Who would have thought that DownTown Mystic would be on the cutting edge with the release of Soul’d Out just prior to Adele’s Hello? Who would have thought that an overly emotional, heart wrenching song is just what the world wanted to hear? Aside from a few million in sales, Soul’d Out was right in sync. 🙂

For DownTown Mystic, 2015 was a year to get down to work in a very methodical manner…something DownTown Mystic is not known for! There was a new album to get ready despite living in a musical age where the album is considered to be obsolete. But faced with that obstacle, we took it as an opportunity to find a way to promote a new project by taking a more long term view. To that end, the Turn Around and Go Digital Single was released in the spring, followed by the DownTown Mystic on E Street EP in the summer, leading to the Soul’d Out Single in the fall.

All of these releases are leading to the Rock’n’Roll Romantic album. It’s the most collaborative of all DownTown Mystic’s releases to date. There are 17 musicians who contributed their talents on it, plus it features the most co-written songs on a DownTown Mystic album to date. What makes this album different from the previous ones is the concept behind Rock’n’Roll Romantic. As the title implies it’s about rock’n’roll romance, with songs about personal relationships and emotional breakups, but it’s also about the romance with rock’n’roll—the music and the recording of the music.

Soul’d Out is one of those songs, with lyrics by Martin Samuel. The song contributes significantly to the concept of Rock’n’Roll Romantic. Martin was born in South Africa but grew up in England and is quite a character. Besides writing songs, he’s been a successful game creator and is an expert seaman, having been hired to sail ships over the open seas. He’s also a drummer who played with bands like The Searchers in the UK. When I met him in LA close to 25 years ago, he was wearing a jacket with planets and stars on it. Being cosmically-conscious, I couldn’t help but walk over and talk to him about it. During our chat he told me he mainly wrote lyrics, which was cool since I always had songs that needed lyrics. I told him to send me some lyrics and we would see what would happen. Little did I know how prolific Martin was until I opened a package that he would send me—a stack of songs with nothing but lyrics!

Martin H. Samuel

Elton John was particularly adept at putting Bernie Taupin’s lyrics to music, but I never found that to be an easy way to write a song. I generally liked to give people my music to write lyrics to, not the other way around. It just so happened that I had a piece of music I had been working on for some time. It had a very different feel and melody to it and I was having trouble with finding an arrangement for it.

When Martin’s package arrived I had a look to see if there were any lyrics that would fit the structure of this music. Finding nothing in that batch, I called him and told him that for this particular music I needed longer verses. As it would turn out, Martin was moving to NYC.  Not only that, but he was getting married. Being Martin, this was a pre-arranged marriage so that his bride could get legal status in the US. At any rate, when Martin moved to NYC I went to visit him and played him the music so that he could get an idea for the length of the verse and chorus.

Martin Samuel

Many months passed, maybe a year, and one day there was another batch of songs in the mail from Martin. This time however, one of the songs caught my eye. It was called Soul’d Out. I thought this was a great title. Not only that, but the lyrics for the most part, fit my melody perfectly! The only thing I added were the last couple of lines of the chorus to pull it all together. I called him and asked Martin how he had come to write something like Soul’d Out, and he told me he had been dumped by his wife! Now that she was a legal resident, their arrangement was over and he was getting divorced. Poor Martin, a true Rock’n’Roll Romantic! 🙂

The recording of Soul’d Out, like the song, has its own story to tell. The original way that I wrote the music and played it on guitar, made it sound upbeat. Once I had Martin’s lyrics it was obvious that I needed to make it more serious sounding. I did a 4-track demo and simplified the arrangement keeping the bass pulsing on quarter notes. It totally changed the “feel” of the song and I knew I was onto something. I went into the studio and cut a basic track but something wasn’t right. So I called up Steve Brown and PJ Farley of Trixter to come down to the studio and lend a hand. I’d been working with them and thought they could help out on a few songs that needed some work…the 1^st one being Soul’d Out.

Steve brought his 12-string acoustic for the song and once he started playing, the sound of the guitar immediately changed the song for me in a very good way. PJ was up next and I gave him instructions on how I wanted the bass to stay on the pulse of quarter notes. I kind of regret not allowing him to do one pass on his own to see what he would come up with, but I was so focused on creating this tight simple groove. I only allowed him to get creative on the passing notes between the pulse of quarter notes and he played some very restrained and tasteful parts.

