer deaths. Okay, we this is the same thing. Everybody is afraid of the n r A. Okay, most people are guns only the politicians are exactly well. True. So therefore we have a very vocal subgroup and it's making people afraid. We have to address this ft the source. We have to get rid

of the guns themselves. Most of the guns are used in domestic disputes. This is terrible. I can tell you if I had a gun in the house, there are a couple of times in my life I would have committed suicide with so much pain, but there was no gun in the house. So there should not be guns in the house. We should, I know. All the right wings say, hey, you know one of the reason gun sales are down now is because of the Democrats not in office. They're saying, hey, we should They're they're gonna

come take our guns. They should take your guns. What the funk you need the gun for? Do you think what happened in Vegas is going to change. And I mean, look, I'm in the inner circle, right, I'm asking you, do you think what happened in Vegas is going to change our business? Because if you look at Manchester in Vegas, both of the explosions or the firings was from outside the perimeter. Okay, what is the responsibility of the Staples Center?

Are they responsible to Santa Monica? They had that guy who wrote a book and he was on Howard Journey Nights, the Fox Consultan who shot ben Leyden been bin Laden. You can shoot people from two miles away. Now that is not the promoter's responsibility. Promoter certainly should secure the building, should do his best to secure the perimeter. By the way, it's a super Bowl, it's everything else, right, I mean, it's any other matters. But look at look at the situations.

I remember all the hijackings we had on airplanes since they have and they're pretty heinous, all these screenings. Oh, I know, there's no more here hijackings. So it works. So if we get rid of the guns, there won't be a problem. Do you think that the big concert promoter should take a bigger stance against um anti gun, Yes, because they're the ones who're gonna get hurt. This is like the NFL, the right wing paper of record, Wall

Street Journal, which I certainly get read every day. They said the kneeling did not affect the NFL viewership whatsoever. So they said, the people in the Red States want to watch football, they watch. If you're a fan of a country art you're a fan of Jason Aldan, and I tell you Live Nation is against guns. You're not gonna go to the show, forget about. Of course you're gonna go to the show. So it would be great. But the problem is there's no external force forcing these

companies to do it. Live Nation is a public company. They're worried about their stock price. A g is not. But yes, they have to take responsibility because what do we know, it's going to happen again. But isn't it interesting that the country music business has kind of started to shift a little bit in terms of what well, I mean a few artists have come out against I mean, by the way the country music business was like, it's like gun Central, right. Well, literally, the n r A

was sponsoring acts and still does to this date. I think that we have some you know, we have some outliers who say, hey, like guitarists in one of the bands from the Root ninety one festival or whatever, the one in Vegas, whatever it's called, saying now I'm for gun control. The fact that a couple of country acts are against country. The vast majority of them in the audience is pro guns. And I'm a country music fan. But that's just a fact. Would you ever hesitate to

go to a in light of this? Would you ever hesitate to go to another show? Hesitate is a good word, because the week before the Country festival in Vegas, there was the Life Is Beautiful festival, and I came very close to going. And the shooter at Vegas. It's cased that out. So I don't think it would prevent me from going, but I certainly believe I might be anxious. Now what this goes back to your early question, I'm playing putting faith in live nation in ag to protect me.

If you look at and these are friends of mine, and we've talked about this, if we look at hard summer where these people are dying, it begs the question people might die in electronic music festivals. But how good was preparation? How good was your emergency services, etcetera. The promoter, you know, Live Nation just reported record profits. They do have a responsibility, but what it's not black and white.

It's not absolutely clear what they should do. Maybe you know, maybe the first thing is you turn in your gun, you get to go three free concerts. I don't know. Well, I mean, listen, I can tell you definitively like both companies, and I'm I'm in the inner circle, right, like everybody does everything they can, right, there's always more you can do when you have people as there's there's nothing more you could do in Vegas, Like how could you prevent Vegas?

This is not my business to prevent it. And then you're right, I'm not sure the promoter can prevent it. Nobody can. But the only thing that bothered me about Vegas is it was business as usual very soon after it happened. And I also think this is contempt. If it had been a classical music concert, or it had been classic rock, we'd still be hearing it because it was country artists. Media everything is a media problem. The media problem is people are against guns, but you now

have a podcast. I just this is just maybe you can make a big deal. This is just like politics, it is not about bloviating. It is about doing the hard work, doing the best to secure the perimeter of a show, but also starting initiatives. I'm not sure that a concert is the number one place, but we're turning into the UK where terrorism we were immune, we're terrorism is de rigor. We're going into uncharted terroristory. I can guarantee you that both companies are doing everything they can.

