Here’s a call for music from MusicDealers.com that is due tomorrow, March 8th.  The pay is good.  Throw in your tracks.  Visit their website and upload right now.

Feature Film - Opening Credit Sequence

Music Call: Client is looking to license a bright, fun, energetic pop / pop rock track that can have a party vibe.  This track can’t be retro sounding - needs to sound new and contemporary.  Needs to have positive lyrics, but NOT ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS. In the vein of Prince’s Rock music. 

Vocals: Yes

Use: Film

Due Date: March 8th, 2010 2:00PM CST (14:00)

Other: None

Composers and lyricists make pitch to join TeamstersSeeing demand for movie and TV music growing and take-home pay shrinking, about half of a group of 400 sign up to band together with an unlikely ally.

Alan Elliott, from left, James DiPasquale and Bruce Broughton, shown in Broughton’s home studio, are among those working to organize TV and film composers and lyricists. (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times / November 10, 2009)

David Carbonara has a gig many of his peers would covet: He writes music for the critically acclaimed AMC show “Mad Men.”

A former jazz trombonist, Carbonara loves his job and is grateful for the work. Yet even after he labors on 13 episodes for a full year, he says he won’t earn enough to support his family. A one-hour basic cable TV show like “Mad Men” pays $7,000 to $13,000 an episode, but at least half of that goes toward hiring musicians, paying for studio time, copying music and other costs that composers like Carbonara increasingly absorb as studios look to lower their expenses.

“You have to work 26 shows in a year to earn a living,” said Carbonara, a graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston who recently began work on an ABC drama without any idea as to when, or how much, he would be paid. “People don’t understand what we go through.”

Unlike most other workers in Hollywood, Carbonara can’t complain to a union about his pay rate or working conditions. That’s because he doesn’t have one.

In a heavily unionized industry, composers and lyricists are an anomaly in Hollywood. Along with production assistants, theirs are among the few remaining crafts not covered by a union contract.

Although conductors and orchestra musicians are covered by the American Federation of Musicians, composers and lyricists for television and movies are not represented by the AFM or anyone else. A group of them is determined to change that and is hooking up with an unlikely ally: the Teamsters.

About 400 composers and lyricists met in Burbank this week for an “information meeting” about joining Local 399. Artsy composers and lyricists would seem to have little in common with the brawny Teamsters, better known for representing studio drivers, location managers and, most recently, casting directors.

The tunesmiths had tried to join the Writers Guild of America a few years ago, but the union was then preoccupied with organizing workers in the animation and reality-TV sectors, and it suggested to its writing cousins that they approach the Teamsters, who are regarded as having more bargaining clout than the AFM.

“We are here to take advantage of a once-in-a-generation chance to rebuild our community and to redress the long-term health of our individual selves, our community and the craft of music for television and motion pictures,” Alan Elliott, a veteran composer and one of the key organizers of the union push, told his peers Monday night.

The Society of Composers and Lyricists, a nonprofit trade group that represents 1,200 composers and lyricists in the industry but does not have the authority to negotiate contracts, has not taken a position on the union drive.

Some composers and lyricists acknowledge that the proposed marriage with the Teamsters might appear odd. “We thought of the Teamsters like Jimmy Hoffa and crooked noses,” said James DiPasquale, a former president of the Society of Composers and Lyricists and a longtime TV music composer.

“We’re artists. Why do we want to be with that? We realized this is not your father’s Teamsters anymore.”

Although some at Monday’s meeting questioned the timing of the effort and whether it would succeed, half of those in attendance signed cards to join the Teamsters, the beginning of a process that could take at least a year. Two-thirds of working composers must agree to join the union before the Teamsters will take up their case. If employers dispute the claim, the matter could ultimately go to the National Labor Relations Board.

The board had previously determined, in 1984, that composers were “independent contractors,” blocking efforts to revive the former Composers and Lyricists Guild of America, which negotiated contracts in the 1950s and 1960s but dissolved after a disastrous strike in 1971 and a protracted and costly lawsuit by composers seeking greater control over their music.

