Leftsetz: Painfully Right Again

Seriously, if you are a person who cares about music, you shouldn’t miss Bob Lefsetz.

You should be duly warned that he’s not for everybody.  He’s “no cheddar,” as I once explained to a work colleague of mine, in a moment of late-night clarity at a bar.  He (my work colleague, not Bob Lefsetz) was a guy in the organization that a lot of people really disliked and that others avoided.  He was an acquired taste, like a strong German cheese, and thus “no cheddar.”  Everybody likes cheddar, right away.

Like my work friend, Bob Lefsetz ain’t no cheddar either.  That’s ok, because when he’s on, he’s just so right.  He’s not just right in his opinions, but he’s evocative, poignant, and, to paraphrase Johnny Caspar from Miller’s Crossing , I ain’t afraid to say it, poetic.  Here’s a tidbit (and read the rest here):

“Yes, I believe that’s the key to the music explosion of the sixties, cheap, Japanese transistor radios.  Every kid wanted one, and eventually got one, just like kids today pray for and get wiis.  First you listened to the baseball game, falling asleep with the radio on your dresser, or under your pillow.  But they didn’t play sports 24/7, eventually you graduated to music.  Especially after the Beatles hit.

You did your homework with the transistor on.  You rode your bike with your transistor dangling from the handlebars.  It was your music.  This was not your parents’ era, where the family had to sit in front  of a piece of furniture and agree on programming.  This was yours.

And then the FCC said the same signal could not be broadcast on both the AM and FM bands.  Thus we saw the burgeoning of acts from Hendrix to Cream to the Doors.  FM allowed you to expand.  There were few commercials, no one wanted to buy time.  Not at first!

Furthermore, you had to listen to the radio to hear the music.  No one could afford to own everything.  Music was scarce.  Radio stations became ever more powerful.  Not only breaking bands, but telling you about concerts. Everybody knew if an act was in town, they heard it on the radio!  You couldn’t even get a ticket, everybody wanted to go.  You had to line up hours before tickets went on sale, just to get in the building.”

So what happened next, in Bob’s view?  I’ll let you read for yourself, but for our purposes here, he’s far more pessimistic about the live part of the business than a Live 2.0 worldview would suggest.  Yet, I can’t argue with him because the music industry overall has neglected to develop a ‘bench’ of great touring artists.

What I would say in retort is that the the mega-trends are in favor of the live experience economically and culturally, but it will (and really, must) be different from the drive-a-Rolls-Royce-into-a-swimming-pool model of rock stardom, which is really what Bob’s generation (and therefore the rest of us because of boomer cultural domination) are comfortable with as the default.

Still, read what he has to say.  Regularly.  He’s way off (in my view, obviously) a lot of the time and a bit sentimental for the idyllic age of boomer rock greatness periodically, but it’s worth it for the times when he’s right.

Actually, even when he’s wrong, it’s fantastic.  Just read it already.