Don: I don’t know, you can only do so much before the quality just goes way down…by the end of a gig I feel like I’ve put everything into it, and I’m just done.

Dave: By the end of a gig I feel ready to start a gig.

Auyon suggested a compromise wherein the band plays half a gig, goes home to record, and then comes back to finish the gig later.

At this point I shut the door, so I don’t know what they decided.

The End.

It is late afternoon, and the front door of the Darlingside abode shuts with an ominous thud. A desolate silence descends. Shadows gather and arachnids crawl out from their hiding places.

Yes, tonight is gig night once again, and the house and I are left to enjoy each other’s meager company. Every few minutes a trivial sound shatters the stillness*. The whir of the heating system, the creak of a beam — unfamiliar, threatening sounds. Under standard conditions, they have no hope of competing with the baseline level of aural stimulation.

Already demoralized, I eat a solitary dinner and resolve to pass the time calmly until the dish fairy’s nightly arrival. These supernatural visits are fortunate as well as miraculous, because during a rigorous gig week, the five talented musician-dishwashers have too much on their plate to wash it too. No matter! With the help of our magical friend, a day’s worth of kitchen debris vanishes, practically in the twinkling of an eye.

But now the atmosphere is lifeless as a tomb. I brush my teeth and take a shower. Purposelessly, I venture from my room, bristling as Auyon doesn’t make fun of the shirt I’m wearing. I head toward the living room and trip over the absence of Harris’s guitar. Our eggplant-colored couch is a miserable sight to behold, seemingly bereft of its very soul. Sympathy compels me to assure it that Dave and his computer will be back soon.

Sigh. Neither Don’s incomprehensible jokes nor Sam’s sardonic comments relieve the oppressive silence. I sit down gingerly on the other sofa, feeling strangely exposed amidst the vastness of unbroken surface area. With growing unease, I notice a disturbing room-wide deficit in the number of Pyrex measuring cups occupied by soggy tea bags. I suppress my inquietude and begin to read.

The sepulchral night stretches on. When I seek the oblivion of sleep, the house endures alone, articulating its anxiety with violent creaks and groans.

In time, the triumphant band will make its late-night entrance: perhaps in a fanfare of celebratory trumpets, perhaps just approximating the volume thereof. Invertebrates will retreat into corners and artificial illumination will fill the rooms. The house will breathe a heartfelt, though inaudible, sigh of relief.

*“literally”

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!