I do appreciate you all!

I am overjoyed to find that some consider my last post funny! THAT alone proves my point about those that cannot grasp the fundamentals & mentality of our industry's new era  beyond a shadow of a doubt. They may hate my post, dismiss it, deny it, make fun of it....yet they read it, and keep returning to pour over my posts to see what else I might say, like an addiction that cannot be easily overcome. I am impressed that I have made that big of an impact, or have been unknowingly handed some control over a small portion of anyones life! Another reason why my blog is so popular and just another proving point! Thanx to ALL my readers! I love you all!

The Law is the Law!

Let me offer a direct quote to anyone that might need this info from Lisa Alter of Wixen Music Publishing, Inc.
http://www.wixenmusic.com/

She wrote:

COPYRIGHT OWNERSHIP....Copyright in a work automatically vests in the author upon creation of the work. Authors of joint works are co-owners of copyright. Authors of works contributed to collective works own the copyright only in their contribution, which is distinct from the copyright in the collective work. In the case of a work made for hire, where a work is created by an employee within the scope of his or her employment, copyright belongs to the employer.

 JOINT WORKS....In the United States, a composition written by two or more authors is generally deemed to be a "joint work," which is defined as "a work prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole." Ownership of joint works is presumed to be shared equally by the authors, absent an agreement to the contrary. Each author of a joint work is free to enter into a non-exclusive license for the entire work, provided that the author issuing the license accounts to his or her coauthor( s). In some cases, co-authors enter into an agreement among themselves, agreeing to work cooperatively in issuing licenses. As a practical matter, licensees of music publishing rights often insist on obtaining approval on behalf of each author of a work even if the grant of rights is nonexclusive.

So irreguardless to any speculation as to whether my lawyer exists or not, this is still the law and it cannot be changed just because a person's belief in this matter might be arbitrary to reality.

Wow! Let's be realistic!

Unbelievable spike in activity from readers yesterday! I know there are those that fail to realize or understand how it all ties together and would rather mentally pass it off to some back ally third party money under the table to bolster these results, and in reality that is fine that they have that miss-guided attitude... Gives those of us that do understand the process and result structure and are able to adapt to it more room and flexibility to take advantage of it. This is a case result as my marketing management predicted it would be... After showing me the numbers from yesterday, it really is unbelievable the number generation that occurred. I may have offended some, even pissed off one or two, for that I am man enough to apologize, but this is my blog, and these are only my personal thoughts and opinions... I am not here to please everyone all the time...This is my space and all are invited into it. Should anyone not like it or disapprove of it, then, like the old saying goes.."Change The Channel!" Or start your own blog and say whatever you like...even to blow off steam about me! If that makes you feel any better, then I encourage you to do so...Blast me all you want and call me all the names in the book... Tell your readers that I am a liar or insane... That would be better than sitting still and complaining about it! Be pro-active instead of re-active! By coming here and blowing off steam you are unknowingly helping me! You don't have to believe me but the stats speak differently, whether you deny their existence or not. Is that what you really want? Or should I just leave it at saying, "Sorry but Thank You!" in the same sentence?
Let me clear the air over some issues raised yesterday... On my Reverbnation site you will, or have found, in my song listing, works separated by the artists name. It is my site, so I will not list the name of a band I am no longer with, that were involved with their creation! I am not here to publicize them, give them free advertising, or kudos, that might take away from my personal promotional efforts... I am aware that they don't approve, but tough!... On songs where my name appears...the issue is that I did not write them... Truthfully..I was part of a 3 piece Band at that time, and these works (BY LAW) are perceived as "joint works"...  Here is a direct quote from an email my lawyer sent to them some time back, when one of them fictitiously claimed these works had been registered and copy written by them (which proved to be false) and they were going to file a cease & desist... (Yes I have a copy of their email claims for posterity)

"What has happened is that "joint works" have been created of which you all were a part, and were also offered to the public as joint works through the Internet. Each songwriter has the right to license each entire song, subject to paying the other songwriters involved their share of any royalties, because each owns an undivided interest in the copyrighted songs. (Copyright Act of 1976). Even if you were to re-write lyrics, or music, to the same song it would then be considered a derivative work and the royalty load would be divided between all members, current and historical. Be aware that the courts will make the division of royalties based on the original members input (33%) and then decide to what extent the new members creative input actually changed the original body of work and break it down from there."

