Alt-country/ folk-rock; Nebraska era Springsteen meets Keith Urban, with a bit of Johnny Cash and the Carter family mixed in.

11 MP3 Songs
COUNTRY: Alt-Country, FOLK: Folk Pop



Details:
Mark Cool grew up in a hippie collective called Grassroots-Dandelion in Syracuse, NY, listening to touring folk singers like Chris Williamson and Holly Near who would sometimes stay with his extended non-blood family on their stops in town. Somewhat shy as a youngster, Mark nonetheless thrived on singing and dancing along with his hand me down collection of 45s and LPs, a nice variety of 60's and 70's folk and rock music culled from his eclectic family's music archives. Mark's Grandpa, Elmer, played banjo and had a radio show with his bluegrass trio, and his Dad was a big Johnny Cash and country music fan, so he was exposed to that music when he visted the 'burbs on weekends.

Mark took guitar lessons as a teenager with Dana Klipp, a disciple of Elizabeth Cotten, who lived out her twilight years in Syracuse. In his mid-twenties Cool had an offer to move to L.A. and play in an alt-pop band called hip hip goliath, he jumped at the chance and spent most of the next 9 years in tinseltown playing in rock bands, attending Musician's Institute of Technology, and pitching his songs at songwriter functions and record labels all over town. Cool had many brushes with greatness, including playing on the same bill as John Colley (of England Dan and John Ford Colley fame.) Cool made a brief return to NY during this 9 year period, , where he spawned the band All Tall, a Dinosaur Jr./ Lemonheads- ish alt-pop band. that played a lot of shows and did a never released recording in their brief 10 month existence.

Cool decided to go solo at the tail end of his L.A. sojourn, and released two CDs on his own Folk Star Recordings, playing for tips on the 3rd St. Promenade in Santa Monica and tending bar in between writing and recording. Cool lived in an apt. in West Hollywood during this period, and since his upstairs neighbor didn't dig guitar playing and singing coming up from below, he did much of his writing and rehearsing in the back seat of his key-lime green '79 volvo in the parking lot of the Hollywood Big K in the wee hours of the morning after his bartending gig was over.

Cool moved from L.A. to North Carolina to get away form the smog and traffic and simplify his life. He played solo shows with his acoustic guitar at venues in the Raleigh-durham-Chapel hill triangle and beyond and took up carpentering . MC took a hiatus from music in an effort to save an ailing marriage, which eventually ended in divorce, sparking a musical renaissance for the songwriter. Cool formed the band Mark Cool and the Folk Stars in 2006, fusing folky roots with pop/rock energy and sensibilty and an americana/ outlaw-country grit and earnestness. The group has played regular shows in Durham, at the now defunct Jo and Joe's, Broad St. Cafe, Bull McCabe's, and the 305 South antimall, as well as some Downtown Durham events. Cool and the gang released "Introducing Mark Cool and the Folk Stars" in August of '07 with local guest musicians Dom Flemons (of the Carolina Chocolate Drops), Ben Palmer, and Gregory Blaine contributing. The Disc and the band have been featured on WCOM Carrboro's "the hook" with Berkeley Grimball, and have also received airplay on WXDU, Durham. Reid Baer did a youtube video for the song "hole in my heart" that received over 2000 views in it's first day of being posted. Cool's plans are to continue performing live, branching out from his Durham base to other cities, while writing new material for a second cd .