Talismans of the Beyond

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Stringing Along. Their own paths were surprisingly mundane. Mike, the son of an Edinburgh schoolteacher, began by teaching himself songs on the ukulele by Fats Domino and other vintage rock 'n' rollers. By the time he finished high school, he had moved on to playing guitar with "a lot of bad rock groups" while working in the daytime as an apprentice accountant. Robin, whose father is an Edinburgh insurance executive, started in music when his grandmother gave him a recorder, eventually worked up to playing banjo with a New Orleans-style jazz group.

The two met five years ago, when both were in what they call a "British gypsy folk-music band." Mike admired the poems that Robin had been scribbling. Robin was impressed with the songs that Mike had been writing. Yet when they decided to string along with each other, they thought they were forming a jug band to play traditional Appalachian tunes. Could they have foreseen that ahead lay Atlantis and soapy pictures like crocodiles? Incredible.