Congratulations. The Future is Now

I want to congratulate my client Apex Music Nashville for the successful launch of the new Jason Boland album "Comal County Blue". Last week the record was the #1 country album on iTunes, as well as #2 National Heatseeker on Billboard (#1 Heatseeker in the South Central Region), and 159 on Billboard's Top 200. This is fairly astounding for the second release on a new label. This is a testament not only to Boland's great talent but also to the savvy folks at Apex Music and the mighty Thirty Tigers distribution team. Its also all the proof I need that the major label distribution system is no longer dominant and more importantly, that you don't need a million bucks to get a good record noticed, if you are working with people who know what they are doing. This is very inspiring.

Bands splitting publishing- two views

"there is a thing called publishing, this is what people live off of when the are in a band. EVERY band splits publishing so that everyone in the band is equal. i have lived off $30,000 for 3 years now since we signed that record deal. its hard to play in a band when you dont have a car and another member has a brand new convertible. its hard to go to band practice when you see all the great steaks, cookies, booze, a brand new hd big screen tv, about 100 dvds, new furniture, and all that s..t. there would be days i was starving and i would go to practice at his house and i would see that even the dog was being taken care of."--Bob Ferrari, formerly of the Pink Spiders, quoted on the Nashville Scene's music blog, Nashville Cream.

"A band is a microcosm of society. You hire the the people you want to work with it and you work communally and you split the money evenly". REM's Peter Buck quoted in Mojo, September 2008.

Without editorializing, that pretty much defines the two different views of how musical groups should split publishing income.

Greetings from Nashville

As the song goes, "Greetings from Nashville". Please join me in my nascent attempts to write about things that interest and concern me and I hope interest other people, both in the realm of entertainment law, where I toil daily, but in other areas of the law and culture. I also hope to use this space to help give recognition to friends and clients.