“This is not going to be easy, but these people make such an important contribution to the making of motion pictures and television shows, and what are they asking for?” said Steve Dayan, business agent for Teamsters Local 399. “What everyone else gets on the set: health and welfare benefits and some sort of minimum pay standard and some basic working conditions.”

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates labor contracts on behalf of the Hollywood studios, declined to comment.

Although demand for music has actually grown in the last three decades, since synthesizers and later computer technology have made it much easier to score music, composers and lyricists are taking home less money as a consequence of shrinking music budgets and a change in how they are paid.

The average amount of music in a one-hour prime-time TV show has doubled from 15 to 30 minutes per episode over the last three decades. But the total music budget per episode has been cut by more than 50% to $14,000 from $35,000, Elliott said.

Compounding matters has been the rise of so-called packages that became more pervasive in the 1980s and 1990s, in which studios began to ask composers to cover costs they previously absorbed, dramatically shrinking their take-home pay.

That has made it tougher for composers to earn a living in the business, says Alf Clausen, composer and songwriter for “The Simpsons,” who says the show is one of “the few remaining TV shows that picks up all of my costs and that treats composers with that old-time dignity. . . . I’m more worried about my son and all the young composers out there.”

Source: LA Times

                                                                    S2S 

   Write ON! Writing Contest~

  THE SEPTEMBER CHALLENGE: GETTING TO KNOW YOUWrite On! Online is pleased to announce our latest series of contests, designed to encourage you to give those
writing muscles a workout. There will be an exercise for both the non-fiction and the fiction-writer … and a
winner in each category. Since any exercise can do wonders to get you in writing-shape, I encourage the fiction writers to try the non-fiction exercise and vice versa.GETTING TO KNOW YOUNon-Fiction: Choose someone you see frequently, but do not know very well: your mail carrier, a local store owner, your significant other’s best friend. Spend a few minutes, interview him or her, and write a 300 - 400 word profile. It can be personal or professional. Just take the time to learn something about that person and share it through your
writing. This is also a great way to practice interviewing skills and interpersonal communication.

Fiction: Choose someone you see frequently, but do not know very well: a bank teller, the barista at your favorite coffeehouse, your new neighbor. Study this person, and then write a 300 - 400 word character
profile based on what you see - or what you think you see. Who is this person? What does the body language tell you? What’s his or her story? Be as conservative or outrageous as you’d like. Just be creative and have fun! This is a wonderful way to create characters for use at a later time.PRIZES1st Place: Both winners will receive a medium-length (or 21,000 word) one-reader iScript, and have their stories published on Write On! Online 2nd Place: Both winners will receive a copy of

Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript by Chuck Sambuchino, compliments of The Writers Store 3rd Place: Bookkeeping Basics for Freelance
Writers by Brigitte A Thompson (Non-Fiction) Save the Cat !® by Blake Snyder (Fiction)  Submit your 300 - 400 word profile or character study in the body of an email to writeononline@yahoo.com by
Wednesday, September 30. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, October 13, 2009, in the
October Write On! Newsletter.

Welcome new songwriters Maddi Simmons, Simay Dilcan from Turkey who
e-mails “Sorry I only have 3 songs in English, all my others are in Turkish…”  We’ll just have to post a turkey song or two!!!  It’s coming on turkey time again.  And soul full (his song has Soul in the
title…) Gary Koehler from the US of A.Thanks to Phylis Marconi for keeping me inspired.

Thanks to the Melvin
Community Center for
donating all those cups.Thanks to the Suazo family for helping our S2SMelodic Director have a place to live in the USA.

RAVES & CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION

*Christopher Coppola, whom we met while making a MobiFlick at his PAH Fest Chicago 08, has been nominated to The
Huffington Post as  someone who uses New Media to change the world in a positive way.  Because of him, I now know how to edit video, have a Flip Mino that I use religiously and bought a HD camera.  He deserves Raves & Celebration!!! *Singer/Songwriter Sarah VonderHaar was chosen to be one of the artists included in a rewards program for Gogurt.  At www.gogurt.com you can download her songs All Mine &
Everything I’ll Be. 

