An interview with Ed's Redeeming Qualities.

by Robert Hubbard

from Mimezine, Vol. 1 #1 (Fall '93)

reprinted with permission of the author

Robert:	I'm here with the members of ED'S REDEEMING QUALITIES;
	Dan Leone, Carrie Bradley & Jonah Winter. So.. I guess
	to start things off -- & this is a fairly obviously silly question --
	who, exactly, is Ed & what exactly are some of his qualities
	that were worth naming yourselves after?

Dan:	Damn. (laughter) I still haven't come up with an answer to
	that question.

Jonah:	A wry lead...

Carrie:	Ed is Dan's mantra --

Dan:	Ed doesn't actually exist; it's just the name of a poem that we 
	borrowed for the band. There's no real story to it -- or to the 
	poem, particularly.

Carrie:	Dan wrote a bunch of stories & poems with a main character, Ed.

Dan:	A fictional character, whose claim to fame is having eaten 10
	hot dogs in 1 sitting, at a bowling alley --

Carrie:	-- & sometimes he says what he thinks.

Robert:	You first started performing in Boston? Dan, you're originally
	from Ohio, so you, Carrie & Neno --

Dan:	We all met in New Hampshire, including Jonah.

Carrie:	The University of NH. We were in graduate school.

Dan:	Neno & Dom were from Ohio too, so I already knew them --

Carrie:	Dom being your cousin --

Dan:	I grew up with Dom, so I knew him very well; Neno, Dom & I
	met Carrie, Jonah & Ray (Halliday) at UNH. Dom & Neno
	weren't in school there.

Carrie:	Dan & I were doing fiction & Jonah was doing poetry --
	it was sort of a lame writing program, but a really great
	community at the time & it seemed to provoke a lot of us into
	doing things we didn't expect to do. We all started writing
	songs & getting together to play music very casually & for
	some reason, people would, like, hear it out of the corner of
	their ears, which sort of led us on to more and more real
	band-like activities. It was one of those times & places
	where a lot of creative, collective energy kind of -- starts
	(finally notices Dan, who has been staring at her during this
	long spiel) What?

Dan:	Nothing: I'm agreeing.

Carrie:	That's the reason Dom left Vermont, where it wasn't happening.
	He was doing a correspondence writing program. It was a big
	magnet effect; people were drawn in & things started happening.

Robert:	This was around '87, '88, or earlier than that?

Jonah:	Yeah. Spring of '88.

Robert:	So you all graduated --

Carrie:	Dan & Jonah didn't exactly graduate.

Jonah:	I dropped out at the last minute.

Carrie:	Dan wasn't conferred with a degree because of parking
	tickets.

Jonah:	But he finished his classes.

Dan:	I never actually got my Master's degree because I had an unpaid
	parking ticket which I refused to pay, so I didn't technically
	graduate. (much laughter)

Carrie:	His thesis was approved, though -- So then we all embarked on
	these writing careers: I was just thinking yesterday, what
	would've happened if ERQ hadn't happened 5 years ago.

Jonah:	We wouldn't be sitting here ...

Carrie:	Definitely we would not be sitting here. One thing; a whole lot
	of songs that would never have been written & running through
	people's heads as they walk around: But maybe we would have been
	published novelists. (laughter) You really wonder.

Robert:	That explains why most of the songs have a literary quality to
	them. What stuff do you do?

Carrie:	What's been published?

Robert:	Yeah.

Carrie:	I've published a few things. Dan & Jonah have published a lot.
	Dan & I still write short fiction -- haven't done any big things
	yet, although I did a screenplay & have another one up my
	sleeve. (to Jonah) You've just published poetry.

Jonah:	Yeah. And hopefully, more children's books.

Carrie:	Oh, Jeez -- Jonah has a real book that a lot of people have
	bought --

Jonah:	But it took me two hours to write the text for it.

Carrie:	It's a children's book

Jonah:	Yeah, a picture book. Typewritten, it's two pages long.

Dan:	What's the title of it?

Jonah:	DIEGO -- about Diego Rivera; his boyhood.

Carrie:	Dan has some award -winning stories that he gets fan mail
	for & stuff. Our writing styles -- you can tell from the songs,
	they're pretty similar to the fiction.

Robert:	With the new record, Safe Word Record , a short story of
	Dom's is included, as well as his illustrations.

