Rock Band Songs | 1

I found the dusty, unlabled CD-R at the bottom of a cardboard box marked “Evan – College,” which my mother had dropped off ten years too late. The plastic jewel case was cracked diagonally, and inside, someone had scrawled in fading Sharpie: RB Sngs 1 . Not even a date. Not even a band name.

And that, I’ve learned, is more than most things ever do. rock band songs 1

We called ourselves The Hollow Mile because everything felt empty back then, and we thought irony was depth. I was the lead singer and rhythm guitarist—which is a polite way of saying I was the one with the car and the most untreated anxiety. Leo, the drummer, could play triplets while reading Dostoevsky. Marcus, lead guitar, had fingers that moved faster than his conscience. And Benny, bass, was there because he owned a van and didn't ask questions. I found the dusty, unlabled CD-R at the

And now here I was, alone in my garage at 1 a.m., holding the ghost of who I used to be. Not even a band name

I never listened to the CD again. I packed it away, told myself it was a demo, a rough draft, a thing I’d revisit when I was famous enough to laugh at my origins.

But fame never came. Instead came thirty-three years, a divorce, a mortgage, a child who thinks my guitar is “a weird decoration.” I stopped writing songs somewhere around the time I started writing performance reviews. The calluses on my fingers softened. The voice that once screamed about matches and rain now gently asks people to hold for the next available representative.