Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is music manager Jamie Kittman. He's responsible
Speaker 1: for They Might Be Giants. He also looks after Mike Doughty,
Speaker 1: and his previous history was involved with Okay Going the
Speaker 1: violin Thems. But even more interestingly, he is the New
Speaker 1: York bureau chief for Audimobile Magazine. Jamie, Hello, Bob Okay,
Speaker 1: So what are you doing in l A Um actually
Speaker 1: out here for the launch of the land Rover Defender.
Speaker 1: Little light music business on the side, but there's a
Speaker 1: new land Rover Defender for the first time in seventy years. Uh,
Speaker 1: the original coming out, and uh that's kind of a
Speaker 1: big deal. So I'm actually here covering it for Airmail,
Speaker 1: which is the new Graden Carter Alesander Stanley UM publication. Okay,
Speaker 1: how did you get that gig writing for them? Uh?
Speaker 1: They called me up and asked me if I wanted
Speaker 1: to do it, and I was like sure, Um, you know, um,
Speaker 1: I would like to say I'm in three dying industries, uh, cars, music,
Speaker 1: and magazine. So uh, when somebody calls generally in the
Speaker 1: certainly in the writing realm, I'll hear them out and uh,
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's a pretty exciting publication and so it
Speaker 1: was kind of an honor to do it. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: I certainly got their first edition free over the summer.
Speaker 1: Do you have any idea what's going on with the airmail? Airmail,
Speaker 1: how many people are reading it, etcetera. Um. I was
Speaker 1: talking to my editor the other day. He said that
Speaker 1: they thought it was successful so far and that they
Speaker 1: were still having fun. And I said, well, it's only
Speaker 1: been out for a couple of months. I hope you're
Speaker 1: still having fun. But he uh he he indicated was good,
Speaker 1: But I don't really Uh, you know, it's hard to
Speaker 1: track that the metrics on something like that, and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure I would understand them anyway. Okay, starting with
Speaker 1: the automobile thing, You're not only in Automobile Magazine every
Speaker 1: issue with a column, You're occasionally in the New York
Speaker 1: Times on the opinion page. What generates the most heat
Speaker 1: for you? Well, I mean it depends what you mean
Speaker 1: by heat. Um. When I wrote I think my first
Speaker 1: automotive up ed piece was for the Times was um,
Speaker 1: basically their first ever anti suv uh ed piece. Uh
Speaker 1: in n So that was gosh, that's twenty four years ago,
Speaker 1: but um, twenty five years ago. Uh that that generated
Speaker 1: a lot of heat in the sense that suddenly I
Speaker 1: stopped being invited to car launches by manufacturers because uh
Speaker 1: that was in fact, they're great profidence and it just
Speaker 1: irritated them. I can tell you a story that combined
Speaker 1: both of cars and music around that. Uh that was
Speaker 1: time to the uh New York Auto Show that year
Speaker 1: and land Rover Um, who are actually my hosts on
Speaker 1: this trip, We're launching their first ever Discovery model then
Speaker 1: and it was so important to them that they had
Speaker 1: hired Staying uh for it as he uh to come
Speaker 1: to New York and he was gonna um receive a
Speaker 1: donation for his Brazilian rainforest charity. Uh while introducing the
Speaker 1: Discovery to the assembled media who were in town for
Speaker 1: the New York Auto Show, but also not just the
Speaker 1: automotive media, but the music press, which was a thing
Speaker 1: back then and had all these people. They were going
Speaker 1: to go to an art directed mound of dirt on
Speaker 1: at the end of forty Street by the Hudson River,
Speaker 1: and a Discovery was going to drive over it. Then
Speaker 1: Staying would get the oversized check and the photo op
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. Apparently I found this out a
Speaker 1: year later from a uh sometimes uh freelance publicist for
Speaker 1: land Rover. She was like, Jimmie Kentman, you made for
Speaker 1: the most miserable day of my life. Apparently Sting woke
Speaker 1: up that morning and read this piece in the Time
Speaker 1: suggesting that actually SUVs weren't environmentally sound and that they
Speaker 1: really hadn't you know, no benefit to most people and
Speaker 1: were unnecessary and just eight more gas were more deadly
Speaker 1: in accidents, and he woke up and he refused to
Speaker 1: show up. So uh, the end of the story is
Speaker 1: is that they ended up having to give his rainforest
Speaker 1: charity eighty thous dollars instead of forty. So I feel
Speaker 1: like I did my bit for the environment right there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously, although we still need more money for
Speaker 1: the rainforest right now. But this was that was when Jaguars,
Speaker 1: Jaguarren land Rover are still together but owned by the Chinese.
Speaker 1: Now right, that's no, they're owned by the Indians. Now
Speaker 1: they're owned by Tata Motors. Can't keep straight who's owned
Speaker 1: by the Chinese and so who's owned by Indians and
Speaker 1: who's owned by Chinese. The well Jaguar land Rovers owned
Speaker 1: by the Indians UH. Also the new UM electric sports
Speaker 1: car company Pininfarina's owned by a different set of Indians, UH,
Speaker 1: and UH the Chinese owned Volvo UH and their new
Speaker 1: pole Star all electric brand which is just launching its
Speaker 1: first car, the poll Star one which I drove the
Speaker 1: other week, which is awesome. And UH. They also UM
Speaker 1: own Lotus, the English sports car company UM, among others.
Speaker 1: And the actually the people who make London taxis now
Speaker 1: are owned by this same Chinese company, which is called Jelie.
Speaker 1: And the thing about both of the Indians and the
Speaker 1: Chinese UH the make for interesting case studies as opposed
Speaker 1: to when American companies were buying of car companies, like
Speaker 1: when Ford bought Volvo and Jaguar and Aston, Martin, UH
Speaker 1: and GM, saab UM, is that the Chinese really seemed
Speaker 1: to stand back and let the engineers who made those
Speaker 1: companies worth buying in the first place do their job
Speaker 1: and you know, the executives and the product planners and
Speaker 1: things like that, whereas the Americans tend to have stuck
Speaker 1: their fingers deeper into those companies in an effort to
Speaker 1: realize additional savings and things like that, with sometimes uh,
Speaker 1: negative results for the company that they bought. The the
Speaker 1: the most egregious example being SAAB, which was bought by
Speaker 1: General Motors, and you know what they did. They surgically
Speaker 1: removed its brain. And you know, they sold a Chevy
Speaker 1: Trailblazer as a sub and it was, you know, an
Speaker 1: affront to everything that SAB ever stood for Now at
Speaker 1: the same time, I know you happen to have that
Speaker 1: SABERU the well that was you know, at least that
Speaker 1: was closer to what a SAB had sub you know,
Speaker 1: not been going bankrupt, what they would have been making,
Speaker 1: whereas the the Chevy Trailblazer SAB was just an abbommination. Okay,
Speaker 1: I says, I don't need to vend defend my car.
Speaker 1: You know. Interestingly, I just taken to the sub rue
Speaker 1: place to be serviced. Well there there is no place exactly.
Speaker 1: But uh, I have a friend who owned two sobs
Speaker 1: and ran into that trouble, said he's never gonna buy Okay,
Speaker 1: I talked to him about buying a Tesla threason already
Speaker 1: bought two cars from a company that went out of business.
Speaker 1: I'm anxious, but we'll get to Tesla. Eventually they're great
Speaker 1: values car cars from companies that are either out of
Speaker 1: or going out of business. I mostly specialized in those.
Speaker 1: What I bought new cars, great deals. Okay, what have
Speaker 1: you bought recently to you? Uh? Well, I actually I
Speaker 1: bought a Fiat was the first car I ever bought
Speaker 1: new car right after they had an announced going out
Speaker 1: of business. Eight now, I said, eighty two, I bought
Speaker 1: a Prussia and ninety two right when they went out
Speaker 1: of business. Half rice um. I wrote a column in
Speaker 1: ninety four or ninety late ninety three I had just
Speaker 1: bought it Alfa Romeo, and I said, well, based on
Speaker 1: my drag record, they're probably going to go out of business,
Speaker 1: And six months later they did. Uh so yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean okay, but interestingly you but you know, fix it again, Tony.
Speaker 1: My sister had a Fiat, great car, but certainly you know,
Speaker 1: the body ended up getting cancer. When you get one
Speaker 1: of those cars discontinued, especially Pougeau that weren't that many
Speaker 1: of them. How hard is it to get them serviced? Uh?
Speaker 1: It's harder than than some other cars, but not impossible
Speaker 1: if you're resourceful and having always been an old car
Speaker 1: fan Um. Finding obscure parts difficult, you know, to find things.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just been always part of my existence.
Speaker 1: There's actually old cars that it's easier to get parts
Speaker 1: for now than it was twenty or thirty years ago
Speaker 1: because because they people started to reproduce uh parts that
Speaker 1: had gone out of production. There was there was enough
Speaker 1: of a business case for people old mgs for instance,
Speaker 1: you know, for people to make almost every part that
Speaker 1: was on one of those cars, so it became easier. Also,
Speaker 1: the Chinese will make almost any part um if there's
Speaker 1: a market for it, um and they can do it cheaply.
Speaker 1: Uh Sadly they're often of inferior quality, but you know
Speaker 1: they might get you back on the road, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So you're here for the land Rover Defender. Okay, I
Speaker 1: remember land Rover in the seventies, front of mine had
Speaker 1: it went all of fifty five, but it would climb anything. Okay.
Speaker 1: Then about twenty five years ago, a little bit longer,
Speaker 1: they came out with the range Roll. Now in l
Speaker 1: A that's a status car and it never goes off
Speaker 1: you know, off trail so to speak. What's your viewpoint
Speaker 1: on all that? Well, I mean that's actually uh Rover
Speaker 1: really pioneered that market. The range Rover actually came out
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty eight, uh in in sixty nine and
Speaker 1: in the UK and Europe, just didn't get sold in America.
Speaker 1: It was a luxury car then it was it was
Speaker 1: it was more spartan than it is today, but it
Speaker 1: was considered a luxury suv and um UM I had
Speaker 1: an unusual window on that because I was born in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: but I grew up in Leonia, New Jersey, which was
Speaker 1: the headquarters for British Leyland, which was the company that
Speaker 1: owned Rover by that point, and so I saw prototypes
Speaker 1: of those when I was a kid riding my bicycle
Speaker 1: around in their parking lot that they had were testing
Speaker 1: in America doing hot weather testing for um, which in
Speaker 1: the New Jersey summer is is really believable because it
Speaker 1: was hot. But my view of them in general is that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, I've always liked range Rovers, but uh
Speaker 1: I like them better when not so many people were
Speaker 1: driving them, because there there's a certain person who really
Speaker 1: can make good use of that and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: reasonable efficient use of it, and then there are people
Speaker 1: who are just mostly wasting gas and taking up too
Speaker 1: much space. So so I'm sort of ambivalent about that.