Dan:	We're just trying to keep him involved in the band in any way
	that we can. He did so much great stuff during his lifetime; in
	addition to the songs that he wrote, he did stories & poems &
	drew a lot of cartoons. So we use whatever we can to keep
	his influence around. He had published a lot of stories too, in
	The Quarterly & in other magazines. Our first 7-inch record had
	his story, Ed's Day, in it also.

Robert:	You're classically trained with the violin.

Carrie:	Yeah. I started in the 4th grade with lessons. It was my parent's
	choice; I wanted to play the trumpet. But I just took lessons in
	school & started classical private lessons when I was in 6th
	grade. I was sort of a lazy classical-player -- I studied
	privately, played in youth symphonies, school orchestra
	community symphonies; took lessons & gave recitals. I
	loved music, but I never really looked at it as a career.

	When I went to college, I still played with the community
	symphony, but I stopped studying it. It was obvious I'd never
	be a symphony -- I just...

Robert:	Didn't appeal to you.

Carrie:	I guess not. It didn't have a spark for me. So the violin was
	sort of a hobby -- even though I was doing it all the time.
	When I made that decision, it seemed like it kept coming up
	& that's something that continued 'til now. I went to college &
	quit, and then almost right away someone would say, "Oh you play
	violin? Come down & play these Neil Young songs with us at the
	pub..." "Oh, you play violin? Come in & record with me on these
	songs I'm sending to Nashville." -- all kinds of things. A guy
	at school who was doing a film asked me to write a couple of
	scores, so I started doing that & that led to more people
	associating me with the violin.

	Then somebody approached me about being in a bluegrass band &
	then, I left college and quit the violin. It was like enough
	already! Going through the classified one day I saw an ad for
	violin in a punk rock band & couldn't resist. So I picked it
	up again & did that for a year. Then I quit the violin & went
	to graduate school; then Dan came along.

	My classical training is far behind me now, in the process of
	developing my hybrid style.



TALES OF NH & BOSTON -- MORE HISTORY

Dan:	I knew Neno from Ohio; we were in a writing workshop together.
	When I moved to NH, after that 1st year, he moved up there too.
	It's a popular thing to do, when you live in Youngstown OH, is
	to move somewhere else.

Carrie:	Actually, it's not; it's a mysteriously unpopular thing to do!

Dan:	But anyway, he moved to NH. We lived in a trailer park next
	door to each other, at the time the band got started.

Carrie:	World's coolest trailer park. Pine forest -- Dan's trailer was
	silver with green trim & Neno's was silver with pink trim -- or
	maybe it was pink overall -- a really great place.

Dan:	Basically that's where the band started out, in that trailer park
	with a few informal jam sessions -- playing calypso cover songs &
	then, later, our own songs after Dom started writing them.

Carrie:	Dan was learning to play the uke, so he made me come over to play
	violin with him, so it'd be more like playing "music". Neno would
	be cooking chicken & he'd drift over towards Dan's with a plate.
	One day, he drifted over to Dan's with a pair of coffee cans taped
	together.

Robert:	How did you all end up in Boston?

Don:	None of us actually lived there.

Carrie:	We escaped to there a lot.

Don:	We lived an hour north of there & that was where we mostly
	played. We were a lot more popular in Boston at the time than
	we were in our own town. I'd soy. Probably just wasn't as much
	of a scene in NH.

Carrie:	We were pretty popular in our town.

Dan:	Although now, it's shifted. When we go back & play there, it's
	one of the best shows of our tour. I should point out that Jonah
	was around in those early days. but never let on that he knew how
	to play anything. (laughter) He'd probably been in the band a lot
	sooner than he wound up being -- (to Jonah) Were you playing stuff
	at the time or hod you lust learned to play something?

Jonah:	I think you asked me to join you one time on the whistle:

Dan:	Oh really? That was all we knew you could do at the time:

Jonah:	I was pretty strictly focused on Irish folk music that
	particular year.

Robert:	You recorded Sole World Record & More Sad News in Boston.

Dan:	Boston took us in: we were known as a Boston band. In
	Portsmouth, we were a local band -- we were local in a
	lot of places: We're a local band in Ohio to this day.

Carrie:	The same kind of thing was happening in Boston at the
	time. Real exciting things going on in music: a lot of
	interest in experimental music. There was this thing
	called 'Ed's Basement', which was an early Sunday
	evening variety show in the basement of The Rack -- which
	was a grungy, hard-rock club. They set up cafe tables &
	served coffee and brought in performance artists, filmmakers --
	It was consistently packed: week after week after week the same
	people would come. It really became this cool event. To be able
	to command that kind of attention on that kind of project realty
	says something about those years in Boston. Places go through cycles,
	so I don't think it's like that in Boston now. It was really good
	energy.

Robert:	Dom died in '89 -- Were you thinking of relocating out here
	before that?

Dan:	We were talking about moving here at the time that he died.
	I was planning on it: Dom & Carrie were in favor of it Neno
	was hedging. After Dom died. we talked Neno into coming out
	here 'cause we still wanted to. There was less of a reason to
	stay in NH at that point; it seemed like it would be a good thing
	for us to go to a new place & try to start over again.

	We weren't sure we could do the band without Dom's physical
	presence, but we wanted to try. We came here -- Neno hated it
	here & from the beginning was always considering going back
	to Ohio --

Carrie:	I don't think he _hated_ it.

Dan:	Yeah, maybe he didn't hate it, but he didn't like it as much
	as we did. So he hung on for a couple of years. After our "It's
	All Good News" tour. he decided he had to move back to Ohio.

Robert:	When did you came out here, Jonah?

Jonah:	A year & a half ago? -- January. '92.

Carrie:	When did Neno leave?

Jonah:	He left Christmas -- about a month before I came here: I moved
	here because I was losing my mind in New York: (laughter) So, it
	was either the mental hospital or SF. Super rent in SF, believe
	it or not -- at least in my particular housing situation.

Robed:	How long were [you] in NY?

Jonah:	3 and a half years.

Robert:	Doing what?

Jonah:	I was a children's book editor -- what else did I do? I can't
	remember what else I did there: I didn't play any music --

Dan:	Got mugged...

Jonah:	I got mugged lots of times & my car was set on fire -- I can't
	remember any other things right now -- So that was why I moved
	here. I've been writing; didn't want to to do a full-time thing
	in a company anymore -

Robert:	Understandable.

Jonah:	-- so I moved here, not planning on being -- (to Dan) I
	think, at one time, I let it enter my imagination, the
	idea at playing with you guys. But I hadn't let it get too
	far.

Dan:	Did you know Neno was leaving the band before you moved here?

Jonah:	Maybe I did: I can't remember -- what was it, 2 or 3 months
	after I moved here you asked me?

Dan:	Yeah. I don't remember exactly. (to Robert) You ever catch
	any of the ED'S REMAINING QUALITIES shows?

Robert:	No.

Dan:	When Neno left,. Carrie & I did a few shows before Jonah came in.

Carrie:	We decided to be a folk duo. We were playing at Freight & Salvage
	& sat on stools & Dan told anecdotes. (laughter) This was the new
	order.

Jonah:	You got some hate mall.

Dan:	We even said on our flyer that there would be lengthy anecdotes
	between songs.

Carrie:	Dan wore a tie.

Dan:	Wearing a tie isn't a folk thing, though.

Carrie:	Actually, we made a couple new friends that night, but we
	were uncomfortable.

Dan:	We had already asked Jonah to play with us: we were thinking of
	having a 4th person to play drums. but we canceled that idea. We
	started playing with just the 3 of us & we were having so much fun.
	getting along so well & we liked the new sound, so we figured why
	press the issue. Let's keep it as simple as possible. as small as
	possible & keep going

Robert:	The 1st show I saw with Jonah was at the Hotel Utah with The Buckets.

Dan:	Oooh.

Carrie:	It was our growing pains show.

Jonah:	I think I remember some practical problems with the hammer
	dulcimer...

Dan:	Jonah was crowding us off the stage with all of his instruments. We
	had to sit him dawn & have a talk with him.

Jonah:	I was gonna bring more. I was thinking of bringing a typewriter on
	the stage; that was my next move. They stopped me.

Dan:	When we started playing with Jonah, we were hit & miss for awhile,
	I think. We were batting .500: we'd have a couple of really good
	shows, then a couple of really bad ones. We've always been that way.
	So it wasn't your fault. Jonah.

Jonah: 	I was gonna say it was mainly 'cause I'm the horrible person.



OF MUSIC & GENRES -- WITH A GUEST OPINION

Carrie:	It was interesting because it was exactly the same thing. I think.
	as the experiment at Freight & Salvage where -- I really like our
	music: to this day. people talk about our 'shaky' harmonies
	& our "charm' -- charm being a euphemism . A lot of what
	people are responding to goes beyond the lyrics, it's the
	music -- it's spare. it's minimalist & sometimes it's --
	approximately executed. It's like a completely ineffable
	frame-of-mind thing. I don't know what it is. If we don't bring a
	certain type of spirit to it, it doesn't work. It's invisible but
	we feel it when we're on stage -- maybe it's rock & roll, maybe
	it's something else. but it doesn't work if it's missing.

