I’ve written in previous posts about the horrible experience we had with a CD manufacturer called EkoDisk.com. Thanks to our excellent search engine placement for the phrase “EkoDisk sucks” (#1 in Google!), we heard from another band that had a similar experience. The Freedom Movement left a comment on one of my earlier posts, and a more complete rundown of their experiences on the CDBaby bulletin boards:

What a good idea! But what a bad company! Our music group tried do do the responsible thing by going with an Earth-Friendly CD pressing company for our second Album. We found EcoDisk on-line and thought, “what a great concept”. So we committed to going with Dave Phillips company and sent him our payment in full in the form of a cashiers check.

Everything after this point was an absolute disaster. Every timeline we set was very delayed on Dave Phillips end. Our cd release date was not met. When we finally received 50 of the 1000 units 3 weeks after our CD release date, the Cd cases themselves were of very poor quality, and did not come close to meeting industry standards. The Screen Print on the CD itself was not what the proof’s said it would be and had a mistake that was overlooked on their end that had been previously addressed during the “proofs” stage.

Dave Phillips told us to return the 50 CD’s and said he would return our money per the warranty agreement. We mailed back the 50 CD’s with confirmation of their arrival, and that’s the last we heard from EcoDisc and/or Dave Phillips. We sent out emails and phone calls for the next 3 weeks, but no response. I looked on-line for other consumer complaints, and Low and behold found some other people in the exact same boat (http://www.tangleweed.org/blog/tag/ekodiskcom-sucks/).

So to our utter dismay, we have no other option but to file a law claim to hopefully get our money back. We invested everything we had into this release so we have nothing left to move forward with while we wait for some sort of resolution with this unresponsive company. I’ve never had to sue anyone in my life, and can’t believe that I’m even in this situation.

My goal is to warn anybody who’s considering doing business with this company to PROCEED WITH CAUTION, or at the very least prepare a contract of your own for Dave Phillips to sign and agree to legally. And for God’s sake, don’t pay this guy with cash/cashiers check.

Sincerely,

A very dis-satisfied customer
The Freedom Movement

By the way, although David Phillips has signed on to his MySpace page as recently as yesterday, he still hasn’t returned any of our email messages or phone calls for almost two months now. No matter, we got our money back courtesy of a credit card chargeback. Caveat Emptor, though. You may not be so lucky.

We played a show at the Abbey Pub a few months back, opening for Hot Buttered Rum (nice folks, they). Our friend Brian taped both band’s sets, and they’re available for download at Archive.org. Here’s a tune from midway through our set: a fiddle tune medley of The Takeup Reel, Cold Frosty Morning, and Grey Eagle.

The clip should play in the flash player dealie above, or you can download the show at Archive.org.

A studio recording of this medley will be on our forthcoming 3rd CD, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals, due out soon. The first tune in the medley is a fiddle tune that I wrote for the band about a year ago. I included sheet music for it in an earlier post, should you feel motivated.

We just got the money we paid EkoDisk.com back. Not from the company itself, natch, as they’ve still failed to return any correspondence for six weeks. I’ve made repeated attempts to contact EkoDisk.com owner David Phillips for weeks via telephone and email, and had also filed a series of disputes with PayPal and our credit card company, all of which were ignored. Instead, we got the money back by filing a dispute with my credit card company, which issued a chargeback.

I have no idea what’s happened to EkoDisk or Dave Phillips. I don’t know if they’ve gone out of business, if he’s fled to South America with our money, is in jail, whatever. And, now that we have our money back, I don’t much care. We’re going full speed ahead with DiscMakers, and should have copies of our new CD in hand in a few weeks.

Here’s a sneak peek at the cover art for the new Tangleweed CD, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals, due out in a few weeks. Tony Nuccio did the design work (he also did our first two CDs). I had a hankering to use this image for years — an image of a hard-luck kid during a Chicago Stockyards strike — but we weren’t able to reach an agreement with the rights holder until a few months ago.

We’re in the home stretch with this thing. The master has been delivered to the manufacturer, and we should have design proofs in a few days. Stay tuned.

Here’s a sample track from our forthcoming third CD, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals, for your listening pleasure. It’s also available on our MySpace page.

The track is Sandy River Belle, a sporty little instrumental batting leadoff for us on MFHSOAC. Hope you enjoy it. We’re putting the finishing touches on the record, and shooting for a summer release.

We had a good day today recording with Mike Hagler at King Size, though both Mike and our banjo player Ryan Fisher were feeling poorly. We tracked five songs, and added some overdubs to the tunes we tracked last time.

The song list:

1. The Takeup Reel/ Cold Frosty Morning/ Gray Eagle
2. Little Sadie
3. Home For Dinner/ Colorado Cabin
4. Mississippi Trashboat
5. Pain in My Heart

We tracked the Takeup Reel medley again because we weren’t happy with the takes we got last time. Strangely, we were less happy with the takes we got today. Whereas the takes we recorded in October sounded rushed, today’s takes sounded kind of leaden. When comparing takes, though, we found a take from last time that we hadn’t listened to, and we all decided that we liked it just fine, so I think we’re good to go with that one.

The drill was the same as it usually is when we track: all the instruments were tracked live, vocals and some solos were overdubbed. For the overdubs, we used a very hip combination of a Blue Mouse and a pancake-shaped Coles ribbon mic. The Coles had a very nice presence that sounded great on guitar and mandolin.

More later.