Tag Archives: creative accounting

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

The Week In Destroyer Of Harmony History – April 24 to May 1

2018 (4 Years Ago)

THE DIY ROUTE

Vice News at the time had a great 5 minute segment on an artist who built his career off streaming.

He was offered a major record deal and turned it down. The highest offer was a $250K advance and a $300K recording budget. A lot of people would have taken the offer and become slaves to a system designed to favour the record label. But he turned them down, because the terms bothered him.

He looks at the money from a 100% pot. So when the label is offering him an 18% royalty rate, what is happening to the other 82% of monies earned?

So the artist and his manager invested $30K of their own monies to record the debut album.

They then went on a 3 month tour using streaming data to lead the way. In one month, the artist made $25K from music streaming services like Spotify and Apple music. His team mines the data from those streams to find out exactly where and when a show will sell out, spending $18 a day on ads to target those cities.

Super fans are fans of the artist who have streamed the music for 45 days in a row. For example in Philadelphia, the artist had 13,600 listeners and 3,186 super fans. They used this data to target ads in Philadelphia and sold out the venue.

STILL ON SYKES

By 2018, it was over 2 years since Sykes announced a new solo album was in the works. And 18 years since his last studio album.

The new music paradigm is to release music and to keep on releasing music. The listener decides what to listen to.

It’s a scary thought for the artist, especially legacy artists who are used to the comfort metrics of the past, like a large advanced payment.

Funny thing is, Europe and Bon Jovi had bigger recording and marketing budgets for the follow up albums “Out Of This World” and “New Jersey” and they didn’t even get close to the traction and numbers of their breakthrough albums. It doesn’t mean the albums are crap, however it shows a scorched earth marketing policy is not a guarantee of global reach. Both acts had more money thrown at them for “Prisoners In Paradise” and “Keep The Faith” and again, they failed to get the public acceptance that “The Final Countdown” and “Slippery When Wet” got.

8 Years Ago (2014)

CHILL OUT

One thing about the world of heavy metal and hard rock is that we never took ourselves too seriously. It was always a camaraderie, a culture to have “Nothin But A Good Time”.

When Zakk Wylde was playing “In This River” at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards in 2014 as a tribute for the fallen rockers and a picture of Jani Lane from Warrant came up, and it stated, “Jani Lane, Motorhead, 1964-2011”, it was just one of those things we had to laugh about.

QUEENSRYCHE vs THE VOICE OF QUEENSRYCHE

It was the gift that kept on giving. Geoff Tate was known as “The Voice Of Queensryche” after the split before he became “Operation Mindcrime” or whatever else he was known as. And Queensryche hired Todd LaTorre who decided to accumulate stuff from the other guys in the band and sell it on eBay.

LIZZARD

A band from France formed in 20016, which is a mixture of alternative rock and metal music on a background of progressive and experimental grooves.

The Tool influence is very prominent but there are overtones of at least four other bands like Chevelle, Earshot, 10 Years and Karnivool.

“Out Of Reach” was released in 2012 and that was the album I was cranking in 2014. Many years later when I became a heavy Spotify user, I reconnected with the bands music and saw that they had a 2014 album called “Majestic”, an album called “Shift” released in 2018 and an album called “Eroded” released in 2021.

Check em out.

NEW MUSIC (circa 2014)

Chevelle – La Gargola

Chevelle blew my mind when they came out with their Tool infused pop stylings.

It was perfect back in 2002 and 2004. Now it is getting old. Still good, but old like AC/DC.

Sebastian Bach – Give Em Hell

Sabo and Bolan couldn’t get signed with all of the previous vocalists and then Sebastian comes on the scene and suddenly the band is hot and dangerous.

With this solo album, Bach is in top form. It is a solid album from start to finish with each song written by a who’s who list of musicians and producers.

James Durbin – Celebrate

The memories of Durbin doing “You Got Another Thing Coming” from Judas Priest on American Idol still live on. And the debut album comes out and the opening track “Higher Than Heaven” blows me away with its heaviness and popiness.

