Born in 1973, in Brighton UK, my Polish Grandfather Edward Hanka introduced me to the violin at the age of six and I continued classical training with Andrew Sherwood. I also played with the Brighton Youth Orchestra for a number of years but classical performance simply wasn’t for me, so at 17 I gave the violin up. Four years passed until I followed up an advert asking for a Fiddle player. That advert was with TUT. :- Tricks Upon Travellers, and so I picked up the violin again.
It was always my dream at school to play in a band anyway…..
A live review of TUT said “One of the reasons for this is the presence of Mark Knight, TUT’s fiddle player. Let’s think about fiddle players. There was Fairport Convention’s Dave Swarbrick. There was David Lindley, who was on every Asylum album in the 70s. There was Daryl Way, who was one of the first to go electric with Curved Air. There was that bloke out of the Charlie Daniels Band – he was good … and there was Tobermory, or was it Omsk, on ‘Remember You’re A Womble’ … Well, now there’s Mark Knight, and he bears favourable comparison with any of them. Watch out for Mark Knight – you will hear of him again. Even if he has to change his motley for a mini-skirt and do Vanessa Mae impressions, I predict that this boy will make it.” – great quote, even if it didn’t happen.
I continued to balance a full time job against playing with bands in my spare time until 2017 when I finally decide to make the move to self employment.
During this time, I’ve worked with: 4-4-2, Bjorn Lynne, Bleeding Hearts, Bluehorses, Chris Abbott, Chiltern Ceilidh’s, Danko, the Divine Comedy, the Fox Hat, Frost*, the Giallos Flame, the Hoedown Band, Jason Dunkley and that girl Sue, the Jill Fielding Band, JJ Turner, K-Passa, Laura Kenny, Massive Attack, Moondance, Pepe Deluxe, Peripherie, Silverdogs, TDK, This Morning Call, Tomorrow’s Ancestor, Tomorrow’s Outlook, and Tricks Upon Travellers.
In 2012 I also started performing live under the moniker, TDK. This was the name I used in my teenage years, writing “chip music” on the Commodore Amiga computer. Having released a chiptune album in 2012, I then fused the retro chip sound of 80’s computers with the electric violin and turned that in to a live set.
So, if you need a bit of madfiddlin’ in your life, you know who to call.