Sounds of Silence at local venues?
Submitted by AntiMusick on Wed, 05/31/2006 - 02:22.
Now after Porkys is closed, Club Fred is being attacked by the music mob for Protection Money... but after reading and looking around at some stories on line ... if our local music venues don't pay this Protection Money they will end up being silenced, like Skip's Tavern in San Francisco. or the local venues will have to play some yearly Protection Moneys that could run up into the $1,000's like San Francisco's DNA lounge pays $7,000 a year Protection Money to ASCAP and BMI. In their blog it talks about webcasting... you may want to read that you PODcasters. But the interested quote from the owner of the DNA lounge says "When you buy a CD, what exactly did you buy? Very little. You certainly don't own that copy of the music, as you are far from free to do what you like with it. After you've bought it, it does not appear to be ``yours'' in any meaningful sense."
Who will the ASCAP / BMI Mafia go after next? ... Who has not made their yearly Protection Money payments? The Starline, the Belmont, Zapp's Park, Veni Vidi Vici, The Landmark, Tokyo Garden, Kuppajoe, Crossroads, Casey's Bar & Grill, Sequoia Brewery, The Bar, Lucky 13, Hook & ladder, Palominos, Fagan's Irish Pub, Rainbow Ballroom, Warnors Theater, Full Circle Brewery, Club Glo, Deja Vu, Red Lantern ... etc... Will Fresno end up with only the Savemart Center as the place that can afford the Protection Money?
The Protection Money to ASCAP and BMI is less than 500 $ / year for Club Fred. It's about how big is the club and what profit has it. And to Club Fred it's about 500 $
hmmm
...musicians AND plumbers do it huh...? (I knew NPT led to dancing...)
how many well-to-do plumbers do we know?
-how many well-to-do guitarists? (or worse, Drummers?)
I mean, plumbers get bit by spiders,,, true.
(Musicians get bit by, what, crazed groupies? BedBugs? herds of enraged chihuahuas outside of divey bars?)
-I'd rather hear a musician sing about getting bitten, than a plumber... (But then again, if you had a singing plumber, you'd have something there...)
but still... it could work..
Great Musicians-Plumbers:
Hendrix: '...'scuse me while I dope this pipe..'
Sting: '...leak-trace in a bottle, who-oah'
Chrissie Hynde: '...Got Brass fittings in the pocket...'
Page/Plant: 'There's a lady who's sure, all that smells funky is mould, and she's buying a stairway, -to the coal chute...'
--at least musicians don't moon you as much... (Though Keith Moon mooned everybody...)
Plumbers can get older, get fat, and look more plumberlike...
Musicians,
....Well, unless you're Van Morrison.
more on ASCAP-'confusion'or'badness'
I'm not 100% sure that we're looking at this right.
Maybe this has more to do with poor club management
than the metaphorical use of 'mob' and 'protection money'.
Maybe. I'm just wondering.
I'm not even a club owner and I knew they were required to pay fees to ASCAP and BMI---I assume that they also pay property taxes and an electric bill.
Radio stations fork over to ASCAP and BMI. Even a place like
The Student Union over there at Fresno State does. They pay
for liscences to make money off of someone's music. Then
Steven Sondheim or Ozzy Osborne or whoever wrote the music gets a few pennies for it's use.
Are the other clubs not paying their fees? or are they all shaking their heads and saying "Geez, why didn't those goofballs pay their fees?" OR are they all scrambling and worrying. I actually do not know. It would be interesting to ask around. Like a follow up article in the Bee.(or some investigative reporting by some community journalist here on FF).
And I'm not saying that SOME(very very few) musicians are vastly overpaid while others are paid next to nothing. I realize there are
great inequities in this world, but shouldn't the copyright (right to copy, right to distribute/publish) of a recording be worth something to it's originators?
I mean,food should be free too, but until we've all reached the Perfect Socialist Nirvana we trade in paper credit(money) for our work---musicians do it, plumbers do it.
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