From: Dave Dederer<\/p>\n
Subject: Re: The Lindsey Vonn Book<\/p>\n
You know I’m a ski racing nut and I’m looking forward to reading Vonn’s book.<\/p>\n
Everything you wrote about her and about achieving in athletics goes for arts and music.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I know music the best.\u00c2\u00a0 People who dabble don’t get it.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t get how hard it is.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t get how much work it takes.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why most artists who make recordings and play shows never get any traction, except maybe within their own tiny scene.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n They don’t get the level of emotional commitment required and the level of abject humility required to acknowledge when you suck and to do the work to get better.\u00c2\u00a0 And, in art\/music, it’s not to be “better” yourself — you also have to understand that you’re doing it for the music.\u00c2\u00a0 To make the music good, not to make you good.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I know people think my band was silly and stupid and a throwaway.\u00c2\u00a0 But they have no idea.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n They have no idea what it takes for a few people, individually and collectively, to get good enough at writing and singing and playing that they can go into a room of strangers who have never heard them play before and not only delight those strangers but compel them to bring 2,3,4 friends with them the next time they come.\u00c2\u00a0 And all of a sudden there are 700 people in the club and 1,000 waiting outside to get in.\u00c2\u00a0 Not because you’re cool, but because you did the hard work to get good.\u00c2\u00a0 Because you care SO MUCH about creating something that WORKS, that touches other people the way The Beatles or Joni Mitchell or Stevie Wonder touches you.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Being good really isn’t very fun.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s hard work.\u00c2\u00a0 I go powder skiing to have fun.\u00c2\u00a0 Playing music is life and death, even playing a gig these days in a goofy cover band for a benefit show.\u00c2\u00a0 It just matters that much, and it has to if you want to be any good.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/p>\n From: Bob Edwards<\/p>\n Subject: Re: The Lindsey Vonn Book<\/p>\n Bob<\/p>\n Great Lindsey Vonn book review. You have an ability to relate and get to the heart of the story.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I was living with Dan Fogelberg in Nashville. We had returned from the first east leg of his first \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Homefree\u00e2\u20ac\u009d tour and now he had returned from LA after cutting the west leg of the tour short and going without me. In the time he was gone, I had a chance to think about my life and what I wanted to do. I had decided that I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to be a part of the Dan Fogelberg show (assuming he wanted me to be) and I needed to return to U of I to complete my degree. \u00c2\u00a0There is a lot more to the story but all was good with Dan and I. \u00c2\u00a0The rock n roll road is a long lonely one with a lot of time after and between sound checks and shows. \u00c2\u00a0Nobody knew who Dan Fogelberg was so I called it the Dan Fogelberg (who?) tour. \u00c2\u00a0But I digress. \u00c2\u00a0I am leaving to go back to Illinois and Dan says: \u00c2\u00a0You know how hard I have worked! \u00c2\u00a0Validation? \u00c2\u00a0Yes, I knew (up close and personal) how hard Dan worked and I know from our time together how hard he would continue to work. \u00c2\u00a0In Nashville, through Dan, I had met so many talented people, but Dan was special because he \u00e2\u20ac\u0153made it\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Of course, Dan also had Irving Azoff. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Irving and I weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t friends then or afterwards. But, Dan was like Vonn: a loner and a hard worker. He was a perfectionist. \u00c2\u00a0Dan died at 59 from Prostrate Cancer, but before he did, he sailed alone from his Maine island home, to a doctor visit in Boston. \u00c2\u00a0That was Dan.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Hard work is often a long lonely road. A goal is set but more than achieving a goal, life\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work is a process. A process that Dan (and others like him) are always passionately working, wanting and trying to perfect. \u00c2\u00a0There is no substitute for hard work. Life is difficult not easy and only hard working, responsible problem solvers achieve success and maintain their success.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Only too often observers see and envy what someone else has but they fail to see what price they paid for it.