Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left Sets podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today, my interviewer today is Canadian legend, not that
Speaker 1: he hasn't had influence the rest of the world, Jake Gold.
Speaker 1: He literally built the Tragically Hip, a legendary band who's
Speaker 1: lead singer Tragically died back in October. He was also
Speaker 1: a judge on Canadian Idol. Also a huge prog rock
Speaker 1: fan and involved in other things. Jake, Great to have
Speaker 1: you here. Great to be here, Bob. I've been listening
Speaker 1: to a lot of the podcasts and I really like
Speaker 1: the welcome, Welcome, Welcome. I'm always curious as to why
Speaker 1: three welcomes. You know, it's a direct rip off from
Speaker 1: John Oliver. Okay, John, And as I say, this is
Speaker 1: something I say for those people who read me on
Speaker 1: a regular basis, I say, what kind of crazy fucked
Speaker 1: up world is it? Everyone thinks that I made that up. No,
Speaker 1: and I've even written this that people don't remember. That's
Speaker 1: Chris Rock. Chris Rock said fifteen years ago famously, what
Speaker 1: kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in?
Speaker 1: Where the best golfer is black and the best rapper
Speaker 1: is white? Meeting Tiger Wood and eminem and and also
Speaker 1: you write what have we learned? Is that from Stern? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: what have we learned? It's my original. I don't know
Speaker 1: where I've gotten that, Stern, take that from you. That's original.
Speaker 1: Some of these things, like an attention economy. I saw
Speaker 1: a guy in Bill Maher who used to work for Google,
Speaker 1: talking about attention economy. I never saw that anywhere else.
Speaker 1: What have we learned? I've been doing for about twenty years.
Speaker 1: Usually stopped people in our tracks. I remember I was
Speaker 1: backstage with Cats Stevens and the manager of Pearl, Jam Kelly,
Speaker 1: who's also uh Kelly Curtis, Yes, who's also co manager
Speaker 1: of Cat Stevens that I say, what if we're talking
Speaker 1: about Cat Stevens. Come back and I go, what have
Speaker 1: we learned? It looks at it goes, what do you
Speaker 1: mean learned? Because usually it's not people They give an answer,
Speaker 1: but not that time. But it's interesting because Stern now
Speaker 1: all the time, near the end of his interviews, will say,
Speaker 1: what have we learned? I'm always worried, you know. I'm
Speaker 1: good with Howard. I hear from his buggety Jimmy Kimmel
Speaker 1: on a regular basis Jimmy Kimmel, who I've only met
Speaker 1: in real life once. You know, I had this issue.
Speaker 1: I was in the hospital. Can I send food? Just
Speaker 1: an amazing guy. But I'm worried because Robert Plant was
Speaker 1: on Howard Stern and I talked about plants reluctance to
Speaker 1: answer in the play along with Howard, and since then,
Speaker 1: Howard hasn't mentioned me. So I wondered if what if
Speaker 1: Howard's pissed at me? Well, I think Howard's got thick skin,
Speaker 1: but he not really. You know, it's interesting because I
Speaker 1: heard you on the wrap up show a couple of times,
Speaker 1: and um, you know me, I've been bugging you for
Speaker 1: a long time. He needs to go on Howard, but
Speaker 1: you won't do it. Well, it's funny. Uh. I did
Speaker 1: how Tony Hawks Serious XM show for Faction Talk two
Speaker 1: days ago. You had Tony here before, and Uh, Tony,
Speaker 1: we wanted to talk a lot of Stern and he
Speaker 1: was telling a lot of different stories. He said he
Speaker 1: wouldn't go on, and he said for the same reasons
Speaker 1: I told you I wouldn't want. Jake. I hear you're
Speaker 1: worth forty million dollars. Yeah, you say so, Jake do
Speaker 1: you get laid last night? He's not gonna ask you that, Sorry, Bob,
Speaker 1: he's not gonna ask you that. Well, as I thank
Speaker 1: you overestimate that. I don't think he's gonna ask you that. Well,
Speaker 1: let's see if he actually asks me. I I think
Speaker 1: he's read enough of your stuff. The other side of
Speaker 1: it is is maybe you're a wrap up show guest.
Speaker 1: Maybe no disrespect to what you do because you reach
Speaker 1: so many people. But you look at what he's doing now,
Speaker 1: and like everybody's famous, there's no like outliers anymore. There's
Speaker 1: like it used to be, like you'd hear about someone
Speaker 1: knew that you hadn't heard of, and scrippers and hookers
Speaker 1: and like porn started off. There's none of that anymore.
Speaker 1: It's all a listers all hawking their wares. How do
Speaker 1: you feel about that? Like he had Lily Tomlin and
Speaker 1: Jane fond On. Do you think that's good or you
Speaker 1: think that's about Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda are pretty
Speaker 1: special people, and I think that's good. I think that's
Speaker 1: good when he can go deep like that. I'm a
Speaker 1: little disappointed with some of the like the Daily Show
Speaker 1: for me today, you know, I watch it um as
Speaker 1: an example, it's just like everybody who's on mostly is
Speaker 1: just hawking their wares. Know anyway, just to be clear,
Speaker 1: you're talking about The Daily Show on Comedy Central. You're
Speaker 1: talking well, that's one of the things that bothers me
Speaker 1: is getting older. I know, you're approaching a big birthday,
Speaker 1: and when I came to that same big birthday, it's
Speaker 1: just worse. Ship. I mean, the New York Times best
Speaker 1: newspaper in the world, right winners. You can argue with me,
Speaker 1: but that's a different podcast. You open the Hearts and
Speaker 1: Leisure section on Sunday, it's just all hype. I mean,
Speaker 1: if the movie is any good, I'll find out and
Speaker 1: I'll watch her. I won't, but I don't need to
Speaker 1: hear about Oh yeah, you know it's the best movie
Speaker 1: you ever had. Let me tell you what I ate
Speaker 1: on set. You're just trying to you know, excitement. And
Speaker 1: then that's the thing about about I don't mind that,
Speaker 1: at least Stern does in depth interviews. But now you're
Speaker 1: watching The Daily Show. When when Jon Stewart was on,
Speaker 1: it was always more interesting to me when he had
Speaker 1: an author or someone that was doing something different that
Speaker 1: I didn't hear, didn't know as opposed to the next
Speaker 1: actor or comedians, because, as you know, Johnny Carson originally
Speaker 1: was ninety minutes. He would always have an author, have
Speaker 1: people who weren't famous, and then David Letterman totally reconstructed
Speaker 1: the Paradigm into a comedy show. We literally had to
Speaker 1: come on and tell jokes are funny. Story And now
Speaker 1: it's funny. He's on Netflix doing Johnny's old show, going
Speaker 1: in depth with you know, first Obama and there's another episode, right,
Speaker 1: So it's funny that he is not reinventing the paradigm.
Speaker 1: It's how come in music, we haven't heard a new
Speaker 1: sound in fifteen years. Well, it's funny. You know. We
Speaker 1: were discussing the Actually Will Botlin and I were talking
Speaker 1: about that. Botwin is a big manager red Light Management, right,
Speaker 1: he runs red Light. We were talking about that two
Speaker 1: nights ago, him and I would you uncover? Well, the
Speaker 1: problem is is the uh I think it has to
Speaker 1: do a lot with the access is is that there's
Speaker 1: so much stuff out there and it's so easy to
Speaker 1: get it out there, like to put it up there.
Speaker 1: Very much entry is not existing, there's no there's no,
Speaker 1: but but the barrier to be found out is huge, huge.
Speaker 1: And he was talking to me about being at presentation
Speaker 1: of all this new music that was coming out and
Speaker 1: everything else, and he said it all sounded the same,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like an old guy's thing to say,
Speaker 1: but it didn't because he said, even the rock stuff
Speaker 1: is now starting to be produced like the pop stuff,
Speaker 1: just so it can get on the radio, just so
Speaker 1: it can fit into playlists. You look at Spotify and
Speaker 1: now you know Apple Music is now about to pass
Speaker 1: Spotify in America for paid subscribers, which I think is
Speaker 1: an interesting concept in itself. But when you look at
Speaker 1: those things and you see that in order to get
Speaker 1: any traction, you've got to get on these playlists, and
Speaker 1: even those aren't going to give you fans guarantee. It's
Speaker 1: just gonna get you more exposure. I manage an accol
Speaker 1: common deer. See my plug I get my plug in.
Speaker 1: I knew you would, Well, it's what I do. He's
Speaker 1: a manager and that's d e R. It's two words
Speaker 1: there from Canada. We're talking about the animal deer and
Speaker 1: as opposed to the guy on the ship, and they'll
Speaker 1: be a south By Southwest but you know they do.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call super commercial. It's commercial, but I wouldn't
Speaker 1: call it super commercial music. We're getting played on playlists
Speaker 1: and things like that, but I wouldn't say we're blowing
Speaker 1: up around the world with the kind of numbers we're getting.
Speaker 1: And and it's hard for us to get on the
Speaker 1: radio like we we'd have to be a million plays,
Speaker 1: like you know what our plays are combined so far
Speaker 1: in a Year's what Drake does in a minute, right. Well,
Speaker 1: the interesting thing there's this album for the soundtrack for
Speaker 1: the movie The Greatest Showman, and there's a track on
Speaker 1: there that is a hit. It was remade by Kesh
Speaker 1: I'm not about a hit if you hear it, and
Speaker 1: it's still not being played by Top forty radio because
Speaker 1: it's not a hip hop track. Right, So there's a
Speaker 1: real transition going on for those people who are students
Speaker 1: of the game. It may not be that inside the
Speaker 1: music business goes where it gets the most exposure, and
Speaker 1: radio is where you reach the most eyeballs but or
Speaker 1: ears in this case, but it is diminishing and it
Speaker 1: will be slowly eclipsed by streaming. So it's funny that
Speaker 1: you know, you have these. You know, in terms of radio,
Speaker 1: it's really just urban hip hop now on top forty
Speaker 1: certainly in America. Yeah, and dance. There's there's some dancing,
Speaker 1: but dances lesson it was a few years ago. The
Speaker 1: dances also evolved. There's like it's it's hybrid. Now it's
Speaker 1: like dance hip hop. Like there's they're mixing it all together.
Speaker 1: There was an interesting panel at Pollstar which I was
Speaker 1: just at, and they had that's a a conference for
Speaker 1: the touring industry, for the touring industry, but there was
Speaker 1: a panel and they had Pandora guy and Mark Cuban
Speaker 1: was on. Our good friend Mark Iiger was moderating and
Speaker 1: agents were dropping names. But there was women from My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio there and uh, you know, the the numbers
Speaker 1: still show that more people are still learning about music
Speaker 1: from from radio. That's at least what what she says.
Speaker 1: But they're going to get into the streaming business. I
Speaker 1: mean they're already in it. They have an app you
Speaker 1: can listen to their stations. Whether it will succeed is
Speaker 1: another issue, right, But everybody wants to be in every place,
Speaker 1: you know, everybody wants to be everywhere. They had Scott
Speaker 1: Greenstein from Serious XM. There right, and you know they
Speaker 1: have an app too, so you're kind of streaming that.
