Member-only story
For a couple of months in high school circa 1982, my friend Dave and I were in a four-piece rock band. Dave on guitar, me on drums, Mike on bass and Jim on piano. We played in public only once, our high school senior variety show.
We tried to think of the most ludicrously pretentious name we could and came up with Zeus & the Druids. In an idle fit of classroom boredom, I sketched this inane band logo:
We did one song, a prog rock instrumental called “A Mythical Jam.” It lasted five minutes. A flicker of light in the span of a life. One song, one night, and it was over. We packed up our instruments and moved on with our lives: college, jobs, technical school. The band never performed again.
Fast forward 38 years.
Dave emails a link to a YouTube video. There, as if beamed from another planet, I gaze at a grainy VHS tape transfer that feels as jaw-droppingly vivid as an electrical shock to the nervous system. It is, yes, our one and only performance as Zeus & the Druids. The mythical jam in its entirety.
When I first watched the YouTube, I was dumbfounded. I watched again. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. I sent it to my daughter. I made my wife watch it. “You’re never gonna believe this…” I said. Then I spent the rest of the day feeling like…
