Wes Bay Orchestra

Experimental • North Vancouver, V7P 3J5, CA

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About the Artist

NOTE: When asked for his "Artist Bio" this is what he sent us. Almost none of this is true. Wes Bay began his training as an artist in the summer of 1969 in New York working with pop artists Stanley Warhol and Stig Attwood. The trio created the installation "Urine On The Sidewalk" for the Googenburg Museum. Following the lawsuit and subsequent trial, Wes left New York for the sunnier climate and people of San Fransisco. It was there in the West that Wes discovered his second love — music. In 1972 he was asked to join a new band being formed by fellow artists Nell Yunge and Stephenie Sills. That group "Velvet Elvis" was very influential on the not-yet-formed punk movement later that decade. The band broke up in an explosion of lawsuits and harassment charges in the spring of 1975. Wes, tired of the music scene, went back to making films. “Vaginas In the Mist" a film about early female aviation pioneers won him the first in a series of "Gold Sprocket" prizes at the 1976 Whole World Film Awards. Wes next went on a money raising expedition to fund his next project the far-seeing "Silicon Spider" a feature movie about computers that talk to each other with his friend "S.K.", who was assumed at the time to be Stanley Kubrick. After raising an unknown, but some say quite large sum of money, Wes fled for Argentina. No charges were laid. Kubrick, who has since died, neither confirmed or denied the rumours of his involvement with the project. The next 20 years saw only one Wes Bay project, the infamous 1984 "Strudel Festival". Wes hired 80 of the worlds best classical string players for a "special performance" of his piece entitled "The Mind of a String Player". In a bizarre letter to each they were instructed to leave their instruments behind. Wes claimed he had invented the perfect instrument to reflect the string players personality and temperament. Each player would be allowed to keep the instrument after the performance. Wes was so confident of the players abilities he would not allow a single rehearsal, or anyone to see the score before-hand. The night of the show many of the players refused to participate when Wes started handing out the score - a single napkin with the words “Go nuts” written in crayon. There was more trouble as he began to hand out his "instruments" on-stage — foot long pieces of apple strudel he expected the musicians to "improvise" on. After the ensuing brawl, Wes again fled, this time to Canada. Wes reappeared in 1996 when Pilot Records, a Vancouver-based record company, hired him as a producer. Wes had minor triumphs with bands such as Dic Scene, Sonique, The Skunk Brothers, and the Flesh Ripping Weasels. In 2000 Wes once again returned to film with the release of his catalogue of over 200 films. He currently (2018) has 14 films in development. Wes will be played once again by Ian, who is returning for the 2021 summer season.