there's so little we can control. Obstacles are around every corner. To be able to get just one little thing right makes me smile.
I love great art, no matter the medium.
"I’m tired of hearing about the minimum wage. I really am. I don’t think there’s a mother or father sitting around the kitchen table tonight in America saying, ‘You know, honey, if our son or daughter could just make a higher minimum wage, my God all of our dreams would be realized.’ Is that what parents aspire to?”
I love great art, no matter the medium.
Now you can buy “Ebola” branded heroin. Half a kilo was seized in New Jersey.
I love great art, no matter the medium.
I love great art, no matter the medium.
Thank you, Puff the Magic Dragon
Puff, the Magic Dragon, has been my friend for more than 50 years. It was in the spring of 1959 that I wrote the poem that became the song Puff, the Magic Dragon. I was a freshman at Cornell. I had been at the library at Willard Straight Hall, the Student Union building, and I’d read a sentimental poem about a dragon by Ogden Nash. As I walked down State Street to the apartment of Peter Yarrow – who became the “Peter” of Peter, Paul and Mary, and who set my poem to music – I thought to myself, “I can do better than Ogden Nash’s poem about a dragon.” Maybe I did.
Puff, the Magic Dragon has become part of the folk mythology, not only of Western Europe but of much of the world. The few minutes I put into writing the poem seem to me to be all out of proportion to the benefit I’ve reaped from Puff, the Magic the Dragon or, indeed, the benefit the world has derived from Puff, the Magic Dragon. Puff’s popularity is a phenomenon that I don’t comprehend, because Puff has not been promoted like Mickey Mouse, for example. Puff, the Magic Dragon got to where he is because people like him, not because of any marketing effort – because there has been little of that. I’m hoping that Puff will get turned into a feature film but Puff‘s been in development hell for 20 years (the cave was a better place to be) and I don’t know what chance he has of becoming a movie star.
Puff, the Magic Dragon has been interpreted – usually misinterpreted – time and again by many people. When a work is out there people are free to interpret it any way they want. I think Puff, the Magic Dragon is about a little boy and a dragon. I think there are strong parallels between the story told in the song and Peter Pan. You’ve got Jackie Paper, you’ve got Wendy. You’ve got Honalee, you’ve got Neverland. You’ve got pirates, you’ve got pirates. Puff sadly declines in his cave, which reminds me of Tinker Bell needing to be revived. There are parallel elements, and the theme is similar. Peter Pan is a boy who won’t grow up and, believe me, I don’t blame him. Jackie Paper, though, does grow up and so leaves Puff.
Immediately after the Peter, Paul and Mary’s recording came out in 1962, Dorothy Kilgallen, who was a columnist in a New York newspaper (it might have been the Daily News) wrote a piece saying that Puff, the Magic Dragon was about marijuana, hah-hah-hah-poke-in-the-ribs. When I was home from school as a kid my mom and I would listen to her on the radio. She had a talk show with her husband Dick. I think the show was called Dorothy and Dick and it was on WOR. The first thing I thought when confronted with her newspaper column was disbelief – how could that nice lady say such a thing? The second thing I thought was: What can you expect from a woman without a chin. She had a receding chin. Kind of nonexistent.
When I wrote Puff I didn’t know from marijuana. We’re talking about Cornell in 1958. People were going to hootenannies – they weren’t smoking joints. It was Pete Seeger and “Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore,” not “One Toke Over the Line Sweet Jesus.”
Over the years my feelings about Puff have changed. There was a point when I ignored Puff, the Magic Dragon. That was during the sixties when I distanced myself from the namesake gunship loaded with Gatling guns flown in Vietnam. There were times when I was annoyed with Puff, the Magic Dragon – especially when people kept asked me, “Is Puff a song about marijuana?” They persist to this very day. People often ask me the question, and usually they are sheepish about it. My advice to people is this: If you feel sheepish don’t ask the question. Just be quiet. I’ve even been asked that question in a deposition in a patent infringement case by a Harvard trained lawyer who should have known better. Because he kept me at the law offices at the San Francisco Ferry Terminal past the departure of the last ferry of the day I answered his question this way: “You’ve got a little boy and a raunchy dragon. You figure it out.”
