Just before Record Store Day (last Saturday, April 22), Jason Pierce and Peter "Sonic Boom" Kember posted on Spiritualized's Twitter and Facebook accounts asking fans not to buy new reissues of albums by their former band Spacemen 3. The reissues were released via Space Age Recordings, the label run by Gerald Palmer, the band's ex-manager. Pierce and Kember wrote, “We are currently in legal dispute with Gerald Palmer due to him depriving us of our rights in our music and other intellectual property rights relating to Spacemen 3. Any monies from those sales will go directly to him and help fund his side of the dispute.” However, those posts have since been taken down.
In a statement emailed to Pitchfork, Palmer said that the posts were removed after he contacted Pierce and Kember's legal advisers on April 26, “requesting (amongst other things) that I required their immediate confirmation that they would remove the wildly inaccurate, distorted and untrue postings.” He continued, “I received a response 2 hours later confirming 'we can confirm that the posting has been removed from the Spiritualized Facebook and Twitter page and that it will not be re-posted.'”
Palmer also stated, “All claims that the reissues are ‘illegitimate,’ that legal action is being taken, and that the band’s members are being paid ‘very little’ in royalties are both strenuously denied and completely refuted.”
Read his full statement below.
Pitchfork has reached out to representatives for Pierce and Kember for comment.
Gerald Palmer: