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Thread: Moraz v. the Moodies

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    Moraz v. the Moodies

    If you've got 24 hours to spare, check this out.


    https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...of+the+century

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    LOL! I'll get the Cliff Notes... Thanks.

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    Member DrGoon's Avatar
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    Patrick Moraz sued the Moody Blues for unpaid royalties when they dismissed him from the band. The Moodies claimed that Patrick had only been a hired hand for 15 years and that his musical contributions were minimal. The trial was shown on Court TV and eventually found in favor of Patrick. That's all you need.

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    Member Lopez's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DrGoon View Post
    Patrick Moraz sued the Moody Blues for unpaid royalties when they dismissed him from the band. The Moodies claimed that Patrick had only been a hired hand for 15 years and that his musical contributions were minimal. The trial was shown on Court TV and eventually found in favor of Patrick. That's all you need.
    Thank you, sir; you just saved me hours and hours.
    Lou

    Looking forward to my day in court.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lopez View Post
    Thank you, sir; you just saved me hours and hours.
    Well- Moraz only won $90,000 instead of the $4,000,000 he asked for. I'm guessing that would barely cover the lawyers' fees. I'm watching some of these. So far, it seems like Moraz's lawyer was a bit of a jerk and not so skillful, according to the CourtTV commentators. It was also interesting to hear that Ray Thomas didn't care for Yes and seemed pretty uninterested in music in general.

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    Member 2steves's Avatar
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    Moodies fucked over Patrick---He brought that group to life when they were on life support as far as anyone caring about them. The live shows were great too.
    I mean unlike Genesis who really didn't let Chester or Daryl in the band or record with them----Patrick was on every album cover and on every record so to say he wasn't a member for 15 years in nonsense.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by dnieper View Post
    interesting to hear that Ray Thomas didn't care for Yes and seemed pretty uninterested in music in general.
    From my time as a wannabe-Moodies fan some 25 years ago, I can't say I'm too surprised. That solo album of his, as well as the guy's own songs for the band, sit among the dullest and most sincerely uninspired attempts at "pop music" I've heard from the era.

    I always dug the pics of him, though; together with Pinder and Lodge they already looked as if they might have 200 years between them - in 1968. There was a bouncer at a local pub in my hometown who looked like a Ray Thomas dead ringer - toothbrush 'stache and casserole haircut and everything. His name was Alf and he was infamously potentially violent; I kinda always thought that image really didn't quite fit someone with likeness to a guy barely bothering to open his mouth in order to sing "Dear Diary".
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

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    Moraz has started to be written out of their story...that picture on the cover of that Polydor Years box is extraordinary, he was literally airbrushed out of the photograph!

    The Classic Artists DVD also barely mentioned him, and I thought certain other band members came across quite poorly on that, to be frank.

    To be honest the amount of decent songs I've heard by these guys over the last thirty odd years, I could count on one hand.

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    I was a huge Moody Blues fan from the late 60's until the mid-70's, my older brother played those albums a lot. Never really got in them during "the Moraz years", but I still pull out In Search of the Lost Chord, On the Threshold of a Dream (my favorite) and A Question of Balance for a spin every now and then.

    I'm currently reading a biography of LSD maker and Grateful Dead soundman Augustus Owsley Stanley III, I kept thinking of the Moodies Legend of a Mind when reading about how Owsley didn't like Timothy Leary, thought he was a shyster and not a True Believer about LSD. Good times, good times.......
    ...or you could love

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    Member lazland's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by 2steves View Post
    Moodies fucked over Patrick---He brought that group to life when they were on life support as far as anyone caring about them. The live shows were great too.
    I mean unlike Genesis who really didn't let Chester or Daryl in the band or record with them----Patrick was on every album cover and on every record so to say he wasn't a member for 15 years in nonsense.
    I think this is spot on. Moraz brought a unique energy to the band, at a time they desperately needed such energy.

  11. #11
    I can kind of see the band's point of view, in that Moraz never really seemed like an equal member of the band in the way Pinder was, though that's also increasingly true of Thomas as the 80s wore on and he contributed less and less.

    I'm just hoping we get to see the five classic guys re-unite for the fiftieth anniversary of DoFP!

  12. #12
    I think Moraz could have settled for a decent sum but going through the whole trial he didn't end up with much.

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Augustus Owsley Stanley III - Purveyor of Fine Acids and Psychedelics to Her Majesty The Queen

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    "Patrick and I will be back..."


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    Quote Originally Posted by dnieper View Post
    Well- Moraz only won $90,000 instead of the $4,000,000 he asked for. I'm guessing that would barely cover the lawyers' fees. I'm watching some of these. So far, it seems like Moraz's lawyer was a bit of a jerk and not so skillful, according to the CourtTV commentators. It was also interesting to hear that Ray Thomas didn't care for Yes and seemed pretty uninterested in music in general.
    More than likely, Patrick had a percentage deal with the lawyer. Usually these types of cases are handled for 40% of the total award. So the lawyer probably got 36K and Patrick got 64K less taxes.

    I'm glad he won and got something. That was a raw deal.

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    Member Staun's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    "Patrick and I will be back..."

    Patrick has a dent in his chin just like Kirk Douglas.
    The older I get, the better I was.

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    So... what's the story behind that picture?

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by arturs View Post
    So... what's the story behind that picture?
    I had to look it up too but apparently he worked on temp cues for predator but couldn't finish doing the score cause of a impending tour with moody blues. would be pretty fascinating to hear what his take on it would have been. silvestri did a pretty good job hard to see moraz doing it now.

  19. #19
    So, I guess the moral of the story is Justin Heyward is a true Cocksucker!!!!

