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Speaker 1: Welcome, welcome, welcome back, But Bob left that's podcast. My

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Speaker 1: guest today is music manager, film producer, educator Jonathan Taplin,

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Speaker 1: who's got a brand new book, The Magic Years. Scenes

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Speaker 1: from a Rock and Roll Life. Jonathan. Great to have

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Speaker 1: you here. Good to be here, Bob. Now, I notice

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Speaker 1: on your website you say John. Are you Johnny? You Jonathan?

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Speaker 1: John is fine by the way you're going through life.

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Speaker 1: You know, usually when you're a little kid, you're Johnny,

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Speaker 1: and then at some point you become Jonathan. So I'm

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Speaker 1: just interested what people normally call you. My friends call

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Speaker 1: me John, okay John that I will call you John.

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Speaker 1: So how does a teenager end up being the road

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Speaker 1: manager from major musical acts. I was a fan of

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Speaker 1: Bob Dylan and three sixty four UM. In the summer

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Speaker 1: of nine, I had graduated from high school and was

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Speaker 1: headed to Princeton and I got a b in my

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Speaker 1: bonnet that I would go to the Newport Folk Festival.

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Speaker 1: And my brother had a friend named Paul Clayton, who

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Speaker 1: was a a friend of Bob Dylan's, was an important

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Speaker 1: Ethne musicologist, and he got me a backstage pass at Newport,

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Speaker 1: and then he introduced me to a band called the

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Speaker 1: Jim Question Jug Band. Uh had a singer named Jeff Muldar,

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Speaker 1: and they needed a road manager. And their road manager

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Speaker 1: their real manager was Albert Grossman, and Albert Grossman happened

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Speaker 1: to manage Bob Dylan, Peter Paul and Mary Paul, Butterfield

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Speaker 1: Blues Band, Odetta, pretty much all the important people in

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Speaker 1: the folkustic business. So they introduced me to Albert. He

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Speaker 1: hired me, and then on a whim on a Saturday afternoon,

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Speaker 1: Bob Dylan decided that he would play electric music at

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Speaker 1: the Newport Folk Festival. And Mulda and I had been

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Speaker 1: watching the Butterfield bluespan do a a workshop and Alan Lomax,

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Speaker 1: who was a very famous at the musicologist, tried to

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Speaker 1: unplug the electricity from the Butterfield Blues Band, and so

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Speaker 1: Muldar told this story to all the artists in the

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Speaker 1: Grossman circle in the artists tent afterwards, and Dylan, I think,

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Speaker 1: just decided on the spur of the moment, well, hell,

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Speaker 1: I'll play electric two. And so they quickly threw together

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Speaker 1: a band made up of the Butterfield Route Land Rhythm

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Speaker 1: Section and Mike Bluefield and brought in Cooper from New

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Speaker 1: York and rehearsed for a few minutes, and then on

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Speaker 1: Sunday night came out and played and the reaction was explosive,

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Speaker 1: to say the least, um the folk fans. Visually, Dylan

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Speaker 1: came out in black leather jacket, a bright orange shirt,

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Speaker 1: tight pants, English rock and roll boots, and and it

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Speaker 1: was not the blue work shirt Bob they had all expected.

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Speaker 1: And then they launched into Maggie's farm. And when Maggie's

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Speaker 1: Farm was over, it was just like silent. And then

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Speaker 1: eventually people started booing and it went downhill from there.

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Speaker 1: And uh so, you know, I was witnesses something, and

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Speaker 1: I don't think at the time I really realized how

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Speaker 1: important it was, what a breakpoint it was in the

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Speaker 1: history of rock and roll. All I knew was I

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Speaker 1: like the music. Um, I like Bob's direction. I had

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Speaker 1: loved like a rolling Stone on the radio. And uh so, eventually,

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Speaker 1: over the years I got closer to that as being

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Speaker 1: part of the Grossman family, so to speak. So you're

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Speaker 1: at this transcendent rock and roll moment, not that you

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Speaker 1: were aware that it was so important. How do you

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Speaker 1: end up becoming a road manager Albert Grossman seemed to

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Speaker 1: like to having college kids be the road managers or

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Speaker 1: or college educated man. John Cook, who was Janice's road manager,

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Speaker 1: had graduated from Harvard, you know, a son of Alistair Cook. Uh,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. He liked people with a certain way

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Speaker 1: of acting, and so uh. I worked for the Question

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Speaker 1: Jug band for a year before you get there. Before

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Speaker 1: you get there, but you were literally just starting college.

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Speaker 1: Was there anybody else in your position? I was. I

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Speaker 1: would go on the weekends to do concerts because that's

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Speaker 1: the way the concert scene was working. Yeah. I guess

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Speaker 1: what I'm saying is for those of us who were fans,

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Speaker 1: it seems kind of amazing that someone could walk off

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Speaker 1: the street less than twenty years old suddenly have this

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Speaker 1: amazing job. And the other thing is, you know you

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Speaker 1: in your personality In your book, you were saying you

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Speaker 1: were somewhat alienated individual. But I certainly know what it

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Speaker 1: takes to be a movie producer. One has to ask

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Speaker 1: to what degree you put yourself in the mix and

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Speaker 1: asked for that job. Well, I I did ask for

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Speaker 1: the job. I wanted. I want very much to be

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Speaker 1: part of that world. I didn't know that I could

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Speaker 1: a living out of it, but I wanted desperately to

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Speaker 1: be I mean, Dylan was to me the most important

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Speaker 1: star in the world. Uh he was. He defined what

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Speaker 1: a great artist was to me, and I wanted to

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Speaker 1: be close to that. It took me a few years

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Speaker 1: to get there. I mean, I had to go through

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Speaker 1: other bands. I worked for Question, and then I worked

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Speaker 1: for Judy Collins, and then I did a little work

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Speaker 1: for Jennis Choplin. And then eventually the band which had

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Speaker 1: been the Hawks became a group, and then I became

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Speaker 1: their tour manager. And then eventually Bob decided and he

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Speaker 1: wanted to go out and start playing again, and I

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Speaker 1: took them to the Isle of Wight, and so, I

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Speaker 1: mean it was a progression. It wasn't immediate, but I

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Speaker 1: I made a living all through college to working on

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Speaker 1: the weekends, and then once I graduated. Literally, you're there

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Speaker 1: at the Newport Folks Festival, your backstage of the backstage pass.

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Speaker 1: How do you literally get the job road managing Jim Question?

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Speaker 1: Do you send a letter? Do you call Albert? Does

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Speaker 1: he tap you? What happens? I a friend of theirs,

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Speaker 1: said Paul Clayton. He said, this is John Taplin he's

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Speaker 1: a the brother one of my best friends, Randy Taplin.

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Speaker 1: He's a good guy. And and Jeff Muldart said, well,

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Speaker 1: we need somebody slept this equipment around all weekend, and

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Speaker 1: I said, I'll do it. And then so then Muldar

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Speaker 1: took me over to meet Albert and I think I

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Speaker 1: probably got paid hundred dollars for the weekend. You know,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't big money, and that was it. And then

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Speaker 1: once that was over, then I was inside the Grossman sir, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you've passed the test. So Jonathan Jim Queskin was famously

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Speaker 1: a member of the Mel Lineman family. Do you have

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Speaker 1: any experience with that? Only peripherally, I mean, obviously the

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Speaker 1: mail Lineman kind of cooperative in Roxbury went a little

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Speaker 1: crazy start using LC and uh so Mel had dropped

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Speaker 1: out of the band by the time I was starting

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Speaker 1: to work with them. He was not involved in the

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Speaker 1: Question Jug band. He had become a a guru. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so you do the Question Jug band. Your next act

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Speaker 1: is Judy Collins. Okay, at the time she was a

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Speaker 1: quite admired lady. What was it like being a young

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Speaker 1: man working with Judy Collins? Well, she had a huge

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Speaker 1: fan base. You know, she had done Sue's and that

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Speaker 1: Leonard Cohen song and it had been very popular. Um,

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Speaker 1: we would play you know, three thousand seats Hall's college concerts,

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Speaker 1: things like that. She had a very small group. She

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Speaker 1: had a bass player, Bill Lee, who was Spike Lee's father,

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Speaker 1: and a piano player named Paul Harris. And you know,

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Speaker 1: we just take a plane on Thursday night, get to

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Speaker 1: a college town, play a college concert on Friday, player

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Speaker 1: another one on Saturday, and come on on Sunday. So

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Speaker 1: how close did you get to Judy Collins herself? Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean as close as anybody could get. I mean

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Speaker 1: she she had a very personal life. She was having

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Speaker 1: a romance with Steven Stills at the time. Uh. We

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Speaker 1: traveled all over the country for a year and a half.

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Speaker 1: I mean we had some good times and we had

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Speaker 1: some bad times. Okay, how do you manage being a

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Speaker 1: tour manager while you're going to Princeton at the same time. Well,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, Bob, I don't know how old you are,

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Speaker 1: But in in the sixties you could skip a lot

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Speaker 1: of classes and still get a good grade if you

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Speaker 1: could write a good paper. Um, So I mean, I

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Speaker 1: don't I my roommates used to think I didn't take

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Speaker 1: my college life very seriously. But I did graduate and

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Speaker 1: get my degree, and so that's that's what matters. And

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Speaker 1: I ran in some good professors, and so I mean

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Speaker 1: it was a very loose time. Okay. So if I

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Speaker 1: talked to the other students at Princeton at the time,

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Speaker 1: would they say, oh, yeah, that's the enigma, that guy's

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Speaker 1: really never around doing his own thing. That would be true. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So what was Albert rousemidlike? He was amazing. I mean,

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Speaker 1: for a lot of people were kind of intimidated by him.

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Speaker 1: I somehow got on his good side right off the bat. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He would He had a very different view from most managers,

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Speaker 1: which was that you actually shouldn't do a lot of

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Speaker 1: public appearances. In other words, he turned down almost every

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Speaker 1: television show appearance that was offered to Bob Dylan. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He turned down everything for the band until finally Ed

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Speaker 1: Sullivan offered them to come on and then we took that,

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Speaker 1: you know. So, I mean Albert's thought was most artists

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Speaker 1: are out there too much and and you gotta have

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Speaker 1: a little mystery to you. And the second thing about

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Speaker 1: Albert was he believed that if if if you had

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Speaker 1: signed a bad record contract when you were really young

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Speaker 1: and somehow now you've gotten really good, then he should

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Speaker 1: be able to go in and completely renegotiate that contract

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Speaker 1: with the record company. And he did that regularly. Used

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Speaker 1: to drive Moaston or you know Oskar men and crazy,

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Speaker 1: but he did it all the time. So what was

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Speaker 1: his negotiating style. We'll go on strike, we just won't

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Speaker 1: show up at the studio. You may have him my

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Speaker 1: artists with a really bad royalty rate, but you're not

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Speaker 1: gonna have any output. So what good is it doing you?

