Page 51 of Down Beat
TWENTY
Tabitha
“My Own Summer” - Deftones
“What the fuck do you mean there are royalties owed?” I clutch my phone in a white-knuckled grip, drawing curious looks from passersby.
“You played one of their songs, Tabitha. Without permission from the recording label first. If it was an older track, something they’d released five, ten years ago, then you might get away with it. But you played one that came out last year.”
“Why the hell didn’t anyone tell me this before I did it?” I clutch a fistful of my hair, my grocery shopping at my feet.
“I guess because we didn’t know?” John replies with nothing short of bitter sarcasm. “Are you sitting down, though?”
“There’s more?” I cry in a pitch that borders on only being audible to dogs.
What the hell else could he drop on me?
“You used Toby in your performance.”
“So?” I grimace at some nosy bitch as she makes faces at my volume. “Is he copyrighted too?”
“He gets metered out by the hour.”
I groan, slamming my free hand to my throat as I search the sky for a reason for this madness. “You have to be yanking my chain.”
“Afraid not.” He sighs. “His minimum is an hour.”
“He was on the fucking stage for less than five minutes,” I yell.
A mother gives me a scathing glare as she exits the mini-mart with her young daughter. I snatch up my bags with a huff as John answers, intending to find somewhere more private.
“I know, Tabitha, but they have to make it worthwhile for him, otherwise people would jerk him around for ten minutes of sweet fuck all.”
“How much?” Surely we’re in the vicinity of fifty for Toby and the same or thereabouts for the song?
“Seven hundred.”
I’m dying. I’m fucking sure of it. Why else would breathing be this difficult? “What?”
“Two hundred for Toby, and five hundred for single use of the song.”
“Since when do people have to pay that much for a song?” Jesus—my chest. “You can’t tell me street buskers pay that much to do a cover.”
He sighs. “Look. Wallace Bauer isn’t exactly known for his philanthropy.”
I sink against the side of a shop, tucked in the start of an alley. “Who the fuck is Wallace Bauer?”
“The guy who owns the band, essentially.”
Damn. “Seven hundred?” I won’t cry. Nope. Not going to cry. “How much does that leave me, John? Break it to me sweet.”
He chuckles softly. “Tabitha, honey—”
“Not that sweet.”
He huffs in amusement. “After costs, you get a little under three thousand.” That’s not so bad. “But you still owe me for the last three months, so if I deduct that before cutting you a check, you’re looking at sixteen hundred.”
“Sixteen hundred?” Totally going to cry.