General Music Chat

Hello everyone!

I missed you guys... except for Phil of coourse!

Just kidding, even missed Phil


As some of you know, I deleted my BandMix account a number of months ago. Being the "verbose" type, I was getting into lengthy discussions, on everything from politics to religion, but thankfully, even sometimes on music. LOL

But my band was cutting a debut album, I had built us up street teams in 30 states, was conducting a babe of the month marketing campaign, FOR EACH STREET TEAM no less, and this required so much time. But it was paying off, as our band had gone from $400 gigs to $2000 gigs. But the work was wearing me out, and I felt I had to FORCE myself to stop having the lengthy discussions here, by deleting my account, so I was not tempted to engage in long discussions and could stay focused on band work.

However...

MUCH HAS CHANGED!

Southern Mischief, my band, as we all know it, is now over.

Half-way through the debut album, the band (one bad apple started it all) tried to FORCE me to sign a contract giving them half-ownership of ALL MY SONGS, including the ones I had written 15 years ago, a full 13 years BEFORE I even met these people. When I told them I would not sign anything without a lawyer reviewing it, they stopped talking to me, to the point that they BROKE a scheduled gig! This is a cardinal sin to me, musically.

They clearly thought they could force me to sign a bad contract, but they don't know me very well after these 2 years. Music is how I communicated with God as a child, and he communicated back with me through it. It is VERY personal to me, to the point that, stealing my songs, feels like someone is trying to steal my soul.

They have since hired a new singer, and one drummer left them, so they hired a new drummer too.

During the negotiation of this bad contract, it came to my attention that one of the band members (the bad apple) had actually trademarked the name Southern Mischief behind my back! I made up that name. I started that band. I auditioned and hired all the musicians in it, including the bad apple. This was kind of shocking to me. Legally, I have an unregistered trademark as the creator of the name, and I never pursued a registered version, because I wanted to share it with the whole band. However, after having been through 7 drummers and 5 bass players in 2 years, I was waiting for the right guys, that seemed committed, to be there, before registering it with the Library of Congress. My benevolence became my undoing, or rather, the band's undoing.

They are now, still calling themselves Southern Mischief, and are playing MY SONGS as if they were THEIR originals. Until I got MySpace to delete them, they were even using MY VOICE on our studio work, to promote themselves!

But they in turn, got my band profile deleted from MySpace, and consequently my 8,000 friends I had signed up over 2 years. I had deleted everything saying Southern Mischief from the site, but perhaps they had complained BEFORE I had done this? Not sure.

It has been an incredibly trying experience to say the least.

I had created a great concept, wrote all the songs and arranged them, scheduled practices, booked the band originally, created all the graphics and art work, recorded video and audio at gigs, and spent hours editing it all to make promotional videos, I had spent $2,500 out of my own pocket to record our original demos, which got them paid when we were later booked off what was heard on the demos. We used my PA at gigs, where someone lost $2000 of my cords and mics. Did anyone ever offfer to pay me back, chip in and help? Hell no! Instead, after working for this band's success, 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, they got greedy and tried to even steal my songs!

But fortunately...

My wife had bought me a keyboard just before all this happened. The Roland Fantom G, which I expressed awhile back, was my dream board. It has 128 midi tracks and 24 audio tracks. Great sounds, and top quality effects. And has a DAW-like environment for recording. So it is literally possible to reord very high quality demos without a computer, done all on the keyboard, vocals included!

THIS HAS SAVED MY MUSICAL CAREER!

Karma being what it is. After my band did these things to me, and we broke up, it turned out that several opportunities came my way!

1) Someone is getting a demo of my song "September" to Tim McGraw's producer. (they are personal friends) - So it is entirely possible, that you may hear this song on the radio one day, and sung by Tim McGraw!

2) An artist I know, connected with famed producer Ray Martinez, who was famous in the 80's as an originator of the Miami Sound, made famous by Gloria Estefan and The Miami Sound Machine! He recently came out of retirement, and is building a world-class studio in Miami, and plans to spark the music world again, as he had done in the 80's. He has also worked with Madonna and Michael Jackson! My friend admires my songwriting, and wanted me to write songs for her, for this project with Ray Martinez. I agreed, and so far, she has loved the two songs I have sent her, and is wanting me to send more!

