Talk:Joe Escalante/Archive 1

Dec. 2005

Figured I'd update the article to make it read a little better. Could someone go and secure permission to use a picture? - user:To0n Dec 6th, 2005 0:05 UTC

Controversial subjects

As regards the sections "Conflict over band owenership" and "Legal controversies with ex-bandmates," these issues have been discussed on Talk:The Vandals and I believe an agreement has been reached concerning the way they should be included in that article and this one. It is necessary to include them as they constitute important events in Escalante's biography and career, establishing his legal ownership of the Vandals name and rights to their back catalogue which have been contested. I believe that the current version of the article presents these issues in a factual, neutral manner that follows Wikipedia's NPOV policies, and is both non-libelous and properly referenced. IllaZilla2 19:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Many editors have tried to remove the section on "Legal controversies." Please do not remove it. It is factual information presented from a neutral point of view and is supported with a reference. The argument many have used for removing it is essentially that "it is a Vandals issue and is discussed on The Vandals page, so it doesn't belong here as well." This is incorrect. The information belongs in both places, though it may need to be worded differently to fit the proper context. It is pertinent to The Vandals as it concerns contests between former and current members of the band over rights to their early material. It is pertinent to Joe Escalante because the accusations made by the former members were made specifically against him. It was Escalante who was named in the charges, who defended himself against them, and who as a result maintained rights to the material. Though the issue certainly concerns the band as a whole, it specifically concerns Escalante and therefore belongs in a well-rounded article about him.

For a comparative example, consider the legal conflicts over music ownership between members of the Dead Kennedys and their former singer Jello Biafra. These incidents are certainly important to a biography of the band, but also to a bio of Biafra himself, since the actions were directed against him personally and had an important impact on his career. Therefore they deserve mention in both articles. That is also the case here, though the incident under discussion is less extensive and less publicized. Again, please refrain from removing information from the article that is factual and referenced. If you have a valid objection to the manner in which the information is presented in the article, please voice your opinion here before making any drastic edits. --IllaZilla 02:53, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Vandals-heavy

I realize that the current version focuses a lot on Escalante's work with the Vandals (particularly the "Works" section). I plan on adding to the article later to include his production and film credits, movie roles, and other works. If anyone else would like to get the ball rolling on this, please do. IllaZilla2 19:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

original research

I've reverted this edit, which claims that Escalante is "Anti-Islamic" due to some comments he supposedly made somewhere (the link provided doesn't even work). It is apparently an analysis from a primary source, which is unacceptable as WP:RS and a violation of [{WP:OR]]. Just letting everybody know why this addition is going to be reverted unless and until it's properly sourced. Assistance and monitoring from the regular editors of this article would be appreciated as well; this is not the first time this edit has been attempted and it probably won't be the last. — coelacan talk — 02:28, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

What does "retained control" mean?

This is my first time typing and not just reading here so I'm going to ask all you experts a question.

Illazilla states under 'Legal Controversies' that after the lawsuits, Joe 'retained control' of the Vandals record as if that's the only salient point to the settlement we all agreed to. What does that mean exactly, to retain control? And then continuing in the discussion area, Illazilla again writes, apparently defending the inclusion of the "Controversies" segment against Joe's more committed fans objections, that Joe "defended himself against them (charges by his former band mates)," and "as a result maintained rights to the material." Where is the citation for that? This is more pure Escalante-style revisionism.

