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Richard Kastle



Last Updated: 11/19/2009

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Sunday, November 22, 2009 
Predator Pritchard of Peterborough

The most disturbing video I have ever seen on YouTube was about a guy playing the piano with his penis. It was titled: "I'm better than Richard Kastle." It included several pianos being played at once with some smudging of notes by an object that was obviously larger than a finger. The video did not have any pornographic visuals, but the sounds and text made the listener feel that they were listening to a disturbed guy playing the piano with his penis. This was posted by Fredrick Pritchard, under the user name, mellowedwithrum. The video stated that he was better than me, because he played the piano with his penis. It sounds like adult oriented fun, except for the fact that he surrounds himself with videos of children and uses the child-friendly name, "yourpianoteacher" to initiate discussions with with them on talk pages where he invites them to exchange live webcam feeds for "educational" purposes. Most of the comments on his "I play the piano with my penis" page were from Fredrick Pritchard (using his trustworthy name: yourpianoteacher). This appears to be the work of a predator who ties together invitations for webcam video exchanges with children, with his pornographic version of the piece from the Tom and Jerry cartoon. He inserted my name in the title as bait for luring unsuspecting children to serve his psychotic needs. This is thouroughly disgusting, but it gets much worse.

His user name on Wikipedia is Prof.rick. He has a long record of attempting to disparage my reputation by filling the article about me with lies. The other editors keep reverting his edits and reminding him that what he is doing is against the rules. One editor told him that he was "pulling wiki rules out of his colon." He was suspended by a Wikipedia administrator for violating the policies with regard to the article on me. The administrator referred to his edits as "manifestly absurd." There are over a hundred examples of his irrational behavior on the edit history page and the talk page. On the surface, the external links he added to the article on me look harmlessly insane, but when you take a closer look at where the links are leading, you have to conclude that only a predator would do such a thing. Earlier this year, he linked up the Wikipedia article on me with the YouTube post he made of the guy playing the piano with his penis. The evidence can be seen by going to the history page for the article. Find the edit done by Prof.rick on March 4, 2009 at 04:29. The edit description reads: External link: added "mellowedwithrum" link. If you click on the date, the page will be displayed as it looked that day, before another editor removed his links.

He has indicated in his comments on YouTube, that he is Prof.rick, the guy who was suspended for edits made in the article on me. He also admitted in the comments on YouTube that he had proposed deletion of the article. He was rounding up the lunatic fringe by spreading misinformation and giving them instructions on how to create Wikipedia accounts.

Fredrick Pritchard is not targeting me, he is using the popular culture appeal of my act with the younger generation to target children. The use of the name, "better than Richard Kastle" for his porno piano post says a lot about his motives. It was derived from teenagers who were using it on YouTube. When a teenager who used the name, "I'mbetterthanHorowitz," changed his name to, "I'mbetterthanKastle," I was honored. When another teenager played the ending of the Hungarian Rhapsody with style and bravado and named the post, "Better than Richard Kastle," I was honored. But when predator Pritchard presented his porno piano playing post with the same name, I was disgusted. I created a lot of pop culture buzz about the difficulty of Liszt's technique on the internet. Pritchard was exploiting that buzz to lure children into his web. The link to the porn page appears to have been an attempt to soften up his potential victims before he gets them in front of a camera.

He has attempted to attract attention by leaving hundreds of comments on the YouTube posts of the Hungarian Rhapsody that portray himself as an expert on how to play the piece. His comments are musically incoherant, but a child or parent may be fooled into thinking that he is an expert. Instead of trying to show us with words, why doesn't he just show us with deeds by posting his own performance? If it's so easy, why doesn't he just play it? Even if you give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he can teach a child to play the piece, he can't do it long distance with a webcam. It's impossible. It sounds like he is trying to arrange peep shows, not lessons.

These are the Ontario, Canada based IP addresses that have been used by him in the past - 70.53.56.195 - 209.221.237.169 - 216.209.119.89 - 69.158.71.17.  
        
9:44 PM 
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Sunday, November 08, 2009 
The Lunatic Fringe


"Identity Thief" Matt Montoya (GuitarSonata)
An identity thief from Houston that uses my name and reputation for playing Liszt's most famous piece in order to divert internet traffic to his post where he smears my reputation with lies. He had attracted tens of thousands of viewers to his YouTube post, before admitting that it was never me playing the piano. After a year, he added the comment, "Can't place the name of the pianist playing the piece at the beginning, saw it on Google. Okay." This is confusing when someone sees it while looking for my videos in the search engine, because the title of his video represents that I play the ending, not the beginning. Once the viewer is diverted to the post, he admits in text over the video, "Just so people will shut up, this isn't Kastle playing. I just found some random video on YouTube and I don't know this guy's name." He admits this in a way that still accomplishes his goal of diverting traffic to his post where he proceeds to misrepresent my scholarship regarding the difficulty of the ending of Liszt’s Rhapsody No. 2. He combines weasel worded lies with illogical thought processes to form conclusions that are musically irrational and ignorant of the physics of movement. You have to be an idiot to believe that FFFF is harder to play than FFF. The comment page, sometimes frequented by my other trolls, reads like the Mad Hatter’s tea party. For more on Montoya and examples of weasel worded phrases that only a scam artist like him would use, see my blog titled, "The Identity Thief." 

                Fredrick Pritchard (yourpianoteacher) 
His business, which has a link from his YouTube page, is selling internet piano lessons that are done with webcams. This is not a legitimate form of music education. But, since a lot of kids want to learn to play the famous piece from the Tom and Jerry cartoon, he tries to lure children over to his internet "business." He misrepresents the level of difficulty of the end of the Rhapsody. "I've performed the piece for decades. I always breathe a sigh of relief as I begin the final octaves... because they are so easy!" he says in a YouTube comment. His website insists that piano lessons can be taught over the internet. If this were true, any idiot in a small town in Canada could teach an entire generation. Who needs Juilliard or Ivan Davis? He doesn't like the message in my blogs about the level of difficulty at the climax of this piece. There may be a lot more involved here than just bogus long distance piano lessons. See blog titled: Predator Pritchard of Peterbrough.  

