Perhaps I've mentioned that I once had a band. As a adolescent I used to read Circus magazine and watch hair metal bands on MTV at Scott's house, and dreamed of getting a band together that could parallel the adventures of my heroes in Van Halen, Ratt, etc.

By my late teens I had discovered classic rock, and had also discovered people willing to cotton to my monkeyshines. As we watched people streaming towards the doors to escape a band performing in the high school talent show we felt emboldened, and Scott agreed we should form a band. Scott used the money he got from unloading trucks at Winn-Dixie over the summer to buy a bass, and another friend of ours, who we'll call "Rick Peregrine," because he wanted that to be his stage name, said he would sing. A friend of a friend named Darren had a nice Pearl drum kit and he was pretty good on it, too, and there we were.

I had recently picked up The Cult's first album Love and was particularly interested in the song "Nirvana." After some arguing Nirvana became our band name. We put "Nirvana for Hire" on a flier and I spread it around school, and of course no one in our Hee-Haw suburb could pronounce it or grasp its meaning. Maybe Kurt Cobain offed himself from the frustration of nitwits not understanding his band's name.

Cobain! The very first time we played, at a battle of the bands in 1990, some kid in a Lemonheads T-shirt approached and said there was already a band in Seattle called Nirvana on some label called SubPop that was going to be huge. Seattle? SubPop? Who, besides Soundgarden, Queensryche and Heart, had ever come out of Seattle? This kid had to be a lone nut. Over the next couple of months we heard of the other Nirvana a couple more times, though, so after more arguing my next band name idea was Zen. (Then everyone said we were naming ourselves after Robert Plant albums because his last two had been Now and Zen and Manic Nirvana.) About a year or so later "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came out.

Over the past week I've been neglecting my blog as I put together a DVD of our earliest days. Those days were sure a blast, though this video is a little embarrassing. Perhaps I should set it explode in 24 hours. Anyhow, get yourself a piece of Zen today.