A&M Records began as a humble business out of Alpert's garage, and the company's first signed artist was Alpert's own Tijuana Brass. It is a true great american music story. As a kid growing up I'll never forget the first time my DAD played "The Lonely Bull!" My jaw dropped and so did everyone else's in the record store.
A&M knew a lot about artist development because the co-founder of the company, Herb Alpert was an artist himself. The real man of vision who allowed Herb to "make magic" was Jerry Moss who held the reins of A&M Records for many years. Eventually, they worked with artists such as Joe Cocker, the Carpenters, Cat Stevens, Burt Bacharach, Quincy Jones, Sergio Mendes, Janet Jackson, Sheryl Crow, Bryan Adams, the Police, Iggy Pop, Sting, Barry White and Soundgarden, until the mid 1980's when the company was sold for 500 Million Dollars to Polygram.
I'd like to think that with all the shifting of the music business, that there are going to be some new A&M Record style companies that will launch over the next year or two.
There is some specific advice your going to need to start your own music company:
One, is look at what others are doing and don't do that. Listen to your own inner voice as an artist.
Second, is focus on the quality of your finished "master" and/or "product," don't worry about what others do, create the best product possible.
Third, when your done with all of the pre-production and composing, separate your "sessions" from the "mixing" of your record. In fact, sometimes it's good to hire an outside "seasoned," established producer (mixer) to make that happen. You'll all do great and you can listen to the Lonely Bull while your brainstorming.
A new threat in Web piracy, SurfTheChannel links to 56.com, Tudou.com and dozens of sites in China and other countries. Streaming technology makes films and TV shows instantly available on Web browsers, cloaks the viewer's identity and makes it almost impossible for Hollywood to stop.
Sony Corp.'s ``88 Minutes,'' made for $30 million, is among 95,000 film and television titles at SurfTheChannel, where visitors watching free videos have soared to 650,000 a month since October. The Stockholm-based company offers films still in theaters, such as News Corp.'s ``Jumper,'' and movies not out yet, including Time Warner Inc.'s ``Good Chemistry.'' ``For most of the last year, downloading was the dominant form of movie piracy,'' said David Davis, of Santa Monica, California-based Arpeggio Partners, who began investigating copyright infringement for Walt Disney Co. in 1999. ``Streaming presents a much larger problem. It requires less technical skill and, unlike downloads, it's available immediately.''
Online piracy cost the film industry $7.1 billion in 2005 and is the fastest-growing threat, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. The losses come as the industry looks to the Web to replace shrinking DVD sales, which fell 2 percent to $23.7 billion in 2007, according to Digital Entertainment Group, a trade association. Sales of movie tickets, averaging $6.88 in the U.S., rose less than 1 percent last year, according to the MPAA.
SurfTheChannel, which uses an Internet service to hide its location, links to sites that make copyrighted material available, spokesman Richard Foxton said in an e-mail. It's legal because the content doesn't reside on SurfTheChannel's network, he wrote.
That may not protect the site's parent, SurfTheChannel Ltd., from litigation, said Rob Rader, an entertainment attorney at Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp LLP in Los Angeles.
Dozens of sites including QuickSilverScreen.com, Joox.net and SideReel.com provide similar services. SurfTheChannel had a page on MySpace.com, News Corp.'s social networking site. News Corp.'s spokeswoman Julie Henderson said MySpace has ``zero tolerance'' for piracy. SurfTheChannel's page was blocked after the company learned of it. ``Linking to content you know, or reasonably should have known, is illegal is a lawsuit waiting to happen,'' Rader said in an interview. ``For movies or TV shows that are currently in release, this adds insult to actual economic injury.''
About 40 percent of SurfTheChannel's visitors are from the U.S., the most of any country, according to researcher Alexa.com. U.S. visitors totaled 259,000 in March, Reston, Virginia-based ComScore Inc. said, suggesting a worldwide audience of 650,000. Foxton puts the total above 2 million.
