Welcome to Just Plain Notes
Just Plain Notes: Volume 1.170, June 30, 2008
Written by Brian Austin Whitney
Visit the Website: www.jpfolks.com
Mail CD's @ 5327 Kit Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46237
Copyright 2008 Just Plain Folks Productions.
Just Plain Folks Member Population: 51,578
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Would you like to join the JPF message boards? It's quick and easy. Just click this link and choose a password and user name and you'll be posting in no time! We'd love to hear from and about you. Once you register, say hi on the boards and get involved!

To register: (It's separate from JPF membership):
http://www.jpfolks.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?action=agree
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Just Plain Quotes:

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." -George Carlin

"I don't have hobbies; hobbies cost money. Interests are quite free." -George Carlin

"It's never just a game when you're winning." -George Carlin

"Everybody dies, but not everybody lives the life they want. Have you?" -Brian Austin Whitney

My Take:

When NBC commentator Tim Russert passed away a few weeks ago, one of the most interesting stories I heard about him in the coverage came from his old boss Jack Welch. Jack said that when Tim was negotiating his last contract, he did so without an agent, which was unheard of. His only concern in the negotiation was that he could keep doing his job for at least 12 more years, which would represent 3 full US Election styles. He was so passionate about his work that the money didn't matter to him, only the comfort of knowing he could keep doing what he loves no matter what. On the day he died, he was in the sound booth doing exactly that. Though it's really sad that he's gone (he was a great fair minded journalist) isn't it great that his priorities were in the right place. A big contract will never be paid out. But he got to do what he loved up until the last moment. We should all be so lucky right?

We've always strived to provide our members with some motivation and support to pursue real world success. To me that means learning to write better songs, learning to perform better and learning how to make enough progress in your passion to keep doing it. That might mean an extra gig here or there to cover the cost of the babysitter needed to give you time to play. That might mean learning how to sell 10 more CD's at a gig so you can quit the part time job that takes you away from playing. That might mean getting a placement for one of your songs on a TV show or movie so you can make enough money to go to a songwriters workshop to improve your craft. You get the drift. Sure, we've been very fortunate to boost and then cheer on many JPF members who have crossed over into mainstream popularity and success, but we all know the truth is that out of our 52K members, most of you simply won't reach the pinnacle of success in the music industry. But so what? Our goal is to help you be like Tim Russert and keep doing what you love for as long as you possibly can.

Just Plain Folks has been around now for 10 years. We started with 60 people in a chat room on AOL and now have over 50,000 members in over 150 countries around the world. Like Tim, I've never done this for the money. I work hard to find enough sponsors (several of which we feature today in the newsletter) to give us enough funding to do the amazing things we do and keep it all free for you. Our awards passed the half million song mark this year and getting to do that program is like Tim covering a presidential election. Like Tim, I always want to make sure I can keep doing this as it's my true passion in life. My goal has never been to die rich, but rather to live the richest life I can while I am alive. Everybody dies, but not everybody lives the life they want. Have you? If not, I bet you still have time to do it.

If you love to make and perform music, I hope you'll get even more involved with Just Plain Folks as we enter our second decade. We'll do everything we can to educate you (or find the answers when we don't know them) and point you in the right direction. All our volunteers do this for the same reason. We love being facilitators as much (or maybe even more) than you love writing and performing music. The more involved each of you are, the more likely we'll also get to keep doing this. I'm game if you're game!

Here's to our second decade of JPF and rest in peace Tim and George. You guys certainly lived the way you wanted and left the world a better place for it.

Learn, Succeed, Thrive. We're All In This Together!
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Just Plain Notes Table of Contents:

A special welcome to all the new JPF members who joined us via CD Baby last month! As always our newsletter is long, but you can quickly find what interests you with the table below and your scroll bar!

