Category Archives: Treating Fans Like Shit

Music, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

The Night Axl Rose Chose Ego Over Fans: The Eastern Creek Guns N’ Roses Disaster

I’ll never watch Guns N’ Roses again. Eastern Creek was enough.

For those who weren’t there, January 30, 1993 at Eastern Creek Raceway should have been legendary. A sea of people standing in 40-degree heat. Depending on who you believe it was anywhere from 20,000 to maybe close to 100,000 fans. Either way, it was huge. And everyone there wanted the same thing, to see the biggest rock band in the world.

The day actually started the right way.

Pearls & Swine opened. I still wonder what ever happened to them. I’m sure a Google search would give me the answers.

Rose Tattoo came out swinging with that filthy slide guitar.

Skid Row were handing bottles of beer into the crowd, even though glass was banned, which was reckless and perfect and exactly what rock and roll used to feel like.

Everything about it felt dangerous and alive.

Until it didn’t.

Because then we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

The band were supposed to arrive by helicopter. Which sounds cool until you realise you’ve been standing in brutal heat for hours while nothing happens. Eventually the word spread through the crowd around 9pm: Axl Rose was still in Melbourne because he “wasn’t feeling it.”

Not sick. Not stranded. Not injured.

Just… not feeling it.

That’s the moment the magic died.

When the band finally hit the stage more than two hours late, the damage was already done. People were walking away from the show as they played. When “Paradise City” started it was the cue for a mass evacuation.

Thousands of people had missed their last trains home. Remember, this was a raceway miles from proper public transport. Fans were stranded because the frontman of the biggest band on earth decided the schedule was optional.

And that was the pattern.

This wasn’t an isolated rock-star mishap. This was behaviour.

Two years earlier at the Riverport Amphitheater on July 2, 1991, Rose spotted a fan filming the show. Instead of letting security deal with it, he jumped into the crowd himself, attacked people trying to grab the camera, came back onstage and announced:

“Thanks to the lame-ass security, I’m going home.”

Then he smashed the mic and walked off.

The crowd rioted. More than 60 people were injured. Fifteen arrests. The venue wrecked.

A year later came the infamous Montreal disaster at Olympic Stadium on August 8, 1992.

Metallica had already cut their set short after James Hetfield was badly burned by pyrotechnics. That night could have been Rose’s moment to be the hero, to carry the show, save the night, give fans something.

Instead he complained about his voice and walked off early.

The crowd exploded. Cars outside overturned. Fires lit. Windows smashed.

Hero moment… squandered.

And by 1992 the late starts had already become routine. Fans waiting hours was basically part of the ticket price.

Before the Sydney show there had already been the chaos of the Melbourne gig at Calder Park Raceway. The Victorian Ombudsman later produced a 100-page report describing what was arguably one of the worst concerts ever staged in Australia.

One line from that report says everything:

“The area later became a saturated and smelling swamp due to the heavy rains and the urine.”

Melbourne had 40 degree heat, violent winds and driving rain. Sydney just got the furnace, 40-degree heat.

Both crowds got the same treatment.

Because the shows were staged at remote racing venues, thousands of fans had no way out once transport shut down. Add brutal heat and suddenly water started selling for around $7 a bottle, which in 1993 was outrageous.

Meanwhile inside the band, things were falling apart. Rose had effectively isolated himself from the rest of Guns N’ Roses, especially Slash, largely over Slash’s involvement with Michael Jackson.

The divide was so deep Rose travelled on a completely separate helicopter, stayed in a different hotel, and even entered the stage from the opposite side.

That tells you everything.

Look, rock and roll has always had chaos. That’s part of the mythology. The danger, the excess, the unpredictability, that’s the electricity people pay to feel.

But there’s a difference between rock-and-roll chaos and just not giving a damn about the people who paid to see you.

That night at Eastern Creek, Axl Rose had a choice.

He could respect the crowd standing in brutal heat waiting for him. Or he could treat the fans like they didn’t matter.

He chose the second option.

And once you see that choice clearly, it’s very hard to unsee it.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit, Unsung Heroes

Always a Few Years Too Late: Why Australian Hard Rock Albums Missed Their Moment

Talent was never the problem. Songs weren’t the problem. Crowds weren’t the problem. Australia produced world-class live acts with world-class songs, often before the rest of the world caught on.

But.

The albums arrived late because everything around the music moved slower, sideways, or backwards.

This wasn’t coincidence. It was systemic.

Australia didn’t just sit far from the US and UK/Europe, it existed in a different time loop.

By the late ’80s, LA scenes moved in months. UK trends turned over in seasons. And Australia lagged by years.

Not because musicians were behind, but because infrastructure was.

Touring overseas required money bands didn’t have.

Labels wanted proof that bands had an audience before investment. Proof required exposure. Exposure required travel.

That circular logic delayed everything. By the time an Australian band secured a deal, the sound they pioneered locally had often already peaked internationally.

When albums finally arrived, they sounded right, just not right now.

If geography slowed bands down, management actively sabotaged them.

The Australian industry of the era was full of managers with control clauses but no leverage. Contracts restricted bands from signing deals independently.

Bands routinely received offers they couldn’t legally accept.

Deals were turned down “to get a better one.” Momentum was paused “to build hype.”

Albums were delayed “until the timing was right.”

The timing never was.

Candy Harlots are not an outlier here, they are a case study. A Virgin Records deal offered early, declined by management, then re-offered years later after the band had already fractured. Multiply that story across dozens of acts and you start seeing a pattern, not bad luck.

BB Steal finally released their Def Leppard influenced record “On The Edge” in 1992, however the first single of the album came out in 1988.

Roxus released their excellent melodic rock album “Nightstreet” in 1991, and like BB Steal, they had a few years between the first single (1989) and the album release.

But.

Australian hard rock thrived live.

That was both its strength and its trap.

Venues were packed. Residencies mattered. Reputations were earned face-to-face.

Bands became mythical locally without leaving physical evidence behind.

But labels don’t sign myths, they sign masters.

Many bands, gigged relentlessly without recording. Rewrote sets constantly instead of committing songs. Waited for “the real album” moment.

By the time that moment arrived, line-ups had changed, scenes had shifted, or the industry had moved on.

Albums became memorials instead of weapons.

Delay kills cohesion.

The longer an album takes to materialize, the more likely, members age out of the lifestyle, internal politics harden, financial strain builds resentment and key writers leave before the payoff.

Australian bands often lost founding members before recording debut albums.

Not because of ego, but because people don’t wait forever.

When albums finally arrived, they were frequently recorded by survivor line-ups, not the ones that created the original sound. That created a strange historical dislocation: the record didn’t fully reflect the band people fell in love with.

Australian mainstream media didn’t discover hard rock, it reacted to it.

By the time a band reached Triple M rotation or national press coverage or television exposure …the scene had already peaked locally.

Specialty radio (like 2RRR’s Metal Show) carried enormous cultural weight, but limited commercial reach. Those DJs broke bands, but couldn’t break markets.

So albums were greenlit after proof, not during ignition.

That delay mattered.

The final nail wasn’t grunge, it was speed.

Between 1989 and 1992, Glam fragmented and Alternative exploded and the Labels pivoted instantly.

Australian albums arriving in 1991–1993 weren’t bad, they were misaligned. They sounded like records that should have come out in 1989.

And many of them should have.

But systems don’t reward “should have.” They reward timing.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Australia still struggles with this. It’s better in the streaming era but it’s still a problem.

Different genres. Same mechanics.

Local scenes ignite.

Momentum builds.

Gatekeepers (the ones that still exist) hesitate.

By the time support arrives, the moment has shifted.

The lesson isn’t “work harder.” It’s compress the timeline.

Scenes don’t wait. Audiences don’t wait. History doesn’t wait.

An album arriving late doesn’t mean it failed. It means it arrived as evidence, not influence.

That’s why records like “Five Wicked Ways” still hold up. They weren’t chasing trends, they were documenting one that had already happened. That gives them a strange durability, even if it robbed them of impact at the time.

Australian hard rock didn’t miss because it lacked vision.

It missed because the system was built to move after the fire, not during it.

And by the time the album hit the shelves, the fire had already moved on.

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Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

When Governments Screw With Music (And Everything Else)

Raise the price of cigarettes and people don’t quit smoking. They buy their smokes from the guy in the back alley with a duffel bag full of Marlboros. That’s the reality in Australia right now. The tax man thought he was going to nudge people into clean lungs and longer lives. Instead, he just created a booming black market.

And it’s not new. America tried it with booze. Prohibition was supposed to turn sinners into saints, but it made millionaires out of gangsters. The War on Drugs? Same story. You criminalize a behavior, you don’t kill demand, you hand it over to the underground.

Music lived this too.

Remember blank CD levies? The government thought, “Well, everybody’s copying music, so let’s tax the media.” You couldn’t even buy a spindle of discs for backing up photos without paying a piracy tax. Did that stop Napster? No. It just made fans hate the industry more. It turned the record labels into the bad guys and turned piracy into a cultural rite of passage. You weren’t just burning a CD, you were sticking it to The Man.

And those anti-piracy lawsuits? Suing twelve-year-olds for downloading Metallica? It didn’t scare people straight. It normalized piracy. It made Kazaa, LimeWire, and torrents explode because everyone suddenly knew where to find free music. If the government and the industry hadn’t been so hell-bent on control, maybe Spotify would’ve shown up ten years earlier.

Same deal with tickets. Governments ban scalping to “protect fans.” What happens? Scalpers just go underground. Paperless tickets, ID-only entry, sounded good on paper. In practice? Fans locked out of shows they paid for. Friends couldn’t swap tickets. And the black market didn’t disappear, it just got meaner, riskier, full of counterfeits. Meanwhile, Ticketmaster legalized scalping with “dynamic pricing.” The very thing the government said was illegal in the parking lot became policy inside the system.

That’s the lesson nobody in power ever learns: you can’t legislate away desire. You can distort prices, you can ban behavior, you can tax the hell out of things people want, but all you do is create shadow economies. You don’t stop smoking, drinking, downloading, or reselling. You just push it somewhere else.

The record industry thought it could dictate how people listen. Governments thought they could dictate how people live. And every time they try, the unintended consequences swamp the original plan.

Because people are wired to find a way. If the front door’s locked, they’ll kick open the side window. If you make the official channel impossible, they’ll build their own.

That’s the throughline, from cigarettes to booze to black market tickets. Governments and corporations think they’re playing chess. But the public is playing guerrilla warfare. And guerrillas always find a way.

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Music, My Stories, Treating Fans Like Shit

When the Party Turns into a Legacy: Bon Jovi, “We Got It Going On,” and the Forever Dilemma

Bon Jovi are back in the headlines again.

The “Forever” Tour.

The big announcement.

And, as always, the internet did what it does best, split down the middle.

Half the fans were ecstatic: “They’re back! Jon’s finally bringing the band around again.”

The other half were grimacing at the live clips, whispering the kind of thing you never want to say about your heroes: maybe the forever part should’ve ended a while ago.

That’s the heartbreak of watching icons age in public. We want the fire without the fallibility, the 1986 Bon Jovi frozen in amber, talkbox wailing, hair on fire, fists in the air, not the version that’s grown reflective, too polished, and painfully human.

But for me, this whole “Forever”discussion takes me back to 2007.

To “Lost Highway”.

I was a diehard then. Still am, I guess. The kind of fan who buys the record before hearing a note, because “Slippery When Wet”, “New Jersey”, and “Keep the Faith” were practically scripture. So when the band leaned into country-rock, I wanted to believe in it. But you could feel the calculation. You could feel the intention.

“Who Says You Can’t Go Home” worked because it wasn’t supposed to. It was an accident, a crossover that caught fire because it felt genuine. Then Jon, the businessman, doubled down. And when you chase authenticity, you lose it.

But buried under the Nashville polish was one song that didn’t care about charts or categories.

“We Got It Going On.”

“Is there anybody out there looking for a party? Yeah!!
Shake your money maker, baby, smoke it if you got it.”

That opening riff hits like swamp water and motor oil, sleazy, sexual, bluesy. Sambora’s talkbox returns like a ghost, resurrected not for nostalgia but for sheer noise. You can almost see the lights dim, the crowd swell, the camera pan across faces that just want to feel something again.

This song wasn’t written for critics. It was written for the night, for bodies pressed together, beer in the air, the scream that shakes the workweek loose.