Robert:	I kinda like it, that it's so hard to classify. There was a review
	of IT'S ALL GOOD NEWS in the Short Cutz paper that described
	your sound as, 'Imagine Jonathan Richman & They Might Be
	Giants hanging out together at the Newport Folk Festival.'

	It's a mixture of stuff: you have a little bit of folk. some
	country. You have the calypso tunes -- I don't know what to call it.

Dan:	I don't care as much anymore what people call it. It used to
	bother us that people labeled us a folk band. At this point
	I don't even mind. I'm not into a lot of the traditional folk music,
	I'm not into a lot of rock music either; I'm not into most rock
	music, so why should it be worse to be a folk band than a
	rock band? The more different ways that people try to
	describe it, the better for us because it means that we're
	Just amusing people. We're just writing songs: that's the
	bottom line.

Jonah:	I feel like we're not a part of 'Generation X'.

Dan:	"What kind of music do we do? Well, we do songs."

Carrie:	What's weird is that if you really theorize about it, it's highly
	conceptual. You know. someone else described us as the
	'David Lynch' of folk music: well that makes a little more
	sense. 'It's a concept thing.' The thing is, we don't have
	a concept, we just play our songs. It's a highly intellectual thing
	with an emphasis on poetry & storytelling.

Robert:	Since you're very hard to categorize, which I don't think is a bad
	thing at all, did it get to be a problem when you started recording
	for Flying Fish Records? Like how to sell you to the public?

Dan:	Sometimes they'd think it was a problem. They didn't know what
	to do with us because they were such a traditional folky & blues
	label. On the other hand. it was an advantage to be on that
	label because before that, we were only known in the alternative
	rock world. if at all. And since we were on Flying Fish, it didn't
	help us in the alternative rock world very much, but it did help us
	get a broader audience. A lot of folky people who wouldn't have
	heard us otherwise did hear us through FF. A lot of public radio
	stations, like NPR, that would not necessarily pay any attention
	to something on some alternative label actually gave the
	albums a listen & airplay. Half of one & 6 dozen of another.
	That's my opinion. Carrie. what do you think?

Carrie:	I agree that there's a bright side; it was cool that we were on
	NPR & that we did get a new audience that way. I think it was a
	bigger problem that college radio stations, "alternative" radio
	stations & record stores were looking at the FF records & 
	passing them on to the folk DJ's. I think that, really, our
	biggest market now is college radio, alternative rock listeners &
	record buyers. It just wasn't available to them, no matter how
	much good press we got. We did get a fair amount of radio play
	& we owe that to FF.

Robert:	But even college & 'alternative' stations are now more narrow-
	casted. You have the REM-ish bands, English synth performers &
	at the other end, the hardcore punk & noise bands. Things that fall
	between the cracks, that alternative radio was originally intended
	to feature, they have no room for it or they have room for if but
	they say that there's no audience for it. When I started listening
	to college rock in the mid-80's, it was a much broader spectrum
	than what exists now.

Carrie:	I agree. I don't know -- When we started out, it seemed like there
	there was an audience, just judging from the reaction in Boston.
	We were getting radio play before we ever had a record 'cause our
	homemade tapes were just going out; it's appealing to something.
	After we did make records, they might have gotten stuck in the
	folk bins; they didn't move & everyone else is looking in the
	alternative rock bins, & they weren't there & then the stores
	didn't reorder. It's hard enough to get a record store to --
	I think that sort of stopped the momentum for us. Now, I think
	alternative music is getting homogenized itself. But even 2-3
	years ago even, it seemed that alternative music was music that
	was original without being pretentious.

(At a point during the interview, it is interrupted by uncontrollable laughter
coming from yrs. trly. & the band, due to a punk version of THE GOOD, THE BAD
& THE UGLY coming over the speakers. The bartender, Elf? [sorry if that's
wrong, but that is what it sounded like on the tape], is asked about who is
performing that version [he didn't know, sad to say. if anyone know, please
drop a line!]. Carrie then grabs the recorder, & the interview continues.)

Carrie:	So Elf, what do you think of ERQ?

Elf:	Tonight, officially, according to the band's...

Carrie:	In your own words.

Elf:	I consider them really fun & whenever I get a chance to see 'em,
	I do. I get their mailers in the mail & I get all excited & pin it up
	on the wall & say 'Cool! I'm working that night; I get to see them."
	I just turn overjoyed -- I don't know what to do with myself.

