Larry Knechtel – RIP

I was sad to hear that Larry Knechtel has passed away. I won’t go into his resume here as a quick Google search will reveal his impact on music over the last 40 or so years. I was fortunate to work with Larry on a number of occasions but the one I remember the most was when I received a call from producer Jay Senter (I Am Woman, Helen Reddy) to fly to Atlanta Georgia to record an album for Sammy Johns on the GRC label. This album included his monster hit “Chevy Van”. There were some amazing players on this album. Larry Knechtel on bass (Larry could play anything!), James Burton and myself on guitar, Mike Melvoin on piano and Jim Gordon on drums. I was really flattered to be included with such notable players! We really went first class, all expenses paid. We even had the “upstairs” suite in the 747 jet that flew us there. Of course the sessions were amazing and what an honor to play with such great players. One of the biggest laughs that we had was the rumor that the GRC label was financed with porn money!

The last time I saw Larry was when he came to my studio and played piano on some demos for Patti Dahlstrom. He will be sorely missed!

Jay Senter and Mike Melvoin, in picture, off to airport. Flying to Atlanta for the Sammy Johns session.

Follow up on Tunesat trial

I thought I would catch everyone up on my trial run with Tunesat as a number of people have expressed an interest in this service. There have been a couple of glitches to report but I’ll start by reposting part of my earlier post so those who are not up to date will be.

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You start with sending Tunesat your music (after signing a contract), currently via a DVD (no FTP yet), and they “fingerprint” it to compare to their monitored networks. For the trial period they will run a scan on Q2 2008 and also 45 days going forward from the day they get you into their system. The cost for the trial period is 50 cents per piece of music and 20% of any monies you recover. In my case I sent them about 150 cues for a fingerprint cost of $76. You are provided with an account page at Tunesat with a list of the detections that include the name of the channel, show name, episode name, date/time, cue title (title you submitted to Tunesat), duration and finally a “Listen” link to hear the detection (with dialog). The point is to check for copyright infringement, shows that that are using your music and not reporting it and/or cross referencing against your cue sheets.
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So here we are at 07-12-09 with a couple of problems.

1.) After many promises of running a 2nd quarter 2008 scan within a month of my signing up (May 2009) they have yet to deliver it. Only last week I was finally told they would not be able to deliver that quarter. They would send me May 2008 last Friday and July 2008 by next week. Still waiting for May… In all fairness they have extended my trial way beyond the 45 days. It’s a bummer though, the whole point was to compare their detections against my BMI statements. Very disappointed, I asked for any previous quarter and was told they didn’t have a full quarter!

2.) A number of shows came up in the scan where I had no idea of how the music got on the shows. I called the production company of two of those shows and talked to the executive producer. Naturally he was concerned but one of the great things about Tunesat is the ability to go to their website and listen to the detection as it came off the air. I let the executive producer from the show log in to my account and he played back a few of the detections. He promptly said they were not his shows! They only had female hosts, these had male hosts and American accents (his shows are out of Canada). I called Tunesat and spoke with Chris Woods who explained that they get the schedules periodically and then re-update a couple of weeks later if there are any schedule changes. As these shows were aired in May the schedules should have updated and been corrected, didn’t happen. One of the shows just re-aired and I recorded it and verified that indeed the Tunesat scan did not match the show schedule.

Even though I am disappointed in these glitches the service is pretty amazing. The fact is I found out that we had much more music airing every month than I thought. Even though some of the schedules did not match up, the music was aired and detected.

I am still waiting for May and July 2008.

RIP Bob Bogle – Recording with The Ventures

Back in the early 70s, after I had just moved to Los Angeles, I received a call to record with The Ventures. Who, as a guitar player, hadn’t learned “Walk Don’t Run” and wouldn’t be flattered for that opportunity, I certainly was!

I had completely forgotten about these recording sessions until I saw that Bob Bogle had recently passed away. My brain must really be getting old as I don’t remember much about those sessions. I do remember that Larry Taylor was playing bass, Mel Taylor was on drums and Nokie Edwards on guitar. So, time to fire up “The Google” and see what I could find out.

In my searching I ran across a book titled “Walk-Don’t Run – The Story of the Ventures” at www.books.google.com. In that book (page 195) they have me playing lead guitar, which is not correct. On page 197 I found the true story. The albums I played on turned out to be solo albums of Mel Taylor’s that were later released under the titles “Sun, Sea And Love” and “Mel Taylor in Japan”. The other players on those albums were John Mayall and Harvey Mandel (BTW Larry Taylor and Harvey Mandell were former members of Canned Heat and John Mayall was famous in his own right). On further reading I found that David Carr was playing keyboard and doing orchestral arrangements for them and was also on those sessions. This really surprised me as I had met David later in the 80s when he came into my studio to work with one of my clients and I never made the connection. We did quite a bit of work together at that time. Small world and you learn something new every day!

