Call me old-fashioned, call me prudish, but watching videos with women uncorking bottles of champagne between their legs and having even good mates call me “bitch” annoy the hell outta me as I simply don’t like the word. Rapping and singing about “bitches and hos” and “da hood” and glorifying violence and racial prejudices do nothing for me except make me wanna get the hell outta wherever the music is being played. It gives me the chills and, as some us might have once said, gives me “bad vibes, man.”

I still remember my Mum, having one of her customary arguments with her sister, called her “that bitch” and my Dad, having his usual arguments with his brother, called him “that sonofabitch.” My parents never swore and so, to this kid, it was something which left a very bad taste in my mouth- and still does. Sometimes, child must become father to the man and I remember being a 15-year-old and telling off my old man about how one needs to practice what they preach. If I couldn’t swear, then neither could he.

When my Uncle passed away without him and my Dad reconciling their differences, it saddened me as I knew it saddened my Dad. Blood is thicker than water and it’s even sadder when kids get caught in the crossfire of petty family squabbles. And once someone is gone and there is no more time to say everything one should have when they were alive, well, that, literally, is a crying shame. Then the hypocrisy starts and, as Lennon once sang, “Everyone loves you when you’re six feet in the ground”.

My Dad was a very kind, gentle man and professional musician. Because of him, I grew up listening to the music of Sinatra and Ella and Della Reese, Benny Goodman, his good friends Billy Eckstine and Mel Torme, Sarah Vaughn etc. When kids my age were listening to the Beatles, I was in my room listening to “Take Five” by the Dave Brubeck Quartet and “diggin’” the drumming of Joe Morello and Shelly Manne. Ringo was to “happen” much later for me than others. While most of my school friends were learning Rock guitar chords, my Dad had visions of me becoming a Jazz guitarist and which meant taking guitar lessons and where it took me one long year to learn to play the standard “Autumn Leaves” pretty badly.

Of course, I still love my music- every type of music. And with Kristine- not my wife by the way- visit our home and we can be listening to Scarlett Johansson sing- and the album with her and Pete Yorn is a very good one- Ella singing “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”- her choice- and she’s 34- to the Beatles, Donovan, Dylan, Jakob Dylan and many artists from places like Belgium- the quite brilliant Sela Sue- the band Mew from Denmark, Kate Foley from Canada, Ben Folds, Ben Semmens, going back to Nick Drake etc. And then I just might decide to listen to Hansen and Kristine comes back with Scarlett Johansson.

Sure, being in music today- and which I plan to be in until I get called upstairs- one cannot wallow in the past, but one can see what has worked in the past and try to bring that same energy and feeling to music today. This is what any good record guy ever did ‘cos music is music and good music is timeless.One can walk into a club today and when a Motown record comes on, the dance floor gets as packed as when a Black Eyed Peas track or Lady Gaga is playing. Listen to many records today- Amy Winehouse, Duffy, for example- and you can hear Motown in their music mixed with Stax/Volt and the sounds of Muscle Shoals.

Chuck Berry called it a “backbeat” and every record that moved you then and moves you now has a backbeat. Listen to Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” and it’s all there in those four minutes- soul, a backbeat and some sexual healing. It’s a track that worked back then and it’s a track that works right now. Like I said, music is timeless and which is why we can always listen to “Billie Jean”, “Imagine” and any track by the Beatles and appreciate the music and respect the musicians who produced it.

What I don’t like is vulgarity in some of the music today and “stuff” churned out for “shock value”. Songs Like “I Kissed A Girl” and “If You Seek Amy” are, to me, clever “marketing tools” to get average songs noticed – and talked about- and nothing to do with them being legitimate “songs”. It’s clever, calculated Pop songwriting and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just not for or my iPod.

I also think that there’s something to be said for many Radio stations once banning Lennon’s “Woman Is A Nigger Of The World” and how “far” we have come today and where anything goes and misogynist rants rule the airwaves under the guise of “Freedom Of Speech.”

Gawd knows, we don’t need Tipper Gore  telling us as to what we can and cannot listen, but some old-fashioned restraint and some old-fashioned romance through songs might just serve us well today. The human race needs to slow down and re-group. Everything is becoming too fragmented and music is getting way too “segregated” and “genre-sized”. Jeez, look at all the different charts there are today and genres within genres and charts within charts. And, honestly who cares?

Yes, the economy is screwed up and people are angry and wars are raging and people are hungry, but change can be made by whispering. Shouting never got us far and, if I am cynical, yes, I am very cynical about many of these songs and musical events in the name of charity and which always seems like shameless self-promotion.

That new version of “We Are The World” is, to me, a perfect example of the plastic fantastic and one way for Wyclef Jean to grab another 15 minutes of fame. And where is Wyclef Jean today? The last I heard he was in China looking for new singing talent. ”

Why am I cynical about all these do-gooders and all these “songs for charity”? Perhaps they just ring hollow. Perhaps it was the “wrong charity,” but having someone from UNICEF tell me two years ago when holidaying in Sri Lanka that outta all the money collected, not even 20% had reached the people it was meant to reach.Last Christmas, when we went back to Sri Lanka for a break, we looked around and saw that all those people who had lost everything they owned when the tsunami hit over five years earlier, still had nothing. All those “MTV Tsunami Relief Funds,” all those efforts by others to unselfishly give had gone straight into the pockets of corrupt politicians. Again.

The same thing has happened many years earlier when Ravi Shankar and George Harrison raised money via their “Concert For Bangladesh” It never ever reached the victims..

