Sideshow: The Orb Circus continues

Kris 'Thrash' Weston

Well, I posted that last blog, copying in Kris 'Thrash' Weston and The Orb on Twitter, and this is what happened.

It took him a while to find the right words but he seems to have forgotten that all direct tweets generate a message that gets sent to the recipient's email account, even if the sender subsequently deletes them.





First attempt: So we start off with some more family-themed, Greggs-related, skip-related humour. Nowt wrong with that.

Second attempt: Then the insults start.

Third attempt: 'Plank' and 'wanker' clearly weren't descriptive enough so we'll add 'cunt' and a threat of violence shall we? As for support, perhaps he could have just said 'Thanks, but no thanks'?

Final attempt: Aah, that's it, nailed it. No threat of violence as that would probably get him kicked off of Twitter. We'll double the 'cunt' count and make out that I've ruined his day to get some sympathy, when all I set out to do was give him some help.

So, I approached KW as an Orb fan of around 23 years to offer my help and support by sending him the transcript of an interview I did with Alex Paterson about The Orb's live sets. This has somehow transpired in KW calling me a wanker and a cunt and saying he wants to hit me. To say I'm a bit miffed is an understatement. But, as mentioned in my previous post, this is not my battle to fight and just because somebody produces art that you love, that sometimes bears little or no reflection of the personality or likeabilty of the artist. I also need to learn that when someone says they don't want help, then I should respect that and channel my energies elsewhere.

There are a few thoughts I'd like to share and I'll leave it at this for now:

So what came first? Is KW like this because of the way he was treated back in the early 90s or was he treated like that because he showed the same attitude back then? I think it's probably the former. Even if it is the latter, that his personality led to the fall out, that still doesn't excuse his intellectual property being stolen and exploited without him receiving any credit or royalties. The law should be there to protect everyone. Despite his insults, I still hope KW gets justice and the royalties he deserves and is legally due. And when the financial damage is undone, I hope any damage done mentally or emotionally also falls away.

If this is someone who wants no support from people, why is he appealing to people like me, Orb fans from the time he was driving their creative output, to back his new album and raise £38,000? Why are those that have contributed called 'supporters' on his website and why add such niceties as 'I've made every effort to make sure your support counts!'? I was more than happy not to mention his rant or The Orb again, focus on the new project and contribute financially to it. I even considered writing a feature about the story for one of the music magazines I write for to help his cause. Then I read the tweets above. Regardless of how much I love The Orb's early output, why would I contribute any money to someone I tried to help and then treats me with no respect and calls me a cunt? Friends can call me that in jest and I don't mind in the slightest, and this is a great tune, but it's all about context. My original actions were rooted in kindness, but don't mistake my kindness for weakness.

Finally, why bother sharing the rant in public in the first place if KW wanted no reaction, no support and no comment from anyone else on it? Yes, writing it was probably cathartic for him but sharing it publicly will have made no difference in that respect. Surely he could just have written it, got it all out of his head and on to paper/screen and got on with starting legal action. Then he could easily have done what he insists he and everyone should do and focus on his new project rather than the past.

I have no idea what psychological issues may be involved here. Alex Paterson's Huge Ever-Growing Pulsating Ego? Or KW looking for drama and attention and then playing a game when people, whether they're long-term fans or not, actually give it to him? Perhaps he has just been completely messed up by the whole experience, for which he has my sympathy (regardless of whether he wants it or not). Perhaps he's insecure. Perhaps the ultimate truth is he's just not a very nice person. Who knows?

Whatever it is, I couldn't care less any more. I'll still listen to and enjoy Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld, UFOrb, Blue Room and the like but without an apology (which I know I'll never get) I won't be investing any more money, time or energy into Kris 'Thrash' Weston. Life's way too short.

