Stephen Mejias

I spent yesterday at my mom's house, celebrating my sister's 14th birthday. Uncles and aunts and cousins are scattered around the house, laughing and eating and shouting at the television screen as if someone is just going to die if the Celtics don't win this game. See me and my sister sitting side by side, somehow apart from it all: She's absolutely engrossed in Weird N.J., Vol.1 (I'm very proud of her), and I'm similarly rapt by Acoustic Sounds' "Under the Radar" list.

See these two smiling faces? That's my uncle Omar on the left. He's standing with John Rutan of Audio Connection in Verona, New Jersey, a short and happy drive from downtown Jersey City, along the Parkway and up good old Bloomfield Avenue, dotted with trees and liquor stores, pizzerias and movie theaters. A very fine place, indeed.

I was in bed for what felt like five minutes (it was actually five hours) when the little alarm clock let loose its hybrid buzz-chirp: 7am, time to wake up. I stumbled into the bathroom, my mind filled with thoughts of the previous night at Maxwell’s. The fluorescent white light above the cracked mirror blinked on and off for a couple of moments before steadying itself, reminding me of the camera bulbs that flashed while we were on stage. I heard myself think: “We’ll never play a bad show again. That’s all behind us now.”