Month: January 2017

Music Law CLE in Charlotte This Week

Jim Dedman Continuing Legal Education, Music Law

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If you find yourself in Charlotte, North Carolina on Wednesday, January 18, please join us for a music law program sponsored by The Chief Justice William H. Bobbitt American Inn of Court. Planned by yours truly, the event features both an entertainment lawyer as well the frontman of a 1980’s power pop band who now happens to be a lawyer.

Pretty cool, eh? Here’s the event summary:

“I fought the law, and the law won,” a rock band once proclaimed. At our next meeting, we will learn about the law of music from both a music performer and a rock musician turned lawyer. Entertainment lawyer and former disc jockey Coe W. Ramsey of Brooks Pierce’s Raleigh office represents radio and television stations, musicians, new media companies, and others in nearly every area of entertainment law. Before practicing in the area of workers compensation at Cranfill Sumner & Hartzog, LLP in Raleigh, Michael Connell played guitar in The Connells, a power pop band that recorded 8 albums and toured the world. At this event, Coe will teach us the basics of music law and forming a band, while Michael will offer his practical insights on the rock world from the perspective of a musician and performer.

The event takes place Wednesday, January 18, 2016 at Draught, which is located at 601 S Cedar St, Charlotte, North Carolina 28202. You can register for the event by click here.

Above you’ll find the cover for the single of “’74 – ’75,” a fine single from The Connells. You can read more about the band and its exploits on Wikipedia here.

New Year’s Day

Jim Dedman Milestones

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“All is quiet on New Year’s Day!
…
We can break through!
Though torn in two,
We can be one!”

– U2, “New Year’s Day” (Island Records, January 1, 1983).

Happy new year!

I have a memory of leaving a friend’s New Year’s Eve party shortly after midnight on January 1, 1997. At that time, I lived in Austin and attended The University of Texas. I left the South Austin apartment where the party had been held, and I made my way to my gold 1995 Saturn SL1 in the parking lot. After finding my way to the highway, I drove north on I-35 to my apartment in Northwest Austin. I remember U2’s “New Year’s Day” then coming on the radio (as it often does in the wee hours of January 1 each year).

It was a nice moment on a leisurely drive that took place two decades ago. Later that year, on November 23, 1997, I saw U2 perform in San Antonio on its PopMart Tour. The show, which was the first time I’d seen the band perform live, took place the day after INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence died. (You can find the setlist for that show here.). In the years since 1997, the Saturn Corporation dissolved, consigning the SL1 and its ilk to the dustbin of history. Today, on January 1, 2017, I will listen once again to “New Year’s Day.”

Farewell to 2016, the cruelest of recent years. Let us brace ourselves for 2017.