The Songwriting of Live Options

[OutToDry]

It's not enough that Ed got 75% of SFBM, lets rewrite history and give him 100% credit for everything. Oh, and just let the secret contract slide because he deserves that too, and any royalties for the Live recordings he sold on his website. The funny thing is, somehow he's no longer part of the band, not in principle, not contractually, not in any way. Funny how someone who supposedly did everything is now part of nothing. Go on with your arguments Nick, while history proves otherwise.

[OutToDry]

I heard Daryl Hall on Howard Stern a few months ago and he was talking about how he and John Oates had some serious disagreements. Hall thought of himself as the driving force behind Hall & Oates and he resented splitting money with Oates. But whenever Daryl Hall goes out on his own and plays alone, he can't get anyone to come see him. The fans only want to see Hall & Oates. Daryl Hall has resigned himself to the fact that for whatever reason, the band Hall & Oates caught on in a way that Daryl Hall alone never could have and never did, and no longer can. So he still performs with John Oates and sells more tickets and makes more money that way.

Now I have no idea whether the contribution of Oates to Hall & Oates was any more or less than the contribution of CCP to Live, but I iwll say that Live would have never been Live without Chad Gracey and without that exact line-up and formula, Ed would never have done more than whatever Adam Kowalczyk is doing for a living right now (with all due respect to Adam).

You can't say that Ed would have reached the same level of success with or without CCP. That's not true. It took four people to make Live and to generate the incomes they generated and without any of them, they would have been playing coffee shops like Ed is now.

So is 25% each fair? ABSOLUTELY. POSITIVELY.

I bet 25% of Live would have been better than 100% of the Ed Kowalczyk empire that Ed is living in now.

wasnt he on last new years eve in Philly with his solo band and no Oates....the crowd was just like yawn!!!

[OutToDry]

Hey Nick, where is the legion of Ed "lurkers" that you said were scared to post in fear of being insulted? Surely they would vote? I mean, if it is his best work ever, as you claimed it was, shouldn't there be more than 2 votes (I think we all know who made those votes) for the album being better than Alive?

[OutToDry]

I will just say this. You can listen to any of the first three Live albums or the TGF album and listen to any Live performance and you can INSTANTLY recognize Chad Gracey's drumming as distinguishable from any other drummer. It is so distinctive and decisively characteristic of what Live's sound is, that it as much a critical component to Live's success as the vocals or lyrics or anything else. There are so many Live songs that wouldn't be anything without Gracey. They would be ordinary, flat and uninteresting.

And the same goes for the bass and guitars in all of those songs. Those perfect chord progressions and bass lines. Who's to say that it wasn't the rythm section in that performance of T.B.D. on MTV Unplugged that wasn't the turning point that resonated with fans and put Live over the top? Or fans going back after they heard Throwing Copper and listening to songs like Good Pain or Mother Earth which has such incredible drums, that solidified Live's fan base.

There is no prescription for how to make a famous rock band, but for Live, it sure as hell wasn't Ed emerging from his bedroom with his acoustic guitar and bestowing Mental Jewerly and Throwing Copper upon the rest of the band like Moses descending from Mt. Sinai with the stone tablets! He wasn't responsible for the sounds of the drums and bass and guitars you hear on the albums. If one little thing was off with the sound because Ed did it all himself, it wouldn't have been the same at all. Listen to what Ed is doing now that he is in total control. It doesn't sound at all like LIve.

There are TONS of great bands out there with great singers and great lyrics that never break through into the mainstream at all. That is because there is a magic recipe, a synergy of all the parts coming together to make magic, which relates and connects with fans. You can't discount or eliminate any part of it.

To say otherwise is ignorant and foolish. That is a fact! Ed wasn't entitled to 100% because without the entire band, Ed would be selling Bluray players at a Best Buy in York.

BRAVO.

[OutToDry]

I heard Daryl Hall on Howard Stern a few months ago and he was talking about how he and John Oates had some serious disagreements. Hall thought of himself as the driving force behind Hall & Oates and he resented splitting money with Oates. But whenever Daryl Hall goes out on his own and plays alone, he can't get anyone to come see him. The fans only want to see Hall & Oates. Daryl Hall has resigned himself to the fact that for whatever reason, the band Hall & Oates caught on in a way that Daryl Hall alone never could have and never did, and no longer can. So he still performs with John Oates and sells more tickets and makes more money that way.

Now I have no idea whether the contribution of Oates to Hall & Oates was any more or less than the contribution of CCP to Live, but I iwll say that Live would have never been Live without Chad Gracey and without that exact line-up and formula, Ed would never have done more than whatever Adam Kowalczyk is doing for a living right now (with all due respect to Adam).

You can't say that Ed would have reached the same level of success with or without CCP. That's not true. It took four people to make Live and to generate the incomes they generated and without any of them, they would have been playing coffee shops like Ed is now.