Reading on I found even more interesting information on page 201 of that book. Evidently there was a lot of intrigue going on with The Ventures at that time as Bob Bogle and Don Wilson were producing these albums and it wasn’t clear if this was Mel’s album or a Ventures album. I do remember that Nokie and Mel had asked me to join them on their upcoming tour to Japan and I was even more flattered. But after many years on the road with The Righteous Brothers traveling was never my favorite thing and I declined. Nevertheless, I realize, even more so today, what an honor it was to work with such a groundbreaking group of musicians.

Life And The Music Business

For the past few years I’ve been creating library music. It’s a new adventure for me and I thoroughly enjoy it but my reasoning is different then you might think. I am ever grateful to God, the Universe, Buddha, whatever, for any success I might have had or will have. I’ve been very blessed in my life to have worked with some of the biggest and best artists of their time. I’ve played all kinds of music with some of the finest players in all kinds of situations. I’m not trying to blow my horn but because I have had those experiences I like nothing better than sitting in a room with a computer and some software and creating any kind of music I feel like. No egos, no stress and no time pressures. The freedom and control is intoxicating! Will anyone think it’s great music? I don’t know and I don’t care. What I do care is how I feel at the end of the day. Some music library will most likely take it and if they place it all the better, at this point it’s the only outlet I have. Am I “devaluing” music? I don’t think so, it’s just business. Business is war, war is hell, adapt or die. In the meantime I will hopefully become a better writer, get better gigs and maybe build an annuity of performance royalties. It then becomes incumbent on me to keep track of the back end and do whatever I can to protect myself.

Even at my busiest doing session work, touring or as a signed writer and producer I never wanted to be at the mercy of the music business. I didn’t (and don’t) mind being a slave to music but I was not about to be a slave to the music business! Consequently I was always looking for opportunities to make money outside the business. The music industry can be as unpredictable and you have to grab any opportunities which you encounter. The success of those opportunities helped to give me the security to be able to pursue music on my own terms . I think all of us get into music because we love making music and are looking for some sort of audience. If we can make a living at it great but life and the “business” of music can get in the way of our best laid plans.

Finally, I think those of us who have been in the business for a long time recognize that there is a certain amount of luck in all of this. Being in the right place at the right time the stars align and we catch a wave. Sometimes you catch more than one wave but the fact is that someday that ocean might not be there and we are left with the question, “What is life really all about?”. Life is fleeting and fragile so, for me, the answer to that question is “Be A Light”. Now that’s something really worth pursuing!

Tunesat fingerprinting, Scripps Networks and BMI royalties.

I recently signed up for Tunesat’s trial period. For those of you who don’t know, Tunesat is a service that monitors (according to them) all shows, on 100 Networks, for detections of your music.

You start by sending them your music (after signing a contract), currently via a DVD (no FTP yet), and they “fingerprint” it to compare to their monitored networks. For the trial period they will run a scan on Q2 2008 and also 45 days going forward from the day they get you into their system. The cost for the trial period is 50 cents per piece of music and 20% of any monies you recover. In my case I sent them about 150 cues for a fingerprint cost of $76. You are provided with an account page at Tunesat with a list of the detections that include the name of the channel, show name, episode name, date/time, cue title (title you submitted to Tunesat), duration and finally a “Listen” link to hear the detection (with dialog). They started monitoring my cues on 05-07-2009 and to date (currently 05-29-09) they have “detected” about 500 uses of those cues (Q2 2008 scan will be in about a month). The point is to check for copyright infringement, shows that that are using your music and not reporting it and/or cross referencing against your cue sheets.

Many of the shows detected were on Scripps Networks which has not been paying any performance royalties.

Though I have made my living for many decades making music in various capacities, I had very little knowledge of music libraries. In 2004 my wife and I made a deal to write and produce about 100 cues for a TV production company. Through a series of miscommunications and lack of knowledge, on everyone’s part, we ended up with a lousy contract and learned that most of the shows were for Scripps Networks. One thing we did insist on is the ability to re-use the music which they agreed to, as long as we re-titled.

