Smile Politely

Now Hear This! Ester Drang — “Valencia’s Dying Dream” (2006)

Near the end of my performing career, my band, Absinthe Blind, had the chance to open up for Starlight Mints at The Casbah in San Diego in August of 2003. Naturally, we did the chit chat thing with them upon arrival and following the show. It was learned soon thereafter that one of their members, Andy Nunez, also owned Opolis, an extremely hip all ages joint that does indie rock shows, in Norman, OK. He suggested that we hook up with a band called Ester Drang sometime and make our way there. We told him we’d love to, and went our separate ways after exchanging contacts and phone numbers and whatnot.

The very next day, my cell phone blows up and sure enough, it’s Andy from Starlight Mints. He’s laughing as he tells me that Ester Drang is scheduled to play in three days, the very same day that we were scheduled to pass through on (yet another) day off.

We made fast friends with Ester Drang. When they came to perform at Cowboy Monkey later that year, James, their drummer, gave me early rough mixes of their forthcoming record. This track was easily my favorite at the time, and remains so to the day.


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