Last Day!

So today is my last day in the office!  I didn't get here quite as early as I wanted to, because I wanted ample time to scan everything considering it was probably going to take all day.  However, David surprised me with taking me out to lunch at The Engineer's Club as a celebratory, last day shinding.  Great lunch, easy going day and everything.  Time flew by so fast I didn't have a chance to talk to David about what I needed for the presentation, but that's ok.  Adrian ended up taking me into the city rather than dropping me off at the station, which was nice.  :)

Oh, New York, I'll miss you.  Don't worry, I'll be back soon enough.  Just promise not to freeze me out first though, k?  Good. 

More scanning

I never knew that scanning documents could take so long!  I'm barely a quarter way through the box and I've been scanning all day and yesterday as well.  I really hope that I get these done before I leave so I have them to work with.

David and I talked a little about Ali Dee and all that so I'm glad that there might be an opportunity for me with that company - I'm really interested in relocating so this helps having David and his contacts.

scanning documents

Today I started scanning documents from the Cold Chillin' marketing box that we have - this thing is filled to the brim with insider information, newspaper clippings, and photos of the label - both generally and on individual artists.  Since a lot of these are in photo, I've had to use the printer/scanner/copier (personal use one) that we have rather than the commercial copier/scanner that we have. 

I made arrangements with David for my car at the end of the week - I'll drive it to work on Friday with everything I have, and then someone will take me to the train station after work.

NYC Meetings with DeeTown Entertainment & Sony Music Publishing

Ali Dee/DeeTown Entertainment, Inc.

So my first meeting was with Ali Dee of DeeTown Productions, Inc.  DeeTown is the largest producer of music in film to date, writing and producing music for films such as Alvin and the Chipmunks (all three), Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Sex in the City 1 & 2, Hannah Montana, and many more.  So when I got there, Ali was out but his office manager/personal assistant Kristin gave me the tour of the facilities.  The offices are located on

Park Ave/26^th St

.  They are completely self-contained, with recording studios, mixing rooms, and studios for the writers to work in, as well as lounges and a lunch room for everyone.  They recently completed the move from their original office down the street, so they’ve been settling in there now since about September.  Kristin has been with the company for about three years, and isn’t involved “musically” there but handles a lot for Ali.  Once I met with Ali, I spoke to him a little about his experiences in music and how he got started: he loved music, wanted to be a rap star, and when making records didn’t go anywhere, about 2002, he decided to change directions and got into producing music for films.  Currently, he’s working on the new Fast and the Furious 5 (yes, a FIFTH film) movie, which is based in Rio de Janeiro – so the song he was editing involved Portuguese vocals, upbeat, fast paced danced rhythms – “Portuguese booty music” as he called it.  Sometimes they’ll have films where they have free reign, and others where they know what they want to hear and that’s DeeTown’s job to make it happen.  Sometimes they’ll do a partial soundtrack, and other times they’ll be on there to do the entirety of a movie – for example, for Alvin and the Chipmunks, Ali is the Executive Music Producer.

Ali talked to me a little about where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do (a blend of music and business) and said that there might be an opportunity for me with the company as they are looking to expand.  They’re looking to take advantage of the growing need/trend for mainstream, custom music production for film, and they’re in the position to do so.  And, what he liked was that I have history in music, so I can make it applicable to what he needs done.  He’s looking to have someone work on the catalog (more music licensing), to manage it and work on that in a sense.  Even if it doesn’t work out with him and the company, I’ll still have a great contact and he’s going to keep his eyes and ears out for me too.

Kenny Ochoa/Sony Music Publishing & Licensing

I had my meeting set up with Kenny a few weeks ago, but since I was squeezing in Ali, I was late to Sony – besides the fact that I was running all over the East Village with appointments all day!  So when I got there, I had to check in and everything, and finding the office was interesting and VERY different environment from DeeTown immediately.  At DeeTown, the place is very relaxed and chill – as Ali said, the creative process is affected largely by emotions and so for 1) he’s very laid back as a boss (strokes egos, etc. keep the artist happy to get things done) but yet be Switzerland and 2) it’s a relaxed work atmosphere – work when you feel it, but get it done.  The dress is casual and the atmosphere is…relaxed.  That’s the only word I can think of.  In contrast, when I got to Kenny’s floor and got off the elevator, it was dead silence, no lie.  I felt like I had just walked into a library and I couldn’t speak louder than a whisper.  The offices were set up weird and seemed to be cubicle style in an odd way, but by the time I walked out of there, it kind of made sense.  The halls were lined with filing cabinets two columns of two stacked each, and then there would be an opening where there were four offices – two window offices and the assistants’/secretaries’ offices in the corner in front of those offices.  Kenny was on a call but I spoke with his assistant Amanda for a while.  She worked as a music supervisor in LA for a while before relocating out to New York about 4 years ago, when she started working with Kenny.  Kenny had interned with David back in the day – right when David and Stacy got married, they were in law school, and he had just started with Charles and at the law firm Grubman, Indursky, & Shindler.  Kenny also relocated from LA, where he had a small indie label producing records for his friends and whatnot.  From there, he sold an album to Atlantic Records and used that money to make the move.  Working with David as his “assistant” at the law firm gave him the skills to mold his creative side with a working knowledge of negotiating and developing licensing agreements (terms, conditions, etc.).  From there, he worked a couple different jobs before going to an independent label and realizing that they weren’t licensing their music – he stayed there six years, wherein his “project” was licensing their music.  From there, his experience led him to Sony and he grew to his current position as VP of Licensing.  He made it clear that currently, there are opportunities in the music industry, specifically in licensing, because people are realizing that there is money to be made in that respect.  The hard part about licensing today are the following:

