Karen Hofstadt Kelleystein Recordings A&R

Starting in 1999, Kelleystein Recordings — at the urging of McDürchstein and attorney Vinnie Guntzelman — began sending tens of thousands of dollars to aid in legal fees for Girth McDürchstein's murder trial and subsequent appeals. Recently it has come to light that Girth McDürchstein never went to jail. Nobody knows what he did with the money he embezzled from his own company. Overall speculation is that he used much of it finance his stay in New Mexico from 1999 to 2001 while he wrote Girth McDürchstein's 'The Hedge' [link] in isolation, and whatever was left over he contributed to the huge cost of producing The Hedge

In 2001, again at the urging of Mr. McDürchstein, Kelleystein Recordings opened up a new recording facility in England that he hoped would open up a whole new world of clienetele. It did not. In addition to purchasing a $3.5 million castle, renovating it for an addition $1.4 million, and spending $50,000 to produce The Hedge. To date, Girth McDürchstein's 'The Hedge' has sold ninety-three (93) copies worldwide, most of those in Turku, Finland (for reasons we couldn't be bothered to research). At an average price of fifteen euros per record, sales netted Kelleystein Recordings just under two thousand dollars. All of this, of course, was offset by distribution costs and the excessive promotional budget Mr. McDürchstein felt the album needed. In terms of net profit, selling the album put us about $18,000 in the hole, and this is without the $50,000 production advance and the millions spent on a new studio.

And then there's the stage show, which was not built into the promotional budget as chief financial officer D.J. Koko recommended. The touring stage show cost in the ballpark of $200,000, and that's a conservative estimate. It could have cost as much as $500,000. How much did Kelleystein make in ticket sales? Nothing. Veteran stage producer Robert Hutton pocketed most of the ticket money, while Mr. McDürchstein's ASCAP publisher received all of the song royalties to divide among the band. Furthermore, to my knowledge the stage show never (to my knowledge) broke even. It definitely did not make a profit. It was built as a loss for Kelleystein Recordings from the start. Why would we invest so much money into something that would never yield a return for the company? Perhaps Mr. McDürchstein believed the stage show would be so popular, we would sell so many albums that it would offset the investment. I can't claim to understand his thought process.

In 2003, independent film director Vance Sloane contact Mr. McDürchstein about a feature-film version of The Hedge (Mr. Sloane's account is documented here. — Ed.), which Mr. McDürchstein decided would be a joint venture of a production company offshoot of Kelleystein. While Mr. McDürchstein wisely avoided incurring the budget costs of the film (initially, at any rate), the cost to arrange the legalities of a new, completely different and separate entity of a company are expensive to say the least. In Mr. McDürchstein's defense, this film would have netted Kelleystein Productions quite a bit of money had the film ever seen release; unfortunately, it's been shelved and (despite what Mr. Sloane says) probably will remain so until the end of time. Adding insult to injury, Kelleystein Productions did eventually pay for certain filming costs. Furthermore, Mr. McDürchstein created a production expense account (which, ostensibly, would have been paid back and then some upon the film's release) in order to keep himself, his friends, and bandmates in Chicago for the duration of filming.

Again, I would like to be fair to Mr. McDürchstein here. Although many of Kelleystein's woes can be blamed almost singlehandedly on him, the root of the problem did start with Mr. Janofsky, whose theft of the incomplete You Can Touch It for a Quarter album probably dealt the deathblow to Kelleystein. Life support is the only thing that has kept it alive since then, until we pulled the plug last week. Until the You Can Touch It... theft, Kelleystein had a healthy profit margin and a good outlook. Many of its bands, including Abysmal Crucifix, were on the cusp of real fame and commercial success. Nobody can say what would have happened had You Can Touch It... seen completion and legitimate release, but many argue that this album would have broken Abysmal Crucifix into the mainstream. If that had occurred, these financial problems could have been avoided. Tracing once again back to the theft, one could argue the massive failure of The Hedge came primarily because any interest in Abysmal Crucifix generated by the surprise success of its top-98 single "Rolling in It" had all but disappeared by the time Mr. McDürchstein returned to civilization with the announcement that he wanted to record a concept double-album. On top of that, the colossal legal nightmare from the Gallos and Ford regarding the "Thunderbird" single slowly sucked our finances dry. We never hired more than one attorney at a time, and they did as good a job as anyone at keeping such huge companies at bay, but they couldn't just make them go away once and for all.

Another cash cow for Kelleystein, the output from Redstain Attack!, abruptly came to a conclusion in 2003 when Sarah Goss dissolved the band to pursue an unsuccessful career as a filmmaker. The cheapness and rapidity of Redstain Attack!'s albums kept us in the black for much longer than it should have, but interest in their back catalog waned after the breakup and no new material was being created — that well dried up.

As a last-ditch effort, in 2005 Mr. McDürchstein wrote one last album. He spent tens of thousands more to relocate the band to Chicago and record at a studio not owned by Kelleystein (remember, at this point, we owned two). He spent thousands of company dollars on holiday gifts for his bandmates. He spent more to finance a disastrous reunion stage show in early 2006. He spent even more when he fired the entire band, relocated back to L.A., and rerecorded this album from scratch.

And then? He never released it. After spending nearly much on one album — and not even a double album — as he had on The Hedge, only to stick it on a shelf because he thought it was an inferior product. Fuck his inferior product! Kelleystein was dying.

Furthermore, longtime friend and engineer Carlos Ueberschaer had secretly been embezzling company funds and abusing company resources to record new parts, remix, and remaster The Hedge. Because when something's failed once, the best idea is to put more money into it until it succeeds. Which, I'll point out, it didn't, in part because Mr. McDürchstein chose to release this remaster for free online. This is not, generally, the best moneymaking strategy.

Finally, the official deathblow. In December, Mr. McDürchstein said he wrote a song that would put us back on the map. We had reached a point where we had $15,000 in the company coffer. This is a company that traditionally has operating expenses around $1.2 million each year, and it usually at least breaks even, up until 2002. Since then, it's been a downward spiral. Mr. McDürchstein used all $15,000 — every penny we had left — to create his single, "A Very Abysmal Christmas." Click the link and listen to it. I'll wait.

Hear that? He spent $15,000 to produce one song, and it sounds like it was recorded with a zero-dollar budget by some fat, unemployed loser in his parents' basement. In 1964. And he, once again, released it for free.

I know it's sort of like saying the ship breaking in half is what caused the Titanic to sink, but this single is officially what killed Abysmal Crucifix. Merry fucking Christmas.