TomFlannery.com

I’ve always been a few years behind the times. I clung to my albums and tapes when others were buying CDs. When Itunes started taking over the world…..I jealously guarded my countless CDs and resisted (which of course I had owned on vinyl already and had to re-purchase…I’m still pissed at this record company scam but whatever…). When I finally succumbed (when CDs were topping out close to $20) to downloading music, everybody started to  jump on the streaming bandwagon. My current Ipod has about 30,000 songs on it…..and I treat it like a piece of fine china because they don’t make the Ipod classic anymore. So once it craps out (one already did….my current one I found used a few years ago), an entire life of music goes with it. My kids look at me the way I might side-eye a guy at the beach blasting 8-tracks. A hopeless relic.

Of course there is an alternative.

And so here I am…..a brand new Spotify junkie, supporting the very platform that pays me as a musician a poverty-inducing $0.006 for each stream. Yes, I’m an idiot. But I’m also an idiot with sudden access to 30 million songs…..and I’m having the time of my life. As I type these words I’ve been listening to the entire catalog of The Monkees for the last 5 hours. Yesterday I listened to an entire shift of 60s garage rock. The day before I binged on the new Who album and the latest from Jesse Malin, this after listening to California Dreamin’ about 47 times in a row (how beautiful and perfect is this song?). All of this costs me nothing…..for now. I get 3 months free and will eventually kick in $14.99 a month for the family plan…..which seems an absurdly low amount for all the songs in the world but I’m not gonna argue (No wonder they only pay me $0.006, just saying….).

So as I said…..I’m sitting here now, and at my fingertips is a virtual jukebox that would have to be the physical size of a 21st century luxury liner. And I’m getting all sad and sentimental because Davey Jones and Peter Tork are dead and feeling pissed off that I didn’t write (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone. And I’m realizing that Micky Dolenz has always been one of my favorite singers. And that Mike Nesmith wrote (and writes) great songs. And I’m saying to myself that if the Hollies are in the rock and roll hall of fame (as they should be), why aren’t the Monkees? Compare their songbooks and explain it to me….and don’t tell me they weren’t a real band, because neither was the Beach Boys. When guys like Glen Campbell and Hal Blaine are in the room, do you know what you do? You get out of the way and let them play. And if somebody writes you “Last Train to Clarksville”, you record it and smile about it for the next 50 years.

Ok, it’s been a slow day but still. This is what music does to you…y’all. And I cannot believe that I never knew that the song by the Association is called “Windy” and not “Wendy”. When the fuck did that happen? I’ve only been singing it wrong for 35 years.

I can’t wait to see what my brain conjures up tomorrow. And the day after. I might go all Laurel Canyon…..or dig deep into 70s power-pop…..or stand on a barstool to scream about how underrated the Cowsils were. I might just throw in the towel and say Motown is the greatest music in the history of the world. And I can pull up Suite: Judy Blue Eyes and once again wonder why Crosby Still and Nash even bothered to do anything after releasing that song because clearly there was no way they’d come even remotely close to topping it……they could just lay back on a big water bed covered with beautiful girls and Tony Montana-sized bowls of coke and say “top that one, motherfuckers.”

And by the way you do realize that neither Warren Zevon or John Prine or Los Lobos are in the rock and roll hall of fame either, right?

If I were them I wouldn’t want to join a club that didn’t admit the Monkees. So there.

Happy listening boys and girls…

In a bit..

–tf