This film started being made over a year ago, i caught wind about it from seeing the Kickstarter promo that they made to raise money for. It was totally a story that i identified with both musically and professionally. I remember doing an initial reach out to see if I could be of any assistance. From there, I met Taylor Morden, who is both a producer and director of the film. One of the most focused and creative people I have met in a long time (he's already finishing up another documentary about the Last Blockbuster). Anyway, Taylor hit me up about my offer, and asked if I could help in the world of clearing music for the film. Being that I have worked in publishing, know the world and know people (many of the bands, managers involved), i figured, yes...i can do that for you.
The film and my task looked as something that I could tackle with a little more ease because of the amount of cooperation and excitement to participate they had already filmed. Pretty much every single band was represented in the film with on camera interviews. Some major guys were missing, like Dicky from The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, but you had Tom Dumont from No Doubt, Tim Armstrong from Rancid/Operation Ivy, John Feldmann from Goldfinger, Aaron Barrett from Reel Bg Fish, Chris DeMakes from Less Than Jake, Karina Denike from Dance Hall Crashers, Alex Desert and Greg Lee from Hepcat...I think you see what i mean.
So with this kind of participation, i felt I would have a better chance at getting to the people in charge of licensing on both master and publishing sides by having the bands wanting their music in the film.
Full disclosure. I sucked. Not one song. Not one good experience with publishers and/or labels. Not the indies, they were great. The majors.
This experience was something that i felt deserved a long rant. So here it is.
I have worked in the music industry for over 2 decades. I have worked as publisher, a music supervisor, and a&r person at major labels, a manager, a licensor, basically every single area. Not in the "i kinda know that", but in the i did all that and know it all very well from experience. I can read a deal, i can comment on one, i can negotiate. The majority of my past decade has been working with what people would consider "legacy" acts. When i was growing up, Journey was a legacy act. Today, it's a band that can still tour, still find an audience and still matter, but are less than 10 years old (as a band). What makes them "legacy" is that they had a deal and then they didn't. They had a budget and major label partnership and then they didn't. But, mot of them never stopped playing or recording new material.
Pretty much what this entire documentary is about.
Let me start by doing a brief look back on this scene (like I said, what the film details). It's a short lived revival, the "3rd wave" of ska. The wave was there as far back as the 80's, but it wasn't until the 90's that there was a brief window opening of entering the pop culture and financial gain to the bands and those invested in them. As mentioned in the film, it didn't last long, in commercial success, but it had a commercial moment.
It's never gonna work out
Quite the way that they plan
Their little greasy games
They'll drop you just as son as they can pick you up
It might be fun for a while
What happenes tomorrow?
I don't want to be no queen for a day
As the music business goes, when one pops, the immediate order is "get me one of those"... The ska moment was mostly seen in the success of Rancid, Mighty Might Bosstones, Sublime and No Doubt. MTV was playing them, alternative radio was playing it, TV shows and movies were syncing them. There was money to be had. If that never happened commercially, these bands would still be out there doing it, just not at that level. So with success comes money. None of those bands were signed for lots of money. i'm pretty sure the deals were shit. But, they were signed. Not because the bands weren't awesome, but because who in the world thought a ska band would become commercially successful?
Publishers saw the opportunity and came for the bands as well. This. The publishing deals based on the success of the bands, was the one place where bands were able to see some sort of financial potential, because those record deals were shit. So many of the bands signed deals with major publishing companies and made some good investment money. Can't hate on that. Publishers, like labels thought they had a really good shot at making some great money (some did), but like anything there is no guarantee. But the a&r people both at labels and publishing companies totally believed in these signings and worked their asses off for these bands (I know because I was one of them and knew pretty much all the other ones doing it).
That was 20 years ago. Around 2000, you could pretty much call it a day. No Doubt were a pop band with influences from reggae and ska and every other band was pretty much dropped to make room for the next thing. Nothing is forever. Well nothing except master ownership and an unrecouped balance.
The bands either broke up and the rest of the bands kept going. Some signing to smaller labels, some going DIY, some starting their own labels. But moving forward, the recordings and the songs they wrote that made them popular, they lost control over the use of those songs. and as time moved on, most of the a&r and marketing people that were the bands biggest champions moved on. So like any relations hip, over time, the people that once lived in the building you grew up in, moved out and new people moved in with no memory of your ever living there.
Also, remember, when a band is dropped. The label usually sells off the inventory of what they have left, so there is no additional promotion or product being released, which means that recoupment of monies owed is pretty much guaranteed not to ever happen. So, even if you have a 7 year reversion of your songs set in a publishing deal, if you are dropped and promotion is over and physical product is terminated, good luck in recouoping in what you owe in order to get that reversion happening.
That's where my experience working on this film comes in.