The works that I posted are in fact joint works that I was involved with the creation of. If you look into the lyrics of the song it states that the music was by the person that wrote the music and the lyrics were created by me...All three members were involved in creating the recorded version of the song. I only put my name on those songs to show the differences in style between myself and my new guitarist, that I would be collaborating with in the future (Invoking Scarlett)...Nothing more... When I get comments on Reverbnation about the great lead work...I respond letting them know that I was only the bassist and vocalist on that particular work, giving the praise to the actual guitarist. Legally I have rights to those works as does the rest of the people involved and will not apologize to anyone about laying claim to them. I have posted the original joint works and they have posted re-recordings (derivative works) with newer members. I invite all readers to compare the original works to the derivative works and make up your own mind which version you would actually pay for if given the chance!
All comments are welcome...Even the negative ones! But I do reserve the right to publish which ones I choose and that is the beauty of ownership! Not to hide behind an invisible Internet wall but to pick and choose which comments I acknowledge will be a positive influence to my personal upward movement, and not yours. So make it good and you might get posted! 
Onward & Upward

Relax! I haven't dissapeared!

This has been one helluva month already! Starting out with my amp blowing up and going thru all the processes to get a vintage piece of equipment repaired back to a working state, Mothers Day, Birthdaze, Remodeling a 100 year old house, landscaping, PLUS working too...Yaknow?? Makes focusing on musical projects, let alone delegating time to put forth a worthwhile effort into them quite a chore. All the guys in INVOKING SCARLETT would like nothing more than to spend all our available time rehearsing, recording, and such in a combined situation so that we can freely exchange ideas and move forward with as much haste as getting these great song ideas captured properly, will allow. But the distance between us is problematic. James drives an hour to practice and I have a two hour jaunt...So we have to work with reality and play with the cards dealt! This could be considered as divine intervention to keep us from letting our excitement level goad us into putting material out there, that is not well thought out, and not as good technically as it should be! It does give us time to mentally edit each song, each measure, change, note, bridge, vocal strength, harmony lines, and such... The business of Music has changed to the point that we as artists and performers had better be on top of everything we do if we even want a half ass chance in todays musical arena. I am aware in these times of marketing non- production and keeping the hype flowing, the equity level of any project takes a hit, and that is explained on the friviolities of human nature wanting everything now! So I have no problem in taking my time to make sure that what we three do will be worth their wait! The appetite of the public will be there waiting, with swelled taste buds, when we are ready to serve up our offerings!
Onwards & Upwards!

Random Thoughts!

(Some of my personal quips!)
"Time to distance... The past has been passed.. The future awaits... And I'm standing at it's gates!"

"If a great musician lived and died before anyone heard or experienced his work... Was he a great musician?"

"The Three "M's" of Great Music! 1) Great Musicians 2)Great Material 3)Great Marketing"

"Thoughts and Prayers to those affected by the tornados in Alabama."

CAN I GET A HELLYEAH!

Seven grueling hours of the most intense and enlightening practice I think I've ever been involved in! Great songs are coming together and we are taking our time to contemplate every note and timing structure. We want this to be better than right... These works are to be perfect and we are going to work and rework them till they are! These songs are of the commerciality and quality to deserve our upmost time and effort! And the three of us desire that outcome. To finalize our rehearsal my oldest friend that I have had since 1978 (My 400 watt Peavey Mark IIII bass amp) blew up! First there was the popping, then the sizzle and poof...A plume of grey smoke! A Freaking Pyrotechnics show from my amp, and we haven't even gotten to the stage yet!! CAN I GET A HELLYEAH!!!  Yeah I gotta fix it, replace it, or both...But that was AWESOME!! I'll probably go back to Bi-Amping my speaker cabinets with a slave amp like I used to in another time & place! But that was one helluva sign at the end of a great rehearsal! It don't get any better than that!

Left the Cheap talk behind!

Tomorrow is the day I get to spend at the studio in Oklahoma city with my band mates in INVOKING SCARLETT! We are set to rehearse & start recording on two collaborative works. "I'm In Love" & "Fate Lies"! I'm so stoked about the possibilities of these two songs and the talent that will bring them to life! James Kelly is such an over the top guitarist I feel a little overwhelmed by his ability & diversity. Yet he is such the humble soul you sould never think this man could slay the world with his playing. And then there is Andre, who freely admits being an early Phil Collins admirer.(He states to the time BEFORE Phil moved out from behind his drumset!) What a rythym machine Andre is... I feel overwhelmed at times with these two talents...And yet they tell me they feel the same about me! Go figure!  No wonder this Trio has the makings of something great!

TRUTH IN ARTISTRY!

