Ted and Monty Mason

In the Beginning – The Whirl (world) according to Ted Mason, and a little whelp (help) from his friend (Monty)

Ted Mason was born to an English Father (from Sheffield) and a Nicaraguan Mother. "I can remember the absolute authority my Father commanded in the home. We were not allowed to speak Spanish. Our father imposed a proper English upbringing," Ted recalls. "We don’t speak Spanish as a result. But then, we don’t speak much English either…" His mother, Martha, a Pharmacist, and "modern" woman, perpetuated her own subjugation in true Catholic style via her perpetual servitude and submission to violence meted out by a good English husband. She continues to praise the "sanctity" of family.

Although both Ted and his brother Monty consider themselves Yorkshire (though skinny in arm, they are thick in head), Le Père, "Peter," had difficulties settling and calling one country "home." As an adolescent of 12, Peter, raised in a more brutish, puritanical British society, and born nearly illegitimate, found himself volunteered to work in various versions of laborer through the tender auspices of his parents. Medical records indicate that a maternal figure, also known as "grand-mum" to Ted and siblings, blinded Peter and made him deaf in one ear. Grand-mère Mason claims that if deaf, daft and dumbness occur in the body and spirit of her son, why they most surely had their origins not in her maternal talents, but in his Yorkshire lineage.

Be this as it may, Peter sojourned with brother David across Europe in poverty-chic caravans. After experiencing the romance of poverty while a-wandering through the wealthy continent, Peter alighted to the New World, bound for colonies that had not given the Sceptered Isle their collective, raised middle fingers. By doing so, Peter pushed on for a final, irreconcilable separation between himself and brother Dave. Such is the sanctity of family

Riddled with social class inequities, devastated by two World Wars, and quickly losing its empire, pre 1960's Britain did not offer much in the way of economic, social, and political advancement, or pleasant regards for that matter, vis-à-vis the lower-middle and working classes. As the United States had become the new Empire of the Sun, England’s Jewel in the Crown, India, had recently declared independence. Most of the remaining colonies soon informed Great England that its artful predations would no longer be required. Without an opportunity to join the Raj and abuse the natives in the fine British tradition, Peter's disillusionment with his home country reached a new high. "Since I was disinherited, as it were, I felt England ought to be best left for the inherited few." No one protested Peter’s departure. As a good Yorkshire-lad, Peter set his mind for Singapore (ah, the life of wearing sullied white linen suits, drinking too much gin and molesting the natives!) and set west across the Atlantic, the American Continent, and then the Pacific toward his destination (well, he is a Yorkshire-lad).

Contrary to what conservative Republicans of the era claimed (the more things change, the more they remain the same…) America did not have pavements of gold. America gave Peter, and earlier, Martha, its traditional greeting to new immigrants: "So glad you are here. Now go to work for nothing, suffer our abuse, and be THANKFUL you made it to our shores, you tired, weary masses of scum!" Peter found himself broke and living in a car while on his way to the port town of San Francisco. In San Francisco, Martha suffered racism and escalating tuition demands on the part of the pre-politically correct, but always prestigious, UC Berkeley University. Martha’s Dean welcomed her thus as one of the few latinas to enter the undergraduate college during the late 1950s: "We don't have many Mexicans in this University; please pay the full tuition up-front." Martha informed him that she was not a Mexican, but she did pay for the privilege of institutionalized condescension. She borrowed money and worked several jobs while taking full-time courses. Her classmates played golf and went to society fêtes. To this day, Martha tears-up when she hears the melodious tones of her Alma Mater. For this "model minority," only happiness and security could greet her upon graduating in the decade of blondes, bombs and Marilyn Monroe. When Peter and Martha met, sparks of the colonizer and colonized flew. Martha had brains; Peter, the Anglo-Saxon blood. A new start in America?

 
Oi, then, West My Son! Go West!

