What Makes a Rock Star? - The History of Rock Music (Part 4)

1:25 Well, it's good, everybody.Welcome back to love, music, more.I am Scoobert Doobert, and today we are going to talk about rock history part four.This is going to be where we're going to kind of like meet these rock gods, these superheroes,these rock stars, go through a little bit more of the psychedelic world into progressiverock.

1:49 This is kind of the period where rock really takes on everything from its past and thenblazes its own new trail.Like a lot of what early rock and roll was was a recapitulation, a reforming, a re-analysisand introduction of things like the blues or R&B music in a different context.And naturally there was innovation within that, of course.

2:20 Like we talked about Buddy Holly with his innovative song form and chord choices.We talked about the innovation and development of call and response into different waysand applying that to different instruments.And then also the things like speeding things up, making them faster, changing fieldsand grooves and responding to audiences and then also developing songwriting with the

2:44 Beatles and then the reintroduction of the blues through the Rolling Stones with a differentsort of rock edge to it.But here's where, just like with the doors, we're starting to open up a new unexploredpart of music within rock and roll.And this is kind of the point in which we stop calling it rock and roll.We just start calling it rock music.And I think that that actually is, there's like a reason behind that.

3:13 This is where the classic rock period really starts to begin.So how does that happen?In the last episode we talked about counter-culture movement and kind of the cultural contextfrom which all of this is coming.And I think that's a really important part.The Vietnam War, anti-war movement, there's a lot of young people and I think that'sa really kind of slept on part of it.

3:35 These are the boomers and there's a ton of them.This is the biggest generation.And because of that, there's a weight, like a gravitational pull that these young peoplecreate within broader society because it's not just an American thing.Like this post-war generation is huge.And we're talking big and in Great Britain, big in the United States, big and continentalEurope, and also big in Japan.

4:02 Like a lot of the things that we talk about now, like Japan, oh my gosh, the populationis decreasing or whatever.It's because this generation was so huge.And that impacts the sheer weight that new, innovative, dangerous music can have becausethere's a whole bunch of consumers, there's a whole bunch of people to go to concerts.And this is where we start to get these stadium shows.

4:25 So I talked about that a little bit in the last episode and I want to dig into it a littlemore of the technological innovation that allows for stadium concerts.So you can check out the performance of the Beatles at Shea Stadium.It still is awesome.But you can tell that this is like a club band setup, like something that you would seein a small theater, just brought up and turned up for a stadium.

4:50 And through like the ballpark kind of PA, you know, like imagine if instead of bringingthese big speakers that are called line arrays into concert festivals instead, you justthrow your amp and turn it up as loud as you can.And maybe pipe it into the part where they say it's the seventh inning.And like those crackly, broken speakers, it comes through there too.

5:13 It's going to sound like crap because it's not made for it.But like I'm talking about the line array, there are these different innovations where we'reable to get louder and we're able to coordinate sound.Long time listeners of the pod will be familiar with this concept because I've talked to abunch of guests about coordinating sound and how difficult sound waves really are.

5:36 Not just in terms of like the room and you know, you probably see those sound panels andthings like that.But also sound is slow.It's not fast like light.So if I am standing too far away from you on a stage, I won't be playing in time withyou.It's kind of a crazy thing.And I've experienced it actually just in my career where I've played these, you know,

6:02 larger kind of stages and you are 60, 70 feet away from the drummer.And if you don't have your in-ears working, those little headphones that synchronize everybody,I'd be playing out of time no matter what I do.I'd have to be looking at the drummer and I've had to do this before when my in-earsweren't working super well, watching the drummer and using my eyes rather than my earsto center my groove.

6:26 That's a crazy weird concept and that was foreign to music.Like that was not something that we could do because we didn't play big stages like infact, as in we, I was not alive.But that general concept is so twofold.We need bigger amps and one of the things that I liked researching was the Vox Super Beatle

6:49 Amplifier made in part because the Beatles were huge and everybody was a Beatles fan.Everybody was going to the music store and buying music gear.This is part of the reason why we have this boom all the way into like the 90s becausepeople were excited about the Beatles.Like the Beatles got people to play guitar and then we got a lot of great guitarists.It's not a coincidence.

