1980 - East Hagbourne, Southern England

It all began  with one angst ridden teenager in an Oxfordshire village bedroom, equipped only with an old reel to reel tape recorder bought at a jumble sale, and a collection of Cabaret Voltaire records... the first "found sound" burblings were committed to tape in that year.

1981 - Didcot's least successful punk band

I formed a very poor punk band named "Life Sentence" with Mark Wolstencroft on guitars and myself on singing and electronic bleepings. 

Our complete lack of adequacy was later repeated by Sigue Sigue Sputnik. 

We played several gigs and issued two cassettes on our own "Orbital Nun" label ("A Case of Never" and "Communications"), selling quite well with the help of Sounds magazine "Garageland" column.

1982 - At Sea Music is born

Towards the end of  '81 into '82 I started meeting other musicians, courtesy of Garageland - Chris Knowles (later of Hagar the Womb, then of the Boiled Eggs), and Mike Stout (later of Spectrum, then of What is Oil?), and the race was on to see who could produce some half decent music and get a single out.  Chris and I formed "Blur Blur" in December '81, a Cabaret Voltaire influenced affair, most notably doing a spot of metal bashing before Test Dept. made it fashionable. 

My first pop songs were written and issued under the name "The Clock House", with a bass bought by my Mum for my birthday, and a guitar bought for 25 quid from a junk shop.The more experimental solo stuff was issued under the name "AED", mostly comprising of layered tape loops and varispeed experiments with found sound. 

What is Oil? won the single race, closely followed by Chris with his wire-esque band  "Cold War".

1983 - experiments gone awry

Having way too much time on my hands, the experimental work took over, with immensely long and immensely grandiose projects such as "Emporium Halls", a six part, 2 hour dirge of multi-layered loops and sounds. 

During this period I tried to read every book that had ever been written by Kafka, Chekhov, Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche, and failed.

1984 - pop success?

With 8 hours of studio time in a small studio in Oxford, the single "Infer Ships Sink" was recorded. 

I did nothing with the recording until a friend of mine, Andy Boot (a Librarian from Tottenham), heard me playing it and asked who it was - "it's me" I sheepishly replied.

However, Andy liked it, and he had a job!  I don't remember how the money bit worked, but I know I didn't pay anything - I think Andy paid for the cutting, but I think we had some deal with Rough Trade on the pressing and distribution. 

Anyways, 20,000 got pressed, and 17,000 got sold, which ain't bad - it even got played by John Peel, which was a big deal when you're 18! 

At his request, Andy and I one day paid a visit to Alan McGee, who lived near Andy in Tottenham. Alan was ginger, Scottish, rather dry, and dressed in a dressing gown.  He'd recently formed Creation Records, but had only issued a flexi disc so far, which in my mind made me infinitely superior! He was interested in working with me, but flushed with success I decided against it. It was probably the right decision, and one which probably led to Creation Records huge success...had they signed me they would have been screwed! 

In summer that year I decided to move somewhere a bit more exciting... Manchester.

1985-1987 - Manchester

Summer '85 I took to the streets of Manchester, giving away the unsold copies of the "Infer Ships Sink" single - you'd be amazed how difficult it is to give stuff away! 

August '86 was my warehouse happening/gig in which (in complete darkness) the audience's own noises were recorded, manipulated, repeated and amplified in gradually building loops.  I originally planned to lock the audience in, but was prevented from doing so by fire officers.

1987-1994 - Glossop -  gateway to the middle of nowhere

Despite getting rather good at writing music, I seeemed to be getting progressively worse at promoting it, especially for the 1989 release of the "Of Gates" 12" single, which sold seven copies only, and got played on the radio only once (in Belgium, at 4am). This may have been because it was released on dance label Vinyl Solution, who liked my stuff but had no real clue what to do with it.   Probably it had more to do with my complete inability to promote myself.  This record was probably the high point (both composition and production) of my guitar based work, and often turns up on eBay priced as a rarity.  Well yes I know lot's of things are on eBay priced as rarities and that doesn't necessarily mean they're any good, so form your own opinion by buying one! 

The "Come to East Hagbourne" flexi disc was rather more successful, mainly through the virtue of being free, and being stuck to the front of every copy of "Unhinged" magazine.

The follow up to "Of Gates", "Sunshine Lies" was recorded with Mike Stout & Richard Formby, but never released due to a split with Vinyl Solution.

I built a home 8 track studio, experimented briefly and disastrously with electro-pop.  Finally produced some songs I was really proud of (see the Music page to download them).

1997-1999 - Hong Kong fooey

Synopsis: sold my guitars, gave my studio to my brother Robin, and moved to Hong Kong.

2000-2001 - domain frenzy

Set up this web site, and began the slow and arduous task of digitizing and uploading all my old music.