Dire Straits Legacy?

[Eddie Fox]

DSL is touring in South America and Brazil is their next stop. To my surprise (or maybe not) the promotion video says ‘Dire Straits, one of the biggest bands of all time…’ in the beginning with some classic tunes in the background. They do say Legacy later but never make it clear it’s not the real thing. I know two people who got tickets thinking it was Dire Straits - obviously not big fans, they know the hits and the name but never heard the name Mark Knopfler before I said it.

I’m not saying it’s the band’s fault but I’m posting it here so they have the chance to do the right thing.

Link to the Instagram post: https://instagram.com/p/CqqrziJAFh9/

[quizzaciously]

DSL is touring in South America and Brazil is their next stop. To my surprise (or maybe not) the promotion video says ‘Dire Straits, one of the biggest bands of all time…’ in the beginning with some classic tunes in the background. They do say Legacy later but never make it clear it’s not the real thing. I know two people who got tickets thinking it was Dire Straits - obviously not big fans, they know the hits and the name but never heard the name Mark Knopfler before I said it.

I’m not saying it’s the band’s fault but I’m posting it here so they have the chance to do the right thing.

Link to the Instagram post: https://instagram.com/p/CqqrziJAFh9/

That's exactly the reason Mark ended up suing 'em. Or was it another tribute band? Even this is something they messed up. So many name variations and band members that I completely lost track. Funnily enough, Mark's manager Paul Crockford actually manages The Australian Pink Floyd Show, and I never heard about this type of false advertising coming from this band, so it's always a conscious decision. Never liked Legacy guys, never wanted to see them perform live, and never will.

[Jules]

MK didn't sue them, not any other tribute bands.

He just sent and advise from their lawyers to ask them not confuse the people.

And in the end, are the promoters, the ones more interested in making money from the bands they hire to play, the ones that cause the confusion.

[quizzaciously]

MK didn't sue them, not any other tribute bands.

He just sent and advise from their lawyers to ask them not confuse the people.

And in the end, are the promoters, the ones more interested in making money from the bands they hire to play, the ones that cause the confusion.

But the band seems OK with it, and the same situation keeps going for years without any changes whatsoever.

[quizzaciously]

What I like about The Australian Pink Floyd Show is that their name starts with The Australian, so right away you can't be confused with the real thing. Dire Straits Legacy, however, sounds like it's Dire Straits, and false advertising only amplifies this. In my mind, a tribute act can't be named literally just like the artist it pays tribute to, plus maybe a word or two. The Fab Four is probably the best The Beatles tribute band in the world, but it's certainly not The Beatles Legacy.

I'd love to love the band, don't get me wrong, and playing good music is fine, I just don't get the marketing and naming strategy, that's all.

[Jules]

MK didn't sue them, not any other tribute bands.

He just sent and advise from their lawyers to ask them not confuse the people.

And in the end, are the promoters, the ones more interested in making money from the bands they hire to play, the ones that cause the confusion.

But the band seems OK with it, and the same situation keeps going for years without any changes whatsoever.

As far as I know, they ask the promoters not too confuse people, as they were warned by DS lawyers, but promoters ended doing what they think would work better to sell tickets.

I bet they have contracts where that is written so if the DS lawyers complain they can say it wasn't their fault but the promoters.

[Eddie Fox]

What I like about The Australian Pink Floyd Show is that their name starts with The Australian, so right away you can't be confused with the real thing. Dire Straits Legacy, however, sounds like it's Dire Straits, and false advertising only amplifies this. In my mind, a tribute act can't be named literally just like the artist it pays tribute to, plus maybe a word or two. The Fab Four is probably the best The Beatles tribute band in the world, but it's certainly not The Beatles Legacy.

I'd love to love the band, don't get me wrong, and playing good music is fine, I just don't get the marketing and naming strategy, that's all.

That’s why I posted it here. Maybe the band will see it, you never know. As I said that’d give them the chance to do the right thing. My opinion? They don’t care, as long as it boosts the sales and they are not held accountable it’s happy days.

[quizzaciously]

What I like about The Australian Pink Floyd Show is that their name starts with The Australian, so right away you can't be confused with the real thing. Dire Straits Legacy, however, sounds like it's Dire Straits, and false advertising only amplifies this. In my mind, a tribute act can't be named literally just like the artist it pays tribute to, plus maybe a word or two. The Fab Four is probably the best The Beatles tribute band in the world, but it's certainly not The Beatles Legacy.

I'd love to love the band, don't get me wrong, and playing good music is fine, I just don't get the marketing and naming strategy, that's all.

That’s why I posted it here. Maybe the band will see it, you never know. As I said that’d give them the chance to do the right thing. My opinion? They don’t care, as long as it boosts the sales and they are not held accountable it’s happy days.

I hope that the problem doesn't go deeper than that. I remember them saying things like "Mark Knopfler wasn't a big part of Dire Straits after all" or something. It's not a verbatim quote, but something along those lines. As if Mark was someone like Cliff Richard with a backing band and not somebody who told everybody what to play and wrote all the songs. So they might as well think of themselves as Dire Straits: Part 2, and hence this questionable marketing.

