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As summer blisters along this year with non-stop economic woes interspersed with  never ending election coverage  I'm looking forward  to a modest break this August when Steve Miller  comes to town with his special guest, Mr. (Mad Dog Minus His Englishmen) Joe Cocker. 

These past few weeks some friends and family  cruised into Bako-land to hang out and commiserate on the state of things in the world. Things are tough all over I discovered. My best friend and I hooked up for a lunch at Red Robin to chew on some salads and topics of interest. We took turns agonizing over poor performing investments, and when we finished we decided to cruise the mall. 

To my utter amazement  I confirmed my permanent relic status in the universe. There was not one store in Valley Plaza selling music or movies. Everyone knows books and magazines vacated the VP world a long time ago, but movies and music now require too much time for the ADD society of Bakersfield mall goers as well. I guess Transworld gave up on the Valley Plaza location, and closed both the FYE and Sam Goody stores that operated under the corporate TWE  moniker there.  Are clothes, jewelry and cellular phones the extent of culture today? Must be.  

I scan the RIAA website occasionally to view the carnage of the current music industry. CD sales are now at their lowest level in sixteen years with a little more than 500 million units  shipped in 2007.  The CD has shrunk in total dollar value from a high of $13 billion in year 2000 to just about $7.5 billion for 2007.  The whole industry  is now  pegged at $10 billion with about  20% coming from the digital world. That is a lot of lost store fronts to go with all those video stores that disappeared several years back. 

You don't hear much real diversity on the airwaves unless you subscribe to a digital service, but the subscription model is already trending down as dispensable dollars become scarcer for most households. I don't know what today's artists can expect. I read recently that Lyle Lovett has never seen a dime from the sales of his albums. He has sold on Curb/Universal some 4.5 million albums in twenty years of recording. It ain't a bright picture for aspiring musicians when the world is controlled by suits.

I remember my first Steve Miller Band LP, Children of the Future. A great psychedelic cover that was a testament to all things San Francisco in 1968. Baby's Calling Me Home was the brilliant opening track, and the Glyn Johns production throughout the album was extraordinary. Johns had done a bunch of work with the Who in England and ended up as the producer of Steve Miller's first four albums. I had never heard a record to that point with so much head room. The album epitomized space with a rock and blues back beat. Boz Scaggs was a member of the band and co-wrote a couple of the tunes.

Steve Miller at the outset of his career was an underground radio phenomena. He could not buy a hit, but his first five albums sold steadily and were all critically acclaimed. By 1972 when an auto accident and hepatitis put him out for the year he was intent on taking full control of his career after two albums of his were put out without his final approval. The first record he produced on his own resulted in his first hit, The Joker. 

There is a great two disc CD of two Steve Miller concerts in 1973 and 1976 put out by the King Biscuit Flower Hour, which presented rock concerts on the radio for many years. The CD captures the band doing familiar songs and unfamiliar blues jams.  If you can't make it out to hear Steve Miller on August 13th and want to hear an honest document apart from some greatest hits package check out the King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents The Steve Miller Band CD.

The photo attached is by David Stahl.