Several years ago I was doing some freelance marketing work for a company called Java Music. Well, I was cleaning the hard drive on the ol' IMac the other day and found a series of articles that I wrote for them. I'll post them here in the journal section from time-to-time for your entertainment. I don't know how relevant they are for you - or in general anymore. But, hey...no charge.
	Entry #4: Musical Myths Well Here we go again with a chance to review some of the biggest myths in the music business. All these myths have come from real life interviews with artists, producers, A& R people, songwriters, publisher, concert promoters, managers and agents. BTW if you have a good myth and a nice antidote to go along with it be sure and forward it to us here at. And now on with the myths Part 2: Myth #4 "I'll Never sell out like (insert band name here)" This is one great myth because it seems to act as a soothing ointment to the ego of any artist who sees someone who they believe is less talented gets a big break. It never ceases to amaze people in the record company end of things how artists perceive themselves and other artist. In personal experience let me assure you there is no artist of any note that doesn't have some group of fans somewhere who feel betrayed by their fave local band and the changes they made from that dark club to the real deal venue. What some might consider an evolution in music and style may appear to others as a sell out. In music and art as well as life there is nothing as permanent as change. And rest assure if you stay in music you and your music will change. It's not an "if" but "when and how" you change. So one of the first things you as an artist must do is assess what your strengths and weaknesses are in yourself, your music, your image, your live show even your name. Myth#5 "I don't have to worry I've got a contract" Well you were smart enough to get an agreement with your bandmates, record company, manager, agent etc. in writing and now you're on easy street, nice and legal with nothing to fear because you've got a contract. Sadly this is untrue. Unfortunately many artists overestimate the protection one gets from words on paper and will sometimes deal with people and organization that they don't trust or have a history of shaky deals simply because you have a contract between the parties. While having a contract always is better than not having an arrangement in writing it really only helps you if you have the money to go hire a lawyer and go to court and your being ripped off for major money. In all reality any contract is only as good as the people who sign it. Over and over one can hear stories of people signing to a new or independent company with a great record deal that has so many points and perks it almost seems like they're stealing from the company. They sign only to find out later the jokes on them as all those great numbers and perks were irrelevant because they lost money or never really intended to pay to begin with, but are more than willing to keep selling your music without giving you a dime. Hard as it may be to believe, there are some very unscrupulous people in the music industry who have operated for years on this very method. There is a wonderful story that Jerry Garcia used to tell of going into a label heads office to talk about re-signing. While The Dead were happy at their label they were being offered the moon by plenty of other new companies. When Jerry complained that his current label's offer was half of what another new company had offered, the well known record company president simply said "I know Jerry, the differences is we plan to pay you" The bottom line on this is don't count on a piece of paper to protect you and to know who you are dealing with before signing anything. Myth#7&8 "Words don't count it's the music", "Music Doesn't count it's the lyrics" This is one of the music "chicken or the egg" arguments that happens at least 100 times in the idle hours between gigs and rehearsals. And it's also pointless because in most modern music it's both that make the song. For a while this myth about lyrics seemed to be the mantra of every band playing the LA club scene in the 80s and early 90s. You could hear all these great hooks with insipid lyric as the words sounded and probably were an after thought of the band's and were used to fill in the blanks between guitar solos. Lyrics and music do carry equal importance in spite of what every non-lyric writing guitar player you ever met has told you. Yes, we can all name some big hit song that has terrible lyrics. But the old "wouldn't 'Stairway To Heaven' be a hit with different lyrics is moot because we'll never know. We do know when Paul McCartney changed the lyrics of a tune called "Scrambled Eggs" to "Yesterday" it became one of the most covered songs of all time. Yes we know of many hits with crummy lyrics, but you can rest assured there are twice as many great hooks that never become hit songs because of bad lyrics. Many great songs have no lyrics at all, but if you're going to have lyrics in a song as much thought should go into those words as the music. We will go into this later here at JavaMusic when we discuss songwriting in general. Till then one song writing tip everyone can live by is simple, unless you're Bob Dylan a LIST IS NOT A SONG!