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The journey
journey
GEORGE NIPSON PRODUCTIONS & DOODLE FARM MUSIC
Welcome to a place where musical eclecticism is coveted… much like the great radio programming of the 1960s, ’70s and ‘80s. The fabulous tradition of Pop music is that it draws from every style that has ever been created, then shamelessly mixes those styles with each other and adds whatever else it likes. Giving each song what it needs is the ultimate goal.
At George Nipson Productions (GNP), no effort is given to creating a particular style. If something sounds good, then it has relevance. Naturally, tastes vary from person to person. However, we feel strongly that the vast majority of people naturally enjoy many types of music, as long as the music is done well. Those are the people that we welcome as our audience – people who are open to, and even yearn for, a variety of music in their playlists… as we do here at GNP. We hope to find others out there in this great big world who are also seeking such eclecticism in their music.
ABOUT GEORGE NIPSON PRODUCTIONS
George Nipson Productions was born in 2023, as was George. He was conceived by Mark Horn (singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer) – to serve as a creative partner, sounding board, co-cheerleader, co-promoter and therapist of sorts – actually whatever is needed. Basically, Mr. Nipson and Mr. Horn scratch each other’s backs regularly, helping to maintain balance throughout the navigation of this new magical journey. They have even agreed to act as each other’s body doubles and/or stunt men, in the event that one of them is cast in the leading role of a dangerous action film.
People often ask how George’s name came about. When the archiving of Mr. Horn’s music began in the fall of 2023, an artist name was needed for the project. However, there were many Mark Horns and Mr. Horns with songs already on Spotify. Therefore, outside-of-the-box thinking was required. Mark’s father had the nickname of Nip. So, Mark thought of “Nip’s son,” which became Nipson. Hmmm…. Then it dawned on Mark that his mother probably called him George or Pete at least as often as she called him by his given name. Hence, George Nipson was born.
Incidentally, George’s character – our endearing logo – had already been created a couple years earlier by Mr. Horn. This graphic image came about quite by happenstance via a rather circuitous and almost mystical route. More on that at some other time – to benefit the world’s bottomless pit of trivia.
ABOUT MARK HORN
Mark Allen Horn – who has written, arranged and performed all of the original music contained on this site – was born in Kansas City, MO on November 25, 1953 to a wonderful family, consisting of a military father, a stay at home mother, and a sister 6 years older. Mark’s father was sent to the Korean War one month before Mark was born, so they didn’t see each other for 11 months. That unfortunate circumstance would repeat itself when Mark was an adolescent, as his dad was sent back to Korea again for a year. After returning home for a year, he was then sent to Vietnam for a year, before finally retiring. This bit of family history is featured in Mark’s song, HE’S MY HERO, HE’S MY DAD.
Meanwhile, Mark’s mother, Louise, was holding down the fort in Lacey, WA, where his family then called home, and where his parents would reside happily ever after, until their eventual passing.
Dear Louise was the main inspiration behind Mark’s musical development. She and Mark’s dad, Eugene (Nip) loved all kinds of music, and Mark was exposed to it all quite regularly at a very early age – everything from big band jazz to Hawaiian to German. Also, Mark’s older sister, Caryn, was a big influence during her teen years. She loved the pop music of those early ‘60s and was constantly playing her 45 rpm records, while Mark was learning to do the Twist.
Louise noticed how much Mark loved to sing and dance at an early age, so she began nourishing his passion when he was quite young and the family was living in Germany, where his Army dad was stationed. Piano lessons in Mark’s early years were the first attempt to make him a musician. However, that didn’t take. Nor did clarinet in 5th grade, when his family had moved to Lacey, WA. However, for Christmas the next year, just after Mark turned 10 years old, his mom rented him a $25 guitar and started him on weekly lessons. Shazam!!! This sparked an interest that would last a lifetime.
There was something special about the idea of playing guitar, with all of its mod mystique of the mid-1960s. The British Invasion was introducing the U.S. to the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks, Who, Herman’s Hermits, Hollies and so many more. Meanwhile, U.S. groups like the Beach Boys, Grassroots, Turtles, Rascals, Buckinghams and others were delightfully filling out his dream world of pop heaven. In retrospect, radio in the 1960s was something to behold – an incredibly eclectic mix of ear candy that was infectious, to be sure. Mark’s parents rewarded his enthusiasm for the guitar by upgrading his instrument on each of the following two Christmases – first by giving him his a brand new Kent electric guitar and amp combination worth about $100, amazingly – and the second year (1967) by surprising him with a dazzling Fender Mustang electric guitar and Fender Princeton Reverb amp (a $400 combination at the time, but would now be worth at least 10 times that much).