• artist exposure via commercial – free or licensed?
• There will be artists who want the free marketing exposure that comes with commercials’ airplay, so they’ll give away the music free instead of licensing it out
• ad agencies/brands using songs that don’t line up with what they’re trying to convey to the audience – disconnect, resulting in an ineffective marketing campaign
• so at this point it’s important to be actively involved with the creative process and find out what the marketing campaign is going to be so they can mesh creativity with the business side for an effective campaign
• a company comes to the label, wants to license a song, they discuss terms and monetary compensation, they pay, and that’s it – longevity in relationships

Kenny also spoke on the importance of not pigeon-holing oneself into a certain area.  Getting exposure in the different areas of an industry is important to making yourself marketable in any area.  For example, his many varied jobs taught him different things, but his main clear focus has been licensing – so it’s a good idea to get experience, but do it with a focus.  Any experience you get in one area or industry can be applicable to another industry down the line – you just need to know what that is.

Today David had more meetings in the city again today, so I had the office to myself.  I prepared my resume and cover letter for my meetings tomorrow and did some research on artists and such for the blog.  It was a pretty easy going day, just continued on the blog.  I started working a bit more on my presentation and made arrangements to speak to David about his history, Charles, and the company for my presentation.

Video Editing, Continued

So today I continued with my work in video editing the files and tried to get in touch with Tyrone again in terms of his schedule for next week.  Nothing too exciting now, but once I get this taken care of, it will give me some stuff to work with on the blog.

I can't believe that I'm leaving next Saturday already - this internship has gone by so fast, and I feel like i have so much work to do still!  I am planning on continuing with the blog after this experience ends because of my first hand experience with it.  I know there will be another intern who will come, take my place, and could work on this, but it's not the same.  I want to get it all set up before they come in and do that.

Video Editing

Today I continued with video converting and editing in order to have clips to put up on the blog.  The program I'm using is being quite difficult in terms of time to convert the files and splicing the clips.  I'm also trying to keep in mind the length for YouTube as well as making the clips interesting to watch on the blog. 

Post-Interview

So we discovered that I had so much left to ask Tyrone that we would have to set up another interview before I left, and this time I asked him to get in contact with Marley Marl so I would have both of them there.  Today I spent converting the files from the video format the camera took to avi so I would be able to edit it using the movie maker software on my laptop - it's times like these that I wish I had a mac so this would be easier to do.

The Interview, Part 1

Today I came in a little early to get the office set up for my meeting with Tyrone.  David has meetings in the city, so it worked out perfectly (the phone didn't ring as often as it usually does, yay).  I wasn't able to get ahold of Marley Marl after calling him last week and yesterday, but Tyrone provided such great insight into the history of the label.  I prepared some specific questions, but more or less, I left it pretty open ended for him to answer.  

The interview ended up taking three hours, and we STILL weren't done.  He talked about his background, which he started in radio and then progressed into music and management from there.  Currently, he is involved with the Brooklyn Steppers, a non-profit marching band organization for underprivileged kids in the Brooklyn area.  After he got out of music and radio, he came back to his neighborhood where he saw his nephew and his friends meeting up after school with duct-taped band instruments, playing by ear.  He realized the need for a structured, after-school program that got the at-risk kids off the streets during the prime time of crime, which now has evolved into a band with over 200 (either 200 or 2000) kids participating.  From 3:30 - 8:00pm daily, the kids are at the program.  The first part of the time they get tutoring, then dinner, then band practice, with performances on the weekend.  He gives them financial incentives based on grades, and this money is put aside for them to use toward college.  The Brooklyn Steppers have performed on Jay Leno and at the 2009 Presidential inaugural parade, traveled abroad to Bermuda and other locations, among other achievements.  

What I like about the program is that Tyrone found a way to introduce music into these kids' lives whereas they would have lacked it in school.  Another positive outcome is that the program has had a direct impact on the amount of crime in the area (Bedstuy) - when the program started, it was averaging somewhere over 150 murders a year, and now, it's down to 17 this year!  That's a huge difference, if you ask me. 

upcoming interview!

Today I made preparations for tomorrow's interview - I got with David and made arrangements to leave work early to pick up a tripod for the video camera.  Spent the day working on research for the blog some more, and did some research on companies in the area.

Thanksgiving week!

Today is my last day before I take off for Virginia for the break.  I spent the day doing some more research for the blog and making a list of the things I need to do before my meeting with Tyrone next week.  I also worked brainstorming for my cover letter and resume some more so that David will have it to send out to his contacts.

Blogging is my life

So these blogs (this one and the Cold Chillin' one) are definitely making me work on my writing.  I read up on how to increase traffic to the blogs today, and I'm going to start implementing some of the strategies.