And here we are in 2014. If you want to hear James Durbin try to be like Kate Perry or One Direction then press play on this. Noteworthy tracks are “Louder Than A Loaded Gun”, “Real Love” and “Children Of The Sun”. The rest not so much.

Black Label Society – Catacombs of the Black Vatican

Zakk was just a skinny little blonde kid when he joined Ozzy and now he is a Viking marauder, ready to take over this town. I like Black Label Society for the same reason I like AC/DC. You know what you are gonna get and it is a good thing. It’s groovy hard rock and metal, with Zakk’s Ozzy meets Layne Staley style vocal phrasing.

“My Dying Day” is a full strength brewski. “Angel Of Mercy” for a ballad is also a full strength brewski with an unbelievable guitar solo. “Damn The Flood” has a Goddam wah-drenched solo section. So another brewski for that. “Empty Promises” is a double full strength brewski.

The Used – Imaginary Enemy

My first exposure to The Used was in the first “Transformers” movie and that car chase scene between Bumblebee and the Decepticon Police Car. I loved the riff, so I tracked down the soundtrack and found out that the song was called “Pretty Handsome Awkward” from a band called The Used.

But I have no idea what The Used is trying to achieve with this album. I’m hearing it and I am thinking about the latest Daughtry album which alienated the hard core fans in its quest for the One Direction and Train pop dollars.

In music, your only as good as the last song you released or the last album you put out or the last show you played.

WORK ETHICS

Music is forever.

Paul Kossoff’s career was short at 25 years of age. As a guitarist he was always looking to “have a jam”.

Randy Rhoads just wanted to play guitar, as he even took classical lessons while on tour with Ozzy and then copping a punch in the face from Ozzy when he told him that he wanted out.

Jimi Hendrix was always booking studio time and running his different bands through jam sessions over and over again.

Chuck Schuldiner was a technical death metaller who just wanted to be a guitarist in a band and he finally achieved that dream with “Voodoocult” and the progressive “Control Denied”.

They all wanted to create.

Paul Kossoff was involved in 10 studio albums and 2 live albums between 1969 to 1976. Talk about jamming up a storm.

Jimi Hendrix was prolific. Apart from the official releases (three within a year), Hendrix created a musical vault so deep, his family members are still making money from his legacy.

Dimebag Darrell had 4 independent releases and close to 10 years of experience under his belt before “Cowboys From Hell” opened the door for a bigger stage to play on.

Chuck Schuldiner was involved in 9 albums between 1987 and 1999.

It’s always been tough for new bands or artists to make it. From the sixties to now, that toughness hasn’t changed.

THE COVER SONG

My first introduction into Trivium and Bullet For My Valentine was from the Kerrang “Master of Puppets” 20 Year Anniversary album.

My initial interest to hear the album was because Machine Head was covering “Battery”. So after they blew me away with their downtuned cover, along came Trivium with their cover of the title track. Bullet For My Valentine didn’t set the world on fire with their cover of “Welcome Home (Sanitarium) however they did enough to get me interested in it.

So I started to seek out the original music of Trivium and BFMV. All because of a cover song.

“Hey Joe” didn’t do much for “The Leaves” in 1965, however it was The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s first hit single in 1966. “All Along the Watchtower” these days is well-known as a Hendrix psychedelic groove rock song instead of a Dylan folk song.

As good as the VH debut album is/was, they still needed something familiar for the audience and “You Really Got Me” was the song. “Hard To Handle” was the breakthrough hit single for “The Black Crowes” in 1990 and it is a cover song from 1968, originally written by Otis Redding.

Quiet Riot went platinum in 1983, with “Cum On Feel The Noize” and it was a cover song from 1973.

“Black Magic Woman” is known as Carlos Santana’s flagship song, however it is a cover from the Peter Green version of Fleetwood Mac.

