Keyes Slipping
Into The Red

Watson’s already obtained a summary judgment for the money, which he says is the balance due from the former Go-Go singer’s 2013 tour of South America.

Although the tour ended late last summer, Watson says Keyes’ Red Entertainment has been stalling on the payments.

Watson says before the end of the month, lawyers acting on the ’80s hitmaker’s behalf will go to the New York Supreme Court to enforce the summary judgment. If they’re successful, Carlisle may be in a position to seize Keyes’ assets.

Keyes told Pollstar April 24 he would sort out Carlisle’s payment by the end of that day, but 24 hours later Watson said a post-dated check for $10,000 he’d received from Keyes in January had failed to clear.

However, on the same day, Keyes made good that part of the debt by wiring $10,000 to cover the amount. He says he’s speaking to Watson and working out a new plan for the remaining outstanding payments.

“Belinda has had to spend several thousand dollars in legal fees just to get to this point,” Watson told Pollstar. “According to the confession of judgment Carlos signed, he was meant to have paid Belinda in full by March 6, which clearly didn’t happen,” he said.

“They [Red], on the other hand, have received their $16,000 agency commission from the shows we did in South America and they’ve kept it – so, they got paid and we didn’t.”

Watson says he’s disappointed about being “ripped off” by the artist’s agent as they’re the people you trust to take care of the artist’s interests.

Former Red Entertainment agent Rick Shoor says that before he left to join Paradise Artists in February, he was telling promoters not to send their 50 percent deposits to the company because he wasn’t confident it would reach the acts.

Shoor, who took his roster to Paradise, says the financial problems at Red were one of the main reasons he left. He says Red still owes him $12,500.

Prior to Red Entertainment, Shoor worked at Frontier Booking International. Although Keyes denies being chased by other artists, Joseph Stopps from KML Music – which manages Howard Jones – says Red still owes the act $22,000 for a U.S. tour that ended last summer.

Eddie Lundon from Liverpool-based new wave act China Crisis, which last year toured the U.S. and Canada as a three-piece, says that for six months Red has owed the $2,000 or so balance.

“We won’t be working with him again because you don’t work with someone who doesn’t pay you,” Lundon explained, saying that in the future the act will be working through Shoor and Paradise. Flock Of Seagulls says it’s owed $31,000. Claude Stirilio of U.S. synthpop act Anything Box says the band’s still owed the balance for last November’s date in El Paso, Texas, a late addition to its U.S. tour. Apparently it’s not just artists that are waiting for their money. Manila-based promoter Jesse Cambosa paid in advance the full $10,000 fee for a Wang Chung show, which was pulled by the artist because one of the tour party was ill.

That was in December, but despite several reminders Cambosa says he still hasn’t had his money returned.