Incubus Lovechild: Greetings Miss Veracity!

Dani Veracity: Greetings Mark!

Incubus Lovechild: How's Sunny Tucson?

Dani Veracity: Excellent. How is rainy England?

Incubus Lovechild: wet. :-(

Incubus Lovechild: Really!

Incubus Lovechild: LoL

Dani Veracity: LoL. Well, that's good for musicians. Gives you more time to hang out indoors and write songs. Speaking of which, how's your music going?

Incubus Lovechild: Humm......

Incubus Lovechild: Well I had a go at setting up my sequencer software on a laptop and connecting it to one of my techno keyboards earlier but couldn't get the damned thing to communicate!

Incubus Lovechild: Still writing though. 8-) And I launched www.incubuslovechild.com proper the day before yesterday

Dani Veracity: It's good to hear that you're still writing. What type of software were you using?

Incubus Lovechild: Old stuff - I still use midisoft studio in conjunction with cakewalk 3.0(!) - I find it easier to write notation on studio but add real time effects off of my boards using cakewalk - although it's been so long since I had the studio set up (2+ years) that I've forgotton a lot!!

Dani Veracity: Congratulations about the web site. So how is the music scene in the U.K. right now and how does Incubus Lovechild fit into the picture?

Incubus Lovechild: well in a nutshell I'd say the mainstream is becoming more MTV & Pop Idol by the year - if there isn't an unending stream of mindless, manufactured boy / girl bands queuing to briefly top the charts then it's the latest American hip-hop / rap / R&B star or UK-clone mumbling an inane stream of expletives to a backing track no more technical than a children's wind up toy!! (And why do a lot of them where tea cosies on their heads??) (For your benefit - a tea cosie is an old fashioned English knitted cover for tea pots to keep them warm - very similar looking to those woolly hats that seem to be "trendy".)

Incubus Lovechild: and where does Incubus Lovechild fit in...?

Incubus Lovechild: I don't

Dani Veracity: Good answer. How do you feel about pop music as it is?

Incubus Lovechild: There're some good solid alternatives making headway at last such as the Kaiser Chiefs, Snow Patrol, and the like but to be honest, I've never really had my finger on the pulse of the "happening" music scene - I grew up listening to rock & metal from the 70's & 80's - although I gotta say looking back that pop seemed to be more vibrant, original and diversified in the early eighties (but that might just be down to be being a pubescient teenager discovering music at the time!

Dani Veracity: Well, let's talk about that for a moment. What were/are your influences and how do they fit into the musical message you're trying to get across to your listeners?

Incubus Lovechild: I've got to say the single, biggest, most influencial band on both my psyche & my music is Hawkwind. It's funny that when the band is mentioned people either have a blank look on their faces or say "oh yeah, silver machine I remember that track" - "that track" reached No.3 in the charts in 1972 and just doesn't represent the spectrum of sound that the band have produced in a career covering 30+ years.

Incubus Lovechild: Other influences are bands like Pink Floyd (The Roger Waters-dominent era only ~1977 - 1983), and non-specifically logic trance / electronica, but my tastes are mood driven - I can dig listening to Slayer at max. volume in the car to coming home and slapping on some Jethro Tull or even folkier stuff like fairport convention. Basically if it's good I listen to it - as long as it ain't jazz, country & western, hip hop, R&B, or "pop idol" stuff - I abhor them all!!!

Dani Veracity: You certainly have some eclectic musical tastes!

Incubus Lovechild: Some people would say dated... ;-)

Dani Veracity: Not dated ... just not trendy. That's a good thing.

Incubus Lovechild: My tastes have definitely broadened since my involvement in SkidMark - now I never pre-judge an artist on their genre - I listen to CD's at least twice over a week minimum before making my mind up nowadays - some of my all time favourite albums started off with a first listen of "what the f**k is this ???" - it's too easy to expect an album to sound a certain way from a description of the band and find it doesn't fit the projection. Second time round the music's analysed on it's merits alone.

Dani Veracity: I noticed the same thing about myself as a music reviewer. It certainly broadens your tastes.

Dani Veracity: SkidMark.org is a wonderful service that you do for musicians, by the way.

Incubus Lovechild: I wouldn't class it as a service, more of a (very time consuming!) hobby - I've been very lucky over the last ~4 years getting to hear some fantastic unsigned bands - bands I would never have heard otherwise and probably would never have gone out of my way to listen to. I've also made some life friends over the internet who bizarrely I'll probably never get to meet in the flesh!

Incubus Lovechild: There are some extremely talented artists listed on SkidMark and if I've turned just one fan onto their scene then it's all been worthwhile.

Dani Veracity: That's a really good outlook -- very philanthropist. One of the most remarkable things about you is that you're in it for the music. Most people are in it for their egos, but you're not. That's very ethical of you.

Incubus Lovechild: Philanthropist - LoL I like the analogy - although, unlike all stamps there are only a small number of listed artists I'd like to "lick and stick" LoL

Incubus Lovechild: Sorry couldn't help myself! Heh heh

Incubus Lovechild: You may discover by the end of the interview I'm not a very serious sort of guy. Life's too serious - my escape is writing music & salacious wit!