This May will be the fiftieth birthday of Puff, but you might want to count the anniversary from when the record was released in 1963. In any event, here’s to Puff, the Magic Dragon. Puff was my financier. Puff funded my work in electronic stereoscopic displays. Puff, unlike my other investors, never asked for anything back. He never grilled me at a board meeting, he never lectured me about having to make a profit, he never told me that I had to cut out projects I loved. He never ask for subordinated this or that or warrants. He never was greedy or a pain in the ass. He never lied to me or changed the deal at the eleventh hour. He was always respectful. Puff’s been a generous, forgiving and kindly investor – one who has never stopped giving. So thank you, Puff. Thank you, Jackie Paper. And thank you, Honalee. I’m heading your way.
Why is everybody criticizing U2? Now every musician in America has a right to hand them one of their demos! Anytime, anywhere.
I am offering up this story because you should all know the way Red Bull works with musicians!
I love great art, no matter the medium.
I love great art, no matter the medium.
Begin forwarded message:
From: Bob Lefsetz <bob@lefsetz.com>
Date: October 21, 2014 at 1:50:38 AM EDT
To: yes@therainbow.com
Subject: My Day At Red Bull
Reply-To: Bob Lefsetz <bob@lefsetz.com>
Have brands trumped bands?
I was wondering this as I walked through Red Bull HQ today. With every seat taken, with young hipsters in front of their computer screens, it's everything the music business was before Napster, when those coasting on CD profits, both replacement and buy one overpriced one to hear one hit track (remember Chumbawamba?) were rolling in dough and thought the good times would last forever.
But they didn't.
Used to be the hippest store on the planet was Tower Records.
Now the retail emporium of choice is the Apple Store. They both feature a buzz, both give you the feeling you're at the epicenter of what's happening. But the profit margins on Apple's gear is far superior.
But Apple is selling tools and the labels sold music. What is Red Bull selling?
Energy drinks.
That's the difference between going to Red Bull's offices and the record company's, no one talks about the product. Then again, they kept telling me the consumable was just a gateway to so much cooler stuff, and they're right.
The most impressive thing I saw today? The gaming studio. Sponsored by Nvidia, able to transmit competitions around the world. The "New York Times" has been talking about "League of Legends" for a week, Red Bull entered the space years ago. Because when it comes to popular culture, there's always a first mover advantage. This is what the music industry lacks. We can't even go social at the show. There's no gamification, no points for buying tickets, the music industry is so bottom line it's like a flophouse, with beds and nothing else.
And then there's their television station. Or Media-something. Everything's got a name at Red Bull, not that I can remember it.
But in this case, Red Bull is trying to take over programming. And it did a good job of this at Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits, where it streamed the performances but not only the performances, they turned it into programming, with hosts and interstitial material, knowing that raw data is neither sexy nor comprehensible, it's what you do with it.
And it takes money to do this, and Red Bull is spending.
That's the dirty little secret of the music business, everyone's tight. You can't get paid what you're owed, never mind get help to promote. Red Bull paid for Skrillex to visualize his show in a loft downtown. Previously, it was only a two-dimensional computer image. But with the company's help, Skrillex could build the props and see what they looked like in real life, because everything's about experimentation, you rarely get it right on the first pass.
And Red Bull is experimenting.
It all comes down to their founder. And I could look up his name, I've forgotten it, but that's just the point. In entertainment, the execs want to be stars, smart businessmen know the product rules. And once this guy noticed action sports heroes using the drink, he signed them up and capitalized on it. Red Bull was in action sports for two decades before they got into music.
That's right, Red Bull is deep into music. They had a first class studio in the back of the building, where they give away time for free. But in return... They feature you in all their programming, in their magazine, they went on to tell me they've got relationships with every club in the world, because they all sell their main product, the energy drink.
