2024

2023

“… Mark Wilkins was the founder and frontman of the Hertfordshire-based anarcho-folk-punk band the Astronauts. In the ‘60s… Mark was growing up close to the action, in suburban Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire…” (from ‘Other Lives’, The Guardian). Read on…

After his sad death in 2022, the remaining Astronauts completed what was to be their final album. You can hear it here.

Mark’s music inspired me when I was a teenager, and he continued to be a solid friend and co-conspirator. As an ex-Astronaut myself (2001-2004ish), I felt compelled to record a few covers of his songs, particularly my favourites from the albums In Defence of Compassion (1989) and You’re All Weird (1999).

More Info…

As of 2023, I’ve begun jettisoning my cover versions of The Astros’ songs out into space and onto streaming sites, hoping to inspire new Astronauts fans! I couldn’t be happier with how the project is going, and I’m ecstatic to be able to enlist some of the other Astronauts to help out, such as Dom and Lee, as well Rites of Hadda’s vocalist, Wasp, who guests with The Astronauts, contributing vocals to my version of ‘Melissa’s Party’ (it’s heavy af).

On a side note, I have been creating a lot of images with AI recently - the images for the first two singles are my first attempts at AI artwork.