*Our own Maestro Schroeter had his co-written song titled Heaven On Earth win 2 songwriting contests & the song will be performed at the second annual New York Peace Festival.*Ruth L. Ratny celebrates the 20th year anniversary of her Reel News newsletter out of Chicago.  A great read.  She also had her full length screenplay place as a finalist in the Chicago Screenwriters Network’s 1st Annual Screenwriting Contest.  Thanks for keeping us posted as to the film scene & KUDOS on the win!

*My own query letter won a 3rd place in the Teleplay category at the Write On! Query Letter Contest.  Thanks again Debra for the book & card.  Everyone send in a submission to the above writing contest.  Let’s give Debra, a Chicago native out in
California who is doing a good deed for us writers, a flood of submissions.

 The 12 Most POWERFUL WORDS To Use In Writing Copy:1. YOU 2. MONEY 3. SAVE 4. NEW 5. EASY 6. LOVE7. DISCOVERY 8. RESULTS 9. HEALTH 10. PROVEN11. GUARANTEE 12. FREEThese 12 words contain 10-100 times more value and
more ‘punch’ than almost any other word in the English language.  It’s communication with an IMPACT!

So when you write your band newsletter, promote your latest tour or CD or song—put these words in the headlines.

We need Holiday songs.  Please visit the website, LOGIN and
upload your holiday songs.  We’ll e-mail you upon receipt.www.Songs2Share.com  ~ Roberta  

New Music Award

The UK’s biggest and most exciting music prize is back with £50,000 on offer to make new music

                      *  DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES: 8 January 2010  *

http://www.prsfoundation.co.uk/newmusicaward/index.htm

New Music Award 2010

Open for entries today, the New Music Award offers £50,000 to realise a ground-breaking musical idea. Sally Taylor, our Chairman, said: “We are thrilled to launch the third New Music Award, which is set to be bigger and better than ever. It is an exceptional award which takes risks by encouraging creators to push the boundaries of their artistic practice and extend the possibilities of music regardless of which genre they work in. We really do encourage anyone with an inspired musical idea to apply.” The deadline for entries is Friday 8 January 2009. Find out how to enter What would you create with £50,000? The 9 proposals shortlisted for the two previous New Music Awards showed the huge spectrum of musical innovation from the UK’s music creators - from beatboxing, samples of weather systems and African operetta to cathedral bells, bicycle bells and a choir of bats. We look forward to hearing even more creative ideas from you again this time. Jem Finer, who won the first New Music Award with Score for a Hole in the Ground in 2005, welcomed the return of the award and the support it provides for creators who often find funding difficult for visionary musical projects. He said: “Winning the PRSF New Music Award enabled me to make a piece of work I never really imagined I’d find the resources to complete. It was a wonderful opportunity and I remain deeply impressed by the PRS Foundation’s commitment to steering away from more traditional and safe choices in their funding.” Find out about the previous shortlists and winners What do you think? The New Music Award has been dubbed “the Turner Prize for music” but we think it’s more exciting (as well as offering more money!) We also think that new music should be as much in the public consciousness as contemporary visual art. What do you think? Join our discussion on Facebook and Twitter (using #newmusicaward)

Legendary Pictures will develop film and then look for approval from the guitarist’s estate

Jimi Hendrix plays at The Experience Marquee Club in London in 1967. Photograph: Marc Sharratt/Rex Features

Jimi Hendrix is set to become the latest in a string of musicians to have a biopic made about their lives – if his estate will only agree to it.

Previous attempts to make a film about the life of the legendary guitarist have failed to meet with the approval of Hendrix’s estate. In 2006, the high court prevented director John Hillman and Dragonslayer Films from making their proposed Hendrix biopic, ruling that the company had no rights to Hendrix’s music or likeness, while Hendrix’s estate, run by his stepsister Janie Hendrix, also refused to license music to a proposed film starring Outkast’s Andre 3000.

