BREAKING NEWS: the Killers settle legal dispute with former manager
Legal Woes Over
After a three year legal battle and millions of dollars spent in legal fees, we hear that superstar rock act the Killers have settled the legal dispute with their former manager Braden Merrick who initiated the suit in 2006 for breach of contract after the band terminated his management duties in 2005. Merrick alleged that he had two years left on his management contract with the band and was seeking his commissions from the band’s earnings. Although we hear the settlement paperwork is not finalized, Merrick is rumored to be paid a 7-figure amount to settle the matter. According to several sources, Merrick was suing both the band and their current manager Robert Reynolds for a multi-million dollar claim. During the legal battle, the band served a petition with the California Labor Commission citing several violations against Merrick in order to void their management agreement with him. While both parties are reportedly happy that the dispute is over, they continue to be on unfriendly terms.
09.21.09Wake Up Wake Up with MeTalkPretty @ Viper Room 9/22
MeTalkPretty @ Viper Room Tomorrow Night
Before RM 64 hightails it to the desert for the Vegas Music Summit this week, we’ll be hitting up the Viper Room tomorrow night (9/22) at 9:00PM to see MeTalkPretty. Fresh off the heels of winning MTV’s VMA for Best Breakout Artist in NYC, the band continues their North American tour with dates up the west-coast through the rest of September. Expect to see publishers and agents on the scene… To get on the list send your RSVP to: Muzikmgmt@gmail.com
09.15.09Las Vegas is the only place I know where money really talks–it says, “Goodbye.” — FRANK SINATRA
Well, Frank. We’ll soon walk the walk and talk the talk as we’re less than 2 weeks away from the Vegas Music Summit. The event happens Sept 23-24, 2009 and will feature 2 nights of showcases and 1 day of panels. RM 64 is offering complimentary industry badges and the daytime panels are FREE and open to the public. Did we mention…FREE!!! Our host hotel, the El Cortez has informed us that the VMS reserved rooms are sold out! But there are still some rooms available at the Fremont Hotel and the Golden Nugget. VMS sponsors include: SESAC, Miller Lite, BMI, Smash Magazine, A&R Knights, Hell Ya! and ASCAP. For more info, log on to: www.VegasMusicSummit.com. In the meantime, here’s a brief list of confirmed speakers:
Sara Berkowitz / Viper Room (Hollywood)
Joe Fleischer / BigChampagne
Jeff Sosnow / Interscope Records
Matt Messer / EMI Music Publishing
Jennifer Knoepfle / Sony-ATV Music
Mark Weinberg / Producer (O.A.R, Matt Nathanson)
Josh Feingold / SESAC
Tom DeSavia / Notable Music
Eric German / Mitchell, Silbbererg & Knupp
Jason Reynolds / Myspace Records
Josh Briggs / ASCAP
Jennie Smythe / Girlilla Marketing
Adrian Amadeo / Geffen Records
Eddie Meehan / GroundCtrl
Jon Nelson / Band Bitch
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Back to Sin City…
baby, we'll be up five-hundy by midnight!
The RM 64 crew is closing out the summer of ‘09 by heading to that magical place in the desert where dreams, marriages and a month’s salary could all be lost or won in a matter of minutes. The Vegas Music Summit will take place on Sept 23 – 24, 2009. The mini-confab will host 2 nights of showcases at the Beauty Bar and 1 day of panels at the El Cortez Hotel & Casino in beautiful Downtown Las Vegas. Showcasing acts are currently on the A&R tip sheet and have been handpicked by LA talent/event promoters A&R Knights, Hell Ya! and RM 64. We’ll be hosting cocktail mixers in between sets at our lounge in The Griffin two doors down from the Beauty Bar. Event sponsors include Miller Lite, SESAC, ASCAP, Smash Magazine and BMI. Daytime panels and industry badges are FREEEEE!!! (“You’re killing me Larry!”) Panels will feature Major and Indie label A&R execs, Producers, Managers, Attorneys and Music Publishers. So come on down, cause just like the boys in the Hangover, you too could party ’till the early morn and wake up to find a tiger sleeping in your hotel bathroom. Stay tuned to this space for showcase and panel updates. For more info and to be on our comp industry badge list, email us at info@RM64.com
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Tonight’s Show Picks & Blind Item of the Week
Nathan Maxwell @ Viper Room Tonight
Which Head of A&R is making a jump to another label? Is the move to replace a soon-to-be exiting creative head? Inquiring minds want to know…
Lots of music happening around town tonight (Thurs 8/20); Nathan Maxwell (of Flogging Molly), whose new solo album White Rabbit came out this week on SideOneDummy Records, is at the Viper Room. The folks at New York Underbelly present their series Between (a Rock and a Hard Place) at 3 of Clubs with The Nights, Jack Left Town and more… And canucks Mother Mother are at Spaceland with L.A.’s Ballerina Black.
