Andrew and I met at Mickey Finn's for trivia again last night. After a pathetic round — in which Andrew argued vehemently that the postal abbreviation for Rhode Island is RH — and some pathetic fish and chips, we headed to the Viper Room to catch Cold Fusion's monthly set.

Cold Fusion is the rock-and-roll band that Andrew helped found. He no longer lends his guitar-playing and songwriting skills to the group, but he does lend his active support. Before last night, I'd only seen the band perform once before, though I've always been a fan.

Josh and Wes and Paul split their set between original material and cover songs. They performed a great version of the Dandy Warhol's "Bohemian Like You", for example (a song on yesterday's mix CD). They also shared a, well, strange version of Billy Joel's "She's Always a Woman to Me". It all sounded great. These guys rock.

In the past, I've worried that the group was limited by a lack of polish, and because Josh's voice wasn't strong enough. The guys seem to be addressing these issues. They sounded sharp last night, strong and confident. Josh's voice is more assertive, more powerful than it was two years ago. (He still has a tendency to creep out of his natural range, and he's sometimes too quiet, but there's been a marked improvement.) Last night's performance was fun; I look forward to continued improvement. (And, perhaps, a new CD eventually.)

I took my camera with me, anticipating the opportunity to make some photos. When I last saw Cold Fusion play, they were in a smallish room packed with people. Their venue was larger this time, and the crowd smaller, so it was much easier to work around with the camera. In fact, next time I'll actually take a tripod. The lighting conditions are so poor inside the Viper Room that even with a 50mm/f1.4 lens shooting at 1/25 of a second and 1600 ISO, I still barely had enough light. A tripod would be a tremendous boon.

Here are some mp3 samples of Cold Fusion's output:

• Bad Kitty (a song the guys seem to love playing)
• Captive to Your Voice (my favorite Cold Fusion song)
• Motherland (a song Andrew helped write)

None of these are recent recordings. As I say, the group has improved significantly over the past couple years.

On this day at foldedspace.org

2004 — Moving   Mary Jo called tonight. She's moved out. We can get into the new house any time. Do you know what that means? That's right: lots of silence in foldedspace-land.

2003 — The Big Tree   One summer we discovered a paper sack at the base of the tree. We couldn’t believe what the sack contained: girlie magazines and lots of them!

2001 — Bookhounds   A long silence yields a collection of random thoughts, mostly about books.

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