And I think it tastes like horse piss. No, I haven't consumed the urine of an equine, but I can't imagine it's much less satisfying. Then again, that's the point, Red Bull is not made for me. It's a club, of young 'uns.
And the company is akin to a cult. The Hotel California. You can come in, but no one leaves. I was stunned that this employee had been there for nine years, another for seven years, before I'd seemingly even heard of the product.
And it makes me wonder, if you're twenty years old today, where do you want to work, at the label or the corporation, Universal or Red Bull?
If you say the label you're a wanker. There's no upward mobility at the label. No risk. Old fart baby boomers have all the control. And the acts are all lower class denizens bending over to get reamed for a few shekels. It's so sad I nearly want no part of it.
But music is the grease in so much of Red Bull's machine. Music is important. It just doesn't trump the brand.
Red Bull doesn't ask for much. It only does deals that benefit both sides. It supports as opposed to dominating. There's not endless signage and branding. It's a twenty first century company. That's right, one that knows consumer relationships are built on trust. And that you're playing a long game.
But I still don't think I could work there. Because there's too much business and too little art. Everyone's pedigreed, this one worked for Microsoft, they're stars in marketing speak. But the soul is in art. But the artists have capitulated.
That's right, I'm here to tell you Red Bull is cooler than almost all music.
Just when I'm down on the company, they load me up with movies that they financed, like the documentary on Shane McConkey, who had more charisma than anybody signed to Sony. They do put their money where their mouth is.
And they kept telling me the goal was to make all their initiatives self-sustaining. Music, gaming, television... To fiddle and fuss and get it right and then dominate. Kind of like Vice in news. But it turns out they're already partners with Vice.
Welcome to the new world, where all the companies speak to each other. Synergy and networking rule.
But they don't in art. Art is singular. Hell, the best work of the best artists doesn't even sound alike. That was the magic of the Beatles, every track was different, we hung on every word. U2 spends five years to imitate themselves badly. The Dr. Luke hit factory resembles well made widgets instead of art. But art requires artists, unique people who are not eager to be members of society, who don't do it to hang out with the tech titans but to express themselves, to speak truth to power.
But those people exited the building when it became cool to do endorsement deals.
And Red Bull's deals are the coolest out there. They ask for little and deliver much. But you're still hooking up with a corporation. It's different for athletes, bodies demonstrate, artists think. You look at the athlete, you see inside the artist.
But who is Rihanna?
Who is Katy Perry?
Is Bono even a musician anymore?
No one's satisfied with being an artist. Because they don't believe there's enough money in it. They don't get that art trumps tech and Red Bull and that's why these entities want to be involved with it.
That's the world we live in.
Yup, about a mile from my house, in a nondescript brick building with no signage, the U.S. headquarters of the world's biggest energy drink are housed. You see you don't have to yell, you don't have to promote yourself when you're doing it right.
And Red Bull is doing it right.
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The hardest challenge facing musicians today is getting people to listen to their new music. Awareness campaigns are a thing of the past. They make people know you've got new music, but it doesn't make them listen to it, at most it gets them to sample a few seconds of a track. Which is fine if you're not about the new music, if you've got enough old hits to power a show people want to see, but not if you're starting out or truly want people to know what you're up to.
1. YOU'RE A FULL TIME MUSICIAN
You practice every day, right? So why do you only drop new product every couple of years? Open the doors to the public, show your warts, reveal your personality. The key is to keep people engaged on a regular basis. This is a huge sea change, but the most notable one in the business today. YouTube is the medium of choice. Put up a video of you practicing, doing covers, works in progress. The key is to speak to your hard core fans, who will continue to talk about you to their buddies and will spread the word on anything truly great. And don't worry if it's not great, it just gets plowed under beneath the endless tsunami of clips posted every single day.
2. KNOW WHO YOUR FANS ARE
Selling/promoting to those who don't care is completely worthless, it's so 1980s. Everybody's so busy that if they don't have an interest in you, you won't be able to convert them via endless publicity, which is either namby-pamby whitewash or shock value quotes. Never forget you're selling your music, your only goal is to get people to check out and keep listening to your tunes, everything else is irrelevant. Fame won't put asses in the seats.
3. REACH OUT TO YOUR FANS
This is what the youngsters do so well with social media, primarily Twitter and Instagram. If you're an oldster and you want people to check out your new tunes be on social media a year in advance, a minimum of six months, revealing truth, bonding your fans to you. This is much more important and dividend paying than a story in any newspaper. The paper is one day only, tomorrow they're flogging something else, social media when done right is an ongoing conversation.
4. HONESTY
Credit to Bono for admitting U2's Apple mistake, but not only did Mr. Hewson apologize, he gave an explanation, he humanized himself, which made me feel warm about him and his band. Don't let your handlers speak for you, Guy Oseary never should have taken that victory lap. You have to stand up for yourself.
"Bono apologizes for putting U2's new album in everyone's iCloud library": http://bit.ly/1w81QPF
5. HITS
This is the most important element. You have to create a track that those who know you, that those who are interested in checking you out, will hear once and need to hear again, it's just that simple.
It's not about what radio thinks, it's not about what you think, it's about what the consumer thinks, and the consumer pays your bills.
We're all listeners, we all know what grabs us. Stop asking your friends whether they liked your new music, but how many times they listened to it. If it's once, you're toast, sorry.
Forget about radio, forget about filters. You know who your fans are. Do they want to hear the new track again and again?
Taylor Swift has embraced this paradigm, realizing how tough today's landscape has become, unfortunately she has gone lowest common denominator with "Shake If Off." You too can do this, if you know Max Martin and the usual suspects, but that does not mean you cannot do it yourself, that you cannot shoot higher. But we can only listen to one song at one time so what you cut has to have the catchiness of "Shake It Off."
No bitching. This is the story of all media today. Check out the movie business, it's either a blockbuster or it's a stiff. If you're happy with a stiff, be my guest, but you're not allowed to complain you've got no audience, that no one cares.
6. ALBUMS
Stop thinking about them and stop making them. You start with the hit, if you haven't got one, keep trying to make one. Without one, you're sunk. If you have a hit, people will want to hear more of your music, so then you can build around the hit. You can release four other tracks that are ear-pleasing but might only be listened to by fans. Then you need another hit. And know in the streaming universe, the album makes no sense. The CD allowed shuffling, the ability to play only the songs you wanted to hear from the collection, streaming doesn't even force you to buy the LP to begin with! Don't overload your audience on Spotify and its ilk, it's too confusing when someone goes to check you out. In other words, put a plethora of material on YouTube, but only the limited, authorized stuff on Spotify. You're not making albums, you're creating a body of work. Listeners don't care if you cut it yesterday or a year ago, or even five years ago. And to force people to wait for years to
overwhelm them with product is a mistake.
7. TELEVISION/EVENTS
I'm not a big Foo Fighters fan but their HBO show is a masterstroke, going with the true Tiffany network to showcase excellence without commercialism. The same show is a stiff on another network, the Foo Fighters are piggybacking on HBO's cred. And with no ads, HBO is the antithesis of the modern world. People hate the endless selling and commercialism. It burnishes your image to avoid it. But, once again, you must have hits. And, once again, a hit is something that many people want to hear over and over again, it doesn't matter if it's played on the radio or not.
8. GENRE-HOPPING
The rappers have been doing it forever, dropping in on pop songs. Today's country is yesterday's rock and roll. Want to expand your audience? Play with today's country stars, who can play, and likely are fans of your material. We're all in it together, and only the biggest of stars can go it alone.
9. NO SHORTCUTS
They leave the audience with a bad taste in their mouth. If your face is everywhere, if you force your music upon them, backlash will begin. Money and connections will get you press, but the truth is in today's music world it might be working against you. Used to be the press was tied in with radio and MTV, which everybody listened to and watched. Today, your music can be completely ignored. When your face appears in a non-genre-specific publication, trolling for fans, the readers laugh and make fun of you.
