The Big Biography
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Chapter One:
Humble Beginnings, and Many, Many Brews
The seeds of the Halcyon Glow were first sown by the admissions department of Hatfield College, of the University of Durham, in the balmy summer of 2000. Amongst the successful applicants that year were Dean Riddell, to study Engineering, and Michael Toner, to study Physics. The powers-that-be at Hatfield, perhaps sensing that this pair could bond over a shared passion for sitting around, listening to music, and being sarcastic, saw fit to appoint them as room-mates, in room 8 of B Stairs. Meanwhile, across the hallway in room 10 they placed Oliver Wright, also a would-be engineer. Within a very short space of time tea, alcohol and merriment flowed like the river of Destiny; and the College's stock of future physicists supplied two further individuals who would shape the future of the Halcyon Glow: Simon Brawley and Gareth Holden.
Amidst the ebb and flow of university life came the discovery that Brawley could coax a poignant, blues-tinged refrain from a set of ivories as easily as you and I take sweets from small children; and given that Wright and Toner had arrived armed with acoustic guitars, the idea of forming a band was mooted before the first term had passed. It quickly became apparent which of the brace of guitarists should switch to the bass: Toner's mastery of the fretboard meant that come Christmas Day Wright had a smile on his face and a shiny green bass in his stocking. Meanwhile, Holden and Riddell were allocated the roles of frontman and drummer respectively, and Holden's birthday in November added an Ovation electro-acoustic to the band's fledgling arsenal.
The rest of first year passed, as is its wont, in a blissful haze of late nights, work avoidance and alcohol. Music manifested itself in jams between the occasional pair of band members and ridiculously long tea-drinking, album-listening sessions around a low-slung coffee table in B8. The early summer sun revealed Durham in all its glory, a beauty matched only by the musical dreams it contained.
Come October, our bandmates found themselves housed in a brace of digs on Oliver Place and Lowesbarn Bank. Atop a vast hill, they were miles from a supermarket but, crucially, near each other. Serious strides had been made over the summer: Toner had relocated his Fender Telecaster and Fender amp, Wright had blown his summer earnings on an Epiphone 12-string Les Paul, and, most importantly, Brawley had moved heaven and earth in the acquisition of a Roland FP-3 digital piano. With Holden's karaoke machine (don't ask) pressed into service as an amp, the band (minus Riddell) could finally play together. First, though, a name was required: and ultimately "The Incredible Magnitude" (a misquote from the all-time cinematic classic Kentucky Fried Movie) beat off stiff competition from the likes of "Bactrian Rung" and "Micky T & The Austins".
Via the musical equivalent of a giant shoehorn, a blender and gallons of industrial lubricant, the second year was largely spent attempting to resolve Toner's, Holden's, Wright's and Brawley's respective love of rock, soul, prog and jazz into a ive mixture that would alter the face of music. The first wave of songs to stem from the banner of The Incredible Magnitude included Holden's The Ballad of Manx Manuel, a labyrinthine succession of simple chords, with a slow-burning catchiness belying a complexity that would have baffled Yes circa 1973; Wright's Atheist Rant (Parts I-IV), a lolloping waltz that spanned nine minutes without discernible change in tempo or dynamic; Brawley's So What If I Do, that sounded remarkably like an out-take from the 1958 classic Kind of Blue; and Toner's Music of the Spider, a decent light metal number unfairly burdened by a ludicrous working title.
In hindsight, the mixture of styles was never going to work; but more importantly, a gradual osmosis between record collections threw up a number of influences whose importance would become apparent with the passage of time. Glinting like a jewel in Toner's cd rack was Neil Young's Live Rust; Wright gradually unleashed Pink Floyd's back catalogue on Brawley, who quietly amassed a small stack of David Bowie cds for retaliation at a later date; and Riddell's Radiohead collection slowly found its way between the two houses. Following the second year exams, the four active band members took a trip to Durham Indoor Market and emerged to sit proudly in Café Nero admiring a small mixing desk. Shortly afterwards, the entire band braved the bright lights of Newcastle to aid Riddell in the monumental act of buying a drum kit. After scouring the goods on offer both in the Toon and Riddell's native Sunderland, the perfect kit turned up in Durham Indoor Market - fast becoming an Aladdin's Cave of musical goodies. At last, the band could call itself complete.
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