Speaker 1: What was interesting is they were talking about the connectivity,
Speaker 1: you know, because really what drives music on radio is
Speaker 1: the car. You know, it's the car. When you're at home,
Speaker 1: you have your Spotify, you have your other options, but
Speaker 1: when you're in the car, most people cars are equipped
Speaker 1: with FM AM and you click it and that's it.
Speaker 1: Especially in cities like Los Angeles, were a lot of
Speaker 1: people spending a lot of time in cars. You've given
Speaker 1: up your car, right, yes, I gave up my car.
Speaker 1: You had an accident a few months back, October one,
Speaker 1: and you live in Toronto and I lived downtown And
Speaker 1: now that you're ubering lifting, whatever, what's your experience? Great?
Speaker 1: No downside. I rent a car on weekends because my
Speaker 1: mom has been ill and she lives in the north
Speaker 1: end of the city, so I try and go up
Speaker 1: every Sunday to see her. And I also play tennis
Speaker 1: on a team that travels on Saturday. So I usually
Speaker 1: rent a car Saturday afternoon and give it back Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 1: And you read it from a traditional agency or no, no,
Speaker 1: I I go to like a budget. I have a
Speaker 1: deal with budget and you know, now, so did you
Speaker 1: handle a deal because your manager say I'm coming every weekend,
Speaker 1: give me a special rate. Well that's what we do.
Speaker 1: So for the people who don't know, I want to
Speaker 1: go back to this, we're gonna get there. Believe me,
Speaker 1: We're not gonna forget the threat. Digression is a spice
Speaker 1: of light. Okay, okay, you know that you're gonna rent
Speaker 1: a car a certain amount, how do you go in
Speaker 1: and negotiate. I look at all the rates that are
Speaker 1: out there, right, and it's it's not so much negotiation
Speaker 1: because I'm going to argue with the guy's renting me
Speaker 1: in the car for forty five bucks for the day.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna I'm gonna get five bucks off. So
Speaker 1: instead I'd rather say, you know, it's a snowy day,
Speaker 1: you know, give me the four by four today. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like so I'm getting like, oh, you know what,
Speaker 1: I got to move some stuff? Can you give me
Speaker 1: this van today? And they just say, yeah, sure, here
Speaker 1: we got one. But you do rent a car every weekend.
Speaker 1: It's been like that for the last little while, only
Speaker 1: because because I've had to go up and and and
Speaker 1: not had to. I want to, but you know, my
Speaker 1: brother and I go up. So you know your brother
Speaker 1: doesn't have a car either. No, he's he's hasn't had
Speaker 1: a car for a long time. But oh it's interesting.
Speaker 1: UH in Colorado, as with a promoter, and he wanted
Speaker 1: to store his stuff very close to the lift. So
Speaker 1: he goes up to the guy normally have to pay
Speaker 1: a stiff fee. He says, you like concerts, and then
Speaker 1: where you want to go in town, I can take
Speaker 1: care of you. Used to be the currency was the
Speaker 1: actual physical products, the vinyl, the cassettes. Now it's like
Speaker 1: everybody's always trading something and well it's the live experience,
Speaker 1: right you know, Um, I don't have that kind of Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't have that kind of currency, but I do
Speaker 1: have um repeat businesses current and see. I actually I
Speaker 1: had to move some of my mother's stuff because she
Speaker 1: moved out of a home into uh and she was
Speaker 1: in the hospital. We had to find a new home
Speaker 1: for her. And it was like we got to move
Speaker 1: her stuff out of the home. And I went to
Speaker 1: the budget to rent a van and a friend of
Speaker 1: mine was gonna take the bad and so I bought
Speaker 1: this mattress pad, and I bought some markers from Budget
Speaker 1: that they have there. We ended up not taking the bed,
Speaker 1: and we ended up not taking and and when we
Speaker 1: opened the markers, one didn't work. So I went to
Speaker 1: bring the car back. The next day. I had the
Speaker 1: receipt and I said, look, I didn't use the mattress pad,
Speaker 1: the markers. Look it doesn't it's broken, doesn't work. I
Speaker 1: want my nine bucks back. And the guy said, uh.
Speaker 1: The guy said, we don't do refunds on that. I said, okay, good,
Speaker 1: Well there's an enterprise of block away. I'm here every week.
Speaker 1: Either want my business or you don't. Well, we can't
Speaker 1: do a refund. I said, then give me a nine
Speaker 1: dollar credit on the rental. Like he couldn't think of that,
Speaker 1: and he went, okay, I'll do that. I said, okay, good,
Speaker 1: here's your pat math. That's who you got, one of
Speaker 1: the big boys. But going back to your point nine
Speaker 1: bucks there you going back to your point about the
Speaker 1: new music. Well, it's just it's interesting that I'm just
Speaker 1: talking about this the car connectivity. So they're all talking
Speaker 1: about you know when it finally gets connected and gets connected, Well,
Speaker 1: you know when I come here, I rent a car.
Speaker 1: Most of the cars today, if you have an iPhone
Speaker 1: or an Android, they come with Apple car Play or
Speaker 1: whatever the equivalent is for Android. You plug your phone in,
Speaker 1: you're connected right now. I rent a car from a
Speaker 1: company that has the cars equipped with WiFi in the car. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't need the radio anymore. Do you listen to
Speaker 1: the radio? And they actually have serious XM in the car.
Speaker 1: But here's an interesting thing. I will now say the
Speaker 1: company's name since this will go out, because I text
Speaker 1: them about this. They're called Silver Car. I heard about
Speaker 1: them on Howard Stern and that's where they first started
Speaker 1: to promote their service. And I remember telling you about it.
Speaker 1: And they had a code, a Howard one promo code.
Speaker 1: I came here and I thought, I'll try them out
Speaker 1: there in l A. I'll try them out there only
Speaker 1: in the US, and they ran out a four. So
Speaker 1: I used the promo code. I get the car. Great service,
Speaker 1: but I love the cars and it's got WiFi. When
Speaker 1: I was renting cars, then when you're roaming internationally, because
Speaker 1: you know Canada actually is a different country, you pay
Speaker 1: more for roaming when you're roaming internationally. So if you
Speaker 1: had WiFi in the car, especially all the time I
Speaker 1: spend in the car in Los Angeles, you'd actually save
Speaker 1: you know, you'd save on using your data. So I
Speaker 1: thought this was a great thing. It had nav it
Speaker 1: had WiFi, and it had Serious XM with Howard Stern.
Speaker 1: So fast forward to now I'm in the car. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I haven't had a car since October. I haven't really
Speaker 1: listened to Stern. Oh I'm gonna be able to listen
Speaker 1: to Stern while I'm in l A. I go to
Speaker 1: the hite, press the button on the radio. It's a premium.
Speaker 1: It's not included in the car anymore. So you texted
Speaker 1: them and what they say? I texted them and I said,
Speaker 1: why isn't Howard Stern included in the car anymore? And
Speaker 1: the guy said, ever since our sponsorship ended with Serious
Speaker 1: x M, we just have this basic serious XM. And
Speaker 1: I wrote them back. I said, well, that's funny because
Speaker 1: I discovered your company from Howard Stern using the Howard
Speaker 1: promo phone. Guess what, crickets no response to that chose
Speaker 1: the power of Howard. Okay, so what have we established?
Speaker 1: I firmly believe, but no, But back to the streaming thing.
Speaker 1: So the connectivity, My point is, I now have the
Speaker 1: option to listen in this car, specifically that has WiFi.
Speaker 1: If I'm worried about data, I can stream my Spotify
Speaker 1: if even if it's unsaved, I can literally stream my Spotify.
Speaker 1: It's an icon that comes up on the screen. And
Speaker 1: when you have Apple car play, um Deezer comes up
Speaker 1: on the screen, Apple Music comes up on the screen.
Speaker 1: So I can stream all of those via my phone
Speaker 1: in the car and all that the the icons are
Speaker 1: all there. I just dialed them, impress it and Siri
Speaker 1: connects to it so I can ask the question through SERI. Okay,
Speaker 1: so is your opinion how's this going to impact radio? Well,
Speaker 1: I just think it's it's gonna impact it. Like they're
Speaker 1: all talking. But when full connectivity comes, well it's here.
Speaker 1: I was surprised that no one brought it up on
Speaker 1: the panel, Like, nobody brought it up all the people
Speaker 1: you're talking about it, you get screwed by full connectivity. Well, no,
Speaker 1: it could help Serious. I mean people are listening to Serious.
Speaker 1: I guess there. There's their main business is still the car,
Speaker 1: you know, I I don't know, do you listen only
Speaker 1: in the car. Do you actually have the thing that
Speaker 1: sits in I listen, uh, pretty much everywhere, depending on
Speaker 1: my needs. If I'm in the car and there's something
Speaker 1: I'm very interested in, I'll go home and listen to it.
Speaker 1: Certainly with Howard. I use the app for certain interviews
Speaker 1: that I want to hear while go hiking in the mountains.
Speaker 1: I'll listen to those primarily. And you pay for serious
Speaker 1: you know, as a friend of the company, I do
Speaker 1: not write, so I pay or I paid. And it
Speaker 1: used to be you could go online for free so
Speaker 1: I could have it on in my office's and extra money,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't. It wasn't aount of money. It piste
Speaker 1: me off because they raised the price. It was almost
Speaker 1: it was over two hundred dollars a year in Canada, right,
Speaker 1: Canadian dollars. And then there was like, now you're gouging
Speaker 1: me for even though it was it was it wasn't.
Speaker 1: It was ten bucks in Canada for the online and
Speaker 1: I just went, I'm done, okay, But without making it
Speaker 1: about seriously, going back to the music and how we
Speaker 1: why do you believe we haven't gotten a new sound?
Speaker 1: I think there's tons of new sounds out there. I
Speaker 1: don't think they've been discovered yet, and that's the problem.
Speaker 1: How do we find them? How do we find them?
Speaker 1: And I were saying that, and how are we going
Speaker 1: to find these? There's a couple of subjects going on here.
