Editor's Note: Jon-David Schlough is the manager of the band KGB. Over the next few months he's going to talk about what it is like to assume this role for a young band- the issues, concerns, etc. It should be interesting reading...

I can't play music to save my life. It's really that simple. When I was in grade school, I played the cello for one year, but there my pursuit and any hope of rhythm ended. Ironically, grade school was also when I discovered musical taste that went beyond Twinkle, Twinkle and top 40. I remember the first time I put my very own Skeletons From the Closet tape into my sister's old ghetto-blaster with the Benneton sticker on top and jammed Casey Jones. That was it. I mean, all I wanted to listen to in my walkman while mowing the lawn, or in the winter shoveling snow, was that tape.

Later my taste atrophied, digressed, disappeared, and then was rescued by groups like A Tribe Called Quest, the Beastie Boys, and the Allman Brothers. I think my biggest revelation occurred my senior year of high school, when my sister came home from college bearing Junta. Phish really changed the way I viewed music in general. All of a sudden, it was a whole new world. I recall listening to my first batch of bootleg tapes spun by a friend of my sister's in return for me letting him borrow my tape deck for a semester, and the feeling it provoked in me. This wasn't studio anything, but raw musical experience. I understood the simple joy of story telling in music from the Dead and Bob Dylan my parents played (bless them), but Esther spun my head around. It was so beautiful, so complex, yet so knowable...I knew right away that this was something I needed to investigate further.

Senior year at St. John's Preparatory School in Collegeville, MN, I got to see my first Phish show. I had a friend who worked at CashWise grocery in Waite Park, and she had mentioned to me that she had a system we could work to score incredible seats for Phish's fall performance at the St. Paul Civic Center. I went there the morning tickets went on sale, was first in line (which I had to be in order for it to work), and the moment of truth eventually came. She entered all my info into the computer ahead of time (which is not allowed, or at least wasn't then), and the moment tickets went on sale, all she had to do to close the sale was hit enter. I got seats 2 to 9, row 2. The show was everything I anticipated and more, Page was ten feet away, and so it went. Improvisation became the focus of my interest, and ended up arousing an appreciation for jazz that I didn't think I had in me. One of the best things about music, to me, is that it is never static. Listening to something, no matter how great or important it is, always leads me to new experiences with other artists. For me, Phish led to Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk…a rather bizarre progression, or not perhaps not.

If you can't be a musician, you might as well hang around some. After my sophomore year of college, I decided to move to St. Paul and live with... somebody. I ended up putting up a $50 reward to any one of my few friends in the area who could find me a summer sublease. A friend called and told me of a few hippies that had a room available for the summer and to keep my reward. I made the necessary arrangements, and the night I arrived to move in I was greeted by a lively party of long-hairs, drinking an eight-gallon keg of James Page Amber Ale, who were more than happy to help me move all my things in out of the rain. I learned I was actually living with two brothers, Chris and Rocco, who were painting for the summer around the city... we all got along really well. Shortly after I moved in, a kid started sleeping on our couch that I knew from being in the area. Eventually, Chris informed me he would be a fixture for the summer, and not to pay any attention to the clothes scattered everywhere in the apartment.

One day not long afterwards I asked him what his plan was... he said he was saving up money that would have otherwise been spend superfluously on rent in order to buy a Hammond organ. He did, and started playing jazz here and there with Chris and a bassist who worked at the Sinclair gas station on Grand Avenue that everyone called Pablo. They got a few local gigs, and named the group KGB. We joked endlessly about world tours and incredible drugs, studios and buses, and so on and so forth. I never thought it would lead anywhere. Summer ended, and I moved to Amsterdam. When I came back six months later, they had a weekly gig and some loyal fans. I went to a show, and was surprised to find a guitarist I had never seen playing really, really well. They played some Phish covers, and then a couple of originals. I discovered that a distinct sound had evolved out of long nights of jazz standards the summer before. There was talk of a summer tour and a studio album, but they needed someone to organize all the scattered phone numbers and figure out exactly what these endeavors required as far as resources. And there was a rather large catch; this person would have to be willing to work for free- they had nothing to pay anyone. Scotty the couch ranger asked me if I had any interest in the position, as I was rather organized by his standards... I agreed to help with the tour, and when we returned I became their general manager. No one really said anything; I just took over all the business. We still hadn't made a cent in profit, but we felt like had momentum and Scotty was excited about music he had in his head but had yet to lay down or chart out. That was last fall, and since then KGB has become the Wednesday night house band at The Cabooze in Minneapolis, one of the best venues in the area. A small victory in the grand scheme, but massive vindication for all the work and sacrifices all of us have made in the short time we've been running around.

Managing KGB has obviously not made me rich, or famous. You've probably never heard of KGB. It's a small project...I like to think of it as emerging. It's exciting, though, to be involved in the elaborate string of seemingly insignificant events that take place to put on even the smallest of shows. After a short while, the shows grow larger and one is forced to learn new things, make decisions and press on into foreign territory. That is what really excites me about the project, it challenges me to be organized and creative at the same time - something that has generally escaped me in my life to this point.

There are moments when one realizes the energy in a room is really strong. When this happens, things are already very positive, as the opportunity is there for the band to have a great show. If the band plays exceptionally well, which they are far more likely to do in a room full of good energy, you catch yourself looking around at all the people dancing, getting bombed, laughing, and smoking too many cigarettes while listening to the music you helped bring to that point in time- and you smile. Feelings of comfort and satisfaction swish around in your brain and you feel great. It excites you to go further away, work harder, go deeper into debt with higher hopes, and make more damned telephone calls because they have to see this. You're not quite sure who "they," are but you know "they," are out there somewhere and for the love of Trey, "they," have to hear This. Then...all of a sudden…that feeling is gone and you find yourself thinking about whether or not the Leslie is going to choose to spin tonight, whether that one irritable, sketchily mounted tube will come aglow with the eerie, pale light of correct operation, and whether or not you remembered to lock the truck and if not, what will be missing when you go out to check. Then you go out and check. After that great feeling subsides, you return to your role- you are again manager, booking agent, publicist, PR director, art director, accountant, and just about all the other roles that culminate in the works of a small band. But most importantly... you are a friend that understands what is going on, as best as anyone can.