The First

Several weeks, ago I found myself at South By Southwest (SXSW), the Burning Man of the indie music scene. Thousands of bands converge on Austin, Texas and fill it with (mostly) beautiful noise. This was my first time attending, and I found myself getting off not on any act in particular, but on the energy of the place - lots of creative people working hard to share and develop something they love.

In my journalistic role there, I found myself interviewing a young up-and-comer signed to a major label. He'd been taped for a national TV broadcast there and I'd been lucky enough to see his performance. Strong, charismatic, unpretentious, and exceedingly musical, this artist (and he actually does deserve the title "artist," as opposed to many performers who are mistakenly referred to as such) put on the rawest performance I saw at the festival. It was nearly brilliant.

So as I sat down to hang with this fellow, I discovered that one of his songs was being used on a national reality TV show. Amazing, I said. You must be making a fortune in publishing.

For those unfamiliar with music publishing, here's the short version - when you write a song, you can register it with ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC, organizations that tracks when your composition is used on the radio or TV, and funnel royalties to you accordingly. A musical mentor of mine once wrote a song for a presidential inauguration; since that song was broadcast on every channel in the world shortly before El Presidente took his oath of office, my sensei received a check from SESAC for nearly $100,000 dollars. Not a bad payoff for two minutes of music.

So to return to my SXSW interview buddy, I figured that he should be making quite a bit, now that his song was being broadcast far and wide. His response when I asked him? "Um, dunno. Should I be getting something for that?" Oh dear.

It's a bit of a stereotype that young artists are courted by major labels who offer them dreams of stardom, and then they get utterly taken advantage of when it comes to the actual label contract. I assumed that, in this age of music self-production and self-promotion, everyone would be a little wiser and read the fine print. So either my interviewee had a very good lawyer who handled such things smoothly, or this gentleman's label was getting riiiiiich off of him.

As I pursue business matters with my own bands and independent projects, I find myself learning more and more about the music business. It's complicated and messy, but navigable. I find myself having to remember that this is a means to an end, that making music professionally is the goal. In fact, I recently signed my first official band contract ever. More on that to come.