Speaker 1: First and foremost, I believe we live in a hip
Speaker 1: hop dominated nations through the degree we do because they
Speaker 1: embrace new technologies, they embrace giving it away for free,
Speaker 1: they embrace soundclothe, they brace Spotify. The other genres have
Speaker 1: resisted streaming. The rock people they have all the acts
Speaker 1: are saying streaming sucks, it doesn't pay, all the old acts, etcetera,
Speaker 1: such that their fans don't get on streaming. You know,
Speaker 1: we were talking the other week with Jason Flam about
Speaker 1: is that Greta van Fleet went to number one in
Speaker 1: the active rock format. When I went to number one
Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks, still had under a million
Speaker 1: streams on Spotify. It's got more now because that audience
Speaker 1: is not on there. So I believe when all the
Speaker 1: genres ultimately moved to streaming, there will be more of
Speaker 1: an equalization of different types of formats that we have now,
Speaker 1: as opposed to if you go to the Spotify Top fifty,
Speaker 1: it's almost all hip hop, so it's therefore it's everything
Speaker 1: else is marginalized, and it's hard to even become aware
Speaker 1: of it. Well, I mean, the country was last. The
Speaker 1: country is ahead of rock. I'm streaming. I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but they're embracing it more than rock. Well, I think
Speaker 1: I think part of it is that I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people didn't realize there were a lot of
Speaker 1: country fans outside of the South. Listen, Patty said, country
Speaker 1: is the rock music of the seventies, and if you're
Speaker 1: someone who loved rock, you hated country that kind of
Speaker 1: rock and you hated country. Believe the dash Philly is
Speaker 1: your sound at this point. These are not twangy people know,
Speaker 1: oh no, no no. And Nashville isn't just country anymore,
Speaker 1: that's for sure, the land of Land of musicians like
Speaker 1: Chris Tapleton. I watched him on Saturday Night Live and
Speaker 1: I was like, this is as heavy as anything I've
Speaker 1: ever But the funny thing about Chris Stapleton a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago that was like heavy all right. A
Speaker 1: couple of years ago he won Album of the Year
Speaker 1: whatever they're calling it. The c m A Awards, and
Speaker 1: if you look at the statistics, he is the biggest
Speaker 1: acting country music in terms of consumption, in terms of
Speaker 1: sales and streams, not on radio. But that's a fascinating
Speaker 1: thing because he's the most credible acted country So they
Speaker 1: all agree this is what they want. By the same
Speaker 1: time they're putting up problem. Well, it's interesting you say
Speaker 1: that because even in the non country fans love Chris
Speaker 1: Stapleton because like I see it on Twitter, like after
Speaker 1: the Saturday Night Live performance, all these people who I
Speaker 1: know that we're traditionals, you would see them more as
Speaker 1: rock people or or not not pop, not pop people, right,
Speaker 1: even as far is like alternative music, people all flipped
Speaker 1: out over Chris Tableton on Saturday Night Live. Listen. You
Speaker 1: gotta flip, you know, when he leans back and he
Speaker 1: bellows and he picks, it reminds you of what it
Speaker 1: once was. Yeah, and it gives you hope. Yeah it was,
Speaker 1: and it was cooler than Leonard skinnerd It was like
Speaker 1: it was cooler than fog. It was cooler than those kinds.
Speaker 1: Was cooler. But by the same token, the progenitor there
Speaker 1: is the Almond Brothers, and they were always cool, right,
Speaker 1: they were always cool. Yeah, you're right. It's definitely more
Speaker 1: Almond Brothers than anything else. But it's interesting. You know,
Speaker 1: I was with Wayne Wayne Forte, who's a big agent. Right.
Speaker 1: You know you used to represent David Bowie big amongst others,
Speaker 1: right David. Now as to Dusky trucks and trucks, that
Speaker 1: thing is just blowing up everywhere. But it's interesting because Metallica,
Speaker 1: which sold out stadiums in America, and he's doing arenas
Speaker 1: right now and Europe and he's going back to stadiums.
Speaker 1: I was discussing with some people involved to say, no
Speaker 1: one knows used to be decades past. If you were
Speaker 1: some ing out stadiums, everybody in the marketplace new. In addition,
Speaker 1: the double album was successful. Now you can be very successful,
Speaker 1: but no one outside of your genre or your fans
Speaker 1: will even okay. So then the real question is doesn't matter?
Speaker 1: Why it only matters to okay? Who does it matter to? No?
Speaker 1: No, No No, let me let me be very specific. There's
Speaker 1: this band called DAWs. I really there's a hit off
Speaker 1: the first album, the second album I really love with
Speaker 1: Million Dollar bill its and I became friendly with the
Speaker 1: guys they're in their mid twenties, okay. And older people,
Speaker 1: whether it be jen X or baby boomers, have the
Speaker 1: belief that millennials can multitask, can cope with all the information.
Speaker 1: I was talking to the drummer. They can't either. Everybody
Speaker 1: is overwhelmed with information. So how we make sense of
Speaker 1: it is a very interesting question. I believe, like the
Speaker 1: Internet at large, we will go to winners and losers.
Speaker 1: Like if you talk about serious. There's a serious station
Speaker 1: called x MU, which is like their college station. And
Speaker 1: when I listened to that, I'll hear good stuff and
Speaker 1: I say, WHOA. Then I say to myself, am I
Speaker 1: the only person in America listening to this? Because it
Speaker 1: doesn't translate, you know, to everywhere except except When I
Speaker 1: was growing up, it was a badge of honor to
Speaker 1: be the only person listening. But there was a circle.
Speaker 1: It would be like in your own village. And I
Speaker 1: watch this TV show broad Church, which is great. Everybody
Speaker 1: knows everybody, Okay, So when everybody knows everybody, how you look,
Speaker 1: how you hold yourself where This is one of my
Speaker 1: big things. Okay, In the seventies and eighties to hate
Speaker 1: the mainstream, to be into your independent alternative bands and
Speaker 1: we're all black was part of the ethos today there's
Speaker 1: so much information. Don't waste your time. You don't like it.
Speaker 1: Forget if everybody's into their own thing. If you're reacting,
Speaker 1: you're forgotten. Yeah, but you know you think about it
Speaker 1: like you say, I'm a prague guy. I love the
Speaker 1: progue music. Back then it was outside music, was outsider music,
Speaker 1: and we were stoners and but by the only thing is,
Speaker 1: if you look back, it was only outsider music for
Speaker 1: like two years. I don't know about that. Yes, came
Speaker 1: out in the first album in America, Very end of
Speaker 1: sixty nine, and Roundabout was a hit two years later.
Speaker 1: Now all the other bands, Genesis, General, Giant, whatever. The
Speaker 1: interesting thing is, as you get now two years, we
Speaker 1: haven't had a new sound of fifteen years. Well, if
Speaker 1: you think about the prod from that era, first of all,
Speaker 1: in Canada they were way bigger than they were in
Speaker 1: America earlier. Why do you think that is? We always
Speaker 1: embraced English bands. I guess it was a Commonwealth thing
Speaker 1: or whatever, but we always embraced like even the alternative
Speaker 1: bands that were big on k rock, they were already
Speaker 1: big in Canada. By the time they got here, Genesis
Speaker 1: was playing stadiums in Toronto and playing the Greek Theater here,
Speaker 1: which is the best of the prog bands for me.
Speaker 1: When Peter Gabriel was in Genesis by a mile and
Speaker 1: we've noticed none of those albums are on streaming services. Well,
Speaker 1: no they are, but the Lamb Lights down on Broadway isn't.
Speaker 1: And I had asked about that because one day I went, come,
Speaker 1: I can't listen to the Lamb Light Sun on Broadway
Speaker 1: And I asked the head of Warner and he got
Speaker 1: back to me and he said that they don't want
Speaker 1: people to sample that record. I don't mean sample for
Speaker 1: using other pieces. They don't want people to hear that
Speaker 1: record in pieces. But the only thing about it is,
Speaker 1: if you have caught the announcement, best Buy is gonna
Speaker 1: stop selling CDs. So where the hell they gonna hear
Speaker 1: the album? Exactly? Where are you going to get it?
Speaker 1: On Amazon? You're gonna buy Let's Come Back? Did you
Speaker 1: watch the Super Bowl? Yes? Did you see the Steven
Speaker 1: Tyler ad? Yes? What are your thoughts? Was he saying
Speaker 1: dream on because he wishes he was the younger stealing
Speaker 1: let people didn't know he's on a race track. He's
Speaker 1: going backwards and he become who he used to be. Right,
Speaker 1: that's like that old joke about country music. What happens
Speaker 1: when you play country music backwards? Your dog comes back,
Speaker 1: your wife comes back. Pick up. So I didn't understand it.
Speaker 1: I really didn't understand it, and they don't understand it
Speaker 1: or not. Back in the heyday of classic rock, it
Speaker 1: was anathema to do a commercial endorsement. Now forgetting that.
Speaker 1: Steven Tyler already was on American Idol, which was a
Speaker 1: huge step at this late date in age seventy. Is
Speaker 1: it a mistake to do that commercially? I think it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter anymore. But exactly when you're Steven Tyler, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, it does Does it matter for anybody? Does
Speaker 1: it matter for Neil Young? If Neil Young thinks it matters?
Speaker 1: Different question? Okay, what we've lived long enough to see
Speaker 1: a great percentage of our music be forgotten. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: step back, just one step. Does it matter to me
Speaker 1: as a person? Yeah? Does it matter to Stephen that's
Speaker 1: his business? No, No, let's let's use the definition. Ozzy
Speaker 1: Osbourne was a cult thing, Okay, he was a Black Sabbath.
Speaker 1: Black Sabbath was a hip hop of its day. There
Speaker 1: people would never listen to that. Then he hooks up
Speaker 1: with Randy Rhodes. He becomes an FM rock staple, okay,
Speaker 1: and then he puts out an album No More Chairs.
Speaker 1: Very successful, but it's a narrow niche relative to the
Speaker 1: world at large in an error prior century. Right, he
Speaker 1: has his show The Osborne's on MTV. He and his
Speaker 1: family literally become household names, cultural icons. His live business
Speaker 1: went down, tendance went down, os Fest to everything, everything
Speaker 1: went down. So the question is if you are one
Speaker 1: of these acts, especially something like oz who stood for
Speaker 1: a certain ethos, do you have to worry about this
Speaker 1: relationship with your fans? Oh? I think you always have to.
Speaker 1: I think. And funny, I was telling this story the
Speaker 1: other day about the hip and I was talking about
Speaker 1: how you know I had that band online doing stuff
Speaker 1: with the Internet before anybody was, Like, nobody was. They
Speaker 1: wrote about in Time magazine, right wrote about it in
Speaker 1: a Newsweek news Newsweek. Because we were the first sell
Speaker 1: our records directly to our fans. They were CDs, we
Speaker 1: were shipping them, but no one else was doing that
Speaker 1: and the fact the title of the article was, you
Speaker 1: know the tragically turned their back on the industry. You know,
Speaker 1: I had the band online before anybody. The record companies
Speaker 1: didn't have websites. The didn't even understand it. They were
Speaker 1: letting me build database with their money because they didn't
Speaker 1: understand what what it was to have a database and
Speaker 1: the mailing list and all that kind of stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: the model for me was the Grateful Dead. It was
Speaker 1: just a different way to access the same thing. Right.
Speaker 1: But I was talking to someone the other day and
Speaker 1: they were saying, yeah, I know you used to give
Speaker 1: a ship all the time because you insisted there was
Speaker 1: a promoter. And they said, because you insisted that the
Speaker 1: fans had to have the information before anybody else. And
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, because that was our strategy. Our strategy
Speaker 1: was always fan first strategy. And that's always been my strategy.
Speaker 1: Fan first, fan first, fan first. And when you have
Speaker 1: a fan first strategy, you have to think about what
Speaker 1: they are going to think, and you have to think
Speaker 1: about what do you stand for, what do you represent?
Speaker 1: And every time you make a decision, the decision in
Speaker 1: my mind was always what's that decision gonna mean? In
Speaker 1: five years. What's that decision gonna mean in ten years?
Speaker 1: And if that decision doesn't fall into your ethos in
Speaker 1: five years and in ten years, then you shouldn't do it,
Speaker 1: regardless of the money. There are a lot of subjects here,
Speaker 1: but the reason I was bringing up Steven Tyler. First
Speaker 1: thing I had to do was look up the car.
