Pennjamin Bannekar - Likes

The Wood Brothers "Sing About It"

One of the most soulful songs I have heard in a long time cme from these Woods Brothers..

William Morris Endeavor, Silver Lake Partners Set To Acquire IMG

Agency powerhouse William Morris Endeavor and their private equity partners Silver Lake Partners have reportedly placed the top offer to acquire sports and entertainment talent agency IMG. According to the New York Times, WME had the winning bid, offering $2.3 billion for the agency, winning over two other competitors, ICM, backed by the Carlyle Group and a partnership between CVC Capital and former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin.

IMG has been looking for a buyer since the 2011 death of Theodore J. Forstmann, founder of the private equity firm Forstmann Little, which acquired IMG in 2004 for $750 million. Forstmann Little announced in August that they were soliciting bids for the agency and said they were expecting to realize about $2.3  billion on the sale.

Other competitors for IMG included WME rivals CAA and their private equity partners TPG, but CAA pulled out of the bidding early, as did a number of private equity investors such as Bain Capital and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

An official announcement about the deal is expected on Wednesday. via CelebrityAccess

The Benefits Of Nonprofit Fiscal Sponsorships For Musicians

By Sandy Asirvatham, musician, writer and co-creator of Mobtown Moon, Baltimore’s "wildly eclectic yet consistently compelling" reinterpretation of Pink Floyd’s DARK SIDE OF THE MOON.

As DIY musicians we try to think of ourselves as businesspeople as well as creatives. But with so many people expecting us to provide our services and products for free or cheap, it sometimes feels as if we’re in charity work.

In fact, I used to wonder half-jokingly whether I should establish my own 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization to house my musical activities as a composer/bandleader. After all, couldn’t music performances, especially in noncommercial genres like jazz improvisation, be seen as a form of community service similar to a local theater or small museum?

At the very least, I figured a tax-exempt status would signal that I wasn’t “in it for the money”--just looking for enough income to sustain myself, pay my band fairly, and create meaningful music.

But it turns out that setting up and maintaining an actual nonprofit is complex and expensive. It’s also an awkward fit for an individual artist, since tax-exempt status is granted to a particular mission, not a particular person. For example, if you’re the founder/choreographer of a dance company, but you retire or get fired by your board, the nonprofit designation remains with the company for as long as it continues to operate.

Then I found out about an interesting hybrid concept called “fiscal sponsorship.” A fiscal sponsor is an established nonprofit organization that agrees (by legal contract) to take an individual artist or group of creative collaborators under its wing for a particular project.

With fiscal sponsorship, you remain a separate legal business with complete creative control over your work. And if your project does turn out to be wildly successful, there aren’t any limits to how much revenue you take in. As they say in the charity world: nonprofit is a tax status, not a business strategy!

But meanwhile, you are able to take advantage of some of your fiscal sponsor’s financial features as a tax-exempt organization.

The most important one is this: you can offer fans, supporters, your parents, or your rich bachelor uncle the possibility of making a tax-deductible donation to benefit your project.

People who itemize their federal tax returns are bound to give you a little bit more money, or at least give it more easily, if it creates a charitable-donation deduction for them. In some cases, you may even be able to integrate your fiscal sponsorship with a crowdfunding platform to seamlessly offer that benefit to your fans.

And this is just speculation on my part, but fiscal sponsorship may provide psychological comfort for donors who want some accountability. Their checks or credit card payments go to your fiscal sponsor, which takes a small administrative cut and then releases it to you for legitimate project costs (including paying yourself along the way, of course).

Fiscal sponsorship can also help you qualify for grants from foundations that only give money to registered 501(c)(3) organizations. This is great if you’ve got a community-oriented or mission-driven idea. Grants that came in via our fiscal sponsorship were the only way my co-creator ellen cherry and I were able to get our massive Baltimore-based Pink Floyd tribute, Mobtown Moon, up and running.

For more detailed information, check out this list of nonprofits who run fiscal sponsorship programs. I can also highly recommend our own fiscal sponsor,Fractured Atlas, a nationwide organization that supports artists in a variety of ways.

Now that our project has been funded, recorded, and released, we look forward to figuring out what we can do to make it a genuine music-business success. But we’ll always be thankful for the community and donor support we received to get it going, with the help of our fiscal sponsor.

Audio Premiere: Robert Glasper Experiment x Jill Scott “Calls” + New LP ‘Black Radio 2′

REPOSTED FROM OKPLAYER.com

As a Huge Robert Fan/Supporter/Associate and having the pleasure of working with him the last couple years,
I am pleased to see that he has announced the release of his next album and look forward to seeing him in Chicago soon. 

Start spreading the news: the Robert Glasper Experiment is releasing Black Radio 2–the much anticipated follow-up to
 2012′s critically acclaimed Black Radio–on October 29th through Blue Note Records. Today, we have a Okayplayer world 
premiere of the very first leak from the new project: “Calls” featuring Jill Scott. The track shows off RGE’s skill at letting
 a groove sizzle while a vocalist takes center stage–and filling in all of the cracks around them. 
The album features most of the usual suspects, with Derrick Hodge on bass and Casey Benjamin on vocoder and 
saxophone. Drummer Mark Colenburg, (who has toured plenty with the group) has taken over the drum throne.

