Great week…I had good night with my pal Gordon Giltrap at his Dorking Halls concert on Thursday. He is currently on tour, showing why he is the top acoustic guitar player in the world…stunning….and he has done a brilliant contribution to my ‘One Minute with Dec – The First Annual’. I learn from everything I see….Gordon showed me a different trick in merchandising….I copied it in our concert last night…it works! Mind you, I traded him a great new trick for increasing Email address collection at concerts. Remind me to tell you sometime.

Number One this week

My Sandy has done it again…she can smell a number One at a hundred paces…bet me on the new ‘Enrique’ single….yep, Number One this week [I thought it would get to 12]. However when I listened to it and analysed it, it is, typically, everything I say a hit is in my ‘How To Make A £Million for your Music’. Repetitive, instantly memorable, gorgeous, luscious ‘girl to boy’, ‘boy to girl’ lyrics….perfect length and perfect ‘today’ arrangement…with a dynamite emotional vocal styling…altogether the ‘perfect’ hit. The first ten seconds stink of a Hit, and all the Hit statements are made in the first thirty seconds. Check it out.

Now the contracts:

I am constantly asked to check over contracts. At least one a week arrived on my desk. It is a chore looking through them, because they are all basically the same.

If there is a crooked one then it absolutely sticks out a mile.

If the contract is written in ‘lawyer-eze’, then it is an ancient document that has been edited and probably used many times before. A ‘today’ contract will be written in plain English and will be easily understood. It is an instant measure of how reputable the firm you are dealing with is. Contracts that are written in plain English cry out: "we have nothing to hide".

A good contract will be intelligent, concise, and easily understood.

Guys out there on the periphery of our business are totally fazed by contracts….don’t be. Just read them slowly, carefully and completely. A lot of crooked contracts rely on the fact you will get bored by the third page. Make a lot of notes [with a bit of luck, you won’t have many] in the margin with a soft pencil that can be rubbed out easily, after you sort out the query. Any changes should be, then, written in ink and initialled on both side margins.

Members typically will Email me:

"Just dropping you a line to say that I had a good lawyer through the Musicians Union who helped me go through the R*****a contract - I sent R*****a a catalogue of changes and haven't heard from them since"

Be careful here. A ‘good’ lawyer may have seen the size of your cheque book and just made the changes to earn his money. Also beware that lawyers, who do not specialise in show business, can make the silliest changes, which bear no relationship to what the contract is setting out. That then generates lots of letters between the two sides…and costs you MONEY.

Having said all that, the boss of the Publishing Company, above, is a pal of mine, very nice, and very 'active'. Totally dedicated to her business. I haven't seen her contracts. And always remember - a lawyer can pick holes in anything...that's his job! I would think the reason why my Member did not hear back was simply that the Publishing Company could not be bothered dealing with the reams of inane queries. Non Show Biz lawyers can raise the silliest, time wasting, questions.

I never use a lawyer ['bin too long in this business...I know more than them!]. There are only three things to ask about a contract:

1. How Long?
2. How Much?
3. When does my stuff revert to me, if you don’t get action on it?

The rest is waffle. When success arrives, the contract is not worth the paper it's written on...just ask yourself this question:

"If I have a Number One record world wide, in the charts, this week, will the Record Company / Publishing Company renegotiate?"

OF COURSE THEY WILL!

My advice?

ALWAYS accept the first, reasonable, contract from a reputable Company. That is precisely the advice I gave ‘Boniface’ and he got £500,000 from Sony. And ALWAYS renegotiate when the success comes. Despite the advice from Musicians Union. You will rarely get advice, via the MU, from anyone who has actually DONE IT....so be careful...and always remember it's FREE advice. What do you ever get for FREE? They are a TRADE UNION. Trade unions are for plumbers and carpenters - not for brain surgeons or professional songwriters /performers /producers.

Note, I said ‘reputable’ company above. An unscrupulous small company will sell your contract, like greased lightning, if a massive hit suddenly comes from your recording /songwriting…then you are in real legal trouble. Show Biz is littered with those stories. George Michael?

In my 'How to Start Your Own Publishing Company for less than £100', you have a complete file of Industry Standard contracts, which you can check any other contract against...but you will find it all boils down to the three questions above!

A very good instance:

I was asked to advise, recently, when an established artist flew over from LA to negotiate a contract for recording a new album, to be released prior to her next tour. She shocked me at how little she knew and how much she would rely on a so called ‘Show Business solicitor’. Surprisingly, she didn’t know where she could find one.

For starters, the Record Company were advancing the cost of recording to her, but insisting she used their studio, their producer….whoops! That old chestnut! There is a famous story around our business of the band who fell into that trap. They had two World Wide Number Ones and still hadn’t recouped the cost of the studio time! Fact! You see, there never is a pricing structure or time limit mentioned…the artist is totally at the mercy of the Record Company and / or the Producer. He could take three weeks to mix a track on the most pricy SSL/Neve desk in town. The artist would have no control.

The other well known trap is the ‘video’ trap. Who pays for it? Without a video, today, a track is dead in the water [listen to Shel Talmy on that subject in my new ‘One Minute With Dec – The First Annual]. Yes, the record company will spend all the money up front for the incredible, award winning, video…but who really pays? You guessed it!

The small, almost insignificant trap is the ‘limo’ trap. It will not even be mentioned in the contract. But the Record Company will organise the limo’s, the private jets, the private coach on the train, the tour bus…who pays? You guessed it again.

And, in case you think this is pure ‘theory’…think that one over, again! I can tell you the REAL stories that would make your hair curl…most of them involving myself! We had TWO tracks in the Top Five at the same time and 6p in the bank….

It took me a few years to figure out the way the business worked…then it was profit all the way. That is why I am probably the best advisor around. As LL Cool J said in London:

"For years I was thinking of credibility and my art, and I had that, but I was broke, everyone around me made the money…until I realised that this was a business where I should make the money. Now I’m rich."

So, my advice re. Contracts?

Learn this business, learn to read contracts, get my ‘Publishing for less than £100’ at www.makehits.co.uk/publishing.htm   ….that is the best way of all to learn what contracts really are. Then you can compare other contracts to the ‘correct’, industry standard ones.

By the way, a reputable, established Show Biz. Company will never try to rip you off….the reason they stay in business is that they are honest.

But, that is not to say they won’t take legitimate advantage of you! You need that knowledge…you need to be bright as a spark, wise as an owl, and up early in the morning…

BECAUSE THEY ARE.

Those who are best prepared get all the success...are you best prepared?

"I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it."

Voltaire

regards

DEC

"Deal with the
'gatekeepers' to get to the mansion"

PS: tip for the week: always keep your reference books on studio bookshelves. Apart from being handy, they are probably the best wall-covering for breaking up sound traps and improving the acoustics.

==================================

One moment with Stuart Goldsmith:

"Face it, most of your waking time is spent in scrabbling for the meagre coppers required to pay for the gas bill. For ‘gas bill’ read mortgage, car payments, electricity, food, clothes and the mountain of junk possessions we all seem to want and accumulate."

www.medina.co.uk

the website of my good friend - Stuart Goldsmith

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