Speaker 1: The Defender, I mean, it really leads the more you
Speaker 1: think about it, it leads you to to the whole
Speaker 1: authenticity question, which is, you know what so much marketing
Speaker 1: of everything from you know, cars and high fi systems
Speaker 1: and bicycles and and music is about um because the
Speaker 1: Defender was around for so long that it kind of
Speaker 1: got a free path from everybody, myself included, because it
Speaker 1: it just it was what it was. It was no
Speaker 1: nonsense work vehicle, and they didn't really the funds with it,
Speaker 1: and they weren't catering to you know, the latest uh
Speaker 1: you know mobile phone app. In fact, it had no telematics,
Speaker 1: no capability to deal with your phone whatsoever. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that was that was um, you know, gave it an
Speaker 1: incredible authenticity, which makes the launch and the new Defenders
Speaker 1: so um interesting. You know, I haven't actually seen it
Speaker 1: in the medal. I will tonight, but um, you know,
Speaker 1: are they able to sustain that? Are they able to
Speaker 1: you know, to recreate that with this new car that
Speaker 1: is modern? You couldn't you couldn't build a car that
Speaker 1: that was that primitive anymore. It wasn't safe enough. Um,
Speaker 1: it didn't have the you know, facility to do things
Speaker 1: that everybody expects of their car. Now. The downside of
Speaker 1: the new things, which are going to be way more
Speaker 1: electronics and exotic medals and things like that, is that
Speaker 1: they're harder for people in the bush too to fix.
Speaker 1: Which was always one of the things that people liked
Speaker 1: about land robbers is that you know, you could be
Speaker 1: in the in the in the deepest jungle in Africa
Speaker 1: and with the you know, with this Swiss army knife,
Speaker 1: you could get a lot of stuff fixed and repaired.
Speaker 1: But you know, it ain't gonna be that way anymore.
Speaker 1: And it's just okay, how long has it been since
Speaker 1: they manufactured the original Defender Just about a year I think, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: just a little over a year. And they did a
Speaker 1: run out edition that was very expensive in the UK
Speaker 1: that speculators all bought and uh many automotive journalists and
Speaker 1: my acquaintance also bought. And how expensive expensive Well it was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was getting up in the fifty thousands of dollars,
Speaker 1: I would say, which you know, for for what's essentially
Speaker 1: like yeah, stripped down vehicles was enough The new ones,
Speaker 1: they will be more expensive, so that will be uh
Speaker 1: you know, it will keep them exclusive for some time.
Speaker 1: I think we have bought the defender of the VIA
Speaker 1: generation in America, only there was a brief period they
Speaker 1: stopped selling what was its predecessor in nineteen four in
Speaker 1: America and in ninety three through you could buy it legally.
Speaker 1: There's a massive trade in cars that are imported from overseas,
Speaker 1: though many of them illegal, and there was in fact
Speaker 1: a very um well publicized effort on the part of
Speaker 1: the government too sees cars that had been fraudulently imported.
Speaker 1: There's a twenty five year exemption on old cars that
Speaker 1: if a car is twenty five years old, it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to pass E p A standards and d O
Speaker 1: T standards. And this is of course before the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: where it doesn't matter if anything passes any standard because
Speaker 1: they don't enforce any of the rules anymore. But uh
Speaker 1: so you could bring in a twenty five year old
Speaker 1: land Rover. What people did was, um they would get
Speaker 1: a serial number off of twenty five year older older
Speaker 1: land Rover, slap it on almost brand new one and
Speaker 1: bring it in. So l a is is uh littered
Speaker 1: with you know, two thousand and fifteen land Rover Defender
Speaker 1: one tens with all the trimmings um that are probably
Speaker 1: titled as a you know, as a or something like that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting you bring up a lot of things.
Speaker 1: You talk about being in New Jersey and seeing the
Speaker 1: models that are going to come out. I remember being
Speaker 1: in the library and high school. We'd read those car magazines.
Speaker 1: I never saw a f I grew up a never
Speaker 1: saw a famous person, never saw one of those covered cars.
Speaker 1: Have seen it occasionally in l A friend of mine
Speaker 1: had the last Defender seventy four and when we lived
Speaker 1: in Utah, because we were skiing and he wanted a
Speaker 1: vehicle like that. He brought it in to the company
Speaker 1: that service and they said, there's no such thing as
Speaker 1: the seventy four. If you want to come out and
Speaker 1: see mine, and I remember we were Mammoth Mountain in
Speaker 1: May and there's nowhere to park. He literally parked it
Speaker 1: on the side of a mound of snow, nearly vertical.
Speaker 1: It's just amazing with those things could do. They they
Speaker 1: were great. Okay, so let's let's back up. Holy Okay,
Speaker 1: let's start with you brought the suv question in your mind,
Speaker 1: the fact that most of these vehicles are now crossovers,
Speaker 1: meaning that they have a cart bottom as opposed to
Speaker 1: truck bottom, does that save them? In your eyes? It
Speaker 1: improves them? And you know, in in fairness, they're significantly safer,
Speaker 1: more economical, cleaner, better handling, less likely to roll over,
Speaker 1: less likely to kill the driver. Um then and other
Speaker 1: people than the SUVs of say the nineties were. Uh,
Speaker 1: it doesn't entirely save them because they're still they're big,
Speaker 1: they're bluff um, and they're tall with higher centers of gravity,
Speaker 1: so they actually get you know, worse mileage than an
Speaker 1: equivalent car would get or something that was lower. Um.
Speaker 1: They don't necessarily have any more room than a car
Speaker 1: would have. They're just jacked up higher. And it's uh,
Speaker 1: so that's you know, that's what's negative about them. And
Speaker 1: a lot of people will say, well, you know, in
Speaker 1: the electric future, when you know there's these new electric
Speaker 1: SUVs like the Mustang that was announced last night or
Speaker 1: the Rivian that's coming that, you know, it won't really matter, um,
Speaker 1: because you won't be using gasoline, but you will be
Speaker 1: using more electricity to power this thing. That's too heavy,
Speaker 1: too big, and very bluff um, so that it will
Speaker 1: still be an issue even then that you know, why
Speaker 1: should you be using more electricity than less electricity? If
Speaker 1: we didn't care about that, why do we have laws
Speaker 1: that make refrigerators more efficient and televisions and other appliances.
Speaker 1: So um, so I'm concerned from that point. Also, Dynamically,
Speaker 1: they're a real step down from cars, you know, dynamically
Speaker 1: meaning how they handle, how you know, how fast you
Speaker 1: can go around a corner, on from the old school,
Speaker 1: which vout puts a value on, you know, how nicely
Speaker 1: things go around corners. Uh. The SUV really was a
Speaker 1: paradigm shift, and that's what Suddenly people stopped caring about it.
Speaker 1: It was like the shift that I know that you've
Speaker 1: written about often where you know, high fidelity sort of
Speaker 1: became like what's that. You know, the whole generation of
Speaker 1: people who had been you know, you know, their predecessors
Speaker 1: had spent their entire lives in search of better and
Speaker 1: better sound. Um, suddenly you know went out the window
Speaker 1: in in in favor of miniaturization and you know, like
Speaker 1: portability and and uh, you know, connectivity and things like that,
Speaker 1: so that it became a you know, high fidelity became
Speaker 1: a minority interest where it had been at least a
Speaker 1: bigger minority. Uh. Same with handling and ride and things
Speaker 1: like that. Then other an log in the in the
Speaker 1: car world was the shift from uh, smaller wheels to
Speaker 1: bigger wheels. Now everything's got twenty inch wheels and big
Speaker 1: tires or twenty two inch wheels, and that runs against
Speaker 1: you know, the hundred years of automotive history where engineers
Speaker 1: and manufacturers learned and customers agreed that that all of
Speaker 1: that extra weight and height made for a poor ride quality.
Speaker 1: And so things got a lot bumpier than they had been.
Speaker 1: And and you know, a hundred years of trying to
Speaker 1: make cars ride smoothly went out the windows. Okay, so
Speaker 1: if you see a car now almost all the cars
Speaker 1: have these very low profile tires, what are the advantages
Speaker 1: and disadvantages of those. Well, the advantages are are generally, uh,
Speaker 1: more grip um because there's less flex in the side wall,
Speaker 1: and you know, more confident handling, but mostly aesthetic beyond
Speaker 1: that and uh and the same with the wheels. So
Speaker 1: I remember being at the GM proving grounds and in
Speaker 1: UH war in Michigan, and UH um, we were driving
Speaker 1: around in a Cadillac Escalade, and um we One of
Speaker 1: the things we were doing was driving a GM show
Speaker 1: car from the nineteen thirties called the Wide Job, which
Speaker 1: was a Buick and a really cool futuristic you know,
Speaker 1: two seater that was you know, eight ft long, but
Speaker 1: it had these tiny wheels, like thirteen inch wheels with
Speaker 1: big balloon tires, and um, I asked the guy who
Speaker 1: was driving me around. I was like, well, you know, like,
Speaker 1: what was the idea with like thirteen inch wheels? Were
Speaker 1: riding in an escalator on twenty twos? And he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: ride quality absolutely, And I was like, well, why are
Speaker 1: then just this Cadillac, which is supposed to ride smooth?
Speaker 1: Why is it uh have twenty two inch wheels? And
Speaker 1: he was like, well, uh, you know people want them.
Speaker 1: They look cool. You know. That's it. That's all I got. Okay,
Speaker 1: starting with handling the Cayenne and the Cayenne Turbo, the
Speaker 1: poor show how does that handle compared to a sedan? Uh?
Speaker 1: It Well, again, it's it's a lot. It's pretty heavy,
Speaker 1: so it's on the heavier end of what a sedan.
Speaker 1: My way on the on the you know, really probably
Speaker 1: a little past that, but it also is taller. Now
Speaker 1: that said, you know, they handle about as good as
Speaker 1: something that weighs, you know, fifty pounds could handle, you know,
Speaker 1: after it's been jacked up six or seven inches. But uh,
Speaker 1: you know, compared to I mean the comparison that I
Speaker 1: find more emotional for me is comparing it to like
Speaker 1: a nine eleven or a Boxer, which handles great. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, it's a different thing. The brand
Speaker 1: has has you know, fundamentally changed or at least large
Speaker 1: parts of it. Some of my colleagues will tell you, well,
Speaker 1: you know, they had to do that in order to
Speaker 1: be able to steal offer things like the nine eleven
Speaker 1: and box there. I don't I don't buy that, but
Speaker 1: you know that's okay. I know this ridiculous point. But
Speaker 1: on a percentage basis, what percentage of the handling of
Speaker 1: a nine eleven would you get with a Cayenne? How
Speaker 1: much are you losing? Oh? Uh you know, I mean
Speaker 1: non scientifically, I would say, you know, you're losing uh
Speaker 1: a lot, you know, I mean, you know, in terms
Speaker 1: of like how fast you could go around the track, Yeah,
Speaker 1: not as fast, and in find up slower, but the
Speaker 1: joy of driving something that's lets close to the ground
Speaker 1: and that's really it is not carrying any excess weight.
Speaker 1: It is is substantial. I mean, you know, it's like people,
Speaker 1: you know how you know, like if if somebody weighs
Speaker 1: too much, you know, like it affects the way they
Speaker 1: move around it. Okay, So is there any hope? Is
Speaker 1: there any hole? Especially when the American manufacturers stopping making sedans,
Speaker 1: is there any hope for the sedan in America? Well? Interestingly, UM,
Speaker 1: the Japanese makers Onanda and Toyota and Nissan, UM, and uh,
Speaker 1: the Korean makers haven't given up on that. And reading
Speaker 1: in the trade press in the last six months, while
Speaker 1: people are sort of scratching their heads, going like, well,
Speaker 1: why haven't they followed the Americans down this rat hole? Um,
Speaker 1: they say, well, our research tells us that UM millennials
Speaker 1: actually are buying more UM small cars and sedans than
Speaker 1: the SUVs, which is different than what older people are doing.
