Mark Cawthra - Biography

Biography

Mark Cawthra's first serious musical activity was in an early (unnamed) music project with schoolfriend Tim Smith (bass guitar) and David Philpot (keyboards), a band in which he was the drummer. The music, a mix of jazz and rock, drew inspiration from the "Canterbury" bands, particularly Egg.

After a period of playing drums with other musicians around Kingston upon Thames, he moved to North Yorkshire and lived there for the whole of 1978. He returned to London in 1979, following an invitation to join Tim and Jim Smith in Cardiac Arrest (replacing Peter Tagg on drums). Other members of the band at this time were Colvin Mayers (keyboards), (later to play with Adrian Borland in The Sound), and Mick Pugh (vocals). The Cardiac Arrest album The Obvious Identity was recorded at this time. Subsequently, Cawthra and Tim Smith recorded the band - now renamed Cardiacs - for a number of sessions in a small Surbiton studio. The results became the first Cardiacs album, "Toy World".

Following a short period in 1982 in which he was Cardiacs' keyboard player and percussionist, he left the band, moved to Birmingham and briefly worked with two of the remaining members of the Birmingham band Dangerous Girls, following their split. The line-up, calling itself TAAGA, produced one single, "Friend of Mine", produced by UB40 producer Bob Lamb.

On returning to London, He worked for the remainder of the 1980s as crew member or live sound engineer, touring with several acts including Immaculate Fools, Its Immaterial, and Then Jerico. He was also Cardiacs front-of-house engineer at this time, and a member the band Grown Ups with William D. Drake (Cardiacs), Elaine Herman, Jon Bastable (The Trudy), Dominic Luckman (Cardiacs) and Craig Fortnam. Five tracks were recorded by this line-up but never released.

From 1988, his work was based in and around Leeds, culminating in the building of a 48-track facility, That Studio. Most recently, he worked with This et al. producing demo material prior to the release of their Baby Machine album. The studio was closed down in 2007.

Today, his work is all studio-based, recording and mixing demos and masters in his own facility, currently relocated to the South West of England. He is also responsible for recording/producing the work of several artists, most recently the first two North Sea Radio Orchestra albums. His mastering credits in addition to the NSRO albums include William D. Drake's second album, "Briny Hooves", as well as releases by Local Girls, the post-Oceansize project British Theatre and Kyham Allami's debut "Resonance/Dissonance", the latter nominated for the 2012 Songlines music award.

He contributed a track and compiled and mastered Leader Of The Starry Skies: A Tribute To Tim Smith, Songbook 1, an album produced to gain funds for Tim Smith and his ongoing care, and raise awareness of his work. His most recent completed project was the first Redbus Noface album "#1 If It Fights The Hammer It will Fight The Knife" which was released on Believer's Roast in the Summer of 2011. He is currently working on the Believers Roast "Exquisite Corpse Game", a collection of contiguous fragments by various artists each of whom has only heard 20 seconds of the previous section. J.G. Thirlwell, Bob Drake and Katherine Blake are among the contributors.