November 24th, 2004.

So, don’t I know the rule by now? If you wake up from a bad dream, you never, ever go back to sleep – because the next dream will be worse. By all means, attempt to return to slumber in the case of interrupted dreams of phantasm Lovers, or hit snooze to avoid your mundane employer – but if your dreams are nightmares of horror and distress, don’t let the pillow capture your skull again.

Last night was decent enough – Hell, we played the Funk Box – and that’s always awesome. I didn’t bother to bring my effects pedal because I Love the way my guitar sounds through their sound system. I’m still not sure if it’s the sound guy’s aesthetic or just the way the system’s set up, but some one Loves bass, and I Love it too, and my guitar – and for that matter – my whole band just sounds so MASSIVE and full there. And the audience Loved us. It sounded so large! Imagine my horror when I finally went and looked at the numbers for the night and realized we’d only had a draw of 18! Ouch.

I can tell myself that that’s not too bad for a Tuesday night before Thanksgiving on a week’s notice. But on the otherhand…

A lot of friends in Frederick on Monday night - here's Jeff Gerlach and Karyn Oliver of Symbiont playing with a background of Christmas lights. Hehe... <body bg="xmasLights">
A lot of friends in Frederick on Monday night – here’s Jeff Gerlach and Karyn Oliver of Symbiont playing with a background of Christmas lights. Hehe…
My first real hint of Christmas decorations for the year - other than that stupid frat house in College Park - We played Frederick Coffee Company Monday night, and the place looked like the coffee house personification of Christmas! (my favourite season!)
My first real hint of Christmas decorations for the year – other than that stupid frat house in College Park – We played Frederick Coffee Company Monday night, and the place looked like the coffee house personification of Christmas! (my favourite season!)

But we did well. I’ve really got to thank Liz – she went around pushing the mailing list, and the returns on that were massive. So, thank you thank you Liz, I hope you’ll be willing to do that again. And not that she’ll ever read this, but I also DO have to thank our sometimes agent, Diana of Moore Music, who landed us our Funk Box gigs. I feel bad disappointing her, perhaps. I don’t know how hard she works on getting us gigs – I think we actually tend to be much more of a last-minute choice, it seems. But someday I hope to turn that around.

Andre Cutair at the Frederick Coffee Company - it was cool to have so many friends there that night - Andre I've known since 95 or so - I think I met him through Will Schaff in college, perhaps just around the same time I picked up guitar. His beautiful voice and delicate chords rang through the Frederick night... I was really flattered by how blown-away HE was by our performance. I've always felt that my oldest fans/friends are my most important critics. They are the ones that I've got to keep impressing - "your set was like a sucker punch and this morning i feel moved and humbled. fuck: you guys blew shit up." Sucker punches are ALWAYS good. (don't get any ideas, Heather)
Andre Cutair at the Frederick Coffee Company – it was cool to have so many friends there that night – Andre I’ve known since 95 or so – I think I met him through Will Schaff in college, perhaps just around the same time I picked up guitar. His beautiful voice and delicate chords rang through the Frederick night… I was really flattered by how blown-away HE was by our performance. I’ve always felt that my oldest fans/friends are my most important critics. They are the ones that I’ve got to keep impressing – “your set was like a sucker punch and this morning i feel moved and humbled. fuck: you guys blew shit up.” Sucker punches are ALWAYS good. (don’t get any ideas, Heather)
Lea was the featured performer of Steve Key's Frederick Coffee Company Singer/Songwriter Showcase. I think she'll also be recording one of Steve's songs - I'm not sure of the title - the one that goes "We're just here for the runnin... that's all" - great song. Anywho, she sang it with him Monday night.
Lea was the featured performer of Steve Key’s Frederick Coffee Company Singer/Songwriter Showcase. I think she’ll also be recording one of Steve’s songs – I’m not sure of the title – the one that goes “We’re just here for the runnin… that’s all” – great song. Anywho, she sang it with him Monday night.

And of course, huge thanks to everyone who came out. There’s pictures later on – thanks to my parents for coming out to a smokey bar (I hope you had a good time despite that) and thanks to Heather’s parents for coming out (and Mara for taking pictures… more of those later on).