  20. #20
    ^^ Well, maybe your moral of the story.

    That being said, the fact that Moraz was on the album covers pretty much told me he was a full-fledged member. I think he got screwed.
    "The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gojikranz View Post
    I had to look it up too but apparently he worked on temp cues for predator but couldn't finish doing the score cause of a impending tour with moody blues. would be pretty fascinating to hear what his take on it would have been. silvestri did a pretty good job hard to see moraz doing it now.
    A year or so ago Patrick was a guest on one of the shows on HouseOfProg.com and someone brought up his time with Arnold. He was very good natured about it and joked around. I hope there's a Q&A with him on CTTE. Would probably be very interesting.

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    Member Paulrus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    There was a bouncer at a local pub in my hometown who looked like a Ray Thomas dead ringer - toothbrush 'stache and casserole haircut and everything.
    The BBC prog documentary from a while back (not Prog Brittania - the one with the English comedian narrating) had a hilarious bit when they got to the Moodies. They showed a bit of an early video from 1968 and compared Ray Thomas to a psychedelic waiter. But Ray did serve an important role in the band, even if some of his songwriting wasn't up to par with the others.

    Speaking of 1968, here's a video of the Moodies from then I've never seen. A pretty good live performance* from the very early days of the Mk II lineup and one for 'tron lovers. They really were a proto-prog group back then and a blueprint for much of what came afterwards, even King Crimson.



    (*Note the Brian Auger's Trinity setup on stage behind theirs.)
    I'm holding out for the Wilson-mixed 5.1 super-duper walletbuster special anniversary extra adjectives edition.

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    That's Mr. to you, Sir!! Trane's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by lazland View Post
    I think this is spot on. Moraz brought a unique energy to the band, at a time they desperately needed such energy.
    personally, I don't appreciate at all the albums Moraz played and wrote on, but that was surely the period where they cashed in a max....
    So he had properly something to do with the success they enjoyed.

    But I can easily see how the contract he signed in 78 was probably one-sided, with four brutish trying to fuck a swiss


    Quote Originally Posted by zeprogmeister View Post
    I think Moraz could have settled for a decent sum but going through the whole trial he didn't end up with much.
    to see if that was possible from start... maybe Moraz had a dumb lawyer fueling the fire and pushing for a trial

    and settling for money wouldn't push him back in the historic fold... With this "win", they can't erase him anymore, and he's (maybe?) recognised for future royalties
    my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.

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    I just finished listening to most of these videos. Here are my impressions:

    -The main issue in the case was whether Moraz was a "member" or "hired hand." As far as I could tell, the only evidence that he might have been a genuine member was the stuff the public saw- five guys on the same album cover or stage, with apparent equal status. But behind the scenes, there didn't seem to be any evidence that he had an equal status. For every tour or recording, he signed a new contract with different terms- the other four guys didn’t do that. There was even a document he signed around 1980 in which he essentially agreed he was not a permanent member of the band. This document was a big issue in the trial, and although Moraz claimed he signed it under duress or something, the judge seemed to regard it as binding, so he threw out the entire claim on which most of the money sought depended- the jury wasn’t even allowed to debate it. This part was strangely glossed over in the Court TV coverage, though, so I might have missed something.

    -Patrick Moraz is an emotional and dramatic guy. At one point he started crying and had to leave the stand, at another he stood up and pointed at the four Moody Blues individually.

    -He was also evasive when asked some questions. He would go off on unrelated tangents. And when cornered on an issue, where you could tell he didn't want to admit something, he would often say "I don't understand the question." After a day in which he did this a lot, the judge spent 10 minutes criticizing him for this, which the Court TV commentators said was uncommon. In spite of this, the foreman of the jury said that some of the jurors really liked him and disliked the four members of the band. Apparently, a few jurors had wanted to award him some significant compensatory damages but they were unable to since the judge threw out the member-vs.-hired-gun claim.

    -There was about an hour of footage of the Moody Blues members testifying- they didn’t come across as very likable, except for maybe Graeme Edge, but I guess they had been coached to be as brief and businesslike as possible, though that didn’t work for Edge, who made everyone laugh when talking about Blue Weaver, who was also considered as a keyboardist for the band.

    -Moraz’s lawyer was a jerk who spent a lot of time saying the Moody Blues' lawyer had some kind of personal grudge against him, though I didn't see any evidence of that. He also mispronounced a few words, which was funny.

    -In these videos, they said Moraz was suing for $4,000,000, and he wound up getting $77,000 or something (I guess he later got another $13,000, since Wikipedia says he got $90,000), even though he was offered $400,000 as a settlement before the trial.

    -The money that he did get was due to some accounting issues that I didn’t really understand. He had been asking for about $140,000. The Court TV commentators said the jury might not have understood the details either and just awarded him half of what he was asking.

    -Moraz was apparently paid somewhere between $1 million and $2 million over the 13 or so years he was with the Moody Blues.

    -In spite of that, Moraz described himself as being almost destitute at the time of the trial- he had to sell most of his equipment (including the “double mellotron”- I wonder what that would go for in LA around 1990 versus today!) and play in clubs for $40-120 per night.

    -Moraz asked to be on the Yes Union tour, but Yes said “no.”

    -A Court TV commentator referred to his time in “the Yes,” which I’m sure most PE readers would have laughed at.

    -Moraz mentioned a period when Ray Thomas lived with him for a few months. He was asked if anyone else was there, and you could tell he was about to mention some female companion of Ray’s, but then said “I thought we weren’t going to talk about that?” and the lawyer went on to something else.

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    ^Bloody hell, what a sprawling mess. I suppose with all that going on it's no surprise the musical output declined.

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