Live in L.A. long enough and you've got a private route to everywhere.
When I grew up, you took the most direct route. And this played in L.A. in the seventies. But not anymore. Now you know during rush hour to AVOID the freeway. You know which intersections have lights with arrows, which ones jam up and which ones flow freely.
Once upon a time you could get from Santa Monica to Brentwood by taking the freeway.
But that was a long time ago.
And you COULD just go up 20th Street to Wilshire.
But Wilshire's to be avoided at all times. Especially since they erected the islands. No, traffic there crawls.
So, like a Bruce Springsteen song, when I've got to go to Brentwood, I take the back streets. Pearl to 30th and then under the 10 Freeway on Stewart Street.
And after crossing Olympic, I make a right on Colorado.
And that's when I heard it.
Recently there's been all this hogwash about this radio station 103.1 in L.A. What, do we live in RUSSIA? If one station comes on the landscape and plays a bit of new music everybody creams in their jeans? I really don't understand it. If you don't have satellite radio you're just going to be that much older when you do. Yes, everybody's going to have satellite radio, the same way everybody has cable. What will happen to terrestrial radio then, I'm not sure. Hell, Jim Cramer nailed it in "New York". Old advertising based media is DEAD! That's why Viacom's stock is mired in the doldrums. Whereas XM's stock is THROUGH THE ROOF! You see people want what they want, NOW! "BusinessWeek" just did a cover story about it. How we're evolving to NICHES! Yes, that's the fallacy of the major labels. Consolidating instead of expanding to meet this new demand. I guess there's no one there who knows anything. And THINK about it. If you wanted business advice would you go to Andy Lack, Jimmy Iovine, Doug Morris, Clive Davis, Lyor Cohen or Edgar Bronfman, Jr? USED to be that record execs were plugged into the street, had their ears to the ground. They knew what was HAPPENING! Now they're just interested in protecting their fat salaries and selling the company. If you want VISION, you ask somebody like Steve Jobs. Whenever anybody in the MUSIC business renders vision, people LAUGH! Admit it. You got that e-mail directing you to the site with the EMI digital music presentations. My readers thought it was HILARIOUS! COMPLETELY out of touch.
Then again, we didn't used to look to businessmen for vision at all. Well, maybe if we wanted to make a ton of dough. But that wasn't the goal back in the sixties and seventies. Then it was about fulfillment, and helping your brother. Who could tell you about THAT? The ARTISTS!
Oh, the artists USED to be in power. Until Doug Morris hired Ron Shapiro as a publicity agent and he and Danny Goldberg spread the word that they were GODS! And the press, needing a story, bought it.
Yup, used to be that the artists wouldn't TALK to the straight press. Now it's only movie stars who restrict press. People like Tom Cruise. Musical acts are complete whores. Tell me when and where to show up. Tell me what to say. Let me bend over, do whatever you want with me, just as long as you pay me.
Everything this business was built upon has been forgotten. Or denigrated.
Denigrated to the max. Put down to the max. Like the Eagles and Don Henley.
"The autumn leaves have got you thinking About the first time that you fell"
I turn onto Colorado and I hear these lyrics.
I can picture where I was when I first heard "Hotel California" like it was YESTERDAY! Actually, it was only blocks from where this listening experience happened today.
But this version of "Wasted Time" wasn't being played by the Eagles, but Warren Haynes.
I've been hyped ad infinitum on this dude. To no real avail. But today, I heard him on the RADIO!
Everything the labels tell you is wrong. They both don't know what they're talking about and are lying. There's not a file-trading issue, there's an EXPOSURE issue. People are not going to buy what they cannot hear.
I became a Warren Haynes fan INSTANTLY upon hearing his version of "Wasted Time" on XM's Loft. I came home and e-mailed the disc jockey for the MP3. But that wouldn't be SOON enough. I rifled through HUNDREDS of CDs on the hunch that I had this disc. And it turns out I did.
"So baby there you stand With your little head down in your hand"
It's like we no longer even EXPECT greatness anymore. We want everybody to come down to OUR level, that of the hoi polloi. We want you to work like hell, we don't want you to do something so great that it sells itself.
When the Eagles released "Hotel California" they were not the Eagles we know today. The Eagles were a BIG BAND! But they were not a LEGENDARY band. They were the best COUNTRY ROCK band. But they weren't HALL OF FAMERS! But then they released "Hotel California".
Those of you not around at Christmas of '76, when this record was released, probably think the title track was an instant smash.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The hit was "New Kid In Town". And AOR played it for a while, and then gave up. The books will tell you it was a Top Forty hit, but "New Kid In Town" didn't have much impact on the culture. It was just another mellow Eagles hit.
But fans, and there WERE many. Because, after all, that's what we WERE, FANS! Who bought the new release without hearing it first. Fans dropped the needle in the opening groove of the album and were instantly KNOCKED OUT!
I told people they had to come over my house. I had to play them this track that would KNOCK THEM OUT!
And this wasn't in the days of CDs. That vinyl record, it sounded RICH! When I dropped the needle and they heard that sound, unlike anything the Eagles had ever cut before, their JAWS dropped! And then there were the SOLOS!
But it wasn't only about "Hotel California". It was about the whole ALBUM!
Now, eventually, "Hotel California" got airplay and became a classic.
And "Life In The Fast Lane" became so popular, such a part of the fabric of the culture, that the title became a constantly uttered aphorism for the rest of the decade.
But the song that always stuck with me was "Wasted Time".
A band wouldn't spend that much time on a track like "Wasted Time" today. It wouldn't be worth it. Better to focus on the RADIO TRACKS!
But it's "Wasted Time" that cements the Eagles career.
Go to a gig. It's during album tracks like "Wasted Time" that the audience truly SWOONS! Closing their eyes in reverie, singing every word.
Because not only is the music ear-pleasing, the lyrics are words of truth.
I could quote them, but either you know them or you don't. Either after every breakup you sing them in your head, or you're ignorant.
And I've heard "Wasted Time" COUNTLESS times. To the point where I don't NEED to play it, I can play it in my head.
But this was different...
This was just Warren Haynes and his electric guitar at Bonnaroo.
And Warren knocks it out of the park.
But as well as he performs it, you can't believe Don Henley WROTE IT! That he got EVERY WORD RIGHT!
THIS is why the Eagles are legends. Because every word was so right that society collectively lifted them up. THIS is why they can charge so much for those concert tickets. People just want to get that close to greatness, they want to REMEMBER! When the answers were in music. When music mattered more than TV and movies. When if you had the record, your life was complete.
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