esbe Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 Hello all For the sake of keeping things emotion-free and legal, we’ll cut straight to the chase and forgo the insults and accusations: It is and has been for quite some time our position that Victory Records is an artist-hostile, morally corrupt and generally dishonest company, with whom we have had the displeasure of being associated due to a contract that was signed years ago. We’re not writing this today to air grievances, of which there are many; numerous bands’ struggles with Victory are well-documented (and many more are sealed by a court of law), so we figured we’re going to skip the allegations and try to solve the problem, as we see it. We’re writing today to ask you to please boycott all Streetlight related items by not purchasing any of our records or merchandise from Victory’s website, any traditional CD stores, online third party retailers or any digital distribution service (iTunes, Amazon etc). Victory has a long-time reputation of pocketing all of the proceeds from a band’s music and merch, with shady accounting and generally bully-ish behavior. If you want to support Streetlight, our music and our ability to tour and continue to release music, please make all SM related purchases from our own webstore, The RISC Store (www.riscstore.com), or come out to a show and buy a shirt or cd from us directly. In regards to getting the music we make, you can buy directly from us, or, alternately, we’re sure you can find a way to get the tunes onto your computer that may not be, ahem, traditional… Speaking a Bit metaphorically, there is a Torrent of methods to accomplish this, and Google is your always loyal friend… As many of you know, we are in the final stages of recording our new album. It will be out and available this summer, whether via Victory, or some other method. We refuse to let our constant battles with our own record label hold back the album’s release (we can take nearly forever to finish an album on our own, thank you very much) and we look forward to being free from Victory’s clutches once our contract with them ends this summer. We wish Victory Records no ill will or harm. Ok, that’s not entirely true. But what we want more than seeing the bad guy get his comeuppance, to see the villain get bitch-slapped by karma, is freedom from a company we abhor. We want the money made by our record and merch sales to help fund the band, not a company we’re ashamed to be associated with. We don’t care about SoundScans, or charts, or success as it’s measured by an industry we can’t stand; we just want our hard work to go towards something better than the record labels that destroy the spirit of independent music. Thanks for your time and support and we’ll see you soon. http://streetlightmanifesto.com/streetlight-manifesto-proudly-boycotts-itself/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billya Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 Good luck to them. These guys deserve better than Victory Records. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamlikesmusic Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 I swear, every year these dudes make another one of these long-winded posts about how evil Victory is. Did they sign a 20 album contract or something? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xjustinxschwierx Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 I swear, every year these dudes make another one of these long-winded posts about how evil Victory is. Did they sign a 20 album contract or something? the standard Victory Contract was usually for 5 with weird options that I've heard at times jumped the number to 10. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerseydave77 Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 This is total insanity. I mean, good for them in some ways but this is truly a first for me. Maybe this is a tactic to get rights to this album for self-release. Regardless, it is a ballsy move. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GradedOnACurve Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 They should've hired lawyers a long time ago to find an out clause. C'est La Vie... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebiglebowski Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 I'm no lawyer, but encouraging the illegal downloading of copyrighted material (which even though you made it, you don't completely own it) sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen (especially from a label that is supposedly very litigious). Sucks that we are being deprived material because of this feud. Streetlight is by far the best ska band making music in my opinion. I wonder if there was some way to end "Streetlight", and for Thomas to form another band with a new label. I think I remember reading somewhere that he basically writes every part of the songs, the other guys just play the instruments. I'm sure he's thought of that, though, and it won't work for some reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerseydave77 Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 He should pull a Prince and legally change his name to the old Two-Tone Logo. Then he can record all he wants and make the label look like shit in the process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
One Hundred Fifty-Two Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 His name will be that "pronounced" Jerry Dammers. Oh also fitting Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lonesomexloveus Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 although i don't know the timeline for this band, everyone has known for years what a shitty label victory is, so i don't feel bad for bands that sign on with them despite their crappy reputation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skadaddy Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 although i don't know the timeline for this band. From Wikipedia: "They released their first album, Everything Goes Numb, which was distributed by Victory Records, on August 26, 2003." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
One Hundred Fifty-Two Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 although i don't know the timeline for this band. From Wikipedia: "They released their first album, Everything Goes Numb, which was distributed by Victory Records, on August 26, 2003." And before that catch 22 was also on victory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerseydave77 Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 Those Two-Tone sleeves and silver center labels have always stood out to me. Great design Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skadaddy Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 From Wikipedia: "They released their first album, Everything Goes Numb, which was distributed by Victory Records, on August 26, 2003." And before that catch 22 was also on victory. I forgot about that. Shit, they've been on that label for a long time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skadaddy Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 From Wikipedia: "They released their first album, Everything Goes Numb, which was distributed by Victory Records, on August 26, 2003." And before that catch 22 was also on victory. From Wikipedia: "The band then signed to Victory and produced their first studio album, 1998's Keasbey Nights." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lonesomexloveus Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 according to wikipedia, Thursday at least was complaining about them in 2001, so yeah, they probably knew about the label's bad reputation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skadaddy Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 according to wikipedia, Thursday at least was complaining about them in 2001, so yeah, they probably knew about the label's bad reputation. I agree. It seems stupid for them to sign another contract in 2003 when they had been with the label (admittedly as a different band) back when other artists were complaining. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dynamitekid Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 maybe if they produced an album more than once every 5 years, they would be out of their contract by now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtw88 Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 I could be way off base with my opinion here since I haven't listened to a single ska song in half a decade and don't care about this band at all, but this all just looks them look like bratty doofuses. It sounds like they want to have their cake and sell it too, while looking like true punks for rebelling against the establishment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
One Hundred Fifty-Two Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 maybe if they produced an album more than once every 5 years, they would be out of their contract by now they threw in the cover album and the remake of keasbey nights to speed up the process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A_Boring_Story Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 maybe if they produced an album more than once every 5 years, they would be out of their contract by now they threw in the cover album and the remake of keasbey nights to speed up the process. regarding Keasbey Nights, they didn't release it to speed up anything. From "1234 1234" lyrics on the Streetlight version: - "If there's one thing I can't stand it's when a CD is re-released untouched sonically, with a new cover, and maybe a live video and kids are tricked into buying this new edition of something they already have. I was upset when I was told the guys were going to do this with Keasbey so I offered to re-record it, because I've always thought it sounded like pure garbage sound-wise. Plus the budgets we get are laughable particularly for a band with 7 musicians to record, so we used some of our own money and took our time with this one. I'll tell you right now, we have no intent of hiding our intentions, we wanted to prevent the re-release of Keasbey untouched as well as to get the record to sound how it should have sounded originally. For that we sacrificed months of our time, and our money and now we feel what we have is worth paying for. Although, truth be told, I don't care if a single record is sold as it is, indeed, old music and kids have a right to know what it is and to decide whether or not they'll pay for it." But I think I did remember hearing them say that they wanted to get 99 Songs done quick so that it could leave them with 1 album left to get off of Victory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 although i don't know the timeline for this band, everyone has known for years what a shitty label victory is, so i don't feel bad for bands that sign on with them despite their crappy reputation. this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dethrock Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 I was actually thinking about them the other day and wondering when they'd put that next cover album out. The first one was overall, pretty terrible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 That is awesome. I was just explaining to a friend this morning about how crappy Victory are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xlovecolouredx Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 cool idea. i will support their next project. a cool label such asbestos records deserve to them, i think.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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