During my teenage years, i was a member of three bands. First, when i was about 14, came Echodek, essentially a Stone Roses/La's/Ocean Colour Scene tribute which was sorely lacking in musical chops but managed a one-off, admittedly disastrous, Battle Of The Bands appearance in our school hall.
Echodek reconvened a couple of years later with a mostly new line-up, still peddling the same drizzly, backwater Britpop but now featuring a Smiths/Morrissey slant, heroically-clumsy lyrics and marginally-superior musicianship. Following some unhinged, cheddar-fuelled 'rehearsals' in my cramped living room, we managed to record a three-track EP and perform at various venues around Liverpool, Birkenhead and Manchester, but the dull thud of mammoth egos clashing led to things being curtailed rather abruptly. This state of affairs was hardly helped by a particularly awful show at the world-famous Cavern Club which was immortalised (with grim foresight) on video cassette.
Once at uni, i formed a new group featuring two former Echodek henchmen (basically the ones i was still speaking to) as well as an open-minded, almost virtuoso guitarist from school who'd also followed us across to Liverpool. Sinbad's Unbelievable Revolution was an outright rejection of our past methods and prejudices, bringing together all the more interesting listening habits which had previously been drowned out by our Roses/Smiths obsessions. After a couple of uncomfortable gigs with myself continuing as vocalist, we went down a purely instrumental route. Jamming at least three times a week in the basement of the student's union, a surprisingly diverse set of psych/dub/kraut/electro/funk oddness took shape. We appeared in venues across the north-west and even garnered a bit of acclaim following some particularly strong performances in Liverpool around Spring 2006. Unfortunately, the spark seemed to dissipate after we over-exerted ourselves with a mini-tour that summer. That, combined with my own precarious mindset and a hilariously bad support slot (smoke machines included) with Union Of Knives, led to the gradual fallout of what had briefly been a pretty promising outfit. Following my departure at the end of the year, they continued for a few months as more of a straight electro-rock concern, bizarrely appearing in a Channel 4 '3 Minute Wonder' documentary (which i've never seen but is apparently still shown occassionally on weekday mornings) with a short-lived female vocalist.
Despite my situation, i've still been writing and recording in bursts. Admittedly, the lack of group dynamic has limited me to more of a bedroom-pop sound. Where i was previously curled up on the floor in a tangle of wires next to a tatty yet invaluable Tascam four-track recorder, these days i've been tentatively branching out into the digital arena with the aid of Cubase and a Line 6 box. I still use it like an basic analogue machine (all the more involved elements are a bit beyond me at present), though there's much more room for opening the sound up due to the presence of virtually-unlimited track availability. Hitherto lacking the discipline to really pull something cohesive together, i've just been throwing instrumental ideas about on guitar, keys and drum machine. A handful of them are featured here...
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