Dan Bryk was born about nine months too late for the sixties, in the thriving Toronto suburb of Mississauga, Ontario.

At age four he was kicked out of montessori school after preferring to not sit in a circle and listen to stories. A classic discipline case, he was shuttled between public, catholic, and even neo-fascist pentecostal christian schools. The last of these was St. Martin's High School, where Bryk discovered an under-used 8-track studio and an assortment of state-of-the-art mono samplers. This is where he lived and breathed for about four years, attempting to create some MIDI amalgam of the Associates' acid wall of sound, Skinny Puppy's audio attack, and (most importantly) the confessional urgency of his new-wave heroes Elvis Costello, Graham Parker and Joe Jackson.

It was in high school that he assembled his first synth-heavy pop group The Cunning Linguists, whose dubious achievements include a crass medley of "Love Will Keep Us Together/Love Will Tear us Apart", being the only performance censored from a Miserysauga Cable 10-televised Battle of the Bands, and the witty (if scatological) rap song 'Wanna be a Gino', which sold enough copies around school to convince Bryk that maybe there was an audience for his fascinatingly self-indulgent musings.

Several wasted years chasing English and Fine Art degrees at the Un-versity of Guelph followed (largely spent procrastinating in the music faculty piano booths) along with the strained angst-rock tape Singer Slash Songwriter about which the less said the better. About this time Bryk perversely adopted the pseudonym "d. brykowski", broke up with his high school sweetheart, and discovered major influences Randy Newman, Momus, and Mark Eitzel-all of which amplified this 'difficult' streak. Bryk dropped out of school and soon relocated to Toronto, working as a coupon designer for a Mississauga ad agency.

For the most part Dan eschewed playing in bands, preferring to write alone rather than jam. A brief stint in the formative dream-pop band Melt resulted in a handful of songs co-written with that band's Joel Bourret and a period of living in London, England, only to form yet another abortive band. Beatrice played a few gigs and made a basement quality demo before Bryk returned broke and depressed but fortunately cured of his latent anglophilia.

Three of those songs turned up on Dan Bryk, Now!, his first recording as a "solo" artiste. Recalling the days when a 45 could send you rushing to the store, a seemingly endless supply of hooks that easily sunk themselves into the subconscious. Beneath Now!'s densely beatlesque pop veneer (adorned with 12-string, organ, hofner and harmonies galore) lurked a lyricist of depth and precision, singing first-person narratives of dissatisfaction and betrayal--arguably the stuff of classic pop. These tracks have been appended to the Asshole CD.

In early 1995 Dan joined a new group which became Power Prop. Featuring three talented songwriters, this group barely escaped the garage before splintering into members of notable Toronto bands Rhea's Obsession, The Conscience Pilate and Grier Coppins and Taxi Chain. Power Prop left a classic full-length demo tape in their wake.