After graduating from North Thurston HS in 1971 with practically no distinctions – other than being the only one in the school who could dunk a basketball, and being voted Class Clown as a senior – Mark began a rather unremarkable 3 years of college, toggling between Tacoma Community College and Western Washington State College (now called Western Washington University). Aside from performing popular songs of the day at college coffee houses, higher education had little to offer this fledgling musician. Longing for a greater purpose in life, and feeling like he was wasting his parents’ money at college, the young Mr. Horn left school in 1974 and decided to enlist in the U.S. Army. He dreamed of saving up enough money to buy some decent recording equipment. However, the Army rejected him, due to his prior history of having an ulcer.
After months of unemployment, Mark finally landed a shipping clerk job in Olympia, where he would work for the next roughly 5 years – loading and unloading lots of boxes on and off of lots of trucks. During this period, he did take two breaks from his job so that he could try his luck with the music business in Hollywood, CA. Mark’s took his first trip there by train, and it lasted just two weeks. However, it taught him the important fact that, if he were to expect to have any success in Tinsel Town, he would need to become a songwriter. Mark’s second trip was more serious. He packed up a U-Haul trailer and towed it behind his 1964 Ford Falcon station wagon –making a fresh assault on Hollywood, which would later inspire him to compose ON THE WINGS OF A FALCON.
After driving around L.A. for two weeks, looking for some kind of work and a cheap enough place to live, Mark pulled the plug on this venture… opting again for the creature comforts of Olympia over the relentless hustle of Southern California.
It was shortly after that, in 1978, that Mr. Horn decided to record an album of his original songs. So, he turned to Marc Seales, a piano player he befriended while at WWU in Bellingham, WA. Marc asked two of his musical colleagues to join as sidemen – Moyes Lucas Jr. on drums, and Dave Peterson on bass and some guitar. It is worth mentioning that all 3 musicians were at the beginnings of what would grow to be very formidable careers in music. Martin Lund, a very seasoned woodwinds player was brought in to add his delightful elements as well.
So, after one rehearsal, Mark borrowed $8,000 from his parents, and the recording started in the fall of that year, at Music Farm Studio in Seattle. The result was a somewhat eclectic mix of soft rock and folk, with jazz influences – called MARK HORN SOMEDAY. At this time in history, vinyl and cassettes were the only options. So, Mark had 2,500 vinyl albums pressed and then began taking orders from friends and relatives, who would eventually account for about 300 sales.
After that initial stage, it wasn’t clear to Mark how he was going to sell the rest of the pile. So, he put some on consignment in record stores, then had the shameless audacity to start selling them door-to-door all over the Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater area, prompting the local newspaper to write an article about his activities. After that second phase or guerrilla marketing, his sales had surged (Ha!) to about 800, and those efforts did earn him a bit of local notoriety – no doubt including lots of snickers.
This was now 1979, and Mark was still working as a shipping clerk, which caused his spine to finally rebel with a sudden and painfully debilitating attack that took him down for weeks. Frustrated by his stagnant station in life, he was desperate to change course. After the release of his album, Mark left his warehouse job and began playing music professionally as a solo act in the Seattle area. While playing guitar and utilizing a new bass pedal system and drum machine, Mark could do a pretty darn good job of simulating a band sound, which could keep dance floors hopping in lots of small watering holes around town. Even better… Mark still had a lot of hair.
Little by little, the young musician successfully chipped away at his record sales by selling them to fans while on breaks during his 5 nights per week/5 hours per night gigs.
Still, the big music world was calling like the relentless siren that it is. So, in the spring of 1980, with renewed purpose, a little more money saved up, and a portable one-man-band business ready to plug-and-play, Mark loaded up his cherry 1967 Ford Econoline van and headed off to L.A. for his third attempt at making it somehow in the Big Time.
When he arrived this time, he took out a six month lease on an efficiency suite in an old apartment building just a block off of Hollywood Boulevard in central Hollywood. From there, he could walk a few blocks a couple times a week to participate in very motivating songwriting circles that were hosted by ASCAP. It wasn’t long before Mark found a regular 5 nights per week booking at a dive bar in Costa Mesa, where he ended up playing for the next 5 months.