01. 2008/9 JPF Music Awards Sponsors: Please check out the folks who make it possible!
02. 3 Consecutive JPF Members Win $5000 Grand Prize at Ourstage! Will YOU be next?
03. Article: How To Fix The PRO/Venue/Songwriter Conflict by Brian Austin Whitney
04. Disc Makers Offers JPF Members $50 Discount PLUS lots of valuable career guides!
04. 2008/2009 Just Plain Folks Music Awards Update
06. TAXI: Want to see some real world success stories? Check this out.
05. Free JPF Mentor Song/Lyric Critique Program
06. JPF Member MySpace Database and CD Baby Gallery
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2009 Just Plain Folks Music Awards Sponsors!

The following JPF Community Partners (plus OurStage, Disc Makers and TAXI who are listed in later articles) are sponsoring our 2008/9 Music Awards:

CDBaby: The best place to sell your CD's or music files on line. They also have the best on-line hosting service called Hostbaby. Nobody else even comes close. See them at www.CDBaby.com and www.Hostbaby.com.

BMI: Broadcast Music, Inc.(BMI) is an American performing right organization that represents more than 375,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers in all genres of music and more than 6.5 million works. BMI’s most recent financial results, $839 million in performing right collections for its fiscal year ending June 30, 2007, were the highest for any copyright organization in the world. BMI has represented the most popular and beloved music from around the world for over 65 years. The non-profit-making U.S. corporation collects license fees from businesses that use music, which it then distributes as royalties to the musical creators and copyright owners it represents. Visit them at www.BMI.com
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Ourstage Starts July Contests and pays 3 JPF members $5000 each!

I want to remind you that our newest Just Plain Folks Community Partner Ourstage's July contest is about to begin and over the last 3 months since JPF partnered with them, one of our members has won the $5000 dollar Grand Prize.

Ourstage Grand Prize Winners: (All JPF Members!)
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March: Jillian Goldin: (World)
April: SGX: (Techno)
May: Cobalt and the Hired Guns (Singer-Songwriter)
June: (We have over a dozen members in the running for today's finals!)

In addition, tons of our members have been finalists and won the $100 dollar genre prizes. We also submitted 3 JPF member names for a shot at performing at the Newport Folk Festival. They are adding several brand new genres to the current 50+ they already have (Rumor has it that it includes Bluegrass/Roots, Spoken Word, Industrial, Ska and some others). It's all free to enter and participate and it's a great tool to gauge what people think of your songs compared to the others in your genre.

And for those who think it's just musicians and their fans voting for their own stuff, I checked out their site stats and found that they have 1.2 million unique visitors each month. Even if all 50K of their artists visited and voted that's only a tiny percentage of their visitors. Their largest segment is in the prime 12-17 age group which are the people driving the commercial music industry. They also have amazingly cool performance opportunities at most of the major music festivals for people who do well in the rankings. I strongly recommend even the top full time professionals reading this to get involved. It's really worth the effort and once you're loaded up, you really don't have to do anything else. Just register, post a song in any genre that meets your style and see what happens. If you finish in the top 50% they will automatically re-enter you the next month. The earlier you enter, the better chance you have to move up during the month.

JPF members get special consideration due to our partnership for all the performance opportunities. So make sure you register with the official JPF link so they will know you're eligible:

Click this link to Register:
http://www.ourstage.com/go/jpf

Once you register, upload your songs into any channels you like. They will sit there until the July voting starts and they'll be in the starting blocks at the begging of the race. You can track how you're doing almost up to the minute at any time during the month.
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Brian Solves The Music Industries Problems: (Well... at least he's trying)

In the USA, we're having a raucous election season which just got more intense with the recent skyrocketing prices of gasoline here. (About 20% of our members live outside the USA in case anyone is wondering why I am explaining the obvious). Right now lots of people are offering up some extreme solutions to this problem which always go a lot farther than what either parties candidates are really willing to consider. The reason is obvious, both parties benefit a great deal from contributions from those who make a lot of profits in this environment. So they don't want to bite the hand that is feeding them. Nonetheless, I joined the fray of those with radical ideas to fix the US energy problem and posted it on my blog last week. (I won't re-run it, but here's a link if you're curious: http://www.jpfolks.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/624893/page/1#Post624893

So it occurred to me last night that perhaps we need to offer up some similarly radical ideas to fix our own backyard, the music industry. Before I offer up the first idea, I want to say that I welcome responses and feedback with one caveat: It's always easy to pick apart ANY plan, no matter how good it is. So rather than simply telling me how I am nuts and it would never work (which I am sure some of you will conclude), I ask you to ALSO suggest an idea to fix it that you think is better. After all, if you don't have a better idea, then mine must be the best one available, no matter how flawed. See where I am going here? Okay. So let's start with an easy one. If this experiment has some interest, then we'll try another one next month.

