Thanks for checking out "All The Druids!" The CD has been a labor of love for the last year and a half. The music on the CD is influenced by thoughts of sailing, loyalties to friends, end-of-life experiences and impressions, and one or two outright reminiscences. Out of that you will find a couple of new-age-ish sea chanteys, a few tunes which seek to offer solace to ones who have, or are about to have, lost a loved one, a couple of minstrel-style guitar pieces, a dedication to a friend, a reminisce of early years and so on. The music is mostly my guitars, layered to various effect, with vocals for the lyrics, the harmonizing background vocals or choruses, also layered in. On a couple of tunes I added percussion and bass. I hope you enjoy the results. A Bit About Mike Mike is a regular guy (pre-lotto winner) who's in his early 40's, happily married, and living currently in Olympia, Washington, USA. In case you don't remember 5th grade, Olympia is the capital of Washington State. Besides music, his obsessions and interests include sailing and sailboats, playing chess (with kids mostly - which increases his odds of winning), reading, teaching (just about anything to anyone who wants to learn something), fancy ropework, and learning new knots. Since 1980 he's taught people how to sail, how to fly airplanes, how to write, play the guitar, how to get jobs, how to find and blow up submarines (not much demand for this one in the private sector), how to tie cool knots, and how to use computer applications. As you've guessed, he really does like to teach. How Mike Got Started in Music When Mike was about 6 or 7, one of his sisters had a ukulele. He picked it up quite a bit and messed around with it. About the only thing he remembers about the music that he created, is that his experiments led him to playing what he's since learned are harmonic 3rds and 5ths, on two of the four strings. Could Mike have been the inventor of the ukulele power chord? At the age of 12, Mike's dad, who had always been a "strummin' man," out of the blue one evening, sat him down and showed him 3 chords, G major, C major, and D major. His dad told Mike to practice them and show them to him the next day. After he'd demonstrated these chords, and performing about four fifths of "Hey Jude," his dad showed him the A minor and E major chords. That was the end of Mik's "formal" training, but he has played some kind of a guitar every day since then. In 1980, Mike took 2 months off from playing, (he did keep singing however) due to a work commitment at age 18 (Navy boot camp). He hasn't missed many days since then. Who Performs All The Music? Mike performs all of the guitars, the bass guitars, the percussion, and nearly all of the lead and backing vocals. His friend Margi has helped out with the vocals on some of backing tracks (check out Birds and Landslide under the "Covers" section.) Both Margi and her husband Mike helped with the vocals on Mike's original tune, In The End (Pt. 2), Margi's mezzo-sorprano offering believability to Mike's Angel Choir, and husband Mike lending his authoritative-sounding baritone voice, filling out the Monk Chorus. Otherwise, other than where credited, Mike does all of the parts of the songs himself. Mike sincerely hopes you enjoy listening to his music, which has been trapped inside of him for some time, and has only recently started to get out.