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With
great pleasure we proudly announce that several years of flirting, nine
months of courting, and one month of hard, but fair contractual
negotiations has lead to the final signing of a deal, which means that
numerous Crunchy Frog artists will be released in the USA. These
include names such as Powersolo, epo-555, Wolfkin, The Mopeds, as well
as other artists from the Crunchy back catalogue.
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Ryko
has for more than twenty years enjoyed the position as a renowned and
successful indie label (Rykodisc) and indie distributor (Ryko
Distribution, and for several years Ryko Distribution has been voted
the best midsize distributor in the US. Rykodisc has had important
artists in their stable such as David Bowie, Frank Zappa, Big Star,
Bootsy Collins, Flaming Lips, Elvis Costello, They Might Be Giants,
Devo, Morphine, The Replacements, Yoko Ono, Sugar, Throwing Muses, Tom
Tom Club, Brian Eno, James Kochalka Superstar, Ladytron, Elf Power and
many others. Read more about the Ryko history here
In
January this year Crunchy Frogs own Jesper Reginal met with Rykodisc’s
then-President, William Hein, at the Midem trade fair in Cannes, and
the two of them started to talk seriously about cooperating. A few
months later Hein brought several people from the Ryko stab to an
epo-555 concert at the SXSW festival in Texas. It was by then clear
that his staff at Ryko in both New York and Boston also shared Hein’s
love for Crunchy artists as well as his wish for more cooperation with
Crunchy Frog. Meanwhile, during the summer, Ryko was sold to Warner and
Hein left Rykodisc. In turn, the head of Ryko Distribution, Jim Cuomo,
was now appointed as head of both Ryko companies. Fortunately, Jim had
just as big an interest in working with the Crunchy bands as Hein, and
the closer relation between the two Ryko-branches has in fact made is
possible to construct a much more interesting deal for both parties.
Crunchy Frog will get access to Ryko’s well-developed and
award-winning distributional network, and thanks to Ryko’s own
promotion and marketing apparatus, the Crunchy bands are secured
regular and serious releases in the American market. This means that
The Crunchy bands will be promoted actively and equally in line with
Rykos’ own artists. All this will continue to exist under Crunchy
Frog's own label and logo, which will assist in establishing the record
company as a guarantee for originality, quality and good music in the
USA – all of which we are already recognized for in Scandinavia, Iceland
and Germany.
The deal with Ryko enables Crunchy Frog to establish
itself as an independent label in a large, and for our bands, very
interesting market. The independence is not only apparent, but also
bona fide. The deal is neither a partnership nor a shared ownership
with neither Warner, nor Ryko. Crunchy Frog will solely decide which
band to be released and when. All in all, this is an outstanding deal,
which both Ryko and Crunchy Frog are thrilled about and expects a whole
lot from.
The first Crunchy Frog products will be released in USA
during the spring of 2007. More information about this will be released
in time. Now all there is to do is work and make plans. We look forward
to it!
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