Category Archives: My Stories

Music, My Stories

And The Grammy Goes To……. Metallica

The Grammy awards is not about the awards, it is about the performances. The Grammy organisation exists solely to sell a TV show and advertising. Go on all the music and news websites and what are people talking about after the Grammy’s.

If you said, Metallica and their mashed up performance of “One” with classical pianist Lang Lang, then you are right.

If you said, it is people blasting Metallica’s terrible and pitchy performance of “One” then you are right again.

If you said, it is people applauding Metallica’s performance, then you are right again.

That is why after the Grammy’s, Metallica got a 125% boost in Spotify streams for the song “One”. So if they had 100,000 streams the previous week, they had 225,000 streams after their Grammy performance for their song “One”. Overall, across their whole catalogue, their Grammy performance gave them a 63% increase.

Heard anything about the actual winners in the Best Metal category. Who was it again? Who won the Metal award?

To prove my point, look at the Daft Punk performance of “Get Lucky”. Their performance of “Get Lucky” included Stevie Wonder and a large portion of Stevie’s song called “Another Star”. Guess by how much that song streams increased by on Spotify after the Grammy performance?

Did you say 635%?

Yep, spot on. Was Stevie Wonder nominated for anything?

Okay that was a trick question, he was part of two nominations. A massive group nomination for Best Musical and a nomination in the R&B category for a song that he featured in. However no other song performed at the Grammy’s got even close to the percentage increase experienced by Stevie Wonder on Spotify.

When you carry out a performance in front of 28.5 million U.S viewers, it is bound to get a reaction. Metallica and their management team know this. Credit Cliff Burnstein. A good manager is the difference between the haves and the have-nots. And that is what Cliff is. A good manager.

So what about the winners of the metal category. “God Is Dead?” from Black Sabbath didn’t get much traction after the awards. Out of mind, out of sight is what I say.

But back to Metallica.

You see while Keith Urban and Beyonce played some of their new stuff that no one cared about, Metallica played what the people wanted to hear. They used that exposure to remind people, why they care about them in the first place. They didn’t try to promote something recent or a special new song, written for the Grammy’s. They played “One” goddamn it. Even though I didn’t really like the mash-up, it was still Metallica, playing a signature tune that is 26 years old.

Who cares about the categories? There are too many of them anyway, so no one cares about who wins. The artists that do win at the Grammy’s are the ones that perform. And the Grammy for Best Metal Performance goes to Metallica once again.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2014/01/28/daft-punk-post-grammy-streams-jump-205-percent-on-spotify/4968507/

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

A Metal Heads Guide To The Key Of Music Success

The technology of today allows for convenient costless copying and transportation of large chunks of data across the internet. Before the rise of streaming, people were still given a raw deal when it came to digital music and forced to overpay. In Australia, an iTunes song costs between $1.69 and $2.69. This price remained the same, even when our dollar was stronger than the US dollar.

Then the ACCC, our competition watchdog launched an inquiry into these geo-blocking price restrictions. Apple went in front of the commission and stated that they didn’t set the price for music in Australia and that the price was set by the Record Labels. It was found by the Commission that there should be no reason why Australians should pay more for software and music. However, nothing has changed in relation to the prices.

When music is offered in a convenient and low-cost legal alternative, the rate of piracy drops because most people do want to support artists and the various research out there points out that is the case.

For example, let’s look at TesseracT, the band. They released a great album in “Altered State”. It didn’t sell huge amounts in the U.S, so based on the record label success model, the album is a fizzer. However, the band knows that touring is where they make their money. And that is what they are doing. Musicmetric data showed (before it went behind a pay wall) that TesseracT’s music was downloaded the most in North America via peer-to-peer Torrent networks. So guess which area’s TesseracT have toured?

Yep, North America. They are touring there again from March and April 2014. The previously toured North America between September and October 2013. Coincidence. Maybe.

In relation to Spotify, they have a combined album stream count of 1,705,734. What this means, is that if you tally up all of the album songs shown in their popular list you will get to that number.

Go on YouTube and you see that the “Nocturne” (OFFICIAL VIDEO) by Century Media Records has 302,002 views. My favourite track from “Singularity” on the Century Media Records channel has 260,817 views compared to the 130,835 on Spotify. These numbers matter. Especially for a band that plays to a niche market.

What about the band Volbeat? They fall on all sides of the equation. They are one of the most streamed metal bands out there, plus they are downloaded a lot via peer-to-peer networks and in addition to all of this, they are still selling albums in the U.S. Their “Outlaw Gentlemen And Shady Ladies” album was released on 5 April 2013 and as at 29 January 2014, it is still selling in the U.S.

Yep, that’s right, in an era were physical sales of recorded music are non-existent, Volbeat has been selling consistently for 42 weeks straight. Prior to the release of “Outlaw Gentlemen And Shady Ladies”, their previous album “Beyond Heaven, Above Hell” was still selling up to and past the release date of the new album.

From a record label point of view, this is pure gold. They have a band that can consistently sell albums and Volbeat has been doing that each week for the last three years in the very competitive US market.

That is why they are hitting the U.S market again for the third time, this time with “Trivium” and the best DIY independent band out there in “Digital Summer”.

Look at their song “Still Counting” on Spotify. It has 21,193,159 streams. On the YouTube channel of Tomas Grafström “Still Counting” has 11,725,300 views.

My favourite song “Fallen” has 12,392,089 streams. On the VolbeatVEVO channel, “Fallen” has 4,583,706 views.

“Cape Of Our Hero” from the new album has 5,838,326 streams. On YouTube, “Cape Of Our Hero” has 2,999,070 views on the VolbeatVEVO channel.

Another band that is doing great numbers both in actual sales, streams and peer-to-peer downloads is Skillet. The album “Rise” was released on June 25, 2013 and at this point in time, 31 weeks after that, it is still selling. That is what the labels want, bands that can sell week in and week out. What does the band want? They want people to listen to their music.