Xuchitl from the career center called me today as well.  I had sent her my resume earlier this week and she's working with me to "clean it up" - content is all there, but just how it's set up and making it less cluttered.  It's even more important now to have this ready now that I'm making contacts up here and going to meetings soon.

Otherwise, today was devoted to the blog as well and doing write ups for that.

BING - light comes on

So I realized on the way to work today that it would be awesome to have BOTH Marley and Tyrone at the meeting, so they could bounce stories off each other and that sort of deal, so I sent Marley an email and text letting him know of the meeting.  

Just spent the good part of today typing up a little of what Tyrone gave me and finding videos on youtube to add to it.  I'm trying to go artist by artist, and pull in the influential songs that are still relevant today.

Success!

YES!  I finally got ahold of Tyrone and was able to talk with him a little about the early history of the label.  It was helpful to get an idea of how the label really came about and the early artists signed to it.  We decided it was easier to schedule a meeting in person where he could sit down and tell me stories of the time and I could ask whatever questions I wanted to - it is scheduled for the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and will be at our office. 

David also put in a call to his former intern at Sony Music Publishing, Kenny Ochoa, and sent me his contact information in order to set up a meeting with him.  I'll be talking with him about opportunities in the music industry and such, and hopefully some job leads might come of it.  He's also going to talk to his friends Joel Simon and Ali Dee - of the commercial and film music production people I spoke about before.  So, we'll see what happens! 

Changing Music Industry

I came in this morning and talked with David a little on the music industry.  I asked him where he thought the opportunities laid, given the way the industry is now, and he thinks it lies in finding a great musical act and owning the rights to their music - so essentially, in publishing.  One of the quotes he said was that "even turkeys fly in a strong wind," - so when the music industry was doing well, businesses that don't really do anything still make money.  However, today, the music business isn't doing the greatest, so a "turkey" won't "fly."  

I also asked him what he thought about entertainment law and Intellectual Property rights, as a friend of mine indicated that there is future growth in this area.  He predicts that it's about the same as the rest of the industry.  It will probably be another decade or so before the music industry picks up again, and that's if legislation is passed giving labels the right to crack down further on illegal downloads (by shutting down the cable's access to those sites, etc.).  We'll see.

As much as this was a difficult thing to hear, it was good because it's the reality of the business. 

David had presentations in the city today, so I worked from home on the youtube videos and tried calling Tyrone again.  I also did some research on networking in order to prepare myself for the speaker tomorrow night.

Youtube

David said we would start pulling in different sources, links, and data from different places for the blog, so I've started finding high-res videos for the Cold Chillin' blog.  Called Tyrone again today, but I caught him at a bad time.  He said he would return my call, but has not yet.  I'm going to attempt to call him again on Monday.

My landlady gave me an article about a music industry lecture that's coming up on Tuesday.  The guy speaking is Morton Dennis Wax, who is a noted NYC music marketer.  I'm going to go to it to ask questions, gain insight, and to network some.  Kind of nervous, but kind of excited!

Happy Friday!

Today was a bit of a bust at the office because we had kids running around all day for Myachi.  Since it was Veterans' Day, the schools had off, so we had an "event."  The location is open to kids at any time, but since there was no school, there were kids EVERYWHERE.  I tried to concentrate on my work, but it was hard to with kids running around.  Continued with the blog and waiting on Tyrone to return my call.  We got an email from Tunesat saying that the data was uploaded so they'll start monitoring the songs and we'll go from there!

I asked David how CAK got involved with Cold Chillin', and he said that one of Charles' people knew of Cold Chillin' and made the introduction, and here we are today.  I called Tyrone and left a message, so I'm just waiting to hear back from him.  Today I continued with my research and uploading to the blog - there's not much besides the bios on there yet, but I need to find a way to get more attention to the blog.

Ali Dee is another one of David's contacts - Ali Dee is the biggest producer for films.  He's done the Alvin & the Chipmunks movies as well as many other popular films.  Apparently he used to be a singer back in the day, and would help aspiring stars by producing their music.  He worked from there and caught his big break eventually and now here he is.  He specializes in custom music productions - so if a film needs a cross between songs or genres, he can create a unique sound for them. 

Michael Tolcher, one of the artists whose music we manage, is playing tonight at The Bitter End in Greenwich.  David will be going with his family to see him, as it's been a couple of years.  I have prior commitments so I can't make it but it's cool to hear of an artist coming to play.  His music is a cross between Jack Johnson & Jason Mraz - check him out!

Cold Chillin' Blog continued

Today I continued with the blog and just added stuff to it throughout the day.  I took some more materials home with me to review and also reviewed one of the Myachi agreements that David was working on - to let me see what their current projects are and such.  What's nice about this blog is I can upload information on a particular artist and then do some research on them for my own personal benefit as well.  David was speaking with Marley Marl, the "it" producer on the Cold Chillin' label, and so he let him know what I was working on and put me in touch with him.  I spoke with Marley briefly, but he gave me some ideas on what I should include in the blog, including the importance of this song catalog with hip hop today.  He's another resource to add to this blog list.

