The average American now authors 2.1 blogs.

That statistic is a complete fabrication, but it seems like it could be right. A tiny percentage of those 600 million or so blogs are worth reading, fewer still could be called essential.

But for anyone with an interest in music or any aspect of the music industry, the Lefsetz Letter (lefsetz.com) is essential.

Bob Lefsetz is an entertainment industry lawyer who writes frequently and passionately about the search for music “that appeal[s] to our heads and hearts as opposed to our genitalia.”

This story continues below
Advertisement

I’ve gotten back into the habit of reading Lefsetz since MTV’s annual Video Music Awards earlier this month. More people watched this year than the past few years, but Lefsetz says, correctly I think, that many viewers were motivated by the same urge that compels one to watch a train wreck or an Adam Sandler movie.

Anyone hoping for a performance that spoke to the head or the heart was disappointed. MTV has been like that for years, but these days it even fails when it aims lower.

Britney Spears’ meltdown is Exhibit A, but the fake feud between Kanye West and 50 Cent is strong supporting evidence. So is the vapidity of would-be vixen Rihanna, who won big at the Video Music Awards with a song called “Umbrella,” a word she uses four syllables to pronounce.

Things must have gone way wrong if the most respectable and talented person in the room is ex-NSYNC member Justin Timberlake, who chastised the network for not playing any music on its main channel.

Lefsetz seems partly gleeful, partly disappointed when he digs into MTV, which he sees as being part of the old, dying music media model that includes radio and the major record companies.

On the news side, old media are being challenged by new business models made possible by the Internet. But with music, the old model is already dead, but few people realize it.

Because of iTunes and iPods, the average music consumer has an unprecedented ability to discover new music and build highly individualized music libraries that can be enjoyed anywhere, anytime.

And the real music addicts get theirs from peer-to-peer networks at a cost of zero.

Who pays 15 or 20 bucks for a CD anymore?

Lefsetz, along with an increasing number of artists and smaller record labels, sees this changed environment not as a threat to artists who want to make a living with music, but an opportunity.

You may have to give a lot of music away for free, but if it’s good, it will find an audience. And that audience will come to your shows and buy your T-shirts. And they will share your music with others, which can only be a good thing.

Which is what I’m doing with King Wilkie, who are playing at the 8x10 tonight at 7 p.m.

In 2004, they released “Broke” one of the best bluegrass albums of the decade. On the strength of that album and their tremendous live shows, they were chosen as the best new act by the International Bluegrass Music Association.

Now their touring behind “Low Country Suite,” an acoustic record with only the faintest hints of a bluegrass sound.

But it’s a great record, one that could have been made in Laurel Canyon in the early 1970s. Something not quite as dissolute as the Rolling Stones of “Beggar’s Banquet” or “Let it Bleed,” and not quite as refined as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

And like any really good band, King Wilkie is better live, and you have a chance to see and hear for yourself.

Aaron Keith Harris writes about politics, the media, pop culture and music and is a regular contributor to National Review Online and Bluegrass Unlimited. He can be reached at aaronkeithharris@gmail.com.