Look at that Discography!!!!
NY Times article on Stargate

Having hosted groups like The Doors, Led Zeppelin, and The Who, the Palladium has a lot of history behind it and it seems only fitting that the man who rocked Glastonbury will be the one blowing the doors off of the place. The show is October 13, 2008 and tickets go one sale September 5. The place only holds 4,000, so you can bank that this one wil sell out quick.

Watch the brilliant HYPERNOVA in action as they ROCK the place while performing their smash-hit (and one of our personal favorites) "Fairy Tales That Don't Have Happy Endings".

Catch HYPERNOVA as they embark on their US tour. Upcoming shows include a stop at TT The Bear's in Cambridge, MA on Sept. 9th - Click here to buy tickets.

Or buy your tickets to their NYC show on Sept. 10th at Blender Theater @ Gramercy now before they sell out at Livenation!

*Click here to see a full list of HYPERNOVA's tour dates.

**Click here to read our exclusive interview with the Persian-Bono himself, lead-singer/guitarist King Raam.

Aug 1 2008 12:45P	DONNTOWN 81	LOS ANGELES, California
Aug 8 2008 11:45P	FITZGERALD’S	Houston, Texas
Aug 9 2008 8:00P	THE BELMONT	Austin, Texas
Sep 9 2008 8:00P	T.T. THE BEAR’S W/ IAMX	Cambridge, Massachusetts
Sep 10 2008 8:00P	BLENDER THEATRE @ GRAMERCY W/ IAMX	New York, New York
Sep 17 2008 8:00P	M ROOM	PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania
Sep 21 2008 8:00P	THE RED AND THE BLACK	Washington, Washington DC
Oct 21 2008 8:00P	CMJ	New York, New York
Oct 22 2008 8:00P	CMJ	New York, New York
Oct 23 2008 8:00P	CMJ	New York, New York
Oct 24 2008 8:00P	CMJ	New York, New York
Oct 25 2008 8:00P	CMJ	New York, New York

  If you would like to get tickets and link for this event,
email me at Jayev3ryday@gmail.com for the password and ur in there like swimwear.
Place Jeezy Concert in the Subject Line

thursday proved to be more interesting than thursdays usual tend to be with performances by devo, tom tom club, and dan deacon.  well, maybe not tom tom club.

after paying a whopping $58 (!) dollars at the door, I arrived at a nearly empty mccarren pool.  it is a mammoth area, larger than most community pools I've experienced, and of course dilapidated, as most abandoned structures are.  paint peeled from the bottom of the pool (which never dipped below six feet deep), graffiti warmed the oddly-placed cylindrical structures jutting out from the sides.  in essence, your typical LiveNation venue.

dan deacon was just starting off his incredibly short set with "the crystal cat."  the crowd surrounding dan's table was an odd mix:  devo dads who seemed disinterested; hipsters trying their damnest to have a good time; photojournalists; toddlers.  dan didn't seem to notice the mixed audience--he was too busy fucking killing it, despite the raw deal he was getting from the sound guys (half his sound was from his front speakers, half from the stage--gave the sound a weird echo).

the highlight of the set for me came about halfway through with "snake mistakes."  dan cleared everybody back into a large circle and pulled out one hipster who was dancing incredibly hard and had this exchange.

dan: how's it going?
hipster:  great, man.
dan:  okay, here's what's happening:  we're all dying from a terrible poison--
hipster:  okay.
dan:  we don't have long to live.  and you, you have come running back with the sole antidote.
hipster:  cool.
dan:  so you need to reach out your hand and high-five everyone here--everyone, stick out your arms--in order to give them the antidote.  but you need help handing it out, so you need to grab one person and have them run with you.  and then they'll grab someone, and they'll grab someone, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, until we're all running.

so we all went for a brisk run.  personally, I got a bit overzealous and snatched up five or six people, but it was the same effect.  some dickhead kept holding out his hand and raising it before someone could grab it, so somebody grabbed him by the waist and pulled him along.  I have never seen a person so legitimately shocked to be touched by another human.