During that period, Mark answered a two line ad in the Music Connection magazine – a piano player looking for a guitar player – call John. As it turned out, John C. Slade was a songwriter who was about to do a showcase at the renowned Blah Blah Cafe in North Hollywood. Mark decided to rehearse in Pasadena on weekends with this four piece band, in preparation for the big show coming up. John was a very talented fellow that Mark got along with well. They named the band The Big Wimps… which was probably appropriate.
One weekend, during a rehearsal, Mark noticed an attractive young lady about his age hanging around like she was comfortable there. Mark soon discovered that it was John’s sister, Linda, who was a Lufthansa flight attendant, living in Germany, and who would stay with John’s family whenever she had a flight to L.A. A short but pleasant conversation was all that occurred between Mark and Linda at that time.
Fast forward to one month later… the night of John’s showcase. The show went pretty well… an odd mix of entertaining but quirky tunes that were a bit outside of the pop mainstream. Afterward, who should appear but John’s sister.
Through the course of the evening, the mutual attraction between Mark and Linda developed to the point that they set a date for the next night – a wonderfully romantic evening on the coast of Malibu. However, the following day, Linda was heading back to West Germany (this is before the wall separating West and East Germany came down), and Mark had his own commitments… so… qué sera sera.
Fast forward a bit. Fate was not giving up on its plan to get these two together. Two weeks after Linda returned to West Germany, she was back in the U.S. for her vacation, visiting her parents in Michigan. Somehow, the two smitten heads began a long distance phone-calling jubilee that ended a month later with his committing to moving to Germany, which he did in October of 1980.
Mark had learned through a family friend how he could get bookings on American military installations in West Germany. Soon after arriving in Germany in the fall of 1980, Mark had an agent and was quickly playing a steady stream of one nighters all around central West Germany – anywhere in a roughly 2-1/2 hour drive time radius from Frankfurt – mostly at Officers Clubs, NCO Clubs, and Recreation Centers. An occasional gig at a German club would also pop up.
The pay in Germany was much better than in the U.S., and it was much less of a grind. Playing for the military was especially rewarding for Mark. These jobs were often for larger audiences, so that offered new experiences – some good; some kinda crazy. One major benefit was that this afforded Mark to sell a lot more albums at his gigs. Furthermore, through his connections with the military, Mark eventually gained access to an APO box, which would allow him to use media rate with the US Mail. That allowed him to have his albums shipped to him overseas for cheap. At that time, a box of 25 records could be sent for less than $6. Great deal!
Fortunately, over the course of the next few years, Mark would sell all of the remaining albums and eventually net about $400 on this venture – allowing him to pay back his parents in full. Well… the record certainly wasn’t certified gold or platinum, but it was most definitely certified vinyl.
Reaching the benchmark of selling out of records meant that Mark could finally consider the project to be a success, since it ended up being self-sufficient – paying for itself through sales. The record garnered a bit of airplay on his favorite radio station at the time – KZAM (an FM station in the Seattle area). These positive results would lead Mark to want to do more… when the time was right. During the decades since 1978, Mark had dreams of following up on that album. Little did he know that it wouldn’t be until 45 years later that more of his original music would be released. In the meantime, Mark never stopped writing and honing his guitar skills.
Mark Horn and Linda, his lovely wife, best friend and occasional music accomplice, have enjoyed a wonderful life – an unusual gauntlet of twists and turns, as outlined in part below. They eventually moved from Edmonds, WA to Tavares, FL in 2022. The following year, Mark finally began the daunting challenge of archiving his rather prodigious catalog of previously unreleased music, so that it could hopefully be appreciated by the public – finally recording his original music for the first time since the release of the now somewhat collectible 1978 album. (More on that album later.)
That 45 year period between 1978 and 2023 is full of many wild and unusual stories, some of which may be chronicled later in more detail on this site… so please stay tuned.
Here is a list of the HIGHLIGHTS of that 45 year roller coaster ride – other the typical family/personal goings-on during that period:
1980 – moved to Germany to marry the ever so lovely Linda Slade, a Lufthansa flight attendant from Michigan. The two were married in Copenhagen, Denmark on February 26, 1981.
