Bob Mair (center) makes a point that made Michael Laskow (left) and Frank Palazzolo (right) chuckle a bit during the Music Licensing Basics panel at the TAXI Road Rally.
Moderated by Michael Laskow
I’d like to introduce our next panelists. Let me read you a little bit about each of them.
Frank Palazzolo is a music supervisor at Mad Doll Productions in Los Angeles. Some of his credits—and these are just a very few—include The Path on Hulu, Sheer Genius—which is coming to CBS—plus About a Boy, Graceland, Hemlock Row, Hand of God, Hawaii Five-O, The Leftovers, The Affair, Twisted, House of Lies, Friday Night Lights, Friends With Benefits, and many, many more. Frank’s film credits also include Scream 4, Take Me Home, The Truth About Emanuel, Apart, Americons, Enough Said, and The Kids Are All Right. Frank is also an accomplished songwriter and composer in his own right. Mr. Frank Palazzolo, come on up, buddy. [applause]
Our other panelist is Mr. Bob Mair. He’s the CEO, owner and founder of Black Toast Music and Black Toast Records. He is also a composer and a producer. Since its launch, the company has placed music in hundreds of TV series, including hits such as Homeland, The Good Wife, Modern Family, New Girls, Girls, The Walking Dead, Shameless, Sons of Anarchy, True Blood, Dexter, Madam Secretary, Treme, The Wire, and many, many others—countless others, actually! Black Toast has also placed music in high profile motion pictures, including Neighbors, American Reunion, and video gamessuch as“Dance, Dance Revolution,” as well as national advertising campaigns for Domino, Microsoft, Walmart, and Whole Foods. Bob’s company has also signed dozens of TAXI members—maybe even a couple hundred over the years—and placed countless songs and instrumentals from them in TV shows, feature films, and commercials. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Bob Mair.
This is our 20th Road Rally! My wife said to me, “Honey, it’s the 20th Road Rally, so you should do something different.” So for those of you who’ve been here for a lot of them, you’ll notice I didn’t wear a suit this morning! I’m just wearing my regular everyday clothes. So that’s different. [laughter]
The other thing that I’m doing differently this year is that we are starting at the beginning and building from that level to an intermediate level, to more advanced levels of the topics of panels throughout the course of the weekend. In the past, we’ve assumed that if you’re here at the Rally, you already know what’s going on. I’m not so sure I was right about that.
I’ve come to the realization that there are a lot of singer/songwriters in the audience that may not really understand how adaptable their music is to film and television market. Sometime I’ll say to a singer/songwriter who does acoustic stuff, “You know, you could just do a mix minus vocal version of that and slap a Dobro on there for the melody, and turn that into a cue.” And I can see a look on their face that’s saying, “I never thought about that.” There are always a couple extra ways to make some money with your music.
So what I’m doing to start this year’s Rally out is ask these two brilliant, articulate people some really basic stuff. And by the end of the weekend, we will have progressed to the real inside information that you probably wouldn’t get while earning a master’s degree.
So, here we go with the basics…
Let’s define what a song is, what an instrumental is, and what a cue is. Because a lot of times people say, “I synced that track.” What do they mean? I’m gonna go to Frank with this. In the world of a music supervisor, define what a song is, what an instrumental is. Can a cue be a song or an instrumental? Can a track be a song or instrumental?
Frank: Well, yeah, I use different terminology for a lot of different things. When I talk about a cue, it just means a spot [in a TV show] where some music is going be. But when I’m talking to a music editor, a lot of times when I say cue, I’m talking about a score cue [meaning that a piece of composed score needs to go in that slot]. So we refer to the instrumental and to the full mixes as “source” cues. And sometimes even though the music’s not necessarily coming from a source—because the word source was meant to be music that’s playing from a radio or playing from a jukebox or whatever—we call it source cues because that’s licensed music cues. We use a word called scourse sometimes, and what that means is your source cue is going to play over a scene [like a score might be used]. Let’s say there’s a montage with no dialogue; we’ll call that a scource cue, and that means that it’s gonna be pretty much scoring the scene, but as a licensed track. Does that answer the question?
"There are always a couple extra ways to make some money with your music."Michael Laskow
Does that make sense to you guys?
Frank: Well, basically, if I call you, I’m not quite sure. A vocal cue and an instrument cue are different than a score cue. And I normally don’t go out to license a score cue for the type of work that we do.