To compare to the current mainstream rock band, none of these bands come close to Imagine Dragons. “Night Visions” came out on September 4, 2012. 73 weeks later, the album is still moving physical albums. At this point in time the album has sold over 1.8 million copies in the US. The main songs are high on Spotify’s streaming chart. They are also very high on the peer-to-peer download lists.

Seriously their Spotify numbers are insane. “Radioactive” is at 172 million streams compared to 128 million views on YouTube. “Demons” is at 73 million streams compared to 50 million views on YouTube. My favourite “It’s Time” is at 75 million streams compared to 59 million streams on YouTube.

Music is now a game of data. The key to any artist is not how many albums or songs are sold. The key is this;

ARE PEOPLE LISTENING TO YOUR MUSIC?
ARE PEOPLE SHARING YOUR MUSIC?
ARE PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT YOUR MUSIC?
ARE PEOPLE DOWNLOADING YOUR MUSIC?
WHERE ARE THESE PEOPLE LOCATED?
MUSIC IS A RELATIONSHIP BUSINESS. DO YOU HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH THESE PEOPLE?

If you answered YES to the first question, move on to the next question. If you haven’t answered YES to the first question, take a step back and start writing more music.

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Influenced, My Stories

Life Messages from The American Wolf Of Hustle Wall Street and others – 2013 Best off in Cinema… Part 1

American Hustle and The Wolf Of Wall Street

These two movies are for all the people who don’t know how the world works. For all those people that still believe that if you work hard, get a good education and put in the 12 hour days, that somehow, success will work itself out and befall on them.

But it doesn’t really happen that way at all. Everybody is hustling. Everybody is putting a scam in motion. The whole recording business is a scam, overrun by liars and cheaters, who get artists into contracts and then proceed to underpay the artists due to some creative accounting.

Both movies show an accurate reflection of life where scammers and hustlers work only for themselves, constantly tweaking and adjusting their methods to stay ahead of the law. Look at “The Pirate Bay” in music. It innovated more in one year than what the whole recording business did in 15 years and the law still cant get to it. Heard the music business scream “Piracy” lately. It’s because fans of music are slowly getting serviced with streaming.

What these movies have shown is that it doesn’t matter what level of education a person has. It doesn’t mean that they will win. Quitters never win and it is the winners that write history. The winners write history because they bend the laws and they twist social morals to suit them. People may not like it, but it’s the truth.

Oblivion

I love it’s eeriness. Director Joseph Kosinski, who also wrote the story did a great job in bringing back the Seventies sci-fi movie with “Oblivion”. Progress is derivative right.

This movie is for the people who only believe what they are told and even when they come across something that questions that belief, they re-frame it and twist it, so that it conforms with what they believe in, because that is all the know. Whatever Mission Control said was the truth and the whole truth.

We life in an information society right now with everything at our fingertips.

Don’t be a fool. Do your own research and question everything. Don’t just follow. Whereas “The Wolf Of Wall Street” and “American Hustle” reflect the hustling mentality of life, “Oblivion” reflects our servitude to institutions.

We serve the needs of companies and get paid a wage in return. That wage gets broken up and some of it goes to the tax institution. Some of it goes to the banking/mortgage institutions, some of it goes to the utility companies. If you get paid a basic wage, basically all of your wage is consumed before the next one is due.

We serve different religions and different creeds. That is what “Oblivion” is about. Serving “Mission Control”. The powerful and the wealthy tell us how to act and behave by rewriting history and bending laws to suit them. People may not like it, but it’s the truth.

Now You See Me

This movie was a super surprise. A sleeper hit. I read the reviews about how this smaller budgeted movie blew away the big budget blockbusters during the 2013 US Summer. For a movie that cost $75 million to make and promote, it has returned over $350 million. French director Louis Leterrier did a great job bringing the movie to life. As is the norm these days, the directors are as a big as the movie stars and in some cases bigger. They have their own blogs, own social media accounts and what not.

So what does this movie teach us about life.

In a similar vein to “American Hustle” and “The Wolf of Wall Street”, scammers and hustlers are everywhere however in this case, revenge is obtained by the person that was wronged.

The insurance company scammed the dead magician’s family. The dead magician’s tricks got exposed by another magician who was a hustler. Fast forward a few decades and the son of the dead magician is now old enough to orchestrate the greatest trick/scam/hustle ever.

The powerful and the rich write bend laws to suit themselves. People may not like it, but it’s the truth.

World War Z

Yeah, I know it’s got Brad Pitt and Zombies, however I really liked this movie. It played out like stages in a video game.
We have had a pretty clean run in relation to epidemics compared to previous centuries. This movie got me thinking about “The Happening”.

In “The Happening”, humans had become a threat to the planet and the plants released some form of a neurotoxin (which I will call a virus) that causes anyone exposed to it to commit suicide. In “World War Z” the virus needs a viable host to spread and therefore it is found that people inflicted with various diseases are immune from the zombie swarms as they cannot spread the disease.

In both movies they deal with nature. Nature requires a live host to spread the virus in “World War Z” and Nature fights back against the humans in “The Happening”. Respect our world is the message that I get from WWZ. The more we disrespect it and pollute it, the more we and our future generations will suffer.

The rich pharmaceutical companies care about treatments. There is no money in cures for them. They lobby hard to rewrite the laws and protect their business models. People may not like it, but it’s the truth.

Escape Plan

I don’t know what people have against Stallone and Schwarzenegger as actors. They have proven themselves in the entertainment business for over 40 years. Swedish director, Mikael Håfström delivers again in Escape Plan. It is a great story line.

As I am watching “Escape Plan”, I am thinking, wow, if someone wants to imprison a person just to get them out-of-the-way, they can, just because they have power or money.

Bradley Manning is in jail. He didn’t kill anyone. He didn’t hurt anyone. All he did was embarrass his government.

Ed Snowden is on the run, seeking asylum. He didn’t kill anyone. He didn’t hurt anyone. All he did was embarrass his government.

