music and media
afflicted yawn (updated)
by graham brown-martin
jun 19, 2004, 22:44
photo retouched by p.rickards
i was first contacted by peter rickards on 1st july 2003 when i was u.k. editor for trace magazine. the email read:
hi there..my name is peter dean rickards..im a photographer based in kingston, jamaica..just saw your new issue and felt inspired to drop you guys a line..AGAIN.
my work has appeared in THE FADER, SOURCE, XLR8R, MURDER DOG, VIBe and a bunch of others..have a look at my portfolio here:
i would love to do some work for your mag one of these days..its the hottest ish out there right now...
bless..peter
p.rickards
so after checking his portfolio, reading his persuasive emails and talking
on the phone i was interested to help get his work on the pages of trace and
ammo. while visiting family in antigua a month later i took my first trip
to jamaica to meet with him. as part of the trip rickards suggested we meet
with sizzla to discuss the possibilities of an article at some future date.
little did i know that by the end of our relationship rickards would be
threatening to rape my 3 year old daughter and her mother.
at the time i also hadn't heard the story
where rickards, on an assignment for the source magazine, allegedly boasted
about threatening to "kick the baby out of the belly" of the magazines
pregnant news editor, ann-marie nicholson (click here- he has since removed
this boast from his site)
the meeting with sizzla was brief, inspiring, with an invitation to return. a short article appeared on ammo a month later (sept 03 click here)
featuring rickards picture's and links to his site which he reciprocated.
just last month some of rickards non-commissioned (i.e. images that he offered
free to promote himself) imagery made the pages of trace in another article
i had written. this time he featured the trace story on his site promoting
himself
and the magazine (click here).
but how things change.
earlier this week rickards published this article (click here) entitled 'white lies' on his website which if not for the blatant racism and attacks on both my wife and 3 year old daughter might have been funny. if youāre into the humour of say, bernard manning, that is. he then followed up with the oh so funny 'whitey digital' (click here) and then the threatening 'silent killer' (click here) adding a txt message saying "you got one week ****hole! watch how it go!" for good measure.
so why has it taken 9 months since the publication of the ammo story for rickards to decide that i am a white liberal hippy arsehole?
strangely posted before the white lies webpage was published
later in 2003 the chance arrived for me to live and work in jamaica which given my first experience i jumped at. having remained in constant contact with rickards since my trip we both looked forward to the opportunity to work together even though i would be located on the other side of the island.
arriving in jamaica, all was good for several months with a number of photographic
projects going to rickards such as those for london's wall of sound record label
and a german recording artist. all good things come to an end and, as many wiser
people on the island had expected, rickards and i fell out. after the many things
that i had helped rickards with, like finding him work (when he was begging for
it) and fixing his virus infested computers it was the fact that i wouldn't lend
him a video projector after the umpteenth time that made him spit out the dummy
like the spoilt child that he so clearly is.
the gravy train had come to a rest and rickards has been venting his spleen to anyone that cares to listen ever since, which from the half dozen click-thruās from his story to this site canāt be many. but thanks for the clicks anyway. after bombarding my cell phone with abusive txt messages to such an extent that i had to have him blocked my stalker decides to hang himself with his own rope. although not before phoning my wife to call her an 'african nigger bitch' and threats about 'whitey having to watch his back'.
there were clues that this would inevitably happen as it does with the
many that peter rickards takes money or help from. his constantly bitter
jokes and doctored photo's about the puma product manager, the wall of sound
label boss, uk graf artist's, the german reggae artist and the jamaican
artists whom he makes a living from,in fact anyone who's more talented or
got further in life than him, which when you think about it is a pretty
big list. it just got tedious after a while. perhaps it was just his insatiable
drug habit that hadn't gotten the better of him and made him a bit bi-polar
as certain powders do. on more than one occassion he was busted for possession
of class a and b substances. once he even pleaded with me from a police
cell in negril for me to drive all the way from ocho rios to bail him out
after he been picked up with class a's.
naturally, like most addicts, he's a great person to know when he wants
something from you!
of course, rickards isn't happy to simply lampoon me with the fantasy
of fiction on his website (can he name his sources?) he has to take a
pop at
my wife and child while revealing his insecurity over skin colour (change
the word 'white' to 'black' and there would be uproar), his envy of anyone
who is making a go of things and his horror of mixed race marriages and
on and on and on.
following rickards witnessed threats to rape my wife and 3 year old daughter
and cut off my head the matter was reported to the jamaican authorities
who arrested rickards and yet upon his release the threats continue
with rickards publishing his fabricated version of events on his web
site (click
here - again he has removed this material from his site but we have
copies). due to legal reasons we are unable to publish further material
which will
be available at a future time but is held by jamaican, british and
now american legal counsel.
so to the magazine writers, photo editors, product managers, record
label bosses and artists who receive a similar Ībless kingā email from rickards ö buyer
beware.