There is such a thing and I can only wish that more "self appointed" artists were intelligent enough to "get it". But after all the years spent in this industry and studying it religiously, and after all the wanna be's I've had contact with throughout the years, I know that will never happen. You know the type as soon as they open their mouths..."Yeah..I've done that"... "I've written hundreds of songs"... "My band was seriously looked at by *enter the name of ANY record company*. You know it and can feel the warmth of the crap! How come they have no pictures of that time of their life? How come they can't produce notebooks or lyric sheets of all these songs they supposedly wrote? Names of Band members can't be remembered? What I'm getting at is there is TRUTH, which makes you a better artist and believeable to your fans. All the rest is just lies and cheap talk!!

FrIdAy!

Even tho I gotta work tomorrow (Rotational thing) I still love Fridays! Payday for most people and after 5:00 it's the start of the weekend! It's also the weekend that I traverse back to OK City on Sunday  to rehearse in ernest with my new band buddies! I'm so stoked!!! James sent me a new song called "I'm In Love", and I loaded it up on my DAW then gave a couple of hours to learning it. This song has great potential! Anytime I can listen to a song and imagine it as an instumental rock song, I know it's gonna be good! I can hardly wait. This song is what I had imagined INVOKING SCARLETT to sound like. Unique and new when compared to other gendres out there. Kinda in the same way that Van Halen set the rock world on it's side back in the 70's when they broke!  Sunday might be Easter but I have a serious urge to go rabbit hunting!

The Start Has Now Finished!

Well folks.... The beginning has now ended! All cylinders fired up... Chemistry was rampant! So cool that the preliminary meeting "just to see how things would go", turned into an all day event! What a solid foundation was laid during this process. I wounder if this was how Pat Travers felt when he met Mars Cowling... or if this is how they felt when they met Tommy Aldridge? It was pretty awsome to say the least. More was accomplished in this informal session than most bands can acheive in a month of 8 hour saturdays! NUFF SAID! Now it's time to let the artistic, creative, construction process move ahead, and let the music do the talking for us!

Tomorrow!

Tomorow will be the day I finally get to meet my new bandmates that have already committed to INVOKING SCARLETT! Guitarist / Vocalist / Songsmith - James "Machine Gun" Kelly, AND Drummer / Vocalist / Bouncer - Andre'!  We have already exchanged many song ideas and emails...THANK GOD for the internet and emails!! The chemistry has already started a fusion which heightens my anticipation, excitement levels, and pushes my anxiousness to extremes. I was up until early morning thirty polishing my Bass (Vintage 1970 Fender P-Bass), checking my speaker cabs (thank goodness I did too!) just to find out I had a rattle at a volume level lower than I usually play. So off came the back of that cab to discover that I needed to replace 4 mount lag screws on one of my 500watt 8" speakers! All cords rolled up nicely...Mikes stored away...Portable DAW with headphones..Tool box... (Where's the freakin DUCT TAPE??? Oh...here it is!!!) Pedal Board with cables...Guitar (customized flyin V!!) Mike stands... JEEZE!!! I'm gonna hafta hire somebody to do this one of these daze!
In other words...Everything is ready to pack into the vehicle and drive @ 100 miles to start the physical melding of talents into hopefully a force of musical nature! We all bring to the table, years of experience in playing, crafting, & touring... This is gonna be LOUD!! and fun....of course!!

#1

Do I get to do the HAPPY DANCE???  In this business there are those that believe it's all about the music and that is all that is necessary. Well that is only HALF the picture! Look at music as a product... First and foremost you must have a GOOD product! ( if the buying public wants crap the'll go and buy manure that is labeled "Manure"! They want good songs and good music and are willing to pay for it! But how can they pay for it if they don't know it exists?? How will they ever know that some band in Tulsa is making great music if the artists decision is 100% for the music and everything else will work itself out? THEY WILL NEVER HEAR OF OR ABOUT YOU AND YOUR BELOVED MUSIC WILL DIE WITH YOU!! Great music is nothing if nobody gets to hear it outside of the artist or their loyal "local" following! Hell...Even Mozart had publicity and promotion....MARKETING!!! The 3 M's of our industry are 1)Musicians 2)Music & 3)Marketing! Try leaving out one of the 3 elements and all you do becomes nothing more than a hobby, destined for the attic, garage, or basement! How else could I acheive the #1 spot locally for the Rock category on a major website that caters to independent artists? Am I here to slam my old banmates? Absolutely not, because they chose their path and that path was not for me! But the online fans have spoken... Not me...but the FANS!! And for one reason or another the proof is in the pudding and my pudding tastes damn sweet right now! (Did I tell ya???  I LOVE SWEET PUDDING!!)