Chalkhills Digest Volume 12, Issue 52
Date: Sunday, 29 October 2006
Chalkhills Digest, Volume 12, Number 52
Sunday, 29 October 2006
Topics:
Warbles, Marbles (Lost) & the Death of my Survey Project (Again)
one way ownership
Fuzzy Box insanely cheap on Amazon
The alternative way to stick it to Virgin
Re: One Way Ownership
Marianne
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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2006 19:19:30 -0700 From: "Thomas Vest" <tvtwo@hotmail.com> Subject: Warbles, Marbles (Lost) & the Death of my Survey Project (Again) Message-ID: <BAY109-F243BB30EFF6140681BFE5AA1000@phx.gbl> Hello Chalksters Well, my Warbles arrived the other day (just the last three discs) and I can happily say that these are the best Warbles of the lot. For my money, disc #8 has some of the best songs out of all 9 discs. Through Electric Gardens is easily my favorite selection followed by I Gave My Suitcase Away. On disc #7, I love the The Big Express cuts. Matter of fact, my favorite track on Hinges is also from TBE: Shake You Donkey Up. Besides getting the final installments of the FW series, the best thing about these three discs is that I've revisited The Big Express again and realized (finally) what an interesting album it is. I've had some favorites there, but always relegated it to my lower half of favorite albums. Now Steve Maser noted in Chalkhills 12.50 about the entire Collector's Box being offered on Amazon for $72. As of 10/15/06 it is now being posted for $63.97 USD. Not sure how to feel on this. The consumer side of me says I've been taken for the ride and I should've known better. The fan side of me says that this money has/is going to Andy/Ape and he is deserving of the rewards not reaped after years of getting the shaft (self-imposed & at gunpoint). Typing & editing this a few times, I realize that I've been lucky to be comfortable enough to spend the money on these cd's. Others may say that the extra wasted money vs. what Amazon is selling it for amounts to nothing more than shipping costs and autographs from Andy. I feel my money has been well spent. Finally, I am very sorry to say that my survey request has fallen upon deaf ears since I posted my request for information from you all in Chalkhills 12.35. It started off great in the first week to ten days or so but then it dwindled to a few more and finally a DEAD END! I am actually quite saddened by this. I thought that the responses would be flooding my inbox & then I re-tooled the request in 12.36 for those of you who thought my original request might be a bit time consuming. Either way, I've struck out and, honestly, I am bummed out. For those 13 of you who did respond to me, I thank you for your input and warm emails. For the record, Skylarking was the overwhelming favorite album (If you can make an "overwhelming" case out of 13 respondents... I think you can as 12 of 13 rated it in their top 3). The finally tally was as follows: 1) Skylarking 2) English Settlement 3) Apple Venus Volume 1 4) Black Sea 5) Oranges & Lemons 6) Nonsuch 7) Drums and Wires 8) Mummer 9) The Big Express 10) Wasp Star: AV Volume 2 11) Go2 12) White Music All the best to everyone. I've enjoyed Chalkhills an awful lot this fall. Keep it up! Best, Thom Recently playing at my house and work> Beck - The Information AP - FW #8, 7 & Hinges Brendan Benson - The Alternative to Love UNKLE - Self Defence (Never, Never, Land - Reconstructed and Bonus Beats) Pinback - Nautical Antiques Bob Dylan - Modern Times Led Zeppelin - Catalog... but mostly Whole Lot of Love PS> This email was originally sent on 10/15/06, but was bounced back to me for some reason and did not make the 12.51 email. I've been thinking an awful lot about a few posters musings on the demise of XTC-- "The Band". For some I would imagine, that happened a few decades ago with the departure of Barry and the entrance of Dave... no wait, then Terry left and it was just... oops, Dave left and finally it was just Colin and Andy. Is it Colin and Andy? Are they XTC? I am not sure anymore and many of us are feeling the same. I'd love to hear new music & I'd love it if Dave came back as well. I don't think either of those things will happen and that is a shame given the state of the music that is coming out nowadays. For each of us, XTC is whatever we want it to be. My life has been enhanced greatly and I thank all the members of XTC for that. So, if we are having an XTC pity party, count me in. I'll bring a few bottles of wine to share and we can have a few laughs while listening to one of the best bands ever. Tv NP> Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2006 23:40:02 -0300 From: "Brunkhorst" <brunkhorstk@hotmail.com> Subject: one way ownership Message-ID: <BAY117-DAV62643E79CF1C517446C18B6000@phx.gbl> Simon asks: 1. How about a record company claiming to own a sound recording that is eventually paid for by the original artist anyway? If the Beatles paid for the recordings of their albums via their royalties, then why don't they own them once the debts are paid, instead of having to currently fight to get them back? It's obviously a false loan. EMI is claiming ownership of something it has no right to, otherwise if they wanted ownership of the recordings, they should have paid for it out of their own pocket and not expect the artist to do so. Be careful about generalizing the ownership issue: What Macca is currently trying to do is get his song publishing back. Northern Songs, the Lennon/McCartney publishing concern, was sold long ago. He received money for it. Since then, it's worth a lot more than what he got for it. The record label funds the recording(s), pays for its manufacture, and attempts to market it. For this, they get the right to continue profiting from its sale for a period of time; that's what the contract is about. If I am correct, the sound recordings of the Beatles are licensed to EMI (Capitol in the US), and Apple receives a percentage of the net sales. Some artists do indeed reacquire their sound recordings after contracts elapse - for example, David Bowie has licensed his back catalogue to Rykodisc and then Virgin. Record labels settle the accounts based on sales, but less advances, marketing fees, distribution fees, 'promotional costs' of free goods given to employess and radio, costs of making videos, etc, etc, etc., and whatever else they can dream up). The bottom line is that up until a few years ago, an artist could not successfully have the label audited to determine whether they were getting paid what they were truly due. Even now, it's nearly impossible. No person in their right mind would sign a major label contract. But that's where the hits are usually made. And the vast majority of records released lose money. That's usually because the labels make shitty decisions about picking artists, controlling the recording production, and marketing. The musicians are not important for the labels, usually. 