There was a film that came out last year that I loved called Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk. It was an indie film about the East Bay Punk Rock scene and the bands and artists that came out of it. It was actually produced by Billie Joe Armstrong and Tim Armstrong who are both pioneers and legends from that scene and still tot his day acknowledge it. This film for both myself and Taylor was a blueprint for music clearance. That film, much like this one, was not strong in the budget, but also included interviews and footage of bands and without their songs, would be hard to truly be appreciated historically in context. Every single band on camera interviewed contributed their music to make this film work. The one thing though about these songs and bands was that very few were signed to major labels or major publishing companies, so they had a better shot at clearing the songs as sole owners of the masters and publishing. But there were some that needed clearing and the bands cleared them by calling the labels themselves. Which basically means, they are still signed and know someone there to help them out.
I pulled all the requested songs and publishing information for songs like "Sell Out", "All My Best Friends Are Metalheads", "Date Rape", etc and made calls to the licensing departments. Funny enough, most were Universal. Mergers man. So when I got in touch with whomever I spoke to, (i'm pretty sure this was the 1st time anyone requested these songs in a while), they had to look up the song and see what it was. That was my first red flag. Nothing against the licensing department at all, the red flag being that the band and song in question was a "catalog" number and I knew right there the quote was going to be a standard rate from a sheet. It was. A song like "Date Rape" was easily going to be $40,000 just for the publishing, which would mean the master would match that. $80K for about 20 seconds of use of a song (for historical context) in a documentary who's total budget was $64k. Fortunately, there were so many other bands in the film that were 100% indie, owned their publishing and master and gave permission to the film to use gratis. As an added bonus, one of the other producers, Rei Mastrogiovanni, was not only editing the film, but is also a musician who was able to create original music to fill the spots that we couldn't get the actual songs for. But, it still wasn't the same as the originals in context of historical nature.
I think you see where i'm going with this.
Back in the old days, when there was an a&r or marketing rep that actively worked with these bands was around, I could easily call that person, tell them what I'm working on, see if there was a way to work with them or any alternate solutions and we could work something out. But we are talking 20 years later. New team, new players.
I spoke to some of the bands and some of the bands representation to see if they could help from their side. The influence of an artist and/or manager, still carries weight. Only to find out that these managers and artists pretty much have relationships with the people in accounting. So those outreaches (for the most part) were dead ends. I pretty much figured we have zero leverage. A lot of times, anytime you are looking for something, you need a name drop to try and get the ball rolling. You ask someone for something , they usually ask, who else is doing it...
I got a call from Taylor after feeling defeated saying that Tim Armstrong not only offered to narrate the film, but he also said we could use both Time Bomb by Rancid and Sound System from Operation Ivy gratis in the film as long as this gratis use would by Most Favored Nations with any other band in the film. Now I felt like I had my carrot on the stick to get people to see that there was credibility in this subject matter.
At this point, I called people I have known for years and came up with. They are now presidents and CEO's of companies, but are still amazing people in my world. People I can always count on when I go to them. So i did just that. Went to the top, made my pitch, asked for help and was granted assistance. Fast assistance actually. I thought i had a shot. it was looking good. spoke to one person, then spoke to another person, then got sent to the licensing person....who was the same person i spoke to in my previously. I swear to god, if you ever saw Spinal Tap, there is a scene where they are backstage in Cleveland and the backstage is so big, they get lost getting to the stage. They run into a custodian who directs them how to get to stage, they take off, stoked, and end up back with the custodian.
This was me trying to get a license by using my contacts. While appreciated and so generous for the assistance, the result took me right back to where i started.
I even reached out to the head of a company that only got there because of this ska scene. The band I hit him about was a band he used to go on the road with when they ere playing small venues. Serious salad days stuff. Reached out specifically for help to use 15 seconds of an instrumental for historical purpose in the interview. He replied pretty fast, sent me to one person, who sent me to another person and guess where i ended up again? yep. Cleveland.
Taylor and I spoke after this horrible experience and he and Rei came up with a way to make it work based on what they could use under Fair Use laws and the tracks provided by the bands who owned their own material and the original music Rei composed. It actually came out great and works amazingly well, because the story is what these artists discuss and not just the songs.
But, what this did do for me was make me realize how broken the system is. I can honestly say, i'm on the fence 100% about sync and master uses in film, TV, videogames, etc. this is honestly a place where artists should see some income or work towards recouping whatever gross amount of money they owe from a deal they did 20 years ago. Some are recouped because of the efforts of the labels and publishers where they were signed. No Doubt and Mighty Mighty Bosstones did amazingly well.
But there are a bunch of these bands that are still doing it and working just as hard to make a living. A placement in a film like this for a band could only help their viability, touring numbers, anything, but when you become a catalog and a ISRC code and have no say in what happens with your recordings or songs, there is a problem.
There should be a scale based on usage that is looked at. As a manager of a band that owns their own publishing and some masters, when Lipton Tea hit me up about a license, i was not going to go small. I know they have a budget. The song was going to be background. It wasn't going tot do anything for our legacy or sell records. It was purely a fuck you, pay me moment and it was. We appreciated it and love Lipton for it. It wasn't a negotiation, they offered, we worked with the offer, band made money. Thank you, come again. But there is also an upcoming documentary that will use the bands music. It IS historical. It WILL help our legacy and WILL get new fans while being nostalgic for the old ones. This film won't have any money like Lipton. There is no question, they will have full permission to use it. If the band was signed to a major with their publishing, knowing this film was being made, I would go right into whomever i needed to and would fight for the permission to use it.
