John Crowhurst - Guitar, Sitar Guitar, Banjo

John Crowhurst started playing guitar in 1982 when he signed up for a guitar class as his Eighth Grade elective. Not owning a guitar, his parents ended up buying an inexpensive Spanish nylon style guitar (an $89 Taka...wonderful tone for an inexpensive guitar). After three months of playing 'Little Brown Jug', 'Frankie and Johnny', and 'On Top of Old Smoky' the class moved on to Aaron Schearer's, Classic Guitar Technique, Vol. 1. Meanwhile, John and his friend Kelly Gillis, not satisfied with learning only camp songs and beginning classical guitar, started listening to Led Zeppelin, Cream, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, and Aerosmith and were extremely pleased with themselves when they started figuring out the intro's of many Classic Rock and Heavy Metal songs (you weren't cool unless you could play the intro of 'Stairway to Heaven' and 'Crazy Train').

John formed his first band, Abnormal Growth, in 1986 with Clay Butler and Mike Richmond and released three albums (Abnormal Growth 1987, Let's Grow Some Crosses 1988, and Healdsburg 1990). The band called it quits in 1991. The music of Abnormal Growth was a mixture of riff rock, acoustic, Blues, and experimental noise with lyrics that most considered silly/funny. While playing in Abnormal Growth, John joined Skitzo (get link) in 1987 and quit in 1988. While in Abnormal Growth and Skitzo, he played gigs with GWAR, Blind Illusion, Sharkbait, Mr. Bungle, 24/7 Spy's, Bad Religion, RKL, NO F/X, The Queers, and a bunch of other punk and metal bands of that era.

While studying music theory and performance at the Santa Rosa Junior College, John was exposed to Jazz and Classical music and started enjoying all sorts of different types of music. "I was too hard rock and blues to be accepted by the jazz guys, too jazzy and blues to be accepted by the thrash guys. I was too fat to play in any of the hair-metal bands my friends were in. I could never see eye-to-eye with the classical guys who seemed to dislike anything not classical. So I ended up with a 'screw you' attitude and mixed all the different types of music I liked together and discovered that there was a group of people out there that enjoyed it."

In 1993 just married, living with his folks, and unemployed, John had the majority of his equipment stolen at his rehearsal studio and decided to concentrate on finishing school. Instead of spending an additional three years to complete his music degree he switched to the degree that would get him out of school as quick as possible, History. While going to school at Sonoma State University, John teamed up with his wife Angelena Kyzar and Steven Schultz to create some interesting eclectic music. They formed a band called Finger Licking Grout with Jonny Lieberman and performed with one show with the White Trash Debutants.

In 1994 John and Steve formed a one-off performance piece band called Adjetive Noun that ended up playing many shows till 1998. In 1997 John and Steve recorded a self-titled album as Fish Supply Failing and in 1999 recorded their second album as Fish Supply Failing called 'Blottal Gore'.

From 1998 through 2003 John continually wrote songs, talked about forming bands, bought equipment, recorded with Angelena and Steve, but didn't join any bands that performed. In 2003, John ran into Tony Lemieux at Backdoor Records in Cotati and started blues band, Mudslide. After leaving Mudslide in 2005, he joined wife Angelena who was hot on putting together the Arabic/Celtic/Rock fusion project, Boudicca.