Greetings from Laurel Canyon!
I had a meeting with an A&R friend at the Universal Music building in Santa Monica. To be honest, this meeting was bumped and pushed so many times I couldn’t for the life of me remember why I was driving west to a “major” record label.
The meeting was indeed pleasant and informative. At some point as I looked out the window onto the Ralph’s parking lot and I realized I was twenty or so yards from my old office at Interscope Records. Can you image, back in the late ’90s when you entered the hottest major label in the world, the first office a visitor would encounter (with music blasting) was mine. Next door Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit had an office. (Funny, I had a lovely dinner with Fred the other night. Would have never have guessed how much we’d have in common in 2015.)
So at Universal my friend gave me a quick run down on who “the majors” make records with these days. The two main hit men are Max Martin and Jeff Bhasker—super talented dudes whose songs are built like math equations. I heard a new song from this Canadian kid The Weekend. The embarrassing truth is The Idelic Hour was one of the first to spin his initial offerings to the internet.
I don’t even hate this new innovation of pop mania controlling the airwaves. It’s just like a fork in the road to a city I will never visit. I refer to myself as a “40%er” which stands for someone who listens closely to their music and bands from The Beatles to Beck. For this week pop music made me think of Vikings and guitar godz. I love both.
So, I started with some lesser known heroes like Randy California, Leslie West, Bill Nelson, Steve Marriot, and the lighting fast Alvin Lee and worked my way into this Idelic Playlist.
Let’s rock and never stop, 40%ers!
The Idelic Hit of the Week:
Moon Duo – Slow Down Low
Contemplating the Swedish invasion of pop producers.
