INSIDE OUT: CHRONICLES OF A ROCK AND ROLL CEO

By Mark Holden

In this fresh, amusing, and inspirational autobiography, Mark Holden shines the light on the power of reinvention and provides an intriguing account of a variegated life as an award-winning rock musician, international recording artist, lm and television sound producer, CEO for cutting-edge technology companies, fashion designer, and serial entr

• Language: English
• Publisher: M. Holden Productions Ltd.
• Release date: Jun 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9780995279704

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Inside Out half title pagetitlepage

Copyright © 2017 M. Holden Productions Ltd.

Second Edition Copyright © 2022 M Holden Productions Ltd.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief passages in a review.

Published by Bath Hill Publishing

101 Principia Ct

Claremont, CA 9171

London, England • Vancouver, Canada • Los Angeles, USA

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016914260

Library and Archives Canada Cataloging in Publication Data

Holden, Mark, author

Inside out : chronicles of a rock and roll CEO / Mark Holden.

ISBN 978-0-9952797-1-1 (hardback)

ISBN 978-0-9952797-0-4 (ebook)

1. Holden, Mark. 2. Rock musicians--Canada--Biography. I. Title.

ML419.H726A3 2016782.42166092C2016-905846-8

Edited by Jim Grove

Cover Design by Don Bull

Design & Layout by Toni Serofin

Cover Photography by Jessica Haydahl

Second Edition Editing by Marci Rae Johnson

Printed and bound by Friesens in Canada

First Printing January 2017

Second Printing March 2017

Second Edition Printing June 2022

E-mail: [e-mail]

www.markholden.com

FOR JANE, ELLIOT & ASHLEY

EDITED BY JIM GROVE

Preface

This book is about my life’s journey. It’s a story about the tapestry woven through triumphs, defeats, acceptance, intuition and instinct. It’s about the effect you have on people and the lives you impact along the way. It’s about the power of reinvention and creating things that will move and inspire people to connect with themselves and each other. And it’s about never giving up.

When I was a young boy, I dreamed of becoming an architect. I was always fascinated by the concept of creating something beautiful. It may have started as a fort constructed of cushions from our living room sofa, forming a place of comfort and refuge where I could dream, where I could imagine beautiful buildings. There in my makeshift sanctuary, eyes closed, the elements would gather. One by one floating forward into view. From the foundations and the defining walls, to the placements of windows for maximum light to energize the inhabitants and frame the beauty that lay beyond. The concept of constructing something in my mind and then deconstructing it fascinated me. And still does. In my young mind, the possibilities seemed endless.

My imaginary creations were going to be timeless structures that would inspire everyone who stopped to enjoy their beauty.

I didn’t end up becoming an architect in the traditional sense. I became a musician and an entrepreneur, but from an early age I used the same process my father and other great architects had followed. Applying the same principles to the process, I would often start with a simple idea—the outline of a business plan or a melody sketched out on the back of a napkin—and I would build from there. Breathing life and light into my ideas on the way to completeness. Creating things that would make the world a better place, I believed, was my destiny.

This book chronicles my life’s journey and shines the light on three important things I’ve learned.

The first is to dream of what can be. If an idea still hangs together after several wake ups, and you remain just as convinced as the day before, thinking you may be on to something, you probably are. Let your inner voice be your compass. Once you’ve set your intention and your course, go hard. The alternative will leave you wondering whether your vision was ever achievable.

The second is to have the courage to go it alone and take the road less travelled. The very things that make it scary and daunting are the same things that allow fluidity and freedom of movement, and the ability to thrive in the openness.

The third is to communicate—just keep talking, and listening. Sometimes it’s the only way through.

I wrote this book because I feel that I have lived an extraordinary life. A life where I have changed directions and reinvented myself several times. Where I have lived the pursuit of my dreams, inspired by thoughts and ideas, fuelled by passion. And always with the same boundless enthusiasm and curiosity I had as a child.

