Although the idea of forming a backing band for Lee Perry had come to such an unpleasant end Marcus's friendship with Scratch continued, and shortly afterwards Marcus approached him with an idea for a new single release; he wanted to make a Melodica instrumental version of I Am A Madman for release on a 7" single with the original album mix on the A side and an instrumental Melodica track on the flip.

When Marcus suggested the idea to him Lee said that he wasn't interested as he had already started working with Adrian Sherwood on a new project and was finished with the Battle of Armagideon album. Undeterred, Marcus took the concept to Patrick at Trojan who thought it was a great idea.

Patrick booked Marcus into a session at Ariwa studio with the Mad Professor where they both attended with the master tape. Marcus got to play his Melodica melody over the instrumental version of the track, and Patrick also asked him to blow a new riff over the Merry Christmas Happy New Year rhythm, to which Marcus also updated the drum track, playing it manually using a drum pad.

All good so far. However when the track finally made release later that year it was not on a 7" single as Marcus had intended; instead Patrick had reissued the Merry Christmas track on a 7" single with the 'Perry Christmas Dub' on the B side, mixed by Mad Professor and featuring Marcus's Melodica riff in the mix. It was packaged in a picture sleeve with Marcus's original cartoon of 'Father Christmas Perry' on the front.

Trojan also released a 12" single with those two tracks on the A side, and I Am A Madman on the B side, along with Madman Dubwise as the second track. To Marcus's horror and disdain they had mixed his melodica into the vocal track.

It was not at all what he had intended.

To add insult to injury, on the dub mix they'd also cut his Melodica's seamless segue from the saxophone solo - it remained intact on the vocal version but not in the instrumental mix.

Whilst he was pleased that he'd managed to get his Melodica version released, his joy was tainted by those details, even though they probably went unnoticed by anyone else who heard the track.

Furthermore the track was released credited to Lee Perry and Mad Professor - Marcus received no credit at all for his work, or for writing the instrumental version of the track. It had been entirely his idea to record the Melodica over the group's original rhythm track. Lee Perry was not involved with the recording of that version at all.

Whilst he was perfectly happy that Lee had taken all the writing credits on the album, he felt that he at least deserved to be credited for the dub version.

King Rizla

By this time Marcus had moved into a flat in Hitchin with his girlfriend and was in the process of trying to set up a small four track reel-to-reel studio where he could lay down ideas and demos.

One day he was approached by an old friend from the writer's cooperative who used to contribute to the Eye magazine: Aron Lake was a poet and sound engineer who used to be known as 'Aron B' (as in R&B) and he asked Marcus if he'd be interested in joining in with a little band he was putting together who wanted to learn how to play Reggae.

The timing was perfect for Marcus after having gone through so many troublesome times and artistic disappointments recently, so he jumped at the idea.

Aron introduced him to Tim who was a competent bass player and siblings; Rob - who was learning guitar - and Jo, his sister - who was learning keyboards. Aron was learning to play the drums. This little four piece band were calling themselves 'King Rizla' which Marcus thought was a great name.

They began rehearsing in Tim's house, Marcus started them off with a couple of simple two-chord rhythms to which he wrote songs. It was not long before they had formed a workable set which they initially recorded on his four track in Hitchin.

The band set out to perform at gigs and parties with Tim and Aron on bass and drums and Rob and Jo on rhythm guitar and keyboard; Marcus taking the front man role, singing and playing Melodica. The group soon drew a sizeable following.

Marcus then took them into an eight track studio where they recorded an album of the songs that Marcus had written. Marcus got the group to lay down the basic bass, drum, rhythm piano and guitar, and he overdubbed the lead guitar, keyboard and vocal parts himself. For further live performances the band recruited guitarist Dennis Daley to play the lead parts.

They drew interest from BBC Radio Bedfordshire where the band were interviewed on The Man Ezeke Sunshine show, and they performed alongside other Reggae bands at a sizeable festival of black music and culture in a North Herts theatre.

Marcus was keen to push the band forward, and he asked some friends who had acquired a video camera to help them make a video.

It was the early days of home video recording, and he was aware that they would never achieve anything that would make it to TV standards, but for the fun and experience he organised for the band to go to the Pegsdon Hills - to places where he used to walk with Lee Perry - and he asked the band to mime to the recordings they'd made.

Without any access to professional video technology, Marcus set the shoot up by playing a portable cassette recorder next to the camera for the sound, and directing the musicians to mime to the music with the intention of perhaps one day being able to edit the footage mixed with better quality audio.

The results were a lot of fun, but it turned out to be the only videos the group ever made.

The band had been together only about a year when Aron left the group and a new drummer joined.

Soon Rob the guitarist and the new drummer decided that they no longer wanted to be a Reggae band but wanted to steer into more of a Rock direction. By now Marcus was getting restless himself, and was fed up with the let downs and disappointments of being confined to a small town local music scene.

He quit from King Rizla and moved back to London.

His long friendship with Lee Perry had taught Marcus much about running and organising musical ventures, and for his next project he went into the studio and recorded a series of tracks playing all the instruments himself.

He brought in his old best friend Louie to overdub some bass lines, and when they were finished he took the recordings to Tony Owen at Seven Leaves Records. Marcus had kept in touch with Tony ever since they first met in Portobello Road with Lee Perry, and they'd become great friends.

Tony loved the tracks and immediately offered to release them on his Seven Leaves label. Marcus wanted to release the tracks under The Agitators band name, but Tony insisted that he release them under his own real name, and so the track 'Making Love In The Mountain' was released on a 12" single on Seven Leaves Records. with a Melodica version and his Melodica instrumental 'I Spy' and its dub version on the B side.

Marcus had his first solo record released, and although he'd have preferred it to have been with a band, this proved to be his best way forward for now.