What follows is a copy of a letter sent to NAB’s president-CEO in response to a published quote of his.

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Date:	04-26-10
To:	NAB President-CEO Gordon Smith
From:	Brian Ascenzo, Pegwood Arts
Re:	Performance ‘tax’

Mr. Smith,

Speaking as both a BMI composer/musician and NAB member, I must voice my mixed reactions and thoughts with regards to your latest media quote:

(per NAB Smartbrief, 04-26-10)

Radio already provides a free platform for artists to promote their music and shouldn’t be the fall guy for the music industry’s failure to adjust its business model to the Internet,’

I must first point out that I don’t believe the Performance Rights Act is necessary, or that these lower echelon stations and venues need to pay additional royalties, especially at rates that would cripple their bottom line.

However -
The major users should continue to pay as they do. The opposing ‘Local Radio Freedom Act’ sponsored by NAB seeks to set a precedent that would set the stage for every major music user to sue for exclusion from royalties, as allowed for some but not all broadcasters after the passing of the LRFA.

Basically, this combination leads to the elimination of royalties for music usage everywhere, from malls to theaters to TV and radio.

As a BMI composer, I have made my career and living scoring corporate videos, short films and infomercials. I am no rock star getting heavy radio play, but my livelihood is in jeopardy because these political actions seek to eliminate my target revenue stream.

Even worse than that, though, for both sides, is that the arguments the NAB is using against these royalties are dichotomous to say the least, and outright untrue at many levels.

In addition to the quoted claim to a ‘free platform to promote their music’, there is also the ‘only millionaire stars and big companies get the money’ complaint.

In reality, the single hardest thing for an artist to do is to get on the radio. Even in the old days, you had to have a DJ or PM that liked you or sell thousands of copies (or bow to payola) to get even local or regional play.

But, it could be done. You could invite DJs to gigs and maybe get a late night play or 2 to get the ball rolling.

Music radio has long done away with all that.

Even small stations are using out of town programming services. College radio is as quirky and picky as ever, but all broadcast commercial radio is now a closed door. The vast majority of PMs and MDs no longer have the authority to program local or new artists on the air. DJs have rarely picked their own songs for the last 20 years.

The music radio industry decided decades ago that only ’stars’ and ‘hits’, songs and artists shipped and selling at 100,000 copies or more, would merit airplay.

This effectively limits radio access to millionaire and major label artists.

Quite simply, you can’t say we get free promotion for our music when only already famous artists are allowed to be featured. And you can’t limit the airwaves to hit artists and then complain that rich people get the money.

Radio broadcasters decided that only stars can play this game.

Most every other business in the world pays up front somehow for the commodity they offer the public. Even TV.

Not music radio, though. They get the product free, restrict access from songs and artists that they don’t believe will increase their audience, and set advertising rates using it as a draw. And now, they do it through a faceless remote service that artists can’t even approach. Our careers are uphill lotto-odds battles to get to that level somehow.

‘Free promotion’ exclusive to hit records is an oxymoron in practice.

Your language, from calling it a ‘tax’ for vilification purposes to citing the ‘free benefits to musicians’ to assert our selfishness, has most likely been wildly successful in assuring both the defeat of the PRA and the passing of the LRFA.

I know you’ll be pleased.

Here’s what happens next- since there will be a precedent for who’s exempt from royalties, and the LRF act says ‘any business using sound recordings’, every major music user of every kind will have an excuse to sue for exemption, and will. Of course, BMI and ASCAP will collapse.

Good, you say?

Video producers already want to pay little or nothing for music production. Their promise is the royalties.

They will be gone.

Every user will be allowed to use any recording anywhere with impunity from any source, and my craft will no longer have any value.

As an artist in my own right, I will still have to sell 10,000 copies on my own to find a national distributor or attract a major label.

Oh, but with this major revenue stream gone, they’re going to disappear, too.

Within 3 years of these laws passing, the programming services will control the entire music industry, and all artists will have to become independent labels.

Not that it isn’t evolving that way now, but the major labels are still an important cog in the works, and the royalty structure is a critical part of our legal rights to our product – our patent, license, trademark, etc. Not to mention being our gold ring, like a graphic artist licensing an artwork to Ford or McDonald’s for an ad or Sears to sell t-shirts – part of the reward for reaching that level.