So, yes, I am cynical about certain things and proud of it. Am I “tired and jaded”? Hardly. If anything, I am more determined than ever and adamant that good music does not fall through the cracks along with all the musicians unselfishly creating and producing this music. If great songs and musicians are not being heard, something is wrong.

I can sit and listen all day to Chris Blackwell, who founded Island Records ‘cos I can learn from him. He’s not some doddering old fool. He is a wonderful and very intelligent human being who knows how and where and why the recording industry does and does not work. Still. It’s in his blood. We need more mentors like Mr.Blackwell and less poseurs.

What many who are not in the music business don’t understand is how something as “simple” as a licensing contract is so damn complex. For all the progress we have made, everyone is still working off contracts that are two and three decades old, about fifteen pages too long, and with only a Clause covering “Digital Rights” hastily chucked into the mix.

Try and understand how Publishing contracts “work” and you’ll realize that the music industry has not changed at all. Even the “young music guys” want to be like the “old music guys”- and the bad ones- as simply put, they have had bad mentors. And which is why I respect teachers of all kinds.

The greatest lesson I had was when in advertising and from a musician- Wynton Marsalis: It was in Amsterdam and he gave an incredible speech which made us very blinkered and arrogant creative directors realize how, one day, for advertising to survive, it will need to incorporate all the arts. Mr. Marsalis was right and, today, music must also embrace all the arts if it is to survive and undergo some form of “metamorphosis” and Renaissance Period . Keep looking at music in isolation and as “one industry” and you’re singing “I Am A Rock” at some Pottery Barn.

Some lecture, others teach and I wish to keep learning  ‘cos no one stops learning. The moment you think you know it all, you’ve learnt nothing. More than anything else, I wish to be able to create so that there are new platforms and opportunities for all those musicians making great music but stuck in places like MySpace- or beholden to “American Idol”- and with no other options.

Those who have broken that glass ceiling on “Idol” this year and confused all those who did not expect to see the dynamics change- Lilly Scott, Siobhan Magnus [perhaps an acquired taste to some, but I really like her especially when the penchant to go for the high notes are reined in] Crystal Bowersox and, of course, Casey James- they need to see- and realize- that their careers don’t come to a screeching halt after some “Idol Tour” and before “the next lot” show up. They need to know that there is life after “American Idol” and how this is was only a good first step to far greater things somewhere else.

Hopefully, along with those whom I am working, we will be able to provide them and others with viable career options. I am disenchanted with the way things are in the world, but extremely hopeful that a real change is gonna come- and soon- and with music leading this change. It’s worked before and it will work again.

The Gulf oil crisis continues to grow with no end in sight. The numbers are staggering: more than 1,000 dead birds, another 300 or so dead sea turtles, more than 85,000 square miles of Gulf closed to fishing, 150 miles of coast and wetland soiled with oil, 40 million to 80 million gallons of oil wreaking havoc on the Gulf ecosystem and well over $5 billion in liability for BP and the gang.

Inexplicably, blame for the ongoing blowout has stuck to President Obama like crude on a pelican's wings. It isn't fair, but the consequence is still potentially devastating.

A few words of advice for the administration from a member of the environmental peanut gallery:

Declare an emergency in the Gulf so President Obama can use magnified executive powers. The Gulf is a disaster and needs to be treated like one. The damage may not have been as sudden as that caused by the earthquake in Haiti or Hurricane Katrina, but the long-term impacts will be no less devastating.

Force all of Big Oil to pitch in. Right after the disaster declaration, President Obama should call in all of the CEOs of the big oil companies and make it damn clear that they are expected to volunteer their spill response resources, expertise and equipment to the cause of cleaning up and stopping the spill. There should be as many Exxon, Shell and Chevron staff out there as BP execs doing their part to save the Gulf economy and ecosystem. If Valero has the time and money to get California's climate change law suspended via a proposition this November, it surely has tens of millions in resources to volunteer towards spill cleanup. We want to see hazmat trained professionals cleaning up the spill, not unemployed fishermen and hotel workers.

Change the face of the federal response. Lisa Jackson is telegenic, bright, articulate, a Princeton graduate in chemical engineering, a specialist in toxics, and a Louisiana native! What more can you possibly ask for? Oh yeah. She runs the agency with the most oil spill and pollution response expertise: the EPA. A Hollywood casting call wouldn't give you a better candidate to lead the cleanup effort. The buddy team for 2010 should be Lisa J. and Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen. The public doesn't want to see anyone from the MMS. Jane Lubchenko and the NOAA folks are mainly needed to trot out the latest scientific findings. And the other secretaries and special assistants just aren't as reassuring to the public as Jackson. Stick a Saints hat on her head, give her some real authority beyond regulating dispersants, and let her lead. She will not disappoint.

The Gulf coast locals need to be compensated because their livelihoods have been stolen from them. They shouldn't have to suffer while waiting for years for a court settlement with BP. Just as the administration and the entertainment community teamed to raise money for earthquake, tsunami and hurricane victims, there needs to be a major effort to raise money for the fishermen and tourism workers that lost their jobs or got sickened by oil exposures. The workers that are toiling round the clock to save oiled wildlife also need our support. Get the Saints, Chris Paul, Emeril, Brad Pitt and Nicolas Cage out there raising money for poverty relief and wildlife rescue. The American public is peerless in its generosity during a disaster. We just need a place to give with the knowledge that our donations will be used wisely.

Although none of these common-sense actions will stop the BP blowout, all of them will result in reduced human and ecological impacts. They also will put government squarely in front of the public as the resource that can deliver at our greatest time of need.

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