Cover songs are the doorway to the other treasures that lay in waiting for artists. Find a great tune and get cranking on a kick-ass remake/re-imagining of it. You never know how it could connect as music has a way of making peculiar connections.

RECORD LABEL GREED

The major Record Labels own the majority of copyrights and don’t they love to overvalue their content.

The RIAA has never stopped lobbying the Government to pass laws that will protect their business models. Even Irving Azoff still blames technology for diminishing the music business profits instead of blaming the real devil, which is the GREED of the POWER PLAYERS. Someone like Azoff built a career on the backs of the songs that artists created.

Very few artists ever “recouped” even after the labels made back many times what they actually gave the artists.

RATT sold 7.5 million albums in the U.S alone which meant total gross sales of $75 million. Even if the label gave them $1 million dollar advances for each album, that is $5 million the label would have spent on the band and in the process the Label made $70 million. If the financials are ever made available, it would show Ratt as a band that still hasn’t recouped.

In the end, the real copyright abusers are the actual Record Labels.

And that’s a wrap for another week.

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

Sales vs Streams

Ryan Downey over at Stream N Destroy goes to some lengths to track what is hot and cold in the world of rock and metal and all the different sub genres that fall within.

The below Zombie and Queen stats are from his latest email blast, which can be read online here.

Rob Zombie, The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy
24,700 Album Units (Nuclear Blast Records)
Released: March 12, 2021
20.6k Album Sales, 2400 Song Sales
2.5M Song Streams this week

Queen, Queen
18,800 Album Units (Hollywood Records)
Released: July 13, 1973
54 Album Sales, 8k Song Sales
23.2M Song Streams this week

Check out the anemic album sales from Queen versus the song streams. 54 physical album sales vs 23.2 million song streams. This is why music and the catalogues of artists are becoming so valuable. People and especially investors have real data as to who is listening to what. Get people listening on streaming services and it will pay forever. And if you ain’t getting a slice of those payments, we’ll your deal needs to be renegotiated.

Once upon a time, when streaming started to be taken seriously, the record labels and Billboard had no idea what was hot or number 1. The Billboard charts didn’t correlate to what was played the most on streaming service. In other words the labels and Billboard were out of touch. So Billboard decided they had to bring streaming into the Charts equation and made their charts more like a mathematic assignment.

But at least the charts are now taking streams into account by using 1,500 streams as an album sale or unit. I still think it’s wrong to try a fit something new into an old metric, but hey what do we fans know.

Song sales also add up to album sales. 10 songs equal an album.

In Queen’s case, there is enough activity for those 23.2 million streams and 8K song downloads plus 54 album sales to equal 18,800 units.

Compare Queen’s numbers to Rob Zombie’s first week numbers.

There are 20,600 physical album sales from RZ versus 54 for an album released in 1973. While record sales will give people an instant quick payday and some bragging rights about charting, it’s streaming that will show if anybody is listening after the hype of the album release.

You would expect based on evidence right now, that RZ fans will be listening to his music in 40 years’ time. But will he keep replenishing his fan base enough to keep the streaming numbers. Because replenishing the fan base is the key to long term survival.

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

Guess What: Not A Lot Has Changed

“In 1981, there was a crackdown after the big payola scandal of the late 70s. Right at the beginning of the 80s, the record companies were being safe. They were not handing out advances. They would advance your recording budget, but that was it.”
Brian Forsythe – Kix

So what has changed in 2015.

The record labels are still being safe and with recording costs so low, the recording budget is even lower.

Yeah, of course, we all know that the record labels had a massive boom that started with “Thriller” in 1984 and that allowed them to take more risks. And for some reason it looks like musicians and the labels are only looking at the boom when they compare now vs then. Typical revisionist history.

“None of us knew what we were doing. We were just so excited to have a record deal. There are writer’s royalties, and the mechanical royalties that go to the band. The record company gets paid back through the mechanical until the bill (advancement) is paid off. Donnie was the main songwriter, so he was still getting his (writers) money. By the time we got to “Blow My Fuse” – our biggest selling record – we were two million dollars in debt.” 
Brian Forsythe – Kix

Even in the era of information, with everything is at our fingertips, artists are still unaware of their entitlements. And when they do find out, it is the crux of every argument. Especially between band members because every band has a person that just writes better songs than the others at certain points of time, or in some cases always. Kix’s bass player Donnie Purdell, was another Nikki Sixx. He was crucial to Kix.

It should act as no surprise to anyone that bands in the Seventies, Eighties or Nineties, ended up with such large debts to the label. That is the label creative accounting machine at its best. And the shameful part of it all is that current musicians still look at the past to gauge what success means in 2015.

“Go pull up the sales for 1985, 1986 for heavy metal bands. I guarantee you it’s ten times what it is now. That doesn’t mean there’s ten times less fans — in fact, I think there’s more heavy metal fans now than possibly there ever was. But the bottom line is the numbers show that metal bands are not selling what they did back in the day, and that’s because of Internet piracy. I don’t wanna get on that subject, because it always turns into a depressing, negative subject, but it is a fact. So the answer to the question, ‘Would that record sell more in 1985?’ I would say the answer would be yes.”
Shawn Drover – Act of Defiance

Shawn Drover, wishes it was 1985 and 1986 because for some reason, he believes that he will have more money in his pocket and if his new band “Act Of Defiance” sold a million copies of an album, they would be mega rich and popular. Brian Forsythe from Kix, lived that period and ended up with a $2 million debt, even though they had albums that sold in excess of a million.

And guess what venues they are playing right now?

Clubs and theaters.

Dokken albums achieved Platinum awards and the band today plays clubs and theaters. Stryper and Ratt albums achieved Platinum awards and the bands today play clubs and theaters.

A sale of a record never equaled a fan. It’s the usual comparison between;

  • a person that purchased a record, heard it once and hated it
    vs
  • a person that purchased a record, heard it, loved it and listened to it every day
    vs
  • a person that purchased a record, heard the popular songs and then moved on to whatever else was popular

So why do artists still see sales as important today?

Metal and rock artists still sell. There is no doubt about that. Especially the ones that connect with audiences. But sales is not the only stat that artists should be basing their careers on.

With all of the streaming services out there, the most important stat is how many listens an artist is getting and in which cities they are getting those listens.

The second most important stat is how many illegal P2P downloads an artist is getting and in which cities they are getting these illegal downloads. These listeners/downloaders need to be monetized in different ways.

Otherwise if you are an artist and you are waiting for profits to come in from recorded music sales, then you need to change your business model.

“I’ve never seen a check. Donnie probably still gets writer’s royalty checks. The rest of the money is going back to the record company. Donnie was such a better songwriter. For every 20 songs he would write, I would write one. We were working on his songs all the time and we never even had time to write our own stuff. Back in the early days I may have gotten a couple checks. The biggest one was maybe $350. One time I remember getting one for $1.99. I could count the amount of checks I’ve received on one hand.”
Brian Forsythe – Kix

Remember all of the stories that have come out over the last five years from artists complaining about their low royalty payouts from streaming services. Guess that in 30 years nothing much has really changed. For the small amount of 1% artists that have broken through to mega status, it’s all good.

For the rest, it is still the same story.

“The standard stat given is that 90% of major label deals “fail.” That does not mean they are not profitable for the label. The way RIAA accounting works, the labels can make out like a bandit on many of those record deals, while the artist gets hung out to dry.”
Mike Masnick, Techdirt

Nothing has changed on that front, even with the rise of the internet, Napster, P2P illegal downloading and so forth. The 90% stat was relevant even in the golden years of recorded music sales and it is still relevant now.

