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COME ON!

Me, Myself, and I

Mark Cottrell (born January 11th, 1970 in Rush Green, Essex) is a singer-songwriter who has been recording since 1986.

He starting writing songs at the age of 10 and 6 years later formed a musical partnership with Steve Oswald which lasted for 12 years. During 1990 they joined forces with Darren Hunt & Rob Lynch to form The F.O.S. They set up camp at Freak Out Studio in Collier Row, Essex and recorded hundreds of songs over the next few years.

Mark started The Scapegoat in 1991 as a side-project from The F.O.S. as he was coming up with far too many songs to be recorded by them. This developed into a full band by 1997 and finally imploded in 1999.

His first live performance was with 6 piece jam-band Keith Burton’s All-Stars in 1994 (2 drummers, 2 guitarists, a bassist & a saxophonist). They were together for about a month, had maybe 2 or 3 rehearsals, no songs to speak of but a gig! After the concert in front of about 500 people at a university party at a warehouse in Plaistow, East London they split up.

Also in 1994 Mark formed Raw Essentials with C, John Freeborn. They met in a record shop in Ilford, Essex and recorded an album, ‘The Green Rush’. Freeborn later collaboated with Cottrell again on his 2004 album, ‘Loop’ & Mark’s ‘Ex-Scapegoat’.

In 1995 Mark was given an Amstrad 4-track (with a tuner/turntable) by his friend Bob Sweeney on which he recorded 10 albums of 4-track recordings in 2 years with a whole array of social misfits. He released these on his own tape label, Renaissance, in 98-99.

Further forays into live performance happened in 1997 the highlight being a gig at The 12 Bar Club in Denmark St, London alongside Hefner and The Hangovers (featuring ex-Raincoat Gina Birch).
During 1998 Cottrell joined Smart Fruit (with then-current) Scapegoat drummer John Gleeson. The Scapegoat imploded later that year and after finishing the recordings in 1999 Mark decided to have a rethink.

After 3 years of writing & demoing Cottrell returned to live performance in 2003 playing at various venues in London including The Spice of Life & The Arts Cafe.

2004 saw the release of ‘Ex-Scapegoat’, Mark’s first CD of the 21st century. 18 songs and 52 minutes long, the album featured many of Cottrell’s best songs from the previous 10 years. Launch night was at Filthy MacNasty’s Whiskey Bar in Islington, London.

The same year Mark collaborated with The Libertines’ cover star & encore singer The Rabbi on the single, ‘Tom Dooley’. Joined Essex based ‘fuzz-skiffle’ band Trad Arr and performed with Jason Swindle, Hadleigh Ford & C John Freeborn.

2005 saw the artist perform many times at the notorious Duke of Clarence in Islington, twice at The Steeles, Chalk Farm; twice at The Wilmington, Islington; twice at The Boogaloo, Highgate (including a performance of Ian Dury’s ‘Plaistow Patricia’ with Shane Macgowan) & Phil Lynott’s memorial at The Westbury in Dublin alongside Jason Swindle, Thin

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