When I met my friend Pete, he asked if I could sing. I lied and said yes, I did – which was part truth and part lie. The truth was I did sing – but whether I could sing was different.

I lied by saying yes so that it would force me to do it.

Pete showed up with his friend and girlfriend, and a lot of equipment. He had his pit-bull with him too, a female named Jenny who humped our Golden Retriever, Chumley.

Pete and his friends wore thrift-store hats and cool eyeframes. I drank vodka out of a pint glass to prepare for the recording.

The first song was me over the sound check, experimenting with a microphone for the first time. It was sung in the style of Jim Morrison, with ad-lib lyrics involving Chumley. It sounded pretty good after the vodka.

There wasn’t much to the recording and I was sad that I didn’t remember how it ended.

After a lot of editing, I was able to salvage a clip I put on mix tapes that year: “Karma Sutra Man,” in which I aped Damo Suzuki, from CAN.