If your stage name is Mark, there is a good chance that it will be impossible to trace you or simply find information about you.
It took me years to find Mark.
My interest in Mark was awakened by “The Szabo Songbook” by Heartbreak Scene, a fantastic tribute to the music and the lyrics of the Canadian songwriter that came out on Fayettenam in 2007.
Their rendition of “Alibi” and “Some Kind Of Watershed” forced me to immediately buy a copy of The Record Of Capozzi Park and search for info on Mark.
Where the hell had he gone?
What happened to him?
Why there was this very little information about him on the web?
How can it be that a songwriter of Mark’s talent wasn’t incensed anywhere?
There was no news about him or information about new records.
I thought that eventually Mark’s choice was not accidental, maybe Mark didn’t want to be found.
One day I found Mark thanks to a mutual friend who posted a picture of Szabotage, a collection of unreleased material that popped out of nowhere.
I have only discovered a few days ago that “The Record Of Capozzi Park” should have been in Mark’s intentions his swan song, farewell to the stage.
Since then Mark has only partially betrayed his intentions. In fact, the Capozzi Park record was followed by Szabotage, a cassette for Unread, a Good Horsey lp for Almost Halloween Time Records and a bunch of compilation tracks.
Weird.
A few years ago, unaware of Mark’s retirement, I asked him to participate in Imaginary Donkey, the tribute compilation from Shrimper Records. And I almost managed to convince Mark to give us something new, albeit a cameo on the Eleventy cover made by The Hex. It would have been Mark that sings Good Horsey, Mark that pays homage to himself singing along with The Hex. It never happened.
What a pity.
And I have just discovered that there’s a new album called “Mark, et al” out on Unread and Tinker Recordings. New material, certainly not recently composed, but unpublished. Songs taken from unreleased albums, scattered songs from one of Mark’s many projects.
“Mark, et al” spans Mark’s entire career, from his beginnings to Capozzi Park and features some really good stuff and lost gems.
All the songs on the album are surely over twenty years old but you can’t feel the age, they are current as if Mark had never retired.
The record is accompanied by a booklet full of information that amused me a lot, especially the parts where Mark talks about his fellow adventurers or the groups with whom he shared the stage.
I have a bunch of copies of “Mark, et al” available for purchase.
Grab yours now.
