Peter King Update

[piaptk]

I just had a nice chat with Peter King.

For those newer to the game, Peter King is the ORIGINAL founding father of the embossed polycarbonate lathe cut records niche. He has been making short run records for bands and artists (including Pavement, The Beastie Boys, Donovan, and thousands of others, including being a huge part of the classic New Zealand Flying Nun 80s-90s Indie Pop explosion). He lost both eyes in a car wreck almost a decade ago and has been struggling since. He had two eye transplants, but his body has taken quite a while to accept them and they are still not working very well. Krisd and I made the pilgrimage down to NZ to meet him a few years ago and it was one of the highlights of my life. He is an incredibly knowledgeable and generous guy and is and always has been the gold standard to which I aspire. He was the reason I started cutting records, and I'm sure there are a lot of other people who got their start because of him.

I called him about six months ago and left a message, but heard back from his brother on FB that he had some health problems and wasn't doing well. I've continued to occasionally call and leave messages and finally got ahold of him tonight, and he said he is doing much better, working out, eating well, and that his eyes are slowly getting better.

Because he is a notorious luddite, anti-computer guy without any real personal digital presence, and he hasn't been very active for quite a while, I know he doesn't get talked about as much around here as he used to. But I wanted to let everyone who knows of him, what he's up to, and hopefully inspire the new guard of lathe cutters who have entered the hobby in the past five years who might not know of this LEGEND, to look into him. Here is a site maintained by a friend of his: http://peterkinglathecutrecords.co.nz/

[socialroots]

Roots all the way! Always respect those who were laying down tracks before you,know your history .Mr.Dixon is quite the boss in the lathecut game with some very innovative embossing to pc techniques,quite generous with his knowledge ,a la Peter King! Lets keep the tradition of this craft n culture . I for one wouldnt know anything about using a record lathe to cut records if it wasnt for the help and guidance of certain folks on this forum, a la Peter King! Thanx for sharing the good news of his recovery process Mr.Dixon.
maximum respect
patrick

[RedSpadeRobyn]

This is fantastic news! Thanks Mike!

[symatic]

Thanks for the update - Peter King is indeed a legendary human and is an inspiration for me too, more power to him!

[tragwag]

glad to hear he's doing well! most if not all of us owe him a debt for sure

[brasilisgrooves]

Hello friends. I tried to access Peter's website and it is down: / Do you know if he is okay?

[piaptk]

Ive been in contact with his daughter recently. He is having serious health issues, but she doesn’t elaborate. She says he is “ok for now”. I try calling every month or so but never hear back.