The quality of films at SurfTheChannel varies. Some are shaky copies recorded in theaters. Others are similar to DVDs or broadcast TV. ``Evan Almighty'' had Chinese subtitles. Camcorders in theaters account for the majority of movie piracy while theft during film production also contributes, according to the Motion Picture Association.
Advertisers at SurfTheChannel include Qualcomm Inc.'s MediaFLO, which promoted programming from NBC. Visitors are asked to donate to Cancer Research UK.
``STC's existence has never been for commercial gain,'' Foxton said. ``It's a good month if we manage to cover our hosting costs, which has happened once so far.''
Mitch Santell: Here is my personal view here, it is a known fact that when someone can hear music, their is a greater chance that they will then acquire the music product. For the film business? You are going to see a major shut down by 2010 because the writers strike put dozens and dozens of high budget projects "out of commission!" You also have Tivo boxes every where and you have an audience that is no longer up for spending 11 dollars USD for a 2 hour ticket.
As Maroon 5 always says, "How About A Little Of Your Time......."
Brian Wilson (left) and Nik Venet (center) at his 60th Birthday at Fairfax Market with over 200 people attending in December of 1996!
The late producer Nik Venet had an impressive list of clients he worked with in his career including the Beach Boys, Tommy Sands, Jim Croce, Lou Rawls,Linda Ronstadt, Glen Campbell, and The Letterman. He had produced over 300 albums in his legendary career which spanned four decades. When asked in a interview who his favorite person to work with was, Mr Venet responded "Bobby Darin".
Nik and Bobby became friends when they were both at the Brill building in New York, sharing cramped office space.They worked together at Capitol records in LA when Nik produced him, the first being the single "If A Man Answers." Venet also produced Bobby Albums "You're The Reason I'm Living" and "Golden Folk Hits".
In an interview with WBAI radio New York in 1995, Nik was quoted as saying that Bobby Darin was "an amazing human being...a man of great talents, many many talents." He also said of Darin: "one of his careers was more than any artist would want today...he had three, four careers going at the same time..he was adventurous...Darin did it when nobody else was doing it, he crossed borders." Speaking of their time working in the studio together he said, "Nothing ever went wrong in the studio,we could do a bad cut and have a great time, we would redo it and have a better time." Of Bobbys multifaceted career,Venet said that Darin "baffled everybody, he always came out on top...he would take failure and study it, found out what went wrong,redo it and turn in into a win..nothing was ever lost on Darin...everything he did he honestly believed in....he did it all and he did it from the heart."
Mr. Venet was often quoted as saying "I think about Bobby once a day every day."As a tribute to Darins legacy, Nik, along with Dodd Darin and Jeff Bleiel were instrumental in bringing the Rhino Bobby Darin Box set "As Long As I'm Singing" to life,and Venet was still actively producing with his own Evening Star Records company.
Mr. Venet died of complications of Burkitts syndrome on January 2, 1998,but had never stopped working up until his last hospital stay. He still maintained a close relationship with Dodd (who spoke at "A Celebration Of Nik Venets Life" a memorial service held at The National Academy of Recordings Arts and Sciences a couple of days after his death.)
We tip our hat off to both Nik and Bobby! I should know because prior to moving to New Zealand, I partnered with Nik Venet to launch his last label in 1996, Evening Star! All I can say is that "as long as I am singing" I will always acknowledge those who came before me and will come long after I stop producing.
According to Cindy Watts at The Tennessean, total album sales may be down for the music industry — as much as 15 percent from 2006 — but according to figures released by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers recently, the dip is not affecting public performance-related revenues and royalty payments to its songwriters.
ASCAP posted 2007 revenues of $863 million and royalty payments of $741 million, all while keeping operating costs at an all-time low of 11.9 percent. The revenue amount is an increase of 10 percent over last year, while royalty distribution grew 9 percent.