Once the basic track was finished I got this vibe of The Beatles A Day In The Life playing in my head. I decided to add the maracas as a nod to it. I had already cut the vocals by the time Steve and PJ had arrived and when they heard the playback, PJ turned to Steve and mentioned that I sounded like Paul Stanley of Kiss on the last part of the chorus at the end of the song. I could hear what he meant and I found it kind of amusing since the only songs by Kiss I ever heard were the occasional ones played on the radio. But PJ was right on because many reviewers have said the same thing. 🙂

The last part to the track was adding the piano along with the electric guitar. The piano helps to give the slow buildup, especially on the chorus. I put in the sustained low guitar notes on the chorus to mimic a brass horn part like the one on Leon Russell’s A Song For You. We kept bringing them up in the mix as the song builds to increase the tension and I think it worked great. Of course the main focus of the song is on the vocals and everything else is there to support them. If the listener’s attention isn’t on the vocals, especially when the last chorus hits, then I’ve failed as a producer. Luckily it all came together and works really well. It’s probably the best vocal I’ve ever done on a ballad, which is not my forte.

The only thing I worried about on Soul’d Out was Martin’s lyrics. When Steve heard them he just shook his head and said “wow, that’s cold”. So deciding to release it as a single, especially following And You Know Why off of the E Street EP gave me some pause. Were the lyrics too direct in the picture being painted by them? I guess I made the right call to release Soul’d Out as a single because just a few weeks later Adele came to the rescue with her album full of downers. Who knew that emotion and heartache would be back in vogue? Only a true Rock’n’Roll Romantic! 🙂

It was a great summer. The DownTown Mystic on E Street EP took up all of my time, and now as autumn comes rolling in, the EP has taken on a life of its own. I had intended on releasing the next DownTown Mystic Album, Rock’n’Roll Romantic, before the end of the year, but I can see now that it will have to be put off until early 2016. Just goes to show that you never know what the Universe has in mind. 🙂

In the meantime, it gives me a chance to catch up on some things of a business nature. There’s so much going on these days. Of course, the big discussion that’s been taking place in the music biz is the current state of affairs with Streaming and fair compensation for the Artists. It’s one of the things I’ve been reading about all summer, mainly from the emails I receive from Bob Lefsetz and The Lefsetz Letter.

For those of you not in the music biz and not familiar with Bob, he writes a music industry blog/newsletter that is very well read. I think it would be fair to call him a bit of a “curmudgeon”. He usually has an interesting POV and I find myself agreeing with him a good deal of the time. I believe Bob works as a paid consultant from time to time, but I’m not exactly sure if he is or if he makes that information known. Lately, he’s really been pushing the Streaming agenda, saying it’s the future so get used to it.

The more I read the more I think he’s shilling for Spotify.  Especially since he seems to prefer Spotify to Pandora and the new Apple Music Service, and he does like to tell Indie Artists to quit crying about streaming royalties. He tells them to get more popular so that they can make more money from Streaming. I’m not positive, but I think these comments might be aimed at people like Blake Morgan, who started the #irespectmusic campaign. Blake’s basic feeling is “that artists should be compensated for the use of their music on all radio and digital sources.” If you’re not familiar with #irespectmusic, then check out this article that just came out today: #IRESPECTMUSIC: A Grassroots Initiative to Give Musicians Their Due 

In the article, the writer Kathy Stockbridge writes: “The laws in place currently allowed the music moguls such as Pandora, Spotify, and so many internet radio stations across the nation to continuously use music without paying the artists. No other business model in our nation works this way. You create a product, you sell the product, you are compensated for the product, and the purchaser enjoys the product. No where else is a product created and lent out for use without compensation, under a pretense of giving it more visibility for future sales. What? If that model worked no one would get paid. We would all advertise products for free.”

Bob’s also been fairly dismissive of the old school music biz. Here’s what Bob said in his latest rant last night entitled “The Sisario Article”: “The sales paradigm is history. In 24 months it’ll be de minimis, inconsequential. And when we go to the streaming metrics a whole bunch of artists are gonna get a whole lot poorer, and the readers of this newsletter who are attached to the ancient paradigm of yore are gonna tear their hair out. You know, rock bands who write their own material and release it as one long album…KAPUT! Actually, that formula got murdered by disco, after it got long in the tooth as corporate rock. But then MTV rescued the rock business until hair bands softened the sound, made us all queasy, and it became all about hip-hop and pop. And that’s where we are today.I’m not saying you can’t make your old music in the old way, I’m just saying don’t expect anybody to listen to it, don’t expect to get rich. We’re in the middle of the great transition. The baby boomers are about to emit their last gasp. Everybody but the titans has already been eliminated. Unless you’re running the operation, you’re gone. And there are some Gen X’ers with power, mostly in the live sphere, but we’re getting ready to skip generations and hand the baton to the millennials, who have no allegiance to classic rock, radio or the rest of the b.s. we hold so near and dear.”

