Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: You say you want to make money in the music business and you don’t care how. Let’s see if you’re ready. Greedy? Check. Ruthless? Check. Predatory? Check. Okay, you just might be well-prepared to screw artists by putting on a music [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: In blending soul, R&B, gospel, and rock, Solomon Burke had the ability to reach from the stage and shake listeners to their very core. The might and majesty of Burke is honored in this updated version of a review of his [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: David William Kearney is a guitar slinger who will happily do axe-battle with you using blues, R&B, or rock. He’ll take on all comers with sweet toned ballads or psychedelic frenzy. And as this long-lost nineteen-ninety-eight article shows, the man has [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: It’s a rainy day in Southern California so I decided to fool around with one of the things I like doing best … experimenting with guitar sounds. I must confess I used to be pretty promiscuous with tonal experimentation. I went [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: A lot of musicians and bands are playing on any given night, at any given club in any given city. So taking a smart approach to music advertising and gig advertising when it comes to social media promotion of the performance [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: When did the Doors’ records start going downhill? The answer to this question is shortly after their third record, however, the band’s incipient tendency to write bad songs is evident as early as their first, as I will explain. The problem [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Joke book or important guide to the music industry? Author and compiler Jeffrey Weber believes it is both. One thing is certain: you will laugh, wince, howl, grimace, and laugh some more. Two musicians walk into a bar. One doesn’t order [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: African-American spirituality has been expressed in a profound tradition of music dating back to the first days of slavery in the United States. One of the consistent lyrical themes of this genre is the temporality of life, its transience and impermanence, the problem of evil, and the promise of a better world to come.

Music Industry Newswire Column: Playing in rock bands, creating soundtracks for motion pictures and television, and writing modern classical music would be an impossible combination for most people but composer/performer Jocelyn Pook is succeeding in all of these arenas. Jocelyn Pook does not hear sound [...]

Music Industry Newswire REVIEW: Edward Kennedy ‘Duke’ Ellington’s music is not often discussed alongside the work of Igor Stravinsky, Bela Bartok, and Arnold Schoenberg, but Reed College professor David Schiff convincingly makes a case for comparing and contrasting the creativity of each of these composers. [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: This is not about who is the better guitar player, viz, Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page. Maybe the question (and their theoretical rivalry) stems from the fact that both of them were in that smokin’ slab of 1960s pop-psychedelia, the Yardbirds; [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: The Los Angeles Times recently has carried several stories about a series of tuba thefts that have plagued local area high schools, colleges, bands, orchestras and other performing aggregations. A quick www search reveals that L.A. is not the only jurisdiction [...]

Music Industry Newswire REVIEW: Yes, OK, it took him a long time to get them done, and some people still haven’t gotten theirs from the initial production run. I am pleased to advise, though, that it is well worth the wait. Ours arrived from Europe [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: For immediate dispatch from the wild and wooly frontier south of Disneyland – after a decade of resisting the blandishments and imprecations of colleagues I finally re-attended this year’s NAMM convention (Jan. 19-22, 2012). NAMM of course stands for the National [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: The Sundance Film Festival begins today (January 19th) in Park City, Utah, and runs for an exhausting 10 days through January 29th. When I was an executive in the independent film business I attended Sundance regularly. I’ll never forget the frisson [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Somehow the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia managed to get backed into a political corner where it had to shut itself down for a day (January 18th) in order to demonstrate solidarity with those protesting proposed legislation to restrict the prerogatives of web site owners.

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: A press release today (January 17th) from Clear Channel announces a new division called Entertainment Enterprises, to be headed by John Sykes. I think Sykes is a nice guy; I used to work with him when I was at Capitol-EMI and [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: The sound of threatening and dangerous music almost changed forever with the genre-bending tracks from White Zombie. They blazed briefly, but the economics of their situation caused an implosion and music is the loser.

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: After several visits to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, the primary reactions were trepidation and consternation. The building itself is quite impressive but the well-packaged contents of the RARHOFAM are often silly and ultimately insignificant.

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: His name was Paul Atkinson and he played electric guitar. He made music in the most inventive of the British Invasion bands, The Zombies, whose gorgeous harmonies, infectious hooks and intriguing jazz-pop blend made huge sellers of ‘She’s Not There,’ ‘Tell Her No’ and ‘Time of the Season.’

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: When you hear the word ‘image’ you may think of a pretty picture or the manufactured persona of someone who is famous for being famous. But if you say ‘Baron Wolman image,’ suddenly you’re talking about beauty, truth, and iconographic permanence.