Speaker 1: And if you look up the car, the Kia Stinger
Speaker 1: is actually competes with sixties seventy dollar Mercedes, Benz and BMW.
Speaker 1: They say it's a great car. So in this case
Speaker 1: and rock stars historically we're attached to cars. They say
Speaker 1: it's a great car. But my question is it age seventy?
Speaker 1: Does it turn? And are you better off a taking
Speaker 1: the money and be getting your music exposed because it
Speaker 1: might be forgotten by doing commercial endorsements. Well, the thing
Speaker 1: is it's and he's not getting new music exposed, but
Speaker 1: no one can get new music exposed. Let's let's separate
Speaker 1: out the issues. It's not like he's using it to
Speaker 1: launch a single. It was dream on. But the point
Speaker 1: is the old cliche used to be, oh, Paul McCartney's
Speaker 1: and wings. You know they don't know that he was
Speaker 1: in the Beatles, if you go back decades, they're making
Speaker 1: new people every day. So are you better off using
Speaker 1: the tools that are at your fingertips, which are associated
Speaker 1: with corporations and other enterprises to get your name out there?
Speaker 1: Or should you play to the hardcore fan? In my mind,
Speaker 1: if you have a fan, if you have that kind
Speaker 1: of base, I think you should always play to the fan.
Speaker 1: So if you're seventy years old and you have fans,
Speaker 1: and chances are most your fans are fifty or sixty
Speaker 1: years old, Okay, does it hurt you if you do
Speaker 1: with a commercial endorsement. I don't. I don't think when
Speaker 1: you're seventy and your fans and that old, it hurts you.
Speaker 1: I don't think they care, and they I think their
Speaker 1: past caring about that stuff. They just want to go
Speaker 1: to the show and they just want to get a
Speaker 1: decent ticket. I mean that. So let's go to the
Speaker 1: next point, which is the tickets. I knew we were
Speaker 1: going there, which is why I said it. So you're
Speaker 1: a band, should you charge what the ticket is worth
Speaker 1: or should you charge a price that is fan friendly?
Speaker 1: I think you've got to find the happy media, which
Speaker 1: is what it's tough man, because you like to price
Speaker 1: your tickets to be affordable. It's an interesting thing. And
Speaker 1: I had this argument with uh with at Aspen this year,
Speaker 1: which you were sorely missed, but they were talking about
Speaker 1: how that's the conferences a touring conference, and asked for
Speaker 1: the beginning of December Aspen Live. When that's where you
Speaker 1: and I met. That's how long it was twenty two
Speaker 1: years ago, bonding over Genesis so exactly, yeah, over dinner.
Speaker 1: So when you think about it, there's some laws now
Speaker 1: where Jared from Ticketmaster was there and he said, in
Speaker 1: some markets you have to put the total price when
Speaker 1: you post the ticchen on this, including fee. They can't
Speaker 1: be add ons that driving people crazy. They see you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, ninety nine dollars by the time they check out,
Speaker 1: it's one fifty. Right, you can't do that anymore. But
Speaker 1: what he didn't understand is is the acts don't want
Speaker 1: to be seen as charging one of course, right. They
Speaker 1: want to be able to say to the fan, the
Speaker 1: only thing we're getting is the nine nine and we're
Speaker 1: not even getting all of that. All that other stuff
Speaker 1: needs to be itemized, So you know that there's this
Speaker 1: tax there's this ticket fee. There's this fee. Remember at
Speaker 1: first they used to have a printing fee, which always
Speaker 1: completely fucking freaked me out. It was like, wait a second,
Speaker 1: why am I being charged to print my own ticket?
Speaker 1: Like wait, I have to buy the printer and the
Speaker 1: paper and the ink and everything else, and they're charging
Speaker 1: me for that. That they got rid of. That's gone.
Speaker 1: So the act never wanted to have an all in
Speaker 1: price because they want to make sure people know what
Speaker 1: they're charging. And I remember I used to have to
Speaker 1: deal with that with the stop for a second. For
Speaker 1: those who are unsure a knowledgeable of the history of touring,
Speaker 1: a roll up. The company is presently called Live Nation.
Speaker 1: There used to be a lot of independent promoters because
Speaker 1: of competition in the business. Assuming you are a successful
Speaker 1: hustlehold name act, almost all of the money goes to
Speaker 1: the act and the only profit to the promoter is
Speaker 1: in those extras. So it's a little bit of a subterfuge.
Speaker 1: Ticket Master, you're talking. They're taking the heat for the act.
Speaker 1: The act is saying, hey, it's only nine dollars. But
Speaker 1: if it really were only ninety nine dollars, the show
Speaker 1: couldn't even happen. Well, there's that side of it, but
Speaker 1: that that's assuming it's a big, big act and and
Speaker 1: and and the big promoters are doing the whole tour.
Speaker 1: But when you're going into one market like you know,
Speaker 1: for instance, if I have a young band like the
Speaker 1: bands I work with right now, and I go into
Speaker 1: a market and play a four hundred c club and
Speaker 1: I want to charge fifteen dollars for the ticket, and
Speaker 1: I want to I can't put the tickets and price
Speaker 1: them accordingly on Ticketmaster because the fans will go I'll
Speaker 1: just wait to buy it the day of. So it's
Speaker 1: harder to sell out when by the time you had
Speaker 1: your fees, and the fees are fifty percent of the
Speaker 1: ticket price. You know, that's an issue of leverage. Just
Speaker 1: so you're saying, are you saying if you go to
Speaker 1: the door, you don't have to pay the fees because
Speaker 1: you can't. You know, I haven't priced it totally, but
Speaker 1: I've seen it, like so a lot of us are
Speaker 1: using these sort of secondary ticketing. Was charged to fifty
Speaker 1: a ticket on a fifteen dollar ticket, so you you
Speaker 1: price your tickets as fifteen in advanced seventeen fifty at
Speaker 1: the door, so you're not being penalized for buying in advance.
Speaker 1: So when they check out, they see it's a seventeen
Speaker 1: fifty ticket, which is the same as the door price.
Speaker 1: But the incentive to get it early is for the
Speaker 1: fact that there may not be any left. Right. But
Speaker 1: but the other thing about it is there was a
Speaker 1: while there where the ticketing fees were so high. You know,
Speaker 1: I have that with with merch. The cost to ship
Speaker 1: vinyl from our website is so expensive that a lot
Speaker 1: of people just rather go to the show and buy
Speaker 1: it from us at the show because we can't. Because
Speaker 1: just want to say, of course, if you travel with
Speaker 1: your own merch, here's an issue of having enough product,
Speaker 1: paying shipping whatever. How about those economics you know at
Speaker 1: our level, when it's a baby band, you know, you
Speaker 1: put everything in a box and uh and you put
Speaker 1: in the van. It's just another going back. It's always
Speaker 1: an issue of leverage. Certainly, club business is historically bad business,
Speaker 1: so they screw the developing act. But as you gain
Speaker 1: notoriety and fandom, the leverage switches over to the octave stif.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it screwing because the problem is is
Speaker 1: it's the same service. It's like I always used to say,
Speaker 1: you know, it costs the same amount of money to
Speaker 1: buy an AD in the new usepaper. If it's the
Speaker 1: same size ad that says the Whiskey a Go Go
Speaker 1: and the l a Colosseum, the ad costs the exact
Speaker 1: same right, So the margins are just way better when
Speaker 1: you're playing. Okay, So I'm saying, so the service that
Speaker 1: Ticketmasters providing is the same service, I understand completely, but
Speaker 1: I have a better one than that. You have a
Speaker 1: recording deal, okay, and they recoup recording costs, recording costs
Speaker 1: or recording costs or recording costs. If it costs the
Speaker 1: Superstar Band two and fifty grand or costs two grand,
Speaker 1: it's the same two grand, but you're recouping at your
Speaker 1: royalty rate, such as the Superstar Band will be in
Speaker 1: profits much earlier than the developing act on the hope
Speaker 1: that they actually sell. Well, let's just they are. I've
Speaker 1: always thought, you know, costs should be recouped at a
Speaker 1: standard rate. It's the same thing, but on the other
Speaker 1: side of it, having had a very successful act, it's
Speaker 1: hold a lot of records. You keep reinvesting, so you
Speaker 1: want to make more videos. So we used to make
Speaker 1: four videos off every album. Nowadays, you know you're lucky
Speaker 1: if you get one or two if you're if you're
Speaker 1: brand new man, you're lucky if you get one. By
Speaker 1: the same token, you can buy a Hero five camera.
Speaker 1: You can shoot hide deaf on your iPhone. You couldn't
Speaker 1: do that before. I mean, this is another thing that
Speaker 1: people complain about. They complained, oh, you know, they took
Speaker 1: all the money out of the music business. Well, first
Speaker 1: and foremost most you wouldn't have been in the music
Speaker 1: business because you couldn't afford to record on your lap
Speaker 1: which you can now do on your laptop. You can
Speaker 1: spam everybody on social media so you can get the
Speaker 1: word out. So people wanted on both sides. I don't
Speaker 1: want to sound like an old guy, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: sound like an old guy for a second here. I've
Speaker 1: been saying this for a long time. Is the barrier
Speaker 1: of entry. Back to what we talked about at the beginning,
Speaker 1: when record companies would go see bands, they would make
Speaker 1: sure like Jason and his podcast was talking about seeing
Speaker 1: bands that didn't have record deals, that we're playing the
Speaker 1: two thousand people. So there was a area of entry
Speaker 1: that you actually have done something. You had to have
Speaker 1: to have done something on your own, build a following,
Speaker 1: and then the record company would invest a significant amount
Speaker 1: of money in you. I'm not sure that that is
Speaker 1: radically different. The point that what's different now is they
Speaker 1: want to see you having Nowadays, they'll make a single
Speaker 1: with you, and then and then, and they'll be I
Speaker 1: would explain this totally differently. I remember there was an act.
Speaker 1: I had a friend who I used to work in
Speaker 1: the movie business with, and he said, oh, he has
Speaker 1: these friends. They were in certain bands whatever. They're looking
Speaker 1: for a manager. A and M wants to sign them.
Speaker 1: You know, you live in Los Angeles long enough and
Speaker 1: you're very jaded. So I went to these guys apartment
Speaker 1: and they played me a song. They played me three songs.
Speaker 1: First song was called Welcome to the Boomtown. This is
Speaker 1: an act called David and David had never played live,
Speaker 1: and A and R guy at A and M liked it.
Speaker 1: They signed it, they made the record, and it went gold.
Speaker 1: That's what doesn't exist anymore, though, is trolling for acts
Speaker 1: that have not built it themselves. Today, they want you
Speaker 1: to build it themselves before they double down, right, or
Speaker 1: they'll give you a singles deal or a three song deal,
Speaker 1: and they won't give anybody a deal who hasn't doesn't
Speaker 1: come with their own audience, right. But I've seen it
Speaker 1: with young pop stars. They'll develop them, they'll find writers.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but there's always something starting it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've seen I've seen it and Justin Justin Bieber had
Speaker 1: YouTube views. Katie Perry already had a deal with Sony Music.
