AN AUDIENCE WITH MARK ............. JUST LIKE WHEN I WAS A BOY!

When I was a wee lad my brother and I used to dress up and sing and dance at our family Christmas parties. Seeing all the family happy and clapping an’ stuff made me feel so good I used to think ..... when I grow up I wanna be funny! Well, I never lost that feeling - making people happy is everything to me, be it singing, playing, or acting stupid.

When my brother used to go out I’d get me mates round and play his albums. We’d pretend to play along (they call it air guitar now!) and we would mime to Wishbone Ash, Status Quo and Rory Gallagher - oo it were fun! Oh yeh, we used to call it freaking out!

When I was about 14, I was out on my pushbike and found someone’s home-made instrument. It was triangle-shaped with four strings but two of them were busted (probably why they'd dumped it). It was crap! I took it home and soon realised I could play along with Status Quo on two strings (you know that riff ..... nana na na na, nana na na na).

It wasn’t until I was about 18 when I got my first real axe an echo acoustic. I bought it in a second-hand shop in Streatham for 20 quid. Prior to that I had a Woolworths electric (second-hand of course) but never had an amp ... doh!

So my brother showed me the chords he used to tune his acoustic properly, I’d been strumming in some kind of open-tuning not realizing there was a thing called concert pitch! Anyway, the first song I learnt all the way through was nananana by ..... you guessed it ..... Quo. and yes, it had three chords!!

I spent most of my time trying to make up songs, not bothering with other peoples material as it was too difficult! So one night I went to a jam night in Reigate, Cobbles it was called, and to my horror I was forced by my drunken pals to get up and play Sunshine of your Love with them. Well I didn’t have a clue, but splanged me way thru it and made up a solo in the middle. When we finished I was expecting bottles and old fruit to be hurled at us but no! clapping, whistling and cheering .....
just like when I was a boy! I thought blimey, I’ll have some more of that, went home and started to practise a bit.

About a year later I formed a band called OUCH playing rock covers. It didn’t last too long but we had a great following. I played my first gig at the Jolly Butchers in Dorking. I remember having to stand in the fireplace as it was so small in there and I broke a light with me guitar, and there was a beautiful girl in there - not that I took any notice, I was married you see.

Now me and the wife had moved into a house in Wallington sharing with a mate called Reg Patten, he was a drummer and had sound-proofed his conservatory ..... wooohoo! We started working on my songs and soon met Dave, a bass player from Plumstead. He led in into my first real band called Rajans begging to end. She was black and sexy and wore the tightest gold slacks I’d ever seen. It was a seven-piece dance funk band. We played a few gigs in London, the first being a gay night club: wow, what an eye-opener that was.

Soon formed the next band, Chippy Mintons Revenge, with a drummer I met in Croydon, Jim, wot a great bloke. We did our fist gig in the Cartoon, Croydon and went down a storm. We had keyboards which meant we could play YES and stuff like that, cool. There were five of us but soon whittled that down to four, more money you see. We rocked up the set and called ourselves, Chinatown. We did a few gigs but some posh bloke told me to change the name as there was already some pro band with the same name ... doh! So one night the singer didn’t turn up at the Cartoon leaving me to do it ... I nearly shit myself, I’d only been doing backing vocals till then. Still, the show must go on, and it did. The crowd went nuts, they were clapping me .....
just like when I was a boy!

As far as session work goes, I’ve done loads over the years, some of which ......

• A couple of albums with Paul Cox
• An album with John Slaughter (Chris Barber’s guitarist) doing backing vocals.
• Three tracks for Titanium Music on lead guitar - they were dance instumentals for London clubs.
• Was offered a recording deal with Rocket Records but turned it down - wot a muppet! That was for an original track called Pretty Little Angel.
  
• Oh yeah, AHA recorded one of my songs but the producer did a runner with the master and three more of my original tracks. 

The most memorable gig I ever played was with Paul Cox down in the West Country at a festival where we were joined at the end by a 50 piece gospel choir from New York. It was so moving I cried .....
just like when I was a boy!

I admire anyone who has the guts to get up in front of total strangers and spill their heart out singing their own song (anyone can sing someone else’s).

Guitar players that make me feel good range from Steve Vai to Pat Metheny from Martin Taylor to Allan Holdsworth, the list is infinite. Its just gotta sound like they mean every note they play.

Not a lot affects me these days because everything has to be so commercial to sell. It does nothing to me. There is no soul in it and the audiences that are taking this shit are more interested in what the person looks like than the song ..... god bless the tv.

As for cds, I mainly listen to Paul Schofield, Pat Metheny, Weather Report, Jeff Beck, Steely Dan, Marcus Miller, Stanley Clarke - all a bit jazzy. I love it!

Song writing just comes naturally to anyone who’s artistic. It’s like painting a picture you want to share with everybody that makes them happy. But unlike a painting, songs have to be in some kind of order for people to understand. That’s why jazz music is true art - you have to open your mind like a window and let the breeze float over you (blimey I got all carried away then!).

Well, inspiration for writing song is easy for anyone who’s had bad times and I just keep getting em! Every song is like a little cry for help. You want someone to say yea, I know where ya coming from. It’s all about sharing emotions. That's the trouble with being human I guess?

Most music comes from the blues, those poor fuckers had it bad - we all owe them so much.