The Orb Circus

“Not my circus, not my monkeys” – Polish proverb

The other day I checked in on Twitter, something I don’t do very often because of the key flaw in Twitter; the more people you follow, the harder it is to keep up with people or gauge what’s going on. Anyway, I came across this message from @swearymonkey:

I clicked through and then read an extensive rant from Kris Weston (KW aka Thrash), formerly of The Orb, against ‘Dr’ Alex Paterson (AP) and other Orb members and collaborators over the years (I’d actually forgotten that @swearymonkey was Thrash until then to be honest).

He originally posted the rant to Twitter with this message:

The general gist of the rant is summed up here:

“As a result of the constant unauthorised re-releases, the unauthorised remasters by people i would never let touch my music, the fraudulent royalties, the lies, the shameful exploitation of my work by Island / Universal Records, the stealing of my work and renaming it, the illegal broadcasting of my music at gigs and such without my permission, the unauthorised use of my intellectual property and one other seriously fucked up thing I have decided to wage all out war against these people until such time as they stop exploiting my work, give me the money they owe me and GTFO.”

Much of what KW writes is contained within a Gearslutz forum interview he did towards the end of last year. In short, having been responsible for what was The Orb’s creative and commercial peak, KW had received little recognition for his percentage of the workload at the time, subsequently not received his fair share of the royalties and then seen his hard work passed off as someone else’s and his production credits dropped. His opinion of AP comes across loud and clear:

“The truth is Alex Patterson is a DJ. He cannot play an instrument or write music on a computer or anything else […] [H]e has spent the last 25 years in the press trying to cover up the fact he plays no instrument and doesn’t know how to use any piece of music technology. He can hardly manage to send an email!”

While I realised this was just one side of the story, I felt for Kris – I hate injustice in all of its forms and he seemed to have been wronged constantly during and after his time with The Orb (and I can only imagine what the other “seriously fucked up thing”, that “serious allegation against him [Alex Paterson] and Youth which I’m not getting into here” is).

The Orb's Kris 'Thrash' Weston and Alex Paterson, 1993. (Image source: Sound On Sound/The Ferrari Brothers)

Why do I care about The Orb? My sister introduced me to The Orb’s debut album ‘Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld’ when I was around 14/15 and it was like nothing I’d ever heard before. Expansive, richly layered compositions laced with ambient and dub that the more you listened to, the more you heard. If that first listen wasn’t life-changing, it was definitely an epiphany for me. Its depth and beauty was a far cry from the hard-edged rave music I was listening to at the time; I even wrote an essay about it for GCSE English. As with many of the bands you love during your formative, teenage years, The Orb’s music has stuck with me ever since. Then ‘Pomme Fritz’ came along in 1994 and as much as I tried to love it, it just sounded like a meandering, directionless, self-indulgent mess. Listening to it while I type this, my stance on it has softened slightly, but it’s nowhere near the exciting, immersive and captivating Orb material that went before.

Years later this dip in form was explained to me during an interview with Alex Paterson. He said they’d thrown out the original version of the album and rushed together the version that was released to spite their record company who he said had left them out of pocket.

Anyway, I cast my mind back to that interview with AP (or Twattercake as Kris often calls him in his rant) for IDJ magazine and a feature called ‘Pioneers of Live Dance’. If what KW says is true, then interviewing AP for this was misguided and almost laughable, although nobody has had KW’s side of the story until now and AP’s had been the only voice available. As KW has extensively quoted interviews with AP during his rant, I thought I would put a more extensive transcript of the interview I did with AP out there. I even asked a couple of fellow Orb loving friends on Facebook if I should and they said to go for it so I did.

As you can see, there was nothing much groundbreaking that was discussed during the interview, but I felt it might help KW’s cause. So I sent him the link and the exchange (where I've clearly, perhaps prematurely, taken his side) panned out as follows:

Fair enough you’d probably argue, KW does say at the start of his rant not to contact him about it. So I left it at that and moved on. I thought I’d read through his Kickstarter (or Krisstarter as he’s called it) page on his website and thought I’d give some support to him in the way that he actually DID want it, by contributing towards the funding of his new album. It was then I came across this sentence:

“I've found myself caring more how I'm living than what I'm earning."