Speaker 1: And you know, I mean I've been predicting this for
Speaker 1: years and that that people would that it was a
Speaker 1: fad that would go away SUVs. Of course it would
Speaker 1: appear on the surface that I was wrong. And and
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I started being invited back on
Speaker 1: car launches was that nobody listened to my op ed
Speaker 1: But um, um, the you know idiots. It's sort of
Speaker 1: axiomatic in that in the automobiles that uh nobody wants
Speaker 1: to drive with their parents drove. So you know, station
Speaker 1: wagons went out in favor of mini vans because you know,
Speaker 1: station wagons weren't cool. And then um, you know, and
Speaker 1: then mini vans went out largely as SUVs rolled in
Speaker 1: to take their place. So something you would think would
Speaker 1: replace that. And I would suggest that station wagons again
Speaker 1: still make more sense and minivans than most SUVs, being lighter,
Speaker 1: more nimble and having just as much room and obviously
Speaker 1: more economical in terms of of using uh, you know,
Speaker 1: gasoline or in the future. You know, you need to
Speaker 1: say one thing that an suv will give you. If
Speaker 1: you're have a large piece of equipment, a surfboard, a
Speaker 1: paddle board, skis whatever, it would be easier to transport
Speaker 1: those in an suv. That's very few people. But right well,
Speaker 1: I mean that's that is uh people's uh justification often
Speaker 1: for why they buy too much car uh, you know,
Speaker 1: And It's probably their justification why they buy too much
Speaker 1: house and too much everything is that well, I might
Speaker 1: need it. So people go like, well, you know, we
Speaker 1: go up to the lake every summer. You know, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, for the extra thousands of dollars you're gonna
Speaker 1: spending gasol and you could just rent a big truck
Speaker 1: for your summer vacation. If that's true, you know, I
Speaker 1: might have to tell things. In nineteen uh ninety nine
Speaker 1: or two thousand, the New York Times magazine hired me
Speaker 1: to write a story about what we're then the new
Speaker 1: Lincoln and Cadillac pickup trucks, which the not very car
Speaker 1: focused editors just thought was markably strange that there would
Speaker 1: be these you know what were then, you know, primarily
Speaker 1: car brands, although the Escalade and the Navigator had already
Speaker 1: come out. How why they were doing this? So I
Speaker 1: spent time in the vowels of GM and Ford talking
Speaker 1: to marketing people, and their reasons were I mean, they
Speaker 1: seemed remarkably frank that people didn't need these cars, but
Speaker 1: that they had tapped into this like you know, kind
Speaker 1: of like um deep psychology of of people, of of
Speaker 1: why they would buy them and you know, there was
Speaker 1: clearly something about writing higher up that makes some people
Speaker 1: feel comfortable, notwithstanding the fact that, uh, you know, when
Speaker 1: everybody's in a big stuv you can't see over them anyway,
Speaker 1: you might as well be trying to look around them
Speaker 1: or under them. Um and that you know, it's sort
Speaker 1: of veghets and arms race, you know, like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: if if everybody is going to be in a Lincoln Navigator,
Speaker 1: I might as well be driving a Peter Built or
Speaker 1: ken Worth you know, eighteen wheeler and be have the
Speaker 1: the extra weight and height. But u um they should.
Speaker 1: There was that, and they were happy to as you know,
Speaker 1: what underpins their whole conversation is what why they're happy
Speaker 1: to sell them is is that they persuaded people that
Speaker 1: they should pay more for things that ride higher. It's
Speaker 1: it's just a truism and the almost all marketing in
Speaker 1: America that the higher it is, the more you can
Speaker 1: charge for it, even if it's the same car. And
Speaker 1: that's true with crossovers. So for instance, the four the
Speaker 1: recently canceled forward Focus was the basis of a Ford Escape,
Speaker 1: but a you know, really loaded up forward Focus might
Speaker 1: have cost twenty four dollars twenty six thousand dollars. The
Speaker 1: a loaded up escape is forty dollars and it has
Speaker 1: about five dollars more content, you know, maybe a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars more content. So you know, which do they want
Speaker 1: to sell? That's that's and that they'll always go, well,
Speaker 1: what can we do? That's what you know the people want.
Speaker 1: But actually you didn't market any of the other things,
Speaker 1: you didn't develop them, and you know you've persuaded people
Speaker 1: that that's what they want. Now, there are people genuinely
Speaker 1: who need that, and there are people who generally who
Speaker 1: want it. But that's that's sort of the issue. But
Speaker 1: in any case, going back to being in the battles
Speaker 1: of Ford UM, they were talking about UM the sort
Speaker 1: of psycho sexual dimension they want. Most of the buying decisions,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is sort of counterintuitive, but most of
Speaker 1: the buying decisions were UM made by women, a majority
Speaker 1: of them in car purchases. And they said that women
Speaker 1: in particular found UM minivans really de sexualizing because you know,
Speaker 1: you saw a mom at a traffic light, you know,
Speaker 1: you could see her kids in the back, and you
Speaker 1: just knew that you know, she did she did not
Speaker 1: want to party with you and um and that was
Speaker 1: you know, upsetting to women. Um that you know, like
Speaker 1: nobody would eve and give them a second look. Not
Speaker 1: that they wanted to necessarily party with people, but that
Speaker 1: that was that that was upsetting to them. So with
Speaker 1: suv s, you were high up, people couldn't necessarily see
Speaker 1: what was back and they they started smoking out all
Speaker 1: the rear windows so you couldn't see the the the
Speaker 1: rug rats in the bag bouncing up and down, and
Speaker 1: that that made the women feel more powerful as well
Speaker 1: as safer and things like that. So that was a
Speaker 1: surprise to me, and it raised the related question of
Speaker 1: why um um Ford was calling their new line of
Speaker 1: engines then the power Stroke. And I was like, They're like,
Speaker 1: you know, yep, And I was like, I was like,
Speaker 1: well that sounds kind of dirty to me, and they
Speaker 1: were like yep, you know. So uh that you know,
Speaker 1: so that they'll you know, they'll sto pretty low to
Speaker 1: to close the sale. So someone comes to you today,
Speaker 1: what are you tell them to buy? Well, I kind
Speaker 1: of asked them what they need. I mean often I'd
Speaker 1: say eight percent of the people come to me already
Speaker 1: have made up their mind and asking because they want
Speaker 1: to be have affirmation. But usually, well that's the thing.
Speaker 1: They Often they'll go, oh, you know, I'm I'm calling
Speaker 1: to ask you what I should buy. But this has
Speaker 1: happened a lot in in the nineties. They'd go, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I know you're gonna think this is
Speaker 1: a bad idea, but I just bought or I just
Speaker 1: I really want to buy a Ford Excursion or you know,
Speaker 1: some behemoth and uh. I was like, well, uh okay,
Speaker 1: and they're like, uh, you know, I just it's like,
Speaker 1: I have two kids. What am I supposed to do?
Speaker 1: You know? And I got like, well, I remember when
Speaker 1: I was a kid and people would have four kids
Speaker 1: in the back of their BW beatle and you know
Speaker 1: they managed to survive. Um, and they're just kind of
Speaker 1: sign off quickly, like conversation over but piece of people.
Speaker 1: You know, they pretty much uh, you know, based on
Speaker 1: whatever you know, uh mixture of Okay, if someone comes
Speaker 1: to you today, let's just super for the sake of discussion,
Speaker 1: they want to buy a new car. Let's assume they're
Speaker 1: not predetermined. What would you recommend. Well, I mean for
Speaker 1: just an ordinary person, I think Sedayana or a wagon
Speaker 1: would uh there. You know. The great thing about today
Speaker 1: is almost nothing is terrible anymore. I mean the days
Speaker 1: which aren't that far off where you could buy a
Speaker 1: car you just go, this is appalling. I mean there
Speaker 1: are still some Jeeps that I would say, we're appalling,
Speaker 1: but not as bad as they were. But uh so, really,
Speaker 1: any brand is okay. And if you um, you know,
Speaker 1: truly depends how much money you want to spend. But
Speaker 1: you know, uh, the Koreans are you know, shockingly good
Speaker 1: now and even there in the luxury realm they're cheaper,
Speaker 1: but you know, more or less as good as anything German,
Speaker 1: and probably more reliable. I like all the German brands
Speaker 1: swell um and uh you know, and there are good
Speaker 1: American cars too, although you know, fewer and further between. Well.
Speaker 1: I liked the focus, the late focus up like hot
Speaker 1: rotted version of they did. It was that focus st
Speaker 1: that was great. Uh. And there was even better Fiesta,
Speaker 1: which was uh uh you know, very quick, and they
Speaker 1: killed that as well, so you know, And and the
Speaker 1: irony is is that they talk about, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to stay with the young people. I mean young people,
Speaker 1: you know, like the drifters who were out like, you know,
Speaker 1: racing their cars at night. You know what used to
Speaker 1: be the hot rotters of another generation. You know, they're
Speaker 1: not in um Ford edges. You know, they're driving Civics
Speaker 1: and Corollas and you know Nissan Sedans and things like
Speaker 1: that that that uh, that handled, and so people sort
Speaker 1: of forget now that uh somebody was just saying this
Speaker 1: last night. Uh, but the people who were, you know,
Speaker 1: of the hot rudders, it was not a majority thing.
Speaker 1: So there's there's this uh kind of notion about in
Speaker 1: the land these days that kids just don't care about
Speaker 1: cars anymore. They don't care about you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff that you know, the old timers cared about.
Speaker 1: And my experience going around is that there's actually is
Speaker 1: still a lot of interest among young people and they're
Speaker 1: really into it and they know stuff. You know, I
Speaker 1: think there's a segment, but pole to say it, when
Speaker 1: we grew up sixteen, getting your license that was like
Speaker 1: the number one thing. And there are I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people who have children who certainly didn't get
Speaker 1: their license at sixteen, and some of them don't even
Speaker 1: have it at age. My own son amusingly um my
Speaker 1: eldest son didn't even go to get a driver's license
Speaker 1: until like eight or ten months after he was allowed to.
Speaker 1: My recollection is that I went three days before my
Speaker 1: seventeenth birthday in New Jersey just in case they changed
Speaker 1: the law, you know, and I could drive earlier. And
Speaker 1: of I was driving before then anyway. Uh. And he he,
Speaker 1: he used to tell me, like, you know, we'd be
Speaker 1: driving down the road and Heed point to like some
Speaker 1: Mitsubishi Lancer or some you know, phenomenally dull Sadan. He'd
Speaker 1: go that that would be fine for me if I
Speaker 1: ever had a car, But I don't. I don't want
Speaker 1: a car. Well, long story short. He's now he finished
Speaker 1: university and he somewhere along the way he became an
Speaker 1: insane car not and he rebuilt an Alfa Romeo. And
Speaker 1: now he's actually apprentice to North America's leading rebuilder of
Speaker 1: SU carburetors, which are the British carburetors that were current
Speaker 1: from nineteen oh four to seven, same fundamental design and UH,
Speaker 1: which were on every Jaguar and MG and Triumph that
Speaker 1: there ever was pretty much and UH in those days,
Speaker 1: and so UH through him. But elsewhere I I do
Speaker 1: meet young people who are into it, and well, certainly,
Speaker 1: we live in a country of three hundred plus million.
