At some point in the early 90s, Mark Wilkins created ‘Robot Ways’, a song documenting the archetypal drugged-up rockstar floating in space.

I’ve always loved this song, and set to work to create a cover version at some point in the early 2020s (haha, okay, it was in 2023).

I recorded the parts at home, and some demo vocals. Then we went into Park Studios with Kostas engineering and we recorded bass guitar (by me) and live drums (exciting!) by Lee Hague, who was the drummer for The Astronauts - and probably the longest-serving drummer they had actually!

We mixed the song, and got it ready for release.

I made a cover using AI, and submitted it online so that it could be distributed to the streaming platforms (zzz).

Well, I set a release date of 12 April, and sat back. I started to populate my social media with pictures of robots, merged into the usual dystopian imagery and deep space vibes :D

Uuuuunfortunately, even though some of you are waiting to hear the song, it won’t be coming out on 12 April.

The way The Astronauts worked, it was assumed that all the songs belong to Mark Astronaut. He was Mark Astronaut…. he wrote the songs in his head, set lyrics to them, and hummed them at his bandmates until they knew which chords to play. I was fortunate enough to be one of the bassists he hummed at! Although to be fair, for existing songs, erstwhile guitarist Rico Ford had helped him to write down many of the chords in a notepad, which Mark always brought to rehearsals.

So, it was always known that the songs were Mark’s. Regardless of any arrangements or extra ideas.

When Mark so sadly died in 2022, there was no estate to manage the publishing and copyright and all that jazz - The Astronauts was a DIY anarcho-punk band, at least in ethos (just ignore the 20 minute pyschedelic prog tracks such as ‘Kidnapped By Spacemen’, and the beautiful ballads like ‘Baby Sings Folk Songs’). Apparently no one decided to register with a PRO or join PRS. Who can blame them hehe.

The down-side of that is that it’s making it a bit difficult to release covers of Mark’s songs. With ‘Fourth Way’, I unwittingly struck lucky; the ‘You’re All Weird’ album from 1999 was released on Robb Johnson’s Irregular Records label, and all the songs were published too.

I’m not so lucky this time around. But I do have some help from Joe Davin, Astronauts bassist, who’s looking into the legal stuff (thank you Joe!!). And I’m sure I’ll find a way to get these songs out there… After all, I only recorded them for two reasons:

1 - after a hiatus from writing music, I was scared to jump back in. I decided instead to take existing songs that I loved, and put my own spin on them, while hopefully staying true to the original sense of the songs. Mark’s music seemed like the right place to start. It was the first band I ever played with, and I had learned so much from the experience - in fact, it set me on my orbit for all future musical endeavours. He’d recently died and I was gutted.

2 - I wanted to get Mark’s music out to a different audience. It’s frankly a tragedy that more people don’t know songs like Secret File, Behind The Mirrors, Away, Erupting, One Wave, Fly, and all the other amazing music in his large and varied catalogue.

These songs need to be heard by more people! I hope that very soon people will be hearing my version of ‘Robot Ways’ and being inspired to listen to more of Mark’s music.

By the way, a selected selection of selections is available on Spotify, selected by me. Listen to the playlist here.

You can also find the music that Mark recorded between Spotify (and other streaming sites), Youtube, and Bandcamp. Links below:

Various releases from ‘Grow Your Own Records’ HERE

The Astronauts’ Bandcamp HERE

Probably my favourite Astros album, In Defence of Compassion on Youtube

Another fantastic album, It’s All Done by Mirrors, on Spotify

For now, here’s a recording of Robot Ways from the mid-2000s. With the correct programming and a few crossed fingers, I hope to share my version soon

Robot Delays