Why all the Tal smack talk?

[Dr. Cheese]

This is silly. Can't some of you just be happy for her? People hate to see others succeed and that is sad. I wish nothing but the best for everyone here. Maybe when you become successful, people can bicker about who is more deserving, or complain that you didn't pay homage to your influences, or maybe they can dig up your past and find reasons that they are better musicians. It's crap.

I am happy for her! The woman has talent and she has never looked outclassed on any gigs that I have seen on Youtube or TV. I think the discussion about whether she benefitted from her gender or financial status is legitimate, but I also feel that it has gone on a bit too long.

More to the point, I think these same points could easily be raised about dozens of men who have high profiles too.

 

[SanDiegoHarry]

It could be worse - she could have been discovered on "American Idol"...

 

[jerry]

There is another side of her-father-is-a-billionaire-with-a-B dealio. If it's true, a lot of kids with access to that kind of capitol would not have the dedication to practice and devote the time needed to develop the skills she has, I almost give her more credit if she is that rich.

 

[johhn smith]

man o' man ... this stuff makes my head hurt.

 

[JimmyM]

I am happy for her! The woman has talent and she has never looked outclassed on any gigs that I have seen on Youtube or TV. I think the discussion about whether she benefitted from her gender or financial status is legitimate, but I also feel that it has gone on a bit too long.

More to the point, I think these same points could easily be raised about dozens of men who have high profiles too.

Absolutely. The charts are full of them. Pretty much everyone with million selling albums has at least a couple million behind them to "buy" air time and grease palms. That's the way it's been since the recording business started.

 

[illmusician]

There is another side of her-father-is-a-billionaire-with-a-B dealio. If it's true, a lot of kids with access to that kind of capitol would not have the dedication to practice and devote the time needed to develop the skills she has, I almost give her more credit if she is that rich.

Hell yea Jerry! From the students, to the band mates, more often than not the players that came from the richer families definitely have a correlation to less motivation. They simply have a sense of comparison to what a better "non musician" life is. Convincing wealthy parents that you don't want to start saving money and working on an office career is tough, really tough.

 

[illmusician]

Absolutely. The charts are full of them. Pretty much everyone with million selling albums has at least a couple million behind them to "buy" air time and grease palms. That's the way it's been since the recording business started.

JimmyM, I enjoy your comments but you have NO clue about how record sales work.
Let me explain. Basically all a record company is, is a private bank with a network of people that they have dedicated business to ie connections. When an artist signs, its more of a representation contract/loan. The loan is for recording, marketing, distribution, duplication, air play, per diems (gotta love tax free money), promotion, advertising, publishing (more on that later) and legal.
That loan is called a recoupable asset. meaning all the sales from the product (CD, album, itunes etc), that they paid for is there's, period. Royalties, album sales, ancillary income, all of it is the records labels until your paid off. Anything and I really mean (I have seen some ridiculous nickel and dime BS from labels itemized down to pens and paper) anything that they spent money on you for is collectible. That used to be gold status, but it more like double or triple that now. Now the way she gets money is by making her own deals and signing as a co publisher or starting her subsidiary publishing company.
So, her deal with EBS, Sadowsky, Clothing, any self published works that she covers the back end on like cd baby or her page where she does everything to get the album to POS (point of sale) without selling it in a retail store. Playing live just like the rest of us, her image being on TV; PBS footage from the crossroads video and the RnR Hall of fame video, merchandise, is really her income. She is likely making over 80k net, but I'd bet you a dollar she doesn't own a car (not as a bad thing, but for overall understanding).
My everyday job is in a publishing company in LA, if any TB's have questions about publishing, copyrights, general dirt feel free to pm me. I might start a thread/ club just for that. saying that, back to work, yea.

 

[pablomigraine]

JimmyM, I enjoy your comments but you have NO clue about how record sales work.
Let me explain. Basically all a record company is, is a private bank with a network of people that they have dedicated business to ie connections. When an artist signs, its more of a representation contract/loan. The loan is for recording, marketing, distribution, duplication, air play, per diems (gotta love tax free money), promotion, advertising, publishing (more on that later) and legal.
That loan is called a recoupable asset. meaning all the sales from the product (CD, album, itunes etc), that they paid for is there's, period. Royalties, album sales, ancillary income, all of it is the records labels until your paid off. Anything and I really mean (I have seen some ridiculous nickel and dime BS from labels itemized down to pens and paper) anything that they spent money on you for is collectible. That used to be gold status, but it more like double or triple that now. Now the way she gets money is by making her own deals and signing as a co publisher or starting her subsidiary publishing company.
So, her deal with EBS, Sadowsky, Clothing, any self published works that she covers the back end on like cd baby or her page where she does everything to get the album to POS (point of sale) without selling it in a retail store. Playing live just like the rest of us, her image being on TV; PBS footage from the crossroads video and the RnR Hall of fame video, merchandise, is really her income. She is likely making over 80k net, but I'd bet you a dollar she doesn't own a car (not as a bad thing, but for overall understanding).
My everyday job is in a publishing company in LA, if any TB's have questions about publishing, copyrights, general dirt feel free to pm me. I might start a thread/ club just for that. saying that, back to work, yea.