But Variety reports that Legendary Pictures is planning a feature film about the life of the man named the greatest guitarist in rock history by Rolling Stone. Legendary will develop the project first and then win approval from the estate, it says – discussions so far have been “loose”, with no firm rights deal put in place.

If it does make it to the cinemas, the Hendrix biopic would track the guitarist’s life from his stint in the US army through his journey to musical superstardom at Woodstock to his death in London in 1970. Legendary has made no comment on possible casting.

Source: The Guardian

Woodstock: The Summer of ‘69

Aug 24 2009 By Polly Weeks

The name Michael Lang may not sound all that familiar but his festival Woodstock will. To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the legendary festival this month, the man who started it all recalls the hedonistic days of 1969.

In the summer of 1969, half a million people descended on a farm in upstate New York for four days of performances by the world’s most famous musicians.

With legends such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin on the bill, Woodstock went down in history as the most celebrated rock music festival the world has ever seen.

The brainchild of Michael Lang, the festival has come to epitomise the Swinging Sixties as much as Beatlemania, pot smoking hippies and student peace protests.

“What happened that weekend was that it became this community of people who were like minded and part of a cultural movement,” says Lang, 65.

“We were all very much against the Vietnam War and were all involved in human rights struggles. Because we were in charge, we were able to do it very much the way we wanted to.”

Although the hedonistic, ‘flower child’ days belong to the past, the memory of Woodstock still lives on and Lang has more reason than most to toast its legacy.

He was just 25 when he left Coconut Grove, Florida and returned to his native New York to make his music festival dreams a reality.

“I’d just had it with Florida. I’d lost a lot of money and while I’d had an amazing experience there, the Grove went from being this idyllic little arts community where dogs could sleep in the middle of the road all day without being disturbed, to high rises and condominiums,” Lang explains.

“It just seemed like a good time to move back to the New York area. I knew Woodstock from when I was a kid as we used to go there with my folks and it had developed into a nice music community. For example Bob Dylan and his band were living there. I was very much into music and the music scene and I thought, ‘Well that sounds like a great place to be’. It was near to New York and it was like what the Grove had been before the developments.”

So packing his bags and waving goodbye to the Sunshine State, Lang headed North to New York, where it wasn’t long before he had fully immersed himself in the city’s burgeoning music scene, and made some good friends along the way.

“When I moved to the town of Woodstock that summer I attended a series of concerts on a farm just outside of town, they were very low key, maybe 500 - 1000 people would come. It occurred to me it was just a beautiful way to see music. Just without having to deal with any authority figures and sharing that experience with friends under the stars. It was amazing.”

“I became friends with Artie Kornfeld and we talked about music incessantly and we kept on coming back to the idea of putting on a bigger version of the festivals we had been to at the farm - just putting it all together on one big weekend.”

It was at this time that fate struck. Two local businessmen, John Roberts and Joel Rosenman, had money to spare and were looking for a worthwhile business venture. Lang and Kornfeld soon convinced the pair to invest in their festival.

For Lang though it was more than a business idea, in fact he was keen to make the festival not-for-profit in line with his political ethos. Something thousands of others agreed with.

“Segregation still was a big issue at the time. There were also issues against women and gays. We just felt everyone should be on the same plane,” Lang explains.

“When we introduced Woodstock we wanted it to be all-inclusive. Throughout the USA, there had been lots of violent events that year. At concert events people were crashing the gates and thought that music should be free. We wanted Woodstock to be very inclusive so when people arrived, if they didn’t have tickets they could still come in.”

It was for this reason that instead of an anticipated 200,000 people turning up to the event, 500,000 decided to make the trip - with thousands more stuck in traffic, clamoring to get into the festival.