With my story, I hope to inspire others with the courage to live their own dreams, and, if necessary, reinvent their own lives. Each of us will have a unique story. This is simply mine.

Contents

Preface

Contents

Prologue – Beyond a Dream

1 – The Innocent

2 – A New Town

3 – Green Suede Boots

4 – First Band

5 – Track Champion

6 – Primal Terror

7 – Jane

8 – Household Bliss

9 – Sound West

10 – We Are Two Rockers from Frankfurt

11 – Thunder Road

12 – It Figures

13 – Boulevard

14 – Microsoft and the New Sound

15 – Big Screens and Big Finance

16 – Back to the (Sound) Board

17 – My Father

18 – An Industry Transformed, an Opportunity Realized

19 – Wheels, Wet Suits, and Water Bottles

20 – Conversion Experience

41 – Dedicated Creator of Fashion

44 – Boulevard: Never Give Up

43 – Legible

24 – What It All Means

Photo Gallery

About the Author

Landmarks

Cover

Title-Page

Preface

Table of Contents

Prologue

Start of Content

Backmatter

Contents

1 The Innocent

2 A New Town

3 Green Suede Boots

4 First Band

5 Track Champion

6 Primal Terror

7 Jane

8 Household Bliss

9 Sound West

10 We Are Two Rockers from Frankfurt

11 Thunder Road

12 It Figures

13 Boulevard

14 Microsoft and the New Sound

15 Big Screens and Big Finance

16 Back to the (Sound) Board

17 My Father

18 An Industry Transformed, an Opportunity Realized

19 Wheels, Wet Suits, and Water Bottles

20 Conversion Experience

21 Dedicated Creator of Fashion

22 Boulevard: Never Give Up

23 Legible

24 What it All Means

Photo Gallery

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again…who, at the best, knows in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

—Theodore Roosevelt

PROLOGUE

Beyond a Dream

Some experiences can cause us to wonder what powers might exist behind the veil of this physical world. For me, coming face to face with death was one such experience.

One evening in February 2000, my wife Jane and I returned home from a 40th birthday party for a friend of ours. It had been a great evening full of good conversations, boisterous laughter, and great music. After saying our goodbyes and heading home, we were left feeling abundantly happy to have been part of the celebration, and grateful to have shared a wonderful evening with close friends.

At about 2 a.m., I was awakened from what I had thought was a bad dream in which I had a horrendously sharp pain in my abdomen. It was a violent pain, and when I woke up, with my bed sheets drenched, I knew right away that it wasn’t a case of simple indigestion. This was a pain that I had never experienced before.

I made my way to the bathroom and ran a bath, which in itself is a clear sign that something is wrong with me. Typically, I only take a bath when I am unwell or in serious need of soothing. I sat in the bath as the pain and nausea increased to a point just this side of passing out. I called out in a voice that must have been almost unrecognizable to Jane.

Knowing something must be seriously wrong, Jane jumped out of bed and opened the bathroom door. She could see that I was in agony, and she called for an ambulance immediately. I don’t remember much after that point until reaching Lions Gate Hospital. They processed me through the emergency department asking me the usual questions—do you have any history, how much have you had to drink this evening, and the rest.

We had enjoyed some lovely wine that evening, so I responded honestly: Perhaps four or five glasses of wine over the course of the evening.

I think this was a mistake. I think the triage nurse looked at me as if I was some sort of a party animal, throwing me one of those It’s-Saturday-night-and-we-got-another-live-one looks.

The emergency room was particularly busy that night, and upon being admitted, I writhed on the gurney in a hallway, staring up at the ceiling tiles with bad fluorescent lighting that seemed to make everything look green. They administered a few oral painkillers, but they had no effect. They asked me over and over again: On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the most painful, where are you now?

Nine point five, I replied again and again.

This went on for what seemed to be an eternity before they started a morphine IV drip. I started to feel a bit of relief, but at this point I was prepared to offer my entire kingdom to the powers that be in exchange for making this wretchedness go away.