This resonated with me massively due to difficulties I have recently been through personally, followed by taking stock of what is truly important in life (more of which in another blog perhaps). So I decided to tweet the quote. The following conversation then happened, which I thought was mindless, not-very-funny gibberish but light-hearted gibberish nonetheless:

Hilarious, I'm sure you'll agree. His reaction, while fairly polite in its tone, seemed completely unfair and I was a bit miffed though. I showed the exchange to my wife and she said: “This looks like two mad people talking to each other. He sounds like an arsehole, why do you care?”

Indeed. This was a complete stranger I was chatting to, and by bestowing him with positive qualities it made me no better than a rabid One Direction fan. Besides, as a music journalist that has always treated interviewees as people above all else, equals rather than stars or idols, I should have known better. But if supporting somebody is annoying, if caring about people who have made some of the music that defined your teenage years and beyond is annoying, if showing some compassion is annoying, then I think I’ll just continue to be as annoying as I possibly can.

I come out of this wondering what the full truth is, but even if it’s somewhere in between what AP says in interviews and what KW says in his rant (and his ex-manager and others previously involved with the Orb say), it seems to be a pretty negative and bitter situation. With my own personal dealings with KW taken into account, it seems that neither party is particularly nice or covers themselves in glory: one man responsible for stealing all of the credit (and royalties) for somebody else’s work and another man who, understandably angry, is lashing out at people without considering whether they may actually be trying to help him. At a time like this, you need support, people fighting your corner, especially if those people are the ones you would like to fund your new album project.

The moral is, just because people have created something you love (like ‘Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld’), it doesn’t mean you would love the people that have created it. I genuinely hope that AP puts forward his side of the story (and holds his hands up if need be) and that KW gets the credit, respect and royalties he seems to be long overdue. In the meantime, I shall continue to listen to ‘…Ultraworld’ without any of this buzzing around my head and souring the experience.

I have to take the standpoint that this isn’t my fight to fight, which is what reminded me of the Polish proverb above: ‘not my circus, not my monkeys’. This battle between KW and AP is not my fight to fight, and they’re not my monkeys to train.

PS Since I wrote this, KW has unblocked me on Twitter. Storms. Teacups. Monkeys. Circuses.

Meeting Ince

Lee Valley - No sign for the Magic Wood?

Having allowed the non-stop deadline pressure that comes with freelancing, and my lack of a mental off switch, take its toll on me over the past few years, I finally decided that it was time to take a proper break. Without the funds to disappear on a round-the-world trip, I decided to do some exploring closer to home in Cheshunt, where I had moved with my wife at the end of last year.

Luckily, I have Lee Valley Regional Park on my doorstep, all 26 miles and 20,000 acres of it. Having spotted a wooded hilltop when walking in the park with friends recently, my curiosity told me that it was now time to go for a nice wander and explore it.

After about 90 minutes of marching around the winding paths and waterways, I was so close to the woods I could almost smell them. Google Maps (which told me it was called Galleyhill Wood) had suggested I walk along B194 but I decided cross-country was better, wisely I thought. However, following a cycle path saw me overshoot the wood and somehow I still ended up on the B194.

The B194 is a road with absolutely no footpaths and speeding vans and trucks hurtling in both directions. But I was determined to reach the promised land so I kept diving into gaps in the hedge to avoid being hit. Some people waved at me gratefully (having me smeared across their windscreen may have been a bit of a day-changer) while one van driver beeped his horn, perhaps at me, perhaps to alert other people up ahead.

Then, on a blind bend I looked behind me and saw a truck speeding towards me, I looked ahead and saw another truck speeding towards me so I dived back into the hedgerow. Now I had a choice. 10 more minutes of white knuckle, near-death experiences involving large metal objects or try to attempt to get through the hedgerow.

Thankfully there was a telegraph pole behind me, which meant the hedgerow was less thick at that point. Thorns stuck in my hands as I bent branches back to create a gap. Then manmade, barbed wire thorns scratched and cut my hands as I tried to create a space to launch myself through.

