Rule Number Six - DON'T BE STUPID!
Mad-Hog rushing into the studio and recording a bunch of totally unusable emotional nonsense - is prima-facie evidence that you lay awake nights thinking up new ways to be stupid the next day! Whatever is being "hyped" by the media as 'being hot' today is actually the trash that needs all the help it can get! If a product is really selling like hell over low brush, it sure doesn't need some super-charged campaign that doesn't do a damned thing but cost money! So rushing in to the studio to "get in on this trend" only displays stupidity - not Industry Ignorance - plain, everyday, numb-sculled stupidity!

The same is true with respect to any 'religious' or 'social' agenda. Not that these are irrelevant factors in our civilization, or that they don't need commentary, but all legitimate Record Companies have somebody's money invested for the sole and exclusive purpose of making a profit! Profit which the Record Company had damned well deliver - your 'religious' or 'social' convictions notwithstanding!

If you want to record a religious song - then do it! But only with selling the record in mind! You can do 'your ministry' on your own time and out of your own pocket. If the record helps, fine. If it doesn't sell, what else is new?

If you want to record a social statement - then do it! But only with selling the record in mind! You can do 'your own social agenda' on your own time and on your own money. If the record helps, maybe you'll win a point. And if it dies the death of damned foolishness, welcome to the Real World of Records.

All legitimate Record Companies are businesses! They are not 'churches', - they are not 'social' organizations - they are not 'political' parties or action committees - they are businesses in business for the sole and exclusive purpose of MAKING MONEY FOR THEIR INVESTORS! And either you are a part of that sole and exclusive profit factor or you and your product are trash can bound! Probably in the trash can next door since the Record Company doesn't want to contaminate their own.

The cold, hard, fact of life in the REAL World of Records is - it costs as much to produce and deliver a record that will sell to only some limited jackass 'genre' as it does to produce and deliver a record that will sell ten million copies world wide! And that, my darlings, is the position all legitimate Record Companies are in.

Rule Number Seven - DON'T BE STUPID!
The term is "RADIO FRIENDLY" - and you'd damned well better be!

You might want to hear yourself blast off incoherently on an expanded version of Encyclopedia Britannica set to Boss-ka-ninny's Fifth bowel Movement - but if you can't get it on the air - the entire investment is going to suck more than a Queer's Convention!

Any recording that exceeds 3:30 Total Running Time has cut its potential air time in half going right in the door!

If you're a Super Star - or have one hell of a huge promotion budget - you can get away with long-winded nonsense. But if you're still in the upward-mobility stage, you need to use every good "do" in the book - and avoid the "don'ts" like the plague.

There's nothing worse than trying to listen to a demo and be interrupted by two Birthday Parties - and both of them YOURS! And jackass elements will do it every time.

If what you're going to record requires more than 3:30 - intro, turn around, tag and all - due to 'the integrity of the song', then get another song! The competition is too keen to let such emotional stupidity get in the way of success. And if you have "all confidence" in a song - then by all means go for it. If it justifies your confidence everyone will be too rich to give a damn. However, if it falls flat in your face - double check that Total Running Time on your next release if you have enough money left to get one!

Rule Number Eight - DON'T BE STUPID!
A good musical instrument or piece of recording equipment won't work one damned bit better in a so-called Music Capitol address than it will anywhere else in the world, as long as whoever is handling it knows what in the hell they're doing! The only thing more idiotic than "going to a Music Capitol to get discovered" is going to a Music Capitol to record your 'hit'! To put it mildly, most 'recording studios' couldn't cut cold dung with a power saw nor mix a fog horn solo! There's one hell of a big difference between being able to make a commercially acceptable record and being a tape-recorder operator living under an assumed name!

And a Music Capitol "address" doesn't change that one damned bit.

Nor are legitimate Record Companies impressed with Music Capitol productions! They don't give a damn if you cut it in a squat-legged bathroom in Downwind Smellsville! If you've got a commercially acceptable product - that, and only that is the 'production' consideration.

Commercially acceptable product and your share of the budget - and you have all the ingredients to get a good Recording Contract! And, YES! There's room for you and your music too.

Rule Number Nine - DON'T BE STUPID!
Make up your own mind about which songs you're going to use, the instrumentation, and everything else about the product and the production! Incorporating the Record Company's advice is one thing - wanting them to do all your thinking for you - is another.

