Niko Marks- Making the Music Talk
Author: Michelle Pirovich
Monday, October 20, 2003
"My mother was my musical mentor; she was a piano player and one of the greatest vocalists I have ever heard. She could really bring a song to life by means of vocal expression. She would often say,
"Man, you've gotta make that thing talk," "You've got to sing it like you mean it because if you don't feel what you're singing about, chances are that no one else will."
Niko Marks is classically trained in piano, organ, chromatic harmonica, drums (both acoustic and electronic) and a variety of percussive instruments including the African Udu drum. Having always gravitated towards artists whose strengths lie in writing, producing and arranging their own material, namely Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Marvin Gaye, Elton John, Herbie Hancock and George Clinton, it was Thomas Dolby and Kraftwerk that turned Niko to electronica.
"The way acts like these were able to program sequencers and drum machines without the use of a whole band intrigued me. The sounds they were using were not your typical sounds, a string or bass sound might go from bright to dark, low to high by the movement of an oscillator or an arpeggiator. To me, this meant having some serious control over the music you create."
These creations began to form after Niko was introduced to 'Mad Mike Banks', one cold and wet night in Detroit.
"One late, cold winter evening in Detroit, a friend who had some dealings with Mike Banks came banging on my door...and I mean banging."Hey man, sorry it's so late but you have to meet this guy, Michael Banks, he's got gear up tha' ass!" I went over and met Banks, who was working on a track that sounded more like metal but was very interesting. He proceeded to add color with an organ patch MIDIed to a synthy-brass sound. I was like, "Whoa! That's hot!" and before we both knew it, I had written and arranged lyrics to the entire track. We later laid down a sketch vocal which turned out to be good enough to keep."
From there, Niko, Mike Banks, Scott Weatherspoon and Raphael Merriweathers formed 'Members of the House' (M.O.T.H), and together they produced the seminal tracks 'Summer Daze, Summer Nights', 'Somethin' About You', 'Don't Do It Like Dat' and 'I Love The Way You Love Me'.
The group eventually split for personal and musical reasons, in particular the 'RnB disease', as Niko prefers to call it.
"Well, the RnB germ seemed to attack the neuronic activity of the members causing all but one of us to think that by yielding to the RnB virus - it would soon free us by granting success. Therefore, we began to stray away from the music that truly allows for one to be free."
All was not lost however, with friendship and an abundance of skills the reward for being part of the M.O.T.H project.
"I believe that I gained an ability to compromise with other great minds to achieve a common goal, I was able to share in some unique tactics toward building tracks to fit the dance floor, it was a beautiful musical experience. Most of all, I gained three good friends that turned out to be like brothers and a big influence on the music that I make today."
These days, classifying music is done to the extreme, an issue that Niko and Eddie Flashin' Fowlkes decided to confront. They formed the 'City Boy Players' with an aspiration to promote experimentation and hopefully break down the practice of classification.
"Eddie and I were working at his studio, when we both stopped because we weren't feeling the vibe. We began to discuss how we wanted to do something different, somet Tags