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Novinky.cz, the Czech news source that broke the news that Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe was arrested yesterday on manslaughter charges in Prague, says the singer could face 5-10 years in prison for his alleged involvement in an incident that left a fan dead. “For bodily injury resulting in death under section 146, paragraph 4 of the criminal code threatens Blythe five to ten years in prison,” the site says.
The band’s PR company, Adrenaline PR, issued the following statement:
Lamb of God Management will be issuing an official statement on Monday regarding the charges made against singer Randy Blythe. As no formal charges have yet been made and the case is only in the investigation stages, it would be premature to make an official statement filled with false truths or innuendos.
Having said that, management wished to address today one false piece of information that has been included in many of the news stories released so far. Under no circumstances was there a fight of any kind involved. This incident deals with a fan that three times during the concert jumped the barricade and rushed Randy during the performance. It is alleged that the third time, security was not able to reach him and that Randy pushed him back into the audience where supposedly he fell and hit his head.
Again, until the investigation is concluded this weekend, nothing more will be released, but clarity and the facts needed to be addressed on this one reported point which is totally inaccurate.
Mark Blythe,” Randy’s brother, told Richmond’s WTVR that the charges are “Bogus and outgageous and will be dropped immediately. Tomas Fiala from Czech booking agency Obscure Promotion calls the altercation “an unfortunate incident,” and says they’ll be preparing a statement.
According to WTVR, “those who know the band heard the intruder may have been struck with a microphone before the security team forced him from the stage.” Sources say that the fan died of a brain hemorrhage several weeks later in a hospital. Novinky points out that the club the band was playing, Abaton, usually has a barrier preventing fans from getting on stage. We’re obviously not legal experts, , but it seems to us like the club might also be at fault for this unfortunate incident. There’s a degree of self defense involved here, and if a fan jumps onstage, they should expect to be removed. There are still a lot of details to be sorted out, but we’d hope that Blythe’s legal team is working on this, and are hopeful that the truth comes out.
According to Czechoslovakian news source Novinky.cz, Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe has been arrested in Prague and charged with manslaughter over an incident that took place in 2010. The band had been set to play tonight in Prague at a venue called Rock Cafe with Skeletonwitch and All Shall Perish. The show is still taking place, and will go on without the headliner.
According to Novinky, a fan got onstage at a Lamb of God show on May 24, 2010, and got involved in a physical altercation with Blythe, and later succumbed to his injuries. The spottily-translated article reads as such:
“We have arrested singer year 1971, which was accused of a crime of bodily harm in the 4th paragraph, thus resulting in death, “said Prague police spokeswoman news Kropáčová Eve with the fact that the police will be more things to say.”
Metal Sucks, who originally reported the news stateside, points out that there are a lot of videos online from the show, none of which appear to show the incident happening. Furthermore, if or when someone was attacked by Blythe, judging from all the clips online from the show, you’d think that any altercation would have been captured on film and on the internet within minutes of it happening. Lamb of God’s longtime publicity firm Adrenaline PR commented that Blythe has been “wrongfully accused, lawyers are dealing with it, and we expect him to be fully exonerated.” Obviously, this is developing, and we’ll continue to bring you news as it happens.
Hope you enjoyed seeing the U.K.’s Cradle Of Filth during the Creatures From the Black Abyss tour, because it may be one of the last times you see them in the States. Not because they’re breaking up or hate America. In fact, we’re sure they’d love to keep playing in the U.S., but apparently the government is making touring in the U.S. financially difficult for foreigners. In an interview with Artisan News Service, frontman Dani Filth claimed that the IRS’ extreme taxes are preventing many foreign bands from touring the U.S.
Filth claimed the following:
“The monetary problems everybody is going through [as part of the] worldwide recession has caught up with a lot of bands. There’s a lot of bands turning away from America, in fact now, ’cause the IRS are trying to get a 30 percent tax off everybody . . . It’s going to be lucky for people to see European bands from now on.”
In the interview, which can be seen in its entirety in the video above, Filth claims that Children Of Bodom are among many of the bands opting not to play in the States because of the extreme taxes. Even though America remains one of the top music markets, metal bands barely make enough money on the road as it is, and the recession isn’t helping ticket sales either. That, plus this “30 percent tax” that Filth explains, doesn’t make touring in the U.S. so attractive for bands traveling from different countries. Fingers crossed that this won’t affect too many of our favorite foreign bands from coming back to the States, though it sounds like it already has.
