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— by Gil Kaufman
Musicians have plenty of opportunities to flex their creative muscles: Between their band's name, album and song titles, sartorial style, music videos and stage sets, artistic decisions have to be made every day. One of the seemingly smallest — but longest-lasting — is one that most people probably never notice.
It's the name of their publishing company: that sometimes bizarre moniker you see in the songwriting credits, usually followed by the cryptic acronyms ASCAP or BMI. Musicians form publishing companies in order to register the publishing rights to their songs, and — to make a complex process short — typically turn the stewardship of those rights over to a larger publishing company, as well as ASCAP or BMI, to avoid the hassle of having to chase down every single radio station, stadium or bar that is legally required to pay royalties for playing one of their songs.
Aside from avoiding profanity and names that match or resemble ones already in use (which, with more than 100,000 registered publishers, happens much more than you might think), they are free to pick any name they like for their pubcos, and you might be surprised to learn why they pick the names they do.
For people who write their own songs, choosing the name of your publishing company can be an excuse to get self-referential (Green Day's Green Daze Music), tip your hat to one of your songs (Beck's Cyanide Breathmint) or just be obtuse (Lauryn Hill's Obverse Creations Music).
Some go the simple route (Velvet Revolver Songs, Dandy Warhols Music), while others use the name of their company as an extension of their artistic persona (the White Stripes' Peppermint Stripe Music, Eminem's Eight Mile Style).
They can be cynical (Nine Inch Nails' Leaving Hope, Nirvana's The End of Music, Audioslave's Disappearing One), uplifting (Cee-Lo Green's God Given Music, 50 Cent's High on Life Music) or just plain literal (Wilco's Words Ampersand Music).
"Mine's pretty simple," says Polyphonic Spree leader Tim Delaughter of his Blue Newton Echo Music. "It's my kid's middle names: Stella Blue [7], Oscar Newton [5] and Julius Echo [3]. They have no idea it's named for them, but I was becoming a dad for the first time and they were the most important thing in my life at the time, along with my publishing." In Delaughter's previous band, Tripping Daisy, he chose a name inspired by a character from a song on the band's debut, Pink Jelly Music. "It was a psychedelic phase in my life," he laughed. "I have no idea what it meant."
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Polyphonic Spree's Tim DeLaughter
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Then there are the names that seemed like a good idea ... at the time. Orange County, California metalcore band Avenged Sevenfold named their pubco Darkness Coats Us Music after a lyric from the song "Darkness Surrounding" on their 2001 debut album. "We always noticed that bands didn't take the publishing names too seriously, so it seemed appropriate at the time," rhythm guitarist Zacky Vengeance said. "We were young and thought we were evil as sin — and at the time we were probably serious."
Often, artists will have more than one publishing company to represent different eras of their career. That's the case with R.E.M., who have both Night Garden and Temporary Music. "Murmur Music was our first choice in 1982, when we released the Chronic Town EP," said the band's manager and longtime attorney, Bertis Downs. "But it was rejected because there was already a Murmar and they rejected our second one, so we used Night Garden, which was my attempt to come up with a clever name based on my favorite song, [R.E.M.'s] 'Gardening at Night.' "
In 1996, when original drummer Bill Berry left, the band needed a new pubco name and nobody could think of anything, so Downs suggested using Temporary Music until someone came up with something better. "It was never brought up again, so it fit the bill," Downs said.
In some bands, each member has their own publishing to consider, which is why the Transplants have three pubcos listed on their songs, one for singer/guitarist Tim Armstrong (How About a Bunch of Trouble Music), one for rapper Skinhead Rob (Skinhead Rob Music) and a third for drummer Travis Barker (Beat Poet Music).
The ones registered to the Foo Fighters are even more disparate, with leader Dave Grohl opting for MJ Twelve Music (a reference to a shadowy government bureau allegedly tied to the Roswell alien landing), guitarist Chris Shiflett going for the straightforward I Love the Punk Rock Music, drummer Taylor Hawkins choosing Living Under a Rock Music and bassist Nate Mendel confounding everyone with Flying Earform Music.
Fountains of Wayne's principal songwriters also have their own pubco names, but good luck getting a simple answer from them about it. Adam Schlesinger sheepishly admits that the one he used to use, Awkward Paws, is "just a stupid pun. There's no real story behind it, except that I also like cats. My current publishing company is called Vaguely Familiar Music, which is what a couple of my songs are to some people."
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Fountain of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger
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Songwriting partner Chris Collingwood explained the genesis of his Monkey Demon Music in a heavily annotated e-mail with a number of links to source material. "I can tell you that I first came across it in a [late writer/singer] Richard Fariña novel, through which it gained popularity, somehow, in the beatnik/hippie community he inhabited, which included Bob Dylan and numerous other friends of Fariña's sister-in-law, Joan Baez," Collingwood wrote.
"In his book, 'Been Down So Long, It Looks Like Up To Me,' Fariña uses the Demon to represent some sort of impending, or overdue, insanity/anxiety that finally takes root in a delirious, drug-addicted, ne'er-do-well college student; like it's been there all along, e.g. the Beast in 'Lord of the Flies,' Mommy in 'Psycho,' or whatever the hell happened in that movie 'Identity.' The scene referencing the 'monkey demon,' though, is nothing new; I did some research before acquiring the domain name, and found numerous spiritual references to the beast in old Chinese literature, as well as similarities to native American myths, of which Fariña may well have been aware."
Though overt profanity is not allowed, some artists push the boundaries with risque names — Dr. Dre's Ain't Nothin' Goin on But F---in' Music, Duran Duran's Private Parts (amd Simon Lebon's American Skin Trade Music), Spoon's Precious Fluids Music — or just plain silly, like Outkast's Gnat Booty.
That doesn't stop some artists from seeing what they can get away with. E from the Eels has had at least four pubcos over the course of his career, including Vitamin E Music, one he can't remember and Sexy Grandpa Music, which was inspired by a bumper sticker he saw at a truck stop while on a road trip with his old girlfriend. "For artists that are looking for any opportunity to fill in the blank with some statement, it's a good outlet," E said.
When preparing to release his most recent album, Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, E said he was agonizing for several months over coming up with a new name and, after writing a list of ones he wasn't crazy about, he hit upon a deliciously crude idea. "I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great to say that my songs are published by Satan's c---?' I mean, let's just get down to the matter here, right? I submitted it to ASCAP and they said you can't do it because of the word c---, but in the same sentence they said, 'but you can use the word c--- in "cock a doodle do." ' So I said, 'OK, Satan's Cock a Doodle Do it is,' and now I have to live with it forever."
For No Doubt, the choice was more spiritual. The band's World of the Dolphin Music came about through a combination of a search for a name no one else had taken and a more global perspective. "We had a label at the time called Sea Creature Records, and World of Dolphin came hand-in-hand with that," said bassist Tony Kanal about the formation of the pubco for 2000's Return of Saturn album. "We tend to look at things from such a human point of view that something must have reminded us of how brilliant dolphins are, and acknowledging that we're not the only creatures in this world." In the past, the band had used Knock Yourself Out and Tragic Kingdom Music, and Kanal's personal pubco is called Pirate Ship Music — just because.
What's my favorite, you're no doubt wondering? It comes down to two of my favorite bands, which just happen to both have great pubco names. It's a toss-up between the Flaming Lips and their sublimely morbid Lovely Sorts of Death Music, and the Ramones, with the appropriately moronic Taco Tunes. Though more than one person mentioned former Soundgarden/current Audioslave singer Chris Cornell's You Make Me Sick I Make Music, which is also a classic.
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Illustration: Karl Heitmueller
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