MOJO’S LATEST TRICK WASN’T CHEAP

Indie pubco/marketing shop Mojo Music & Media has inked a deal to acquire a 50% interest in the song catalog of Cheap Trick co-founder/tunesmith Rick Nielsen. The array of indelible songs by the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers covered by the deal includes “Surrender,” “I Want You to Want Me,” “Dream Police,” “Voices,” “If You Want My Love” and, of course, “He’s a Whore.”

Cheap Trick has sold some 20 million albums, by which we mean somebody walked into a retail establishment and handed some surly clerk a wad of bills for a physical product, and that happened, like 20 million times. The band played some 5,000 shows all over the planet, including mythic appearances at Budokan.

“For the last four decades-plus,” opined Mojo CEO co-founder Mark Fried while hoisting a quintuple-necked guitar, “Rick Nielsen has been teaching a master class in how to write jangly, melodic pop-punk anthems. He and his Cheap Trick bandmates, over the course of 20 studio albums and thousands of shows, have been pied pipers to the most devoted fans in history while in some way influencing nearly every alt-rock, arena pop and heavy metal band that followed in their footsteps. As fans since day one, we couldn’t be more psyched to work with Rick in promoting his music and shining a light on his unique rock and roll adventure.”

“I’d almost given up on the chance of finding a publisher who actually knew all my songs and had a vision for how to keep them alive for another 1,000 years or so,” added Nielsen. “Turns out, Mark & The Mojos are it! I’m looking forward to all the noise we’re gonna make together.”

Later, the pair threw a TV set out of a hotel window and into a pool for old times’ sake.

Photo Credit: Jeff Daly