Initially, I tried to put me leg over the barbed wire fence and got some rusty little spikes in my leg. So plan B it was. I decided to put my flimsy jacket on for protection and to crawl on my belly underneath the barbed wire, assault course-style. But something stopped me. My hood had become ensnared! So I twanged the barbed wire off of it and I was FREE! Well sort of.

The beautiful meadow.

I was now in a beautiful meadow full of grass and vibrant yellow flowers. But I was also now trespassing. Plus, as I walked the distance between the road and me became wider, meaning I was walking deeper into private land, and perhaps trouble.

Then a horrifying sound that made me shout, “Aaagggh!”

Had I been shot? No. It was just a couple of pheasants that I'd disturbed flapping their way out of the long grass. I felt like an idiot but at least no one was around.

I walked through into another field, this time using the conventional entry method of a gate, to see a bonfire in the distance. Civilisation! As I approached the bonfire it appeared to be a pile of burning shit. Or perhaps it was a previous trespasser? Anyway, it was clear there was a farm there at least, and the possibility of a road back to public land.

I was hoping nobody was around but was mindful of a Tony Martin incident happening so shouted a weak “Hello?” A few more paces and there he was, the farmer. As broad as he was tall and definitely not smiling at me welcomingly. I decided to blurt out my (true) story in the hope he wouldn’t call the police, or shoot me in the face.

“Where are you trying to get to?” he asked.

“I’m trying to get to the woods up there. I got stuck on the road and was in danger of getting hit by the traffic. So I had no choice but to go through the fence into your field.  I realise I’m trespassing. Sorry.”

“You’re not allowed in those woods, you’d get arrested straight away.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Where are you from?”

“Cheshunt. I’d seen the woods from the park and wanted to go and have a look.”

"Well, there is a footpath up the side of the wood but you’re not allowed inside them. It’s dangerous. They use them for shooting.”

“They probably shoot trespassers too,” I joked.

Not so much as a smirk from the farmer. I’d decided to turn back now anyway though; of the options of death by truck or angry farmer, neither was very appealing.

“What's your name?” I asked.

“Ince.”

“Ian. Nice to meet you.” (Or rather thanks for not shooting me.)

As I shook his huge, dirt-caked, sandpapery hand, I was just glad it wasn't clamped around my throat.

I stuck faithfully to the paths on the way home, shamefaced but laughing every now and then at what a misguidedly tenacious arse I can sometimes be.

ROFLMAO Episode One

No posting on here for a while but that's because I've been working hard on getting the sound design, music and editing done on this. ROLFMAO is a new radio comedy featuring the writing talents of Ewan Thomson, the acting expertise of Peter Halpin, Millie Reeves and John Hubbard (and Ewan himself) and the audio jiggerypokery of me, Ian Roullier (or should that be Tim/Bob?).

Episode one features the strenuous discussions over the show's theme music, an unsympathetic, superstitious policeman as well as radio's 'whackiest' DJ. Not to mention Vera Lynn and some dubstep.

Sit back, enjoy and allow yourself a chuckle.

UPDATED: Episodes two and three...

Episode two: Have you got thick?

Episode three: Behind the scenes at EastEnders, 24: Cardiff and an extremely embarrassing bus journey.

Funeral Songs

I was at a club night run by some friends recently when the DJ started playing a certain track. “I’ve always thought I wanted this tune played at my funeral,” I turned to my friend and said. He looked a bit bemused or maybe uncomfortable (after all, it’s hard to tell in a dark nightclub) that I should mention something so morbid but it got me thinking. While there are so many people out there opting for ‘Angels’ by Robbie Williams or Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ as their swansong, I started thinking, ‘Why not choose something a bit different?’

So, while it may seem a bit morbid and I hope to remain on this mortal coil for a good 100 years longer, I came up with this list of potential songs I’d like played at my funeral. What would yours be?