After all, this initial outlay is your money, not theirs. So you can call some of the shots. And if you want to establish yourself, on your own ground, rather than being a second-best copy of someone else who is going to become a "has been" - then you'd be well advised to keep your own counsel and make your own decisions once you know what the hell you're doing!

It may come as a shock, but Record Company Executives don't know a damned bit more about what John & Joan Q. Recordbuyer is going to like than you do! They know what to do and where to put it to find out, but they don't have even the slightest clue as to whether it will actually sell or not.

And neither does anybody else!

I've told untold thousands who've asked me which song of their's I liked best, "If I knew what songs John or Joan Q. Public would - or would not - buy, I'd only have one of two things. Either the ONLY Record Company on the Planet, or the damnedest consulting fees from the others ever printed in a pay check!"

Once you have some Market feed-back, you might want to change a lot of things, and the Record Executive will help you every step of the way. But until then, don't waste their time with your indecision, and be ready for whatever happens. Who knows? You damned well may be right!

Rule Number Ten - DON'T BE STUPID!
Get rid of anybody in your association that is idiotic enough to ask for "an advance"! And that includes anyone idiotic enough to think the Record Company is going to pay all the bills and then give them all the money!

There damned well may not BE any money! Only one record out of eight ever sells any commercial copies at all, so be prepared for record number TWO if record number ONE doesn't really set the world afire.

I've never paid an 'advance' to anybody, songwriter or recording artist, and never lost a contract because of it that ever made a damned thing! And the only times I've ever seen any such 'advances' being paid is when the Record Company had to shelve some jerk who was getting in the way of someone else who was making money. And never under any other conditions!

In fact, for THIRTY YEARS - from 1960 through 1990 - I offered TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS CASH - to anyone who could produce a legitimate 'advance' contract with either a publisher of note or a distributed Record Label that didn't have a CHARGE BACK clause that covered every penny - with interest!

And in all those THIRTY YEARS there were no takers!

Only a few phonies ever attempted the bait.

Be ready to spend some money in initial promotion - and distribution once you have a viable product.

And, unless you're filthy rich, Market Test your product with a LITTLE money, and spend BIG when you have a solid Market following. Blowing your entire budget on a pipe dream by flying off with your stupidity intact, is the best way I know of to lose your shirt!

However, those of you who think you can pay for your second record with the sales of your first, really don't have anything wrong with you that a brand new set of brains wouldn't cure! The same is true for songwriters who want 'some name' to record their song for free so they'll have enough money to buy themselves into the Recording Artist business. Just don't hold your breath. You don't look good in purple at all and especially in the face!

And right here I want you to stop until you fully understand the next cold, hard, fact of entertainment life: don't confuse RECORD promotion with ARTIST promotion! They are not the same thing. If a great record begins with the song (and it does!) then a Great Artist's career begins with a good record. And a "good record" begins with a sound business plan and proper production - then lives because the Public likes it, or dies either because they don't - or more often than not because of Beer Joint Baritone jackass promotion or interference (back-dooring!)!

There are a few other points you should know - what to look for in a contract, etcetera - and all that is covered in the International Industrial Review (August 1994) pages linked below. But many people assume they are going to manufacture the records and the General Licenser is going to write them a big check. NOT AS LONG AS YOUR RECTUM POINTS DOWN! There's a small matter of anti-counterfeiting and the minute you manufacture any commercial copies at all, even in cassette, there's a First Generation MASTER of your production out there in the far reaches of oblivion, and each and every copy of a CD is one! General Licensers spend a huge amount of money protecting their products - and the damned fool that manufactures their own just blew any and all anti-counterfeiting potential - instantly making their product totally worthless to the Record Company.

The first thing to watch in any Recording Contract, even an Executive Producer's Record Release Agreement, is the royalty base. If you see any contract that starts all this 'percent of ....' malarkey, TRASH CAN THE DAMNED THING! Jackass lawyers love to write such long-winded and important-sounding legal instruments, but the bottom line is the bastards are robbing you blind! You want to see a flat PER-SONG PER-COPY SOLD royalty rate and at the current (United States Domestic Rate) of SIX POINT NINE FIVE CENTS! (Vandor Music Group pays SEVEN CENTS per-song per-copy sold - the HIGHEST RATE IN THE INDUSTRY AND THE HIGHEST RATE IN HISTORY!)

If you're smart enough to be your own Executive Producer (ExP), you should see an ExP contract pay TWICE that rate - out of which you pay yourself as the ARTIST! That's right - $.0695 to the ExP and $.0695 to the Artist - per-song (not record!) per-copy sold.