(TV) Royalties: Do the Simple Math/Carlucci lost archived post?

["Casey, Leo J" <CaseyL@VOLPE.DOT.GOV>]

It is unlikely TV makes more than half of 
what he needs per year from Bowie having 
performed Tom's "Kingdom Come" on Scary Monsters.

Granted the song does appear on both:
Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) [1980] 
and Sound + Vision [Box] [1989] ,

but at 8 cents per song these two albums would have 
to sell 500,000 combined total copies for Tom to 
receive $40,000 per year. 
http://www.ascap.com/musicbiz/money-mechanicals.html

My best estimates [and Philip (or others) please jump 
in as you know more about Bowie's music and sales] are 
that in 1980s at the pinnacle of Bowie's commercial sales, 
Bowie was selling 250,000 total copies of just Scary Monsters 
(worldwide), and then in 1989 and 1990s,the combined total 
copies of these two records (Sound + Vision [Box] and 
Scary Monsters was only about 300,000 ---except for the first
year of Sound & Vision's release when total combined spiked at 
650,000 worldwide.

This means that Verlaine would have received $20,000 per year 
from 1980 to 1988 about $52,000 in 1989 and $24,000 since 1989.

Now let's get real:  due to record company under-reporting sales 
and due to Bowie's real sales of these 2 albums being about one-half
of what is stated above, TV would have received (again at 8 cents 
a song) about  $18,000 per year from 1980 to 1988; $25,000 in 
1989 and $11,000 since 1989.

I'd wager TV makes more from his buying/reselling of vintage guitars and 
amps than from royalties--albeit given TV'S legendary frugal lifestyle and 
spending habits, he doesn't require a lot of dough (I, of course have not 
included other sources, such as his producer credit fees and all the money 
J.K. and I send him). 

His 4 biggest expenses: imported cigarettes/coffee; airplane tickets; 
his co-op mortgage payments; and voluminous quantities of used paperbacks.

	Leo
PS: There's a very illuminating post from Michael Carlucci in the
MM List Archives that I can't find in which Michael claims Tom lives 
off being Tom Verlaine--e.g..., producing albums for others.


-----Original Message-----
From: Philip P. Obbard 
Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2003 5:06 PM
To: tv@obbard.com
Subject: Re: (TV) Help

>I assume Tom lives off three things:
>1. His few live gigs a year (including the MUSIC FOR FILM series).
>2. Royalties from Bowie's cover of "Kingdom Come" on SCARY MONSTERS.
>3. Royalties from his production credits on the Jeff Buckley SKETCHES cd.


>For Verlaine, I'd guess that he makes more money from #2 (assuming he owns the
publishing rights) than all of his other stuff combined, since SCARY MONSTERS
probably outsells all Television + solo material combined year by year.

--Philip


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