Speaker 1: Let's go specifically brand by brand, sure, Audie, Okay, forget
Speaker 1: in terms of handling other than they're one that's essentially Lamborghini. Uh,
Speaker 1: the R S four, I believe it is. How good
Speaker 1: is an Audi compared to a Mercedes? But you're thinking
Speaker 1: of the right, That's what I meant. But how good
Speaker 1: is the Audi compared to the BMW compared to the Mercedes?
Speaker 1: Ben It's uh in uh, my current rankings have changed.
Speaker 1: There was a time where BMW was unassailably the driver's
Speaker 1: car of the three of those brands. Um and um,
Speaker 1: that's changed. Um. They you know, the famous tagline was
Speaker 1: BMW S for the Ultimate Driving Machines. I'd like to
Speaker 1: call them the pen ultimate driving machine now because they
Speaker 1: really have taken their eye off the ball. It's just
Speaker 1: not you know, Well, let's go back to BMW, who
Speaker 1: is number one? Well right now I would say, i'm
Speaker 1: i'm I feel like it's fairly closed, but I might
Speaker 1: give Mercedes the odd uh as being the one I
Speaker 1: would most like to own. But I just had an
Speaker 1: A seven last week in New York and was driving
Speaker 1: on the highway from some distance and it was pretty great.
Speaker 1: Audis are pretty great. Uh and uh, you know they're
Speaker 1: all fine, and they all make SUVs that I despise, um,
Speaker 1: but their cars, which are you know, what the TVs
Speaker 1: are based on, are are are better than they were.
Speaker 1: Mostly BMW has taken its eye off of of that
Speaker 1: last degree of excellence. Let's just grown so much that
Speaker 1: they're really uh there. I mean, Volkswagen group that depends
Speaker 1: in great measure on Autis being successful because they're essentially
Speaker 1: you know, good volkswagens um that have been upscaled a
Speaker 1: lot and and they charged a lot more money for them,
Speaker 1: so it's a huge profit center for them. You know,
Speaker 1: it's estimated that Volkswagen bakes barely any profit for for
Speaker 1: the Volkswagen group. Autie makes you know, the lions share
Speaker 1: of it. And then they also owned Porsche, which is
Speaker 1: hugely profitable, and Lamborghini and Bentley, and so that those
Speaker 1: companies are generating most of the profit. Uh. They because
Speaker 1: of that. This is particularly true now with BMWC. They
Speaker 1: need more more and more volume of stuff and they
Speaker 1: want to sell stuff that's more expensive, so they have
Speaker 1: you know, massive amounts of of Uh. They have huge
Speaker 1: product lines. Um. And they're making lots and lots of
Speaker 1: bigger and bigger SUVs, which is exactly the wrong direction
Speaker 1: they know on some level for them to be going
Speaker 1: in in terms of the environment and and the mandates
Speaker 1: that you know, bud for Trump are coming down everywhere
Speaker 1: in the world. Um and um. So there seems to
Speaker 1: be a notion of foot at all the car companies
Speaker 1: now that we've got to make as much money as
Speaker 1: we can to get ready for this transition to electric cars. Okay,
Speaker 1: so BMW, because as you say, they have an incredibly
Speaker 1: wide line forgetting the SUVs, the standard Sedan's your bitch
Speaker 1: with them is uh, they're they've gotten bigger and bigger
Speaker 1: and bigger as so you know, they're less dynamically, um
Speaker 1: amusing to me than they were. But so I would
Speaker 1: if I was gonna buy a BMW, I'd get a
Speaker 1: three series, which was the you know, the smartest one,
Speaker 1: which is now the size. It's bigger than the old
Speaker 1: five series. So they get bigger and bigger and bigger.
Speaker 1: And the station wagon model is very handsome. Uh. Auties Uh,
Speaker 1: starting with BMW, do they not? Because BMW every all
Speaker 1: the car magazine seemed to say that the M two
Speaker 1: was like the ultimate driving machine. It's it's pretty great.
Speaker 1: It's pretty cramp though for my money, and it's still
Speaker 1: is is pretty heavy, but yeah, it is the it
Speaker 1: is the funnest one. I don't know that I'd recommend
Speaker 1: it to everybody. It's for somebody who doesn't have three
Speaker 1: kids and isn't Let's assume I want to buy an
Speaker 1: M too, okay or three? Your ship has come in. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: If you want to buy an M two or M three,
Speaker 1: M five, are there equivalent Outies or Mercedes that are
Speaker 1: just as good or better. They're pretty close. Yeah. They
Speaker 1: You have the MG line of Mercedes, C classes any
Speaker 1: classes and uh S classes uh and the out RS
Speaker 1: models which are like the R S four, R six
Speaker 1: those are those are hot, really hot cars. So if
Speaker 1: you have to buy one of the three brands, which
Speaker 1: would you buy? Oh, golly, um that I can't choose. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go, let's go. Let's go across difference between Toyota, Nissan,
Speaker 1: Subaru the rest of the Japanese companies, well, I mean
Speaker 1: it's hard to separate them from their current predicaments, which
Speaker 1: are in Nissan's case, like complete shake up of their
Speaker 1: corporate governance and the sort of simultaneous realization that they've
Speaker 1: sort of been getting their sales for the last several
Speaker 1: years to make themselves look more successful than they were. Uh,
Speaker 1: similar problems. Uh leaving Japan with f c A, the
Speaker 1: Fiat Chrysler where they were building cars and parking them
Speaker 1: and you know, registering them and jetting their sales. So uh,
Speaker 1: those those there there was that for those companies. Nissan
Speaker 1: is suddenly about to not be profitable and that's you
Speaker 1: know that that really changed their Okay, well when we
Speaker 1: talk about I'm gonna buy one, oh well, I mean, uh,
Speaker 1: I like Subaru. Still they for my money, they've gotten
Speaker 1: way too big. They just get bigger and uglier with
Speaker 1: each iteration. But um, but I'm sympathetic to them. Uh.
Speaker 1: Toyotas are probably you know, your best bet overall in
Speaker 1: terms of reliability, and um, some of their cars are
Speaker 1: are quite good. I think you know, the new Corolla
Speaker 1: x S. I think it's called it's a hatchback for
Speaker 1: do or Corolla, and it's you know, it's aimed at
Speaker 1: young people. Is actually remarkably you know, a pleasant car
Speaker 1: to drive and pretty sporty. But I mean, you know
Speaker 1: they've uh w r X subarus are pretty pretty groovy.
Speaker 1: Um and uh I would also probably recommend that you
Speaker 1: look at Days and Kiya's too before we get to
Speaker 1: the Koreans. Okay, if we got to consumer reports every year,
Speaker 1: Toyota and Lexus dominate. Okay, do you think that's a
Speaker 1: significant dominance and reliability or do you believe whatever? I
Speaker 1: think there's uh there, they are very reliable. I think
Speaker 1: that a lot of those surveys, though, are kind of
Speaker 1: they're they're kind of closed loops where people are happy
Speaker 1: because they think they're happy. So they're happy, you know,
Speaker 1: they think this is gonna be great, and so they're
Speaker 1: perhaps more forgiving of of things than they might otherwise be. UM. Now,
Speaker 1: certainly in the consumer reports, ratings are more um probably
Speaker 1: more telling than you know, like the JD Power ones, um,
Speaker 1: where where it really does depend you know, they're like
Speaker 1: initial satisfaction, you know, Yeah, I mean so some really unreliable,
Speaker 1: crappy brands had great initial satisfaction. Hummers for instance, which incidentally,
Speaker 1: there's a rumor is going to come back as an
Speaker 1: electric vehicle for general motors. Um so, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: if you wait long enough, everything will happen. Okay, But
Speaker 1: I come from the arrow where you wouldn't buy an
Speaker 1: American car. I'm talking about once you get the seventies sixties,
Speaker 1: we all all our parents had American cars. I have
Speaker 1: a friend and bought a volt and he's had a
Speaker 1: long stream and still owns uh German and Japanese uh cars.
Speaker 1: He says, you know, it loosened up just like an
Speaker 1: old American car in a good way or a bad way. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't see many people driving American cars with two
Speaker 1: or three hundred thousand miles on them. I know plenty
Speaker 1: of people with Hondas with two or three hundred thousand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'd be surprised, though. I've I've run into some of
Speaker 1: those American cars with high miles. Uh. You know it's
Speaker 1: sunds like the engines can be very good in in
Speaker 1: in terms of durability. Um. But yeah, and there's some
Speaker 1: really the Chevy Bolt, which is the all electric one,
Speaker 1: feels great. But what it's like with three hundred thousand miles,
Speaker 1: I can't tell you. Um. But uh, but in general, yeah,
Speaker 1: no it's not. You know, American cars they sell because
Speaker 1: of people's you know, patriotism. You know, they're misca, so
Speaker 1: they tend to be cheaper. And that's what I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, is but if they were the same price,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, you're a professional, but I would
Speaker 1: say the Japanese cars are more reliable. Yeah, absolutely, and
Speaker 1: that's why, Um, the American cars, well, there are no
Speaker 1: more American cars. There's American Trusty. Are the Korean cars
Speaker 1: as reliable as the Japanese cars? Um, my personal impression
Speaker 1: is yes, I don't. I don't have the statistics. I mean,
Speaker 1: I love I once. You know, I was at a
Speaker 1: rental place about ten years ago and the only they
Speaker 1: had left was Hyundai, and I cursed them as Sunday
Speaker 1: is zero. By time I was ready to turn it
Speaker 1: back in, I would have bought it. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just amazing how it's turned. You know. One of
Speaker 1: the things about the automobile industry and a lot of
Speaker 1: I guess it's true in a lot of industry is
Speaker 1: probably making steal um that who you know, the people
Speaker 1: who spend the big money the most recently are going
Speaker 1: to necessarily have the most efficient uh production, UM you know,
Speaker 1: UH systems and and the best equipment and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: You know. So what what happens is when you fail
Speaker 1: to reinvest sort of on a regular basis, you're just
Speaker 1: you're just always going to be behind on on terms
Speaker 1: like that. So the Koreans, you know, in some ways
Speaker 1: or probably ahead of the Japanese for the fact that
Speaker 1: they spend all the money more recently. So buy or lease? Uh,
Speaker 1: there are situations where leases are a good idea. UM.
Speaker 1: The UH it's mostly like when you know it's a
Speaker 1: business purchase and you can write them. UH. It's also
Speaker 1: a good idea in the sense that if you're uh
Speaker 1: you have to be concerned about your monthly payment that
Speaker 1: it's gonna cost you less, but you know it's it's
Speaker 1: it's slightly somewhat more worth it to buy than lease
Speaker 1: if you're just if you're just a private citizen, you
Speaker 1: know you will have more money left at the end,
Speaker 1: even if it costs you more per month. UH. And
Speaker 1: then you also you own your car, and that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's worth whatever it's it's worth. The one of the
Speaker 1: trends in the industry that uh, you know, the average
Speaker 1: person may not be aware of. UH. Is that because
Speaker 1: cars have gotten more expensive, UM significantly really in the
Speaker 1: last ten years. Is that least terms UH and UM
Speaker 1: are and and car loans are going out much further
Speaker 1: so because often people would be way upside down for
Speaker 1: a long time, UH and have and monthly unaffordable monthly payments.