Thats Quite accurate. Let me tell you all a nice short story. There was a band. The band was good. They lived and played in a town with 20 or 30 other good bands. One day, one of them convinced their parents (all the members were in their 20's) to take out a Home Equity line on their house for $65k. Mom and Dad complied. With their $65K in pocket, they went and spent $12K and recorded a studio quality album. Then they hired a conceptual artist to design a look and logo and artwork for them. They also hired a web guy to design a myspace page. All this, and some legal fees for trademarking and forming an LLc, cost them about $2k. Then they Pressed 18,000 copies of thier album for another $12K. Then, for a paltry $5K they signed a distribution deal with Trans-World and got their album in every FYE and Borders in the world. Another $2k got them European distribution. Another $5k bought them enough posters, banners and cards to send to all the top 20% sales market stores in the US and Europe, as well a full page ad in a popular music publication declaring the CD release date.... buying that ad also got them a review in the same publication. Another $5k bought them a radio ad and a 60-day deal with Clear Channel communications and all thier hundreds of subsidiary radio stations. Another $12k bought them road cases for their gear, a trailer for the van and 6 months worth of Merch. A $2k flat out BRIBE to a major booking agent got them penciled in for a tiny slot in a medium sized summer tour package with 5 other signed bands.

With the few thousand remaining dollars in a savings account, they approached a major record label with documentation of everything they'd done. With the advertised release date 30 days away, they negotiated a 2 album deal with the label, with the label providing ONLY; continuation of their existing advertising and marketing contracts for the term, guaranteed additional marketing and advertising, tour support, guaranteed slots on label sponsored tours and dedicated rep to pitch them to other national radio, TV, and promotions companies. The contract stipulated a guaranteed recoup for the label of ONLY 60% of what they laid out on these items, forcing the label to HEAVILY promote the band. All royalties become the bands after 150% recoup by the label.... further encouraging them to market the band properly. Signed, sealed, delivered.

Armed with this contract, they signed with a major booking agency, and a nationally known management firm.

That was 5 years ago. The band made their original $65K back in 13 months, and each member has made a steady Six Figures every year since, sometimes over $200K each per year.

The kicker? This was a FREAKING DEATH METAL BAND!!!

Bottom Line.... do it yourself, whatever way you can.

 

[illmusician]

What death metal band? They must have had a following to make that kind of skrill.

 

[JimmyM]

So you guys are telling me all the stories about the money spent at the beginning and greasing palms and you're saying I've got it wrong? Looks like I nailed it to me. Yeah, I've never done it (unfortunately, publishing companies like yours all returned everything I ever sent out unopened), but let's face it...it costs a fortune just to make an album that gets totally ignored, let alone one that sells.

 

[illmusician]

Hello jimmy, Yes a lot of money needs to be spent making an album, and yes payola still is part of the game, its kinda like the mob in that sense. It was more the sentence about having millions of dollars made from a million albums. It's just that the money spent to "grease palms" (dirty thoughts) was spent out of the artist pockets.

Now saying "unfortunately, publishing companies like yours all returned everything I ever sent out unopened" is a little flamey, but arguably so. Publishing companies were started by musicians that wanted to make sure they got paid every time someone played there music, bought the album/single/record, licensed for use on film or sound track or mechanical rights, and synchronization rights. Of course they returned it, let me guess you sent it from home or a private/ residential address, right? You need to first get someone on the inside to know they are receiving a press kit/ EPK, or send a press kit first. MOST IMPORTANTLY you need a person to address it to. Anything sent to just the address is tossed, and on that note they actually sent it back to you at cost. That is the industries way of saying try harder. You have no idea how much stuff comes in on a daily basis, the ones that are packaged the nicest, smell the nicest, anything that makes your material sell yourself before we open it help put it in the ***** and giggle pile for opening up at break time. It helps, but really we laugh at a lot of crap and toss it. If it has a specific destination then we open it review it and send at least a letter, Oh ALways be sure to include a self addressed stamped envelope inside. It saves us time and makes you appear more pro. But lets keep it on TAL Wilkenfeld I will start a different thread or club for this kinda stuff. or PM me

 

[julo]

... It helps, but really we laugh at a lot of crap and toss it.

