Tom Brusky - News and Editorials

Music Removed From iHeart Radio
December 5, 2020

I recently discovered that the iHeartRadio website was dispensing deceitfully inaccurate information and content to non-iHeart subscribers. Visitors to my artist pages on iHeart would find a typical landing page with my name, list of albums, and a big play button, just like you see in the screen shot below:

The problem, however, is that the big, blue play button did not not play my music. It would play someone else's. Notice above the play button, it says "Feat. Dave Evans & River Bend, Karen Jonas and more". I have no idea who those artists are. They have nothing to do with me or my song, Polka Band. But when you clicked the play button next to my Polka Band album, their music would play — not mine.

If you hovered your mouse over any of the album covers listed as my Top Songs, they would turn into play buttons, but the songs they played would not be my songs. They would, again, be songs by Dave Evans or other artists not associated with my music.

On the iHeartRadio page for my song Emergency (see image below) the play button did not play Emergency. And I have no idea who Rozzi Crane and those other artists are, but they most assuredly have nothing to do with Emergency.

I reached out to iHeartRadio, and they responded by explaining that songs do not play on demand for non-subscribers visitng the website, so the play buttons will play a "radio station" of other artists rather than the specific songs they're clicking on.

I can understand songs not being on-demand for non-subscribers, but if that's the case, then why put play buttons on my songs? And why are those unfamiliar artists listed to look as if they were featured on my songs? Why is the website so blatantly deceitful in this way?

iHeartRadio did not offer any response concerning that matter.

With apologies to subscribers who listen to my music on iHeartRadio, I had all of my content removed from the service. If iHeartRadio ever decides to nix all the inexplicable and unnecessary weirdness with their website, I will consider redistributing my music to them.

New Single is Released!
November 26, 2020

Upcoming Single Receives Clearance for Take-Off
November 6, 2020 [updated Nov. 22]

A blurb on the front page of my website mentioned I have a new single in the works. If everything goes according to plan, I expect to release it on my website on Thanksgiving and have it available on all the major streaming and download services before Christmas.

The single is not an original song, but a parody of an iconic rock song from the 1970s. A parody is like a cover of a copyrighted song, but the lyrics have been rewritten in such a way that offers an alternate take on the original lyrics.

The service I use to digitally distribute my music requires a special type of license for a parody, called a derivative works license. Any significant change in a copyrighted song's lyrics, melody, or arrangement is called a derivation.

In the United States, musical parodies may be protected under Fair Use, which is a legal doctrine that supports and upholds freedom of expression. Parodies released without a derivative works license may be protected by Fair Use, but it's important to understand what that protection does: It does not protect the parodist from being sued for copyright infringement — it only helps to protect the parodist from losing the lawsuit when certain criteria are met.

A derivative works license does two things. The first is that it opens up dialogue between the parodist and the copyright holder of the original song. In this dialogue, the copyright holder and/or songwriter expresses their approval or disapproval of the parody. If approved, the terms of a license are set or negotiated.

Let's say a parodist named Odd Hal wants to parodize a famous song by an artist named Ariella Gruende. In short, Ariella says, "Sure, if you give me 10% of your song's sales, 100% of the composition royalties, and 50% of the lyrics royalties." Everyone agrees, a license is secured, and everybody is happy.

If Ariella says no, Odd Hal could still release the parody under the protection of Fair Use, but at the risk of attracting the attention of Ariella and her lawyers. If they thought they could prove Odd Hal's parody was not a true parody or in some other way infringing on Ariella's copyright, Odd Hal could end up in court.

In my personal opinion, regardless of Fair Use, if a parody is going to be commercially released, it should be licensed so that the copyright holder of the original composition gets their due royalties every time the song is played. After all, the parody wouldn't exist if it weren't for the original song. Back in the day before digital distribution, I mechanically licensed parodies as covers, which means I automatically took 0% credit for both the music and lyrics. This is technically not the proper way to license a parody, but it at least ensured no royalties were being unduly diverted from the original song's publisher or songwriter.

My parody was recently approved for release, so I'm pleased to announce it will be posted shortly.

