Bob Lefsetz Mailbag - Schools edition

[MoMack]

It's funny, but for the last few nights Jimmy Herring and I (well, most of the band actually) have been wearing out a dvd a friend passed along of Jeff Beck's performance at Clapton's '07 Crossroads festival. And when I say wearing it out I mean it! We watch it every night, wishing that we had more footage of the man.

I have never passed up an opportunity to see Jeff Beck and I have seen him with a few different bands. His incredibly emotive playing always manages to get it's SOUL around the sound of the different musicians sharing the stage. Because Beck has matured to the point where he is talking with his guitar. Without even thinking about WHAT to play pure thought seems to ring out of that Strat: beauty, sadness, humor, and even primitive grunts and squonks are all part of his vocabulary.

And we are amazed....some of the rocking tunes have been part of our musical lives: Led Boots, Blue Wind, Freeway Jam...but it's the newer ones that really get us: Nadia, Angel Footsteps, Big Block, Behind The Veil, and like you mentioned, his emotional rendering of A Day In The Life. Heck, last time I saw him live he encored with a duet version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow and it damn near made me cry.

But the real reason I felt the need to respond to your blog was because of a point you often bring up: when you really FEEL what a musician is trying to say you feel compelled to tell EVERYBODY you know about it. Even if it is something as wonderfully simple as rediscovering an old flame like Jeff Beck.

My point being that last Sunday we played at The All Good Festival in West Virginia and there we were, asking EVERYBODY we saw if they had heard Jeff Beck lately. And if they hadn't we told them that they damn sure needed to! Oh to have been a fly on the wall when Jimmy Herring asked Derek Trucks if he had heard Jeff Beck lately. I mean these are two of the greatest and most expressive modern day guitarists talking about how NO ONE has the range of expression that Beck does.

So it was really pretty funny when your email blast came through late Sunday night. Sometimes things just happen at the right time. T

RUTHfully, Dave Schools

Edited July 15, 2008 by Guest

[MoMack]

someohow I can't picture the 300+ gorilla crying to Somehwere Over the Rainbow

[bradm]

Heck, last time I saw him live he encored with a duet version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow and it damn near made me cry.

http://www.jambands.ca/sanctuary/showtopic.php?tid/247973/

Aloha,

Brad

[Northern Wish]

I've made the Mailbag twice. Me, Dave Schools and Chris Martin- nice! Love Lefsetz- I want to get shirts made.......

[MarcO]

I made the mailbag once! He really inspires my love of a good fucking rant.

I loved when he wrote about meeting Kanye West at a Coldplay concert last week.

I’m making no headway here. Chris Martin is just too nice.

So I decide to switch subjects. I decide to get into it with Kanye. I start talking about Bonnaroo.

I think Bob Lefsetz would be a fun guy to party with.

[Northern Wish]

He also states that Kanye was sweet, that he can't imagine that guy was the terror that everyone talks about........ So he is willing to throw down, but also give props when they are due. And that is the essence of his musings, and a reason why I read almost everything he sends out.

[MarcO]

yeah, I pimp Lefsetz too much for my own liking sometimes because I really don't always agree with him. But then I read things like this, things that make me think of the music business in new ways, or rather riffing on concerns I've observed in bits and bites but never really connected all the dots on. And when you think of the music business in new ways, you have to think of music in new ways too, which is all I ever expect from popular culture and it's critics:

In Rainbows

Bob Lefsetz

Was the turning point. Most of the focus has been on its name your own price formula, but most important, it was released without a major label and as a result of being available for free, Radiohead achieved its number one goal, getting the music in as many hands as possible. That's now the paradigm, doing whatever it takes to get people to hear your music, not to get them to pay for it. Hearing is more important than hype. Notice the absent of hype on the original "In Rainbows" site, it was all about the music and the music only, the music stood for itself. Doesn't matter how many people paid, Radiohead is playing the buildings it wants to and doing phenomenal business. That's the goal of a band, to execute on its own terms, not be noticed by people who don't want to partake/believe.

It started with Pearl Jam. The first band made by MTV to turn its back on television. Pearl Jam was fearful of losing control, being defined by the medium instead of itself. It took back control. The medium looked elsewhere, but Pearl Jam can still play arenas, whereas everybody else who whored himself out for exposure can barely work, if they can work at all. How many tickets could Limp Bizkit sell today?

It's not about theft of music, even though the establishment of Napster was a turning point in music history. It's about the artist taking back control. Fans buy into an artist, not a label. Why should they pay the label an exorbitant fee for music that the act will see almost nothing of?

Forget the rationalizations for theft, but don't you find it interesting that all these years later, with many of these artists dead, the label is still making money off the records and the acts and their heirs are not? Isn't it weird that those acts who've recouped under labyrinthian formulas don't own the copyrights to their own songs? Are relegated to recutting them for commercials as opposed to using the original, so they can make a bit of bread?

Sure Radiohead was built by the system, as was Pearl Jam. But, newbies who want some of what they got can't seem to understand that that paradigm is dead. That you can't execute that old formula anymore. One of mass exposure generating multiple impressions. People are not watching and feel beaten over the head if they are, and end up abandoning the overhyped act, if not hating it outright.

Look at R.E.M. Beneficiary of one of the richest deals in the business. They put their heart and soul into their new album, worked it relentlessly, but it still didn't sell. We could debate the record's merits ad infinitum, but no matter what the songs sound like, there's a limited audience. The more interesting issue is do they re-sign with Warner Brothers? They're certainly not going to get a rich deal. Do they go independent? They'll certainly make much more for their music. As for their label penalizing them for going independent, it won't be long before physical retail is essentially dead, with everything equal on iTunes, on the Net, to what degree can Warner Brothers penalize R.E.M? The label is not going to restrict their product from the Web, there's not an issue of selling product to retailers where they've got more of an upside.

So all the old acts are going to go independent. Because it doesn't make any sense to make a deal with the major. The major can't offer enough money and exerts too much control.

Only newbies will want to sign with the major, but the aforementioned restrictions, on everything from what to record and when to release it to how to look make anyone with pretensions of artistry chafe.

So, where does that leave us?

Well, Live Nation wants to roll up the superstars. Give the advances the labels used to. Not a bad deal for an act looking for guaranteed income. Although a lot is given up in the process, certain control over ticketing...

Live Nation doesn't want the newbies. Will the newbies be rolled up by an entrepreneur? One Web-savvy as opposed to bricks and mortar-savvy?

"In Rainbows" was the turning point. It was the moment when an act that counted, not a has-been, decided to enter the future, to throw off the reins of the corporate behemoth and invest in its own career, accepting both the losses and the rewards.

I'm not telling you to give your music away for free. But I am telling you it's free anyway. So, rather than fight this battle, figure out a better way to sell it and innovative revenue streams. Maybe the music comes with a physical product, like a t-shirt. Or a code for a guaranteed seat. Don't throw your money at charlatans without your best interests at heart, sit down and have a conference amongst your team. How can you best develop, how can you best proceed on your lonesome. Are you willing to risk for reward?

That's the game.

And if you're not getting the reward, you're not entitled to complain. All that means is you're not marketing well enough, or your music isn't good enough. Either you haven't reached the target audience, or those people don't like it. The key is getting them to taste and accepting the results. You must get down in the pit with your public, not try to find fat cat investors to inject some cash so you can live for a year in exchange for almost all your rights.