ACROSS THE CIRCLE'S EDGE

By way of putting the record straight! As a close friend of the band, back in the 1990s - let me tell you the REAL story of Irish rock band - WINTER.

The music you hear in this excellent CD is infact simply a re-master of the original E.P. Vinyl RECORD that was recorded in Ireland in 1991. Infact it was the original band members who played every note on this E.P. [and hence the CD].

John Lennie - Vocals Rab Beggs - Guitars Phil Murray - keyboards/piano Rick Loyer - Bass John Murphy - Drums

ALL SONGS were written and owned by the orginal WINTER line up.

Unfortunately the original line up broke up before the CD version of the E.P. was re-mastered in Holland and the CD was credited with new members on there but they had NO PART whatsoever in recording the songs you hear on the CD -- it is all recorded by the original WINTER line up.

So ACROSS THE CIRCLE'S EDGE has quite a colourful history. The CD itself suffered from the fact that the guys had run out of money to mix it properly so in essence there are quite a lot of Phil Murray's keyboard work [and original keyboard sounds] and Rab Beggs guitar work missing from the final mix -- all due to time constraints in the studio. Rick Loyer had a brilliant bass line intro to Toybox that was cut back to a fade in for the track Winter for example. the irony is, that the intial cassette version of these songs, recorded as a guide line for the E.P. Vinyl recording is actually BETTER than the final CD -- simply because it contained all the missing elements mentioned above.

The Blazing guitar playing - referred to in one of the earlier reviews - WAS NOT the work of Andy Ryan at all, but the genius of RAB BEGGS, the original guitarist. The same goes for the awesoome drumming - it is entirely the work of the brilliant JOHN MURPHY. Unfortunately after the band split - neither Beggs or Murphy got credited with the playing on the CD -- which was a terrible shame -- Phil Murray played all keyboards despite having left the band prior to the CD release.

Winter certainly were a superb band and could and should have secured a recording contract at the time. One of the finest Irish live band's of the past 20 years actually.