From the land of eclipse and snow - The Birth of Black Rover

The day of the eclipse in Spring of 2024, as weird shadows latticed the forest and the birds went silent, Black Rover was born. 

Darcy and Mel had arrived a few days before and were comfortably ensconced in our AirBnb studio. I had gone to the park to see the eclipse but had decided to go home and watch it there. Ran into Darcy and Mel, chatted about the eclipse and they revealed they didn't have eclipse glasses. I did, because I was a Boy Scout and I'm always prepared, so I offered mine to them and we set off to check out this eclipse thing. Walking around my property we were chatting, getting to know each other, enjoying the day, when Darcy mentioned that she was a musician. A guitarist. I said, somewhat hesitantly because I was leery of getting into a new musical project, "Well, I play the bass." Mel practically jumped up and down and said, "Darcy, did you hear that? He's a bass player!" Darcy let out a discreet little "whoop!" and said, "Do you happen to like Led Zeppelin?"

Led Zeppelin? Well, I don't dislike Led Zeppelin. Stairway to Heaven and shit. Good stuff. Ok, sure. "Yeah, Led Zeppelin! Sure!" And we were off. 

Darcy is one of the world's foremost experts on Led Zeppelin. At 15 she announced to her sighing dad, "Dad, I'm going to marry Robert Plant." To impress the object of her desires she set about learning every song they had ever written, and she followed Zep's lead and embarked on a career as a professional rock'n'roll guitarist. But, she said, she'd never had a band devoted to performing their music; this was her lifelong dream. 

A Led Zeppelin cover band? Ok, sure. Let's do it. When can we start playing? How about tomorrow?

Sure enough, we played together right after that, down at 8 Flat St. in the Latchis Hotel complex. My buddy Dan, a fantastic musician, a bassist, guitarist, keyboardist, excellent singer and also a drummer wanting to play more drums. Before we all knew it we were playing regularly and having a blast. Dan has an immense collection of instruments and audio gear so we were set up quick. We got LOUD in that little space and started learning tunes. 

We played in a couple of the local open mic shows, but that's not our scene. They tend to be more exclusively acoustic, singer-songwriter shows with a lot of angsty songs with titles like "The Worst Day of My Life." We are loud, and very electric. The first time we played one of those, sandwiched between a dude playing the harmonica and moaning into the mic and a long-haired hippy girl who seemingly had just stepped out of a bathtub full of patchouli.  After we started playing the host guy scurried over and turned down Darcy's amp while she was playing. I almost clocked him in the nose. 

But the universe has been kind to us. Darcy and I are the core of the group, the Percys. We play together frequently and dream up our arrangements. Doctor Bob is our astonishing drummer, kind of like John Bonham and Tim Walz had a baby; that's Bob. He's an exotic-animal veterinarian; during the day he saves the lives of gerbils and parrots and then comes in and slams down a perfect Four Sticks. Danny K has been invaluable supplying drumming before we met Bob, plus rehearsal space at the Latchis, and, incredibly, a variety of very fine musical instruments to play. As an example, the guitar that Darcy uses for slide is an axe of Dan's - it's the exact same black-and-white Danelectra guitar Jimmy Page used in the early 70's. Darcy almost lost it when he showed it to her. It's the same guitar. You can look it up! Wait - let me: 

 

That's Jimmy, not Darcy. We'll have pics of her with that guitar soon. 

Meanwhile I will probably continue writing this journal of our journey, because I do shit like this. 

If you can figure out how to follow this random tapping on my keyboard, please do, and you'll get red-hot update that there's a new humble entry in the journal of the journey of Black Rover, Zeppelin cover band.