dan deacon's appeal is not his music, but in the interaction of people enjoying the sounds that he's making.  the music is secondary (although still fabulous) to the experience of listening to music with other people and expressing it through various outlets.  in this case, it was going for a group run, or building a human tunnel throughout mccarren pool.  it was not just a concert, but an experience; not just a performance, but a mood enhancer.

tom tom club was boring and a huge let down and that's all I'll say about tom tom club.

devo started their show with a gigantic video display showing the history of devo.  they graced the stage wearing their yellow jumpsuits and red power ziggurats with grand aplomb, strapping on their instruments and instantly launching into music.  it was a big mess (I mean a really big mess); hit laid way to b-side, b-side belied hit.  "whip it" was the third song, "freedom of choice" and "gut feeling," the closers.  it was a mix of expected and surprising, angsty and joyous.

the shocking part of the entire performance was that they sounded exactly as they did in the 80s--vibrant, youthful, coy, raw.  although "satisfaction" was just a hair slower than it was on the SNL video way back in the long, long ago, devo still played it was flawless voice and timing.  they moved in unison, with mark jutting around from guitar to keys to pom poms to boojie boy costume to back again.  even though these guys are like, what, fifty?  they're still outclassing and of higher stamina than most of the bands they've influence--so much for de-evolution.

also interesting was the crowd's intense mixture:  dads, moms, grandmothers, son, hipsters, preps, punks, cowboy hat guys (maybe just hipsters-double-irony?), nerds, muscleshirt clad frat guys--they all came to give the past a slip.  kids were jumping up and down with their parents.  it speaks of the universal qualities of devo's music.  the themes of disillusion with the present and the uncertainty one might feel about the future speak intergenerationally and thus each generation discovers devo with different yet similar ears and experiences.  and this is all possible because devo refuses to be placed on the shelf that popular music has always tried to place it on--the kitschy and the unnecessary.

but in doing so, the idea of de-evolution has failed--music has evolved and can't move backwards.

http://www.myspace.com/dandeacon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnC1Xzm5uKM
http://www.myspace.com/devo 

When I read back some of my earlier callings for radical change and the appealling but somewhat simplistic view of technology being 100% disruptive of past models, they seem a little naive in the light of what may be beginning to emerge.

A new pluralism? A multivalency of co-existence? Certainly no-one feels comfortable enough in the shoes they're wearing today in the digital media business as a whole to believe that ongoing change will not be the norm for several years to come.

But, there seems to be a suggestion of a new springyness in the steps of those companies who are creating some of these many new ways of doing music-business.   The persistence of companies like Last.FM or their clone IMeem, the steadfast promotional/transactional evolution of companies like Seven Digital into brand relationship building linking artists and products, the quiet persistence of Playlouder in its music/internet service provider model, chasing the monetising of p2p. All of these are exploring and surviving. It is really hard work to do this. The level of commitment and passion involved is pretty high. And the kicker of the occasional big-cash blip, such as Last.FM enjoyed, certainly adds a frisson to the task, but it doesn't make it any easier.

Of course, several degrees of murkiness do continue to cloud our little enlightenments.

Even as we all started to feel that the live scene might just be sustaining everything, major rows at Live Nation between Michael Kohl and his aptly named colleague Michael Rapino - which seem to have ended with Kohl's departure albeit glossed over - would suggest that there is no simple cohesive view of the world going forward in that sector either.

Michael Kohl of course is the doyen of the finely sliced IP right. It was he, in the early nineties with the Rolling Stones, who devised the most sophisticated, regionally segmented, windowed parcelling-out of broadcast, cable, satellite TV, radio, streaming and downloading rights for the Stones' infamously spectacular tours. And for the Stones, even then, album sales meant very little compared to the value of promotion and marketing that Kohl could "persuade" the label to provide which in turn clearly supported the tour.

Who knows what caused this latest rift, it's as likely to be personality clash as much as divergence of business strategy. But the notion that, aside from publishing, performance and licensing revenues, ticket sales alone should be an artist's primary source of revenue still seems a diminished result whichever way you look at it. None of us, it seems, is simply prepared to give up on the value of a recording and walk away from it completely.