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Speaker 1: And was he a raver or he was he quiet

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Speaker 1: and intense? No, he could. He could scream at people. Uh,

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Speaker 1: if he got really angry, he would. He could be

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Speaker 1: very intimidated. I'd see him throw people out of a room,

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Speaker 1: you know. So you know he's he's unfortunately no longer

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Speaker 1: with us, and he has a certain reputation. Would you

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Speaker 1: consider him, based on your experience, to be a great manager. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I'd consider him to me maybe the greatest manager. And

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Speaker 1: if you can amplify that a little bit, well, I

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Speaker 1: think even David Geffen would probably tell you that he

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Speaker 1: learned an awful lot from Albert Grossman. Uh And you know,

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Speaker 1: people could argue that maybe David Geffen was the best

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Speaker 1: manager for a while. Uh So, I mean he was

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Speaker 1: incredibly protective of his artists, and the artist felt that

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Speaker 1: protection and in that sense, and he never made you

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Speaker 1: do stupid stuff, you know, I mean, never me anybody,

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Speaker 1: uh dress a certain way or anything. I mean you

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Speaker 1: think of all the stories of Marvin Gay rebelling against

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Speaker 1: Motown because they wanted him to dress in certain costumes

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Speaker 1: and stuff like that and he didn't want to do it.

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Speaker 1: Albert never got into that. Okay. When Albert get involved

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Speaker 1: in the music, were only the business, only the business.

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Speaker 1: He felt that the artist's job was make the music

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Speaker 1: and decide what he wanted to do, and his job

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Speaker 1: was just to protect the artists and make sure that

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Speaker 1: he got treated fairly. Now, you were in the belly

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Speaker 1: of the beast, and then Dylan Jettison, Albert Todd Rundwyn

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Speaker 1: did too. What's your viewpoint on those situations? Well, Bob

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Speaker 1: leaving Albert had more to deal with the dispute over publishing.

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Speaker 1: Albert from the beginning it had owned half of Bob's publishing,

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Speaker 1: and Bob didn't think that was fair, and he thought

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Speaker 1: he was paying Albert too much money. And Albert, though

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Speaker 1: willing to renegotiate any artists contract for the record company,

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Speaker 1: was not willing to renegotiate his publishing contract with Bob,

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Speaker 1: and so it came to a split. Uh. But then

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Speaker 1: almost eight months after that, Jannis Joplin died accidentally, UH,

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Speaker 1: of an overdose. And Albert had really invested a lot

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Speaker 1: of emotion, heart love into Janis's career, and that really

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Speaker 1: killed him. And you know, I just watched him pull back.

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Speaker 1: He stopped going into Manhattan, UH, stopped going into the

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Speaker 1: office and and just spent all his time in Woodstock.

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Speaker 1: Um started building a restaurant called the Bear and of

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Speaker 1: recording studio, and it was like, I don't have anything

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Speaker 1: to do with this business. Is is too cruel. And

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Speaker 1: yet you know, he started spending more time on his

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Speaker 1: restaurant than he did on the music business. Okay, So

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Speaker 1: when you would be on the road with his acts,

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Speaker 1: would you ever get a call from him about this

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Speaker 1: and that? Or you were pretty much on your own.

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Speaker 1: I was on my own until a critical moment. For instance,

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Speaker 1: I mean the story I tell him the book about

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Speaker 1: the band's debut at winter Land, right, so that would

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Speaker 1: be a moment where Albert would come out on the

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Speaker 1: road to be there. And so when Robbie Robertson got

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Speaker 1: a hundred and re fever and couldn't keep anything in

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Speaker 1: his stomach the day before we were to have our

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Speaker 1: debut at winter Land, Albert was there, and Albert was

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Speaker 1: the one said we're not going to cancel, and Bill

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Speaker 1: Graham was saying, well, I'll get a hypotensis, and so

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Speaker 1: they they brought in a hypnotsus and he put Robbie

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Speaker 1: in a trance and he told him your stomach will

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Speaker 1: feel as calm as a mountain lake, and your head

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Speaker 1: will feel like the north wind is blowing on, and

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Speaker 1: your legs will feel like springs. And he brought him

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Speaker 1: out of the trance and he said, whenever you hear

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Speaker 1: the word grow, all those feelings will expand. And so

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Speaker 1: Robbie looked around and he felt his head and he

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Speaker 1: didn't feel feverish. And Levan said, let's go play some

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Speaker 1: rock and roll, and so literally the opening act had

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Speaker 1: already gone off the stage, and we got in a

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Speaker 1: car and police escort to Winterland got on, played the

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Speaker 1: gig and when Robbie came off, he said to Richard Manuel,

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Speaker 1: the piano player who the hyperness side, put him right

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Speaker 1: behind the speakers, so he had a sightline to Robbie,

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Speaker 1: but he was much closer to Richard Manuel. And Robbie

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Speaker 1: said to Richard, wasn't that weird? Between every song this

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Speaker 1: guy was yelling grow? And of course Richard said, well,

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Speaker 1: I never heard a word. So somehow they gotten on

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Speaker 1: a frequency together. Okay, so eventually you graduate from Princeton,

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Speaker 1: and granted it's a few decades back, but don't you

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Speaker 1: say to yourself, well, now it's really my life that

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Speaker 1: I want to, you know, set the world on fire.

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Speaker 1: You don't really want to be a road manager at

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Speaker 1: that point? What's going through your head? No, I was

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Speaker 1: having too much fun. I was in Woodstock in nine

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Speaker 1: when I grab do it. It was by this time

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Speaker 1: I was getting paid a decent amount of money. I

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Speaker 1: had a crew of five people that I was managing.

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Speaker 1: I had a bunch of musicians in the band that

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Speaker 1: I loved and who were making extraordinary music every night.

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Speaker 1: And we're on the road a lot. In six nine

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Speaker 1: we went to the Woodstock Festival. We went to the

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Speaker 1: Isle of Wight with Bob Dylan. I mean, what's not

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Speaker 1: to like? Meet the Beatles, you know? I mean? Now,

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Speaker 1: I stayed with it for two or three years, and

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Speaker 1: then eventually, Uh, most of the artists I cared about

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Speaker 1: after I produced the contract for Bangladesh, most of them

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Speaker 1: had stopped working, and so I went out to California

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Speaker 1: and started making movies and that was different. Okay, let's

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Speaker 1: go back to the musical era. How do you end

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Speaker 1: up being involved with the band? So? Uh, I was producing.

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Speaker 1: I was working for Judy Collins, and Harold Levinthal, who

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Speaker 1: was another important manager at that time, decided to stage

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Speaker 1: a memorial concert for Woody Guthrie, who had finally died

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Speaker 1: after many years of of being in hunting, having hunting

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Speaker 1: in his career. And so Harold got Bob and leave

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Speaker 1: On and the Hawks as they were known to be

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Speaker 1: part of that concert. And Judy was part of the concert.

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Speaker 1: And so I was the stage manager for that. And

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Speaker 1: so the mysterious Bob Dylan and the Hawks, who had

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Speaker 1: been out of sight of everybody since Bob had had

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Speaker 1: an accident in the nine six, show up in suits

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Speaker 1: with beards and hats and play three amazing what he

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Speaker 1: got three songs in this concert. And when it was

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Speaker 1: all over, Robbie said to me, because Albert had introduced

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Speaker 1: me to Robbie when backstage and told me that I

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Speaker 1: had worked for Question and everything, and Robbie said, we're

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Speaker 1: thinking of recording our own album and going on the road.

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Speaker 1: Would you like to be our tour manager? And I said,

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Speaker 1: of course. And so they went off and did music

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Speaker 1: from Big Pink. But then Rick Danko drove his car

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Speaker 1: off the road into a ditch and broke his neck,

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Speaker 1: and so they didn't go out on the road um

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Speaker 1: after Big Pink, and that kind of increased their aura.

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Speaker 1: They were like, mysterious, who are these people? Nobody's ever

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Speaker 1: seen them on stage? And then I took them out

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Speaker 1: to California to do the second album at Sammy Davis

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Speaker 1: Junior's house, and then after that we did Winner Land

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Speaker 1: and then then we were on the road for two years. Okay,

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Speaker 1: when they were doing the basement tapes, when they were

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Speaker 1: doing the first album, were you around? Are you on

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Speaker 1: the road with other people? I was on the road

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Speaker 1: with Judy Collins at that time. Okay, sent you that

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Speaker 1: personal experience with these people and the people alive, tending

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Speaker 1: not to talk, and everybody's dead. Hey, how serious was

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Speaker 1: Bob Dylan's motorcycle accident? It was serious. I don't think

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Speaker 1: it was. I don't think he he almost killed himself,

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Speaker 1: but he hurt himself badly. And you know, honestly, the

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Speaker 1: sixties six tour it was pretty crazy in terms of

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Speaker 1: that same kind of angry booing and all that nonsense

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Speaker 1: that was going on. Uh, and Bob was probably taking

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Speaker 1: a fair amount of and fetlemen and uh, I mean

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Speaker 1: he told Robert Shelton, the New York Times reporter after

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Speaker 1: the accident, that he'd been up for three days when

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Speaker 1: he had the accident. So that tells you something. Um,

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Speaker 1: So I think he needed to stop. And if that

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Speaker 1: was the Almighty telling him watch yourself, maybe that was it.

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Speaker 1: But he certainly did slow down, and and then he

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Speaker 1: had three kids and four years and started painting and

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Speaker 1: then started slowly getting back to making music with the

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Speaker 1: band and in Big Pink in the Basement tapes. Okay,

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Speaker 1: he's famous for obfiscating tall tales, even the movie about

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Speaker 1: the Rolling Thunder review even at Sharon Stone in it.

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Speaker 1: So one on one, what was what has been your

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Speaker 1: experience with him he was great. I mean I was

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Speaker 1: not around on the sixty six tour, which was evidently

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Speaker 1: very stressful, so my experiences with him were great. He

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Speaker 1: would come out with the band in the summer of

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Speaker 1: sixty nine just as a secret special guest artists a

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Speaker 1: lot of the time, and so he was very low

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Speaker 1: key at that point. Um when we went to the

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Speaker 1: Isle of Wight, he was all business. He wanted to

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Speaker 1: he wanted to make a great impression. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think the last time he had been in England, uh,

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Speaker 1: he had been at Albert Hall and there had been

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Speaker 1: a lot of booing, and so he wanted the show

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Speaker 1: to be great. And of course, as I say in

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Speaker 1: the book, you know, we rented a house on the

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Speaker 1: Isle of Wight and set up a rehearsal studio, and

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Speaker 1: the night before the gig, the Beatles showed up in

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Speaker 1: a helicopter. No, no Paul, but but John, George and

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Speaker 1: Ringo and their wives and but instead of you know, jamming,

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Speaker 1: Bob want to rehearse and the Beatles hung in there

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Speaker 1: and then then eventually everybody started playing you know, rockabilly,

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Speaker 1: which was the kind of common genre that leave On

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Speaker 1: and John Lennon both knew were you pinching yourself or

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00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:06,119
Speaker 1: who you ja did at that? I was pinching myself.

