Category Archives: A to Z of Making It

A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity

Look What The Copyright Dragged In

It’s sad reading the stories below, because it shows how far removed Copyright Law is from what it was intended to be.

There are copyright battles happening everywhere. Most of the news is on how the record labels and movie studios are calling on governments to pass stronger dictatorship style copyright laws which would give these organisations police like powers.

Because if being creative on the accounting side for the labels isn’t enough, they also need to have police gestapo like powers. And remember that Copyright was originally designed to help the creator of the art. However, it’s assisting the corporations to make billions of dollars while the creators make a lot less.

Remember the movie, “This Is Spinal Tap”. Well, the movie has made over $400 million in profits, however the co- creators have received $81 from merchandise sales and $98 from record sales.

If you think those amounts are pretty low, well the co-creators thought so as well, and off they went to court, for fraudulent accounting and to get the copyright back in the hands of the creators. And lucky for them they got a judge that saw their side, so the case is going to get interesting. Other cases, got judges that had backgrounds in the copyright industry, so guess how those cases turned out. A victory for the copyright corporation.

The “Spinal Tap” case is a perfect example of a large corporation using copyright to benefit the corporation instead of the creators. Unfortunately for UMG/Vivendi, the co-creators in this case, also found fame with “The Simpsons” and they have a voice in the market as powerful as the corporation.

In other copyright news, the creators of TV show “Empire” got sued by another person who claimed that “Empire” is based on his script called “Cream” which he pitched to the show runners 8 years ago. Both shows centred on a black record label executive.

Yep, that was the similarity between the two scripts and the judge basically said, an African-American, male record executive is un-protectable.

Is the creator of the “Cream” script to blame here?

No.

The blame rests solely with the movie studios and the record labels who lobbied hard to get copyright extended to these current terms (life of the creator plus 70 years). Instead of assisting the public domain and giving people an incentive to create, these organisations are intent on destroying the public domain and giving people an incentive to sue, because hey, someone stole their idea. Well think of another idea. Or take that original idea and make it better.

And speaking of long copyright terms, remember all those cases involving streaming company payments over pre-1972 recordings, because those high commercial recordings fall under various state laws in the US. Well, organisations were trying to get remastered editions of those recordings passed as new derivative originals so they could come under the current copyright laws that would only benefit the copyright holder, which as we know is usually the organisation and very rarely the creator.

Meanwhile, Disney made a doco about Michael Jackson and they used some of his music in it without asking the Jackson Estate.

The Estate didn’t like that and thought Disney should have asked for copyright permission, in the same way Disney asks other documentary makers to seek copyright permissions from Disney when they make documentaries on Disney. So Disney cited the principle of fair use, a small section in Copyright law, Disney and other large organisations tried to kill off as their actual defence.

Funny how a large corporation which tried to kill off fair use in various copyright revisions are now using it as their defence.

And the copyright dispute is still going on, but it never should have even been an issue. Both organisations are holding on to intellectual property that should be in the public domain because the creator of the said works is dead.

If the creator dies, then there are no more works from that creator, so their previous works fall out of Copyright and become part of the public domain. It’s exactly how the 60s music explosion happened.

And what about YouTube’s Content ID system taking down works that are copyright free.

Isn’t it funny (a lot of sarcasm here) as to how an algorithm created by YouTube to protect the interests of the copyright holders (mainly the large organisations) is now over protecting them, to the detriment of the public domain.

Read the Torrentfreak article to find out how much time is being wasted to “protect the interests of large corporations”. A Professor uploads copyright free music and YouTube is taking them down. Time wasted. The Professor then counter claims and YouTube then restores. Time wasted again to be back at the start again. And the way the algorithm works, it will pick up these videos again in due time.

Seriously, this is the world that Copyright controlled by Corporations has created and for YouTube to exist they needed to create something for the Corporations. And if users uploading copyright free music isn’t a problem, then allowing websites to stream rip videos from YouTube is a problem to the large copyright organisations.

I think people are forgetting that the “users” of the service are responsible for how they use the service. And if the record labels can’t get the message that the users are sending them, then they will continue to miss business opportunities to monetise these users. These users go to so much effort to find videos and use another third party software to stream rip that video. That is a lot of effort there by a user to own music in a digital form.

And YouTube is still in the firing line for not paying the copyright holders fairly. They seem to make billions in ad-revenue and pay thousands to artists.

The article states:

Artists claim that a song needs to be streamed 51.1 million times before they can make the average UK annual salary of £27,600. Revenue is based on the number of streams a video has received and funded through advertising.