The Glamorous Music Business
November 6, 2020

Woohoo! Only 5,499 more streams, and I'll be able to buy a first class postage stamp!

Why People Are Consumed by Politics More Now Than Ever
October 19, 2020

A few weeks ago while traveling through the other side of Wisconsin, I stopped at a small, rural truck stop. The bathroom stalls of its neglected restroom were etched with the usual amount of graffiti, but what struck me as odd was the subject matter. Depictions of female anatomy and sexual innuendoes — staples of bathroom graffiti for generations — were nowhere to be found. All of the graffiti was political. Every message had something to say about Donald Trump or Joe Biden.

I used to have a modest interest in politics, but around a decade ago, I noticed a change in the political landscape that eventually pushed me away from politics altogether. Shortly after Barack Obama was elected to office, the armchair politician movement exploded. Political hobbyism ignited across the country, and politics soon infested and dominated message boards and social media all across the internet.

But what I'm referring to as politics is really not politics at all. It's a phenomenon whereby people are using political issues as excuses to impugn contrary thinkers, further aligning themselves with like thinkers, which acts as a coping mechanism for their doubts and fears.

Republican vs. Democrat discourse always existed, but about ten years ago, people who normally restrained their political views started finding their voice when they discovered veritable armies of like-minded thinkers via the burgeoning social media industry. This mammoth movement of banding together for validation and support is what's dramatically intensifiying the polarization of the two parties.

During the Obama administration, liberals stood their ground against conservative mudslinging. When Donald Trump was elected, the ground these liberals stood on was pulled out from beneath them. Their turn had now come to manifest their fears, and they came after Trump and the Republican Party firing on all cylinders.

The end result of all this fear building up on both sides is the politics we see today — protests, counter protests, rallies, internet memes, campaign poster vandalism, nervous breakdowns, flooded message boards, and now even bathroom graffiti. These fears are fueled by memes and fake news facilitated by the internet, and cemented by selective exposure and confirmation bias.

Politics in America has turned into the amateur hour where any desire to tackle and solve problems has been replaced by trash talking, blaming, and name calling. Yesterday's jerks and idiots are now being labeled as liberals and republicans with derogative connotation. It's seemingly become the latest hobby for millions of Americans. It's pushed me so far away from politics that I refuse to engage in political discussions with anyone.

You won't find me bitching about liberals or conservatives, attending rallies or protests, posting memes, or even so much as placing a campaign sign on my lawn. The only place my opinions will have any impact is at the voting booth, and that's where I'll be November 3rd.

Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Not Kind to Bandleaders
September 14, 2020

As someone who plays music for a living, I don't turn down work. It's the reason why I haven't taken a single vacation in the last eight years. [If you don't believe me, just ask any of my last eight ex-girlfriends.] But the pandemic has created a situation where a musician's honorable work ethic can actually result in a loss of income.

Wisconsin musicians receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) are receiving a nominal amount of money each week — about the equivalent of one gig's pay. If a musician earns any money during any given week, they have to report it, and then a calculated amount will be deducted from their PUA.

That concept is fair from a practical standpoint, but the problem is that the income a musician is required to report to the State of Wisconsin is their gross income, which is what they are paid before expenses are deducted. As a bandleader, my biggest expense is obviously contract labor, which is the compensation I pay to my sidemen. Since I have to report the entire check I receive as my own gross income, the amount I report will be high enough to cancel 100% of my weekly PUA, guaranteed. And, after I pay my sidemen, depending on the event, my take-home pay could end up being even less than what my PUA would have been.

Let's say a bandleader is receiving $200/week PUA, and he books a gig for $490. He pays $300 to his two sidemen and keeps $190 for himself. Since he is required to report his gross income for the week, he has to report the full $490, which is an income high enough to cause him to lose 100% of his PUA. As a result of booking and playing the gig, the bandleader will sacrifice $200 in order to make $190.

If the bandleader only had to report the $190 he netted instead of the full $490, he'd still be able to collect about 50% of his PUA, which would be enough to cover a utility bill.

