First, Katatonia had their guitars stolen, but then they were eventually returned. Then, Alex Bois of Periphery had 3 guitars stolen from him, and as far as I’ve seen, they haven’t been returned yet. Now, The Ocean were swindled out of all of their merch money while traveling in Spain.

Here’s the rage inducing ordeal:

“Two guys in a black BMW pulled us over with fake police IDs. They asked for our van papers and IDs and wanted to know if we had any money to declare. We were not skeptical at this point, as it is normal in Europe that you have to declare larger amounts of money when you’re crossing borders, so we told them we had merch money with us, and the guy wanted to see it. When we showed them the merch wallet, the guy reached through the open window, seized it and ran back to the BMW in front of us, where his colleague was waiting with the engine running. Unfortunately our van and trailer don’t match the speed of a BMW, but fortunately it’s not allowed to carry guns in Europe, as otherwise we would be in jail now for shooting the guy in the face.

We are facing a loss of + 6000 euro of merch income of the last days and fees. The exact amount is still to be determined. As some of you may or may not know, conditions on support tours are usually grim. Fees are low and barely cover expenses for van, gas, highway tolls, ferries etc. There is no accommodation arrangements, we’ve been crashing out on people’s floors for weeks. Losing more than 6000 euro is something we simply cannot afford at this point.

We are asking everyone who is planning to order Anthropocentric in the next few weeks through our shop to help out. You can do so by donating 5 Euro when you place your order. All income generated through this will make the loss smaller for us.

Everyone who donates 5 Euro will receive a copy of the police report and a Thank You card signed by all band members. We would like to thank you in advance for your support!”

This is starting to piss me off. Bands like The Ocean play music and tour because it’s what they love doing, not because it pays well. Having the opportunity to tour across Europe is something not many people get to do, and when all of your income from that tour is taken from you by a couple of pieces of scum like this is pretty fucking disheartening.

If you want to help out The Ocean, you can donate here. You should definitely check out Anthropocentric, because it’s fucking great. It’s a shame this had to happen right as it was about to drop. Hopefully this wave of crimes against bands will end. In tough economic times, it’s lucky that bands can still afford to make music and tour. They certainly can’t afford this bullshit.

- JR