Twittering Canadian Music Week 2009: Lefsetz vs Gene Simmons

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Over the years, music analyst Bob Lefsetz has built up a brand name as a media gadfly, straight-shooting from his point-of-view and taking on the powers-that-be. He knows how to stir it up.

On Thursday, Bob decided to comment -- throwing lots of punches through his newsletter -- about one of the keynote speakers at this week's Canadian Music Week conference in Toronto: rock star and master promoter Gene Simmons of KISS.

Of course, Gene responded...with a lot of humour and more self-promotion.

This sent the conference attendees into a twitter frenzy.

Conference organizer Neill Dixon quickly set up a head-to-head discussion setting the conference abuzz, as everyone got ready for a cage match.

The event happened at 4PM Friday at the Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto in front of a very large audience. The video below shows the discussion (NSFW; caution - explicit language):

In the end, this head-to-head confrontation may not have changed anything about the music industry. It certainly didn't solve anything, including their differences. It did entertain and it generated some attention both for the Bob and Gene as well as for the conference. Promotionally, it worked.

Bob's assessment in retrospect?

"What an asshole."

Labels: 2009, Cage Match, CMW, Gene Simmons, Lefsetz, Music Industry, Twitter