Problem: PRO's (Performing Rights Organizations: ASCAP, BMI, SESAC), Music Venues and Songwriters all seem to have a problem with the way Performance Royalties are collected and distributed. The PRO's are always battling to get venues who use live or recorded music in their venues to pay for it. Venues are always frustrated because they think they are being overcharged (many don't want to pay anything at all) and they are frustrated that there are 3 different PRO's in the US who might bill them (though I rarely hear about SESAC billing anyone), and that the process itself feels more like a random shake down than a specific program with open criteria for who must pay what. The songwriters are frustrated because none of the PRO's in the US actually monitor and pay based on what is played in the venues. Instead they pay based on radio airplay and extrapolate that venues must be playing the same selection of music. Most active performing artist/writers know that's not remotely the case. Most cover songs fall towards the classic rock or standards (i.e. "oldies" for lack of a better term) and the rest are usually a handful of predictable bar or wedding songs that also aren't getting a lot of current radio play. Then there's the original music performed across the country that almost never sees a penny of PRO money. We've all heard of bands who play 6 nights a week in venues and do 100% original music and they never see a dime of the license monies paid by the venues.

My Radical Solution:

First: We standardize the licensing costs to include all sizes and types of venues, all types and varieties of music usage and we combine ALL 3 PRO's into the fee structure based on their market share. (In other words, out of every dollar of license fee, each PRO gets the percentage of their catalogs based on the songs in their catalogs and the airplay involved). This would result in 1 single bill paid by each venue and later divided by the PRO's after the fact.

Second: We standardize the collection process by making it a federal license which has to be maintained in the same way as any other business license. Since the federal government determines that we must allow others to use our music under a statutory rate system, they should also put their muscle (thus avoiding local interference) into the licensing process. So instead of a sort of random process of venues getting billed (i.e. we all know venues around the country that get charged and others that don't for no apparent reason), every venue will get billed based on publicly available criteria making it all fair and up front and predictable. Thus, if you want to open a coffee shop, you know beforehand that you must pay X amount of dollars if you plan to include live or recorded music as part of your atmosphere and appeal. If you choose not to license and are later found to be using live or recorded music to enhance your business, then you'd be fined in the same way you'd be fined for not having a business license in the first place. With 100% of venues using music paying the license fees, it's likely the fees would actually be lower for everyone who's been paying, and the PRO's would actually bring in more money to pay to their writer members. Everyone wins in a far more fair and transparent system. With the government enforcing the license, we'd also end the claims that representatives from PRO's are shaking down small venues.

Third: Tracking all the songs individually performed at every venue is not a productive or cost effective chore for the PRO's. Let's be realistic about it. However, I have a solution. Each PRO would pay out based on their current model (which is radio Airplay) with this exception: Their members who perform live would be able to post play lists on a database which is available to all 3 PRO's. They'd list the songs performed if they wanted their own work to be registered as having had airplay. They'd list the name of the licensed venue and that information would allow the PRO's to credit an appropriate value to that song being performed at that venue. Since we know many musicians, especially those playing ONLY covers, may not bother to register their play lists, the PRO would simply use their current model, minus the registered play list values to make payment. They could also set a minimum agreed to and voted by their members (let's say $20 dollars a month) where they wouldn't make payment if it was below that total.