It is claimed that YouTube pays creators 0.00054p per stream of music, meaning a track that is streamed one million times would earn about £540. Artists say that 85% of YouTube’s visitors come to the site for music, contributing £2.33 billion to the website’s revenue in 2017.

It’s a new world we live in. People want to get paid right away, even if they have a hundred thousand views. But be careful what you wish for.

Organisations like YouTube have given artists access to a world-wide market instantly. If you compare now to the past,  for an artist in the record label controlled era up to when Napster hit our internet lines, artists needed a record label and a lot of money behind them to have access to a world-wide market.

And this is the model the record labels want back. The gatekeeper control model. And misguided artists are pushing for it. Scary if you ask me.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories

Plagiarists or innovators? The Led Zeppelin paradox endures

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article here:

(THE CONVERSATION) Fifty years ago – in September 1968 – the legendary rock band Led Zeppelin first performed together, kicking off a Scandinavian tour billed as the New Yardbirds.

The new, better name would come later that fall, while drummer John Bonham’s death in 1980 effectively ended their decade-defining reign. But to this day, the band retains the same iconic status it held back in the 1970s: It ranks as one of the best-selling music acts of all time and continues to shape the sounds of new and emerging groups young enough to be the band members’ grandchildren.

Yet, even after all this time – when every note, riff and growl of Zeppelin’s nine-album catalog has been pored over by fans, cover artists and musicologists – a dark paradox still lurks at the heart of its mystique. How can a band so slavishly derivative – and sometimes downright plagiaristic – be simultaneously considered so innovative and influential?

How, in other words, did it get to have its custard pie and eat it, too?

As a scholar who researches the subtle complexities of musical style and originality as well as the legal mechanisms that police and enforce them, such as copyright law, I find this a particularly devilish conundrum. The fact that I’m also a bassist in a band that fuses multiple styles of music makes it personal.

A pattern of ‘borrowing’

For anyone who quests after the holy grail of creative success, Led Zeppelin has achieved something mythical in stature: a place in the musical firmament, on its own terms, outside of the rules and without compromise.

When Led Zeppelin debuted its eponymous first album in 1969, there’s no question that it sounded new and exciting. My father, a baby boomer and dedicated Beatles fan, remembers his chagrin that year when his middle school math students threw over the Fab Four for Zeppelin, seemingly overnight. Even the stodgy New York Times, which decried the band’s “plastic sexual superficiality,” felt compelled, in the same article, to acknowledge its “enormously successful … electronically intense blending” of musical styles.

Yet, from the very beginning, the band was also dogged with accusations of musical pilfering, plagiarism and copyright infringement – often justifiably.

The band’s first album, “Led Zeppelin,” contained several songs that drew from earlier compositions, arrangements and recordings, sometimes with attribution and often without. It included two Willie Dixon songs, and the band credited both to the influential Chicago blues composer. But it didn’t credit Anne Bredon when it covered her song “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You.”

The hit “Dazed and Confused,” also from that first album, was originally attributed to Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. However in 2010, songwriter Jake Holmes filed a lawsuit claiming that he’d written and recorded it in 1967. After the lawsuit was settled out of court, the song is now credited in the liner notes of re-releases as “inspired by” Holmes.

The band’s second album, “Led Zeppelin II,” picked up where the first left off. Following a series of lawsuits, the band agreed to list Dixon as a previously uncredited author on two of the tracks, including its first hit single, “Whole Lotta Love.” An additional lawsuit established that blues legend Chester “Howlin’ Wolf” Burnett was a previously uncredited author on another track called “The Lemon Song.”

Musical copyright infringement is notoriously challenging to establish in court, hence the settlements. But there’s no question the band engaged in what musicologists typically call “borrowing.” Any blues fan, for instance, would have recognized the lyrics of Dixon’s “You Need Love” – as recorded by Muddy Waters – on a first listen of “Whole Lotta Love.”

Dipping into the commons or appropriation?

Should the band be condemned for taking other people’s songs and fusing them into its own style?

Or should this actually be a point of celebration?

The answer is a matter of perspective. In Zeppelin’s defense, the band is hardly alone in the practice. The 1960s folk music revival movement, which was central to the careers of Baez, Holmes, Bredon, Dixon and Burnett, was rooted in an ethic that typically treated musical material as a “commons” – a wellspring of shared culture from which all may draw, and to which all may contribute.

