"What They'll Never Tell You About the Music Business: The Myths, the Secrets, the Lies (& a Few Truths)"
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Peter M. Thall is an entertainment attorney who has represented such big players as The Cars, Miles Davis, The Irish Tenors, Marry Manilow, and Simon & Garfunkel. This book covers the attorney, manager, and accountant functions for musicians and artists, and the relationship between them all. Not every lawyer will write a popular book, not every MBA will be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, not every musician will be a star. The point of all that is that I wish more books would give advise on what is needed for regional and local acts as well as the big label artists. All that being said; this book does a good job of providing advise that can be translated for the smaller, independent musician. One of the noteworthy chapters includes Chapter 4, which includes good explanations on royalty payment and intellectual property. Yet another description is given on the royalty and advance payment methods used. As usual, it requires a second, or maybe even third read to understand. I don’t think this is because of the legalese involved, but because of the complexity of the subjects. In Chapters 5 Thall gives some good points on what to look for in a personal manager. This includes what a pm should and should not be expected to do, and how to shop for a manager. These chapters also go over how to find an attorney and what the relationship between the two jobs should be. There’s also a good question and answer section on managers and what to ask yourself when retaining one. Something else good in this chapter is how to pay and terminate a manager. The next chapter gives direction on the accountant’s role in artist management. Here Thall give us numerous points on the initial business program that an artist should follow. Sections cover incorporation and partnerships, in addition to some informative tax and insurance info that your money rep should be advising you about and managing for you. Chapter 8 covers the business relationship of the record producer. This chapter give more legal advise on producers’ royalty provisions, credit provisions, authorship, as well as producers and neighboring rights. This chapter is a little heady, but, it’s the kind of stuff a pro should at lease become familiar with. Chapter 10 is an excellent primer on touring. There a several checklists for preparing a budget, transportation issues, insurance coverage, and all the other legal things that always come up. Subsequent chapters cover merchandising, audits, music publishing, and copyrights. Each chapter goes into much detail and can get pretty boring. But, this is what all the managers are for. This book gives the non-manager some good guidelines on what to anticipate and prepare for. Chapters 18 and 19 cover the unique legalities of the Internet and Hip Hop music or music sampling. The first chapter of the two concludes with a good warning to artists that owners and distributors of content (aka big labels) are finding more and more creative ways to get their hands on the product and exploit new technology for their own profit. The book concludes with advise for classical musicians and the modern and unique legalities of their particular genre. I have to admit this book is an unexciting read. However, this is specifically why artists need managers, attorneys, accountants, and business teams. Thall gives a superior reference tool to use throughout a career. In addition to owning one yourself you might want to get an extra copy for your attorney, accountant, or manager to refer to also. |
Book Review