A little on Marley Marl: he was the first to introduce sampling into the hip hop scene, which has developed into an important part of both hip hop and mainstream music today.  Partnering with Cold Chillin' Records, Marley produced some of the foremost in hip hop names, including Roxanne Shante, Biz Markie, and Big Daddy Kane (during the Golden Age of hip hop).  Marley still produces music today, and released collaborative album with Craig G in 2008.

Cold Chillin' Blog

So today I really got to work typing up the press releases for the Cold Chillin' Records blog.  Previously I went through some of the marketing materials to familiarize myself with them, but now I'm getting down to work.  There was a main release about how the label came about, and then individual releases on the different artists.  I'm getting in touch with Tyrone Williams this week.  Tyrone is one of the founders of the label, and will be an asset to me in gathering information on the history of the label and it's importance in the industry.

David asked me to take him to the train station today since he had a meeting in the city with Charles with one of their big name clients.  The afternoon was free for me to work on my projects and also to continue with the Cold Chillin' music blog.

Sent the jumpdrive off to Tunesat today, and they're in the city so they'll receive it fairly quickly.  Today I spent working on my projects for Mr. Butcher's midterm checkpoint by doing some more reading from the music business text, researching online, and talking to David about different careers that are available to me.  He's working with me on my cover letter to direct it toward artist management, because that seems like the direction I want to go at this point.

Spent the day uploading to the FTP again - depending on the size of the file, it would take between 20-45 minutes PER upload.  It looked like the FTP wasn't holding the files, so I had to call Lara again to troubleshoot, she said she'd get back to me about it.  When I spoke to David about it later, he said we'd better just go with a jumpdrive (just under 8Gs of data).  I picked up a jumpdrive on my way home and we're going to send it out tomorrow.  FINALLY!

Tunesat CDs continued

Today I continued to work on the Tunesat CDs, since there are quite a few albums (totaling close to 300 songs) to send to them.  We wanted to send them off yesterday but it was taking longer than we anticipated.  When I emailed Lara from the company for the address, she suggested that I try the FTP (online file transfer) because they only accepted data discs and harddrives (which I thought I was making...).  So, instead of burning CDs, I spent the day uploading to FTP.

Over the weekend I worked on the tunsat data sheet, because I needed to include the file path code for each of the songs - so I had them divided up into separate album folders, and each cell would correspond to the the song title - like this:

MusicA/My Fav Band/My Fav Album/My Fav Song 30.wav

so that would correspond to:

CAK Tunesat/Biz Markie/Biz's Baddest Beats + Videos/07 Biz Is Goin' Off.wav

Today was spent working on burning CDs to send the songs to Tunesat.

Tunesat data, ver. 1.5

Last night I completed the excel sheet on the tunesat entries thus far.  This morning I had to go through and figure out which ones were missing ownership and composer information.  I needed David's help on some of them because the songs I didn't have info for were some of the same ones in our catalogue that I was missing from before.  In the end, we excluded some of the songs (he said ownership was iffy on some of them anyways).  I used David's laptop today to rip the rest of the CDs that we had, and then spent the afternoon continuing the compilation of data for the excel sheet.

So looking forward to this weekend, hopefully Adrian and I will be able to go to the Halloween show at the Hammerstein Ballroom on Saturday.  Happy Halloween, everyone!

Tunesat deadline

David informed me today that we have to get the tunesat data out ASAP - to be completed and sent out by Monday.  In addition to the data discs, they also requested an excel document outlining the following:

• file ref path (the file name on the computer)
• Name of the Song
• Album Name
• Artist Name
• Publisher Name & Ownership share
• Composer Name(s) & Ownership share(s)

In addition to that, for the publisher and composer columns, we needed to identify which publishing firm they are a member of - so for example, all Cold Chillin' and Marley Marl label artists are ASCAP signed and Michael Tolcher and Susie Suh are both BMI label artists.

So because of this deadline, I spent today compiling the excel sheet of all the songs I had ripped, which will be a running tally until we decide on a cut off number.  We can send up to 100 songs before incurring extra fees for including extra songs.

myachi trade show

Today David was out again due to the Biz Bash trade show taking place in the city.  I continued with my work from yesterday, and the projects for class as well - very convenient timing, I do have to admit.  I started reading up on graduate programs for music business, and different career paths in the industry, since I am considering staying up here after graduation.  There are so many options!  David is going to be a great resource (and a realistic one too) in helping me figure some of that out. 

Mashable article

David is in the city today for a meeting, so I'm not sure when he'll be getting back.  I'm continuing to rip cds for Tunesats (so many CDs!) and starting to go through the Cold Chillin' materials for the blog.  I'm also using this time to reflect more intensively for my projects as the checkpoint is coming up next week.

I came across this article on my friend Mike Del Rio's facebook - 4 Ways Bands Can Cash In Online Without Labels.  Mike worked with The History Channel and his music is featured on their channel currently.  It's just another example of diversifying your music, and the avenues used to make their music profitable.  It's a growing way for musicians to provide steady income while trying to pursue other projects.

Projects

Today I worked on an "executive summary" that David prepared for Myachi - helping him edit and revise it.  It's actually more of an annual report with the length, but it's providing current and potential investors the history, current position, and future plans of the company.