Speaker 1: No one was built from ground zero that they're building
Speaker 1: the following differently. But the differences is now they can
Speaker 1: go and and make those records a lot cheaper iron
Speaker 1: and a lot of them are picking up existing records.
Speaker 1: But it costs so much to rise above the clutter,
Speaker 1: and there's so few shots. That's what people don't understand.
Speaker 1: They say, Okay, why doesn't the major label sign me?
Speaker 1: This is a math situation. They only get certain opportunities
Speaker 1: that are such an investment. They want guaranteed success. Now,
Speaker 1: this killed pop. If you've been following pop for the
Speaker 1: last twelve months, Katie Perry stiffed, Kelly Clarkson stiffed Gaga.
Speaker 1: Stiff Gaga is a little bit different, but she did Stiff, Taylor, Swift, stiff,
Speaker 1: everybody who tried to massage with the usual suspects trying
Speaker 1: to make us. By the way, I'll take any four
Speaker 1: of those stiffs. You're talking relative terms stiffs. Let's be
Speaker 1: very very clear. We let's break it down. It is
Speaker 1: relative relative to their previously. You know, none of them
Speaker 1: had significant radio success, but they're all doing continued live
Speaker 1: business that we would all like to commission. If you
Speaker 1: go back to the old days when it was reversed,
Speaker 1: when the money was in the record, you'd be freaking out. Well,
Speaker 1: here's the thing is I argue that point because I
Speaker 1: don't think the money was ever in the record unless
Speaker 1: you sold millions and millions and millions. That's why so
Speaker 1: many of the classic rock acts are mortgage brokers or attorneys,
Speaker 1: et cetera. We used to we used to coop against
Speaker 1: our records that we get rich off our records. No,
Speaker 1: but of our money was always from touring emerge. Who
Speaker 1: made most of the money then was the record companies.
Speaker 1: That's what's come out of the business. That's what Will
Speaker 1: and I were talking about. What we don't get anymore.
Speaker 1: And this is the most important part is we can
Speaker 1: get the we can make a record inexpensively, we can
Speaker 1: go on the road and play. But we don't get
Speaker 1: is we don't get the marketing dollars they used to
Speaker 1: put behind records that will enable us to reach more
Speaker 1: people just with the marketing dollars. That's ass. We gave
Speaker 1: you those marketing dollars today, where would you want to
Speaker 1: spend them? I would be spending them on YouTube, I'd
Speaker 1: be spending them on on m I'd be spending them
Speaker 1: on building a mailing list, and I'd be spending them
Speaker 1: on on Facebook all ads like I would be buying
Speaker 1: and targeting. You would buy ads on YouTube. I'd be
Speaker 1: targeting and and and it wouldn't necessarily be I would
Speaker 1: be targeting YouTube. Back to watching our videos, I'd be
Speaker 1: I would put a lot of money into making sure
Speaker 1: that we were creating a lot different kinds of content
Speaker 1: that wasn't just music that could reach people. And I
Speaker 1: would build a mailing list. But but those kind of
Speaker 1: marketing dollars don't like, you can't even get posters. What
Speaker 1: are you gonna do with posters? Because people still look
Speaker 1: at posters. I'm talking about for your shows. This is
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about you know, when you would go
Speaker 1: on tour and you were a band, the record company
Speaker 1: would put up posters like you'd get posters up in
Speaker 1: the market that would have your your data in the
Speaker 1: market with the mini and the record. That doesn't exist anymore,
Speaker 1: But was it just a stroke for those who didn't
Speaker 1: live in Los Angeles. In the seventies, Sunset Boulevard from
Speaker 1: La Suianaga to Beverly Hills was plastered with billboards for records.
Speaker 1: Everyone agrees didn't sell any records. It was just an
Speaker 1: ego thing. When you're touring and you're going into markets,
Speaker 1: look at posts. That was then, right? Does that matter today? Oh?
Speaker 1: You still need you still need boots on the ground
Speaker 1: because especially when you're turning out because you're again you're
Speaker 1: not getting through the clutter with with the clarifying. But
Speaker 1: did you get through via virtual or physical? You're better
Speaker 1: off spending those dollars or that effort online as opposed
Speaker 1: to going out and putting the poster. I think you
Speaker 1: gotta do both. I think you know, there's that theory
Speaker 1: that someone's got to hear it three times from three
Speaker 1: different mediums. I think it's true that has to happen
Speaker 1: I think you have to be able to you know,
Speaker 1: if you're playing a bunch of clubs, those clubs have
Speaker 1: to have posters up in the clubs because you want
Speaker 1: to reach other people going to the club that seems
Speaker 1: want to advertise, whether or in the club. But in
Speaker 1: terms of snipe, but you used to be able to
Speaker 1: get money. Even if you were able to get money,
Speaker 1: I don't think that money is efficiently spent. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of things. Someone will email me about a record, Okay,
Speaker 1: can I send you the c D? I said, no,
Speaker 1: can I You know, if you send me a c D,
Speaker 1: it makes you feel good. But like both of my
Speaker 1: main computers now, they don't have a CD drive. I
Speaker 1: don't own a CD. You know, as I say, But
Speaker 1: they want to send you something physical because it makes
Speaker 1: them feel good. But it's inefficient in terms of marketing.
Speaker 1: But that has nothing to do with stuff I think.
Speaker 1: I think at this point in time, Okay, it's like
Speaker 1: the movie business. Okay, Oscar season is upon us. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've seen essentially none of the movies, not because I'm
Speaker 1: an anti movie, but I'm not getting you know, we're
Speaker 1: living an on demand culture. I don't want to plan
Speaker 1: my whole day to go to a movie. I don't
Speaker 1: know what a mood I'm gonna be whatever. The distribution
Speaker 1: is killing it. It's about being in the home where
Speaker 1: people have. Maybe you should take your girl out to
Speaker 1: a movie one night. I would rather spend my money elsewhere.
Speaker 1: At least if you make reservation at a restaurant, it'll
Speaker 1: be here at the same time. I enjoy the movie.
Speaker 1: I enjoy the popcorn in the movie. I actually enjoy
Speaker 1: the experience, and I think people do. My point is different.
Speaker 1: My point is a lot of what we used to
Speaker 1: do no longer applies. It's no longer effective. An example
Speaker 1: is name one act who was on late night TV
Speaker 1: this week. That's my point. People are still fighting to
Speaker 1: be on these varying shows. If you get a video
Speaker 1: out that you can put on YouTube, whatever, more power
Speaker 1: to you. Know, nothing moves thee doesn't move the needle. No,
Speaker 1: it's if you're if you're looking for marketing dollars, and
Speaker 1: believe me, they're looking for them. Let me fly the band,
Speaker 1: let me get here and make up, go to New York,
Speaker 1: Relly to be on the show. I'd say save the money.
Speaker 1: The money is much better spent elsewhere. Well, it also
Speaker 1: depends on your audience. You know, Facebook just came out
Speaker 1: with their numbers and time spent on the on the
Speaker 1: platform is down, but money's up for them, right well,
Speaker 1: because to reach anybody, you gotta pay it. But what
Speaker 1: they didn't give us was demos and it's aging. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: But let's not forget that Facebook going Instagram, which is
Speaker 1: the big KNA right becoming. Yeah, but interestingly enough, like
Speaker 1: I work with the children's act called Splashing Boots, here's
Speaker 1: another plok at one left. Yeah, that's that's as far
Speaker 1: as that does. Um, I'm not sure their audience is listening,
Speaker 1: but it's O no, no, But you'd be surprised because
Speaker 1: I know one thing for sure. Grandparents spend more on
Speaker 1: grandchildren than parents do. Is that a statistically. That is
Speaker 1: a statistic, and we see it at the shows. It's
Speaker 1: the touring children's So the key is to reach the
Speaker 1: grandparents and face. Facebook is a place to meet reach them.
Speaker 1: This is what I'm trying to say. And so some
Speaker 1: of your audience maybe grandparents, I'm sure they are. So
Speaker 1: then don't discount the fact that I'm not talking to
Speaker 1: your audience, because the group's audience is one and a
Speaker 1: half to six. Okay, but you were making a bigger point.
Speaker 1: My point is is Facebook's not releasing their demos because
Speaker 1: they don't want anyone to know the audience is aging.
Speaker 1: Like I'm trying to get the demos. When those figures
Speaker 1: came out, I went to all my friends who were
Speaker 1: in media and everything else, I said, where are the demos?
Speaker 1: Can you get me demos? And none of my friends
Speaker 1: could get me demos. They could not get the demos
Speaker 1: from that new stats that they just put it. I
Speaker 1: don't trust anything they say anyway, because they're those not following.
Speaker 1: They've been criticized for missing the fact that their platform
Speaker 1: was invaded by foreign interests i e. Russia and theoretically
Speaker 1: I believe affected the US election in they finally admit
Speaker 1: after about nine months and now they say they're focusing
Speaker 1: on the individual to the detriment of news. They only
Speaker 1: pray to one thing, which is the almighty dollar. I
Speaker 1: stock they're gonna change whatever it is to make it
Speaker 1: work for them, So whenever they whip sauce, I just
Speaker 1: don't believe it. Well, YouTube, their algorithm was serving up
Speaker 1: erroneous stories about Hillary Clinton in the markets those three
Speaker 1: markets where she lost, where she lost in the three
Speaker 1: states where she lost by eighty thousand votes, and she
Speaker 1: never went to those states, so she never actually got
Speaker 1: a chance to refute what was being served up to
Speaker 1: these people. Hi, everyone, this is Bob left Sets. If
Speaker 1: you stumbled upon this podcast on iTunes or tune in,
Speaker 1: you may be wondering who is this guy. Well, my
Speaker 1: story of the story of my blog, The left Sets
Speaker 1: Letter was told in episode one. Please check it out.
Speaker 1: If you like what you hear, subscribe to the podcast
Speaker 1: today and you'll hear my interviews with songwriters, reformers, music
Speaker 1: industry and tech executives. First. Also, I'm open to feedback.
Speaker 1: What do you like? What do you hey? Emailed me
Speaker 1: at Bob and left sets dot com and now more
Speaker 1: with Jake Gold Let's go to somewhere you know some
Speaker 1: of the more general topics today's music visa VI the
Speaker 1: old music as good as the old music? Some of
Speaker 1: it is you know, I was never I did. I
Speaker 1: didn't grow up as a hip hop fan on the
Speaker 1: name name Two acts you think today are as good
Speaker 1: as the acts of your I think Drake is That's
Speaker 1: It's Canadian started off on a on a high school show.
Speaker 1: The GROSSI who cares anybody tweets me nothing bad to
Speaker 1: say about guys doing great stuff and he's he's almost heflon. Okay,
Speaker 1: why do all the great acts come from Canada? We
Speaker 1: have a great system for developing acts and allowing because
Speaker 1: we we support the arts, will be a little more
Speaker 1: specifically support the arts, and we support the arts through funding.
Speaker 1: We we have UM we support the arts who tax credits,
Speaker 1: we support the arts through UM access. We we live
Speaker 1: beside the greatest exporter of culture in the world, and
Speaker 1: we need to make sure that we have a voice.
