Here follows an outsider’s summary of a typical Darlingside rehearsal, from someone who, fortunately or otherwise, lives in the same house.

REHEARSAL PART I

Darlingside rehearses in the Aquafresh basement every Sunday through Thursday evening from 4:00 to 9:00.  Everyone agrees that tardiness is not an option.  So the sound of music punctually starts wafting up the stairs around 5.  It begins like a sunrise: Harris’s cello and Auyon’s violin commence their acoustic “pas de deux” while the dulcet voices of Dave and Don lift up and soar like serene meadowlarks over Sam’s compellingly beaten beats.

Edit: the above is already a thing of the past, a beautiful but short-lived epoch in the history of the band.  Now, thanks to in-ear monitors (which are not actually inner ear monitors, as I thought for quite some time), the only “sound” emitted from the basement is a brave but lonely drumbeat accompanied by disjunct violin riffs.  The occasional awkward pause indicates a silent cello/guitar duet.

Healthy arguments break out every now and again, a positive sign of continual self-assessment.

DINNERLUDE

Dinner is scheduled to be served between 7:00 and 7:30; thus every night Darlingside assembles at the dining room table some time before 8 or 9.  Cooking duty rotates nightly.  We dine upon an arbitrary combination of the following ingredients: cheese, garlic, pesto, not olives, mushrooms, onions, spinach, tomatoes, and pasta, often garnished with dollops of love, spite, nonchalance, et cetera (chef’s choice).

Originally a contraction of “dinner” and “interlude”, the title of this subsection could also be appropriately spelled with the letter “lewd”.  Laying the groundwork for this happy phenomenon is one person’s innocent but consuming compulsion, whenever Darlingside is not actually rehearsing, to sing band compositions with wittily altered lyrics.  Examples:

“Cables and nutsacks around me I have…”

“Twenty-eight nutsacks, but oh so lonesome…”

“I don’t care for you informing me of nutsacks…”

Etc. etc., ad infinitum.

The other band members manfully do their part to turn the conversation toward subjects that would no doubt prefer to be kept under wraps (even Sam, alleged victim of progressive corruption, has recently admitted to thinking, if not articulating, inappropriate comments on almost a daily basis).

Other topics of discussion include brontosauruses.

REHEARSAL PART II

After dinnerlude, rehearsal resumes.  Darlingside files efficiently downstairs, with a few parting threats from Auyon about what will happen to me if I do any dishes (I have yet to notice any actual consequences, other than cleanliness).  Despite ending at 9:00, rehearsal typically stretches on in some capacity to around midnight.  More often than not, Don comes back to a dark bedroom, or at least a superfluously lit one.

Sometimes, sensing a rehearsal wind-down, I decide to venture downstairs before going to bed.  I typically find Sam wading through quagmires of equipment while Dave hunches over his computer in the Roger Preston room, Don hovering around and finding ways to helpfully criticize both activities.  Auyon has recently gone to bed, due to his intense daily involvement with pizza.  Similarly, Harris has just retired for the evening in order to get up for his early morning coffee shop shift (but if you’re lucky, he might emerge, dazed, for a visit to the loo).

END REHEARSAL

In the wee hours of the morning Dave begins one long bowl of cereal that is bisected by eight hours of sleep.  Goodnight, Darlingside!