…learned to play bass in Level 42 because the Gould brothers were better at playing drums (King’s preferred instrument) and guitar (his other instrument) than he was and only bass was left
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Yeah but how did he learn to play in such an irritating style?
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tough criticism
Another not very well known fact about Mark King was that he was born the day before me.
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Mark king spent some time working as a milkman before having success as a musician.
And don’t forget the record breaking, at the time, cost of insuring his fingers…well, slap my bass!
You mean his thumb ?
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Why is this in hifi corner?
Because the OP posted it in the wrong place.
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Poor attempt at irony on my part!
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Once upon a time I lived about 5 minutes walk from Mark Kings house they played local night clubs most notable La Babalu I believe. That was a bit before my time as I was only around 11 years old then but he was the village rockstar 
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Well, okay, if you’re going to come over all pedantic 
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School day fact.
Mark plays with electrical tape wound around his thumb.
This is because his thumb used to split and bleed as he slapped so hard. At the end of each show he pulls it off and throws it into the crowd.
Ooer missus.
Seen in an interview.
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Didn’t he famously insure his thumbs for a million pounds, of course that may just be an urban myth!
Urban myth after urban myth. A bloke so uninteresting people make stuff up. Literally cut his hand once playing bass and was ironically nicknamed “the Butcher”. Strapped up after that, not because of how he plays but because he doesn’t like blood, Zero evidence his hands were even insured let alone for that amount.
Mark king interview in Bass player Magazine.
“Yet this rapid, hard-hitting playing style isn’t without its rigours, and avid fans may have noticed Mark taking to the stage with a length of gaffer tape wrapped around his thumb. A thumb which, at the height of his fame, was insured by Polydor records for £3million.
"It’s amazing how hard you hit the strings when you slap. Back in the early days I was slapping the bass so hard that I completely split my thumb and that was a real problem. We’d played thirteen back-to-back shows in Holland and by the end of it I was bleeding all over my bass. The Dutch nicknamed me the Butcher! Ever since then I’ve always played with a strip of gaffer tape around my thumb to stop it ever happening again.”
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[quote=“mikehughescq, post:50, topic:42074”]
I find this tendency to want to disparage stuff because you individually had a poor experience with it to be delusional.
[/quote]
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As I do really poor attempts to link two unrelated things.
I think it would be fair to say Mr. King is prone to exaggeration. There is evidence he ever bled at more than one gig and there is literally zero evidence of the insurance story except from him.
Anyone who plays guitar knows that the more you play the more your haves toughen and if they bleed once toughened then that’s down to poor technique or a poorly maintained guitar. Take your pick.
As for the insurance, it was a story he admitted himself was “great”, and the rise from “insured” to “insured for £1m” to “insured for £3m” can be tracked via Rocks Back Pages. All in words to a media only too happy to reprint myth as fact because it sells.0 The most amusing part for me was his claim that he had to be insured because Polydor were concerned about his dangerous activities outside of music. Given that he later revealed that these were gardening and DIY… there is a fairly sensible observation to be made that the biggest single danger to his hands was playing bass and neither activity likely to be the basis for “key person” insurance. There are lots of claims for Keith Richard’s insured this, Bruce Springsteen has that, Taylor Swifts legs etc. but zero evidence to support pretty much any of them.
Find me one example of where someone other than Mark King confirmed his ludicrous claim and I’ll concede the point.
Myth being a story spread by others about an event or individual is one thing but the information coming from the person themselves is not a myth but a fact or lie.
That would be disappointing.
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