Google’s involvement with this lunatic fringe
One of my trolls is exploiting the disabled in order to smear my reputation. Google is advertizing on these troll pages, and thus, generating revenue by exploiting the disabled. Google’s business venture with the "portal of evil TV," also called poeTV, may have criminal ramifications. I have notified them of their involvement. This form of advertising may be a violation of the American’s with Disabilities Act. If the literal wording of the Act or the spirit of the Act says that it is illegal to exploit and humiliate the disabled for profit, Google executives have broken the law and may need a lawyer who can explain to a jury why their upstanding clients associate with a business called "the portal of evil."
 
Jeffrey Campbell 
If you call the Juilliard School and ask them for a referral for a child who wants to take piano lessons, they may refer you to Campbell Music Studios, a little known music school tucked away on the fifth floor of the Esplanade Retirement Home, just a few blocks from Juilliard’s campus. Jeffrey Campbell is on the list of graduates that receive referrals from Juilliard. He’s also on my list of trolls. I’ve been dealing with his ego problems for decades, since we both went to the University of North Texas. His animosity towards me is infamous to many of the graduates of that university. His ego based mental disorder and white-supremacist upbringing effects his ability to teach. For more info, see my blog titled, "The Campbel,Troll." Read about a talented child named Cody Parker, who quit playing classical piano over Campbell’s teaching methods that were skewed by his obsession with tearing down my reputation.
Andrew Thayer
A music teacher from the UK who uses the name "Cziffra1980." If you doubt that his trolling results from an ego based mental disorder stemming from self-esteem issues, watch him play "Winter Wind" in a bathrobe.
Elliot Hayes
One of many trolls that became obsessively active after I posted the newspaper clipping of the Mayor of Hialeah naming a day after me on my MySpace page. It was his actions off the internet combined with his trolling on the internet that attracted attention from the police, who responded in a reasonable and appropriate manner.
Thomas Edward Hunter
He is associated with the above troll, but his actions didn’t require police attention.

 
10:35 PM 
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Friday, October 02, 2009 
What Piece has the Hardest Technique?

Is it Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Concerto? No. There are too many virtuosos who play the hardest passages in this conerto with ease. Vladimir Horowitz, a pianist who had one of the best techniques in history, did not dilute the hardest technique in his iconic performance of this concerto. But he did dilute the hardest technique in his arrangement of Liszt’s Rhapsody No. 2. The Hungarian Rhapsody blog on my website provides links to recordings and live performances of this piece that most people know from the Tom and Jerry cartoon. By the way, the cat was faking too.

Is it Liszt's B Minor Sonata? No. Once again, there are too many virtuosos who play this piece with ease. When I saw Denis Matsuev perform, I expected him to sail through the technique in the Bm Sonata, and that’s what he did. But as expected, he hit a brick wall at the end of Liszt’s Rhapsody no 2. He didn't dilute the technique, but he did end the concert with the Rhapsody and the last thing the audience heard was an uncontrollable chain reaction of wrong notes. Everyone at Carnegie Hall knew it. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Denis is a bad pianist. He's a great pianist with an incredible technique.    
  
Is it Alkan’s Etude Op 35 #5, Allegro Barbaro? This octave study repeats the same patterns over and over. The task for the brain is to create a limited number of different signals and send them out in batches that repeat. Each time you do this, it becomes easier and easier. To understand how this works, watch a basketball player shoot several shots from the same position. The success ratio on the last two shots is higher than it is on the first two. Alkan’s opening pattern, where both hands move in parallel motion, is repeated throughout. It’s not confusing when both hands do the same thing, so the density of information in each signal is less than it looks. What’s confusing is when each hand is moving in opposite directions in a myriad of combinations. This piece does not include a significant amount of that kind of technique. The hardest part is the section where the right hand skips up in octave intervals. Pianists tend to slow down for this technique, but the master of this piece, Jack Gibbons, plays it with ease. The passages at the end are the most effective for the listener, even though the right hand technique is not that challenging. It’s very hard to play, but this is not the most difficult technique.

Is it Liszt’s Paganini Etude #3, La Campanella? In a piano literature class at the University of North Texas, Ed Banowitz insisted that noone could play Liszt’s version. I immediately raised my hand and told him that I played it when I was fifteen. He said, "Mr. Kastle, you’re confused. You must have played the Busoni arrangement." I told the professor that I played the Liszt version. My teacher at the University of Miami, Ivan Davis, the first prize winner of the Liszt Competition, played the Busoni version. I performed the original on a piano department recital a few weeks later. Don't get me wrong about Ivan Davis. He had an excellent technique and deserved to win the competition. Most of the pros could not play the original.
 
The hardest technique in La Campanella is on the second page where the right hand skips back and forth with some of the melody notes containing grace notes. The most challenging group of signals the brain has to send out are when the hand skips down to the 2 grace notes before the A#, then up an 11th to D# then down 2 octaves to D# then up 2 octaves to D#, them down 2 octaves again. Since the left hand is easy, the signals that are dense with information are all going to one hand. For this reason, it is not the most difficult technique. I ended all of my Venice Beach concerts with either this etude or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. I had to increase the level of difficulty in La Campanella to even things out. The LA Weekly commented on my version being unplayable.