On both occassions, Manning and Snowden also informed the world at large to the crimes of their government. Torturing inmates is something that is associated to dictatorships, not to democratic countries. Spying on your citizens is common in dictatorships, not in democratic countries.

In both cases, if Manning and Snowden are reporters, they would have been seen as heroes.

Then you have the cases, where power and money gets you off on charges. Last year was littered with the kids of rich parents, driving cars intoxicated, killing others while driving or just speeding, Guess what they didn’t do any time and they also kept their driving permits.

The wealthy bend the laws to suit them. People may not like it, but it’s the truth.

Another thing that Escape Plan brought to mind is the conflict of interests that people have and the revolving door of politicians to private firms or to lobby groups.

The politicians write and pass laws to benefit the wealthy and then when their term in office is finished, they get a well-paying job for the same companies that they made rich while in office. People may not like it, but it’s the truth.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Australia Day

It’s coming to the end of Australia Day. It has been another hectic day, taking the kids into town, where they purchase tokens and go on the rides. You see, while it is Australia Day, it is the actual theme park show and events that steals the day and the fireworks that steal the night.

For the Indigenous people, Australia Day is the day that they got invaded. For people who reside in the other states, Australia Day is on the day that celebrates the colony foundation of the state of New South Wales.

I love Australia. I am Australian by birth, the son of European migrants. My two older brothers were born in Europe in the Sixties. I don’t know any other way of life, except the Australian way. My three boys born in the two thousands are the second generation of Australians. They don’t know any other way of life, except the Australian way.

My father worked his whole life for BHP Steel. From when he arrived to when he retired hurt. He and so many other workers. So when Jimmy Barnes released “For The Working Class Man” in 1985, I saw that song as the perfect definition of what it means to be Australian. And it is written by Jonathan Cain (the keyboardist from Journey) who is American.

Working hard to make a living

My dad was a bloody hard worker. Not only did he make a living for his family in Australia, he sent money every month to his father in Europe. He supported two families.

He’s a simple man
With a heart of gold
In a complicated land
Oh he’s a working class man

My parents left their communist country two days before their visa to come to Australia expired. The main hold up was my dad’s father (aka my grandfather that I am named after). Since my Dad was the oldest, my Grandfather wasn’t happy that his eldest son was leaving to come to Australia. He threatened to harm all of my Dad’s brother and sisters as a way to make Dad stay.

Now from the stories that I have heard, my grandfather was a bad ass. No one messed with him. My grandfather was born in the 1920’s and my father was born in 1944, towards the end of World War 2. This guy was battle hardened and very protective of his family. He expected obedience.

I saw my Grandfather for the first time in December 1993. Dad paid for his ticket to come to Australia for my oldest brothers wedding. By know he was over seventy and man I almost cried when I saw this frail looking 150cm tall, a bit hunchbacked, walking through customs. Time is a killer. The whole three months he spent in Australia, I just sat with him and asked him about stuff and he told me story after story, along with a lot of regrets, like NOT LISTENING TO MY FATHER AND COMING TO AUSTRALIA WHEN HE HAD THE CHANCE.

Saving all the overtime
For the one love of his life

I hardly saw my dad growing up. He was always at work, doing double shifts and triple shifts. Yep back in the Seventies and the Eighties, workers did triple shifts. I remember a lot of times when I misbehaved and my mom used to say that if I don’t behave, she would call my dad. I ran straight to my room and locked the door. I was frightened of him because I didn’t know him. And the funny thing is that he wasn’t even home. That was the power he had in the household. Whereas today, I want to be mates with my kids.

There is another lyric that is similar.

I hear my father’s working night and day
In Struggle Town it has to be that way

It is from the song “Struggle Town” by the Australian band “The Choirboys” that was released in 1987 on their “Big Bad Noise” album. The town I grew up in “Port Kembla” was becoming a bit like towards the end of the Eighties, so this song resonated and then when I started to drive around to other towns, you start to see the same thing. People working hard to make a living and struggling at doing it.

Jimmy Barnes is more or less an Aussie legend. Typical of Australia’s multiculturalism, he was born in Scotland. His previous band “Cold Chisel” was just about to sing a lucrative contract with Elektra Records in the US and at the last-minute Elektra Records reneged on the deal and took a chance with Motley Crue. If you don’t believe me, read “The Dirt”. It’s all in there. Eventually Cold Chisel called it day, however, Barnsey just kept on working hard to make a living.

The Choirboys are also Aussie legends. One of the bands I was in even opened up for The Choirboys back in the day. Still to this day they put on shows, working hard to make a living.

Australia is just that. People working hard to make a living, so that we can let our hair down, have a few beeries and catch some sun and surf. And then we call in sick after a long weekend. Happy Australia day everyone.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Music, My Stories, Treating Fans Like Shit

1992 – The Year That Hard Rock Forgot

1992 was the year of transition. Once the year was over; hard rock, melodic rock, glam rock and so forth would never be the same. In relation to hard rock releases, what a year it was. So many great albums got released, however according to the record labels barometer of success, those albums failed miserably. These days if an album sells 200,000 copies it is seen as a successful album.

One of the best releases from 1992 was “Blood and Bullets” by Widowmaker. Not only was it a great album, it was also the first “official” album to feature Dee Snider from Twisted Sister. The last album Dee was featured on was the “Love Is For Suckers” album from 1987, so it was a long time between drinks.

When I first heard the song “The Widowmaker”, I thought of the song, “The Beast from the “Stay Hungry” album. However, “The Widowmaker” is far superior. The sound on “Blood and Bullets” was the exact sound I was into in 1992.

Along with the self titled Lynch Mob album, “The Crimson Idol” from W.A.S.P., “Dog Eat Dog” from Warrant, “III Sides to Every Story” from Extreme, “Sin-Decade” from Pretty Maids and “Revenge” from Kiss, it formed my decadent seven wonders of heavy rock.

My metal tastes got serviced by “Countdown to Extinction” from Megadeth, “Fear of the Dark” from Iron Maiden, “The Ritual” from Testament, “Dehumanizer” from Black Sabbath, “A Vulgar Display of Power” from Pantera and a new band from Seattle called Alice In Chains” and their excellent “Dirt”.

Dream Theater blew me away with “Images and Words” while Yngwie Malmsteen delivered the excellent “Fire and Ice” and no one outside of his hardcore fan base heard it. Another neo-classical shredder Tony MacAlpine released “Freedom To Fly” and boy didn’t he fly with it.

“Hold Your Fire” from Firehouse, “Five Wicked Ways” from Candy Harlots, “Don’t Tread” from Damn Yankees, “The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion” from The Black Crowes, “The Wild Life” from Slaughter, “Nothing Sacred” by Babylon A.D., “Hear” from Trixter, “Tangled In Reins” from Steelheart, “Double Eclipse” from Hardline and “Adrenalize” from Def Leppard satisfied by hard rock cravings.

A lot of good music was released and the record labels just abandoned it. It was all about greed. Even though hard rock albums would still sell, it wasn’t enough for the labels.

Granted there was quite a lot of deadwood rock bands on the label rosters that just should not have been signed. However they did, because everyone wanted to cash in. I am sure people like John Kalodner and Tom Werman could have done some creative merging, putting the best with the best, sort of like how Kaldoner got Coverdale to work with Page or getting Blades, Nugent and Shaw to get together as Damn Yankees. Seriously, you had great guitarist like Jake E Lee and Vito Bratta out of jobs and they could have been paired with some great vocalist.

Going back to Widowmaker. What was my attraction. First, it was Dee Snider. Come on, who wouldn’t want to hear what Dee Snider was involved in (though I can’t say that “Dee Does Broadway” was a good move).

Second, it involved Al Pitrelli. I first saw his name on the Y&T album “Contagious”. He was a co-writer for the song “Temptation” which was pure melodic rock. It was my best song on that Y&T album. Then I saw him on the video I purchased of Alice Cooper’s “Trashes The World”. What can I say, the dude rocked and I was interested to hear him on this album.

Bernie Torme was asked to come back again by Dee, however he said no. He was burned out, he had a punctured lung and his wife was expecting their first child. That is how Al Pitrelli came into the mix.

I’m telling you
I ain’t nobody’s fool
Don’t you run?
Can’t you see I got your bullet in my gun?

You know the feeling when people just don’t give you the credit that you deserve or that feeling when a record label boss tells you that the album you worked on for 12 months will not be released a week before it was due to be released. Looks like Bob Seger was right after all, rock n roll does help to soothe the soul.

I’m your judge and jury
I’m reality
I’m a never ending horror come for you
Don’t turn your back on me

It’s a Dee Snider and Al Pitrelli composition. This is the perfect song to listen too when you are pissed off. It just makes everything feel okay. The power of music. The power of artists that have a point to prove. The power of artists who have been ripped off and treated like dirt.

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Music, My Stories, Stupidity

This Is The End (Sonata In (C)ourt # Minor)

Okay I am going to pick a side in the Adam Duce vs Machine Head court case.

Fans want their acts to be transparent and honest. Robb Flynn is pretty transparent in his journals. Adam Duce on the other hand used that transparency as a basis for a defamation case. The whole Machine Head message boards are down. Don’t expect any more Journals from Robb Flynn. They will be at a stop. How’s that for some democratic censorship?

The task of the band leader is to keep the ball rolling and to keep the money coming in. The task of the manager is to ensure that the ball is rolling so that they he also gets paid. The task of the other band members is to ensure that they play their part in keeping that ball rolling.

I think it is safe to say that Robb Flynn is the band leader in Machine Head. Since he is the band leader, if he says, “let’s get to work”, you would expect that the other band members would get to work. Adam Duce had some comments in relation to this in an interview from 2011;

“I had some issues with [the writing] process [for 2011’s ‘Unto The Locust’]. I kind of took myself out of it until it was time to write my bass lines. I wrote a bunch of music, or riffs, that Robb didn’t have any idea what to do with vocally, and so he didn’t wanna use any of that. But more importantly, I wrote lyrics that meant a lot to me and I gave it to him. I’ve given him page after page after page of lyrics. And it usually comes back that way, [where] he’ll use a verse or a part of it or whatever — ‘I’m gonna take this part and put it down here.’ . . . whatever works for the cadence. But I got kind of burned on putting my soul out on a piece of paper and giving it to him and when I see it next time, there’s no remnants of what the original idea was. And I was just like, ‘You know what, dude?! I’m not giving you any more fucking lyrics, because I’m fucking sick of looking at this, the way that it fucking turns out.’ I said, ‘I’ll work on it with you at the same time, but I’m not giving you any more lyrics. I’m not giving you pages of lyrics.’ He was fucking angry at me for a while, but you know… that’s fucking what happens.”

“I’ve thought about quitting on different occasions, but I mean,Robb‘s thought about quitting on different occasions as well. Dave[McClain, drums] actually quit the band. I can safely say everybody’s thought about quitting at one point or another.”

“…that’s what happens in a fucking situation like this, but it’s a one-way street in my situation, ’cause [Robb] can work on his stuff as long as he wants to until he’s got it [right]. But it doesn’t work the same way, because I’m not the singer, so I don’t decide which cadence it goes into and what works for me. The final say is always his, because he’s gotta sing it.”

Reading the above, it made me sympathise with Adam Duce’s plight. As an artist, you want to contribute. You want your message, your words and your music to also come out. Now I have been the Robb Flynn persona in a band and even though I tried to keep it as democratic as possible it never worked out. Band members became unhappy when their ideas got shot down or their lyrics got manipulated and re-worded.

Then I have been on the other side of the coin, where I have handed in music and lyrics to the singer/guitarist of the band I was in, only to have them rejected or ignored or re-arranged into something that wasn’t even close to the original idea.