 Back East, a turn left, and then West to Bristol, a port town in the West Country of Britain. Ted recalls, "There was protection, a nurturing effect when you where enveloped by the British fog; a lovely mist of an illusion. An illusion of romance, painted in colours of isolation, perfectly complemented our happy, desolate home. I can remember being rocked to sleep by the sound of fog horns, Rimsky Korsakov and African-American music, of which my mother was fond." Then came the Beatles. As with so many other waifs at the time, everything changed for the brothers Mason. "We were not even 4 or 5, but I clearly remember thinking, ‘this is what I want to do!’ What I found intriguing was not only the beat of the music, (American R&B), but also the poignant, elliptical melodies and chord structures. Their musical fusion of African-American pop culture and English Music Hall, working-class and art school, Celtic Britain and Hamburg’s intellectual and nightlife cultures mirrored the multi-cultural background of our own family. The Beatles’ weirdness seemed normal to us; their noise sounded great."

 Books! Books! Books!

It was, and probably still is, the European tradition to read. No one could afford a Television. "My Father and Mother had an extensive library filled with all the classics. Regimented and daily readings commenced at the age of 4. We were to understand the hallucinogenic dislocation of Tales of the Ancient Mariner and the brutal ironies within Mac Beth. Piece-of-cake. My brother Monty took a fancy to this and threw himself into the world of literature. That rather explains a lot about his personality."

"At the age of 7, in the fine Anglo and Latin traditions, we found ourselves forced to learn the violin. It was ‘good’ for us, especially the beatings when we didn’t get it right." By this time, frustration had set in and both brothers wanted desperately to express themselves through a music of their own choosing. Their mother expected the Mason sons to express themselves through what Oxford University considered the only instrument of importance, the violin. "We were to succeed in this world. We were to be ambitious. We were to play this most ‘important’ of instruments; we were to enjoy all forms of corporal punishment. Over time, I realized the real beauty and power of Classical Music. But by then, all power and beauty escaped me. I had become an adolescent (i.e. big nosed, flat-footed, sniffling, Brit-Nic GEEK of the first order). The guitar had been our real passion, not the violin. The guitar was cool: André Segovia, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Pass, George Harrison; major cool! Playing guitar meant that you defined yourself in opposition to what was considered ‘important’ by parents, governments, and beautiful, socially acceptable fascists known as secondary school Jocks and classroom beauties. Since so many of them considered us revolting, we opted to revolt. So be it. We became the ‘brotherhood’: Self- educated. Skeptical. Aggressively LIBERAL (I the Tory will never be; how pitiful these Republicans to see). We wanted to march for peace (perhaps unrealistic, since we were all of 8 and 9 years old). We did turn up the Jimi Hendricks. We Sent Donavan ‘Happy-Birthday-Sunshine-Superman" cards. We planned to attend the University of Carnaby Street! Haight Ashbury!, and maybe a few points in between."

(Groucho) Marx’s Sexual Manifesto: Geeks of the World Unite!

"The coming of age. Teen angst. What do you do with desire repressed? The 1970s. What do you do with an irredeemably stupid and boring decade, the 1970s? In the 60s, we were kids with a world opening its eyes, hearts and mind; the storm raged around and in us. Who cared if the Family was Pain! The World was Pain! And yet, we laughed, we rocked, we raged and we dreamed of days to come that passed right before us. The events in the 60s engulfed your senses, whatever your age. We thought we would make ourselves and everyone free! There was a higher purpose!" 

 "So, imagine coming of age in the 1970s. We thought we had begun to change the world for the better. A better what? And for whom? The hippies sold-out, bought more ‘upscale’ drugs, got jobs and became even lazier and more self-righteous than ever. The youth of the 1970's inherited new freedoms without struggle or ideals. Tories and Republicans could take powdery drugs and listen to Led Zeppelin, all the while affirming the old, hypocritical and tyrannical order. Oh, yeah. I soon learned the purpose of life in the 70s. The Yorkshire Father took us on the move again: to the West and to the East coasts of America we went. A couple of years punishment in the form of American High Schools revealed a HELL of irredeemably savage, State sponsored stupidity; a benighted place peopled by the most blighted of the damned: brute fascists and their tea-bag, home-coming queens ruling the ‘untouchables’ by fiat of the State. It was Dante’s Hell gone American suburban."

