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News Page September 2003: News from the St. Thomas world, and updates to this page in September 2003. This page is not an official source of information, if in doubt of accuracy of info please get in touch with webmaster of this page or the info source.
September 28th 2003 - Thomas is currently back in studio in Etnedal to mix his forthcoming album. Mixing work will be done by him and producer Robert Jønnum, they started working on it this weekend, and plan on finishing on Wednesday this week. In addition, Thomas has finished the artwork for the album, which he painted himself, and has sent it off for printing. Last Thursday, Thomas bought a very nice Sony DCR-TRV80 digital video camera, which he plans on using to make short movies to his own music, filming and editing everything himself. He says he has been filming with it every day since he got it. There will be a Norwegian tour to co-incide with the release of the new album in January. Not much has been confirmed yet, but there will be about twelve concerts in some of the biggest cities in Norway. September 25th 2003 - St. Thomas' fourth album, "Let's Grow Together - The Comeback Of St. Thomas," will be released in Norway through Racing Junior on January 19th 2004. It sounds fabulous. Tracklisting, much more information about the songs and the cover art drawn by Thomas himself will be unveiled on this page some time in the near future, so stay tuned. September 5th 2003 - This morning, St. Thomas sent out a personal letter to a number of Norwegian journalists, breaking the news that his German label City Slang, who distribute St. Thomas record in Europe through the Virgin and Labels branches, have decided to end their co-operation with St. Thomas. At City Slang they state that they have listened to the new St. Thomas album and like it a lot, and that their decision to not continue to work with St. Thomas has absolutely nothing to do with the music. According to them, two years of ups and downs with St. Thomas have led to there not being anyone left at the office who gets really excited when it comes to a new album, instead everybody remembers the downsides, the insults and the crisis points. In his letter to the press, Thomas starts off by stating that his newly-recorded album, "Let's Grow Together - The Comeback Of St. Thomas," 'is a reaction to how I see a disgustingly fake and commercial music business, where lies and cheats are in focus, and the bad sides are covered up.' Therefore he has chosen to go public with these news, which most record companies would have tried their best to keep out of the spotlight. Thomas lists eight reasons for why City Slang have had enough, including: The catastrophic performance at Royal Albert Hall in London Spring 2002; Thomas and guitarist Espen Mellingen stopping halfway through the first song in Newcastle, with Thomas lifting up his guitar player and threatening to throw him off the stage; Thomas breaking his CDs and trashing the venue at the fourth concert of the scheduled two-week American tour Autumn 2002, ending the tour there and then; Thomas leaving the stage halfway through the set in Amsterdam Spring 2003, after harassing his Dutch label from the stage and throwing CDs at a booing audience. Thomas just came back from a two-week vacation in Greece, and received the news from City Slang when he got back. According to him, he had already decided on his own during the vacation that it was time to end the co-operation with City Slang, having been disappointed with how bad the sales have been for the last record. He also criticises the Norwegian media for giving a completely different impression of what things are like for Norwegian artists abroad, 'trusting reports from Norwegian managers and companies who report of excellent reviews (which in itself might be correct, but remember that this world is flowing over from reviews, including very good ones, and it is not a shock that a handful of these are Norwegian) and one assumes that different artists are taking the countries abroad by storm, also when it comes to sales.' Thomas ends his letter to the Norwegian journalists by asking himself why an artist would come out with such 'untactical' information, why he would contact the press himself without even informing his record label about it. His reasoning: 'I have made my best record. A raw, delicious, one hundred percent honest album. I have co-produced and play most of it myself. It asks the Top 20-culture to go to hell.' |