I know all about the controversy regarding re-titling but for us it was the only game in town. I submitted our completed cues to many, many libraries and the only ones interested were those who offered the now typical “re-titling” option (BTW these libraries were found submitting through the Film Music Network). I was not going to let the music sit on the shelf so I went for it. How the re-titling controversy will play out is anyone’s guess.

In 2006 I placed our music with two different libraries. Over the course of the last three years one library has done an excellent job of placing the music but the other has never placed one piece. I was curious. Was the one successful library a fluke and/or the other library inept or dishonest? I will know more about this aspect when the Q2 2008 scan is run but I have learned that the library that has done well for us has placed some of our cues with Scripps. This I did not know and I made sure to let them know. To say that they were surprised I knew this is an understatement! But the nature of the business is that they (like many other libraries) supply a hard drive of music to production companies and from that point it’s hard to know where the music ends up. I do think that now, with a service like Tunesat, I can at least let them know I know.

Now to a hopeful sign. The whole Scripps issue with BMI has been bugging me since I found out about it in 2004. I had called BMI a number of times in L.A., N.Y. and Nashville and few people knew what I was talking about. When they did they had no clear answers except that BMI was negotiating with Scripps. After observing all of the Scripps shows on Tunesat and getting more incensed I started calling BMI again. After a series of calls I finally got through to a couple of people who got right on the case to get me some answers. Today I got a call from BMI saying they were a few months away from finalizing a deal with Scripps and that Scripps was deciding what shows would be on a blanket license or per program. BMI also said payment would be retroactive.

I’m always the “infernal” optimist so I would like to think this will happen. Needless to say I will keep on my contact at BMI and hope for the best. The person at BMI did state the Scripps was not their longest running negotiation but (as she said) there are a lot of lawyers involved!

As I find out more about Tunesat, Scripps Networks and BMI I will update.

War Stories With Phil Spector

Sad to hear about Phil but not surprising. I worked many times with Phil in the 60s and 70s with The Righteous Brothers and John Lennon. Check out our other site at http://over50music.com/arts-musings/my-time-with-phil-spector/ for the complete story.

C, Eb and G Walk Into a Bar…

C, E-flat and G go into a bar. The bartender says, “sorry, but we don’t serve minors.” So E-flat leaves, and C and G have an open fifth between them. After a few drinks, the fifth is diminished and G is out flat. F comes in and tries to augment the situation, but is not sharp enough. D comes in and heads for the bathroom saying, “Excuse me. I’ll just be a second.” Then A comes in, but the bartender is not convinced that this relative of C is not a minor. Then the bartender notices B-flat hiding at the end of the bar and says, “Get out! You’re the seventh minor I’ve found in this bar tonight.”

E-Flat comes back the next night in a three-piece suit with nicely shined shoes. The bartender says, “you’re looking sharp tonight. Come on in, this could be a major development.” Sure enough, E-flat soon takes off his suit and everything else, and is au natural. Eventually C sobers up and realizes in horror that he’s under a rest. C is brought to trial, found guilty of contributing to the diminution of a minor, and is sentenced to 10 years of D.S. without Coda at an upscale correctional facility.
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Thanks to Billy Rader for sending me this. Just had to post it!

Remembering Delaney Bramlett — R.I.P.

Play clip from rehearsal tape.

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I was saddened to learn that Delaney Bramlett has just passed away. It immediately took me back to the early 70s. I had just recently moved to Los Angeles from Newport Beach when I got a call from Delaney to join a band he was forming. He was about to record an album for Columbia Records titled “Mobius Strip”. Of course I was thrilled and flattered. (I think this was just after I had been touring with Nancy Sinatra — ahh — the life of a working musician!).
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So Sorry, So Tardy

Well, I recently noticed I have been very tardy at posting and keeping up our website. It’s all good as Robin and I are working on finishing up her new album. She is writing up a storm and that’s keeping me busy as well as my just completing a new quad core PC for my studio. Lots of little bugs in that bugger but I’m stamping those out slowly but surely! Stay tuned. Ill be back soon!

Unchained Melody – Can you spot the bass mistake?

My friend Artie Wayne has put together some Halloween related music videos, two of which I happened to play on. They were “Unchained Melody” and “Hell Of It” by Paul Williams from “Phantom Of The Paradise”. One of the things that always amazed me on the “Unchained Melody” session was the bass mistake. I heard it at the session but in those days there was no “punching in”. It was the best take and that’s how it was released. To this day, every time I hear it, I still cringe a little. Can you find it? Play the below video, leave a comment and take a guess, if no one gets it I’ll leave the answer in a week or so.

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