Recording - September 2014 - 54

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So there's literally "gold" sitting in some of your
closets. And I think what happens is, as Michael
said, people forget about it. Or it didn't happen
for them in 1975 or 1985 or 1965, and maybe
they feel like a failure with it, so they don't realize that there's actually value in it, because all
these TV shows and films are using this music to
reinforce the setting and the vibe and the mood
of their programming.
And a lot of people recorded demos or masters
back in the day that almost got them a record deal,
but didn't. So that doesn't mean that it's worthless.
It could have a life in today's market...
There is life! You know, we use the same re-mastering software that the Smithsonian uses for
cleaning up recordings. So if you've got an
acetate or an old 45-we come across this a
lot-we can transfer it and clean it up and make
it sound good enough that it would be used in a
TV show or film. The technology is really amazing out there right now.
One of the questions that I get from members is
that they wonder about the broadcast quality of
what you need for vintage recordings, versus
broadcast quality on contemporary stuff that was
done recently. Is the standard for broadcast quality
of vintage recordings different?
Yeah, we need to talk about this. This is really
important. And this is something I've been kind
of touching on in the one-on-ones and the mentoring sessions here at the Road Rally. If you're
doing new music-if you're doing retro-influenced music-and you're trying to get it into a
library, or you're submitting it to TAXI for a TV
show, it's unbelievably competitive today, and
the quality of what you're doing has to be so, so
good. You must keep that bar high, because
there is no excuse for a bad recording in 2013,
OK? So keep the quality as high as you possibly
can. Now, if you recorded something in 1975
and there were limitations of the rooms, and the
mics, and all that stuff, well, you can't go back
and fix that, and there's a very limited supply of
that music, so our clients are willing to be a little
bit more lenient about what's good enough. And
a lot of time, quite frankly, a little bit of that
hiss or a little bit of that crackle actually adds to
the recording, because it's real. It's the real
thing. But if you're doing new stuff... We have a
library of that stuff as well -and we'll play
some stuff later-that would kind of be knockoff Classic Rock or Glam-Metal or something
like that. But when you hear the quality, my
hope would be the take-away would be that's
how good it has to be if you want to get it into a
show or in a film. Our music is on TV seven days
a week, and we've got about 5,100 copyrights in
our catalog right now, and we're a boutique.
54

For a boutique company, that's a pretty healthy...
It's not bad. But the thing is, for every single
vocal cut [songs VS instrumentals] that I get on
a TV show, I am literally competing with Sony
Records and EMI Records, so I've got to be as
good as that, which means you have to be as
good as that when you're writing songs, when
you're producing them, when you're recording
them. That's how high the bar has to be if you
really want to have a career doing this, as
opposed to kind of doing it on the side.
My dad always says,"If you treat it like a hobby, it'll
pay you like a hobby."But, a lot of people have fulltime jobs, they have a mortgage to pay, and they're
weekend warriors. But maybe they can make an extra
five grand a year doing it. Maybe they'll never grow
into 100 grand, but it's something. And I think for a lot
of you folks in the audience, the validation that somebody out there likes your music and wants to use it on
a show is also a different form of payment, and might
be equally as rewarding.
My feeling is if you have a fulltime job and you have
a mortgage, realistically, you are not going to spend
600 hours in the studio a year doing that. But the
beauty is if you've got older recordings, if you sign
them, they're kind of like little employees, and they
go off and they find TV shows and they turn into
annuities through performance royalties, and it
creates additional income streams, and it's very,
very powerful. We have generated literally millions
and millions of dollars in performance royalties for
our writers over the years, and it's life-changing,
and it's wealth-building. And it's multigenerational, because the copyrights are good for
70 years after the last writers died. The example I
usually give is like with the Beatles. John Lennon
died in the early '80s, but Paul McCartney is still
alive. Well, those copyrights are going to be
good for 70 years after Paul's death, right? So if
you're writing material and we get it in NCIS-
and that thing is going to air forever because it's
a huge hit show-you will literally get paid, or
your children or a charity that you've
bequeathed the royalties to, or whatever that is,
will get paid for a very, very long time. So it fundamentally can change your life. It literally
changed mine.
It doesn't get any better than that. So let's play
some stuff. Tell us what we're gonna hear.
Sure. I kind of broke this up into several groups,
and the first group I want to specifically play you
some vintage music. These are authentic period
recordings that we signed through TAXI. It will
kind of give you a feel... And we've got music
that ranges from 1921 to 1995. And the secret
sauce is that all the music that we have is quintessential to the era. So for example, we've got a
lot of Rockabilly from the 1950s. Why? Because

that's when Rockabilly really mattered. By 1967
nobody was listening to Rockabilly anymore,
they were on to Psychedelic Rock, right? And
we've got a lot of New Wave music from the
early '80s, because that's when the people were
listening to the Talking Heads. We have a lot of
Crooner music from the 1940s and 1950s; same

"We have generated literally millions
and millions of dollars in
performance royalties for our writers
over the years, and it's life-changing,
and it's wealth-building."
-Jeff Freundlich
thing. That's when that music really mattered
most. So everything I'm going to play for you
today is stuff that is really of the moment, and
that's why we signed it, and that's why it will get
used. Some of these have been used already;
some of them we literally signed two
months ago.
Were these done is pro studios?
I bought five today that were signed through
TAXI, and they really do range... I mean, some of
these are almost like field recordings, and some
of them are professionally done in top-line
studios.
So the first one is from 1946, and it's from a guy
named Peter Sivo. He had a band for several
decades called the Peter Sivo Band, and he
played all up and down the East Coast after he
got out of the Navy. This is ours; it's from 1946.
[Music plays.]
Can we talk about this for a second? You know,
that's pretty hissy, right?
But it still sounds really great.
It's magic. I mean, that guy's voice... I mean, forget about it! It's not Peter singing. He conducted
the band, but he didn't sing.
Can I tell them the story about...? So Jeff calls me
up and says, "Michael, there's this guy Peter Sivo.
He's a TAXI member." I remember Peter Sivo from
literally the first year of TAXI in 1992. I remember
entering him into the database in our very first
computer. So I knew that guy had been around forever, and Jeff called and said, "I can't get this guy
to call me back, and I want to sign this stuff so
badly. I've never wanted to write somebody a
check so badly that won't return my calls. So can
you help me get a hold of him?" So if I remember
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