who is Bob Lefsetz?

Kind of sums it all up, doesn't it?

White Room

by Bob Lefsetz

The sixties were different. They were light, and dark, and nothing in between. Today we live in the gray. In the onslaught of media, nothing sticks out, nothing is in relief, we're all hiding in our bunkers, trying to figure it all out. But, in the sixties, we ventured out, we wanted to experience IT ALL!

In the sixties there was context. It wasn't like today, where without a major hype campaign nobody knows the story. We only had three TV networks. "Rolling Stone" didn't come on the scene until the end of the decade. There were limited media outlets, and we paid attention. The big breakthrough was FM underground radio, and you were lucky if you had an outlet in your community, where you could hear Cream.

Cream was something you heard about from your friends. You went over to somebody's house and they played you "Sunshine Of Your Love". Pete Townshend eventually sang about one note, pure and easy, playing so free, but really it was one RIFF that people lined up behind. And that riff, the one that got it all started, was the one from "Sunshine Of Your Love".

Listen to "Sunshine Of Your Love" today, you'll be STUNNED how little is on the record. God, it sounds like there were NO overdubs, just a power trio laying it down. Still, it wasn't just the notes Clapton was playing, it was the SOUND of those notes. There was a RICHNESS in this hard rock, a SWEETNESS! This wasn't music for boys only, this was music for EVERYBODY with genitals. It had such a weird effect on you, hearing this sound, you felt it in different parts of your body, your brain, your lower abdomen and your groin. Right after the set-up, after the richness, there's this bit of distortion in the guitar, you feel like you're in it for the long haul, to climax, four minutes hence.

Hearing "Sunshine Of Your Love" you had to buy "Disraeli Gears". And that's when you discovered it, the essence, opening side two.

Today the label picks the track, and what's left of radio takes instruction, it's all a CAMPAIGN, which you're AWARE OF! But listening to FM back then was like listening to XM today. Your relationship is with the DEEJAY! Not his voice, not his inane rap like on Sirius, but his CHOICES! That's why we love people, because of who they ARE! And when you heard "Tales Of Brave Ulysses" on the radio your life was made, the same way when Mike Marrone plays some obscure cut that only I thought I knew it makes my day.

One can argue quite strongly the first Cream album is the best. The sound isn't as good as "Disraeli Gears", but overall the songs are BETTER!

But after "Disraeli Gears", the songs got worse. Except for the unexpected "Badge", NOTHING was the caliber of what came before. Still, there was a huge hit on "Wheels Of Fire", a simple song, but one with a monster riff so exquisite that we were touched once again. It was just the SOUND of Clapton's guitar, it sounded like he was WEEPING! But then Ginger hit the drum, and Jack sang richly. Yes, as great as Clapton was, Jack's vocals were a key element of the band.

The dude who made available the MP3s of the Royal Albert Hall show left three out, the last three numbers of the concert. He hopped to, posted them on the site, and I just downloaded them, and heard "White Room".

I don't understand flying around the world to see a band. That's not what rock and roll is about. Rock and roll is about scraping up every dollar you've got, eating the equivalent of dog food just so you can AFFORD to go to the gig. The gig isn't an afterthought, ONE thing you can acquire, experience, but the ONLY thing!

While we were experiencing flower power in the U.S., the Brits were experiencing rain. The music from across the pond was different from ours. It wasn't sunny, it was dark. Made in the U.K., it was America's dark underbelly. It coexisted with Monkees hits. It was necessary, for balance.

Flying across the pond forty years later has NO darkness. Unless you saved up every last dollar you had and slept on the street in order to go.

And, going was SO much different then. You went ALL THE TIME! Because the tickets were CHEAP! Under five bucks. The concert experience wasn't about preferred parking and alcohol, it was about the MUSIC!

And that music can be heard in Cream's rendition of "White Room" on May 5th.

Eric gets that unique guitar sound. But really, it's Ginger's drums. You can hear the FEROCITY!

And then, on top of it all, in comes Jack.

Oh, he's singing along, all those words you remember. And then you hear it...

"I'll wait in this place where the sun never shines Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves"

I'm waiting for this place to return. Where business trumps art. Where creativity is revered over music. Where the messiah returns.

Religious zealots think the messiah is going to come from heaven. Down to save us.

But I don't believe that. I don't believe in a higher power. I believe in people. Their ability to triumph, do the right thing, against incredible odds.

Here, just before the show is over, almost two hours into it, having deliv ered upon expectations, Cream FINALLY throws off the limitations and just RIPS! THIS is music-making. When you're no longer going by the rehearsal, when you're just WINGING IT! When you stop concentrating on being together, do your own thing and it all FALLS INTO PLACE!