You have no concept of how deeply and widely these actions will damage musicians and the future of recorded original music.

We already have to give our music away online and play for the same $50 that Ray Charles made in the bars in 1949, if that. We have to own a studio or pay for recording. We pay for pressing or burning CDs. Posters. SWAG. We are far from getting a free ride at radio’s expense.

Film makers have always wanted us to do scores ‘on spec’. With no royalty, we are down to the credit alone for hours and hours of work.

Oh, but they won’t need me anyway, because the LRFA will end up letting them use any music in the world to score the entire film, free.

We artists are under financial attack because we do actually generate billions of dollars.

We are worth our share of it, as surely as any other intellectual property originator.

The PRA is unnecessary, and does need to be defeated. The stations it seeks to add to the royalty structure are unlikely to pay a substantial amount and would be hamstrung with unwarranted additional overhead. They should instead be encouraged to include more new and local artists, and provide playlists to licensers voluntarily to help track and advance up and coming artists. At no cost to them, of course.

The LRFA, though is dangerous and completely uncalled for, especially in it’s vaguely worded form, and calls for the end of a livelihood for a large part of the musical community, unseen by the public.

NAB, however, knows us well. We were in the South Hall this year.

Please, don’t let us down.

Thank you for your time,

Brian Ascenzo
Pegwood Arts

 
 

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For more information:
 
The Performance Rights Act (PRA)
The Local Radio Freedom Act (LRFA)

 

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Discount applies to a variety of packages, including:

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The music critic for the Washington Post is a young, shaven-headed, trendy-eyeglass wearing youngster named, – no joke – Josh Freedom du Lac.

We’ll forego the Arthurian sensationalist criticisms for now. But for the record, after 34 years as a musician, composer, producer and recordist, I would completely expect someone with that name and image to totally hate Country, Jazz, Pop, and Classical music. I would not be surprised if they said Country was stupid, Classical is boring, and Jazz is snobby. This attitude is nothing new.

“The Knight of Freedom” has recently written about the proliferation of patriotic and homespun lifestyle songs on the Country music charts. An otherwise normal, even insightful story, I’m afraid it didn’t make it to page 2 without turning hard left, and spitefully so.

I had read L. Brent. Bozell’s opinion piece on ‘Freedom’s’ opus, and I in turn went to check out the original to see if Brent was right.

At first, Brent seemed harsh. The article mostly quotes Country artists amiably talking about their song’s origin and message – the whole thing having a homey kind of feel, about good old fashioned American values and such.

Then, it turned subtly critical. Midway through, these artists were now under attack for attempting to divide America into ‘us and them’ by slighting urban dwellers.

Here’s where it all went ‘South’.

JFdL – But the Atkins song and others of its ilk …..are narrowcasting to a specific community: the core Country audience, whose roots aren’t exactly in America’s urban centers.

CB – Use of the term ‘narrowcasting’ adds a definite negative connotation, implying that those with roots outside of the urban US are somehow bad.

JFdL – The symbolism and prideful sentiments of the songs are intended to create a sense of belonging among people with similar backgrounds and lifestyles, or at least people who romanticize life in the rural South. (It’s not a place; it’s a state of mind.) To some listeners, though, it might sound as if the artists are closing ranks. “Some of these songs seem to fall into the ‘we’re from Real America, and you’re not’ camp,” says Peter Cooper, who covers Country music for Nashville’s daily newspaper, the Tennessean. “Seems like being divisive while the industry around you crumbles is a poor decision.”

CB – What listeners would be offended at these songs? Who would think that? What does it even mean in this context – “closing ranks”? Where’s the ‘we’re American and you’re not’ even being implied? Who are they telling this? The only way to believe this idea is by already having it – assuming Country music to be disenfranchising to urbanites.

JFdL – Atkins’s latest chart-topper, “It’s America”, is actually a more generalized celebration of nationalism via a checklist of all things Americana: a high school prom, a Springsteen song, a man on the moon, fireflies in June. But more typical of his fare is “About the South”, which is exactly that, and “In the Middle,” in which he sings of “a way of life worth fighting for”.

