Archive for October, 2007

The Dave Matthews Band played the welcome picnic during my orientation week at the University of Virginia. They were beginning to attract attention for their regular Tuesday night gigs at Trax, which by my third year there was a statewide phenomenon. But at the time, they still played picnics and fraternity parties. I thought they were neat, but didn't stay long since I had yet to develop the ability to interact with strangers my own age. What I remember about that day was the crazy guy in the straw hat playing violin.

Three years later, I was pitching him my music video ideas.

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A few months ago, my friend The Finn told me to send him a DVD of our indie movie, Moving. It turns out he had a friend who was starting a new distribution company, a subsidiary of Universal. They offered us $20,000, 20% of net profits, and we would have had access to the full Universal music library for licensing if we wanted to put in new music. At my insistence, we turned them down.

To be precise, I proposed revisions to the contract they wanted us to sign–and they flatly refused to consider them. So we didn't sign. Here's why it was the right thing to do.

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