Producer Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed) on today's music business.

**Captain Caravelle** · 05-04-2015, 08:39 AM

Originally Posted by pamosmusic

Oh yea. ... I subscribe to it ... It's great for staying up on what's going on. Finger on the pulse of the avant garde, it's not. Just look at the polls ... Winner of "Rising Star Guitar" last year was Peter Bernstein. I idolize that man but he put his first album out more than twenty years ago. Come on downbeat ... That star has risen ... Use your noggin and try and see who's out there.

Journalists....if that's what you want to call them these days are generally lazy and wait for things to land on their desks rather than seek them out. That being said I've never really paid much attention to the words of people who spend their time criticizing what they are unable to do.

**Stevebol** · 05-04-2015, 10:19 AM

Ezrin is just thinking out loud and that's OK. We all have to deal with the past. I wish I would have given the music business a few more years. A lot of people doing R&B in the old days put rap out there and said- here, here you go. This is the new school. The old school is going to go get a job as a janitor or the clothing department at Sears.

I used to be an R&B gangster. Everyone I knew was either a millionaire or they were sleeping with one. I just decided I would rather be a janitor. I think we spent too much time sexualizing music. Our rhythms were getting too girly and girls don't like girly rhythms. In a recent interview Nicholas Payton really summed that up.

What effing ever. We can't change the past.

We all have a story. It sucks having regrets and you have to get on with your life. Sounds like Ezrin is soul-searching and I've been doing that like crazy the last year and a half. Dwelling on the past is new to me.

**GingerMojo** · 05-04-2015, 03:34 PM

Face it, these days we cater to the lowest common denominator to make money. Everybody wants a piece of the action, if you are making money at it, we want a cut too. Its a sad state, but I am pretty sure that's the way it was when the Beatles were rehashing the same ol' thee chord melodies. I like to think of the Beatles as the Justin Bieber of the sixties. Now, everyone wants my head for that, but that really is the way it is. Pop music sells, great music still exists, look for it. Mr. Ezrin needs to stop having his art spoon fed to him.

**Stevebol** · 05-06-2015, 04:46 PM

Sample some funk;

Isolate the bass, slow it down a bit and push the 'swing' button on you drum machine. You get this;

Ezrin thinks we should get excited about Lamarr's sample of 'Who's That Lady' from the 70's. I'm a sheep. Yeah, it's spectacular.

**Stevebol** · 05-10-2015, 09:10 PM

I've been listening to more of Kendrick Lamar. Music with samples makes me feel like I took some xanax. It makes a good first impression then it creeps me out.
It's not for me.

**kmaaj** · 05-13-2015, 02:23 PM

All I gotta say is this:

the the album cover for the import version of Foxtrot by Genesis is great for sorting out stems and seeds.

Have you you ever tried to sort out stems and seeds on an iPhone? It sucks.

**Stevebol** · 05-13-2015, 03:03 PM

I got out of high school in 75' at 17. All I wanted to do was jam after work. After a while I started thinking- all this substance abuse is going to destroy live music. It will destroy a lot of musicians too. I just finished reading Rick James's 'Confessions'.
It's all in the book. He finally started to get a clue by the mid-80's but it was too late. Cocaine is a hell of a drug.