have you heard the new !TOOH! album?

I think you should write a lengthy article on the shady aspects of Earache, Jim. It would seem to me that you are in the perfect position to do so (well not perfect, but close enough perhaps), since the other person who had an opportunity to take a close look at Earache is certainly not going to have anything terribly negative to say about the label’s practices:


DM: I have one last question, and I honestly don’t know what to expect from you from this, but I’ll go ahead and ask anyway. Digby from Earache has quite the reputation for being a little bit of an asshole. Is he really as much of a dick as everyone says?

Albert Mudrian: [Laughs] Digby has always been very sweet to me. Whenever I needed something, he’s always been around to help. [Laughs]

DM: [Laughs] We can leave it at that.

AM: No, no no. I’m going to do this in a way that is as diplomatic as possible.

DM: [Laughs]

AM: He has a reputation, some bands have complained about him, his practices and his label, and I think in a lot of instances they have a lot of points. But I think he’s also managed to keep this thing going for… it’s going to be 20 years next year, so he’s obviously not pissing everyone off if he’s able to bring in a band like the new Akercocke. There’s a band who signed to the label two or three years ago knowing all the stories and knowing all the tales, and I know those guys. They’re not stupid! [Laughs] I’m sure there’s elements of truth to things, but there’s two sides of every story, and I did my best to kind of let everybody have their say in terms of Digby in the book. Now, if you call Jeff Walker and ask him that question, you’re going to get a different answer. If you call Nicke Anderson or Barney Greenway, you’re probably going to get different answers.

doomsdaymusic.com 12.1.05
 
DBB said:
I think you should write a lengthy article on the shady aspects of Earache, Jim. It would seem to me that you are in the perfect position to do so (well not perfect, but close enough perhaps), since the other person who had an opportunity to take a close look at Earache is certainly not going to have anything terribly negative to say about the label’s practices:

I don't think I have the patience to do an articulate treatment of the subject. At best, maybe ask for statements from past and present Earache bands and just print those as-is.
 
... and a statement from Farmakon:

"Because of earlier experiences we decided to try to be more clear and do everything according to the contract with our second album. By this I mean making sure all the invoices were sent on time and that we would make sure we were allowed to go to studio when we did so. We sent every needed notification to Earache but we ended up communicating through Lee because Earace didn't reply to our messages. Earache told Lee he could give us permission to go to studio as planned. A little later Lee sent us a message saying that if we wanted to go to studio at that time the payments would be "a couple of weeks late". Because we still were able to do so, we took this into account when making the contract with the studio. We arranged things so that Earache had almost 3 months more time to make the payments than originally. After this time they said they never gave us permission to start recording in the first place. Because of this we had to pay for the studio, the album covers and promo pictures ourselves. We were outraged, but we thought this was just to buy time: We heard that Earache was in trouble with money themselves and we thought we would get ours as soon as those cleared. In time those hopes started fading. Before Earache finally kicked us out we had already been talking about how we could get out of the contract. So basically this was the best we could hope for at the time.

The funniest of all things is that when we asked Earache for a written confirmation that our contract has been cancelled we were refused.

Hopefully things will be brighter for Biomechanical and Ephel Duath. Also our sincere thanks to Lee for all the support through all this. And of course regards to all the others, Carnival In Coal, Forest Stream, Wolverine...

Maybe this can be ended like Digby wrote Lee after he left Elitist: "No hard feelings". Yeah, right!"
 
BenMech said:
saw a copy of the TOOH album at Vintage Vinyl today, almost bought it

So, from a "Fuck you Earache!" perspective, should one buy the album, to try to prove to Earache that we're going to support this stuff no matter what they think of it, or do we not buy the album and hope they get stuck with a stack of returns, even if that proves them right about the album not being able to sell?
 
Or maybe: "I might get $50 on eBay for this album in two years" :)

The Farmakon statement is dead on, but to clarify, Earache gave a verbal go-ahead for the recording, but said there may be a "wait" for the payment. What no one understood was that a "wait" would be measured in infinite terms... With this, and the !TOOH! album, I started getting asked for "purchase orders". Apparently these had been done for me in the past for future releases without my knowledge, but without one no invoice could be paid.
 
Jim LotFP said:
So, from a "Fuck you Earache!" perspective, should one buy the album, to try to prove to Earache that we're going to support this stuff no matter what they think of it, or do we not buy the album and hope they get stuck with a stack of returns, even if that proves them right about the album not being able to sell?

Since I'm not an Ebay seller . . EVER, I'd get it for curiosity and the music inside. However, it's bill season and I haven't taken care of taxes yet. I'll grab it afterwards. VV is always reliable
 
The same goes for us (Wolverine). They totally refused to send us a confirmation. Kind souls.
Nice! :)

I'm still wondering whether or not I should start sending daily emails about this to big-D and co.
 
I wouldn't bother. I've got no idea why no "offcial" letter is being sent, but then you could ask the same question about sales statements too for some of the bands...

Weirdly, I had 200 !TOOH! CDs delivered to my house at the end of last week. I'm really not sure if this is a "fuck you, we don't want them" or a "sell these and get your money back". Since there was no note or correspondance I'll just have to take my pick of the answers.

Either way, I've now got two boxes of CDs I don't quite know what to do with...
 
Lee_B said:
I wouldn't bother. I've got no idea why no "offcial" letter is being sent, but then you could ask the same question about sales statements too for some of the bands...

Weirdly, I had 200 !TOOH! CDs delivered to my house at the end of last week. I'm really not sure if this is a "fuck you, we don't want them" or a "sell these and get your money back". Since there was no note or correspondance I'll just have to take my pick of the answers.

Either way, I've now got two boxes of CDs I don't quite know what to do with...
ebay.