Author: Glen Harness

Formerly a computer guy at a big medical center
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Record Label Shenanigans

I just finished reading this post about a band called The Ohio Express. In my book, record labels are one step above loan sharks, but this story takes the cake.

In a nutshell, the one big hit the band had, “Yummy Yummy Yummy” wasn’t even recorded by them. It was done by session musicians, but the band was expected to go out and act as if it were their song, ie. perform it live, and lip sync it on TV.

The record label took advantage of a bunch of naive kids. They basically said “here’s the deal, take it or leave it.” The group took it.

They’re still reportedly owed a bunch of money for the live shows they did. They were being paid a weekly amount, with the rest being put in escrow. The band never saw the money that was supposedly put in escrow.

I’ve had my own experience with a record company here in Nashville. I was contracted to write a royalty program for one of the independent labels. As I got further along into the project, I realized that what they were doing wasn’t ethical. It might have been legal, but I wasn’t comfortable with it.

When a band signs with a record label, they’re given an advance. That money is used to record the album. The label recoups that money from the sales of the album. The artist is also charged for marketing, packaging, and other items that come out of the royalties they’re entitled to. You could say that the record company is a loan shark. Although they’re not charging interest to the band, they make sure they get their money back, and in some cases, they make sure they make a profit before the band does.

As albums are sold, the record company collects the money and distributes it to all the folks who have a piece of the pie. In order to protect themselves, they withhold a percentage of the sales “in reserve.” That is, if a band has a contract with 10% reserves, the record company will only pay them 90% of the royalties due in the quarter. The next quarter, that 10% is supposed to be paid to the artist. What I found unethical with the company I was dealing with was that they added that 10% back into the gross sales. In effect, they were going to withhold money from sales they’d already withheld reserves on. That could theoretically go on forever, with the band not getting credit or royalties for all they’re due.

I ended up buying my way out of that contract. If I’d known what slime balls they were going into it, I’d have never agreed to do the program.

One other thing record companies do is to retain ownership of the music. That is, even though the company recoups the cost of recording, the record company claims ownership of the masters. So what happens if the record company goes out of business? The masters end up being part of their assets, and in the best case scenario, those masters end up with another company who’ll reissue them. In the worst case, the masters just disappear.

Congress should enact a law that would require any “abandoned” recordings be given back to the artist who made them. If the company goes out of business and the new owners don’t have any interest in the masters, the artist should get them back along with full rights. Or if the assets are acquired by another company and that company doesn’t have any interest in putting out or reissuing the album, then the artist should get the masters.

I keep reading about the plight of the record industry. They’re claiming that online piracy is keeping CD sales down. As usual, the record labels must think the public is stupid. They’ve conspired to keep CD prices high while at the same time they put out garbage. It’s no wonder demand is low. The record companies need to wake up and realize they’re in the 21st century. Instead of suing 6th graders, they need to revamp their business model.

So, as you can see, I don’t hold record companies in very high regard. I think if they were marketing any other product, they’ve have been under investigation for RICO violations a long time ago.

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NASCAR: The Last Pepsi 400

Since I got burned out on weekly NASCAR racing a few years ago, about the only races I try to make an effort at watching are the restrictor plate races, since they usually have more excitement than the others. Saturday night’s Pepsi 400 was one of the better races Ive seen in a while. Here are some random thoughts I have about it:

  • Isn’t there a “big one” supposed to happen at plate races? I think the most number of cars we saw in a wreck Saturday night was two or three. What happened?
  • TNT debuted their Wide Open coverage. They touted that viewers were getting the 16×9 “letterbox” view on regular 4×3 screens. I switched back and forth from high def to regular a couple of times, and the high def picture still showed more than the regular picture. Plus, on the high def side, they wasted a LOT of space at the bottom with their info box or ad box or whatever.
  • I will give kudos to TNT for at least trying something new. Putting the crawl at the bottom of the picture was interesting, but, like ESPN, the crawl doesn’t go all the way across, stopping on the left side where a regular 4×3 picture would end. Couldn’t someone have watched a Fox broadcast to see how they do it? TNT and ESPN/ABC neither make full use of the high def screen real estate; they both have a lot of wasted space. And what’s with the non-high def in-car cameras? Fox had those.
  • The main goal of TNT’s Wide Open coverage was to get people to watch commercials. Didn’t work on me. I set the race to record on the Comcast DVR, and started watching it about an hour and a half after it started (the only live viewing I did was to compare the picture against the regular TNT channel). About half way through the race we decided to go see a musician friend play, so I watched the rest of it after we got back. I did see one commercial though, and it was pretty funny. It was the one where Larry MacReynolds hopped on the golf cart to go get a Subway sandwich. The rest of the time, when a commercial came on, I hit the macro buttons on my remote that skip 30 or 60 seconds at a time. I guess the most effective “commercials” were when Bill Weber announced that the segment was “brought to you by” whoever.
  • Kyle Busch is definitely a man without a team. He’s a diamond in the rough, and once he matures I predict he’ll be one of the better drivers on the circuit. It’s critical for his career to get with the right team next year.
  • NASCAR and Sprint officially announced the name of the Cup series for next year. As predicted, it’ll be called the Sprint Cup Series. I wonder if the Sprint car folks have any concern about that name?
  • Tony Stewart once again opens his mouth and inserts his foot. Why can’t he just do what his teammate did and say “I haven’t seen the replay yet” and if they show him a replay, say something less insulting about his own teammate?
  • Dale Junior is looking for a new driver. Hey Dale? Why not help someone who helped you when you were wrecking cars at Nashville Speedway USA? Casey Atwood would be a good choice. Put him in some decent equipment and he can get the job done.

I’m not sure where the Cup cars are racing next week. That’s a shame. I used to be so into this sport, my whole weekends were planned around it. If NASCAR doesn’t figure out that they’re losing long-time fans at the expense of getting new ones (who won’t stay around as long), they’re going to be in deep trouble.

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NASCAR: New Name For Me, But Not For Thee

A telecommunications company pays a lot of money to be a sponsor. That company is then bought out by another company. The new company wants to change the name on the sponsorship to the new name.

That sounds a lot like the Cingular/AT&T deal, except it’s not. An announcement is expected tomorrow (7/7/07) that NASCAR’s Nextel Cup Series will be renamed to the Sprint Cup Series (or something like that).

So, it’s ok for NASCAR to have a sponsor that gets bought out and changes its name, but not for a car owner? NASCAR needs to stop competing with its car owners for sponsorship dollars.

Suspension update: In a post titled “That’ll Teach ’em, NASCAR” I talked about suspended crew chiefs still being at the track. NASCAR has just announced that they are no longer allowing suspended crew members at the track. As I said before, “Hello? The series sponsor is a cell phone company! They don’t have cell phones in the pits? Come on.” If NASCAR finds out that a suspended crew chief is still in contact with his team on race day via cell phone, what are they going to do? Maybe they are starting to get tough with the rules. It’s going to take a lot to convince me, but they’re on the right track.

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That’ll Teach ’em, NASCAR

At the Sears Point race, NASCAR suspended a couple of Hendrick Motorsports crew chiefs for 6 races. So at last weekend’s race at New Hampshire, how did Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson perform?

Gordon qualified 8th and finished 2nd.  Johnson was worse off: he qualified 10th and finished 5th.

Those penalties sure did have an effect on the teams, didn’t they? And if I heard right on the little bit of pre-race coverage I watched, at least one of the suspended crew chiefs was actually at the track. NASCAR says they are only prohibited from areas where you need a NASCAR hard card, plus they can’t talk on the team’s radio. Hello? The series sponsor is a cell phone company! They don’t have cell phones in the pits? Come on.

Suspension should be suspension. They’ve escorted other suspended individuals off track property before, so I’m not sure why it’s ok for a suspended crew chief to hang out in the team’s motor coach.