This is how LiveNation presented the picture to GoldmanSachs earlier this year:

It's a great multivalent graphic - but just a tad curious when you come to examine it. Broadcasting appears to have replaced publishing and there's no mention of the internet at all although digital is a huge part of their business. I wonder when the THEN was and when the NOW is supposed to be?

I had the good fortune earlier this week to chair a public panel of some amazing expertise on the occasion of the Music Publisher's Association's Annual General Meeting. Gathered together were Kip Meek of Ingenious Consulting (previously at OfCom and now of the Broadband Stakerholders Group), Conservative MP and media specialist John Whittingdale, Spencer Hyman of Last.FM, Andrew Connell of Nokia as well as Andy Heath - the newly elected chair of British Music Rights and Gary Maclarnan who manages Mr Scruff. Joining us as experts were also Will Page Chief Economist of the MCPS, Andrew Orlovski Editor at Large of the Register and Paul Sanders - philosopher in chief of Playlouder, Consolidated Independent and State51. An august and impressive crew to the last. And it was no coincidence, dare I say more, that Andrew Orlovski's intriguing article on music industry discussions with the ISPs appeared only two days after this illustrious event?

But none of them was prepared to say the CD is dead completely or that it will ever die. I think that is not collective blindness to technology's inevitable disruptive power, but a much more sophisticated understanding of how complex our new world is and how pluralistic the models are going to be.

And despite the optimism, there was much more divergence of opinion about how rapidly ISPs and network providers might find common cause with the media and content companies. Kip Meek seemed to suggest that the issues and concerns that the broadband providers have with the broadcasters and film industry are so much more severe than anything that they have to deal with in the music sector (because of the sheer size of film and video files), that the debate will really focus there. As the BBC's IPlayer mutates into the imminent Kangaroo player - the issues of who pays for bandwidth and how content gets monetised will fly in a very different direction. The extent to which the music folk think a tax on the ISPs fits in with the broadcasters' ad revenue model remains to be seen. To me, they certainly look like very different directions, but perhaps in one scenario, simple ad-revenue sharing is not completely unattractive. But it was interesting to note how keen both Last.FM and Nokia seem to be on subscription services which so far consumers have consistently ranked as their least favourite option.

The convergence of focus on ISPs is being driven by television in the UK and what we do here may or may not prove a model for other parts of the world.  One thing that is clear is that if it is to compete to be heard and to have a place at the table with the Broadband community, the music industry needs to be more articulate, more subtle and flexible, and more coherent than it has ever managed to be before.

As Andy Heath tries to pull it all together here under the British Music Rights banner, his challenges look steep but the prize looks impressive.

According to the New York Times, the rap behemoth— who is set to close a handsome $150 million deal from Live Nation—might be right.

Live Nation, a major concert promotion company based in Beverly Hills, California gave pop icon Madonna a $120 million deal last year, and uber-rock band U2 a 12-year partnership for an undisclosed amount.

According to the Times, Jay-Z (real name Shawn Carter) will complete a package deal that includes a start-up label, as well as a music publishing, talent consulting and management company.

Live Nation is expected to contribute $5 million a year in overhead for five years, with another $25 million available to finance Jay-Z’s acquisitions or investments. The venture, to be called Roc Nation, will split profits with Live Nation.

The rapper most recently joined forces with Steve Stoute to form Translation Advertising in New York, an umbrella of Translation Consultation and Brand Imaging, which focuses on multicultural advertising.

For four years, Jay-Z served as the president of Def Jam. He stepped down from his post last year, but owes the label one more album. Upon his leaving, Jay-Z said simply, “It’s time for me to take on new challenges.”

RUMOR is that B.YONEST is the first artist to partner with RocNation Label.

