We all know – or at least you should – that most German goth festivals still do the pay-for-play game. That is that many bands actually pay to play at the festivals. Nowadays even ebm/electro/goth DJs are asked to pay in order to DJ at an event (some of them were actually asked to cough up 400 Euro to play at a certain well known electro festival in Cologne for instance). But you would think that bigger artists would not have to go through this ordeal. Alas, it’s more or less what happened to Sinead O’Connor after her Italian tour agent screwed her over majorly during her last world tour.
O’Connor has posted a message on Facebook accusing her booking agent, Rita Zappador of Modus in Rebus, of defrauding her of thousands every night during her last tour. A document which O’Connor posted seems to show she got 500 Euros for a German show, while the agency got nearly 12,000 for production costs and commission.
Read O’Connor’s statements below: “What I got paid for three shows in Germany, FIVE HUNDRED EURO as compared to what everyone else got paid. The last two figures on this list amount to what the agent Rita Zappador and Modus In Rebus got, €11,700.00. The €47,700.00 is the total of what my four and a half hours’ work generated. Pls note the document is page 9 of 7! This is the type of dodgy documents we are being provided with. This is the sodding insurance document !!! In the end the agent didn’t even pay me the five hundred. SHE DOCKED ME FOUR THOUSAND! So my work generated almost €48k but cost me €4k. Pls note bands do not arrange these things themselves. One’s business managers and agents do. One trusts one is not being lied to when one is seduced to go on tour by being assured of earnings. Our job is to shake our asses and sing nice. Management’s job is to fight off every cunt that wants to rip us off. MASSIVE negligence cases to be brought by me against every member of my now ex management team. Not only for the below but for several even more appalling and wreckless negligences, which have cost me hundreds of thousands of euro which I was illegally told was my obligation to pay, and it was NOT my legal obligation. In short I have been ass raped by Rita Zappador and Modus in Rebus with the full (written, and totally behind my back, without my knowledge) support of Simon Napier-Bell, Bjorn De Water and my now ex accountant. ALL of whom need to lawyer up, and get ready for the fraud squad.”
In the meantime we noticed that it is very silent on the social media profiles of the people O’Connor holds responsible… silence before the storm. Simon Napier-Bell has reacted in a Facebook post and denied the allegations.
To be continued.
Since you’re here … … we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading Side-Line Magazine than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help. Side-Line’s independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to push the artists we like and who are equally fighting to survive. If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as 2 US$, you can support Side-Line Magazine – and it only takes a minute. Thank you. The donations are safely powered by Paypal.