 American High School: now here was banishment served up as a gargoyle’s pit of bubbling pig slime, empowered by the fatuous State. Think not? Then compare what the arty, intellectual Geeks got from the schools–––NOTHING----to the football fields, basketball courts, gymnasiums, and fascist pageants [i.e "Proms," "Rallies" "Homecoming Games" etc.] and the like bestowed upon the would-be Volk of Mall and Management in the soon-to-be New Thousand Year World Order. "The ‘Sexual Revolution’s’ decade?; oh yeah, ‘The Sexual Generation’?; oh yeah. But a geek’s sexual peak is in his teens; an abandoned wife’s in her thirties. Frustration. Rage. OH, YEAH." Ted remembers fondly.

Fondly does he, ever so, recall days and nights of Imposed Abstinence in the land of those happily beautiful––the ones preparing the way for the ‘I, me and that’s mine" generation of Ronnie and Nancy Reagan. Nancy the if-you-please, Prick-Up-Your-Ears poster-girl of the snappily sedated; now here was a tea-bag wife! Just perfect for throwing the Molotov slogans, "Just say No to Sex before Marriage," and "Just say No to Drugs," unless your designer doctor gives you the oh-so-many-of-mommy-dearest’s-little-helper prescriptions; Nancy the no know; she who became pregnant 3 months before marrying Mr. Great Communicator-as-long-as-I’m-spreading-the-cheese Ronnie the Ray Gun. Bikini clad 'ultra bright' smiles commanding moral abstinence! Just say NO! American Cheerleaders in haughty knickers, preaching abstinence while giving the shinny toothed bungho’ behemoths of the Football team their daily bread. Just SAY NO.

Oh, those happy few. Love for sale; bring your bile and your team spirit too. Oh, yeah.

 Geeks of the World Unite. You have nothing to lose but your temper!

So this is the Rock
(where is the Roll?)

"No son of mine is going to play music for a living! GET OUT!" Thus a Yorkshire man welcomed sons Ted and Monty to the Age of Innocence, also known as their 18th and 19th birthdays. The Mason Brothers tied themselves to a chunk of grand delusion by putting a band together. They would play music and make art to escape a depraved family life. Thus firmly tied, they promptly threw themselves overboard and sank with the delusion straight to the bottom of the sea. "Through music we would express our joys, our rages, our hopes; we would seek to create an alternative to that which we knew. And we would make oodles of dirty dollars doing it too!" Let it be said that The Grand Delusion created a great, swirling cloud of sand and angst-ridden hermit crabs when it hit the harbor bottom. Never mind the Rich; here’s to Diving to the Wreckage as a career move.

Brutality begets brutality, and the disasters that followed came easily enough for the brothers M. But learning to become master instrumentalists would take ever so much more work. Ted notes, "We really wanted to play, and play all genres of music very well. Anybody could be a punk. As a PUNK you would progress to being dead, dull and gone in a day. But I wanted to become an educated punk. I wanted to frighten the masters and make lions out of lemmings. I wanted to leave something positive, I wanted to Make Art; A-rticulate R-evolutionize T-hought. Beautiful melodies and all that. Why become a punk if you wouldn’t leave something for everyone to argue over??"

Ted picked up the guitar when he was thirteen. When he refused to continue with the violin, he enjoyed the sanctity of family vituperation and physical abuse via his mother. It would take 10 years, 6 hours a day, and 2 excruciating years of classical repertoire at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music to master the guitar (classical, be-bop and rock). Ted looked forward to graduating from sanctimony to sanctity in all things. The studies progress; he has a brother.

