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SPRINGFIELD — There's nothing sadder than a 40-year-old trolling for chicks on MySpace.

Fortunately, Troy Cromwell had a pretty good excuse.

The Springfield native searched the social networking site endlessly for female artists and female-fronted bands to feature on a compilation CD.

Eager for the compilation to kickstart his own label, Sunset Records, Cromwell knew he had to explain himself thoroughly.

"The Internet can be creepy sometimes," he joked.

So he sent each of the artists he found a detailed e-mail.

"Maybe too detailed."

All 21 signed on — proving Cromwell's cause was just too good to pass up or unsigned artists are just really that desperate for attention.

The resulting compilation, "Project Woman," benefits the East High Street domestic violence shelter of the same name. Project Woman also serves Champaign and Logan counties.

Tyra Jackson, executive director of Project Woman, is honored by Cromwell's effort.

"If not a ton of money comes in, hopefully us working together will inform people of our agency," she said. "We can never have too much publicity."

For Cromwell, a recovering metalhead, the "Project Woman" disc is part of a renewed interest in making music — and doing something positive with it.

"When I was in music growing up, you hated the government, you hated the town you lived in, you hated other music," he said. "I want to bring the love back."

Cromwell came to associate music with all things negative.

As guitarist in the old-school metal band Spike Opera, he dropped out of high school in the '80s to rock out full-time.

"Thought I was going to be the next Motley Crue," said Cromwell, who now does maintenance at the Springfield Family YMCA.

Added the father of two (and stepfather of three), "Everybody thought I looked like Axl Rose."

Spike Opera, he explained, had good chemistry, but that chemistry was fueled by chemicals.

"We were livin' the lives of Motley Crue and Guns N' Roses," he said, "and it took the toll. That lifestyle will steal your dreams away."

When his two daughters were born, Cromwell decided to get serious.

"Would I rather be looked at by tens of thousands of people who don't know who I am?" he remembered asking himself. "I'd rather be looked up to by them."

But his days in metal distorted his view of music.

"A lot of bad choices I made," he said, "came during that time."

He went 15 years without playing guitar or even buying a CD.

He did, however, find time to open the Viper Room, an exotic pet store that specialized in Burmese pythons.

"I still wanted that shock value," smirked Cromwell, now 40 with spiky blond hair.

But three years ago, when he took his mom — a big Elvis fan — to Memphis, he rediscovered the joy of music during a trip to Beale Street.

"Music can be positive," he said. "I started buying guitars again, buying amps again. I bought everything."

When he got the idea to launch Sunset Records last fall, the idea also came to make compilations for charity.

When the self-described "mama's boy" settled on Project Woman to be his first beneficiary, he began scouring MySpace for female artists.

Cromwell even found the cover artist there — a woman in, of all places, Bulgaria.

"I spent at least 200 hours just the first three or four weeks listening to music," he said.

Like his cover artist, Cromwell found receptive musicians around the globe, from a country singer named Kinsey Rose in nearby Cincinnati to a grungy noise-rock duo called Dirty Cosby in Australia.

"Some of these people," he said, "are right on the brink."

Some already have credentials.

The southern California band Halo Friendlies already did the Warped Tour, and its bass player, Ginger Reyes, is now in Smashing Pumpkins.

For Sunset Records, a label without a real studio, advances in technology made "Project Woman" possible.

"A band can now get a quality recording in their basement," Cromwell said.

Of course, there's that whole World Wide Web thing, too.

"The first two copies I sold," Cromwell said, "were in Denmark."

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.

»The "Project Woman" CD is available for $10 (plus shipping) at sunsetrecords.org.

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