Videos

Mike Marlin – Play That Game

13th Jan 2011

Here we have the video for Mike Marlins free single Play That Game available on his Facebook page link released on the 07th February 2011.

On the line up for HMV's Next Big Thing in February and on tour with The Stranglers in March 2011, Mike's second single first from forthcoming album Nearly Man, Play That Game is the perfect calling card for what’s to come from this unusual artist.

Mike Marlin was born in Wimbledon in the swinging 60s, the son of accountant parents. He lost the sight in his right eye at four years old, grew up a brilliant but solitary child earned a scholarship to study physics at Oxford and dropped out to pursue a passion for music, girls and computers.

Unbeknown to his old physics tutor, Mike was more inspired by the burgeoning post-punk period of British pop, when the likes of former computer programmer, Costello, and suburban wunderkind, Weller, were at the height of their commercial powers. Arming himself with a guitar and a 4-track cassette machine, Marlin wrote songs and withdrew into a world of his own, venturing out only to play bass in bands that never made it.

“I'd write songs and stand at the back playing bass,” he recalls. “There is no comparison between playing bass in a band and being the frontman. You may be only four feet away in terms of where you're standing but it's a hundred million miles away.”

Jump 25 years on and Mike met music producer James Durrant who was on the lookout for an undiscovered songwriter in the classic mould. Frustrated musical aspirations took hold and Mike played James some of his songs.
Within 18 months they had completed the debut album Nearly Man Marlin had been gestating for years.

Play That Game is the lead single from Nearly Man and is the perfect calling card for what’s to come from this unusual artist. Mike’s vocals are proudly baritone and effortlessly join the brass section in sleezing all over it’s heavy groove. Evocative of everything from Bowie to Cake with lyrical relevance to everyone, or perhaps nobody, Mike sums up the track as;
“Advice I never got, that I wouldn't have listened to and was better off never getting.”

‘Nearly Man’ is released in February 2011.

Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to the world of Mike Marlin…