It was 1992. The band I'd been in, Vomit Launch, had called it quits less than six months prior. I'd decided to take a road trip to the Northwest, with the faint concept of finding a new place to live in an effort to get out of Chico, California, where I'd been living since 1981. Around four days into the trip, I found myself in Seattle, Washington, having breakfast with my old friends Carla Torgerson and Chris Eckman, of the group The Walkabouts. For years prior, we'd been trading off, getting each other's bands gigs in our respective areas, and though our music was fairly different, all of our band members got on great and enjoyed doing gigs together. Near the end of our meal I asked what they'd be doing that day. It turned out they had a session booked at Avast! Recording Co., and would be doing overdubs. Being that I loved working in the studio – note that this is a few years before I ever engineered a "pro" session – I asked if I could tag along. I remember Carla looking at Chris and saying, "We've got a special guest coming in today, so if you can be cool it'd probably be alright to hang for a little bit."
"Who's the guest?"
"Peter Buck, of R.E.M.," Carla replied.
"Oh shit," I thought.
We traipsed over to Avast!, which was just up the hill. I said hello to Kevin Suggs, the engineer and co-producer on the session, as we'd met before when he'd been on tour with The Walkabouts doing their live sound. Peter Buck showed up after a few, carrying a mandolin, an electric bouzouki, and a mountain dulcimer. R.E.M.'s last record, Automatic for the People, had featured a lot of acoustic instruments, and the previous album, Out of Time, had a huge hit with "Losing My Religion" – a song with a prominent mandolin line. Of course Peter was an absolute gentleman, and even claimed to have seen Vomit Launch play before, causing me to blush.