My next project (while working on the CDs and auditing) will be to start a blog on the Cold Chillin' Record label.  David has seen this blog and wants me to start that as a marketing tool on the label.  The blog will utilize the old marketing materials we have for the label and will highlight the history of the label, artists, etc - so a resource for those hip hop aficionados and as a marketing tool as well.

Cameo Gallery in Brooklyn

This weekend I went with Adrian, the graphic designer for Myachi, to Brooklyn for a show at the Cameo Gallery.  We went to see The London Souls, an amazing underground rock band who are a throwback to the oooold school rock 'n' roll that I love (seriously, check them out, you won't be sorry).  The venue was packed, and isn't much more than a bare room with a stage on one end.  The set up was really good, the acoustics were great considering the location (it was pure noise bouncing off the walls back at you) and the lighting set up was subtle, but effective.  What was interesting were the musicians that Adrian introduced me to - some awesome up and coming artists.  This show (like the Joshua Bell concert) was exactly what I needed to remind me of my passion for music.  One of the artists I met was Mike Del Rio, a personal friend of Adrian's, who mixes rock/alternative music with beats and his own lyrics.  Another was Tommy Eichman, the manager of Alexa Ray Joel (Billy Joel's daughter) who was also in attendance.  A third, Johnny Boy, along with Del Rio and Tommy play in Alexa Ray's band.  Overall, a fantastic night of great music and awesome people!

S Factor and more licensing agreements

I read through one of the proposals that David wrote up for the S Factor licensing agreement.  This document is constantly changing because we are constantly adding or finding new things that we want to include in there.  I asked David how he knew what to cover in there, so there are no loopholes.  Essentially, each part of an article in the document should indicate who (on either end), what action or what is being covered, the extent of the coverage, what happens if either side breaks it, when/how long, how are they planning on covering it.  So if you answer these questions, it's a pretty good start. 

Ripping CDs, part 2

My computer has been acting up and my CD drive hasn't been showing up, which has made it more difficult to complete ripping the CDs in order to send the list to Tunesat.  In the meantime, I have reviewed our audit return by Chuks to see what else we need to do on our end in order to consolidate our accounting.  I had David send him the rescan of the previous Notting Hill statement, because we didn't send it before. 

Sonic Equity

David asked me to watch the Bloomberg News report today because his friend, Joel Simon, of JSM Music would be the mystery guest.  I'm really glad I did, his interview went into how music can and is utilized in advertising.  Joel Simon owns the largest music/advertisement agency.  Joel spoke on the importance of the synergy of music to advertisement, how it could be the music that is the message, or the music that supports the message the company is trying to put out there.  He's an example of how he found a need in the industry and found his niche.

Ridiculous amount of paper for a ridiculous amount of money

David and I were talking the other day about how crazy it is the statements we'll get from our clients (ASCAP, BMI, Sony, etc.).  The follow pictures illustrate our point.  The first set is from Harry Fox Agency and the second is from Sony Music.  Note the thickness of the statement vs. the thickness of the CD case.

You'd think that this much paper would mean we're getting a big check, but sometimes this isn't the case.   As a result, we are trying to consolidate our statements and moving to receiving them digitally if possible.   

 

While David's been gone, it's been so quiet in the office, without the buzz of the phone going off every few minutes, and I've been able to concentrate on developing my business plan for my business, and working out some details on the projects that Mr. Butcher assigned to us. 

We received an email from Tunesat with the instructions on how to get the songs to them, and apparently it isn't uploading them to their server like we anticipated (we were waiting on log-in information).  We have to send it to them either on a data disk or a harddrive, so after I get all the songs to my computer, we'll have to burn a disk and send it to them with an excel sheet detailing each song.

We also received back Chuks second auditng statement - I think since he didn't hear back from us last week he went through his work again and checked through everything.  We do have to send him one statement, however, because parts of it were cut off when we scanned it through initially.

Lincoln Center

Last week I saw that Joshua Bell was playing a couple concerts in the area (one at the Tilles Center out in Long Island and one at the Lincoln Center).  I wanted to go to one of the performances because they were debuting Magnus Lindberg's Kraft composition.  He composed this piece in the 1980s but it's only been played a few times, and I believe only once in the US.  There was an article in the NY Times about their expedition to a New Jersey junkyard to find materials to use in the performance - they had gears, a nitrogen tank, oxygen tanks, metal slabs, etc - everything you could think of.  The premise behind the music was an "exploration in sound" - majorly the sounds created were from acoustic instruments (that is, not electronic) but he did have a computer producing some artificial sounds.  A lot of elements in this piece reminded me of John Cage and atonality - there's not a distinct melody to follow, per se, but it definitely had it's rhythms and patterns. 

They complemented this last piece with Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, Sibelius's Violin Concerto, and then the closing with Kraft.  Joshua Bell was amazing, as always, and his performance reminds me why I love classical music.  I think it was important that I went to this performance because of that, and it's helping me to identify what I want to pursue within music. 

Funny enough, I sat next to a jazz musician and composer from NY that night.  We got talking because I commented on his TOMS shoes and then just went from there.  I asked how he got into music and he said he just kept coming back to it time and time again and so that's how he's been working.  It's cool to meet people and to learn these things.

tunesat continued

My day today continued with ripping songs and checking off the songs on our list.  We can upload to Tunesat up to 100 songs that we want them to follow, so I have to figure out which ones are the most profitable and to make sure that they are included among those songs.

