This is "the girl from Mike's sketch notebook" from our hit single, "Flashlight Tag." She's on my wall today.

One of the last incarnations of the band was of the unplugged sort, and among other things, we did a couple of gigs at Mick's in Omaha, NE. They liked us a lot and gave us weekend spots; we returned the favor with pretty decent crowds each time. I love the above listing in the Reader for the 2/23/08 show (I turned 39 onstage that night and slowly grew a magnificent swirling mustachio in front of the crowd's very eyes), which describes us not as rock, nor pop, but "variety." Fantastic!

2005

Outdoor show, 7/3/01, Tecumseh, NE.

St. Patty's day, 3/17/01, Tecumseh, NE. Noah's first gig. 3 hour set, so lots o' covers: Trip Shakespeare, Beach Boys, Cheap Trick, Fleetwood Mac, etc.

Here's the cover for our forthcoming "Complete Recordings" album. Completion 2010? Only if you start working harder. That's Noah, by the way, from school nerd day, circa 1995.

Melissa was a student of mine at UNL in Spanish 102 around the time we started the band. This is her "Spanish background" info sheet for class, but I like to think of it more as her application to the band. I can only assume that by "eccentric bandmate" she is referring to Scott. In any case, we discouraged any "talk[ing] back," although her application to join the band was approved.

Knickerbockers, 6/07. With Scott on drums, Dan C. played keys for most of the set, then came out front for a few tunes on acoustic guitar to close. Having 4 vocalists in the front row was really something to hear/see. Nary a harmony nor a counter-melody would sound thin. Regrettably, Mike was unable to join us for this final rock show, but his songwriting fingerprint was of course present throughout the bulk of our material. Perhaps we will reconvene a final time as a 6-piece when the album is done.

Knickerbockers, 6/07

Knickerbockers, 6/07

Much like a focused, steady center fielder, Dan employed an aggressive "both hands" microphone technique for his vocals.

Knickerbockers, 6/07, Melissa and Dan pre-show; as guitarists (and see the Dick Dale-signed mammoth behind us), we were both really good singers.

Rehearsal at (keyboard) Dan's house in Tecumseh prior to 6/07 Knickerbockers gig. Dan has a great rehearsal space there--a mere 1 block from the historic Tecumseh, NE town square.

@ PJ's Pub in Manhattan, KS, winter 2007. The headlining band from Oklahoma City didn't make it, so we did 3 prolonged sets--consisting of only 3 3-to-4-minute songs each--with 1/2 hour breaks between! We all agreed afterward that we played/sang better than ever that night, but we should've just filled the whole time with music; we had some 30 songs in our repertoire, but I guess we were locked in to our customary/rehearsed set at that point, who knows . . .

Though he would not formally join the group until years later, Noah's recruitment into NSD began very early on, as evidenced by this photo circa 1987. Note: Dan's mullet is really taking shape at this time, already requiring careful and extensive grooming, and daily watering.

From the beginning, NSD was a friend to the animals. And we liked both kinds: large and small. Here, meet Melissa's dogs: Large and Small.

Eliza F. Manning's Near and Far in a Cloud-Land Car. [England? Between 1883 and 1900?]

Seen here, the massive Mavac reel-to-reel recording deck, assembled and used to record basic drums-bass-guitar rhythm tracks for many of Near South Davenport's original songs @ Daniel Christian's home in the early 2000s. The band received a Soviet Ministry of Culture Arts Grant for the Advancement of Adolescent Musics, itself part of the final Ten-Year Plan for Cultural Progress, which is nearing its expiration as I type this. As such, the band intends to finish and rush-release its Complete Recordings (the original reel tapes for which now reside in the vault/closet of my current residence) perhaps as early as this year. In this photo you can observe technicians/band members Noah Beadell and Scott Schwister making final adjustments to the sensitive Mavac meters and knobs before recording commences.

These were the official telephones at Pop! Dirigible Records, the NSD label rehearsal space/home studio on Chautauqua Ave. in Lincoln, NE, used to monitor our beloved Melissa's estimated time of arrival (eta) for practices: phone 1 rang to let us know she was running a bit late; phone 2 to say she was about 15 min. behind schedule; phone 3 to say she'd be there in 1/2 hr; phone 4 to say she prob wouldn't make it tonite. Not pictured, however, is phone 5, which was actually not a phone at all, but the door knob Melissa would turn when she would indeed arrive and sing like a beautiful songbird, making NSD a cosmic, vocal harmonies force of nature.

Nice Dockers, Dan. I do wish I still had that burgundy sunburst Fender Lead III guitar, though. It was my first electric guitar and I bought it in 1986 from my cousin Dave Hutt, who bought it from Knoll's Music, in Beatrice, NE. I'll find it again someday.