Wow... I am speechless, stunned and so dishearten and disappointed to what I have just read. I bumped into Jason either on here or on soundcloud and was so happy that not only did a fellow Irishman love BoC but he was making sweet beats and sounds in the same vain. I loved his first few albums and EPs and we got talking about doing remixes for each other and swapping reason files etc, I think there was a dropbox folder setup where we shared stems and ideas - looking back I cant honestly remember what I shared or sent him (or how much) but I do remember him sending me a track and saying "what do you think dude?" I initialy laughed at him as I thought it was a joke, told him it would be great as a remix for me, after he questioned what did I mean I had to gently point out he took most of a song I had already done from my "Among the Free" album, re-ordered it a little then sent it back to me. There was a bit of back n forth on it as he thought it was all his and all original at the time I thought nothing of it, honest mistake and my fault for sharing the stems of an album I had just released at the time. His reasoning was he wanted to see how I laid stuff out and my work flow etc, which is fair enough I don't mind sharing and we can all learn from each other.
But for me personally as much as I had a load of time for the chap, I was watching him crash in real time on facebook, I had to unfollow him. There was only so many times I can watch someone create an album to raise cash for a mac that's broke because his cat pissed on it, or coffee was spilled on it. Even when this was going on tho I was stupidly thinking to myself "you no what, fair fecks to him, the kid might be down n out and having money problems n shit but damn, he has the time and the talent and he has set up a label, he is an awesome designer and his work ethic is great...." I mean through personal experience and I'd say a few of us on here are the same, but whether its through drink / drugs or a break up or being unemployed we turn to our art and we usual churn out some pretty good shit! So in my head he was in a dark place, but it will be ok he will get through it and the new label will be his baby, his drive and his focus.
This was what I thought was happening. I came on here last year I think and I seen the initial claim that he had stolen work, my heart sunk "ahhh dude wtf!" not believing it I obviously checked out the links and was just in shock, the thread went on tho and I was delighted to see he at least came on to appologise or try and explain what had happened. So that was it, done n dusted - lesson learnt - don't pass of .wav's as your own if you cant feckn remember exporting them in the first place! Just before this came to light we had a chat online and I had asked him did he mind me sending some new stuff his as obviously he had a good audience on his label and I felt my own label wasn't behind me as much as they could be. Thankfully I had a shit load of other projects come my way before I even sat down to work on that stuff as his enthusiasm for me to send all stems, reason files and anything else his way (just in case you know.... for a remix album) was frightfully high!
Anyways I just wanted to drop my two cents in on this, I don't want it to sound like a witch hunt (believe me I am not defending what he done!) I just don't like bitching about people - I think I am just gutted and disappointed, he had (and I'm sure he still has) great talent... somewhere in him, just the feckn eejit went down a stupid path and I would love to be at the other end and shake him! (trust me I have been back on facebook to find him and had no luck)
End of the day tho he has let down three sets of people, his fans who purchased the music, the talented musicians he ripped off and most importantly... himself
ps. sorry for the wall of text guys!