In the mix: Dr. Dre’s Headphones, Eric German, Vegas Music Summit
08.18.09TEDx Music, EMI’s Future & Wolfmother Pub Derby Update
Authentik Artists' Meeting of Important People
This past Sunday, August 16th, an invite-only TEDx event took place in Los Angeles on the topic of the Music Business. The TEDx is an off-shoot community program from the influential TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference (http://www.ted.com), which is held annually in Long Beach, CA. For those not familiar with the nonprofit group, TED was started in 1984 and is devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading.” It’s an invitation-only event where the world’s leading thinkers and doers gather to find inspiration. Veteran entertainment/technology attorney Ken Hertz hosted this past Sunday’s TEDx function at his residence. Insiders who attended shared with us that the gathering was set in an informal setting, and hosted a select group of high-level music and technology executives, thus connecting the world’s old and new media players. The event also included performances by up-and-coming artists. Not surprisingly, the discussions focused mainly on the current changes that are transforming the music business, particularly with regard to the digital future. There’s no doubt that some high-level networking and deal-making was happening on the sidelines. However, one invited guest commented on the lack of entrepreneurs invited. The majority of the attendees were corporate executives…
A fitting inclusion for today’s post (if in name only) is Authentik Artists act Meeting of Important People. The indie-pop trio from Pittsburgh with a sound akin to The Shins, Modest Mouse and The Beach Boys, dropped their new self-titled LP last week. The album quickly reached #15 on the iTunes singer-songwriter charts; check out “Brittaney Lane Don’t Care”. www.myspace.com/meetingofimportantpeople
While industry spectators have been gossiping and keeping a watchful eye on the Terra Firma-owned EMI Music Group for some time now, there’s been some chatter of late about the group having quiet discussions with suitors about selling its profitable publishing division. In addition, with the label division pulling-back on a couple recent artist deals, can we expect Terra Firma to reveal their playing cards soon? Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal’s August 15th article about EMI Music’s struggle to avoid defaulting on its loan from creditor Citigroup touches on the many highly publicized changes EMI has experienced following its acquisition by Terra Firma in 2007, but the timing and tone of the piece is curious. With what said, is the WSJ article a teaser of something more drastic to come? Stay tuned…
The latest on the Wolfmother pub derby is that two companies are pulling away from the pack. The action is ramping up and it looks like Sony/ATV and Universal Music Publishing have narrowed the field by submitting offers well over the 7-figure mark. UMP, who already controls the band’s publishing for Japan, New Zealand and Australia, are said to be making a worldwide play for the Aussie rockers. For their previous Interscope release, the band had an administrative deal with Cherry Lane Music for their worldwide publishing outside of the aforementioned territories that UMP has a stake in. If you understand what’s going on here, please explain it to us. Meanwhile, the Sony/ATV crew has been making an aggressive and impressive play for their pursuit of the band. This one is getting nutty. We’ll keep you posted…
08.14.09Managing Benjamin
Breaking Benjamin Find New Mgmt
UPDATE: We hear Breaking Benjamin have tapped Jordan Feldstein and Rich Egan for management. The Hollywood Records act was recently at the center of a highly competitive derby with a number of high-profile managers making a play to land the band.
08.13.09Inside MySpace Record’s Artist Development Program; Q&A with Jason Reynolds
MySpace Records has been busy behind the scenes establishing a new unsigned artist development program called the Friends & Family Network. The initiative provides marketing for all participating artists across the MySpace Music platform to promote releases, tours and videos.
The label has also begun a new series of live shows in Los Angeles called Online [Offline], which features artists from the Friends and Family Network.
We recently sat down with MySpace Records’ Jason Reynolds to get the details.
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MSR's Jason Reynolds in signature shades
RM64: To start off can you tell us a little about your background?
JR: I’m originally from Australia where I used to run a record label putting out a bunch of indie rock records. Later I was worked for Shock Records in Australia, which also distributed Sub Pop, so I got to know a bunch of people there. When I lost my job at Shock, I got a call the day after from Jonathan at Sub Pop and he said, ‘What are you going to do now?’ And I said I don’t know, and he said ‘Come work for me in America.’ So I moved to Seattle in the 90’s, started the publishing company for Sub Pop, and then sort of migrated into working in A&R and doing product management. I signed a bunch of artists like Damien Jurado, Saint Etienne and The Jesus and Mary Chain.
In the late 90’s after leaving Sub Pop I did a stack of stuff like writing for the NME, music supervision as well as some musicology jobs, and then ended up in management.
I never really intended to become an artist manager, but I was always helping out the artists I knew; anytime there was a problem they kept calling me in to fix it. The first real client that I had was this kid Patrick Park. He was just a singer songwriter that I found at Genghis Cohen but he totally blew me away. He was like a modern day soul singer. So I ended up managing him and developing it from the ground up and subsequently sort of became the artist development-management guy.