They then switched to Demerol, and that seemed to help a little, but I was still quivering from discomfort. All the while, some part of me felt horrible that it was four o’clock in the morning, and Jane had to be in hospital with me, seeing me in this kind of condition, instead of home in bed.

At approximately 7 am that morning, they decided to give me an x-ray, and then they booked me for an ultrasound for the following day to see more of what was going on.

By the end of day three, I was in and out of consciousness and severely ill. The doctors were still trying to figure out what was wrong with me. On top of this, the hospital was extremely short of gastrointestinal doctors as all but two of them were at a conference. This may explain why it took four days for the doctors who were present to ask for a CT scan. By this point, my abdomen had swollen up to a point where I looked like I was nine months pregnant.

When the doctors saw the images from my CT scan, they quickly discovered what was going on: I had a twist in my bowel.

Dr. Richard Lewis visited me and told me that they were going to have to operate. They scheduled me for surgery the next day in the late afternoon, confident that I could simply weather the pain for another 24 hours.

To this day, I still stand in awe and wonder at how incredibly relaxed they were about my situation. No sense of urgency whatsoever. I could sense that there was a system involved, and some sort of defined protocol for treating a patient with my symptoms. I get that. But taking almost five days to operate?

Unknown to everyone, including myself, my condition was actually much more dire than anyone realized. It would not become clear until they opened me up in surgery the next day, but my organs were starting to fail because I was toxic.

Through this process, I was steadily growing angry at the apparent nonchalance of the doctors and nurses. At one point said to Jane, I think you should get me out of here and send me to another hospital where I can get faster treatment, maybe even the United States somewhere.

That would have been a mistake and she new it. She just nodded and let me rant in my feeble state.

And this is when things really started going sideways. That night, in a semiconscious state, I had what I guess you would call an out-of-body experience. It was beyond a dream, whatever it was.

I was lying in bed, and suddenly I felt a hand on my right shoulder, so I looked over to see who was touching me. My room was in a corner of the hospital on the sixth floor, and my bed was against an outside wall of the building. When I turned, I discovered that there was nothing there but the wall.

Then I think I drifted off. I found myself starting to sit up when one of the nurses came into my room and unlocked the wheels of the bed. It struck me that they would normally come in and be somewhat congenial, and they would start chatting as they prepared to wheel me down for x-rays or give me another shot of Demerol. But on this occasion, the nurse came in and she didn’t say anything. She wasn’t even looking at me as she went through her routine almost like a robot. She just moved the IV stand out of the way, and then she wheeled my bed out into the hallway and left me there.

From the hallway, I could see back into the room, and I watched the hospital custodian arrive. He was a pleasant and simple guy who looked like Weird Al Yankovic. I had become very accustomed to his quiet presence over the previous days. He started taking down the pictures that my kids had drawn for me, and collecting all of my get-well-soon cards and other belongings. And then he started carrying the flowers out of the room.

What are you doing? I said to him. Those are from my kids! And why do the flowers have to go?

He didn’t respond. He didn’t even look at me. It was like he couldn’t hear me. He simply continued emptying the room.

I thought this was very strange. Everything felt like slow motion to me, and I was frustrated that he seemed to be ignoring me.

He finished emptying out my belongings, and then he started to mop the floor.

And then I woke up in my bed. Drenched in sweat. And I wept for the first time since I had been admitted to hospital, feeling a strange sense of comfort as my warm tears rolled down my face, bringing such a strange sense of relief as I looked to see everything in the room was exactly as it had been.

I imagined that I had experienced a dream, but it had seemed so real and life like that I felt that I had been shown something.

By this point, my condition had suddenly gone to a whole new level. I was in extreme pain, and I felt like I couldn’t move. It was as though I was buried in wet concrete.

I had to get up and get someone’s attention. Summoning all that remained of my strength, and shaking off the delirium induced by my pain medication and sedatives, I lifted myself out of the bed and I walked down to the nursing station, teetering all the way, and leaning heavily on my rolling IV pole for stability.

