Can you manage without a manager?

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On the other hand, if what you mean by a manager is someone who can organise gigs, take care of promotion, arrange meetings etc then you should ask yourself if it's really worthwhile giving someone else a cut of your income to do what you can do yourself.
Management contracts often demand 20% of gross income. That means income before expenses (and before you get anything!). On this basis you could very easily end up doing gigs for nothing or having to pay to play. This is often called "getting exposure" - remember that it is a medical fact that you can die of exposure!

A big factor in getting the attention of the power brokers in the music industry is your network, the people you know. Build this up, recognise it. It may be that your sister's boyfriend's uncle is the guy who cleans the toilets at Collosso Records Inc.

In the meantime, work on both your music and your act. Remember no one is going to pay to hear your band unless you are playing what they want to hear and/or you are presenting it in a way that they like (this is an unusual and much maligned concept known as "entertainment")

If you do end up with a manager, whatever else you do, don't sign a contract unless you've got some good advice, the Musicians' Union is a good start.

Uncle Terry

Go fish

Dear Uncle Terry,

I met this guy who heard me sing and likes my songs and thinks I could really go somewhere with it. He wants me to sign a recording deal with his record company but I've never heard of them. I asked some friends who are musicians and they said they'd never heard of it either. What should I do?

Kath

Dear Kath,

It sound to me like you've met what we call a "trawler". These people have a record label alright but it consists of ...nothing! Anyone can set up a record label, in fact I just did as I was writing this! You can have a record label without a company, without a business name, without registration anywhere ... in fact without anything!

What trawlers do is sign up naïve artists to lengthy exclusive recording deals (it only costs them the ink and paper of the "contract"), wait until one of the artists achieves interest from a real record company and then reappear with the exclusive contract and a demand for a slice of the action. Some slightly less unscrupulous trawlers will actually shop the deals to real record companies.

What it comes down to is the nature of the deal. Does the contract guarantee that the record company will actually do anything? Does the contract have a reasonable length? Is there a termination clause if the record label does nothing or something bad?

Uncle Terry

Copyright

Dear Uncle Terry

How do I copyright my songs?

Harry

Dear Harry

Copyright exists in songs as soon as you write them, you don't have to do anything. Proving that you own the songs may be an issue at some future date so make sure you put the copyright symbol, your name and the year you wrote the song on any music sheets, lyric sheets and recordings. Uncle Terry is not a hotshot copyright lawyer so he suggests that you got to the Australian Copyright Council website for more info. ( www.copyright.org.au lots of information sheets )

Uncle Terry

Go directly to jail, do not collect Top 200

Dear Uncle Terry

My sister says lots of record companies aren't fair to muscians is this true? She also says that you can get music from the interanet without paying for it, what do you call this?

Trudy

Dear Trudy,

1. Yes
2. Theft

Uncle Terry

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Miles Davis: vintage knockout

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Finally, Sony, or Columbia, or whoever they are, have issued five-album's worth of material from those sessions, billing it The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions. Despite the claim that many of the pieces contained on these discs have never been issued before, it is useful to clarify that that means that the takes so labelled have not been issued in isolation or in their entirety before. That goes for several takes of Willie Nelson as for several of Go Ahead John. The reality is that most of this material has been issued in some form before; take Konda, for instance, which, but for the Jarrett doodling at the intro, appeared substantially intact on Directions.

That is the commercial perspective; from the musical perspective, the discs may be summed up thus: wow.

Take Willie Nelson, with Dave Holland's bouncing interruptive bass and Jack DeJohnette's licking, whispering and thumping drums overlaid with the jagged blues guitar of John McLaughlin coupled with the left-field slide guitar of Sonny Shorrock and the plastic ring-modulated keyboard work of Chick Corea, with Miles crowing like a chanticleer over the lot. And that's just the entrée.

I will not insult with stars of recommendation. This is an indispensable document of 20th century music history. Just hand in your official Music Lover's badge if you don't get it.

If you don't get it, then you clearly just don't get it.

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