The
Spoon Wizard is
an Earth based artist, dedicated to both his music and cutlery drawer. His
music is of the dance variety, but many will find other musical influences
making a token appearance in his tunes. The Spoon Wizard often finds inspiration
in his favorite artists who include Eat Static, Senser, System 7, The Orb,
808-State, The Future Sound of London and The Prodigy. As well as writing
music for the dance floor, The Spoon Wizard has also authored tunes for
other platforms, including computer games and fruit machines. If you owned
an Amiga back when they were popular, there is a fair chance that you may
have seen a demo called, "Jesus on E's" of which he was the author. The
Spoon Wizard signed to Functional Breaks in 1999 and since then has released
3 singles remixed seven tracks for the label and recorded an artist album.
in early 2000 Spoon Wizard became a two piece with vocalist/guitarist Neil
Anderson joining Graham on stage and writing the lyrics in the studio.
History:
When beginning to exist (a few hours after his parents felt fruity one
February evening in Hampshire 1974) The Spoon Wizard decided he was already
where he wanted to be for the rest of his existence. Just under a year
later, after an unpleasant experience involving a modicum of rubber and
being pushed through a small aperture, his sex was determined and the
label "Graham" was assigned. The Spoon Wizard’s real name is Graham Gray,
which he thinks is unfortunate. This aside, he was born into an army family
and then subsequently dragged around a fair portion of the globe. Experimenting
with music and computers from an early age he had found his niche and
progressed from there, getting involved with dance music in the early
1990’s. Around the age of fifteen, The Spoon Wizard - by now a keen and
progressive nerd - introduced himself to the Commodore Amiga brand of
home computer. His two main interests (music and computers) were now able
to be combined and he produced music that was not only deeply personally
satisfying, but highly embarrassing. After being introduced to a talented
collection of other Amiga enthusiasts, he was asked to join them in their
group named "LSD" to produce quality free productions for other users
around the world to view. As an alias was customary in computer circles,
he chose to be preferred to as "Echo" and went on to produce music for
many group productions, including a highly acclaimed production called
"Jesus On E's." Since then he has played with lasers, built some PC's,
polished the odd plane, dabbled in the world of soporifics and consumed
a rather alarming amount of toast. Although not a native of Grantham in
Lincolnshire, a considerable amount of time and puberty was spent there
lusting after girls and writing music on computers. He also brushed his
teeth, but not as often as he should have.
Graham
& Neil
Spoon
Audio :Utilising
their equipment at the Spoon Audio studio, Spoon Wizard create on a PC
and a wide range of software applications including Cubase VST (and its
many plugins), Sound Forge (ditto), Resaon, Rebirth and Acid to name but
a few. Equipment in the studio also includes a Korg MS2000, Novation Supernova
2, Korg Kaoss Pad, Spirit mixing desk and some Spirit Absolute 2 studio
monitors. The PC is a bit of a monster (check out the SpoonCUBE
section), and I simply must mention my Evolution
MIDI mother keyboard which was generously supplied by Evolution FOC (thanks
guys).
Current
Projects: At present The
Spoon Wizard is concentrating on live work after finishing his debut album
'Beleive or Suffer'.
Remixes:
Spoon
Wizard has remixed Afterlife's track 'Cry' for Hed Kandi and Spec X Ray's
'Not Children Of God for Plastic Raygun records. Which had this review
in MUZIK magazine
Spec
X-Ray: Not Children of God (Spoon Wizard mix)
The manic drum 'n' bass of Spec X-Ray's original is complemented by a
broad selection of mixes - French house from JJ Smoothie, rockabilly lounge
from Berlin's Stereo De Luxe and a blinding breakbeat mix from Spoon Wizard,
an artist signed to Exeter (UK) based Functional Breaks. The common denominator
are the vocal samples, lifted from a horror B-movie. But while these samples
get annoying pretty quickly on the other tracks, they fit perfectly into
Spoon Wizard's eerie late-nite breaks mix, his best production to date
and easily the best track on this 12". Spooky sounds punctuated by
lovely acid tweaks set the mood before a devious nu skool styled bassline
is let loose to cause havoc on the dancefloor - a killer track!
Neil
&
Graham
Live
Gigs: The
Spoon Wizard has gigged extensivly through out the UK making apearances
at festivals such as Glastonbury and some of the UKs leading clubs including
The Bomb in Nottingham. Live Spoon Wizard has played with Hybrid, Stanton
Warriors and Propellerheads Will White.