7:12 Like the Beatles are to think for the virtuosity guitar playing in the 80s and I've talked tosome of the people that were legit in the 80s and it's like Beatles, beach boys, that'swhy I play music.Doesn't matter if you're a punk, like founder, like Andy Shernoff, or if you are, youknow, in twisted sister, it's like the same thing.

7:33 It's all about inspiration and so brands, they want to get a little piece of that inspirationso they're naming their stuff after the Beatles.People are wanting to buy the Beatles gear and then these brands are innovating me likecrap.We got to figure out a way to like be able to play these big shows.So that's one.Number two is the synchronization and trying to figure out how do we accommodate that many

7:55 people and that is a tricky problem.One that takes a long, long time to fully get sorted out, but into the 70s that startsto get sorted out with the introduction of line arrays.Line arrays are a series of speakers that you're able to digitally control so that thereis a little bit of latency as in like delay between the different speakers so that theycan all fire and hit the people at roughly the same time.

8:26 And this gets better and better of course as we get into the future.This is part of the reason why modern concerts in big venues sound so good, but the technologicalinnovation and like the skill of live sound engineers just rock it up between the 60sand 70s.And into the 70s we start to be able to accommodate these large crowds.And that changes music because music is all about venue music is all about audience.

8:52 It always has been.And when you like look at it from a vacuum and you look at like hair metal and go likewhy does it look like that?Why does it sound like that?If you look at Led Zeppelin you have to understand the cultural context and then also whatis it like to be a fan experiencing that band?What is that band trying to write for?

9:11 Like when they're going on the road and they know they're going to be playing these songsI do the same thing, you know, like I am writing music because I know I'm going to be mostlyplaying like clubs so I can write music that will sound good in a club.But if I knew that I was playing mostly arenas or stadiums I'd be writing very different

9:28 music because that's like a bigger, more bombastic, louder, livelier show like you needto be exaggerated.You need to have big hair and makeup like it's a big performance as a super bowl performanceversus a bedroom performance.Very different styles of music it just calls for different things.So let's talk about my favorite guitarist of all time, Jimi Hendrix.

9:52 So Jimi Hendrix is a great example of how quickly music has changed, like literally10 years, a decade.We've got people freaking out like morality police, the FCC is saying, hey Ed Sullivan, don'tshow Elvis's pelvis, because they thought it was going to be too sexually suggestive.

10:17 And now we have Jimi Hendrix lighting his guitar on fire on stage in like a decade.That's crazy, crazy change, like think about what the genre has sounded like to if youjust compare like a purple haze with Love Me Tender or Jail House rock.That's a big change, not to hate on Elvis, love Elvis.I'm just saying like the constant push of rock music is one of the things that defines

10:44 it in this whole early period is that it is always moving, it is always changing.For a moment it can be teen idols and surf rock, and then the next it can be blues legendslighting their guitars on fire, cool.And remember how I was talking about that Super Beatle amplifier, well while Vox was designing

11:07 that Super Beatle amplifier, they made a mistake, and they kind of messed up the tone knob.They realized this is kind of a cool effect, so if you don't know what a tone knob is,this basically is like the effect of going darker to brighter, as in like I'm going tostart to cover my mouth with my hands, and you're going to notice it's going to get darker

11:25 and darker and darker, and totally pretty darker, it's kind of hard to understand.That's basically the idea of a tone knob, and then kind of what's going on with a wah pedal.So a wah pedal is rocking back and forth with your foot while you're playing guitar, andyou're able to darken or brighten the sound basically.I have a little bit more of an in-depth description of it on my sub-stack.

11:47 If you go to lovemusicmore.substack.com, you can read that for free, and it's a reallykey innovation for Jimi Hendrix's sound, and kind of for the sound of pushing the electricguitar to new heights, to new places.Along the same time, we're getting a lot more distortion.So distortion is where you turn something up too much and it starts to clip.It starts to redline.

