Burton Cummings Lawsuit on Fake "Guess Who" ( Eddie Trunk - April 11th,2024)

[Music] um this was interesting my my uh friend and drummer Troy Patrick Farrell who lives here in Vegas sent me this today and it was on Facebook and it was on the Facebook of a broadcaster by the name of Dean Baldwin who uh my understanding is is a host on several of the music channels here on Sirius X and uh he was he talked about something that's been happening that is not being covered much by the media and that is the band The Guess Who now if you remember this band they had some big hits American woman and all of that and they are one of the many bands from this era currently touring with only one original member that being the drummer in the band They also make new music and they do the usual stuff that bands of this genre do Casino dates and things like that well Burton Cummings who is also an original member of the band and a primary songwriter in the band has now shut down and stopped the gues who from performing four on four concerts recently and all of the cancellations happened very last minute about an hour before the show was about to start and um this gentleman Dean was pondering on his on I guess he has a YouTube page as well that this was happening not here on Sirius but he was discussing like how this could be happening and how this could potentially become a problem for the many other bands that are out there that are touring with only one or no original member now we all know we know that Burton Cummings did come out with a statement saying that he doesn't feel like this band should be out there playing under the name the Guess Who with only one original drummer uh one member of the drummer but he had been letting it go for decades but now decided he doesn't want it to happen anymore and I don't know where the name ownership sits because usually that determines it who owns the name and the story but what Dean was pondering and the bigger question here is if Burton Cummings has found a way to shut down concerts by this band even if the current version of the band has ownership ship of the name how is that possible and what does it mean if others want to do the same thing and the speculation here is that and you remember you might remember on this show this came up as a big topic about a year or so ago when the discussion came up about ASAP and BMI payments for music up until that conversation we had on the air I did not know that bands that play Live clubs theaters Arena stadiums that the venue has to pay a fee to the performance rights organizations ASAP or BMI Whoever has that artist music they have to pay a license even for that music to be played live in a club and we this came up on this show about a year ago cuz we had a couple club Owners call in saying they are no longer putting on any live music of any kind because they could no longer afford to pay the publishing fees and that was like a big reveal that I cuz I up to that point did not know that to play Live you still have to pay publishing like even if you're a local bar the speculation here on how Burton Cummings may be doing this is that as a songwriter primary songwriter of all the material this band is is playing maybe his songs aren't Under the Umbrella of of any of the big publishing companies and if they aren't he's going in and saying to the club Owners or the theater owners or the casinos this band cannot play because I own these songs and I am not clearing it and it doesn't matter because they're they're not under the umbrella of ASCA or BMI now I don't know and neither did Dean know if that's exactly what's happening here but it's the only thing anybody could think of and if you think about it the ramifications of that are pretty big because even if somebody else licensed or owned the name of the band that you might still be able to go in there and go after him and stop him so I don't know how this gets resolved and I don't know how Burton Cummings is pulling it off but he is effectively now shut down four guess who shows because he doesn't approve now of what they're doing with only one original member and using the name of the band really interesting and uh I'm glad that that Dean did something on this and my friend Troy sent it to me because gives you a lot of food for thought I mean I don't know how this you know this could be a really interesting loophole and we'll uh we'll see how that all plays out the shitty part about it is you know the band the current version of The Guess Who is going these cancellations are happening because I guess the legal action is coming down very close to showtime and it's happening like an hour before the band supposed to go on so you've got an audience in the building waiting to see the band and the show doesn't happen it's not like they're getting advanced notice on it and we've seen this a little bit when it came down to name ownership can't remember what exactly the Act was but there was somebody going in and shutting down shows just before they happen because they claimed the person didn't own the name but this might be something different and uh it really is something that bears watching and look it does suck the timing of it because this version of The Guess Who already did the travel the hotels the planes whatever it is the people already showed up and then everybody goes away with nothing so it's something that has to be resolved because it's not fair to the fans that are showing up to obviously have to endure this on such short notice let alone the people working the gig Etc really interesting something to keep an eye on going forward for sure [Music]