For me, this type of system means more money for writers and the PRO's, and less hassle for the venues. It means that someone who plays exclusively original music will likely get a fair compensation for their original work being performed. It means that venues will know up front the cost of using music and they will understand what that fee is based on. It also means that the hoards of venues paying nothing at all right now will come into the fold. If they see no value in having live music in their venue, they can make that choice. But they can't use it for free any longer. No one will get blind sided and no one will face big lawsuits that they will always lose (a PRO has never lost in court against a venue not paying a license fee as far as I am aware).

JPF is in an unique position in that we love and support all 3 parties involved in this issue. We don't want any of them to get a bad deal. BMI is one of our community partners. We've dealt with hundreds of venues around the world where we do our Roadtrip showcase events and our local chapter shows. And we have over 50,000 members, many of which are songwriters (as well as artists and music industry professionals and venue owners etc.). This system seems to me to be 100% fair to all. It requires less work in the end by everyone except the artist/writers who would need to track their play lists and enter them into a database. But they could choose not to and they'd simply not get paid as happens today. If they took the time, they'd finally be compensated for their work.

If you agree or disagree with this, give us your support or your criticism AND your better solution here:
http://www.jpfolks.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/629519/page/1#Post629519
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Community Partner Disc Makers Offers JPF Member Discounts and Career Guides

I want to remind you that our friends at Disc Makers are also offering a JPF member discount right now. All you have to do is tell them you're a JPF member when you make an order and you're receive $50 dollars off your first CD order. They also have a lot of helpful books and CD's they are offering our members for free. Just click this JPF member link to get their catalog of products and services and also receive:

-Sounding Your Best: Mastering Techniques from the Pros DVD
-Achieving Success with your Music DVD
-Fast Forward Newsletter
-Making A Great Master Manual

If you call them, also ask for their brochure on Tips to get Radio Play. There's lots of great advice there.

Here's the JPF member link to Register: http://www.discmakers.com/jpfolks
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2008/2009 Just Plain Folks Music Awards Update

We've received nearly 40,000 albums and over 500,000 songs already for this year's awards process. To put it in perspective, the Grammy's usually have about 1000 albums entered each year. We've gotten music from over 120 countries (and counting) and we expect to have nearly 100 music genres based on the music we've received and checked in so far.

We are about 2/3rds of the way through the first round and we're amazed at the quality of the music this time around. Usually there's about 30-40% at the bottom that is poorly written, recorded and performed. That isn't the case this time around. The grassroots music community has really upped their game.

In addition to the genres we had last time around:

A Cappella, African, Alternative, Ambient, Americana, Asian, Bluegrass, Blues, Cabaret, Cajun/Zydeco, Caribbean, Celtic, Celtic Instrumental, Children's, Children's Storytelling, Classical Concerto, Classical Chamber, Classical Orchestral, Classical Voice/Opera Solo, Classical Voice/Opera Choral, Classical Soloist, College Rock, Comedy, Compilation, Contemporary, Contemporary Christian, Country, Cover/Tribute, Dance, Educational, Electronica, European, Experimental, Female Singer-Songwriter, Gospel, Hard Rock, Hawaiian, Holiday, Indiana Classical, Indian Contemporary, Industrial, Instrumental, Instrumental Jazz, Jewish, Klezmer, Latin, Live, Male Singer-Songwriter, Metal, Middle Eastern, Modern Rock, Native American, New Age, World, New Folk, Novelty, Polka, Pop, Punk, R&B, Rap, Reggae, Rock, Rock Instrumental, Rockabilly, Roots, Roots Instrumental, Salsa, Self Help/Meditation, Solo Guitar, Solo Piano, Solo Instrumental (Non Piano/Guitar), Soundtrack, South & Central American, Spoken Word, Storytelling, Surf, Techno, Theater/Stage, Traditional Folk, Vocal Jazz & World

We are planning to add some or all of the following:

Ska, Smooth Jazz, Prog Rock, Death Metal, Flamenco, Funk and several additional variations of Jazz, Electronic, Latin and Ethnic Music. And we're open to even more if we find enough good stuff.

