Come along for the ride and watch a fledgling Chapel Hill band turn into the next big thing. This is real. brilliant is a real band, consisting, by coincidence, of brothers Mike, Joe, and Pete Procopio.

There are 37,000 bands in Chapel Hill and eight clubs. Or at least it seems that way. I mean, the Hill is the home to Ben Folds Five and Squirrel Nut Zippers. So when you get a show, anywhere, you get a SHOW. You score there and you move on to the next level. We think.

Anyway, we scored.

First things first though, we played our comeback show in front of a private audience at my house. We played in the garage, which gave it just the right flavor, and the audience numbered about 20. They ate it up, and not just the way your friends applaud. They really grooved on it.

So we know a friend of a friend who got us an opening slot at Go! in Chapel Hill on a Monday night. It was such a guerilla show, we didn't have time to do publicity or even soundcheck. We showed up, plugged in, tuned, and then turned to face about 30 people (whom we all brought, the headliner brought about 3 or 4 others). I opened the show by letting the feedback ring out on my guitar and putting forth my best stage banter ever ("Now, we rock.") We kicked into Hello, a song I wrote for Allison about three years ago. Then we got relentless.

We ended the song with the feedback again, and before it faded we jumped into Selfless, a stark contrast to the rush of Hello. The crowd loved the back to back. We did Hey George, the only song we're keeping from either of the first two records, then True Love, a number with tricky changes that I refurbished for the solo radio show a while ago. We did the insane punk/grunge cover of Just What I Needed, then Simp, then another cover, Easily, and we closed with the forthcoming single, I Want It.

We gave away about six copies of our old CD psyched!, I called it a symbol of ending the old era and beginning a new one. No one got that. From that show, Go! has asked us back, we got a block party (and they don't mind that we do mostly originals, which is great). And someone said they would call us about a gig in Athens, GA. Go figure.

The fact that this is coming together so quickly is astounding. After taking almost a year to replace Andrew and then Jeff, the fact that the replacements are my brothers just blows my mind.

Next month, expect something more interesting, more readable, and less self-serving. Right now, I'm just basking in it.

-joe