My band recently played at a local venue. Before I booked the gig, I calculated that as a bandleader, I wasn't even going to make a profit. I was simply going to break even. I took the gig anyway, because it's important to me to continue providing musical services for those who request it, keep my musicians working as much as possible, and maintain strong business relationships.

If my playing schedule were normal, I obviously wouldn't need PUA. But when I can only scrape up two gigs in a month and each gig lands on a different weekend which causes me to lose two weeks of PUA, those losses are felt.

The next several months will be interesting. With PUA being so low and the live music scene still out of commission, living expenses are eating away at my savings. At the end of the year, PUA will come to an end. If Democrats and Republicans are unable to agree on a new stimulus package and gigs don't start coming back, 2021 will start with me living entirely off my savings just like I was earlier this spring. If that happens, 2021 will definitely be my year to retire as a musician and rejoin the workforce. I'll have played professionally for 40 years (35 in polka) which is a good career.

This is the Year to Hire a Polka Band for Oktoberfest
September 13, 2020

If you've ever tried to hire a polka band for a private party on a Saturday night in late September or early October, you probably ended up getting nowhere except stuck in an endless loop of recommendations. That's where the band you call is booked, so they recommend other bands, but those bands are also booked, so they recommend other bands, and pretty soon you're going around in circles.

Most bands have standing, annual bookings for public Oktoberfest events, often leaving private parties scrambling to find available entertainment. But this year is turning out to be like no other in recent history. The public event cancellations due to the coronavirus have led to a number of polka bands becoming available for private Oktoberfest events, even for key dates. My band, for instance, has nothing booked on the last Saturday in September — a date for which we normally receive at least a dozen inquiries. I'm pretty sure this is the first time in my entire professional musical career I'll have nothing scheduled for that date.

If you're having a backyard Oktoberfest party and want live music, your odds of finding and hiring a top polka band this year are significantly higher than normal. Take advantage of it. Next year, hopefully, things will be back to normal and the polka band circuit will return to being booked solid.

A little humor for my fellow musicians...

Fear of Offending Leads to Extreme Measures
July 8, 2020

By now you've all heard Aunt Jemima pancake syrup is going to be rebranded. You may have also heard about the name changes of various musical groups: The Dixie Chicks are now simply known as The Chicks, and Lady Antebellum is now known as Lady A. But the changes aren't ending there. Here are a few more you may not have heard about.

If your musical car horn plays "Dixie", you can be arrested for a hate crime.
The Dixie Cup Company is rebranding their product as "D-Cups".
Dixieland jazz will now be known as simply "land jazz".
Honky-tonk music will now be known simply as "tonk music".
The letter "X" is receiving an additional line "X" so that it no longer resembles a confederate flag.
All roundabouts, due to their resemblance to a noose, will undergo reconstruction to become square.
Slave computers, which operate off host computers, will now be known as "secondary service peripherals".
The White House going to be repainted in pastels and redesignated the "Rainbow Residence".
The verb "loot" has been replaced by the more politically correct acronym: "Sanctioned Theft Encouraged by Antifa Leaders".
Actress Rebel Wilson has changed her first name to Julie.
Police are no longer allowed to detain or arrest anyone who claims, "But I didn't do anything wrong!"
All sports team mascots must now be animals, inanimate objects, or fictional people of non-descript ethnicity, color, age, and gender.
Burlington Coat Factory issued a statement saying they will no longer be selling gray coats or blue coats.
The word "y'all" is being reclassified by the Oxford Dictionary as a derogatory slur with white supremist ties.
Jefferson Davis County in Mississippi is being redesignated the Sensitive Persons Autonomous Zone.
Buckwheat's dialog in all of the Little Rascals episodes has been rewritten in standard English and overdubbed by Morgan Freeman.
The "Too Fat Polka" will hereby be known as the "Metabolically-Challenged Polka".
The South — yes, the entire southern United States — will now be known as the "Lower North".

Now if you'll all excuse me, I need to write an email to my neices and nephews warning them they could receive a $500 disorderly conduct citation for calling me "Uncle Tom" in public.

