My very close personal friend, Startracks, as always, has to attempt (note the word attempt) to fling mud in our direction with the following statement: "-What happened a while back with a certain label that was suppose to release
a score that was then pulled from production."
I do love the "certain label" though.
It's been explained ad nauseum and I assume that even someone like Startracks has read it and knows exactly what happened in the case of Last Man On Earth. But, because he seems to be a little "challenged" in certain areas, I'm happy to set him straight again because there was nothing questionable about anything we did in conjunction with that release. The title was licensed from the rights' holders, MGM. Get it, my friend? Licensed and paid for. Neither MGM nor I was aware that the publishing was held by one of the composer's widows. Literally, less than 24 hours prior to the announcement, I received an e-mail from David Schecter, who represents that person, explaining that she owned the publishing and because of an arcane rule about first releases (had this been previously on CD or LP there would not have been an issue at all), I had to do the publishing deal with her. He said she had been burned by someone else and wasn't really wanting to chance that again. At that point, I postponed the announcement. MGM intervened with Mr. Schecter and tried to get the deal done. I, in good faith, sent the woman a check for the entire mechanical royalty at the full rate, so she would not be taking a chance on getting burned. She refused the check - the why of that had nothing to do with us - and that was the end of that. Nothing shady, dear Startracks, but good try. Do keep trying, because each and every time you do it just makes you look like more of a fool.