In the case of a film of this size, obviously the budget isn't the same as a major film, tv show or commercial. I am 100% sympathetic to the question and statement that if you have a budget for film and editing, you should have a budget for music. We did. It was a little more than 1/3 of the budget. Taylor filmed, directed the majority of it, Rei edited and composed music. They hired animators, colorists, etc... yes costs. But as I said, the music budget was there, it just wasn't huge, but you hope that bands have influence on the master owners to work with them at their request. I think there is a place for negotiation and observance of the situation. These labels and publishers have forgotten about these acts and these songs. These artists are still doing it for the most part. Finding a new audience while engaging the nostalgia only helps these bands in their touring, merchandise, etc. It sure doesn't help on their sales or royalties, because they aren't getting equal shares on streaming. The majors are and will make any revenue from this film if there is any uptick in streaming. So, I'm absolutely simpatico to the "but this editor got paid or the animator did"...I agree, but we had money budgeted. The music in and artists in this film are main characters and locations, not background uses. A film sync is typically a background use with very little career advancing potential. A documentary about these bands and artists, featuring these artists is.
I get that these bands are catalog and pretty much nobody knows them at the companies, so why be a dick and not allow the usage. Most likely, the 1st request for use in 20 years or ever. The companies don't want to deal with these little things, because they don't matter. But thats where the problem is... they don't matter because they don't make a dent in the bottom line. But they are a huge deal to the artists behind them.
I totally understand that nothing is free. Everything costs something, but in this particular situation, it was a one sheet request, with MFN terms, the negotiation was yes or no. If the companies needed us to pay administration costs to countersign to fully execute and scan the agreement, we were willing to pay $500.00 for the admin costs. Warner Chappell made a killing for that with "Happy Birthday" for decades. and to be fair, some of these companies offered festival licenses and step deals, but i had explained that we were working off of the agreement with Rancid for (what arguably could be one of the biggest commercial records of that genre) for "Time Bomb" that was for all media moving forward. With a full budget of $25,000 the fee alone for festivals would allow 5 songs for both sides (master/publishing). So better to keep the song that was recognizable than 15 seconds of an instrumental that wouldn't be outside of context.
This whole thing made me really sad for artists locked in deals and made it clearer to me that ownership is everything. I know, that's pretty obvious, but its also something that we forget in the moment. All these bands were in the moment not knowing of the ramifications of the deals they were entering. we all know with signing a deal, there is 99% chance of failure, but musicians are the optimists we all look to for happiness in our lives. they are the creators. Just sucks when your creation is no longer yours after you sign on the X.
So, what's the answer? For future artists, technology and DIY is at your fingertips. You can own your stuff until you don't want to. Success can be what you make it. I think you all have a shot.
For old timers, locked into shitty time shares? Look to the law. Look for the loop holes. The copyright act of 1976 had a bunch of stuff in it that people forgot about*. A lot of it because it didn't matter, because the situations weren't going to take place for 35 years from the time the laws were written.
Record Company's gonna give me lots of money
And everything's gonna be all right
Back to the movie. I think films like this are great. When I was 12, I saw the film Dance Craze at the St. Marks Theatre. It was a midnight screening. Same place i saw movies like DOA and Quadrophenia. We used to actually wait until midnight to see a movie. It was an event. Like a concert. But, these movies helped shape all the kids from all the schools in NY. When Dance Craze played, people were literally dancing in their seats. I'm pretty positive at least 5 bands started after that too. Midnight movies were only one night, so being there impacted you. The next day, you went out to buy albums by the bands, t shirts, go to the concerts when they came around, and started your own bands.
The hopes with this movie is that it will do the same thing. Wouldn't that be great? The film will hopefully get picked up by one of the streaming channels for more people to find it. We've come a long way from midnight movies and VHS bootleg tapes, which is great for these bands that were forgotten by their labels, but not their fans.
We are hopping to get a limited edition vinyl out to go with this to Kickstarter donors and maybe sell a few from the movie site. I'm hoping to do a nod to Dance Craze and make it a live LP. Not only does that pay homage, but it's also the only way to use the songs that the labels want to charge an arm and a leg for, which none of the money goes back to the bands... so keep an eye out for that. Otherwise, follow Pick It Up on their socials and they will be posting a killer soundtrack playlist.
*Look into Reclaim. It was written in there that after 35 years of a release, the artist who signed that deal in perpetuity, could reclaim the rights to their masters within a 5 year window. It's an interesting issue that nobody is really too clear on, but it's there. Music business lawyers and business affairs are staying away from it, because you open that tube of toothpaste and you can't put it back in. Reclaim of masters means you get it back. you can put it on Spotify and earn all that master money that majors are getting rich on, while paying you out on your 10%-14% deal you signed back when terms were based on packaging and distribution deductions. No packaging or distribution like the old days with digital. I'm going to leave this here, because that's a whole other conversation....
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