Mad Mike
I am a Rock, Classic Rock, Alternative, Country, Funk Band
13
songs
4.6K
plays
The Ultimate Paradigm.mp3
The Rest of My Life
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Mad Mike has been around, off and on, in various incarnations and with many different names since the mid sixties, and though it is mainly a rock band, it occasionally detours into alternative, country, and funk. For the last few years, the "band" has consisted as mostly just me, with ocasional tracks contributed by former members.
October 2009 update: It's now just me, so I'm posting new material.
January 2011: Still just me, but I have a couple of grandkids who may soon be joining the "band".Band/artist history
The band started as a garage band in 1963 and began playing regular gigs under various names in late 1964. We performed regularly at local dances, fairs, rodeos, etc until some members (including me) entered the military in 1968. During my stint in the Army I played in bands in Maryland, Alabama and Okinawa. The band re-formed (sort of, there was only me and one other original member, and I was relegated torunning sound) in 1972 and played area night clubs for a while, then went on the road, touring the Eastern Seaboard, the South, and the Midwest doing the club circuit and recording some original demos at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama. The band split up at the seeming height of its sucess in 1975 when members got married and settled down to day jobs, raising families, and the "American Dream".
This went on for twenty-odd years until the kids had grown up and left to raise families of their own. Then in 1998 I put together a PC-based home studio and started recording original music, sporadically until recently when our original keyboard player died, and I decided to devote more time to music. Over the years, the band has had about thirty different members, and currently consists of me with some contributions by one of the four members who originally founded the band in the sixties. The band has had more different names than it has had members, and is currently named Mad Mike since I'm doing most of the work. :)
(This info updated in September 2006. The original info was several years old and was no longer accurate.)
update October 2009: I'm now doing all the work, only one other original member still lives here and is still making music, and he has his own Soundclick page.
Jan 2011 Still going, unemployed/semi retired so I have more time to spend doing this. I have one grandson who is a very talented singer and one who is a rapper and I spend time with them helping them to increase their musical skills.
December 2011: Another year almost gone, and I'm still working on original material, occasionally with my grandsons. I'm about to start a project with my stepson to re-record some old material he and his brother did before his brother's untimely death in 2010.Have you performed in front of an audience?Mad Mike hasn't played live since the seventies, and in fact it was defunct until the late nineties when the PC-based home studio became a practical reality. I resurrected the band in 1998 and I've been doing the studio thing with other former members contributing whenever they had the time for a while, now it's just me.
Our favorite places back when we did play were: Dobby's Pizza Parlor in Jacksonville, NC; The Wreck Bar in Daytona Beach, FL; The Midnight Sun in Indianapolis, IN; The Coliseum in Peoria, IL; and The Yankee Clipper in Rock Island, IL. Since that was around thirty years ago, I wonder if any of them are still in business? :)
Your musical influences
Clapton, Hendrix, The Beatles, the Zombies, the Kinks, Robin Trower, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers, Janis Joplin, and many, many others.What equipment do you use?
Kaman GTX-33 guitar w/Seymour Duncan pickups, highly modified Dean Evo Guitar (with four aftermarket pickups, Washburn G-3v with Dimarzio pickups, Fender Squier Bronco bass, with DiMarzio pickup, Gremlin bass with Dimarzio Split-P pickup, Fender Stratacoustic guitar, Johnson J-Station effects unit/amp simulator, Roland, Crate and Line 6 amps, Fender Precision Bass, M-Audio keyboard, Addictive Drums and Battery 3 drums. Shure and Marshall mics, Alesis and Lexicon effects and an Alesis Multimix 8 USB2.0 on a PC running Cakewalk Sonar software with all the good softsynths and effects plugins.
M-Audio BX5a nearfield, EV Sentry 100A midfield and custom built farfield monitorsAnything else?
Back in the music business (sort of), running sound occasionally at a local nightclub when they book live acts. (Jan 2011: This ended when the club closed a few months ago)READ MORE
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Comments (4)
Excellent production, great song! You need a better singer though...
Hello:
You mentioned The Wreck Bar in Daytona Beach. Our old band "Clear" from Alabama played there several times in 1972 - 1973. It was a great place to play. I believe that the place has a new location on the river and is now The Wreck Riverfront Bar and Grill. You can't beat the old place, however, with the huge lighted dance floor and the very friendly ladies there. They also had a house drink there called The Rosebud which we drank profusely.
Nice, music is pretty tight. Keep making more!
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