“Our intentions were always simply to create a home for exciting music and the people who were passionate about it,” Diamond said. “It really sucks that we can’t continue to do that.”

That’s Mike D of the Beastie Boys in the press release regarding his Grand Royal record label going out of business today. You can read it in it’s entirety here, and sound off on their board.

[More on this coming up soon… – ed.]

Mounting debts, decreasing assets and exceedingly harsh industry conditions have forced the venerable Grand Royal label to close its doors. The announcement came today that the label could no longer operate at its current loss.

“This is one of the most difficult decisions we’ve ever had to make,” said co-founder Mike Diamond a/k/a Mike D of Beastie Boys. “Over the years the Grand Royal family had grown to include some of the most talented musicians and staff in the business. It’s tragic that the same growth has also produced an overhead and infrastructure that can no longer viable.”

Grand Royal was founded by Beastie Boys in 1993, the first release on the label being Luscious Jackson’s now classic In Search Of Manny. Within a few years, the label had gone from a public hobby to a full service operation, with a roster featuring Atari Teenage Riot, Ben Lee, Sean Lennon, BS2000 and others, and Luscious Jackson’s Fever In, Fever Out being certified gold. More recently, Grand Royal released At the Drive-In’s critically lauded Relationship Of Command, which went on to sell nearly 1 million copies worldwide.

“Our intentions were always simply to create a home for exciting music and the people who were passionate about it,” Diamond said. “It really sucks that we can’t continue to do that.”

[Added official press release via beastiemania, 9/6/2017. -ed.]