The nurse there gave me a slightly confused and quizzical look. Can I help you?

I remember thinking, Can I fucking help you? My feelings of helplessness suddenly turned to anger. This nurse had been on duty and had watched my condition go from bad to dire in in a stretch of a few days.

I wanted to reply: Why, yes, thank you. I’d like to go out and do a little shopping. Do you mind calling me a taxi?

I stood there, a wreck of a man, with a tube shoved up my left nostril, leaning on my IV pole that was packing an on-demand morphine rig and a wide assortment of clear bags full of life sustaining fluids, barely able to stand on my feet. Seriously? What kind of a question was that?

I don’t think I’m going to make it.

There was anger in my voice, though I hadn’t consciously intended it. I felt like I was dying. And I was not going to let that happen. I thought about all of the things I still wanted to do in my life, and I didn’t feel this was my time.

The nurse just gave me a patronizing look and her best attempt at a sympathetic nod. It was clear that she didn’t believe for a second think that I was going to die.

I don’t think I’m going to make it through the night, I said again.

She told me to go back to my room, and she would send someone down to see me.

As I stood there, I felt myself becoming weaker by the minute. I also felt myself becoming enraged, but I was too weak to say or do anything more. I turned myself slowly around, and I slowly shuffled myself back to my room.

As I got back into bed, a nurse appeared, gave me an extra strong dose of Demerol, and I fell into a delirious form of sleep.

When I awoke the next morning, I was grateful. I was still alive.

The doctor came by on his rounds, dutifully surveyed my chart, confirmed that I was in fact alive, and verified that I was scheduled for surgery for about ten o’clock that night. Again, I was afraid that I wouldn’t last that long, but I had given up hope of trying to say anything.

Luckily for me, behind the scenes, other developments were unfolding that I didn’t know about. I had a guardian angel looking after me in the guise of a woman named Oonagh McKinney.

Oonagh was the sister of my friend Jon, whose fortieth birthday party I had been attending. Was it coincidence or the planets lining up for me? It turned out that she was an operating room nurse at the hospital and she knew I was in there. She came on shift the day of my surgery, and she saw that I wasn’t scheduled until ten o’clock that night. Apparently, the late time was due to the fact that the surgical staff was short one scrub nurse that day.

Look, we can get him in sooner, she told the surgeon. I’ll just scrub for both surgeries. Let’s just get this guy into surgery as soon as possible.

That made all the difference. Unbeknown to me, I was now fast tracked for my surgery.

Earlier that day, my brother Shane had called from Calgary, and we had a conversation quite unlike any other conversation we have ever had. I could hear concern in Shane’s voice.

Should I come out? he said.

Yes, I think it’s a good idea, I replied feebly.

We didn’t know what they were going to find when they opened me up that night, and in the event that I didn’t make it, I wanted Shane there to help Jane with details.

Apparently, Shane literally hung up the phone, drove to the airport in Calgary, got on the next flight to Vancouver, and upon arrival walked outside and directly into an airport shuttle for downtown. He arrived at the corner of Georgia and Burrard Street in minutes, and within 60 seconds he caught a bus that took him directly to the hospital. He probably set a record for public transit from the Vancouver airport to the Lions Gate Hospital!

Just before 5 p.m.—about four hours after our phone conversation—the door opened and Shane walked into my hospital room. I was stunned. But before I could barely open my mouth to say hi, the OR nurse arrived to take me down to surgery.

I’m so sorry, I mumbled, I have to go for surgery now.

It’s okay, Mark, Shane said simply. Don’t you worry. I’ll see you when you get back.

I’m convinced that Oonagh’s actions saved my life. They operated on me at about five o’clock in the afternoon, and when they opened me up, they found that a section of my bowel had twisted and ruptured. Until that point, they had suspected that it was an obstruction of some sort, but they hadn’t known that it had ruptured. The surgical team ended up taking several liters of toxic fluid out of me. It was horrific. This was why I had been so distended for days.