And a little over halfway through the number, Eric finally takes center stage, he finally WAILS! Not in the way he has for the past thirty years, but the way he did with John Mayall, as a SIDEMAN! In the tradition of great bluesmen, he's taking his LICKS! He's just part of the club.

And all these years later, it's still a championship team.

How many of his letters start out with something about the sixties or the classic era being "different"?

Lefzetz meets Pitchfork, world implodes.

this guy's paragraph breaks are so psychotic.

someone needs to get the Pitchfork Reviews Reviews guy and Bob Lefsetz together

Have you heard of the Weeknd?

is this revive actually from 2011

Psychotic Paragraph Breaks would be a good name for a genre.

I still read his column all the time. Setting aside his stylistic tendencies towards a hranguing tone, I like his open, straightforward style, his siding with a certain kind of artist who doesn't particularly want to be a publicity hound, and his fairly enlightened and, these days, quite rare advice about the importance of concentrating on developing your craft over a long period of time. It's a tonic to all those 'Zap Pow Future Music Biz 2.0 Ideas Machine' type blogs. Also: how often do you get this forward looking, optimistic, rallying kind of pep talk from an avowed baby boomer? He recently he even got turned on to Deadmau5, which was a delightful thing to behold. So my view of him is that he's a character, and not without a certain uncanny capacity to hit on the important things to do with art and the creative process that get lost in the wake of internetty and publicity oriented stuff.

thing is even when he talks and talks about ART and CREATIVITY he still sounds like a suit who knows to pay lip service to those values as opposed to a serious music buff. also this is his idea of insight in October 2011:

Throw out all your twentieth century thinking.

There’s more ways to make money in music than selling discs.

But the old players can’t see this.

So they’re going to be left behind.

and his next line is

Ian Rogers never worked at a major label.

not at a label, but he he worked for a major label act for the first five years of his career, worked with major labels at Yahoo, and works with major label acts now. not to denigrate the dude's genuine forward-thinking in any way, but Lefsetz' point is offset by Rogers' cashflow having pretty much always originated at majors, no?

i always imagine this guy as looking like the monopoly guy, except dressed as a parrothead.

even when he has the occasional point there's not much sadder than people whose central motivation is making sure you know that whatever the kids believe, that's what they believe too

The 10,000 Hour Rule"
In Hamburg, we had to play for eight hours

He is so obsessed with this point from Gladwell's Outliers book regarding what you have to do to be good at something

does malcolm gladwell have a use besides blowing the minds of first year business majors?

You can turn him upside down and scrub out your toilet.

does malcolm gladwell have a use besides blowing the minds of first year business majors?

― the 500 gats of bartholomew thuggins (upper mississippi sh@kedown

You might be right, but he still writes for the New Yorker so more folks than just college kids quote him. A parent of a kid on my son's high school baseball team is frequently quoting him to me.

x-post-- yep that hair of Gladwell's is something

Today everybody's so into image, everybody's got such narrow tastes, but back then you could like Zeppelin AND Loggins & Messina. You were open to everything, we were all in it together.

I don't think this music is going to be remembered, there's not going to be a Loggins & Messina renaissance, but "Mother Lode" holds up. Play it on a long, dreary drive, you'll see your whole life unfold in front of you.

Yeah.

back then you could like Zeppelin AND Loggins & Messina.

people's taste seems so much broader to me than it ever was now

Jesus Christ people who fetishize the 70s AOR era will just always always be even more annoying than any other era-specific cheerleaders, which is a bummer, because buried amidst their starry-eyed walks down memory lane are some actually true things about that era and what made the records good (in short: more studio budget, engineers with more open ears i.e. dudes who weren't yet locked into a style, less tech to smooth out takes that needed to be redone)

(Have you heard Eminem recently?)

You were open to everything, we were all in it together.
lol that's great. the 70s, a time of great cultural unity.

lol otm

and fwiw loggins messina renaissance is already underway, come on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpmr9P2_K4g

so everyone is mad at lefsetz for this today: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

"I wasn’t sure what to do after Beyonce’s appearance, join a gym or masturbate." stupid line, and the guy is an awful writer, but i fail to see how this piece is sexist or racist. maybe it's because I personally can't stand Beyonce because I hate her music and everything about her. But I restrained myself from saying anything in person or online last night because I knew I'd get my head bitten off. I don't doubt the dude is a pudgy Boomer prick with an ancient outlook, but what about this piece is getting everyone so pissed off, aside from his dislike of Beyonce's performance?

another egregious line tho - "hip hop is full of attitude"

x-post

On what are you basing your suggestion that this piece is getting more people pissed at Leftsetz than other ones? Tweets? facebook? ???

I've read almost as much twitter vitriol on the subjext today as I read about the superbowl itself yesterday.

in addition to the masturbation thing this part was pretty sexist (and just gross generally in other ways:

Who do we blame? Madonna? Who invented a new paradigm and then went for a victory lap wherein she dieted down to nothing and spent hours a day working out? Do you think Adele works out? Ha!

