The Practice Room

Fender to buy Kaman

Excerpted from www.Kaman.com:

BLOOMFIELD, Conn., Oct. 29 - Kaman Corporation announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its wholly owned subsidiary, Kaman Music Corporation (KMC), to Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC) of Scottsdale, Arizona for approximately $117 million in cash…

KMC, which comprises the company's entire Music segment, owns Ovation Guitars, LP and Toca hand percussion products, Gibraltar Hardware, Genz Benz Amplification, Hamer Guitars, and is the exclusive U.S. sales representative for Sabian Cymbals, and exclusive worldwide distributor of Takamine Guitars and Gretsch Drums. Privately held FMIC is the world's leading electric guitar manufacturer. In addition to owning the world-renowned Fender brand name, FMIC also owns Guild guitars, Charvel Guitars, Jackson Guitars, SWR Bass Amplification, Tacoma Guitars, EVH products, and is the exclusive worldwide distributor of Gretsch Guitars…

"We are delighted to welcome the Kaman Music Corporation into the Fender Family," said Bill Mendello, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Fender Musical Instruments Corp. "KMC is one of the most respected companies in the musical instrument industry. We have very similar cultures that have been developed over many years. The distribution expertise that Kaman Music brings to the music marketplace will complement and strengthen FMIC's growing operational excellence and ultimately offer dealers and consumers a better way to access a wider variety of high-quality music products and accessories."

Edward Miller, President of Kaman Music Corporation added, "There is great synergy between Kaman Music and Fender, both of which are deeply rooted in the long history and colorful culture of popular music. The acquisition of Kaman Music by Fender forms the most dynamic partnership of manufacturing and distribution expertise in the music industry."

[TJH]

Coryell on Pro Tools

“There were a lot more gigs when I was coming up. The studio gigs have dried out to a large degree because everyone's a studio whiz now. Everybody knows how to use Pro Tools.

“You can be mediocre and with Pro Tools make a perfect record in terms of technique... I stopped editing my stuff so much when I realized that I’d better live with what I think are my mistakes. I went back to Miles Davis who would do some stuff that was pretty out there that some people might think was a mistake - and I hear it and think it’s pretty good.”

- Larry Coryell, in an interview with Modern Guitars

[TJH]

News you can use

From the New York Times:

In a crucial legal victory for record labels and other copyright owners, a federal jury yesterday found a Minnesota woman liable for copyright infringement for sharing music online and imposed a penalty of $222,000 in damages.

The verdict against Jammie Thomas of Brainerd, Minn., brought an end to the first jury trial in the music industry’s protracted effort to rein in piracy with lawsuits against individual computer users. Since 2003, record labels have brought legal action against about 30,000 people, accusing them of trafficking in copyrighted songs.

Many of the people sued in such cases settle out of court for, on average, about $4,000, according to the industry’s trade association. Ms. Thomas chose to face trial instead, saying that she did not share files on the Kazaa network as the labels contended. She and her lawyer declined to comment after leaving the courthouse.

The jury verdict, which called for $9,250 in damages for each of the 24 songs involved in the trial, came after brief deliberations.

[TJH]

ArtistShare

Along (vaguely) the same lines as Radiohead’s latest is The Art of Listening, a CD from Jim Hall and Bill Frisell due out next year. This is an ArtistShare project, by which fans get to participate in the financing of the project in return for perks, credits, etc. For example, for $12,500 you can be an Executive Producer of The Art of Listening. For that you get:

- Prominent Executive Producer Credit Listing on the new recording

- A Limited Edition Jim Hall/Bill Frisell Duo project CD - #1/10000, autographed, personalized and ArtistTracked (Delivery Date Jan 15 2008 12:00AM)

- An exclusive recording performed live in the studio specifically for the Artistshare® Executive Producer Participant

- Invitation to the mastering session in NYC (date/location TBA)

- Exclusive video project updates from Jim and Bill

- Downloads of previously unreleased performance recordings

- Access to the complete project experience as it happens

- An exclusive narrated listening guide to the recordings that have inspired Bill and Jim the most with explanations as to why they chose each recording, how it inspired them and what to listen for.