Are you fucking kidding me? No? I don't think this is their number one thing. The nature of the music business is to cut corners. No, no, no, no no, that's what the music business does. If you're a promoter, we both know other than on festivals, the lion's share of the money goes to the acts, so ten percent or less goes to the promoter. I'm gonna tell the promoter to pay for this, to pay for that, no, bob Um. I can tell you that both companies do

everything they can to minimize this. I am saying I don't want to single out these companies when you deal with public corporations. I don't want to sound like a tinfoil guy, Okay, But as I say, I do not believe they're busy wasting a lot of money. Do they have a task force hiring security specialists from outside the thing? Are they profiling ticket I want to see Kat Stevens

because the answer to all the above is yes. So I went to see Kat Stevens and the manager said they literally researched every attendee their background because of the Muslim problem. Live Nation and a G are not researching every attendee at every show. I'm not saying I'm not saying that when you say they're doing everything they can, and this might be they might be doing above and beyond job. But there's always more you can do. No more, no more serious stuff, more fun stuff. Okay, who is

your favorite band in the world? I thought you can ask a different question the best shows I ever went to? But I have three at three in this genre. So favorite band, favorite show. He's the most important band in the world. Okay, let wait, wait the shows. The three best shows I ever saw were The Who Doing Tommy at the Fillmore East. I saw it at the Universally

Amphi Theater. But though this is in n Tommy Tommy was fresh and you couldn't believe Keith would have looked like two drummers, Prince doing Dirty Mind at Flippers Roller Disco. For those who don't remember, Reagan was shot and they delay the Academy Awards by one day, and the day they had it that was the day of the Prince show. There were fewer than a hundred people there. He did the whole show, flopping on the bed. It was unbelievable.

Then you too, Octung Baby indoors. They ultimately played the stadiums. I saw that, but indoors with Zoo TV, with the trabants and everything. Those are the three best shows I've ever seen. And he's your favorite band of all time? I literally suppled, Come on, I don't know. I would not say Zeppelin. I mean I would go with my early band. I'm a huge Jan and Dean favorite. I'm a huge Beach Boys fan. Otherwise I wouldn't live in l A. I'm a huge Joni Mitchell fan, a C

d C. Back in Black. There's no better record, and none of their records are that good. So that's your favorite album of all time? No, no, no, I mean some of these albums are so overplayed that you can bear. I mean, there's there's a history with all of these albums. You know, it's like, what is the best Beatles record? This is it's a whole a mother thing. You know, for a long time mine was. You know, people shoot on and now, but sergeant question, it's like, I literally

I want you to answer the question. Literally can't answer. I just literally don't have an answer. I can put something out of my ask but too many records, favorite band of all time? No, I've followed you forever. Um, we've done friends forever. Your writing has changed, really it has. Tell me how it's changed. Well, you used to be um. Things used to be a lot more personal. Okay, on, without putting forth examples, I just want to ask you, like, how do you feel your writing house one question at

one time. Let's talk about the personal. I love writing about the personal, and I would rather write about the personal than maybe maybe let me let me, let me go on about this, because you you hit on a key thing. I reached a certain level of ubiquity fame where if I write about anybody, they read it. So I wrote out about asking a girl for a dance at a bar Mitzvah party, and I heard from the woman. This is forty years later. Fifty years later, she lives

in Boston. What else is like politics right now? Right? But she But then I was walking in the mountains just this week and I had, you know, I don't have the unlimited plan with Verizon, and you've gotta be on Verizon no matter what anybody says. The connections are better, and especially SKI you get LT all over veil, whereas T Mobile and a T T you can get the text. I mean, I called the hospital. I thought a friend

of might be injured. I never heard back. It's very important that that the connection comes in and Vail Verizon is the best connection. It is the most expensive anyway. But they just went to an unlimited plan. I don't I haven't gone to unlimited plants. I don't watch much video. But they have carry over such that I had some data carry over. So I said, I'm gonna use some of these music services us to pull out things while

I'm hiking. And it's amazing going to hike. It burned up like two and a half gigs worth of data. And I'm going through things that come to my mind, and I think of the great Robbie Robertson song Broken Arrow. Okay, and I remembered how I got into it. Okay, I'm gonna tell you the backstory, which I was unclear. I'm gonna tell you some details I was not gonna put in a walkthrough. And by the way, this is the

best part of the interview. Here we go, bobus. So, I was married and there's a lot of stories there, but it started to take a negative turn, and the woman I was married to was starting She grew up in Santa Monica, where I grew up in Connecticut, and she started to reconnect with some of the people she lived with in Santa Monica, and she reconnected with some people in Mill Valley and we she let's go up there, and I did, so we drove up. It was kind

of okay. Now, it's like six or seven hours. These couple were very nice, and the next day we walked through Mill Valley and my girlfriend was my wife at that time, was really distant. I remember watching um the Traveling Wilberries on their TV. It just about the guy wanted to talk about the Traveling Wilberries. Two bedroom house.