That’s just a taste of what Bob’s been going on about all summer long. I like the way he managed to minimize about 20-30 years of Rock. Bob does have a way with words. 🙂

You can imagine how he’s been dissing the new release by Keith Richards. Bob doesn’t have good things to say about it and the way it’s been promoted. I doubt that Keith gives a crap, but it’s been interesting reading the way Bob goes out of his way to dis it. He’s also dissed Tom Petty’s record, but I don’t think that Bob is dissing the music as much as how it was promoted by the label in the old school way and then died after being released.

All this has me interested because I have an old school record that I want to release in the modern way. Bob tends to lose me when he starts raving about the new Justin Bieber or how many songs The Weekend has streaming. I don’t really care how many times little girls are playing them. If that’s going to be the new model, so be it. But to use it as the argument for artists getting more streaming royalties makes me think he’s more of a lobbyist trying to put the company’s POV across for them. 🙂

As an Indie Artist, I feel like I’m being pulled from one side to the other. I happen to like Streaming because I get played a lot. I see it as a great promotional tool. I just reached 1.8 million spins on one site and I’ve been # 1 on 4 different Global and US Charts. But this airplay is all free because I’m doing it for promotion. Now when it comes to commercial sites like Spotify and Radio, I think they need to boost the rates because it looks ridiculous seeing a $.01 royalty on your PRO Royalty Statement. It’s like them throwing a penny at you and saying, “here ya go, don’t spend it all in one place”. A penny…wtf?? What year is this?? 🙂

I like the passion that Bob puts into his Streaming articles, but there’s still something that bothers me about them. If sales don’t matter and only streaming does, then how exactly is there enough money to be made by artists and companies alike, given the current rates? I think people like Blake Morgan and his #irespectmusic campaign might have the better argument.

So if you are on Spotify’s payroll Bob, I hope for your sake they pay you a better rate than they do artists. 🙂

The DownTown Mystic on E Street EP has been out since the start of summer in late June and the reviews are in. Obviously, if the reviews were bad, I wouldn’t be talking about them in this blog. As you can imagine, the reviews have been good—really good, and in some cases, outright phenomenal! We’re going to re-post the 2 best reviews in their entirety and give you a taste of some of the others who have been so kind to us. 🙂

The average review gets between 10-20 tweets on Twitter. This review has gotten over 2600 tweets!! It’s a killer review with many thanks to Rick from JamSphere:

DownTown Mystic: “On E STREET” – a beautiful organic rock n’ roll groove!

By: Rick Jamm Posted date: August 03, 2015

DownTown Mystic started as the alter ego of Sha-La Music President, Robert Allen, and then morphed into a group project, combining forces with a stellar cast of musicians. On the self-titled DownTown Mystic album, Robert was joined by a talented group of musicians, including drummer extraordinaire Steve Holley (Paul McCartney/Wings/Elton John/Ian Hunter) and urban legend Paul Page (Dion/Ian Hunter) on bass, as well as one of the greatest rhythm sections in the history of American Rock ‘n’ Roll – Garry Tallent and Max Weinberg of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.

A few months ago DownTown Mystic released their 4-track Ep, entitled “On E STREET” currently available on Amazon and other download stores. The writing, the musicianship, and most importantly, the groove – it all comes together right here on this recording. From the rollicking opening of “Hard Enough” to the closing notes of the intensely rocking, “Sometimes Wrong”, this Ep is filled with exceptional music. Just a few listens and you’ll be singing along with every inspired lyric and in awe of a truly amazing band at the height of its musical powers.

Very few new albums feel like classics these days, one reason is most are too long! Artists have to try to make something out of tracks that really would be better on the cutting room floor. On the contrary, every moment on this gem is precise and to the point. It has a beautiful organic rock n’ roll groove, powerfully forged on “Way To Know” as well as a melodic country-rock sound on “And You Know Why”, all stirred into a beautifully played and sung set.

This music is so rich it oozes out of the speakers and spreads all over your inner core! If this was a vinyl recording, I would have worn out the grooves on the Ep’s best two songs – “Hard Enough” and “Way To Know” – by now! Some things just get better with age and DownTown Mystic is one of those things. Their blend of rock will get your head bobbing, and you humming along uncontrollably, until you feel like your soul will burst in some fantastic way.

To those of you that are interested in serious rock n’ roll but have not yet dived, head first into the DownTown Mystic catalog, I’d suggest “On E STREET” as your gateway into the band’s infectious unmistakable vibe, wrapped up with ace musicianship, topped with great songwriting, and delivered with powerful, heartfelt vocals. This is the place to start for timeless rock n’ roll!

Now this next review from the UK is one of those that remind me of the reviews I was getting in Europe 3 years ago for Standing Still. For some reason, the Press over there really likes to put it on the line with comparisons to Springsteen. I don’t know why, but I get it. If you’re going to put “E Street” in the title, you have to be ready for what could follow. You’re asking for it, right? Of course it’s very flattering to have your music compared to a great artist like Bruce Springsteen. I’m lucky that they like it and usually have some keen insights into the music.

The truth is, as an artist and a musician; you want your music and playing to be taken seriously. So when I see a review that compares me to a Rock Icon like Bruce, I really feel that the writer took me seriously and is giving me some “RnR Cred”, and that is truly gratifying. Otherwise, IMHO, it’s a bit over the top. I really don’t see why Bruce should be brought in because his rhythm section is playing with me. It’s only rock’n’roll people…no need to get carried away! 🙂

Having said all that, thanks to Erick for this very kind review in Bearded Magazine:

Downtown Mystic: On E Street (Sha-La Music)

Americana meets classic rock on Springsteen inspired set

By Erick Mertz Posted Date: Aug 19th, 2015

Breaking off Downtown Mystic’s album On E Street reminds me of that old cereal conundrum. Does box cover actually match the product? 

Because, you know, there’s nothing worse than being promised marshmallow fun and games, rainbows and elves, for something that turns out to be little more than a heap of sweetened cardboard. The cover of On E Street promises The Boss’s magic, not just in the allusion to his famous band, but with a couple of key names, Garry W Tallent and the venerable Max Weinberg. 

Gotta crack open the box though. Turns out, Downtown Mystic is as sweet as promised. It’s a steady set of hard rocking adult contemporary rock that is as timeless as the sad clown motif. “Hard Enough” and “Way To Know” are jukebox blues numbers but the star of them all is (of course) the single, “And You Know Why” which bounces around, self assured, playful and tinged with a little of that silver streaked bravado.

There aren’t any rainbows or elves. There sure aren’t any marshmallows either. That wasn’t what was promised though, was it? A little Bruce. A little E Street. It’s all right here, sweet as hoped for.

Robert & 1976 Les Paul

All in all, that’s a cool review. Here are excerpts from some other cool reviews, which don’t think Springsteen is an influence:

Mike Olinger got it all started with the Premiere of the Single on The Vinyl District: “We have the pleasure of exclusively premiering the band’s newest single “And You Know Why” which spins the classic rock vibes of yesteryear into a tight blend of nostalgic Americana. If the bittersweet opening slide guitar phrases don’t capture your attention, wait for the soaring chorus at :40 which glides out of the speakers in pristine 3 part harmony.”

Adam Jones on The Music Farmer: “DOWNTOWN MYSTIC is a brand new artist on the rise with classic roots made of gold. The first thought that comes to my mind – this is AWESOME! The music is very reminiscent of vintage rock n’ roll while keeping one foot in the place of modern day music production.”

Sahar on Blog Critics wrote: “Allen’s passion for old school rock and roll comes through in all four of these tracks, although it’s hard to pinpoint a specific influence to each one. There are hints of so many different artists and rock and roll styles that it creates a sound both very familiar but fresh, not original but still engaging…While all four tracks definitely have a strong retro feel, mostly in the way they are stripped of modern day production fanfare, they are not outdated and would make for a solid addition to rock lovers’ music libraries.”

Will Lyewin wrote some seriously cool stuff on HipLanta: “Downtown Mystic’s new album asks a simple question, “What happened to rock n roll being fun?”. When I stared to think about this the first thing that popped into my mind was Guns n Roses. Downtown Mystic sounds nothing like Guns N Roses, but GnR represents the last band of an era, before music found itself at a turning point…Allen proves he is a man who has not forgotten that. It would be easy to dismiss it as retro, but I don’t get the impression that this is someone consciously trying to recapture the sound of a certain era…there is some smart songwriting going on here…Overall this album is a lot of fun. If you want to do some deep thinking then go listen to Bon Iver, but if you want something to take you back to a more carefree time when rock rocked and auto-tune did not exist then here is one for you.” 

Besides the reviews, there’s also a really cool article from Avenue 1 that was written by Nick Christophers, who when not freelancing as a music journo is the editor of Mob Candy Magazine.  So there you have it. Again, my sincerest thanks to all of those writers. There’s really nothing else I can say after those incredible reviews. I’m done! 🙂

https://soundcloud.com/shalaman/sets/downtown-mystic-on-e-street