Vision & Blues

I've spent the last two days fighting off a sinus headache that would make a hippo want to bite down on a nuclear warhead. I could never figure how anybody can function with some kind of cranial malady. Once I tried filing budgets with a migraine, and I accidentally paid somebody $6 a word. (No worries, though: I think it was for Tim Karan's Anthony Green valentine.) Man, the list of things I've agreed to in order to get some alone-time to cope with headache pain is staggering: "Sugar Ray would make a great cover, right?" "Listen to our demo. We're called the Flipside." "I think we should hire Scott Heisel. Pettigrew?"

I can only speak for myself, but the best thing about headache pain is the drug cocktail I ingest to stop it. Naw, I'm not talking Absolut and St. Joseph aspirin (mmmm, orange!). I'm talkin' the usual combo of over-the-counter action and prescription allergy meds, washed down with overpriced bottled water. You know why? The dreams are really, really cool.

According to my darkened brain, last night I was in some club in Chicago. My old-school AP buddies were buying rounds of drinks and making sure my glass was always full. I watched a bouncer put a clueless blogger critic through a door without opening it. But most importantly, there was this band playing old-school punk/new wave blasts. I didn't catch their name, but I knew who was in it: Dustin Donaldson (drums, I Am Spoonbender), Justin Pearson (bass, the Locust), Rocky Crane (guitar, Year Future, Some Girls) and Russell Haswell (laptop racket-maker). They were all wearing suits and playing some of the most tightly wound energy blasts I've ever heard in my life. Then, just before a Tracy Adams doppelganger grabbed my neck, my sheltie Bowie jumped on my chest (yes, in the bar), and I found myself awake, back in Cleveland and struggling to find my bathrobe so I could take the barky bastard outside.

As much as I miss free booze and hanging with my dear friends, I'm really saddened the above band doesn't exist. But my sadness has given way to blog fodder. So in the spirit of Tim Karan's fantasy football leagues and my cold medicine-induced alternate reality, I am now asking you to send over your dream-band lineups. The only rules are that all your players have to be alive and you gotta name three songs you'd want to hear your hand-picked team play. Get goin'.