Dani Veracity: Life IS too serious.

Incubus Lovechild: How's the recording studio job going by the way?

Dani Veracity: Well, it's unpaid. It's an internship. I don't go there as much as I used to because I'm concentrating more on my writing, but I am going there today.

Incubus Lovechild: Cool. It's great to see someone "living the dream". As much as I love my 3 kids, one of the main reasons I didn't go the full-on music life route was having my first kid at 18 - the original incubus "Lovechild" heh heh. Obviously they have always been my priority that's another reason most of my music available on the web is like 10 years old - I've just never got around to laying more tracks down since.

Incubus Lovechild: Around 2002 I converted the spare bedroom in the house into a home studio and started writing in earnest again - apart from a wedding commission in 1998 (Band of Gold) I'd written the odd track but not recorded anything. By 2002 I had ~2 albums worth of space rock stuff written and had formulated the themed acoustic rock CD "Painted Cage" and began recording demo ideas for the album during 2003 (Black, Blue, Grey, Red Stained Eyes, etc).

Incubus Lovechild: The same year my wife fell pregnant with the final addition to the "Incubus Lovechildren" - Emily Jane, which meant a hurried plan of converting the attic to transfer the studio to. I got as far as laying a floor down up there and then transferring the boxed up studio and most of my instruments into their (still current) dark suspended animation.

Dani Veracity: Well, it's good that you put your family first. You have good balance in your life.

Incubus Lovechild: I don't know about that but it gives me something to moan about - Oh, I must finish the studio.. blah, blah, TWO YEARS it's been out of operation...blah, blah.. in fact (this'll make you take a sharp intake of breath Dani), I haven't seen, LET ALONE played, my favourite instrument, my left handed Fender Stratocaster in all this time!! The only instrument I play regularly now is one of my acoustic guitars which sits next to my computer so I can have a quick strum when downloading big files, etc or I'm writing new tracks in Microsoft word.

Incubus Lovechild: SkidMark.org is my only real full time involvement in music nowadays

Dani Veracity: Only? That must be a lot of work!

Incubus Lovechild: It is… But it's offset with the "payment in kind" I get from being associated with so many wonderfully talented artists. In turn it's enabled me to get back stage / press passes at gigs (such as when DBY supported Wednesday 13 from the Murder Dolls on his UK tour)...

Incubus Lovechild: Introduced me to some awesome supporters of independent music such Jerry over at bumpskey.com, who's become like a "virtual online brother" to me over the years - I've played "live" over the phone onto his radio show and he's supported SkidMark with continuous plugs on air too.

Incubus Lovechild: And most importantly it's opened my eyes (and ears) to some serious music - I'd say 40% of my CD listening time is independent bands nowadays

Incubus Lovechild: One of the biggest kicks I get is when an independent band mentions SkidMark in their CD sleeve notes - it's a kind of immortality - I've two CD credits to date! Wahoo!!

Dani Veracity: That's so good that you haven't succumbed to the mainstream mindset.

Incubus Lovechild: One thing I've seen over the years is plenty of independent music sites "selling out" - the once completely free, becoming so many $$ for services or "list your CD's & we'll take XX cut" - as much as I'd like to to make some exta money (wouldn't everyone?), I'm loathe to introduce anything like that to SkidMark - besides it's not that a professional-enough a site to justify charging for inclusion. I currently write and maintain 4 other commercial sites through "SkidMark Internet Design Solutions" (www.skidmark-multimedia.co.uk) in an attempt to generate income to invest in SkidMark, but 3 are not "up front" payments rather they generate payments through a percentage of whatever business the companies do via the web sites (I've made £12.50 so far!).
I am planning to organise a merchandise page at some point though where visitors can buy SkidMark tee-shirts & eventually a SkidMark comp CD.

Dani Veracity: That would be cool. it would encourage community spirit among artists.

Incubus Lovechild: It would enable me to invest in the site as well - increase web space purchased, software tools, etc, etc (and help buy the odd instrument or motorbike too!! LoL)

Dani Veracity: Oh come on, you're a philanthropist, remember?

Incubus Lovechild: Ha ha. Not many people know this but I ACTUALLY was as a kid! In fact my first cub scout badge was a hobby badge for stamp collecting!! I traded the stamp collecting in for heavy metal vinyl at 12

Dani Veracity: Philanthropists love humanity though

Incubus Lovechild: I love collecting full stop - I've virtually every vinyl release (including 12" & 7") by Hawkwind since 1970 - many 1st editions & promo pressings too - once I'm into something I throw myself in completely - music, motorbikes, web writing, making incubus lovechildren!!

Dani Veracity: Ha ha! You're so funny!

Dani Veracity: Okay, I really have to run. If you need more, let me know and we'll IM more at a different time.

Dani Veracity: It was a lot of fun so far.

Incubus Lovechild: Many thanks for taking the time out to talk to me Dani

Dani Veracity: No, thank you! And thanks for posting the Veracity View! I love writing it!

Incubus Lovechild: Take care & talk to you soon - looking forward to V.V.#3!!

Dani Veracity: You take care too. Have a good night.

Incubus Lovechild: BYE!!!

Dani Veracity: Bye