It’s been a brutal summer for the concert industry, with tours being cancelled, select shows being yanked, and attendance down across the board. Following an investor disclosure last Thursday, Live Nation shares dropped nearly 12% on Friday, and fell 21% in the past week. Among the downbeat news given to investors on Thursday was that ticket sales for Live Nation’s top 100 tours dropped almost 10% in the first half of the year. There’s a lot of information in the presentation they gave investors, which can be viewed here, and we’re not sure how we feel about it.
For one, page 17 of the report states that “more bands are on the road faster now.” Under their “old model,” it took 2-5 years for a band to sell out an arena, with milestones like “write song,” “get label,” and making two albums. Under their “new model,” it should now take three months, there are now three: “post video/song online,” “sign promoter deal,” and “sell out arena.” Wait, WHAT? Who’s selling out arenas three months after they post something online? Lady Gaga isn’t, and neither is Justin Bieber. I guess that means that the Double Rainbow guy is coming to an arena near you soon. It’s also interesting that according to their study, only 15% of concertgoers find out about shows via radio and print advertising. 53% find out via e-mail and online, while almost 30% find out from friends and family.
The report also takes a look at the math behind a typical concert ticket. Using the average face value of $55.65, talent fees range between $34 and $47 dollars, and according to Live Nation’s math, the promoter makes between $3 and a loss of $10 per show.
Don’t feel bad for Live Nation though. It’s obvious that people aren’t buying as many concert tickets any more. The cost has gone way up, and anyone that’s been to a Live Nation show in the past few months has seen that it’s been much easier to buy cheap tickets as the shows get closer. It’s one of the few industries where the die hard fans that buy tickets first get hurt. And as demonstrated on page 62 of the report, $10 lawn seats, discounted 4-packs of tickets, and no service fees drove up attendance. Hey Live Nation, maybe you should drop service fees altogether, ya greedy bastards. It’s obvious from your stock price and the investor report that the model you have now isn’t working.
In their ’80s heyday, W.A.S.P. was known for their shocking theatrical stage show. After their second show cancellation in one week, the most shocking thing they could do now is actually play a show. Following last week’s cancellation in New York, fans were turned away from last night’s show in Allentown, PA at the Crocodile Rock without any explanation.
Frontman Blackie Lawless defended the New York cancellation on the band’s Web site, essentially stating what had been said before. 50 of the 500 fans at the Gramercy Theater had bought VIP packages for $50, guaranteeing them a meet and greet with the band. Apparently, Blackie freaked out when told about this, and demanded the fans be given back the$25 extra they’d been charged. When the promoters refused, he pulled the plug on the show.
If Crocodile Rock was a Live Nation venue like Gramercy Theater, it would be understood why he might have pulled out of the show. However, Crocodile Rock looks like it’s booked independently, and not only were tickets only $12.50 in advance, it doesn’t look like there was any VIP package offered. A post on the band’s message board suggested that he canceled the Allentown show because the venue wanted too much of a percentage of the merch sold.
Regardless of why he pulled out of the Allentown show, there’s really no way around it: canceling two shows in less than a week on the day of the show is a dick move. We gave him the benefit of the doubt for the New York show since he said he was essentially sticking up for his fans. But 50 fans out of 500 basically means that he was looking out for only 1 out of 10 fans (btw, W.A.S.P. sold 500 tickets in New York? Whoa!). If he comes back to NYC, the majority of those 500 probably won’t buy tickets again, and ditto for Allentown. We thought he’d lost it all the way back in September when he compared Obama to Hitler , and this isn’t winning him any points in the “Blackie Lawless isn’t a total nutcase” category.
Last night was a busy one for New York metal fans. Concertgoers had to decide between seeing Shrinebuilder and Wolves in the Throne Room at NYU, The Dillinger Escape Plan/Darkest Hour/Iwrestledabearonce/Animals as Leaders at Irving Plaza, or W.A.S.P. at the Gramercy Theater. Actually, scratch that last one. Shortly before it was to have begun, W.A.S.P. cancelled the show, leaving 500 ticket holders out in the cold.
While this is unconfirmed, we hear that Live Nation had scheduled a meet and greet as part of a VIP package, and Blackie Lawless and the rest of the band freaked out, since they hadn’t been informed about it beforehand. Apparently, the band have cancelled shows at the last minute in the past. And to the band’s semi-credit, apparently Lawless signed some autographs for fans. I say “semi-credit” because if he really put the kibosh on the show at the 11th hour over something as arbitrary as a meet and greet (which I’m sure he got extra money for anyway), that’s not the right way to treat your fans.
