The Lefsetz Letter
by Bob Lefsetz
Dec 30, 2004

more of Bob's letters at http://www.celebrityaccess.com/news/letter.html?id=69

I just downloaded almost a hundred tracks. Obscure stuff like Bruce doing"Red Headed Woman" with Jackson and Bonnie and the Kings' incomparable"Switchin' To Glide".

After putting my iPod in its cradle and transferring these still-warm MP3s to the little machine I was geared up for an hour of back exercises. But first I had to take my anti-inflammatories. Which require food. So I found myself sitting at the kitchen table, with a cup of Dannon coffee yogurt and trail mix. Staring at my MyFi. Just where I'd left it after returning from my sojourn to the drugstore.

Oh what a funny little device. It's an imperfect walking machine. Stroll under a few trees and the signal can cut out. But just before I got home I heard this Duncan Sheik song. I always thought I hated Duncan Sheik. Hell, tell me to tell you the story Ahmet told me about him sometime. But I'd heard this
OTHER song on the Loft, "Magazines", and I'd reevaluated. This one, "Start Again", sounded good. I made a mental note to download it as soon as I got home.

But then the NEXT cut was really good. Something by this guy Kenny White.
I'm standoffish when it comes to new music. Unless it really rings my bell,
I'm gone. But THIS sounded good. And then I remembered...I could RECORD IT!

Yup, I walked in the front door, hit the 2Go button, put the MyFi on the kitchen table and let her rip.

While I went to my Mac and took the Duncan Sheik track. Fielded a bit of e-mail. And had a long conversation with Beth.

And then, hours later, I was confronted with the little silver machine once again. Just before midnight. Just now.

And I decided to see what the machine had picked up. You see, I hadn't just taken Mr. White's track, I set the machine to continue recording...till the battery ran out.

And the first track recorded is the Eagles' "Take The Devil".

Everybody thinks the Eagles only had two records. The first greatest hits and "Hotel California". They think Timothy B. was always the bassist. Thus, they're missing out on the debut. A record so slick, so perfect, that it was dismissed upon release as being almost lightweight and irrelevant. Just a hit track and filler. But that it wasn't. If you want to know what the summer of '72 sounded like, listen to this cut by Randy Meisner. You can hear the hope through the disillusionment. Today's music is hard-edged or irrelevant. This was the rap of its day.

Then I saw Gordon Lightfoot's name. I wondered what track of his they were spinning. "Sundown". I'd rather hear "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald", but although not obscure, "Sundown" is still a great listen.

Then Loggins & Messina's "You Need A Man". Oh, if this band reunited they'd be lucky to sell out the Wiltern. But despite the legacy of "Your Mama Don't Dance", one listen to this by neophytes would INTRIGUE them. Reminds me of frustrating nights in college. When, without pussy, I counted on music to get me through.

And THEN I hit the mother lode. "Long Flowing Robe".

Yes, I love "Something/Anything?" But really, the BEST Todd Rundgren album is "The Ballad Of Todd Rundgren". And it opens with this killer. Which I never heard broadcast on the radio until tonight.

"Cruising makes some people get uptight
But nothing beats a lonely Friday night"

And then there's this DRUM HIT!

"Friday night
Nothing much to do but hang around
We got high..."

Actually, by this time, junior year, I'd given up the demon weed. I was seriously into alcohol. And on more than one Friday night I spun this record. But even though it was just me and my buddies, we were euphoric. You just MUST BE when you hear "Long Flowing Robe".

Actually, we'd usually get tanked up and go on the prowl. Hell, when you're with your buddies, the camaraderie always leads to good times.

And then I realized. There was no way I was going to do my back exercises to my iPod. I had to listen to what I'd recorded on my MyFi.

Oh, radio.

Radio breathes. Your iPod is inert.

Radio is the world. Your iPod is just you. Limited.

I keep scrolling. "Dirty Work"!!! Oh, how many times have I heard that one. But it doesn't matter. To hear it late at night a few days after Christmas 2004 makes me feel...warm.

Oh, Rosanne Cash's "Seven Year Ache". What a winner.

The marginally obscure Doobie Brothers cut "Echoes Of Love".

An Aimee Mann track I don't give a shit about. So I just scroll through that one. But I had to sit through all of Elton's "My Father's Gun".

And it was during that. Not during the Kinks' "See My Friend", or my all time favorite Eagles track "My Man", that I had to get up and write. To tell you that as imperfect as the MyFi is I would not abandon it. Just like you wouldn't abandon a cross-eyed child. Just like you wouldn't abandon the love of your life if she wore twenty extra pounds. Yup, my MyFi is alive. Like a living, breathing person. Yup, there are PEOPLE inside it. HUNDREDS! Programming all kinds of stuff. But it used to be it vanished into thin air. Now I can capture it. Like movies of someone else's life while I'm out living mine. Yup, in my slow moments I can catch up with my friends.

It wasn't designed by Jonathan Ive. It wasn't hyped by Steve Jobs.

But ask Steve. He'll tell you Apple makes tools. It's up to YOU to use them, to get something out of them. Whereas the MyFi is a CONDUIT! A LINK between people. Between sensibilities. It's life itself.

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