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| re: Takers? | |
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pidunk 12:04 am UTC 05/10/07 |
| In reply to: | re: Takers? - Infinite_Victims 10:00 pm UTC 05/09/07 |
> I doubt any offer > has been made yet since Meat only mentioned that he had > spoken with a lawyer about it. Maybe some very sharp attorneys make deals like they make or break an artist or a project, but in the larger music business, there are standards for practises just like in any other business. Meat as singer, Jim as writer, singer, musician, and producer, would be the most tenable configuration if such were to take place. I'm sure that the modifications made to the music business are major enough to change any paradigm, but let me offer two scenarios, one old and one new. Old: Meat and Jim get together and do their thing, gathering up who to work with, and record demos. They "shop" the demos around (Meat and Jim did this live, as opposed to through the shuffling of tapes)and in the ideal scene, a label signs them. (Meat and Jim went through 21 rejections. Sonnenberg said that several labels formed just to reject them.) In the case of the standard scenario, a label would sign an artist and suggest a producer for the album. In Meat and Jim's case, Rundgren made the recording as producer before a label was inked. What a "label" does, other than look pretty next to the little hole on the old vinyl, is be the source of up front financing for the project which money gets reimbursed to them based on the sales. Up front or on the back end, it is the artist that pays for the whole thing. The label takes all the financial weight at the beginning, while the artists do the studio thing, and the A&R (Artist and Repertoire) representative is the quality supervisor for the label's risk. The A&R guy sees the potential, and supervises the music and performance, to assure that the label will at least get their money back. The only involvement of attorneys at this point, is the ones who read the paperwork that the label generates for the artist(s) to sign. Some attorneys have bastardized the system by being the ones to do the demo shopping for the artist and made themselves quasi to the creative and legal process. But there is not very much beyond the music standards that an attorney can actually set, beyond negotiating how much money is fronted. For writer, there is a percentage, for a producer there is a percentage, for a singer there is a percentage, for a musician there is a union scale fee. It's all in a big book one can get from a large enough library or order from the publisher of such book. One is called The Songwriter's Market, and there are others, like union guides, and the American Society of Recording Arts and Science, BMI, and the like, a font of resources for research on such issues. In other words, as has been described also by those in the business, it is the artists' world and the businessman's venture. The artists do what the artists do, and the business people make it work. Nowadays, digital recording mediums exist and that sole control can be placed to the artists themselves, who can sell their own recordings and circumvent "labels" altogether. In old and new scenario, the artist, not the businessman, makes the music world turn. In the movie business, there are "offers". In the music business, there are discussions. If Meat does not talk directly with Jim, it will be impossible for anyone to speculate realistically about their working together. | |
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