It seems to imply that Joe won in court against what he and his friends refer to as an extortion attempt by ALL of his former band mates against solely him. Now the EXACT TERMS of the settlement are covered under a relatively-toothless NDA which Joe seems to think should hide any reference to all of his crimes leading up to our eventual suit against him, but I will say that there are far more important points in the agreement than he simply "retained control." What it should say is that although Joe was allowed to continue to license the record, the actual authors and other musicians on the first and second records GOT PAID their share for the first time in up to 15 years as a result of that settlement. And those 15 years had been spent with Joe happily spending almost ALL the income those records generated. When he'd gotten away with cashing those checks for a few years he even went so far as to change the song-writing credits which had originally been split democratically among the four members (to Joe's and my own great advantage as Stevo and Jan had written most of those songs before they met Joe or I) to simply read "All words and music by Joe Escalante." Now he claims that was an accident at the printer. Sure, that's why he signed all those other licensing contracts to stipulate "All words and music by Joe Escalante." I know a little bit about how those movie contracts work and if Joe had really no intention of misrepresenting Stevo and Jan's work as his own then he could've fixed it every time he signed a new contract. But he didn't because then he would have had to PAY those original authors and players of that music. He continued, for YEARS and on MANY contracts, to claim that he wrote everything himself and that's called plagiarism. A particularly vile thing to do to other musicians especially when his motive was mainly the profits he didn't want to share.

Other absolute lies that must have come from Joe (as he is the one with everything to hide here) are restated by other people in Joe's circle. Like the former Kung-Fu employee who says (on Illazilla's page) that there was a court agreement awarding Joe ownership of the record. It never happened at ANY point EVER. Another what-I-say-three-times-is-true lie from Joe. Simply put, Brett gave the record back to ALL OF US VANDALS and Joe KNEW THAT when he was handed the masters after years of non-payment by Epitaph. Brett owed all of us and this was his AA 9th-step way of putting things right. Why would he only give the record to one guy when he owed all of us and we'd ALL been harassing him for the money for years? Nobody but Joe could even imagine that one band member would then steal everyone else in the band's shares and declare himself the 'owner' of the music. Even the 'agreement' that Joe claims gave him all the rights, the bit about Jan and Stevo doing a reunion show (of the songs they wrote themselves with the name of the band they started themselves), is entirely specious. You don't give up your record rights over the phone to a little guy screaming at you on a long-distance call. It's simply not how you transfer ownership of anything, especially not stuff that has long-range earning potential. Copyright law specifically forbids verbal transfer of ownership of record rights. And if there was such a court document then why isn't it ever cited. Why did Joe have to go to his buddy at Goldenvoice to testify that there was a verbal agreement. If there was a legal document or a court record Joe would have produced it in court. But he couldn't. Because it doesn't exist. Another absolute fiction from Joe Escalante.

The main reason that Jan and Stevo didn't pursue Joe much sooner is that when I'd see them they'd ask me how much Joe had paid me and I'd say, "Oh, like $120 bucks this year." They couldn't know it was even worth the expense of a lawyer because we all believed Joe was paying me my full 25% share. None of us knew that Joe should have been paying me about ten times that much. We know this now thanks to SoundScan. When I actually asked Joe back in the early 90s for financial records he said it would be a big hassle and didn't comply. So Joe's stealing of most of my money directly facilitated his theft of ALL of everyone else's money. And now he's writing this howling bunch of lies here http://thepunkrockstory.blogspot.com/2007/04/chapter-1-birth-of-vandals-vandals.html all the while pretending he's somebody named Atom "who likes to talk to the old guys" about the early punk scene. I've read enough of Joe's screed elsewhere to recognize the constant misspellings nestled neatly among the praise-Joe-and-libel-everyone-else lies that are the bulk of his work.

Anyway, I just went and had a look at the long list of edits that Joe and his friends have made to my own page, including the claim that I killed Brad from Sublime. Thanks to whatever Original-Vandals watchers originally created my page and have continuously removed the libels against me. I'm counting on those of you who can spot a lie to fix the actual page contents here under 'Legal Controversies.' Even if the guy's your hero or your boss or your current affair.

In closing I want to tell a little anecdote about what happened on my porch a few weeks ago when Joe sent out the DA's investigators to try to scare me. He'd told them that I was an arms dealer and some sort of physical threat to himself and his wife so they came strapped and concerned about protecting Joe from me. They left an hour and a half later saying it sounded like a civil matter to them. Early in the conversation I had to repeatedly explain that I wasn't a threat, had made no threats, didn't know of any threats etc. The investigator finally asked me,

"Do you ever have fantasies about physically hurting Mr. Escalante?"