In 2009, Flynn and Duce had an altercation which led to therapy. Word on the street was that Robb Flynn was ready to quit the band, until Duce reached out to call a truce; This is what Duce had to say about it in a Metal Hammer interview from 2009;

“I didn’t think about leaving [following the arguments in Europe] but I have thought about it. There have been times when I’ve thought, ‘Well, if this is the way it’s gonna be then I don’t want to be a part of [the band].’ But I was 30 when I thought about leaving, and I’m 36 now. I haven’t thought about leaving recently.”

Adan is referring to 2003, the same year that Robb Flynn mentioned in his journals of when Adam actually left but never bothered telling anyone.

“We may have fired Adam on 2-11-13, but Adam quit Machine Head well over a decade ago. He just never bothered to tell anyone… but we all knew it.”

Can anyone speak the truth in the music business anymore, without the threat of a court case? Can a band member leave or be fired without the threat of a future court case?

In the same Metal Hammer interview, this is what Robb Flynn said about the Amsterdam 2009 incident and about Duce;

“But sometimes it seems that he gets consumed with stuff at home that supersedes the band totally, you know. A lot of it had to do with trust issues, and him honoring, or not honoring, the things we agreed to. He doesn’t like touring, and that’s a hard thing to get your head around with a band that tours as much as we do. I was pretty sure he was going to quit in 2007 not long after [the Download festival], he just seemed miserable. When he broke his leg and we toured without him for the one tour, I think it helped him appreciate the band more, and it made me appreciate him more and what he brings to the band.”

Adam Duce was also a part of that same interview and he didn’t object to Robb’s statement. In the end, if Machine Head lives and dies, the buck stops with Robb Flynn. If Adam didn’t want to be a part of it anymore then he had to go. From the various incidents it looked like Machine Head was carrying Adam Duce.

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Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

While The Music Has Achieved Worldwide Acclaim (the people behind the scenes have not)

I went to “The Powerhouse Museum” in Sydney today with the family. It was the “Game Masters” exhibition that sealed the deal. Video games are one of those peculiar cultural items where the games are well-known, however the actual designers are only known to the geeks.

This is what the “Game Masters” exhibition is trying to highlight; the key designers who have had a large influence on video games and video game culture.

I loved the exhibition (my only gripe is that you are not allowed to take photos inside the exhibition as I wanted to snapshot my boys playing Outrun). The retro arcade games made me relive some of my youth. Seeing “Outrun”, “Galaga”, “Space Invaders”, “Pac-Man”, “Donkey Kong” and “Elevator Action” in all of their glory, ready to be played, reminded me of visiting the local bowling alley with a pocket full of change.

Even my kids enjoyed themselves. This is when game play was simple. Insert a coin, move the joystick and press the only button you have to kill the baddies. How simple. I remember a comment from the Steve Jobs bio, that his motto about Apple products had to have the same ease of use as a Star Trek game that Steve Jobs played as a kid. The instructions where, insert coin and kill Klingons.

As the exhibition states, “While the games have achieved worldwide acclaim, their makers have yet to become household names.”

Does anyone know the names of Tomohiro Nishikado (“Space Invaders”) or Toru Iwatani (“Pac-Man”) or Yu Suzuki (“Outrun”)? I didn’t, however I knew the games. I spoke about the games to my kids.

And it got me thinking about some names behind some of the great music that I love.

Tom Werman is one person that comes to mind immediately. Regardless of the different versions of history out there from some of the artists that he worked with, one thing is clear; Tom Werman was a pop producer who got selected by the A&R people of the labels as the man to get hard rock acts on the radio.

This is what Werman had to say about it;

In those days, AM radio sold records and FM didn’t. FM played only album tracks, and AM played only singles. So I made singles with bands who were only being played on FM radio. This is why Doug Morris called me when he was the president of Atlantic Records and said I was the only producer he knew who could make a hit with Twisted Sister, who up to that point was a little known band in America. So I made sure there were two singles on the record, and they sold several million albums as a result. Same with Ted Nugent. Same with Cheap Trick. Same with Molly Hatchet. Same with Mötley Crüe. Same with Poison.

The first album I came across with a Tom Werman production was Motley Crue’s “Shout At The Devil”. Werman said that it was a hard record to make because Nikki Sixx had broken his shoulder when he drove his car off the road and that in turn affected his bass playing. However he credits Tommy Lee as the second-greatest drummer he’s ever worked with and Mick Mars as a guitarist who doesn’t get the recognition he should. History has shown that this album was a career defining album for the Crue in the same way that Master Of Puppets was a career defining album for Metallica. What a coincedence that both bands would go on to make their biggest albums with Bob Rock producing.

The second album I came across was Twisted Sister’s “Stay Hungry” album. Tom Werman said that Dee Snider was a solid writer and that his songs were almost like nursery rhymes as Dee wanted everybody to understand his melodies. And didn’t we enjoy them, sending the band to the top.

The third album was Dokken’s “Tooth N Nail” and then it was a torrent.

Motley Crue’s “Theatre of Pain” and “Girls, Girls, Girls” followed. Krokus “Change of Address”, Poison “Open Up And Say Ahhh”, Kix “Blow My Fuse”, Junkyard’s self titled album, LA Guns “Cocked and Loaded”, Love/Hate “Black Out In The Red Room”, Stryper “Against The Law” and Babylon A.D. “Nothing Sacred” and Steelheart’s “Tangled In Reins”.

Michael Wagener is another that comes to mind. He was a producer, an engineer and a mixer.

He produced’s Dokken’s “Breaking The Chains” and then mixed the follow up “Tooth N Nail”, the same album that Tom Werman produced. He was on deck again to produce and mix “Under Lock and Key”. He then produced and mixed Stryper’s “Soldiers Under Command” and was on deck to also mix Poison’s “Look What The Cat Dragged In”. He then mixed Metallica’s “Master of Puppets.”

