Jason
I love what you did with the "drone" for YUN. And I hope the so called "holiday season", which is madness, didn't freak you out as much as it has me.
I have a small problem that unfortunately involves you. The lawfirm of some 17 years that has been representing me in my business, publications and performance royalties / performance permissions is giving me a realy hard time, which is partially my fault. I played Yun for one of them, Mr. S*******e (head of the firm), and he loved it, but when he found out it is based on the comp. I wrote (there is more going on there than a drone, as I think you could hear) he became very angry at me and insisted that I either demand roylties per print or a cease and desisit order will be drawn up. I told him to calm down but this is his job and if I do not do something then he says he will drop me as a client (this will not happen), and he is a highly respected entertainment lawyer. The same problem goes for any use of my material by anyone for any reason without legal contracts drawn up in advance with all bases covered. I hate this problem, but he is correct, and has protected me from some serious business problems, especially when I was in publishing.
This is not making me happy... I love what you do and I want to work with you at any time. But I do get paid, and I am among the highest commissioned composers of classical (and electronic / arranging) composers ($1500, finished minute, minumim) and the LAST THING I want is my lawyer doing net searches and sendng out C+C orders, or subpeonas to people. He may subpeaona a ceasation and ceasure of all copies of YUN available with or without my permission.(They have the Judicial stamps (=$royalties for them) on my copyrights)).
I love what you do, but the business end of this has come and bit me on the ass. Nothing will happen to you if you say nothing and sell no copies or distibute copies of YUN or any other work that utilizes any contribution of my own, including samples.
Since they have the cop. contracts there is little I can do.

Any new ideas you'd like to do, or you and david and I or whatever, we need to clarify this stuff ahead of time. This is making me feel really awful and I especially do not want David to get some wrong idea about this. If he had a legal rep. he would be in the same boat.

Thanks man, I love YUN. Clarinet is my fave. I wrote a great little suite for it, if you'd like to look at it some time I'd be honored. and no, they'll be no legal nonsense. Please understand why I am writing you. It bothers me a great deal, but a phone call from you asking why you recieved a subpeaona to appear in small claims court is alot worse.

Sincerely
C*******r J******s H*****e

My vote on this is "Fuck You".

What do you think?

Some background here.
The CD in question has sold less than a hundred copies. Here is what Wire magazine said about it.

Yun - Yun
Yun is one track - hell, it's one chord - which lasts for 62 minutes. I guess it's debatable whether anyone outside the Milwaukee avant garde scene that brought it into being will ever know or care about its existence but that's part of the pleasure. In any case, it's rather good. Analogous to the "I Dormienti" music Brian Eno created for Mimmo Paladino's collection of sleeping sculptures, "Yun" was originally conceived to accompany a video installation made by Mahogany Throttle guitarist David White. The video showed clouds rolling across a summer sky, and the music combines stasis and change in a similarly hypnotic way. C***s H**e produces a rich bassy drone and Castle Broadway's Jason Wietlispach improvises a live bass clarinet part over the top, manipulating his own playing through reverbs and delays in real time. It's incredibly simple but genuinely effective - Wielispach varies his tactics with impressive guile and resourcefulness throughout, occasionally panning his clarinet from speaker to speaker to set up the shimmering aural equivalent of a heathaze, sometimes looping his licks into a soupy harmony with the drone and from time to time offering gleaming shafts of melodic invention. Worth tracking down. -Chris Sharp

I might be wrong but isn't that record from 2004?

That guy would be dead to me.

He's a jerk. Screw him w/ a 2X4. Terminate any business you have with this guy, and never work with him again.

Yeah, what Steve said.

Subscribe his address to a few hundred ass-raping porn lists.


Ya know, seeing as he's so into the whole ass-raping business.

Who’s working for who here? I think the lawyer works for the client and if the client says I don’t give a shit about this because there’s no harm then the lawyer should listen to the client. This guy needs a new lawyer who understands this relationship.

But really, I think this guy is bullshitting. He’s bothered by your using the sample for some reason and has embellished this “lawyer objection” so he doesn’t have to feel like such a dick for telling you to stop. Or, as alluded to in a previous post, he's devloped this story in order to scam money from you.

Advice? Ask him how much money he wants? (not necessarily saying you should even consider paying him) Don’t do anything and see if it goes away?

I don’t know, do you know a lawyer?

Let me get this straight- You did most of the work and he played a single chord for an hour through some effect pedals? And he has the audacity to threaten to sue you? Maybe you should split the "profits" according to how many notes each person played.

So is he saying that he wants songwriting royalties for 1 chord?

Maybe he is just embarassed because he thinks so highly of himself and you're the one who actually made the project interesting.

He chose his lawyer over you.

He's the one who made a decision.

Unless you feel like begging him to reconsider, maybe you could send him a box with the master tapes cut into a million pieces and never talk to him again. But all I know about your relationship is this hideous letter.

km wrote:Who’s working for who here?

I totally agree... either this guy is being dishonest with you and is hiding behind his lawyer or his lawyer is a big money grubbing dick (no, not all lawyers are) who doesn't listen to his client. Threatens to drop him if he doesn't have blood lust after one of his own friends?! What the fuck?! "...he is a highly respected entertainment lawyer"?!!! Respected by who? What a dick.

Your friend should either be honest with you or he should grow a pair and remember his lawyer works for him....and if his lawyer really would drop him over such a thing, he should have nothing to do with such a piece of shit.... when you purposely hang out with a piece of shit, eventually it WILL smear on you.

capnreverb wrote:Jason
Nothing will happen to you if you say nothing and sell no copies or distibute copies of YUN or any other work that utilizes any contribution of my own, including samples.

Send him a certified letter. It will say (take this down):

"Per your recent e-mail: My work does not utilize jack shit. Suck it."