About Me
Transition Music UK
Hello, thanks for finding us and welcome to Transition 3, the cunningly entitled sister site to Transition 1 and 2.
Transition music is Dan Bick (Acoustic/Electric Guitars, Piano & Music) and Nick Ruck (Lyrics, Drums and Percussion) - plus whatever musicians we can beg, steal or borrow at the time of any given recording.
Our guest vocalist this time around is Camilla Bard, who not only kindly journeyed all the way down from London to record with us but then preceded to sing for several hours straight, giving us a host of great performances to choose from. As time progresses and we get round to mixing everything properly we'll post the whole session on myspace.
And so to quote a certain legendary Boston rock band, the only thing left to do is let the music do the talking.
Camilla Bard
(Guest Vocalist)
Dan Bick
(Music, Guitars, Keyboards & Harmonica)
First dabbled with the guitar when I was 11. It was an electric guitar - a cheap one made by Kay - which after much pandering, my parents resigned to buy me for Christmas. With it, came a 5 watt amp which had a plastic shell that would violently vibrate and rattle when turned up to ten - this acted as a fuzz/distortion box - great!! For a very brief time, I joined a school band called "5 speed", which folded within a couple of rehearsals due to the fact that no one could play their instrument - especially me! In fact, I wasn't even too sure how to tune it. Anyway, I sold it or gave it away and that was that.
Later, a few days after my 16th birthday I decided to try again. I bought a Westone Spectrum ST and a 10 watt Piccolo amp, complete with guitar tuner (very helpful)! Armed with a chord dictionary and the sheet music to Queen's The Works album, finally started to learn to play properly.
Over the next few years, with my 2nd hand Squire Telecaster, I gradually got better - David Gilmour was a huge inspiration! Around this time, I picked up my first scale (the pentatonic minor) and began bending notes! I learned guitar tablature and bought the tab book for Pink Floyd's The Wall album. I learned every single note on that album - the riffs, the solos, the lot and got to understand the theory and how it all integrated. I part-exchanged my Squire Tele for a Fender Strat and a 100 watt Laney amp to deafen the neighbours! At last I felt like a guitar player!!!
D.A.B June 2006
Nick John Ruck
(Lyrics, Percussion)
Ok, I've been asked to write a brief bio for the website - so here goes! When I first started out, it was as a drummer. Growing up, I loved guys like John Bonham and Keith Moon and was always tapping along to records. One day, when I was about 14 I got to sit in with a band and after that there was no going back.
My first kit was a battered wine red cannon set, which came complete with wobbly stands and cymbals that had all the sensitivity of a tin can. I took some lessons and then over the next few years played in a host of different bands, all of which imploded with alarming regularity.
A lot of the gigs I played were chaotic to say the least - reactions ranging from the positive, to indifference, to threats of physical violence if we didn’t piss off the stage! Looking back, there's some funny memories, but at the time there were moments you thought "Shit, am I going to get out of this alive?".
Anyway, cutting a long story short, I drifted into song writing - partly because it seemed a lot safer, but mainly because I enjoy it so much. I love working with words just as much as drum beats and I think the Transition record has some of my best work on it - I hope people agree.
N.J.R June 2006
