Smarter People Stay Up Later, Do More Drugs and Have More Sex - Esquire

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Suds for #Drugs: #Tide: Works on tough stains -can now also be traded for crack

Pretty crazy! A case study in American ingenuity, legal and otherwise


Suds for Drugs
By Ben Paynter
Published Jan 6, 2013




(Photo: Victor Prado/New York Magazine. Typography by Kevin Dresser.)


The call that came in from a local Safeway one day in March 2011 was unlike any the Organized Retail Crime Unit of the Prince George’s County Police Department had fielded before. The grocery store, located in suburban Bowie, Maryland, had been robbed repeatedly. But in every incident the only products taken were bottles—many, many bottles—of the liquid laundry detergent Tide. “They were losing $10,000 to $15,000 a month, with people just taking it off the shelves,” recalls Sergeant Aubrey Thompson, who heads the team. When Thompson and his officers arrived to investigate, they stumbled onto another apparent Tide theft in progress and busted two men who’d piled 100 or so of the bright-orange jugs into their Honda. The next day, Thompson returned to the store’s parking lot to tape a television interview about the crimes. A different robber took advantage of the distraction to make off with twenty more bottles.

Later, Thompson reviewed weeks’ worth of the Safeway’s security footage. He found that more than two dozen thieves, working in crews, were regularly raiding the store’s household-products aisle, sometimes returning more than once the same day and avoiding detection by timing their heists to follow clerks’ shift changes. Owners and managers of other area stores, having seen Thompson on the news, reached out to him to report their own vanishing Tide bottles. Since then, the oddly brand-loyal crime wave has gone national, striking bodegas, supermarkets, and big-box discounters from Austin to West St. Paul, Minnesota. In New York, employees at the Penn Station Duane Reade nabbed a man trying to abscond with Tide bottles he’d stuffed into a suitcase. In Orange County, an attempted Tide theft led to a high-speed chase that included the thief crashing his SUV into an ambulance. Last year, for the first time, detergent made the National Retail Federation’s list of most-targeted items. Says Joseph LaRocca, founder of the trade group RetailPartners, who helped compile the report: “Tide was specifically called out.”

As the cases piled up after his team’s first Tide-theft bust, Thompson sought an answer to the riddle at the center of the crimes: What did thieves want with so much laundry soap? To find out, he and his unit pored over security recordings to identify prolific perpetrators, whom officers then tracked down and detained for questioning. “We never promised to go easy on them, but they were willing to talk about it,” Thompson says. “I guess they were bragging.” It turned out the detergent wasn’t ­being used as an ingredient in some new recipe for getting high, but instead to buy drugs themselves. Tide bottles have become ad hoc street currency, with a 150-ounce bottle going for either $5 cash or $10 worth of weed or crack cocaine. On certain corners, the detergent has earned a new nickname: “Liquid gold.” The Tide people would never sanction that tag line, of course. But this unlikely black market would not have formed if they weren’t so good at pushing their product.

Shoppers have surprisingly strong feelings about laundry detergent. In a 2009 survey, Tide ranked in the top three brand names that consumers at all income levels were least likely to give up regardless of the recession, alongside Kraft and Coca-Cola. That loyalty has enabled its manufacturer, Procter & Gamble, to position the product in a way that defies economic trends. At upwards of $20 per 150-ounce bottle, Tide costs about 50 percent more than the average liquid detergent yet outsells Gain, the closest competitor by market share (and another P&G product), by more than two to one. According to research firm SymphonyIRI Group, Tide is now a $1.7 billion business representing more than 30 percent of the liquid-detergent market.

Before the advent of liquid detergent, the average American by one estimate owned fewer than ten outfits, wearing items multiple times (to keep them from getting threadbare too fast) before scrubbing them by hand using bars of soap or ground-up flakes. To come up with a less laborious way to do the laundry, executives at Procter & Gamble began tinkering with compounds called surfactants that penetrate dirt and unbond it from a garment while keeping a spot on a shirt elbow from resettling on the leg of a pant. When the company released Tide in 1946, it was greeted as revolutionary. “It took something that had been an age-old drudgery job and transformed it into something that was way easier and got better results,” says Davis Dyer, co-author of Rising Tide, which charts the origins of the brand. “It was cool, kind of like the iPod of the day.” Procter & Gamble, naturally, patented its formula, forcing competitors to develop their own surfactants. It took years for other companies to come up with effective alternatives.

The Economics of a Part-time Drug Dealer | The Billfold

This is hilarious!

The Economics of a Part-time Drug Dealer

by Jeff WinklerApril 17th, 2012

Part I: The Basics

Jeff Winkler: So you’re a drug dealer?
Part-time Drug Dealer: Yes. [Sound of his lighter flicking].

What do you sell?
[Blows smoke] Marijuana.

That’s it?
Occasionally I arrange cocaine for friends. But I don’t really make money off of that. It’s basically an exchange.