For being musicians I found the lack of respect for other people's work and effort very... crappy. I'm talking about the word "crap" not the tossing. Tossing is fair game.
The more I hear about the music industry, the happier I feel for not (and never) be part of it.

Kindly,
Julo

 

[pablomigraine]

For being musicians I found the lack of respect for other people's work and effort very... crappy. I'm talking about the word "crap" not the tossing. Tossing is fair game.
The more I hear about the music industry, the happier I feel for not (and never) be part of it.

Kindly,
Julo

Being a struggling musician, and also having been in a position in the past which required me sorting through piles and piles of submitted music looking for a diamond in the rough.... I may have to abstain form this part of the discussion......

Its off-topic anyway.

How about that Tal Wilkenfeld.... she sure can funk... for a GIRL!

 

[JAUQO III-X]

Jimmy you are pretty much on point.



I own my own publishing company and it doesn't matter,because if you don't know the game their are many in the industry who will try and take advantage of you.


I control my career and I sleep good at night by doing so.

 

[JimmyM]

Jimmy you are pretty much on point.

I own my own publishing company and it doesn't matter,because if you don't know the game their are many in the industry who will try and take advantage of you.

I control my career and I sleep good at night by doing so.

Yeah, at this point in the game, I'm much better off doing anything I'm doing by myself. Which at the moment is nothing, but hey

Thx for the advice, lilmusician. Don't get me wrong...I'm not saying anything bad about you, but I just found it very odd that companies who say they're looking for new stuff all the time don't want to spend a minute opening a package and throwing it in the CD player, and yeah it did bum me out.

The music business is weird.

 

[ubado]

While doing a quick Google search on Tal and Chick Youtube videos ... I came across this tidbit of TB's past thread in '07. This might shed some light on the subject.

This really seems to drive the point home ... It's not just talent ... it's who you know.

BUT with that ... you've gotta have chops to hang with the circle she does ... being just another pretty face will only get you so far. Heck, she's played with Chick ... even Bela Fleck wondered if he had to the chops to do that! IF you're gonna play with Chick ... you better be more than just a pretty face.

My $.02

Tal is a fantastic bass player, has a great pocket, and is a huge talent in music, not just in the bass.

The reality of the music industry however, no matter how great you are, is who you know. You need to hang out with the right people, have a certain attitude, and of course have your playing together too. But playing has become somewhat of a secondary thing in a lot of scenes.

You can't take anything away from Tal. She's done everything perfectly. She's studied her instrument very hard, and has hung out in all the right circles. I know that she's great friends with Vic, Otiel, Steve, anthony, will, krantz, kenwood, hiram, and all the cats. And I think meeting vinnie Colaiuta probably helped her out a lot in getting the chick corea and jeff beck gigs.

Does age and sex play a part? sure. her and I have talked about that before actually. She hates telling people how old she is because she would rather be known for her playing rather than a young cute chick that plays great. I don't think she has a lot to worry about. She won't be young forever, she sounds really good, and she has some great gigs. I'm sure people will, if they don't already, respect her for her music and for her personality.

If there was nothing there musically then I might have a lot of sh*t to talk about her being young and cute. But she really is a great musician, and isn't kidding anyone. You don't need me to tell you that, just listen to her play, it speaks for itself.

Easy,

Janek

 

[fleabee]

I wish she would stop touring with Beck and put out another album{yes I still call them albums}.

 

[Lobster11]

How about that Tal Wilkenfeld.... she sure can funk... for a GIRL!

I've heard that her custom Sadowsky has boobs!

 

[pablomigraine]

Yeah, at this point in the game, I'm much better off doing anything I'm doing by myself. Which at the moment is nothing, but hey

Thx for the advice, lilmusician. Don't get me wrong...I'm not saying anything bad about you, but I just found it very odd that companies who say they're looking for new stuff all the time don't want to spend a minute opening a package and throwing it in the CD player, and yeah it did bum me out.

The music business is weird.

These days, it really doesnt cost much to produce your own stuff. In my eyes, these are the heydays for struggling musicians. I can self produce a studio quality album, get it repro'd and packaged and sell it direct and downloadable for about $8,000.00. Its like anything else.... if you put the work in yourself, you'll reap more of the reward..... Have a label handle everything but the music.... you're going to be the last man in line on payday.

I've heard that her custom Sadowsky has boobs!

 

[jazzbass_5]

She's got groove, talent, and style. It's all her's and that's that.