Solid Ground

         

01 How Many Times
02 Solid Ground
03 Strange
04 Whassat!
05 Graveyard Shift
06 Tatouine
07 So Cool
08 Horse Bolt Stomp
09 It Don't Stop Rockin'
10 Jesus and the Devil
11 Haphazard Man
12 Poltergeist
13 Fightin' Blues

Mick Clarke - Guitar / Vocals
Chris Sharley - Drums
Eddie Masters - Bass
Dave Lennox - Keyboards
Dangerous Dave Newman - Harp
plus Bill Thorndycraft - Harp and Hell Hollers

Produced by Mick Clarke
Executive Producer - Hans Pohle
Recorded at The Moat - London
Engineer - Toby Hryek-Robinson
Additional Recording by Mick Clarke
Mixed by Mick Clarke, with thanks to Bill Thorndycraft and Stuart McDonald, Killing Floor
Mastered by Ham GmbH, Hamburg
Special thanks to Danny Darby


Mick writes:

Around 2006 I felt that we were ready for a new album.. I had a bunch of new songs and a regular line-up which was still keeping busy playing clubs and festivals around Europe.

So we went back into The Moat studio in South London, where we had recorded the Killing Floor re-union album 'Zero Tolerance'.

The tracks went down easily, with an experienced crew, and I took the tapes home to do overdubs and mixing. I didn't have a studio at that time, other than a corner of our bedroom wardrobe, so I'd set everything up the living room for a few hours at a time and work there.

For the vocals I needed somewhere that I could really let loose, so I booked a rehearsal room, which was at the back of Streatham Ice Rink. If you listen closely you can probably hear the skaters going round.

Only problem was that having been given the go ahead to make the album from Taxim Records I had put the money up myself for the recording, only to find that the main man at Taxim was impossible to contact. It was nothing nefarious - in fact he'd been extremely ill and out of touch for some months.

By the time that I heard from Taxim again we had moved out of London to our new home on the Surrey / Sussex border. Hence the photoshoot in a local brickworks. I look a bit knackered - probably the stress of the house buying process.

Anyway the album did well, and I at least got my money back from the CD sales! It was also the first record that I started selling through online means such as iTunes and the new streaming services, and was quite successful.'Graveyard Shift' was No. 1 on the Indie Chart in India, although I'm not that sure how significant that would be. 'So Cool' was used on some Disney show on New Zealand tele. I still get cheques (small ones). And, importantly, the 'band of friends' continued to work together, with appearances in India, Sweden, Italy, the UK and others.

So thanks to the talented bunch of colleagues/friends who were involved - every one a star. Solid Ground.