Crazy Days and Nights: Today's Blind Items - MV And The Annual Clue - Ann...: It is Friday and a very special Friday at that because it is time for the annual MV clue. This is one of my favorite days of the year. Right...
Friday, November 14, 2014
Today's Blind Items - MV And The Annual Clue - Anniversary Month
It is Friday and a very special Friday at that because it is time for
the annual MV clue. This is one of my favorite days of the year. Right
up there with the free all you can eat buffet on my birthday. A quick
note on the site and its progress. By Tuesday I am told there will be
the most glorious mobile and iPad site the world has ever seen. So,
fingers crossed for that. Many of you have asked about the "companion
site." I am letting lawyers handle it all but I will say that you can't
blatantly steal and then promote your stealing and not expect
consequences. They wouldn't copy and paste TMZ because they didn't like a
background color or post a Harry Potter book because they didn't like
the font, but apparently they consider it ok to do it to me. It is not
ok. It is theft and is being treated as such. If you would like a
healthy dose of reveals and blinds this weekend then I will be here
posting and if you would like to follow me on Twitter, I am @entylawyer
The clue is at the bottom of the post.
November 21, 2006
Let
me preface this post, by saying that if this story ever comes out, it
would blow the music world up and shake it to its core..This would put
the Milli Vanilli scandal and Ashlee Simpson SNL situation so far down
the ladder it would be crazy..
Towards the end of last year I had
a woman come into my office and she began to explain what she had done
and had been doing for several years and it was one of the very few
times that I just could not believe what I was hearing..I know the music
industry inside and out, and I had never heard of something so
extensive and pervasive as this..
This woman (S) came into my
office because the payments she had been receiving had stopped and she
wanted to either get the money that was owed to her, or expose what she
had been doing to the light of day..
S is a
sessions/studio/backup singer and is very good..Prior to her involvement
in what I am going to describe, she made a very good living singing on
commercials and being a backup singer for groups and other solo acts,
etc..Like I said she is very good, but she does not really have that
“look” which would make her a star, so record companies did not put her
out front, but just used her talents..
In late 2000, a man came
to her one day and said he needed someone to record some demos because
he had written a lot of songs, but wanted a demo to shop the songs to
singers and record labels..This is not unusual at all and she had done
this type of work before and it paid pretty well so she agreed. What was
unusual about her recording of the demos was how much work was put into
the actual recordings..It was extensive..Generally there is not much
time put into the recordings because you never really know if the song
will even sell, and the money spent on recording could be put to better
uses..These demos she was recording were actually being treated as if
they were going to be released on a CD or to radio..They even did some
mixing which was REALLY unusual..
After a few weeks she had
recorded about over a dozen songs and she went on her way and was really
oblivious to anything else pertaining to it, UNTIL several months later
she was in her car and heard her voice coming from the radio, only it
was another singer being given credit..(We will call this other singer
MV for Milli Vanilli) She could not believe what she was hearing and did
not know whether to be excited to hear herself on the radio, confused
about the credit given to another singer or just pissed off for the same
reasons..
What she did do, was to call the man who had
originally come to her and had her record the songs..The man agreed to
meet her and gave her a substantial sum of money and promised to keep
giving her money every month as long as she kept her mouth shut. MV was
taking off..(MV has/had several Top 40 songs and CD's. They could have
gone to #1 or languished in the 30's..I really cannot go into much more
detail or else it would be too easy to discover) MV was everywhere..on
television, radio, awards shows, commercials..EVERYWHERE..meanwhile, S
continued to get money every month and kept her little secret to
herself..The guy who picked S was VERY lucky..Most singers would have
caused a fuss, but S has always been in the background and was resigned
to the fact she always would be, and was very happy just taking the $$,
and did not want that to stop..
About 9 months go by and S is
called by the guy because MV is going on tour and they want S to record
some extra mixes and such for the tour..She agrees and does not really
do much, but money is money..
Fast forward another year or so and
S stops receiving money and after a few months of missed payments,
calls the guy who explains that they need S to do another CD and then
the payments can continue, but there is no more money unless she does
more recordings..
S agrees and records another CD worth of songs
which is released several months later and does even better than the
first CD. This same process is repeated (I am not going to tell you the
number of CD's because again you may be able to deduce and so I will
just say the process repeated itself several times)
Well
everything goes well for the most part for all these years and then no
more payments, and no more calls and she cannot even locate our mystery
man..S has not received a payment in six months when she came into my
office and related this story..She did not even know the guy's name, but
when she described him, I knew who he was and was even more floored
than I had been previously..This was just something I had really not
heard before..
I had heard of really altering voices in the
recording studios and bringing in hired hands for one song or a large
portion of a song, but never CD after CD and even doing extra work so a
live performance would not sound staged..I told her I needed some time
to check into her story and then we could proceed..It took two calls
before I got the guy on the phone and he was pissed, scared, angry,
threatening, remorseful..everything..It turns out the reason he had
stopped making payments was he had been playing some shell games with
the money between the record company, MV's earnings and MV's investments
and just did not have any additional money..In addition, MV was not
sure she wanted to continue on with what had been happening and so our
mystery guy might be completely out of the picture..
I actually
think the record company to this day has no idea what went on as the Guy
was very good at what he does/did and knew how to make sure the record
company was always happy..He stayed under budget, toured, made MV
available, and made the record company money..
So a meeting was
arranged in my office and S and MV finally met face to face..they had
never done so, even though it was S who made MV a star..MV was rude to
say the least when she saw what S looked like and it really upset me
although S being her normal classy self could have cared less..
What
we agreed to do that day was to provide S with one lump sum rather than
a monthly income which was easier for Guy to pull off and S also agreed
to never disclose her role in this drama and MV was on her own for
future recordings and tours..
This involved literally millions of
CD's and hundreds of concerts all over the world..The one thing I did
get out of this beside my fee of course is a Gold Record autographed by S
and by MV..I know it is the only one in the world..
CLUE- MV has done or is contractually agreed to do a Las Vegas residency.
CLUE #2- MV broke up with a significant other this year.
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