The 8 tracks above were recorded around 1995 in London at the famous Brit Row Studios, which were owned by Pink Floyd at the time.
I'm still not too sure how we managed to get to record there, but I think it had something to do with our management company, who were based in London.

The quality of the audio from the Brit Row session is not how it was when we listened back to it in the studio. Of course, we were never going to replicate that high quality by copying it straight to a tape (there were no CDs back then), but it didn't help that one of the engineers compressed the audio so much that it hit the tape at level 11. This is why the audio sounds so loud and harsh. It's the only copy I have, so there wasn't much I could do to 'soften' it up a little.

These recordings show which direction the band was heading in, back then. I think the 'aggression' in the music was a result of frustration with the lack of diversity in the British music industry, the fact that we'd come so close to recording deals without ever getting there, and the fact that we were permanently skint. Generally, we were happy lads most of the time, living in York and enjoying being 25 years old, whilst we could.
But the underlying unhappiness reared its ugly head in our music, unfortunately.

These next tracks are from an earlier period when we'd first moved to York in 1992 and upto 1995.

The above two tracks were part of a sort-of mini rock opera, the type of thing The Who did from time to time. At one point, we had a full set where all the tracks were related, telling a story. We built bridges between the tracks so we didn't have to stop whilst playing live and have to do the old "Thank you. This next track is called..." routine.

A Time of Tapes

All the audio I have from the days of The Crossing is on tape - the standard, tape cassettes of days gone by. To get the audio off them all, I had to use an ancient Sony Walkman with the headphone line-out plugged into my computer. It was a proper pain in the arse, and some of the audio is damaged. I've tried my best to clean it up, but there's only so much I could do.

A Bit of Equipment

Maybe one reason why we always seemed to be brassic was because of the amount of money we spent on our gear. I used a Mesa Boogie MKIV amp and an assortment of guitars. I had a monster block of wood otherwise known as a Fender Telecaster. I had a Statocaster (used on "Infinite" below), and a Rickenbacker (used on "Kill My Desire", "Much Better", "Stone Virgin" below). My final guitar was a Patrick Eggle, used on the Brit Row sessions. Jason, the bass player, had a massive Ampeg rig and a Music Man Sting Ray guitar. And Martin's drumkit was a work of art.

These next three tracks are the oldest on the website. "Kill My Desire" comes from a strange twilight time of pre-distorted guitar. The other two tracks have me simply turning up the clean channel on my Boogie amp instead of using the valves correctly on the other amp channels. Oh dear...
I have one other, older tape of our first demo, which contains a song called "Oh Yeah", a track Virgin Records once showed an interest in.
But, I can't find the thing. I know it's around somewhere, but because I've moved about so much over the years, I'm not too sure where it is.

These last two tracks are the last two with Jason on bass. In 1996 he left the band. I was never really too sure why he left. I think it was a combination of worrying about the future and his relationship with Martin starting to wear thin.
The Crossing carried on in London for a couple more years with a new bass player, but it wasn't the same band - The Crossing was me, Jason and Martin.
Both these tracks were recorded in the famous Cow Shed rehearsal room on the outskirts of York. We used to use a portable tape play, of the ghetto-blaster type, and it had a tiny mic etched into the top of it. It was a case of press 'play and record' at the same time, and away you go!

I've run out of different photos, so I've had to repeat a couple.

Jason was replaced by a lad called Justin, who was not only a keen thrapper but also had a five string bass, which he used to twang with equal vigour.
These next six tracks were all recorded in York before we moved to London. Towards the end of 1996, we decided that we should go and live in London so we were closer to the major labels. It was a silly thing to have done. We had a lot of friends and a great social life in York, and we threw it all away losing touch with everyone from York.
However, I did come very close to signing a publishing deal with Carlin Music in Camden. But that was ruined when Justin decided he didn't want a career with The Crossing, but wanted more Death Metal in his life. Carlin Music backed off, Justin joined his new band, they imploded, I never saw him again, and the next bass player we got in enjoyed his cocaine too much. The writing was on the wall for my music career.
We were working at Camden Lock Market at the time and as fate would have it, one thing led to another and in November 2000 I found myself in Thailand.
Within a couple of months I'd found a job over there, and off I went to live there for a year.
After so many years playing in a rock band, chasing that elusive recording contract, it was a huge relief to find myself living in Thailand.
If you've never been, you must go to Thailand. You'll either hate the place or fall in love with it, either way it will be an attack upon your every sense and emotion. I fell in love with the place. Fantastic.

And there you go, The Crossing...
There's a track above called "Tired". I also recorded another version of this in the band The Pocketmen. The version here, with Justin, isn't the best. We recorded this with Jason and it was far better, but I can't find that recording.
I'm on the hunt for more Crossing photos and music, and will put it all here when I can...