Episode 73 of Tea with Hungry Lucy begins with Christa and War-N performing part of a brand new song (born today) called “Willow Moon”. Let us know what you think of it. Christa tells us of the inspiration for the lyrics and War-N talks about his some methods of his writing methods. He’s been trying to break through some creative resistance. Steven Pressfield’s book, “The War of Art” seems to be helping. W and CB wish each other a Happy Anniversary on their 7th year of marriage … time flies when you’re having oh-so-much fun! Whilst doing a bit of research War-N found several videos posted on YouTube in which some fine folks have used HL tunes. Among them are re-edits of Final Fantasy (We Won’t Go), Troy (Bed of Flames), Robin & Marian (A Girl Alone) and Grey’s Anatomy (Her Song) plus a lovely dark video using Claire Voyant’s mix of Stay. Thanks to all that created these lovely videos. Music recommendations (OPM) this week are Tori Amos‘ new disc “American Doll Posse” and the upcoming release from Paula Cole entitled “Courage” (promo video).
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Informational type things »
If you haven’t experienced Stephanie’s Id live (from Asheville, NC), you won’t want to miss this show. They have managed to reaffirm my faith in the power of music every damn time I see/hear them!
Check out Stephanie’s Id online»
Check out Hungry Lucy online»
War-N HL Blog
Yet another oddity of independent broadcasting graces our ears this week as War-N and Christa tell of their week, including a fun evening with Amy (Diet Audio) and Dan (Shitkickers). Sunday was spent with some mild creative success and a little frustration. The duo crack back into the OPM (Other People’s Music) segment in which Christa shares her spiritual enlightenment from Mavis Staples (NPR segment) and War-N chats about Junior Boys and Lenka. War-N also tells us about remixes he is starting for Lovespirals and Diet Audio. Christa is sure to add some vocal delights as well. While it’s hard to discern the meaning, CB & W then launch into some alternative storytelling and wander off to dinner. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more (Bindlestiff) strange!
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“The inside of my head is coated with reflection. Ideas generated can’t break the surface tension. Repelled towards their source, not reaching their destination. Only to reappear. Nothing new, recycled thoughts. I want to smash the mirror, and risk the bad luck”
huh? what’s that?
War-N HL Blog
This morning I wandered down to one of my employers “Am Buzz” sessions. These are usually interesting presentations on topics that pertain to this advertising and marketing industry in which I find myself toiling daily. This morning’s presenter was Todd Henry of AccidentalCreative.com. He only had a scant 30 minutes to share his wisdom on the creative process, but he still managed to blow my mind! A key point that stuck out was the importance of protecting one’s”creative core” while outside forces are trying to scoop from it. He put it much more eloquently than that, but that’s why he was at the front of the room. 
In reading the AC blog I find this same point that was illustrated in the fabulous “Before the Music Dies” film.
(Ever wonder why pop music is bland?) This is because things that evoke a strong response in research, (a “5″), tend to be polarizing. Either you love them or you hate them. Therefore the goal is to be “just good enough” that a listener won’t change the radio station, but not so good that the song is polarizing. You’re “shooting for the 3.”
read more »
Thanks to Todd for giving my mind a good shake this morning!
War-N HL Blog
After far too long, we are pleased to announce the winners of the Hungry Lucy, Make Your Own Damn T-Shirt contest. Click on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place designs below for an up-close and personal look at these fabulous works. As we mentioned on the podcast, it will be a few months before these t-shirts are available … stay tuned! a HUGE thanks to everybody that entered the contest … we really appreciate your time, effort and creativity.
War-N HL News
Always remember to wash your hands, kids! So, this week brings the winners of the “Make Your Own Damn T-Shirt” contest, which you can view HERE, and ramblings of a bunch of non-sequitors! Find out who Penelope is, how Christa looks with two spoons on her face and what happened to Trevor’s head! No OPM’s this week, as HL’s been too busy to really give anyone a good mentioning. “To Kill a King” went into it’s 4th cd pressing, so the T-Shirts will be made later this year…before the time the new album comes out War-N discusses his lust over a new keyboard (Alesis Fusion 8HD) and asks for anyone who already owns this fine piece of equipment to give their feedback. CB mentions the movie “Capote” and the wonderful quote, which she nearly ruins by quoting it wrong, and how well Mr. Hoffman did in portraying Truman Capote.
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Busy, busy … which is good, but we shall have to pass on the podcast this weekend. We’ll be back in full force next week (May 13th) to annoy you with more random banter and sillyness.
Big love and special sauce,
War-N & Christa Belle
War-N HL Blog
Earlier today I bought into some posts I was reading on how SoundExchange collects money on behalf of artists without their consent. Well, this is kind of true, but not in an extortionist kind of way. Since my post earlier, I have emailed back and forth with John Simson, the Executive Director of SoundExchange. He explained how SoundExchange works to me. for the sake of completeness (and perhaps a little laziness) I will simply include the email exchange below (with John’s kind permission).
In response to my original email, John replied:
Please give me a call so I can explain to you how this works. You don’t need to “opt out� of SoundExchange – but you are free to direct license any service you want at whatever price you want. That is and has always been your right. What you will find is that most webcasters want to make one single payment for everything they play – and we facilitate that. As the webcasters wanted to make one payment and provide data about what they were playing to one entity, we were designated by the Copyright Office to be that entity.
