Blake Judd

Blake Judd

voc, US
Rock
A.k.a. Azentrius

American metal musician and the owner of Ascension Monuments Media, as well as the long-defunct Battle Kommand Records. Besides his musicianship he is also infamous for having a long history of scamming and fraud. This first became highly publicized in early 2013 when Yosuke Konishi, owner of Nuclear War Now! Productions, posted an announcement on his label's forum stating that Judd had offered to sell him the dead stock from his then defunct label, Battle Kommand Records, consisting of several hundred CDs and two test pressings of an Archgoat LP. It was also revealed that Hells Headbangers Records paid him for 490 CDs on September 11, 2012 which the label never received. Many fans also stated that they had been ripped off by him. Judd acknowledge these accusations in a statement in November 2013 in which he announced Nachtmystium's split-up and admitted to his scamming, stating "As for the merch issues and money stuff, yeah, I've fucked up with a lot of you and for this I'm terribly sorry." On October 5, 2013, Judd was arrested and retained on grounds of theft unrelated to the aforementioned ordeals, forcing Nachtmystium to cancel several shows. He was released on November 1st. His mugshot was used on a "Blakecrush" t-shirt distributed by foes, with a banner that read "Battlekommand Silence" and his likeness crossed out and surrounded by the phrases "no reply / no package / no refund / no shame" - a parody of the classic Deathlike Silence Productions which reads "no fun / no core / no mosh / no trends." Blakecrush later became the name of a group of 1000+ fans who sought to publicize his scamming. In 2014, he collected money for many orders of a new Nachtmystium album and never fulfilled them, leading to an acknowledgement of this by his label, Century Media, who promised to send copies of the album to anyone who ordered from Judd and did not receive the album, as well as announcing that they would no longer be working with him. In 2018, his new label Ascension Monuments Media began selling pre-orders for numerous re-releases from Judas Iscariot's discography, falsely claiming they were authorized by the band. Akhenaten described these as "disgraceful unauthorized bootlegs." The label also sold "Distant in Solitary Night" LPs which were allegedly the rare Sombre Records version, but had a slightly different cover and a matrix code "MONUMENT000" scratched out on each copy. AMM has subsequently been banned by PayPal, Bandcamp, and many other outlets for ripping off customers. Blake also owes several artists and labels a significant amount of records and money, in excess of tens of thousands of dollars in worth. In October 2018 he began using the alias Jake Treush to defraud potential buyers after being banned from many online sales companies such as PayPal and Bandcamp. Furthermore, he claimed to run a completely fabricated company called "Sound Seance", which he claimed was in operation since 2016 in Kentucky. He was quickly discovered after a buyer noticed the records from this false company were being shipped from San Juan Capistrano, California, where his scam with AMM was located. Now that he has openly used an assumed identity he has moved beyond ripping off customers to the status of active fraud and wire fraud.