Tony/Victory Records Drama
Saturday, April 29th, 2006When I was in high school back in the day Victory Records was not my thing. I wasnt in to what they were putting out and I didnt give two shits about them or their business practices. Basically I didnt follow them. With that said my ignorance to their past may be exposed here. What I remember about that label was they had bands like earth crisis, hardcore sXe bands that I could care less about. I was and never will be in to the sXe thing. If you are, whatever, its your thing and thats that. I dont care. At this time sXe kids were dicks. There were always stories, things i never witnessed, about people being beat down for smoking at a show or drinking or whatever. I guess it kind of left a bad taste in your mouth about the whole sXe hardcore scene at the time. Anyways time has passed and I have grown older. The politics and business of music are very interesting to me. Recently Tony (owner of Victory) has been making his own waves. I think a lot of it is just self promotion and I think the rest is just bullshit. In my opinion I think Thursday getting big has a lot to do with where Victory records is now. At this time I was in a music slump and not really paying attention to anything music wise so again my ignorance may be exposed. I remember Thursday appearing on mtv2 out of nowhere one day. I was really shocked to see mtv playing anything from Victory let alone anything in any sense of hardcore. I got a copy of the cd and started following the band. I remember going to their website and seeing this on the first page. I found it to be interesting. It sounded like it was all true too. Basically I wrote Victory off and said fuck it whatever I dont care. I picked up their island follow up and noticed that the Victory label was on the back of it along with the Island logo. I was a little shocked to see it there and I wasnt and Im still not sure what really happened with all that. Anyways that was I guess round 1 of the whole Tony/Victory bs so far.
Recently there has been a lot of shit being talked by Tony mostly regarding Apple & iTunes. In February Tony was quoted as saying that, “iTunes steals music’s soul.” This is interesting considering Victory was going to start (i dont think they ever did) a music service that would “Blow napster away.” Granted this was 4 years ago and the music industry has changed drastically since then. In my opinion Tony is upset because iTunes is huge. They own 80% of the digital music market. He wants a piece of that but he doesnt want “his” music being sold unless he gets as much $$ as possible from each sale. He wants to be able to negotiate terms and Apple doesnt do that. He is very proud that Victory has an endcap at best buy and thinks he should be able to negotiate all that with Apple. he touts that they are the largest indie label out there. Arent they owned by MCA? At least in part if not whole? One thing he continues to bring up is that he should get a % of sales from each iPod. Are you fucking crazy?! Why didnt you ever ask for a sale of each cd player from best buy? He recently leaked his emails with steve jobs regarding all this. This brings me back to him trying to promote himself. How else would just these emails get out and not all the emails he must get from XfashioncoreX band wanting his attention? Apple started by creating an mp3 player that has rivaled everything else that has been released to date. Even the archaic first gen 5gb players are better than some of the stuff thats coming out now. Because the iPod is an apple product it runs with Apple software- iTunes. iTunes has an option to purchase legal mp3s files easily and quickly. Its nothing you have to use in order to use the iPod but its there if thats what you want to do. I have purchased a few albums through iTunes but not many. My shopping habits havent changed much. I still buy my music at the local record store or via mail order. I am also an emusic subscriber. Why in the fuck would you get any $$ for the sale of my iPod? That is ridiculous. Apple created a product everyone likes and wants and until someone beats them out they will remain on top with or without you.
The last beef thus far was the whole Hawthorne Heights beating out Ne-Yo fiasco. HH denied any involvement in the mass mailing/myspacing of wanting to “take back rock.” I dont know if they run their myspace/website or the label does. I kinda think the label might. I think they based on the fact that every Victory Records bands website/myspace had this same letter. bah!
I dont know what he is trying or wanting to do at this point. I am sure there will be more soon. I am not a fan of any of the Victory bands, they all sound the same. The current fashioncore trend is what he is preying on and soon that will die. What will he do then?
bah
The song SWARM from the new Cardinal Sin record is soooo freaking good.