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Last night i looked into getting a trademark for the band name Bald Eagle. We have been using the name since 2003 and performing under it since 2004. The reason behind this comes from a DJ in Chicago who goes by the same name, not DJ Bald Eagle, but simply Bald Eagle (like us). DJ BE is a guy by the name of Chris Baronner who used to play in a band called Ethel Meserve. The weird part of all of this is that my old band Amputee Set played many shows with Ethel Meserve and we where pretty good friends with Chris. When i lived in Milwaukee i would frequent Chicago and Chris would get me into shows he booked at The Metro. Anyhow a few years a go we started getting emails and phone calls from our friends in Chicago saying hey why didn't you tell us you guys were playing up here, and we would respond we aren't. We found out that someone else was using our name. Chris used to go by DJ CB (CB-Chris Baronner). I sent a very nice email to Chris explaining the confusion of the names and asked if he could simply go by DJ Bald Eagle to stop any further problems and confusion. He responded back that he believed that there was enough room in this little world for 2 Bald Eagle's and that he never played out of Chicago so it shouldn't be a big deal. The problem is, with his booking at The Metro and being tight within the Chicago scene he has booked himself on many bigger shows, doing DJ sets before or after. Most shows are billed as Bald Eagle not DJ Bald Eagle (thought sometimes the DJ is included). Well recently Lollapalooza leaked their lineup for the 2008 festival and Bald Eagle was listed as a act that was to perform. Bald Eagle (us) got a ton of messages and myspace hits and congratulations. There was even a link on Lollapalooza's web page that would lead you to a splash page and screen shot of our myspace page, a picture of our guitar player, and links to some of our mp3's. The fucked up thing was we knew nothing about, and never applied to Lollapalooza or had any plans of playing it. It turns out it was a major fuck up by the Lolla staff and they meant for it to be Bald Eagle the DJ, not us. Well this lead to many phone calls from our record label to Lollapallooza trying to get to the bottom of everything. The last draw for me was a email about 4 or 5 days ago from another Lolla staff member (publicist, PR, whatever) giving us the low down on the fest and what she needed from us and what they were going to provide us with, basic details given to the performers. WE ARE NOT PLAYING THIS FEST. It is a major confusion and fuck up, though it would be funny to just show up and say hey here we are, we are Bald Eagle you sent us shit and said that we were supposed to play, so here we are. The fact of the matter is that some of them know we aren't playing and they messed up, but apparently not all of them got the message. SO SO SO, back to trade marking. I decided to get our band name trademarked, then we will meet with our lawyer and take the proper matters to get the other Bald Eagle to stop using our name. Maybe a little extreme, but hopefully you can see my point. The thing is we have worked under that name for almost 5 years, and we have multiple records out under that name, while this guy spins and remixes other peoples work. To me there is no reason for us not to fight it and end the confusion and take what i feel is rightfully ours.
In the end it cost me close to $900, so i guess we better not break up for a while. Crazy huh?
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