“We never expected to get rich, but we certainly didn’t expect to be millions of dollars in debt.”
Jared Leto – Thirty Seconds To Mars

No artist expects to get rich. The need to create is the calling card. However, when they start making money and they see the recording executives living it up while the actual creators are not, then money becomes an important conversation point.

The recording industry has always been known for its creative accounting.

Remember when Tom Petty declared himself bankrupt to get out of a recording contract because he had no money to show after two very successful albums in the seventies.

It all goes against what Gene Simmons said about rock music in general being murdered due to internet piracy. It’s a very narrow-minded and hostile view to have to all of the change that has happened in music. It also mimics, the view that the record labels have held.

A hostile one.

However as Tim Westergren, the Chief Strategy Officer – Pandora (until last year) states;

“I think we’re moving out of an era where the music industry is looking for enemies and into one where it’s now looking for allies.”

The record labels have been dragged kicking and screaming into cassettes, mp3’s and then streaming. Guess what happened. It increased their bottom line on all occassions. Guess that not much has changed in the era of change when it comes to record label abuses.

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Music

Some Hard “Music Business” Truths – Dave Lombardo, Tom Araya and Band Agreements

Dave Lombardo hasn’t been silent when it comes to the financial “behind the scenes” happenings of Slayer. It doesn’t matter on which side you are on in this argument, one thing that is true is that these kinds of issues are real. Bands cannot exist without a band agreement in place. And when a Band Agreement is drawn up there are a few main players in it.

1. The Band themselves
2. The Manager
3. The Lawyer
4. The Accountant

Musicians are always taken for a ride when it comes to management, lawyers and accountants. The whole Adam Duce vs Machine Head saga is down to the same questions that Dave Lombardo is asking. What happened to all of that money that was grossed?

Let’s look at some of Lombardo’s claims.

He claims that in 2011, the band Slayer grossed $4.4 million and that he only earned $67,000. He also claims that he earned that same amount from the band when he rejoined the band. Sounds like a pretty shitty employment contract if you ask me.

So what do we know about 2011?

In 2011, Slayer played 62 shows based on the website Setlist.fm. Doing some simple math, Lombardo came away with $1080 per show. For a lot of independent musicians this is a nice pay-day for the whole band, however in this case it is for an individual in a band that grosses over $4 million dollars.

Now let’s do some math around the gross earnings per show from Slayer. In order to do the math, I searched the internet for a Slayer Billboard Boxscore and I found one.

Slayer in November 2013 played a show in Winnipeg, Canada and the gross sales for the show came to $57,100 and the venue was half full. The data is available on the lambgoat.com blog. So let’s just say that $60,000 gross is an average intake for a Slayer show. Multiple that gross amount by the 62 shows and you get a figure of $3.72 million. Add merchandise, licensing, publishing and royalties and you get close to the $4.4 million mark. So it is safe to say that Slayer is a million dollar business. And Dave Lombardo was just paid $67,000.

Back in February, 2013, Lombardo first announced his findings that 90% of Slayer’s tour income was being deducted as expenses, leaving 10% for the band to split amongst the four of them.

Again, going back to the math, if Slayer grossed $4.4 million, that would mean that $4 million went to expenses and $400,000 was left to be split between the original 4 members (I am assuming that the touring guitarist “Gary Holt” is part of the Expenses). So Dave Lombardo gets $67,000. That leaves $333,000 to split amongst 3. $111,000 each sounds about right.

Tom Araya claimed Dave was a working member of the band and never a partner, making mention that when Dave joined again during the ‘Christ Illusion’ album, Slayer offered Dave a contract with the band, hence the $67K amount.

This is in contrast to Lombardo’s claims who also mentions that Araya got his silence bought, when management handed over a lot of money to go against Lombardo. Lombardo claims that he was a percentage holder within the band and all that he asked for was to see the detailed expenses.

The thing is Araya is pulling a double face here, as he blasted the band’s management when it came to Jeff Hannemann’s tributes. This is what he said in an interview on Classic Rock;

“I wanted to do more – I was hoping to do more. But the nature of the business… the management gets involved in anything we do and they fucked it up. I’m throwing them under the bus. It really upset me, because it would have been more than just that.”