1. Joe Smooth - ‘Promised Land’ This was the track that came on in the club. It’s very cheesy and about “angels up above” and may well have been written about Ecstasy (the drug) rather than ecstasy (the heavenly type) but it should bring a smile to people’s faces.

2. Future Sound of London - ‘Papua New Guinea’ In my opinion, the best dance track ever made. A bold claim but it’s my opinion and I’m standing by it. It’s danceable but uplifting, pumping but mellow and moves both feet and souls.

3. Aphex Twin – Untitled (also known as ‘Rhubarb’) A great believer that music without words can move people just as much, if not more than, a song with set, concrete lyrics, this is one of Richard James’ most beautiful ambient compositions. A track that proves you don’t need a song about love, angels or bunny rabbits to make people well up.

4. The Orb - ‘Blue Room’ This is a bit of a cheeky one but just as the Orb’s Dr Alex Paterson decided to take the piss by releasing a track that lasted just three seconds less than the legal 40 minute limit for a track to qualify for the singles chart (this rule has since changed several times), the full-length ‘Blue Room’ would preclude the need for any tributes, eulogies or any other words to be spoken during the service. Or for anything else to happen for that matter. The congregation could always sing along from their hymn sheets: “Owooowowooowowooowowooowawa”!

5. Moby – ‘Thousand’ A bit like playing Motorhead’s ‘Ace of Spades’, this 1,000 bpm monster is guaranteed to wake people up and should weed out anyone who’s just turned up to make up the numbers. A definite Marmite moment to split the crowd between ‘sitters’ and ‘quitters’.

'So, what do you do then?'

As anyone else does, I often get asked ‘So, what do you do then?’ by new people that I meet. The answer to this at the moment is a bit complicated and somewhat long winded but in short, I edit business to business magazines as a freelancer, I write freelance articles, largely about music but I also have a theatre review and a Norwegian curry feature under my belt, and I am a part-time MA Audio Production student at the University of Westminster.

The latter part of the equation seems to throw people; even good friends that I’ve tried to explain my studies to on various occasions. Audio production? So I make noises then? Well, doesn’t everybody (though perhaps not in polite company)?

I try to elaborate by saying that I’m studying how to produce sound for film, radio, animation, video games with some band recording and music making thrown in for good measure. This seems to suffice for some but I still get told, ‘I’m still not quite sure what you’re doing at uni,’ by people.

So, I have decided to break my extended blog silence to go through exactly what I’ve been doing over the past two years step-by-step, or at least deadline-by-deadline. This will then be followed up by a weekly blog report on how I’m faring with my major project – the deadline of which is just over two months away as I type this.

Assessment one: Group project – case study presentation on a music industry related business.

Deadline date(s): 29th November 2010.

It’s a shame that the MA in Audio Production started with a deadline for the least favourite/most-loathed module of the course, namely Entrepreneurship and Finance for Creative Industries. Why exactly this was, I will elaborate upon in a later blog, but for now, allow me to describe the assignment.

For this module, the MA Audio Production (MAAP) students shared classes with the Masters in Music Business Management (MMBM) students and lectures and seminars were carried out at one of the central London campuses (actually in Westminster rather than the bulk of the MAAP course which takes place in Northwick Park near Harrow).

This mix worked well for some and was disastrous for others but we were lucky to have been placed in a good quintet made up of three MAAP students, myself, Eric and Michael, and two MMBM students, Gordon and Joe. Everyone got on with each other, everyone attended the many meetings we set up to discuss the assignment and everybody pulled their weight.

The assignment itself was to analyse a music business of our choice. We initially went for Ninja Tune – an independent record label that I have a huge amount of respect for and a label that Joe had done an internship for.

Sadly, as they are a relatively small operation, they do not have to make their financial statements/accounts available to the public (something we really needed access to) so we were left with no choice but to opt for the glitzy clubland behemoth that is the Ministry of Sound (MoS).

We learned a lot from our research – most notably just how desperate MoS are to milk every last penny out of their brands having lent their name to airlines, radios, perfumes, clothes shops and tents. Oh, and they also run a club and release compilations and singles.

