Marty Manley on economics, politics, technology, and culture

Music

Nostalgia: Not as Seductive as it Used to Be.

With my wife grounded by a nasty ankle injury, we took in three movies and I escaped to a rock band reunion. Oddly, they all confirmed the same lesson: nostalgia is a temptress — fun, but wholly unreliable.  Owen Wilson is the hero of Woody Allen’s new movie, Midnight in Paris. He is a Hollywood [...]

Astral Weeks: Venturing in the Slipstream

Sometimes an artist captures lightning in a bottle. Usually they aren’t sure how it happened and few can repeat the magic regularly. In 1968, Van Morrison recorded Astral Weeks under awful circumstances. Today, it is widely recognized as a transcendant work, truly one of the greatest albums ever recorded. It is an album that has made me [...]

The Hamilton Mixtape: "Cause I'm the damned genius that shot him"

One of the cool things about being President is that talented people of all sorts are happy to drop by and perform for you. Last May, the White House sponsored "Poetry, Music, and Spoken Word", an opportunity to let people most of us have never heard of get their 15 minutes.   In the Heights [...]

Reinventing and Rediscovering Music

The traditional music industry is dead and likely to be more studied than missed.  Every label is in trouble, mainly because CD sales decline every year, with 2009 likely to be a free fall. Every dedicated music retail chain is out of business. Only the #1 retailer matters –  Apple’s iTunes. The rest, including Walmart [...]

Prop 8: The Musical: "It's an Obamanation".

Begging for redemption after a series of embarrassing movie performances, Jack Black is here resurrected as Jesus Christ in this vaudeville send-up of California’s Proposition Eight. He is joined by Neil Patrick Harris, Margaret Cho, John C. Reilly, Maya Rudolph and a lot of other people who I did not realize could sing. The play [...]

A Brilliant Flashback

Saturday night I took a trip back to the 1970s and found two groups of people. One remains unchanged — seemingly frozen in time. Another group has taken what they learned in the seventies and used it to change the world. The occasion was a benefit concert for the Seva Foundation at Oakland’s beautiful Paramount [...]

Gremmies, Hodads, and Woodies

It was a warm day like this some years back that a song first stopped me cold. Walking home from sixth grade, I shared a transistor radio with a friend. When our song came on, which in the spring of 1963 was often, we stopped, put down our books, and sang to the avocado trees [...]

Media Wants to Be Digital, Downloadable, and Free

Moore’s Law famously describes an important trend in computer processing power: the number of transistors that can be inexpensively placed on an integrated circuit increases exponentially. Specifically, Intel founder Gordon Moore observed that chip density doubles about every two years. Thanks to Moore’s Law, computer processing is now free for most intents and purposes. Metcalfe’s [...]

Gravity Lessons

Leaders of businesses assaulted by technology can sympathize with Wile E. Coyote. We know how he feels when he discovers that the road beneath his feet has turned to air. We laugh in sympathy as his expression turns sheepish and he pedals frantically. We know that fall is gonna hurt. These days you can find [...]

To Infinity and Beyond: Steve Jobs Does it Again

Every year at this time I make a habit of watching the finest business presentation on the planet: the Steve Jobs keynote address at Mac World. The event is held nearby, but I watch the film to see Jobs present new results, products, and businesses. On Tuesday Jobs keynoted MacWorld 2007. He is surely one [...]

This Guy Iz Great!!!

You’re a kid, you like music and you like electric guitars. So you practice a bit and you turn out to be pretty good. You record a music video from your bedroom with a back lit hat covering your face. Somebody posts it on You Tube with an introduction: "this guy iz great!!!". After a [...]

They’re Tryin’ To Wash Us Away: Randy Newman at Carnegie Hall

I got two pleasant musical surprises while in New York on business this week. Last night a friend snuck me into an event with Sting, who was signing his new CD at a local Barnes & Noble. Sting turns out to be short, fit, and pretty nice for an Irish rock star who got a [...]

Nothing Left to Lose

For most people, age 27 is prime time. You are usually done with school, although hopefully not with learning. You are making your own way in the world. You are young and strong but ideally less foolish than you had been a decade earlier. You may even be in a stable, more-or-less adult, relationship. If [...]

The IPO Diaries, Day One: London

Friday, May 7, 2004 Folks, Six meetings and a rock concert for a total of seven high quality events. These meetings do not vary. Enter car on left, zoom to office building, clear security, elevator up, exchange business cards, pass out Red Herring. Pitch using portable flip slides — no computers. Answer questions. Run to [...]