Bullet For My Valentine spent last week hyping the release of a new “free” track on Tuesday, and upon launch, many fans were disappointed to find the download required fans to promote the song on their Twitter or Facebook pages.
The promotion, through a service called TweetMatic, uses Twitter and Facebook’s APIs to open access to users’ accounts, whereupon it posts this message to followers/friends:
I just downloaded ‘Begging For Mercy’ from Bullet For My Valentine’s (@bfmvofficial) new album ‘Fever’ for FREE! http://mblx.us/bfmv
Some fans are understandably upset, and for a number of reasons:
- While it’s not a bait-and-switch, it can feel like one: “FREE download! Wait, first, do some work for us!”
- Allowing TweetMatic to access users’ Twitter and Facebook accounts gives them access to personal data, which they might not necessarily be interested in collecting, but still makes the user uneasy.
- The user might be opposed to posting the standardized message, as it comes off as impersonal and might even make it appear the user has been hacked. While you can personalize your message, that’s not very clear, and many users won’t care to make the effort to understand the process.
- The user hasn’t even had a chance to stream or sample the music before doing any of this. They might make all these concessions for a song they won’t even like. It’s one thing to do a little bit of work or give up some personal information to get something you really want, but we’re talking about a first-taste of a brand-new song.
While I’m not totally opposed to asking users for something like this in exchange for something (tweeting for a webstore coupon, bonus material, or something premium – Every Time I Die does this in exchange for streaming an entire DVD), this is probably not the most feel-good way to make a first impression and launch a release. It comes across as disingenuous when you build anticipation among fans (and rally with the word “FREE”), only to add even a minor speed bump between the fans and the music. With all of the white noise and hypersaturation of information facing music fans, the last thing you want to do is complicate the process.
For you BFMV fans, though, our buddies at MetalSucks found the song on YouTube:
According to court documents filed in New York, the chairman of Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd., owners of EMI Group, proposed to break up the music company in November. Guy Hands proposed splitting the group’s music publishing and recorded music divisions in a letter to their lender, Citigroup Inc., the Wall Street Journal revealed, calling it “essential.” Citigroup rejected the proposal, which would have separated the struggling recorded music division (which includes Virgin and Capitol) from the healthier music publishing division.
The report came to light as a result of legal action between the two entities. Last year, Terra Firma asked Citigroup to write off $1 billion of EMI’s debts in return for them pumping as much money into the recorded music group, which Citigroup refused. Terra Firma has since launched legal action against Citigroup, claiming that they gave them bad advice prior to the purchase of EMI in 2007. Also uncovered in the court filings was an internal memo from EMI Recorded Music chief Elio Leoni0 Sceti claiming that morale among their staff and artists was at an all time low. EMI Group is the fourth largest record company in the world.
This “deal” caught my attention during my holiday shopping, but I have to credit TechCrunch for hammering home why I found this promotion odd.
Best Buy offered a free download of TweetDeck, the Twitter app for iPhone, with the purchase of select Interscope albums from artists including Them Crooked Vultures, Hollywood Undead and Flyleaf.
Which would be a great deal, except TweetDeck is already a free app. The version offered is Interscope-branded and pre-loaded with the Twitter feeds of its artists, but still: as TechCrunch agrees, it’s a little insulting to the consumer to make a big deal out of bundling something that was already free.
Mudvayne won’t stop at spending a ton of money on (probably) extremely expensive blacklight packaging, now they’ll be shooting not one but three music videos for songs off their upcoming self-titled album.
The band will be working with director Frankie Nasso to film three conceptually linked videos for the tracks “Scream With Me“, “Beautiful And Strange” and “Heard It All Before”.
So what? Obviously this record will sell enough right off the bat to assume it will produce three singles. And expensive music videos are still totally a great idea. And we’ve heard the band doesn’t plan to tour extensively in 2010 to support the record (Chad and Greg will be working on a new HELLYEAH! album). So that’s good.
Novinky.cz, the Czech news source that broke the news that Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe was arrested yesterday on manslaughter charges in Prague, says the singer could face 5-10 years in prison for his alleged involvement in an incident that left a fan dead. “For bodily injury resulting in death under section 146, paragraph 4 of the criminal code threatens Blythe five to ten years in prison,” the site says.
Posted by Bram Teitelman on Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 10:42 am
Bad Deals, Crime, Updates