The people in the photos are AFM Local Officers.
Their names are Frank and Beverly Hess.
They are President and Secretary-Treasurer of Local 657.
Local 657 is an AFM Local in Northeast Ohio, just east of Cleveland’s
Local 4.
Local 657 has 61 members, according to the AFM database.
Musicians in Northeast Ohio often refer to Local 657 as a fiefdom.
Frank and Beverly run a business out of the same office as the Local.
OR they run the Local out of the same office as their business.
The building is owned by the Hesses.
No doubt the Union and the business have separate rooms.
The Hesses’ business is called Live Music Is Best, Inc. (perhaps
the part before "Inc." will sound familiar to you).
Live Music Is Best is a (for profit) business registered in the State
of Ohio.
Live Music Is Best is also an AFM licensed booking agency. What,
exactly, they do as a booking agency is not clear.
Live Music Is Best is also a promoter/producer of summer concert
series in a number of Lake County and Geauga County towns. Much like
MPTF, the concerts are financed with funds from those towns (and,
presumably, some of the businesses and organizations located in them).
The budget for Live Music Is Best's summer programs is unknown. Live
Music Is Best, Inc., a private business, does not have to make its
financial statements available. No one really knows how much these
towns have to pay for their concert series.
Local 657, though run by Frank and Beverly Hess, should NOT be confused
in any way with Live Music Is Best, Inc., even though the latter has
something to do with the management side of the music business, occupies
the same building as the Union and is run by Frank and Beverly Hess,
who themselves would (no doubt) never confuse the two. We are certain
our readers won't confuse them.
Local 657 claims to have a referral service. A referral service normally
works like this: musicians who wish to do so register with the service;
when the service receives calls from people who need musicians for
some occasion or other, the Union will refer these callers to registered
musicians, presumably using some fair set of criteria.
The AFM bylaws permit, but do not require, the imposition of an amazingly
high 10% work dues on all work obtained through such a service. Local
657 charges 10% work dues for such work.
We assume that all dues rates at Local 657 were established through
a lawful secret ballot vote of the members (who after all are the
ones who have to pay the dues).
If the membership did not approve a special dues rate for work obtained
through the referral service, the maximum dues that could be assessed,
with membership approval, would be 5% for Local members and 4% for
"traveling" members.
Local 657, apparently having its hands full with 61 members, had
an inspiration one day and did something perhaps unique among AFM
Locals.
They outsourced their referral service.
To a private company.
Live Music Is Best, Inc.
"You're kidding, right?"
No, we're not.
All work done under the auspices of Live Music Is Best is assessed
10% work dues. That 10% is supposed to be compensation to a Local
for expenses incurred in running a referral service.
Local 657 does not incur ANY expenses in running its referral service.
It doesn't really have one. The Local, which insists it does have
such a service, outsourced the work to Live Music Is Best, Inc. That’s
not the same thing.
So who registers for work with Live Mus...sorry, of course we meant,
who registers with the Local 657 referral service?
We don't know. But we do know some people who did not register, and
yet have played some of the summer concerts produced by Live Music
Is Best. Some of them live in the Local’s jurisdiction. Some
of them do not.
These musicians simply were called to play a gig there. Some were
called by leaders of groups based outside the Local and which groups
were included on the series. Some were called by groups based within
the Local.
Either way, they were paid the same money. $51 per performance. This,
just a few miles away from Cleveland.
Their checks were issued by Live Music Is Best, Inc. Though no check-off
authorization had been signed, work dues were deducted and remitted
to Local 657. Ten percent, of course. No doubt the Local is unaware
that Live Music Is Best is withholding dues unlawfully.
A significant number of concerts produced by Live Music Is Best are
played by Officers of the Local (whether they are paid the same rate
as outside band is unknown) --- just as with MPTF engagements in many
Locals. (As promised previously, MPTF will be featured in one or more
future items in these pages.)
We will hazard a guess that Live Music Is Best makes at least a small
profit on the concert series it produces. Live Music Is Best, once
again, is a private, for profit, corporation owned by Frank and Beverly
Hess, President and Secretary-Treasurer of the Local and has its offices
in the same building as the Local, which building is owned by Frank
and Beverly Hess.
Live Music Is Best, owned by Frank and Beverly Hess, recently refused
to pay some of the musicians who played in one or more of the Local
series it produced because the musicians weren't Union members. Frank
and Beverly and their company are in violation of Local, State and
Federal Law for this alone.
If one could disentangle, in one's mind, the Local from Live Music
Is Best, Inc., one might be able to determine to what extent, if any,
the Local itself and its Officers are also in violation of Local,
State and Federal Laws. (We admit to not being able to separate the
two entities ourselves; as we say, Frank and Beverly no doubt can
keep them separate.)
Some of Live Music Is Best’s summer concerts are video taped.
Without the permission of the individual performers, of course. No
CBAs are in force. There are no protections whatsoever for performer
or video product.
One series, performed at the Mentor Amphitheater, is taped and broadcast
repeatedly on Mentor Cable TV. Until a few years ago, when three musicians
and the UnionMuse editor filed charges against the Local (with the
AFM and the NLRB), copies of those tapes were available for purchase
from the station. The Hesses claimed not to know ANYTHING about it,
but said they were putting a stop to it. They did, but of course the
practice had now come under unwelcome scrutiny. Whether Live Music
Is Best profited in any way from the sale of the tapes is not known.
We're not saying that the tapes are high quality, that the broadcasts
reach a huge audience, or that ALL the performances were worthy of
anyone's attention. We are saying that the tapes were made. Without
permission (though possibly a few bandleaders were ok with it). The
tapes, good or bad, are "out there."
This is certainly contrary to AFM policy (and bylaws) at least.
But, then, perhaps the Local doesn't know that Live Music Is Best,
Inc. is allowing this to go on.
Note: UnionMuse
has obtained videocassette copies of at least 4 programs from the
1999 and 2000 Mentor Amphitheater series. Three were purchased by
the editor from the Mentor Cable TV Station. One of those, from July
4, 1999, features The New Beginning Band (lead singer, Beverly Hess).
The pictures of the Hesses are video captures from that tape.
Next on the Local 657 channel:
AFM
in cahoots: The IEB closes its eyes; sees nothing.
UnionMuse
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