Woodstock set a bench mark to which many future events still aspire. From Glastonbury to the Big Chill (Lang even opened the Herefordshire event this year) festival organisers around the world have attempted to emulate the success that Woodstock had in 1969. The rise of these events and the ever-growing diversity of the format is something close to Lang’s heart.

“It’s nice to see they still continue with more than just music. They have other arts and cultural pursuits still going.”

Can any other festival compare to Woodstock though? “I think Coachella in California is a great event and Glastonbury - ever since the early days it has been wonderful. There are many festivals around Europe that seem to work on the Woodstock Model and that’s very gratifying to see.”

While many festivals may have taken on board Woodstock’s cultural attributes, some things had to stay in the Sixties. While people at modern day festivals are likely to let their hair down, at Woodstock they took it a step further and whether it was the warmer climate or the well-reported drug use, thousands decided to strip off and go skinny dipping in the grounds.

Given Lang’s prominent role in the festival, he was unable to join the action but that doesn’t mean he didn’t witness it.

“I was running around organising everything but I was also going all over the site so I saw what was going on. I’d say it was expressions of freedom right? That’s really what the overall message was of the festival, it was about freedom.”

With such a mammoth task behind him, Lang wouldn’t let Woodstock take over his life.

“I knew there was a danger that having done something so big and dramatic when I was young that it could have made a terrible impact on my future. I just made sure I got away from it and I just put it behind me and moved on so I wouldn’t be trapped by the fame of it.”

During those few August days in ‘69, Lang had experienced more than most 25-year-old Americans could ever dream of, and now 40 years on he can safely say that he helped make history.

Extra time - Michael Lang

Before Woodstock, Michael Lang was responsible for putting on the 1968 Miami Pop Festival.

Lang is still just as political. He’s now got his attention firmly focused on addressing climate change.

Sly & The Family Stone was Lang’s favourite act at Woodstock.

At the festival, Lang was always calm. He says: “When things get weird I just get calmer, I’ve never panicked.”

Michael Lang lives in Upstate New York.

Story from The Flintshire Chronicle.

Daddy On His Locomotive Engine ~

Karl & I just came from church today. 1st time either of us has been to a service in a couple years.  Real nice.  Had videos of kids from the classes telling “What do you think  your dad should do on Father’s Day…?”  Cute answers & wonderful natural kid responses.

Pastor made a very relevant comparision.  He talked about how fathers should - Tell their kids that - things are going to be OK, be happy, life is good, Our Heavenly Father is watching over us (if you’ve got it right with him) & He will see us through any tough times - instead of speaking worry & doom & unrest to their children.  He hit on the current condition of “the world” and that this is a very challenging time & still, we must, (fathers were his target), keep the talk to the children uplifting.

He also hit on forgiving your own father if he had parenting “shortcomings.”  LOL  The great thing he said about that is —- “Get over it…”  I said Gina’s name aloud as she has an issue with her childhood somehow being connected to current problems & constantly goes to the past in justiying the present.  And also a few Amens for my own childhood father “shortcomings.”

He told all the kids to hug their dads today until their heads popped off. 

That’s a cool line.
Happy Father’s Day to All Dads who nurture & all Men who lead wisely

