also from this week's Chronicle:
As you learned here last week, long-beleaguered local label Watermelon Records
filed for Chapter 11 on December 31, 1998, enabling the company to have
legal
protection from creditors during a period of financial restructuring.
So what's up next
for the label? How about a merger with their distribution-mates at
Sire, local blues
label Antone's Records? One disgruntled former Watermelon employee
calls it "the
blind leading the blind," but Antone's Christie Warren confirms rumors
that the
latter label has been contacted by the former -- though nothing is
confirmed at the
moment. "We're big fans of theirs," she says, "and anything we can do
to help them
we're going to do." Watermelon President Heinz Geissler is a bit more
vague on his
plans, worried that premature talk could jinx his ideas for the future.
"We're working
on something right now," he allows, but declines to say whether it's
with Antone's or
another party. Whoever it is, he says he had hoped to have ink on paper
this week,
and expects to have solid news on Watermelon's fate to report in the
very near
future. He could have more trouble in the wind, however; Tom Pittman of the
Austin Lounge Lizards says that he fears his band may be forced to sue
Watermelon. Pittman claims that the band canceled its contract with the
label in late
1998 after the label failed to pay a sum that was owed within the
contractually
agreed time. The Lizards hope to take their catalog to Sugar Hill
Records, but, says
Pittman, "[Watermelon is] resisting us, so it looks as though we're
going to have to
sue." Geissler, on the other hand, says that not only are the Lizards
still under
contract with the label "forever," he believes the two parties "have a
good working
releationship." Given Pittman's statement, I'd have to say I've seen
better ones.
Don't expect Watermelon/Waterloo Records' owner John Kunz to figure
highly in
the label's plans. Kunz says that while he will remain a shareholder in
Watermelon, he
doesn't expect to be involved with the newly restructured company as he
has in the
past. Then again, he just may have his hands more than full with
competition
threatening Waterloo Records; rumor has it that a Virgin Megastore may
be one of
the planned businesses in the big shopping center in the works
catty-corner to
Waterloo at Sixth and Lamar. Calls to Virgin headquarters went
unreturned, and
Kunz says he doesn't wish to comment until he knows for sure the chain
is building
here, but he admits that he, too, has heard the rumors. In any case,
the store wouldn't
actually be open for a couple of years, one supposes, and by that time
we should
have time to decide on where to found a New Austin anyhow. (And whose
brilliant
idea was it to build at that spot and escalate the already overwhelming
traffic situation
at that uber-congested intersection? Ah, well, at least the Electric
Lounge will have
more potential customers -- if they're still there, that is).
