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Table of contents for Record Contract Asides
- Delious’ Turn
- A Story About Hoss
- The LA Slimeball was on Family Jewels last night
- A Comment from the “LA Slimeball”
This just popped up in my inbox as a comment on my post from last week, “The LA Slimeball was on Family Jewels Last Night.”
[You can read the whole story from the beginning by visiting the Record Contract Index page.]
Jeff ‘LA Slimeball’ Mullen said
I have really enjoyed reading your posts on your website regarding your ‘former career’. Very entertaining especially the way you remember various events. Congratulations on your singing and recording career as I see you have gone quite far and accomplished quite a bit with your golden voice.
I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the story, Jeff. I don’t really feel the need to defend my “singing and recording career” since I’m currently making my living doing music. I’ve had some success as a songwriter, and I’m also working on an original project that I’m not in a position to talk about just yet. Quite frankly, I blame my experience with the sleazy, greedy, underbelly of the music business that you introduced me to for my reluctance to seriously pursue a traditional contract. You should be quite proud.
Since the last 10 years have been filled with many projects in numerous areas of entertainment for me, I can barely remember you. I recall that you thought that you were God’s gift to singing and to the group (The Outsiders later South 65) which was not a great way to get started.
One thing I certainly never thought was that I was God’s gift to singing. Matt was a much better singer than I. As for the group, I had more technical music knowledge than anyone else. I could sing on pitch and could harmonize… something that 3/5 of the group could not do without a week of cramming with a tape recorder. Jerimy was forced to sing bass lines that were not in his range. Doug couldn’t sing a harmony part to save his life.
You call me a slimeball which is quite funny, but the fact is that you got dumped from a group (albeit one that didn’t last)because you were a shit starter. You can spin the facts anyway that you wish for all to read, but the truth at least in our eyes is that you broke rank and bit the hand that was attempting to help you.
You’re right, calling you a slimeball IS funny! Especially since it wasn’t me that coined the phrase. You can thank Al for that. Interesting that I was the “shit starter” with my attempts to keep us all from getting royally screwed by you and your compatriots. That’s an appropriate description, that I “broke rank” from the mindless sheep who were snowed over by your false promises of riches and fame. That was always your problem, you never once viewed us as artists or having any talent. You and Delious truly believed that without your “guidance” there was nothing special there. There could have been enough money to go around, but you wanted it all.
You talk about the horrible contract, but the music industry has gone into the toilet over the past 10 years and many new contracts now have some provision for merchandising/TV and touring because after the huge investments to get an act going, there must be ways to recoup other than slumping CD sales.
So you’re saying that the contract you gave us wasn’t horrible, it was just ahead of its time!? You don’t see any correlation between the type of shitty contract you gave out (and others who followed suit) and the state of the music industry today? You’re high. 10 years ago, there were no online music stores. 10 years ago virtually no one, including people in the music industry, knew anything about ripping mp3s and file sharing and the alleged destruction of the music industry. You were just being a money-grubbing greedy asshat.
I’m sure that current contracts have merchandising and touring provisions, however, I’m positive that 100% isn’t going to the label or the producer. You wanted to bill us for creating the merchandise that we would have no control over and wouldn’t profit from. On what planet is that fair? And that wasn’t even the worst of it, Jeff. You wanted 100% of songwriting and publishing royalties. What exactly would your “guidance” do for my songwriting?
Delious and I started the group in much the way that All-4-One was started. You were just a temporary ‘part’ of that project and the fact that you continue to live your life through something from 10 years ago shows a very pathetic side but one that is quite enjoyable to read about.
Just because Delious was an idiot and signed a shitty record contract didn’t mean he had to try and recoup his “lost fortune” by screwing over a bunch of 20 year olds. Apparently you haven’t really read anything else on this site. There are nearly 800 posts on this site, of which only 17 deal with the story of the record contract. I’m not living my life through something that happened 10 years ago. I merely relayed a story from my past that my readers (over 10,000 per month, thank you very much) find interesting.
The only thing pathetic about this exchange is the fact that you’re apparently spending a Saturday night typing your own name into Google and trying to convince me and everyone else here that you are some sort of Entertainment Guru. Sorry, but playing “whose dick is bigger” isn’t going to get you any points here.
I wish you well, but what you fail to understand is that we tried to create something great and your own greed (which by the way was very Nashville)was what ‘lost your record deal’not be. If it had been up to me, you would have never made it past the first audition because although you were talened, you were quite femine for such a project.
It’s funny that you see me as being the greedy one. I maintained throughout the whole deal that Delious deserved his 50% of our contract. I never had a problem with that. It was the provisions for everything else that you guys felt you were owed that made the deal so repulsive. You wanted to be paid for things that were not due to you. You deceived everyone in your attempts to get it. You lied to Atlantic Records. You lied to us. I was upfront about contracting a lawyer, in fact, Delious encouraged me to do so. Anthony Smith encouraged me to listen to the lawyer.
Funnier still is that you call me the feminine one. You were far more feminine than I. There were many discussions among several of us in the project whether you and Delious were fucking. I didn’t really believe you were, because I thought Delious had better taste, and you were far too insincere to be anything other than a straight Andrew Dice Clay protege. As for being too gay for the project, you are apparently still not very well versed on country stars. I can name 10 big stars off the top of my head who are gay. I know of one big name who is actually transsexual. Fans either don’t know, or don’t care. It wouldn’t have been any different with me.
Atlantic rep Al Cooley was a sad sack of an A&R man and yes he hated me too upon first sight. I guess that was no surprise to me when looking back at the ‘Nashville Years’. It was a better project once you and Matt were gone, but the truth is that neither Delious or I continue to look back and talk much about it because it was only one project among many. Lastly, you say I look terrible, but I think I look pretty good for a 46 year old man. If you want, I would be happy to send you a recent photo for your dart board.
Really? A better project once Matt and I were gone? Remind me… what were the record sales of South 65? They charted how many songs? They made how much money? They had how much success post-South 65? A Google search turns up nothing. What did those reviews say? I remember the one that said it was the “worst thing to happen to country music since Hank died.”
I might not have ended up with the music career that I once hoped for and dreamed about… but I did retain my dignity. I did stand up for myself. And I never sold myself, or my friends out.
Good luck to you Jeff. The porn industry is perfect for you, but a word of advice from this big fag: If you have one more face lift you’ll end up with a goatee. That isn’t pretty.