How much money do you make a month selling weed?
There’s weeks I make $600 profit. But I’d say, on average, it’s about $1200 a month. $1200 is a good, rough figure.

And that’s after expenses? That’s profit?
That’s profit.

But you also have a job. You work for tips.
Yeah, I work for tips.

So how much do you make on tips?
I’d say about $600, $700 a week.

That’s more than you make selling drugs!
Well, I’m working a hell of a lot more than I am I’m when I’m selling. I’m spending far more time working than I am selling weed. I mean I spend probably about a quarter of the time selling weed.

[Giggling] A quarter of the time …
[Pause. An weary groan] A quarter of the time …

Why not just sell more drugs?
Because there has to be a demand for it and part of my philosophy in selling drugs is that I’m not going to actively seek it out. By actively seeking it out, you expose yourself to a greater risk of getting caught. If there’s ever a point I get enough business that I don’t have to work a [makes air-quotes] legitimate job, I will absolutely take that opportunity. The second I’m making $1000 a week just selling weed and not doing anything else but selling weed, I’m going to take that up.

How long have you been selling?
I started in 2006 and, like most other dealers, started by being a heavy user of the product. I realized that if I bought in bulk and sold some of it, then I could essentially smoke for free. I wasn’t making any money at first. It actually took up to this past year for me to begin seeing any kind of profit off of it. And it wasn’t until I curbed my own habit that I started to see that.

Is this like those rules you mentioned the other day?
That’s the Ten Crack Commandments, by Notorious BIG — “Don’t get high on your own supply.” That’s rule number … well, I can’t remember if that’s actually rule number one. But it should be number one. I actually had a girlfriend who gave me a really hard time about waking up in the morning and smoking weed and I kind of thought about it and realized that she was right. It was interfering with my legitimate source of income and my ability to perform a real job. Quote-unquote. And so I started curbing my intake. And now it’s getting to the point where, out of my own supply, I barely even smoke any. I actually have more than I know what to do with, in terms of personal use.

What about in terms of “business use,” how much do you sell?
I’m selling about a quarter pound at a time, about $1000. That’s what I buy. There are people who buy anywhere from a couple pounds to 20 pounds to a ton at a time. There’re differing scales of involvement. So I’m kind of lower on the ladder.

What’s the general going rate for weed?
Market prices vary per region. In this region, you’re looking at $50 dollars an eighth, $100 a quarter, $350 an ounce. Some people will give a break at half a quarter-pound, which is two ounces. But typically the next break isn’t until you buy a quarter pound, and then it kind of varies depending on the person who’s selling it to you. It’s sort of like cigarettes. You know, cigarettes vary from coast to coast. In Middle America, cigarettes are cheaper because people have less money.

That’s also taxes, too. So how do you decide what your taxes are when selling? How do you decide your mark-up price? If you’re selling an eighth, how much of that do you actually get?
You have to consider that in the region I’m operating in, the market’s kind of flooded. And in order to compete, I have to keep my prices pretty steady. So basically, clients and the market determines my rate and therefore determines my profit. My profits are also determined by the quantity I buy in. If I were to buy double the amount I’m buying right now, I would see a significant price decrease for myself, which means I’d see a greater increase in profit. Although it’s also determined by how quickly I can move it. It is an organic material, so it does decay over time. So it’s best if it has a certain level of freshness.

So how much “freshness” do you sell?
At this point, I’m probably moving about a quarter-pound every week or two.

Okay, the market controls your price. But going back, on an average $50/eighth, how much profit do you get?
On an eighth, I believe I make about $18. And if you factor in the amount of time it takes me to package and deliver that, you’re looking at no more than 15 to 30 minutes per transaction. So at worst, I’m making $18-a-half-hour. Realistically, the majority of that work is [chuckles] driving.

It kind of goes back to that old adage “time is money” and that was a hard lesson for me to learn because when I used to sell from my house, I’d have people come over and I would be a generous person and offer to smoke weed with them out of my own supply or maybe they’d want to load a bowl out of what they just bought. And so they’d end up staying for an hour. And while it was fun, it tied up an hour of my time that I could have been doing any number of other things.

So, learning that the quicker the you make a transaction, the more money you’re making was a valuable lesson for me. And ever since then, learning that lesson, learning that one lesson, I’ve been able to make a lot more money considering the time I’m spending.

Part II: The Customers

Do you sell to anyone?
I do not sell to underage. I try not even to sell to people under the age of 21. I’m discriminant. I have one customer that’s under 21, but that person is as loathsome of police as I am, so I’m not worried.

How many customers do you have on average?
[Blows out smoke real hard] Ten to a dozen. Good customers? Frequent customers? Four or five.

What’s frequent?
Everyday, every other day.

Buying how much?!?!
I have one customer who buys eighths or quarters every day. At market prices in this region that’s $50 and $100 dollars, respectively.

Uh … is he smoking it all?
Uh, SHE …

Sorry, I didn’t mean to be sexist!
She and her family smoke it. They split it. I believe it’s her and her father, her brother, her uncle. It’s basically a family of stoners. They were buying, up until recently, an eighth or a quarter every day, but they finally realized that buying in a greater quantity would beneficial for them, moneywise.

So they were giving you $350 a week? Right?
I would say it was actually much more than that because, more often than not, they were buying quarters. So I would say it was probably more like $500 a week. But now that they’re buying about an ounce at a time, it’s probably more like $350 a week. So she was my number one customer and still is, but now it’s more that’s she’s my number one customer in terms of quantity, not profit. Again, you have to consider that I’m actually a small fry in this world.

When dealing with “customers,” are you just always thinking in really economic terms then?
Very much so, actually. With most of my customers, once I get to wherever we’re meeting, it takes less than five minutes. I’m very economical when it comes to my transactions with my customers. At this point, there is one customer I will smoke with; a kid who I happen to see some qualities of myself. He seems to enjoy my company, and he’s also given me several clients. He’s actually given me my largest client and that’s about it. But he’s helped me out in other ways. So I’ll take the time.

And that’s sort of another thing. Occasionally, you have to play politics to groom people to get them to buy a little bit more. You sort of, like, … it’s mingling. You have to rub elbows a little bit. Or if someone is the type of customer that’s loyal and is going to buy frequently and they need that interaction, they need you to sort of engage them …

[Laughing]
Yeah, it’s hilarious. But it’s sadly true. Sometime you got to do that. You’ve got to play into it.

Into what, being The Dealer?
Being the dealer, you know, hanging around with them for a little bit, placating them, making them feel good about what they’re doing. Because you’d be surprised — some people have a little bit of guilt about spending money on this particular substance.

You said you once offered someone a “discount” price, which, quite frankly, sounded like a girl at a strip club tell me that her “real name is Jane.” So … were you lying?
I wasn’t lying. I actually gave a discount.

Was it good stuff?
It was good stuff. I’m frequently told that I have some of the better marijuana in the area. And I’m fortunate enough to catch a pretty good break with the quantity I’m buying. This is where politics kind of come into play. There are certain people you can get to buy off you by lowering the price. So I undercut market prices frequently with certain people to get them to buy more, or buy more frequently. If I know someone is not making a lot of money at their job and they like to smoke weed, I’ll say, “Hey, instead of you not buying from me, I’m going to give you $10 off this eighth and I’m going to charge you $40 because I can afford to and still make a profit. And you’re going to get weed and you’re going to buy it from me. And you’re going to probably buy it from me for as long as you live in the region.”

Do you ever front customers, or offer it on credit? Layaway?
I have some customers that I front, it’s usually close friends and sometimes it’s very good customers. If I have a customer that buys frequently, it’s essentially the “One Chance Rule.” I’m not going to front them a lot; I’ll front them a little. As long as they prove to me that they’re actually paying me back, I will front them again. I have a customer I front half an ounce to, at least once a week.

Does he pay you in installments then?
Uh, SHE …

Jesus Christ.
Yeah. And it’s a risk, but at the same time, it’s a very good customer and I have faith that they will return this money in full if they should ever decide to stop buying from me. And even if they don’t, it’s not the end of the world. It’s just going to cut into my profits briefly and I’m back.

And they’re done, too?
And they’re done, too. That’s the thing. The second anyone of those people who I do front to fucks me over, I’m done with them. I’m never going to talk to them ever again. They’re blacklisted immediately. I’m not going to fuck with that.

What’s the most you’ve ever made on a transaction?
I’d say about $200 off a transaction. I was selling two ounces. Again, you have to consider, I’m a small fry in this game. I’ve lived places where I’ve had various dealers, one of which was moving 20 to 25 pounds probably in a month. And that person one day went to pick up and all of a sudden the DEA was in his face with guns and arrested him. I don’t really think that’s going to be me. But who knows? Maybe one day. I actually learned a lot about how to operate this business from him.

Part III: Money to Spend

So you’ve experienced dry times and boon times, supply and demand—do you plan financially for that?
The medical marijuana in California has now made it possible for most of the country to see a pretty steady supply. To give you an example, in this area, I’ve been dealing roughly nine months, and winter is typically when it will dry out sometimes. But my supply has been so consistent, it’s been the most consistent supply I’ve ever had. Well, second-most consistent, but nonetheless, it’s been very consistent. I haven’t had to worry about that at all.

And, fortunately, I have that other job, so I don’t have to plan for that all that much. To me, this is just something I do to make a little extra money and to provide a service that I think should be provided legally …

So you’re crusading?
I’m not crusading. I’m not even political about it. It just harkens back to prohibition times where we thought outlawing alcohol was going to decrease the number of drunks in the nation and it didn’t work. It led to speakeasies, where people were selling alcohol in dark rooms with metal doors and small slits in them. It’s sort of like smoking cigarettes. You’re saying you don’t want people to smoke cigarettes so you ban ashtrays? It doesn’t really work that way.

So as long as it’s illegal, I’m probably going to take advantage of it,  (A) Because I don’t think it should be illegal and it’s my small way of sticking it to the man without doing a whole lot while still making money and, (B) it’s kinda fun, I gotta say.

There sort of a romanticism about it, much like bootlegging. You’re running drugs, you know. You’re doing something illegal and you’re getting away with it. And profiting from getting away with it.

So do you plan at all, financial, for business liabilities, like, getting busted?
At this point in time, I’m not too concerned with legal repercussions. I don’t think I’m going to get nailed with anything anytime soon. I’m pretty smart with how I go about doing my business. In the event that I start moving a serious quantity, I’m definitely probably going to set up some sort of plan for that in the way of saving money for a lawyer, finding a lawyer.

A retainer?
Yeah, a retainer.

Wait, so you’re thinking about upping?
I mean, the name of the game is always upping. Like I said, if I can make enough money doing this that I don’t have to hold down a legitimate job then, hell, I’ll give that job up in a heartbeat.

So what are you looking at in terms of what goes into upping. You said, getting a lawyer … those are costs, too. Are there any other costs you may see if you decide to up?
Honestly, in terms of the big picture, no, that’s about it. The liability is pretty low. I mean, I’d say up until you get busted, the only expenses you’re looking at is a scale and bags. And then the money to purchase the product, which is obviously the biggest part of it.

So you invest at first and hope it comes back?
You kind of look at the investment as, I look at it as a saving account, essentially. Say I want to move away from this area, all I have to do is sell out and then not resupply and I’m X dollars richer.

Do you keep your drug finances separate from your other finances? Do you keep that in a different spot? Do you keep records?
I don’t keep records, I don’t really believe in keeping records. I’m not really at a point that I need to keep records. I know people that do. I keep my money, for the most part, separate. I do occasionally skim the profit off the top, essentially, just so I can have some spending money.

So you put that drug money in a different spot? You keep it separate from the work money?
Yeah. This is very ghetto but essentially I keep my legitimate income in my wallet and any money I make off of this I put in my left front pocket. So when I go home at the end of the night, I know I have money in my left front pocket that I know goes to where I keep my money for this “job,” and I have my own money in my wallet.

Does all that money from the drug dealing go to one spot?
Essentially, yes. I do occasionally deposit some of it into a bank if need be. But the need isn’t always there. Sometimes it’s a trust issue with myself. The temptation to take your profit and spend your profit is pretty high, at least for me. So sometimes, it’s easier for me to put it in a bank account that I don’t carry the debit card with and it just stays there.

How much do you have from selling drugs right now?
Honestly, not very much. I just lost a job, recently, so I had to kind of sustain myself off of this, which, as long as you’re not dipping into your resupply fund, then you’re perfectly fine.

So your resupply fund is also with the other drug money?
Yeah, basically, I know what I make off any given sale and if I’m hard up for cash–say I’m out of a job and sell a bag–I know exactly how much money I can take out of that and still have enough to get more.

So how much do you have from drug dealing?
Well, I mean, I have enough to buy a quarter pound after I’ve sold about three quarters of that.

I guess I mean, how much money available, because we’re talking about money. How much money do you have right now?
Right now? I haven’t counted it. See that’s the thing. When I have a legitimate source of income, I don’t even consider what I’m making off of it. It’s just sort of there.

Don’t you think that’s maybe not helpful in terms of maybe wanting to, you know, expand, or get out and move somewhere else.
Well, like I said, I have my retainer, and I know if I wanted to close out I have X number of dollars.

Maybe I don’t know what you mean by retainer.
Like you said, your legal retainer. So I have X number of dollars on hand so that I can buy another round.

How much is that?
I … I don’t want to say.

But we’re talking about mone—
Sixteen hundred and ninety dollars. I’m looking at about a $1690 right now. The thing is, I don’t have to take into account bumping up because I have the type of relationship with my dealer, if I wanted more he’d front it to me.

What do you buy with your drug profits?
Well, it depends on where I’m at in my life. If I just need money to survive on, then I’m using it to survive. If I need it for luxuries or commodities then I use it for that. It’s basically, like, I make the money, and I spend it almost as soon as I have it, which is not a good business practice. But I am militant enough that I can always have what I need to get more.

It sounds almost like you’re basically living paycheck-to-paycheck.
Yeah, essentially it is the same as living paycheck-to-paycheck, which is sort of a sad fact and kind of why I’m doing this in the first place, because you know what, paycheck-to-paycheck isn’t enough anymore. I know so many people who live paycheck-to-paycheck and they can’t afford any sort of luxury for themselves because of that. And this is a way I can afford small luxuries for myself.