12:13 If you've ever seen pictures of digital faders, and there's a little red block that it hitsor a needle that is pushing all the way over to the right hand side, it starts to distort.There's more and more of that going on now within blues guitar that ends up pumping upand buffing up the guitar sound.And so picture the guitar sound of surf rock.That's very clean, fender, a little bit of spring reverb, and it's shiny.

12:49 It's nice, it's pleasant.If you turn those amps up too much, they start to distort, they start to clip, they startto overdrive, and that sound ends up pushing it more towards artists like Jimi Hendrixor Eric Clapton of Cream.They're still playing Stratocasters, it's still the same instrument.And those instruments are fairly thin sounding, so they work really well when you distort

13:15 them because the distortion like pumps them up more.And so it's this nice blend of familiar and unfamiliar, and that's where a lot of artalways like lives, the successful art, is that it's got one foot in what you know asin Fender Stratocaster, the sound of surf rock.And another foot in the unfamiliar, using fuzz pedals, distorting your amplifier, playingthings too loud, too dangerous.

13:46 And I would totally invite you to listen to Voodoo Child Slight Return, which is one ofthe best examples of wah-wah pedal, and you know, fuzz guitar and distortion, all those things,the things that make Jimi Hendrix's sound, and just listen to the way that the trio,it's like a power trio, are all interacting.There's a different sense of what the role that drums and bass play.

14:14 And same thing with Jimi Hendrix, one of the things that I think is really cool andinspiring and basically changed the face of guitar and everybody sense him.There's like a ADBC kind of thing going on with Jimi Hendrix, where everything sendsto Jimi Hendrix, everybody kind of plays like Jimi Hendrix, because he was that powerfuland that cool.

14:31 But one of his aesthetic ahas, one of his moments of change with one foot in the past and onefoot in the future, is switching effortlessly between rhythm guitar and lead guitar and backand forth again.He was having to do that because he was in a trio, but because he was in a trio, he wasable to fill up more room.He's basically playing the role of like two or three guitarists all than one.

14:55 He's like you picture the ventures, you get several guitarists or like the eagles orsomething like that.Jimi Hendrix is doing all of their parts while singing, just incredible.And a big part of what we see here is the audience just goes crazy over it.They love it.I love it still.Why?Because they want new.They want exciting and that leads towards a shift in creative control.

15:21 And that shift in creative control allows more stank, allows more of the artist to shinethrough in their own records.It is less about hiring the slickest producer and arranger and making the most polished perfectrecord.And it's instead about executing an artistic vision even if it's distorted and clipping.

15:45 And labels to their credit, the record labels, sometimes allow this to happen, not allof them.Some of them like the Rolling Stones start their own recording label to mixed effect.But other labels like, you know, they kind of see that the pendulum is swinging a littlebit and some of them lean into it and some of them say, let's do a concept album.So what's the first concept album?

16:12 You know, and let me say like what I feel a concept album, it really defines it.It's not necessarily saying that it is a big story.It's saying that we are taking the album itself and that is the art.It is not a collection of singles.It is an elevated album with intentional b-sides, with intentional arcs and experimentation.And it takes you on a ride that is meant to be experienced and to end.

16:39 And to fans credits, they were hungry for it.They actually listened to full records.It's a really, it's a powerful, good thing.If you love an artist, love them enough to listen to their whole record.And to end, you know, music is really powerful when you give it its full due attention.And you don't have to do that for every artist, but the people that you really love, youknow, give them that.See what happens.

17:04 And what happens is you get pet sounds by the Beach Boys.First concept album, absolutely incredible.One of my favorite songs that God Only Knows is just an incredible standout.Wouldn't it be nice a song that I covered, hopefully did it some justice?Yeah.It's just, it's one of the greatest albums of all time.Everybody should listen to it and listen to it in mono too.