Money talks. Slayer is a machine that is all about the business and making profit. The person that has the cash has the leverage and in this case, the Slayer management team has that leverage. So why would they use some of the cash that Slayer earns to pay a tribute to the most important member of Slayer. Jeff Hannemann gave them all a career with his great songwriting skills.

It’s bad enough that record labels rip off artists. It’s bad enough that accountants, managers and lawyers rip off artists. But it is the worse when band mates rip off band mates.

If Kerry King and Tom Araya stuck with Dave Lombardo, they would have had the leverage. It’s like the Machine Head song, “Who We Are”.

DIVIDED WE STAND.

But it should be UNITED WE STAND.

In the same way that the audience all stood united to watch the original four at the Horden Pavillion in Sydney back in 2007, with Mastodon opening.

http://loudwire.com/dave-lombardo-claims-only-made-67000-slayer-4-million-gross-2011/
http://loudwire.com/slayer-tom-araya-elaborates-dave-lombardo-exit/
http://loudwire.com/slayer-tom-araya-why-dave-lombardo-ousted/

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

Record Label Innovation – Kill Music Service to Protect Old Business Models

What are the Record Labels worth without the talent? ZERO!

So what do the Record Labels do to their talent?

They treat them to a world of creative accounting.

They treat them to a world where they spend monies on DMCA takedowns and litigation to protect the old income streams, instead of nurturing new income streams for their talent. Throughout life, people are always looking for something new, however the recording industry believe in selling the same old thing in music. When something different comes out like Mumford & Sons, Adele, PSY and Imagine Dragons it triumphs in unforseen ways.

The whole approach of the Record Labels and the RIAA has been if they can’t control a business, their next best option is to kill the business off. Napster showed the music business what the fans wanted, however they killed it off and to this day, not one legal service has risen to offer what Napster offered, which was Community and Convenience.

There is a song called Red City on the new Stone Sour release, House Of Gold and Bones II. In the story line, our hero is in the clutches of the bad guys and the song Red City marks the beginning of the end for the main character. If the Entertainment Industries and their stooges get their way, it is the beginning of the end for the Internet and the opportunities it gives to creators.

Sort of like the lyrics in the new Black Sabbath song, End of The Beginning that states “rewind the future to the past”. That is what the Entertainment industries want. The past to return. That is the future they want.

Look at the recent behaviour of the one they call Prince. Even the Electronic Frontiers Foundation has inducted Prince into its “Takedown Hall of Shame”. To sum up, Prince has issued DMCA takedowns on six second clips of a Prince concert, on fan recorded concert videos of him covering Creep from Radiohead (which by the way he doesn’t even own the rights to the song), threatening to sue people for thinking of doing a tribute album to him and a takedown of YouTube video of a toddler dancing to a Prince song (which is in the Courts at the moment).

The reason why I am mentioning Prince is to show people what a misguided artist he has become. The labels send millions of DMCA takedowns each day and in a lot of cases they censor free speech under a copyright claim. They have even taken down their own websites. Universal Music Group even took down Black Sabbath’s God Is Dead YouTube stream from the Black Sabbath YouTube page.

When is the Recording industry and people like Prince going to stop complaining? When are they going to stop lamenting the passage of the good old days? When are they going to stop blaming the technologists and the fans for ruining their business models. There is a reason why Indie labels have claimed a large slice of music sales this year than the three majors. It’s because they are working on the outside, digging deep and finding those real stars, the real golden nuggets.

Music used to be cutting edge and it used to drive the conversation and the culture. These days music is just another consumable, ready to be consumed like milk. Musicians like Prince, Jon Bon Jovi, Jay Z and so forth are trying to get in bed with the Fortune 500. Where is it written that musicians must be rich? You create quality that resonates and connects, then you will be a star.

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