Paul Roundhill
Paul Roundhill | |
|---|---|
| Occupation(s) | Writer and multimedia artist |
Paul Roundhill, (born 25 March 1955) also known as "Paul Ro", is an East London-based artist and writer. He is best known for his association with musician Pete Doherty, acting as his self-styled "literary agent" and previously running the website Balachadha.com, which has been closed since May 2006[1]. He has been pejoratively characterized as Doherty's "svengali" due to his role in Doherty's career[2].
Background
Roundhill's formal training is in fine art, which he studied at the Brighton College of Art[citation needed]. His father was a Church of England Canon[3]and Rural Dean of Dorking and Cranleigh respectively in the diocese of Guildford. Following his studies, he moved to London, and from the mid 1970s, he began to specialise in rock photography, helping to document the development of punk[citation needed]. He took both live performance and more intimate photographs of bands and musicians such as Iggy Pop, The Clash, Frank Zappa, and The Rolling Stones[citation needed]. A collection of his photographs were featured in his one-man show running in a London gallery in 1995[citation needed].
Roundhill moved into poetry in the 1990s. He began by creating the spoken word component of the Soho Jazz Festival[citation needed]. He also used his connections with the artistic world to organize poetry events featuring noted writers such as Carolyn Cassady (the widow of Neal Cassady, and herself a distinguished artist), author Will Self, and pioneering beat poet Herbert Hunke[citation needed]. One of his most famous events was a series titled "FabTractTextSpressionists," which combined jazz and spoken word performance in an improvisational, free-form style[citation needed].
Music and Multimedia
Roundhill developed a relationship with the musician Pete Doherty in the early days of The Libertines, a highly influential British indie rock band active from 1999 until 2004.
He co-wrote the song The Saga which appears on the eponymous album The Libertines, which reached #1 in the UK charts.
His relationship with Doherty led Roundhill to introduce him to the extended possibilities of multimedia performance. This culminated in the creation of Balachadha.com (currently undergoing a re-design; some of the material is available through the external links below). Described as a "living biography" by one reviewer, Balachadha was created as a personal forum featuring videos of Doherty performing, as well as more intimate interactions and documentary-style short pieces, someimes involving drug use[4].
Roundhill made headlines by marketing some of Doherty's notorious "blood paintings", drawn with a syringe of the singer's own blood or that of associates[5]. Roundhill displayed the paintings in a gallery and took on a significant public relations role[6] in the wake of a scandal following misinterpreted staged photographs of Doherty inserting a syringe into a friend[7] for the purpose of taking blood for use in the drawings[8].
He has been involved in the production of several documentaries, including the 2005 film Who the F**k is Pete Doherty[citation needed], and appeared briefly in the Babyshambles video for recent single "The Blinding"[9].
He also produced the music video for the top ten single, and Ivor Novello Award nominee, For Lovers[citation needed], a collaboration between Doherty and the poet-songwriter Peter Wolfe, whose career Roundhill manages jointly with Andy Lee[citation needed].
Paul Roundhill also works as a writer and publisher. He is the commissioning editor for the obscure British music and culture journal Full Moon Empty Sportsbag. In addition, he transcribed and edited Doherty's "prison diaries" recording his experience of life in Pentonville Prison.
Mark Blanco incident
Mark Blanco, a 30 year-old actor, fell from a balcony and died after being ejected from Roundhill's flat. Blanco arrived in a state of heavy intoxication, and allegedly became physically aggressive towards Doherty, a fellow guest[10]. During the altercation before he was ejected, Roundhill took Blanco's hat off and set it alight, supposedly in an attempt to distract him away from the singer. Bizarrely, the amateur actor had been promoting a play about a man who falls to his death from a window.
Despite initial confusion surrounding the circumstances of the fall, CCTV footage proved conclusively that Blanco jumped to his death. He drunkenly attempted to climb over the railing and leap to a nearby lamp post, but missed his target and fatally fell[11].
Drugs
In 2006 Roundhill was convicted of possessing 0.04 centigrammes of cocaine Class A drugs as a result of the investigation of pictures published in the Daily Mirror of Kate Moss apparently snorting cocaine. He pleaded guilty to the offence and received a 12-month conditional discharge[12].
See also
External links
- Albion Arks featuring Paul Roundhill's multimedia recordings of Peter.
- Roundhill's Youtube Channel Many of Roundhill's videos are available under the name "ProfessorRo".
- The Prison Diaries Edited by Roundhill and published in the Guardian.