Most performers in the era routinely covered “authorless” traditional and blues songs, and the movement’s shining star, Bob Dylan, used lyrical and musical pastiche as a badge of pride and display of erudition – “Look how many old songs I can cram into this new song!” – rather than as a guilty, secret crutch to hold up his own compositions.

Why shouldn’t Zeppelin be able to do the same?

On the other hand, it’s hard to ignore the racial dynamics inherent in Led Zeppelin’s borrowing. Willie Dixon and Howlin’ Wolf were African-Americans, members of a subjugated minority who were – especially back then – excluded from reaping their fair share of the enormous profits they generated for music labels, publishers and other artists.

Like their English countrymen Eric Clapton and The Rolling Stones, Zeppelin’s attitude toward black culture seems eerily reminiscent of Lord Elgin’s approach to the marble statues of the Parthenon and Queen Victoria’s policy on the Koh-i-Noor diamond: Take what you can and don’t ask permission; if you get caught, apologize without ceding ownership.

Led Zeppelin was also accused of lifting from white artists such as Bredon and the band Spirit, the aggrieved party in a recent lawsuit over the rights to Zeppelin’s signature song “Stairway to Heaven.” Even in these cases, the power dynamics were iffy.

Bredon and Spirit are lesser-known composers with lower profiles and shallower pockets. Neither has benefited from the glow of Zeppelin’s glory, which has only grown over the decades despite the accusations and lawsuits leveled against them.

A matter of motives

So how did the band pull it off, when so many of its contemporaries have been forgotten or diminished?

How did it find and keep the holy grail?

What makes Led Zeppelin so special?

I could speculate about its cultural status as an avatar of trans-Atlantic, post-hippie self-indulgence and “me generation” rebellion. I could wax poetic about its musical fusion of pre-Baroque and non-Western harmonies with blues rhythms and Celtic timbres. I could even accuse it, as many have over the years, of cutting a deal with the devil.

Instead, I’ll simply relate a personal anecdote from almost 20 years ago. I actually met frontman Robert Plant. I was waiting in line at a lower Manhattan bodega around 2 a.m. and suddenly realized Plant was waiting in front of me. A classic Chuck Berry song was playing on the overhead speakers. Plant turned to look at me and mused, “I wonder what he’s up to now?” We chatted about Berry for a few moments, then paid and went our separate ways.

Brief and banal though it was, I think this little interlude – more than the reams of music scholarship and journalism I’ve read and written – might hold the key to solving the paradox.

Maybe Led Zeppelin is worthy because, like Sir Galahad, the knight who finally gets the holy grail, its members’ hearts were pure.

During our brief exchange, it was clear Plant didn’t want to be adulated – he didn’t need his ego stroked by a fawning fan. Furthermore, he and his bandmates were never even in it for the money. In fact, for decades, Zeppelin refused to license its songs for television commercials. In Plant’s own words, “I only wanted to have some fun.”

Maybe the band retained its fame because it lived, loved and embodied rock and roll so absolutely and totally – to the degree that Plant would start a conversation with a total stranger in the middle of the night just to chat about one of his heroes.

This love, this purity of focus, comes out in its music, and for this, we can forgive Led Zeppelin’s many trespasses.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

What’s A Few Million?

I came across an interview from Vince Neil in Faces USA 1993. Post Crue departure, Vince was the man, the centre of attention. Here are some sections in italics.

Faces: It was announced in late 1992, that you were suing Motley Crue for 25 percent of future profits. Why did you instigate this action?

Vince: they’re trying to keep money that is owned to me. I was in the band from the very beginning, and you can’t kick somebody out of something and say ‘goodbye I’ll see you later’. I helped build up the name Motley Crue to sign the $30 million deal, so it was kind of a slap in the face. All I really want is my fair share. Nothing less, nothing more. They’re saying, “No! No! You can’t have anything because you’re not in the band anymore.” So it’s time for the lawyers to decide. It’s like they tried to throw me out on the streets. I’ve got a family to support.

Faces: What surprised you the most about the reception you received upon your departure from Motley Crue?

Vince: How quickly I was accepted. A lot of the labels had faith in me. I had a lot of different labels that were interested. It was a really exciting process, walking in there and talking with the different companies, like the heads of Geffen and Giant and Epic.

All these corporate presidents were like “Come on, come and be with us.”

I sat in with Mo Ostin at Warner Brothers and all these dudes and I felt so much power in the room. When I made the deal, went “Okay, give me the money I want and a Warner Bros jacket with Bugs Bunny on it and I will sign the deal.”

I went with a Warner Brothers basically because they gave me the money I wanted and the security of being on the Warner’s label.

Faces: Can you tell us what the deal was?

Vince: Eighteen million dollars for 5 records.

Think about the sums.

Motley Crue signed a 5 album deal with Elektra worth $35 million and the singer who wasn’t even the main songwriter then goes and signs a solo deal with Warner Bros for $18 million and 5 albums. It goes to show the value the record label boss Mo Ostin attached to Vince Neil as a marketable product.

And to be honest, the “Exposed” album is a great slab of hard rock during a time when hard rock albums started to disappear from the record store shelves.

But in music, these long term deals very rarely are seen to the end. Two years later in 1995, Vince was no longer accepted, and he had no record deal and no management after “Carved In Stone” disappointed commercially.

The person who signed him, Mo Ostin left Warner Bros in 1994, so it’s safe to say the new team, didn’t really like some of the signings that the old team did.

Even Motley Crue didn’t see the end of their Elektra deal. The people who negotiated the Motley deal in 1992, were no longer at Elektra by 1995 and the new Elektra management team didn’t really care for Motley. All they cared about was the bottom line and Nikki Sixx constantly called out current Elektra boss, Sylvia Rhodes at the groups concerts, even calling her from the stage, so the crowd could tell her to fuck off.

So what’s a few million when bands make the labels multi-millions.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

11 Crue Years

It was pointed out to me recently how “Generation Swine” and “Saints Of Los Angeles” both came out on June 24, 11 years apart.

How fortunes can change for a band in a decade?

Before 1997, Motely Crue was riding high after “Dr Feelgood”. They renegotiated their Elektra contract for a lot of money and dropped “Decade Of Decadence” with 3 new studio recordings. Life was good.

And then Vince left or was fired (depending on whose story you believe). Regardless, the Crue got Corabi and delivered a stellar self-titled album in 94. But it didn’t sell the way Elektra wanted it too, and since they were footing the bills, they wanted the blond guy back in. Yep, Elektra Records A&R in 1995, referred to Vince Neil as the blond guy.

The Crue camp remained defiant and went ahead writing songs for an album to be called “Personality #9” with Corabi. But money wins in the end and Corabi was out and Vince was back in.

It’s never been confirmed, but the Chinese whispers were in full voice, and the story doing the rounds mentioned how Corabi’s wage was coming from the other guys. Basically, Elektra paid Nikki, Tommy and Mick. Management took their cut, legal took their cut, Corabi got paid a wage and the rest was shared between the other three based on the band agreement.

By 1996, Metallica had gone all glammed up artsy gothic, Megadeth put on flannelettes, Bon Jovi became a balladeer, NIN was becoming a force to be reckoned with, Pearl Jam was at the height of their powers and a band called Smashing Pumpkins was starting to smash the charts around them.

So where did Motley Crue fit into this?

I think even the guys in the band were not sure as well, because when “Generation Swine” came out, you heard it was a confused album.

A few streets away from where I lived, we had this mad super Crue fan called Tony G and when this album came out, we all purchased it on the same day, went home to listen and then met at a park down the road. No one said if they liked it or didn’t. Then Tony G turns up. I asked him what he thought of the album.

“It’s a load of crap”, he screamed. And that was that, we never spoke about “Generation Swine” again because everyone was scared of Tony G. He was older and 6ft 2. No one was going to disagree with him.

Anyway “Generation Swine” did not re-capture their “Dr Feelgood” glory. During the tour, Tommy Lee and Vince Neil punched on and Tommy leaves, then comes back and leaves again. Nikki gets into a slanging match with Elektra and eventually he terminates the contract and somehow gets the copyright of the Crue songs back in the hands of the band. They form their own label and away they go.

Randy Castillo comes in, “New Tattoo” comes out, Randy dies, Samantha fills in on drums, Nikki gets it going with Samantha and his marriage goes to pieces while the Crue play theatres and cancel shows all over the world. I know, their Australian tour got canned. And after “New Tattoo”, the Crue went on hiatus.

In between, they got some stories together and a book called “The Dirt” came out. The band got back together for a few select shows and demand was so huge, those few shows turned into a huge world tour which was encapsulated in the “Carnival of Sins” DVD release.

So a new album was the next logical choice. “Saints Of Los Angeles”, is the album and it’s written by the “Sixx AM” members for Motley Crue. Tommy Lee has no song writing credits whatsoever on this one and to me, it’s a huge loss to the sound and feel. I know people don’t like it, but the album was the right fit for the Crue at that point in time.