Speaker 1: So you have uh six and seven year leases and
Speaker 1: and you know car loans now which were unheard of.
Speaker 1: You know certainly what you know UM in the in
Speaker 1: the last century. You know, in part because you know
Speaker 1: your car probably wasn't gonna last six or seven years. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're used the smart shopper buys a two year old,
Speaker 1: low mileage off lease car from from a dealer in
Speaker 1: terms of probably the least hassle. But but the first
Speaker 1: two years r when the big depreciation happens. And most cars,
Speaker 1: you know, if they have twenty miles on them, have
Speaker 1: a ton of life left, So that would be the
Speaker 1: the smart move. Do you buy a certified or uncertified
Speaker 1: if you can afford it. Certified, it's good. It's just
Speaker 1: less hassle, more seamless operation, and uh, you know you
Speaker 1: have a warranty. That's that's usually is very good for
Speaker 1: a long time. That's a certainly a growing segment of
Speaker 1: sales or certified cars. Okay, used to be the rule,
Speaker 1: don't buy a car first year they changed the model. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there's probably some validity to that, although they
Speaker 1: you know, they have a generally have a pretty good
Speaker 1: idea of what's good and bad about a new car.
Speaker 1: But in this century, certainly with the explosion in electronics
Speaker 1: and cars, there are a lot of cars that were
Speaker 1: being sold that they hadn't figured out the bugs yet.
Speaker 1: The Sea class Mercedes early in the century, I mean
Speaker 1: they were they were still writing code for those back
Speaker 1: in in short guard while cars were here on their
Speaker 1: flat bed way on their way back to the dealers
Speaker 1: for you know, inexplicable problems that were related to unfinished code,
Speaker 1: UM and faulty code and things like that. So, uh,
Speaker 1: cars are being asked to do so many more things
Speaker 1: now that um um there. There's just a lot to do.
Speaker 1: And of course the Germans wanted, who are very competitive
Speaker 1: with each other. The minute one of them enters a
Speaker 1: new market segment, Uh, they all follow. It's it's like clockwork. Uh,
Speaker 1: they have a lot, you know, they're stretched. It's pretty thin. Okay,
Speaker 1: what about Tesla, Well, you know a noble uh project.
Speaker 1: You know, it's you know, good cars. I would say, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, great in some respects uh that for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: I've never been like, you know, a true believer like I'm.
Speaker 1: They don't excite me. I don't aspire to own one.
Speaker 1: At the same time, I admire them great for what
Speaker 1: they proved could be done. And I also I'm not
Speaker 1: a true hater, which the automotive world is pretty much
Speaker 1: split up between Tesla drives UH car companies, but particularly
Speaker 1: American car companies crazy because you know, four in GM
Speaker 1: can they can make billions of dollars of profit and
Speaker 1: their stock goes down and Tesla is you know, is
Speaker 1: its market cap is higher than GM some days and
Speaker 1: they don't you know, they haven't made a profit really ever,
Speaker 1: except by selling tax credits. They don't sell you know,
Speaker 1: like a fraction of the cars. And yet people give
Speaker 1: them all the breaks. So the car companies, you know,
Speaker 1: being an American car executive has basically been kind of
Speaker 1: like uh uh you know, some kind of slow form
Speaker 1: of water torture for the last forgetting Tesla fan, I'm
Speaker 1: not as sympathetic to the car manufacturers in America as
Speaker 1: you are. They've consistently refused to make change. So at
Speaker 1: this point they're hanging it out in suv Land. As
Speaker 1: soon as the bubble bursts, they're fucked. Yeah. I mean, Bob,
Speaker 1: I you're a pal, So I won't I won't take
Speaker 1: offense at that remark that UM, I'm I've been you know,
Speaker 1: I've been complaining about how stupid they are since i
Speaker 1: first started UM. In an up end in the l
Speaker 1: A Times, I predicted GM's bankruptcy following its uh most
Speaker 1: profitable quarter ever. UM and Automobile Magazine refused to run it,
Speaker 1: and Uh I was able to. I said that what
Speaker 1: we see here is is that they are not UM
Speaker 1: they've given up on cars. Uh, they hadn't given up
Speaker 1: like they've given up now. But it was the exact
Speaker 1: same thing, and all their money was coming from SUVs
Speaker 1: and pickup trucks, and one of three things we're gonna happen,
Speaker 1: or some combination of uh, you know, the there'd be
Speaker 1: a gas crisis and it would be a problem. Uh,
Speaker 1: there would be Japanese competition, you know that they were
Speaker 1: going to just catch up and make SUVs and pickup trucks. Uh,
Speaker 1: and the fashion would change and all of that came
Speaker 1: to pass in the ten years later when uh, you know,
Speaker 1: in the early two thousands were of course rocky, but
Speaker 1: when they went bankrupt. Okay, so let's talk about a first.
Speaker 1: Let's break it down a little bit, the shift to
Speaker 1: electric How do you see that playing out slower than
Speaker 1: um we might hope. I mean, I should start by
Speaker 1: saying that I was never anti electric, but I was
Speaker 1: sort of skeptical, and then I actually got to spend
Speaker 1: time with electric cars and they can be great. Uh.
Speaker 1: And uh I had actually an electric Volkswagen Golf for
Speaker 1: a year in New York. I put fifteen thousand miles
Speaker 1: on it. I calculated I skipped fifty five separate trips
Speaker 1: to the gas station, which was you know, its own reward. Um.
Speaker 1: And I loved it. Uh. And it didn't even have
Speaker 1: the big ranges that cars have now. Uh, there's something
Speaker 1: about being an electric car that's so relaxed. Seeing you've
Speaker 1: drive through some horrible traffic and you're you know, a
Speaker 1: distance to get somewhere and you just get out. You're
Speaker 1: not hearing that, you know of an engine for uh,
Speaker 1: you know, an hour or two. Is is really makes
Speaker 1: you feel better? So it's it's quite luxurious in that sense. Um,
Speaker 1: but I think that uh, the internationally there certainly is
Speaker 1: a huge push for that to happen. It probably has
Speaker 1: to happen, you know, it's beyond argument. Although if you
Speaker 1: this was a call in show, we'd have eleven Yeah,
Speaker 1: who's waiting in this agreement? Me? But I'm not interested
Speaker 1: in them? But uh, but it's beyond argument that the
Speaker 1: electric cars are more efficient. Even if you live in
Speaker 1: a state that burns coal, you're still better off in
Speaker 1: an electric car than you are buying gasoline. And of course,
Speaker 1: you know, the oil companies people when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: you know, people used to go, well, and you know,
Speaker 1: in the seventies like what what's worse like the GM
Speaker 1: or XI mobile and people go, I don't know, you know. Now,
Speaker 1: to me, it's clear that the oil companies are the
Speaker 1: evil list of of the evil corporate actors, worse even
Speaker 1: than the car companies, who are you know, amazingly bad themselves.
Speaker 1: But the wild companies were the words so so starving
Speaker 1: them of of money for gasoline is uh is would
Speaker 1: be a fine, you know thing to do with your life.
Speaker 1: So when does the fleet go all electric? I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, increasingly. And it's hard to tell what
Speaker 1: the effect of Trump has been, which has been, you know,
Speaker 1: completely negative on the world in every respect. But um,
Speaker 1: the people used to think it was going to happen
Speaker 1: like next year and the year after that. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: I think we'll be seeing uh, internal combustion engines. I
Speaker 1: see engines or i c e. As they call them,
Speaker 1: uh into the you know, Uh, I don't mean we'll
Speaker 1: see uh, we won't see a lot more electrics. I
Speaker 1: could say, I could see thirty When will they stop manufacturing?
Speaker 1: Volkswagen has said that they're gonna stop designing anymore now,
Speaker 1: but nobody necessarily believes that, but they have that. Volvo
Speaker 1: said that they're gonna go all electric. Um and uh,
Speaker 1: but their first electric car is a hybrid with a
Speaker 1: gas engine and a big battery pack, so the poll
Speaker 1: Star one. But so so I would say that, you know,
Speaker 1: you will see more and more electric cars. You know.
Speaker 1: The what's lacking is infrastructural investment, you know, charging stations
Speaker 1: and more of them, and you see hopeful signs. I
Speaker 1: think it was Shell said they were going to spend
Speaker 1: five billion dollars to put charging stations into shell stations. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I have every confidence in the oil industry that
Speaker 1: they will whatever the next fuel sources, because um hydrogen
Speaker 1: is not dead yet uh and fuel cells, UH, that
Speaker 1: that whatever happens, that the oil companies will figure out
Speaker 1: a way to sell it to us. Yeah. I mean they'll, they'll, they'll. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's go drill down to Trump. He on an
Speaker 1: environmental level, he's battling the state of California. How did
Speaker 1: you see that playing out? I don't know, sadly. A
Speaker 1: lot of it I think has to do with the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. But I see a lot of uh, positive
Speaker 1: futures in states standing up that you know, are for
Speaker 1: cleaning up the air against them. So I think it's
Speaker 1: going to go on and on and on. But when
Speaker 1: he's replaced, I think that a a more sensible administration,
Speaker 1: even a Republican one. I mean, he is, he is beyond,
Speaker 1: absolutely beyond the pale. I mean, George Bush was terrible
Speaker 1: for the environment, Dick Cheney and fracking, which just led
Speaker 1: to a kind of a third win for gasoline powered
Speaker 1: cars and cheap us and all that kind of stuff. Uh.
Speaker 1: Even he you know, cleaned up diesel in America, not
Speaker 1: to a point where it's actually good for you, but
Speaker 1: it's it's was way less bad than it was. Uh Trump,
Speaker 1: It's not that he's just against regulation. You get the feeling.
Speaker 1: You start getting the feeling that he's for pollution. He's
Speaker 1: actively for it and if there's anything he can do
Speaker 1: to make the air dirtier, he'll he'll do it. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's uh, that's pretty dispiriting. Um. People at the
Speaker 1: e p A Are like, if you could even get
Speaker 1: somebody to talk to you, their shell shocked, um and
Speaker 1: keeping their heads down, you know, waiting for him to
Speaker 1: go because Um, it's put the United States really out
Speaker 1: of step with the rest of the world. It's actually
Speaker 1: put American makers, who were embracing it at a competitive
Speaker 1: disadvantage in the world, certainly China, Electric Volkswagen World. We're
Speaker 1: you know, we are paddling to third world status is
Speaker 1: as hard as we can. Okay, what about self driving also, Uh,
Speaker 1: their imminence has been greatly overstated. I would say they're
Speaker 1: they're gonna come, but there's so many issues involved with
Speaker 1: them that um it is uh, you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: a lot further out. I mean, Tesla predicted that they
Speaker 1: would have one in two thousands, seventeen and this year,
Speaker 1: and it's now, it's going to be in a few months,
Speaker 1: and they're still not as self driving as they were
Speaker 1: supposed to be. You have to have a driver. A
Speaker 1: lot of UH companies have have gone back to the
Speaker 1: drawing board to think about it harder. Now there, I
Speaker 1: think it will happen, but it is one of those
Speaker 1: things that really leads you to wonder, like, you know,
Speaker 1: is it really worth it in a in a in
Speaker 1: a sort of scarcity environment, even with the huge deficits
Speaker 1: were ready to run now, like, do we really want
Speaker 1: to be investing what has to be trillions of dollars
Speaker 1: in making it so people can like party in their car?