SOURCE: NYTIMES

According to RelevantNoise, Zeta Interactive's technology that mines the Internet's social media landscape - including blogs, as well as Consumer Generated Media (CGM) - the amount of buzz, or volume of posts, on the Internet regarding Barack Obama continues to be higher than Hillary Clinton. In fact, while both candidates received a substantial boost in buzz from the Pennsylvania primary, Obama's spike far exceeded Clinton's despite her win - with the volume of posts on Obama registering more than twice that of Clinton's.

However, although Obama clearly wins in terms of buzz among the social media landscape, not all of the buzz is positive. While Obama registered a 70 percent share of voice among positive posts on the social internet, he also recorded nearly the same percentage of share within the negative posts. This means that of all the bloggers who posted negative opinions on one of the two candidates, Obama stole the vast majority of the share.

RelevantNoise is a Web-based, user-driven social media mining tool that instantly taps into the over 75 million blogs, as well as message boards and online communities within the Internet's social media landscape, providing real-time feedback and insight on the consumer trends and opinions that help drive their behaviors. A growing number of organizations rely on the technology to collect vital business and competitive intelligence to help drive decisions regarding their brands and products.

In addition to measuring the volume and tone of conversations across the blogosphere, RelevantNoise also measures the influence level of bloggers, and provides links to all related posts. In the case of Barack Obama, RelevantNoise detected a significant increase in both positive and negative posts from a mixture of thousands of online authors, ranging from very influential bloggers to lesser-known authors. The technology is also able to measure competitors' Internet buzz as well, including share-of-voice. So that a company or political campaign can compare the volume and tone of buzz surrounding its organization vs. the competition to help gauge the effectiveness of messaging and/or quickly change strategy when necessary.

"We used our RelevantNoise technology to gain insight on the democratic presidential race, and determine what was being said about each candidate heading into the critical upcoming primaries," said Al DiGuido, CEO of Zeta Interactive. "Searching on public reaction to important news topics such as the Obama/Clinton race continues to illustrate the immediate value of blog mining intelligence and analysis to businesses throughout the world."

Zeta Interactive continues to innovate the next generation of digital marketing for Fortune 1000 customers, and its clients with full-service digital marketing offerings, including its award-winning RelevantNoise technology.

About Zeta Interactive

Zeta Interactive is a full-service digital marketing agency offering a wide range of services - from email and search marketing, to web site development, creative, business intelligence services and more. The company aims to be the leading provider of integrated, interactive services that help marketers realize the full potential of the Internet to build brands, increase sales, improve processes, and reduce costs. Zeta Interactive's specialty is in crafting strategies and programs for customers that help them acquire, retain, up-sell, cross-sell and win back their customers-cost effectively and efficiently. The company does so by providing superior proprietary technology and a marketing approach that is focused on accountability, measurability and ROI metrics.

Headquartered in New York City, Zeta Interactive has more than 300 employees worldwide located in California, Florida, Idaho, Nevada, New Jersey, Texas, Rhode Island and India. The company serves more than 200 clients currently, including such world-class companies as Time Inc., Sony Electronics Inc., and LiveNation. For more information please visit: http://www.zetainteractive.com. For more information on Zeta Interactive's RelevantNoise go to http://www.relevantnoise.com.

Madonna is at the top of Forbes.com list of the top 20 "Cash Queens of Music," earning $72 million between June 2006 and June 2007.

This doesn't include any of the money from the LiveNation deal back in October.

Madonna, LiveNation ink up 120 million deal.

Care le mie major,

lo scatolone per riporre in cantina l'albero di Natale è già pronto. Le Feste sono finite, la festa è finita. I vostri best of greatest hits platinum collection li avete venduti. Ora tornate in trincea perchè quest'anno si annuncia molto difficile. Sarà già tanto se rimarrete in quattro, tanto per intenderci. 