Carrie:	Really; That's nice. Do you think Ed's is R&R?

Elf:	R&R is one of those subjects that you just really can't define.
	You don't really know what it is. Everybody uses this term,
	R&R. Chuck Berry was R&R-- how can you say something
	like Nirvana is R&R? I just don't understand. If you can say
	Nirvana is R&R and Peter Gabriel is R&R, then Ed's is
	definitely R&R. That's the way I see it. (He goes back to bar.)

Carrie:	That was Elf, the bartender.

Robert:	Unsolicited praise.

Dan:	That _was_ solicited praise.



ON SONGWRITING & BREEDERS REACTION

Robert:	Do you all equally split the songwriting duties?

Carrie:	We're trying to keep it pretty even. On the 1st 2 records,
	Neno wrote a little bit; well, I guess quite a bit less than Dan
	& I. Jonah hasn't started writing yet -- well, he's started
	writing, but hasn't started sharing it. But it's pretty evenly
	balanced.

Jonah:	I've been encouraged to. I just have -- blockage.

Dan:	Even when we do live shows, we split the songs equally,
	trying to do as many songs of Dom's, mine & Carrie's &
	a couple of Neno's. There's only a couple of his songs that
	we _can_ do.

Jonah:	Maybe a little Belafonte & Jimmie Rogers thrown in.

Dan:	And then we throw in some of our influences. Jamaica Farewell.
	Tonight, we're going to do a Jimmie Rogers song that we learned
	how to play yesterday. Jonah's hero -- mine too.

Robert:	You also have more of a klezmer influence, with Jonah's
	arrival.

Dan:	I like that aspect of it -- when we get the clarinet & the bass
	going on some songs.

Jonah:	Of course, I'd like us to swing more in the direction of the
	Italian Wedding band. This is something I've been pushing for.

Carrie:	Jonah is the sponge for many, many styles. Spit 'em right
	back at you.

	That's kind of a workable by-product; as writers, we like each
	other. It's a strange, problematic & rare thing to have as many
	songwriters sharing time in one band. Much more often, it's
	just 1 person & that 1 person's influence creates the voice for
	the band. We have so many, people can tell who wrote which, but
	they all work together; they intersect & still sound like 1 band.
	It's kind of a good thing.

Robert:	What's the connection to The Breeders' since they're doing a
	cover of DRIVING ON 9 for their new album?

Carrie:	To make it brief -- The Pixies were taking off at the same time
	we were having our little tete in Boston -- actually, Ray was playing
	in a band at the time & they opened for The Pixies.
	Kim's (Deal) husband at the time, who was sorta hanging around
	& sorta helping with management liked Ray's band, befriended him
	& started going to their shows. Ray was managing Ed's at the time,
	& Ray said, 'Come see this band.. So John (Murphy) did; he
	liked us & started bringing Kim along to shows -- she liked us &
	we all became friends. She was a big fan of DRIVING ON 9 even then.

	When she started conceiving The Breeders, she needed violin for a
	few songs, so she invited me to do that. So I went in on the original
	demos -- '89 at Fort Apache. And she just never forgot about DRIVING
	ON 9 -- actually, we did it on the demos; it was supposed to be on
	the 1st album. She didn't do it, I think possibly because it was a
	country song with this rock band & people would think it was a
	novelty or whatever. It concerned her -- still did, but she did it
	anyway & this time, it's on there. it's a done deal. And she did it
	as a country song -- very spare.



TOURING TOILS -- AS AN AFTERTHOUGHT

Robert:	Time for the very last question -- what does the future hold for
	ERQ, here in the middle of '93?

Jonah:	I asked that question just yesterday.

Carrie:	Did you?

Dan:	We're asking ourselves that.

Carrie:	We'd like to be steed by a record label who loves us, & we'd like
	them to make action figure toys of us to have, & we'd like to tour
	in a...

Jonah:	In a van!

Carrie:	In a _bus_.

Jonah:	An '86 Ford van -- from Wisconsin.

Dan:	I'll settle for a van.

Robert:	I almost forgot -- how did the tour go?

Carrie:	(long pause) Fine.

Robert:	What were you traveling in; just out of curiosity?

Carrie:	We were traveling in a '71 Ford LTD, a '69 Plymouth Valiant,
	a borrowed Toyota Tercel, a borrowed Ford van; a Subaru station
	wagon -- is that everything?

Jonah:	We had car problems.

Carrie:	All in all, we were in 9 different vehicles accounted for.

