Lefsetz talks about Aspen, Boulder, Touring and the Internet

	posted by iPOV on Sunday December 18 2005 @ 10:23AM PST
	Lefsetz talks about Aspen, Boulder, and Don Strasburg I just got back from Aspen, Colorado. From the Aspen Live conference. It USED to be called the Aspen Artist Development Conference. Back when the majors used to do artist development. When a coterie of founder Jim Lewi's buddies had gigs with this title at major labels. But now the major label paradigm is dead. And all the action is on the road. And the Net. Most music conferences have it all wrong. They think it's about bands. Shit, I don't need to travel thousands of miles to hear some label priority or some wannabe act. Drinking beer with other insiders stroking each other's dicks. This is the kind of circle jerk which KILLED the business. Hipsters on parade. Hell, I can sit at home and hear all the great new stuff on my computer. Why should I spend all that money to go see them live? But, you say, LIVE'S WHERE IT'S AT! It most certainly is. But the bands that practice that ethos don't pack their equipment in U-Hauls to play for the big swinging dicks of the music industry, they take their tunes to the public, THEIR FANS! They're making them one by one on the road. Fans are loyal. A&R guys forget you after your record stiffs. Never mind the rest of the people at the label who had little direct contact with you. A new breed of music industry exec is brewing. The true renegades we don't know the names of yet. They're working on sweat equity. Building the aforementioned bands on the road. But the people they're going through, the bastion of the present industry which will survive, are the road guys. Vince had it right the very first night. He was cracking up how people used to complain that the major label promo execs didn't come to Aspen. Now those people are irrelevant. The people who truly count, the road guys, the gig guys, they come, and they RULE! People like Don Strasburg. Don could be the most important guy in the business today. Because DON BREAKS BANDS! Oh, I'm not talking about those pretty boys on TV. I'm talking about the acts that have something to say, who can change your life with a solo. Don scours the Net, works the phones, just trying to come up with people to book at the Fox Theatre. Acts that will get all those college students revved up. Boulder you say? Who gives a fuck about BOULDER? If you believe this, you're fucking ignorant. Every place is New York today. Omaha is just as important as Los Angeles. You see it just takes one person. To get on to the Net and spread the gospel. (And the music too, if you don't think P2P, whether it be via BitTorrent, LimeWire or IM, breaks bands, get a straight job TODAY!) And for all the backlash against Clear Channel, the company employs some dynamite people, who are passionate. Like Rick Mueller. The last night of the conference, Rick, Don and myself got into it. Everything from Fugazi to DMB to Ani DiFranco. Exactly what broke bands. Should you market? How much? It was like the old days. Not doom and gloom. Rather, INSPIRATION! And that's the highlight of Aspen Live. The discussions. The people. The RELATIONSHIPS! Aspen is where you BUILD relationships. It's a cult. A brotherhood. Hell, my whole social life is built upon people I've met there. You might think it's just about skiing, but I'll tell you, spend a day on the slopes with someone and you'll get to know them better than you will at dinner, or in some hotel. And, what do you think we talk about on the chairlift ANYWAY? BUSINESS! Oh, the first day it was almost forty degrees. With not a cloud in the sky. The kind of day that makes people MOVE to Aspen. And then it started to snow. I love skiing in the snow. When the amateurs stay indoors. It's a winter wonderland. And the best conditions you'll ever experience. Powder for EVERYONE! And Wednesday... Let's just say the snow was so light, and so moisture-free, you couldn't even make a snowball. Sure, it was cold, but the sliding reinvigorated my addiction to the sport. And the speakers. We heard everything from survey statistics to an innovation guru from Ideo. And, even a presentation from the Innocence Project. Which was like a real life "CSI". But the highlight, the one seminar no one could stop talking about. The one that dropped everybody's jaw. Was the man from Google. Oh, Chris Sacca, principal of new business development at the search company, didn't dazzle us with his clothing. Nor his accoutrements. Hell, he flew COACH! EVERYBODY at Google flies coach. But when he told his story, it was MESMERIZING! In the Burbank airport, waiting for our luggage upon our arrival back home, Scott Perry said he didn't get it. Everything Chris said was available. If you just READ THE MAGAZINES! Surfed the WEB! But we live