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Speaker 1: My other one of my other roadies said, oh my god,

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Speaker 1: if if we'd had a recorder going, that would have

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Speaker 1: been historic. Course, it would have changed it too, if

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Speaker 1: we'd had a recorder going, of course. So I mean

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Speaker 1: the people I know who work with Bob Dylan today,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of levels of interference in between them

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Speaker 1: and Bob. And Bob is uh, let's say, not nonverbal,

358
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:36,760
Speaker 1: but uh doesn't utter a lot of words. So was

359
00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:39,159
Speaker 1: that your experience with him or was it more of

360
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:43,879
Speaker 1: a friend experience? No? He he was fairly quiet. He

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Speaker 1: doesn't talk a lot. Um. I mean I had a

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Speaker 1: few kind of just fun evenings in Woodstock of playing music.

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Speaker 1: There was always interesting, um you know what's sucking before

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00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 1: the Woodstock Festival was very kind of low key. Nobody

365
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 1: really knew about it and and would so there were

366
00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 1: but A. Grossman had a lot of his musicians living there.

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00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:16,160
Speaker 1: The jug band was living there, The Butterfield Blues Band

368
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:19,800
Speaker 1: was living there. Janice was spending a lot of time there.

369
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Speaker 1: The band was there, Bob was there, Peter Yarrow was there.

370
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Speaker 1: I mean it was. It was like a music town,

371
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: but it was a very low key music town. So

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Speaker 1: there was a kind of nice late night play, some

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00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:40,440
Speaker 1: acoustic music stuff that went on, and Bob was very

374
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Speaker 1: good at that. He knew a lot of old songs. Okay,

375
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 1: now you're working with the band to what did we

376
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 1: are you if at all involved in the creative level?

377
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:56,440
Speaker 1: I was not. I was involved in the creative level

378
00:27:56,560 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: in the sense of when an album was on, I

379
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 1: helped Robbie do the album covers. I'm a big photography

380
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:10,320
Speaker 1: collector and so I spent a lot of time on

381
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: trying to find new photographers and so that was part

382
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 1: of my job. But really my job was to make

383
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:25,320
Speaker 1: sure that the tours were booked and that that the

384
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:28,640
Speaker 1: the tours went off. Well, you know, Rick Danko had

385
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 1: a written on the back of one of his road cases,

386
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 1: don't bring the entertainer down, and and that's the key.

387
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 1: You know, the road crew has to make it as

388
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 1: easy for the musicians to do what they do as possible. Okay,

389
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 1: we look at the band's career, Uh, first album amazing,

390
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 1: I believe the second album is even better. Third album

391
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 1: really good. And then it starts to go downhill, and

392
00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 1: then the band ultimately dissolved. Why do you think that

393
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:12,160
Speaker 1: they couldn't sustain the mojo? Unfortunately drugs, I mean, uh,

394
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:16,920
Speaker 1: Richard was a big drinker, and it got worse. He

395
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: became a day drinker. Rick was. There was no white

396
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: powder that you could put in front of him that

397
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 1: he wouldn't consume as much as he could. And leave On,

398
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 1: you know, took a lot of valium and eventually started

399
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 1: playing with arolin. And it was sad, you know it

400
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 1: just but this is a story of a lot of bands,

401
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 1: you know. Okay, So there are only two members alive today,

402
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:58,080
Speaker 1: Robbie and Garth, and leave On ends up beating cancer.

403
00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 1: He writes a book He has conscience at a barn

404
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 1: in Woodstock, such that the public tends to be in

405
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 1: one camp or another, and a lot of people are

406
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 1: anti Robbie Robertson for no other reason. He didn't give

407
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:14,960
Speaker 1: credit to the others for the songs. What's your take

408
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:23,280
Speaker 1: on this? Well, I watched Robbie get up at h

409
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 1: into his studio by nine o'clock every morning. He had

410
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 1: a piano and a guitar, and he wrote, you know,

411
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 1: For the first album, he wrote all but four songs.

412
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 1: The second album he wrote all but three songs. By

413
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 1: the third album he was writing them all. And quite honestly,

414
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 1: by the third album, uh, it was hard to get

415
00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 1: leave on out of bed before you know, two in

416
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 1: the afternoon. N Uh. The idea that Robbie didn't bring

417
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 1: these songs into the studio fully baked all the lyrics,

418
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 1: all the melody. Oh yes, maybe Levin would add a

419
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:21,160
Speaker 1: little bit of different drum feel to it, but that's

420
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 1: not enough to get a song credit. I mean, I, Bob,

421
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:29,160
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I don't think if

422
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 1: you had said in nineteen nine the only people who

423
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 1: will make money in the music industry and the year

424
00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 1: two thousand two will be songwriters, that would not a

425
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 1: bet you would have made. The musicians were getting larger

426
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 1: royalty than the songwriters. But what happened was that as

427
00:31:54,920 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 1: Napster and the other digital destructive forces came in, as

428
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 1: CAP and b m I kept collecting money for songwriters.

429
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:09,560
Speaker 1: You know, whether it was at the gap store or

430
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:13,320
Speaker 1: the local bar. They made sure the songwriter kept getting

431
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 1: his money. Whereas if you were going to replace your

432
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 1: whole record collection as you did in the late eighties

433
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:25,920
Speaker 1: with c d s. By two thousand, well you didn't

434
00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: need to do that. You just go on Napster or

435
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 1: some other place and get it for free. And so

436
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:35,120
Speaker 1: the record royalties for a group like the band just

437
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 1: came to a crashing halt. I mean they had been

438
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 1: even if they had stopped recording in seventy seven. They

439
00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 1: made good money in the eighties, and they made good

440
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 1: money in the early nineties too, because everyone kept getting

441
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:59,240
Speaker 1: rid of their LPs and getting c ds. But that

442
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:02,440
Speaker 1: came to an end. And then so leave On was

443
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 1: piste off. And I don't blame him. He was out

444
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 1: of money. He he didn't have enough money to pay

445
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 1: for his cancer treatments, and and Robbie was still making

446
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 1: money as a songwriter. But this was not something that

447
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 1: Levan would say in ninety nine, Hey give me part

448
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:25,440
Speaker 1: of that song credit. I mean, when he did do

449
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 1: something extraordinary like life is a Carnival, Robbie gave him

450
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 1: a songwriting credit. But this is hindsight. So when you're

451
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:43,840
Speaker 1: working with the band, how much are they getting a night? Um,

452
00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:50,040
Speaker 1: thirty thousand maybe right. That's what people don't realize, and

453
00:33:50,120 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 1: that the value of ticket tells, even with inflation, have

454
00:33:53,480 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 1: gone way up. Now. Your book is really unique rock

455
00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:08,160
Speaker 1: book in that most books are just a recitation of

456
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 1: the history. You put a lot of philosophy, You quote

457
00:34:12,120 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 1: famous thinkers evidencing your Princeton education. Was that conscious? Did

458
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:19,279
Speaker 1: you set? I was saying, this is the book I

459
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:23,840
Speaker 1: want to write. Yeah, I mean, I didn't want to

460
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:28,040
Speaker 1: be a rock memoir. This is a book about this

461
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:31,080
Speaker 1: period of time that I was lucky enough to be

462
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:35,120
Speaker 1: part of. And what is the meaning of it? What?

463
00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: What you know? There's a quote in there from Peter Townsend,

464
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:47,200
Speaker 1: what did rock music start? That it didn't finish? You know? Uh?

465
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 1: And to me, the role of the artists in society

466
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 1: is very important. I I think if I think about

467
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 1: the earl the sixties, the music that Dylan was making

468
00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:09,279
Speaker 1: and others were making was very hopeful and aspirational. The

469
00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 1: times they are a change in we shall overcome, and

470
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:22,360
Speaker 1: that sense of hope and of lifting people up is

471
00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 1: something that, at least for the last few years, I

472
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:30,680
Speaker 1: think has been missing. I find a lot of the

473
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 1: popular culture today being very neholistic and dystopian. If I

474
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:40,400
Speaker 1: if I turn on the TV. Ever since nine eleven.

475
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 1: What have I seen, you know, the Wires, Sopranos, succession breaking,

476
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:53,040
Speaker 1: bad mad men. They are all these horrible people. I mean,

477
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 1: the heroes are all bad people who screw up, and

478
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:02,600
Speaker 1: that's who you're rooting for, and I think that has

479
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:08,400
Speaker 1: an effect on society, and so I I felt I

480
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 1: wanted to write about that in the same way that

481
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 1: the last book I wrote about was how maybe all

482
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:18,120
Speaker 1: this wonderfulness of the Internet isn't everything that's cracked up

483
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:22,840
Speaker 1: to be okay? Which came first, though those TV shows

484
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 1: are their reflection of what was going on. I think

485
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 1: that's one of the hardest questions to ask. I mean, obviously,

486
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 1: the Wire started being broadcasts, you know, nine months after

487
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:46,880
Speaker 1: nine eleven, so one could say that political geopolitical things

488
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:53,640
Speaker 1: put a moody air. Filmar movies of the early fifties

489
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:58,560
Speaker 1: came a few years after we dropped an atomic bomb

490
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 1: on Hiroshima. I mean, you know, Norman Mailer made the

491
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:04,480
Speaker 1: point that that that had a lot to do with

492
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 1: what happened to the culture. So, I mean, it's hard

493
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:14,800
Speaker 1: to tell. But now, after all, we're twenty years, thirty

494
00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: years past that we ought to be able to get

495
00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:25,799
Speaker 1: out of that whole that we put ourselves in emotionally. Okay,

496
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:27,719
Speaker 1: now you grew up an era, and then your book

497
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:30,720
Speaker 1: is about the sixties when music literally drove the culture.

498
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 1: If you wanted to know what was going on, you

499
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: listen to a record. You just spoke of television. Everyone

500
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:39,480
Speaker 1: agrees we're in the heyday of television. Certainly, now there

501
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 1: are many outlets to exhibit your work, but even before

502
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:47,640
Speaker 1: that twenty years ago, Why what's your view on music?

503
00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:52,279
Speaker 1: And I certainly don't believe it drives the culture. Do

504
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 1: you believe it does? And why doesn't it or why

505
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:59,239
Speaker 1: does it? According to your uh feelings? I don't think

506
00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:04,080
Speaker 1: it drives the culture anymore. I mean, think about what

507
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:09,800
Speaker 1: was happening this summer, last summer with Black Lives Matter,

508
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 1: and then into the fall into try to get people

509
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 1: to vote. Who were the culture heroes that were driving

510
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 1: that dialogue. It was Lebron James, it was basketball players.

511
00:38:23,719 --> 00:38:28,200
Speaker 1: It was not Jay z. He was too busy negotiating

512
00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:32,239
Speaker 1: a contract to sell his champagne company. So I mean,

513
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:39,200
Speaker 1: I think the culture, the artists, especially the musical artists,

514
00:38:39,680 --> 00:38:42,279
Speaker 1: ought to try and take it back. And you know,

515
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that there aren't a lot. I mean,

516
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 1: I think Kendrick Lamar is doing incredible stuff. I think

517
00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:56,080
Speaker 1: Lizzo is a real talent of you know, Rhiannion Kittens.