I turned to look at him directly.

"Fantasies? Are you sure that's even your jurisdiction?"

"Well, no, of course not. But I'm trying to get a feel for the situation," he replied.

"All right, in that case I'll tell you what my fantasy is about Joe," I answered. "My fantasy about Joe, and mind you this is pure fantasy and will never happen, my fantasy about Joe is that someday he stands up like a man and admits he was wrong to steal all of our money. That it was wrong to steal particularly Stevo and Jan's credit on songs they wrote before they even met him. That he hated Stevo but that was not a valid excuse for the criminal acts he committed. And that he's sorry he did it all and is paying everybody back in full with interest. That's my fantasy about Joe Escalante, sir."

Steve humann 02:13, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

PS: You want to read about threats just go look for my myspace blog.

Wow. OK, let me make one point very clear before I explain things: Before I started working on the Wikipedia article about the Vandals, I wasn't even aware of the whole situation surrounding the writing credits, money, etc. I initially began working on the article to improve the discography section, but I found that the biography portion was extremely lacking and focused almost entirely on the early years of the band, making some pretty speculative and unsourced accusations about the conflicts between Escalante and everybody else over the rights to the early material. The situation on Escalante's biography page was the same. Being pretty new to Wikipedia at the time, I decided to be bold and do pretty much complete rewrites to both articles to make them more informative and neutral. In the process of rewriting the articles I engaged in some discussions with other editors (some of which are above, you may see some signed under my old username "IllaZilla2") and we came to some consensus about how to present the information about the legal disputes. In doing so, and ever since, I have tried to follow Wikipedia's rules on verifiability, citing sources, no original research, and neutral point of view as closely as possible. That has meant seeking out sources for the information included, referencing and citing them appropriately, and being careful not to misconstrue the information presented therein. However, much of what has been decided on has also been guided by consensus with other editors who are also guided by these policies and who may feel one way or the other about the issue.

Now, as to what you're saying here: I'm taking it that you object to the wording in the Joe Escalante article: "Lawsuits ensued, resulting in an out-of-court settlement which left Escalante in control of The Vandals' back catalogue," and in The Vandals article: "In any case, Escalante maintained legal control over the rights to the Vandals' name and catalogue." As far as I can recall, at the time those parts were being written, that was the wording that myself and a few other editors agreed on and felt was the most neutral. Looking at it again I can agree with your point that it needs a source, but I unfortunately haven't been able to come up with one yet. I'll keep looking, but I was given the impression that when all was said and done Escalante did maintain control over the material, even if the other members in question received their money and/or proper credit. I am not a lawyer, and even though my username is IllaZilla I'm not close to nor partial towards any member(s) or era of the band (I'm a fan of the band in general, I like the song and I think it sounds cool). I'm just a fan who's trying to contribute to better and more balanced articles about the band and its members. But I, and all contributors here, have to abide by Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Which means that all information in the article has to be presented neutrally and be attributable to reliable, third-party sources. That means that even if you are Pfauter, we can't simply take your account of events as you've posted here and present them as facts in the article. Admittedly we can't do the same with the opposite side of the debate either, and maybe there is some wording or information in that part of the article which could be improved. But unless there are outside sources to back it up, particularly with a topic that is clearly heated, we have to go with the sources we have and present their information in a fair and neutral manner.