WHICH BRINGS ME TO: July 21st

I am having a 10-Day countdown to re-introduce myself to the world, and officially begin my solo artist and professional songwriting career.

Please sign me up here:

http://www.myspace.com/craigmaxim


Luckily, I still had my personal Myspace with 1,800 people signed up, and this will be my HOME-BASE for my musical career for now.

I am doing a 10-Day countdown after which I will debut 10 NEW original songs, and new site design, and more.

I am very pleased with the quality of these demos, considering it is all done within a keyboard, and would love for you guys to sign me up there, so that when the new songs are posted, if you like them, I would GREATLY appreciate a few comments saying so, to encourage other comments and support, as I rebuild my career.

I truly believe that God was protecting me, in the timing of getting this amazing keyboard, just weeks before my band pulled this unethical stuff on me. I see the opportunities I have received since, as confirmation of this.

I think you all know me to be argumentative, but also sacrifical and fair. All my life I have let myself suffer for the benefit of others, and I don't regret helping people, whether there seems to be reward or not. The reward has always been to see someone's life improve, because I cared and took the time to help. But hey, maybe God is saying, after decades of that, that it is finally my time?

I missed chatting with you guys, and hope you welcome me back. I always depended on those here, as my peers, to share ideas on music with, and give and receive encoouragement as we all work towards our musical goals.

After what my band did to me... I kind of need that, more than ever!

Thanks for being my friends and peers!

Oh yeah, and before I get flogged for having no music up, LOL, I will post some of my new music here, after it debuts on midnight July 21st at MySpace!

Craig Maxim
http://www.myspace.com/craigmaxim

Glad you're back Craig! Sorry for the trials. Looking forward to the new tracks. Good luck wirththe Tim McGraw pitch. We have several new fun members here.

Good to hear from you Craig. I was just talking (typing) about you the other day. And have wondered aloud to my friends and bandmates how you were doing.
I am sorry sh*t went south on you brother, and glad to hear you are already in the process of making lemonaide.
If and when you have time on your hands, please send a friend request to our myspace account. I'll make sure Ray keeps an eye out for it.
NKF has a new web site, we still have the same old crappy recordings but new pictures from the shows we have been getting. The URL is below.
God bless and God speed my friend.

George

Welcome back, Craig.

Sorry to hear about your troubles, but it's good to see you're doing okay in spite of it all.

Best of luck with your new project.

Paul, George, Phil...

Thanks brothers!

Good to be back!

It never ceases to amaze me what backstabbing SOB's there are in the music world. I'm sorry you had to go through all that crap. If I were in your shoes I'd simply go forward with your new career, make sure you officially copywrite everything first, and ignore your old bandmates. I'll bet somewhere down the road they try and get you back in the band but you'll be light years ahead of them in your new career. Glad you checked back in with us Craig.

Thanks Bob!

And "check" on all points.

Including them trying to get me back. This already happened. But when the band name now is effctively owned by one person, how does that work? I started the band, and hired the guy who was behind all this. Am I going to now join "his" band? Musically, he was the least talented and knowledgeable person in the group. I don't think so. I don't mind being a follower, but I need something of substance leading me. Also, the drummer I had, had already left them and sold BOTH his drum sets, effectively quitting music over all this. Am I going to then re-join the others, with a new drummer, and then he is the only one left standing in the cold? Sure, he deserves it, but I just don't operate that way, even when people deserve it. I would have felt terrible for him.

I'm not concerned. I am able to do FAR MORE musically, right now, without them, than I was able to do "with" them. The one guy who was behind all this, never practices at home, and it could take him weeks to learn a new song and get it tight. A complex song could take the band several weeks to get tight and then several days sometimes, to record it. Again, mostly due to that one guy. I can now write a song and record it with various parts, vocals, back-up vocals, everything, in a single day or less. Beginning of creation to fully arranged song on CD in an afternoon! I'm lovin' it!

The thing is, they are gonna drool when they hear some of my new songs, but they could have been done with the band, if they would have simply worked at home a little, and came over twice a month for songwriting sessions, like I had begged them to do. But they wouldn't come over for one, not even once! Now they are desperate for new material, and are so unoriginal, they are using mine. LOL

But of course, they will not consider how often I begged them to come and songwrite with me. Once again, it will be my fault somehow, that I didn't have more songs like these ready to go. When in reality, they still hadn't gotten many of the "old" songs tight yet. I can only bring so much new material, when the stuff already on the table is not tight yet.