Speaker 1: So our government believes in supporting it. And that's not
Speaker 1: just federally, it's it's provincially, which for those who don't know,
Speaker 1: that means like states. Now, I'm not saying every artist
Speaker 1: that's come out of Canada that's been successful has had
Speaker 1: that support, but it's a culture that supports. You know,
Speaker 1: Drake's TV show probably wouldn't have got made when he
Speaker 1: was on TV if he hadn't if there hadn't been
Speaker 1: support for the arts, because those TV shows and all
Speaker 1: of those things Degrassi we're getting made with tax credits
Speaker 1: and all kinds of you know, grants and loans and participation,
Speaker 1: that's how it was made. I mean, we we we
Speaker 1: we are behind in in the movie business. There hasn't
Speaker 1: been a lot of big Canadian movies outside of maybe
Speaker 1: uh David Cronenberg, who's We've had some big Canadian directors
Speaker 1: who are l a base now. You know Paul Hagas
Speaker 1: and um Um what's his name who did The Titanic
Speaker 1: and uh cameraon ca. Yeah. Yeah, Well listen, people don't
Speaker 1: know Neil Young's Canadian anything, right, A lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of the Canadians have moved to the US. We're
Speaker 1: we're gradually taking over its stealth. It's like, you know
Speaker 1: who who just bought the l A Times from South Africa?
Speaker 1: Japanese doctor Nobody's originally from South Africa, Africa. That's he's
Speaker 1: Asian inheritage, but he wasn't born in Asia, right, you know,
Speaker 1: I think there's a stealth thing going on. It's like
Speaker 1: the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown l A where the conference
Speaker 1: was of the Pulstar conference was owned by Korean Airlines? Okay,
Speaker 1: is the world at large taking over America just Canadians?
Speaker 1: I think the world at large is, But it's all
Speaker 1: being done stealth like no one. Okay, so play this
Speaker 1: out what ultimately happens. Well, you're asking me to be
Speaker 1: a soothsayer. I so you think that while we're sleeping,
Speaker 1: we're watching our Netflix, our country is being taken over
Speaker 1: by foreign interests. Hey, listen. One of the greatest shows
Speaker 1: on Netflix that I've been watching lately is a show
Speaker 1: called Dark and it's from Germany, right, right, So there's
Speaker 1: the culture is coming in. So you know, we were
Speaker 1: talking before we started this about this place I was
Speaker 1: at earlier today before I came here, that does all
Speaker 1: the dubbing and subtitle and subtitling and dubbing too, and
Speaker 1: they were saying that the demand for dubbing is so
Speaker 1: big now because the over the top platforms, the Hulus,
Speaker 1: the Amazons and Netflix are buying programming from all over
Speaker 1: the world. And they said, in the urban centers subtitles okay,
Speaker 1: But in the non urban centers in the middle of
Speaker 1: Iowa and then let's call him the Red States for
Speaker 1: lack of a better term, subtitling is not okay. You
Speaker 1: gotta dub it. Really. Yeah, that's fascinating. There was a
Speaker 1: David Brooks editorial or opinion piece last week of the
Speaker 1: New York Times. And he's a right wing guy for
Speaker 1: those people don't know, certainly not a Trump fan. And
Speaker 1: he was saying that, you know, mimigrants come to the cities.
Speaker 1: Everything's thriving in the cities now and what they're fighting
Speaker 1: for in the hinderlands. They're being left behind because of
Speaker 1: all the progress in the cities, right, which is what
Speaker 1: you know. Your current president's whole m O was right
Speaker 1: was I'm not going to leave you behind. Everyone else
Speaker 1: has left. Okay, since we're on this topic for since
Speaker 1: you're from Canada, I was here about I remember I
Speaker 1: was born in New Jersey. But I'm asking a specific
Speaker 1: question in terms of your residency in Canada. What is
Speaker 1: the bottom line with the Canadian healthcare service? Anything you
Speaker 1: read that says it's negative or it's bad is bullshit.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's based on need. Let's start from the begining.
Speaker 1: Like I've had I've had both my knees operated on, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: it wasn't death. So when my when there was an
Speaker 1: appointment and it was like in other words, I couldn't
Speaker 1: say I want my knees operated on tomorrow. Right, we're here.
Speaker 1: I guess you could pay and get it done right away.
Speaker 1: And I'm not a pro athletes, so there was no
Speaker 1: reason to do it right away. So it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, in August, I meet with the surgeon and
Speaker 1: he says, Okay, you're gonna get your knees operated on
Speaker 1: in October and that's when it happened. And I didn't
Speaker 1: pay a dime. Okay, let's start for the beginning, totally transparent. Essentially,
Speaker 1: you're paying no money for healthcare other than your taxes.
Speaker 1: Correct him, undo, and you get a card. Yes. Let's
Speaker 1: assume you wake up one day and you say, I
Speaker 1: don't feel that well and you go to the emergency room.
Speaker 1: Is there a charge? No, zero zero. Let's just assume
Speaker 1: you want to do that. You go to the emergency room.
Speaker 1: Is it readily accessible, and how long do you have
Speaker 1: to wait? Depending on the day and time and where
Speaker 1: you go, it could take a long time. You could
Speaker 1: be there a long time. Well, the same in America, right,
Speaker 1: you could be if it's emergency, you could be there
Speaker 1: a long time. Like that's the dread, I gotta go
Speaker 1: to the emergency. But that's the same thing in America.
Speaker 1: Believe me. And then do you ever have an issue
Speaker 1: where you have a health problem and the doctor says no,
Speaker 1: I don't believe you need treatment, and you want treatment.
Speaker 1: I haven't had that issue. But remember the doctors are
Speaker 1: still independent, so the more they see you, the more
Speaker 1: they can build back the system. It's how does that
Speaker 1: work economically? Well, it's no different than building the insurance
Speaker 1: company syce, the insurance work in America goes to insurance
Speaker 1: company overhead and profit. Listen, I think the health care
Speaker 1: systems aren't perfect, so I don't know the economics of
Speaker 1: I can't tell you the economics on our health care system.
Speaker 1: I can tell you how that the doctor gets paid
Speaker 1: when he builds Like a lot of doctors, for instance,
Speaker 1: will not give you results over the phone in Canada,
Speaker 1: you have to go in and see them. But I
Speaker 1: have a doctor that deals with people in our industry
Speaker 1: and knows that they travel all the time and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So he's allowed to charge a premium, and
Speaker 1: he charges a couple hundred dollars a year, And the
Speaker 1: couple hundred dollars a year allows you to get a
Speaker 1: prescription called in without him coming in to see you.
Speaker 1: Allows you to him to call you and give you
Speaker 1: your test results over the phone. If you had blood
Speaker 1: tests on and all that other stuff, and you pay
Speaker 1: that yourself, that's your choice. We also have Medican, which
Speaker 1: is like a place where you pay fifteen hundred dollars
Speaker 1: a year and they do like full on body scans
Speaker 1: and they're they're the level of your yearly check up
Speaker 1: is you know, let's just say it would be better
Speaker 1: than normally what a doctor would be. Okay, if I
Speaker 1: didn't pay the fife, I can still get a check up. No,
Speaker 1: you get your check up, but what they do is
Speaker 1: take it to the end degree. Okay. So they're partly
Speaker 1: subsidized and you're paying the extra for all the rest
Speaker 1: of it. Anybody can pay if you want to go
Speaker 1: to Medican. Okay, So let's say your home and and again,
Speaker 1: and guess where their offices are right in the heart
Speaker 1: of our equivalent in Toronto of Wall Street, Bay Street.
Speaker 1: So it's like you know, it's it's definitely there. There
Speaker 1: is a foe two tiered system. In other words, if
Speaker 1: you want to pay, there are ways to pay that
Speaker 1: will get you better treatment. The key is it's no
Speaker 1: one's going bankrupt, No one's gonna die broke because they
Speaker 1: got sick. That's the most important thing. As an example,
Speaker 1: I had a friend he passed away. He was an American,
Speaker 1: got a job working in Canada in the business. Been
Speaker 1: in Canada for ten years. Uh, you know, once you're
Speaker 1: there for for three months, you get the card. Three months,
Speaker 1: three months, you get the card. If I have to
Speaker 1: have pledge fealty, do I have to landed immigrant? Three months,
Speaker 1: there's your card. He got cancer. He got lung cancer.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a smoker, but got lung cancer, one of
Speaker 1: those things. Diagnosed it was bad, you know, stage four.
Speaker 1: His parents living live in the States, they thought, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take him to Sloan Cantering in New York,
Speaker 1: gonna take him to the best cancer hospital. And he
Speaker 1: was being treated out of hospital in Toronto called Princess
Speaker 1: Margaret Hospital, which has the reputation of maybe being in
Speaker 1: the top five in the world. And his doctor was
Speaker 1: a woman doctor, and uh, it's took him to New
Speaker 1: York and they went to slunk Henery and they looked,
Speaker 1: they did all the tests and they said, look, everything
Speaker 1: they're saying is what it is. Who's your doctor? He
Speaker 1: says it's this woman, and they said, well, what are
Speaker 1: you doing here? You have the best doctor for what
Speaker 1: you have in the world. The best doctor is where
Speaker 1: you are. And it cost him anything. If that had
Speaker 1: been in the US, his parents probably had to mortgage
Speaker 1: their house and everything just and he unfortunately passed away
Speaker 1: two years later, but just just for the chance on
Speaker 1: the hope that he would have lived kind of costs.
Speaker 1: So I think that that you have to you have
Speaker 1: to look at it as as you know, are people dying,
Speaker 1: Are people um going bankrupt because they're sick. That should
Speaker 1: never happen, and that's our culture and even our conservative
Speaker 1: politicians will never touch that. They will never touch that.
Speaker 1: That is like, that's off the table. Well, since we're
Speaker 1: this deep, you now have a liberal prime Minister Trudeau.
Speaker 1: How's that working out. I think there's a lot of Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who who probably don't think
Speaker 1: he's doing an amazing job. I think he's great. My
Speaker 1: life hasn't changed that much in some way, it's changed
Speaker 1: for the better. In the arts world, there was there
Speaker 1: was a while there where they were cutting back on
Speaker 1: our CBC, which is our you know, the equivalent of PBS.
Speaker 1: But it's publicly funded, meaning through the government. Um, like
Speaker 1: the BBC in the UK, there was a chance that
Speaker 1: some of the funding to the arts was gonna was
Speaker 1: to uh, you know, music and film and TV was
Speaker 1: maybe going to get cut back with the previous government.
Speaker 1: He came in and refunded everything. That's great, So let's go.
Speaker 1: Let's assume you come home, you come home from work,
Speaker 1: or you work out, your house made, it's six o'clock.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna work anymore. You turn on music, or
Speaker 1: you turn on television TV. What do you watch? Um,
Speaker 1: I watched the best reality show on television that is CNN.
Speaker 1: So what is the Canadian viewpoint about what's going on here?
