I played the better part of the 90's in a poppy-rocky-bluesy band in my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, before officially resembling the title, "non-practicing musician." We did some cool things, and stuck to our guns by avoiding the traditional route of playing 'cover' songs for a comotose bar crowd before sneaking in a few oridinal compositions. This dicision did not come without its consequences. The bad news: it's really hard to make money without being a 'cover' band, and the average bar/club patronage in our overwhelmingly sports-oriented city couldn't relate that well to new stimuli. The good news: radio stations and various other industry peeps respected our professionalism and I guess liked the music well enough. After meeting in a REALLY poppy band called Greenhouse Effect, I (Michael Barry) continued writing with singer Christopher Gust. The outcome was Crash Avalon. Go ahead, snicker. I still do. Worst. Name. Ever. Anyway, somehow between our revolving door of a rhythm section we managed to become a pretty tight band. We self financed what we thought would be 'the album,' in--or around--1995. Our engineer, Klint Macro (now owner of Cobble Studios), must have passed along some tracks to Warner Brothers Records staff producer Matthew Walsh. Walsh was in Pittsburgh scouting new talent. Soon after we met, Walsh signed us to his AFM Records label. We were dirt poor, yet determined. Walsh was kind enough to give us free studio time, and so "When the Minstrel Plays" was recorded and released in 1996. By the way, we were not a medieval role-playing type band--I have no idea where Chris Gust (singer) came up with this stuff. Many shows, radio spots, and other fun rock star activities later and a ballbusting 39 hour non-stop drive, we found ourselves in AFM's newly relocated studio smack dab in the heart of Hollywood, CA. Woohoo! We slept in the studio on sound baffles, and ate disgusting $0.99-a-plate chinese takeout while we recorded "Drifting to the Second Time" with our tightest rhythm section to date. The music isn't really anything groundbreaking or off the beated path. We never tried to be 'alternative' or anything cool like that. We just wrote what we felt. Nuff said about the past After relocating to San Francisco last year, I began writing music again...mainly because I like to play for my girl...This time I'm all alone, and thanks to Pro Tools (thanks Lev) I'm able to fumble my way enough to get these new ideas down in tangible form. All the new stuff is definitely a work in progress. I mainly just wanted to immerse myself in the marriage of music and internet. So, if you've wasted the time it takes to read this long winded rambling spiel, go ahead and give the tracks a listen. Hope they touch a part of you as music should. If not, oh well. -Spr4wl