<\/p>\n Best regards to someone who has enriched my life in many ways.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Bob Edwards<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/p>\n From: Daniel Stein<\/p>\n Subject: Re: Football Dying<\/p>\n Bob,<\/p>\n We just test drove our second electric car. It is really hard to get them in the midwest but we wanted to do it because of climate change and also I was looking for something\u00c2\u00a0that drives like a manual transmission. I grew up in Brazil where the vast majority of people still drive manual and well, we like driving. We\u00c2\u00a0still worship Ayrton Sena and Fittipaldi (hoping to see Emerson’s grandkid in F-1 someday – the Barrichello generation was just sad).<\/p>\n This is the first time I drove something that even remotely\u00c2\u00a0compares to a manual transmission experience. In fact, it is BETTER. And I am also not talking about the fancy Teslas. We drove an ID4 and a Leaf 2022 – both were amazing to drive and quiet. We pulled the trigger on the Leaf. We were worried about range and charging times but, even in the US, it is pretty easy to find a station and the new 2022s have great mileage. Gas cars are dead.<\/p>\n As for American football (not to be confused with real football: soccer), the game is basically a bad version of boxe with a ball but with more breaks for advertisement. No one outside of the US gives a damn about it. In soccer on the other hand, the action never stops. It is like comparing the Grammys\u00c2\u00a0to Eurovision – one is an old system that no one cares about and the other is reinventing itself every year and remaining relevant.<\/p>\n We watched Eurovision last year (because of the movie) and I could not take my eyes off the screen. Even through the terrible bands, the show is phenomenal. What a great production. Also, like soccer – no advertisement interrupting the show. Sure, there are sponsors in the back and the occasional “brought to you by” but it is not a show where the ads are more memorable than the game like the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n Love your writing and your podcast – always looking forward to listening to the new guests. I quote you in in my class every now and then and recommend the podcast to students that are serious about going into the biz.<\/p>\n best,<\/p>\n D.<\/p>\n ————–<\/p>\n Daniel Stein, DM<\/p>\n Music Technology and Production – University\u00c2\u00a0of Notre Dame<\/p>\n Adjunct Professor, Latin American and Latino Popular Music – Saint Mary’s College<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/p>\n Subject: Re: Yacht Rock-This Week On SiriusXM<\/p>\n Re your Yacht Rock episode…it amused me that my old band Yachts has somehow got included on a Yacht Rock Classics compilation (a mistake, I assume; merely included due to the name of the band, and the song “Yachting Types”)…the raucous Richard Gottehrer production, with it’s marching synth and ham-fisted playing, must’ve scared the life out of people expecting the subtlety and precision of Christopher Cross, Steely Dan, Kenny Loggins et al.<\/p>\n Best wishes<\/p>\n Henry Priestman (N Wales)<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/p>\n RE: MACIAS\/SPOTIFY<\/p>\n Thanks for publishing David\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s full letter. I think every artist should read it to open their eyes to the reality of marketing music today and making money from it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n While we all agree 100% that there is a huge imbalance between the percentage master owners and song copyright owners earn, Steve Seskin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s math was off by a bit\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6or maybe it was a typo.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 200 million streams at $5,000 per million streams would be 1 million dollars, not a 1 trillion dollars.<\/p>\n Seth Keller<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/p>\n Steve Seskin needs to check his math. Wow.<\/p>\n Campbell McNeil<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/p>\n I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t write, record or play, but in regards to his posted note :<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yes, $5000 x 200 million ( the lower figure ) = 1 trillion dollars.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Too bad the actual formula would be $5000 X 200 = 1 million dollars<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure nobody would complain if Spotify paid $5000 per stream, but\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n <\/p>\n From,<\/p>\n Just a roadie (Doug Goodman)<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/p>\n The letter from Steve Seskin has “fuzzy” math:\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0“His label would get $5000 per million streams. He would get via his artist deal some of that money. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s do the math. $5000 x 200 million ( the lower figure ) = 1 trillion dollars. The writers would split somewhere between $40, 000 and $50, 000. So\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 label gets one trillion, artist maybe 1 million, writers $40,000 to $50,000. Do you think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fair?”<\/p>\n Using his example, the label gets $5,000 per million streams, then 200 million streams would be $5,000 x 200 = 1 million dollars, not one trillion.\u00c2\u00a0 Looks like he overstated by a million-fold.\u00c2\u00a0 Is it me…?\u00c2\u00a0 Bob Paris<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/p>\n I made a big mistake yesterday. My math was wrong and I apologize for that. In the scenario I laid out the label makes 1 million dollars. The artist makes whatever their deal calls for and the songwriters make around $20,000 each. That is grossly unbalanced and unfair. There are no artists without songs and some of the best songs ever written were written by outside writers. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d hate to see that profession go away\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n Steve Seskin<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/p>\n In my 25 years of running a reissue label\u00c2\u00a0in Canada, I have never met a mid level band from the 60s to 80s, signed to a label,\u00c2\u00a0 that\u00c2\u00a0ever made any money from their masters.\u00c2\u00a0 They simply never recouped.\u00c2\u00a0 Doing the math, even a gold record (50,000 in Canada) would not recoup based on how these deals worked.\u00c2\u00a0 I know people with several gold records to their credit, who still owe the label hundreds of thousands.\u00c2\u00a0 Each record simply put them further in the hole.<\/p>\n But many of them did not care.\u00c2\u00a0 They wrote their own material, so the SOCAN cheques were good, there were tons of places to play, and a record on the radio got them more and better gigs.<\/p>\n So much for the “good old days”.<\/p>\n Peter Burnside<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/p>\n I love David\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.and I agree with his comments\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.and others have had his back with better words.<\/p>\n I really just wanted to say that running into David at The Americana Music Awards at the Ryman a few years ago and realizing we were at the same Jesus Lizard show 25 years earlier was a revelatory moment for me. The dude is class and love of music incarnate.<\/p>\n Dave Schools<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/p>\n WHAT STEVE SESKIN SAID ABOUT SPOTIFY & FAIRNESS<\/p>\n Beth Nielsen Chapman<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/p>\n Thank you for publishing the Dave Macias full article. Very enlightening. __________________________________________<\/p>\n This was a great read. I got in a lot of trouble once because I said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153just because you make music, doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean you have a right to make a living at it\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. I see so many artists chasing algorithms In a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153record, release\u00e2\u20ac\u009d hamster wheel that has a song every month with no quality control. Just a finished song. At one point recently I had a client I was trying \u00c2\u00a0to navigate out of this have a release date before the song was even written. Well the verse was but not even the hook. Catching the algorithm was the important thing. \u00c2\u00a0No you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make a living off 1000 spins on Spotify. Or a million but you have the ability to make money in many other ways bouncing off Spotify exposure. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also cheaper than ever to make content like music videos. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an amazing time. Can rates go up, of course. The pie is indeed not fair but the public is not behind songwriters. They do t know who they are. They see a hit and they see the iceberg that is Ariana Grande but now all the songwriters under the water. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why does Ariana need more money\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. We in our bubble get it but the average person coming home from work has no clue who songwriters are or what they do. I have an action plan I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been yelling about for 2 years about how we can have better exposure for songwriters. IE. YouTube. Every single person is listed In video credits. The only people missing? The songwriters. Check. Managers and labels RARELY include songwriters. YouTube should have a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153type of video\u00e2\u20ac\u009d being uploaded. If it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a music video a new spot opens where at least one songwriter has to be entered for the upload to be accepted. If you could whisper something in the ear of a million people at one time\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 would that not be a superpower? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what songwriters do everyday and it creates revolutions, change, breakups, makeups, every day.<\/p>\n Chad Richardson __________________________________________<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/p>\n RE: THE BOEING DOCUMENTARY<\/p>\n I was on a DC !0 after a support show with Souther Hillman Furay for the Eagles that left Miami for LA July 5, 1974. Somewhere over a swamp, there was a big THUMP and the plane started to head down. \u00c2\u00a0The stewardesses went into attack mode and prepared us for emergency landing. The plane was shaking like a Vibro Massage bed but with much larger cycles-nearly violent. \u00c2\u00a0After 5 minutes the pilot (or first mate) came on the PA with a shaking voice and said ” l-l-l-adies and gentlemen, we are having some kind of hydraulic system problem and will report back”. \u00c2\u00a0They never did. \u00c2\u00a0I said my prayers, wrote a goodby note to my family, and looked out the window We we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re descending into the Okeefenokke Swamp from what \u00c2\u00a0I could see, when we got close to the ground there were a hundred emergency vehicles lining the runway. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how I discovered there was a Tampa! \u00c2\u00a0Loved it ever since<\/p>\n We disembarked and from the ticket area we looked straight out to the plane. \u00c2\u00a0There was the reversing mechanism from the wing engine gone and the center engine was gone too. \u00c2\u00a0After a while I went over to the desk and asked what was going to happen now. The desk agent said “we have another DC10 on its way!” \u00c2\u00a0I said “and how am I gonna get home because I am never getting on a DC10 again.” \u00c2\u00a0They got a DC8.<\/p>\n Turned out the plane was “Barbara”-National named their planes then-and it was the same aircraft that recently had a window blow out and a passenger get sucked out the window.<\/p>\n Bill Siddons<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/p>\n Bob, I’m so glad you wrote about this documentary and are encouraging your readers to watch it.\u00c2\u00a0 I grew up in the airline industry, my father having been a United Airlines captain who flew both Boeing and Douglas aircraft (including the Boeing 720 you first flew on).\u00c2\u00a0 I later became an attorney specializing in aviation related cases, so I have a keen interest in these matters and follow them closely.<\/p>\n “Downfall” a superb doc produced by Imagine (Ron Howard).\u00c2\u00a0 It delves into great detail about the history of the company and the change in its corporate culture following Boeing’s merger with McDonnell Douglas, which transitioned the company’s\u00c2\u00a0focus from safety and integrity to market share, stock price and corporate\u00c2\u00a0greed, all enhanced by Boeing’s fierce competition with Airbus after introduction\u00c2\u00a0of the Airbus\u00c2\u00a0A380.<\/p>\n But, as in-depth and compelling as this doc is, it covers only part of the sordid story leading up to the conditions that led to these two crashes.\u00c2\u00a0 Specifically, it implies\u00c2\u00a0that the FAA, which is charged with regulating airline safety, was duped by Boeing, and it makes the FAA out to be an unwitting victim of Boeing’s cover-up about the MCAS system. The truth is very much to the contrary.\u00c2\u00a0 For years, the FAA has had a too-cozy relationship\u00c2\u00a0with the airlines it purports to regulate.\u00c2\u00a0 Among other eyebrow-raising interactions between the FAA and the airlines over the years(too numerous\u00c2\u00a0to go into here), the decades-old arrangement called “delegation” allowed the FAA to delegate certain oversight powers to the airline itself, and Congress for years enacted laws broadening the scope of this arrangement.\u00c2\u00a0 Under that arrangement, Boeing was allowed to make its own ill-advised and profit-driven decisions about the MCAS\u00c2\u00a0system and whether pilots would be trained in it or even told about it.<\/p>\n This part of the story is laid out very well in the other excellent documentary about the 737 Max:\u00c2\u00a0 PBS’s Frontline episode called\u00c2\u00a0“Boeing’s Fatal Flaw.”\u00c2\u00a0 Only 53 minutes in length\u00c2\u00a0and well worth\u00c2\u00a0watching if you want to get the full picture of how corporate greed and governmental relaxation of regulatory\u00c2\u00a0standards can set the stage for the perfect storm that results in these kind of tragedies.<\/p>\n
\nWe should just remember 2020 when 200+ UK artists made $400k from streaming alone.
\nKeep up the good work . Thank you for all that.
\nMichael Wijnen ( Paris-FR).<\/p>\n
\nThe S.O.N.G. Space
\nLos Angeles<\/p>\n