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Got a new product to announce? Then have a launch party! Got a cause, a business, a candidate? Launch party! But what’s the recipe? You line-up these ingredients: venue, food, alcohol, DJ, band, singers, photographers, videographers, and ink-slingers like me. Stir together and serve chilled.

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Some of today’s rock music has excitement, power, and a terrific touch of sinful intent. But in addition to those things, Punk music had danger. By looking back, can we look forward to a rock resurgence?

NEW GEAR: Inventor and iOS app developer Alex Smith of Alkex Instruments is back with his latest foray into MIDI controllers, with his ‘Ball Beats’ MIDI step sequencer product. Unlike his somewhat failed stab at creating a wood and knobs controller for virtual instruments earlier this year, this new product looks polished, and has a boutique coolness…

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Smoothly written and dynamic, Sean Wilentz’ book is full of insight, commentary, and historical perspective about songwriting’s greatest poet. Like his subject, the work is reflection and refraction of fact, fancy, and fable.

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Storytellers are to be cherished and Clark Terry should be on a pedestal for his thoroughly entertaining autobiography. Brimming with life, love, music, and great characters, this book is as much a history of the twentieth century as it is a history of his ninety years (and counting!) .

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Not a musician, yet a giant of jazz. Undiplomatic, but an ambassador of American culture. Often impolite, but always truthful. Unequaled, yet a champion of equality. And that just touches the surface of Norman Granz, producer of more music than one [...]

Music Industry Newswire REVIEW: With so many XLR to USB adapters now available on the market, it’s tough to decide upon which interface will be the best bang for the buck. The Shure x2u XLR to USB Adapter has shot out in front of the [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: You may think of spoken word recordings as esoteric or antiquated, but in Jacob Smith’s new book they have a different purpose: to illuminate the roots of today’s society. When NASA launched the Voyager missions during 1977, the two spacecraft contained [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Rock and roll allows for a wide range of styles, including music that shocks listeners, attacks social conventions, intimidates casual onlookers, and angers the vast majority of people. A band called Foul Play accomplishes all of those things. Fortunately, they are [...]

Music Industry Newswire REVIEW: Mysterious goth band The Catholic Comb created a disturbing smoky concoction in 2005 and then apparently remained underground. Yeah, I hadn’t heard of them, either, but now that I know, I’m a convert. Sometimes a good album goes unnoticed. For a [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Larry John McNally uses emotion like a paintbrush when creating songs. You may not know his name, but you’ve heard his work performed by Eagles, Bonnie Raitt, Don Henley, Aaron Neville, Joe Cocker, Rod Stewart, Jennifer Warnes, Atlantic Starr, Average White [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Abraham Lincoln quoted this basic concept of unity versus isolationism in his famous speech to the Republican Convention of 1858. 600 years later, Admiral Spock, as he lay ill onboard the Starship Enterprise, uttered [...]

COLUMN: Well, it began as what appeared to be yet another anti-Apple fanboy rant about Steve’s passing – he’s sick again, Apple is doomed, etc. — not unheard of in this era of fake news, junk news, and mis-read signals about celebrities and their antics. [...]

REVIEW: From his smooth writing style to his commitment to interviewing nearly every possible source involved with the material, there’s a lot to like about Joseph Vogel’s new book on the King of Pop. In fact, considering the poor quality of much that has previously [...]

REVIEW: Singer and professional vocal coach Teri Danz decided to put her own private lesson plan into a book with accompanying CD. The results cover less than fifty pages but singers will find something valuable on every page. You can sing, right? You hit all [...]

REVIEW: Playing together since 1986, Dennis Davison and Jonathan Lea have now done the impossible: they have created an original Christmas album that still rocks (well, folk-rocks, anyway). Plus, it covers all the emotions that surround the season, not just the traditional upbeat ones. That [...]

REVIEW: Music of the avant-garde is for those who are open to outrage, shock, conceptualized art, and boundary-pushing ideas. If you fit in that category, you will enjoy these tales of pioneers wrestling with the 1960s triumphs of their tragedies. Or perhaps it’s the other way around.

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Until a few days ago, Nektar was nothing more than a puzzling footnote to me. According to everything I had read, this band was a standout progressive rock outfit in Europe during the nineteen seventies. Not making it big in the [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Buddy Holly. Songwriter. Rock and pop star. Not a one-hit or two-hit wonder, but a 27-hit wonder, all in about 18 months of worldwide fame. Born September 7, 1936, died February 3, 1959, but his songs will live until there is no more music.

REVIEW: Hearing one of the softer tracks from this album playing in my studio, a visitor dismissed it as “NIN lite.” I hear it as something much more complicated: “NIN expanded to include the invasion and conquest of modern classical music.” A chameleon alters its [...]

