Irving Azoff and Michael Rupino For Huffington Post/AOL

After watching Huffington Post/AOL’s exclusive interview with Live Nation Chairman Irving Azoff and CEO Michael Rapino, one feels a bit torn.

Torn between wanting these guys to rally the company for the good of the music industry and alternately feeling like shorting the stock to drive them into the ground.

After all, Ticketmaster’s monopoly and Live Nation’s near monopoly have done nothing to improve the concert-going experience.

Ticketmaster has outright gouged music fans with its Orwelian sounding “convenience fees” for a generation while Live Nation’s consolidation of indie promoters has resulted in a music experience that feels like an overpriced trip to the mall.

It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

Live Nation did manage to report a profit in the third quarter, after a disaster loss in the same time frame in 2010. So that’s good.

What’s not so good is that the stock price in July was about $12 and dropped to $9.57 the day they reported that the better results. What to do? Go on a road show.

Azoff and Rapino were interviewed by Willow Bay for Huffington Post/AOL, and despite her softball questions, the two came off looking a bit beleaguered. The stock price has dropped even more since– today at $8.44.

In the interview, Azoff and Rapino did their best — talking about how they were going to get more people into the shows. Ideas like international expansion sounded okay. The social media play sounded less convincing.

Rapino dropped a nugget that Live Nation’s in-house research showed that of interested concertgoers, only 50% of were even aware that a show from one of their favorites was happening. Rapino talked about a very inefficient marketing model.

So here’s a free idea: How about actually buying advertising on radio instead of relying on ticket giveaways, useless “presents”, and the assumption that the radio station should talk about the show as a public service?

Where things really seem to go off the rails is when the two talk about initiatives with Groupon (which is great for consumers, but may ultimately be teaching consumers to never buy at regular price) and Walmart (because Walmart shoppers have so much free cash flow?).

Azoff also drops names like Spotify to show all the excitement happening around music, apparently trying to get some positive buzz.

But it feels like they’re just grasping at straws. There’s really no talk at all about the product and overall experience for the consumer.

Overall, Huffington Post’s piece by Bonnie Kavoussi does a good job of illustrating just what kind of a predicament Live Nation is in.

And want to see how social media can work for Live Nation? Read the comments below the Huffpost story — three pages of pissed of core concertgoers.

Here are clips from Willow Bay’s interview…

Azoff on whether the company will be taken private (such talk may prevent a run on the stock), and potential growth from advertising…

Jeff Smulyan

He tried to get his company back from Wall Street years ago. The ignored him and took a bath on the deal. Today he signed the paperwork to take Emmis private. A conversation with Jeff Smulyan thanks to TVNewsCheck.com

Mark Gorton

I used to keep my home wifi open. Then I noticed that when I had my iTunes sharing open, I saw a playlist called “Erica’s Limewire songs.” Who the hell was Erica? After thinking about it for a minute, I realized that Erica was our teenage neighbor who was picking off songs on Limewire, and smart enough to do it on our open connection. Now Mark Gorton, the guy behind Limewire, appears about to be crushed by the man — the RIAA.

More in The New York Times

The Concert Biz

Every year, we thought the outdoor concert business had jumped the shark with outrageous ticket prices for an experience that rarely matched. And every year we seemed to be proved wrong.

This year may be different. Word is, the big tours are getting hammered. Xtina pulls out, and U2 is on the disabled list. Can’t be good. More in The New York Times.

And in a related story, here’s how you can spend $350 to see a Justin Bieber soundcheck. Again, the always brilliant New York Times.

Go to a John Mayer concert, and you’ll see why he’s so huge.

His talent is obvious, but the true genius is his appeal across three main constituencies: 1) young women, 2) their mothers, and 3) guys who stay hopeful that he’s the next guitar god (myself included).

There’s this old saying about how you should never meet your heroes because you’re bound to be disappointed.

Lately, it seems every time John opens his mouth, he’s proving this true.

Fresh off a too-much-information interview with Rolling Stone, John is back, running off at the mouth about his porn addiction, masturbation, and referring to Jessica Simpson as “Sexual Napalm.”All the while he appears to be attempting to convince himself that he’s not some frat-boy misogynist.