So is 25% each fair? ABSOLUTELY. POSITIVELY.

I bet 25% of Live would have been better than 100% of the Ed Kowalczyk empire that Ed is living in now.

Rep you again when i can, but Yeah, this is what people who don't understand the entire BAND dymanic fail to grasp.

This entirely!!!! wonderful post, and all my shitting on Nick aside....he's in over his head on everything he drums up here. You and the others have given it right.

I'll just continue my M1 Tank procedures.

This post has been edited by OutToDry: Nov 28 2012, 12:52 am

[SinfulEyes]

Wow Nick is a huge fucking douchebag. Someone needs to put him in his place at a concert.

[OutToDry]

You're confusing things. Ed did not write PD's bass lines or CAG's fills. Those are created by the respective member. What CT is referring to is the arrangement and collaborative process wherein a song (of which Ed may have wrote the lyrics and core guitar on) gets arranged, pre-chorus or breakdowns added.

He's talking about money split percentages.......never about real facts when creating music.

Many of you here are actually musicians and know the facts, Nick only tapped pencils on his schooldesk while cheating off the kid next to him, knowing he'd get passed on without incident.

[OutToDry]

There would have been no SFBM on a Sony label without CCP dummy. SFBM sales and touring was based on the foundation of LIVE and what 4 guys built together. Ed would have never gotten to sell a seventh album to Millions of Live fans without the foundation all 4 of them built. It should have been 4 ways even for life because without the 4 of them, there would not be millions of Live fans. How is it that you cannot see that?!?!

Just bumping up the facts against the spinliar

[OutToDry]

Does anybody know how to look up album sales? I would like to compare the album sales of the Live albums with Alive. I am guessing that the value fo the original Live lineup might be demonstrated by the contrast in Ed's solo album sales with what LIve was able to sell as the band Live. That alone is why Ed owed it to the other members of the "franchise" to share the revenue. Because they all built that.

here are the american charts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_discography



SFBM and BOP are in around 250K or less. Alive is 25K +/- 5k

[themaestro]

Wow Nick is a huge fucking douchebag. Someone needs to put him in his place at a concert.

The guy's spinning and twisting of words is out of control. So CT mentions how the dynamic recording TC was different from MJ in that they weren't all in the room together creating together and somehow that turns into CG and PD didn't contribute much and don't deserve their songwriting and royalty credits. WTF? Not true in any way. Pure BS. He's spinning CT's words and ignoring the intent of what he said which was to point out that creating in that disjointed way led to the demise of their creative songwriting process eventually. Obviously it didn't hurt them too much on TC as they were still very close and I believe some of those songs may have been born during the MJ tour.

This post has been edited by themaestro: Nov 28 2012, 1:11 am

[OutToDry]

Nick, have you read their contract? Do you know what is says exactly? Do you know if they had any non written agreements with which they created and recorded music? How would one quantify what they came up with together in a jam session or just on the fly? Were you ever around when they recorded music? Just a few questions that you can answer to begin to explain why the fuck you think you have the authority and wherewithal to question the contributions of any band member. Let's hear it.

He went silent on this one, like 100% of everything else....spun into another dead end, the room is a continuous circle of dead ends

[themaestro]

He went silent on this one, like 100% of everything else....spun into another dead end, the room is a continuous circle of dead ends

He spouts off all this BS and when you ask him to back it up he's got nothing. He just ignores and spouts off more shit.

[OutToDry]

this is the root of all the discord at this board. We're tired of this dweeb and his ways....yet he's allowed to persist and never given nearly a warning. If he's going to keep lying, he's going to keep getting what should come his way.

[OutToDry]

Lyrics:

What's in a lyric and how it somehow comes around to present day!!

When I was her
And she was me,
We got along till we became ourselves

When she was me
And I was her,
We got along till we became ourselves
And trampled in this rut
Divide our stuff, we're breaking up

You can't believe how much pain calling my mama every day
When I calmed down
And saw the sun
Put down the bottle,
Put down the gun, I've had enough
Divide our stuff, we're breaking up

When I was her
And she was me,
We got along till we became ourselves

When she was me
And I was her,
We got along till we became ourselves
The hole is opened up
Cannot go down without my clothes
Into the dark, stop making it up

We're breaking up
We're breaking up Cheetah
Cheetah

[Pokey]

You almost wouldn't mind if he could back up half the stuff he claims, yet he never backs a god damn thing up; he cites something a band members says but twists its meaning to his agenda as some kind of proof. I don't recall for a moment not being able to answer any of his questions .... it's extremely telling the way he will ignore most questions asked of him, or answer them with another question of his own and also charges into arguments full of statements and then backs out and disappears shortly after when asked to back stuff up .. dude has zero credibility.