COVID-19 in Visual Perspective
June 24, 2020

As of today, there have been about 121,000 COVID-19 deaths reported in the United States. Below is the Rungrado 1st of May Stadium in Pyongyang, which is the world's largest stadium by capacity. It holds 114,000 people.

American Family Insurance to the Rescue
June 23, 2020

In an April 4 article, I wrote about how Spectrum raised my internet service fees by 20% right at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic when I, like so many millions of others, lost my income. Spectrum's rate increase, on which they refused to budge, really stands out as reprehensible because it goes against the grain of just about every other service industry in America who is offering some form of financial relief to their unemployed customers.

One such company, American Family Insurance, really outdid themselves when it comes to financial relief. In April they sent me a check in the form of a $50-per-vehicle credit. And just the other day, I received a letter from my agent informing me that American Family is providing me with a 10% premium relief credit.

These credits are not only appreciated by this unemployed musician for the financial relief they provide, but together, they'll completely offset the price increase imposed on me by Spectrum for a full year.

I don't know what, besides sheer greed, would possess a company like Spectrum to willingly impose financial hardships on their customers during a pandemic instead of doing the opposite like American Family Insurance. I am grateful to American Family Insurance and my agent, Don Patnode, for understanding the gravity of the COVID-19 situation and committing themselves to helping their customers and clients through this difficult time.

New Song of Hope and Faith Released
May 31, 2020

Although the release was delayed about one month, I think you'll find the wait was worth it. I'm proud to present my latest single, Light the Way.

When the fear of the coronavirus pandemic began gripping our country, I felt inspired to write this song which I produced in the contemporary Christian genre. The purpose of the song is to deliver a message that strengthens the faith of those who are struggling to cope with doubt and uncertainty the pandemic is causing.

The lead vocalist anonymously lending her pipes to the song is an exceptionally talented and renown pop/country artist. I can't thank her enough for the outstanding job she did.

While the COVID-19 pandemic is physically keeping people apart, it's bringing people together in other ways. Musicians are uniting in the spirit of collaboration like the world has never seen before, and this song is just such a collaborative effort. Twenty musicians and vocalists from North America, Europe, and Asia have donated their vocals to the song's "choir". They each recorded their vocals at home and sent me their tracks.

Singing along with me are Kevin Adams, David Cuny, Anja Dolinšek, Mark Dubravec, Jana Engel, Keith Gennerman, Lenny Gomulka, Toby Hanson, Carlos Herrera, Kathy Kozlowski, Lilian Naef, Nathan Neuman, Jim Pekol, Jordan Rody, Mike Schneider, Sebastian Stefański, Drew Wilson, Gabe Yurkovich, and Fred Ziwich.

I am grateful to each one of these outstanding musicians for answering the call and donating their time and talent. Selfless contributions like theirs are what give songs like Light the Way the power and ability to lift people's spirits.

The purpose and message of the song so important, I've made the song free to download from my website. In lieu of paying the typical 99¢ download fee, please put an extra dollar in your church's collection plate on Sunday.

Light the Way will roll out onto music streaming services and select radio stations over the next few weeks.

The Sound of Music – It's Definitely Not "Ka-Ching!"
May 25 2020 [Updated June 21, 2020]

As many of you know, I'm not one to shy away from tackling the tough questions. One line of questioning I'm commonly asked is how recording musicians sell their music in a post-compact disc industry.

Let's first look at how bands profited from album sales twenty years ago. If a band spent $3,500 producing a studio recording in 2000, they would have needed to sell 233 CDs at $15 each to break even. Twenty years ago, selling 233 CDs was not a problem.

If a band today spent $5,000 [$3,500 in 2000 dollars] producing a studio recording, they'd have to sell 333 CDs to break even. What makes this nearly impossible, though, is that CD sales for local bands are down at least 85% compared to twenty years ago. A band that used to sell 333 CDs in 2000 would only sell about 50 today, leaving them $4,250 in the hole.

The Changing Music Industry

A lot has changed in the last twenty years. In the early 2000s, digital downloads grew in popularity. In the late 2000s, streaming was introduced. In the 2010s, streaming surpassed every other format to become the primary means by which music is bought and sold today.