Common Questions:

Here's a FAQ with lots more info:
http://www.jpfolks.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=581726&page=0#Post581726

1. So when will all of this be finished?

The answer is we don't know. Remember the final entry deadline isn't until December 31st, 2008. We will take as long as needed to thoroughly screen all the music and give recognition to the music that moves us most. We estimate that we'll have the nominations out in early 2009 and the Awards show probably 8-10 weeks after that. (So perhaps nominations in February and the awards in April).

2. Can we enter more material?

Yes. You can send us any additional music (for example, if you have material that wasn't on CD Baby if you entered digitally or if you missed the deadline) up until August 31st, 2008. See the FAQ link above for details on how to mail in an entry.

3. If we have a release coming out AFTER August 31st, can we send that in as well?

Yes. We will accept any music released AFTER August 31st, 2008 up until the end of the year. We can't accept any music that was released previous to that time. The reason is that we can't keep adding large numbers to the gigantic amount of music we already have that late in the game. For the smaller number of new releases however, we are prepared to handle them as they come in until the end of the year.

4. Can we send music in digitally?

No. Our deadline for digital entries is passed. We can only accept entries on CD mailed to us following the instructions outlined in the FAQ linked above.

5. How will I know what is going on with the awards?

We will always update you each month in the newsletter or bulletin. You can also check on the message boards for info or to discuss anything. We welcome you all to visit the message boards. Here's the link to register: http://www.jpfolks.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?action=agree

You are also always welcome to email me directly at jpnotes@aol.com or my personal email address jpfolkspro@aol.com with any questions. I personally read every JPF email and usually respond within 24 hours. If I don't, please resend as I likely missed it somehow. I've met over half of our 52K members in person and I'd love to meet or hear from the other half of you as well.
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TAXI: Here's some real life success stories from folks just like you who use TAXI!

People always seem to question whether or not TAXI members get deals, and if so, how many or how often.
I get emails all the time from our members who have gotten songs placed in TV shows and movies and made other valuable contacts through TAXI. They also post about them on our message boards. But we don't really have a reason to keep track of them all. Fortunately, TAXI themselves have collected some of those stories for you to check out. You'll see a lot of real people, just like you, who have used TAXI successfully.
One of the most common questions we get is "Does TAXI really work?"

It's amazing that with just minimal research they could get the answer to that and many more questions regarding TAXI. Click this link to see how effective TAXI is at helping its members get deals.
http://taxi.proboards27.com/index.cgi?board=success

Once you do that, you can also get all sorts of great tips from Michael Laskow's (Founder of TAXI) newsletter and get a complete info kit by visiting their site here: http://taxi.com/elisting.html (In the box asking where you learned about TAXI, please put "Just Plain Folks" in there so they know we all appreciate their sponsorship.
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JPF Mentor Lyric Critique Program:

If you're a lyricist or songwriter and you'd like to participate in a really excellent critique program with JPF mentors Harriet Schock and Pat & Pete Luboff, visit this special message board on the JPF site where it all takes place. Every 2 weeks we invite members to post a lyric or a lyric and link to a song file and a mentor chooses one to do a public critique which will effectively teach some valuable writing lessons. Next, our fellow members offer their own critiques of the song and have a discussion about it. Then the mentor posts their own detailed critique and additional discussion takes place including the writer. It’s one of the best learning tools we’ve ever used and it’s all free to participate in. You can read the previous 25+ weeks of critiques which are wonderful learning tools themselves.

Here’s a link to the main page:
http://www.jpfolks.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/postlist/Board/115
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JPF Member "MySpace" Database and "CDBaby" Gallery

Jeff Van Devender on our message board has created a database of any JPF members who have MySpace pages as well as a Gallery for any of you on CD Baby. If you'd like to be included in either or both, here are the links for each. This is another networking opportunity

To be added to the JPF MySpace Database for networking, post your request here:
http://www.jpfolks.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=472838&page=0&fpart=1

To be added to the JPF CD Baby Gallery, post your request here:
http://www.jpfolks.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=162674&page=2#Post162674
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Copyright 2008 Just Plain Folks Productions