Lea also counts as an old, old friend. She came to play at MICA perhaps a little before I met Andre, somewhere in my... well, must've been my junior year or so? I later bought my first Takamine because she'd been playing a Takamine Jasmine and I Loved the way she played. An amazing player, she's all beating her poor guitar and slapping it around. Jazzy bassy. Heather's having her "solo" show with Sharif and Amy and asked me if I could have the same sort of set-up who I'd choose... After much thought, and after she told me I couldn't have Eddie Van Halen - I figured I'd want Lea on bass and vocals and Brooke Parkhurst (from Tinsmith) playing banjo and guitar and whistle and her beautiful, beautiful voice.
Lea also counts as an old, old friend. She came to play at MICA perhaps a little before I met Andre, somewhere in my… well, must’ve been my junior year or so? I later bought my first Takamine because she’d been playing a Takamine Jasmine and I Loved the way she played. An amazing player, she’s all beating her poor guitar and slapping it around. Jazzy bassy. Heather’s having her “solo” show with Sharif and Amy and asked me if I could have the same sort of set-up who I’d choose… After much thought, and after she told me I couldn’t have Eddie Van Halen – I figured I’d want Lea on bass and vocals and Brooke Parkhurst (from Tinsmith) playing banjo and guitar and whistle and her beautiful, beautiful voice.

So, a good night on that front. Had an early load-in, which meant an early (and easy) sound check – I like dealing with professionals. i.e. – the other band was on time (despite being from New York!), the venue opened it’s doors to us on time, the sound guy was there on time, we were there on time – professional! Even as the opening band, we got a thorough sound check – everything was smooooth like baby ass. We had time left over to run and get sushi, and that was good too.

Sushi, Funk Box – lots of friends AT the Funk Box… parking ticket. Fucking Hell. Second fucking parking ticket in a week.

But, that won’t get me down.

Because everything was professional, and everything started on time, we got out on time, and I LOVE getting out of a venue at 11pm on a weekday. We got home, I ate lasagna, and eventually turned in. Sleep was long in coming, so I took it out on Heather in the form of a giggling pillow fight. Quite nice. Rambled about quarks and the brush strokes of God to lull her back into complacency, but then fell asleep before I could take advantage of that complacency with another darkness-stealthed night attack.

I woke up this morning at 9.30am. That’s a rarity. Almost an obscenity. I no longer believe in the AM as morning – it’s the second half of night. Rain and mist had filtered the morning light into a grey murk that did nothing to dispel the cobwebs of dreaming. In my head there were still air-raid sirens and destruction.

A (perhaps surprisingly) a-typical dream of science fiction monstrosities had stalked through my head, rampaging over the Earth, destroying cities. I remember that Heather and I were hidden in ruins, watching things disintegrate. Trying to survive a nuclear winter while still justifying the guitars strapped to the top of the car. Moving inland away from where the extra-terrestrial wrought terror lies. Packing friends into the car, rearranging the gig baggage so we can fit four people in the mighty post-Apocolyptic Saturn. (Don’t know why we couldn’t get rid of the gig baggage).

And I woke up out of that to hear the reassuring sound of traffic outside. Muffled by the damp, but amplified in it’s way by the car-tire swishing that I still somehow associate with my Grandmother’s old yellow house on it’s hill in Pennsylvania.

Lulled into a sense of security, I failed to resist the warmth temptation of the bed, rolled over, and dreamt Holocaust dreams.

Living so frequently in a Jewish household, having just been to the Spy Museum where so many exhibits were devoted to the fight against Hitler, having just seen a stage version of Anne Frank’s diary…. maybe these things somehow all coagulated in my head this morning.

Hiding Heather for what seemed like months, and people accusing me of “smelling like a Jew”. I tried to at least walk the streets with Rowan in this modern day version of World War II – but we got thrown out of a pizza joint, the owner yelling that Rowan was “darkening his doorstep” – the police were called and we were running through slush that dragged at our footsteps.

Dressed in rags, there wasn’t much any place to go. Everyone knew. I remember the house being ripped apart, chains and whips. Heather being beaten down in the street and my usually monochromatic dreams took great advantage of the melodramatic red blood on snow imagery.

I finally woke up out of that – everything warm and quiet and serene. Grey outside, still drizzling murk. This time I knew it was time to get the fuck up.

While loading for the Funk Box, I watched this van lose control, swing up on the curb, and ram a fire hydrant. Contrary to the Lethal Weapon movies, water did NOT come shooting out like a geyser, and much to my disappointment, merely gushed and pooled. I haven't called 911 since I worked security at school, I think.
While loading for the Funk Box, I watched this van lose control, swing up on the curb, and ram a fire hydrant. Contrary to the Lethal Weapon movies, water did NOT come shooting out like a geyser, and much to my disappointment, merely gushed and pooled. I haven’t called 911 since I worked security at school, I think.
THIS IS NOT OUR SATURN - merely a photograph taken in sympathy for another Saturn. And then we saw another on route 95 heading towards the Funk Box. SO sad. Saturn should have a recall, replace those corner windows with big steel slabs.
THIS IS NOT OUR SATURN – merely a photograph taken in sympathy for another Saturn. And then we saw another on route 95 heading towards the Funk Box. SO sad. Saturn should have a recall, replace those corner windows with big steel slabs.

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