17:28 Speaking of technological innovation, like I was talking about with the guitar amps andthe line arrays and all that good stuff, the technological innovation of stereo, whichI've talked about on a previous pod and a previous sub-stack, is it's there, but it'snot being used on this record.There's a version of it.Of course, there's always a remix into stereo as there are lots of remixes into things

17:54 like Dolby Atmos, not to say that that's bad, but the mono version hits different, becauseit's what the artist wanted, it's what the team wanted.Same thing for the next concept album, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.I feel like that'd be easier to say with a British accent.Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.Yeah.The Beatles heard Pet Sounds, most notably Paul McCartney.

18:22 He's like, oh my God, Brian Wilson, crazy, I need to do that.It's also kind of fun because he thought that the Beach Boys were playing the bass guitarin a lot of the parts, but really a lot of it was session musicians.Carol Kaye, who's one of the greatest bass players of all time, originally a guitarist,and part of the wrecking crew, this group, and she would hate it if she knew that I

18:45 called her part of the wrecking crew, because she doesn't like that term.But whatever.That's how people know her because of the Netflix documentary or whatever.It's on Netflix.Anyway, that, it's really good, you should watch it.That session musician culture ends up influencing the Beatles because they think that theBeach Boys are suddenly really, really innovative on their instruments, so then Paul McCartney

19:10 starts learning those bass lines, not knowing that they're Carol Kaye's bass lines, andnow he gets influenced by one of the great female bass players in all of history, thinkingthat he's learning, you know, Brian Wilson's stuff.Anyway, interesting fun fact.Sergeant Pepper's is another concept album, again, Loose Story.It's not a rock opera, but it's kind of like following this fictional band, allowing for

19:35 the Beatles to have a little bit more room to experiment in terms of genre, go harderinto the orchestral Baroque pop thing that they've been doing.And also, just take bigger risks.The final track, A Day in the Life, is arguably the greatest rock song of all time becauseit is so evocative and crazy.It's the Beatles.It just is distilled.It sounds like they're songwriting.

19:59 It sounds like them, but it has a full orchestra.It was actually Ringo Starr's idea to save money because they didn't have the moneyto hire the whole orchestra.They hired a third of the orchestra and they triple-tracked it.Which again, that's cooler than hiring the whole orchestra.You take in a creative limit and you've invented something.Nobody's done that before.

20:23 And because you had a creative limitation, you made something happen that no one in theworld has ever heard a triple-tracked orchestra in a pop song doing chaos things.It is this ultimate statement of postmodernism, destructivism.It's very similar to Jimi Hendrix lighting his guitar on fire.That's what that ending sounds like.It's beautiful.So listen to that if you haven't.

20:52 Or if you have, give it another listen because it's worth it, man.And one of the other things that I think is really important to think about within thechange toward, from singles towards album, is the focus on album art.And Sergeant Pepper's is a great example of that because there are 70 famous faces onthe album art.And you know, everybody from Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, and one of the faces that you'll

21:15 see on there is Stuart Sutcliffe, who I covered in the Beatles podcast and substack, who wasthe original bass player who passed away.The Beatles always, always, live kind of under his specter and trying to live up to hisartistic vision and image.In this homage, I think it's one of the best examples of how he continues to be thatshadow art director, even after he passed.Now let's talk about supergroups.

21:48 So what is a supergroup?You know, it's a group of musicians, it happened to be super, they're really good players.And this is kind of the push towards progressive rock is that there's an element of virtuosityand again, Jimi Hendrix's perfect example of this, an element of virtuosity that hascome into rock and roll that it's about like, how well can you improvise?

22:10 It's kind of that jazz energy, but also like, think about the psychedelic energy.All of this is mixed in.So you've got a little jazz, little psychedelic, little blues.You got rock and roll.It's all converging and coming together into this way where like these musicians have beenpracticing and they've had examples of people to practice like.Whereas like in early rock and roll, you're kind of inventing everything.