in an industry of antiquity. Which is why it's being decimated. Everyone from Donnie Ienner to David Munns doesn't get it. It's the INTERNET stupid! It's not about reorganizing the company, it's about REDEFINING THE MISSION! If you're not blowing up the business, trying to reinvent it, you're doomed to sink. Hell, you don't need ME to tell you, just look at SoundScan. Where the totals keep going down down down. Like I told Felice. Chris' presentation was exciting to me because this is where I live. Every day. FINALLY, someone was speaking my LANGUAGE! For me, it was like discovering "Billboard". But for seemingly everyone but Scott and me, it was like discovering the BEATLES! Maybe it's like every live event. Maybe you had to be there. To listen to the guy put it all together. To tell the story of how Sergey and Larry founded the company. Or maybe you just had to hear about every product/service Google offers. Not only search, but IM, social networking, blogging... And, even better, a FREE service that delivers the kind of statistics Universal won't pay SoundScan for. Like how many people visited your page, where they came from. Sliced and diced data. Not even for a song. For a CLICK! But what blew everybody's mind, was the corporate philosophy. Where do I begin? The FOOD? Google realized something. Every good idea came over a meal. So, they hired the chef from the Grateful Dead. To prepare not tuna fish, but steak. And lobster. There are no round tables in the dining hall. Just long rows, like in high school. There's no hierarchy. You sit down and GET INTO IT! For HOURS! There's no clocking back in. The company realizes it's all about IDEAS! The everyday work is subsidiary to INNOVATION! And if you come up with an idea, and it's approved, if it's a go project, then you go out and try to recruit a team of workers. By your very fucking self. If you've got a great track record, everybody clamors to sign up. If you're an autocrat and can't get along with people, GOOD LUCK signing up the A-talent. And let's just say your idea bears fruit. THEN, Google buys you off, pays you out, JUST AS IF THEY ACQUIRED AN OUTSIDE COMPANY! You can make millions WORKING for the company! And nobody's a peon. Every Friday, At 4:20. There's a company-wide meeting. 3,500-4,500 people gather and ask ANY question of CEO Eric Schmidt and the founders. Sometimes there's an argument on the spot. Sometimes, one of the founders will question the CEO. And, there's no penalty for raising your hand. Sound like a major label? RIGHT! And there's row after row of washers and dryers. So you can do your laundry at work. And a company doctor. Who's analyzing all the health data. And foreseeing problems BEFORE they arise. Hell, the doctor tracked down employees who were traveling so much they were at risk for that condition where you die on a plane from inactivity, he gave them a HEADS-UP! Sounds like a religion, doesn't it? Sounds like you're working ROUND THE CLOCK! Sounds like the way the record business USED TO BE! I didn't run into a single soul in Aspen who didn't say the same damn thing. He wanted to give up his gig and go to work for GOOGLE! What little gems can I provide you? Google is into open standards. Chris said to beware of Microsoft and its Janus technology. I couldn't agree more. The company has NEVER issued a press release! It's all about the consumer. About giving him cool things, FOR FREE! It's about the idea first, THEN the monetization. Hell, the cash-generating clickable ads weren't even part of the original concept, the goal was just to create the best SEARCH ENGINE! Do you know how Google works? Never mind the search technology, but the underlying concept? It's WEB software. It sits not on your desktop, but on the SERVER! So, it can be changed INSTANTLY! Things can be altered immediately when wrong. Pulled if they're fucked up. This is the kind of nimbleness that's making Microsoft envious, that's making the Redmond company change its strategy, to EMULATE Google. It all wasn't one way. Google wants in on the music business. Chris is trolling for ideas. Hell, e-mail him if you've got one (csacca@gmail.com). But, he gets 850 e-mails a day. Oh, he's got a team to read them for him, but I wouldn't expect an answer from the man unless you've got a VERY good idea. That was one thing that the attendees couldn't quite understand. Google isn't completely benevolent. They have a great image. But they're out to conquer the world. Hell, they OWN advertising. They know it's about pull instead of push. Where do you think all those ad dollars are going to go after TV shows are all available uninterrupted via the Net? Right now, Google is fighting the big bad Microsoft. But, as Pete Townshend said, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Hell, just read to find out. The