Speaker 1: And um, well, I don't. Look, I don't have the
Speaker 1: same perspective. I believe these things are inevitable. I believe
Speaker 1: you'll call up a vehicle. No one will own a vehicle.
Speaker 1: It's just about the time. Oh yeah, I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that they're not. But the reality is is
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of negative things about that.
Speaker 1: An interesting analysis in Business Week saying yes, if we
Speaker 1: go to driverless cars, they're gonna be some accidents and
Speaker 1: they're gonna kill some people. But if you don't go
Speaker 1: to driverless cars, which on some levels are much safer,
Speaker 1: we're gonna kill more people because people are getting killed
Speaker 1: and we're still gonna have to go through this. We will,
Speaker 1: we will find out about that. I think the accidents
Speaker 1: will be uh more spectacular in some ways. You know,
Speaker 1: twelve hundred people exit the Jersey Turnpike to go to
Speaker 1: the same parking spot McDonald's at a hundred and ten
Speaker 1: miles an hour, then uh and six hundred people die.
Speaker 1: But we'll we'll, we'll find out about that. Um and
Speaker 1: I agree with you that it's gonna happen. But in
Speaker 1: the process, what's getting short shrift is mass transit, Like
Speaker 1: where's all the money for the subways to fix the
Speaker 1: and build trains which remain more efficient. It's great if
Speaker 1: everybody is in there little pod, but if you still
Speaker 1: have everybody a little pod, there's still gonna be more
Speaker 1: traffic and more energy consumption than there would be if
Speaker 1: people rode a clean bus or a well, no one's
Speaker 1: gonna ride the bus because it takes so long trains
Speaker 1: are an interesting thing, certainly in the metropolis. They're not
Speaker 1: being improved because no one wants to pay taxes. But
Speaker 1: keep going here. How many cars do you presently own?
Speaker 1: I own an embarrassingly large number, but somewhere around uh
Speaker 1: twenty three I think, which is actually down from what
Speaker 1: it was. But I have an excuse that. Um. I
Speaker 1: started a picture car business in New York and uh,
Speaker 1: which we hope to go national. We're working with the
Speaker 1: classic car insurance company Haggardy UH and we've been doing
Speaker 1: um um Mrs Mazel and uh Deduce and other TV
Speaker 1: shows around. Anyway, we have a database of thousands of
Speaker 1: cars and we supply old cars. So okay, but let's
Speaker 1: forget their cars. You have twenty three cars? What are they?
Speaker 1: They're nothing that I would recommend to. Uh, So what
Speaker 1: are they people? UM? I have Launchia and some Fulvia
Speaker 1: UM and a Flavia Uh that's dead. I have a
Speaker 1: bunch of Poe's and mg s and uh Lotus Cortina
Speaker 1: and Volvo old Volvos and um some Jaguars and uh
Speaker 1: you know where are they're in? Uh in New York
Speaker 1: back not in the city, but in a big garage
Speaker 1: and a bunch of them are sort of in pieces
Speaker 1: and shops around the area. Okay, and how does one
Speaker 1: deal in terms of driving? How does the insurance work? Well?
Speaker 1: Through Haggardy, But there's other carriers, there's Classic Car insurance.
Speaker 1: It's very cheap. So for all those cars, the total
Speaker 1: insurance bill is probably like four thousand bucks a year. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: because you know, you're their limitations on use. You could
Speaker 1: only go miles a year. But like, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I'm lucky if I get a thousand on on some
Speaker 1: of them. Um, and uh, you can't you know, drive that.
Speaker 1: You're not supposed to drive them to work. You're not
Speaker 1: supposed to uh uh you know, um commuting them and
Speaker 1: things like that. But uh but yeah, no, it's a
Speaker 1: really it's a really sensible option for somebody to Okay,
Speaker 1: so what's your test cars? I get a different car
Speaker 1: dropped off every week to my house and they pick
Speaker 1: it up at the end of the week. Every week,
Speaker 1: every single week. Yeah, I probably drive like well, sometimes
Speaker 1: they have two. It's like se I probably new cars
Speaker 1: a year. I actually dropped off an Audi A seven
Speaker 1: at the airport when I came here, and I'm picking
Speaker 1: up a Jeep Gladiator, which is the new ge pick
Speaker 1: up based on the Wrangler. When I get back to town,
Speaker 1: let's assume you drive into one. Do you necessarily right
Speaker 1: about each one? No? No, they don't care. Uh they might.
Speaker 1: You know, there's certain cars like if you ask for
Speaker 1: a nine eleven turbo and then didn't do anything, they'd
Speaker 1: remember that. But who is they companies that to all
Speaker 1: the companies they're all at the airport generally have a well,
Speaker 1: they have fleet managers who are approximate to major cities
Speaker 1: and often to airports. Uh. And they you know, they
Speaker 1: drop them off, pick them up. They'll either drop him
Speaker 1: at the airport, they'll pick up drop him at your house.
Speaker 1: They'll pick up one before. So there's four or five
Speaker 1: companies in New York that do that. So you deal
Speaker 1: with them and the companies themselves. Okay, so what are
Speaker 1: some companies? What are Since you drive so many cars,
Speaker 1: your personal experience big winners, big losers? Uh? In what sense?
Speaker 1: Personal satisfaction? Oh? Um? I love, I love um sports
Speaker 1: cars that are uh, nimble and on the smaller side.
Speaker 1: I love. My most exciting car of of two thousand
Speaker 1: nineteen was the New Lotus of Oura GT for thirty
Speaker 1: or something like that. Just awesome car. UM. I drove
Speaker 1: a Ford that's been discontinued in America, the Fiesta RS
Speaker 1: in France, uh in September for a week and it
Speaker 1: was fabulous. And they made a terrible mistake and not
Speaker 1: bring the car to America. In my view, um, you know,
Speaker 1: better than the car that we had and loved before it. Um.
Speaker 1: So those those were h two standouts. UM, but you know,
Speaker 1: you drive some The new poll Star was very impressive. UM.
Speaker 1: And you drive you know, I mean how you know
Speaker 1: what gear head wouldn't want to drive a McLaren or Ferrari.
Speaker 1: You know they're awesome. But uh so those have been great.
Speaker 1: But I actually, um, I'm really interested in the bottom
Speaker 1: end of the market, so I drive, you know, the
Speaker 1: cheap cars too, and and I'm often really impressed by
Speaker 1: Oh gosh. Uh. I really liked the Honda Clarity, which
Speaker 1: is a hybrid. It's a hybrid. There's also a fuel
Speaker 1: cell version, but in California, and they've sold six or
Speaker 1: something like that. They don't really want to sell them.
Speaker 1: Um and uh. I drove the new Civic Sin that
Speaker 1: was pretty pretty fun. Um and UM gosh, Uh what else?
Speaker 1: The M two was great? Uh? The BMW so yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's I just had a The Jeep Wrangler
Speaker 1: the other week, and I had initially lukewarm reaction to it.
Speaker 1: I thought it was it was a lot better than
Speaker 1: I thought. Actually, by coincidence, I was delivering to uh
Speaker 1: the set of an Apple TV show a G sixty
Speaker 1: three Galanda bag and Mercedes from two thou eighteen, which
Speaker 1: is it's actually been updated and is better since that.
Speaker 1: But in every respect except like straight it had speed
Speaker 1: and the quality of the materials. The Jeep was more
Speaker 1: pleasant than the Mercedes was, which cost trip all the money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the Mercedes was always considered a joke. It was
Speaker 1: you know, people bought those for status, but no one
Speaker 1: ever said they were a smooth rod or a car
Speaker 1: where they were wor smoother. Before somebody had the idea
Speaker 1: of putting them on twenty three inch wheels with seven
Speaker 1: hundred horsepower engine in them, which is just like the
Speaker 1: stupidest idea in the world. People don't know about the
Speaker 1: Glanda Vagum that it was actually the show of Iran's idea.
Speaker 1: He went to Mercedes and said, if you could build
Speaker 1: me something that was sort of like this. Um we
Speaker 1: we we would buy them from me for our army,
Speaker 1: and so they did. It was originally kind of a
Speaker 1: military vehicle and then but it was much more more
Speaker 1: austere and you know, sort of work vehicle. Then just
Speaker 1: a style in vehicle. So are you a car person
Speaker 1: or a music manager? First? Uh? I like to say
Speaker 1: I divide my time music eight percent, uh cars. So
Speaker 1: I have a fractured social life. My you know, my
Speaker 1: family is often piste off at me because I'm in right,
Speaker 1: I have to write, you know, at night or over
Speaker 1: the weekend to make it happen. But they actually dovetail
Speaker 1: really nicely. Um. I always remembered when I was managing
Speaker 1: okay go um we were at Capitol Records, and you know,
Speaker 1: the person who was really gonna make something happen was
Speaker 1: the then president, Andy Slayter, who was you know, friendly
Speaker 1: guy we uh we shared uh, a lawyer who was
Speaker 1: a dear friend of both of ours. But he, you know,
Speaker 1: he was a busy guy and and and had a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff to do. And you know, in the
Speaker 1: in the major label business, you know, how much attention
Speaker 1: and executive can pay to you is you know is
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps properly but but certainly typically is allocated
Speaker 1: based on like how many records have you sold? And
Speaker 1: if I just wanted to go in and talk to
Speaker 1: him about my band, I might not get that much time.
Speaker 1: But if I said, hey, Andy, you know at the
Speaker 1: new DV nine aston outside and uh we could, I
Speaker 1: could get him in the car for two or three
Speaker 1: hours and you know we could we could talk some business. Um.
Speaker 1: So that was often I found the job of the
Speaker 1: manager's figure out what floated somebody's boat, and some people
Speaker 1: were really into cars. And it was also just you know,
Speaker 1: convenient because like, uh, I'd be getting flown out to
Speaker 1: l A to a car launch and then I could
Speaker 1: go meet all the labels that I probably wouldn't have
Speaker 1: gotten to if it was up to my bands to
Speaker 1: buy me a ticket or for me to buy my Okay,
Speaker 1: so today, who are you working with? We're working with
Speaker 1: they might be giants. Um. We work with a band
Speaker 1: called the rad Traads, who are a rock and combo
Speaker 1: largely out of New York. Right now, Uh that two brothers,
Speaker 1: theve Adams um from Chicago. We were Cuban Americans or
Speaker 1: the the kind of it was. It was their thing.
Speaker 1: But um that's that's about it. Um and uh, I
Speaker 1: probably spend less time doing that, and the people who
Speaker 1: work in the management business spend more time doing a
Speaker 1: lot of that stuff, a lot of stuff, and managing
Speaker 1: bands is sort of ministerial. Um and uh I guess
Speaker 1: I realized that, um, I really didn't have anymore what
Speaker 1: it took to be going out to rock clubs at
Speaker 1: one o'clock in the morning and East Brooklyn to see
Speaker 1: bands that we're never gat a record deal, uh never
Speaker 1: gat a publishing deal. And uh you know that life
Speaker 1: was was you know, short enough that um I just
Speaker 1: I just didn't have, uh that that to break. So
Speaker 1: how did you get into music management to begin with? Um?