Mark then performed music all over Germany for the next 5-1/2 years.
1984 – The Horns bought their first house in the Greenlake area of Seattle
1986 – moved from Germany into their Seattle house a year and a half after purchasing it
1988 – birth of their first child, a lovely girl
1989 – completed college while starting a family – earning a BA in Political Science and K-8 teaching certification
1989 – Mark and Linda both started teaching elementary school and subsequently invested in rental real estate – buying 3 houses in one month w/ a combined annual income of only $16k.
1991 – birth of their second child, also a lovely girl
1993 – moved to Edmonds, WA
Mark produced 3 consecutive CDs of camp songs with 3 consecutive sixth grade classes (Outdoor Ed & the Happy Campers).
Eight songs from the first CD were being played at every McDonalds Play Area in the country – maybe still are(?).
Real estate investments eventually grew to a whopping 88 residential units by 2000 – all in the Seattle/Tacoma area.
2003 – Mark left teaching to focus on real estate investments
2004 – sold all of the residential real estate and purchased a 39,000 SF commercial property in Saint Paul, MN
2006 – purchased a 122,406 SF commercial building in Levelland, TX – the building was 80% vacant
2006 – purchased 1/9 interest in a 72 unit apartment complex in Seattle, WA
2008 – sold the 1/9 interest in the Seattle apartment complex
2008 – purchased a second Saint Paul property: a restaurant building
2010 – sold about 36,000 SF of the Texas property
2012 – sold about 60,000 SF of the Texas property
2013 – began a total remodel of the Edmonds home, with a total gutting and excavation beneath it
2013 – purchased a commercial property in Maine that over the years has been extremely challenging, to say the least
2013 – a huge commercial tenant vacated the property in Saint Paul, causing a monthly revenue drop of >$35,000/month
2013 – The home remodel had to be stopped for three years, due to the problems in Saint Paul.
Meanwhile, the Horns were living in a rented house next door.
2014 – desperate to save their Saint Paul property, the Horns started a very large clothing outlet store in the large vacant space.
2015 – closed the unsuccessful store and moved it to Edmonds, WA – meanwhile, seriously considered bankruptcy
(That store was the largest independent clothing store in Edmonds, and was smaller than only Burlington Coat Factory and TJ Maxx.)
2015 – The Horns somehow managed to secure a loan to finish the remodel of the Edmonds home.
2016 – They finally move back into their unfinished remodel with only 40% of the home containing drywall.
Meanwhile the home had no shower, no counters or cabinets, no closet fixtures whatsoever,
and the dishwasher was bungee-corded to the wall.
The remodel would finally be complete 9 years after it began.
2016 – The Edmonds store was not successful, so it was closed after being open for only one year.
2017 – The Horns surrendered their larger Saint Paul property to foreclosure, losing millions of dollars
2018 – sold the Saint Paul restaurant building
2022 – sold the remaining portion of the Texas property
2022 – sold the Edmonds home at the peak of the market, thus completing the very successful 9 year remodel project
2022 – bought a new home in Tavares, FL and commenced with major upgrades to the house
2023 – finally began the much-too-long neglected archival of Mark’s music by producing a studio recording of
HAPPY NEW YEAR! (Cheers To You!)
2024 – released 2 original Christmas songs: MY FIRST CHRISTMAS WITH YOU and MERRY CHRISTMAS, MARY
2025 – released I LA-LA-LA-LA LIKE IT, with vocal help from Linda
As of the conception of this website (September, 2025), roughly four dozen songs have already been completed, and we look forward to releasing them soon. We are delighted to begin unearthing this rich treasure trove of unusually eclectic tunes for Doodle Farm Music – songs that have aged like fine wine. Each song is given its own style, with general disregard to what is fashionable. We trust that there is an audience out there who will appreciate this unusual non-corporate approach to music-making. George Nipson Productions gladly stands behind Mr. Horn’s artistry – and so does George. In fact, Mark and George have quite a symbiotic relationship – always scratching each other’s backs – and, not surprisingly, they typically only have good things to say about each other. 🙂
IMPORTANT NOTE: This website for George Nipson Productions is currently being built by someone who knows what they’re doing – not George or Mark – so this is just the beginning. Soon, a steady stream of eclectic audio gems will be forthcoming. Behold, the birth of George Nipson Productions. The best is yet to come.