There are other levels, priced from $12.95 to $7,500. Hall has two additional projects going with ArtistShare; a duet CD with pianist Geoffrey Keezer and a live recording at the Village Vanguard with bassist Scott Colley and drummer Lewis Nash. John Jorgenson, Maria Schneider and Kate Schutt are some of the other musicians who are funding new works this way. There’s also an ArtistShare biography of Ron Carter being written by Dan Ouellette.

 

[TJH]

"It’s Up To You"

That’s the download price of the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows, available October 10 from their web site (you can pre-order now). I don’t know what, if anything, this is a sign of – respect for the fans? Band already has enough money? Record company rep on crack? No profit in downloads anyway? All the cash is in touring?

If you need something to hold in your hand, you can get it in a diskbox: CD plus two 12 inch heavyweight vinyl records, plus a second enhanced CD with new songs, digital photos and artwork. Price is 40 pounds (around $81); shipping begins December 3.

[TJH]

What’s the Future of the Music Industry?

What's the future of the music industry? is a "freakonomics forum" posted by the New York Times. It features comments from knowledgeable guys like Frederic Dannen (Hit Men) and Steve Gottleib (TVT Records); my favorite part comes from George Drakoulias (American Recordings and Def Jam Recordings). George says:

“There are many factors contributing to the industry’s current decline. The biggest ones include the inability of record companies to take advantage of new resources like Napster and American Idol, the continuous churning out of bad music, and, of course, greed, greed, and more greed. I think it is clear how we got here; but where we’re going remains very uncertain. 

“For starters, while we’re still in agreement as a society that people want music, I’d say music is not as important now as it once was. Instant gratification has removed some of the demand. Music feels like it has become more disposable and cheap, with less staying power. As a result, it becomes a lot harder to commit to newer acts knowing they may not be around a year from now. I don’t see many kids nowadays wearing the T-shirts of the latest fad bands, but I do see a hell of a lot of AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd shirts out there…

“As far as how the music industry fits into this scheme, the old business model is dead. In five years, the CD should be over. Someone will take a stab at a subscription service — though the right way to make that work is a mystery to me. Maybe it will involve several like-minded acts getting together and starting a co-op, such as the bands of Ozzfest, etc. Meanwhile, music executives still need some sort of filter to help them navigate the new playing field…” 

[TJH]

This makes no sense

This is Alex Rawls, writing in his “Pop Life” column in Offbeat, the New Orleans music magazine:

“... In other business, for a foreboding dose of Big Brotherism, check out AT&T's performance when webcasting a concert by Pearl Jam. At Lollapalooza, Pearl Jam's "Daughter" became "Another Brick in the Wall," and Eddie Vedder sang, "George Bush, leave this world alone" and "George Bush, find another home." AT&T censored these lines, so people at the event heard them, but not the listeners at home. This might be belaboring the obvious, but this act of censorship wasn't about protecting kids. There was no obscene sexual or transgressive idea expressed, nor was any offensive language used. This was censoring a point of view for purely political reasons, which is exactly the fear that defenders of free speech have held for years. It's a short step from language that might offend to ideas that might offend, and if there was any doubt, AT&T erased it: Major companies will sacrifice almost any principal or value in the name of customer relations.

“The Pearl Jam incident is a reason why everyone should be concerned about Net Neutrality. The phone and cable companies have expressed interest in, and made plans to essentially become portals through which people travel to get on the Internet, in effect giving major corporations control of the Web. Currently, Net Neutrality isn't guaranteed, though efforts are being made to write it into law. At the same time, communications industry lobbyists are fighting against them.

“For more information, go to Save the Internet and the Future of Music Coalition's Web site. Both spell out what's happening and what prospective Internet Service Providers have in mind.”

Hard to believe that a company the size of AT&T would care about such tame commentary in a web cast. It made me wonder if Alex was getting the straight scoop - and, according to the Associated Press, he was, sort of:

"Lyrics performed by Pearl Jam criticizing President Bush should not have been censored from a webcast by AT&T Inc., a company spokesman acknowledged Thursday.

"AT&T, through its Blue Room entertainment site, offered a webcast of the band's headlining performance Sunday at Lollapalooza in Chicago. The event was shown with a brief delay so the company could bleep out excessive profanity or nudity.