Non che il 2007 sia stato facile, lo so benissimo. Avete dovuto subire l'affronto di una band come   i Radiohead che vi dice ciao ciao e che il disco se l'è fatto e venduto da sola. Avete lasciato scappare una come Madonna nelle braccia di Mr. Rapino presidente di Live Nation, un'azienda promotrice di concerti, che le ha offerto un centimiionario – per dirla all'ammerighena – 360 deal, che parafrasato suona tipo “lascia quegli straccioni delle major e vieni da noi, che oltre a farti fare il disco e a promuoverlo, ti organizziamo anche un tour coi fiocchi”. Vi siete intestarditi a combattere gli artisti “lavativi” che per anni avete coccolato e, attraverso cause paradossali e miliardarie, e a vessare  i ragazzini che dalla loro cameretta scaricano un bene – le canzoni – che loro ritengono legale. 

Beh, se il buon giorno si vede dal mattino,  quest'anno potete anche evitare di leggere gli oroscopi. Non è passata nemmeno una settimana e c'è già un gruppo che ha annunciato di voler distribuire un album gratuitamente o, al massimo, con lo strumento del “paga quanto vuoi” già sperimentato dai Radiohead: sono i My Bloody Valentine, una band irlandese semi-culto  che manca dalle scene da 16 anni. “Fosse tutto qua..”, direte voi. No, infatti. Ci sono anche dei carichi pesanti che minacciano di abbandonarvi: uno su tutti, Robbie Williams il cui manager ha annunciato che “forse lasceranno la EMI” e che “oggi è meglio pensare alle potenzialità di internet”. 

Intanto due di voi, Warner Music e Sony BMG sembrano sempre più intenzionate ad abbandonare gli strumenti di protezione come il Drm, cosa che – dicono gli esperti – potrebbe far impennare le vendite di musica online, già cresciute del 50% nel 2007, secondo un'indagine Nielsen Sound Scan. 

Dovesse succedere, care major, preparatevi al peggio: perchè se la competizione discografica si sposta nel mare aperto di internet, gli squali sono tanti e già belli che pronti a mangiarvi. I loro nomi li conoscete bene: ad esempio, Amazon, che ha stretto un accordo per vendere gli album degli artisti prodotti da Sellaband, start up di punta della nuova discografia creativa, di cui si è già detto da queste parti; o MySpace che ha messo in piedi Earwig TV, una specie di MTV online per promuovere le migliori band emergenti e che tutto lascia presupporre sarà il braccio armato della promozione di MySpace Records, che, per inciso, distribuirà gratuitamente il nuovo album dei Pennywise. 

Insomma, mettetevi l'elmetto in testa e il cuore in pace. Quarant'anni dopo il '68, ci siete voi dall'altra parte della rivoluzione.

Concerti e merchandising: + 4%. Vendita di tracce musicali digitali: +46%. Suonerie: +86%. Vendita di Ipod: +30%. Vendita di cd: -18%.  Questi dati, raccolti e diffusi da Chris Anderson nel suo blog, fotografano perfettamente la situazione. L'industria musicale cresce, e tanto. Quella discografica tradizionale, crolla. Forse la metafora è un po' forte, ma è evidente come la vera domanda da porsi non è se l'industria discografica così come la conosciamo sopravviverà, ma come verrà spartito il cadavere. Finora abbiamo volato basso e altissimo: basso, concentrandoci sulle esperienze autoimprenditoriali di artisti noti - Radiohead - e meno noti - Saul Williams; altissimo, raccontando di Rick Rubin e dell'utopia del celestial juke box. Che c'è in mezzo? C'è una ragnatela di organizzazioni grandi ed emergenti che sta sperimentando nuove alleanze, nuove integrazioni e nuove forme di distribuzione. Due sono i principali protagonisti: da un lato le aziende di ticketing e promozioni eventi; dall'altro i rivenditori di musica online. Trattandosi di due settori estremamente concentrati, possiamo anche chiamarli per nome. Ticketmaster e LiveNation da una parte. ITunes dall'altra.

LiveNation si è data alla discografia prendendosi - e pagando uno sproposito - il carico da dieci, la signora Veronica Ciccone in arte Madonna. La strategia di Mr. Rapino, Presidente di LiveNation - nome omen? - è quella di integrare la vendita della musica alla fruizione dell'esperienza musicale. Tu artista ti pigli un "fisso" da urlo. Però ci spartiamo assieme la torta dei concerti e del merchandising. Madonna ha accettato e se non altro questa è una garanzia che lei ci guadagnerà. Non sbaglia un colpo, la nostra quasi connazionale.