9 MORE DAYS!

WOOHOO!

I'm proud of some of these songs, and how they have come out. I really hope you guys like them!

One of the biggest poblems with any band is differing levels of "sweat equity." There's always one or two loafers who hold everybody else back. It's frustrating as hell especially to know that people who may be talented are also the LAZIEST and wasting their talent. You simply are better off moving forward. Consider your ex band members ball and chain that you cut off and now they languish in the dust without you...

Keep on truckin' Craig. Can't wait to hear the new material!! Like Bob I can't conceive of "an artist" stealing work. It's weird to me. I mean the creation of a song is so satisfying. I can't imagine getting any satisfaction from stealing one. I play 2 songs by a long time friend collaborator. "Walking alone" is one of my best known looping songs. I wrote about a 1/4 of that song. Anther I play out is called "Every once in a while". Nathan Hunnicutt wrote both of those. I announce his name every time I play one. I can't imagine being a musician and not being an artist. I know there are just craftsmen musician's but I can't seem to wrap my head around that idea.

Consider your ex band members ball and chain that you cut off and now they languish in the dust without you...

Well there's some new song fodder. "Laungish in the dust" or " Launguish in my dust" or "Languish in the dust without me".

Or "Dusty Languishing"

Sounds to me like you have had a personal and creative break through Craig. Perhaps you should thank the dickhead for all he's done for you.

Sounds to me like you have had a personal and creative break through Craig. Perhaps you should thank the dickhead for all he's done for you.

LMAO!

The problem with that George, is that if I did thank him for being a dickhead, knowing this guy, he would then try and claim he is entitled to half my revenues, because, being such a good dickhead, it directly contributed to my success! LOL

But seriously, this guy is probably the only happy guy in that band right now. It's in his name, he is their "leader" and that is what he wanted all along. It is like being the captain of a sinking ship. He doesn't care that it's sinking. He got to be captain of it.

When you have the skills, tools and know-how, to lead a band well, you would think that everyone would be grateful the band is becoming successful as a result, but inevitably, there are ALWAYS that one or two, who resent you for it, and somehow think they would have done a better job, even though they have never shown such abilities before.

Thankfully, all my bands but this one, ended amicably. Usually for reasons such as the key people moving out of state, or something like that.

But my very first band that I formed myself "Enough Said" was having amazing opportunities come through, from our very first gig. Suddenly the drummer blurts out in a practice...

"You know Craig, that's great that you have all these originals ready to go, but you know what? You aren't the only one in the band that writes songs! Is this gonna be all about your songs, or are we gonna let other people's songs get worked on too?"

I responded:

"Of course dude. I didn't know any of you guys had songs. Share them at next practice and we'll listen to them and pick some to work on!"

Needless to say, NONE OF THEM had any completed songs, or even strong ideas ready to go. They never brought a song into the band at that next practice, or any other practice, and the drummer didn't bring it up again.

But it goes to show. Why did that have to occur? He didn't even have any songs. He didn't even, then work on some, so he could bring them to the table. It was just something to bitch about, when in reality, it was a made-up issue. A manufactured "problem".

I don't care how hard you work for others, or even how benevolent you can be. There is ALWAYS that one guy, that just resents you, because you're in the leadership role.

I could be wrong, but I imagine these were the same guys, who as kids, watched you build an amazing sandcastle on the beach for 3 hours, only to come over and jump on it, the minute you left the beach.

It is so much easier, to destroy, than to create.

And destruction is so much faster too.

It can take years, or even millions of years to create something, but all of it, every bit of it, can be destroyed in an instant.

And that is a fact brother!

Craig I have been in some very similar bands with pretty much the same problems throughout the years and trust me everyone of those negative people have burned every bridge in the humongous city of Houston no one will play or work with them. This guy is headed in the same direction so forget him. But one thing you should know is before you can completely move on you have to forgive him. Not for him, but for you. When someone in life wrongs you this way it can be difficult but if you truly don't forgive him you will carry an anger in your heart that can make you very bitter. It took me years to learn this but hey better late than never right.