Now NASCAR is making noises that they may start suspending other team members as well if the cheating doesn’t stop.  It’s really simple for NASCAR to get a team’s attention: all they have to do is suspend the owner, the driver, and the car for the weekend of the race that they’re caught cheating in. Doesn’t need to be a multi-week suspension (unless the team is really dense about getting the message; one could argue that the #48 team meets that criteria). How many missed races would it take before the sponsor wants some of their money back? That’d beat a measly $100,000 fine anytime.

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Loud Crowes Coming Back to Nashville

Actually, the band is called the Black Crowes; they’re coming to the Ryman Auditorium at the end of August.

I saw them play at the Grand Ole Opry House in the early 90’s, and they were fantastic.  I’d like to go see them again, but I’m not sure my ears could take it.

At the time, that was the loudest concert I’d ever been to. It surpassed the Boston concert I’d seen in the 70’s by quite a bit.

As a former soundman, I’ve never understood the reasoning behind  making everyone’s ears bleed. I’ve often wondered why OSHA or the FTC or some other government agency hasn’t enacted some rule regarding sound pressure levels, either for the workers or the patrons.

There’s this myth that “louder is better”. It may be true to some extent, but louder than a jet engine isn’t better; it’s dangerous.

I started  wearing ear plugs to concerts and club shows about four years ago. I’d gone to a show at the Mercy Lounge and my ears rang for a month afterwards. I ended up having a hearing test that showed some damage in the 4kHz range. Luckily it was only temporary, but I learned my lesson.

That show at the Mercy Lounge now ranks as the loudest one I’ve ever heard. The performer was Sonny Landreth, and the sad part about the loudness was that it takes away the subtleties in the music. I’ve seen him at another venue since then and it was a lot better. I saw Hillbilly Casino at the Mercy Lounge a couple of months ago, and again, it was way too loud for the venue (even with ear plugs in it was borderline uncomfortable), which suggests that  the sound engineers they’re using don’t know how to deal with the live room.

Anyway, I doubt I’ll go see the Crowes. The ticket prices start at $35, and that’s just way too much to pay for a band that hasn’t had a decent album out in a decade.

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NASCAR: Still Letting Rules Violaters Get Away With It

The cars of Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson failed pre-qualifying inspection at Sears Point the other day. NASCAR has been pretty strict on policing COT rules infractions (even ones without any performance or safety issue), so everyone is expecting the hammer to drop on the two crew chiefs and a hefty fine and points deduction.

Big deal.

They’ve already gotten away with it as far as I’m concerned.  NASCAR didn’t let the two cars qualify, but still let them start. If the rule infraction was so bad, the teams should have been sent home.

Gordon started 41st and finished 7th, while Johnson started 42nd and finished 17th. Together they took over a quarter of a million dollars in prize money away from the other teams. Sure, NASCAR will probably fine the crew chiefs and drivers and maybe even suspend the crew chiefs.

It should be painfully obvious however, that that doesn’t work. If your crew chief is sent home from the Daytona 500 and you still win, what’s the punishment there? “Oh, that shows how deep the talent runs at Hendrick Motorsports,” some might say. That may be the case, and reports are that both crew chiefs are preparing their teams for their suspensions.

But can anyone explain to me how a car can win if it’s not on the track? Obviously, it can’t. Fines, points deductions, and suspensions aren’t working. Tell the team to pack up and go home, then you’ll get their attention. Basically, that’s all three penalties in one. Plus, they may end up having to refund some sponsor money. It won’t take too many missed races for the sponsor to start putting pressure on the teams to behave.

As far as the race itself goes, as usual with road course races, it bored me nearly to tears (at least what I watched of it).  That race is way too long. I’d pass by that channel in my channel surfing, and it just seemed to go on forever. There’d be 50 laps to go, then 45 minutes later, there’d be 45 laps to go (ok, that’s a slight exaggeration, but not by much).

