Domain of the Diplo

Coma Ray - my first band

Being on the dole in Liverpool in the early 90's gave you three choices - you either spent fruitless hours wandering around Orwellian job centres, took to drugs or joined a band (and quite often ended up indulging in all three). Luckily I knew a few guys in a band; we shared similar music tastes and a vacancy had arisen for a bass player. So I joined Coma Ray (as they were known) in 1991, playing bass (which I could barely do at the time, but hey, that's rock'n'roll...) So it came to pass we punctuated those endless dole days making our 'sonic noise terrorism', and generally annoying anyone within earshot. You see, these where the days when Indie music was cool and My Bloody Valentine, The Cure, Sonic Youth and the Pixies were our heroes.

Looking back now we made some pretty original music, but we were too far from the mainstream to ever really appeal to a wide audience, and too damn wrapped up in our own little world to even care. Still, we had some good times, quite a few bad ones and the sense that we tried something new...

You can listen to some Coma Ray tracks (taken from a live gig) here.

Line Up

• Paul Tudhope - Vocals and guitar
• Mark Docherty - Lead guitar and backing vocals
• Dan Booth - Bass guitar
• Chris Ashcroft - Drums

Crush - my second band

After a slightly acrimonious departure from my last band Coma Ray I never really expected or wanted to play in another band. I still loved writing songs and making music, but I never wanted to be in the position where I was just part of a band, having to compromise my ideals for the sake of group harmony.

However, in 1995, I started a computer programming training course, where I first learnt to program in C (ugggh!). An unlikely place, you would think, to meet fellow musicians, but this is what happened. I soon learnt that a couple of the lads on the course (Matt Jackson and Will Taylor) played guitar, and found myself agreeing to have a jam with them. After so long not playing with anybody I rather enjoyed the 'live' music experience, and so the seeds of Crush where sown. We soon recruited the talented Sue Marshall for vocals, and slowly the jams turned into proper songs. Having written quite a lot of songs before, it naturally fell to me to do most of the writing and structuring of the music, but we all chipped in ideas. Though we all had disparate musical tastes, we somehow found a common ground in making guitar pop music with strong melodies and hooks.

However, just as we where finding our musical feet, and getting out there playing a few gigs, fate as always stepped in to deal us a blow. First Will, our lead guitarist, started to think he was bigger than the band, and after some arguments stormed off in a fit of pique (which he later regretted, but by then we couldn't really take him back). Secondly our singer Sue developed nodes on her throat, which unfortunately brought her singing career to a rapid halt.

Rather than give up, me and Matt continued and later recruited another female singer Caroline England, better known simply as Spudge. I continued writing songs along with Matt, and soon Spudge was adding her own style to the band, and we went through another good patch of making some rather good music. We were also helped out by my mate Mark Docherty who I had been in Coma Ray with - his acoustic guitar added a more mellow tone to our songs, and some of our best music originated from this period.

Eventually, though, the band came to a halt. Work commitments, lack of time to practice and the usual squabbling took it's toll and eventually we gave up as a collective. However, I still make my own tracks and Caroline has embarked upon a solo career.

You can listen to the Crush tracks here.

Line Up

• Sue Marshall - Vocals
• Matt Jackson - Guitar
• Will Taylor - Lead guitar
• Dan Booth - Bass guitar, keyboards and drum programming
• Caroline England - Vocals (replaced Sue)

Solo Music - I'm fed up of bands

Being in a band is great, but sometimes it can be quite limiting. Even though I was the main songwriter in Crush I often liked to experiment with different styles, or simply produce something that is all my own work. Of course, this means more freedom but has the disadvantage that you can't blame anyone else if it sounds awful :)

One of the great things about the advent of high-speed home computers has been that it's possible to have your own virtual studio just on your PC. Hard-disk recording means you can now compose, mix and master your tracks entirely in the digital medium, allowing you to produce tracks of near CD quality in your own home. Sequencers like Steinberg's Cubase along with virtual synths like Propellerhead's Reason are often all you need to make amazing tracks (as long as you have the imagination and skill!).

Using these tools gave me the freedom to create anything from abstract electronic music to jazz. There really are no longer any boundaries to what you can make, as it's easy to mix traditional instruments in with samples, virtual analogue synths and loops.

You can listen to my solo tracks here.