Soma
Soma was a progressive pop/fusion project led by keyboardist Mark Gleed and drummer Guy Eckstine. Allan played on several tracks of their self-titled album. Gleed and Eckstine have worked for a number of years to finish the follow-up to this album. Raw mixes on the unfinished material circulate online, often referred to as "The Non-believer's Comeuppance".
Below is a transcript of a post made by Mark Gleed on Facebook, in response to a Geocities page that was posted.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/361803263942657/permalink/1314884238634550/
http://www.geocities.ws/henryviktorpetersen/never.html
Never Was Never Will Be Neverwasneverwillbe is a recording project by one Markham Gleed aka Mark Lauren, US keyboardist,…
Mark Gleed: Hello everybody. This GeoCities post has been haunting me for many years and I'd like to take this opportunity to set the record straight... I apologize in advance for the rather verbose response... I was once contacted by this Henry Viktor character about Neverwuz and graciously had a very brief confidential discussion with him where I confirmed that I was with Allan much of the time during the making of Road Games, but little else. A few days later this opportunist created a webpage and posted this distortion of the facts without my permission. (Several years later he revised the squib and added the Tony Levin and Jerry Goodman rumours.) There are a number of inaccuracies, false assumptions and falsehoods that he insinuates he heard from me or incorrectly attributes to me as "according to Gleed"...
1) I met Allan when he first came to Los Angeles and was staying with I.O.U. vocalist Paul Williams in Newport Beach if memory serves. Allan was considering moving to California and had come out by himself, leaving his wife Claire and Louise and Sam back in England. (Emily had not been born yet.) This was long before Eddie Van Halen and Ted Templeman met Allan and arranged the record deal with Warner Brothers.
2) Yes, Road Games was ill-fated resulting in Allan being so incensed with Ted Templeman's tampering with his music and refusing to release the album unless Allan rerecorded the tracks with a "name vocalist" that Allan removed his name from the production credits. This is why the credits say "Produced by Circumstance". To placate Templeman, Allan finally called in old friend Jack Bruce of Cream who flew in from England for three days and sang on several of the tracks.
3) Allan did sleep on the sofa in my Beverly Glen apartment many nights during the making of Road Games but this had nothing to do with financial issues. I spent many days at Music Grinder Studios in Hollywood while Allan and Jeff Berlin et al worked on the album. After the sessions Allan and I would go out to dinner. After dinner it didn't make any sense for Allan to make the hour plus drive to his Orange County home in Tustin when he had to be back at the studio first thing in the morning and that is why he slept on my couch. There was no financial crisis and I never said that.
4) When I conceived the second Soma album I called it Neverwasneverwillbe from the get go. It was a reference to a doomed romantic relationship. Due to "artistic and financial problems the thing turned out a neverending story hence the title neverwasneverwillbe" is a complete fabrication. I never discussed anything like that with this clown.
5) Lastly, "around 1993 Gleed in order to earn money he needed to complete the album decided to sell rough mixes of the recordings through fan circles" is patently false. I gave one cassette copy of the Neverwuz rough mixes to a mutual friend of Allan and myself (who shall remain nameless) with the stipulation that it was just for him and he was not to make any copies or give it to anyone. This person went on to make numerous copies and distribute them and within months I heard from fans in Europe, Australia and Japan who all had obtained copies of this recording. It was a quicky rough mix made at the end of a session so I could go home and scrutinize what we had accomplished that day. I later may have sent out a coupla Neverwuz tapes to A&R people at the major labels as I was looking for a record deal, but it was not meant for public consumption or to circumnavigate the globe as it did.