"My brother, Monty, was always ahead of me in the study of literature and art. He was and is a happy sadist. While I learned how to play from the standard repertoire and canon, my brother would bring in sounds that where out of bounds: Charlie Parker, Joe Pass, Chet Atkins, Tal Farlow, George Van Epps, and, many years later, Stanley Jordan, amongst many others. I had to master the masters in order to get my brother to go away. As for pop, well, while the Rock & Roll Business made money off of the terrible racial situation, dividing up pieces of the market by glorifying Anglo rockers and ghettoizing African-American ones (i.e. ‘Art’ rock, ‘Alternative and Rock & Roll’ for the whites and ‘Black Music’ and ‘R&B’ for the ‘Black Community’), my brother insisted on an opening our ears to brilliance. Rock & Roll then became Sly Stone, Parliament, Santana, Stanley Clark Chi-Lites, Cool and the Gang, and many other interesting musicians that transcended the 1970s through sheer talent." Fusing ground-braking R&B styles, Be-bop and British Rock & Roll, the brothers finally put a band together with the requisite prowess to play the Masons’ quirky repertoire while touring clubs in England and the US.

 With their band, the Masons fashioned their very own sanctified family, comme chez Mason. And in the great Mason tradition, the brothers meted out indifference, psychological, economic and physical abuse to their fellow musicians. "We were as much artists as liars, fools, and bullies. And after years of psychotherapy, my brother and I have finally learned that it was----EVERYBODY ELSE’S FAULT!! Yeah, that’s it! Innocent victims of our arrogance, our solipsistic, mindless rage??? Those BASTARDS!!!! THEY should apologize to us, YEAH!!"

Strangely, both Ted's first marriage and first band fell apart.

When all else fails, stall for time. Ted and Monty considered righting their ways, making amends to those against whom they transgressed; Ted and Monty ruminated over chances lost and friendships broken; they pondered the possibilities of amending their ways and joining society. After about fifteen minutes of much profound thought, they decided not to.

 They then went and got something to eat.

Producer for Hire! Scholar in the works! Rock & Roll Modern English Style

What do you do when your dreams fall apart, when you have no skills, when you are broke and you want to make music? The brothers had not a clue. They stalled some more.

Then the brothers Mason went their separate ways. Ted began to prosper as a musician. Monty would continue on as a musician for a number of years before deciding to attend a regional college. Here he would prepare for applying to one of England’s elite universities or America’s Ivy League. He had had no money at the time. After arduous study, Monty won entrance into a number of noted universities. He chose to attend Columbia University, one of the American Ivy League schools. He matriculated as a student older than his peers, and lived in a single room in Harlem for much of his college years. To earn money, he worked as a tutor of French, English and History; he also edited and wrote for various campus journals and became involved in campus politics of a decidedly liberal nature.

 Monty graduated Columbia University in 1997 with a double major, French Literature/African and European History, earning academic honours, including Magna Cum Laude, induction into Phi Beta Kappa, and the Lillian Parker Prize for outstanding scholarship in French. His other honours included the Dean’s Graduation Citation, Dean's List, GSAA Scholarship Award for academic excellence, and the GSSC Citation for scholarship and public service.

Upon graduating, Monty’s girlfriend kicked him out for his continuous philandering, selfishness, and poor athletic skills, as well as for being an all-around bastard. Monty notes, "Columbia University provided me a great education."

On the other hand, Ted continued in music, playing as a sideman in a number of best-selling bands. He worked a number of odd jobs, from insurance companies to selling film, when not working as a musician. After his divorce, the loss of the double income and lack of an academic degree meant that starvation wages would become the norm. Forced to move into a tenement the size of a shoebox, down to the last couple of dollars, and no future on the horizon, things could only get better. Or so he thought.

