KNOW POINT
‘Know Point’ is music made by Mike Thomas and Dan Hopkins.
With guest appearances from Mr C D Eynon and Jonathan Powell
Know Point started in a scary white concrete room with black iron girder's,
and Dan and Myk picking up guitars that we did not know how to play.
That day we created a soundtrack for a friends film (Clive Myer, Dorothy
Carrington Woman of Two Worlds) and created a twenty minute track called
'dark, Newport' which is on our first collection of music 'NDW'
‘That was the day we created ‘Know Point’
We continued to play experiment with our equipment until we finally felt
ready for a live audience.
We put on our first gig at grassroots in Cardiff back in September 1999
hiring a video projector and playing with 2 films that we had created
for the performance. For the first half we played with PFM's Looped images
of War and destruction. In the second half we played with HL's 20-minute
film 'revolving' analogue video graphics that force the viewer to sync
them up to what ever they are hearing.
Lee a friend of Myk's also played in Know Point that day
Baby Cupid and Attacked By Wolves Supported.
Know Point is improvised, we do what we feel. Know Point first started
out as just two guitars and lots of reverb, we have slowly brought in
our other instruments over the years to and to the sound.
A couple of months later we supported EC8OR (pronounced eekateor) who
are on Digital Hardcore Recordings, in Tj's in Newport. That was fun if
very noisy.
We then started doing our own events in Newport and Cardiff, creating
No Ground Processes we wanted our music to be heard and our films to be
seen.
This was November 1999 next we continued playing at ngp events on a regular
basis this continued for most of 2000 as well.
As well as doing the live performances we continued record and experiment.
This produced several recordings which are available on the music pages
the first one was 'NDW' our first recording which was our first trip into
burning cdr's. Next was '10 tracks for travelling' which was a complete
jump from the sound of the first album and into a sound that was more
ambient and sonicly challenging.
Also during 2000 we got to soundtrack a short film that I (Dan) had been
making called 'driven' which was funded by the welsh media agency (sgrin.co.uk)
the film was only 3 minutes long but we created a 20 minute piece for
it which is on in full on the next record 'we know what your doing in
this world'. That record was a very paranoid dark record recorded mostly
on desperate Monday afternoons and at 3am where the only choice was to
make music or go to the 24-hour tesco's up the road.
In December 2000 Dan moved out of Newport and to Stoke On Trent, from
Post industrial to Destroyed Post Industrial, Know Point could of split
but instead expanded in the spring.
In January 2001 Emma Jane Richards from Botanaphobia joined to add percussion/drums
and violin to the sound, also our long time friend and fellow ngp organiser
Chris Eynon joined playing guitar and analogue squiggles. The sound was
fizzing with fear and we looked forward to our first gig as a foursome.
In February we supported Mountain Men Anonymous and Teflon Monkey at Clwb
Ifor Bach in Cardiff.
It went really well and gained an interesting reception. "An interesting
mixture of guitar ambience and electronic glitches" GAIR RHYDD (Cardiff
Magazine)
A couple of weeks later (March) we took part in Adam from mountain men
anonymous all-day music event at tj's in Newport. (Only as a 3 piece now
as Emma went AWOL)
When we sounded our most scary and disturbing other acts who played that
day were John Barnes, Beaver County, Laughter House (now Vinegar 45) British
Sea Power Teflon Monkey and of course Mountain Men Anonymous.
Adam from MMA has been really good to us putting Know Point on basically
because no one else asks us, and we don't go asking people that much.
In June 2001 Myk finally got an old friend old his to come and play drums
and electronic drums with us. Jonathan Powell had only really played in
cover's bands; so playing with a improvising noisy (dare I say it rock
band) was probably quite a shock even though he was too polite to say
it. We practised with Jon at and it sounded good our most mainstream sounding
in my ears. Something clicked in the sound with Jon, which made it refreshing.
The session we had that day was the basis for the record 'Make like a
tree' which is available from the music page. Later in the day of that
session we played at the Barfly in Cardiff with Mountain Men Anonymous
and Zan Lyons. The sound of KP that night was a dizzying one and according
to some people we played one long song for 30 minutes, which was okay,
I should of taped it so I could hear what everyone else heard. That’s
the problem with improvising; it only exists in that moment. Which is
good as well.
Later in the month was a No ground processes event called No ground film
operating.
This event was created by me (Dan) to show film work I had done and allot
of other interesting work from Myk Chris and a host of other filmmaker’s.
We also did a live soundtrack to one of myk's films, which had no sound
previous to that day.
We ended the event by doing a 'Know Point' set which the few people there
at that time seem to enjoy.
We did no gigs for a while then until the next no ground processes event
called 'no guitars just devices' this event was arranged by us so it was
a relaxed affair with us feeling fairly happy with the set up. 'Snork
Maiden' made their NGP debut as well as mountain men anonymous guitarist
Sam Arnold as 'john Barnes' also playing was 'teriyaki' as a duo and 'centimental'.
I thought it was one of the best gigs we did, we sounded very rocking
as we can do with Jon on drums. Creatively it was one of our best events
we had ever done. I think a second event will happen.
We then didn't play until April 2002, which was, our longest ever gap.
The gig was arranged by Snork Maiden and also featured Vinegar 45, Centimental
and Wonderspaniel. We sounded very pop for us. I think this is our direction
in 2002 pop.
June 1st 2002 Next gig was in London and was hectic, it was the 1st time
we had played in London. We played at a venue called 'The Spitz' at an
event called 'Things that make me tick' it was fun bands that also played
were I'm Being Good. Montana Pete and loads of others it was a fun day
out and it was nice to be apart of something.
Further on that year we made another record, this one was called ‘Orchard
Crescent’ after the street I was living opposite in Stoke. This
record is a real mix of hazy ambience and dark throbbing paranoia.
In July 2002 we also supported Scanner in Stoke On Trent this was our
first gig in the North of England and was at the Student Union at Staffordshire
Uni it was part of a Symposium on sound and film. This gig was the first
time we had played as just Dan and Chris and it has a different sound
but was pretty cool. Scanner was also enjoyable and a nice bloke.
‘Know Point’ took a break for a year nearly. In April 2003
we played at the Bristol promoters ‘Point of Reference’ event
‘Forms and Transmissions’ This gig was at The Thekla and with
‘Capital K’ This gig was recorded via a camcorder and will
appear on the site one day.
We are still deciding what’s next for KP. We have taken a break
for the last 2 years due to other endeavours. But we are still around.
Music is timeless.