I know that the skips in La Campanella are less challenging than the descending octaves in Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody no 2. The other virtuosos know it as well. Watch Adam Gyorgy on YouTube sail through the technique in La Camapanella and then watch him hit a brick wall at the end of Liszt’s Rhapsody. Even though his technique is better than most touring pianists, his live performance of HR2 ends with an uncontrollable chain reaction of wrong notes. Cziffra and Dichter couldn’t play the descending octaves on their studio recordings without eliminating the awkward opposite hand direction movements. They faked the ending of the rhapsody, yet both of them played La Campanella without diluting the technique. You can watch Cziffra on YouTube play the skips in La Camapnella without much effort. Then, listen to a collection of faked and failed attempts on the descending octaves that include live performances where he attempted to play the passage as written. Despite numerous attempts, he couldn’t play the HR2 descending octaves. Anyone who tries to contend that the descending octaves aren’t that hard to play, must conclude that Cziffra was a bad pianist. The same goes for Mark Hamelin. You can’t have it both ways. His performance of Liszt’s Rhapsody on YouTube is great until he loses control of the rhythm during the descending octaves. Anyone who argues that the octaves are easy, must conclude that Hamelin struggles with easy technique. My opinion is that his level of technique is near the top of the list of the greatest virtuosos. The reason this perfectionist loses control of the rhythm in the descending octaves, is because it’s the hardest passage he plays.
 
The failure rate is the highest with regard to past and present professionals attempting Liszt's Rhapsody in the studio and on stage. That fact makes the descending octaves the hardest passage.
 
The twentieth century recordings of HR2 speak volumes about what makes the passage unplayable. The recordings that were released before Virgin released Streetwise in 1991 were dominated by virtuosos who faked the passage by playing these alternating octaves with their hands together. They eliminated all 19 times that the hands move in opposite directions.

I knew the descending octaves were going to be trouble from the cartoons. Bugs Bunny was praying before attempting the last page and the cat on the Tom and Jerry cartoon wasn't even playing the octaves. Since they used violins to play the passage, it had to be too difficult for the professionals. It doesn't make any sense to end a cartoon about a piano piece with violins, unless they couldn't find anyone capable of playing the notes written for the piano. I figured that the problem with the adults was that they didn't bother to develop their brains the same way that Liszt did. My first teacher was quoted by the press about how important this Rhapsody was to my development as a musician. No matter where you go, this piece is still the all time favorite of audiences who enjoy virtuosos.        
3:16 PM 
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Tuesday, September 08, 2009 

Category: Music
The Streetwise Copycat

In spite of a massive internet promotion campaign by the handlers of the Hungarian Rhapsody playing "Streetwise Copycat," he still has not generated as many views in over three years as I did in three minutes on "The Joan Rivers Show." Millions more in TV land saw me play sections of it during interviews on other shows.  A friend had told me this copycat - a guy on the internet who was trying to establish himself as an expert on Liszt, by recycling the images people remember of me promoting the Streetwise CD. I soon found out that he had a public relations firm that was elbowing their way to the top of the search engine in hopes of fame and fortune. It appears that a British based firm created an internet illusion that suggests that Maksim, who dresses up like me when he plays Liszt’s Rhapsody, is the most popular pianist. Why does his post of the Rhapsody have more views than Horowitz's or Lang's? Who is this guy, and why does he only use one name like Cher or Madonna? 

Is this new brand of internet promotion that creates an illusion of popularity going to propel him to national TV? I doubt it. My friend who works for Extra Extra told me that my copycat is going to need to generate a quarter of a million views in one night, like a movie star does, in order to get their attention.

You know something is fishy when you compare his Google search results with the search engine’s results of other recorded artists, myself included. For the rest of us, you will find sponsored links at the top of the page by amazon or ebay. This is routine. We have sponsored links. He doesn’t. Why not? He has had releases of simple piano pieces on a small EMI satellite label that distributes primarily to countries in the east. Could it be that he’s too famous to be released in the US? Is he so famous that in addition to not needing a last name, he doesn’t need a sponsored link? Or perhaps, could it be that his small public relations firm can’t control advertizing for the biggest internet retailer in the world?

It’s filmed at a burger and beer joint in London called The Roadhouse in front of an audience of about 80 people seated in 4 rows. Hidden from view are the dinner booths where they serve chicken wings, burgers and potato skins. Time Out London says that The Roadhouse features bands and DJ’s every night and the cover charge is less than the cheapest burger.

A slick production using three cameras that employs a bit too many overhead shots for my taste. The director of the Canadian version of Saturday Night Live, that I was a musical guest on, employed many of the same over-produced, over-head shots. Having said that, this is the most well produced video of the Rhapsody on YouTube. The director of this video is far more qualified than the performer. It is not a film that documents a legitimate performance, but a visual of a performer with limited skills who looks good behind a piano. The facial shots suggest that he is not a pianist, but an actor who is over-acting. That’s not the case. He really is trying to play the piece, although if he’s going to dress up like me, he needs to spend more time in a gym. As a pianist, he struggles throughout, because he doesn’t have the necessary skills to handle the basic technique. Any pianist with his level of skill has no business playing Liszt’s Rhapsody. EMI Classics International agrees, as they have refused to record him playing this.

When Mike Caffey posted my first video on YouTube, Mattyb2001uk, who posts Maksim, left threatening messages in Mike’s inbox ordering him to take me off YouTube immediately. It was obvious that they were threatened by me, because my post revealed where their client’s act was derived from. Mike’s not going to listen to them. Why would my manager give in to a promoter who represents a guy who is trying to steal my act?

The video had a promotion staff of foot soldiers on YouTube that have more manpower than its production staff. Before they were exposed, the foot soldiers used to be named after birds and animals. When you clicked on their names, you could see that they were all from the UK. They worked as a group, leaving clusters of comments with Mattyb2001uk playing a leadership role. They would choose random time codes in my videos and make up mistakes while agreeing with each other that the performance was bad. They also surrounded and harassed anyone leaving positive comments. Then, they would branch off individually to other posts of the Rhapsody, attacking anyone who defended me while promoting Maksim as the best performer of the piece. They did the same thing to Lang Lang.

I came across clusters of comments left by Maksim’s promoters named after birds and animals on some of Lang’s posts of Liszt’s Rhapsody. The birds would criticize Lang’s performance, while the animals would insist that Maksim plays the piece better. On one of the posts I found some of their comments questioning why anyone would book Lang on television. One of the comments had the pay off phrase, "Maksim should be the one on 60 Minutes."

I suspect that they were effecting the search engine rankings by manipulating the ratings of pianists in order to push Maksim’s ratings up while pushing the others down. I saw some evidence of this when Mike posted my recording of Chopin’s Polonaise in A Flat. They showed up as a group and, as usual, made-up mistakes while pointing to random time codes even though there were not any mistakes there. Since the video was only a week old, I could see how they attacked the ratings. At the time, I had less than ten ratings that averaged out to four stars. The number of views combined with the ratings resulted in my video being listed on the first page of the YouTube search engine for Chopin’s Polonaise. In one night, Maksim’s army of foot soldiers accompanied their insulting comments with so many one star ratings that my video’s rating fell from four stars to two stars and that effected my search engine ranking. I was knocked from page one to page three on the search engine for that piece. Mike disconnected the ratings on all of my posts. I speculate that they must be doing this to some of the other performers. How else would a guy in a burger joint who can’t play the piece wind up at the top of the search engine?

Mike deleted almost all the comments, many of which included made-up mistakes with bogus time codes, except for one that shows how Maksim’s promoter operates. Mattyb made-up a mistake on my post of Liszt’s Rhapsody (ending/interview) that was impossible, because the time code of the mistake was in the middle of my interview with Isaac Cruz. 

There’s no way of knowing, but there is evidence that suggests that they are artificially inflating his views. Once Maksim’s army of birds and animals were exposed on YouTube, they disappeared and his numbers of views started inflating at an unusual pace. Perhaps the public relations firm tried a new approach that would justify their fees. At the time his numbers started increasing erratically, Maksim did not have more views than Lang, Hamelin or Horowitz. But that changed quickly as his views increased at such a fast rate that they doubled and tripled the competitions views. This could mean that the birds and animals were replaced by a room full of robots with different IP addresses that watched Maksim’s video repeatedly. It also could be that once the public relations firm elbowed their way to place their client at the top of the search engine, it created an environment where the illusion of popularity feeds on itself. It's not going to fool the people who book the national TV shows. They wouldn't be doing their job, if they were scammed by a room full of robots.  
2:15 PM 
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Sunday, January 25, 2009 

Category: Music
Who is the Campbell Troll?




Jeffrey Campbell and I went to the University of North Texas and we both studied with Professor Larry Walz. Before I arrived, he was considered to be the best pianist at the University[1]. One of the first things I learned about him was that he had a habit of bending the truth into a pretzel. He's doing that now, as the Campbell Troll, a multi-headed troll who goes through identities like kleenex. His motivation may be over career frustriation or depression due to a lack of self esteem. Whatever it is, he is a compulsive liar [2] and has a clear agenda to destroy my reputation as a musician by posting false information on the internet. Some of the material that he writes about me is stuff that ony he would know, becuause he knew me years before any major news organization profiled me. Mixed in with all the lies and smears are little bits of information that are known only to the people who knew me when I was in my early 20's. 

Understanding his obsession with with tearing down my image can best be described with two words: CodyParker. This was an incredibally talented and brilliant kid that I taught for years before moving back to LA in 2000. I referred Cody to Campbell, because Jeff was a fine pianist. After seven weeks, I received a call from Cody's mother, Nancy McAlhaney, a professional violinist here in NY. I thought she was calling me to thank me for the referral. She said that the experience was so bad that Cody quit playing classical piano altogether. The only thing Campbell taught him was that I was a bad musician. 








Campbell Troll lesson plan for Cody Parker










Lesson 1: Richard Kastle is a bad musician









Lesson 2: Richard Kastle is a bad musician









Lesson 3: Richard Kastle is a bad musician









Lesson 4: Richard Kastle is a bad musician








Lesson 5: Richard Kastle is a bad musician








Lesson 6: Richard Kastle is a bad musician









Lesson 7: Richard Kastle is a bad musician








Cody is now 18. Both he and Nancy can varify that Jeff Campbell was so obsessed with destroying my reputation as a musician, that he failed as an educator.


In college, he could not admit when he messed up. One time, he collapsed on stage during the opening passage of a piece he was playing at a student recital. You didn't have to be a musician to know that he collapsed, because he pulled his hands away from the keyboard and then started again. Several of our friends were there and noticed the problem. When they told him about what they saw, he became irrational and started yelling in their face alleging that he did not do what they saw him do. He didn't stop yelling until they pretended to accept his warped reality. He used to always say that Ivan Davis won the Liszt Competition by having sex with all the judges. 

Campbell and I spoke frequently while I was performing recitals in Venice Beach. He gave me good advise about not overloading the recitals with knuckle busters. It was helpful, because learning repertiore for a different recital every month was physically grueling. He wasn't jealous, until I went on CBS and he tried to twist the facts by suggesting that the applause was electronically enhanced. It bothered him when I told him that CBS bussed in hundreds of high school seniors, so that my entrance would be be received by cheering teenagers. It bothered him even more, when I told him that the reception was consistent with the Canadian audience I had just played for as the musical guest for Pilot One, the Canadian version of Saturday Night Live. He wouldn't even watch the CNN appearance.


His attitude changed for the better when I signed with Virgin Records and offered to hand deliver his audition tape to the label president. The NY executive was doing cross-over projects, so he advised me to get Jeff's tape to the Simon Foster, the head of the world wide label in London. Simon threw a birthday party for me in London and I personally handed him Jeff's tape at the party. After I tried to help him, one would think that Jeff Campbell would be the last person on earth who would try to smear my reputation with lies.

I made several trips to NY while promoting Streetwise. HMV Records on the corner of Broadway near him had an eight foot tall display promoting my Steetwise project at the front of the store where they promoted the rock stars. He was uncomfortably positive when he tried to say that when he bought the CD, he didn't notice the display. 