Speaker 1: We shake our heads a lot. We definitely shake our
Speaker 1: heads a lot. I used to have it on during
Speaker 1: the day because it was on all that it was
Speaker 1: in my office, I had it on. I can't have
Speaker 1: it on anymore. It's just, um, even that it's getting
Speaker 1: to me to the point of I can't believe this
Speaker 1: is like, what what's going on here? It's like, so
Speaker 1: I I put music on, I'll watch uh. I record
Speaker 1: a lot of shows instead of going to the on
Speaker 1: demand part of the HBO or any of those, I'll
Speaker 1: record them and then when I come home, I'll watch
Speaker 1: them sometimes early in the morning. Like if I don't
Speaker 1: watch The Daily Show at night, I'll watch it first
Speaker 1: thing in the morning. Um, it's a couple of TV shows.
Speaker 1: I like Netflix. I go to Netflix a lot, but
Speaker 1: I'll watch it on Netflix. I just finished watching Dark,
Speaker 1: which is a really good I've only watched the first episode.
Speaker 1: That's like a German Stranger Things. So is it worth it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's great. It all sort of comes to fruition, but
Speaker 1: it leaves it open for of course, which is you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's always good and it's always bad. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: always looking for new stuff. So you recommend anything though
Speaker 1: that you see. I like Black Mirror. Black Mirror is good.
Speaker 1: You can start at any any point in the series.
Speaker 1: You can watch season for you. It's it's the modern
Speaker 1: twilight Zone for those of us those people never saw
Speaker 1: that Twilight Zone. That's what it is, right, it's you know,
Speaker 1: although there's this whole sort of take on social media. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm digging that. What are you watching. I'm just finishing
Speaker 1: the third season Abroad Church, which is phenomenal. I gotta
Speaker 1: start that. I think I watched this episode and don't
Speaker 1: remember if I did. Okay, I mean, where does it
Speaker 1: take place? Uh, Ireland, didn't know, and it's coastal UK
Speaker 1: Coast London, England first and foremost used to be in
Speaker 1: the seventies, all good movies had subtitles. Those were the
Speaker 1: best movies. But when you have English shows, it is
Speaker 1: not based on the person being good looking so or
Speaker 1: European shows. It's about the quality of the acting, which
Speaker 1: is so much higher. Even Meryl Streep, who I'm not
Speaker 1: the hugest fan of it's very hard to watch the show,
Speaker 1: would say I'm not watching Meryl Streep, Whereas you watch
Speaker 1: these English TV shows and they blend into the character
Speaker 1: and it seems much more realistic. They're much more regular people.
Speaker 1: I really love that. I mean, okay, so I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a theory on it. Okay,
Speaker 1: you don't know these people, some of them do. Some
Speaker 1: of them you do only because you've seen them as
Speaker 1: actors and other things. Okay, So it used to be
Speaker 1: let's we'll talk about selling out right. It used to
Speaker 1: be al Pacino. You never saw him on a talk show.
Speaker 1: Robert de Niro. You never saw him on a talk.
Speaker 1: There were certain people wouldn't do it, but they wouldn't.
Speaker 1: Now they all do it. De Niro. The theory was
Speaker 1: they used to be the only way you saw them
Speaker 1: was in character, so you only knew them as those characters.
Speaker 1: You never got a chance to know them as people.
Speaker 1: It's harder for someone to be believable if you know them.
Speaker 1: I think that maybe true. But a lot of these
Speaker 1: American movie starts are just shitty actors. Yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: I think. I think that some of that is true.
Speaker 1: Let's let's let's bring this over to music. Some of
Speaker 1: that is true too. To what degree music a manager
Speaker 1: would create an image and create mystery. You can't even
Speaker 1: do that anymore, no, I mean there's the I always
Speaker 1: used to say, don't pull the curtain back from the Wizard,
Speaker 1: you know, And then I had other friends that would say, well,
Speaker 1: it's either mystique or mistake. That's a good one. I
Speaker 1: never heard that for them. So, but in today's marketplace,
Speaker 1: how do you address that? I think each act is different.
Speaker 1: I've never really worked in the pop world, so I
Speaker 1: don't really I'm not that guy that kind of like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make you a star, you know, and find
Speaker 1: you songs and dancers and dress you up and everything else.
Speaker 1: I look for people that that that have their own vision,
Speaker 1: that have their own sound, that are you know, have
Speaker 1: a sort of sense of self and try and make
Speaker 1: that happen. For it's a long haul. That's all I
Speaker 1: can tell you is you have to commit. It's a commitment.
Speaker 1: Like even with the Tragically Hip we signed them in
Speaker 1: six We told them when we signed them, you will
Speaker 1: play your first arena in ten years now. Most bands
Speaker 1: would hear that and go I'm out, I'm out. They
Speaker 1: were like cool. Nine and a half years later they
Speaker 1: played their first headline shown in arena. Well, because we
Speaker 1: made the plan. But what was the plan? The plan
Speaker 1: was build it fan first, build it, builded building. So
Speaker 1: in retrospect, what were the key elements? Listen, I can't
Speaker 1: deny that the record company helped because they actually backed
Speaker 1: up our plan. They backed up our plan. It was
Speaker 1: our plan, mine of my partners. But amazing live act.
Speaker 1: Gore Downey as as far as I'm concerned, one of
Speaker 1: the greatest front men that's ever lived, without a doubt,
Speaker 1: So in the moment, in the moment all the time.
Speaker 1: And I've told this story before, but I might as
Speaker 1: well tell it now. The first time I saw them
Speaker 1: was August. We had given a cassette tape. We went
Speaker 1: and saw the band that we set up a gig,
Speaker 1: went and saw a week later. He walks on stage,
Speaker 1: he opens his mouth, he does this jump thing and chills,
Speaker 1: and I just went to my partner, were signing these
Speaker 1: guys tonight, Like I knew that moment, and I had
Speaker 1: thought i'd seen it before that, and I hadn't seen
Speaker 1: it until then, And so now I'm always looking for it.
Speaker 1: And if you have found it again, this band Common
Speaker 1: Deer has it individually, there's they don't have Gore Downey,
Speaker 1: But I don't think you know he's He's a whole
Speaker 1: other level of of it. And I really do believe
Speaker 1: he's right up there with the Leonard Cohen's and the
Speaker 1: Bob Dylans and the John Lennons, and in places around
Speaker 1: the world, like you go to Holland and they revere
Speaker 1: him that way, like they see him as a poet,
Speaker 1: as that kind of person. I mean. He was honored
Speaker 1: at the Grammys this year, which was quite surprising in
Speaker 1: the in in Memoriam. I wasn't surprised that he was,
Speaker 1: because he deserved to be. But I was surprised because,
Speaker 1: you know, he never had that huge mainstream success in
Speaker 1: the United States, but they had a lot of influence
Speaker 1: I think. Okay, staying on this scene, you know, in
Speaker 1: the last four or five months, there's been the whole
Speaker 1: Me Too movement and there's been a lot of well
Speaker 1: you've been kind of involved, right, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: make it less about sexual harassment and more about female opportunity.
Speaker 1: Are there more women in the business in Canada than
Speaker 1: there are in the United States. I wouldn't say that's true.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know a lot of women in the business.
Speaker 1: Like uh, I sit on the Canadian Independent Music Station Association.
Speaker 1: I sit on the board and our chairman the last
Speaker 1: two chairmen have both been women. Chairwomen both been women.
Speaker 1: Um I'm on the board of the MMF, which is
Speaker 1: Music Manager's Form, which is a manager's trade group that
Speaker 1: has chapters all over the world that started in England.
Speaker 1: Our chairman of the board as a woman. Well, that
Speaker 1: would that's I can't say the equivalent in the United States.
Speaker 1: I would say that would be ahead of America. But
Speaker 1: it was interesting for a while there. I remember when
Speaker 1: the Hip were signed to Atlantic. You know the three
Speaker 1: most powerful people at Atlantic. Powerful people were women at
Speaker 1: the time. You know who's the head of promotion? Then
Speaker 1: you remember and right and you know and uh and
Speaker 1: Vicky Germay's and they had a publicity was was a
Speaker 1: woman like. They were pretty. They weren't the top, but man,
Speaker 1: they can make a difference to make get your record
Speaker 1: broke right. And there was Sylvia Rhne like. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of women in power then that I think
Speaker 1: there may have been more women in power positions then
Speaker 1: than there are now. So do you believe we need
Speaker 1: more women in power? And how do we do that?
Speaker 1: And I think you have to engage. I think you
Speaker 1: have to. You have to empower them to feel empowered.
Speaker 1: Boots on the ground level. What do we do. It's
Speaker 1: a tough question because we're all dealing with it. But
Speaker 1: for instance, I had at one point I had an
Speaker 1: office when I had a bigger office, I had six
Speaker 1: people working for me. They were all women, and I
Speaker 1: gave every single one of them an opportunity to be
Speaker 1: a manager. You want to be a manager, but here's
Speaker 1: here's the rules for being a manager, no different than
Speaker 1: any guy that I would bring in to be a manager.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna pay you as much as you're getting now,
Speaker 1: but you're gonna get a huge upside if you sign
Speaker 1: an act and you bring and you get a commission,
Speaker 1: because now you're now your versus a commission, right, And
Speaker 1: every single one of them wouldn't take the deal, then
Speaker 1: why do you think that was? Maybe they just wanted
Speaker 1: to security. I don't know, but I remember even my
Speaker 1: assistant for twenty two years, Shelley, She's and you know, Shelly,
Speaker 1: she said, I just rather be your right hand I
Speaker 1: don't want to be managed. I don't want to be
Speaker 1: Do you think they were not entrepreneurial or they like this?
Speaker 1: Probably not entrepreneurial. So I think that and that that's
Speaker 1: a whole other thing. You know, there's some really great
Speaker 1: entrepreneurial women in Canada that I do business with, that
Speaker 1: are really really good, that really know there's stuff that
Speaker 1: are running independent record labels and everything else. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's some here. I don't know as many here
Speaker 1: as I would there. But I think that being an
Speaker 1: entrepreneur is a whole other thing. I don't think you
Speaker 1: can teach entrepreneurship. I believe that you're it's born or
Speaker 1: learn from your family. So finally, what are the challenges
Speaker 1: you see for your both yourself and the music business today?
Speaker 1: I don't know getting upgraded tomorrow when I fly back
Speaker 1: to my immediate uh my immediate challenges fighting l A
Speaker 1: traffic today, I personally would I'm always searching for that arc.
Speaker 1: You know, every day when you're a manager, you sit
Speaker 1: down at your desk or wherever it is, and you
Speaker 1: hope you get some good news. Right. You want like
Speaker 1: a couple of pieces of good news, even one piece
Speaker 1: of good news that you can just build off of,
Speaker 1: because your job is to tell everyone else, look what
Speaker 1: just happened, right, So you need that and some of
Speaker 1: it you can create, but some of it, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's left up to Like I've been watching with
Speaker 1: common Deer, I've been watching the Spotify numbers go up
Speaker 1: every day for the past month and really climb like
Speaker 1: we've had We've had growth in the last month, and
Speaker 1: and I'm seeing more fans and more saves and saves.
Speaker 1: It's big because they're actually saving the music into their library.
Speaker 1: Those are indicators to me. Okay, now, I'm starting to
Speaker 1: get some real fans. But it's been a year later now,
Speaker 1: I forget that. With the Tragically Hip, I toured them
Speaker 1: for two years before we even put a record out,
Speaker 1: And that's part of the education with the bands, you know.
