Black Mariah days...

While this picture may not look so hilarious to you, it reminds me of an awesome time in my life. It was the day Black Mariah recorded our demo (Shetland Pony High Times,, now that's a blast from the past!) pirate style in Mark's bedroom, at St Lucia. Anyway, there weren't enough mic stands, so this wooden giraffe thing acted the part. After we were done with it, I think Will decided to take it down to the bus stop, with a note attached, saying something like
"Please take care of me, I have no home" and heaps of other shit. He put it down there at about 7am, and by the time they checked at about 7:30am he was gone! I hope he found a good home, he was a very practical giraffe. We should have thanked him in the liner notes. I don't think we even ever thanked Geordie & Neil for the use of their voices... but I've said too much!

Some other photos from that day :)


Things were pretty casual that day, I won't lie. Just some brotherly love (Dave probably got his cock out to make Will feel uncomfortable not long after). Sorry Dave. You know it's probably true, though. :)




MixMasterMarkFree, at his mixmaster's desk.






It'z me. Good times. Recording is the best fun you can have with cans on. Mics, on the other hand, can be torture for a self-taught amateur! (I can deal with it now, but I was unhappy with my vox on the Ratnest recording for a long time. I need to be able to move around to get it all out!)

Unfortunately, Limey Ben (2nd axemaster, awesome dude) had gone back to Mother England by that time. The pirate program we used ate up his tracks & our old guitarist, Nick, had to re-do them. Unfortunate.

If you want a copy of the demo, I'm sure we all have a little stack of them floating around somewhere. I reserve my right to choose who gets to hear it, though! & no, no reunion or discography. Only if it would be our covers... we did some rad ones: Pride, Honour, Loyalty by Far Left Limit (FLL still rule, my favourite babes are ones with FLL shirts! Wish I had one), Waste 'Em All by Municipal Waste (would give my.... err... a limb to be able to do this again - I still can't believe we could pull it off at the time! My stomach muscles were pretty stealth), others...

Enough reminiscing.
xLN