CB – and that’s bad – why?

JFdL – Similarly, Eric Church isn’t really aiming to be inclusive when he sings “to tell the truth, I think we’re the chosen few” in “How ‘Bout You”, a boisterous 2006 hit about redneck living.

CB – How dare he!!!

JFdL – “It’s putting the flag down, saying: ‘Here’s who we are’ “, Church says.

CB – Which rappers do in virtually every song with violent drug and sex imagery.

JFdL – Not unlike hip-hop, in other words, a genre in which artists repeatedly reference where they’re from and with whom they’re aligned as a means to establish their bona fides and, especially, connect with their tribes. (It’s also not unlike the work of Bruce Springsteen or John Mellencamp, though their small-town rock songs tend to be darker and less idealistic than the recent offerings from Music Row.)

CB – So, you admit all genres of music do this – but only Country is ‘narrowcasting’? No music on earth is more ‘narrow’ than Rap/Hip-Hop. I’ve recorded rap artists since 1987 and to date I’ve only mixed one rap song about peace – over 20 years ago.

JFdL – Says the Tennessean’s Cooper: “While these songs’ lyrics tend to celebrate the special and idiosyncratic nature of the rural South, the music itself is often as distinctive as the Applebee’s restaurant out by the interstate that runs next to so many ’small towns’ .”

CB – So, let’s slam the music itself for not being incredibly unique or complex.

Country music has always been just revved up folk tunes. Melody, harmony, and lyrics all work together to create a song about life or to tell a story. There doesn’t have to be a political agenda or social statement to validate the song. Sometimes it’s just okay to sing about home, love, and grannie’s special fried chicken.

Lots of artists make edgy, complex social statements, and amazingly, they don’t all sell millions of copies. Likewise, neither does every patriotic ‘homebound’ country song. And, believe it or not, there are millions of people in and out of urban centers who are tired of rappers swearing, bitching, and then shooting up their neighborhoods.

While the counterculture-Woodstock generation musical/political bent has not gone away, it can hardly be argued that rappers are part of it. There is no deep social or political insight coming from rap music. There is no wave of critical anthems calling for change. There are just the violent ramblings of life in the ghetto with drugs, sex, and violence being the acclaimed and embraced way of life.

So, calling Country divisive because it doesn’t cater to urbanites who would rather shoot a Country singer than listen to a song is just horribly out of whack.

Any music critic worth a nanogram of salt knows that the top 5 percent is just that – a minority of 5 percent. The vast majority of Americans listen to and embrace more music and genres than Mr. Freedom knows about. A combination of Pop, Classic Rock, Jazz, and Classical fill more people’s lives than Hip-Hop. And, again, if there is any musical genre on the planet that is ‘narrowcasting’, it is Hip-Hop/Rap. It is the most segregated, elitist music there is. It’s aimed exclusively at the young and urban, particularly disenfranchised youth.

Every genre of music has it’s own target audience and a crossover to others. If it’s bad for Country to be ‘narrowcasting’, then all music is guilty – especially Rock.

Mr. du Lac started out with an informative piece about a very healthy and non-threatening trend towards patriotism on the Country charts. An understandable development what with the world in such a state as it is.

By the end of the article, it sounds like Georgia has started handing out grey uniforms.

You have to be biased and looking for a fight to turn this kind of subject matter into an indictment of patriotism, which he, in essence, has done.

Ah, to be young, sheltered, naive and p.o.’ed about it….

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Reference:

“Country Music Is Crazy Right Now for Artists Who Sing About Small-Town Life” / “Twang Thang: Small-Town Songs Spur Big-Time Sales”
– by Josh Freedom du Lac, Washington Post Staff Writer, The Washington Post – May 9, 2009

 

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FYI, my studio, Pegwood Arts, is running an “Artist Bailout” promotion offering a 30% discount off of any package!

Take advantage of this promotion, book a “recession session” today.
Discount applies to a variety of packages, including:

• Albums
• Demos
• Websites, etc.

For more info and to get the coupon code visit Pegwood Arts.

(The promotion runs through May 29th.)

 

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