The Morris Quinlan Experience (the MQE to its friends) was born in 1997 out of a chance meeting at an Edinburgh Festival poetry event.
Dave Maughan and Alan Morton matched a tense, film noir soundtrack to Simon Macken's downbeat, confessional lyrics to create a milestone British rock album, The Morris Quinlan Experience, where the singer spoke instead of singing...
The Morris Quinlan Experience received radio plays on BBC Radio 2, XFM, Radio Caroline, and BBC and independent local radio nationwide.
Regular overseas radio plays (particularly on US college radio) continue to this day.
In the summer of 2001, the MQE were back at at the Edinburgh Festival, performing live on BBC Radio 4's Loose Ends.
Sadly, the day that their performance was repeated as part of Loose Ends' Pick Of The Year show was the very day that Simon Macken chose to announce his decision to leave the group.
The second incarnation owes less to chance, and more to Dave's niece Jenny, who was a regular audience member at Newcastle's sprawling, chaotic Home Cooking cabaret nights, fronted by poet James McKay.
Jenny brought Dave along to a show and, within days, James had joined the MQE.
Within a few more, work had begun in earnest on creating a second album, which would eventually come to be called Follow On.
As the MQE's new poet, James contributes fewer words but wider horizons, and brings with him a style of writing and delivery based more on the rhythms of natural speech and breath: Dave and Alan, MQE's musical core, were faced with reconciling lyrics that refused to fit into traditional song structures with their own refusal to create anything that is in any way stereotypical.
Finally, almost five years later, Follow On is released, along with A New Rain, the first single from the album.
The Morris Quinlan Experience on MySpace www.myspace.com/morrisquinlan
www.morrisquinlan.com
myspace.com/mckaypoetry
myspace.com/tmqe
The Morris Quinlan Experience (live and acoustic-ish)
www.12barclub.com
The 12 Bar Club is a rather cool, centrally located London venue, and MQE played a most successful gig there on the 5th September 2007.
More MQE gigs are planned for 2008, so watch this space!
"...and I think I understand...
Here is a new rain...
Rain that sticks to your skin like sweat...
Which maybe it is..."
(© James McKay 2006)
The download-only single 'A New Rain' is available now from iTunes and most other good online download stores.
A New Rain (single edit)
Free Party
follow on is the superb new second album by
The Morris Quinlan Experience
(Round & Round Records MQECD02)
Way Back
In The Beginning
The New Bali Ha'i
No Experience Necessary
Ship Of Fools 2008
Along Came The Spider...
It Must Be Summer
A New Rain
2 Allen Ginsberg
Silently On Towards 3am
Recorded between January 2002 and January 2006 by James McKay, Dave Maughan and Alan Morton plus many guest musicians. “Quite simply the best album we've ever made...”
Available now through record stores or download online:
follow on is out now on CD on Round & Round Records, available from Amazon
and other major online retailers, or download from iTunes and others.
And of course, also still available is the first (self titled) album...
The Morris Quinlan Experience
(Ted Smith Records TEDSCD01)
You And The Night
Waiting Midnight Train
Colder Nights
The Raven Trick
Quiet Streets
Come Hail, Rain or Shine
Break Loose My Animal Dust
Sacred Whore Blues
When Each Of These Angels
Recorded between November 1997 and July 1999 by Simon Macken, Dave Maughan and Alan Morton plus many guest musicians.
Released 24th July 2000. Available through record stores or download online now: