First up, some links:

www.myspace.com/thesplinterroom - check out some of the tunes on the album

www.splinterroom.wordpress.com - our official site/blog...feel free to check it out and leave us a message or two...

Secondly, thanks for getting this far. We sincerely hope you continue your journey all the way through to the donation part...!!!

Two years ago I grew a beard for charity. Well, to be more accurate, I didn't shave for a whole month and people very kindly donated money to the MS Trust for my laziness. In stark contrast, last year I stopped smoking for 55 days and - ironically - it almost killed me. This year, I wanted to try and raise money by doing something which sat somewhere in the middle of beard-growing and lack of nicotine. Perhaps something that I enjoyed doing, but also meant I would have to work for the money.

So here it is...the debut Splinter Room album. A bit of history:

Matt and I played together in the Kent rock behemoth that was Epico, and upon Epico's demise in 2008 we stayed in touch and, I think, always knew we would make music together again. The Splinter Room was borne out of this knowledge. January 2009 rolled around and few song ideas started to arrive and develop and by the time the frost had melted and the first daffodils of spring were blooming, we knew that we were on the way to having a pretty decent set of songs. We set about recording them and by the time the blazing rays of summer were warming the pavements, we knew that it would take longer than we thought. But we stuck at it and by the time the gorgeous pallette of summer gave way to the muted colours of autumn, the songs took on a life of their own and most were unrecognisable from the ditties we had started out with. More and more hours were spent hunched over the computer, guitars in hand, phones on ears and by the time the jumpers and hair wax of autumn gave way to the hoodies and beanies of winter we were starting to get rather excited.

Matt and I both have day jobs so the time we had to spend on doing this was limited. It has therefore taken over a year to finish this album - a year of writing and recording, of re-writing and re-recording, of constant listening and tweaking, of Vista problems (damn you Microsoft) and XP heroics, of multitudes of cigarettes and cheese-on-toast, of time ignoring family and friends and ultimately of enjoyment and frustration that we aren't doing this for a living.

This album consists of 13 songs that we are immensely proud of and we would like as many people as possible to hear them. But, to use a bit of a rock cliche, this is all about the music and nothing to do with money and so we decided early on to donate all the money we receive from the sale of this album to the MS Trust. We will not make a dime from this (in actual fact, we will be quite heavily out of pocket) so rest assured any donation you make will be going solely to the MS Trust. As you may or may not be aware, my wife has MS so this has always felt like the most natural choice of charities for me. To check out more about the MS Trust and what they do, click here - www.mstrust.org.uk .

We realise that charitable donations are entirely voluntary and normally wouldn't dream of suggesting an amount for people to donate, but in this case we would like to make an exception to that rule. We feel that we have put a tremendous amount of effort into this and would be slightly disappointed if we ended up selling the album for a pittance, so we would like to politely suggest a minimum amount of £7.00 as a donation. For this, you will receive the album through the post (at no extra postage cost) and we will feel that we have earned that sum of money on behalf of the charity. Of course, if you would like to donate more than this amount that would be very much appreciated.

We also realise that there is an element of trust involved here, but please rest assured that, upon your donation, the CD will be sent out to you 1st class that very same day. At the end of the day, we want as many people as possible to hear this...and with that in mind, we would be grateful for as many recommendations as possible so please pass this on to as many people as you can...

Oh, and if you are kind enough to donate and spend some time listening to the album, we would love to know what you think of it....good or bad. Please feel free to leave any comments you have on our blog - www.splinterroom.wordpress.com .

Thanks very much in advance for your generosity. We hope you enjoy the album...

Dave

The Splinter Room