I, and I'm sure any other editors interested in these articles, would gladly welcome any reliable outside sources you'd care to provide that would help make the article more factual and balanced. But I would like to caution you regarding Wikipedia's rules on conflicts of interest in contributing to articles regarding subjects to which you are so closely involved. Specifically, Wikipedia is not a soapbox for presenting your opinion or your side of an argument. I can understand your desire to see the matter presented factually, and I sympathize with any objections you may have to the current content. Rest assured that I and other well-intentioned Wikipedians are equally concerned with the presentation of information within articles and are happy to do what we can to improve them. However, we are bound by the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia itself and are limited to the reliable sources that we are able to find. Most of us are not journalists, and therefore it is not always easy or even possible for us to have access to all information on a subject. If you have sources that you would like to contribute that you feel would help improve the articles, then they are welcome and I would be happy to work on including them. --IllaZilla 08:31, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

So, in view of there being no citation for Joe's being in any sort of control, how about that comes down until you do have that citation. You see, the legal document that allows him to continue selling the record is covered by an NDA so he has the same problem I do. We allowed him to continue to sell the record because he was doing pretty well at it. I do have a W-2 that shows my earnings from the Vandals for last year. That's a first and I don't think that would be covered by the NDA. But on the other hand it doesn't really prove much as you only have the citation that we sued "alleging" non-payment.

Anyway, Joe is currently in full-blown violation of our agreement and says that it's null and void due to what he calls "contractual breaches" of the NDA. This will be proven to be nonsense at our forthcoming arbitration hearing. What he's done is write a new deal, heavily favoring himself and cutting out our lawyers. For example he is still paying himself the synch fee (songwriter's cut) on songs he's admitted under oath not to have written. Of course he doesn't extend that favor to me as was the original songwriters' intent. I wouldn't mind being cut out of that bit of generosity (on Stevo and Jan's part) if Joe would do the right thing and cut himself out too. But he can't--he's too greedy.

The biggest problem Joe has is that his entire story is built on lies. I know rich and powerful people can sometimes afford to create an entirely new reality for themselves, but in this case I think there are enough original fans and detectives that the truth WILL eventually come out completely. This is not a war between Joe and the people he stole from so much as it's a war between a giant pile of often-contradictory and poorly-spun lies and the actual truth.

And I am discussing this here on Joe's talk page instead of on The Vandals talk page because, as I think you mentioned, this is at least as pertinent to Joe as to The Vandals. And (again, contrary to what Joe's shills say) our lawsuit was only ever against Joe, not the current Vandals who we really have no beef with. I even wrote the other three guys (Dave, Josh and Warren) a long letter before we went to court explaining what Joe had done to us and that this was between Joe and us only--nothing to do with them.

Oh, and I am definitely Steve Pfauter. Email me, call me, verify, whatever.

Steve humann 21:28, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, the COI rules and the fact that this is a settled case (even though it's going back to arbitration) is why I'm typing this here. I think the most germane bit of the COI for me is: "Editors who may have a conflict of interest are not barred from participating in articles and discussion of articles where they have a conflict of interest, but must be careful when editing in mainspace. Compliance with this guideline requires discussion of proposed edits on talk pages and avoiding controversial edits in mainspace."

Everything pertaining to the case except the final agreement is out there already. I released documents to several people as the case progressed, hoping for some press. Their subsequent publication is not a violation of the NDA as Joe claims. You guys just have to look for it. The only two things I haven't released yet are Joe's apology letter to my attorney for physically threatening him and the final agreement. I'm saving that stuff for the book. The rest is already out there. The journalists who have it just have to publish it.

Steve humann 00:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your continued input. I put up the information about the COI and other policies earlier not because you'd violated them, but because I wasn't sure if you were aware of them and this could easily be an issue where those policies would be pertinent. You've been very good about addressing issues here on the talk page rather than making COI edits to the article itself, and I thank you for that. Before you brought it up here I was completely unaware of the NDA issue as noone else had mentioned it previously. Given that there is an NDA covering the final results of the legal case, that I haven't been able to find a reliable published source to state what the results were, and that there is clearly continued disagreement between yourself, Escalante, and the other former members regarding the issue, I'm trying to come up with a better way of phrasing that last sentence (simply taking it out would leave the end of the paragraph hanging). How about something like "Lawsuits ensued, resulting in an undisclosed settlement which allowed Escalante to continue marketing the band's back catalogue. Legal processes regarding the issue, however, are ongoing." Would that be accurate enough without requiring a citation, since I can't find one? --IllaZilla 07:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi IllaZilla, thanks for your understanding and this attempt to address my concerns. I guess the only things I can think of that would be obvious without seeing the agreement by one of us violating the NDA are:

A. That the double record continues to be pressed and sold by Timebomb Inc. They are currently sitting on those royalty checks as they have received conflicting letters of direction about where to send the money. The first one came as a result of of our settlement agreement and the second, conflicting letter came from Joe later.

B. That the credits have been reverted from "All words and music by Joe Escalante" to the original credits of "All words and music by The Vandals" as the original record was credited above where it listed all four of us then-Vandals. This is verifiable by first looking at the credits for the pre-agreement Sony Pictures' "XXX," Beyond Films' "Salt Lake City Punk," Manic Hispanic's record where they cover The Vandals' "Urban Struggle" (changing the title to "I Want to be a Cholo") and probably lots of other places we haven't discovered yet, where the credit reads "All words and music by Joe Escalante." Then you go look at the credits for the only post-agreement license of Jan and Stevo's "Urban Struggle" and that is the movie "Jackass 2." There the credits should say "Words and music by The Vandals."

I can't say whether the credits on the actual CDs have been reverted yet, as Timebomb might make very large batches of a record like this that just won't stop selling even after 25 years.

Which brings me to an interesting point about why Joe feels the way he does about this record--that he should get all the money. He has stated that without his hard work over the past 18 to 23 years after the rest of us original members quit, "this record wouldn't be worth a D.I. 7-inch." An interesting point to be sure but it has no basis in the legal reality of who should get paid for the record. The converse argument, equally silly, is that without the hard work of us original members there would have been no mantle of punk rock credibility for him to run off with and exploit, so therefore ALL the money the Vandals EVER make should go to the original members.

Joe says now that he wished he'd changed the name of the band once he'd changed the lineup. This is typical ridiculousness. Does he also wish that his new Vandals (whatever he would have called them) wouldn't have had a solid pair of established radio hits to create a draw and make money with?

Steve humann 15:22, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I see I didn't really directly answer your question. The only improvement I would make to your proposed sentence is to change "marketing" to "licensing" and add the bit about the credit reversion. Actually the only thing not covered by the NDA is the easily-verifiable reversion to the original credits, but even without any citation I know the truth to be that Joe still is currently allowed to license the record for use in movies, ads, cover-songs etc. So, sure, leave that in. But the term shouldn't be "marketing" as that's what Timebomb does for us with that record.

Steve humann 15:56, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, just for fun, compare the earliest movie credits for Jan and Stevo's song "Urban Struggle." You'll find those particular credits watching the movie "Dudes" from 1987. The song isn't credited to the The Vandals OR Joe Escalante. It's actually correctly credited to the two guys who wrote it. That's because Jan was still in the band and even though the whole band was there and got credited for appearing in the movie, the filmmakers asked for who had actually written that particular song. Joe and Jan's falling out came later and coincidentally that's when the deliberate miscrediting began.

Steve humann 16:51, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I made some wording changes and additional references to this article and to The Vandals. For references I used SLC Punk (which I own), the IMDB soundtrack listings for XXX and Jackass Number Two (which I don't own), and the All Music Guide entry for the double album which lists the credits. Take a look at how they read and let me know what you think.

One other question for you: Jan Nils Ackermann is a stage name, correct? His real name is Jan Saakert? Because I'd like to correct that or at least note it somewhere in The Vandals article. --IllaZilla 20:53, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I like the fix, thanks a lot. Jan's name is Ackermann for the purposes of the Vandals. Could you send me your email address? Mine's on my Steve Humann Wiki page.

Steve humann 21:21, 18 August 2007 (UTC)