22:33 You're like Chuck Berry, who's transcribing and learning piano parts and applying themto a guitar.But now these guys like Eric Clapton, he can learn all of Chuck Berry's parts, and thenalso learn a bunch of Delta blues stuff like Robert Johnson, and then also work with youknow session musicians and get to know George Harrison and listen to the Rolling Stones.

22:55 He now has a lot of inputs just based on when they're coming out, you know like laterinto the 60s.He's able to grow up on rock and roll basically.And because of that, now they have a bigger vocabulary.They have a deeper bag, so to speak, that's what sometimes musicians call it, where likeyou can reach deep into that bag of tricks and pull things out.Eric Clapton's got a lot of that.

23:18 He's got blues vocabulary, rock vocabulary, and he's developing his own vocabularyin convergence with technology, things like distortion and fuzz, and new ways of thinkingabout the guitar.Add that in to incredible power trio, a great bassist, Jack Bruce, who's also a vocalist,and then you have Ginger Baker on drums, who brings us like jazzy sensibility, and likewe've seen this.

23:44 We've seen this with the doors, we've seen this with Jimi Hendrick's experience, andnow another like jazzy drummer.And I think that's a really key important part of this, as a guitarist, I know wheneverI play with a jazzy drummer, somebody that really listens, and obviously rock drummerscan listen to, but there's a certain training in jazz of picking up what the other peopleare putting down, conversing.

24:09 And when you have that as a guitarist, they can take you up to new heights, like saythat you're doing a figure, and then the drums pick up, and now it's like, okay nowwhat can I say next?It gives you that moment of pause, it's like in a conversation, like right now I'm justtalking into a microphone, that's kind of hard.But when I'm talking to somebody bouncing stuff back and forth, that gives me a moment

24:34 to catch my breath, have a sip of coffee, and say, oh I want to take the conversationhere next, and sometimes having more activity in the drums and in the bass, andmore participation, where it's not just like laying down like, which is fine and great,I love groove.But a drummer that's doing stuff, gives you, especially when you're improvising, givesyou like a trampoline, you can jump off of.

25:06 So I put some examples of Cream, if you're into their music, I'd recommend their fulllength, Disraeli Gears, really, really awesome, and let's circle back now to the who.The who is a really cool band to me, because if I was at that time, I could have neverpredicted where they would end up going, and now with the benefit of history, I can appreciate

25:31 their entire arc of a band, and I love it, because they didn't come off as like the crazyhyper-talented outside of John Entwistle, their bassist.They just came off as like energetic, true mod musicians, like culture people, youknow, scenesters.That's like kind of where they started, and that's what their image was, and what theysounded like, and the chords they were choosing to play.

25:58 But Pete Townshend, who was their primary songwriter and their guitarist, really just grewas a musician, and took things to different levels.And I love that you have the stage act, where there's guitar solos, and they're literallydestroying their instruments.End of the show, breaking guitars, this is the first time anybody's seen that.

26:20 They're taking this performance arts aspect of it, just like Jimmy lighting his guitaron fire, and now they're blowing up their amplifiers and chucking their drums and smashingtheir cymbals, just like a total sight to behold.And then they're also writing the first rock opera, Tommy, which is this very like sentimentaldifficult.Like I learned a bunch of the guitar parts when I was kind of first, not first, like maybe

26:48 like two or three years into playing a guitar, and they change the way I thought aboutthe guitar because they're really inventive, really difficult.They're taking all these shapes, these things that are like familiar in rock music, and invertingthem, and twisting them, and turning them.Like even pinball wizard, that's a pretty hard song to play.And Tommy just shows his other side of this band.

27:10 It shows a depth of creativity, and understanding, and composition, and harmony, and sentimentality.It's a really beautiful thing, and I think that the concept album unlocks something in musicianswhen they're allowed to do it, because it gives you a bigger palette.You know, like I can only do so much in two minutes.I can do a lot in 40.It's the same thing like with a symphony.

27:38 You know, like symphonies, there's usually around that kind of time period.There's a reason to be able to develop themes, to be able to pull things back, and thenalso to do it with humor.Like one of my favorite parts about Tommy is they have the overture, which is known.It's like that's the beginning of a lot of symphonic pieces or a musical, the overture.But they also have an Underture, which like doesn't exist.

28:04 There's like this cheekiness to playing with music that I really like, that's part ofthat rebellious nature of rock in the same way that like there's voodoo child's slightreturn.What does that even mean?Who cares?It gets the people going.And then that all takes us to Woodstock.So Woodstock is kind of this capstone, this culmination of everything we've been talkingabout.

28:27 The crowd size is getting bigger, the energy getting bigger, the hair are getting bigger,the anti-war sentiment getting bigger.All of that comes together to this music festival that was originally going to be a paidmusic festival intended for about 50,000 people, and it ended up becoming free for halfof a million people.So yeah, this party, 1969 with the likes of Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Janis Joplin, Santana,

28:53 Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Jefferson Airplane, a bunch of people we already talked about,is this catharsis, is this moment of music taking over culture and rebellion and drug useand all of these things becoming one with the American youth spirit, and it's not pretty.You know, they don't have enough food, they don't have enough sanitation, they don't haveenough medical.

29:20 Again, these promoters, the cause are people, they did not know what they were in for,basically.But I think that the whole event is summed up beautifully in Jimi Hendrix's performanceof the Star Spangled Banner.Watch it.It is the energy, and that's one of the things I love about Jimi Hendrix is that he'sable to communicate energy through his music in a very spiritual way.

29:50 And that leads me to kind of my central thesis of this whole thing.Where do rock stars come from?Rock stars come from that energy.They come from psychedelic music, because just like Jim Morrison was not Jimmy Morrison,just like Jim Morrison was talking about, he wanted to be a shaman.He wanted to lead people on their trip to new planes.

30:16 And I think that is a key coordinating element of stardom and fandom, and what it becomes.And in a lot of ways, what it still is today, but it's become pretty commodified, peoplewant a leader, people want someone to help them escape, and people want community.And I've had these interesting conversations with some of my music friends, one of themOkudaxij.

30:44 I was having a conversation with him and then Nick Campbell, who's a great bassist, aboutwhether or not it's possible to be a massive pop star or rock star, and not have to actlike a cult leader.And I don't think it is.I think it's necessary if you want to reach a certain national, and I'm not talkinglike Jack Johnson.I'm talking, I don't know if he's exactly a cult leader, but I'm talking like Led Zeppelin.

31:12 I think you have to access a certain part, because that's what pushes people up to thosehighest of high ranks.It is the desire for a profit.And so let's talk about Led Zeppelin, because boy, do they do that.They take larger than life performances, they take everything that's come before them

31:37 and just make it bigger, and they've got the personalities and the talent to do it.And this is also kind of like where you have the front man thing that the who also had,but then you add in, especially very similar to the who, because the who had incredibledrummer and Keith Moon, who had all this energy and spotlight on himself, and then Led Zeppelin

32:01 has got John Bonham, who's a better drummer than Keith Moon by a lot.But similar aura, you know, aura through the roof.And then John Paul Jones, who's also a very similar bassist to John Entwistle of thewho made a little better.And then you have Jimmy Page, who is a guitarist who is very similar to Pete Townshend, but

32:26 a little better than, and then you have Robert Plant, who, you know, better singer too.So it's kind of like all across the board, you have this like pumped up version of thewho, I hate to call them that, but that's kind of what's going on.And they also, they add in a heaviness, like a harder rock thing, that the who just couldn'tdo, because of the time in which they were founded.

32:53 Led Zeppelin, as they, they're pushing us into the 70s, they have edge.And they add it into this like sensuality and sexualism inside of the lead vocal.And they add in like theatrics, like using a violin bow on the electric guitar or theexcess of rock and roll, you know, John Bonham, I think he passed because of alcoholism.I'm going to fact check myself real quick, be right back and I'm back.Yeah.

