DarkRoom Magazine

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.by Ashbury Heights on Monday, October 11, 2010 at 10:49am.
Ashbury Heights turned five this year. This should be a cause for celebration but after the last 24 months of constant fights and arguments with our label this band has begun feeling like a prison. For this and many other reasons I do hereby announce that I am disbanding Ashbury Heights.

This band was never meant to be a niche act, circumstances outside of our control made us sign with a niche label however and in hindsight it was probably not a good idea. It is quite clear that there is no future for us within the confines of the obscure Germanic subgenre that we've been a part of since our conception. After five years of hard work we're still not selling any records and during that time we've had less than 20 paying gigs. I want you to know that we have tried to savour each and every one of these as if it were our last.

We've soldiered on despite catastrophic results mainly because of the few but stalwart fans that have gathered around our banner, you have all been amazing. You have given us strength and purpose when we had nothing and you've kept us going through the long nights because we wanted to be worthy of your praise.

But lately the situation has gotten worse and gigs are fewer than ever, we can no longer justify the amount of time this project is taking up considering that it doesn't give us anything solid in return.

We have expressed a wish to leave our current record label and try our luck under different management. Part of the blame for our lack of success at least, must be attributed to their lack of marketing.

We should of course also be prepared to acknowledge the possibility that our music is rubbish and all our fans simply have awful taste (bless you). In that case this would have to be the very definition of the expression 'good riddance', no?

Naturally, if such a thing was to be true then our label is also guilty of having terrible judgement in picking it's bands. Oddly enough they have refused to negotiate in any way and even claim that any songs I ever make in the future belongs to them. Our contract really does give them the right of ownership to everything I do musically but it's hard to understand why they would choose to maintain this standpoint considering that they've never made any money off of us so far. Why would they want to keep me under contract when it never gave them anything in the first place?

I feel that after five years with them without any real progress it wouldn't be fair to ourselves or to the fans to allow them to continue their mismanagement of our music. Therefore I will not be releasing any music at all until the matter has been resolved. When and if we can get out of our contract with our label, Ashbury Heights may be reunited but until then all my musical projects are on hold.

We'd like to express our gratitude to all the tour managers, bus drivers and other heroes who have supported us through the years and to the small and exclusive group of promotors who dared to take a plunge and book a small and unknown act such as ourselves despite the financial risk. A thanks also goes out to our booking agent Jan Winterfeld who's always seen to it that the few gigs we've landed have been wonderfully organised.

I would also peronally like to thank my band members through the years: Yaz, Johan, Kari and Tomas. You helped keeping this rusty train rolling. Thanks.

And of course, our amazing fans.

Unfortunately a great chunk of you who have expressed approval of our music, hail from countries we've never visited. It's a shame that we haven't been able to perform live in places like Australia, Mexico, Canada or the United States. To all of you fans over there we express our heartfelt thanks for the unyielding support and lament that we never got to meet you on the road.

To the people we did meet down that road, we salute you all. You have been wonderful and you have cheered even though steadily failing health meant our last performances have been pretty awful. We really do love you, you're the one good thing we'll remember from all of this.

We'll see you down the road.

Anders Hagström

Timrå

2010-10-11

Vorrei invece attirare la vostra attenzione sulla diatriba che sta imperversando in questi giorni su diveri siti. In estrema sintesi: il signor anders Hagstrom (leader degli Ashbury Heights) ha accusato l'Out of Line di scarso "supporto promozionale" ed altre nefandezze (sulle questioni legate al loro contratto con la label tedesca non entro nel merito, non conoscendo ovviamente i termini contrattuali). La rivista belga Side Line ha commentato nella maniera che potete leggere qua sotto le esternazioni dello svedese, che di certo fa la figura di un viziatello montato (mi dicono che gli Ahsbury Heigts abbiamo richieste un pò troppo esose per i loro "live", che non viaggino su voli low-cost, ecc...). Di certo trovo che Anders faccia una pessima figura e si stia suicidando (artisticamente parlando); l'Out of line è la miglior label del settore, dire che non li abbia "supportati" mi pare ridicolo (vedere l'ultimo Ritual per fare un esempio)..... piuttosto faccia "mea culpa" per un album mediocre (l'ultimo) non all'altezza del favoloso debut album e successivo mcd.



Ashbury Heights blames label, The Simpsons, in short the whole world for not having success

Ashbury Heights blames label, The Simpsons, in short the whole world for not having success
Side-Line is all about supporting bands and labels and sometimes a label does things incorrectly and if it's really bad, Side-Line will address the issue as we have proven in the past. But, whereas labels are often - wrongfully - considered to be the bare devil, we couldn't get rid of the impression that this time it's a band who goes a bit too far in twisting the truth.

In a post on their Facebook, which also ended up on the Side-Line forum, Swedish electropop act Ashbury Heights - and in particular Anders Hagström - blame their label [Out Of Line] for not having achieved the success the band hoped for. Says Anders Hagström: "I feel that after five years with them without any real progress it wouldn't be fair to ourselves or to the fans to allow them to continue their mismanagement of our music."

He also says that the band was "never meant to be a niche act, circumstances outside of our control made us sign with a niche label however and in hindsight it was probably not a good idea." We're kinda of wondering where the label made an error there, the band was free to choose from the start.

The public slander - because there is no other word for what has been posted - smells like a very uncool way to get under the contract from the label. Read along: "Therefore I will not be releasing any music at all until the matter has been resolved (...) and if we can get out of our contract with our label, Ashbury Heights may be reunited but until then all my musical projects are on hold. (...) We have expressed a wish to leave our current record label and try our luck under different management. Part of the blame for our lack of success at least, must be attributed to their lack of marketing."

Lack of marketing? Every journalist and label we contacted about this were 'unisono': Ashbury Heights have had the maximum of marketing that a band can dream of. It gets a bit ridiculous when the band says: "We should of course also be prepared to acknowledge the possibility that our music is rubbish (...) if such a thing was to be true then our label is also guilty of having terrible judgement in picking it's bands." Well, why not blame the label because it's raining today?

Quite honestly, in the whole history of Side-Line we have never met a band shooting itself so in its foot by posting this. We seriously doubt that any label from this scene (which they do not want to belong to) will consider signing them up after seeing such public attacks about something which should remain between both label and band anyhow. We asked Out Of Line for a reaction, but they declined to comment on a matter between a band and a label.

Nevertheless, the band is seriously pissed of: "It is quite clear that there is no future for us within the confines of the obscure Germanic sub-genre that we've been a part of since our conception. After five years of hard work we're still not selling any records and during that time we've had less than 20 paying gigs." Perhaps a change of attitude wouldn't hurt the band... Most promotors will know what we are talking about.

And Anders Hagström, don't get us wrong, we still think that Ashbury Heights rocks, but this move stinks big time. We are pretty sure that Side-Line will be the only magazine saying openly what many think, but that's what we are here for. Let the flaming start!

Update: Ashbury Heights singer Kari Berg had this to say on what Anders Hagström posted: "This fight is between Anders and the label. Not both of us. I'm grown up and I wouldn't have posted something like that. So I have nothing to do with this."


http://www.side-line.com/news_comments. ... ic+news%29

Che avessero parecchia puzza sotto il naso lo avevo intuito mesi fa in occasione di un contatto-proposta per un'intervista.
Anders Hagström, se le cose stanno davvero così, ha scelto con metodo la via migliore per estinguersi velocemente.
L'umiltà è e sarà sempre l'arma vincente in ogni ambito: più che mai quello artistico dove ci si monta facilmente la testa nel giro di un album discretamente riuscito.
In ogni caso gli AH, ma questa è solo la mia opinione, sono stati parecchio sopravvalutati per ciò che concretamente rappresentano.

Mah...