I had heard about this band through guitarist Kevin Holland, who was a fellow bandmate with Lindsie Reitz. Mostly, I heard that they were having some drummer problems, and so we talked a bit about the possibility of my stepping in. After we recruited Foxide bassist Mike Mitchel into the Lindsie band, that possibilty ratcheted up a notch or two, and so I ended up holding down the beat in the group. The material was pretty wide-ranging for a cover band, from classic rock to brand-new alternative and top 40.

This kind of cover band was all about execution, as opposed to The Neighborhood, which was a bit more about interpretation -- due to the instrumentation of that band -- or Diver, which is more about capturing the approximate feel and shape of the song. You learn the parts, you play the parts. This happens to be something I'm pretty good at, so everyone in the band was happy that I was there. Actually, they were practically ecstatic that I was there, which did wonders for my self-esteem. A lot of that success relied on a shorthand notation I came up with, where I can create charts for most of the songs pretty quickly and without too much excruciating detail. For all the positive comments I got on "mastering" the songlist so quickly, I always felt I was still cheating in that regard, but up to a point, I could get away with reading music on this sort of gig.

At some point, I just got too busy. One of the singers -- actually the only member of the band remaining from when I played with them, despite what the website would have you think -- e-mailed everybody asking for dates we couldn't play, and I sent back a whole lot. I never heard from her again.