PLAYBOY: What’s your point about porn and relationships?

MAYER: Internet pornography has absolutely changed my generation’s expectations. How could you be constantly synthesizing an orgasm based on dozens of shots? You’re looking for the one photo out of 100 you swear is going to be the one you finish to, and you still don’t finish. Twenty seconds ago you thought that photo was the hottest thing you ever saw, but you throw it back and continue your shot hunt and continue to make yourself late for work. How does that not affect the psychology of having a relationship with somebody? It’s got to.

PLAYBOY: You seem very fond of pornography.

MAYER: When I watch porn, if it’s not hot enough, I’ll make up backstories in my mind. My biggest dream is to write pornography.

PLAYBOY: How did you become a self-soother?

MAYER: I grew up in my own head. As soon as I lose that control, once I have to deal with someone else’s desires, I cut and run. I’m pretty culpable about being hard to live with. I have had a good run of imagining things into reality. I’ve got a huge streak of successes based on my own inventions. If you tell me I’m wrong or that I’m overthinking something, well, overthinking has given me everything in my career. I have a hard time not looking at anxiety disorder as being like an ATM. I can invent things really well. I mean, I have unbelievable orgasms alone. They’re always the best. They always end the way I want them to end. And I have such an ability to make believe, I can almost project something onto my wall, watch it and get off to it: sexually, musically, it doesn’t matter. When I meet somebody, I’m in a situation in which I can’t run it because another person is involved. That means letting someone else talk, not waiting for them to remind you of something interesting you had in mind.

PLAYBOY: Masturbation for you is as good as sex?

MAYER: Absolutely, because during sex, I’m just going to run a filmstrip. I’m still masturbating. That’s what you do when you’re 30, 31, 32. This is my problem now: Rather than meet somebody new, I would rather go home and replay the amazing experiences I’ve already had.

——

MAYER: Someone asked me the other day, “What does it feel like now to have a hood pass?” And by the way, it’s sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a nigger pass. Why are you pulling a punch and calling it a hood pass if you really have a hood pass? But I said, “I can’t really have a hood pass. I’ve never walked into a restaurant, asked for a table and been told, ‘We’re full.’”

PLAYBOY: It is true; a lot of rappers love you. You recorded with Common and Kanye West, played live with Jay-Z.

MAYER: What is being black? It’s making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something that’s seen as a struggle and making it work for you, or you’ll die inside. Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dude’s.

PLAYBOY: Do black women throw themselves at you?

MAYER: I don’t think I open myself to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. I’ve got a Benetton heart and a fuckin’ David Duke cock. I’m going to start dating separately from my dick.

——

PLAYBOY: You were addicted to Jessica Simpson?

MAYER: Sexually it was crazy. That’s all I’ll say. It was like napalm, sexual napalm.

PLAYBOY: But before you dated her you thought of yourself as the kind of guy who would never date Jessica Simpson.

MAYER: That’s correct. There are people in the world who have the power to change our values. Have you ever been with a girl who made you want to quit the rest of your life? Did you ever say, “I want to quit my life and just fuckin’ snort you? If you charged me $10,000 to fuck you, I would start selling all my shit just to keep fucking you.”

Nice!

This is what Mayer’s constant quest for celebrity status gets us — less guitar god, more douche-bag.

He needs an intervention. He may get one when he plays alongside B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Sonny Landreth and many other true guitar gods at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Festival, June 26 outside Chicago.

Read the entire Playboy interview here.

UPDATE: In addition to becoming late night fodder, here’s another reason to “engage brain before engaging mouth.” It’s not particularly funny, but on the web it’ll live forever…

Scott Register: Courtesy Birmingham Magazine

What was the takeaway from NARM this year?

I went to Bonaroo instead. I got a reprieve from it. Jim and Michael went, and they had very productive meetings. What’s the overall leading theme for music retailers? Change with the changing times.

We used to talk about vinyl being vital to the stores and people thought we were crazy – and now it’s 20% of our business.