518
00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:59,280
Speaker 1: When I go down to the I'm on the board

519
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:01,799
Speaker 1: of the America on a music association. When I go

520
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:06,440
Speaker 1: down to americani Fests in Nashville in September, there's always

521
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 1: wonderful new work that just thrills me, Brandy Carlile, all

522
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:14,240
Speaker 1: sorts of people. So it's not like there isn't good music,

523
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:18,520
Speaker 1: but it's not essential to the culture the way it

524
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:24,319
Speaker 1: was in n Now. I attribute this to income inequality.

525
00:39:24,719 --> 00:39:26,799
Speaker 1: You certainly lived through the era where there was a

526
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:31,400
Speaker 1: dominant middle class. Starting in the eighties, uh, certainly, with

527
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:35,320
Speaker 1: Reagan lowering taxes, etcetera, we start to get income inequality

528
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:38,719
Speaker 1: such that if you went to Princeton today and you

529
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:41,560
Speaker 1: told your parents, oh, I'm gonna graduate from Princeton and

530
00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:44,799
Speaker 1: be a music road manager, they'd flip out. People who

531
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: go to Ivy League colleges, people who are educated have

532
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 1: a better sense of what's going on than a lot

533
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:54,000
Speaker 1: of the prognosticators. They realize life is hard. They want

534
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:56,760
Speaker 1: to get on the train to their destination right away.

535
00:39:57,040 --> 00:39:59,560
Speaker 1: They don't want to left but be left behind. So

536
00:39:59,600 --> 00:40:02,160
Speaker 1: where is In the sixties you had middle class people

537
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:06,359
Speaker 1: making music the example I always use Jefferson Airplane up

538
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 1: against the wall, motherfucker. Today it's traditionally lower classes who

539
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:15,359
Speaker 1: will do what anybody tells them to do. We talk

540
00:40:15,440 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 1: about commerciality, etcetera. You have a take on that, Yeah,

541
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:28,960
Speaker 1: I do. I think that the ability of somebody to

542
00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:35,040
Speaker 1: go get a college education and then leave it and

543
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 1: take a chance on being a musician or being a

544
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:48,239
Speaker 1: screenwriter or being a film director or something is still important.

545
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 1: If if universities are just a big funnel to push

546
00:40:53,719 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 1: you into Mackenzie or Golden and Sacks or Procter and Gamble. Uh, Look,

547
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:06,160
Speaker 1: there's plenty of people to fill those jobs. But I'm

548
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:12,479
Speaker 1: still hoping that young people who have dreams can take

549
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:15,960
Speaker 1: a chance and say, I don't know if my Princeton

550
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:19,080
Speaker 1: education is going to do anything to help me write

551
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:21,960
Speaker 1: a screenplay, but I'm going to take a chance at

552
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:25,080
Speaker 1: doing that, even though I may completely fall on my

553
00:41:25,200 --> 00:41:28,920
Speaker 1: butt and have to go get a law degree or

554
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 1: something like my father wants me to do. Well, I

555
00:41:32,719 --> 00:41:34,960
Speaker 1: find the problem is you'll get I'll get email for

556
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 1: people said, I'm gonna take two years off to try

557
00:41:37,120 --> 00:41:38,880
Speaker 1: to be a rock star. Otherwise I'm gonna go to

558
00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:41,920
Speaker 1: graduate school. Whereas in the old days, first of all,

559
00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:44,120
Speaker 1: you could live on minimum wage. Not well, but you

560
00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:46,880
Speaker 1: could live. People were in for the long haul. But

561
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:51,400
Speaker 1: switching gears, Uh, you got a gig teaching at usc

562
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:56,560
Speaker 1: and you became a expert on digital disruption. How did

563
00:41:56,560 --> 00:41:59,839
Speaker 1: you get the gig? What did you teach? How did

564
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 1: that all come together? I had started in a company

565
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 1: called Entertainer, which was the first streaming video on demand service,

566
00:42:13,360 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 1: and we got financing from Microsoft and Sony and Intel

567
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:22,920
Speaker 1: and a bunch of Silicon Valley companies, and we built

568
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 1: a pretty good product, and we we went out and

569
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:27,959
Speaker 1: we had licensed because I had been in the movie

570
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:33,440
Speaker 1: business for twenty years. We went out licensed content from

571
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers and Sony and Universal and Paramount, and so

572
00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 1: we had a lot of movies on the service. And

573
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:51,800
Speaker 1: then in two thousand and two, the major's studios decided

574
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:58,319
Speaker 1: to form their own cartel UH called movie Link, which

575
00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:01,120
Speaker 1: would do exactly what we were doing. And of course

576
00:43:01,200 --> 00:43:04,719
Speaker 1: this was all put forth by Sony which was a

577
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:09,680
Speaker 1: shareholder of our company and had been uh exposed at

578
00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:13,280
Speaker 1: the board level to everything that we were doing. And

579
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:18,120
Speaker 1: the next thing I knew, all the major studios stop

580
00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:22,400
Speaker 1: licensing US content. So we had to shut down Entertainer

581
00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:28,320
Speaker 1: and I sued all the major studios in federal anti

582
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:31,839
Speaker 1: trust court. So need let's say I was not going

583
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:35,319
Speaker 1: to go back to being a movie producer, and the

584
00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 1: dean of the Annenberg School at uh USC said, well, look,

585
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:44,560
Speaker 1: I don't care if you're suing all the major studios.

586
00:43:44,600 --> 00:43:46,400
Speaker 1: Why don't you come and teach. You have all this

587
00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:50,800
Speaker 1: knowledge about what the real entertainment economy is about, and

588
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 1: what the convergence of entertainment and the digital world is about.

589
00:43:55,200 --> 00:43:57,440
Speaker 1: Why don't you come and teach. So I said great,

590
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:03,239
Speaker 1: because I couldn't be a movie producer. Then three years

591
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:05,759
Speaker 1: later we won the anti trust suit. Well, I mean

592
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:09,120
Speaker 1: they settled out of court just before we went to court,

593
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:12,040
Speaker 1: so then I could afford to be a movie I

594
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 1: mean a professor. And then I just kept teaching and

595
00:44:16,600 --> 00:44:22,359
Speaker 1: then eventually started the Annaburg Innovation Lab at at Annaburg,

596
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:26,480
Speaker 1: and ironically, some of the very companies that I had

597
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:30,839
Speaker 1: sued became sponsors of the Innovation Lab, So that was

598
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:36,759
Speaker 1: an interesting twist. What do you think about digital disruption today? Well,

599
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:39,440
Speaker 1: let's take off Facebook and social media. That's all a

600
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:48,359
Speaker 1: separate topic. But in terms of traditional entertainment movies, music, etcetera. Today,

601
00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:52,399
Speaker 1: what's your take, Well, let's separate the music business from

602
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:55,920
Speaker 1: the movie business, because I think they're two totally separate things.

603
00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:59,880
Speaker 1: So the music business to me, and I know you

604
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:06,200
Speaker 1: differ because I read your column religiously, I think that

605
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 1: YouTube is still a real problem because I think the

606
00:45:10,719 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 1: whole key is if the music business is really going

607
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: to become as successful as it could be, more people

608
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:26,120
Speaker 1: have to be subscribers to premium streaming services. Uh so

609
00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 1: the premium Spotify and Apple Music like that, because those

610
00:45:32,360 --> 00:45:39,360
Speaker 1: pay a decent per stream payment to artists. But whenever

611
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:44,359
Speaker 1: YouTube puts and YouTube of course claims he doesn't put

612
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:48,000
Speaker 1: it on, it says it's users put it on. Puts

613
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:54,160
Speaker 1: a brand new song on YouTube for free, it's it's

614
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:58,480
Speaker 1: eliminates the need for somebody to go and pay for

615
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:01,799
Speaker 1: it through a premiums for service. So I think it

616
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 1: undercuts the whole streaming economy. And because YouTube has this

617
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:12,480
Speaker 1: safe harbor. So you can never sue YouTube. You can

618
00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:16,040
Speaker 1: file a takedown notice and they'll take down the song,

619
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:18,879
Speaker 1: and long behold, it goes up the next day from

620
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:21,359
Speaker 1: some other user. So it's like a game of whack

621
00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 1: the mole. So you can never win against YouTube. And

622
00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:31,760
Speaker 1: it's let's put aside that it's also an extraordinarily destructive

623
00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:37,319
Speaker 1: force in the terms of all the anti vaccine propaganda

624
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:41,880
Speaker 1: that's on YouTube, all the other nonsense that's on YouTube. Um,

625
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:45,320
Speaker 1: so that's the music business problem. Well, let's stay with

626
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:48,080
Speaker 1: the music business for a second. One we do know

627
00:46:48,719 --> 00:46:52,399
Speaker 1: is that YouTube does pay. So there are a few

628
00:46:52,640 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 1: people who still want their stuff taken down, but they

629
00:46:56,600 --> 00:46:59,600
Speaker 1: do pay. The argument seems to be how much they

630
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 1: should pay. Let's also look at Spotify. Spotify has a

631
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:08,040
Speaker 1: free tier, and as you mentioned earlier reference it pays less.

632
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:14,320
Speaker 1: If you could snap your fingers, what would be the solution. Well,

633
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:20,720
Speaker 1: I would like to see the free tiers go away.

634
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:24,040
Speaker 1: And and by the way, YouTube pays in the sense

635
00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:28,240
Speaker 1: that it pays some advertising revenue, and it's it's essentially

636
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:31,960
Speaker 1: a gun to the head of every music business executive.

637
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:37,279
Speaker 1: You know, if you don't want your tune on here.

638
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:40,160
Speaker 1: It's gonna get on here anyway, so why don't you

639
00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:45,480
Speaker 1: take some advertising revenue? And the payments of YouTube purse

640
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 1: stream are way below even the payments of Spotify is

641
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:54,719
Speaker 1: free tier. So I mean, look, I would like The

642
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:57,439
Speaker 1: second thing I would like to do is see new

643
00:47:57,520 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 1: work go on the premium serve us is for a

644
00:48:00,719 --> 00:48:04,200
Speaker 1: certain period of time and then go onto the free tier,

645
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:08,279
Speaker 1: and that might induce more people to subscribe to the

646
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:12,279
Speaker 1: premium services. Okay, a couple of things. So if we

647
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:17,799
Speaker 1: look at your perfect world, unless you pay, you don't

648
00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:20,920
Speaker 1: have access. So the world where everybody can has access

649
00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:25,120
Speaker 1: to everything, now you have to pay. Developing acts might

650
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:27,759
Speaker 1: say that makes it different, more difficult for us to

651
00:48:27,840 --> 00:48:31,960
Speaker 1: be get known. Philiping and acts could always put their

652
00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:35,279
Speaker 1: stuff up on SoundCloud if they want to. I mean,

653
00:48:35,880 --> 00:48:38,360
Speaker 1: it's not like there isn't ways to get your music

654
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:41,640
Speaker 1: out for free to people if you want to. But

655
00:48:41,719 --> 00:48:45,480
Speaker 1: if you don't want to, you shouldn't have to. And

656
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:49,160
Speaker 1: but today, I mean it's it's like I don't really

657
00:48:49,160 --> 00:48:51,520
Speaker 1: have a choice because it's gonna go up on YouTube

658
00:48:51,719 --> 00:48:56,719
Speaker 1: whether I want to or not. And so you know,

659
00:48:56,840 --> 00:49:00,839
Speaker 1: it's it's like an old mafia routine. Okay, the only

660
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 1: thing I'll say about, uh, you know, behind the paywall

661
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:07,319
Speaker 1: for a first couple of weeks. Uh, we tried that

662
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:10,480
Speaker 1: and that drove piracy. But let's just leave that at that.

663
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:14,000
Speaker 1: Now you're going to move on to the movie business.

664
00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:20,040
Speaker 1: So I think the streaming economy right now is at

665
00:49:20,040 --> 00:49:24,279
Speaker 1: a point of somewhat crisis. So what I mean if

666
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:27,840
Speaker 1: you think about chord cutting, which is something you've written

667
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:32,480
Speaker 1: about and I used to talk a lot about, the

668
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 1: idea was I'm paying Spectrum two hundred bucks a month

669
00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:42,719
Speaker 1: for TV, internet, phone, everything. It's too much. So I'm

670
00:49:42,719 --> 00:49:45,840
Speaker 1: going to cut the chord and I'm going to figure

671
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:48,680
Speaker 1: out another way to get as much content as I

672
00:49:48,760 --> 00:49:53,240
Speaker 1: used to get. So now I've got my sixty dollar

673
00:49:53,320 --> 00:49:59,840
Speaker 1: a month broadband bill, and then I started adding on Netflix, HBO, Max,

674
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:09,759
Speaker 1: Disney plus, Discovery plus Paramount plus Free Thing. Next thing

675
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:12,560
Speaker 1: I know, I'm right back up to my hundred and

676
00:50:12,600 --> 00:50:15,520
Speaker 1: fifty dollars, and then I probably have to get YouTube

677
00:50:15,560 --> 00:50:18,800
Speaker 1: TV because I still want to get you know, sports

678
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:22,000
Speaker 1: and all that. And I'm right back where I started from.

679
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 1: So I don't think that the ecosystem can sustain twelve

680
00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:33,040
Speaker 1: fifteen different streaming services, and I think what we'll see

681
00:50:33,080 --> 00:50:34,840
Speaker 1: in the next two or three years is going to

682
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:39,640
Speaker 1: be a consolidation where you know, you notice that Sony

683
00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:42,120
Speaker 1: basically gave up and said, we're not going to go

684
00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:45,960
Speaker 1: into that game. We're gonna just license to Netflix. And

685
00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:49,880
Speaker 1: I think you're gonna see the big three, which I

686
00:50:49,920 --> 00:50:55,760
Speaker 1: would say would be Netflix, Disney, and HBO probably begin

687
00:50:55,880 --> 00:51:00,440
Speaker 1: to take over the the other laggards, because I doubt

688
00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:06,640
Speaker 1: that Paramount plus will survive another two years. You know,

689
00:51:06,840 --> 00:51:12,080
Speaker 1: Viacom is like a case study of how not to

690
00:51:12,160 --> 00:51:16,920
Speaker 1: run a company, and uh, this is probably one of

691
00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:25,319
Speaker 1: the parts of the case study. Okay, just to go

692
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:28,000
Speaker 1: a little bit deeper, Why is Viacom that case study

693
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:34,120
Speaker 1: how not to run a company? Okay? So, Viacom in

694
00:51:34,200 --> 00:51:39,720
Speaker 1: the heyday of MTV had more data and more understanding

695
00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 1: of a young audience than any company in America. They

696
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:49,600
Speaker 1: had so much data and so much understanding that companies

697
00:51:49,719 --> 00:51:54,440
Speaker 1: used to come to them, like they build a little

698
00:51:54,480 --> 00:52:00,120
Speaker 1: consulting firm just to tell you the MTV generation how

699
00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:05,400
Speaker 1: to explain it to Procter and Gamble. So the world

700
00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:09,960
Speaker 1: of streaming comes along, and the world of digital comes along,

701
00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:16,200
Speaker 1: and Viacom basically says, sue those bastards. So those you know,

702
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:20,400
Speaker 1: stop it. I heard a very famous story of John Doulton,

703
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:27,120
Speaker 1: who was the president of Paramount, got a a demonstration

704
00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:31,880
Speaker 1: of ti Vo from the two top executives of TiVo.

705
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:37,400
Speaker 1: They come to Paramount and Dulgon as this famous big

706
00:52:37,440 --> 00:52:41,319
Speaker 1: conference from on the second floor on the Paramount lot

707
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:44,720
Speaker 1: where he could smoke the only place you could smoke indoor.

708
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:49,440
Speaker 1: So they go and they show him this wonderful thing

709
00:52:49,520 --> 00:52:53,200
Speaker 1: where you can record TV shows and everything, and they

710
00:52:53,239 --> 00:52:58,440
Speaker 1: say this is gonna change TV. Can believely. So Tolgon

711
00:52:58,920 --> 00:53:03,160
Speaker 1: goes over to the box after the demonstration, starts unplugging

712
00:53:03,160 --> 00:53:05,480
Speaker 1: it and they're kind of like. He says, I'll tell

713
00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:07,560
Speaker 1: you what you can do with this, and he throws

714
00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:10,480
Speaker 1: the tebow out the window down to the pavement of

715
00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:15,239
Speaker 1: the second floor. That was Paramount Viacom's attitude towards the

716
00:53:15,320 --> 00:53:21,880
Speaker 1: digital age. You know, we're and so they lost all

717
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:27,279
Speaker 1: their power of understanding young people. They just buried it

718
00:53:27,840 --> 00:53:31,000
Speaker 1: everything that they build up with MTV, and they blew

719
00:53:31,040 --> 00:53:36,600
Speaker 1: it and and and and so I don't know, I mean, look,

720
00:53:37,080 --> 00:53:39,000
Speaker 1: all you have to do is think about if yours

721
00:53:39,719 --> 00:53:45,840
Speaker 1: uh a shareholder and Viacom for the last twenty years

722
00:53:46,760 --> 00:53:50,560
Speaker 1: it was a trail of tears. Okay, we both grew

723
00:53:50,640 --> 00:53:52,239
Speaker 1: up in an era where if you lived in l A,

724
00:53:52,719 --> 00:53:57,120
Speaker 1: you knew who ran the major studios. Now, unless you

725
00:53:57,239 --> 00:54:00,640
Speaker 1: have that job, it seems no one seems to know. Now,

726
00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:04,440
Speaker 1: we know that Netflix was a disruptor, but Netflix is

727
00:54:04,480 --> 00:54:09,120
Speaker 1: a valuable company independent Apple. What we do is has

728
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:15,120
Speaker 1: unlimited money. Now we have HBO and attendant stuff sold

729
00:54:15,200 --> 00:54:18,759
Speaker 1: to a T and T. As you project outward, who

730
00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:24,480
Speaker 1: is really going to have the power? Well right now next,

731
00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:29,640
Speaker 1: Flix has the power as far as I can see. Um,

732
00:54:29,840 --> 00:54:36,040
Speaker 1: it seems to be able to make both daring choices

733
00:54:36,080 --> 00:54:42,120
Speaker 1: in terms of programming, and it's certainly got the largest

734
00:54:42,200 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 1: number of subscribers, and so in that sense, from a

735
00:54:46,680 --> 00:54:51,040
Speaker 1: pure cash flow machine point of view, if you get

736
00:54:51,040 --> 00:54:55,800
Speaker 1: to three million subscribers everybody all around the world paying

737
00:54:55,840 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 1: ten bucks a month, that's a fairly serious money machine.

738
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:04,800
Speaker 1: And eventually you're gonna start to build up a library

739
00:55:04,800 --> 00:55:07,880
Speaker 1: of content. I mean, part of what they had to

740
00:55:07,920 --> 00:55:10,120
Speaker 1: do and why they were spending so much money on

741
00:55:10,160 --> 00:55:13,040
Speaker 1: content was they had no library, which is of course

742
00:55:13,560 --> 00:55:19,959
Speaker 1: what Disney and HBO do have. Um, but I think

743
00:55:20,680 --> 00:55:26,040
Speaker 1: Netflix is very savvy at sensing the taste of its

744
00:55:26,120 --> 00:55:34,239
Speaker 1: public and going there. Um. Disney will continue to pursue

745
00:55:34,280 --> 00:55:38,160
Speaker 1: it's niche, which is a lot younger, and it won't

746
00:55:38,239 --> 00:55:44,240
Speaker 1: make you know, it won't make the Chicago seven Trial

747
00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:48,720
Speaker 1: or you know, it's not gonna make those kind of movies. Uh,

748
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:53,239
Speaker 1: And HBO Max will be okay as long as A

749
00:55:53,320 --> 00:55:57,279
Speaker 1: T and T figures out a way to slowly pay

750
00:55:57,320 --> 00:56:01,080
Speaker 1: down instet and not just become I'm mean, obviously a

751
00:56:01,120 --> 00:56:04,240
Speaker 1: lot of people have left Warner Brothers in the last

752
00:56:04,480 --> 00:56:09,080
Speaker 1: few months. All they seem to hear about is we

753
00:56:09,120 --> 00:56:10,719
Speaker 1: have to pay down the debt. We have to pay

754
00:56:10,760 --> 00:56:12,520
Speaker 1: down the debt. We have you know, A T and

755
00:56:12,560 --> 00:56:16,120
Speaker 1: T levered itself up to the neck to get to

756
00:56:16,160 --> 00:56:20,439
Speaker 1: where it is. I don't know, and they have a

757
00:56:20,560 --> 00:56:23,920
Speaker 1: very large dividend they have to keep paying. So I mean,

758
00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:27,680
Speaker 1: we'll see. Okay, let's go back. How do you decide

759
00:56:27,719 --> 00:56:30,520
Speaker 1: to break from Woodstock and go into the movie business

760
00:56:30,520 --> 00:56:38,640
Speaker 1: and what are your experiences there? I had done the

761
00:56:38,680 --> 00:56:44,080
Speaker 1: concert for Bangladesh and I had come to the conclusion

762
00:56:44,200 --> 00:56:48,720
Speaker 1: at the end of that that um, there probably wasn't

763
00:56:48,719 --> 00:56:52,440
Speaker 1: a band that was wanting to tour that could support

764
00:56:52,480 --> 00:56:55,600
Speaker 1: the kind of operation that I had built in terms

765
00:56:55,600 --> 00:57:01,560
Speaker 1: of sound systems, trucks, all that stuff. And George Harrison

766
00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:05,640
Speaker 1: didn't want a tour, Eric Clapton was sick, Bob didn't

767
00:57:05,640 --> 00:57:10,719
Speaker 1: want a tour. The band was not touring very much. Uh.

