Abubilla Music

Artist of the Moment: Mike Park

Written by Louise

We’re featuring Mike, the drummer – Space Monkey 1, can sleep through a nuclear attack, and complains a lot when asked to do just a bit of percussion…

There are 17 things you have to know about Mike.  No, not really.  He hasn’t lived long enough to be that interesting.  Just four:

1. He Wants to Do What He’s Doing. Really:  Except for Mike and Gus, the rest of us are frauds.  We are a weekend band that can’t even be arsed to gig.   Mike wants to be a professional drummer.  Is in Music School.  Gigs every second he can.  And is taking the risks and putting the hours in to make a go at this whole music industry thing.    None of us had or have the guts.  So that’s a big thing and we’re proud of that, living vicariously thru his adventures.

2. He’s a good drummer but hates our drums:    He’s like Rob.  Doesn’t flap about.  Just comes in and gets the job done.  And he’s delighted in every style, and offers something cool for each.  His drumming on Box of Yellow Roses, his percussion on Coins of Love, his frenzy on Space Monkey all show the love and pride he brings to his sticks.  But man does he hate our drum kits.  Both electronic, going thru BFD.  Begs and begs that we go acoustic.  So we bought him congas.  He didn’t really think that was a solution.   But he sort of likes our Bongos and with them helped Ed and Rob come up with the riff for She Knows, which is cool.

She Knows by AbubillaMusic

3.First take Mike gets to sleep a lot – and he does:  As a decent drummer it means he has a lot of down time.  Either we’re writing a song with no sense of the beat (usually a BIG problem with one of Jimmy’s songs), or he comes in and does a great job on drums and he has to wait while we sort out Martyn’s guitar or Ed’s 57th piano chord.  Or pod wanking (link – Jimmy to write separate blog).  Jimmy and Mike both hate pod wanking.  So he sleeps.  He sleeps on the little drum stool.  Or he sleeps on the floor near the drums.  Or he sleeps leaning against the wall.  And he’s not very attractive when he sleeps — lots of big mouth yawning, which brings us to the monkey thing.

4. He’s a Space Monkey:   We took Mike and Gus to the villa in Spain.  Read paragraph about dedicated musicians above.  Remember they are not very old.  Put that together with vodka, sun and a string section and you have serious serious problems.  They partied until 430AM, leaving Andy to do drums on many of the songs in Spain.  They wrote all over each other.  They played body pong, which is as stupid as it sounds. And where there was an opportunity to flex and frumple in front of the ladies with their shirts off – they did.  If they could have thrown faeces from their cages they would have.  All great fun for the first 47 hours — but for the next 373 hours, well, it was loud and messy… but sometimes almost funny.  They were Space Monkeys in Space Monkey Camp, ready to blast off to orbit.  So we wrote a song about it.  Ironically, Mike did an amazing job playing drums on it but you’ll only find out about that by listening to the third album.

5. He closes the Second Album in same way his Space Monkey partner opens the album:  Album 2 is Space Monkey bookends.  Gus, Space Monkey 2 opens the album with Fairy Tale  and Mike, Space Monkey 1, closes it with his bitchin’ and complainin’.  Something about ‘red hands’ on coins of love (Lou, am I right here – is this the song?).  So it is like they took control and the rest of us are just the middle bit of a Space Monkey Sandwich.

So we love Mike.  Part mascot,  part authentic music hero – risking it all for art and passion.  Part lazy student drummer, sleepin’ on the floor and needing to be nudged to stop drooling on his drum kit.  And a pretty damn good drummer pounding on some rubbish drums.