The Tale Of Long Earth

Long Earth came together by a series of fortunate but unexpected coincidences. A bunch of musicians who just wanted to create and have fun. We originally just got together to jam and see what came about, things went well and so we realised that we had become "a band" and needed a name. Mike was a real fan of Terry Pratchett and suggested the name Long Earth and it stuck.

Mike Baxter (Keyboards) was a feature of the Glasgow music scene during the 1970s and 1980s, playing notably with Shoot The Moon, Glas Clas and Identity Crisis amongst many others.

It was during Mike's time with Identity Crisis that Mike played with Gordon. Rehearsing and recording in his houses in Edinburgh and then in Gordon's basement in Kinghorn.

Gordon Mackie (Bass) has a background in music spanning more than 40 years. During the '80's he provided the bottom end and drive for Cry Wolf and seminal Glasgow prog rock band Abel Ganz. Gordon recorded Gullible's Travels with Ganz and played a lot of great live gigs including the Venue and the Mayfair and Kelvingrove Festival.

Moving into the '90's, following a move east to Edinburgh, a chance meeting in a supermarket in Comely Bank saw Gordon hooking up with Mike in Identity Crisis.

Ken Weir (Drums & Percussion) was one of the founding members of Abel Ganz.

During his time with the Ganzers, Ken was the drummer from the early days of Milngavie Town Hall through to and beyond the Gullible's Travels days - featuring a line up that changed to Paul Kelly, Hew Montgomery, Gordon Mackie and himself. To further build on this, Ken's sister Connie has made a massive contribution from the start and produced all our artwork.

Renaldo McKim (Lead Guitar) joined Long Earth at the latter stages of the recording of the base tracks of our debut album "The Source" - just in time to weave his special brand of magic through the material and in plenty of time to start planning our next stage in the journey.

Renaldo has an great reputation both as a recording and performance artist, latterly with Suicide Underground during which time he played with Bruce Levick of Comedy Of Errors and Grand Tour.

Martin Haggarty (Lead Vocals) joined Long Earth in June 2018. Martin formed Glasgow "post punk" outfit Lost Weekends in 1983 during a Lou Reed/Iggy Pop phase before joining Abel Ganz for a brief spell and 5 or 6 gigs (1985?). He joined short-lived proggers Masque in 86 before forming Field of Vision 1987. After 4 years, FoV took a hiatus that lasted until 2013, when the 3 core members reformed to write new music, some of which featured on 2015's Viccissitudes of Life EP, and 2016 single The Dagger. FoV continue to write and record as a studio-only project, but with a desire to return to live music and a surplus of musical ideas, the opportunity to join a couple of former bandmates in Long Earth was too good to resist.

The final cog in the wheel is Hew Montgomery, Abel Ganz / Comedy Of Errors / Grand Tour who acts as a motivating factor in Long Earth. A semi silent partner almost.

Long Earth are busy working on their second album. 58 minutes worth of music written and recording starts soon.

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