Ticketmaster e ITunes - solo negli USA - si sono inventate nei giorni scorsi un'altra strategia. Compri un biglietto di un concerto di un'artista Ticketmaster (cioè quasi tutti)? Se vai sul sito di Itunes puoi scaricare gratuitamente un sample di dieci brani di quello stesso artista, o il suo ultimo album a un prezzo decisamente scontato. Per prepararti all'evento.

Indipendentemente da come andrà un'evidenza è già chiara. Prima si facevano i concerti per promuovere i dischi. Ora si registra la musica per promuovere i concerti.

Music festivals can be awesome because of the sheer number of bands you can catch in one place! Coachella, for example, which I got into for free twice - once as a rep for Han Vodka and once as part of the Jack Johnson team while I was working for Oniracom - was amazing in that regard. Frustrating though, because you can't be in like 12 places at once. I guess hanging out while Jack Johnson and G. Love warmed up in their trailer was worth missing a few bands for though...(Yay for backstage passes!)

But ya. Seeing the band(s) you love live and sitting amongst other blubbering wide-eyed fans definitely has its merits. When I saw Pink Martini live a few years ago, I think I cried through basically the whole show. Gotan Project and Thievery Corporation had me dancing at the front like a total psycho*.

These days, though, I rarely take the time to keep track of who's playing, where, and when. Luckily, there are a host of websites which can do that for you. JamBase is one. They've been around since 1998, but I was reminded of them recently, when another MixMatcher and I attended the SF New Tech meetup in San Francisco. JamBase was one of the featured presentations and after seeing them in action, I realized that they can make concert-going for us lazy busy people more feasible. Their comprehensive tour date search engine of over 40,000 bands should be a good start anyway. Other goodies include in-depth reviews, networking with other fans, listings of shows in your area etc. Check em out.

Obviously, they are not the only player in their field. One contender, which I found on TechCrunch, is the new startup Songkick. It helps you find the cheapest concert tickets - definitely a winning idea in my book. You can also track shows and blog posts about your selected entertainers, and there is a recommendation engine, which is "not generated from the user base, like Last.fm, or through careful analysis like Pandora." Another alternative is LiveNation, which claims to be the "world's largest live music company".

Given the seemingly endless number of startups popping up every day, it's hard to keep track of what's what. My opinion about startups is generally based on their answer to the question "how will you make my life easier?" as well as secondary concerns like "how pretty is your website?" and "can you keep my attention for more than 30 seconds?" In this regard, JamBase has my vote. For now, anyway.

*My psycho dancing is nothing compared to the thousands of teeny bopper girls I watched morph into screaming hyenas at that one Backstreet Boys concert I got dragged along to years ago...I kept thinking poor chaperoning parents. Yet, oddly enough, many of them seemed just as excited to be there as their 3-13 yr olds. Admittedly, I may have kind of gotten into it too. Just a little.

It read, "Bill Graham may be an asshole, but he gave me some of the best years of my life."

The guy who wrote it obviously had his tongue in his cheek, but these days the concert business really is run by assholes - deluded ones at that.

Now comes word, via Lefsetz, that LiveNation bought the rights to name two venues (one in New York, the other in Philadelphia) after Graham's brightest legacy. But calling a building "the Fillmore" won't make it 1967 again. Hell, it won't even make it 1997. The only comfort, I suppose, is that these two concert facilities won't be named after a bank, a computer maker or a cosmetics company.

But tickets will still cost too much, and LiveNation won't stop treating their customers with thinly veiled contempt, inventing charges for services that don't exist and overcharging for those that do - like parking - and scalping, er, auctioning all the good seats.

Tickets are commodities, they say. It wasn't that way in the world I came from, and I doubt Bill Graham would be a TicketMaster kind of actor were he alive today. The business he invented is so far in the past now that it may never come back.

