Social Security and Private Anxiety (Guest Blog by Greg Rawlins)

Mike here. My phone sounds a lot like my alarm clock, and vice versa. So as I'm coming out of one of those dreams about wandering through my high school in a bunny suit, the school bell rang which turned into my alarm which turned into my phone ringing. The early morning caller was Greg Rawlins, my musical cohort and all-around bff. He's visiting from Bremerton, WA and somehow ended up sleeping in his truck right outside the house. So as he stood outside my bedroom window we looked at each other through the glass and talked on the phone...

MIKE: It looks cold out there.
GREG: It is.
MIKE: Whatcha doin?
GREG: Standing outside.
MIKE: I know. I see you.
GREG: It looks warm in there.
MIKE: It is. Wanna come in?
GREG: That would be good, pardner.
MIKE: Ok, but only if you write a guest blog entry for the Cold Coffee website.
GREG: Ok, but only if you open it up with a really long-winded intro.

Here's what Greg did before 9am:



For the record, it's 10:39am and my Coffee is tepid and actually becoming Cold. Far out.
As a man on vacation, sojourns to this valley are invariably one long, noteworthy bender of boyhood fun, howdown magic and honkytonk bootscootin'. I have a series of destinations and checkpoints every time I come back here, probably ninety in all. Last night covered at least fifty.

Having never beheld the final product that is The Cold Coffee Media HQ and Satellite Gallery, last nights art walk made her look like a Prom Queen. Her three-pronged pendant above the entry way cracked mysterious and alluring colors, her diamond plated wristbands made her regal. She was elegant in that the horses and iron circuitry of her bosom stood motionless, poised, but seething and prepared to charge. Everybody brought their glass slippers and each fit, like conversation, in their own respect. An eight dollar bottle of wine, four dollar box of Ritz, and artwork that far exceeded each posted price were open to the public to consume. Accolades to Doug Gisi and Brenna Tyler (the current exhibiters) ---- I was awestruck by the diligence and thought so apparent in your works.

Onto another checkpoint: Waypoint. My heart rate always increases when I cross the tracks and round the corner to get within earshot of the members of Test Audiences at Waypoint Studio. Each step toward the rehearsal space beats like snares and my eyes dilate and bounce like keys in hopes and preparation for a night of music. Sure enough, as constant as the train that practically rolls through their building, a bass, keyboard, drums and voices resound and I am very, very home.

I wait for the current song to end before whistling both my want of encore and entrance. Up the stairs and into the loft, an immense wood structure as old as the town, with nostalgic junk and dilapidated treasures who ooze whole compositions from their walls until all you really do is pick them up off the dusty floorboards and allow them to play you. Or at least it seems they way all too often. My dear friends of Test Audiences are among the most serious and driven musicians that I can claim to have met. Having been an active observer in their varied cast, their digressions, debates, directions, doubts, convictions, liberations, and overall evolution, I extend my excitement and cohort support for a group that has harnessed a real ground-breaking sound and fought hard to do it. So, before 9am, I heard two new songs of theirs and have been reverting back to them constantly in effortless fascination.... oh yes Test Audiences, you are some hungry folk. Thanks comrades.