I conducted original symphonies at Lincoln Center and he didn't attend the concert. I played the tape for him and he dismissed my Fifth Symphony by pointing out something inconsequential. He tried to assert that because the first movemment ends with chords that are also in songs by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, it's not a good symphony. He said that no reputable orchestra would play music by a composer that used such chords. I tried to show him examples of passages in Beethoven's sonatas where the same progression is used, but he refused to hear the passages. Once again, he was justifying irrational assertions by creating his own reality. 



One other possible issue that could explain his behavior is that Jeff went to Juilliard for his masters degree and studied with Adel Marcus. She treated him like he was her servant. Even though he graduated in the early 80's, he spent the rest of the 80's making room in his schedule to be her errand boy. She would call him whenever she needed groceries. I kept telling him to tell the old witch to screw off. I don't know the psychology behind this phenomenon, but my guess is that it either created a self-esteem problem or indicated that there were self-esteem issues already there.When Marcus passed away, there was a tribute for her thrown by her notable students. Jeff was snubbed [3]. 







Jeff has had a taste of career. Perhaps it's not enough and that's the problem. He recorded the Rimsky Korsakov Concerto for TelArc Records. Even though I advised him how to promote it, he didn't promote it and the release went largly un-noticed [4]. It is a good recording with an original cadenza. I recommend it as a download from Itunes. I would never disparage another pianists' recording, unless, of coarse, they're faking Liszt.



Footnotes:


1. Jeff could  toss off Liszt's Paganini Etude no 2 and make it look easy. Only a fine pianist could do that. The difference between our techniques is that I could toss of Liszt's Paganini Etude no 3, La Campanella. Ivan Davis, Winner of the Liszt Competition, couldn't play the original. He played the simplified Busoni version.



2. Professor Walz and I spoke frequently in the 18 years after I left college. He said that Jeff only called him when he needed a letter of reference. Jeff applied for many teaching positions at universities. The professor always gave a reference when asked, but was frustrated at the way Jeff misrepresented facts on his resume. The professor told me that there was no reason that a pianist like Jeff who had a masters degree from Juilliard couldn't land a position as a professor at a major university. Walz said that the problem was that you simply can't represent that you won a competition that you didn't win. He said that Jeff's unnecessary compulsion to lie ruined his credibility. The professor said that everybody knew that Ivan Davis won the Liszt Competition, not Jeff Campbell. This misrepresentation was also in the press file he sent me when I was trying to help him get a record contract at Virgin Classics. I asked him about it and he said that the Juilliard concerto competition that he did win was referred to as the Liszt competition. Even if that was true, it was not The Liszt Competition.   







3. Even though Jeff had no career momentum as a performer, he was invited to record for TelArc. The father of one of his students was was a lawyer who was involved with the project. They needed another piece, like a short concerto, to fill out the album. Jeff's connection with the attorney combined with his ability insured that he got the gig. I went to the celebration dinner and advised him as to what he needed to do to promote it. He ingored my advise and there was no artist generated promotion whatsoever. A couple of days before the release date, I called Roger Holdredge, formerly president of Virgin Classcs who was at the time working as a marketing consultant for Bob Woods, owner of TelArc. Roger said that the project was being withdrawn from retail, because there was no promotion by the artist and the orders were for ones and twos, meaning that  retail interest was next to nonexistant. They shipped only a couple of hundred units and with no promotion on the horizon, there was no reason to continue. Roger told me to buy one quick, because after about five weeks (the turn around time from when the order to withdraw is issued and the units are physically returned) they would no longer be available in stores. Since Bob's investment (the orchestra paid for recording costs) was in the art work and manufacture, he could recoup the investment by offering it as a catalogue promotion of buying three CD's and getting this one for a dollar. This does not diminish the accomplishment. Once again, I tried to help him develop a career.



4. As a Juilliard student, he performed Liszt's Concerto no 2 with the school orchestra at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center. He beat Adel Marcus' other students to get this gig. Over the years, I've been acquainted with a couple of her students who hang out at the downtown nightclubs in NY. They're highly competitive and begrudge each others success. It doesn't surprise me that this pool of parana would leave Jeff off the list of notable students invited to her memorial, even though he recorded for TelArc Records. Campbell has trolls too. My trolls have trolls.           
2:52 PM 
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Sunday, December 14, 2008 

Category: Music
The Identity Thief



Note: On February 9, 2009 the person posting the fake version of me admitted for the first time that it was not me playing the piano. He indicates this in the opening of the video and in the description. Between February 1, 2008 and February 8, 2009 over 30,000 views occurred before he admitted the truth.

Blog written: December 13, 2008.
In 1991, Virgin Records released my performance of Liszt's most famous piece, which is my signature piece. Liszt put his most difficult technique, the descending octaves, at the climax of the piece. The media coverage of my national tour always included references with regard to my abilities when it came to playing the piece. I promoted the "Streetwise" CD by playing Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 on "The Joan Rivers Show." Jay Leno wanted me to play one of my own compositions when I appeared on his show, because being a composer was part of the interview and it wouldn't make any sense if I played a "cover." However, when Jay and I toured together, I ended each of the 50 shows we did that year with Liszt's Rhapsody.     


On Feb 1, 2008, a thief stole my identity and posted an internet illusion of myself on YouTube that makes many of his viewers think that I'm not capable of playing the piece from the Tom and Jerry cartoon that I'm known for playing.



The video confuses the viewer by using sheet music for graphics, not photographs of the performers. It's title is: Richard Kastle Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody no 2 Ending. It features three performances and names three pianists, myself, Kissin and Gibbons. The scam is that the first pianist who plays the Hungarian Rhapsody ending is not me. It's a really bad pianist who can't play the descending octaves. The incompetent impostor is placed side by side with good performances by Kissin and Gibbons. My level of virtuosity is the illusion. Any reasonable person who hears the first 20 seconds of this video will be conned into thinking that I can't play the notes. The person responsible for this scam uses the name GuitarSonata on YouTube. His channel represents that his real name is Matt Montoya and he's from Houston. I have every right as an artist to control the use of my identity, or do I? Mr. Montoya thinks that he has the right to steal my identity and use it to create an illusion that makes me look like the opposite of what I am. 