Other production credits include Alice Cooper’s “Constrictor” and “Raise Your Fist N Yell”. White Lion’s “Pride” and “Big Game”. Skid Rows self titled debut and “Slave To The Grind”. Bonfire’s “Point Blank” and “Fireworks” albums. Extreme’s “Pornograffiti”. Ozzy Osbourne’s “Ozzmosis” and Warrant’s “Dog Eat Dog” followed.

He mixed WASP’s “Inside The Electric Circus”, Warlock’s “True As Steel”, Megadeth “So Far, So Good, So What”, Motley Crue’s “Decade of Decadence” and Ozzy Osbourne “No More Tears”.

What about Randy Staub? He engineered “Dr Feelgood” from Motley Crue, the black album from Metallica, “Keep The Faith” from Bon Jovi, Motley Crue’s self titled album, “Subhuman Race” from Skid Row, “Load” and “Reload” from Metallica, “Satellite” from POD and many others like Five Finger Death Punch’s “War Is The Answer.”

Mike Fraser is another whose name is in the majority of albums that I like as mixer. The two John Sykes/Blue Murder albums, “Blue Murder” and “Nothin But Trouble”. Most of AC/DC’s stuff, especially all of the remixes for digital transfer, Metallica, The Cult and many more.

Looking at the above list, I guarantee that you have at least 80% of the albums that the names mentioned have worked on in your collection. Of course there was Max Norman, Roy Thomas Baker, Jack Douglas, Bruce Fairbairn, Bob Rock, Duane Baron/John Purdell, Dave Prater and many more that shaped the albums that we have come to known to love. The music has achieved worldwide acclaim, the bands and the song writers have achieved worldwide acclaim however a lot of the people behind the scenes that captured the sounds, mixed them, edited them, spoke out about arrangements and so forth, have not.

What they have done is work on a consistent basis? That is what artists need to do today. Release on a consistent basis. It’s back to the single format. The great song.

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A to Z of Making It, Alternate Reality, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Chaos + Disruption = The Music Business

It’s a chaotic and disruptive time in the music business and with chaos comes opportunity.

On one side you have COPYRIGHT. And that can be broken down into a lot of other little chaotic categories like infringement, the length of copyright terms, copyright monopolies, the lack of works entering the public domain and so on.

The public domain is culture. Keith Richards once said, ‘you can’t copyright the blues.’

Culture is built and expanded by sharing stories and building on the works of others. Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and all of the sixties greats like Hendrix, Clapton and Beck used this concept. They built off the blues.

However copyright law and its real purpose got hijacked by corporations and everything changed. Instead of culture being built up in the works that the public creates and shares, the public is now faced with copyright corporations locking away works that should be in the public domain by now. These works that should be in the public domain do not benefit the original creators in any way, however they are beneficial for the few copyright monopoly gatekeepers.

For culture to thrive once again, it is important to respect the public domain.

Then on another side of the music business you have the RIAA who continually push lies out into the world, so that technology companies can do something to protect crap business models. Did you know that the global music industry sent it’s 100 million takedown notice to Google, to remove search links to certain sites. It looks like the RIAA doesn’t get it.

So if a person types in “free mp3” in Google Search what should Google return?

Sites that have free mp3’s or sites that the RIAA want Google to point to when that term is typed in. Maybe when that person types in free mp3, they want a free mp3 and have no interest in paying.

Then you have the ISP’s on another side that are caught up in the middle of all this as they offer the service that provides internet access to users. According to the RIAA and the record labels, the ISP’s allow “copyright infringement” to happen, therefore, they need to do something about it to help out the music industry. In Australia, this is heavily disputed, however in other parts of the world gradual response schemes are in place.

Then you have the technology companies trying to offer low cost services to fans of music. However, low cost to a fan means high costs to the RIAA and the record labels in licensing fees. This is before the new service is even allowed to trade. If the new service starts to trade without licensing in place, expect them to be litigated into submission.

Have you noticed that artists have not been mentioned anywhere as yet. That is how far the music business has come, where the actual music is only a small part of it, however it should be the major part of it. For the business to thrive, you need great music.

I was looking back to some of the releases in 2013 that I liked. Two of my favourites are “Protest The Hero” and “Coheed and Cambria”.

“Protest The Hero” and “Coheed and Cambria” are working to the “Keep your fan base close” mantra. Both of the bands moved from major labels into a DIY independent mindset, realising that their fans are king.

Exceptional fan service is the key driving force behind a bands success. I expect “Coheed and Cambria” will get a lot more fans purchasing the next super deluxe package for the new album because they did such a great job with “The Afterman” releases.

“Protest The Hero” on the other hand have fallen into the fan funded conundrum where the perks always arrive later than expected for international fans. I live in Australia and I am still waiting for the perks to arrive. The band have been clear with their information, advising that it will take 6 to 8 weeks.

It’s good old business 101, “treat your customers right and they’ll stay with you forever”.

Then you have bands like Five Finger Death Punch, Avenged Sevenfold, Dream Theater, Stone Sour, Killswitch Engage, Trivium, Volbeat, Alter Bridge and TesserAct that have label deals.

Should those bands go independent like Protest The Hero or Coheed and Cambria. It all depends on a person’s definition of success and hard work. Going independent means that you need to build a team around you like any business start-up.

What are the benefits of going independent?

The lesson is simple. Selling your artistic freedom and independence as a “success” strategy can bring lucrative rewards. But it’s not always the best move for your career, as you are also selling off important data to the record label. The record label doesn’t want to know your fans or connect with them. They want you to do it, so that the label can make money of that relationship and then pay you a percentage of it.

Coheed and Cambria moved over 100,000 units of their deluxe “Afterman” editions. At $60 (I think it was $68, however I will use $60 for the example) an edition, that comes to $6 million in revenue. If the band was on the label model, what percentage would the band see from that $6 million.

The music market/business is filled with acts trying to make it. It is going to take a huge effort to stand out amongst the rest. Music is a lifer game. It is a slow and steady approach that builds careers.

Artists should be looking at development. With each song release, artists should never be afraid to try things out. Even try out new technologies that make it very easy for their fans to interact with them and their music. In a company, this is called research and development. Investing in your career is never a mistake.

The artists have the power to make the record labels redundant, purely to be used as a distribution arm if needed, however with the rise of streaming technologies, even this arm can be in danger of disappearing. Bands like Coheed and Cambria, Protest The Hero and Digital Summer have seen the recorded business side of things and have decided, hey we can do it better. That’s what great businesses are made of.

So in all of this chaos, who will rise and who will fall? Time will tell, however if you compare music to technology, you will see only a select few rise to the top. Smartphones and tablets is all Apple and Samsung. Amazon has online shopping cornered. Google is the king of search. Spotify will win the streaming war. Facebook rules social media. iTunes rules the mp3 and app market. Will the same fate happen in the music business?

2019 Crystal ball predictions;

Coheed and Cambria – will get bigger and bigger. Their style is unique, so expect them to keep to that style, sort of like how AC/DC releases music in the same style or Iron Maiden.

Protest The Hero – proved to themselves that they still matter. Will get bigger and more crazier. The future of progressive metal.

Machine Head – will still be bigger then what they are. Robb Flynn understands the internet and understands the change that is coming. He will make sure that Machine Head rides the wave all the way to the shoreline, while Adam Duce circles in the undercurrent, ready to litigate the band into submission.

TesseracT – will become the next Pink Floyd.

Digital Summer – are one of the hardest working rock bands around like Twisted Sister and Dream Theater. They will get bigger as they are lifers.

Avenged Sevenfold – will become the new Metallica.

Five Finger Death Punch – I have a feeling that they will break up after one more album.

Shinedown – will be bigger than what Aerosmith ever was.

Volbeat – will remain relevant in their niche genre.

Metallica – will still be relevant in the same way the Seventies act remained relevant.

Dream Theater – will still tour and do a lot of side projects, however they will be replaced by TesseracT and Protest The Hero.

Black Veil Brides – will take over the void left by Motley Crue and Guns N Roses.

Trivium – will deliver an astounding progressive technical metal album.

Killswitch Engage – will remain relevant in their niche genre.

Alter Bridge – The world needs Led Zeppelin to continue. Expect Alter Bridge to fill this void. They have one of the best vocalists of the modern era in Myles Kennedy. Marc Tremonti is a prolific writer. Call his Creed project, “The Yardbirds” and Alter Bridge as “Led Zeppelin.”

Bullet For My Valentine – will deliver their own version of “Master Of Puppets” and “The Blackening”.

Lets see how it pans out.

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Music, My Stories, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

The Departed Bassist Breaks His Silence; Adam Duce vs Machine Head

This is big.

Read the full story here.

If you don’t want to click on the link, here is the gist of the news;

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – Machine Head kicked out bassist/co-founder Adam Duce just before signing a new record deal then falsely claimed he had quit the metal band because he was “sick of it,” Duce claims in court.

Duce sued the band, its three current members and manager in Federal Court, alleging trademark infringement, breach of partnership agreement and defamation, among other things.

Duce and defendant Robert Flynn founded the band in 1991. Machine Head has sold more than 3 million albums and done four tours that grossed several million dollars, according to the lawsuit.
For the first 10 years the band had various members, but from 2002 until February 2013, Machine Head consisted of Duce, Flynn, and defendants David McClain and Phil Demmel, Duce says.

The band formed a general partnership – Machine Head – and a corporation – Head Machine Touring Inc. – under which each member owned 25 percent. But despite this, Flynn got a larger portion of the band’s income, Duce claims.

The band released albums in 2001, 2003, 2007 and 2011 and toured after each release.
“Despite their increase in popularity and touring revenue, plaintiff became concerned with how little income he was receiving, despite the time and hard work put in to developing the Band,” Duce says in the complaint.

He says he questioned Flynn and the band’s manager, defendant Joseph W. Huston, but never got a satisfactory answer.

In 2009, Machine Head toured with Metallica in Europe, grossing more than $2 million. A 2012 Europe tour grossed more than $3 million, according to the complaint.

“After receiving very little compensation despite the millions the band was bringing in, plaintiff requested and reviewed the records from the tours. Plaintiff found that Huston, Flynn, and PFM [Provident Financial Management] had squandered money throughout the trip without consulting plaintiff for the vast majority of ‘expenses,'” Duce says in the lawsuit.

Huston and the band’s management companies received a percentage of the band’s gross income, but the band members were not receiving “an income commensurate with the work put in and the income earned,” according to the complaint.

“Despite plaintiff’s expressed concerns, he was unable to make enough money to live within his modest means. Because of this, when the band was not touring, plaintiff supplemented his income as a licensed real estate appraiser,” Duce says.

On Feb. 11, 2013, as the band was seeking a new record deal, “Flynn, Huston, and the rest of the Band ‘fired’ plaintiff – expelling him from the band after he put 21 years of his life into it,” Duce says.

Duce believes he was fired just before the deal was completed with defendant Nuclear Blast America to allow the other band members to make a bigger profit.
Flynn announced Duce’s departure on Machine Head’s website by “directly attacking plaintiff’s work ethic,” Duce says in the complaint.

“Therein, Flynn stated, inter alia, ‘We may have fired Adam on 2-11-13, but Adam quit Machine Head well over a decade ago. He just never bothered to tell anyone … but we all knew it.’ Flynn went on further in the diary entry, continuing to say about plaintiff, ‘No matter how un-happy [sic] or fed up he got, quitting the band would be seen as ‘losing’ or a ‘failure.’ Truth be told, he was sick of it. Sick of touring, sick of recording, sick of practicing, sick of looking at album artwork, sick of being-on-a-team-but-never-getting-the-ball, sick of yearning-for-the-honeymoon-to-resume when 20 years deep it never does. Sick of never quite hitting the big-time, sick of carving the niche … sick of caring.'” (Ellipses in complaint.)