REVIEW: If his name sounds familiar, you are probably already a fan of rockabilly. But even if that genre’s blend of rock and country ain’t your thing, these songs are so much fun that you might become a Burnette-ette by the time you get halfway [...]

REVIEW: Before seeing the singer perform live, this album sat around the studio for a few months. After playing it a couple of times at various volume levels, the urge to write about it became too palpable to pass up. While several tracks leave me [...]

REVIEW: Noisemakers unite! Calling all anti-composers and radical music theorists! That was the idea of a group of wildly unpredictable academics and stars of the experimental music world back in “the sixties.” Cage, Oliveros, Neuhaus, Reich, Budd, Foss and dozens more appear in this collection [...]

ARTICLE: You already know that pitching songs to music supervisors can be a good thing. In fact, everyone else also knows it, from players and songwriters to publishers and managers. That’s part of the problem. Too many people involved with music are aware of the [...]

REVIEW: Back in the early 1990s, Randy Poe authored a book entitled “Music Publishing: A Songwriter’s Guide.” Several revisions, editions and rewrites later, Poe returned with “The New Songwriter’s Guide to Music Publishing” (Writer’s Digest Books, 157 pages, ISBN-13: 978-1582978048, $18.99) and I am here [...]

MusicIndustryNewswire COLUMN: Quick, take this test: Which of the following names do you recognize? Eddie Kramer. Elliot Scheiner. Matt Forger. Ken Allardyce. Michael C. Ross. Rafa Sardina. Joe Chiccarelli. Brent Fischer. Time’s up. Pencils down. Anyone have some answers? (Anyone, anyone, Bueller. . . ?) [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: It’s eleven o’clock at night and I am being driven down a pleasant tree-lined residential street in Van Nuys, one of the three dozen cities in a section of Los Angeles called the San Fernando Valley. Or just “The Valley,” as [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Not in my house! How many kids have heard that phrase from an outraged parent who is nearly apoplectic over the latest sonic creation of artists in rock, pop, rap, modern country, goth, death metal, etc.? From the Andrew Sisters’ “Rum [...]

MusicIndustryNewswire COLUMN: Some songs sound special. There are recordings where there are licks that are tasty and satisfying every time you hear them. Recordings with such a powerful groove that you dance even if you’re sitting down. Recordings where the atmosphere or the feel is [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: By 1984 I had become gravely concerned (of course along with other key executives) about the profitability of Capitol-EMI’s U.S. labels. I met with Bhaskar Menon, then Chairman of EMI Music, and told him we needed to re-start a distributed labels [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: For the first twenty years of rock ‘n’ roll, brand names were not often associated with band names. The prevailing view was that corporate sponsorship represented crass commercialism. But by the time of The Rolling Stones 1981 tour, things had changed. [...]

Music Industry Newswire REVIEW: “Dhana” is a European born blonde diva and lead singer of dance rock group “TaxiDoll.” In this, her first solo release, “Confessions of a Lily Rouge” (Fly Me To The Moon Music), Dhana delivers a potent concoction of electronic pop and [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: The old “Bait and “Switch” trick has been around as long as human beings have slobbered on themselves into sentience. This trick is especially rampant in two fields: Sales and Marketing. So you can imagine my surprise as I’ve watched the [...]

COLUMN: There are friendly battles between many organizations in the music industry. Competition brings that out. There are also some interesting love/hate relationships. You know, like when companies want to fight Apple, but only when they’re not trying to get into bed with them. So [...]

REVIEW: The four piece group “B and Elephants” delivers innovative yet passionate progressive world music comprising fundamentally of Spanish folk and Classical Indian styles embedded in a dreamy and fresh psychedelic rock constant. B&E appear to be an unusual phenomenon, referring to themselves as ‘Psychedelic [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Ahh, the Stupor Bowl, that great annual montage of violent sports and commercials. Sixty minutes of football, obliterating nearly four hours of running time. Sixty-eight commercials, obliterating all vestiges of credibility and good taste. True, there were some fine-looking spots and [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Part of a continuing series on the history of Capitol-EMI Music. One of the themes I pursued with Bhaskar Menon (then head of EMI Music) in the early 1980s was the logic of forming a separate distribution company that would operate [...]