768
00:57:11,280 --> 00:57:13,560
Speaker 1: I did, as you know from reading the book, I

769
00:57:13,600 --> 00:57:16,960
Speaker 1: did a try out with the Rolling Stones and then

770
00:57:17,080 --> 00:57:21,720
Speaker 1: decided I didn't want to do that, and so I

771
00:57:21,800 --> 00:57:26,160
Speaker 1: just thought, well, look, maybe i'll see if I could

772
00:57:26,200 --> 00:57:29,800
Speaker 1: do something in Hollywood. It can't be that hard. I mean,

773
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:35,000
Speaker 1: this is how naive I was. I thought, well, in

774
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:38,080
Speaker 1: in the concert business, if something screws up, from a

775
00:57:38,080 --> 00:57:41,840
Speaker 1: technical point of view, you've got twenty people in a

776
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:46,520
Speaker 1: stadium clapping for the concert to start, you're you're in

777
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:50,560
Speaker 1: big trouble. But in the movie business, if something screws up,

778
00:57:51,040 --> 00:57:54,080
Speaker 1: you could come back tomorrow. And so somehow I thought

779
00:57:54,120 --> 00:57:57,840
Speaker 1: it would be not that hard. The other thing I

780
00:57:57,880 --> 00:58:01,600
Speaker 1: didn't really understand was you weren't supposed to use your

781
00:58:01,600 --> 00:58:05,320
Speaker 1: own money. You know, the term O P M other

782
00:58:05,360 --> 00:58:08,960
Speaker 1: people's money. Nobody told me that term. So I came

783
00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:13,160
Speaker 1: out to Hollywood. Uh, A friend named Jake has said,

784
00:58:13,480 --> 00:58:16,800
Speaker 1: when you go out there, look up my friend Marty Scorsese.

785
00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:20,840
Speaker 1: He he edited Woodstock and he loves rock and roll,

786
00:58:20,880 --> 00:58:24,560
Speaker 1: and you'll you'll like him. So I met Marty and

787
00:58:24,640 --> 00:58:26,640
Speaker 1: he had this script he'd been trying to make for

788
00:58:26,720 --> 00:58:31,960
Speaker 1: three years called Season of the Witch, which we've renamed

789
00:58:32,000 --> 00:58:36,560
Speaker 1: Mean Streets. And I just didn't know enough not to

790
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:39,120
Speaker 1: put my own money. And I had a friend who

791
00:58:39,200 --> 00:58:42,200
Speaker 1: had some money too, and so we put up each

792
00:58:42,200 --> 00:58:45,920
Speaker 1: put up two fifty dollars and we made Mean Streets.

793
00:58:46,440 --> 00:58:50,440
Speaker 1: And fortunately for us, Marty made a great movie and

794
00:58:50,480 --> 00:58:52,560
Speaker 1: we were able to sell it to Warner Brothers. And

795
00:58:53,400 --> 00:59:00,480
Speaker 1: you know, I still make money off it fifty years later. Okay,

796
00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:04,640
Speaker 1: did you realize who Score says he was going to become?

797
00:59:05,160 --> 00:59:07,400
Speaker 1: And then you have one movie under your belt? How

798
00:59:07,400 --> 00:59:09,480
Speaker 1: did that change your perspective? And what did you want

799
00:59:09,520 --> 00:59:14,760
Speaker 1: to do? Um? I thought he was incredibly talented. The

800
00:59:14,840 --> 00:59:19,800
Speaker 1: only thing I had to judge on were his student films.

801
00:59:20,400 --> 00:59:25,560
Speaker 1: So I saw these these shorts, The Big Shave, It's

802
00:59:25,600 --> 00:59:30,600
Speaker 1: Not Just You Murray, and a longer student feature called

803
00:59:30,640 --> 00:59:34,480
Speaker 1: Who's that Knocking at My Door? And I just thought

804
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:38,960
Speaker 1: it was incredibly talented, especially the short code Who's It's

805
00:59:38,960 --> 00:59:43,320
Speaker 1: Not just you Murray? And so that was the only

806
00:59:43,320 --> 00:59:49,880
Speaker 1: basis I made the uh judgment off of UM. Once

807
00:59:49,960 --> 00:59:54,240
Speaker 1: I had made in Mean Streets it, I wanted to

808
00:59:54,320 --> 00:59:58,680
Speaker 1: keep making movies. I had ups and downs like anybody

809
00:59:58,720 --> 01:00:05,080
Speaker 1: making movies. It's hard to get movies made. UM. You know,

810
01:00:05,480 --> 01:00:08,640
Speaker 1: some were good, some were not so good. Uh. I

811
01:00:08,680 --> 01:00:11,000
Speaker 1: think The Last Waltz is a great movie. I think

812
01:00:11,080 --> 01:00:16,160
Speaker 1: under Fire it's a great movie. I think, Uh, Until

813
01:00:16,200 --> 01:00:17,760
Speaker 1: the End of the World is a great movie. I

814
01:00:17,800 --> 01:00:22,600
Speaker 1: think Shine is a great movie. I think To Die

815
01:00:22,680 --> 01:00:25,200
Speaker 1: For is a great movie. And then I made some

816
01:00:25,280 --> 01:00:29,120
Speaker 1: things that I don't think you're so good? So was

817
01:00:29,160 --> 01:00:31,920
Speaker 1: it fulfilling being the movie producer? I mean it's as

818
01:00:31,960 --> 01:00:34,360
Speaker 1: you said, it's a heavy lift. You know, you have

819
01:00:34,400 --> 01:00:38,520
Speaker 1: to go to a million lunches, etcetera, and nothing happens.

820
01:00:39,160 --> 01:00:43,200
Speaker 1: I found it very fulfilling. I found the notion of

821
01:00:43,400 --> 01:00:48,400
Speaker 1: organizing artists and trying to keep the train moving forward

822
01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:54,800
Speaker 1: is not dissimilar from being a tour manager. Uh. You know,

823
01:00:55,040 --> 01:00:57,120
Speaker 1: you just got to keep the show on the road,

824
01:00:57,920 --> 01:01:04,320
Speaker 1: and people will have throw fits, and you know, artists

825
01:01:04,360 --> 01:01:09,160
Speaker 1: will be artists, and you know, oftentimes you would encounter

826
01:01:09,600 --> 01:01:13,160
Speaker 1: the same problems you counted in the movie business. Gary

827
01:01:13,240 --> 01:01:16,840
Speaker 1: Busey was a big coke head on Karney, so was

828
01:01:16,960 --> 01:01:20,000
Speaker 1: Nick Nolty on under Fire. You know. I mean it

829
01:01:20,120 --> 01:01:23,960
Speaker 1: wasn't like these were angels. These are people who had

830
01:01:24,000 --> 01:01:27,560
Speaker 1: their own same demons like anybody else. So you had

831
01:01:27,600 --> 01:01:33,640
Speaker 1: to try and manage through that. Uh but uh I

832
01:01:34,160 --> 01:01:40,720
Speaker 1: found it fulfilling. Yeah I did. Okay, now you say

833
01:01:40,760 --> 01:01:43,280
Speaker 1: that you were the link between the Bass Brothers and

834
01:01:43,360 --> 01:01:46,960
Speaker 1: Disney's okay and disneyse and Turmoil. It's about to be

835
01:01:47,040 --> 01:01:51,080
Speaker 1: taken over. Tell us how you become that lake. So

836
01:01:51,240 --> 01:01:55,920
Speaker 1: I had bought from Robert Altman, a studio called lions

837
01:01:55,960 --> 01:01:59,800
Speaker 1: Gate not to be confused with the lions Gate Films,

838
01:01:59,840 --> 01:02:03,200
Speaker 1: that some big action movie producer. But it's a it's

839
01:02:03,240 --> 01:02:09,400
Speaker 1: a small studio over on Bundy that had a fantastic

840
01:02:09,520 --> 01:02:13,640
Speaker 1: sound mixing stage and the best mixer in Hollywood named

841
01:02:13,640 --> 01:02:17,720
Speaker 1: Mike Binkler. Just one another oscar less the other night,

842
01:02:18,480 --> 01:02:25,280
Speaker 1: um and so I bought it from Almond and I thought, okay,

843
01:02:25,320 --> 01:02:28,480
Speaker 1: maybe I can use this as the core to build

844
01:02:28,520 --> 01:02:36,040
Speaker 1: a small independent production business. So t bone Burnett. Uh

845
01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:40,360
Speaker 1: was from Fort Worth, Texas, and he introduced me to

846
01:02:40,440 --> 01:02:45,480
Speaker 1: a guy named Richard Rainwater who was the Bass Brothers

847
01:02:45,560 --> 01:02:50,440
Speaker 1: investment guru. And I went down to see Richard with

848
01:02:50,560 --> 01:02:53,000
Speaker 1: this idea of like could we make something out of

849
01:02:53,040 --> 01:02:56,600
Speaker 1: Lion Skate films? And he spent a lot of time

850
01:02:56,640 --> 01:02:58,680
Speaker 1: with me. He was very generous with his time, and

851
01:02:58,720 --> 01:03:03,480
Speaker 1: then he said, John, you know, it takes just as

852
01:03:03,560 --> 01:03:07,840
Speaker 1: much energy to do a two million dollar deal as

853
01:03:07,880 --> 01:03:11,360
Speaker 1: a two hundred million dollar deal, but the returns are

854
01:03:11,400 --> 01:03:13,720
Speaker 1: a lot better on the two hundred million dollar deal,

855
01:03:14,080 --> 01:03:16,040
Speaker 1: So why don't you come back to me when you

856
01:03:16,080 --> 01:03:19,439
Speaker 1: have a two hundred million dollar deal? So I went

857
01:03:19,480 --> 01:03:23,000
Speaker 1: home and went back to work, and then about a

858
01:03:23,080 --> 01:03:25,960
Speaker 1: year and a half later, I found myself producing a

859
01:03:26,000 --> 01:03:31,360
Speaker 1: film for Walt Disney UM and I used to go

860
01:03:31,520 --> 01:03:35,600
Speaker 1: up to the executive dining room in the animation building

861
01:03:35,880 --> 01:03:40,800
Speaker 1: where all the executives worked every day, and as I

862
01:03:40,800 --> 01:03:43,959
Speaker 1: had come out, Ron Miller, who was president of Walt

863
01:03:44,040 --> 01:03:50,440
Speaker 1: Disney in was playing poker with three friends every day

864
01:03:50,920 --> 01:03:54,880
Speaker 1: for two hours in front of all the employees. It

865
01:03:54,960 --> 01:03:57,640
Speaker 1: was like and Disney at that point was going in

866
01:03:57,680 --> 01:04:03,160
Speaker 1: the toilet from as a movie studio. So I was

867
01:04:03,240 --> 01:04:06,320
Speaker 1: kind of piste off and I took the ten k

868
01:04:07,440 --> 01:04:10,920
Speaker 1: the financial statement down to Richard and I showed it

869
01:04:10,960 --> 01:04:12,760
Speaker 1: to him and I said, look, I think this is

870
01:04:12,800 --> 01:04:17,400
Speaker 1: maybe the most undervalued company in America. Uh. The whole

871
01:04:17,480 --> 01:04:20,120
Speaker 1: film library was carried on the balance sheet at like

872
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:25,080
Speaker 1: thirty million dollars, all those classics. So Richard looked at it,

873
01:04:25,120 --> 01:04:27,280
Speaker 1: and we spent a lot of time together, and he said,

874
01:04:28,240 --> 01:04:31,440
Speaker 1: this is a really interesting deal. The problem is we

875
01:04:31,520 --> 01:04:37,360
Speaker 1: own nine point nine percent of Texico, and Texico wants

876
01:04:37,400 --> 01:04:39,160
Speaker 1: to buy Getty Oil and we don't want him to

877
01:04:39,200 --> 01:04:40,840
Speaker 1: buy a Gettar Old, so we may have to go

878
01:04:40,880 --> 01:04:45,000
Speaker 1: to So that's another two billion dollars. So we can't

879
01:04:45,000 --> 01:04:48,320
Speaker 1: afford to do know another deal. So I went home.