The record, like the last one, is set to feature a plethora of guests from all musical backgrounds. 
Common, Lupe Fiasco, and Snoop Dogg (thought he was lion now?) all represent the hip-hop front while 
Marsha Ambrosius, Anthony Hamilton, Brandy, and Lalah Hathaway are stand-outs from soul and r&b backgrounds. 
The pianist’s third album with his ‘Experiment’ band also has collaborations with Fall Out Boy‘s Patrick Stump, 
Norah Jones, and Emeli Sandé. Unlike the original Black Radio LP, this will feature almost all original compositions. 
With RGE’s ability to blend genres and influences so seamlessly, we’re very excited to hear what they bring to the table. 
Fans can also download the official Robert Glasper Experiment App, which has all of the band’s videos and tour dates.
 Stream the beautiful “Calls”below an scroll down to check out the tracklist.

Black Radio 2 Tracklist:
1.       Baby Tonight (Black Radio Intro)

2.       I Stand Alone featuring Common and Patrick Stump

3.       What Are We Doing featuring Brandy

4.       Calls featuring Jill Scott

5.       No Worries featuring Dwele

6.       Trust featuring Marsha Ambrosius

7.       Yet To Find featuring Anthony Hamilton

8.       You Own Me featuring Faith Evans

9.       Let It Ride featuring Norah Jones

10.   Persevere featuring Snoop Dogg and  Lupe Fiasco

11.   Somebody Else featuring Emeli Sandé

12.   Jesus Children of America featuring Lalah Hathaway and Malcolm-Jamal Warner

Music: Life After Ipod

Analyst: Post-iPod, the Digital Music Market Is In Serious Trouble...

Wednesday, November 07, 2012
by  paul

Who do we have to thank for our modern, digital music market?  That would be Apple, but more specifically the iPod, according to top industry analyst Mark Mulligan.  And, once sales of iPods started tapering off, so did the explosive growth of the digital assets.     

"As soon as iPod sales slowed, so did the digital music market," Mulligan relayed.  "Prior to 2008 the digital music market had grown by an average annual rate of 85.2%, after 2008 that rate dropped to 7.5%.  In many markets the 2009 slowdown was of falling-off-a-cliff proportions: in the US digital growth slipped from 30% in 2008 to a near flat-lining 1% in 2009."

Which means, we actually have a serious growth problem, right now.  Here's a look at digital music sales alongside iPod sales, using IFPI and Apple-supplied stats (and posted on Mulligan's blog).

Of course, portability has grown vastly more complex in the post-iPod era, though the iPod is still a very functional app in iPhones.  Androids have full-service music functionality as well, but according to Mulligan, it's not the same thing.  And the net result is a non-dynamic, sputtering digital music market, one that really needs another 'iPod moment' more than anything else. "With all of the talk of streaming services and the shift to the consumption era it is easy to think of Apple’s iTunes Store as yesterday's game," Mulligan relayed.  

"Such an assumption is as dangerous as looking upon the CD as an irrelevance in the present era.  The CD and iTunes combined account forapproximately 78% of total recorded music revenue in the world's 10 largest music markets.   And yet neither look like they are going to provide the momentum the music industry needs over the next few years."

Head of CBS: "Paying Artists for Radio Play Is Absurd...

From Digital Music News

A one-word description for the next few years of radio? 

 

Chaos!

 

Thursday morning: Big Machine Label Group inks another momentous, direct licensing deal with Entercom Communications Corp., one that covers both terrestrial (analog) and digital (online, mobile) radio streams.  Just like the groundbreaking Clear Channel partnership inked in June, this means royalties will be directly paid to Big Machine, all through privately-negotiated terms.  This is a deal done in their treehouse, and not subject to statutory, government-mandated rates. 

 

All of which represents a massive, disruptive threat to SoundExchange, a bureaucracy currently bogged in bad accounting, unpaid holding balances, and a legal battle with one of its top contributors.  Meanwhile, Pandora is choking to death, perhaps a commentary on the broader prospects for digital radio formats.  "When our interests are aligned, and when we have a very predictable, transparent business model, we are much more motivated to grow the digital business," Clear Channel CEO John Hogan recently told an audience at the Billboard Country Summit in Nashville.  

 

These aren't handshakes happening in some corner.  Instead, these are some of the largest music media companies on the planet.  Big Machine is home to mega-artists like Taylor Swift and Tim McGraw; Entercom is one of the largest conglomerates in the United States with 100+ stations across 23 markets, including Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver and Portland.  Which means, of course, Big Machine gets lots of airplay on those 100+ stations, not to mention the Clear Channel stations.

 

"The idea that we have to pay them to put their music on our radio stations is absurd..."

 

But wait: not every big dog wants to play catch.  That includes CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves, who considers rotation on radio a privilege, not a right.  And definitely not something he's willing to pay for.  "The idea that we have to pay them to put their music on our radio stations is absurd," Moonves recently told a group of radio executives at a National Association of Broadcasters conference in Dallas, as quoted by RadioInfo. 

 

Which means, in 2012, the radio terrain looks something like this:

 

(1) Some mega-broadcasters, like CBS Radio, will fight tooth-and-nail against any attempt to charge royalties on recordings.  

 

(2) Others, like Clear Channel and Entercom, will entertain directly-licensed deals.  But these deals could take considerable time to complete and could exclude vast numbers of artists in the process (remember, Big Machine gets lots of preferential rotation treatment here).  

 

(3) These deals could also severely marginalize companies like SoundExchange. 

 

(4) The major labels will continue to fight in Congress for a federally-mandated royalty on radio-streamed recordings.  They will probably fail.

 

(5) Companies like Pandora will continue to pay royalties that broadcast radio does not.  And, struggle for survival in the process.

 

(6) Satellite (ie, Sirius XM) radio will continue to pursue directly-licensed arrangements, while litigating against the likes of SoundExchange and A2IM.

 

(7) And, broadcast radio will still be playing the same, 40 songs you know and love...