I grew up believing that everybody presented live rock and roll like Bill Graham. He was a class act, even when he was wrong about something. For example, when a Who concert at the Cow Palace sold out in 1974, Graham let the San Jose Box Office sell marked-up tickets. I wrote him to complain that this was scalping, a deplorable (and in those quaint, pre-EBay days, illegal) practice.

He wrote me back with a thoughtful defense of why he allowed it. It was 33 years ago, but his position then could serve as a mission statement for StubHub today. Making these tickets available legally lessens the chance that people will be sold bogus tickets, he said. He believed he was protecting fans. I didn't agree - I still don't- but I always admired him for taking the time to write me and say so, when he could easily have blown me off.

These days outfits like LiveNation rip off fans because they can, and could care less what anyone thinks. It's business, they say.

Graham was different. Here's an excerpt from his Wikipedia entry that I can verify is true:

For all his competitive nature and fiery disposition, Graham was recognized as an expert promoter who genuinely cared about both the artists and the attendees at his concerts. He was the first to ensure that medical personnel were on site for large shows and was both a contributor and supporter of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic, which he often used as medical support at events. He also loved putting together groups onstage from different ethnic backgrounds—many of whom were ignored by other promoters—and he had an eye for pleasing his audience, while making an effort to educate them in styles of music they would otherwise not have been exposed to.

When I was 14, I saw Howlin' Wolf open for Alice Cooper at the Berkeley Community Theater; it was my first exposure to the real roots of American music. I 'd paid to see a heavy metal show that ended in a hanging. Later the same year, blues guitar master Albert King was the middle act for a T.Rex concert; the Doobie Brothers opened that show.

I had many more such revelations in the 20 or so years I attended Bill Graham Presents concerts. In these times of packaged tours that almost never happens.

Every night at Winterland, or the Cow Palace, or later Shoreline Amphitheater, provided an opportunity for discovery. I've lost count of the albums in my collection made by performers who were opening or middle acts at BGP events. Loggins and Messina, Lynyrd Skynyrd, STEVIE WONDER (at the 1972 Rolling Stones show) were all on the bill below the headliner at Winterland shows.

Even when there wasn't music on the stage, Bill Graham took care of the fans. One time, I waited in line all day for a Winterland show (Steve Miller and ZZ Top, I believe); it was bitter cold, so Graham opened the doors two hours early to allow fans to warm up inside, where we watched videos of past concerts and Betty Boop cartoons. Graham could definitely be a hard ass, but we'd cut him some slack when that happened. Besides, he usually had a good reason.

Such decency is a quaint memory. Bill Graham is dead, and the concert business is whored out to a disgusting mutation of Tony Soprano, Arthur D. Little and a cyborg. The only pure music environment these days is a dank, dusty club.

Concerts haven't been fun since Bill's helicopter crashed in 1991. But if he knew the Fillmore name was being sold out to LiveNation, I bet he'd kick some ass.

I miss you, Bill.

Al enkele dagen lees je in de krant berichtjes als deze. Wie mij een beetje kent, weet dat ik een probleem heb met 's werelds grootste geldwolf, euh concertpromoter. Het hele gedoe met de Schuer en de overname van zijn Rock Werchter, de constante verhoging van de prijzen op festivals die onder LiveNation vallen. Het stuit mij tegen de borst. Ik ben me uiteraard bewust dat mijn mening geen fluit uitmaakt. Jay-Z zal er niet minder cd's om verkopen en Werchter raakt ongetwijfeld in een mum van tijd uitverkocht. Toch krijgen ze mij er niet meer binnen. Is dat hypocriet? Misschien, want ik moet toegeven dat ik af en toe toch naar een LiveNationconcert ga. Maar men laat je immers gewoon de keuze niet meer. Als alle goed verdienende bands worden opgekocht (een andere omschrijving is er niet), moet je op den duur wel woekerprijzen betalen om te kunnen zien wie je wil zien.

Zo, dat is ook weer van mijn hart.