Jonah:	Including the bus I took?

Carrie:	No. But including your dad's Metro.

Dan:	We started out in my LTD. We had to abandon ship in Portland, MA...

Jonah:	At the encouragement of a welder who begged us to leave it; it was
	such a danger to ourselves & others.

Dan:	We were just driving down the highway & the frame was swaying around
	on the axes; people were just laughing at us, yelling at us. Cops
	were pulling us over.

Carrie:	The Porch Swing of cars.

Dan:	Then we borrowed cars for awhile; then a friend of ours traded us
	a '69 Plymouth Valiant in exchange for a T-shirt & a tape.

Jonah:	And a $1 bill.

Dan:	I had to do a lot of work on it along the way, but it eventually
	got us back home.

Jonah:	What did we have to fix on that car? Let's see -- the water pump,
	the radiator, the brakes, the springs; you had to rebuild the carb.
	And it had -- how many flats?

Carrie:	2. Plus the cigarette lighter, the windshield wipers --

Dan:	Lay off the car!

Jonah:	But other than that, it was really great. Sorry, Dan.

Carrie:	But of course, we were tremendously lucky. Extraordinarily good
	luck that someone donated us a car -- we were about to spend
	half the proceeds of the tour on a new vehicle -- All in all,
	I'd say good luck outweighed bad & good shows outweighed bad;
	good experiences outweighed bad, but it was a really close call.

Robert:	What was the most interesting thing you encountered on tour?

Jonah:	Outside Ft. Worth -- the Poodle Lounge...

Carrie:	The Cowboy Karaoke Bar.

Jonah:	Which I missed, 'cause I was next door using the bathroom in the
	coffee shop.

Carrie:	Then there was the show in Providence, where we walked out on the
	show, because the club was unspeakably rude & dishonest -- they said
	that we were "a bag of assholes".

Robert:	A _bag_...

Carrie:	(heavy Rhode island accent) "A _bag_ of assholes".

Jonah:	Direct quote.

Carrie:	So -- it was a mutual disappointment. It was interesting in Ft
	Worth when we opened for a --

Jonah:	Frat-boy band.

Carrie:	Frat-boy band, called thus ... Should I mention names? You're not
	going to use this, anyway -- The S----. Their fans hated us so much,
	they were _begging_ us to get off the stage.

Jonah:	Somebody actually threw a napkin. That was the only thing that
	was thrown the entire tour.

Carrie:	There was an interesting night at Maxwell's, in New Jersey. One
	of the best shows of the tour where we played with SF natives,
	American Music Club, who we never saw in SF; saw them for the 
	1st time that night -- really nice guys. Of course, they packed the
	club, no thanks to us -- well, we had a few people there. But their
	fans really dug us. Had a great night there; really overwhelming
	response. A lot of people searching us out after the show, just to
	talk about where we came from. It was also memorable, cause I broke
	my G-string on a song where the only string I play is the G-string.

Jonah:	Then there was the show in Mesa, AZ in the showing center.

Carrie:	_That_ was interesting. I met an ex-con anarchist who was very
	organized & was in the process of putting together a magazine.
	I met a fugitive from the IRS who claimed to be a maker of
	custom pens -- what that was; he took Bic pens -- 10 for a buck ...

Robert:	Those refills?

Carrie:	No, just the plain old pens. And he would wrap a rubber band
	around one of them. His attitude about his -- _invention_ was so
	sincere & touching, I wish him the best of luck.

	What else happened in Mesa? OH! -- I can't talk about that.

Jonah:	The opening act that drove all the people out?

Robert:	You don't have to use names.

Jonah:	I was outside the club, because I have tinnitus. That's a real 
	necessary detail, huh? --

Carrie:	Important detail for a musician in a rock band.

Jonah:	So anyway, I was outside & this opening act was basically a guy
	who was playing a violin that he had run through a synthesizer so
	that every time he ran his bow across the strings, it made a huge
	orchestral, but slightly distorted sound. It was _extremely_
	loud -- so much so that the 4 or 5 people who were there for it,
	most of them walked out & demanded their money back from the
	doorman.

Carrie:	Another half-dozen poked their heads in & walked away. It was too
	bad; it was a really interesting concept. When he was warming up I
	was really intrigued; he was making some beautiful sounds. But it
	was really... too bad.

Jonah:	And the monotony of it ultimately worked against it, I think.
	Although, I was outside.

Robert:	I'll let you all get set up. Thanks very much.

Carrie:	Good luck deciphering all that babble.