REVIEW: While the concept of a music keyboard with a computer inside isn’t entirely new, the folks at Austin, Texas start-up Music Computing think they might have invented the new sweet spot in bridging the gap between the notebook and controller crowd and the people [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: This note is about what I have come to characterize as the entropy or misalignment of how information gets transmitted in the music and film businesses. I will define what I mean by this, and then illustrate it with two examples. [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: You cannot teach someone to write good song lyrics. That’s just how I feel. And yet, I kind of changed my mind after reading “The Art of Writing Great Lyrics” by Pamela Phillips Oland (Allworth Press, 260 pages, $18.95, ISBN 978-1-58115-093-3). [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: At the end of the previous post in this series we left the Koppelman regime “in full affect.” It was a truism that at Capitol-EMI during the late 1980s – early 1990s, every six months or so something dramatic would happen [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Imagine a world in which you receive money every time your music is played. There are firms that appear to be working to make this dream a reality. Representatives of Soundmouse, Landmark, ASCAP and APM spoke about the intriguing possibilities on [...]

Music Industry Newswire Column: While I tend to cheer for whatever team is competing against the USC Trojans, I have to admit that the University of Southern California campus is magnificent, as is their annual Institute on Entertainment Law and Business, co-sponsored by the USC [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: When BMI announced they were teaming with Digital Hollywood to present a day-long conference entitled “Content, Copyright & Commerce,” a few thoughts popped into my head. First, it seemed that the title was a brilliant and concise description of where we [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: The history of Capitol-EMI in the late 1980s – early 1990s is one of constant turmoil and upheaval. Management devised, attempted to implement, and then discarded different strategies as it tried to respond to the dynamics and exigencies of a rapidly-changing [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Yesterday, a new Austin, Texas, start-up opened its virtual and physical doors with a new line of music instruments, Intel-based PCs, and accessories for both Mac and Windows-based notebooks. Music Computing, Inc., headed by former Open Labs guru, Victor Wong, and [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Unlike the USA, music lovers in Europe are likely to embrace multiple genres and styles. As international music artist Anand Bhatt puts it, “The tastes of music buyers in Europe aren’t as dependent on what’s piped through major media. They’re much [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: The title of this article is the same as the title of a book that should be owned by every songwriter and music publisher. That book is: “Music, Money and Success: The Insider’s Guide to Making Money in the Music Business,” [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: The answer to that question is “no” because we all hear differently. This is not a big deal for most situations in life, but it can be critical in the music industry. Your music moves you. My music moves me. But [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: For some time Billboard Magazine published a “Top 200” chart, which purported to identify the 200 best-selling records in the country. It used a variety of methodologies over time to comprise this data. Initially it relied on “store reports” from a [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Let’s say you want to make some money in the music business. Let’s also say you have no scruples about how you get the cash as long as it looks somewhat legit. There are many dark alleys down which you can [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Getting information about songwriting and music publishing is easier than ever because of the Internet but the problem is that the Internet presents more information than anyone can assimilate. Compounding the problem, some of the information is just plain wrong. That’s [...]

Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: Ted Cohen is considered a visionary in music and technology, and I agree. After all, he played an important role in devising the licensing agreements that helped create the Rhapsody subscription service and the iTunes Music Store. He got started in [...]

Music Industry Newswire – COLUMN: Ambrose Bierce began his “Devil’s Dictionary” in an 1881 newspaper column. His definitions were sometimes funny. For example, he defined rum as “fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.” Many of Bierce’s ideas hold true today, such as his [...]

Music Industry Newswire Update: As a long time supporter and customer of Open Labs (see my reviews of the Neko TSE and XXL models on this site), I was surprised, like many, to see the notice of auction for OL’s assets and IP announced July [...]

Music Industry Newswire – COLUMN: Music revenue is poised to reverse a decade-long descent. Yes, you read that correctly. Despite all the dire news stories of the past several years, there are reasons for optimism in the music business. Slowly, inexorably, the economic picture is [...]

Music Industry Newswire – COLUMN: Reading recent posts by music industry analysts Bob Lefsetz and Paul Resnikoff, you might think the entire concert part of the music industry has gone down the tubes. This is not to imply that the contents of the Lefsetz Letter [...]

COLUMN: “Why make music?” The question was full of disdain and contempt. Spit out at me by a distant relative, it was insulting as well as irritating. While my girlfriend at the time instantly responded “Why not?” all I could think of in reply was [...]

COLUMN: Since I started managing a music publishing company, many songwriters, singers, bands, managers and composers have sent me e-mails asking about decisions they need to make in their careers. One of the most common questions is “Should I sign a non-exclusive agreement with a [...]

COLUMN: There may be a world of money waiting for songwriters, publishers and performers, but collecting the revenue internationally can be perplexing. It is so complicated, in fact, that the California Copyright Conference (CCC) dedicated one of their monthly programs to the topic. The CCC [...]