I would know what you’re talking about, and Bob would know what you’re talking about, but somebody who’s not in the business…
Frank: So basically, if somebody says, “We have a cue,” it means that they’ve got a spot that they need to license the music for.
How about in your world, Bob? As somebody who pitches both instrumentals and songs, what do you call a song? What do you call a cue? What do you call an instrumental track? How do you define those things?
Bob: Well, as Frank was saying, cue relates to all of them—it’s synonymous. One of the things I love when we are approached by supervisors is when they’re clear as to whether they’re looking for a song or an instrumental. I’ll get things that say, “Hey, we need a cue that sounds like the Black Keys,” and I’ll go, “Well, is that a vocal, or is that an instrumental?” Generally, we’ll send both if we have them; that way, when it gets there they can figure it out for themselves.
Both versions of the same thing?
Bob: Exactly. We hedge our bets. We’ve learned.
"We use a word called scourse sometimes, and what that means is your source cue is going to play over a scene [like a score might be used]."Frank Palazzolo
We find that when writing the TAXI listings, Frank sends me an email and says, “I need a song.” And his briefs, as they’re called in the industry— kinda like a TAXI listing, but in the industry they’re called a brief—his stuff is very articulate, which is why I’ve got both of these guys here, because they explain things fully.
Bob: And they can also be really loose. I’ll get less than a sentence, a cryptic text from an iPhone. Then our job—I know you’re going to be getting into this later—is to mind-read sort of what the thought process is. Other people are very succinct. You know, “We need this.” “We need this.” “We need a certain BPM.” I mean, it gets really detailed.
Frank is that kind of guy.
Frank: Let me quickly explain the types of cues. So basically, if somebody sends you a request form and they say that they want to use a BV, if they didn’t write it all out, what they’re talking about is that a BV is a Background Vocal cue; they’re gonna use your lyrics. Then you’ve got a BI, or a Background Instrumental cue, [meaning] they probably just want your instrumental. You’ve got a VV, a Visual Vocal, which means somebody’s actually going to sing your song, or sing along with your song. And then you’ve got a VI, for Visual Instrumental, which means somebody might be miming to your song, performing your song. Then you’ve got your Main Title Cue, and you’ve got the End-Credit cue. But those are pretty much the four standards: BV, BI, VV, and VI. Those go out every day, and at least they’ll [the music supervisors] let you know how they intend to use your music.
So, at TAXI, we actually differentiate in the listings for the benefit of those who are not so advanced yet. It will say Instrumental Cue, which means that it’s probably 60 seconds to roughly two minutes long, and it’s instrumental, and it has a little different way that it’s constructed. The form is not like a typical song, where it’s got an intro and a verse, or a bridge and a chorus. It generally has an A section, maybe and A and a B section. So we call that an Instrumental Cue. An Instrumental may be something that’s more akin to a song in it’s form, but with the vocal stripped out and maybe a little light melody in to make it sound less like a rhythm track. So that’s our world.
So let’s move on to publishing, because people call practically every day of the year and say, “I’m published by ASCAP,” or “I’m published by BMI.” BMI and ASCAP are not publishers, and we’ll get into what they are. Can you define what a publisher is—because you are one?
Bob: Sure. A publisher is someone who represents writers, musicians, and artists. They sign an artist and some of their music—not necessarily all of the artist’s music, but some of their music. They represent that music to their clients—film, television, advertising, trailer houses, whoever they’re doing business with. In representing that music, they basically… It’s a pretty deep situation now, so we won’t get too far into it, but they register the songs with BMI, ASCAP, or SESAC on behalf of the writers, and then they represent that music to their client. So if someone’s looking for a Black Keys, or looking for something like Hans Zimmer—looking for something in a particular style—the publisher will send the music that they feel is appropriate to the client, and they negotiate the fees on behalf of the writers. Like I said, they make sure that the music is registered with the PROs so that the writers will get their performance income after the music is performed. They will also make sure the cue sheets are done appropriately, because cue sheets get screwed up. Humans are doing cue sheets. And then they also have to follow up with the PROs nine months later to make sure they’re actually paying the writers.