The two big reasons why streaming is now the standard format for music consumption are cost and convenience. Instead of paying $15 for one album that requires access to a CD player, subscribers can pay $10 a month to listen to an unlimited number of albums on their phone, anywhere, anytime. Even without a subscription, polka music fans can freely access thousands of YouTube videos and listen to radio programs that run 24 hours a day.

Without doing any math, you can guess that if consumers only paying $10 a month (or nothing at all) to access music that was once worth thousands of dollars in album sales, musicians' earnings must be pretty small. You'd be right. It may surprise you, however, to learn just how small those earnings are...

Twenty years ago, if someone wanted to hear all 18 songs on a band's album, they'd pay the band $15 for the CD. Today, if someone wants to hear all 18 songs a band's album, they'll stream it on their favorite subscription service and the band will earn about 5¢ in royalties. That's a profit reduction of approximately 99.6%.

At this rate, a band would need to achieve about 5,000 streams to equal the sale of just one $15 CD. To recover their recording expenses, they'd have to achieve anywhere from 350k to 1.5 million streams.

So how do bands today make a profit selling music?

For the vast majority of independent recording artists in every genre of music, the days of making a profit through music sales are over. They're simply done. Since streaming replaced direct sales, the only musicians profiting through streaming are the popular artists at the very top generating millions of streams.

Why are some polka bands still able to release their albums on CD?

Even though global CD sales are just a fraction of what they used to be, CDs are still the #1 selling format for polka albums. The key to making CDs a viable format on which a band releases a polka album depends on whether or not the band can sell enough of them to offset the cost of their manufacture. There are two ways a band can do this:

1. Popularity: If a polka band is particularly renown, travels throughout the country, and/or has a sizable, loyal following, they can still do quite well with CD sales — well enough to cover the entire production cost of their album and make a good profit.

2. Skimping on production costs: On the opposite end of the spectrum, some musicians are vastly reducing their production costs by recording, mixing, designing, printing, and duplicating their own CDs at home. Some of these musicians know what they're doing, but most don't, and the quality of these "bedroom productions" suffers.

And then there are bands who continue to record CDs mainly for fun and posterity. They're simply not concerned about how much money they'll lose.

Postitively Polka - My Personal Experience

When my Positively Polka CD came out in 2018, naturally I took copies to sell at all my live performances. Between all of the public dances, concerts, festivals, Oktoberfests, and private gigs I played in 2018 and 2019, the total number of CDs I sold off the stage were around 25-30. Twenty years ago, I would have sold 175-200.

The bulk of my album sales have always been wholesale, but so many of the retailers who bought my albums over the years are no longer in business, so wholesale orders are not what they used to be. By the time the last Positively Polka CD sold to a retailer in 2019, I had only been able to recover 85% of the album's production costs due to horrifically low sales from the stage.

Fortunately, a recent stroke-of-luck opportunity and renewed interest by a couple of retailers prompted the reissue of Positively Polka on CD. These wholesale orders were just barely large enough to cover the remaining 15% of the album's production costs, so I'm happy to declare that I've now broken even.

Although I did break even, it still wouldn't be practical for the average polka band or musician of modest popularity to spend thousands of dollars producing a recording and expect to break even — not when their stage sales are down 85%. This is why many of them have either quit recording or have gone the do-it-yourself route to minimize production costs.

Keep the Support Going

In this post-CD world, there are things you can do to support the studio recording efforts of your favorite artists:

1. Buy their downloads if they are offering them. Whenever you purchase a download of their music, they will profit anywhere from about 65¢ to 95¢ per song. (In comparison, when you stream their music, they will earn approximately ½¢ per song or less.)

2. If you belong to a subscription service, stream your favorite artist's music often. Let it play in the background while you're doing chores.

3. Promote your favorite bands' music on your social media pages. Help them get the word out.

4. Above all, never make an unauthorized copy of an artist's music by recording it to your computer while it is playing on the internet. When you do that, you are committing copyright infringement and circumventing the means by which the artist earns their due royalties.

Spectrum Raises Internet Service Rate During COVID-19 Pandemic