Jim Sullivan syndrome up-date

[Be]

ok..

well..

it all started like this....


2 almost 3 yrs ago...a friend of mine(my lawyer actually)....asked me to make a new album(to say some MC rhymes)

and as most of you here know...that was about the time when i started to fall under this deep depression....now personally....i've been mildly depressed or rather on the verge of being REALLY, SERIOUSLY depressed for as far as i can remember....but this shit here...was different....really different...

with that in mind....my finances were starting to flounder...and he was a lil worried that i didn't have any current money making generaters or earners rather...when he asked me to make a record....i was like dude....i don't have any of those kinds of songs available....so in turn i tried to crank some out.... under this brand spankin new depression and under the gun that i had to... Nuthin'....i don't mean just a small case of writers block....of which i've never had before(not braggin or nuthin....i've just never had it...or rather i knew how to deal with it....songs like so on & so on, when it's raining cats & dogs, Hale Bopp Regurgitations....anything deliberately stupid...usually dismantles writers block with the quickness)...so my lawyer was like dude....on the real....fuck all that...you just gotta bite the bullet and put out an album of whatever you got hangin around....but all i had hangin around were boy band songs...and remnants of working with mandy moore....not particularly my kind of stuff....not P.M. Dawn stuff at all....around this time not being sold on the idea but not wanting to be broke either....we posted still runnin on the site.... a song that me and my friend jive wrote...now of coarse i know it's not P.M. Dawn material...i just kinda sorta wanted to see if you guys would be able to stomache an album of that kinda nature.....brainless material from P.M. Dawn so to speak...so i doing so...i really couldn't stomache it and sell out....but shit ya know my babies need turkey franks & bookbags.....

somewhere around this time i was chillin with vernon reid....i showing him pictures of my family and my aunt owna had just sent me some pictures of my father and some other pictures of my grands and great grands ect. ect.....and there was a picture of my great grand father...his press shot from when he was a boxer....vernon saw it...and he was like...."dude...you need to use that....i don't know what for...but you need to use it for something" so.. i studied the photos a lil bit...and i noticed that he didn't use his real name "William Kitral" there was this other name "Jim Sullivan"...so i sent an e-mail to my aunt asking her to explain...and of coarse she called me(i friggin hate phones) she was like back in those days white people didn't want to fight black people in the ring so after a while nobody whould fight him....so he changed his name to Jim Sullivan to score some gigs....i was like wow....he had to be somebody else in order to make money...so i thought maybe i could be somebody else....and make some money....hence..


The Jim Sullivan Syndrome..

on this particular album i would attempt to be other people by covering their songs...then after picking a few songs...reading other peoples lyrics which i don't do enough...i decided to bend or twist the lyrics a lil to make the songs fit my frame of mind...or how i think..or would've thought in the songs situation....<<<( a no no...actually a quite serious and illegal no no to say the least...but at the time...i didn't know....but i would find out later and it would cost me big)>>>
so we picked the following songs.... Fast Car= a song i thought was about escaping from poverty "i thought"...and turned it into...well...actually...bended it into a song about break-up herartache and suicide....i know it's funny...but...it's not funny...even though it makes me smile... Under The Bridge= a song i thought was about addiction...and bended it into a song about being addicted to a person.... and.. Sleep To Dream= to be honest with you i didn't get a grasp on what the whole song meant to me...but i really connected with the whole ..."i don't go to sleep to dream..." thing...and the fact that she was cursin out SOMEBODY in that song...insted of bending it...so to speak....i just ommited alot of lyrics and made it seam like an anonymous angry rant...we thought it was scarcastic kinda...but certainly not insuling ... so we hit the record button
we also covered...No Woman No Cry=for obvious reasons in my life...in particularly cause liz likes bob...and hax needed to hear it..so we went for it.. and last but not least we covered... THE B.B.C....because i wanted an excuse to sing that song live....but we can't sing it without laughing on some kareoke shit so...we made it slightly more funky...and serious....as that song could get
(for all those that don't know THE B.B.C. is the austin powers song at the end of the first movie)



