Tuesday I started the internship which was fascinating. The morning consisted mainly of meeting people, learning the basics of publishing and the oh-so-important lunch schedule. In 2006, Congress established a statutory rate of 9.1 cents per song that the publisher receives (up to 5 minutes....past 5 minutes you adjust accordingly). In some cases 4 or 5 publishers may hold rights to the song. Also, splits are not always clearly cut. For instance, one party might hold 12.5% of a song while another holds 87.5%. At the end of the day they really are dealing with fractions of cents. I learned about the main websites I'll be using to research which publishers hold which songs. That afternoon I re-organized the publishing files which was fascinating to see the variety of artists and albums in the catalog. Some of the artists' files I dealt with included the Doors, Ray Charles, Chicago, Talking Heads, Sinatra, the Ramones, Metallica, Fleetwood Mac and the Doobie Brothers. My boss actually encourages reading through the files which was fascinating (and cool to be holding on to pieces of history like that!)
Wednesday I met up with a friend from Lexington who is out visiting for the next week. In conversation we realized his father was a teacher at TLS which was interesting. We had lunch and he showed me some of his old favorite hangouts around LA.
Thursday I got to delve into more publishing research which was a lot of fun. There were several songs that had been published on a compilation, but they were still unsure of what publisher has the rights to them. If they track down the publisher after the fact, then they'll send them a check of backpay. It was suggested I most likely wouldn't be able to track this information down, but good luck anyway. They also mentioned that sometimes songs have multiple titles so use Google or any resources available. The song I originally was looking for was "Mumblin' Word" by Huddie Ledbetter. On one site I found that it was registered as "Never Heard a Mumblin' Word" and Wikipedia listed it as having four other titles including "They Hung Him on a Cross" which had been covered by Nirvana. (Who ever thought knowing obscure Nirvana covers would help me at work?!) Searching that title on the HFA site I was able to find who held the publishing rights!! It also gets difficult with songs like this that were written in the first part of the 20th century because there obviously wasn't the technology there is now. A lot of the recordings we have from these artists are ones that were made by representatives from the Library of Congress traveling to record them. I also was given several packets for boxsets of songs to research and fill out a spreadsheet indicating what publishers get paid what amount for the songs.
On Friday, I went for a hike around Runyon Canyon which is beautiful. It's a very popular 160 acre city park with panoramic views including the Hollywood sign, Griffith Observatory, the ocean, downtown and all of Hollywood.
Friday night I had dinner with a friend at a sushi place across the street from where I live. Also checked out the Fox & the Hound, an English pub showing Lakers and rugby games.
Yesterday I had lunch at Gingergrass. Last night I met up with an old friend from Lexington. After picking me up we ventured to Hollywood. We went to Amoeba Records which is one of the best record stores I've ever been to. It's huge and to look at it, you wouldn't know the record industry is suffering whatsoever. Next we went to Jones Bar which is a dimly lit bar and Italian restaurant. I got the turkey rappini which was fabulous. We went to the Music Box theater to see Guster. The tickets had a start time of 8 P.M. which we assumed with an opener or two meant Guster would go on at 9:30 or 10. Turns out 8 indicated the band started then...so we unfortunately missed part of the show. They were still great and I'd love to see them again. The theater was beautiful as well.
Since the show was over around 9:30 we went to Cafe Aroma in Studio City for coffee and dessert. This cute cafe is several blocks from the apartment so I'll certainly be back again! They're known for being a good celebrity hotspot and their desserts were fabulous. We had a piece of chocolate hazelnut pie which was to die for. They're also very well-known for their red (and blue!) velvet cupcakes
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