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rocktivity

(44,555 posts)
4. DING DING DING! Rocktivity, you're our grand prize winner!!!!
Wed Dec 3, 2014, 01:46 AM
Dec 2014

Last edited Thu Mar 17, 2022, 12:34 AM - Edit history (23)

"Disintermediating the labels" -- is that the legal term for "We are no longer ON a record label because our last album proved that Queensryche minus Tate equals zero, so we've gone into desperation mode"?

I was wrong about that. But I wasn't wrong about this:

...(S)eeing as (new singer) Todd (Le Torre) won't be getting anything out of the holding company, is it unreasonable to conclude that "generating" HIS income will depend on the crowdfunding?


I've dug up original singer Geoff Tate's side of the story:

I think it really began around February of (2012)...about moving our merchandising to a third party. We had control over our own merchandising company for years and years and we ran it ourselves. It's a very successful entity, and the other three guys wanted to...hand it over to somebody else and pay them more money to operate it...Our manager found another company that would do it for considerably less...

(W)e had a gig in Sao Paolo, and before the show we had a meeting...They said that they weren't planning on replacing me, but they had just fired our manager, our office assistant and one of our guitar techs, who all happened to be my family members...They had worked for us for ten years...

Of the 144 songs that Queensryche has released, I've written 116...I'm a 25 percent holder in our companies... (They want to) cut me out...split (my) 25 percent...and hire some young guy that's gonna work for a weekly wage...


And this from Queensryche's label Century Media:

...Eddie Jackson, Scott Rockenfield and Michael Wilton have successfully agreed to...buy out their former lead singer's share of the Queensrÿche corporation while allowing him the ability to be the only one to perform Operation: Mindcrime and Operation: Mindcrime II in their entirety.

(Tate)...can only refer to himself as the "Original Lead Singer of Queensrÿche or "Formerly of Queensrÿche" for a period of two years...(after which)...he can(not) mention Queensrÿche at all...As of September 1 (2014), there will be only one Queensrÿche entity (who) will continue to perform selections from their entire musical catalog including songs from Operation: Mindcrime...

But if they still have a record deal, WHY are Queensryche trying to raise $2 million AND doing crowdfunding? Proof yet again that the simplest explanation tends to be the right one: Buying Tate out most likely included giving him the rights to most if not all of their entire back catalog -- and they are just plain flat broke!

If (what's left of) Queensryche no longer have either publishing income or the bandmembers who generated that income, that leaves the band's name as their sole asset (which in turn makes their eliminating their newest members from the holding company extra inexcusable). Tate, meanwhile, has already signed a record deal, putting his ex-esteemed colleagues just one Operation Mindcrime Live album away from being the world's best Queensryche tribute band.

Detection of desperation mode accomplished: I love the smell of vindication in the morning.


rocktivity
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