so there you have it...those songs would go up against 7 other original P.M. Dawn songs that i would somehow have to squeeze out past my writers block...well kool....shit it's better than 12 that's almost a song per month....so i treated it like writers constipation....and pushed ...and PUSHED...until i gave birth to them muh fukkaz... but somehow it ruined my psyche i think because afterwhich...i couldn't write songs for almost a year ...it would've been a year this march
if i hadn't written "bug'n out" with jive and jarett this month for the shrek 2 soundtrack....the passed ..today...but it gave me a chance to flex my muscles...so i just kept going ever since...i think the song gave me a chance to deliberately write sumthin silly...i guess i just needed to make the song for myself....cause it ain't goin in sherk 2...to my dissapointment...i swear...if the song didn't help me as much as it did....i probably would've just given up making songs for movies....SERIOUSLY!!!!!(i'll get brian to post the song later in the week... i would've told ya'll but i didn't wanna go thru the spiderman movie shit with ya'll....again)

ok...so on with the drama....after we put out amnesia...we thought we would spend the rest of the lil bit of money we had left on.... under the bridge...so in a strategy meeting angela our marketing advisor's like"guys are you sure that you wanna do this song...because you'll be making this band a lot of money in publishing...and meanwhile this song earns them a shitload of money already anyway" so we decide to deliberate....wrong move,,because at that point we were hemoraging cash...and really needed an out an out smash record which is what i though under the bridge was....so in the middle of all that shit...we figured that we would search for a distribution deal outside of america...to raise some capitol for our next single that we couldn't afford to release properly....in doing so we found out that the group ALL SAINTS had a mediocre hit with under the bridge in europe...so nobody wanted to touch our record with a ten foot pole feeling that amnesia and under the bridge were all that we had singlewhorthy...so then we got that fukking sickening VIRUS ourselves...now normally when this happens and it does happen all the time with every record....i just go and make a record that i believe is singlewhorthy....BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO......try as i might ...nothing is still coming out...

so then...(this is the interesting part) we decide to say fuck it ...just bite the bullet and cut the check for under the bridge...we have no choice...right? so we send the master away to the cd plant to get the radio promos ready....a week or so later the plant calls me to ask me for a liscence for the song...and i'm like "What the Fukk are you talking about" they're like "dude...you need to call harry fox agency and get a liscence for this song"...i'm like cool...more bullshit so i'll get the lisence...big deal.....so then the guy a harry fox asks me THEE FUKKIN' QUESTION OF ALL QUESTIONs...."sir...did you change the lyrics in anyway" :bigshock:



because if you did...then you have to clear it with the writers...who i find out are doing some kind of greatest hits thing.... and don't really want other copies of that particular song for sale...they didn't even give permission to all saints to release it in america for this same reason :shock: so...at this point...yes i am truly screwed....because i have to go thru this with everybody i covered or Bended on my album....including the marley estate..and fickle ass fiona apple...so...we go back to the studio to recut the vocals...back to the original songs & still try to clear the publishing issues with the songs...which ever is the quickest route we'll do and put this album behind us....so then we ran out of money...

and i'm at the point where i'm gonna release the jim sullivan syndrome EP along with a whole other brand new record...almost a double album ..so to speak....but that's expencive as well

so i sit here and wait in limbo...for a way out to COME TO ME..


b.

[Cozmo D]

.....................................

You KNOW you have a friend who has gone a long and winding road with you, and who is just FULL of BULLSHIT knowledge like this about this BULLSHIT BUSINESS...

Do you call a brutha up and ask him if it can be done??? NO!!!

Man, I thought you had already cleared all the rights before you even started on this venture...I coulda saved you a shitload of money on this shit, instead of you finding it all out the hard way.

I'ma call you...

[SaintHax]

Locked at the request of a few of Be's friends, if you'd like our comments Be you can re-open this topic or ask me to do it. We just felt it was better this way to avoid the drama.

Stick with it Be