He and his wife were one bedroom, and they're two young twins under the age of five or in the other and I remember having sex with my ex wife on the other living room floor, so it made me feel like, hey, things are good again. Then we went to stay in you in San Francisco for a night before we drove home. After staying with this couple for two nights. What she was very non responsive and where

do you want to go in San Francisco? Remember when I think it's called the Imaginarium or something like that, EXPLORATORI um. I went with her, and she was really distant. Where you want to stay? And we stayed here in the hotel was really distant, okay? And we left San Francisco. Wasn't that early after staying the night. I assumed that she would drive something, but she wouldn't drive, and she wouldn't talk to me. And you're driving down the five

and it's really creepy. And that Robbie Robertson album was new, and I heard Broken Arrow and it resonated. Okay, and I kept she was She's so distant. I just played it again and again and again. That's how I get into the track. Now I could have written I was thinking about writing about that. The problem is all my inspiration comes late at night, and I had to do something early in the morning that night and you can't

sleep after writing. I would not have included the sex on the floor, okay, because people people can't handle it. I used to write about that, he used to That's that's kind of what I was then. I was talking about something with my uh this woman I lived within law school, and she's emailed me a number of times. It's like, you sit there and I hate to admit it. I'm inherently inhibited. It's I'm trying to get back into that zone. It's I was thinking about it just yesterday.

When you no one's paying attention, you can do whatever you want. It's like, I went to this affair last night, and if I didn't have to get up early for this other appointment this morning, I might have written about it last night. Now I'm not exactly in the groove in the old days, I have written about it anyway, But I don't want to write and get ship. I mean, this is so important, let me expand it a little bit.

Go Bob. I'm a great writer with people. The reason what I was doing in the music business for a year, nobody was doing anything like that. You invented this ship. But in the last few years. There's some people who do it, and there's some people with some decent insight, but they can't write for ship now. They can't write for ship. They're all about breaking stories, right, and so you read it even when it's analysis this you go, I just can't finish it. So first and foremost what

I write has to be readable, okay, but well and enjoyable. Okay. But I'm trying to say you have to. You know, you have to your eyes, don't it. You can't glaze over. What we have in society today is we have don't forget we have the Internet. We have we have newspapers and magazines. This woman, I know you used to write for the Wall Street Journal. They literally right the space. Okay,

I don't want to write the space. In addition writing for the phone with most people read this stuff on the phone now when you wrote for the computer, okay, people read more now on the phone. If it doesn't grab you right away, people, this is really fascinating. This is I can I'm like in the eye of the hurricane. I'm sitting this out and it's funny. I went to the City of Hope dinner. I wrote about um jay Z ticket sales. I didn't get such a big response.

I went to the City Hope dinner two weeks ago. Everybody want to talk about every promoter. I said, if I didn't come here, I wouldn't know. It's just like talking to you about this. So people right, books, Okay, The publishing business a very small business. They funked up and they killed the kindle. The kindle was about a lower barrier to entry. It was just like music in that there's no packaging costs, there's no returns. Okay, But they were so fearful books being cheap that they raised

the prices and kept the physical book business going. So they cut off their nose despite their face. They kept their business small because we all know everybody's gonna eventually read digitally, but it's a small circle of educated people who believe that it should be rewriting. I read some of these books like this, Jennifer Egan. She's a nice person. This book is hard to read. It's got some good wisdom,

but it's hard to read. So I sit at home and feel inadequate, and I feel in him, and I granted. As I was telling Jason Flow the other days, talk about these bands. Something I write. Listen, I reach more people than most of the bands I write about, but it's the same thing. I reach more people than people write novels, by a great thing. But I am inhibited. I would like to reach more people, and I'm trying to be now that there's so many voices out there.

Maybe if you listen, this has been very This has been the highlight for me. Yes, I would like to do more of that. But you write it, and you know, I wrote about getting my colonoscopy and people are tweeting. People are tweeting and they say, oh, I can't read that one based on the head, you know, but the header, etcetera, etcetera. And I've written a lot of stuff like that about getting dental work whatever, and my audience likes it, but

there are people who can't handle it. And I'm I'm coming a long way, but I still have to get back to what I used to be. Well I think, um, I think, um, I think you have come a long way. Um, I think we're probably near the end of this all. Wait, just before we go any more questions about the writing, Well, no, uh, A couple of comments for you, okay, um one um uh, thank you for inviting me to be your You're my best interviewers, so I figured we start with you, and

and I really do love you. And I'm sorry that our first encounter with me calling of me the annoying ball guy, and then you guy, really and then you really impressed me skiing um. You've you've done a couple of ride ofs about me, um which have really made a big difference in my career. And and I appreciate it that well, you know, as you know, whenever I

say this doesn't work. But if you're a Todd Rundgren fan, and Todd Rungman belongs on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for both for those people who don't know he did, he produced the engineered the band Stage Fright. He produced Uh Grand Funk rail Roads were an American band, which is the best thing they ever did. They did a lot of crap shit, And he produced a lot of other great records. And he also made records and