Essentially, I get to pay my bills and then I have a little extra money that I can get drunk tonight or whatever I want. When I’m at bars, I’m not drinking domestic beers, standard beers, I’m drinking more expensive beers. I can afford those sort of small luxuries for myself. If I want to go out to eat, I can go out to eat, and I don’t have to worry about those things. If I need a new pair of shoes, I can get a new pair of shoes. If I need any number of things that are modest and reasonable, I can afford them and know that I will be able to pay rent the next month and will be able to pay bills next month.

So nothing big, expensive or excessive?
Not too often. It’s more like nickel and dime things. It’s the small things that make it worth my while. It’s sort of … I don’t know … my customers, they’re connoisseurs of weed. I’m not. I don’t give a fuck. I don’t give a fuck about what strain it is. I don’t give a fuck if it’s sativa or indica. That shit doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is the money. I enjoy smoking weed, I don’t enjoy it as much as I used to. I don’t do it as often.

What’s often?
I mean at this point my habit’s once every three days. I’m not much of a stoner. I’m much more of an alcoholic and a cigarette addict and I enjoy the finer aspects of those habits. They’re fortunately legal, so it’s a little bit easier.

Are you thinking about getting out? You’re obviously thinking about keeping it going.
I’m not thinking about getting out anytime soon. It’s something that I have no fear of being caught any time soon and if I do it’s not going to be any more than a slap on the wrist. Unless I get caught on a resupply, which would be a felony. But, you know what? Sadly, I’m white. I’m probably not going to spend much time in jail for a first offense.

Would you ever consider bringing in a “shadow partner” into your business venture then?
Oh, Absolutely! I mean, I’m waiting for someone to show an interest in it. I’ve talked to a couple of my customers and even did a trial run with one. She came back and said she didn’t think she could handle it. And the other said he was interested, it would jsut be a matter of getting the money together. I’m still waiting to hear back from him.

So is this franchises, or, just expanding the business?
I wouldn’t think of it as franchising so much as it is a pyramid scheme.

Jeff Winkler is a journalist who believes that dealing drugs is more respectable than his own profession. Photo Credit: flickr/ Joel Olives

The Economics of a Part-time Drug Dealer | The Billfold

Yemen’s hidden alcohol problem

Yemen’s hidden alcohol problem

By JUDITH SPIEGEL / THE MEDIA LINE 17/01/2011

Since alcohol is largely forbidden in this Muslim country, treatment for alcoholism is private, as government brushes it under the rug.

Yemen, Sana’a – It’s nine o’clock at night on a busy road on the outskirts of Sana’a and a man is waiting at the shadows. Samir, a 22-year-old university student, has been cruising in his car with his mates and has been engaged in a constant mobile phone negotiation with this man until finally, a location for the deal is made. Samir halts his car. The man emerges from the shadows and quickly passes him a plastic bag containing two bottles of Stolichnaya vodka, wrapped in local newspapers and asks for the money. Samir gives him 12,000 Rials ($60) for both bottles. In an Islamist country where alcohol is largely forbidden, just a simple transaction for a few bottles of vodka has a sinister nature of black alley contraband and fear. As much as alcohol is taboo, treating alcoholism is even more challenging since it exposes its sufferers to stigmas. Samir, who spoke on condition his last name not be revealed, says he does not consider himself to be an alcoholic. He just has “to drink a few beers in the evening to be able to sleep.” A student at one of the Yemeni capital’s prestigious universities, Samir says he often skips classes to drink and was “stressed out” because of his father’s high expectations from him to get high marks and take over his family business. He both adores and fears his father and says his fear of not living up to his expectations makes him seek daily solace in alcohol. He is not alone. According to Dr. Hisham Al-Nabhani, a psychiatrist at Al Amal psychiatric hospital, about six cases like Samir’s cross his door every month seeking treatment for alcohol abuse.

FT.com / Special Reports - Still a player: guitar legend Jeff Beck

Still a player: guitar legend Jeff Beck

Guitar legend: Jeff Beck

By Stephen Wilmot

Published: September 30 2010 18:01 | Last updated: September 30 2010 18:01

Most musicians are known for a particular sound, style or song. But not rock guitar legend Jeff Beck, who says the secret of his staying power has been the ability to “move on to something else”. It’s a journey that has taken him – via rock, heavy metal, jazz and soul – to his current world tour, backed by a full string orchestra.

“I’m at home with anything that’s got a groove to it,” says the ex-Yardbirds guitarist, pointing to a DVD he is making in tribute to legendary guitarist Les Paul and 1950s jazz. “I get just as much of a kick from that as I do coming up with something from tomorrow-land.”

But Beck’s taste for experimentation does not stretch to his finances – something in which he claims to have no interest but just a little “intuition”. He was almost persuaded to buy a portfolio of shares just before the financial crisis; luckily, he decided at the last minute not to sign. “It was a near-miss for me. But I said no, because I wasn’t satisfied with – or didn’t understand – what was being proposed. When people talk bank-talk, I glaze over after five minutes,” he admits.

Beck now uses the London-based private bank Duncan Lawrie, mainly because it offers a reassuringly old-fashioned experience. Lamenting the passing of the days when “you could almost have a pint with your local bank manager”, he remembers how he and his former concert manager grew frustrated with the impersonal service and “incompetence” of their high street bank. After doing research, manager settled on Duncan Lawrie and suggested Beck switch too.

“I felt nervous at first, because I didn’t really know whether I was making the right decision. But I’ve no complaints. It’s so important to have a one-to-one talk with someone at your bank. They’re handling your money, after all. You go around the world and make your money, and you want to be sure it’s being looked after.”

Beck is currently on the second leg of his world tour. He is still basking in the success of his latest album, Emotion & Commotion, which was released in April and is now up for eight Grammys. He says it is the best response that he has received since 1975, when he teamed up with Beatles producer George Martin to make the album Blow by Blow.

Fans have been particularly struck by Beck’s lush use of strings as backing for his electric guitar. “There’s no substitute for a full string orchestra,” he explains. “I was fulfilling a dream – I wanted to do it back in 1966, but couldn’t afford it. I was always impressed by people like Tina Turner and the way that kind of record was produced. It’s a beautiful sound that can only be achieved with acoustic instruments.”

Beck is also pleased with the popularity of Emotion & Commotion because singers, not instrumentalists, tend to dominate the charts. The guitarist has been wary of working too closely with singers ever since he parted ways with Rod Stewart – then the unknown lead singer of his up-and-coming band the Jeff Beck Group – back in 1969.

“Rod was a bit of a problem because his name wasn’t on the ticket, and the whole ego thing kicked off. I said if you put your name on the ticket you won’t sell any seats, but he wasn’t happy being treated as a sideman,” Beck laughs.

Stewart left to join the group the Faces, which seemed a career upset for Beck, but turned out to be liberating. “The singer problem was gone when Rod left. Rather than see that as negative, I thought: the doors are open.” He says it was working with the New York jazz-rock group Mahavishnu Orchestra in the mid-1970s that made him realise there was “life after singers”.

Beck considers the US his second home. He cites American rock and roll, blues and jazz as his original creative sources, and the US still gives him the warmest reception. It was there he spent a year in tax exile in 1977, which ironically was to pay for his English home – an Elizabethan manor house in the Sussex Weald that he fell in love with on first viewing.

“It was complete lunacy, as I didn’t know if I had the money. But when the estate agents opened the door I just wanted them gone,” he reminisces, grateful that his home turned out to be a good investment too.

Beck struggles to single out one highlight of his career, which has spanned four and a half decades and at least 10 different groups. “The big highlight is that I’m still in the business,” he says with another raucous laugh.

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David Bowie - FT

The importance of David Bowie

By Paul Morley FT.com
Published: September 3 2010 21:59 | Last updated: September 3 2010 21:59

David Bowie on stage in Rotterdam in 1976, the year he made ‘Station to Station’

