Mark’s Blog

Been working on this latest one for about a week now - had to really rush to finish it today, wanted it finished before I leave for Holiday.   Genuinely pleased with the result, has a nice fat sound overall - the solo is probably the clearest sign that I was running out of time at the end, but hey, it’s workable.

Enjoy.

This is really, really weird.  I suspect most people who hear this are going to hate it.  The underlying rythmn track is one of the earliest riff’s I ever wrote (we’re talking 13/14 years old I guess) - and it was quite heavy, my main influences at that tender age being stuff like Metallica and Anthrax - and quite simple as well.  I’d been determined to try and use it somehow, and so a few hours slaving over GarageBand this weekend produced….well….not sure what it is - progressive f**ked up s**t would be a fair summary :D  I’m in two minds right now, but I’ve finished it, and it was pissing me off, so it’s staying as it is.  Enjoy…or whatever.

Also now posted on My Music page under Inversions.

I had a flurry in May, sometimes putting together 2 tracks a week, but my latest effort has taken 3 weeks just on it’s own to really come together.   Finally nailed it yesterday as well - it’s a bit of an epic, both in terms of duration, and content I think - so I’m really pleased with how it turned out - some good contrasts, slow melodic, then hard-paced and with a definite groove (the chorus riff turned out excellently).

Now posted on “My Music” page under “Inversions”.

There’s inadvertently been a bit of an Ian M. Banks obsession taking route in my current music labelling - I’m currently reading “The Player Of Games” by Banks (superb bloody book by the way) for about the fourth time in total - and really enjoying it - it’s definitely one of my favourite all time “Culture” novels - inbetween reading it and the rest of life, I started just playing a bass line, ended up putting some stuff around it, fattening it out more and more - when I’d finished, I liked it, and to me, my reading seemed to have carried through into the music.  Not even sure why, and I guess if you read the book, you might see any connection at all.  Still, got to take the inspirate from somewhere

The hint here is in the title - I wanted to try and do something to emulate one of my all time favourite Bands particuarly fantastic style - that of Dream Theater.  This is my tribute to them.  If your familiar with Dream Theater, you’ll surely recognise the influence.  Anyway, this is otherwise quite different to some of my usual stuff, though it has some of the clear hallmarks of my sound.  Harder, and heavier though.