David is leaving for Florida tomorrow and will be gone until Thursday.  He's given me some assignments to work on while he's gone.  He will be visiting Ringling College with David Shapiro and Sam Logan (I believe he's involved in this as well) who work closely with the school's film program.  They are setting up a class that will be Myachi based - they'll come up with various designs and graphics (from what I understand) that they will consider using as a part of their products.

I also received the licensing agreement David drew up for his S Factor business so I will be reviewing that as well.

New project! aka Tunesat revisited, part 1

Yay for new projects!  My next project involves, Tunesat, which I mentioned earlier in my blog.  Since we've already moved forward with the agreement from before, it's now time to upload the music and let their software do the work and make it easy (or easier) to collect the money.  I spent the rest of the week ripping songs off CDs onto my computer and checking them off our song splits list from before.  Once we create an account on their website, we'll be able to send them the songs to begin the process of tracking our music.  The song files must be in WAV format, 44.1 kHz and 16 bit format, as requested by them.

Something else that came through was a licensing request from Jay-Z, who is requesting the rights to use a sample of one of our songs in an upcoming song of his that will be featured in an upcoming compilation album.  David is still negotiation on the terms of the rights but it looks like there will be some ownership involved with the new song.

Joan Jett and her success

Joan Jett and Manager put out her first record, I Love Rock and Roll, and due to the situation (very quick success), she was able to license her album to a big record label and the rights came back to her when the license was over.  This put her in a strong position owning her own recordings.  Most recording artists' labels own the recordings.  In fact, her success with the song I Love Rock and Roll was so immediate, that her manager didn't have an office (he worked out of his home) - the first album's address was his attorney's address on it!

If you have a hit song and you get some heat behind it, a label typically comes up and says they want to buy the recording from you and their deal is exclusive (world-wide exclusive term of copyright) and you never see the rights to the song again.  So Joan Jett is pretty unique in her situation that she was able to retain the rights to her songs.

Agreements

Yesterday and today I spent reviewing a few different licensing agreements.  One is Joan Jett's licensing agreement that she used to distribute her albums in Germany (and the surrounding countries), the second was using JJ's agreement or basic music agreement for the template for Myachi's agreement with a company in Turkey (this is an ongoing negotiation).  It's interesting to go through the different elements and learn about what all the agreement covers - for example, it includes marketing, which I didn't even think to add (photos for promotion, training the people onsite [Myachi]).  The last agreement I looked through is a new one for David's other business, S Factor - they are looking to change their current position to one that licenses the rights from SFLA.

Pop Art Records

David enlisted my help to find the owners of Pop Art Records.  I was able to find info on the record label itself, but I had to follow through based on a serious of queries.  Once I found that it was owned by Lawrence Goodman, I searched using his name until I found an article interviewing Troy Carter.  Lawrence Goodman is a prominent producer of hip hop music through PAR until its sale in 2006 to Coalition Media Group, headed up by Troy Carter.  CMG represents Lady Gaga and other artists.  We needed to know of this sale because there was a sample claim that involved the label, so we need to know the appropriate persons to contact.

Licensing in Action

This past weekend I went to the NY Giants game with the NYC Zeta Alumnae chapter. We went there to hand out ribbons and sell gear to raise money for the NFL partnership with Zeta for Breast Cancer Awareness month.  We were given tickets for volunteering for the game, and here were our seats!!

My whole point of this post is about seeing licensing in action.  As at any game, they place clips of music to get the crowds hyped up or to introduce the team.  Each time these clips play, they incur licensing fees - so the song is recorded, the length of the play, the number of plays - everything rolled into one determines how much the artist gets paid.  I thought this was interesting that I was able to see this in action and was able to apply what I had learned here to a fun event I was at. 

Auditing

Chuks definitely got back to us in a timely fashion!  David emailed me all the PDF scans of our royalty statements (the same ones that Chuks receives) so I could cross reference his copies with our hardcopies to see what happened.  On one I found that the scan he received was taken landscape style where the file was really portrait-ways.  That meant the lower half of each page was cut off - just goes to show that we're not perfect!  Other discrepancies were due to an opening balance on the statement that was not included in Chuks' data entry (line by line of songs).  Some clients, for example Rhino Entertainment (I think; can't remember off the top of my head), hold the royalty balance until it gets to a certain amount, then they release the check to the publisher.  I sent David my notes, which included a recommendation on keeping consistent with including/excluding opening balances.

toys and licensing

Being at the Myachi headquarters makes it pretty hard to stay out of the toy area.  Many of the things that Myachi does also applies to music - licensing agreements, in particular.  Myachi has international suppliers, and they are trying to break into the market in Turkey.  The interesting thing is that what David plans on using is the licensing agreement format for the venture, so it will be interesting to see how it applies outside of publishing.

David's been pretty helpful in drawing out charts and visual representations on how we're tackling certain things - for example, how the rights work with publishing vs. a label (aka knowing how much we own - the work I did a couple days ago).