Of the tens of thousands of YouTube viewers who think they are hearing me play Liszt, most of them are not. They're being scammed by Mr. Montoya. Their first impressions of me are based on this illusion. When bookers and other industry people type in my name on a Google search after being approached by my manager, they see this scam illusion which is usually fourth or fifth on the first page. 



Matt Montoya is an identity theft with malicious intent. His video was designed to steal my reputation for the purpose of destroying it.



Within the video, he to explain why he took the time to do what he did. He claims that he loves watching this piece and has grown tired of seeing the controversary over the discussions about the level difficulty of the ending. The bit about how he loves watching the piece is nonsence.  



The text of the video compares me with Mark Hamelin, who simplifies the passage by not hammering it. He plays it at a moderately quiet volume. Liszt insists that the climax of his most important piece be hammered out at full volume, which is very difficult to do, because it increases the distance the hands travel. Mark is a fine pianist who delivered a fine performance of Liszt's Rhapsody, but he is more well known for playing other repertiore. He recoreded the Rhapsody on an indy label with limited distribution. He's not in the group of virtuosos who were chosen by major labels to record the piece. Lang Lang is in the group, but he's not even mentioned in the video.  Mr. Montoya's arguments are nothing more than a smoke screen designed to justify his crime. He says thayt he did it brcause he was bored. He sounds like an opportunistic thief who steals a car just because he has nothing better to do and thinks he can get away with it.

The video is peppered with irrelevant subject matter and forms conclusions based on weasle worded phrases like: "many people say"... "it's believed to be"... "pieces are said to be more difficult"..."claimed to be"... "I can't say for sure, but"..."I would bet my money that." In addition he's taunting me with an offer to remove the video if I give a note perfect performance of a four hour avant garde piece that is the most painfully torturous experience any pianist could endure.

This is a con artist who is using YouTube as a format to commit a crime he thinks he can get away with. I believe he has met the threshold for prosecution for engaging in criminal actions motivated by malicious intent.
7:46 AM 
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Monday, November 24, 2008 

Category: Music
The Story Behind My Classical Recordings 
Jay Leno summed up the problem in 1993 while we were doing some gigs together. He said emphatically, "Why won't Virgin release your record?" He was referring to the fact that it had been almost two-and-a-half years since my first release. He continued, gradually increasing the volume of his voice until he was almost yelling, "You sold a lot of records for them. What, Virgin doesn't want to make money? What, are they stupid?" I told him that there was a lot of politics going on since Virgin was sold to EMI. He said, "They're a bunch of snakes." EMI effectively froze my recording career by picking up an option to record a third album, while repeatedly delaying the release of the second. In 1997, an independent label released the Royce Concerto without a formal agreement and without the word piano on the packaging. As publisher, I stopped the distribution after a stock check of retail outlets revealed that buyers weren't interested in stocking a classical concerto with packaging that fails to define the instrument it's written for. Even after this defective launch in 1997, I still couldn't figure out why EMI wouldn't release a classical artist like me who sold 30,000 units [1]. The other artists on the label sold far less than I did. Yahudi Menuen sold only 600 units. The label President was quoted in the press saying that I was the top selling artist on Virgin Classics. It didn't make any sense. In 1997, the former label President told me that there was noone at Virgin to protect me, but he wouldn't be specific about what I needed to be protected from. In 1999, I ran into Denise, his former administrative assistant, at Associated Supermarket on 14th street in New York. She told me what happened. She said that it was the boycott threat from the retail chain that caused the problem. She was referring to the situation where my mother caused a big disturbance at one of the Spec's Music stores in the Miami area. Spec's Music was the biggest retail chain in south Florida. The executives demanded that I be blackballed as an artist or they were going to stop ordering new product from new artists distributed by Warner Electra Atlantic. The boycott threat went to the Chief Operating Officer of WEA. The label President told me that he was going to fix the problem by running a big advertising campaign with Spec's Music. He told me not to worry about it and to just concentrate on promoting the record. I used my mother's scene at the record store as a bit in my stand-up comedy routine that was part of my show when I toured as Jay Leno's opening act. Problem solved. No harn, no foul, right?

Virgin Records: I lived in Venice Beach in 1991 when "Streetwise" was released. The first time I heard about this boycott threat was when I was about to leave for New York to promote the project on The Joan Rivers Show and visit retail stores to establish a good relationship with the stores selling the product. A few days after the release, I recieved a call from label President, Roger Holdredge. I thought he was joking when he said, "I recieved a call from God, and he wasn't happy with you." He explained that receiving a call from the CEO of WEA was the equivalent of receiving a call from God. The CEO was yelling, "Who the f**k is Richard Kastle?" He demanded that my recording career be ended immediately. He was understandably furious about the possibility of one new artist having a negative effect on the sales of other new artists. The delicate balance between retail stores, the distributor and record label had been disturbed. Roger said that he calmed the CEO down by promising to repair the damage. Roger told me that if I hadn't been an immediate success right out of the box, he would be calling me to tell me that I was dropped from the label. He made me promise that I would make sure that my mother would never go into a record store again. He didn't know exactly what she had done, but it had something to do with her re-arranging the displays and then engaging in an altercation with the stores management that infuriated the stores executives. From here on, I will refer to my mother as Crazy Mary.