"The fact that we are paying more money out to those songwriters whose songs are currently being performed is really great news, because they are losing mechanical royalties as piracy continues to hurt sales," said Connie Bradley, senior vice president at ASCAP. "If ASCAP revenues had not increased, and with the mechanical royalties that they are losing, that can put a big hurt on a songwriter's income. And the fact our overhead is the lowest in the world just means more money for our songwriters and publisher members."
ASCAP is one of three performing rights organizations in the U.S., along with Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) and SESAC. BMI released its year-end numbers in September 2007, posting revenues of more than $839 million and royalty distribution of $732 million. SESAC is not a nonprofit organization, so it is not required to make its financial information public. Each of the companies collects music licensing fees on behalf of music creators, and then pays them out as royalties.
Licensing plays vital role
For the 2006-2007 fiscal year, ASCAP reports the approximate financial breakdown of the $863 million as: $240 million from radio; $103 million from non-broadcast entities including everything from airlines and bars to background music services; $244 million from television; and the remainder coming from miscellaneous areas including new media, digital audio recording, member applications and foreign royalties.
Vincent Candilora, senior vice president of licensing in Nashville, said that year over year the largest area of growth comes from general licensing. And he expects that trend to continue.
"I think general licensing, people don't realize the amount of churn in that wide industry," Candilora said. "There are 4,000 new restaurants or bars that open a month, and somewhere around 2,800 to 3,000 that go out of business. When you look at the types of establishments that are opening and add technology to that, it's much easier now than ever before to take advantage of using music in your establishment. Today you have an MP3 player, you don't have to subscribe to a background music service that could be expensive, so you can bring your MP3 player in and put it in a docking station. You simply couldn't do that 10 years ago."
Another area of growth for ASCAP came in membership, which is up 14.5 percent from last year to just more than 315,000 in the U.S.
Bradley said it is the organization's members who are most responsible for its continued success. "The quality and success of our songwriters and publishers, coupled with our aggressive licensing strategies, allows ASCAP to collect more money than any other perform rights organization in the world," she said. "If we didn't have top quality songs, we would not be able to collect this."
At Movie Capital we say that performances royalty receipts are all tied to the "real estate," the copyright involved in the composition!
Remember that the "I Create Music" conference is just around the corner and if you have not attended before, even if you are a member of BMI and/or another performance rights society, you must attend because it is very important as a composer (established or new) to meet others in the business!
In the days before cell phones became standard, everyone would go all goo-goo eyed over a portable phone. Now that cell phones are common place and the quality of service has barely improved, people are looking for an alternative to talking on their cells or regular phones.
The newest, hip thing (to use an old expression) is Voice Over Internet Protocol, or telephone services through the internet. Leading the advertising movement in VOIP is Vonage, with television commercials on nearly every channel and pop up and banner ads galore. But the real innovator is Skype, and as recently shown by their 10 Billion minutes sold, and they're doing really well.
Skype offers free computer to computer calls from anywhere in the world with their software. Just plug in a microphone and speakers, sign up for an account after downloading Skype (the software) and you're ready to go. How does Skype make any money? They make it possible to call real phone numbers (land line and cells alike), and sell minutes in chunks of 10 Euros. Calls to almost every country in Europe and North America, plus Australia, are only 1.7 Euros a minute, while rates are nearly as low for other countries. The amazing thing is that while it costs you 1.7 Euros to call out from your computer, no matter who you are calling, it counts as a local call for them.
The other way two ways Skype makes money are selling phone numbers and voicemail. When you have a SkypeIn number, your friends who don’t have Skype, can call a regular phone number and you will receive the call on your computer. Skype sells these numbers at 10 Euros per 3 months, or 30 Euros per 12 months. Voicemail is also availible but is free with the purchase of a SkypeIn subscription.
Since we last reported on Skype, our dear friends at eBay just purchased them for 2.6 Billion Dollars. Next? I have aggressively used Skype for expanding my network of contacts in Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Our suggestion at Movie Capital Limited is that you visit the Skype page, download the free software and start the magic!