COLUMN: There was a strange shift in the cosmos in 1999. “That’s when ‘mp3′ first overtook ‘sex’ as the top search term on Yahoo,” notes Tim Quirk of Rhapsody. And why was that change taking place? Because there was “a new piece of software written [...]

COLUMN: One of the more interesting tidbits I’ve run across this week, was the rumor of a new product from venerable synth builder Tom Oberheim. He apparently told a person that a new “Two-voice” model would be in the works for later this year, possibly [...]

COLUMN: Maurice The Fish Records, the boutique record label based in Seattle and Los Angeles that has garnered media attention for its thriving business model implementing a low-overhead and high-yielding approach to the marketing of fresh music, has bucked the economic downturn and signed four [...]

COLUMN: Okay, I admit that those four dreaded letters, DMCA, do not actually stand for a law that prevents copyright holders from making a living. DMCA actually stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And what that stands for is allowing big corporations to make more [...]

COLUMN: It’s official. Doomsday Fundamentalists will most certainly herald the forthcoming of the End of Days. They’ve been given a sign. What sign would that be, you may ask? Well, of course, I’m referring to the People Magazine interview in which multi-award winning and chart [...]

COLUMN: In April 1971 Joseph Lockwood (then chairman of EMI) fired Stanley Gortikov as president of Capitol Industries and Sal Iannucci as president of Capitol Records. As Lockwood expressed in EMI’s 1971 annual report, there was “evidence of ineffective management and lack of strong cost [...]

COLUMN: You can find many excellent books about music, songwriting, and music publishing. I know because I own some of them, like “All You Need to Know About the Music Business,” by Donald S. Passman, which is the most entertaining fact-based book on the subject. [...]

COLUMN: I thought it might be interesting to recapitulate the last days of United Artists Music and Records Group, Inc. (“UAR”) and the circumstances under which Capitol Industries-EMI, Inc. (“Capitol”) acquired it. The information set forth in this note is based on my personal knowledge [...]

COLUMN: I know, I know. It’s just a TV show, designed for drama, as human beings are magnetically drawn to personal drama, especially if it’s not their own. Yet being a 20 year veteran in the music industry as not only an artist but a [...]

COLUMN: There’s nothing sexier than a soft whisper in your ear. I mean, right up close to your ear. Something sensual, and something inviting, and — GASP — backed by a (GASP) wall of mid-tempo down-stroked electric guitars. Gasp. I am, of course, referring to [...]

COLUMN: Well, grab some milk and cookies and your most comfy feetie pajamas — it’s story time with Auntie Danielle. Once upon a time, in the early 2000′s, the record companies were starting to feel the leak of what would eventually CRACK them in two [...]

COLUMN: So you have the music, the show, the look … and you figure that all the business stuff just needs to be handled by someone else. I mean, you are just that good. All you need now is the management, the agent or the [...]

COLUMN: Johnny Mercer was Capitol’s first president. Glen Wallichs succeeded Mercer in 1947. Alan Livingston succeeded Wallichs in 1961. One of Livingston’s main accomplishments was creating the cartoon character Bozo the Clown. Livingston got fired in July 1968 and was succeeded by Stanley Gortikov. Gortikov [...]

COLUMN: Johnny Mercer, Glen Wallichs and Buddy DeSylva founded Capitol Records, Inc. in 1942. For a history of Capitol see Grein, P. (1992) Capitol Records – Fiftieth Anniversary 1942 – 1992. Mercer initially capitalized the company with $25,000 (later reports credit both Mercer and DeSylva [...]

COLUMN: How much money have you earned from your songs? At any given moment in time, it is difficult to know the answer to that question. For example, eight of my albums are on iTunes but they are distributed by an indie record company and [...]

COLUMN: Right this minute, one of your songs could be playing somewhere in the world and you may not know it. Your composition might be on terrestrial radio, internet radio, broadcast television, satellite radio, cable TV, satellite TV, in a nightclub, at a bar, or [...]

COLUMN: The description on Amazon was interesting so I purchased “The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution” by David Kusek and Gerd Leonhard (Hal Leonard/Berklee Press, $16.95, ISBN: 978-0-87639-059-7), not realizing it was written in 2004 and released the following year. Sure, [...]

COLUMN: One of my great joys in life is loving a product made by a great company that stays in business year after year and perhaps decade by decade. I can count these types of companies on one hand as I settle into my 40′s, [...]

COLUMN: In a somewhat stealthy mode, Open Labs has finally put up a page on their site promoting custom paint colors, bigger hard drive options, extreme motherboard upgrades, and various customization options for new and existing OL customers who buy one of OL’s keyboard or [...]