MUSIC BIZ SHUTS DOWN AFTER FED RAID
Moses Avalon
The music business will be closing its doors to all new production after Federal authorities pulled off a successful roundup and arrest of over 100 top New York and New Jersey “mobsters ” on Thursday, according to a Wall Street Journal story.
RIAA president, Carry Sherman told AP, “Since 75% of all funding for new acts is the result of gangsters laundering money to keep their tone-deaf girlfriends confined in a studio– where they can always find them. We feel that there is no real need to pretend any longer. The money is gone.”
Candace Stewart, manager of East West, a prestigious recording facility in Los Angeles told Moses Supposes this morning, “We had cancellations today. The only people who showed up for sessions were the union musicians.”
After tumbling CD sales and torrential attacks by ISPs on music business revenues, labels have slashed budgets for recordings and now with this new development, many studios have decided to just close their doors.
Meanwhile, in other news CEOs of several major labels voted to give themselves a pay increase after they were successful in cutting label costs last year– by firing half their staff.
Mo out
TAKE NOTE: All quotes above are fake. This joke-story would be a little less funny if it were not probably true. All facts are made up except the part about the Federal raid. Read more about that here. Comment on this if you’ve got something funny to add.
22 responses to “MUSIC BIZ SHUTS DOWN AFTER FED RAID”
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Loved the mob story…just perfect on a level 1 snow emergency kind of morning.
After reading that and the real mob story I ran into this story on these real life “criminals” in the music biz–Warner music group CEO fined $6.7 million and former Vivendi CEO got a 3 year suspended sentence.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_FRANCE_VIVENDI_TRIAL?SITE=OHCOL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Sent from iphone
Leon Bass | Attorney | http://www.LeonBass.com
Don’t kid yourself… they got the mobsters, but not their attorneys – which leaves the record companies pretty much intact.
Ripley
A good laugh to start the day 🙂
–Steve Marks
Hey Mo, you sure had me going there for a moment… I was thinking, oh, my goodness, what next? Maybe they’ll raid the Whitehouse and throw all the crooked politicians in jail…. LOL… just as likely!!
They had a good racket going there for a while!
All things must change as George Harrison once said!
So, what they are saying is though it is 2011, nothing has cahnged in the industry since day 1. Just a different set of Gangsters now running things.
Ken H
Yo Mo!
I grew up in NJ. You got a problem in the way we run the Music Business in our territory?
Got to go, FBI’s at the door!
Jimmy “The C.”
Aayyy. Fageta’bout it!
Too bad ya feel the necessity to so clearly and precisely state the “news story” is fake.
Had to laugh at BOTH the “story” AND the disclaimer!
Keep up the great work. Loved the book of yers I read a couple years back, recommended to me by my producer.
Michael Koppy
Unfortunately, we live in a litigious world and disclaimers are necessary for those who have no sense of humor. And I want to add that Mr. Sherman is NOT among such people. The RIAA got a good laugh from this piece.
I think the part about giving themselves raise is right, isn’t it. I heard Universal bought a fleet of electic vehicles so they can sell cds out of the back on Sunset. Well it worked for Chris Blackwell, didn’t it?
So that’s why Rap keeps going on and on. Who knew?
Very funny! But I wonder if there aren’t a few “indie promoters”/behind-the-scenes label owners (past or present) in the lot. When I saw the photo of Joe “JoJo” Corozzo, I instantly thought they may have printed the wrong last name…
According to an unnamed source, the CEOs of several top labels had a secret meeting late Friday to discuss a new money-making strategy. Among other changes, this will involve charging musicians to release their music (ala “pay to play” in LA)and for every unit sold, the musicians would have to pay a royalty to the label.
A lot of new acts have agreed that this sounds “only fair,” and have signed long-term deals
Moses —
Thanks for keeping the “fun” in “funding” !!
Leigh
OMFG !!! I almost fell off the bed in tears of laughter! it’s just too vast and unstable, people spring up into the light …then, grow old and fade from view…round and round we all go. the music industry is ever evolving…and will continue to do so…the money comes in waves lots at first until it starts to trickle then you gotta make another record and porn it off to the labels who love your style…then it rains money again…round and round…until your just too tired to go on…
Storm T
The mob in Canada is alive and well within the record industry and…big corporate law establishments and…the
within some of the Canadian government agencies…and provincial also.
I have personaly seen the cocroaches in all of these places….oh.yeah..and in recording studios.
I agree that the problem is in the governments justice
system and policing.
Basically,they HIJACK our governments and just pay everyone off like sluts that they are!
You had me! It’s pretty true and if there’s a major drug raid anytime soon, there goes the rest of the financing!
In a related story, Somy Music has claimed 30 gazillion dollars in tax write-offs because of their worldwide recycling efforts with back-catalog.
Also in music news today: Jackson Pollack, the painter famous for his technique of simply ‘throwing and splattering’ paint upon the canvas, has file suit against Ke$sha, claiming that her method of writing lyrics infringes upon his signature method of creating ‘art’.
WSJ has a lot of damn gall to call these two-bit crooks a threat to our economic security; what about Goldman-Sachs?
One thing everyone seems to forget aobut. There were plenty of legitimate investors who were3 able and willing to back young talent they believed int. If they lost money, no big deal, the IRS laws until 1986 (I believe wit was 86) gave an Investor who invested his finances in the aritists careers the right to take a tax credit off as R & D, if an artists recordings / career failed. The law was changed abolishing the tax credit,(R & D),which allowed an investor to at elast recoup in form of tax credits against potential tax liabilities. This all happened after Ronald Reagan took office as President at the suggestion and encouragement his long time confidant and Lew Wasserman who happened to be head of MCA. This all coincided with a time when the majors were trying to kill all the Independents, who were always the driving force of the record industry sales. A very prime example of how greed choked the goose laying the golden egg.