Speaker 1: I think I think people always say, what's your most
Speaker 1: important job as a manager, And I'm like, manage expectations
Speaker 1: because you have to sit these bands down, and you say,
Speaker 1: look like, this is how long it takes if you
Speaker 1: want to have that kind of career. You know, It's
Speaker 1: like I've said this to you the you know, it's physics, right.
Speaker 1: The angle of incidence is equal to the angle of refraction.
Speaker 1: If you're playing that for the scientifically, if your career
Speaker 1: trajectory is straight up, it's likely going to be straight down.
Speaker 1: And if you shine a light on a mirror, as
Speaker 1: you change the angle of that light on the mirror,
Speaker 1: the angle on the reflection of the light on the
Speaker 1: mirror changes also. So if you shine it straight up
Speaker 1: to the mirror, that light comes straight back down. If
Speaker 1: you shine it at forty five, the reflections at forty five.
Speaker 1: And I think if you want to have a long career,
Speaker 1: you need the forty five Okay, are we saying don't
Speaker 1: go for the brass ring because it might be over quickly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I always believe are you gonna bet on yourself or
Speaker 1: you're betting against yourself. It's like, are you gonna take
Speaker 1: the big publishing advance when you're early part of your
Speaker 1: career because you think you're gonna fail. You better get
Speaker 1: the money me now, or there are other people that say, oh,
Speaker 1: take the money and then you can do stuff with
Speaker 1: that money. So it's both. But there's no big I mean,
Speaker 1: let's talk about there's no big publishing advances anymore until
Speaker 1: you're already big, you know. But in terms of longevity,
Speaker 1: what are the keys to longevity? You have to do
Speaker 1: a fan for a strategy. If you're a banned if
Speaker 1: you're putting out pop singles, then you're only as big
Speaker 1: as your last single. Anyways, Like you know, you earlier
Speaker 1: in our in our conversation said, you know, Kelly Clarkson
Speaker 1: stiffed uh KT Swift because they didn't have a hit.
Speaker 1: Right now, you can say, well, it's pop music, it's
Speaker 1: the way it is. But they didn't have a hit.
Speaker 1: There are hits out there, they just didn't have a hit.
Speaker 1: So they picked the wrong song or they recorded the
Speaker 1: wrong song. Well, Neil Young had four hit records in
Speaker 1: his career. He put out thirty albums, right, he put
Speaker 1: out thirty, How many were huge? Four? Five? Like huge? Right,
Speaker 1: the big records. So if you want to have a career,
Speaker 1: you have to accept that there's gonna be hills and valleys.
Speaker 1: You have to accept it's gonna take a long time
Speaker 1: to get there. With the thought process that you're gonna
Speaker 1: be around a lot longer than everybody else. Why do
Speaker 1: you stay alive though? In the process you talk about
Speaker 1: the early days of the Tragically Hip. Did they have
Speaker 1: day jobs? No? No, they were young, they lived at home.
Speaker 1: They were smart enough because by and large they were
Speaker 1: pretty conservative in terms of like their lifestyles. They weren't extravagant.
Speaker 1: It's pretty Canadian to to not be extravagant. You get
Speaker 1: shouted out if you're too extravagant. You know, I always said,
Speaker 1: you know, certainly in terms of music business, Canada is
Speaker 1: like a giant high school. And then everybody knows everybody,
Speaker 1: everybody's and everybody's even you look at Drake, I mean,
Speaker 1: Drake's super popular. He's not in the tabloids that often
Speaker 1: he's not on red carpets. He wasn't at the Grammys,
Speaker 1: Like he doesn't care, and you talk about you said
Speaker 1: it earlier. You know, the Metallica sells out stadiums and
Speaker 1: no one knows. Drake feels the same way. I don't care.
Speaker 1: Drake shows up into the school in Miami the other day.
Speaker 1: He shows up at the Raptors games. You know, they're
Speaker 1: the Toronto Raptors basketball team. He's sitting in first row.
Speaker 1: He's an ambassador for the team, but he's cheering for
Speaker 1: them because he just wants to be a guy. You know,
Speaker 1: he just wants to be the guy. That's a very
Speaker 1: Canadian thing. At one point we had in the nineties,
Speaker 1: we had five women who basically owned their genres who
Speaker 1: were all Canadian. We had shan I, Twain, Lindon, Sarah McLaughlin,
Speaker 1: Avril Levine, Atlantis, all five around the same time, all Canadian.
Speaker 1: None of them at the time, right, let's not talking
Speaker 1: about what happened with sh and I after. None of
Speaker 1: them tabloid people, none of them, because it's a Canadian thing.
Speaker 1: They're they're less concerned about. Look at me, look at me,
Speaker 1: Look at me, it's more like, here's my work, here's
Speaker 1: my work. Who's the greatest Canadian musical artist of all time? Single?
Speaker 1: The greatest Canadian music artists of all time? Oh that's tough.
Speaker 1: H Niel's probably right there. Leonard Neil and Leonard Joni Mitchell, Joanie, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean five is easy. Uh. Gored Downey, I think
Speaker 1: he's the greatest Canadian frontman of all time. I think
Speaker 1: he may be one of the greatest front men ever period.
Speaker 1: And for those of you, and I'm going to give
Speaker 1: this plug for those of you who aren't familiar, there's
Speaker 1: a documentary it's on Netflix now called Long Time Running
Speaker 1: and it's about their final tour. For those who don't know,
Speaker 1: Gord was tragically diagnosed with brain cancer and undertook one
Speaker 1: final tour before he did pass away a year later.
Speaker 1: And this chronicles the tour from when you know, with
Speaker 1: the band talking about seeing him when he couldn't even
Speaker 1: form the words after his operation. It kind of puts
Speaker 1: the whole world into perspective. It's about triumph, it's about
Speaker 1: you know, overcoming adversity, and it's about someone and the
Speaker 1: prime ministers in it. Did you see it? Of course?
Speaker 1: I saw, and how would you describe it? Now? I
Speaker 1: think your description is accurate, certainly if you know the
Speaker 1: band or you know Canada. The interesting thing for an
Speaker 1: American viewer who is unaware of the hip or has
Speaker 1: never seen the hip, when you see the rabidity of
Speaker 1: the arena audience is it's almost astounding. You know that
Speaker 1: the people are mouthing every word, They're very excited about it.
Speaker 1: They're crying there, people are walking out of the out
Speaker 1: of the shows with tears in their eyes. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I went to six of those shows, of
Speaker 1: the final shows, and I hadn't worked with the band
Speaker 1: a long time. In fact, I hadn't seen them live
Speaker 1: for thirteen years. Since the time I stopped working with them,
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen them. So they take Victorian and they
Speaker 1: did two nights in Vancouver, and I went out to
Speaker 1: Vancouver and that show was the first time I've seen
Speaker 1: them in thirteen years. And Bitter Sweet, No, not at all.
Speaker 1: I actually really I sat in the crowd. I wanted
Speaker 1: to see the show as a fan. I had a
Speaker 1: great time. I was completely moved. After you stopped working
Speaker 1: with them, did you still listen to the new records? Okay,
Speaker 1: just switching gears before we wrap it up. Tell us
Speaker 1: what you learned being a judge Junknnadian idol. I learned
Speaker 1: how to pronounce a lot of different kinds of names,
Speaker 1: a lot of ethnicity, and we heard a lot about ethnicity, honestly,
Speaker 1: Like I can now see someone know someone's name and
Speaker 1: know where they're from. And I can like, you know,
Speaker 1: your conversations with Uber drivers, right, and you used to
Speaker 1: write about them all the time. You should write more
Speaker 1: about those. I miss those. Your conversations with Uber drivers
Speaker 1: are are interesting. Where are you from Sri Lanka? Are
Speaker 1: you from uh? From from India? From Pakistan? Uh? You know?
Speaker 1: And then you get into the food thing and are
Speaker 1: you from Belarus or are you from Ukraine? Like you know,
Speaker 1: it's like that kind of stuff you can buy by names, right,
Speaker 1: because well they do. Say. I had a cab driver
Speaker 1: back in the days before Uber in Toronto told me
Speaker 1: they're more ethnicities in Toronto than any other country in
Speaker 1: the world. That's correct. It's more multicultural than any and
Speaker 1: it's getting more and more multicultural. Um, it's a great
Speaker 1: place to live. I mean Toronto's It was Steve Martin
Speaker 1: that says Toronto's New York without all the ship nothing
Speaker 1: like that. Say it was on thirty Rock. I think
Speaker 1: it was he when he was on thirty Rock he
Speaker 1: said that it's uh, it's a great place to live.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've lived in other places and I keep
Speaker 1: going back there. Okay, but once again, anything other lessons
Speaker 1: from Canadian Idol. Yeah, it reinforced that I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be in the pop music business. But I learned
Speaker 1: a lot about the TV business and I gained some
Speaker 1: new relationships from the TV business, and I actually enjoyed
Speaker 1: doing it. It was it was really fun and it
Speaker 1: was the best non job job I ever had, because
Speaker 1: because I never had a job, Like, the only person
Speaker 1: has ever written me a check is me. So there
Speaker 1: was the one time in my life where I actually,
Speaker 1: you know, showed up and got paid to you know. Basically,
Speaker 1: I remember I'd sit at my desk and I look
Speaker 1: at my watch, thinking when does my vacation start. My
Speaker 1: vacation was going in to do the Idol shows, and
Speaker 1: you legendarily aligned your other judges to negotiate for salaries.
Speaker 1: You were the manager there more or less. I was
Speaker 1: sort of like the union rep. But but no, but
Speaker 1: a lot of times they would take our pieces and
Speaker 1: they would do these like worldwide shows, the best of
Speaker 1: the worst and all the other stuff. And so there
Speaker 1: would be a call come in and they'd have to
Speaker 1: get approval. So I wouldn't negotiate that rate for the
Speaker 1: other four and I'd say, hey, guys, I just got
Speaker 1: us each fifteen hundred bucks. They're using this clip from here,
Speaker 1: you know, or something like that. I was the senior
Speaker 1: business guy on the panel, so more likely to be
Speaker 1: the one to do the job. Once a manager, always
Speaker 1: a manager. You've been listening to manager extraordinary Jake Gold
Speaker 1: getting the opinion and viewpoint from north of the border,
Speaker 1: the Great White North. Uh, this is how it is
Speaker 1: we go to dinner, that we argue a little more heavily.
Speaker 1: It's even a little more difficult for me to get
Speaker 1: a word in edgewise. I hope you've enjoyed it. Until
Speaker 1: next time, it's Bob left Sets and Jake Gold on
Speaker 1: the Bob Left Sets Podcast. Thanks Bob, thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to this week's edition of the Bob Left Sets Podcast.
Speaker 1: If you haven't subscribed yet, I highly recommend you do.
Speaker 1: I've already interviewed a ton of great guests, legends of
Speaker 1: the music business with stories galore, and you know there's
Speaker 1: more to come. So subscribe on tune in, Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: and everywhere you listen to podcasts, choose your favorite. If
Speaker 1: you can't find the podcast and you preferred Apple, let
Speaker 1: me know and we'll make it happen. Remember, distribution is king.
Speaker 1: Can think of me reas don't know exactly must be
Speaker 1: its out, don't