I got a
request for placement on an old song from one of the supervisors I work a lot
with. This song is from a band that is no longer exists. We draw a deal
that we can place the song anyway. Still, it was probably over five years ago
someone requested something around them.

She had a
lead on to someone that needed the song. But it was locked on YouTube through
the aggregator to the song. This one was so old that back in the days we let
the artist upload themselves to aggregators. The reason why we don’t let that
happen now is pretty clear in what happens here.

She asked
me if I knew the company that was blocking, it was not the usual ones, so I had
no clue. I then went back to the leader of the band and asked if he knew.

The problem
with this band was all the time that they never understood the music industry.
Everything went around that it should be cool names, getting a record contract,
being flashy. The band that takes a picture that they are outside the office of
Universal. I told them for years that they had to learn how the industry worked
before they could get a record deal. But no, half of the management job was to
explain why they couldn’t get a record deal. It was several reasons, not just
one. Still, it always came back that they didn’t have success because they didn’t
have a record label. Oh well, I can always get you a record label that is not
hard. Is just to negotiate without having anything special to offer is that you
just get a deal, nothing really in the deal.  

After a
year of nagging I just went to a friend that had one of by the time biggest record
labels in Sweden. Got them a fair deal. Not the best deal, but totally fair.
The first thing leader of the band did was trying to get to my record label friend
direct. Suddenly he had the record label guy so why need a manager? The second
thing he does I open his mouth and just tell the record label owner that they
should invest 10 000 dollars on a video that their best friend would
shoot. To the point is that his friend barely had done any videos and was certainly
not a name. This was also the time when YouTube was still small so a video was
really nothing anyone would put money in. The budgets were around 100 dollars
if you had a budget.

The record
label came back to me and was just astonished how stupid they were. I had to
explain to them to not speak to the band speak to me and I had to deal with the
stupid part from the band. This was also because the leader was phoning the
inhouse producer several times a day just sitting and chat about nothing just
to sound cool in front of his musician’s friends.

So, it continued
for a couple a month until they realized that being on the label just meant they
had to work harder and actually start to focus on their career. That just broke
up the band. The leader then called me
and asked if he started a new band I had the rights as a manager for that too?
I told him, no of course not. But he didn’t ask me if I would like to do it? He
was just satisfied that he could move on with a new project. Okey the answer
would have been no to the new band anyway.

Then he
just went for all contacts that had passed through the former band with his new
project. Of course, everybody knew that he was a pain in the ass so they called me
see if I still was the barrier against all stupidity, when I was not they more
or less dumped the project.

When I
reached out for this old song I knew what kind of thing he would do. I got
the question on an SMS. He answered ten minutes later with a question of what an aggregator
was. So, I had to explain that. Then it just went silent. No more answers.

I had to go
back to my supervisor that I didn’t know the name of the aggregator. They didn’t
have time to wait they had already waited too long. I suggested another
song with another band kind of similar and the supervisor would check that
instead.

Five days
later the guy answer with: What’s the company name that is interested?

Ok, like I
would ever tell an artist that! I know that you would run to the supervisor try
to sell the song through him, don’t knowing that the song is on a deal from us
anyway. It would mess up the whole situation and the supervisor would be stuck
with a maniac calling her all the time if she had sold a song. Or try to sell
another song that doesn’t fit from his new band. Things like that are why supervisors
don’t want to deal directly with and artist that has to little knowledge.

And just
the stupidity to wait five days to answer on a deal? If you know the business,
you need to answer before they had a question. I just told him that he was too
late and just make a note to myself never try to sell anything with him again.

The tragic
part of the whole story that this artist goes around and portrays he is the
nicest guy in the world. He is trying to collect money for nurses. He is a spokesman for several non-profit organizations and so on. I guess the music industry’s
Mr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

And today I
got the message that the supervisor went along with my tipoff and placed the
other song.