How much do you like David Bowie? You will have to like him a lot to want to spend more than £80 on a deluxe box set edition of his 10th studio album Station to Station (1976), an ostentatious souvenir collection of memorabilia, outtakes, live concerts, photography, essays, remastered versions, exclusive mixes and heavyweight vinyl inspired by the mere six tracks that made up the original record.
It is a mesmerising album, one of Bowie’s best, which is saying something, as he made many, most of them during the 1970s, that were sold as entertainment but contained the moving detail and mysterious, transformative depth of art.
It may well be one of rock’s very greatest, as a comment both on where the smart, neurotic artist who made it was, psychologically, creatively and commercially, but also where rock music itself was, on its compelling journey from Sinatra, Presley and the Beatles to Prince, Jay-Z and Gaga, from the Velvet Underground, the Kinks and Kraftwerk to Madonna, Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails. It is one of those Bowie albums, like Hunky Dory (1971), or Ziggy Stardust (1972), or Low (1977), or Lodger (1979), that are at times my favourite of his, because they demonstrate with such elan what a sparkling, mischievous mind he had, and what ambition, and what a stupendous ego, and how dangerously charming he was.
His impact as a musician, as a brand, as a sign of the times, has been as great as Dylan and the Beatles, his influence as an otherworldly pop star actually greater, and if you just want one example of what he got up to as this erudite pop combination of shaman, singer, thinker and shameless self-promoter, then Station to Station is as good a place as any. But is all of that worth £80? And does wrapping it up inside such technological and geeky paraphernalia clarify its position as a musical masterpiece, or turn it into a banal collector’s item, a nicely designed object of desire for committed Bowie fetishists and connoisseurs?
There’s no obvious anniversary marking the release of the deluxe edition. It’s a non-special 34 years since Station to Station was produced, coming between the Americanised soul-funk slickness of his Young Americans (1975) album and the radiant, challenging Euro-bleakness of Low. He was working on Nic Roeg’s dark film fable The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). Peter O’Toole was not available to play Thomas Jerome Newton, an exiled visitor from outer space, a role that seemed perfect for the lost, distracted, preternaturally bright Bowie. Station to Station was a soundtrack that never was to the film as Bowie was strangely not asked to compose the movie’s music. Roeg just wanted the cracked, emaciated Bowie that was falling apart in real life, the wired, burnt-out pop star playing the baffled but brilliant spaceman from the future, part new-born innocent, part ancient guru.
Playing an alien, and having lost sight of his real self after years of relentless shapeshifting, Bowie constructed a new character, the Thin White Duke. Inside six years, since 1970, he’d been a psychedelic music hall singer channelling Syd Barrett and Anthony Newley, a whimsical novelty specialist, surreal folkie, risqué glam rock starman, cosmic wizard, apocalyptic androgynous Diamond Dog and blanked-out white soul man flirting with superstardom. Now, he would play a transparently autobiographical, ghostly, narcissistic, cocaine obsessed, existential adventurer, anxiously yearning for deeper meaning in a superficial, chilling world.
Bowie would kill off the damaged, demented Thin White Duke a little quicker than he killed off Ziggy Stardust, just in case the Duke took over like Ziggy appeared to. The soundtrack to this character showed Bowie withdrawing from his fascination with the expressive, penetrating showmanship of American soul and turning to more enigmatic and forward looking European music. Young Americans, containing hits such as “Fame” and an appearance by John Lennon, was the calculatedly commercial Bowie response to achieving the American fame he had set his heart on. He was becoming so successful he was peering into some form of the middle of the road, a fixed place Bowie wasn’t quite ready for.
Station to Station – feeling hunted, he was moving from place to place, character to character, fixation to fixation, charade to charade – was where he faced his demons, and made a kind of baroque soul music where it is not quite clear if there is soul involved. It retains the iced funk and post disco groove of Young Americans, alongside decaying traces of the kinky folk, metal, glam, and cabaret melodrama he’d passed through in the early 1970s. But it was already anticipating his less obviously commercial next destination, abstract and minimalist European electronic music. Station to Station contains echoes of everything Bowie had done, or was about to do. Previous characters re-dream themselves. It becomes the link, the tunnel, through which Bowie crawled – spent, emptied out – from fraying pop star decadence to the three classic made in Berlin albums he released next. On Low, Heroes (1977) and Lodger, Bowie and close collaborators Brian Eno and Tony Visconti created a stark, pulsating post-pop soundtrack to personal and historical tensions where Bowie broke out into the wider spaces of the universe. On this trilogy, Bowie refrained from entering the worlds himself, and losing himself in all the offbeat theatre. Station to Station was where he recovered himself, or at least enough of himself that he could continue his search for new extremes, and new experiences, and the kind of unusual, unforced new pop music he craved, music that produced worlds all of his own.
. . .
Depending on your age, you might already have bought a few versions of Station to Station. First of all, pretty much on the day it came out, the original RCA vinyl disc, released when the deliciously unstable Bowie dominated the pop planet in a way that makes Gaga, Beyoncé, Florence and co seem a little lightweight. Then, a few years later, the CD version, and then perhaps, depending how much you loved Bowie, a remastered CD version, even a Japanese import. Or two.

