In 1990 I became friends with Dave. Dave had a pair of friends who were brothers – Will (older) and Russ (younger). They were okay, although I don’t think liked me; they tolerated me because I was Dave’s friends. But they’ve remained stuck in my brain cells for two reasons: to fix the intonation problems on my first guitar (a black Epiphone Strat copy) Russ bolted my bride to the body with two massive bolts that did not in fact fix my intonation, and just made the guitar worse. And one day I walked up Dave’s driveway to find the three of in a rough circle, dancing and laughing to the funkiest, sick music I ever heard. The song was “Soul Mate” off Hardcore Jollies, the mighty ninth album from the even mightier Funkadelic. I was never the same.