CanBe and I met, lessee, 1, 2, 5... GODDAMN! Like, 20 years ago! We drove the machines that made America great across the waterways that, um, also made America great.

I was a 16 year old music geek - we're talking marching band and private clarinet lessons on the side. It was only maybe 2 years prior that I had finally gotten a chance to start messing around with the instrument that made me want to play music -- the GUITAR -- and I was proceeding rapidly and listening to all kinds of gawdawful poot to hear 'good' guitar playing. Canbe was a punk rock major with a minor in Beatles-based pop songwriting. We may not have had much music (small 'm') in common, but we sure did have Music (big 'M') very much in common. He and I wiled away the long boring hours sharing and debating and trying to achieve consensus.

I may never have converted him to my chops and art-rock and metal and virtuo-worshiping outlook, but from him I (re)learned why it was that I got into music in the first place: The Beatles. I stole my mom's old copy of Revolver at the age of 6 and never looked back. I still to this day listen to all kinds of ridiculous, straight-faced, noisy pomposity, but no one can make me feel ashamed for my love of simple pop tunes. NOT EVEN YOU!

CanBe's band at the time was Burnt Party Host. He told me they had formed in high school and played Beatles, Monkees, Kinks and The Who covers at dances at a time when the radio (and high school t-shirt population) was still geared towards Led Zepplin and Pink Floyd. It makes sense, really: tried dancing to Floyd or Zep lately? Supertramp? REO Speedwagon? Boston? RUSH???? No way, man. CanBe, Scott (then Piglet), and Marvin Gardins were all in various stages of college at the time so their gigs were infrequent, but I saw every one I could. They were all drunken, unrehearsed, hook-laden punk-pop juggernauts of PURE FUN. You know, fun? As in "what a rock and roll show should be?"

In the off time, CanBe and I spoke of hitting the bar circuit as an acoustic trio with our mutual friend Miguel Juan, and even got together and rehearsed a couple of times. Though I had become a fairly decent 6-string slinger by this point, nothing really came of this before it was time for me to begin my own trip to academia. Returning home three years later, CanBe and MJ had joined Just Plain Big, a band started by Hurray!, another mutual friend, and manning the drum throne? Scott (then called Chief, due to his being 1/128ths Cherokee). JPB was more intense, better rehearsed, but every bit as fun as BPH. This was the mid-90's, and the music they played had every possibility (and intention) of being HUGE. It was fast, loud, and had intricate vocal harmonies and a surprising amount of crunch to it -- sort of an intersection between The Ramones, early Damned, and Crosby Stills & Nash. They were great, and I did everything I could for them -- moved equipment around, collected money at the door, ran sound, or just showed up to the gig. They were a great live band, and though some of their early demo tapes captured it, I was always disappointed that neither of their albums really captured the ferocity of their live performances.

But all good things come to an end. After Miki left the band, a good chunk of the audience did too. CanBe's Fender 12-string, even with some grit thrown on, was no match to fill the shoes of Miki's Les Paul and Marshall amp. Attempts to put Miguel Juan on guitar removed an important visual element to the band's perfomances. Tempos fell, the music scene changed. It just wasn't the same. Shortly before I drew into the years-long "is this it" melancholy that many men on their late 20's feel (call it the long dark night of the soul, the Saturn's return, whatever...), I received a package in the mail: Nineteen Ninety-Sixty-Seven, by The Sun - i.e. CanBe and Miguel Juan. They'd spent a year of Friday nights in CanBe's garage constructing a pop masterpiece that remains one of my favorite albums to this day.

In the intervening years, I'd hear little bits: CanBe with 2? 3? 4? kids, all boys, in Mexico; MJ married, in Seattle, in San Diego, playing in a band with his wife; Scott still playing in local pop bands... In early 2005, my phone rang and it was CanBe. He was in California, he had a new record, he was looking for people to play it live. That album is Pluck and it's a trip through punk, pop, bossanova, sea shanties; you name it! CanBe was surprised to hear that I was playing bass for a prog-pop band called Crack Sunday, but was quick to exploit that fact: before the month was up, I was in a room rehearsing Pluck with CanBe and Scott, and it felt like homecoming. After 20 years and many abortive attempts, I am onboard here and it is an honor to be working with CanBe.

So get yourself a copy of Pluck - RIGHT NOW. As for me, if anyone needs me I'll be here trying to come up with a clever stage name.

--Noel Lairson