Today I finished up my "internal audit" of our deposits and database filings that Chuks did.  We'll send them back to Chuks and he'll send it back by morning so I can see where our discrepancies are.

freelancer.com

David's guy, Chuks, is someone who he found on freelancer.com.  This site is a useful tool for different categories, not just for accounting and data entry.  You put up a project that you need done, and potential works "bid" on them on how much they are willing to accept for the work.  You have the choice to set how much you're willing to pay, and also choosing which person you want to do the job - it's not based on the highest/lowest offer.  It can be based on their rating (stars), resume, price, etc. 

From yesterday's work, there were about 40 songs that didn't have any information on who owned what, who the artist was, or anything.  Skimming the royalty receipts don't help because these songs are the ones played internationally and are lacking an ID to search on the website.  Speaking of websites, Universal Music Group gives the run around on their royalties collection site.  Very barebones, and only useful if you are lacking a payment and need to contact them.  ASCAP's not bad, but I think they can expand their search options (advanced features, etc.). 

More cataloguing

I'm so ready to be done with this project, it seems to go in circles!  Today I focused on finalizing the song list (Cold Chillin'/Songs of Marl) that I set aside last week.  We were still missing artists, percentage of ownership, etc.  I had to go through and correct my work from the previous week.  There are 3 columns of the work that I dealt with today: % CAK owns, Cold Chillin' (CC), and Songs of Marl (MM).  The catalogs show the percentage that the label owns, so for example, if "XXX" song is owned by both CC and MM, then CAK owns 100%.  This time around though, I had to label how much CAK owns, and then on the CC and MM side, it would be the percentage that CAK needs to pay out.  So using the above example, CC and MM each own 50% (subsequently, that means CAK owns 100%), so they would each get 50% of the royalties (less our administrative fees and commission). 

So this is showing me how CAK, as a publisher, collects the royalties directly from the client (whoever is licensing the rights to the song - mechanical or song rights), and distributes the funds out to the artist they represent.  David says he has a pretty good idea how much will come in, and so he will pay the artists ahead of time and when the checks come in, he pays out the remainder.  Typically, he pays semi-annually (twice a year), so in the first half (Jan-June), they should expect their checks by August.

Cataloguing

I'm still working on the same excel sheet as previously.  Today my assignment was to check the songs of the Cold Chillin'/Songs of Marl catalogs against Chuks' work of calculating how much we get from clients as royalties.  Chuks is the guy in Nigeria that David outsourced to do his accounting for CAK.  So if a song on the song split list didn't have an artist listed for whatever reason, I went through and did a search in Chuks' file for the song.  The same row would have who the client was (aka who we were collecting royalties from).  If it was EMI, we knew it was Marley Marl's label, and if it said ASCAP, Universal, etc., I had to go through our files we made and check against the statements for the song.  ASCAP has "song ID #s" for each of the entries on a royalty statement (if it was collected in the States; if not, good luck finding the song info).  I would use the song ID (if listed) to search for the song on the ASCAP database, and find the artist if listed.  If not, then I had to do a song search by title and do the same deal. 

Diversifying

I think what's great about David and his work is that he's the epitome of "diversifying."  You know how brokers and financial people say that you need to "diversify" your portfolio in order to reduce your risk?  Well, I think David's a prime example: he has CAK - the music side and the consulting side to S Factor, Myachi, and then he's got his clients through his time as an entertainment lawyer.  In terms of his time, he's spread pretty thin and has to be organized in order to keep up with everything.  However, as business professional, these different endeavors give him a wide scope of experience and make him more attractive as someone to hire. 

There hasn't been very much for me to work on today besides getting the rest of the files finished and put away.  On Monday we're going to start with the song lists again and go from there.

Royalties and their calculation

It seems like all I do these days is work in Excel.  David gave me an excel sheet that should line up with our deposits up to day.  My job is essentially to do an internal audit of our holdings.  The excel sheet is a running tally with our clients (the companies licensing rights from us), the song, play counts, and the amount that we should have received for the play.  David outsources to a guy who keeps track of all of this and sends him the info (monthly?).

CAK Entertainment vs. CAK Music/Music Publishing

Today was focused on following up with what I did yesterday.  I spent the majority of the day going through and organizing all of our royalties, licensing agreements, and synchronization contracts from 2007 through 2010.  Mostly it was to get it ready to file away, but doing this allowed me to see how the business has progressed over the years.  I learned that there are two business entities: CAK Entertainment and CAK Music/Music Publishing.  CAK Entertainment was a joint-venture between a financial firm and Charles A. Koppelman, but has since been bought out by their partners.  Now the only artists under the "CAK Entertainment" portion are Michael Tolcher and Susie Suh.  Michael Tolcher can be described as having a blend of Jack Johnson and Jason Mraz-ish music.  Susie Suh is a Korean-American singer/songwriter.  The rest of the music and artists are under CAK Music/Music Publishing.  I even came across a contract between CAK and Michael Jackson!

Music publishers are the bankers to the music business.

I spent the day analyzing our royalty earnings from the 2010 year.  This meant that I was entering our royalty earnings into an excel sheet to see how much we earned, and to track who/where our royalties are coming from, and see the trends over the years.  It's a way to see who our major players are, and the typical earnings we receive from licensing.  By organizing and examining the revenue that's coming in, we can see how profitable we are to our clients. 