CBS: I thought that Crazy Mary and my father, Crazy Bob, had resolved the problem that caused all the irrational and harmful behavior that I was subjected to in the 1970's. But, I should have seen the signs that they were up to their old tricks when they bothered the President of CBS in 1989. The day after my network television debut on The Pat Sajak Show, Crazy Mary finagled the President of CBS into sending her the master tape of the show. Throughout the 1980's, while I performed insignificant gigs in small nightclubs, my father's mental condition, depression due to a lack of self esteem [2], was dormant. It reared its ugly head when I made my first appearance on national television.  He was resentful over the fact that my segment wasn't at the end of the show, but instead, it opened the show in direct competition with Johnny Carson's monologue. He wanted to know how much money I had made. I told him that the performance fee wasn't that much, but as a publisher and composer, I had made thousands of dollars a minute. In three minutes, I had made enough money to pay for a years rent. He became angry and snapped back at me revealing that he wasn't happy about my success. He calmed down when he convinced himself that it would probably never happen again. I told him that it would happen again when they re-ran the episode. The people at CBS had told me that this episode was a priority for re-runs, because one of the guests was the star of the blockbuster movie, "Honey I Shrunk the Kids." This was the formula for the best ratings against Carson. Crazy Mary took the phone from him and started questioning me about the re-runs. She ended the conversation in an unusually abrupt manner. She called me the next day to inform me that she spoke to the President of CBS, and he was sending the master to her house. Since it was already on its way, it was too late for me to call the administrative assistant at the office of the President of CBS and apologise for the intrusion and explain that my mother was a nut job. Initially, I wasn't angry, because I expected The Pat Sajak Show to be cancelled. Most shows didn't last six months competing with Carson, but this show managed to hang on for another year. In the end, it didn't matter, because I went on CNN several months later and was offered a contract with Virgin. No harm, no foul, right? 

Jay Leno and Caesars Palace: I invited Crazy Mary and Crazy Bob to be my guests at Caesars Palace. I made her agree to limit her time with Jay Leno to no more than five minutes, because it was unacceptable for the opening act's guests to bother the headliner. Caesar's welcomed my parents with a bottle of Dom and trays of hors d' oeuvres. Crazy Mary's backstage invasion was like a scene out of the movie, "That Big Fat Greek Wedding." She attached herself to Jay Leno and followed him around until he agreed to call her mom and allow her other relatives backstage. Jay couldn't have been a better sport, posing for picture after picture with every possible combination of her relatives. The stage manager was giving me this look that let me know that he had enough of my mother's behavior.  I tried to reason with her, but she pushed me aside, saying, "Out of my way, you! I'm the mother!" Finally, Jay had enough and said, "Mrs. Kastle, I shot more pictures for you than I did for the cover of Time Magazine. I'm tired. I'm going to bed."  She started screaming, "Oh my God. Where's Aunt Sophie?" I promised the stage manager that she would not be invited backstage anymore. The next day, Jay popped his head through the slightly opened dressing room door and said with a wry smile, "Where's Aunt Sophie?" He was so amused with my mother that he invited her backstage night after night, much to the chagrin of the stage manager.

These events combined with events from my childhood suggest that Crazy Mary and Crazy Bob had an agenda to stop me from having a career as a composer and concert pianist. My career momentum was based on television appearances, a record contract and live performances. Crazy Mary threw monkey wrenches at all three of these. Their pattern of disturbed irrational behavior started when I was a kid. They never wanted me to play the piano from the start. They bought a Baldwin piano when I was about seven-years-old. Crazy Bob played simple pieces on the piano and I played by ear at first. As soon as I rifled off my first virtuoso passage, Crazy Bob never played the piano again. My older sister took lessons, but decided to quit after a few months. She argued that I was so good, I should be the one taking lessons. Crazy Mary wouldn't allow it, saying, "Girls play the piano. Boys play the trombone." Crazy Bob's excuse was that he could afford lessons for only one kid at a time. They forced my sister to play the piano against her will, for a couple of more years, while I was forced to figure out virtuoso patterns and practice techniques on my own. I entered a local contest and invited my mother to see my first public performance. She screamed violently in my face as I left for the contest. It was clear that she didn't want anyone to hear me play the piano. I won first prize. My best friend, Carl, was there with his mother. Carl's mother marched over to my house and read my mother's beads. The public performance gave me a reputation in the community as a child protege. The irrational excuses given for denying me a music education didn't make any sense to others in the community, so they allowed my sister to quit, and me to start lessons. 

Crazy Bob was intimidated by my intellectual abilities years before they bought the piano. Even though he was an engineer, he couldn't beat me at chess when I was five-years-old. My brother-in-law, an IBM Executive, couldn't beat me either. Crazy Bob's depression may have been fueled by his development as an engineer, because they tend to be smart enough to make an assessment on their limits for processing information. Nevertheless, he held his fire until I was ten-years-old and started coming home with advanced math assignments that he couldn't do. When he realized that he couldn't do my math homework, his hands started trembling and he acted out manafestations of irrational behavior that included him dragging me into the bathroom where he would beat me up. Crazy Mary was there to supervise. She usually pulled him off of me when he started banging my head against the wall.

They got away with denying me dental care, but got caught denying me medical care. They put braces on their other childrens teeth, but not mine. Crazy Bob would take me aside and say, "You're smarter than all the dentists. You can figure out how to fix your own teeth. I'll show ya' how smart ya' are." When I was in junior high, I had untreated swollen knees for eight months. I developed a limp as the condition got progressively worse. Finally, I collapsed in phys-ed and had to be carried to the office. The guidance counselor looked at my swollen red knees and became shocked when I told her that my parents were denying me basic medical care. I explained my father's irrational position about how I was supposed to fix my own knees, since he determined that I was smarter than the doctors. She hit the ceiling when I told her my mother's excuse, "I'm just the woman of the house. It's the man of the house that takes you to the doctor." The guidance counselor checked me for bruises and told me that I was being abused. She said that they were breaking the law and that it was inhumane to deny any child medical care. She sent me home with a note addressed to my mother, telling her that she didn't have the right to deny a child medical care. It also said that she had to call a doctor immediately. She instructed me to come back in thirty minutes. If my mother didn't set up a doctors appointment, she was going to turn the matter over to the authorities. Crazy Mary called Crazy Bob at work and cried into the phone. She reminded him that she had told him to take me to the doctor. The condition brought on by medical neglect took about a decade to heal and caused other health problems. 