If any new fans came across “Saints Of Los Angeles” how could they not like it. It tells the bands story. “Down At The Whiskey” tells the true story of paying your dues and playing for free. “Welcome To The Machine” highlights how record labels rip you off and the album ends the way the band started, “swinging”.

But the thing that blows me away is the rollercoaster ride between “Generation Swine” and “Saints Of Los Angeles”.

If you want to have a career as an artist, you need to be a lifer, and be ready to ride the journey. It’s not always bright lights and success after success. There are hard times and good times. Doors shut and other doors are opened. And when everyone wrote them off, they came back stronger than ever. And signed off the way they wanted to, on their own terms.

For a band who were just average musicians at best, they built a career 30 plus years long. And that period between 1997 and 2008 could have been the end, but it wasn’t.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Standing For Something

The world is burning. We have gas poisoning and acid attacks in the UK, Russian meddling in politics and mother nature taking back her lands via fires, volcanoes, hurricanes/twisters and earthquakes. We have a problem with pollution in the air and plastics in our waters. We have people carrying out mass shootings or people driving vehicles into crowds of people. We still have wars over religion and poverty/famine in Africa is still happening and as much as big business wants to deny it, climate change is real.

The past is littered with bands and music in general taking a stand against a problem, a situation, injustice and war. But what about now. What is upsetting musicians enough that they feel compelled to write about it?

King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man” is a powerful anti-Vietnam War statement while “Khe Sanh,” by Cold Chisel portrayed the damage that the Vietnam War did to a soldier after he came back. Meanwhile, Black Sabbath focused on the fallout of nuclear war with “War Pigs”.  Metallica also touched on this topic with “Blackened” while Megadeth protested nuclear warfare with “Rust In Peace”.

Bob Dylan sang about about the injustice of imprisoning an innocent man in his song “Hurricane” while Midnight Oil sang about the corruption of corporations in poisoning its workers with asbestos in the song “Blue Sky Mine”. Rush challenged religion in “Freewill” and how people use god as an excuse for their own lack of accountability.

Today, artists who speak out or write about social issues suffer blowback from “fans”. And as soon as they get blowback, the accountant speaks to the manager who then speaks to the artist. And the artist then remains silent.

Robb Flynn spoke out about racism and Trump America and he suffered death threats and hate mail. Meanwhile Metallica kept quiet on the issue, choosing financial perseverance. Even Mustaine, who normally has an opinion has kept his mouth shut. Maybe the lyrics for the upcoming Megadeth album, might reference the current social situation in a cryptic way.

Nikki Sixx is all over Twitter in his anti-Trump tweets. He’s getting told off and told to stick to music, but he doesn’t care. He’s got skin in the game and he’s shouting at the devil. Meanwhile, a lot of other artists from the 80’s are keeping their opinions to themselves. Jon Bon Jovi said something negative about Trump and he got some backlash from Jovi fans that voted for Trump. So he stopped talking about politics.

Kiss’s Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley don’t care if the world is going to hell, as they continue their stand against piracy and streaming payments. At least they have an issue they are taking a stand on and they are sticking with it.

Dee Snider has always taking a stand on issues in the past and even today, he’s still taking a stand. He’s anti bullies and anti crap talkers and anti-oppressors. Even though he’s not writing the lyrics for his recent solo albums, he’s the voice who is delivering the middle finger salute message to the rest of the world.

Maynard Keenan from Tool and A Perfect Circle fame has always shared his views in songs. Sometimes he’s been very cryptic about it, but on the recent APC album “Eat The Elephant”, he’s not holding back at the Government and as usual, religion.

If you want to hear truth and people taking a stand, go watch a comedy show. Comedians are always commenting on government officials, products, companies/business people and commercials. And by taking a stand, they are selling their show and routine in the process. Comedians tour in clubs and theatres to great success. Meanwhile the majority of musicians are buying up space in the suburb of conformity, too scared to be true to themselves because of the blowback. Remember, you can’t be liked by everyone.

Take a stand.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

What’s Next

Gettin’ robbed
Gettin’ stoned
Gettin’ beat-up
Broken-boned
Gettin’ had
Gettin’ took

You paid your dues from hotel to motel, honed your chops playing live, got ripped off on the pay from the promoter, had some fights and some good times and maybe, just maybe, you might have made it to the top to rock ‘n’ roll.

Today, artists expect to get instant success. But, what artists fail to grasp is they get to define their own success.

Is success about reaching everybody and getting rich?

Is success about establishing a career on your own terms and controlling your own destiny?

So forget all the crap about streaming payments, piracy, YouTube videos payments and copyright issues because for any artist, it always comes back to the live show.

For a fan, it’s an experience they can’t get anywhere else. You see, the records weren’t perfect. In some cases, rushed, so the band could go back on the road again. And even the shows had problems, but the bands would take you on a journey and explore new paths with the songs, have sing-a-longs and jam out the endings. Today, the live show is a clone of the recordings, because bands take their time to get the recordings perfect.

Remember when Bob Rock was asked to produce Metallica. He heard the first four albums and hated the sound/mix on them. He watched them live and thought to himself, wow, how can I get the power, the sound and the energy of the live show in the studio.

So stop focusing on Spotify and revenue. That area is a game that some play well. But for most metal and rock artists, they can’t win there, so they need to go the other way and focus on the live performance. Use the data the streaming services give you about super fans and work out ways to reach them and play the cities they reside in.

Opportunities are rampant, if you allow yourself to see the landscape differently because you are investing now for revenue later. If you want it to work immediately, then focus on recordings. And then if you get some traction, you need to be able to play live.

The good thing is the internet allows the word to be spread but there are so many words trying to spread, it’s hard to get people’s attention, so you need to double down and focus on the building blocks, the ability to play your instrument. So focus on chops.

Music is cultures greatest invention and the record labels signed artists based on the music more than the commercial potential. With some A&R development, an audience would come as a career is built.

Now artists are a star today and gone tomorrow. And streaming put the public in control. It took away the power of scorched earth marketing tactics from the labels.

Songs that go nuts on streaming happen months before the rest of the mainstream pick up on them. And every so few years something new comes along that becomes mainstream. Classic rock gave birth to prog rock to punk to metal to hair rock to grunge to industrial to nu metal and so forth.

What’s next.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories

Who Should Be Listed As A Songwriter For A Song?

Metallica want to re-issue their 1982 demo “No Life To Leather”

Dave Mustaine on Twitter, said the talks broke down because Lars wanted song writing credits on two songs that Mustaine wrote every note and word to. So instead of agreeing to share the song writing, Mustaine passed.

If you look at the track listing of the demo, it sure has a distinct Dave Mustaine flavour. Four out of the seven songs, “The Mechanix”, “Metal Militia”, “Jump in the Fire” and “Phantom Lord” have song writing from Dave Mustaine.

I am presuming based on interviews, that “The Mechanix” and “Jump In The Fire” are the two songs written solely by Dave Mustaine.

“Hit the Lights”, “Motorbreath” and “Seek & Destroy” make up the other songs.

Song writing is always an issue with bands.

  • Van Halen had all the band members listed as songwriters on all of their albums. Suddenly, when the band re-negotiated their publishing deals for their earlier David Lee Roth albums, Michael Anthony was removed as a song writer.
  • Skid Row’s Dave Sabo and Rachel Bolan said that Sebastian Bach didn’t contribute to the Skid Row debut album as most of the songs were written before Bach joined. Bach countered to say, that the way he sung the songs, and the way he decided to hold certain notes was enough of a contribution to the debut album.
  • Nikki Sixx said one of the reasons for Vince Neil’s departure from Motley was due to his lack of song writing contributions, which Vince countered to say he had enough co-writes on Motley’s classic era.

100% of the time, when I write a song, I write the music, the words and the vocal melodies. And when I say music, I mean, the guitar riffs/chords and the vocal melodies. Then I bring the song to the band and show them the song. The bass player learns the guitar riffs and starts to play the bass lines in their own unique style. The singer learns the vocal melodies and starts to add their own unique vocal style to the song. The drummer hears the song and puts a beat to it.

Finally the song is played by a band. It’s structure is still the same as it was on the day I wrote it.

Do I need to share credit with anyone in the band?

Is the bass player, singer or drummer entitled to a song writing credit based on the above?

What about this scenario?

I write the song, complete with music, words and vocal melodies. I show it to the band. The drummer doesn’t like the interlude for some reason, so I write new music to the interlude and the drummer is now happy. Also the singer didn’t like the Chorus melody and the words, so I change them as well. We finally play the song as the band and it sounds great.

If you look at the definition of songwriter it states, a person who composes words or music or both.

So am I still the sole songwriter or do I need to share the credit with the two band members?

My view is no, I don’t need to share a song writing credit. The other guys in the band didn’t write a single note or word to the song. They might have made suggestions, but those changes still happened because I wrote extra music and extra words for the song.