"But monitors hired by AT&T through a vendor went further and cut two lines from a song to the tune of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall." One was "George Bush, leave this world alone" the second time it was sung, and the other was "George Bush find yourself another home," according to the band's Web site.

"AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said that the silencing was a mistake and that the company was working with the vendor that produces the webcasts to avoid future misunderstandings. He said AT&T was working to secure the rights to post the entire song — part of a singalong with the audience — on the Blue Room site..."

Brief delay? On TV, that's legendarily 8 seconds or so. If webcasting uses the same practice, that doesn't leave a lot of time for the director to consult with the suits in the board room. It suggests either that someone announced beforehand "We have to censor any criticism of the president," or the director was acting on his/her own instincts. More coming? We'll see.

[TJH]

The World Turned Upside Down

I have mentioned, from time to time and with barely-suppressed, unbecoming glee, that the music industry seems to be coming apart at the seams. After all, musicians since Jelly Roll Morton (1885?-1941) have been shafted by record companies. More recently, these same companies and their descendents have merged music and fashion into a single product that I, an admitted crabby old-timer, find poisonous at best. In order to gloat more evilly over the on-going demise of the music business as we know it, let me share some thoughts from a current article in Prospect Magazine.

- An American touring band recently decided to stop selling CDs at its concert because the CDs, at $10, were cutting into sales of their $20 t-shirts.

- One music biz consultant predicts that by 2010, recorded music sales will make up only 30 per cent of a successful label's revenues. The rest will come from their artists' “extra-musical brand extensions” - t-shirts, for example.

- It used to be that bands toured in order to sell recordings; now they make recordings in order to support their tours. (Not a bad development, to me, since it stresses live music.)

- “In the first quarter of 2007, the market for the top-selling 200 CDs in Britain shrank by 20 per cent compared to the same period in 2006. In the US, CD sales in 2007 are down by 15 per cent, in France 25 per cent, in Canada 35 per cent.” (Downloads aren't picking up the slack, either, and even  if they did, most new bands can handle the download business without a record company.)

- “Back in the 1980s, a seat at a concert by a superstar cost about the same as one CD album. By contrast, last summer you could have bought Madonna's entire catalogue for less than half of what it cost to see her perform at Wembley Arena.”

[TJH]

musicFIRST

This is news to me: A coalition of artists called musicFIRST is asserting that performers in the United States have digital performance rights when their music is played on satellite radio, internet radio and cable services, but NOT when it is broadcast via AM or FM radio. I don’t know much about this sort of thing, but that surprises me, and it seems ridiculous. Needless to say, musicFIRST is trying to change the status quo.

More tidbits from musicFIRST’s FAQs:

- “… a January 2007 study conducted by the University of Texas at Dallas stated that ‘Radio play does not have the positive impact on record sales normally attributed to it. Instead, it appears to have an economically important negative impact, implying that overall radio listening is more of a substitute for the purchase of sound recordings than it is a complement.’”

- “Currently, when American music is played in foreign countries, they withhold royalties to protest the fact that United States radio stations do not honor a performance right for foreign artists.”

Among musicFIRSTs’s Founding Artists are Aimee Mann, BB King, Brian Wilson, Don Henley, Dr. Dre, Dr. John, Jimmy Buffet, Keb’ Mo’, Pete Seeger, Placido Domingo, will.i.am, and, apparently in a naked attempt to add some heft to that list of musical lightweights, The Pussycat Dolls.

[TJH]

Best flatpicking

Flatpicking Guitar Magazine has just released the "Best of the First Ten Years" on four CD-Roms. The compilations include articles published from November/December 1996 (Volume 1, Number 1) through September/October 2006 (Volume 10, Number 6). The discs include:

Volume One: Cover Story Articles: every cover story article that was published during FGM's first ten years, including the transcriptions and tabs. 

Volume Two: Guitar Builder Articles: fifty Guitar Builder articles, plus 14 guitar reviews and 11 articles about guitar building by Don Gallagher. 

Volume Three: Rhythm Guitar Articles: includes 90 rhythm guitar articles (with tabs) and 29 interviews with rhythm guitar players.

Volume Four: Editor's Pick Song Transcriptions: includes 147 song transcriptions.

All are available through FGMs's web site, www.flatpick.com

[TJH]