The battle in the new music business continues. If your an artist and wish to get your music out there, this is a great time to do so. The music business broke down because of the disconnect between the record labels and the consumer.
As a small kid growing up in West Covina, California, we put food on our table, paid our mortgage and supported three families by owning several small record stores. A lot of our customer's in those days were kids. Each one saving up their allowance for several weeks to come into my Dad's store, Marty's Music, put their hard earned money down and purchase some vinyl magic. That was in 1958.
Now fast forward to today and look at our kids. They have more income than their predecessors did. Where is the problem? The problem is that there has been a huge disconnect between the retailer and the consumer. It is a known fact that if you can get your hands and ears on the music first, you'll spend more hard earned dollars on that artist.
How did the music industry function without the iTunes music store? It was called the "record player." Most music stores through out the mid-fifties all the way until the early 1970's, had record players at the back of the store. You could listen to any album in the store prior to buying it. This was especially true of singles. To now ask a 14 year old kid to go into Barnes and Noble and/or some other major retailer and put down 15 to 17 dollars is ridiculous.
The end result is that now My Space Music Would like to take out of Apple by playing "free streamed music" with advertising. Haven't we been here before? It's sad that the music business has continued to not listen to the people who matter the most in the business. The customer.
As part of the deal, Universal Music Group—the largest record company in the world—has agreed to settle its 2006 lawsuit against MySpace, which accused the company of infringing upon the label's copyrights.
Douglas Merrill remembers driving past the Capitol Records Tower at Hollywood and Vine and wishing he could stop in and look around....
The Capitol Records company was founded by the songwriter Johnny Mercer in 1942, with the financial help of movie producer Buddy DeSylva and the business acumen of Glenn Wallichs, owner of Music City, at the time the biggest record store in Los Angeles, California. Wallichs Music City record store opened in 1940 and was located in Hollywood on the corner of Sunset and Vine. It was the premier music store in Southern Cal for decades but closed in 1978.
Johnny Mercer first suggested the idea of starting a record company while he was golfing with Harold Arlen and Bobby Sherwood. He told them, "I’ve got this idea of starting a record company. I get so tired of listening to the way everyone treats music. I keep feeling they’re selling out. And I don’t like the way artists are treated either. Bing Crosby isn’t the only one who can make records. I don’t know, I think it would be fun." By 1941, Mercer was not only an experienced songwriter, but a singer with a number of records to his name. Mercer next suggested starting a record company to his friend Glenn Wallichs while Mercer was visiting Walichs' record store. Walichs responded, "Fine, you run the record company and find the artists,' and Mercer added, "and you run the business. On February 2, 1942 they met with Buddy DeSyvla at a Hollywood restaurant to ask if Paramount Pictures would invest in the new record company.
DeSylva said no, but that he would personally invest, and he gave them a check for $15,000 Dollars. On March 27 the three men got a statement notarized that they have applied to incorporate Liberty Records. In May they amended the application to change the name to Capitol Records.
Overwhelmed with his post as music head at EMI, Merrill in a statement said, "I have two passions. One is creating platforms and tools that make it easier for consumers to achieve their goals. The other is music. This exciting new role at EMI is a unique opportunity for me to be able to put those two passions to work together and help deliver EMI's objective of providing the best services in the world to consumers and musicians."
Merrill’s recruit at EMI comes at a time when the company is going through the middle of a restructuring plan. The label cut a quarter of its workforce in January. The cuts are expected to leave EMI with about 4,500 employees, down from more than 15,000 in the early 1990s. Under the restructuring plan, the company will mainly focus on digital distribution, among other things. Merrill’s exit is the third big loss for Google in just two months. Before Merrill, two senior executives, Sheryl Sandberg and Ethan Beard, fled to the Palo Alto-based Facebook.
The 1950s roster now included Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, The Andrews Sisters, Jackie Gleason, Jane Froman, Ray Anthony, Andy Griffith, Shirley Bassey, The Kingston Trio, Dean Martin, The Four Freshmen, Al Martino, Dinah Shore and Nancy Wilson. There were also some notable comedy recordings, including several by Stan Freberg and the Yiddish-dialect parodies of Mickey Katz. The label also began recording rock and roll acts such as The Jodimars and Gene Vincent.
