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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Label Releases TV Music

After two decades of placing songs in films and television shows, Bob Mair is now releasing those tunes to the public. Mair has started a record label division of his Black Toast Music, an independent music publisher and production music company in Chatsworth. Black Toast Records has 10 albums available for download featuring songs used in TV shows, including “True Blood,” “Treme,” “Modern Family,” and “How I Met Your Mother.” “It is a nice outlet for the artists,” Mair said. “This is great music and the artists are able to get exposure that way.” The impetus for starting the record label came from e-mail Mair received from people who heard the songs on the shows asking how they could get copies. Releasing the songs through iTunes, Amazon and Reverb Nation gives Black Toast another revenue stream. Record sales have so diminished in the digital age that licensing songs in films and TV has become an important way for artists to be heard, Mair said. Among the performers on the label are Sonny Ellis, St. John, Paul Otten, and G-Stack. Mair, who also composes and produces music, uses his relationships with musicians and songwriters to find some of the material licensed for the big- and small-screen. Earlier in his career, Mair placed songs on “Party of Five,” “Mad About You,” and in a national commercial for Domino’s Pizza. Some of the songs he licensed proved so catchy for some audience members they sent petitions to have the songs released, Mair said. “Instead of fighting this I am going to branch out the business model and make the people who love the music happy,” Mair said. — Mark R. Madler

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