@wakes

<p>Hey there, I’m John. I’m a volunteer living in Atlanta, GA. I am a fan of design, animals, and movies. I’m also interested in basketball and soccer. You can support my candidate with a click on the button above.</p>

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he/him – adult [90's kid] – 🔞 – queer as hell art guy who rarely posts, like to go on bike rides and read :] 💜 project manager for the development team over @ sheezy.art blehhhhh :p

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Laurence Stephen Wakefield (Wakes) is a UK EDM producer, pianist and son of professional composer and arranger Anthony Wakefield and operatic vocalist Pamela Wakefield. A member of the "Class of 92" Wakes was heavily influenced by the rave music scene of that year, with 92 being the so called year of Rave and was around the time that Wakes first started experimenting with electronic music on a basic 4 track analogue recorder. His skills on the keyboard stood him in good stead for dance music production and Wakes gained experience playing in several bands and also worked as a sound technician covering a wide range of musical genres. With his social circles and love of dance music, he spent the vast majority of weekends in London nightclubs and this culminated in him trying to emulate this genre on a computer based set up comprising of an old Atari computer with just a single megabyte of memory. This however was enough to sync a few items of hardware together, enabling him to record a few promising albeit raw sounding dance tracks which he was able to showcase when DJing at a number of parties. This venture eventually ended when his contract was terminated for playing Trance and Speed Garage all night instead of what was originally requested and at this point deciding to concentrate solely on the making of music. As his bedroom setup grew in size, an award soon materialised for his track 'A Balearic Dream' which was the fastest climber in the BT 'Get Out There' online Dance chart in 99. Just a few more tracks materialised before Wakes married and decided instead to concentrate on his professional career as a plumber and with it a new venture in property development. Upon his eventual divorce and with it a break of nearly 10 years without music, Wakes again found the love and in 2010 decided to dust off his old XP50 synth and try his hand this time at singing. After a few open mic performances and a move to a modern all software based computer music set up, he recorded a collection of songs for his local football club 'Staines Town', highlighting the recent FA Cup runs with sampled vocals from TV and Radio commentary which were showcased at home first team matches. In 2012 he recorded 'Be Somebody' complete with vocals and video with a theme based on the West London council estates he had worked on whilst employed as a plumber. Again Wakes had landed himself in trouble and this time a summons to the Managing Director of his building firms office, the song's video allegedly showing the borough's estates in a bad light and a removal from You Tube with immediate effect. The re-make made amends with a new theme, this time highlighting the local area's achievements through music and sport. Wakes had the last laugh however as the manager who almost fired him was actually dismissed himself for fraudulently taking millions of pounds out of the company! Wakes found himself dabbling further in singing and video production, performing vocals on 'Dream Zone', a remake of a track he originally penned in 95, its video location being the Spanish resort of Mojacar, Almeria. Both tracks doing well in the Beat 100 music video charts. March 2013 saw a song/video opportunity this time in a small You Tube comedy sketch titled the 'Wealdstone Raider' which Wakes pounced on straight away through his local football contacts. His effort titled 'No Ground No Fans' picked up consistantly high ratings on You Tube for the rest of the year whilst earning a slot on Channel Four's 'Rude Tube'. Meanwhile, an audition for the role of keyboardist in the backing band of American R and B singer 'Nancee' proved successful and with it a London tour to boot as she promoted her debut album 'Every Step of the Way'. The summer of 2013 saw Wakes playing at a number of well known Central London venues and at the annual Hornchurch music festival performing alongside several chart acts and X Factor finalists. 2014 saw his track 'No Ground No Fans' gain 100,000 You Tube hits exactly a year after its release whilst Wakes moved onto a boat taking his studio with him! The summer of 2014 saw him recording and studying Logic Pro X music software whilst afloat and working on a few tracks towards the end of the year with French DJ/Producer Baptiste Saunier. Late November saw the Wealdstone Raider fad go viral nationwide as the 'Raider' found himself an agent and started taking nightclub bookings whilst his memes and sketches were now all over the internet and Facebook. It was at this point that 'No Ground No Fans' was being touted as a potential chart entry. Wakes had already seen the potential when he originally released the track and quickly got it onto iTunes some 18 months earlier. Baptiste Saunier moved quickly to re-mix it and Wakes then received the news from the 'Wealdstone Raider's' agent himself informing him by telephone that 'No Ground No Fans' was being backed by the Daily Mirror to try and foil Simon Cowell for the Xmas no. 1. A quick log onto the internet confirmed this. Wakes and Saunier were then asked to re-record The Wealdstone Raider (Gordon Hill's) voice which they duly declined stating that the public wanted the original samples rather than a new clean recording. Wakes's track at this point was smashing up the internet and You Tube before finally hearing the news just two weeks before Christmas that 'The Raider' had in fact recorded a single of his own with the help of Kiss 100's 'Majestic' and then all attention turned to that song as it was then officially backed by himself and with it the public. His track 'Got no Fans' made the UK top 5 whilst Wakes's effort 'No Ground No Fans' along with 600K You Tube hits and 1K i tunes sales just failed to chart. 2015 saw the building of Wakes's new purpose built studio, this time on land and the release of another viral video opportunity jumping on road rage driver Ronnie Pickering's internet rant with a song titled 'Lets Have a Bare Knuckle'.