"When you write enough music, keep a spreadsheet with your titles; who you sent them to, who signed the track, and be very methodical with that."Bob Mair
Let’s talk about cue sheets, Frank. Every piece of music that goes in a show lands on a cue sheet. Tell them what it is, who fills it out, what information might be on there.
Frank: Our music editor pretty much sticks in each cue [in the edited show], and each cue has its little cue number, and they have the in-and-out time, and the length of time that we’ve used it for, the type of use that it was [BV, BI, VV, or VI], and then those cue sheets get submitted to the PROs, the performing rights-societies or organizations. And then they calculate royalties. And how they do that is just a mystery to everybody. And then, after it goes through that whole thing, you get a check in the mail. And if the cue sheet isn’t submitted, you don’t get a check in the mail for that placement or use.
How often do cue sheets not get filled out, or not get filled out properly?
Frank: There are a lot of times, man, where people have come back to me and they’re like, “Hey, I just contacted ASCAP and they said they didn’t get a cue sheet for this thing. We worked on that six months ago.” And then I contact the music editor that I worked with, and they are like, “Oh, I thought you guys submit the cue sheets.” And then they contact the producer, and they’re like, “Didn’t you?” And I’m like, “The producer doesn’t do cue sheets!” And a lot of times it’s miscommunication, you know? Sometimes when people are new on the gig, it doesn’t mean that they don’t know how to do their job; it just means that they don’t know every single aspect of their job. So if a dude has only done two films, he might not get it. I had somebody contact me—record labels, trying to get their cue sheet information—and I’m just like, “What are you doin’, dude? You need to contact the publishers, not the record labels.” So you never know who’s handling it.
Bob: It’s part of the publisher’s job is to make sure that human error doesn’t cause things to fall through the cracks. [It happens] less with episodic TV, in my experience, from doing this a long time. It’s more in the reality-TV world, where things get a little funny, because a lot of times you’ve got interns doing the cue sheets. So you do have to stay on top of that stuff.
What percentage of your company’s time is spent tracking down that stuff to make sure that you and your writers get paid? Gimme a percentage.
Bob: Too much! It’s pretty much constant. Between tracking cue sheets… Every contract being signed, it says, “We get a cue sheet.” Just because it says it in the contract doesn’t mean it happens, so it’s a constant follow-up. NBC, CBS, ABC promo departments, making sure the promo departments are submitting their records that this quarter, the PROs, whatever. It’s constant!
A couple of years ago Bob called me and said, “You guys just forwarded me something, a song from a writer, and it’s already signed in my catalog. I got it from TAXI three years ago.”
Bob: That only happened a couple of times.
Only a couple, but it’s an indication of dangerous things that can happen, because it also indicates that that person either just clearly made a simple mistake, or possibly that person doesn’t understand how publishing works and didn’t understand that he could be submitting that same song to other exclusive publishers and signing exclusive deals with them, even though it’s under an exclusive agreement with you already.
Bob: One of the things I would say is, when you write enough music, keep a spreadsheet with your titles; who you sent them to, who signed the track, and be very methodical with that. Don’t let that slide, because you want to know who is representing your music. Because three years down the way, you’ll be sitting watching television and all of a sudden you’ll hear a jingle, and “That’s my song!” Who’s representing it, and couldn’t they pick up the phone and call?
Frank: I know that we’re talking about publishing a lot. This is a 101 class. Songs are divided into a master recording, and in publishing there are two parts to your song. So what these guys are talking about is the writing portion of the song. I’m not talking about the artist’s recording part of the song. So when I ask you if you own the master, and do you own the publishing? And you say, “Yeah, I own it.” I need to know what you’re talking about. You own what? Do you own the recording, or do you own the master? “No, let me ask.” And did you write it by yourself? And they say, “No, I wrote it with a friend.” And I say, “Do they have a stake in this?” “Yeah, I think so.” That is the best way to show me that I can’t do business with you.
You’ve got to learn the business. So even if you’re gonna represent yourself, you need to learn the very, very basics of what you’re doing. So when I ask you a question like, “Do you own the master?” “Do you own the publishing?” And you answer, “100% master, 100% publishing,” or “100% master, 50% of the publishing, and the other person owns 50%, and no, they don’t have a publishing contract with anybody.” My response to that is, “Wow, this dude knows what he’s doing; this is a person I can do business with!”
Don’t miss Part Two in next month’s TAXI Transmitter!