Nick Laird-Clowes

Nick Laird-Clowes (born 5 February 1957, London, England) is a musician, most famous as the lead singer and one of the principal songwriters for the band The Dream Academy. His most famous songs include "Life in a Northern Town", "The Love Parade", "The Edge of Forever", "This World", "Indian Summer", "Power to Believe", "Look at the Rain Fall" and "12/8 Angel".

He was also a presenter for the first series of the Channel 4 music show, The Tube.

He was a member of Alfalpha and The Act, which predate The Dream Academy.

Laird-Clowes descended into drug abuse, finally getting clean during a stay at a Himalayan monastery.

His solo album, Mona Lisa Overdrive, was released under the name Trashmonk in 1999 under Alan McGee's Creation Records, and re-released a few years later with two extra tracks ("Mr Karma" and "Fur Hat") under the reinvented PopTones label, again by McGee.

A friend of David Gilmour, he co-wrote several lyrics on Pink Floyd's album The Division Bell. As Trashmonk, he opened for some of Gilmour's performances in the early 2000s.

In recent years, he has been heavily involved in movie soundtracks, producing the score for The Invisible Circus. He was the musical consultant for The Dreamers (he can be seen in a DVD extra featurette about music from the film), and was responsible for Fierce People, a 2005 film starring Diane Lane and Donald Sutherland.

Nick Broomfield's hard-hitting film Battle for Haditha, premiered at the London Film Festival in 2007, also had a Laird-Clowes soundtrack.

In May 2007, he performed at the Syd Barrett memorial concert at the Barbican in London.

In June 2009, he scored Broomfield's agitprop documentary for Greenpeace, A Time Comes, featuring the single "Mayday".

He is currently finishing a second solo Trashmonk album.