“We Got It Goin’ On
We’ll be banging and singing just like the Rolling Stones.”

That line nails it. The nod to the Stones, the eternal road dogs, still out there rattling bones decades later.

And the truth is, I’ve left concerts sore, half-deaf, heart syncing with the subwoofers. That’s what great live music does: it inhabits you. You don’t walk out the same.

It’s all there, the “Ah ha ha” chant, the “ticket to kick it” call to arms, the invitation to ditch your suburban restraint.

“Everybody’s getting down, we’re getting down to business
Insane, freak train, you don’t wanna miss this.”

That’s Primal Scream energy. Nikki Sixx said it best:

“Primal scream and shout, let that mother out.”

That’s what “We Got It Going On” captures, not country, not crossover, but catharsis.

And it kills me that it never became a setlist regular. It tore through “Live at Madison Square Garden” and proved it belonged beside their classics.

But now, watching the new “Forever” performances, I can’t help but think about that title.

Because say what you want about the voice, the image, the years, when that talkbox hits and the crowd still roars, for a few minutes at least, they really do got it going on.

Bon Jovi’s strength was that mix of optimism and blue-collar defiance that said, we’re gonna shake up your soul, we’re gonna rattle your bones.

The challenge now isn’t pitch or range, it’s rediscovering the part of themselves that still wants to party like it’s dangerous again.

With presales kicking off October 27–28 and general sales slated for October 31, fans were ready.

Hungry. Hopeful.

But within hours, that excitement curdled into outrage.

Across X (Twitter) and fan forums, the stories were brutal: hours-long virtual queues, endless errors, “these tickets are no longer available” messages that mocked you after two hours of waiting.

One fan said they spent their entire last day of vacation fighting Ticketmaster’s glitch-riddled system.

Another logged in early for presale, only to find seats instantly gone, calling it “a joke” where real fans lose to bots every time.

Queues hit 160,000 people for UK shows like Wembley.

Some fans swore the platform was holding tickets back to manufacture demand. Others pointed to instant resales, the same seats appearing online minutes later, inflated beyond belief.

And they weren’t exaggerating. Prices hit $900 for single seats.
VIP “Legendary” packages, front row, tote bag, lanyard, mocked for charging hundreds extra for souvenirs no one asked for.

One fan summed it up perfectly:

“It’s not the Forever Tour because of Bon Jovi’s career — it’s because we’ll be paying it off forever.”

That’s the reality of fandom in 2025. We want connection, not corporate friction.

We crave the “Livin’ on a Prayer” moment, but we get login errors and resale markups instead.

Some fans did score tickets, celebrating in disbelief, hoping maybe, just maybe, Richie Sambora will reappear and make it all feel whole again.

But the dominant emotion across social media isn’t excitement. It’s exhaustion.

This is the paradox of legacy. When the dream outlives the danger, the machine takes over.

Bon Jovi were always about inclusion. Blue jeans, big choruses, stadium-wide singalongs. They weren’t supposed to be exclusive.

But the modern ticketing system turned “forever” into a commodity, a limited edition for those who can afford it.

And maybe that’s the real tragedy of this era: we can still sing along, but we can’t always get in the door.

Bon Jovi built a career on songs that made ordinary people feel invincible.

Now, the fight is to make those people feel included again.

Because the legacy doesn’t live in the hits, or the sales, or the streaming stats.

It lives in the noise, the sweat, the singalong, the place where “We Got It Going On” still means something.

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Music, My Stories, Treating Fans Like Shit

The Death of the Cheap Seat

Concerts used to be the great equalizer. Didn’t matter if you were broke, working doubles at the gas station, or borrowing money from your parents—you could scrape together twenty bucks, buy a nosebleed, and still be in the room when the lights went down. You weren’t just watching music. You were part of something bigger.

That was the dream. The cheap seat meant access. The cheap seat meant community. The cheap seat meant everyone could enter the temple.

Now the temple’s got velvet ropes and algorithms at the door.

Michael Rapino gets onstage at yet another industry conference and calls concerts “underpriced.” Underpriced. The man who pocketed $100 million last year for running Live Nation, the company that turned fandom into a line item on a quarterly report, thinks you and I should be grateful for the privilege of paying triple digits to see our favorite bands.

His defense? 

Averages. 

The “average ticket” is $72, he says. Which is like a billionaire telling you the average American’s rich because Jeff Bezos lives here. Fans don’t experience averages. 

Fans experience chaos: 

Ticketmaster’s queues that crash, surge pricing that turns your phone into a slot machine, bots that eat the inventory before you even get a chance.

And none of that matters to Rapino. His job isn’t to make concerts magical. His job is to keep shareholders fat and happy. Lock down venues, ticketing, promotion, control the whole “flywheel.” No competition, no innovation, just fees on top of fees.

And here’s the thing: Rapino makes obscene money off culture but creates none of it himself. He doesn’t write the songs. He doesn’t play the shows. He doesn’t stand in the pit or wait in line. He’s just a toll collector at the gate. Steve Miller said it flat-out in his Rock Hall of Fame speech, how the suits profit off musicians while contributing nothing to the art. Rapino’s empire is built on that exact imbalance. 

Concerts are underpriced? 

No. 

They just haven’t squeezed you enough yet.

Metallica’s 2025 Australian tour? 

Gone. 

Sold out before you could blink. Standard tickets running all the way up to $750, plus the insult of a “handling fee” slapped on like salt in the wound.

And that’s before the upsells, the premium reserves, the GA “enhanced experiences.” Those packages where you pay through the nose to feel like you’re not just a customer, but a valued customer.

Metallica still sells out because they’re one of the last universal rock metal bands. They are your dad’s band, your band, your kid’s band. The music has never been more available, stream every album in seconds, watch pro-shot live clips on YouTube for free. But the live experience, the reason you picked up a guitar or threw yourself into a pit, that’s become luxury-priced.

And yet, the shows still sell out. Which tells you everything. The desire hasn’t gone away. Fans will always pay. Until they can’t.

Dream Theater hits forty years, and their anniversary tour is already a test of devotion.

Melbourne? $159 just to get in.

Brisbane? $229. 

Adelaide fans reporting $189 GA, with some reminiscing about the days you could walk in for $124.

Still cheaper compared to Metallica but… 

Buying a ticket isn’t just an act of fandom anymore, it’s calculus. How much is too much? How many fees can you stomach? How many rows back until it’s not worth it? The music is meticulous, demanding, progressive. But the ticket-buying process is chaos, economics, market forces. It’s not prog, it’s Wall Street.

And the faithful still pay. Because that’s what it means to be a fan in 2026. You complain, you sigh, and then you show up anyway.

The Harsh Reality for Smaller Acts

But zoom out from Taylor Swift’s glittery Eras tour, the stadium gods, the more established bands and it’s brutal. The middle class of music is collapsing.

Smaller acts are grinding themselves into dust, endless tours through the same cities, like a clingy ex who doesn’t get the hint. Fans are tapped out, financially, emotionally. They’ve seen the show three times already. They’re not coming back just because you showed up again.

Add in the post-Covid hangover, ticket prices inflated, costs through the roof, and you’ve got an unsustainable mess. Vans turned into semis, sprinter vans into buses, overhead that kills. Meanwhile, fans are staring down their bank apps thinking: Do I really need to drop another forty bucks after paying a grand for Metallica last month?

This is where we are. Live music, once democratic, feels more like an airport lounge, corporate, exclusive, transactional.

And the problem isn’t just economics. It’s emotional connection. Fans don’t want perfect production anymore, they want authenticity.

The gatekeepers used to be labels. Now it’s fans. Viral one day, forgotten the next. The old formulas don’t work. The new ones aren’t obvious. The only constant? Connection. That’s it. That’s the whole game.

We’re in uncharted waters. The cheap seat is dead. The middle class of live music is bleeding out. The stadium shows are still printing money, but for how long?

The dream of concerts was always accessibility. Now it’s exclusivity. That’s the tragedy. Because the music hasn’t changed. The fans haven’t changed. Only the gatekeepers have.

And Rapino? He’ll keep cashing nine-figure checks off art he never made, off culture he never built. That was Steve Miller’s whole point when he stood at the Hall of Fame podium and called out the leeches: the suits don’t create, they extract.

The question is how long fans will let them.

The article.

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Copyright, Music, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Who Owns the Past? Preservation Is Theft Now

Because here’s the truth nobody wants to admit:

Every settlement is about money.
Not truth. Not justice. Not art.

Money.

The record companies don’t care about your dusty old 78s. They don’t care about preservation. They don’t care about whether some kid in Berlin discovers Billie Holiday for the first time and has their life changed. They care about the ledger. About squeezing every last nickel out of a format that no longer even exists in the real world, except as cultural artifact.

And the Internet Archive?

They care too. About survival. About keeping the lights on and the lawsuits at bay. You think they wouldn’t have fought this in court if they had endless money to burn? They folded because lawyers bill by the hour and the music industry has deeper pockets than any nonprofit ever will.

This isn’t about “illegal record stores.” No one is streaming Ella Fitzgerald off the Archive instead of Spotify. This is about control. About the labels saying, “We own history. We decide how you access it. We decide what survives.”

Meanwhile, the music is dying. It’s literally locked in grooves that disintegrate a little more every time a needle touches them. But no, preservation is theft now. Access is piracy. Knowledge itself is contraband.

The labels call it “copyright.” But let’s stop dressing it up: it’s rent-seeking. It’s gatekeeping. It’s an industry clinging to relevance by making sure no one else can touch the vault.

And the Archive? They’ll move on, quietly. Keep scanning books until publishers come for them again. Because that’s the gig. You build something for humanity, and eventually someone shows up with a cease-and-desist and a calculator.

So yeah. Every private settlement is about money.

But every one of these cases?

They’re really about memory. Who controls it. Who owns it. Who gets to say what endures.

And that’s the part that should terrify you.

Here is the article.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Treating Fans Like Shit

Four For Friday

TAX THE HELL OUT OF YOU

Motley Crue and Def Leppard came and they left, but not without complaints.

Tommy Lee walked into a 7-Eleven and purchased 4 packets of Marlboro Gold 25s in Melbourne.

The price. $251.96 AUD.

Yep welcome to Australia, Mr Lee, the place that loves to tax the hell out of you on everything and on top of that, has the highest tobacco taxes in the world as well. Basically 77% of the retail price is taxes.

If Tommy Lee purchased four packets in the US, it would have cost him $32USD which translates to $48AUD.

And no I didn’t go watch em. I’ve seen Motley Crue too many times and while I haven’t seen Def Leppard play, the price for the tickets was way too high and it was outdoors which I hate.

REISSUES

Remember when Metallica wanted to release the “Metal Up Your Arse” cassette tape as part of the “Kill Em All” reissue or maybe it was for a special Record Store Day release.

Anyway that got shot down by Dave Mustaine because he wouldn’t accept giving song writing credits to Lars Ulrich on songs he didn’t or was involved in writing.

Fast forward a few years and Linkin Park looks like they are in trouble with a former bassist.

As the Billboard article states;

Linkin Park is facing a lawsuit that claims it has refused to credit or pay royalties to an ex-bassist who played with the band in the late 1990s — a legal battle triggered by an anniversary re-release of the band’s smash hit 2000 debut album.

RE-RECORDINGS

The labels are up to their usual tricks again. They seem to forget that they are irrelevant without the artists.

Their whole business model is making money from music. So when they knew in the 60s that songs would become copyright free they lobbied hard and got laws in place to ensure their business model survives for a long time.

But Taylor Swift really messed with this by redoing her albums under her own control. This made the original recordings held by the labels basically worth a lot less.

And now they want to stop that.

I think if an artist wants to re-record a song or an album they created they should be free to do whatever they want.

And it was standard practice for artists to have re-recording rights either two years after their contract expires, or five to seven years after the original recording is released.

MONEY IN MUSIC

Warner Music Group Corp released its full year earnings.

And the take away is, they have earned over $6 billion in yearly revenue for the first time.

How much of that has filtered down to the creators?

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Copyright, Music, My Stories, Treating Fans Like Shit

Four For Friday

A bit about this and a bit about that.

MOVIES/TV SHOWS

I watched “Oppenheimer”. I don’t recommend it.

Which is tough to say as I’m a fan of Christopher Nolan.

I’m surprised that Nolan thought it should be made into a movie, then again, creative people are inspired by things that others don’t see as inspiring. In this case it was a the 2005 biography “American Prometheus” by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwinx

The story focuses on Oppenheimer’s studies, his direction of the Manhattan Project during World War II, and his eventual fall from grace due to his 1954 security hearing.