10. TAKE A JOKE
We live in hater culture. If you're going to respond at all, have not only a sense of humility, but a sense of humor. There's no need to immediately apologize, then you look like one of the TV drug addict nitwits. Stand your ground, but be three-dimensional, wink your eye.
Everywhere I go I quiz people on the new releases. Consensus is the Thom Yorke album is already over. The inane press release wherein they said there were a million downloads, was laughable, they had very few PAID downloads. This is the worst case example, where the press trumps the music.
At least U2 got to perform their song at Apple's shindig. If only it had been a hit. It was very good, but you never needed to hear it again.
As for Tom Petty, I'm a huge fan, but when he appeared in every publication known to man and exuded grumpiness in the process and came out with an album without one repeatable track, it was just sad.
That's right, your A&R man said he couldn't hear a single.
But today your A&R man is your audience. And it's not their job to listen to your new music. And chances are there is no radio single...radio, radio that counts, doesn't play your music, your single is for your fans. And your single is a repeatable track. Because no one's got time for less than great.
And we're constantly in search of great, which is how Lorde can come out of nowhere, but now, more than ever, it doesn't matter what you've done in the past, but what you've done for us lately.
I love great art, no matter the medium.
1. YOU'RE A FULL TIME MUSICIAN
You practice every day, right? So why do you only drop new product every couple of years? Open the doors to the public, show your warts, reveal your personality. The key is to keep people engaged on a regular basis. This is a huge sea change, but the most notable one in the business today. YouTube is the medium of choice. Put up a video of you practicing, doing covers, works in progress. The key is to speak to your hard core fans, who will continue to talk about you to their buddies and will spread the word on anything truly great. And don't worry if it's not great, it just gets plowed under beneath the endless tsunami of clips posted every single day.
2. KNOW WHO YOUR FANS ARE
Selling/promoting to those who don't care is completely worthless, it's so 1980s. Everybody's so busy that if they don't have an interest in you, you won't be able to convert them via endless publicity, which is either namby-pamby whitewash or shock value quotes. Never forget you're selling your music, your only goal is to get people to check out and keep listening to your tunes, everything else is irrelevant. Fame won't put asses in the seats.
3. REACH OUT TO YOUR FANS
This is what the youngsters do so well with social media, primarily Twitter and Instagram. If you're an oldster and you want people to check out your new tunes be on social media a year in advance, a minimum of six months, revealing truth, bonding your fans to you. This is much more important and dividend paying than a story in any newspaper. The paper is one day only, tomorrow they're flogging something else, social media when done right is an ongoing conversation.
4. HONESTY
Credit to Bono for admitting U2's Apple mistake, but not only did Mr. Hewson apologize, he gave an explanation, he humanized himself, which made me feel warm about him and his band. Don't let your handlers speak for you, Guy Oseary never should have taken that victory lap. You have to stand up for yourself.
"Bono apologizes for putting U2's new album in everyone's iCloud library": http://bit.ly/1w81QPF
5. HITS
This is the most important element. You have to create a track that those who know you, that those who are interested in checking you out, will hear once and need to hear again, it's just that simple.
It's not about what radio thinks, it's not about what you think, it's about what the consumer thinks, and the consumer pays your bills.
We're all listeners, we all know what grabs us. Stop asking your friends whether they liked your new music, but how many times they listened to it. If it's once, you're toast, sorry.
Forget about radio, forget about filters. You know who your fans are. Do they want to hear the new track again and again?
Taylor Swift has embraced this paradigm, realizing how tough today's landscape has become, unfortunately she has gone lowest common denominator with "Shake If Off." You too can do this, if you know Max Martin and the usual suspects, but that does not mean you cannot do it yourself, that you cannot shoot higher. But we can only listen to one song at one time so what you cut has to have the catchiness of "Shake It Off."
No bitching. This is the story of all media today. Check out the movie business, it's either a blockbuster or it's a stiff. If you're happy with a stiff, be my guest, but you're not allowed to complain you've got no audience, that no one cares.
