Jeff Kwong: Guitar        Andy Fortier: Electric Bass        Derek Oringer: Drums

El Cid was active from February 2001 until June 2002.

Recorded June 2002, mixed in the Winter of 2002/2003.

To hear more of Derek's drumming (& guitar playing), check out Bozart and Strappheit .

After having lived in Portland for about 5 months, playing in a few short lived prog bands, and while I was writing my songs for Volume II, I met Jeff Kwong - and everything about playing in band changed for me.  Jeff had many of the same influences as me, but he really applied them to music in a much different way than I did, and it blew my mind.  For the first time in a long while I had found a guitarist that I could play with but still be myself, and I was able to play as much or as little (which happened rarely) as I wanted.  Shortly thereafter, we met Derek and El Cid was up and rocking.  Derek brought a whole new level of drumming and musicianship to the plate, plus his other band Bozart just blew me away.  We wrote and practiced and practiced and wrote, and soon we were playing shows and life was good.  Unfortunately after about a year or so, Jeff decided Portland just wasn't working out for him and he decided to move back to L.A.  But before he left we were able to get a great recording done for posterity, which I mixed after the band had split up.  I still hope to be in a band half as great as El Cid someday...

This music is really in a league of its own, I think.  Prog but not too prog, mathy but not in a sterile way, jazzy but only in spirit, certainly melodic, and when it rocked - it rocked.  Epic, tragic, and triumphant - this music really seems to take you somewhere, with a bit of irony.  It was hard stuff to play but so rewarding and so fun...  I miss it.