Nicholas Maycroft

Nicholas Maycroft is in fact Claus Mayer (and not even that, he REALLY is Claus-Dieter Mayer, but that name he considers far too complicated for the average viewer of such a page), a German, who nowadays lives in the north east of Scotland. Claus has been playing guitar for 25 years now, but amazingly has managed to not develop any extraordinary skills on this instrument in this time. That doesn't bother him very much though, as his main reason for learning guitar was to be able to write songs on it. He believes that at least in this area he has developed a certain skill by now (but he believes other strange things too, so you should take this information with some caution). Claus used to play in a German Indie-Rock Band called "The Hydden Treasures" together with his best friend and songwriting rival of many years Tino Beikert (you can find more on the Hydden Treasures and Tino's activities on www.herrbeikert.de, but unless you speak German you should better have your dictionary ready). Nicholas Maycroft is a pseudonym Claus chose for the band's first tape, released in 1987, which was called "The Sixties are alive again" and sold about 12 copies. He never used that silly name again, but for some reason typed it in when asked for "band's name" when signing into this page. The Hydden Treasures released a second tape in 1989 titled "They could have been bigger than the TV Personalities" which was similarly successful. The names of these two releases already indicate the musical taste of Claus (and Tino), which ranges from classic 60s pop (particularly the Beatles, a band from Liverpool, that used to be quite famous at the time) via glam rock,punk, folk to Indie-Rock. Particularly Daniel Treacy's band Television Personalities have been a major influence for many years (buy their new album "My Dark Places"! And then everything else they did; you won't regret it, promised!).The Hydden Treasures split up more than 10 years ago but Claus occasionally still writes little tunes and puts them to tape. This is his attempt to bring his music out to the wider world assuming that the world won't listen (ok, that was a cheap joke...). These are no professional recordings, but just a bloke sitting in front of a tape recorder, so don't say you were not warned.He is happy to accept complimentary comments on his music, but refuses to accept any form of criticism... oh and before I forget: the picture shows the artist as a young man (17 to be precise)...nowadays he is nearly 40, has a beer belly and looks far from glamorous...you wouldn't really want to see that, do you? I thought so...