I really do think, should they be more discreet about their achievements and marketing strategy, Mark wouldn't write such a harsh song about it (Terminal Of Tribute To). And the fact he's still friends with people associated with the project means he's not against that (playing his music) at all. But all this advertising thing, man... It's really unfortunate that Dire Straits LEGACY, please excuse the term, is still in this state.

[Eddie Fox]

My understanding is that Alan believes the songs belong to him too and he has the right to do it. I may be wrong but that’s how it feels. The irony in it is that Marco is just too bad and anyone who sees one of those gigs thinking that’s DS will probably go home extremely disappointed.

[hunter]

Isn't this old news though? That the DS Legacy (and The Straits too?) were advertised as the real deal in Brazil?

[dustyvalentino]

My understanding is that Alan believes the songs belong to him too and he has the right to do it. I may be wrong but that’s how it feels. The irony in it is that Marco is just too bad and anyone who sees one of those gigs thinking that’s DS will probably go home extremely disappointed.

I don’t think that’s fair to Alan and I’ve been a pretty harsh critic of the various incarnations of the group.

I’d say Alan just looks for acknowledgment that he played a big part in how the songs turned out, which is true.

[quizzaciously]

My understanding is that Alan believes the songs belong to him too and he has the right to do it. I may be wrong but that’s how it feels. The irony in it is that Marco is just too bad and anyone who sees one of those gigs thinking that’s DS will probably go home extremely disappointed.

I don’t think that’s fair to Alan and I’ve been a pretty harsh critic of the various incarnations of the group.

I’d say Alan just looks for acknowledgment that he played a big part in how the songs turned out, which is true.

I don't know Alan's story in detail, and it's always hard to pretend to be in someone else's shoes. But it reminds me of Simon & Garfunkel's "Battle for Bridge Over Troubled Water" which seemingly divided the duo the most. As Paul wasn't the one who played it live, it was only Art Garfunkel, Paul reportedly became jealous of people thinking it was Art's song. And in response, instead of saying "Here's a new song Paul wrote", Art just said, "Here's our new song". And you have this situation when a songwriter can't perform his own song, and his buddy happens to be the greatest at performing it. What should you do? They settled on war.

These battles of credits and roles in music always seemed too infantile and childish to me, and they probably are. If Alan is so great, then why he doesn't have his own band playing great original material? If his contribution to Mark's music was so enormous, why in the name of love, he wasn't credited as a co-writer? Why he never sued MK for writing credits? But wait a minute, he has his own band playing original material. And their album has 85K plays on Spotify in 6 years.

So in a way, it's just facts showing who's who, and the laws of thermodynamics aren't violated.

[Jules]

Because one thing is writing a song and another have a big role developing and arranging it

Usually the writer is credited, but not the arranger of all songs, except is something exceptional like hiring and orchestra and needing someone to arrange the strings part, like George Martin did for the OES record.

For example, MK wrote TR, but MK and Alan together arranged it bit by bit. The two of them. Does it means Alan cowrote the song? No. He coarranged it, as most of DS songs since he arrived to the band.

Being good arranging doesn't means you would be awesome writing original great songs. Only that you would be great arranging it.

[ds1984]

Let say that it is common usage that a performer is not just a performer.

Getting credits for more than just performing is something sometime complicated.
You can be paid for but without being credited.

Regarding Alan Clark it is impossible to tell exactly unless you were there during the creative process.

The thing that really question me is what has he done after Dire Straits?
This guy should have been within the most demanded keyboard player and arranger by the top acts but when you look at his CV this is a desert land.
Something happened.

 

[quizzaciously]

Let say that it is common usage that a performer is not just a performer.

Getting credits for more than just performing is something sometime complicated.
You can be paid for but without being credited.

Regarding Alan Clark it is impossible to tell exactly unless you were there during the creative process.

The thing that really question me is what has he done after Dire Straits?
This guy should have been within the most demanded keyboard player and arranger by the top acts but when you look at his CV this is a desert land.
Something happened.

Everybody gets what he deserves, I think. Alan deserves recognition and praise for his amazing piano/keyboard work with DS, arranging is the private part of course, but they had no trouble at the time, so they probably settled on something, after all. He's definitely got some money and flying on private jets, but this credit stuff will inevitably be buried under the fame of the end product, unfortunately. The only way to remedy that is to create something equally great or work with somebody as great as MK, no other way. You're right, something happened, and his post-DS works won't knock anyone's socks off. He's obviously extremely talented and professional but probably struggled to find an artist as good as DS to the point of playing their material to make a living.

To think of it, few musicians barely survived DS in a good way. Apart from Guy Fletcher, who is THE luckiest guy in the world, continuing working with MK to this day, and John Illsley, who literally owned DS with MK, others weren't as lucky. David gathers money on his albums on Patreon like me (and I'm nobody!), Pick's career is extremely low-key, Jack Sonny is known as "the other guitar in Dire Straits", and so on. That's why I'd think twice before joining an act like DS.