I got a shirt in the mail today!!

This shirt happens to be a Spock's Beard shirt, depicting the cover of their first album, which is still my personal favorite.

You see, I received a Tax Rebate Jr., and decided to use a portion of it to support starving artists whose work I enjoy.

I first saw and fell in love with this shirt when Alan Morse, the band's guitarist, wore it on stage the first time I saw them in concert.

"Gasp!" you gasp. "He wore his own band's shirt on stage? Uncool!"

Or maybe you don't gasp that. Here's a little background info.

Back while I was in high school, I once caught wind of a concert going down in a tiny little venue in an industrial park near Baltimore. Three local prog bands from Connecticut were playing. Nobody big-time. ("Big-time", for prog-rockers, means that you've sold 10,000 albums.) But prog-rock concerts, especially somewhere like Baltimore, are about as frequent as eclipses, so I went with Ben and a couple of prog-rockin' friends to go see it.

One of the bands was named "After the Fall". As they're setting up, a guy walks on stage wearing an After the Fall shirt. "He must be a roadie," we muse.

Nope. He's the guitarist.

"Well, that's lame," we agree. Everyone knows the line from PCU, about not being "that guy" - well, when that guy is in the band, that's extra lameness.

Their drummer walks on stage. Bizarre looking guy - really muscular upper body, huge hair, and these little skinny legs. He's wearing biker shorts and an extra-tight spandex shirt which says "Everlast".

Abhishek leans over to me. "He wanted to name the band 'Everlast'."

(This joke was way funnier before there was an actual band named Everlast.)

So why was it not lame when, about a year later, in the exact same venue, the guitarist for Spock's enters sporting a "The Light" shirt?

Was it because he was wearing a beret? Possibly.

Was it because a guy who plays guitar in a prog band and never uses a pick can't help but be cool? That would make sense.

Was it because I am totally in love with this band and I would want to have Neal Morse's children if his wife hadn't beaten me to it?

Yeah, I think that's the one.