company is doing a lot of great things, but if you don't watch your rights, they just might trample them, they just might put you out of business. And, after talking about all this at dinner, on the lift, I'm standing in the J-Bar just shy of midnight, talking with Matt, Jolene and Gayle, and who walks in, but the man himself. You don't make this kind of money, you're not this successful, if you don't have a big ego. Chris starts saying how Fox gets it. How the Century City company is the only major media enterprise that realizes Microsoft is evil, and could end up owning the file/DRM standard to everybody's detriment. Then, he dropped that he was close personal friends with Rupert. Hell, in the next hour and a half I heard how he was buddies with everybody from Jim Cramer to the ex-President. Still, it tarnished his image not a whit. Because it was like getting a snapshot of the FUTURE listening to him. As if someone delineated the new releases from 2008! He was talking bandwidth, disintermediation, my head was swimming. And then he brought up TicketMaster. Marc Reiter and Chris Jones had given me a heads-up. The evening previous Chris had sat at their table at Matsuhisa for a while, before he moved on to one with four babes, before he sat down with the owner, and he'd revealed that what Google wanted to do was eviscerate TicketMaster. So, when Chris started talking ticketing, the fifteen dollar service charges, I was ready. He started talking about taking on TicketMaster. But he had a GIANT blind spot. He was completely unaware of the KICKBACKS! He truly thought that the fifteen dollar fee went straight to the ticketing company, that promoters and acts never got a cut. It was Napster all over again. These tech guys, what they don't know about the music business will kill them. Again and again and again. We started talking satellite radio hand-held devices. I said how you can't get the music OFF the MyFi and S50. But, that even if you could, the sound was SHITTY! Oh, in his classic style, Chris treated me like I was from the Pleistocene era. He had engineers working on pumping data down a very thin pipe as we spoke. This would not be a problem in the future. Then, I let him know, the satellite radio companies LICENSE the music. That it's a two-way deal. They just can't act willy-nilly. It's not like the major labels are gonna allow the satellite companies to broadcast in a LOSSLESS FORMAT! So, we still have a bit of power here in the music industry. But it's not going to last for long. Sure, Warner owns Led Zeppelin. But, who's going to own the NEW acts. Not the major labels. Because they just don't get it. Google is providing the tools. The technology is out there. You can not only RECORD your music on your PowerBook, you can MAKE THE VIDEO TOO! And, Google will host it for FREE! Maybe you didn't know about this service. Maybe you're the kind of person who won't leave the office unless the heads of the major labels are going to be there. Well, you're out of it. You're wrong. If you want to know what's really going on, sit down for dinner with Nathan Hubbard, who runs Coran Capshaw's MusicToday. Or Jay Marciano, of Madison Square Garden. Did you know that the company grosses more from its main venue, Radio City Music Hall and its theatre in Hartford than CLEAR CHANNEL DOES NATIONWIDE? That'll give you perspective. And that's what you need to survive in the coming age. Everything you knew is wrong. Sure, it comes down to the music. But how many of us know great records that never sold. Maybe it was a lack of radio, a lack of commitment. But now you don't need radio. You don't even need a vast, high-priced team. You might just need MySpace and your fans. It's a brand new world. It was palpable in Aspen. Oh, one more thing. Chris told us in the J-Bar that he believes newspapers are irrelevant. If he gets interested in anything, if he wants to know more about something, he researches it on the Web, he goes to the blogs. You can start researching Chris Sacca by going to HIS blog: http://www.whatisleft.org/. Meanwhile, just know, he's a formidable foe. He owned an indie record store in Park City. He's sold in excess of 400 copies of Matisyahu via his blog. He spearheaded Google's Wi-Fi'ing of San Francisco. He's a new breed of executive. One who gets ahead on his smarts as opposed to one who succeeds by bullying. This is the old wave music industry's worst nightmare. It's no longer about winning through intimidation, it's about egalitarianism, about delivering the best consumer experience. Do you think by suing traders and selling copy-protected tracks for a buck (MORE?!) you're inuring yourself to the customer? If so, you're just dumb. And about to be steam-rolled by a whole new generation. -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1