Speaker 1: I was um uh Well, the the short, long story
Speaker 1: is I went to an alternative high school, which was
Speaker 1: the thing in the seventies, sort of a hangover from
Speaker 1: Summer Hill and those experiments. And it was a public school,
Speaker 1: but we had classes. We had some core teachers, but
Speaker 1: we also had classes that were taught by townspeople in
Speaker 1: the town of Leoni in New Jersey. As it happened,
Speaker 1: the guy who a young or guy who rented the
Speaker 1: house the cottage behind the house that was next door,
Speaker 1: which was like a converted garage was a uh record
Speaker 1: uh a. And our guy at Columbia, his name was
Speaker 1: Tom Merman, who went on to be Mr Producer. Great
Speaker 1: she did Nugent now runs A B and B in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: I've stayed there really Yeah, so in any case, he was, uh,
Speaker 1: we we did this class. This is probably in nineteen
Speaker 1: five or four, and um at the end of it,
Speaker 1: he said, you know, there's like sixteen kids in this class,
Speaker 1: and really only two of them have any business thinking
Speaker 1: about a career in the music business. But you're one
Speaker 1: of them. And uh so, um he was. He was
Speaker 1: sort of was like halfway between my parents age and me,
Speaker 1: and he was cool, you know, um and uh So.
Speaker 1: I sort of took that to heart and kind of
Speaker 1: kept my eyes and years open. I went I worked
Speaker 1: at newspapers for a couple of years. After I got
Speaker 1: out of college, I went to h law school, and
Speaker 1: I guess the summer my first year in law school,
Speaker 1: I was down in New York clerking um and uh
Speaker 1: for the state Attorney General and uh a friend of
Speaker 1: mine from college invited me to see this these guys.
Speaker 1: He was working with, and it was the band they
Speaker 1: might be Giants, who I thought were great. They were like,
Speaker 1: if you took away the guest list, there were negative
Speaker 1: three people. He was in Hell's Kitchen when it was
Speaker 1: really shitty and uh um. But they reminded me of
Speaker 1: the Everly Brothers. They sang incredible harmonies together, which was
Speaker 1: super uncool incidentally when I was in high school to
Speaker 1: be in the Everly Brothers, but I was. And I
Speaker 1: also liked the Four Seasons and the Bgs and some
Speaker 1: other things along with the more traditional fair um and
Speaker 1: so I was kind of a harmony guy and I
Speaker 1: could just see they had that, and so I sort
Speaker 1: of made it my business to befriend them, and over
Speaker 1: the next couple of years, while I was finishing law school,
Speaker 1: UM I would give them free legal advice. And because
Speaker 1: I sort of came from a media background, my dad
Speaker 1: was television critic in New York for thirty seven years,
Speaker 1: um I UM, and I had worked at newspapers. I
Speaker 1: sort of understood how press worked and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and I kind of ended up getting like a permanent
Speaker 1: ability to put people on their guest list. And uh
Speaker 1: so I did that a lot and then while living
Speaker 1: the rest of my life. And then um, I I
Speaker 1: knew this guy. His name was Art Lugoff, who owned
Speaker 1: a great famous jazz club in New York called the
Speaker 1: Village Gate, and Um, he he was a neighbor and
Speaker 1: friends sort of friends with my parents from the kind
Speaker 1: of like kind of left journal scene in New York
Speaker 1: and the Village Gate in the middle late nine eighties
Speaker 1: was um suffering from the fact that interest in jazz
Speaker 1: had really was declining, and he'd have shows that were
Speaker 1: you know, I remember going to see the Dirty Dozen
Speaker 1: Brass Band there and there were you know, like fifteen
Speaker 1: Japanese tourists and me and my friend I was in.
Speaker 1: So he was he was like one day he's like, hey, kid,
Speaker 1: you know, if you if you didn't bring any in here,
Speaker 1: you know, give me five hundred bucks in the bar
Speaker 1: and it's yours. So I went to the Um John
Speaker 1: and John from the MP Giants and said like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we you know you're playing for a hundred
Speaker 1: people a night in the Um East Village you know often, UM,
Speaker 1: and you know you're you're selling out these shows, and
Speaker 1: I think we could make a move to the West Village. Mean,
Speaker 1: that's what a different time it was. And they they
Speaker 1: were like, you know, and and we could go do
Speaker 1: this show at the Village Gate and it wouldn't cost
Speaker 1: us but five hundred bucks and then the rest of
Speaker 1: the money's hours. And they were like, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: if you want to do that, you can do that,
Speaker 1: but we don't. We're not. We get a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty dollars at night, that's their deal, and pay us
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty dollars and you know, you know, we'll
Speaker 1: do We'll show up. So we uh. They're live. Sound
Speaker 1: guy who was the friend who introduced me to them
Speaker 1: and who ended up producing their first records. He he
Speaker 1: agreed to go partner with me on this show and
Speaker 1: we we you know, we took ads uh and it
Speaker 1: was going well and then through no fall to our
Speaker 1: own um the New York Times wrote a preview story
Speaker 1: and we ended up um UM selling like, you know,
Speaker 1: eight hundred tickets and at the end of the night
Speaker 1: we were at backstage sitting there with um you know,
Speaker 1: thousands and thou eight thousand dollars, seven thousand dollars something
Speaker 1: like that, more money than I'd ever seen in my
Speaker 1: life in in cash and Uh. I was like, you guys,
Speaker 1: gotta take some of this money. And they were like, no,
Speaker 1: you know, we've made a deal. It's a hundred fifty
Speaker 1: dollars a night, which was very menshi of them. And
Speaker 1: uh for and we had done two shows and uh,
Speaker 1: but do you want to be a manager? And I
Speaker 1: was like, yes, I do. So I had recently, Um,
Speaker 1: I had clerk for a judge after law school. I
Speaker 1: was the clerk for the Chief Justice of the New
Speaker 1: Jersey Supreme Court, which was suddenly took a my mediocre
Speaker 1: law career and made me really employable. And I had
Speaker 1: the previous summer. Uh, Matt also started selling stories to
Speaker 1: Automobile Magazine and I had persuaded them then and their owner,
Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch then to send me to every baseball park
Speaker 1: in America and at Corvette Roadster in the summer of
Speaker 1: eight six, culminating in uh the World Series between the
Speaker 1: Mats and the Red Sox, which I got to see
Speaker 1: it every game of which is awesome. I saw the
Speaker 1: your game. I was there. Uh and um. But in
Speaker 1: any case, UM, while I was doing that, I had
Speaker 1: this epiphany. I had accepted a job back in New
Speaker 1: York at a fancy firm, and I also accepted another
Speaker 1: job working for the new Jersey State Attorney General. And uh,
Speaker 1: I had to decide which when I was actually going
Speaker 1: a job for, and then it had an epiphany that
Speaker 1: I should show up for neither one. Pulled over the
Speaker 1: side of the road in Utah and called from They
Speaker 1: used to have pay phones that you could call from
Speaker 1: your car, low pay phones, and I called and I
Speaker 1: was like, I can't be there on Monday, and they
Speaker 1: were like what, and you know, they were like Tuesday.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, they were like Wednesday, and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, actually never, so I never uh took those jobs.
Speaker 1: I came back and within a few months I was
Speaker 1: managing them might be giants and that went so well that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I ended up managing bands, which had it
Speaker 1: not gone well, I would have been out of the
Speaker 1: music business probably, And uh, the great thing is is
Speaker 1: that they continued to do amazing. Well. They've just put
Speaker 1: a tour up which is their best quickest selling tour
Speaker 1: in their entire career, which is awesome. You know, they
Speaker 1: get you know, millions of streams a month, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they have the most uh, and that was
Speaker 1: sort of the inside I had about them was that
Speaker 1: they would have a career as long as they felt
Speaker 1: like having a career. And and they've at many stages,
Speaker 1: you know, I've not agreed necessarily with their choices, which
Speaker 1: they like. They were kind of things they could have
Speaker 1: done that were the conventional wisdom, you should do this,
Speaker 1: you should open for this shitty band because you'll get
Speaker 1: in front of you know, ten thousand people a night
Speaker 1: instead of one thousand or two thousand. And they just
Speaker 1: just did you know, they pleased themselves. They're they're really
Speaker 1: I mean, you're right about this all the time. But
Speaker 1: they were totally real artists and they didn't care. They
Speaker 1: weren't associated with any haircut or clothes style or stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So it was like they never wasn't like
Speaker 1: they were going to go out of style because they
Speaker 1: were an in style. And uh, they have a rabid
Speaker 1: fan base you know, around the world, so they you know,
Speaker 1: they tour Europe successfully, in Japan and Australia, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's been great. I've I've between that and writing about cars,
Speaker 1: I've seen the world and um, you know, I feel
Speaker 1: pretty great that it was like, you know, my personality development,
Speaker 1: Um kind of was arrested at the age of twelve,
Speaker 1: and I have been able to spend my life going
Speaker 1: to rock shows and um driving cars. So you know,
Speaker 1: I wish I was I was heavier. So you have
Speaker 1: like decades where they might be giants. That is rare.
Speaker 1: How come they didn't fire you or have never gone on.
Speaker 1: I think in part there because they you know, uh,
Speaker 1: we liked each other. But I think, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't really you know, make you know, like real
Speaker 1: prima Donna stands that if they didn't do what I
Speaker 1: wanted them to do. I think, you know, I was
Speaker 1: I was like there, Bill Barr, you know I did.
Speaker 1: I was there ko you know, I did what they
Speaker 1: wanted to get done. And um, I was good at
Speaker 1: the business part of it, having been to law school
Speaker 1: and knowing about licenses in the early days we were
Speaker 1: you know, it was in with with indie labels. Go
Speaker 1: like c D rights. No, it doesn't say in this
Speaker 1: contract that you have the right to make this new
Speaker 1: thing called a c D. And people go like what
Speaker 1: you know, and you go like, yeah, and I went
Speaker 1: to law school too, so I must be true and
Speaker 1: they go, oh, ship And I remember going to like
Speaker 1: rough trade in England to get their first album put overseas,
Speaker 1: and they were like, here's a contract you'll have. Your
Speaker 1: lawyer looked that. I was like, oh, I am a lawyer,
Speaker 1: and they'd go like, here, don't take this contract and
Speaker 1: so uh uh so we they were just uh uh
Speaker 1: So we were able to you know, back in the
Speaker 1: days where there were territories and things like that, we
Speaker 1: were able to license stuff over and over again. And
Speaker 1: I was also I think they're most ardent cheerleader. So
Speaker 1: you know when Birdhouse and Your Soul was it was
Speaker 1: a top ten hit in England, that was down to us.
Speaker 1: You know, it was down to it being a great song,
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't have been the only great song that
Speaker 1: got ignored before. Um and so that was something that
Speaker 1: I never worked with bands that I didn't like, but
Speaker 1: um uh, if I really believed in it, it would
Speaker 1: put me in a good position to advocate for it.