I also was charged with finding Casey James' manager.  You might recognize him from American Idol, Season 5 - the guitarist from Cool, TX.  David wants to send him some demos so I spent the evening trying to find a contact for him without any avail.

iTunes, how I love and hate thee

Today was a pretty long day in the office.  I spent literally the entire day going through the same song compilation list and checking if the songs were on iTunes, and if they were, to put the links into the excel sheet.  This way, we can see 1) which are on there 2) which ones we have to either put on there or track a different way.  Also, I received the licenses that the company is currently working on.  I learned about two new programs/companies: tunewikiand TuneSat.  Tunewiki puts lyrics to real time video or song, and is helpful in identifying songs you know the lyrics of but want to know the song title.  Tunesat is a cool program where it can identify songs by their unique "audio fingerprint," capable of detecting a song being played with a lot of audio noise around it, or even only using 3 seconds of a song.  This program helps music publishers track how their music is broadcasted so they can accurately charge for the airplay. 

Myachi...oh, she says he's just a friend...

Didn’t even know that I feel asleep when I did, but woke up and got ready to leave with Kathy at 9:30 for the office.  There’s some construction on the road, but it’s a pretty straightforward way to get to work.  It’s not too bad, though.  Anyways, we found the place as David told me, and it wasn’t as I expected.  Mr. Burke said that CAK was a good company and he made it seem that they had this luxurious place.  However, it’s a warehouse and the site of another company that David is involved in – Myachi Industries.  Myachi is a product that was developed by Steve Ochs, and is similar to a hacky-sac, but it’s flat.  You can play it with your hands and feet, but the only rule is that you can’t use the palms of your hands.  It’s pretty interesting to see it in action, and it’s a big craze among young boys ages 7-11.  Apparently it’s been around for about 10 years, and I think David said its through the product that I’ll learn about licensing, merchandising, etc.  Today David had me work on a song split sheet compliation.  CAK bought two record studios: Cold Chillin’ Studio and Songs of Marl (Marley Marl) Studio.  There are a list of songs that are on each excel sheet, and I went through to determine which percentage of the profits went to each company, and combined it onto one master sheet.  This way, we know which songs CAK owns, partially owns, etc. For the weekend, David asked me to google the songs that were without artists listed and record them for the next step.  This is an interesting project for me because many of the artists listed are old school hip hop/rap artists that I'm not familiar with.  I youtubed some of the songs, including Roxanne Shante's Bite This.  There are a couple artists that are on these lists that are more big name: Biz Markie and LL Cool J.  Biz Markie is famous for his song Just a Friend and well, LL Cool J is still around doing his thing in film.  

I also got my car today, this lovely, ginormous SUV, which, I found out, is owned by David's father-in-law, Charles A. Koppelman, the very prominent public figure.  I better be gentle with this sucker! 
This weekend is definitely needed for me to adjust to everything up here.  I think being away from everyone is taking a toll on me more than I expected, but I'm going to have to suck it up and deal with it.  I'm eager to see where these projects are leading, so keep reading!

On the way to the Big City...

Today I left for NY to start my internship.  It’s been a long time coming, and something that I have definitely been counting down the days towards and anxiety has built up over.  Getting to my flight was an ordeal, with my overweight luggage and getting held up at security.  I don’t know how I’m going to survive without my vibe Jasper for 3 months, but I’m sure it will work out fine, and my dad will take care of him.  When I got into LGA, it was clear to me that I stuck out – flipflops and a tank are a sure indication that I was not from around there.  It started to pour when we were at the carousol to get our luggage, and getting a cab wasn’t as bad as I thought.  Rush hour traffic combined with tornados meant that everyone was backed up, and it took us 5 minutes to go from one street to the next (streets intersecting the one we were on).  It took me about 2 hours to get to my home (for the next 3 months) and almost a $100 in cab money (including the tip…was he deserving of it?  I’m still undecided).  David called while I was en route and was the one who informed me of the tornados – we could see the damage on the road, with blocked lanes here and there, and reports on the radio.  My car was all set, and he said he’d send out someone to bring me to the office – which has since changed.  My landlady, Kathy, will be taking me instead in the morning – she has to go around the Glen Cove area so it worked out perfectly.  I’m still anxious about driving up here – not so much now, but more when the weather changes seasons.  Currently, I’m a little worried about how the driving is different up here in terms of “road rage” or traffic laws.  I guess I don’t have much of a choice though…It’s sink or swim time.  I’ll find out in the morning how well I do navigating back to Kathy’s house.  Speaking of which, her house is legit one of the cutest places I have ever seen.  The outside reminds me of a Hansel and Gretel house – you will have to see it to understand what I mean (see above).  it’s a nice set up inside, but you can definitely tell it’s an older house (not in a bad way or anything).  My room is bigger than I imagined it to be.  The cable doesn’t work, which could be a good or bad thing (boredom and all).  I can’t get on the wifi because for some reason my wifi card isn’t detecting any wireless networks around.  I’ll have to work on that in the morning.  Time has flown by before I even knew it, and it’s already 12am!