	by on Wednesday January 04 2006 @ 07:44AM PST [ reply | parent ]
	It's too bad you didn't take the time to bleep the profanity out of this article before posting it here iPOV. One reason I would never go to the "Aspen Live" conference and bong-fest (or whatever) is because I don't enjoy being around punks who talk like that, and I certainly would not subscribe to read drivel like that on a regular basis.

by scottandrew on Wednesday January 04 2006 @ 01:47PM PST [ reply | parent ] You're going to dismiss the entire content of the article based on a few f-bombs? Sheesh.

	by Shelva on Wednesday January 04 2006 @ 08:06AM PST [ reply | parent ]
	Way to go iPOV! great article and true facts. it is best served as you did. RAW as it is so it has the FULL impact! I love the part about...."It's no longer about winning through intimidation, it's about egalitarianism, about delivering the best consumer experience" Shelva

	by iPOV on Wednesday January 04 2006 @ 02:13PM PST [ reply | parent ]
	I attend a number of conferences and festivals every year (except SxSW, which is a waste of time imo) ... in all the cases, those of us who work at being in the business of buying, selling, marketing, promotion etc discuss much the same line of dialogue as above ... in very much the same way ... like I said, I tend not to like Brian but in this case, the content was worthwhile for a change. Language is what it is ... I am not a censor.

by on Wednesday January 04 2006 @ 03:19PM PST [ reply | parent ] iPOV, What do you mean "discuss much the same line of dialogue as above ... in very much the same way"? Are you saying this is how the hip dudes in the-know at all the greatest conferences communicate? This is how big-label executives explore and debate the perils and promises of the indie music scene? Wow, too bad I missed it...

	by iPOV on Wednesday January 04 2006 @ 03:35PM PST [ reply | parent ]
	cmon man .. don't bust my balls okay? ... many of the same discussions take place on a somewhat regular basis at conferences all over the country. And the manner of speech is similar throughout ... what's your problem anyway?

by on Wednesday January 04 2006 @ 04:17PM PST [ reply | parent ] All I am saying is Elvis sure wouldn't have talked like that...

	by iPOV on Wednesday January 04 2006 @ 04:41PM PST [ reply | parent ]
	roflmao! then you didn't know elvis like i knew elvis rofl ... that was good man .. rofl .... (cough) ... too funny ... nice ...

	by Robert Lee King on Wednesday January 04 2006 @ 08:09PM PST [ reply | parent ]
	Frankly, I didn't care for the profanity either but it had nothing to do with my opinion of the post itself. My problem with the post is it said nothing in the same lame way all the "Rock Stars" do it, in the major print rags. Using the F-bomb and it's ilk do nothing but show the speakers ignorance. I am neither shocked nor surprised by such words. I am however, disappointed at a pure opinion peice being taken as fact. By the way, fact means truth. There is no such thing as an untrue fact.

	by iPOV on Wednesday January 04 2006 @ 10:42PM PST [ reply | parent ]
	it is an opinion piece, and I repeat, I do not normally post such things and I do not generally agree with Brian's assessment of things .. but in this case, some of the opinions expressed are notoriously common among those who promote independent talent.

