Collaborators 2: Mark Hilditch

Accompanying me on many a gig over the last few years has been Mark ‘Big Boss’ Hilditch. A great friend, a supremely talented musician and ‘the-man-with-no-ego’, Mark is the perfect man to make music with.

In his previous guise as leader of rave/dance outfit Big Boss, you might have seen him looking a bit more like this:

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To say Mark is a keen cyclist would be a huge understatement. His idea of fun is to get up at 6am on a Saturday and go for a 60-mile bike ride. (My idea of fun is to lie on the couch and watch as much of a DVD box-set as I can in one day).

One day Mark was cycling to work and, half-way down a very steep hill, his handlebars snapped off. Unable to stop, he had 2 choices – either keep going down the hill and very likely fall off his bike at great speed onto the hard tarmac, or,  come off the road onto the grassy verge and hope the bike slows down and he has a softer landing.

He chose the latter option and came flying off his bike, landing on his head. When he stood up he realised something wasn’t quite right and, being a doctor, figured he must have injured himself in some way.

So does he call an ambulance? Does he call his wife or a friend to come get him? No, he does his best to fix his bike, gets back on it and cycles the rest of the way to the hospital where he works. After some tests, he’s told he has broken his neck.

So as not to worry anyone, he waited until the end of the day before phoning his wife to tell her and when I went to visit him at home I didn’t heard him complain once.

The man is a legend.

Oh, he also played on several tracks from my Jesus is for Losers album, and kindly lent me his VERY cool Korg MS-20:

I used this to make the cool old analogue sounds on  Jesus, Jesus’ Hands and Jesus, I.