Remember Copyright, that wonderful word. Well there is a mechanical copyright and a performance copyright. Mechanical monies are paid when the song is listened to on a streaming service, viewed on a video platform or the song is recreated onto a CD, a vinyl, a cassette and those physical items artists still try to sell sell. Performance monies are paid when the song is played on radio or TV, or in bars and restaurants.

Now, the recording industry and the publishers (yes, those pesky corporations who hold the copyrights to most of the popular songs) have lobbied hard to make these mechanical rights even more complex. Each new work would have a copyright for the composition (songwriter) and the sound recording (the band performance).

So let’s look at a real example. Motley Crue’s “Live Wire” is listed as a Nikki Sixx composition on the album credits. However, the mechanical rights of the song would be worked out in the following way and would be part of a band agreement, while Nikki Sixx is listed as the songwriter.

Nikki Sixx share

• 100% (Composition) + 25% (sound recording) = 125% out of 200% available.

• 125% divided by 200 x 100 =  62.5%

Tommy Lee, Vince Neil and Mick Mars share

• 25% for the sound recording is divided by 200 and multiplied by 100% = 12.5%

So the final copyright allocations for the mechanical license is as follows;

• 62.5% – Nikki Sixx

• 12.5% – Tommy Lee

• 12.5% – Vince Neil

• 12.5% – Mick Mars

Now, the performance rights organisations that collect the royalties for songs, do not allow decimal numbers, so you would assume, Nikki Sixx would get 64% and everyone else would get 12%.

Who would have thought making music involved maths and shares and allocations and what not. So when certain members see the lion’s share of monies going to a single person, they would start to write songs themselves, bring them in and they would either get rejected or re-written that they are nowhere near the original song the member brought in.

And if the song makes money, expect an argument to happen as to who gets what.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

War Of Attrition

If we are to stop using Spotify or Netflix, would we miss them?

For a certain percentage of people this would be catastrophic, while for another percentage it wouldn’t matter and for another percentage, it would matter but it wouldn’t be catastrophic.

I am a heavy user of Spotify. For Netflix its hit and miss. Sometimes I could go weeks without using it and on other occasions it’s every day. Of course it depends on the content they have coming out. However if Spotify does disappear, I still have a large LP and CD collection which I could always bring out. Plus I have ripped all of my CD’s to mp3 and downloaded my LP collection titles from the net.

If Netflix goes I wouldn’t miss it. After watching a TV show or a movie once, I haven’t gone back to watch it again. The connection I have to art is via the song or the movie. I have no connection to the medium.

Being missed when you’re gone is a worthy objective for any organisation. It also should be an objective for any artist. If I stopped listening to music in general, I would miss it. If I stopped listening to music from certain artists I would really miss it. And that’s a good thing for the artist. They have established that connection with me. When I hear that slow ballad like lead interlude in “Glasgow Kiss” from John Petrucci’s solo album “Suspended Animation”, the hairs on the back of my neck rise. (And as I write this the album is not on Spotify).

When I hear the solos from Randy Rhoads on “Mr Crowley” and “Goodbye To Romance” from the “Tribute” album, I am immediately transported back to my bedroom, with a guitar in hand, trying to figure it all out and doing a lame job at it.

It’s the job of the artist to create connections like these for the listener.

And I am sure artists have created works which they believe are excellent, but those songs are out on streaming sites and no one is really paying attention except for their family and friends. Hell, Netflix releases so much content every week and a lot of it doesn’t even get viewed, so it gets canned or they go back to the drawing board to come up with something better. The only golden rule here is to keep on creating and to keep on releasing.

And the ones who will survive are not those looking for short term profits, but those that realize it’s a war of attrition

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories

Creativity

HAVE ALOT OF SONGS IN THE BANK

It’s always been told that all the artists who had a few classic albums in a row had a lot of songs in the bank. So when album number 1 comes out, the first inclination is to release the songs the artists views as the best. But they didn’t. They withheld some for the next album and the album after that while they kept on creating even more classics.

COPY AND BE INFLUENCED BY YOUR INFLUENCES

Because being creative is all about taking your influences, your lifestyle, your experiences and putting them together.

“What does this remind you of” should be the conversation. And by creating something that reminds a person of something that came before, it is still original. However, if you are too original then the audience will have no idea what you’re doing.

BE IN THE GAME FOR THE RIGHT REASONS

You will make it on creativity, credibility and by not selling out. Because if a musician has some public acceptance today, they’re eager to make a deal with a corporation or what not.