Saturday, May 23, 2009 

The Dirty Side of the Music Business Category: Music   By Duff McKagan The Dirty Side of the Music Business Up to this point in this column, I’ve been writing almost strictly about financial vehicles or wading into the economic muck that we as a nation have gotten ourselves into and trying to bring some clarity to the situation. If I may be permitted, I would like this week to go on a little rant about some things that have been going on in my business and also how the business model for music has pretty much been flipped upside down over the last 10 to 15 years. Back when I was in GN’R, bands like us could pretty much operate at a break-even point on the road because acts were selling more records than is even imaginable these days. The reason for the dramatic downturn in record sales, of course, was the digitizing of music. Putting music on CDs meant it had to be in digital form; eventually this led to the situation where digital files like the MP3 were divorced from any physical product, making the Internet and home computers the prime means of distributing music. A rock tour back then, at the dawn of the digital era, was really just a huge commercial to sell your record. Because a larger portion of people get their music for free via piracy these days, touring, “merch” sales (mostly t-shirts, but also stickers and pins and anything else you can slap your band’s logo onto), and licensing of one’s music for ads and ringtones must support the average music act these days. The major record labels missed the only real opportunity to get paid from illegal downloading back in 1997 or so. We all remember the Napster conundrum when Metallica sued them, right? Hey, as far as I’m concerned, Metallica had every right to demand payment for their hard-wrought recordings. But there was another deal on the table then from Napster that was never really publicized—and this where the “major labels” fucked up in my opinion. Napster was making truckloads of dough off banner ads back then. It seemed the site was the most looked-at space on the Web and therefore a hot property. Car companies, cola bottlers, movie companies, and many others were paying top-dollar to get access to those Napster-glued eyeballs back then. Napster offered to share this ad revenue with the major labels so that artists would get paid for the downloading of songs that Napster made available for free. It now seems like the perfect business model for what was then a largely unanticipated future of digitized music. The majors balked and a huge opportunity was missed. Again, in 2005 or so, the remaining major labels tried a lawsuit against pirate music source Kazaa. And again, the company under attack offered to share its ad revenues but were turned down. Actually one major peeled off from the lawsuit and did a deal with the Kazaa; the rest just simply dug their heels in and are still in the same spot to this day, left in limbo with neither them or their artists getting paid. Nowadays, if a band wants an even remote shot at getting a deal with a major label, they must yield to the new business paradigm of giving up a portion of their publishing, their merch sales, and even concert receipts to the label in return for the release and marketing of the band’s music. This all seems dirty to me, but it’s the way things are now done—at least in the old corporate music world. Back in the mid-to-late 1970s, there was a grassroots revolt against the then-bloated music industry (read the book Hit Men to get an idea of just how extreme the business had gotten). Independent record labels like IRS, Slash, SST, and Beggars Banquet began to spring up, giving new and different bands a chance to succeed and reach a national audience. The same thing has happened again in recent years as a result of Internet distribution. But right now, there’s almost too much information out there. A club booker now books bands based on how many views they get on their MySpace page. Bands have to hustle—maybe even more than in the pre-MySpace era—just to get a gig at a shitty bar. What seemed like a revolution fueled by the Web now looks somewhat tenuous. But maybe the rest of the dominoes are ready to fall—and by that, I mean the ancillary parts of the music industry. I hope there is a true music revolution bubbling right beneath the surface of the underground that will hopefully surprise us all and get us away from, for instance, the vanilla agenda rock radio feels it has to follow these days in order to sell ads. Music blogs, internet radio, mashup sites—there’s a lot of things out there, of course. But with the possible exception of iTunes, the world is still waiting for the next wave of tools and institutions that will allow new acts to ingrain themselves into the popular consciousness the way bands like GNR were able to do—to create generational anthems, to mark moments in time for an entire nation, to unite our culture through music. Here’s hoping their arrival is right around the corner.  Source: Column from Playboy.com

Here’s an e-mail I received.  Tell them Songs2Share sent you.  I’ve heard one songwriter we sent to Music Dealers . com got a placement.  Hip hip horray! ~ Roberta

Baseball Songs Needed

Hi Everyone, We just got a request for a song about baseball. No real genre / style specifications but it should be upbeat, positive and maybe even a little quirky, not silly but it could have an element that is a little different than the norm (something that makes it stand out). This should be a full song with vocals. The song MUST be about baseball. Nothing that just mentions the word “baseball” or “baseball bat” etc. The actual theme has to be all about the game or culture of baseball. Think nostalgic. To submit to jobs either upload a new track and click “submit to job” on the upload form, or if you have an existing track in the system that works click on the details arrow to the left of the desired track and click “submit to job”. Please do not send MP3’s via email. All submissions must be done through your account at MusicDealers.com. We look forward to hearing what you come up with. - Your Friends at Music Dealers