I understand what we do. He didn't want to repeat his successful records, but his breakthrough record, which was his third album, and it's great, although I think the second album is better than UH Run The Ballot of Todd rung in the first three sides are like McCartney's first solo album, where he plays all the instruments. Fourth side is a band side, and he goes at the beginning of the fourth side, he goes, we're changing the name

of the album to send money. Just send money. And I always say that, you know, because I get a lot of perks, I could always use more money. So that's okay, And it's hard to believe people tell me I make a big difference. You know, I'm out of the loop, but I'm glad that I could help you. You've you've been a good friend and um, and we've been friends for twenty one years. I think that's right. And the last thing, as I just want to remind you, I don't remember what year it was, but it was

my favorite moment and ever with you. As we were on a plane, I think we're flying back from Aspen and and it was They're star in the Southern sky. I'm the whole plane fucking saying, well, you know, it's funny. I've read somebody doing that. It was fucking magic, wasn't it. Yeah, But okay, getting it. I saw I saw John at this classic West at Dodger Stadium over the summer, okay, and it was fired up. It was the reconstituted Eagles.

So the first people was the Deobey Brothers. I happened to be a huge Deobey Brothers family because of that month in Mammoth the guy played the Captain and me and uh to lou Street and as a result, and I hear from those guys and I love them. And then the middle band was Journey, which they went off on a tangier too busy. Neil shown he was too busy being a rock god. And then the Eagles come out crushed and they come out to Seven Bridges Road. It's like one of those moments where you're like, this

is exactly did you think about the plane road? Yeah, this is exactly where it should be right now. What could be better than being here right now with perfect harmonies? What people don't understand when you what does he Crosby stills in Nash of the Old Days. It was just like the Woodstock movies. The harmonies were bad. So the fact that the Eagles can do it perfectly for those mean. Don Henley is a genius, but he is a difficult guy. But you know, you're hating some guy with an amazing

amount of talent. If you can go see the Eagles and you get a chance. I know Glenn Fries dead, but they are literally better than they ever were. I I agree. And the funny thing about that plane, right is I think you and I started singing it, and then the whole fucking plane started singing it, and that was like that was part of one of the Aspen rituals. So right, but but just continuing before about that before we close it. It's like these songs that are in

our DNA. But the other thing about it is, um, that's a difference between yesterday and today. Yes, people, but we all, we all knew these songs. I'm gonna go off at a tangent because I want to tell a story. I'm I'm hanging with Al Cooper at the Guitar Center where they have a Guitar Center Hall of Fame and they put your finger, your handprints in whatever. And I know Al pretty well and we're talking for those who

don't know. Al Cooper had a label called Sounds of the South and he produced the first I forget it was three, but certainly the first two. Leonard Skinner albums. First Skinnered album has Freebird. It came out at the end of set of seventy three and uh. A week later, Ronnie van Zandt calls him. They were living in Jacksonville. All's in Atlanta. So we got a new song. We want to come up and cut it. It was sweet

Home Alabama. Okay. So they come up and cut Sweet Home Alabama and it doesn't come out for a year. And I'd say, al did you know? And he said it was sweet Home Alabama. I literally remember the first time I heard it. I was driving west to go from my ski bum life and I was avoiding the traffic going on the circle in St. Louis and it came on the stage. You go, what the funk is this? Okay? And that's the power of a great record. And all of this is based on hearing those great records like

Seven Bridges Road. And even though people that's a great thing about today. There's so much music in today that being a hipster not only even counts. Some of these records are great, are known as great because they truly were that great, and it's great to share those records with you. Until next time. John, Hey, this is Bob left Sex. I want to thank you for your time. Much like the Left Sets Letter, I want to hear

from you. You can email me at Bob at left sets dot com and let me know what you think. I appreciate your comments. Be sure to subscribe on tune in, Apple podcast or your podcast player of choice if there are apps were not available, and let me know we'll get them there. Remember, distribution is king, And if you're not a subscribe to the Left Sets Letter, visit left sets dot com and subscribe for regular newsletter updates on a wide range of topics, including those not covered here.

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