While I was recovering a couple of weeks later at home, I went to see my personal doctor for a check up on my status. After he examined me, he told me how lucky I had been not to die.

You know, it was clearly not your time. If you had been 65 and out of shape, there’s just no way you would have survived, he said, his gaze level with mine. You just wouldn’t have. The fact that you’re in good physical condition and have a very high pain tolerance, that’s what got you through.

As Jane and I drove home from my checkup with my doctor, I was very quiet. I was reflecting on how close I had been to not making it, and how much I would have left behind me—Jane, my kids Elliot and Ashley, my friends, my dreams. And when I thought about the incredibly vivid vision that I had that night before my surgery, I felt certain that it was just not my time to check out. There was still so much to do.

Suddenly, I felt a new sense of purpose—and strangely enough, a profound sense of strength and hope that one day I would be able to pay this experience forward.

Many years later, while on vacation in Maui with Jane, I may have had the opportunity to do just that.

We had been for a walk along the shoreline pathway in Wailea and had stopped for an iced coffee at a concession stand adjacent to one of the big hotels. Just through my second sip, I heard a very distinctive sound that at first registered as help. What struck me next was that this cry for help was raw and almost animal like. It registered so immediately with me that without saying a word to Jane, I jumped up and ran as fast as my legs would carry me over a very jagged lava rock outcropping that led to the water. As I ran, I was slightly aware of two gardeners standing just off the pathway who seemed frozen as they looked toward the water at the source of the second very distraught cry for help. I remember thinking as I arrived at the end of the rock that the time between hearing the first primal cry and my arrival seemed only an instant. The wave action was very strong, with the level of the water rising and then receding ten to twelve feet with each wave.

I immediately saw a guy flailing in the water. He had been snorkeling and had just pulled his mask off, clearly panicking as anxiety-induced hyperventilation set in. I could tell he was struggling to stay afloat and kept getting submersed as each advancing wave pummeled him from behind.

I called out, instructing him to let go of the mask and snorkel in order to free up both hands, and I inched my way out as far as I could go—just above the high-water mark—and still maintain my footing. He was now within ten feet of me and going down again. I was beginning to think that jumping in after him was the only option—although instinctively, I hesitated,—when suddenly the water rose up, pushing his upper torso toward me, and I called out at the top of my lungs, give me your hand. Then a voice from behind me yelled, wave. The warning allowed me to brace myself, as I thought I might only have one shot at this needle in a haystack moment. Somewhat miraculously, I made contact with his hand.

I remember thinking as I grabbed him that I had to do whatever it took to hold on as the massive wall of white, frothing seawater crashed into the rock and rose up, completely covering both of us for what seemed like an eternity. Now completely drenched, both of us gasping, I was able to grab his rash guard shirt with my other hand and pull him up onto the rock. I could now see he was not a small guy, and with the help of a few people who had arrived during the commotion, I pulled him back toward the pathway. He was too weak to support his own weight, so we laid him down and waited for the hotel’s medical aid personnel to arrive.

Ironically, the angry sea that could have pulled him under one last time had a different plan in mind for him.

ONE

The Innocent

When I was four years old, my family lived in low-cost housing in the Fort Garry area of Winnipeg off of the Pembina highway. We lived very humbly, and I learned some hard early lessons about life there.

While my father studied architecture at the University of Manitoba, my mother struggled each day to maintain the household and take care of my brother Shane and me on limited income. It was very difficult for us financially owing to the fact that my father wasn’t earning much income while he was in school, other than a few night shifts driving for Grosvenor Taxi. As with architecture programs everywhere, his studies were extremely demanding, and the professors at the University of Manitoba were infamous for intentionally burying their students in near-impossible quantities of assignments to try to get them to quit.