Is that what led to Vinyl Saturdays?

On Record Store Day in April, we were up more than 300% with vinyl sales year- to-year, so we were trying to figure out a way to keep Record Store Day alive in the consumer’s mind. So we decided to have an event every month to keep it alive, and now it’s every 3rd Saturday at the stores.

The whole idea is to get people back into the stores, to remind them why these stores exist.

Stuff is coming from all over – we’re working directly with artists, labels, managers– we’re working with anyone who wants to work with us.

The Online Store – ThinkIndie.com — is this an “if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em?”

No, it’s our answer to that part of the world. We’re not in denial. Consumers want choices. We’re not so stubborn or old school. We just needed the right model.

Here’s a great example: Indie artist Joe Purdy has 9 albums, but his CDs are not available in stores. So we put him up on ThinkIndie.com, and when you go there, you get a pin code to download a new greatest hits album.

We’re using ThinkIndie.com to drive people back into the stores.

All of our downloads are at a higher bitrate, so they sound better. Plus, there’s the ability of our stores to localize—each store can localize the online store with local bands etc. They can skin it locally and position local and regional acts accordingly.

Register and Hicks Combine Star Power for Birmingham Fire Safety Day

You’ve got a radio show, you’ve got the stores; with all the nastiness over a performance royalty, I’m wondering, have we lost that lovin’ feeling?

The connection will always be there between radio, records, and the store. I played this unsigned Canadian band Oceanship, and they sent product down to me. I took ‘em to Barnes and Noble, and they sold. The fact is, the relationship works, and as an industry, we’ve just gotten away from it.

Twitter: The CB Radio of 2009?

(Laughs). I had a Twitter account two years ago during a beta test, and here we are and people are signing up for my feed. I started Tweeting from Bonaroo and it got old for me. Is Facebook not enough?

Bonus Question: Boxers, Briefs or T-Back?

What’s a t-back? It’s either boxer-briefs or when it’s hot, I’m freeballin’.

Sorry we asked. In an effort to end on a better note, here’s a video from Ontario’s Oceanship called Hot Black

His first professional gig came with his brothers as the Charles Ford Blues Band when they backed Charlie Musselwhite. From there Robben played with Jimmy Witherspoon, Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, George Harrison, The L.A. Express, and others — all the while building his solo career.

Recorded at San Francisco’s Independent Theater, it contains 8 tracks, plus two new songs recorded live in-studio.

In this podcast, Robben walks us through Soul on Ten.

Hit the share button to post this player to your site…

These soundbites are pulled from the new radio special Woodstock: 40 Years On – Back to Yasgur’s Farm. The program is a co-production of World Cafe, Media Mechanics, Ben Manilla Productions, and Rhino Records. The program will air on more than 400 radio stations throughout the U.S., Canada, and Australia starting this weekend.

If you are interested in airing the special, it can be digitally delivered in time for this weekend’s anniversary. Contact Paul at pmarszalek@media-mechanics.com

In the meantime, use these clips to spice up morning shows, newscasts, and the like. These are all brand new interviews, reflecting on Woodstock’s 40th Anniversary, courtesy of TheTop22.com and the program producers.

(If you want to be nice, drop a mention or two of Rhino’s 6-disc box set with tons of previously unreleased material, called Woodstock: 40 Years On – Back to Yasgur’s Farm.)

Cut 1: Hippie Icon Wavy Gravy (Hugh Romney) talks about being recruited to handle “security”: 1:23

Wavy Gravy 1

Cut 2: Wavy Gravy refers to the “weirdos” who became The Woodstock Nation. :21

Wavy Gravy 2

Cut 3: Wavy Gravy talks about how the festival became the seed for other movements. :45

Wavy Gravy 3

Cut 4: Grace Slick talks about how the subject matter of music itself was changing, as were the roles of women: 1:31

Grace Slick 1

Cut 5: Woodstock Producer Michael Lang adds his perspective 40 years on. :57

Michael Lang

Cut 6: Jahanara, wife of Wavy Gravy, reflects on the “Hippie Movement.” 1:23

Jahanara