After a long hiatus

 - maybe as long as five months, I seriously don't know - The Waterdogs finally reconvened, at least in our acoustic quartet manifestation. Quintet, actually, since Kurt had our occasional collaborator Gerry Tenney sit in. (For those of you steeped in Beatles' lore, I guess I'd compare Gerry's presence as similar in its stabilizing effect as Billy Preston's during the Let It Be sessions).

When we do our acoustic practices, we generally hold them in either Joe or Kurt's living room, and they are usually literally 100% acoustic - no mikes or amps of any kind. For me, this is a liberating experience - I get to wander around, bend, and move however I want, as I sing and play. Not sure if everyone else agrees, but it works for me, and not for the first time do I give thanks for the street music I played all those years ago - taught me how to sing and play nice and loud when needed.

We were decidedly rusty in some spots, but after that much downtime, hell, no shocker. Given that, we sounded OK. I felt a little bad for Gerry, since we had no charts or cheat sheets and not really enough time to walk him through the material, most of which he hadn't played in at least four years, if he'd ever played it all. But he's a pro, and he dug in fine, plus played us a couple of his (simpler) tunes for us to stumble through in return.

When it comes together, it's like leaving the ground, or like having the wind fill your sails; always has been, always will be.