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& Dave or whatever else my parents had around). Eventually I worked in my right leg (bass drum) and left leg (hi-hat) until I was fully playing along. By the time I actually sat down to a real drum kit, I could already play. In the summer between third and fourth grade, I met Jim at center court of the gymnasium at St. Martha Catholic School. He had just moved back from Atlanta, and our parents had enrolled both of us in this summer "vacation" church-school session. I think he hated it as much as I did, and we found a mutual joy in changing hymnal lyrics to something more befitting of the moment. (I won't go into what we said, but we were crying with laughter.) A day later, I saw Jim and his sisters walking around the block by my house, found out that we lived right down the street from each other, found out we had the same birthday. The rest was pretty easy. The first time I met Tom was after he had joined My Morning Jacket, sometime between 1998 and 1999. I was living with Jim and the first drummer, J. Glenn. (Side note: Jim and J. Glenn were consummate thieves of the Robin Hood nature. At the time they had no money, so they would "borrow" things from superstores and better their lives and the lives of those around them. If you listen to "X-mas Curtain," it tells the tale.) So anyway, I heard knocking on the front door, opened it, and in walked Tom and one of the kindest smiles I've ever known. Without knowing him, I immediately liked him. We connected on all things musical and pieced together a wonderful friendship. I just crossed over the decade mark with the band, so I've been thinking about my first shows quite a bit. My first live experience with My Morning Jacket was three shows in 24 hours. We played Lynagh's in Lexington (opening for NRBQ) on Friday night, drove back to Louisville for some sleep, headed out the next morning for the Nashville River Stages Festival, and back to Louisville to play Headliners that night with VHS or Beta. I had so much fun I couldn't see straight. The feeling of adventure was so intense. Fast-forward ten years to a headlining set at Forecastle, and the levels of excitement and adventure are still immense. The venue sizes have changed, and we are forever thankful for that, but the feelings that drove us at the beginning of our career are the same feelings that drive us today. By Tom Blankenship On a summer afternoon in '93, I'm lying on the floor of a friend's garage in La Grange, Ky., during band practice. My 15-year-old head is swimming in a cloud of reverb and feedback, feeling the electric rumble of hope in discovering and making music with friends, in finding a voice to express a whole host of feelings that I never knew were rattling around or had a thing to say. Oh, and I'm also filled with the electricity of an ancient, ungrounded PA system, my arms flapping like a hummingbird's wings on the cold cement. On Dixie Highway the summer before, in what now seems like a bizarre post-middle school rite of passage, I have my braces removed and convince my mom to help me buy my first bass guitar: a Sunburst P-bass copy of questionable construction. That night my dad's LP collection becomes a playground library. CCR, Humble Pie and, of course, Led Zeppelin. The needle hits the groove and my brain is transformed into a mess of wires and gears. Every new sound completes a circuit and a new world is opened for me to explore. Completely unsure what role the bass guitar actually plays, my fingers fumble around those four strings, struggling all night to mimic Robert Plant's voice. Before the commonwealth of Kentucky would give me means to leave Oldham County on my own, my mom sacrificed perfectly good evenings supporting her son's newfound obsession while waiting in the parking lot outside Tewligan's on Bardstown Road or the Machine in St. Matthews for shows to let out. Some of the most memorable weekends were of Rodan, Hula Hoop, Falling Forward, Guilt and the countless other bands they formed, like a musical-chairs game. Being in the crowd those nights, hundreds of souls searching to be in the moment and free to let themselves feel, without judgment or hesitation, whatever they needed to — that connection, a chain of simultaneous reactions between the sea of kids and the bands onstage till it felt like the tide was crashing back and forth, both sides feeding off each other in a harmonious and cathartic way. It would inform me more about playing live than anything I've experienced since. [52] LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 7.12