	by More Factually on Thursday January 05 2006 @ 07:38AM PST [ reply | parent ]
	Truthfully, If anyone ever wondered why Rap & Hip-Hop dominate the radio market outside of the payola scandals then this would serve as the best possible illustration. If we wer' a panel or council of any sort I would vote no-confidence in iPOV's assesment regardless wether it is outspoken or perfectly censored. There is no such thing as an independent musician when you simply get into this industry for the music and possible success that may come with it. Working hard is not a plausible solution but rather, the only way to distinguish yourself at anything in life. iPOV may make good points however it is certain that these malicious antics do not serve or assist in the stretch for uniformal surveyance. This is much like being in a room full of self-proclaimed "independent" musician's that sit around prefacing most itemms said with phrases like: "Independents like us," or: "Musician's like us," etc. Here will be something stated that is more publicly understood. How dare anyone pre-judge and slump any one musician or music-proffessional into one categourium. You may be asking yourself "How is this post relative to the context and content?". Simply stated, who gives a *censored text* what iPOV or anyone mentioned or whom could possibly be mentioned thinks? Just set out to sell a million records and with hard-work, dedication, constant plugging, and the best possible awareness you can create for yourself, whatever you wan't in this world is yours. Danké for taking the tyme to read. PS: If it was truley about a good consumer product well, for starters there would probably still be artist-development. Some believe controversy sells and some would rather have it the old-school fashion. Tis' just a preference iPOV. Think about it.

	by Dudley Saunders on Thursday January 05 2006 @ 11:25AM PST [ reply | parent ]
	Here's what I'm interested in from this post: Does Google have something specific in mind that will help the indie artist? And what is it? The web has been an incredible boon to me: ten years ago, a review generated zero sales, whereas today it can actually drive sales (they read, they click through for a listen, they like and buy with another click). But beyond this is a new - and more interesting - question you hinted at: are we entering the age where the live show may be unnecessary for a career? Touring for the little-known indie artist has always been a loss leader, not to mention a PR nightmare - and now audiences seem even less willing than before to risk a live show turning out dull. My fans are scattered all over the country - I know because I can track most of my sales, not to mention fan emails (again, god bless the internet). Until my fan concentration seems particularly high in a given area, it's questionable how much there is to gain from playing live there. (Although (a) playing a fan's house concert in Idaho (for instance) - where he'll bring all his friends over to be brainwashed - would clearly be worth it, or(b) playing a major city where the date may make the press write about you, thus creating one more on-line review link to drag people to your website and song clips - that too might be worthwhile) The ticket remains how to rise above the seeming millions of indie artists now clogging the web. Right now, for me it's half press, and half meet-them-one-at-a-time-online. It's pain-staking but it's turning out a more solid fan-base than I had ten years ago. (BTW, I have a theory about the mailing list you put together from live shows: they suck. People get excited by your live charisma, but when they get home, the CD is just a bunch of tracks, and they relate to it very differently. What they liked live is not the same thing as what they want on shuffle in their iPod. This is making me think that the people who come to you because they liked your TRACKS are more likely to come back to you for MORE tracks. God knows the folks buying my new CD are coming back in droves to get my last CD. Interesting.) For what it's worth to you -- Dudley Saunders

	by Justin Ancheta on Monday January 23 2006 @ 02:23PM PST [ reply | parent ]
	So, I dig what you say. Now let's see some of you great enthusiast get down and dirty and come to the streets of S.F. with us and pick us up off the streets... sometime, no rush. It is grand down here though! www.sinclairband.com Great article. I wish we had some business saviness on our side. maybe some day...

	by tom callahan on Friday December 15 2006 @ 11:25AM PST [ reply | parent ]
	Alwyas interesting read... Strasburg has always done it his way.

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