unsettling forum developments

I am a longstanding fan of both William Galison and Madeline Peyroux. I followed their collaboration from a fall 2002 performance at the Parkside Lounge in NYC through 2004.

I have followed threads on this forum dealing with Rounder's efforts to suppress the release of Got You On My Mind, a really fine record with exceptional performances by both Madeleine and William.

I notice that the forum supervisor has seen fit to remove a recent post critical of Rounder's role in the suppression of competitive product (i.e. Got You On My Mind ) and that links to this forum have been removed from madeleinepeyroux.com -- the commercial portal I presume is hosted/funded by Rounder.

I can understand why Rounder -- a for-profit organization -- would remove a forum critical of their business practices from their website since it is a promotional venue for the label. I don't understand why madeleinepeyroux.org seems to be following suit. What gives?

Criticism of Rounder is not defacto criticism of Madeline or William so I don't understand why posts critical of Rounder would be censured from your non-commerical site, which I assume is not funded or otherwise subject to the interests of Rounder Records.

I think such censorship is unfortunate. Please keep this forum open.

Dear Rich,

I'm sure there are many fans who read the posting titled "The
Gods Must be Angry" that was posted yesterday by "Doug" and
removed today. You must have missed it. "Jones" was correct.

The posting was complimentary of "Careless love" , GYOMM
and Madeleine but was critical of Rounder Records for
claiming that GYOMM was an inferior unfinished "demo" and
trying to squelch it. It suggested that Rounder's real reason for
stopping GYOMM was greed.

Unless Doug removed the posting himself- which is doubtful-
then presumably either you or Rounder removed it. If you say it
wasn''t you, I guess it was Rounder. It may be coincidental, but
it appears that this rather mild posting was too critical for
Rounder to allow and they decided to can the whole forum.

I would suspect that the discussion of GYOMM and the less
than sterling reviews of Madi's recent shows led Rounder to
view the forum as a commercial liability and the slight from
Doug was the straw that broke the camels back.

It seems that when Rounder sees a commercial liability
(GYOMM for example), they try to destroy it..

Also, I think that Rounder is afraid of the website i am building
that will show their complicity in the effiorts to destroy GYOMM
and that I will announce on this forum. They would prefer that
as few people as possible know about iit.

I think it would have been appropriate and respectful of
Madeleine's fans for Rounder to say something about the
cancelation of the forum, instead of pretending it never existed.
At least they could provide a link to the forum at
madeleinepeyroux.org, as most of Madi's fans don't know about
this site.

Regarding GYOMM being "freely availlable" , let me point out
that Greenberg has been threatening me with a lawsuit if I sold
GYOMM since December 2003. Even after it was established
that Greenberg lied about the ownership rights, he maintained
that i was violatiing a fictitious "verbal agreement" that forbade
me to sell the album. About a month ago, Madi's new lawyer,
Wendy Stryker, finally officially sued me for violating that same
non-existent agreement.

With a million dollar lawsuit from one of New York's biggest
lawfirms over my head, it has been very difficult to interest
record labels and distributors worldwide in GYOMM. That's why
i have released GYOMM on my own label, without the publicity
and marketing that Rounder has by virtue of its affilliation with
Universal music.

That's why Starbucks sold "Careless love" even though they
preffered GYOMM.

The efforts of Rounder Records and Madeleine's legal team to
rid the world of GYOMM have only softened recently because
Rounder understands that they are about to go before a judge.

They would like their past actions to disappear without a trace
like the forum they just vanished.

This is not unlike when Madi confessed to Federal Judge
Stanton that Greenberg had been lying about the ownership of
GYOMM for six months to keep it from being sold while
Rounder produced "Careless Love". Until they are about to be
busted, these people will do anything they can think of to
acheive their ends.

Rich, I sincerely admire you for allowing the discussion about
GYOMM to continue. The number of hits clearly show that this
topic is of great interest to Madi's fans. You have far more honor
than Rounder.

Yours truly,

William

Post Reply

Forum Jump -- Select Forum --  Announcements  Madeleine  Music  About

Forum Permissions You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum