Welcome to the Fingerobics Website

Fingerobics is the latest project of County Durham guitarist Mick Yare. For the last 11 years, Mick has been predominately associated with Wagga Jawaka, a band dedicated to the music of Frank Zappa, with whom he acted as musical director and arranger. He is currently a member of Sean Tyla’s band. (He of Ducks Delux fame). Mick also contributed to veteran alto sax player and experimentalist Alex Hands various groups over the last decade.

He is also working in Darlington based Tenor Sax player Nick Kennedy’s quartet. As a complete turnaround, he also plays with local singer/songwriter Mick Arnell, with whom he has had a 20 year association.

His time with Wagga Jawaka has given self-taught Mick a very good grasp of composing for large mixed ensembles and though an enjoyable experience, the time has come for Mick to delve back into the unpredictable world of original music. And that’s what Fingerobics is. Composed and arranged by Mick himself. It is all instrumental (currently) and Mick describes it as Groove Orientated Fusion with strong rhythms and catchy melodies. That is not to say the improvisational side has been left behind. Along with the arranged material, there is also plenty of semi-written skeleton pieces for the band to develop as they play. In other words, They Jam! Also prepared is a pad (collection) of covers written by some of Mick’s other idols including Roland Kirk, Miles Davis, John Scofield, John Cpoltrane, Billy Cobham and others.

Fingerobics consists of Mick Himself; Nick Kennedy on Saxes; Hartlepool Trumpeter Mark Hill; Liz Carter on Keyboards; Ian Heddle on 5 string bass; Nick Buck on drums and the very Scottish Douglas Scott on percussion. This instrumentation seems to suit the ideas that Mick has come up with, giving plenty of colour. The band also has some strong soloists so there’s plenty of fire as well.

As was mentioned (or was it), this site is new so is a bit limited at the moment, but as with all new things, it’ll need a bit of time to develop. In the meantime, Fingerobics have recorded a six song demo with 2 of the songs becoming available from this site shortly. This is a snapshot of what Fingerobics does. It was also recorded as to sound as “live” as possible. There is no latest studio trickery, tweezery or tomfollery. No editing. No hiding the awful truth. THERE ARE ACTUAL MISTAKES LEFT ON!!! This was a conscious decision in retaliation to today’s “Scrub it to death” ultra clean digital age. It is hoped that whoever listens to the tracks will get enjoyment from them. You never know, you might even end up tapping a foot, or something along with them.

The band has performed a number of gigs over the last year and have more planned in the near future, and as they come up, we’ll add them to the website. In the meantime, please enjoy real musicians playing some real music. See Ya.

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