Larry and his wife and I all ordered Friendly Ales. I made for the juke box and commenced flipping. All the jazz had been taken out and replaced by popular rock albums. I played some Tom Petty and missed Duke. I remembered the album they had having a good version of "Mood Indigo." No matter, I understood: Slow jazz often put people to sleep instead of making them drink more beer. The Friendly Ale was tasty. Larry and I downed a few pints and discussed the state of writing in America and Chicago. His wife nursed. I listened to the same four rock chords go around on the juke box.

K got there-her usual, smiling self. We ate and went back to the "L." On the platform, under the heat lamps, gazing at the right field bleachers, a family from Arkansas asked if we knew how to get to the ESPN Sportzone. I started to lie to them, but K stopped me, so I told them I thought it was on Grand Avenue, down town. The father, in full accent, said, "You mean to tell me you live in Chicago and you've never been to the Zone."

"No," I replied, "Such things are not interesting to every one." He started to speak again, but the red line came. He tried to talk over it, but that is impossible. The doors popped open and we baby-stepped into the car. A few blocks north, we got off into the bright lights of the night clubs. Someone else was playing a few doors down, so the station was jammed. We passed, with the herd, down the stairs and into the caravan looking for a ticket.

There was no line at the Riviera; no waiting out in the cold. We checked our coats down stairs and all got beers. Larry bought me a shot for my birthday. I thanked him, hoping it would be my last of the evening. We went into the room. The Riviera Theater is a great old theater. One can imagine vaudeville playing on its stage in the Thirties. Chicago's rich sitting in the balcony and men in suits down on the floor with their girls at their tables drinking gin-the bottle sitting on top of the table. It's not gothic like the nearby Aragon Ballroom. It's regale and trippy. A setting. Down on the floor, K started talking to people and making friends. I said hello shyly. Nice people in the audience. Younger than me.

Larry and I went exploring while Mrs. Chinaski and K held down the fort a few feet from the stage. Martin had brought a lot of toys to drum on, and there was a guitar. We hoped for Anastasio, but knew this was pretty far from Vermont to come just to sit in-especially after the Albany show. We searched for E but could not find her. We'd figured she would be there being part of MMW. No one had seen her or heard about her, but that was the usual-we didn't get disheartened yet. She always had to sneak into shows, but somehow she found her way in. I tried to guess where she would be. Upstairs. At the bar. Near the tapers. Downstairs. No luck. Larry suggested we get back; we didn't want K and the Mrs. having to hold our spot forever. What if they needed to pee?

Back on the floor it was getting crowded. We were used to having to elbow a bit to get back to our spots. K had made lots of friends; Mrs. Chinaski was looking bored. She indicated that it was time for them to start. I said, "I doubt they will start on time. . . . Groups never do." The tension began to build. I got butterflies, so I began to get loose-practicing my dance steps. The crowd swarmed in. The lights went out.

I couldn't really see who the guitarist was. I asked a guy from Milwaukee (whom K had befriended) if it was Marc Ribot? He said he thought so; he also said it was pronounced "REE-bow." I commented that I thought Ribot was a lot older than that guy looked. I had only heard Ribot on "Surrender to the Air" and "The Dropper." And I thought I had seen a video clip of him playing guitar while Allen Ginsberg read poetry. The guitarist was not Ribot.

(He) merged into Medeski's sound with precision. He played the part a jazz guitarist would, blended into the band, not really an audible part. An accompaniment. He could be heard a few times, but just to stick his head up and say hello, like a dolphin at sea world. As a result, M's sound was fuller-more textural than ever. I thought I could pick it out of the air and chew on it.

Each player had an assortment of gadgetry. (Guitarist) bent down at times and twisted the knobs of his foot pedals with his hands, creating all sorts of sound mingling with Medeski's-Martin occupied himself with an assortment of casks and shaky thingies, but kept the solid beat dropped down on the line the entire night-Wood, well, he is aptly named.

At set break I went to pee again and get more beer.

The second set began with the usual feel-out-the-sounds session. "Manic Depression." Somehow it turned into Manic Depression. A few weeks before, we had been to the close by Aragon Ballroom to see Ben Harper. He had opened with "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)." Hendrix comes at the best times. Every once in a while he goes out of my life, but then I put in Axis Bold as Love, and I'm hooked again. When a band like MMW covers Hendrix, you get a sense of all that they are listening to. All the music that is inside their heads every time they play. I heard the ascending chromatic riff that begins the song in the middle of the opening space section. When I hear something like that at a show, I always wonder if I really heard that riff, or just some notes in passing. When the song comes in I wonder how it got there. Have they been playing it for years? Did they practice it that day at sound check? Did they decide to play it just before they came on? Was it a piece of true improvisation? I knew MMW had covered "Cross town Traffic" a lot a few years back. Hendrix didn't play "Manic Depression" live much, so MMW covering it on my birthday was a stir like none other. I remember seeing K with her eyes closed-in her own world. I closed my eyes; my world got bigger. I was inside the groove. I loved her, Chinaski, and the Mrs.

Third Stone from the Sun brought me full circle and connected to (the guitarist). For some reason, I hadn't thought of the implications of a guitarless band playing Hendrix with a guitarist. It is a song about aliens that come down to earth and think that chickens are the smartest beings on the planet-or so Jimi has said . Perhaps they are, but there is no way of knowing that. They are certainly not able to drink beer and listen to Duke Ellington; how smart could they be without Duke?

I've enjoyed every birthday I've had; and I enjoyed this one. I go to shows to have fun. I like to boogie. I think everyone is a friend, and maybe they are. This doesn't happen to me at every show. And I am not sure what sets me off into such a comfortable place. Some sort of endorphimatic funk, I suppose. Who knows what is going to stop the worrying for a while?

E-MMW is a sloppier band than a-MMW. An electronic band is able to experiment because there is so much more sound to cover up mistakes. Hence, electronic bands are sloppier. Acoustic bands do not have so much sound, so they have to be tighter. There is no place to hide your mistakes. E-MMW plays in clubs where the environment is much looser. A-MMW plays in places like the Symphony Center, where the environment is close to black tie, and everybody drinks wine or espresso, not beer. They are two distinct bands playing for two distinctive crowds.

While I was in college, I used to listen to the campus radio. This is when I first heard MMW. "Bubblehouse" got played constantly when it first came out. Eventually, MMW played in the student union . The show was only half full. I had heard from friends that in concert MMW was a little spaced out. I did not think so, and I have never thought so. I thought they experimented on stage quite a bit, but this is what I want a band to do. When I would come home to Chicago and listen to NPR's jazz late at night, they would play tunes from Notes from the Underground. On the radio, e-MMW was being played to college kids, and a-MMW was being played to older jazz lovers. MMW is sui generis. No one in music is living two lives like they are right now. Of course, many groups appear in different forms, but these forms are different because of the different personnel. E-MMW and a-MMW are composed of the same three guys. Three guys composing two separate bands.

In May, I will go see a-MMW at the Symphony Center. You will hear all about it then, but I can guess that everything will be different, my clothes, what I drink, the people I talk to, the code of behavior I must obey, the music: a-MMW.