On Thursday January 23rd 2020, word got out that the small Progressive Power Metal band Tanagra located in Portland, Oregon was being targeted by the giant swiss company Nagra Kudelski Group due to trademark infringement.
Nagra Kudelski has forced the band to sell all their merchandise and to stop performing live or the band would face further legal action.
Other than have similar spelling names, the company and band have literally nothing else in common. So why does Nagra Kudelski intend to perform this predatory behavior on an underground heavy metal band?
The band’s name comes from a Star Trek reference.
“It’s pretty funny that one week we’re getting AoY on Reddit and the next we’re being nuked from orbit by a company we’ve never heard of. Regardless of what happens with the trademark dispute, we have to assume that when it’s over we’ll get a cease-and-desist and be dead in the water; We’d exist at the behest of a foreign company who obviously couldn’t give a damn about us, and that’s no way to live.”
-Erich Ulmer (Bassist)
In a swift act of kindling catching flame, the band’s followers around the world began rallying to show their support and voiced their opinions of the matter on the Nagra Audio Facebook page, on their personal threads, and in multiple heavy metal groups.
For the record, the band simply stated the situation and shared a link to their website where fans could pay at “Name Your Price” for all merchandise.
“Rather than sit on our physical albums and shirts we’re changing everything to ‘pay what you want’ plus shipping. We have hundreds of copies ‘Meridiem’ and ‘None of This is Real’ that will be unsellable soon and we’d rather have them in the hands of metalheads around the world. This is a small piece of history and it’s likely we’ll never be able to print under this name again!”
Erich Ulmer (Bassist)
Tanagra has been around in the Portland area for a few years now, rising up in the local heavy metal scene, playing in small venues, and has released two incredible albums under their belt to date.
Christopher Stewart: drums and percussion
Tom Socia: lead and backing vocals
Josh Kay: lead and rhythm guitars
Erich Ulmer: Bass Guitar
Photography by Kara Pesznecker Reavis
In late 2018, the band finished up the sophomore album “Meridium” and it was received with high praise from the metal underground.
Rather than shutting down and threatening a small beloved power metal band who’s name is Star Trek related from Portland, Oregon making them and everyone else hate your product, why not partner up with them, do a collab and enjoy music with quality speakers?
One would think that it would be a great opportunity for a supposedly high quality audio company to partner up with a band who makes beautiful music to create an international collaboration between both music and equipment provider.
The case filings as sent to the band by Nagra Kudelski can be seen here:
Tanagra’s unique sound has brought them into the highlight over the years in the heavy metal scene, and each album they have released has it’s own persona, but they have been known to jam a few well known (At least in the Power Metal World) covers from time to time.
A noticeable evolution from their first album (2015’s None of This is Real), Tanagra’s second release turns up the dial on everything that made the band stand out the first time around: The compositions are diverse and cinematic, with a stoic undercurrent and emotional intensity that brings out the theatrical side of the band, while the progressive rock-influenced elements rise to much greater prominence than before. Complex yet compelling rhythms interweave with vibrant vocal arrangements, transcendent soloing, and varying instrumental textures in a lush harmonic landscape. Meridiem is Tanagra sounding more epic, more polished, and more heavy than ever before. This is progressive metal at its most powerful.
As stated on their bandcamp page
We can only hope that Nagra Kudelski will drop the case they have so corruptively placed over the head of this band, and that Tanagra will continue to reign in the years to come.
HAIL TANAGRA.
The Obsidian Crow 