Duce was replaced as bassist and back-up singer in June 2013 with defendant Jared MacEachern.

Duce says he still holds interest in the band’s partnership and company, but has not received any distributions from either. He claims that no agreement was ever made about his share of future royalties and profits.

The other band members “simply kicked him out of the band and presumed he would forget about over two decades of hard work, dedication, and effort he put into the Band,” Duce says.

The band continues to use Machine Head’s mark for musical recordings, live shows and merchandise, and performs as Machine Head, though the public associates Machine Head as “featuring Adam Duce playing bass guitar and singing backup vocals as it has for over 20 years,” according to the complaint.

Duce also says his likeness is used on the band’s website and in promotions without his authorization.

He seeks damages and punitive damages for trademark infringement, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of partnership agreement, intentional and negligent interference with prospective economic relations, negligence, defamation and unfair competition, and he and wants the band enjoined from using the Machine Head marks.

He is represented by Yano L. Rubinstein

When a member leaves or is fired from a band (depending on what story you believe), this rubbish normally happens and it is a dead set shame.

It will all come down to the band agreement in place. Being in bands previously, the band agreement is a document that is meant to be fair amongst the band members. Of course, in every band there is always one member that goes above the call of duty to keep the wheels turning, however their percentage split is still not that huge compared to the other members.

I think it is safe to say that Robb Flynn is that person in Machine Head that goes above the call of duty. He is a lifer when it comes to music. He lives and breathes Machine Head. He is the main songwriter, the one that goes home and thinks about Machine Head. The one that dreams about Machine Head. The one that stays to the late hours recording the albums, mixing them and all of that.

There are no winners in court cases like these except the lawyers/attorneys.

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Music, My Stories, Treating Fans Like Shit

The Challenge To Believe

The challenge for today’s record labels is to undo everything that they have created or has happened over the last 50 years. The record labels arose as a way to get music out of its city venue limitations and into the greater world.

Once upon a time, many many many (to borrow from Commandant Lassard from Police Academy) wonderful record labels existed. However in time these record labels formed into mega corporations with the emphasis on lower costs and high profit margins. Smaller labels got taken over by medium sized labels and in time, medium sized labels got taken over by large sized labels. Throughout the Eighties and Nineties, the labels employed people that figured out how to engineer processes and machines to drive productivity and profit.

The labels ruled the kingdom unchallenged until another corporation called social disruption reared its head.

It started with a technology called Napster and society showed the powerful record labels what they think of their high prices.

Today social disruption is real and growing and the mega labels don’t like it. It means that they have to step down from their thrones, and create real social human relationships. It means that the artists who used to be locked away and surrounded by enablers need to build personal relationships with their fans.

The ones that are failing to do it have already fallen by the wayside. The ones that achieved success during the gatekeeper controlled era of the record label are dabbling in it and then there are the ones who are just good at it.

Let’s see what the record labels are doing;

First lets get one thing out of the way. The record labels still serve a purpose. Most of the music I purchase or stream are from bands on a record label. However, they have dished out so much bad will in the last 20 years, it’s hard to be supportive.

In the last 10 years, the record labels have constantly stated that the “biggest threat” they face is continued copyright infringement. They point to research that shows how it is destroying businesses, employments and other sectors. They get people in the press and they get elected politicians on their side who believe those claims. Because, hey, big copyright monopoly companies said that copyright infringement is a threat so it must be a threat.

Did you know that Vivendi (owner of Universal Music) commissioned 23 reports and only 5 of those reports mentioned copyright infringement as a potential risk. Guess which reports got released to the public. Universal is also known as a robotic copyright enforcer. Go to Google and see their transparency report.

Did you know that Sony (Sony Music and Sony Pictures) commissioned 15 reports and only 2 of those reports mentioned copyright infringement as a potential risk. Did you know that in their recent annual report the company listed copyright infringement as a major risk to their business, however 13 reports out of 15 disagree.

The record labels seem to forget that humans need to belong. That is why we connect with family, artists, sporting teams/individuals, movies, books and the community. When we belong to something, we believe that our existence is enhanced because we belong to a certain group.

Growing up the Eighties I believed in music/artists, sports and the law. Over the last 20 years, music has done its best to disgrace itself. First off the $30 price tag for a CD. Then the Record Labels killed off the whole hard rock genre even though fans of that genre still existed. The artists that I believed in all imploded forced out of the music business by the gatekeepers.

Metallica went alternative and then went against their sharing nature when they took Napster to court.

Motley Crue went sideways when they released Vince Neil and then released a great album with John Corabi that no one heard and then when they got Vince back they went sideways again with “Generation Swine”. Then Tommy Lee left and “New Tattoo” was a bland affair. It took “The Dirt” and a couple of interesting home movies starring Tommy Lee and Vince Neil that set them back up again.

The sports team that I supported had to merge with another sporting team to become the West Tigers (I was a Tigers fan). It is now a hybrid team. Soccer (football) in Australia kept on declining in a white wash of corruption and ethnic teams.

Then after I had kids and they started to show sporting potential, I find out that the representative teams pick the best players of the parents who have the capacity to pay the $1500 to $2000 fee.

The law has shown that it was never about the law but about the people who had the capacity to pay. Copyright infringers get punishments more severe than murderers and drug dealers.

Who should I believe in now? Who should my children believe in?

Music still plays an important part of my life. The ideals of artists who have sadly departed like Randy Rhoads and Dimebag Darrell still inspire and still matter.

The viewpoints of current artists like Robb Flynn, Dee Snider, Nikki Sixx, Randy Blythe, Bob Daisley, Dave Mustaine and many others still matter.

Technology is another enterprise that I believe in. The sharing of culture and the expansion of the public domain is another area that I believe in.

And I’m finding out that others also believe the same as me.

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