Sunday, June 8, 2003

Sicilia This place was recommended by a friend. Looks wonderful, doesn't it? 11:40:51 PM    comment []; new Cooder this review of the new Ry Cooder album in Culture Court painted such a great picture....had to order the CD immediately...... 11:40:44 PM    comment []; Egg There is a superstition that it is possible to stand an egg upright on its end on the date of the equinox. The above web site shows a great cheat for standing your egg upright.... ....and there is also this..... 11:40:36 PM    comment []; Ferguson Hill Loudspeakers Pretty cool looking loudspeakers! Here is a link to the whole web site. 7:49:24 PM    comment []; Apple music details leaked Leaked minutes provide an insight into the success of Apple's online music service. [BBC | TECH] 10:56:04 AM    comment []; Beautiful I am not usually a big fan of rap, although I do like MC Solaar, the poetic French rapper. But I think it is very cool that Snoop did his last video (Windows Media) in Brazil and even used some brazilian drumming....No bling-bling and no $400,000 Bentley in the video! Maybe Snoop is starting a new global era of american rapping. I mean how much gold and diamonds and cars and stuff can you cram into a video and how boring is that by now. If you had tons of money, would you spend it on more cars and more jewelry or would you travel and see the world? Kudos to Snoop for doing something different! Is Snoop the new Paul Simon? 10:27:32 AM    comment []; No candles on this tour. We have heard different reasons from promoters, the most interesting one being: Homeland Security. There you have it. Can't argue with that. We will have no candles on stage this year. 10:19:58 AM    comment []; Regarding my earlier post about the piece RIAA/MPAA make Edison's mistakes: I think it is important to point out that there are two parts to owning ones music, well actually three.... 1. The Master recording 2. The Publishing portion 3. The Writing portion With most recording contracts the record company advances the money and owns the recording, even though the advance is paid back by the artist - that's why the average contract is over 70 pages long. For most artists this is the only option available to them, especially at the beginning of their career. Some artists pay for the recording themselves and license the master to the record company. David Bowie and the Stones have been doing this for a long time. I did this with In the Arms of Love and The Santa Fe Sessions. Publishing is different. Somebody has to administer your publishing. Either you pay 10-20% for administration or you give up 50% for an advance, which depending on the artist can be quite large. Funny things about publishing is that if you sign away 50% for the cash you will never get that 50% back, even after you have paid back the advance. A publishing contract is usually for a certain number of albums or songs and those songs remain under control of the publisher forever. The publishing portion is equal to the writing portion, i.e. pays the same amount. That means that if you have signed away 50% of your publishing you have given away 25% of your income from writing a song. You could say that if the artist doesn't like the contract they shouldn't sign it. I would answer that artists don't usually like dealing with this sort of thing in the first place, are usually not particularly knowledgeable about the matter, and most of the time one doesn't have much of a choice, especially at the beginning of one's career. At last one is offered a 70 page recording contract...it's all standard procedure say the manager and attorney....etc. etc. It is usually after being in the business for a while that artists slowly learn about these things and start fighting. 10:05:03 AM    comment []; When I came to the US in 1979 I ate corn on the cob for the first time. The next year I visited a friend in Germany and since we couldn't find corn in any supermarket, we took some from a field......had to boil it forever since it was grown as feed for cows....... I remember telling my friends about quite a few vegetables that weren't available in Germany then, but are now..... People always use the phrase Supply and Demand....it really should be turned around: If we demand it someone will supply it! Or, if you prefer: request + supply. I think that goes for organic foods as well as politics, radio and everything else.... 7:49:59 AM    comment [];

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