Aerophish

Have you ever wondered what it would sound like if The Grateful Dead were a cover band playing in Taiwanese bars. I found out Sunday night in Taipei.

Sunday was actually a working day for me, stopping by the TICC to register for the tradeshow. I picked up my speaker information and the trade show backpack, filled with pens and my very own set of Microsoft chopsticks.

“You are trying to eat shrimp. Allow/Deny?”

I ran into one of my German customers at the show and we ended up going to lunch. I met his company’s “Bryan”, a Taiwanese engineer from their local office who met us for lunch with his wife & child. We talked business, the wife talked to us about our world travels and Bryan’s son made strange faces while stuffing dumplings into his face (chewing seemed to be an unpopular option for his young eating habits).

After a rest break in the hotel room, I met with C and one of local friends for dinner at Tone. Tone is a small bar near his hotel that features live bands most nights of the week. I grabbed a good meal and a cider while chatting with C’s local schoolteacher friend. While we were chatting about American politics and bratty school kids, the band kicked in.

The band seems to be made up of ex-pats, and their influences were pretty clear after a few songs. The first few songs felt right with their “jam band” style, but the Aerosmith cover was a bit out of place. Imagine the Grateful Dead playing “Walk This Way” … yeah, let that sink in … weird, isn’t it? But there’s band I’m now calling “Aerophish” over my left shoulder grooving alone with a song that they totally made their own. I’m not sure how Jerry Garcia would feel about this.

Unlike Friday or Saturday night, I made this an early evening. I was in bed by midnight, on a good schedule to wake Monday and get into “free range engineering” mode.