"Do you think Adele works out?" Go fuck yourself, Lef.

"the Lumineers are bigger than Alicia Keys" Yikes.

but i fail to see how this piece is sexist or racist

you mean as in only one or the other?

lol j/k who cares what this nobody-guy writes on a blog

x-post -- Tweets About Beyonce or about Leftsetz re Beyonce?

Leftsetz has a huge mailing list of industry people and musicians who always seem to put up with his cluelessness

I saw Ned talking about it on twitter and then saw the deluge of music crits and randos going nuts...

@LauraSterritt I'm so so appreciating all of the men I'm seeing calling out Lefsetz's Beyonce post. Really heartwarming.

@1000TimesYes Everyone please quit calling the Lefsetz post "sexist." It's racist too!

@robmitchum So McCain and Lefsetz both committed social media suicide before noon today. This could turn out to be a pretty great week.

‏@randlechris lefsetz confused here. "ONLY MUSIC MATTERS" but if women made it you apparently prefer to write about their bodies with a pair of forceps?

@Marcissist Truth RT @maura hey bob @lefsetz: you are a gross sexist scumbag and the fact that anyone takes you seriously about anything is embarrassing

@lfitzmaurice The easy joke there is that Bob Lefsetz would be better off choosing the gym
^lol

@lfitzmaurice What RT @Lefsetz: Alicia Keys is the new Sheryl Crow. Showing up everywhere. Hey Alicia! There's a supermarket opening around the corner!

@killquilty if there's anything more infuriating than the lefsetz letter it's the lefsetz letter wasting time focusing on amanda palmer

@brandon_weigel @notrivia Couldn't get past the second sentence of Lefsetz's garbage.

The assertion that the Lumineers are bigger than Beyonce was pretty lol.

there's not one sentence of this that rings true at all.

I wasn’t sure what to do after Springsteen’s appearance, join a gym or masturbate. It was spectacle befitting the game, one could argue strongly it was more dynamic and exciting than the game. You had no desire to check your Twitter feed, all you could do was pay attention.

But how much did this have to do with music?

Who do we blame? Tom Petty? Who invented a new paradigm and then went for a victory lap wherein he embodied blue collar America in a tight t-shirt? Do you think Tom Petty works out? Ha!

Springsteen made Tom Petty look old. He proudly strutted his beefcake arms, in one fell swoop making a whole swath of America’s men feel good about themselves.

She proudly strutted her luscious thighs, in one fell swoop making a whole swath of America’s women feel good about themselves.

Stupid Beyonce liking ladies.

man I'm glad no one sexualizes Prince

x-post- you should send that Springsteen satire to Leftsetz

Scroll down to the previous Lefsetz Letter for pure Patrick Bateman vibes - an ode to Phil Collins' Face Value.

even the under-the-radar digs are just meaningless, like:

The thought of her drinking Pepsi is akin to believing Alicia Keys uses a BlackBerry!

uhh you can very well believe keys uses a blackberry. shitloads of people use them! she endorses them, right? (esp if lefsetz means "BB" as a stand-in for smartphones in general) and no, it doesn't make it more likely that beyonce drinks soda.

really annoying that i feel compelled to direct any brainpower toward this crap, but this guy is inexplicably influential

i saw the twitter hate but not the reason why til now. feel slightly unclean.

why DO people pay attention to this guy though?

For posterity, here's the link to the actual super bowl/beyonce post rather than his blog's generic url:
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2013/02/03/beyonce-at-the-super-bowl/

"She proudly strutted her luscious thighs, in one fell swoop making a whole swath of America’s women feel good about themselves." nvm somehow i missed this one, moronic and offensive. but. man i hate beyonce's music and thing.

...though i wonder if he really is. is there a term for people who don't advance thought in any way but have a career bravely telling people what they already think? it's not really 'influence' but, idk, management

Blame the CD, where subtlety doesn’t sound good.

you are totally illiterate about your own field of expertise, jesus

The pundit class?

Xpost

I don’t want to sound like a Republican here, but
I don’t want to sound like a Republican here, but
I don’t want to sound like a Republican here, but
I don’t want to sound like a Republican here, but
I don’t want to sound like a Republican here, but

From Damon Krukowski's Substack:

'#BandcampFriday remains an excellent way to directly compensate musicians for recordings. All our Damon & Naomi albums are pay-as-you-wish, unless you are Bob Lefsetz in which case they cost $10,000 each'

we should all try to dogpile on lef right now and maybe the onslaught of beef will cause him to retire in shame.

there i go, writing real life fanfic again.

Woud You Go To A Festival?-SiriusXM This Week