Not a rip-off report per se but I'd strongly advise against having anything to do with Kris of Red Venice Records, the act 'To The Lovers Farewell' and the Genre x Genre shows in Cardiff. (tho his co-organiser of the latter actually seems decent so I won't entirely tar that with the same brush perhaps).
I won't go into too much of the absurd drama, (and the spark of it all is probably stuff which you guys would consider 'pc' or whatever anyway) you can look on facebook or noiseguide misc if you care.
Long story short tho he had a complete over the top meltdown when he insulted a friend of mine, I got angry and maybe overreacted; however the fallout has, I believe, vindicated me. I've had many supportive messages from friend and strangers alike who've reported other amateurish, unprofessional and childish behaviour from him. He's already had a few ridiculous blowups over minor things, and made a big show of blocking people on facebook and excommunicating them from his label. I have it on very good authority he's been rude and unprofessional at his badly organised and promoted shows, cut off sets early so he could play longer, never sent promised artist copies to people on his label, etc etc.
After all that he started emailing me asking to meet face to face in a half 'let's clear this up' apologetic, half macho 'intimidating' way, and he's no doubt right now telling everyone I was a coward who didn't dare come to cardiff to criticise him face to face. :-/ More shockingly he is overtly lying, telling everyone that he asked me to play and I demanded £300. What actually happened was I expressed some interest in playing next year and we never yet discussed the details. I would have happily played for train fare and some drinks. I am kind of insulted that he'd make up such a lowball number, that's not even the price of booking a 'real' band and NOTHING for a premadonna yuppie 'name' noise act like myself to outrageously demand haha :D
It's silly to be all 'do you know who I am!?' in the noise scene ^__^; but I did pull a bit of that. I'm no household name but if you are going to operate within the UK London/internet noise scene them maybe do a little research? He really seemed to have no idea about me, he was like 'are you even part of the noise scene'! I was playing underattended Cardiff noise shows 10 years ago, where was he then!? :)
When I initially got in touch in more friendly circumstances he asked me to play based purely on the first embedded youtube on my site, and after the drama he within minutes, in an astonishing feat of pettiness, had a 'diss track' online based purely on mocking the very first release you see on my bandcamp page! :D Seems like a pretty shallow guy to say the least right!? and his genre-hopping, free-VST-centric music just looks like a poser-ish attempt by a metal dude to get into the noise/breakcore scene without really having much idea about it but VERY willing to slag off and alienate anyone and everyone without a clue about their history.
I've mostly decided to just leave it and let him dig a hole and alienate himself even further from the noise scene. Stopped posting about this elsewhere but I thought since he probably thinks you lot will be on his 'side' due to his newly-formed edgy 'hateful' 'anti-pc' power electronics persona (a month or two ago he was presenting himself as an open-minded 'I have transgender artists on my label' kind of guy!!) and he's running out of other noise people who will put up with his nonsense I should post some warning here. I respect most of you here even those who I disagree with on politics/aesthetics, especially those of you I know personally, and am I'm sure you would have no time for this buffoon. Wouldn't want you to be subjected to the childish nonsense I have been.