The original 1976 cover

Digging through my record cupboard, preparing the space for the big box of Station to Station, I find I have the vinyl version, with original black and white cover, and the bright orange RCA label that induces Proustian pangs of feeling for those days when a male teenager could fall in love with Bowie because he seemed so alive, and so scandalously full of himself. I’ve also got a CD version bought at full price, and then one bought for less than a fiver when I thought I’d lost the first one. The music business survived well into the 1990s following a policy of blind greed persuading people to buy albums they already owned all over again on CD. Now, perhaps at the end of its tether, devastated by the arrival of such alternative music sources as iTunes, the music industry is hoping to persuade people to buy once more in a gorgeous new format the same thing yet again, still relying on its back catalogues for sustenance. Or, depending on your point of view, ensuring that in a world where music can be so easily distributed through the air, the album can still exist in tempting solid form, as a tangible thing, something that you can hold, not merely store, and place in a sterile list of your favourite music.
The vinyl version is something that I have clearly held a lot, and loved, and still love, prized like a hardback first edition, now looking strangely oversized and florid in a world where even the miniaturised CD has been replaced by essentially the featureless, soulless, click-click nothing of the download. The CD versions look less powerful, more paperback, and more clinical.
Somehow, an old collection of music that could recently be bought for a few pounds, on the verge of being something you could get on tap, is now on sale, admittedly smartly done up, for almost £90. This is a lavish way of pointing out that a big part of the appeal of a pop record in the last few years of the vinyl era was the combination of the music and the art, the image, the design – the overall story, a constantly developing context – that went with it.
It calls into question just what is going to happen to all those albums that have been made and that artistically deserve to endure now that the era of this kind of vinyl-shaped album is more or less over. What was an album, what is Station to Station, how will we remember it? As a complete, significant work, as a series of loosely connected songs that will just randomly flow off into space and time, separated from each other, available on demand until they just fade away into silence, or some kind of work of art that needs to be celebrated and dissected in this way?
It seems right that David Bowie is at the forefront of such consideration of how vinyl era music – songs and stardom that existed because of the nature of the 45rpm single and the 33⅓ album – will survive this new period in music. He may not have been especially active for the past 20 years or so but he’s never stopped thinking, and plotting, and fastidiously nurturing his image.
After making his extraordinary albums in the 1970s, and inevitably running out of energy in the 1980s, he then settled down into his reputation, his history, with a knowing, Dylan-like acceptance, and an occasional Dylan-like reminder of his unique powers. He wasn’t as aloof and inscrutable as Dylan, but had his own ways of protecting, and projecting, his mystique. In Bowie’s case, this meant not just an occasional good new album, or a memorable tour. It also meant a strategic understanding of how entertainment itself was changing because of the technological progression that meant there would be more and more music, less and less originality, and newer ways of receiving and playing that music. He ended his formal alliances with record labels at the beginning of the century, set himself up as web location, turned himself into a sort of bank, and in 1997 sold his future royalties to the Prudential Insurance Company as Bowie Bonds, leading some wags to suggest he invented derivatives and was directly responsible for the latest recession. A confirmed futurist, he anticipated a breakdown in music industry and media certainties, and prepared himself for the science fiction future he always craved. A future where his 20th-century music could still exist, and still sound contemporary.
Albums such as Station to Station are from the past. Boxing them up in expensive deluxe editions is essentially a commercially based nostalgic act, extending their life as product, to some extent one last mad music industry fling. But the music itself, six songs, expertly weaving their enchanting phantom spell, from the opening title track, an extended montage of despair and determination, lunacy and sorrow, to the final track, a precious, caressing version of “Wild is the Wind” first sung in 1957 by Johnny Mathis, where Bowie appears to repair his self-control, via the tricky, nervily jaunty big hit “Golden Years”, is thus given yet another lease of life. The music is strong and intriguing enough to resist the vulgarisation of being repackaged and resold one more time. Somehow, the ornate deluxe edition of Station to Station says: the album is dead, long live the album.
..................................................
From Ziggy Stardust to SpongeBob SquarePants
1947 David Robert Jones born January 8 in Brixton, south London. Shares same birthday as Elvis Presley.
1953 Family moves to Kent. Attends Bromley Technical High School where Peter Frampton, later a rock guitarist, is a friend.
1961 Fight with friend leaves one pupil severely dilated, causing illusion his eyes are different colours.
1963 Leaves school with art O-level. Becomes junior paste-up artist at ad agency.
1964 First release, under the name of Davie Jones, is “Liza Jane/Louie Louie Go Home”. Interviewed on TV as founder of Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-haired Men, he complains, “It’s not nice when people call you darling and that.”
1966 Changes name to Bowie to avoid clash with Davy Jones of the Monkees.
1967First solo album, David Bowie, an odd, jolly mix of pop and psychedelia.
1969 “Space Oddity”, song set in outer space, released to coincide with moon landing
1970 Marries Mary Angela (Angie) Barnett for whom the Rolling Stones song “Angie” was written. Begins unequalled run of 11 studio albums from Man Who Sold The World (1970) to Scary Monsters (1980).
1972 First appearance of glam group Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Produces Lou Reed’s Transformer.
1973 Breaks up Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.
1975 Re-release of “Space Oddity” is first UK number one.
1977 Bing Crosby records “The Little Drummer Boy”, with Bowie, a month before crooner’s death. Appears on old friend Marc Bolan’s ITV music show, duetting on “Heroes”. Bolan dies in car crash two days later.
1980 “Ashes to Ashes” is second UK number one.
1981 “Under Pressure”, with Queen, is third number one.

In ‘The Man Who Fell To Earth’ (1976)

1983 Releases Let’s Dance, produced by Nile Rodgers; title track fourth number one
1985 Having won praise as actor in films The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976), The Hunger (1983), Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence (1983) and on Broadway in The Elephant Man in 1980, turns down role in Bond film A View to a Kill. Duet with Mick Jagger on “Dancing in the Streets” leads to fifth number one.
1989 Forms Tin Machine. Critics sneer, live album does not chart.
1992 Marries Iman Abdul Majid in Switzerland.
1996 Plays Andy Warhol in Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat.
1997 Releases internet-only single “Telling Lies”. Predicts time when music will be freely available at click of a switch. Sells back catalogue for $55m, creating Bowie Bonds, planning to pay back money from future royalties.
2003 Declines knighthood.
2004 Suffers heart attack, undergoes triple bypass.
2006 Receives lifetime award at Grammys.
2007 Voices Lord Royal Highness on TV cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants.
2010 Lady Gaga says Bowie is her biggest influence and she wants to work with him

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