Since the last hour was like a “Law and Order” episode, maybe a limited TV series would have been better. But a TV series doesn’t have the gross takings that a cinematic release has.

It’s approaching the $800 million mark from a $100 million budget. It will be seen as a success, but its not re-watchable.

I also finally got around to watching “Avatar: The Way Of Water” on Disney+.

I didn’t think a sequel was necessary however James Cameron has a habit of surprising people and he sure did it with this movie. It’s long run time didn’t feel that long and the story flowed.

By the end of it, I made a commitment to watch the third one in the Cinemas. And it hooked my kids as well.

“Painkiller” on Netflix is a must watch. OxyContin destroyed many families and the series does a good job of telling the story.

SHOWS MADE AND THEN CANCELLED OR REMOVED TO SAVE ON TAX

In May, Disney+ said it would cut US$1.5bn of content from its streaming platform, so the company’s value is reduced which means they pay a lot less tax.

This involves axing current programs which are or were popular like “Willow” and not releasing other big budget series’s like “Nautilus”.

Paramount+ also did the same removing “The Pink Ladies” and Jordan Peele’s “Twilight Zone”. Warner Bros also removed “Westworld” along with others.

Time will tell how subscribers will respond to the streamers removing shows when they need to save a bit of cash.

CEASE AND DESIST

There is a high chance that a fan of the artist will have a different political view to that of the artist.

And the artists are okay with this when they are taking the money from these fans because at that point in time they don’t know the political view of the fan.

Suddenly, a politician plays the music of an artist at a rally, there are fans of the artist in that rally and the artist then sends a cease and desist letter to the politician to stop.

How much say or veto rights can an artist really have in how their music is used?

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS

James Hetfield wasn’t sure he wanted to go there and explore themes of vulnerability. Bob Rock insisted that he explore this path of being vulnerable and urged Hetfield to take vocal lessons.

Well that song just surpassed a billion streams on Spotify.

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

Four For Friday

It’s all about the money in music and the lawsuits which come about because of it.

THE GREAT 78 PROJECT

The “Great 78 Project” from the Internet Archive is digitizing 78-rpm records from the early 1900s until the 1950s.

78rpm records are some of the earliest musical recordings, and were produced from 1898 through the 1950s when they were replaced by 33 1/3rpm and 45rpm vinyl records.

The Archives asked people to donate their albums so that the cultural past survives for future generations to study and enjoy.

At the moment the collection is at 400,000 plus recordings. The majority of these 78s are forgotten and the 78rpm versions are not on streaming services.

Sounds great right. Preserve some cultural history from donated records and provide access to people to enjoy.

But the labels don’t get paid when this happens and suddenly don’t like it.

Universal, Sony and other labels (as part of the RIAA) are suing for copyright infringement.

The labels’ have used colorful phrases to describe the “78 Project”, as an “illegal record store”.

From the 400K plus songs, the labels named close to 3K sound-recording copyrights that the Archive allegedly infringed.

And they want $412 million for it because as far as the labels are concerned the music is available on streaming services.

The Great78 project, is not a substitute for music streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music.

When you listen to it, you hear that the music was digitized from the 78rpm record.

You get the crackle and the hiss of the record. It is a totally different version from the clean remastered versions you hear on music streaming services.

It’s ridiculous that it’s even an issue.

SIRIUS XM

SoundExchange, is responsible for collecting and distributing digital music royalties.

Sirius XM is responsible for playing music and paying digital royalties.

SoundExchange claims that Sirius XM is performing some creative accounting by inflating the revenue from its webcasts so it pays less in music royalties to the tune of $150 million.

Isn’t it funny how the labels and publishers go straight to litigation when someone else like Sirius XM does the exact same thing that they did to artists for 80 plus years.

Twitter/X

Twitter/X users put up snippets of live concerts, music videos, interviews and basically themselves jamming to their favorite music or playing the vinyl or CD of their favorite music.

Posts like these.

Two minute snippets of live performances that someone recorded which isn’t the user.

Or something like this.

Footage from a concert that the user attended and shared on the platform.