Many children became familiar with Capitol Records through the release of a number of Bozo the Clown albums, which featured 78-rpm discs and full color booklets which the children could follow as they listened to the recorded stories. Although there were a series of Bozo the Clowns on various television stations, Capitol used the voice of Pinto Colvig, who was also the voice for Walt Disney's cartoon character Goofy.
In 1955, the English record company EMI acquired 96% of Capitol Records stock, for $8.5 million. Soon afterward, EMI built a new studio at Hollywood and Vine to match its state-of-the-art Abbey Road Studios in London — see the Capitol Tower below. EMI's classical Angel Records label was merged into Capitol in 1957. Some classical recordings were issued in high fidelity and even stereophonic sound on the Capitol label by William Steinberg and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski with various orchestra (including the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra), and Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as light classical albums by Carmen Dragon and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and a series of albums of film music conducted by leading Hollywood composers such as Alfred Newman. Eventually, most of the classical recordings were released exclusively on the Angel and Seraphim labels in the U.S. EMI reissued many of the historic Capitol classical recordings on CD.
In spite of the management turmoil, EMI has recently been on the forefront of several new digital initiatives. Last May, it was the first major record company to sell music without copying protections on Apple's iTunes store. Although EMI was not part of a joint venture announced Thursday between the other three major record companies and News Corp.'s MySpace, it is expected to join. By hiring Merrill, EMI signaled that it was willing to shake things up, said Laura Martin, a senior media analyst at Soleil Securities. "They are late, but this demonstrates their commitment to enter the digital world," she said. "Merrill brings with him an innovative framework for problem-solving." He was Google's chief information officer whose major projects included helping create the auction system used for the company's 2004 initial public offering and overseeing the launch of the Google Checkout payment service.
The most profound part of Douglas Merrill's background is this, Merrill said his appreciation of music stems in part from the fact that he was deaf between the ages of 3 and 6, when he "lived in a world without music."
Merrill is likely in search of "the next exponential challenge, something really hard that has never been done before," said Yan-David Erlich, a former Google colleague and chief executive of instant messaging start-up Social.im. For now, Merrill says he's open to new ideas: "I don't need to solve the problem for the industry first. I need to solve the problem for EMI. The industry will follow the leaders."
At Movie Capital Limited we think that Douglas Merrill will be up until the wee hours of the morning!
In the Wee Small Hours is an album by Frank Sinatra with arrangements by Nelson Riddle, released in 1955. It is with this album that Sinatra perfected, the concept album, fully realizing the ideas he had been grappling with in record presentation going all the way back to The Voice from 1946. It remains one of the most celebrated and enduring concept albums that Sinatra put out during the 1950s. Recorded at KHJ Studios in Hollywood from March 1st to March 4th in 1955.
In yesterday's post I was writing about Garth Brooks. While there is huge income from live performance there is another important part to the music business and that is the song. "It's the song stupid!" Without the song, you don't have anything. We salute Tony Arata and his story of The Dance. In his own words:
The Dance
"I will be the first to admit that without this song there might not have been the others. Ironically it was the very first thing I ever had recorded after we moved to Nashville. More ironic, perhaps, is how prophetic the words to this song have become by virtue of circumstance, not some grand design on my part at the time of their creation.
What has happened since then could have been no more anticipated than it could be re-created. My one brush with being right was pure chance, as it were.
I met the gentleman who cut it at an open-mic songwriter's show at Douglas Corner. Garth and Sandy had moved from Oklahoma about the same time Jaymi and I came up from Georgia. We were both doing whatever we could to stay in Nashville, trying to get our songs heard by anybody. The only folks listening, however, were other songwriters as no one else was usually at our shows. And so it was at one of those nights at The Bluebird, Garth heard this one and swore if he ever got a record deal, he was going to do it. Well, he did, and he did. I will always be grateful that it was a songwriter who made this one his own. The song was doubly blessed because it was also produced by a songwriter, Allen Reynolds.