33:24 So he died at 32 years old.In 24 hours, he consumed 40 shots of vodka, after which he vomited and choked on hisvomit and died as an accidental death.Yes.This, these are the rock stars.These are the people, like Led Zeppelin invents that, Led Zeppelin embodies that for betterand worse, right?They are excess.They're bigger than life.They're bigger than rock music.

33:55 And they also retained artistic control, which allowed them to do some weird off-the-cuffthings, like Led Zeppelin 3, one of my favorite Led Zeppelin albums, has got a bunch oflike acoustic music and like folk influence and mandolins, things that you would have neverexpected.But that's what's so cool about them is they just like, they didn't give enough, theyjust like did whatever.

34:15 They did whatever they wanted and they were allowed to.Because they were a really good deal with their label, but like, that's a win-win.Like Atlantic gets one of their biggest artists ever.They're still profiting millions and millions of dollars off of every single year becausethey let their artists do their thing.And like you can picture Jimmy Page with his double neck guitar or the, just lavishness

34:37 of stairway to heaven.Like think about where we just were.We were just in these two-minute long singles, my generation, you know, like Love Me Do.And now we've got stairway to heaven.Like, that's crazy whiplash.And obviously the Beatles and the Who were a big part of paving that way as we're the

34:57 Beach Boys, going from the singles Teenie Bopper thing over to album-oriented rock.But also think about the audience, they've aged with this.These are the boomers again.Like, they were teenagers and now they are young adults experimenting with drugs and sexualityand all the things that come with being a young adult do so responsibly and carefullyand don't do drugs.

35:26 But the interesting thing is that the music along with it, just like Harry Potter, right?Like Harry Potter got darker is the audience got older.I was like, you know, seven or eight or something when the first one came out and by the timeI was ready for a wizard war, like there that wizard war was.Same kind of thing but like way cooler than my lame backstory with Harry Potter.

35:50 So the thing I want to leave you with is why did this happen and how can we make ithappen again?Not in the same way.I don't want another stadium rock band necessarily.We already have one.We've got Led Zeppelin at home.What I want though.The message that I'm trying to share, honestly, this is like my thesis statement for this entirepodcast, for everything I'm doing really.

36:15 I want us as music fans of which I am one to give artists the room to grow.I want labels to give artists the room to fail, to invent, to reinvent, to change.Because when you do that, you allow for great music, surprising music to be made.You allow for the forward progression of this beautiful art, the best art.Not painting, not movies, not TV, it's music.

36:48 If we think that and we believe that and we act that, I think the musicians will havea longer leash.Don't pull on that leash, don't pull them in, don't say no, no, no, you only make happymusic.It's like no, you are an infinite human being.Make the music of the universe.I'll decide if I like it or not, but I'm going to give you a shot.I want you to do that and reward the ones that do.

37:19 That's what gets people to stick around.People have short careers when they feel pigeonholed.I don't want to become a caricature of myself.That's what algorithms and pressure want me to become though.They want me to be just feel good San Diego guy.That's cool.I like making that music, so I'm going to keep making that music, but I'm not just goingto make that music only.

37:45 And I hope that I can have fans that will let me.And I look around and I see my fellow musicians, people that are really good.They try something new and just get beaten down and they go back to the old.That hurts.That stops them from fully becoming the musician they could be.And that hurts us as fans because we don't even know what we want.

38:10 I don't know what music is going to sound like next year or in five years, but I surehope it doesn't sound like right now.That would be a tragedy.So you decide every single time you pick what song you want to listen to, you are voting.Vote for experimentation.Try to find musical leaders so they can take us into unexplored territory.And I appreciate you for listening to all of this.

38:44 It's fun to talk about and I hope you're enjoying it.If you like the podcast, please share it with your friends and throw us a five star on SpotifyApple Music wherever you get your pods.You can hear my music at scoobertdoobert.pizza or just search Scoobert Doobert anywhere and youcan find it.Also check out the sub-stack that accompanies this with some musical examples, audio examples,

39:06 video examples at lovemusicmore.substack.com.Thank you everybody, really appreciate you and I'll see you next week, bye.