DMB Languishes in Europe

By Waldo Jaquith

German Dave Matthews Band website nancies.de (a sort of an unofficial sister site of nancies.org, at least in spirit and design) has been following closely the matter of Dave Matthews Band's relationship with BMG and the distribution of their albums in Europe. After last September, when it was revealed that DMB had severed their relationship with BMG Europe, the future of the band in Europe looked sketchy. It's not looking much better now. An English translation of Joern Schweichler and Christian Boecker's article follows:

With this week's release of Some Devil, Dave Matthews' solo debut, the relationship between the Dave Matthews Band and label BMG Europe becomes more and more difficult to discern.

Back in September 2002, an Italian and a British DMB website reported that the Dave Matthews Band was not be planning on renewing their contract with BMG Europe. These information came from sources inside of BMG Italy/BMG UK. However, another European website, greystreet.dk recently informed their readers that there was no end to the contract between the Dave Matthews Band and BMG Europe. A representative of BMG Denmark told greystreet.dk that it was the band's wish to not release their latest studio album, Busted Stuff, in Europe.

While the cooperation between the Dave Matthews Band BMG's sister companies BMG Germany, BMG Australia and BMG Belgium has been ended, there is a different situation for a few other European countries, such as the UK, France, Norway and Denmark. In those countries, Some Devil is going to be released just in time. In fact, some countries released Some Devil one day prior to the official U.S. release date. This information came from inside the previously mentioned BMG companies in Europe.

Unlike some other European countries (Italy, Sweden, Belgium), the Dave Matthews Band is still listed on BMG Germany's website. However, it hasn't been updated since June 2002; Busted Stuff, Live at Folsom Field and Boyd Tinsley's True Reflections haven't been mentioned. The same thing happened on the websites of BMG Spain/BMG Australia (even though Australia is not in Europe, the problem remains the same).

BMG Germany refused to respond to numerous requests from nancies.de to clear up the situation.

No official German release date of Some Devil has been slated. The online shop amazon.de starts selling Some Devil on September 25th, however, this is not an official release. It's an import CD from amazon.co.uk.