880
01:04:49,080 --> 01:04:52,840
Speaker 1: And then about three months later, a guy named Saul Steinberg,

881
01:04:53,440 --> 01:04:57,000
Speaker 1: with the help of Mike Milkin, started a corporate raid

882
01:04:57,120 --> 01:05:02,280
Speaker 1: on Disney, and the Disney management to flipped out and

883
01:05:02,600 --> 01:05:08,520
Speaker 1: in the middle of it said bass and Richard called

884
01:05:08,560 --> 01:05:11,480
Speaker 1: me and said, John, we just sold all our Texico

885
01:05:11,600 --> 01:05:15,840
Speaker 1: sock when we're ready to save the mouse. So I

886
01:05:15,920 --> 01:05:18,680
Speaker 1: went down and talked to Ray Watson, who was the chairman,

887
01:05:19,640 --> 01:05:23,040
Speaker 1: and we managed to get him on a plane to

888
01:05:23,120 --> 01:05:28,640
Speaker 1: Fort Worth, and we made a deal to sell the

889
01:05:28,720 --> 01:05:32,440
Speaker 1: Basses real estate holdings in Orlando to Disney for stock,

890
01:05:32,800 --> 01:05:35,880
Speaker 1: and it put enough stock in friendly hands to block

891
01:05:36,600 --> 01:05:41,160
Speaker 1: Saul Seinberg. And the Basses paid me as their investment advisor.

892
01:05:41,960 --> 01:05:44,720
Speaker 1: So I made more money in two weeks and I

893
01:05:44,720 --> 01:05:48,080
Speaker 1: had made in six years, you know, So it was

894
01:05:48,680 --> 01:05:50,560
Speaker 1: it was a kind of eye opener. And then they

895
01:05:50,560 --> 01:05:54,280
Speaker 1: asked me to go to work for their real investment banker,

896
01:05:54,360 --> 01:05:57,760
Speaker 1: which was Merrill Lynch, and I did and what was

897
01:05:57,760 --> 01:06:02,480
Speaker 1: that experience like? Interesting? At first, it was kind of fun.

898
01:06:02,520 --> 01:06:04,840
Speaker 1: I mean, I've never had that kind of money before,

899
01:06:05,720 --> 01:06:08,960
Speaker 1: and you know, being in the deal business was kind

900
01:06:08,960 --> 01:06:13,280
Speaker 1: of exciting. We did right off the bat, we did Viacom,

901
01:06:13,320 --> 01:06:18,800
Speaker 1: you know, we helped some the Redstone by Viacom. Uh.

902
01:06:19,080 --> 01:06:25,520
Speaker 1: And then slowly it got less interesting, and I began

903
01:06:25,560 --> 01:06:32,640
Speaker 1: to miss the creative life of musicians and directors and writers.

904
01:06:32,800 --> 01:06:38,600
Speaker 1: And by the end, by the late eighties, you know,

905
01:06:38,840 --> 01:06:42,360
Speaker 1: you were you were seeing people like Ivan Bowski and

906
01:06:42,400 --> 01:06:45,040
Speaker 1: it's really people. You you have a meeting and you

907
01:06:45,520 --> 01:06:48,520
Speaker 1: have to take a shower afterwards, and and so I

908
01:06:48,840 --> 01:06:53,560
Speaker 1: I didn't feel good about it. And so a German

909
01:06:53,600 --> 01:06:58,040
Speaker 1: director named Vin Venders said he wanted to make a

910
01:06:58,080 --> 01:07:00,480
Speaker 1: science fiction film called on to All the End of

911
01:07:00,520 --> 01:07:04,360
Speaker 1: the World, and what I produced it and it was

912
01:07:04,440 --> 01:07:08,040
Speaker 1: just like, Okay, I need, I need to get out

913
01:07:08,040 --> 01:07:11,680
Speaker 1: of here. So it's like a perfect skate hatch. And

914
01:07:11,720 --> 01:07:18,760
Speaker 1: I went off and and joined VIM for two years. Okay,

915
01:07:19,000 --> 01:07:23,520
Speaker 1: you get yourself into the Albert organization. You know all

916
01:07:23,520 --> 01:07:26,440
Speaker 1: these musicians, if one reads his book, you seem to

917
01:07:26,440 --> 01:07:31,360
Speaker 1: know every creative person in Hollywood. What's your secret? How

918
01:07:31,360 --> 01:07:37,280
Speaker 1: does this happen? Well? I don't know if I know

919
01:07:37,360 --> 01:07:40,000
Speaker 1: every creative verson in Hollywood, but I I knew a

920
01:07:40,000 --> 01:07:45,640
Speaker 1: lot of good people, and I had a fairly decent instincts.

921
01:07:46,240 --> 01:07:49,880
Speaker 1: And you know, you just have to stay open to change.

922
01:07:50,800 --> 01:07:52,840
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how many careers you've had,

923
01:07:53,440 --> 01:07:56,280
Speaker 1: but I've had a lot of them. And and the

924
01:07:56,400 --> 01:08:00,120
Speaker 1: trick is, if you see a door open and it

925
01:08:00,120 --> 01:08:03,000
Speaker 1: looks like an interesting opportunity, you should probably walk through

926
01:08:03,000 --> 01:08:06,840
Speaker 1: the door and and check it out at least and

927
01:08:06,880 --> 01:08:12,880
Speaker 1: not be afraid that what you're leaving behind is much better. So, uh,

928
01:08:13,600 --> 01:08:17,080
Speaker 1: in that sense, it was. It was interesting for me.

929
01:08:17,920 --> 01:08:22,040
Speaker 1: I mean, I I you know, I didn't make blockbusters.

930
01:08:22,080 --> 01:08:26,519
Speaker 1: I made art films. And there are all of them.

931
01:08:26,520 --> 01:08:29,599
Speaker 1: I I mean almost all of them. I I think

932
01:08:29,600 --> 01:08:34,040
Speaker 1: we'll hold up in the long run of things. Uh

933
01:08:34,320 --> 01:08:38,920
Speaker 1: but you know, you you can't make a living, but

934
01:08:39,040 --> 01:08:41,519
Speaker 1: you can make a fortune in Hollywood. So it's one

935
01:08:41,560 --> 01:08:45,640
Speaker 1: of those feast or famine things. Okay, you say that

936
01:08:45,680 --> 01:08:49,800
Speaker 1: you're great at hurting cats, but in terms of producing

937
01:08:49,840 --> 01:08:53,519
Speaker 1: the film, you also have to sell. So what's your

938
01:08:53,600 --> 01:08:58,479
Speaker 1: magic there? Well, you know, if if you have a

939
01:08:58,560 --> 01:09:01,640
Speaker 1: decent story and and you can put it together with

940
01:09:01,760 --> 01:09:06,880
Speaker 1: a good director, that seems to be the secret to me.

941
01:09:07,400 --> 01:09:12,519
Speaker 1: It's it's it's the script and the director. Then after that,

942
01:09:12,760 --> 01:09:15,919
Speaker 1: if you get that part done, then you can probably

943
01:09:15,960 --> 01:09:20,840
Speaker 1: attract the talent the actors to do it. I mean,

944
01:09:21,680 --> 01:09:26,120
Speaker 1: you know, my daughter who produced you know, a lot

945
01:09:26,160 --> 01:09:30,400
Speaker 1: of films more than I have, somehow manages to do it.

946
01:09:30,560 --> 01:09:35,799
Speaker 1: And uh So, I I think it's there's no secret

947
01:09:35,880 --> 01:09:40,120
Speaker 1: to being in Hollywood. It's just good material and good

948
01:09:40,400 --> 01:09:45,559
Speaker 1: artistic directors who have a real point of view. Okay.

949
01:09:45,600 --> 01:09:48,680
Speaker 1: Another element of your book is your love life in marriages.

950
01:09:49,560 --> 01:09:51,439
Speaker 1: So what do you learn and what are the lessons

951
01:09:51,479 --> 01:10:03,040
Speaker 1: for the listeners. Uh, well, my first two marriages, we're uh,

952
01:10:03,280 --> 01:10:11,120
Speaker 1: both ended in divorce. So I guess, um I feel

953
01:10:11,280 --> 01:10:13,320
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a very awkward question for me.

954
01:10:13,479 --> 01:10:15,280
Speaker 1: Somehow I could write about it, but I don't know

955
01:10:15,320 --> 01:10:17,479
Speaker 1: if I want to talk about it. But I would

956
01:10:17,520 --> 01:10:22,479
Speaker 1: say that I thought I was kind of a white Knight.

957
01:10:23,400 --> 01:10:30,920
Speaker 1: Rescuing is slightly artistic hippy girls, and that's never a

958
01:10:30,920 --> 01:10:35,240
Speaker 1: good stance to take. Now, I've been married for twenty

959
01:10:35,280 --> 01:10:39,040
Speaker 1: two years, the Maggie Smith, the photographer, and we have

960
01:10:39,680 --> 01:10:42,800
Speaker 1: one of the great marriages. My friends all think we

961
01:10:42,840 --> 01:10:46,080
Speaker 1: have the best marriage. So I must have learned my

962
01:10:46,200 --> 01:10:50,040
Speaker 1: lessons somehow. Look, another thing in the book is you.

963
01:10:50,479 --> 01:10:52,960
Speaker 1: And I mentioned this a little bit earlier. Up until

964
01:10:53,040 --> 01:10:55,000
Speaker 1: you go to Princeton and you start working in the

965
01:10:55,080 --> 01:10:59,240
Speaker 1: rock and roll business, you talk about your alienations. You're

966
01:10:59,320 --> 01:11:03,559
Speaker 1: difficult with your father, not fitting in in prep school.

967
01:11:04,439 --> 01:11:07,479
Speaker 1: Yet somehow you give the appearance now of being plugged

968
01:11:07,479 --> 01:11:09,960
Speaker 1: in in a member of the group. So what's the

969
01:11:10,000 --> 01:11:17,280
Speaker 1: evolution there. I was an awkward teenager. I was small,

970
01:11:18,040 --> 01:11:22,800
Speaker 1: I didn't grow till I was sixteen seventeen. I got

971
01:11:22,840 --> 01:11:27,800
Speaker 1: picked on. I was a kid from the Midwest sent

972
01:11:27,880 --> 01:11:32,320
Speaker 1: to a boarding school in in Massachusetts. I didn't understand

973
01:11:32,360 --> 01:11:38,799
Speaker 1: the mores of kind of heavy sarcasm the way people

974
01:11:39,680 --> 01:11:44,479
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of lord of the flies, and

975
01:11:44,560 --> 01:11:47,160
Speaker 1: I didn't really know how to deal with it. So

976
01:11:47,200 --> 01:11:52,040
Speaker 1: it wasn't until I found something to stand on, which

977
01:11:52,120 --> 01:11:55,240
Speaker 1: was the Civil rights movement, that I began to feel

978
01:11:55,280 --> 01:11:58,000
Speaker 1: like I could stand up for myself. And then I

979
01:11:58,040 --> 01:12:01,479
Speaker 1: began to grow and I wasn't picked on quite so much.

980
01:12:01,840 --> 01:12:06,679
Speaker 1: I mean, boarding school is a horrible experience. It's much

981
01:12:06,720 --> 01:12:09,960
Speaker 1: better now because they're co ed, But in the old days,

982
01:12:10,520 --> 01:12:19,080
Speaker 1: you know, you had older students policing younger students and

983
01:12:19,640 --> 01:12:25,320
Speaker 1: a level of cruelty that was unbelievable. Did you send

984
01:12:25,320 --> 01:12:29,400
Speaker 1: your kids to prep school? No? Okay, So now you've

985
01:12:29,400 --> 01:12:31,320
Speaker 1: written this book, what what else do you have a

986
01:12:31,360 --> 01:12:36,519
Speaker 1: hand in these days? Well, I'm doing some business steals,

987
01:12:36,560 --> 01:12:40,040
Speaker 1: but I can't really talk about them right now. With

988
01:12:40,200 --> 01:12:45,360
Speaker 1: some very well known musicians, you know, I'm I'm put

989
01:12:45,360 --> 01:12:49,320
Speaker 1: it this way, I'm interested in the publishing music publishing business.

990
01:12:51,120 --> 01:12:54,960
Speaker 1: Well that's that's a conversation unto itself. Yeah, well maybe

991
01:12:55,040 --> 01:13:00,160
Speaker 1: we can have that in about four months. Okay, So, uh,

992
01:13:00,760 --> 01:13:05,000
Speaker 1: you your book is all about this tumultuous era, and

993
01:13:05,040 --> 01:13:08,679
Speaker 1: we are in a tumultuous era. Now. You talk about

994
01:13:08,720 --> 01:13:13,640
Speaker 1: the optimism of back then the nihilism of today. Is

995
01:13:13,680 --> 01:13:17,400
Speaker 1: there any hope? Yeah? I think there is. I mean,

996
01:13:17,920 --> 01:13:20,280
Speaker 1: you know, as I said to you, I go every

997
01:13:20,320 --> 01:13:25,520
Speaker 1: year to this thing called Americana Fest, which is Americana

998
01:13:25,640 --> 01:13:31,120
Speaker 1: is kind of like the non hat part of the

999
01:13:31,160 --> 01:13:36,559
Speaker 1: country music business accepted. It includes the staple singers and

1000
01:13:36,680 --> 01:13:42,680
Speaker 1: sacks bold and so there's this kind of weird concnotation

1001
01:13:42,880 --> 01:13:46,160
Speaker 1: of Rhann and Giddons and Brandy Carlyle and all these

1002
01:13:46,160 --> 01:13:53,320
Speaker 1: different people. And I as pure music, it's extraordinary. It's

1003
01:13:53,400 --> 01:13:57,639
Speaker 1: really good. These people are making great songs, are singing

1004
01:13:57,680 --> 01:14:03,080
Speaker 1: great and and they're trying. You do also think about

1005
01:14:03,200 --> 01:14:07,800
Speaker 1: the traditions that they came up with, whether it's Rhan

1006
01:14:08,000 --> 01:14:11,240
Speaker 1: and thinking about the traditions of the banjo and how

1007
01:14:11,280 --> 01:14:16,120
Speaker 1: that played a world in in black music in in

1008
01:14:16,240 --> 01:14:20,960
Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties. You know, I mean this, these are

1009
01:14:21,160 --> 01:14:28,200
Speaker 1: interesting questions. So I have hoped that musicians will continue

1010
01:14:28,280 --> 01:14:33,920
Speaker 1: to be exploring and not just you know, look for

1011
01:14:33,960 --> 01:14:38,439
Speaker 1: the Benjamin's. I have hoped that filmmakers will continue to

1012
01:14:38,560 --> 01:14:42,639
Speaker 1: make interesting movies. I mean, I thought both Nomad Land

1013
01:14:42,800 --> 01:14:47,879
Speaker 1: and Uh Judas and The Black Messiah were extraordinarily good movies.

1014
01:14:48,720 --> 01:14:51,759
Speaker 1: So I mean it's not like there aren't artists making

1015
01:14:51,840 --> 01:14:56,360
Speaker 1: really strong stuff. There are, but there's also a lot

1016
01:14:56,439 --> 01:15:00,960
Speaker 1: of junk out there, and part of that I put

1017
01:15:01,040 --> 01:15:06,040
Speaker 1: on Mark Zuckerberg's shoulders. You know, I think there's there's

1018
01:15:06,080 --> 01:15:10,960
Speaker 1: too much nonsense and disinformation out there, and I think

1019
01:15:11,000 --> 01:15:16,839
Speaker 1: people are confused, and you know, there's the information theorists

1020
01:15:16,880 --> 01:15:19,280
Speaker 1: that m I T used to use the word entropy,

1021
01:15:19,360 --> 01:15:22,760
Speaker 1: which was if you get too much information, everything just

1022
01:15:22,920 --> 01:15:28,520
Speaker 1: gets chaotic. And that's probably the world that we experience

1023
01:15:29,680 --> 01:15:33,759
Speaker 1: last year, and unfortunately it's still going on because there's

1024
01:15:33,760 --> 01:15:38,439
Speaker 1: a reason people are having a hard time getting people

1025
01:15:38,520 --> 01:15:42,120
Speaker 1: to go and get a vaccination, just because there's so

1026
01:15:42,200 --> 01:15:48,040
Speaker 1: much damn disinformation out on Facebook that people think that

1027
01:15:48,080 --> 01:15:52,080
Speaker 1: Bill Gates is trying to implant a microchip in their

1028
01:15:52,200 --> 01:15:54,559
Speaker 1: arm when you get a shot. I mean, that's how

1029
01:15:55,120 --> 01:15:58,840
Speaker 1: nonsensital get and so we might not get the herd

1030
01:15:58,880 --> 01:16:03,960
Speaker 1: immunity just because there's so much stupidity out there. Well,

1031
01:16:03,960 --> 01:16:06,760
Speaker 1: staying on the political element, certainly, since artists were very

1032
01:16:06,760 --> 01:16:10,960
Speaker 1: political in the sixties. Uh, you talk about Facebook, you

1033
01:16:11,000 --> 01:16:15,679
Speaker 1: talk about vaccinations. Where's the optimism there? Well, there isn't

1034
01:16:15,880 --> 01:16:18,559
Speaker 1: in that sense. I mean, I I think we have

1035
01:16:18,680 --> 01:16:22,360
Speaker 1: to deal with the fact that we have a basic

1036
01:16:24,080 --> 01:16:29,719
Speaker 1: disinformation anarchy in and it's affecting a lot of things.

1037
01:16:30,320 --> 01:16:37,439
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that in small places, important artists

1038
01:16:37,520 --> 01:16:43,559
Speaker 1: can't be beginning to make good work and get it seen.

1039
01:16:43,880 --> 01:16:49,639
Speaker 1: I think it can. And so look, there's balance. We've

1040
01:16:49,680 --> 01:16:54,439
Speaker 1: lived through four kind of tough years, and I feel

1041
01:16:54,479 --> 01:16:57,160
Speaker 1: more optimistic now than I felt in a long time.

1042
01:16:57,520 --> 01:17:00,160
Speaker 1: I think the economy is going to come back. I

1043
01:17:00,200 --> 01:17:03,639
Speaker 1: think the you know, the sense of pent up demand

1044
01:17:03,800 --> 01:17:06,360
Speaker 1: is is a real deal. I mean, I don't know

1045
01:17:06,360 --> 01:17:08,559
Speaker 1: about you, but you haven't been to a music club

1046
01:17:08,640 --> 01:17:12,519
Speaker 1: probably in a year, right, you haven't heard live music

1047
01:17:12,560 --> 01:17:16,160
Speaker 1: in a long time, and and you're probably gonna want

1048
01:17:16,160 --> 01:17:19,200
Speaker 1: to do that again as soon as it feels safe

1049
01:17:19,240 --> 01:17:21,760
Speaker 1: to do that. And my guess is by the fall,

1050
01:17:22,160 --> 01:17:25,920
Speaker 1: you'll feel safe to do that, and so that will

1051
01:17:26,000 --> 01:17:29,920
Speaker 1: make the music kind of begin to come back. It

1052
01:17:30,000 --> 01:17:34,160
Speaker 1: will build confidence, It will make make us all feel like, okay,

1053
01:17:35,120 --> 01:17:39,320
Speaker 1: we can do this again. Okay. That brings us right

1054
01:17:39,400 --> 01:17:42,160
Speaker 1: up today you've been listening to Jonathan Taplan who has

1055
01:17:42,160 --> 01:17:44,760
Speaker 1: a new book called The Magic Year, Scenes from a

1056
01:17:44,880 --> 01:17:47,160
Speaker 1: Rock and Roll Life. As I said, I did read

1057
01:17:47,200 --> 01:17:50,000
Speaker 1: the book. It is unique and if you're interested in

1058
01:17:50,040 --> 01:17:53,840
Speaker 1: the perspective of the sixties in music as opposed to

1059
01:17:53,880 --> 01:17:56,720
Speaker 1: just a recitation of facts, I highly recommend it. And

1060
01:17:56,800 --> 01:17:59,640
Speaker 1: it's definitely very readable. And I'm not blowing smoke up

1061
01:17:59,640 --> 01:18:02,960
Speaker 1: your rand because that's not my style. But I picked

1062
01:18:03,000 --> 01:18:05,040
Speaker 1: it up and I couldn't put it down, and I'm

1063
01:18:05,040 --> 01:18:08,599
Speaker 1: certainly interested in that era. So Jonathan, thanks so much

1064
01:18:08,640 --> 01:18:11,559
Speaker 1: for taking the time. Thank you so much, Bob for

1065
01:18:11,640 --> 01:18:14,439
Speaker 1: all you do. Until next time, This is Bob left

1066
01:18:14,439 --> 01:18:14,719
Speaker 1: Sex