Speaker 1: So we managed the band the Laws that had the
Speaker 1: great hit there she goes. But and you know, I
Speaker 1: really liked the president of London Records. He's a great guy,
Speaker 1: but he was like, how do I know this? It
Speaker 1: wasn't Roger was actually a gentleman named Peter Cupkey still
Speaker 1: who's sweet guy actually had tried to side the name
Speaker 1: of Giants to Atlantic and um, but he was you know,
Speaker 1: he was necessarily nervous because that was the mood at
Speaker 1: PolyGram and he was like, well, how do I know
Speaker 1: it's It's like, how do you know it's a hit?
Speaker 1: I mean like, this is probably one of the greatest
Speaker 1: songs ever and it's of course it's a hit, and
Speaker 1: it's already hit in England, so like, you know, that's
Speaker 1: pretty easy to figure out. And so yeah, and it
Speaker 1: was a hit and not as big a hit as
Speaker 1: it should have been, but uh, because they didn't want
Speaker 1: to spend the money on top forty radio and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. And of course the laws were insane themselves,
Speaker 1: but which didn't make it any easier. But that was
Speaker 1: you know, I mean like believing in something. Uh is
Speaker 1: you know that that right off the bat makes the
Speaker 1: difference between of effective manager and ineffective one. I think, Um,
Speaker 1: they you know, but they were the John's were always uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we worked with a lot of great bands.
Speaker 1: We've managed the Meat Puppets and Yola Tango and uh,
Speaker 1: the Laws we did Edwyn Collins when he had to
Speaker 1: hit the United States. We just looked after him in
Speaker 1: the States, and uh Fredy Johnston, who was great. And
Speaker 1: so why is it in because you know, for most
Speaker 1: managers it ends at some point, what's what happens there? Uh? Well, uh,
Speaker 1: in a couple of cases, Uh, basically, uh, people decided
Speaker 1: to manage themselves. Uh. Really a terrible mistake. I mean
Speaker 1: I'm always like, you know what, like find another manager,
Speaker 1: Let's find you a good manager that you like better.
Speaker 1: But h but don't not manage yourself. That's you know,
Speaker 1: it's just like the the if a manager is not
Speaker 1: making their fifteen or uh for you, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like it's rare. I mean, that would be a really
Speaker 1: bad All it takes is somebody to call up and say,
Speaker 1: you know for a baby band, you know, you want
Speaker 1: five hundred bucks for this gig, or we'll give you
Speaker 1: five hundred bucks. You get it up to seven fifty dollars,
Speaker 1: you've paid for your commission and then so uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's really shortsighted. There's also too many jobs for a
Speaker 1: band to do. If if they think that they have
Speaker 1: the time to keep their books and to book their
Speaker 1: gigs and do all this ministerial work that is, you know,
Speaker 1: get the visas and stuff like that. Then you know,
Speaker 1: that is anti art, that's the anti creativity. And so
Speaker 1: that was one of the things with the Johnson I
Speaker 1: think they were I was liberating to them, is I
Speaker 1: was like, quit your fucking jobs, you know, like that
Speaker 1: was like the first thing that they did when they
Speaker 1: got a manager, even though they had been successfully running
Speaker 1: their own operation. That's one reason that it kept going
Speaker 1: is that, I mean, they're both like brilliant guys, but um,
Speaker 1: one of them in particular was just like I mean,
Speaker 1: he he was indefatigable and and they really really wanted it,
Speaker 1: and he and they wanted it on their terms. And
Speaker 1: when I meet bands where there's no you know, but
Speaker 1: nobody has megalomaniacal tendencies, nobody thinks that the world will
Speaker 1: be a sadder place if they're not in front of
Speaker 1: three thousand people or ten thousand people, you know, shaking
Speaker 1: their ass um then there's a band that's probably not
Speaker 1: going anywhere. You know. It takes that in in so
Speaker 1: many areas of life, somebody who really really really really
Speaker 1: really cares and they don't if you want to tell
Speaker 1: me I suck. You know you're wrong. You know I'll
Speaker 1: prove to you you're wrong. And that's you know, obviously,
Speaker 1: being on kind of a left of center artists, there's
Speaker 1: lots of people who want to tell you you suck,
Speaker 1: even when you know minutes after they tell you that
Speaker 1: they did it. You know, I remember trying to sign
Speaker 1: them to a major label after they've had success at
Speaker 1: alternative radio and MTV and people calling, oh, those guys,
Speaker 1: I I love them even when I hated them, you know,
Speaker 1: or uh and so yeah, okay, before we go, just
Speaker 1: a couple of quick car questions. Bentley's Rolls Royce worth
Speaker 1: it unique cars basically gussied up Volkswagen. What do we
Speaker 1: got there? Well, I mean they are, uh well, Rolls
Speaker 1: Royce is a gussied at BMW and Bentley's guess a
Speaker 1: volks It. The thing is is that Volkswagen and BMW
Speaker 1: are you know, among, if not the greatest UH car
Speaker 1: companies in the world, and so their technology when they
Speaker 1: let you pull out all the stops is pretty awesome. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's sort of perverse that these
Speaker 1: two English companies were bought by Germans, right, uh, but
Speaker 1: and they very much um, you know, try to preserve
Speaker 1: parts of their Britishness. But at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: you feel German all over them, which is you know,
Speaker 1: that's really no bad thing. But as I say, for
Speaker 1: your money, are you getting something? No, I think really
Speaker 1: somewhere probably now I used to say fifty thousand, but
Speaker 1: now it's probably more like seventy or eighty thousand. You
Speaker 1: stop really getting any benefit other than whatever the perceived
Speaker 1: status advantages or things like that. Okay, let's go to
Speaker 1: the other end. The Ferraris, Lamborghinis, McLaren's. What's the best
Speaker 1: of that? ILK, I probably, I probably like the Ferraris
Speaker 1: the best. But they're all so much more competent and
Speaker 1: and reliable and safe than they were. But they're just
Speaker 1: you know, uh, to me, they don't they're not really
Speaker 1: what UM turns me on and I find as there.
Speaker 1: You know, they used to be quite rare, and now
Speaker 1: you know they they've been bought by companies that have
Speaker 1: the ability to sell five thousand of them a year
Speaker 1: instead of you know, three hundred or nine hundred or
Speaker 1: two thousand. UM that they're they're common and to me
Speaker 1: they're just kind of a little embarrassing. Um. The I
Speaker 1: was in Hamburg with a friend who's a car guy
Speaker 1: who's driving me around, and he said, I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: you to Russian Street and I was like, what's Russian Street.
Speaker 1: He's the street where all the Lamborghinis are. And they're
Speaker 1: all these you know, like you know, rich Russians, you know,
Speaker 1: and you know, hanging out in front of their Lamborghinis
Speaker 1: and they did you know, and you see that in London,
Speaker 1: um on the Edgeware Road, you see, you know, the
Speaker 1: the mirror plated Lamborghinis and and uh Ferraris and you
Speaker 1: know it's just you know, it's just it's just vulgar
Speaker 1: really to me. But you know, I I celebrate automotive diversity,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think whatever people want to do,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, for the time being, that's what they
Speaker 1: ought to do, you know, any future for Aston Martin
Speaker 1: Busin this week this week we're just talking about the
Speaker 1: stock is. Yeah. Well, you know it's it's they have
Speaker 1: a really bold plan, which is you know, one part real,
Speaker 1: you know, two parts fairy dust. So uh, I think
Speaker 1: they're they're smart guys, and you know, it's really it's
Speaker 1: given how you know, you know, all these companies like
Speaker 1: to the fact that they survived. I've survived. Aston Martin
Speaker 1: has been around almost a hundred years and you know
Speaker 1: they've never sold that many cars, Uh, is a miracle
Speaker 1: and um and so you know, I kind of wish
Speaker 1: them all the best. Building a brand that that means anything,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's a multibillion dollar undertaking. If you
Speaker 1: were to try now, you know, twenty billion dollars wouldn't
Speaker 1: be even to begin to be enough to to actually
Speaker 1: make a brand that anyone cared about. And then you
Speaker 1: know they wouldn't care about it the way they care
Speaker 1: about Aston Martin. So I always say brand is a
Speaker 1: terrible thing to waste, and I think that, um, they
Speaker 1: you know, I wish them every success. And you know,
Speaker 1: the difficulty is is that as technology changes that the
Speaker 1: investments that are required to be relevant are phenomenal. So
Speaker 1: what you see, you know, Aston has partnered a lot
Speaker 1: with Mercedes to use a lot of their engines and
Speaker 1: you know, various things and when it comes to autonomous
Speaker 1: cars and electric power, so you're gonna see I think,
Speaker 1: you know, though, they will become effectively parts of bigger
Speaker 1: cod Okay, what's the next merger. Well, the one that is,
Speaker 1: it's been they're working towards it is the U P
Speaker 1: s A, which is Burgo and f C A, which
Speaker 1: is Fiat Chrysler. So P s A is now UH
Speaker 1: Persia Sito and um um Opal which they bought from
Speaker 1: General Motors and ironically um it turned to profit after
Speaker 1: twenty losing years within six months of being got uh
Speaker 1: so um that that's going to be a big one.
Speaker 1: That will create the world's fourth largest carmaker. That's exciting
Speaker 1: to contemplate for fans of any of those brands that
Speaker 1: are are planning to come back to the United States.
Speaker 1: Um okay, but it's like, say, well, we see further
Speaker 1: and further consolidation. I think we will. In Japan, there's
Speaker 1: pretty much the Toyota orbit, which is UM Toyota, Subaru,
Speaker 1: uh Suzuki I think is working with them, and UH
Speaker 1: Mazda is also doing a lot of stuff with Toyota.
Speaker 1: And then there's the Nissan world, which is Nissan and Mitsubishi,
Speaker 1: UM and UH. I think that those companies could end
Speaker 1: up being intertwined more. And I think that, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that that we could see. I think it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be the weirdest thing in the world to see the
Speaker 1: American companies end up merging with somebody else. I think
Speaker 1: they should survive. Okay, lightning round, don't don't evade this
Speaker 1: small car. What do you recommend? Well, I like the golfs,
Speaker 1: even though they're canceling the regular golf for America. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's any answer. Next step up Sedan Oh uh gag
Speaker 1: uh in the in the low priced realm. I like
Speaker 1: Monster six is um in higher priced realm, I would
Speaker 1: be happy with Hey, probably with the E class Mercedes. Okay,
Speaker 1: more luxurious. Um. I really liked the X Jays Jaguar,
Speaker 1: which is also canceled but coming back as an electric
Speaker 1: car in a year or two. But more luxurious than that.
Speaker 1: He's he's he's uh no in that category. Other than
Speaker 1: the jack Bars, it's more like serious. Uh. Oh golly, um,
Speaker 1: I wish I was more inspired right now, I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't say I'm not. I'm not really um um, Well,
Speaker 1: I would never see myself only one. Uh. There's something
Speaker 1: about the Rolls Royce Phantom that I find. It's it's
Speaker 1: more bespoke than the Bentley's So I sort of prefer that,
Speaker 1: and it's getting redone any second. Uh, But so I
Speaker 1: would say, you know, for the for the big fuck
Speaker 1: you car, I'd say, there's you know, nothing says fuck
Speaker 1: you quite so loudly as a phantom. And there we
Speaker 1: have it. Jamie Kentman, automobile expert music manager for decades. Jamie,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for being Until next time, it's Bob
Speaker 1: left S