Marcus Upbeat began his musical journey the day he spent his pocket money on the newly released 45 single Double Barrel by Dave and Ansel Collins in 1970 when he was 11 years old. That purchase was the beginning of a lifelong passion for Jamaican Music.

It was not very long before he had acquired enough records to start out as a DJ. In 1972 he got the opportunity to team up with one of his friends Lawrence Dale - nicknamed 'Pop' - and together they became resident DJs at the biggest youth club in town called Bowes Lyon House, where they would spend every Tuesday evening spinning the latest Reggae sounds at a weekly roller disco.

Their Reggae Roller Disco became so popular that they even got their picture in the local paper with the headline 'The combination of Reggae and Roller Skates is a big hit.'

So began his life-long passion for entertaining crowds with Reggae music.

After that gig came to an end Marcus and his best friend of the time Gary 'Louie' Lewis decided to build their own 'Sound System' which Marcus named as 'Hot Bomb Hi-Fi' after one of his favourite records of the day 'Hot Bomb' by the popular Jamaican Deejay I Roy. The 'Sound' only consisted of one speaker box painted red gold and green with a 12 inch bass bin that they would carry on a shopping trolley to their other regular youth club haunt 'Sishes' where they would wire it to the in-house PA system to drop the bass line and get the local youth skanking every Friday night.

His passion for Reggae music was a major factor in his decision to join up with the Merchant Navy after leaving school - what better way to visit Jamaica? It was during his four years at sea that he learned to play the guitar, and as soon as he'd reached Jamaica and visited Prince Buster's record Shack in his limited time allowed ashore, he left the navy and began playing in bands.

The late seventies was a time when all the musicians he knew were playing Punk Rock music, so he joined up with a group of friends playing bass guitar in a punk band that they called 'The Flowerpot Men.' The band lasted for a few rehearsals making a cacophony of noise, aided by an old air raid siren which was more in tune than the musicians were.

The next step was to form a new band, he and Louie recruited a few other local lads and Marcus named the group 'The Night Doctors' after the track 'Night Doctor' - a record by one of his favourite bands, The Upsetters. Oblivious to the evolution of a new wave 'Ska Revival' happening simultaneously in Coventry, and the 2-Tone groups that would soon emerge, the band were playing a hybrid brand of Punky Reggae with elements of Ska thrown in. Marcus was playing rhythm guitar and attempting to sing. He recruited a Jamaican veteran drummer who used to play with UK Reggae outfit The Avengers - Vince Bifield, who they nicknamed 'Prince Vince' along with Louie on keyboards, Tony Pettit on bass and Gary Powell on lead guitar.

Marcus wrote a few of the songs, and other members also contributed original material. They played one gig, but internal tensions soon arose in the group with new members being introduced and direction changes that were not to Marcus's liking; then one day whilst working on a painting job, Marcus heard a Reggae track played on the radio, and as it ended the DJ announced "that was Music Like Dirt by Night Doctor" - Marcus was devastated - someone far more successful had beaten his band to the same name! Despondent and down-hearted, he quit from the group, sold his guitar and his beloved Vox AC30 combo and decided to give up music altogether and concentrate on his other passion - comic book art.

Marcus then embarked on writing and drawing a series of comic strips, and sending samples off to publishing companies - all were rejected, and the workload involved became too difficult and unprofitable to continue. This then led him to seek a writing partner. He teamed up with aspiring author and poet Russ Cummings with the idea to write a comic book. Nothing really came of that idea, but it did lead to the formation of a writers cooperative and the comic book concept evolved into the idea to create a local arts magazine which eventually made it into print as 'The Eye' magazine on which Marcus was the art director and chief illustrator.

The magazine lasted for three issues before differences of direction took hold and split the cooperative into two opposing factions and it eventually folded, however, a sideline to the magazine project had been a regular live music project which the team humorously named B.R.I.A.N - The Campaign For Live Music In North Herts, which was intended to promote local bands using several different music venues.

One evening they booked a so-called 'Reggae band' called 'Man Banana' who played cover versions of the most naff Reggae pop hits imaginable, covering songs like 'Barbados' and 'Dreadlock Holiday.' Marcus thought "I could do much better than this" and that rekindled his passion to start a new Reggae band.

Marcus had been jamming music with a fellow artist called Colin French (Frenchie) who was also a fabulously talented guitarist. The two of them would jam together at Colin's flat, and they recorded a few rudimentary Reggae tracks on Colin's old reel-to-reel tape recorder - one track Marcus wrote was a song that he sang over an instrumental version of The Crystalites 'Musical Madness' and was titled 'Beat Your Neighbour' and they made a cover version of Horace Andy's 'Skylarking' using a Kazoo for the saxophone riff.

From there the pair planned to form a band focusing on playing strictly Reggae and eschewing the Punky elements that seemed to be all pervading at the time - Marcus suggested the name 'Studio Six' after 'Radio Six' - a spoof radio station name that he and his friends used when they recorded Monty Pythonesque radio shows onto cassette tapes - just for a laugh - combined with the name of the Studio One label - the foundation Jamaican label that would form the basis of the group's intended style.

Marcus was also aware that his friend Louie was working on playing bass with his younger brother Mick learning to play drums, so he approached the pair to form the rhythm section, and his writing colleague Russ, who could play keyboards. He also recruited his neighbour and great friend; Rastafarian drummer Zebediah Kwesi Genesis (Zebby) to play percussion and add peps and toasting to lend their sound more 'authenticity' - Studio Six was born.