Ted actually landed a Job with the Manchester Guardian as a freelance writer under Christopher Reed. "I lied prodigiously, that is to say, I bullshitted furiously, to advance my way up there. I claimed I wrote for a very prestigious and hip London magazine. All I did was freelance promotions for them at clubs. The day came when this mag. found out I had used their non-paying post to advance myself from starvation wages to very, very hungry and humiliated wages. I got the sack. I was a humiliated. They sacked me when I was working free-of charge for the bastards. Well no matter, I used to spend Friday nights at dinner with Christopher. He fed and plied me with much good spirits before he passed out. As a drunken journalist, he had covered everything: Vietnam, John Lennon, Nixon, you name it. I came over his house the night I got sacked from my non-paying job (the magazine told me, "you’ll never starve in this town again, you knob!; you’re sacked!!") feeling like a right tosser. He just said, "screw that rag; come write for the Guardian. I didn't even have an ‘academic’ degree."

"Success!! I had fought everybody off while working for the Guardian and made it to.... the middle! One thing led to another. In the all things involving power, people accept you when you have something to offer." Introductions abounded for the bounder, Ted. In the music industry, Ted moved up from performing as a guest producer/ace studio musician to full-fledged producer. At the same time Ted joined Modern English full-time. More Phun!

"Modern English was great. I always appreciated Robbie Grey for having given me the opportunities to express myself as an artist, and not just as a producer. Things did get more and more difficult working with him, though, especially as we got more successful. By the end of the band’s career, I served as its manager, producer, musical arranger and lead guitarist. But Robbie Grey had a vision for the band as his own. Whatever that vision was, though, he gave me the opportunity to ‘make it happen’ for us." So they did, turning out a string of million selling hits that included the multi-million selling, " Stop the World and Melt with You."

 Ted had to think long and hard about leaving Modern English. "A full ten minutes passed after Monty graduated from Columbia University before I quit Modern English. I then asked that philandering Bastard of a brother with the hoity-toity degree if he wanted join MY new band." Monty retorts, "the question was merely academic: I faced going on to graduate school in the professions and thus joining Society as a decent, upstanding, contributing citizen or continuing to live a life of dissolution, delusion, folly, and impecuniousness as an artiste. By God, man, the decision seemed crystal clear! Before Ted hung up the phone, I had banged on his door with my guitar at hand and degree in pocket." He also had his possessions on the sidewalk, as his girlfriend informed Monsieur Mason that his husband-like services were no longer required. "After all I did to her, I mean, did for her? I was hurt!" confesses Monty.

Mi-5 and the Blue Mockingbirds: We’ll be Seeing You

You can sell a million records, learn to play your instrument; you can have a following, you may look the part, you may part the look, but you are still not good enough to get the record deal! Ted recalls, "I have had people lie flagrantly and stupidly to me about what is and what is not ‘in,’ ‘edgy,’ ‘hip,’ ‘cool,’ and commercially viable. I have had musical illiterates tell me that they didn't like my career, or my I sound; they have told me that I sound too much like Oasis, or not enough like them, or that I sound like Lenny Kravitz, or not enough like him. In fact, one A&R man told me 2 days before Lenny Kravitz's current record was released, that Lenny never sold any records and he had lost his record deal years previously. Two weeks later Kravitz has another multi-platinum record and a worldwide hit. Whether Lenny Kravitz is any good or not is not the question here. Whatever his merit as a musician, Lenny continues to sell records now! ‘Sod off pal,’ I say to that bloke in the record biz; that is what the record industry wants - a hit––and the opportunity to obliterate the hit-maker. I can only imagine what young, talented bands go through when they don't even have a track record. I just want to play the music I love. I want my band to have an audience. I also want to experiment with other bands, with alternative sounds and ideas. I want to create an ethos, a place that is just about art, life, reality, dreams, beauty, ugliness, melody and a bloody great noise! Screw 'em all then! I want my own record company!"

Yes, Ted, please tell us what you really think about record/entertainment conglomerates.

