Funny how the mind works

Have you ever tried to remember the name of a band?  How about a band that wasn't really well known?  How about a band that you saw over ten years ago at a small bar that you don't know any song titles of or any lyrics in general?  It's not easy.

When I was in highschool, I saw a band at Canal Street Tavern in Dayton.  During one of the songs, the lead guitarist and singer broke a string.  Now if you don't play guitar, you probably have no idea what a headache this is.  Loosing a string throws a guitar right out of tune (the whole change in tension thing) so to make the guitar playable again, you need to get it replaced.  If you're sitting at home just playing around, this means finding a new string, getting it put on and re-tuning the guitar.

What do you do when this happens on stage with about one hundred people watching you?  Some would just grab another guitar and keep going.  If there's no other guitars around, most would probably finish the song, take a little break to get things back in order, then continue on with the show.

Not this band!  The guitarist actually grabbed a new string from his case, put it on and got everything back in tune... all the while continuing to sing (with some obvious improvisation since this whole process takes a few minutes)!

It was one of the coolest things I've seen a musician do, and for some reason I was thinking about it the other day but couldn't for the life of me remember the name of the band.

For three days I've been trying to remember.  I even started up iTunes and browsed through the store hoping I might come across the name and remember it.  Nothing.

Then tonight, in a moment right out of what Scott Adams was talking about this week, I was in the bathroom when the word "carpet" popped into my head.  Hmmm, carpet, carpet... rug!  Why am I thinking of rugs?  Oh yeah! - The Rugburns!!!

Then I remembered that after seeing them, I had trouble remembering their name, so I would spark my memory by thinking of carpet burns (what my family called them).  Funny how over ten years later that word association still worked!

Alright, off to iTunes to buy some Rugburns...