A lot of the punk/post-punk recordings are paid for out of the band's pocket, the label pays for mastering and pressing, and then the band gets a percentage of the pressing to sell at shows. As the stakes get higher, the label typically shoulders more of the expenses. And even a cursory look at the history of any genre will show you that musicians get fucked over by labels big and small all of the time. Musicians get one over on labels once in a while, but not too often. At 12:53 PM 7/29/2002 -0700, you wrote:
on 7/29/02 12:25 PM, Theo Klaase at river_of_dogs@yahoo.com wrote:
Question: Lets say Bill Frisell wants to record an album with Joey Baron, Joe Lavano, and Ron Carter. Does he pay the artist out of the royalties? Do they even get paid, and if they do, how much, etc...?
Unless the sidemen cut a deal for $ on the back end (which is foolhardy unless you're a guy with a huge rep & you're playing on a Diana Krall album or something you know is gonna really sell). Also, who your label is totally counts. Even tho Dave Douglas Sextet records still mean mostly the same guys, the budget has almost certainly gone up since the move to RCA. And the sidemen on those records are definitely getting more $ than ever before. But backend royalty points -- espec against up-front money -- are a pretty rare thing unless it's a star sideman of some sort (like a Wayne Shorter) laying on a record everyone is pretty sure will sell in the tens of thousands. So the artist usually has a budget and works with that.
For instance:
Nonesuch gives Frisell a budget to cover the studio costs and the costs of musicians. A lot of leaders pay a flat rate per day or per project, with special consideration for stuff like seniority or reputation. In other words, I would imagine Chris McBride is more expensive than Scott Colley. But, if it's a Frisell record, I'm sure the sidemen can smell a major-label budget. But so can Chris, so, if you want him on your major-label record and you haven;t done him any favors, he's probably not picking up the phone for less than three grand. If a guy is headlining the Vanguard the wk you call him to play on your record, he then has the right to demand large dollars, because you're hiring his rep.
Somebody like Joey Baron won't even look at a per-day rate of under $1000. It probably takes about twice that (unless you're someone like Zorn and getting him lots of high-paying road work, in which case flexibility can be counted upon, unless Joey is just dying to hear what Masada sounds like with Jim Black as the new drummer).
It's much cheaper to make a punk rock record where everyone in the band is dying to record.
It's called show business, not show art.
skip h
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Chris Selvig