Introductions

Picture this.

Conrad - a colorful character with an enigmatic sense of humor. Eccentric rather than creative, but creative nonetheless. Fancies a keyboard or a grand piano. Once blew his entire college fund as an entry fee for a Pinball tournament. Hasn't been the same since.

Mahad - the father figure; scolds younger band members when they don't wash their hands before they play, and drives the boys to soccer practice. Hasn't been the same since his van broke down. Plays a mean guitar and likes to stomp on pedals yelling "Mahad smash!" But that's just a metaphor. In reality, Mahad enjoys toying with new sounds with his guitars and effects pedals.

Tim - physically unable to stop his fingers from moving, Tim has devoted his life to turning a physical disability into a form of entertainment. Once made a deal with Dave Mustaine to be given Dave Mustaine-like guitar capabilities in exchange for his soul. Also hasn't been the same since.

Steven - the quirky face of Fringe. Often mistaken for a young Kevin Bacon. Prefers the feeling of thick strings and loud noises. Gone commando 7/8ths of the time - co-incidentally, his favorite time signature! Once discovered that he shares 85% of his genetic code with Tim Curry. Hasn't been the same since.

And me?

I'm Tomas, and I am a small, European boy who traded his love for juice boxes for the love of percussion. And I have an accent that comes out when I yell!

The lowest common denominator between us all is our music. Maybe "lowest" doesn't have the most proper connotation here; in fact, its hardly been two years, but we've felt the sort of natural high that only musicians in agreement with one another truly can. Many times. And when we're done playing our music, we go in the back of a van to eat pizza and pretend we're the Ninja Turtles.

But when we are serious, it easily comes out that we are 5 people who have spent their (absolutely) entire life infatuated with music. That we are friends and our musical experiments often carry us in similar directions is just luck smiling.

And the story is familiar; from the basement to the highschool. From the basement to a bigger basement. From highschool to local battle of the bands. The rest of the story you're familiar with. Our story as it stands is that of an independent band - the long flat line on the graph between battle of the band shows and those "real" gigs. The raw beginnings. I want to tell you that story in this blog.

I've been thinking lately.

Its hard to find someone when you don't know what they look like. So then, I reason; you can look for us, but that's not enough - we have to look for you, too. We want to make friends.

Let me try something here:

Ever heard of Last.fm? Its this wonderful site that you can sign up for. You download a plug-in for your choice of media player, and it logs what you listen to. It makes charts about top artists, top songs, and even calculates closest matches with other users.

Here's mine:

http://www.last.fm/user/Halpeart

(Conrad submits his: http://www.last.fm/user/Wrath_of_Con

And I recon'd Steven's too: http://www.last.fm/user/stevenboehm)

I realize I'm openning myself up for embarrasment, but how else do you make friends? Sign up, make a Last.fm profile! Share it here! If nothing else, it'll recommend great music to you.

And if you like our kind of music, I want to know you. Even if you don't, I still want to know you.

We're Fringe, who are you?