But artists are not motivated by money when they create music. They are intrinsically motivated. The joy of creating a new song is what motivates them. If the song gets public acceptance, and it brings in money, great. As long as they are still motivated by the joy of creating a new song, they will be fine. As soon as they are motivated by the need to match or better the popularity of the “hit” song, then they are in trouble.

STREAMING PAYS

And music is entering a good era. There’s a lot of people who are using streaming services and as these services grow, more people will feel they would need to join, so they become part of the club. And as long as you control your copyrights, Spotify will pay you every month.

And it might sound scary to artists to go it alone. Especially legacy artists who had the labels in their corner and all the beggars and hangers on attached to them. But you need to go it alone. You need to have control over your copyrights. The artists like Motley Crue and Metallica will be cashing in millions while the rest cash in thousands.

SOCIAL MEDIA FOLLOWERS

Social media is there to give you instant feedback. After the show is over, people are commenting. After a song is released, people are commenting. It gives you the ability to connect and know your fans, to interact with them and to get a feel for what they like and want from you.

In the 60’s the youth questioned the norms and the authorities and changed everything. The clothes people wore changed, the hairstyles changed and the music changed. And it kept happening, with every decade. And at the forefront of each cultural change was music.

So as an artist, the question should be what is it, you hope to accomplish, and not the clicks, views and likes you hope to measure on your social media account. Because we have been conditioned to compare ourselves against metrics. It’s easy, but irrelevant. Hell, if the techies accepted the standard metrics they wouldn’t have made a difference. If the earlier musicians accepted that all guitars need to have clean sounds, then we wouldn’t have had distortion.

Remember music is forever, and it needs people to like it. If you don’t have any, you still have your music. Be creative and never stop.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Labels

Every industry has rules and the recording industry has a lot of them. And there was a saying once that if you followed enough of the rules, you would get a recording contact, millions of dollars and the red carpet. Perhaps one in a 1,000,000 pull this off. Actually you have a higher probability of being hit by a comet than making a lot of money in music.

So, the record labels wanted to maintain the sales model but they  got dragged kicking and screaming to downloads. Credit Apple for pushing it and credit Warner Music for being the first major to sign. Suddenly their revenues went up. But they still complained. They screamed to their friends in politics for laws to be passed. Then streaming came out and they got dragged kicking and screaming to streaming. They even got a percentage of the company and surprise, surprise, the revenues went up again.

Times are changing. Nothing will look the same in relation to labels and streaming companies in the next ten years.

Spotify is connecting tours to the Super Fans to sell tickets. The data tells Spotify who the super fans are, they share that information with the artists and they all come after us. Meanwhile, the labels owned and controlled the recording industry for a hundred years and they had no idea who the super fans were for their artists.

Seriously, the good times are just starting. There is a lot of people to reach with music and Spotify is connecting people to artists and along the way, they are paying artists every month providing an organisation (who might hold the copyrights for the artist) doesn’t get in the way and take the monies first.

For a fan, how good is it. Instead of playing the same album, over and over again, because we had so little product, we can now play the whole history of music. The only thing stopping us is time and distractions. On some days, I’m even confused to what I should listen to, as there is so much to select from.

As for the labels, they are not going away. Morphing more into marketing companies, who could help with your world domination ideals, but do you need them.

Remember that one of the biggest hurdles for any artist pre-internet was getting your music into a record store. It’s a much different today as every artist can get their music on streaming services for a small yearly fee and they can get paid direct from the streaming services and on a monthly regular basis. This is much different to the record label machine who used to do their accounting twice a year and be very creative with it at the same time.

And for over a century the record label has built up a history of owning songs it shouldn’t be owning. It’s ridiculous. An artist signs a deal, pays off all the costs associated with the album and somehow, the label still owns the copyright. The battle is happening. Check out the article over at Billboard.

Todd Rundgren wants his masters back.

“Why would a label be insisting on keeping a property that has stopped selling, that they don’t have any plans to re-promote except when the artist dies?”
Todd Rundgren

According to Nielsen Music, almost 70% of the monies received by the labels is because of older catalogue items. So giving back the artist their copyrights as dictated by law is bad business for the labels. As the article states, around 20 artists have reclaimed their rights from the thousands who are entitled to.

And the labels pull out all the tricks, like telling the artist they will pay them a higher royalty rate (which is useless if the label does nothing to re-promote the tunes) or paying the artist a large advance to hold on to profitable masters.

And as soon as Spotify goes public expect the majors to check out their ownership of the service.

Why.

All of their employees are focussed on the now, not for the long haul. And that is the label business.

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