6. ALBUMS
Stop thinking about them and stop making them. You start with the hit, if you haven't got one, keep trying to make one. Without one, you're sunk. If you have a hit, people will want to hear more of your music, so then you can build around the hit. You can release four other tracks that are ear-pleasing but might only be listened to by fans. Then you need another hit. And know in the streaming universe, the album makes no sense. The CD allowed shuffling, the ability to play only the songs you wanted to hear from the collection, streaming doesn't even force you to buy the LP to begin with! Don't overload your audience on Spotify and its ilk, it's too confusing when someone goes to check you out. In other words, put a plethora of material on YouTube, but only the limited, authorized stuff on Spotify. You're not making albums, you're creating a body of work. Listeners don't care if you cut it yesterday or a year ago, or even five years ago. And to force people to wait for years to
overwhelm them with product is a mistake.
7. TELEVISION/EVENTS
I'm not a big Foo Fighters fan but their HBO show is a masterstroke, going with the true Tiffany network to showcase excellence without commercialism. The same show is a stiff on another network, the Foo Fighters are piggybacking on HBO's cred. And with no ads, HBO is the antithesis of the modern world. People hate the endless selling and commercialism. It burnishes your image to avoid it. But, once again, you must have hits. And, once again, a hit is something that many people want to hear over and over again, it doesn't matter if it's played on the radio or not.
8. GENRE-HOPPING
The rappers have been doing it forever, dropping in on pop songs. Today's country is yesterday's rock and roll. Want to expand your audience? Play with today's country stars, who can play, and likely are fans of your material. We're all in it together, and only the biggest of stars can go it alone.
9. NO SHORTCUTS
They leave the audience with a bad taste in their mouth. If your face is everywhere, if you force your music upon them, backlash will begin. Money and connections will get you press, but the truth is in today's music world it might be working against you. Used to be the press was tied in with radio and MTV, which everybody listened to and watched. Today, your music can be completely ignored. When your face appears in a non-genre-specific publication, trolling for fans, the readers laugh and make fun of you.
10. TAKE A JOKE
We live in hater culture. If you're going to respond at all, have not only a sense of humility, but a sense of humor. There's no need to immediately apologize, then you look like one of the TV drug addict nitwits. Stand your ground, but be three-dimensional, wink your eye.
Everywhere I go I quiz people on the new releases. Consensus is the Thom Yorke album is already over. The inane press release wherein they said there were a million downloads, was laughable, they had very few PAID downloads. This is the worst case example, where the press trumps the music.
At least U2 got to perform their song at Apple's shindig. If only it had been a hit. It was very good, but you never needed to hear it again.
As for Tom Petty, I'm a huge fan, but when he appeared in every publication known to man and exuded grumpiness in the process and came out with an album without one repeatable track, it was just sad.
That's right, your A&R man said he couldn't hear a single.
But today your A&R man is your audience. And it's not their job to listen to your new music. And chances are there is no radio single...radio, radio that counts, doesn't play your music, your single is for your fans. And your single is a repeatable track. Because no one's got time for less than great.
And we're constantly in search of great, which is how Lorde can come out of nowhere, but now, more than ever, it doesn't matter what you've done in the past, but what you've done for us lately.
I love great art, no matter the medium.
Rap is joining rock in middle age. A radio station in Houston is switching to a classic hip-hop format.
I love great art, no matter the medium.
I love great art, no matter the medium.
Not the way it happens in the movies –> In the movies, a young man racing to the hospital with his wife in labor gets an impromptu police escort. In real-world Iowa, they get their tires blown out and are forced to the ground at gunpoint.
I love great art, no matter the medium.
I love great art, no matter the medium.
“Deadly force, in black and white” –> An analysis by ProPublica‘s Ryan Gabrielson, Ryann Grochowski Jones and Eric Sagara finds that “young black males in recent years were at a far greater risk of being shot dead by police than their white counterparts – 21 times greater.”
I love great art, no matter the medium.