Price: £10.99
Format: CD
Artist: Mick Paul
CatNo: PARA001
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Mick Paul Parallel Lives CD
The debut solo release from Mick Paul (David Cross Band) featuring David Cross, David Jackson (Van Der Graaf Generator), Craig Blundell and Sheila Maloney.
 
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During a career going back to the 1970’s Mick has played bass with many established artists and done numerous tours and tv sessions. Originally a classical guitarist, he discovered bass at the age of fifteen.
 
His first pro band was ‘The David Reece band’ with Mick Wayne from the infamous ‘Juniors Eyes’ playing several shows at the Marquee and college dates. Next was country rock band ‘Coast Road Drive’ with drummer Steve Chapmen who went on to join ‘Poco’. 1973 saw Mick join ‘The Hotshots’ doing Top of the Pops etc, he then joined ‘Union Express’ and did several European tours. In 1978 Mick did a long residency, again with Mick Wayne, during this time he also did BBC sessions and studio sessions which led to him being an in-house bassist for a 16 track studio in London, and remembers recording a complete Bhangra album on his fretless Wal in two hours!
 
Mick then joined Killer Wales, being produced by Mike Ratledge and Carl Jenkins from Soft Machine. During this time he co-wrote the labour party campaign song for Neil Kinnock ‘Meet the challenge make the change’. Around this time, he also did sessions for Yello records, being produced by Tyrell (PM Dawn) and a single for David Hasselhof for Arista/BMG. From 2008 to 2010 Mick played on various successful dance remixes for Littleboots, Aviv Geffen and Snap, he also did a European tour with Mr Big vocalist Eric Martin.
 
Although he started writing his own material with some commercial success, it wasn’t until he joined the David Cross band in 1995 that he found his feet as a writer, alongside the realisation that he actually belonged in Prog, as his first big influences were ‘Yes’ and ‘King Crimson’. During the recording of Exiles (his first recording for the band) Mick worked with Robert Fripp, Peter Hammill, John Wetton and Pete Sinfield, which he recalls was a great experience. Through various lineups Mick has worked with David ever since writing, producing and performing with the band.
From 2008 to the present The David Cross band have toured Japan and several tours of Europe, and in 2019 the band were invited to perform on the amazing’ Cruise To The Edge’ in Florida and Mexico.
 
In 2015 during the recording of the Cross/Jackson album ‘Another day’ with Craig Blundell, he found there was a lot of material that was very personal to him and that felt more cohesive when put together in a solo project rather than as band ideas, the ideas being very bass-led. This was the starting point for “Parallel Lives”. Mick worked closely with Paul Clark and Craig Blundell on the initial tracks and later on as the album developed found that Sheila Maloney, the original David Cross band keyboardist, was instrumental in producing and setting the ambience for the later tracks. Both David Cross and David Jackson have also provided guest appearances on a couple of tracks.
 
Mick is also part of the recently formed ‘The Fae’ with Sheila Maloney, Jinian Wilde and Steve Roberts.
1. ‘Your days’ 06.14
2. ‘Light Of Silence’ 04.55
3. ‘No Horizon’ 04.03
4. ‘Parallel Lives’ 05.25
5. ‘Beneath The Gate’ 04.27
6. ‘Uncharted Course’ 04.18
7. ‘One Way Conversation’ 05.02
8. ‘Cypher’ 02.35
9. ‘Swallows’ 03.25
10. ‘Comfort Zone’ 05.39
11. ‘Frozen Perspective’ 04.00
12. ‘Name On You’ 04.28
13. ‘Consigned to Reality’ 04.42
14. ‘Morning Skyline’ 04.32
(all tracks written by Mick Paul except tracks 4/9/10/11 –Paul/Maloney)
 
Mick Paul : Bass guitar : Guitar : backing vocals
Sheila Maloney : Piano : keyboards : Ondes Martinet : vocal synth
Steve Roberts : Drums
Craig Blundell : Drums
Jinian Wilde : Vocals
David Cross : Violin
David Jackson : Flutes and Whistles
Paul Clark : Guitar
Dennis Mahon : Vocal
Geoff Winkworth : Guitar