The users on other social media sites do the same thing.

But the RIAA, the labels lobbyist and litigation arm don’t like it.

They have accused X Corp of breeding mass copyright infringement because the company fails to respond to takedown notices and lacks a proper termination policy.

For this crime, the labels want $250 million from X Corp.

Elon Musk wants the case dismissed and his legal team have asked the courts to consider it as the labels have no hard proof of any wrong doing.

$3 MILLION PER HOUR

It’s the combined amount of how much the labels made in the first six months of 2023.

And they made that money because they have schemed, paid or legislated their way into owning the rights of a lot of music.

The music created by artists in bedrooms, parents basements, hotels, tour buses and at soundchecks, the labels now own.

And they will own these rights for the life of the artist plus 70 years after their death. In some jurisdictions, it’s 90 years after their death.

Final Note

The artists who create culture and value are never in the conversation. Even if the labels (and the RIAA) get all the monies paid to them, they will not share any of it with the artists.

And it is the artists who gave them this power to litigate, by signing away their rights in shitty contracts so they could have a recording career. And maybe a chance to make it big.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Treating Fans Like Shit

Four For Friday

MOTLEY CRUE

How many times can they release the same album?

All the music here has been released before circa 2003 when the band remastered their albums on their own Motley Records label.

But let me highlight how many issues of the album they have done recently.

In 2022, they released a Limited Edition, Reissue, Black/Clear Split Vinyl edition. The music on this edition was just the normal album.

In 2018, they released a Limited Edition, Reissue, Remastered, Clear With Red Swirl Vinyl Edition. The music on this edition was just the normal album.

In 2016, they released a Limited Edition, Reissue, Remastered, Red With Black Swirl, 180g Vinyl edition. The music on this edition was just the normal album.

In 2011, they released a Limited Edition, Reissue, Remastered, Mini Vinyl Replica edition. The music on this edition was just the normal album.

Again in 2011, they also released a Reissue, 180g, Gatefold edition. And again, the music on this edition was just the normal album.

Between 2003 and 2023, they also released various CD versions of the album with wording like, HDCD, Club Edition, Limited Edition, Enhanced, Reissue, Remastered and SHM-CD (for Japanese Releases). Apart from the 2003 edition, it’s been the same album re-released.

But, it’s selling for $370AUD. It looks like a nice collectors piece and if you don’t have this album, you’ll be thinking “why not”, but at that price I would have expected something to be included that hasn’t been released as yet.

Take a cue from Mr Coverdale, who puts the effort in with his evolution compositions, different jams/rehearsals of the songs and live recordings.

STEVE JOBS

At 12 years old Jobs called Bill Hewlett (the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard) to ask for spare computer parts.

Jobs got the parts and a summer job working the assembly line at Hewlett-Packard.

Steve Jobs, believes asking is the single thing that “separates the people that do things from the people that just dream about them.”

METALLICA

Brian Slagel is putting together the Metal Massacre compilation album.

Slagel met Lars Ulrich a year ago at a Michael Schenker concert. Lars calls him up and asks him, “if he puts together a band can he be on the record?”

BON JOVI

It’s 1982 and Jon Bon Jovi has just finished writing and recording “Runaway”.

He shopped it around and couldn’t get a record deal. He couldn’t get a band together to play live because original bands didn’t make enough money.

Luck would have it that a brand-new radio station would open in New York. It was so new it didn’t have a receptionist so nobody was there to stop Jon from walking straight to the DJ and asking him to play “Runaway”.

The song quickly gained traction and Hobart entered Bon Jovi into a contest the radio station was running for the best unsigned band.

Jon won, he got his Mercury deal and by the summer of 1983, the song had become a huge hit.

It’s amazing what could happen from asking.

SONG ON REPEAT

“Crime Of The Century” by Revolution Saints.

That Chorus hook is undeniable. It’s from the new album “Eagle Flight” which has Joel Hoekstra and Jeff Pilson joining Deen Castronovo.

Check it out.

BONUS SONG I’M LISTENING TO

“Burn For Me” by The Night Flight Orchestra. It’s the Bowie “Modern Love” feel which hooks me in and then that feel gets put in the TNFO blender and what comes out is an infectious AOR Rock song.

And that Chorus hook. Wow.

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