If you are like us, first of all God help you, secondly you can tell in about sixteenth note if someone else shares the same inspirations that you do, and thirdly you have the ability to turn a blind eye to the world and stubbornly pursue those elusive rare rewarding moments that only show themselves when no one is looking. Holt Hopkins was born on the streets of Baltimore, and like many of Barry Levinson's characters, he grew up questioning the realism of Bonanza and dreaming of being an aluminum siding salesman. In his mind, the world was a place that laughed when it should have been crying, that smiled when it should have been sighing. He set out on his journey with nothing but a Sears Silver tone guitar, a pocketknife, and a couple of embarrassingly overdue library books he didn't have the nerve to return. He knew one day he would return them, but only after he got a chance to read them. Gene McAuliffe, the upper middle child in a second-generation Irish family of six, spent his formative years getting bad haircuts, recklessly riding bikes in rainstorms, being rescued from neighborhood bullies by a whiffle-ball bat wielding older brother, and going to 99 cent movies at the Plaza in Windsor, CT. He was permanently scarred by running a 600yd dash in a 7th grade 8:00 gym class, on a hearty breakfast of two jelly donuts and a glass of milk. During his high school years, he spent the first half hour of every day, lying in bed listening to his mother yell at him to "get up". After that "dashed hopes" followed him through a parade of lost card games, crumpled Schlitz tall boys, and misguided social commitments. Too many years were extinguished by displacing energy trying to nurse an infirmary of damaged music back to health. As luck would have it, a mixture of irresponsible restaurant management, and common regard for traditional American music, would play a large part in the formation of Woodpile. There is a moment or destination, when arrived at, it cannot be denied. Or when you try to deny it, you don't feel right, you feel like you're passing up something you shouldn't. This music had it's own gravitational pull; there is a strength and a sense of purpose. As soon as Holt and Gene realized that resistance was futile, they began to record. This release is the joyous result.