As kids during this time, we didn’t have bicycles, and my family didn’t own a car until I was about five years old. I clearly remember going with my mother to the hospital to get my tonsils out and having to take three different buses to get there. There we were, sitting on the bus, me a bit nervous with my little suitcase and my mom putting on her bravest face. It was winter in Winnipeg, and I remember stepping outside in the aftermath of the surgery to receive a blast of minus-thirty prairie air on my very sore throat. But despite our discomforts, my mom never complained once about not having transportation.

One day, I was playing with my brother Shane at a giant construction dirt pile that was near the housing complex. This was in the days before video games and cable television, so a dirt pile, an old creek bed, or a scruffy patch of bush was the natural place for kids to gather and play. We were playing with some kids who had bicycles, and I remember being awestruck with their rides. There was one boy in particular who was probably a couple of years older than me, and he had a red bicycle. I thought it was amazing—because I couldn’t in my wildest dreams have imagined ever having one.

As we were playing, I suddenly found a quarter in the dirt.

Wow! I just found 25 cents! I chirped.

My heart was suddenly pounding with excitement. In those days, that was a lot of money for a kid. My brother Shane and I each received one nickel each week as an allowance. Whenever we had a tiny bit of money, he would take me with him down to Devinski’s store and we would buy penny candies. With one penny, you could buy three jujubes, and a quarter would get you an entire bag of candy, all under the watchful gaze of Devinski, a little bald man who always had a cigar hanging out of the corner of his mouth. When I found this quarter, it was like finding a goldmine. I just couldn’t believe it. As soon as I announced my find, the boy on the red bike drew close to me.

Wow! You found a quarter? Can I see it?

Sure! I said, and I handed it to him.

I need to get on my bike to look at it, he said.

I was only four years old. The model of innocence and naiveté. His request seemed perfectly reasonable to me. Okay, I said.

He mounted his bike, and he pedaled away.

As I watched him and his buddies disappear, my consciousness struggled to process what was happening. And then I realized that I had been robbed. The boy had vanished. I stood there frozen, devastated. I didn’t know how to react.

Some part of me died that day. But I didn’t throw myself off a bridge. I slowly processed my grief and moved forward as kids generally do. (Considering that I was only four years old, it was important that I chose to move forward.)

But money was now on my radar, as was theft and betrayal. And I knew I would have to take better care of myself next time.

Not long afterwards, I set out to start earning my own money. I was still thinking about the quarter I had lost, and my five-cents-per-week seemed pale in comparison. As grateful as I was, I wanted to buy my own treats at Devinski’s store. I figured delivering newspapers would be a great place to start.

I had seen boys delivering newspapers in the neighborhood, and I knew that they collected money for their work. From what I could tell, the start-up costs were minimal and the barriers to entry were few, so I decided to get into the business. But how did it work? It was a bit of a mystery to me. I thought about it for a while until I thought I had it figured out.

I approached a friend of mind who had a little red wagon, and I asked him if I could borrow it. I explained that I was going to use it to deliver newspapers around the neighborhood.

With as much wide-eyed innocence as I had expressed that fateful day when the boy on the red bicycle rode away with my quarter, he said, Okay.

I set out with his wagon and started going door-to-door on our short cul-de-sac. My little friend followed behind me like a curious puppy. I knocked on each door and asked if they had any newspapers. This is how I thought it worked.

Each time, I received the same response. They would look at me quizzically, trying to discern what I was doing, and then they would disappear briefly and return with their old newspapers. I said thank-you each time, and I placed the papers carefully into the wagon. Sometimes they would be folded neatly, and I would reflect with a measure of satisfaction, that’s a good one.

I spent some time collecting until I had a big stack of newspapers. Then I started back around the block again.

I went back to the same houses and I knocked on their doors once more. When they opened the door, I would gesture to my stack of newspapers: Would you like to buy a newspaper?

Their facial expressions were comical as they realized what I was doing. I remember a couple of people chuckling, but I didn’t understand why. I was just a guy trying to make an honest living.

Owing to the great generosity and amusement of my neighbors, I actually sold a few papers. I