ABOUT
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I grew up surrounded by an eclectic mix of music; Frank Zappa, The Beatles, Jess Roden, Pink Floyd, Climax Blues Band and prog-era Genesis, to name a few. Blondie's 'Heart of Glass' in 1978 first stirred my interest in synths. Tubeway Army's Top of the Pops appearance in 1979 with 'Are friends electric?' was probably 'the' moment that sold me on synth music together, along with the likes of Ultravox and OMD.
Armed with an Argos bought Casio keyboard and a used Jen SX1000 monosynth bought for £80 through the local classifieds, I started to write my own basic songs from around 1983 before forming the synth duo Prolog with college friend Dave Holt, who I performed a small number of gigs with between 1984 and 1985. Prolog may well have been one of the first all-synth Blackpool bands around at the time. As a solo artist from 1985 onwards, I started recording demos in various local studios in the hope of my demos generating record label interest but my synth-based music was out of favour. I carried on writing new songs into the nineties (such as ‘Forever’ in 1998) but also started focusing on instrumental tracks and media compositions. Around this time, I composed some music for the Brian Barnes short film '8 million reasons not to die' and numerous other media projects. |
On keyboards in Prolog, live 1984. Photo: Evening Gazette.
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Album 'Parallel' released 2006
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Album 'Slow motion pictures' released 2008
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Album 'Tomorrow is another day' released 2020
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My last - and probably final - live gig, at the Tower lounge in Blackpool, late 2009.
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In 2006, after spending a few years getting my head around the latest computer virtual music technology, I recorded the album ‘Parallel’ at home. This resulted in some airplay on BBC 6 music. Two years later in 2008, I recorded ‘Slow motion pictures’ which achieved some airplay (including on BBC 6 Music again including from Tom Robinson) and a few favourable online reviews. Retro synth music was finding popularity again circa 2009 with the likes of La Roux and fellow Blackpool artist Little Boots in the charts. My style of music almost felt relevant again. I also performed live again for the first time in 20 years, albeit just one gig and composed the track 'Can you hear the waves?' for the Glam Rocks art installation on South Promenade in Blackpool. I started working on a new album in 2010 but - for various reasons - I had to put this on hold. |
Between 2010 and 2020, life-stuff happened and time whizzed by. My kids grew up, I had to establish a whole new career as a self employed voiceover artist following a redundancy and we moved house in 2014. I was still composing but very slowly. Spending every day in my studio recording voiceovers meant the last thing I wanted to do was go back in there at night. Frustrating. Then along came Covid 19 and the big lockdown in 2020. With little work coming in for a few months, I went back to the songs I had recorded or started in 2010 and decided to finish the album. I think I needed to write four new songs and tidy up the other five, as well as get used to singing again for the first time in ten years! 'Tomorrow is another Day' was completed in the summer of 2020 and even enjoyed some airplay on a few internet radio stations and on Radio Lancashire. Also in 2020, I worked on a demo of a song with Dave Holt called 'Find a Way'.
Since 2022, I've worked on more instrumental and experimental tracks under the name Storms Over Oceans with an eye on media usage and within installation art projects. Surprisingly, some of these tracks have received airplay on BBC Introducing and BBC3 neo-classical. I intend to create even more experimental pieces moving forward and would love to work with an equally experimental visual artist.
Since 2022, I've worked on more instrumental and experimental tracks under the name Storms Over Oceans with an eye on media usage and within installation art projects. Surprisingly, some of these tracks have received airplay on BBC Introducing and BBC3 neo-classical. I intend to create even more experimental pieces moving forward and would love to work with an equally experimental visual artist.
