marknicholas.org <--click for website
myspace.com/marknicholasmusic <--click for mark's myspace page

Mark Nicholas is a Detroit-based electronic musician, once well-known only in the underground Synthpop community as the man behind the band Cosmicity. Cosmicity was active from 1994-2004. Now recording under his given name, Mark has shed the confines of 80's-influenced Synthpop for a modern hybrid electronic sound – a sound he calls Dirty Electr... (+) expand

marknicholas.org <--click for website
myspace.com/marknicholasmusic <--click for mark's myspace page

Mark Nicholas is a Detroit-based electronic musician, once well-known only in the underground Synthpop community as the man behind the band Cosmicity. Cosmicity was active from 1994-2004. Now recording under his given name, Mark has shed the confines of 80's-influenced Synthpop for a modern hybrid electronic sound – a sound he calls Dirty Electronic.. (In fact, it's not just a fun name for his little sub-genre of electronic music. It's also the name of his record label.)

Yeah, so um... Mark has been bonkers for the sound of synthesizers since he first heard songs like "Automatic" by the Pointer Sisters and "Borderline" by Madonna at the age of 11. His mom had him take piano lessons, but he didn't like them much. Those didn't last very long. As he got older, Mark found that what he really liked was making his own songs and sounds, which he tried to do whenever he could borrow time on the one synthesizer they had at his high school.

When Mark was about 16 years old, he was asked to play the piano for a competitive school event. Mark agreed, even though he was (and still is) terrible at reading printed music. When he played very poorly during a rehearsal the day before the big event, his entire class, all 350 people, began to boo him. Mark left in complete shame. The rest of the school day he was yelled at in the halls because everyone was sure the class would lose due to his poor performance. It was one of the most humiliating moments of his life. That night he went home and listened to recordings of the songs he needed to play. He then sat down at the piano and figured out his own arrangements, using his much stronger skill: the ability to play by ear. When he played the big event the next day, their class won the competition. Still, nobody really cared. They just yelled at him less in the halls after that. But he was still relieved.

Mark went on to the University of Michigan to get a degree in Music and Technology. He didn't learn all that much there, though, because he was really interested in pop music and the reigning wisdom among his professors and fellow students was that pop music was of little or no value. (They liked Jazz, Classical and 12-tone.) What he did do in 1994, during his Junior year, was decide to self-release a CD under the name Cosmicity. With a lot of pushing (posting flyers, pushing his CD on to the shelf at the local record store, one-man live shows), Cosmicity got a little attention. And a couple of people started talking about it on this brand new thing called "the Internet". (It really was brand new in 1994!)

By 1997, Cosmicity had a sizable following and had found a home in the Synthpop record label A Different Drum. There Cosmicity (Mark) released many albums for many years and he was very happy to be doing it.

But by 2004 Mark realized that he wasn't really reaching anyone new with his music, and he was feeling stagnant. He dropped the name Cosmicity, left A Different Drum, and began work on a whole new sound. The result of his efforts was the 2007 album "Duchess 33" released on his own new record label "Dirty Electronic" under his real name. The album sold well, and throughout the year Mark began to grow a new and more diverse fan base. In January 2008 he released the remix album "Perversions", featuring alternate versions of tracks from "Duchess 33", as well as some fun covers ("Maniac" from Flashdance, "California Love" originally by Tupac and Dr. Dre) and even new versions of some Cosmicity classics like 1997's "Your Beautiful Lie".

The future? Well, first on Mark's to-do list is becoming a new father (with his wife Sara, aka DJ Ginger Snapp) in June of 2008. And because music is such a huge part of his life, he's changing the way he works to make sure he can keep on creating while he simultaneously works on being the best dad in the world. His next release, tentatively titled "Music For Headphones" will be composed largely on a laptop and headphones, and will represent yet another new phase in his musical journey. Expect a moodier and more lyrically expressive songs that are most definitely headphone-friendly. (iPod lovers rejoice!)

But some things will remain consistent. Mark's music has always been 100% synthesizer-driven and electronic, melodic, lyrically meaningful, and emotionally engaging. As he begins work on his 13th studio album, you can be sure that his passion for this unique brand of electronic music is stronger than ever. (-) collapse