One little-known fact about this song is that it originally had another set of lyrics which, by grace, never saw the light of day. Thankfully, these lyrics were lost in one of our moves and haven't resurfaced! The melody is the same as it was but the words that finally stuck were inspired by a scene from the movie Peggy Sue Got Married. Kathleen Turner discovers she can't alter one aspect of her past without affecting the rest.
No one gets to pick their memories, thankfully. I am humbled by letters I have received since this song was released—letters from mothers, fathers, wives, husbands and children who found something worthwhile in the message of The Dance."
Back in October of 2007, Madonna Signed a major 120 Million Dollar (USD) deal with Live Nation. Then at the end of March, Live Nation President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Rapino announced that the company has reached an agreement in principle to enter into a 12-year global contractual relationship with U2, who will join the company’s Live Nation Artists roster.
Why are so many established artists going to Live Nation? It's a very simple answer. Next too performance rights income (ASCAP, BMI, SEASAC and so on), the money is in live performance. Look at some financial numbers from established acts like the Police who pulled in over 243 Million Dollars (USD). To give you even more perspective, back in the 1990's Garth Brooks created a huge cash machine with live concerts. In fact, it's my understanding that while Garth only received 2 or 3 dollars per CD sold, he was able to keep all of the income from the merchandize at his concerts.
While U2 is now in a full long term partnership with Live Nation, their "physical distribution (CD''s) through Universal Music Group. So I say, keep your eye on Live Nation. This is a very dynamic company who is playing record label to Madonna and a strategic alliance partner to many established acts. Our prediction at Movie Capital Limited is that Live Nation is becoming the "soundtrack" to established artist sales! Live concert, captive audience? Yes, I say yes!
Recently an artist in the US came to me and asked about baby steps to taking his career to the next step. After thinking about it, I thought it would be appropriate to share it with everyone!
The artist I am using in my example is Elly. She is produced by world class music producer George Landress.
Here are the things Elly is doing and you can do this too. Of course I've added a couple of additional items because that is what we producers do. Most of the time our view is not just about the project being produced, it is about where we want to take the artist long term.
1) You need to put together a my space page with your bio and your picture and any music tracks that you have. Here is their home page: http://www.myspace.com/
2) Start networking with as many people as you can in the business and get the word out about you. There is no one like you dominic that can do it. So if you have not already set this up, go to Next Cat. You can visit them online at: http://www.nextcat.com/ The site is free you can start to get a sense of what other people are doing.
3) Immediately go set up a free account with You Tube. Set up your own channel with videos of some of your favorite artists. Then record a couple of videos yourself talking about your views on drumming. Put up some tracks of what you've got. If not, go into a local studio with a band and record something live. Even Sir Paul McCartney is on You Tube.
4) Start networking to as many music conferences as possible. The best and cheapest one coming up is "ASCAP, I Create Music, " here is their web site: http://www.ascap.com/index.html
5) Expand your knowledge by going to world class experts. A great starting point is: Keith Holzman, principal of Solutions Unlimited, is the management consultant who helps record labels manage for success. He is a trusted advisor and troubleshooter, skilled in providing customized solutions and proven bottom line results. Keith and yours truly met last year and I was very impressed with his very grounded "can-do" approach to the music business. He really cares about the artist and understand the steps required to take your dream and your career in music to the next step.
He's the author of The Complete Guide to Starting a Record Company, a critically acclaimed primer that takes readers by the hand and guides them through the many steps involved in building the independent record label of their dreams. Now in its second edition, revised and updated, it's available as both a paperback and an eBook. Invest the time to subscribe to his free newsletter.
Distribution? When your ready for the best approach to that, email me directly at: moviecapital@gmail.com and/or call me toll free at: 1-866-888-6175.