I responded with:
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I would love to speak with you about this as it’s clear there is a lot of potentially inaccurate info in the web/media on this topic. I am simply reacting to what I have read.
So, is it correct that a “flat fee” is collected from the webcaster and each artist played is entitled to a portion of that whole? If so, what happens to the portion that goes unclaimed? Is it the webcaster that would need to opt-out of the system, and play only freely available music? I’m trying to get a handle on what I can tell webcasters who come to me. I guess in order to avoid paying anything on music of ours that has been played, they would just not report airplay of our music. They would still pay the same fees, but no portion of that would come to us, via Sound Exchange. Is that accurate?
John replied:
It depends upon the service. The 40 or so blue screen channels that play music over your cable tv or directv or dishnet pay us 7.25% of the revenue they collect and provide us with complete census data on every channel. We match the money to the performances and distribute. Satellite radio (XM and Sirius) also give us census data for all performances and we match their payments to performances and pay out accordingly. Webcasters, if they are non-comms (college, religious, community) for the most part pay a $500 annual fee. They do not provide data – so there is no data to match against their payments. We have tried to work with them to create a technology solution since getting data from them is important to me – so we can pay the right artists and labels.
Large commercial webcasters (who pay in 95% of webcasting royalties) are now required to report 2 weeks per quarter. If you show up in that survey, you get paid. Those payments would be made on the basis of audience size. In 2005 the rates for large commercial webcasters was .0762 cents per stream. So, if 100 people were listening to a song, the label and artist would receive approximately 7.6 cents for that performance. If 10,000 people were listening it would be $7.60.
What happens to unclaimed money, as in every performing rights organization is that we hold it for a minimum of 3 years (Copyright Office regulations) and if we can’t locate the person and they haven’t come forward to claim, the money is redistributed to all other SoundExchange royalty recipients.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
This is all good info. John is very open to conversation on this stuff, so I encourage anyone concerned (particularly webcasters) to contact him directly with questions. You can find his contact info on the SoundExchange contact page.
War-N HL Blog
The more I read about Sound Exchange (and the fact that they collect performance royalties for artists who have never asked them to) the more upset I become. It is yet another example of a totally fucked up music industry dragging down both its customers and the other people that allow it to exist (artists and broadcasters). Hungry Lucy is currently a “member” of Sound Exchange. We receive a (very) small check every quarter for money they have collected from broadcasters that play our music. With the recent performance royalty increases (links to PDF), many of the broadcasters who have helped Hungry Lucy gain exposure are faced with ridiculous costs that threaten to put them out of business. THIS CANNOT HAPPEN.
With this in mind I just sent the following email to the Executive Director, Chief Operating Officer and Licensing & Enforcement Specialist at Sound Exchange. I hope it results in us getting one more foot out of a corrupt system. Excuse my language (above) … I’m angry! If any other artists are upset about this (and I hope you are), please let Sound Exchange know.
UPDATE: I am in contact with Sound Exchange. It appears this system doesn’t quite work as I understood (and has been written elsewhere) … stay tuned for details
——————————
Hello,
My name is War-N Harrison. I am one half (and business manager) for the band Hungry Lucy (www.hungrylucy.com).
We currently receive statements/royalties from Sound Exchange. I joined up/registered with Sound Exchange a few years back after I received an email that Sound Exchange had collected money on our behalf for airplay of our music. So, I signed up and collected that money along with a few royalty distributions since. Since that time we have seen a significant benefit of increased exposure from podcasts and internet radio play. We see this exposure as a far greater benefit than the royalties Sound Exchange has collected on our behalf.
So, with this in mind, I would like to know how we can go about opting out of Sound Exchange, such that you no longer collect performance royalties on our behalf. We can then go to the podcasters and internet broadcasters that have helped us by assuring them they can play our music with no cost to them.
I also have a question. How is it that Sound Exchange is able to collect royalties on behalf of artists prior to the artist authorizing this?
Thanks for your help. I look forward to your response.
Regards,
War-N Harrison
—————
Hungry Lucy / Hungry Media
www.hungrylucy.com
www.hungry-media.com
War-N HL Blog
Episode 73 of Tea with Hungry Lucy begins with Christa and War-N performing part of a brand new song (born today) called “Willow Moon”. Let us know what you think of it. Christa tells us of the inspiration for the lyrics and War-N talks about his some methods of his writing methods. He’s been trying to break through some creative resistance. Steven Pressfield’s book, “The War of Art” seems to be helping. W and CB wish each other a Happy Anniversary on their 7th year of marriage … time flies when you’re having oh-so-much fun! Whilst doing a bit of research War-N found several videos posted on YouTube in which some fine folks have used HL tunes. Among them are re-edits of Final Fantasy (We Won’t Go), Troy (Bed of Flames), Robin & Marian (A Girl Alone) and Grey’s Anatomy (Her Song) plus a lovely dark video using Claire Voyant’s mix of Stay. Thanks to all that created these lovely videos. Music recommendations (OPM) this week are Tori Amos‘ new disc “American Doll Posse” and the upcoming release from Paula Cole entitled “Courage” (promo video).