(this is a long post, I know, kiss of death for a blog. But just go with it, alright?)

Ice Cube was sitting in the lobby when James Barone and I returned to the Four Seasons Hotel. We had failed miserably at finding an after-party with booze, and resigned ourselves to just chill in the room. After a delicious $35 pizza, James was getting a bit stir crazy, so we decided to venture on down to the dock on the river behind our hotel for a bit.

There were four people already there, and it being a small dock, they invited us into their conversation. Nice young British folk…well, that is, James from Does It Offend You, Yeah? and Jill were great peeps, their two friends were respectively indifferent and a bit douche-y. Keeping true to James’ band’s name, the order of the evening was saying affably rude things to one another. We chatted politics and race relations, cracking wise and calling each other out for our countries’ respective blemishes. It didn’t hurt that Brit James was ornery and bristlingly charming. And apart from being smart as a whip and wicked funny, Jill was incredibly gorgeous. Quite a pair of legs there.

Synthesis James was quiet for the most part, interjecting comments here and there; myself, I tend to be more talkative, and of course I was witty as all get-up. We chatted it up, their friend called me “pedantic,” I told him he’s “a bit of a cunt,” it’s pretty good-natured ribbing all around. After bumming a few of their cigarettes (I relished using the term ‘fag’ in the British sense of the term), another couple wandered over to the dock and asked if they could join us. They introduced themselves, common ‘merican names that I couldn’t quite hear. The Brits recognized the dude from the night before and our group grew to six music geeks, smoking and drinking wine at 4 in the morning.

I know the recent arrival from somewhere. But there are only about a dozen man archetypes here. You can’t throw a rock without hitting some bald, skinny white dude with glasses at SXSW. He’s cool and low-key, and says a few funny, self-deprecating things (“humor is not my strong suit”) before going into a story about how earlier he was interviewing Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols for a radio show. Jones is apparently a world-class whistler (“with theremin-like vibrato”). During their conversation Jones mentioned off-hand that “Hitler wasn’t really that bad a guy.” Then he played a blues song. Pretty weird/funny story. At this point I start to think to myself, “You know, come to think of it, glasses-bald dude looks incredibly like Moby.”

Yep. It’s totally Moby.

As it turns out, Moby is a really, really nice guy. Smart, too. Some people talk a lot of shit about Moby, about how he’s a wussy, a vegan weakling, or whatever. I say fuck that. Moby is down. Way down. I exchanged few words with him as he sat across from me in the circle, but he was cool, man. Still don’t care for his music much, but cheers to him anyway.

I sensed that James Barone was getting antsy and ready to leave, so we got up, and I wished them a good night: “Alright, I’m turning in. It was really nice to meet all of you…” I paused, looked at the douchy-dude. “Except you. You’re a bit iffy.” We left to the sound of laughter and the smell of wafting smoke.

Awhile ago we got a press kit from a band called Nothing Ever Stays. From listening to them and perusing over their track list, I’d categorize them under “emo alt rock” but they list themselves on MySpace as “Rock / Alternative / Indie”. Either way, it was just another CD to land on the desk of Daniel Taylor. Now that I think of it, I had tried to give it to James to see if he wanted to listen, but he’s more of a metal guy and his hesitance to accept it was obvious. So I gave it to Daniel.

They followed up with the usual email asking if I had received it, to which I replied “Yes, I passed it along to an editor and you can get in touch with him at daniel@synthesis.net”. They hit me back with “Brittany, you are amazing. Thank you so much. The guys and I love you already!!!!!!” (Yes, I got 6 exclamation points). I blushed and wrote back a quick “Xo” and moved on with my day. Surely never to hear from them again… so I thought.

TWO DAYS LATER… They send us a bigass package.

Daniel walks into the office, “Hey Brittany, you know that band, Nothing Ever Stays?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Wull, they sent you this Valentine’s Day teddy bear and chocolate kisses.”

“No wai!?”

He hands me their note:

“I heard from my sources (lol) that you also are a big SleepyTime Tea fan. This should hold you over for a while. The Kisses are for Brittany, since we can’t see her in person. Thanks”

I just checked out DT’s desk and on it are THREE boxes of SleepyTime Tea. (One could only know that Daniel is a fan of that tea from checking him out on MySpace. Talk about doing your research.)

Now I’m sitting here, listening to their CD, and it could be the Hershey Kisses, but I think I love this band. Thanks, Doug, Milan, Ryan and Davey! You made my day! XOXOXOXO

Check out their MySpace page and fall in love with them, too.