At fourteen, I gave my first full length piano recital. The day before the recital, Crazy Bob chased me around the house trying to break my fingers. He didn't want me to practice.  Following the recital, they threw a reception for me at their house where they received congratulations for being great parents. The owner of the company Crazy Bob worked for was there. He told me how lucky I was to have such a supportive father. I responded sarcastically, "I wish you were here yesterday to see just how lucky I really am."

At fifteen, a conductor heard me play Liszt and referred me to Ivan Davis. He recommended that Ivan take me on as his youngest student. After one lesson, Crazy Mary insisted on meeting Ivan. She promised to be on her best behavior. She got up in his face and screamed violently at him. I apologised, but he was so mad, he considered discontinuing my lessons. He said that he would teach me on the condition that I promised to keep her away from him. He said that if that crazy woman ever got within a hundred yards of him, he would throw me out of his studio. Since I was a year away from being old enough to drive, I was stuck wth Crazy Bob driving me to the U of M for lessons. He lectured me repeatedly on how he was going to allow me to go off to college when I turned eighteen, but on the condition that I agree to drop out after two years. His irrational justificaton was all about how he didn't go to college. Crazy Mary wanted me to go to college for four years. I pretended to go along with his screwy logic to keep him from coming unhinged.

At ninteen, Professor Larry Walz at the University of North Texas advised me to cut off my parents and never speak with them again. He said that he would cover for me, telling them that I "shuffled off to Buffalo." He believed that my father wanted me destroyed as an artist, but he would have no effect on me because I was on to him. He told me that my biggest problem was that I trusted my mother. He knew Ivan Davis and had heard about the stunt my mother pulled at the U of M. Professor Walz gave me a lecture about the seriousness of wedding vows with the World War II generation. He concluded that she was my fathers enforcer and would eventually set out to destroy whatever I did as an artist. Professor Walz died before it was revealed that my parents played a big role in sending my recording career into a tailspin. As soon as I found out, he was the first person I wanted to call. I wanted to tell him that he was right and that I should have taken his advise when I was in college.

In 2005, one of my highschool friends figured out what Crazy Mary did at the record store. I knew that she had gotten caught disturbing the displays, but I didn't know what she did after that. What could she possibly have done to cause a retail chain from my home town to threaten a botcott of new artisit releases if I wasn't blackballed? My friend told me his theory over drinks in South Beach following a film festival screaning of two of my films at the AMC Theatres in Coconut Grove. He informed me that the Spec's Music chain was owned and operated by Cuban/Americans. He said, "Your mother is Archie Bunker." He predicted that after being confronted for attacking the displays, she launched into a biggoted tirade against Cuban/Americans. That's why they wanted me blackballed.

I called Crazy Mary and told her what my friend had said. She screamed the same line over and over at least ten times, "I did not go into Spec's Music at Westland Mall!" The funny thing was that I never mentioned the name of the Mall that had the music store that she didn't go into.  Westland Mall is in the heart of Hialeah, also known as little Havana. I grew up near Westland Mall and I saw the neighborhood change from a southern white demographic to a Cuban/American demographic. There was little to no prejudice with the younger generation, but there was a lot more friction with the older people. Crazy Bob drove Crazy Mary into a neighborhood where they once lived, taking advantage of the friction that still exists between Cuban/Americans and white southerners, with an agenda start a biggoted altercation with a retail establishment that was selling my art. My conversation with them just before they took that action was about how the WEA sales rep in LA was taking me from store to store to shake hands and establish good relations with the retail employees that were ordering my product. In hindsight, I should have never mentioned the delicate balance between the retail businesses and recording business to these mentally ill relatives.

There's a pattern here. Everytime I got to another level as a student there was interference from at least one of them. As an adult, the interference came from the one that Professor Walz warned me not to trust. The monkey wrenches thrown by Crazy Mary, was her way of providing a spoonful of pablum to her husband to sooth his mental condition. Crazy Mary is now a widow, so she doesn't need to play with her monkey wrenches anymore.

Footnotes:

1. Virgin Classics President Roger Holdredge and WEA regional reps said that 30,000 units were manufactured. Holdredge was quoted in the LA Times saying that I wanted a full orchestra for my first release. He insisted on "Streetwise" as a tray of hors d' oeuvres to be the first release. He told the LA Times that I would have to prove that I could sell enough records before they would pay for an orchestra for my second release. As publisher, I have computer printouts from WEA distribution. Virgin Classics Hot Item report Mar 18 and Aug 6 of 1991: March 18 report shows: 13,060 -ordered to date (by retail); 16,700 branch purchases (WEA) and 649 -10 day new orders (retail). August 6 report shows: 16,866 -ordered to date; 23,825 -branch purchases and 455 -10 day new orders. In the opening weeks I was taken to many stores in LA and NY by WEA sales reps. I was in the top 5 or top 10 on classical sales charts and some of the stores had me in the top 100 rock chart. I have the chart from the biggest retail chain in Chicago that had "Streetwise" at no. 57 on the top 100 rock chart. "The Three Tenors" and Placido Domingo's release were the only other classical releases showing up on rock charts when "Streetwise" was released. When Holdredge was fired by the new EMI regime in the summer of 92, he said that sales were at 25,000 and that the rest of the 30,000 units would probably be sold in about a year. My manager ordered boxes of CD from WEA to generate gigs. In the fall of 93, all but one of the regional WEA branches were sold out. The last remaining branch said that they were down to the last couple of boxes. We ordered one of them. The remaining units were sold at retail in 1994. Resales on the internet add to the total.

2. In 2002, I consulted with an expert in psychiatry from the UCLA School of Medicine to understand the nature of my parents mental illness and how to deal with it. He said that my father was a textbook case of depression due to a lack of self esteem, but my mother had a complex form of mental illness that he could not diagnose without extensive interviews with her. What needs to be determined was her mental state before she knew my father.  It's possible that she had no mental illness whatsoever befoer she married him. He said that the biggest difference between the two was that my mother has no malice.

Related links about Streetwise including promotion and a blog.        

        

                                     
3:45 PM 
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