Def Robot was formed in 2019 when David Hancox and I, Paul Taylor, reconnected after 20 years.
I was the singer and David was the bassist in 90’s Manchester U.K. grunge/rock/indie band Kerosene, who were signed to Dead Dead Good and then Sire records. We released an album “Arrythmia” along with various singles and toured the U.K., Europe and the USA supporting such bands as Green Day, The Flaming Lips, and Terrorvision amongst others.
Continue readingby Pete Hobbs aka Diving At Dawn
Diving At Dawn has always been a frustrating stop-start affair for me. I’ve never been able to be genuinely productive and build momentum with it because I find working alone so tricky. As part of a band or production team, I’m pretty efficient, but when the responsibility falls solely upon my shoulders, I become a procrastinating perfectionist of epic proportions. The lack of productivity in my solo work has caused me a fair bit of anxiety over the years, but I’ve always been busy enough with other projects to distract myself. However, in 2022 my anxiety levels went through the roof. Unfortunately, age, experience, budget constraints, and technology have all conspired against me, thus turning Diving At Dawn into a genuine one-person band.
Continue reading
Mrs. Penny was one of those teachers you remember – she encouraged me, enjoyed my stories, and often read them to the class. She told me to study sciences for a better-paid job, and off down that road I skipped studying engineering. But as Iggy Pop once quipped, if you’re creative, there’s something inside you, and it needs to get out…
Million Pebble Beach is my chosen “Nom de Guerre” – a nod to a local artist and the area (Pete Codling’s One Million Pebbles project in Portsmouth).
Continue reading
I have been a Prince fan since I was 8 and first heard Let’s Go Crazy, with its ear grabbing pyrotechnic guitar ending. Since then, I’ve learned from him, copied him and even just ended up doing the same things as him by osmosis or naturally. His work ethic, energy and diversity are three touchstones of my own ‘career’ and I have many strange ethereal intangible links to prince and ‘signs’ attached to many of my fondest moments in music so far that it’s almost as if he’s been a musical guardian angel since his passing in 2016 – an event that hit me so bad that I bought a streaming package, set up a little shrine on screen and DJ’d for 3 days straight, so fans had a place to hang, and I had some way of expressing my own sense of loss and gratitude for him voluminous output and inspiring presence in my own life. My phone went off non-stop that first day, I was associated with him so much by my circle of friends, they were checking that I was ok!
by Parramatta
Hi, we’re Parramatta from the UK. We write and record music that we hope would have been played by the late, much-missed DJ John Peel. If you have ever heard his show, you’ll understand; if you didn’t, let us explain.
by Joe Holtaway
They sat in that window seat for 5 days as we moved through the house as normal, 106 Erlanger Road in London. We had a pact in that house that came from somewhere deeply rooted, you could feel it in the wooden corridors, in the table, the cups and furniture, it said, you’re ok – whatever is happening inside and outside, we got you.
15 of us shared the space, the landlord, living out in the countryside, set it up years before to be a kind of sanctuary I guess. They interviewed prospective tenants and also trusted friends of friends to fill the rooms.
Continue reading
We would say it’s great to hear you enjoyed our unique blend of genres, but we hear that every day baby! I’m a Gypsy Dub Rockstaaa sugar!
We invented the genre of Viber and we ain’t done there, next we’re gonna invent portable lean fat grilling machines…. sign up for updates on this project by texting “update me hoe” to 0800-GRILL-ME-NICELY.
Continue reading
by Rob Sheppard
As somebody who enjoys making music, I often find myself getting lost in a series of questions when writing and producing. The overriding thought being “What value does this have?”.
It is easy to deter ourselves from creating art, and putting ourselves in a vulnerable position, simply by talking ourselves out of finishing or sharing a creation in fear that it doesn’t add anything of value to the world, or worse; detracts value.
Due to these thoughts and conversations within my own mind, I haven’t shared an entire song or idea for many months, perhaps even years now.
The time to start a musical project should probably have been in a university where access to a range of different musicians was abundant. But then most people choose to learn the hard way…
The New Nervous Kind was created in the wake of the university with nothing more than a laptop (to program drums), a guitar, and a bass guitar, with the help of a trusty microphone. The setting was an isolated attic space, far from friends or family, which would serve well as the basis for the nostalgic lyrics and mechanical quality for our first single “Going Nowhere.”