2. If record stores are only an intermediary in the `leasing' process, and don't really `own' their stock, then why can't they return those mountainous piles of unsold sophomore slump albums, (like Arrested Development's `Zingalamaduni'), to the record company for full refunds? In the US, customers of distribution companies can indeed return unsold goods, but at a discount (which, when I was in the business, was 8%). As a one-stop distributor, we allowed our customers to return goods to us, too, obviously. In the UK, at least in my memory, this is not so, and it's why US stores could carry mass quantities, while UK stores were more of a ones-and-twos business. When purchasing, we attempted to return as little as possible, but being able to return the dead weight meant that we could gamble, especially when labels waved promotional money around. I remember one or two colossal returns back in the day - we'd buy 50,000 pieces of a particular title (like, say that MC Hammer title that no one now remembers) and return 45,000 when it bombed. Sure, we got smacked for 8% on the return, but we collected far more that that in marketing money. And the returns were within the distribution company, not the label or title; some distribution companies had a sliding scale: the lower your returns as a percentage, the less penalty you paid for them. And some titles, when the label was willing to gamble too, had the return penalty waived. Meanwhile, the whole 'leasing' concept spewed by the record labels is crap. I buy the CD, I put it in the stereo, and I hear the sound. The more likely it sounds like corporate rock, the less likely I am to buy it anyway. Kevin Brunkhorst no longer in that scummy business, and glad of it
------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 05:02:13 -0700 (PDT) From: Mark Burnell <yondermeister@yahoo.com> Subject: Fuzzy Box insanely cheap on Amazon Message-ID: <20061023120213.10645.qmail@web53614.mail.yahoo.com> http://www.amazon.com/Fuzzy-Warbles-Collectors-Album-Partridge/dp/B000ICLTT6 preorder and it $64 with free shipping. (and yes, thats for all 9 discs) this is ridiculously cheap for us US listees.......its way less $ than buying just vols 1 thru 4 cost me direct from Idea......gonna rebuy the lot and take vols 1 to 4 to the 2nd hand store, methinks..... Mark B
------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 22:32:44 +0100 From: "Philip J. Lawes" <pjl@plextek.co.uk> Subject: The alternative way to stick it to Virgin Message-ID: <8C9A6B7580601F4FBDC0ED4C1D6A9B1D2E4AAC@plextek3.plextek.lan> The band 'Cracker' left Virgin Records a little acrimoniously a while back. Virgin, as they do in these cases, decided to release a greatest hits album without the band's permission, thereby pissing off said band. The solution in this case: Re-record all the songs and release it on your own label. Nifty, and probably beats delivering hire cars. http://www.bloggingmuses.com/archives/band_cracker_gives_virgin_records_the_finger_000484.php Phil
------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 21:15:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Steven LeBeau <stevenlebeau@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: One Way Ownership Message-ID: <20061024041540.18610.qmail@web50312.mail.yahoo.com> > How about a record company claiming to own a sound recording that is > eventually paid for by the original artist anyway? If the Beatles > paid for the recordings of their albums via their royalties, then > why don't they own them once the debts are paid, instead of having > to currently fight to get them back? Because when you sign with a label, you forfeit your rights to own the recordings. Which sucks. It's not so bad if you're able to negotiate to keep your publishing, which is actually more valuable since performance royalties are paid to you no matter how much money the record label says you "owe" them. (I'm not going to explain in any more detail, but you can go to ascap.com or bmi.com if you really want to understand this better). The way it works is that a record label will pay for the recording, promotion, and distribution of an album. In return for these services the record label retains ownership of the finished master recordings. Because no record label would give an artist money to record an album in the first place if there was no long-term incentive. There are smaller labels that do allow artists ownership (or partial ownership) of the finished masters, such as Discipline Global Mobile (Robert Fripp's label). As for sampling, it's using material that belongs to someone else. If you get permission, it's legal; if you don't, it isn't. And it doesn't matter if you slice, dice, or otherwise mangle the sample beyond recognition. 'Cause even though it's unrecognizable, the only way to get that sample to sound the way it does is to start with the original unauthorized material. If there _was_ another way to get that sound (such as re-recording the part yourself and mangling it in the same way), then why are we going to such lengths to justify theft of intellectual property (even if we don't know who the rightful owner is)? -Steven -Steven LeBeau Got Pop? Music (ASCAP) ----- "Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic" - Oscar Wilde
------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 13:03:45 +0100 From: Mark Fisher <mark-fisher@blueyonder.co.uk> Subject: Marianne Message-ID: <C163BFB1.B4A7%mark-fisher@blueyonder.co.uk> There's a song on the Shebeats' website that appears to be about the former Mrs Partridge: http://www.myspace.com/theshebeats -- Mark
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