Thus, from these tender feelings did Ted and Monty Mason form their new band, The Blue Mockingbirds. "I have a classical and bebop jazz background as a guitarist, and I love the clamour of the Beatles, Rap and Hip Hop, Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, Parliament, Stravinsky, Duke Ellington––whatever. I wanted a band of musicians who shared my tastes AND who could play a broad range of styles with me. I also pitied my brother; what a hopeless fop!" The brothers came up with the moniker, "The Blue Mockingbirds" upon recalling a band of a similar name from the early 1960s. This earlier band included both the insufferable, arch folk-rocker, Neil Young and the ace funkateer and drug fiend, Rick James. "We loved the idea of these two opposites playing together as they did, and we are by dint of birth and upbringing, multicultural."

So is Rock-n-Roll. But then, all Art, high and low, is multi-cultural by definition" explains Ted. Monty concurs, and adds, "When we were young, our father who art of Yorkshire, hollow be thy Sunday dinners; Roast Beef would come, with Yorkshire Pud, Brussels Sprouts forever and ever, AAAAHHH Man!! He, of most holy on high, and big arms too, would smacketh his scions of unruly comport, sanctioning them by that most sacred of commandments: ‘Aye you, we’ll have no such noise from a pair of mockingbirds at this table!’ Thus spoketh his most hallowed of hollow holies, Lord God Yorkshire man, Paterfamilias and right suppressor of all things Mockingbirdish."

Another eccentric integral member and popster in THE BLUE MOCKINGBIRDS is singer, master drummer (and rhythm guitarist) Milan Meserich. Milan hails from Boston, (via Milwaukee, Wisconsin) and studied music at the Prestigious Berklee School of Music. Tired of the traditional boundaries imposed on the curriculum, Milan rebelled, left Berklee, and set upon the road. After playing many stints with artists such as Peter Wolfe and former members of Icicle Works, and the Spin Doctors, Milan moved to New York City aspiring to find a band with similar musical tastes and the desire to make music first, be a star later! After hanging out at the local English pub, the Parlour, and two too many pints, Ted and Milan first broached the subject of playing together. "When we heard this bloke laying down the salsa grooves on the drums and then go on endlessly about how great Ringo played on ‘She Loves You’ during the Beatles’ concerts, we knew he was OUR drummer," Monty recalls. Who says a couple of pints can’t solve your problems! Milan states: "Hey, Mr. Boom-Boom Skinny Guitarist: ‘Summer Wind’ on five! You’re done! Next!" Milan Meserich.

Guest bass players include Muzz Skillings formally of the best selling, and critically honoured, band, "Living Color," and Mark White, of the "Spin Doctors." Rounding out the guest players is Chris North, also a Classical and Jazz trained musician. Chris plays keyboards and contributes background harmonies. Chris expounds on his role: "Yep. That’s a’ me."

Because of the eclectic music and counter multi-culture of the Blue Mockingbirds, Ted anticipated a somewhat less than enthusiastic response from the recording conglomerates. He also wanted a fairer division of the royalties, a freer hand in artistic output, and a less corporate approach to the production of Art. "We did not want to engage in the racial profiling that the conglomerates do; we opted out of their class based manipulations too. We did want a conglomerate distribute our product, but not own it, define it, compromise it, or denigrate, or in any way cheapen it. After all, we could do that all by ourselves." So, Ted, Monty, Jennifer Brunetti, Milan Meserich, and various cohorts of excellent artistic abilities and or business acumen formed Mi5 to serve as a safe-house/record company devoted to alternative genres of Music, Art, Literature, and subversive Pop culture.

 One notes that Mi5 alludes to the British Intelligence agency of the same name. Monty believes that the Mi5 is an august British institution dedicated to "dirty deeds done dastardly well, with élan and pretense. However, more often then not, with little purpose other than to employ the corruptible, the unemployable, and the unsavory!"