I did watch the last 10 or so laps (or was that the last hour?) and was interested to see if Juan Montoya would run out of gas or not.  I wonder if they intentionally said they were two laps short just to get Kevin Harvick to back off?

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Jury Duty

According to a report by the National Center for State Courts, more than one-third of Americans will serve on a jury at some point. They say that’s an increase from 30 years ago, when that number was only 6%. (Hat tip: Ben Cunningham at Taxing Tennessee).

I’m still amazed at why someone would want to avoid jury duty. In the summer of 2001, I received a subpoena for jury duty here in Nashville. Everyone I told pretty much asked me what excuse I was going to use to get out of it or commented that they were glad they’d never been subpoenaed. Continue reading “Jury Duty”

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NASCAR: Junior Drops a Bomb, Part 2

When Dale Earnhardt, Jr. announced last month that he was leaving DEI, I posted my reaction (and a prediction) to it in a post titled “NASCAR: Junior Drops a Bomb“.

In a press conference today, Junior finished his bombing run. He announced that he’d be going over to Hendrick Motorsports. In the “I told you so” department, I pretty much nailed that one.

What I didn’t nail was which driver Hendrick would boot to make room for Junior. I predicted that it’d be Casey Mears. Instead it’s going to be Kyle Busch to gets the hook.

While Busch has won a few races, he certainly hasn’t won any friends. His driving style would lead one to believe that he runs out of talent a little too soon. Now the rumor is that he’ll be going to DEI in a swap or to Ginn racing next year. Either way, he is a proven winner, and despite his over-aggressive driving style, he should be able to land with a half-way decent team.

The next question in the Junior saga is, who’s the sponsor? The obvious assumption would be Budweiser moving back to Hendrick. I’d guess there’s probably an 80% chance of that happening. As far as the car number goes, I daresay that Junior’s replacement will be driving the #8 next year; I don’t see DEI relinquishing control of that number.

So, one piece of the Silly Season puzzle gets put into place for 2008. Now we need to see where Busch lands.

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The Sopranos Anticlimax

I missed pretty much the first season or two of HBO’s The Sopranos. I’d gotten into watching Oz and was ticked off that they took one of Oz‘s actors, Edie Falco. She played a prison guard in the show. Anyway, I eventually got interested in it and over the last three or four seasons made a point to watch the new episodes.

So last night was the big series finale. After all the blood shed last week, the consensus among show watchers was the Phil was going to be successful in getting rid of Tony. The show kind of just plodded along until Phil got hit, then started plodding again. All the time you’re watching and waiting for Tony to finally get his due.

Then at the end, the screen just goes black. That’s it. Tony and his family are at a restaurant about to eat dinner. All through the final scene you’re teased with all these ominous people in the restaurant, just wondering which one has been hired to kill Tony. As it turns out, the only suspense was whether or not Meadow would figure out how to parallel park. Then you hear the bell on the door ding, and nothing. No ending music, no resolution, nothing.

So, I guess the “moral” of the story (a story about characters with no morals) is that life goes on. Maybe crime does pay after all.

All I know is, I’m canceling HBO. No, not because of the way The Sopranos ended, but primarily because it did end. There’s nothing left on HBO I’m interested in watching. They canceled Carnivale and Deadwood, which were two really great shows. So I’m finished with HBO. They may have some great original programs, but it’s not worth my time getting into them just so they can cancel them later.

UPDATE: Called Comcast and had a very weird experience. The first call, I pushed 1 for English (this is America, I shouldn’t have to do that), then plugged in my 10 digit phone number, and was then told someone would be with me shortly. Fellow picked up, I said “I want to cancel HBO” and he asked me for my phone number and address. Then said he wasn’t the one who did that, and couldn’t transfer me to the one who did. I actually had to call back. The lady I spoke to on the second call was able to cancel HBO just fine. Strangely enough, she wasn’t even interested in knowing why I canceled. Anyway, it’s going to save me $144 a year, so it was worth it.