Some of the other artists I worked with were The Belles from Lawrence, KS, Forward Russia! from the UK (on Mute), Every Move A Picture from San Francisco who got signed to V2, and then one of the biggest artists I managed was Isobel Campbell – who was previously in Belle and Sebastian. The first project that we did together was the record that she made with Mark Lanegan, Ballad of the Broken Seas. Crazily enough it took her from selling 10,000 records, which is what her previous record had done, to having a UK Top 40 album, getting nominated for a Mercury Music Prize and selling 150,000 copies of that record.
A little after that I dropped out of the music business for a couple years to become Mr. Mom.
RM64: So how did you end up at MySpace Records?
JR: I had been helping out the GM of MySpace Records J. Scavo. Every time he had a question, often times it related to international issues, I answered it. So he called me out of the blue one day and asked, ‘What are you plans?’ and I said ‘I don’t know’ and he said, ‘I’ve got a job for you.’ A large part of my position was to do international stuff for MySpace Records, but the main reason I got brought in was to run the artist development program that we have which is called the Friends and Family Network.
And that’s what I do on a daily basis. We have 130 artists signed-up, and what I do is I build marketing campaigns for unsigned artists on MySpace. The logic behind it being that we could have the next Coldplay, Arctic Monkeys or whatever in the program and we help build them from their 300 friends to 30,000 friends or their 250 plays a day to 70,000 plays a day. And it’s great. Now I do artist development and somebody pays me a salary for it.
RM64: So could you give us a little overview how of the MySpace Friends and Family program works?
JR: So the way that it works is that we dig around on MySpace Music to find unsigned bands that appeal to us, from the charts as well as traditional A&R and various ways you find out about bands through a friend, musician or whatever it is, and we sign them up to the program. The concept is we give them a set of marketing tools, so when they’re releasing an EP or have a tour or a video, I help them market their band on Myspace. So say an artist has a record coming out in the next couple months, I’ll build a marketing campaign with them. From there we have various tools to help them really hyper-target their marketing and get in front of users who we, collectively, think might like their music.
We also aid in getting editorial coverage. So if they have a video we will give them a music video feature. If they have an EP or album coming out, we’ll approach the editorial team at MySpace Music to try and find the right “look” for them, or if they have a video we will help with coverage on the music video page, which are amazing opportunities for unsigned artists. And then we have this one particular music ad that runs on the main music page where we promote tours and things like that as well. So really what we do is give them a tool kit to say ‘here you go, this is what you get allocated in a year –go crazy’. And it’s good. We have this particular artist from Long Beach that when I started my job they had 3,000 to maybe 5,000 plays a day. I would run marketing and see it go to maybe 10,000 plays a day. And now nine months later I run marketing, and they get 70,000 plays a day. That’s what the concept of it is, you’re building an artist from a small level to a big level.
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Bits & Pieces: Tuesday Catch-Up
Mumford & Sons to Island Records UK
Sounds like the management derby that had everyone clamoring for Hollywood Records artist Breaking Benjamin is winding down. Expect an announcement soon… Take notice artist Burn Down the Mission recently took a trip up PCH to play for Rick Rubin and we hear the three other majors are lining up to get the band in front of them next… Recent Rolling Stone darling and RM64 favorite, April Smith, kicked off a wet and sticky Lollapalooza last weekend with a great set and also went on camera to tour the festival grounds and sample the food for Billboard.com… Lastly from the ‘in case you missed it’ department, London’s Mumford & Sons (one of the artists featured on the Future Sounds 33 comp) have recently signed with Island Records UK. And as first reported here L.A.’s Jonneine Zapata has been chosen to support Mark Lanegans’ Soulsavers on their upcoming national tour in September. Stay tuned…
In the mix: CrazedHits.com dude & Charlie Walk?, The Union Line
07.28.09Bang A Gong…
Sony/ATV Signs Passion Pit
We have to give kudos to all those involved with presenting last night’s Wolfmother Cosmic Egg listening event at the Laserium. It was an old school vibe that brought together all sorts to hear the long awaited new album, which we should mention was amazing. So with sore necks and seeing spots, here’s a little catch-up on some of the hustle and bustle… Labels were out to see L.A. locals The Rescues last week, and while surely a few lookie loos, it sounds like some folks are already in, so expect more to follow. Keeping it local, we hear publishers are in play for SXSW ’09 buzz band Local Natives, with offers coming in, though there doesn’t appear to be much movement on the label front. More on the publishing tip it looks like Sony/ATV will come out on top of the Passion Pit pile-up, inking the highly sought-after Frenchkiss/Columbia act whose debut full-length Manners was released stateside back in May… Checking in on the Film & TV front, Manchester’s The Filthy Souls recently had a big look on the ABC series 10 Things I Hate About You, which featured the band as an integral part of the adolescent romance saga between Patrick and Kat (we don’t exactly know what that means either, but it involves onscreen t-shirts, posters and a live performance in the background). Wow. The Filthy Souls support Band of Skulls at Spaceland tonight. Also tonight at Bordello Bar is The Street and Babe Shadow, the new project from Hot Hot Heat’s Luke Paquin, named with an obvious nod to Marc Bolan. Nice. Stay tuned…
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