We interviewed an ex-employee who said the brand seemed to be heading for stormy waters and a look at the amount of hit singles and successful compilations they had churned out (or not) in the past year seemed to back this up.

Our take on this was that MoS needed to start getting more media-friendly, seen-and-heard artists as opposed to faceless keyboard thumpers on the label (people want the sky punching Guetta’s of the world nowadays, not the faceless techno bollocks of the past). This is something MoS has since done and they have lived to fight another day – although their flagship club in London still seems to be at risk of closure.

We all chipped in with creating the PowerPoint presentation, had a quick run-through it from start to finish on the day itself and then it came to the presentation proper and we seemed to get through it pretty well. No major screw-ups (unlike one of our classmates who arrived late, just as their group were in the middle of their presentation) and we all survived.

This may have been partially down to the fact that our fearsome, eye-rolling tutor (bad cop) wasn’t able to attend that day, leaving us with our other, more supportive tutor (good cop) and a friend of bad cop (deputy bad cop?) who were responsible for assessing us. This meant we didn’t have to hear the joyful words, “You have FAILED to mention…” and enabled us to sleep easy in our beds that night.

Not the most exciting start to life as an MA Audio Production student then, and it did little to allow me to brace myself for what was to come.

NEXT ASSESSMENT: Recording a band.

Originally posted on http://blog.ianroullier.com on 3 June 2012.

The Lana Del Dilemma

Have you heard that 'Video Games' track by Lana Del Rey?

Yes, unfortunately.

Why 'unfortunately'? It's a great piece of brooding pop if you ask me.

That may be so but have you seen the girl's lips?

What's that got to do with her music?

But they're huge!

I don't think they're big enough to affect her singing voice though, do you?

That's not the point. The point is they're fake, like she is.

That's a bit of a leap to make. But you still haven't answered why her enhanced lips make her music any less worthy?

Look, her videos are all made up of gritty cine film footage and her songs seem to be more authentic than your average pop songs but the fact she sings them through huge Botoxed lips shows that really she's just as fake as the rest of the pop industry. And she's got a false name.

A stage name you mean? Nothing new there is there?

No, but her management made it up for her.

Like many famous people's agents over the years? A stage name is hardly a new concept now is it?

Well, no, but with the lips as well, how can anyone take her seriously? Anyway, she came out of nowhere, it all seems so staged.

You mean she got millions of YouTube hits in a very short amount of time?

Yeah.

Like Keyboard Cat? 

Well...

Does that mean it's only OK to have a viral YouTube hit if you haven't had Botox? 

Well, no.

And you happen to be a cat? 

Look, you're being ridiculous now. All I mean is that it's very suspicious that she's just appeared on the scene from nothing.

So you think she faked her YouTube hits as well? Or perhaps her management sit there on YouTube every day bumping up the figures?!

Look, I'm not saying that.

What are you saying then?

I just don't like her.

And her music?

No. Well, I liked her music until I found out the whole back story.

What, that an American singer has had Botox, had the gall to come up with a stage name like thousands before her and happens to have had a huge viral YouTube hit?

It doesn't sound as bad when you put it like that. But the lips annoy me.

So surely you're the one being superficial and fake? Like anyone else it's surely her choice to do what she wants with her body? But you believe the fact she's done so makes her music invalid?

Well, yes.

So why don't people seem to hate Dolly Parton or Cher as much?

I don't know. There's always Michael Jackson.

Let's not go there. He had slightly more than a lip job.

Agreed.

So what about Lana Del Rey's music? You said you liked it but you were put off by her image or your perception of her personality?

Well, yeah.

Are Liam Gallagher, Van Morrison, Kanye West or Elton John nice people?

Not from what I've read in the media.

And does your perception of their personalities affect your enjoyment of their music?

That's different.

How?

Erm...

So would you say 'Video Games' is no longer a good song?

That's not what I said.

So what did you say?

That... Oh, I give up.

Originally posted on http://blog.ianroullier.com on 22 November 2011.