Waking someone up for a phone interview about their band is the bane of every music journalist’s existence. It can happen to us as often as once a week. You ring, they answer groggily, you remind them that this call was arranged days in advance, they say “Is that now?,” you avoid offering to call back later because a deadline looms, and then you lob very easy questions while waiting for them to wake up as you’re talking.

So much easierto do interviews in bars. The interviewees often balk because they don’t think they’ll be clearheaded. But they don’t know what they sound like at 10:30 in the morning after that night in the bar is over.

This week we phoned someone so out of it that they got everything wrong: the date of his next gig, the title of one of his songs, even at one point the name of one of his previous bands.

We won’t embarrass the guy by naming him, but the upshot is that the interview had to be voided and the story didn’t happen. (We plugged the show regardless, but in a lesser, interview-free format.)

Next time, we advise, just go for that last drink and pour your heart out at the bar. Better than fighting your dreamstate first thing in the morning. We speak fluent bar-lingo. We have yet to master semi-comatose.

Tonight: Doomladen lyric night at the Bullfinch with Romantic Egotist, Write Hard and Orderly Man in a State of Disorder… Big Envelope Marked Scott and Don the Red, headbanging love rock, at Hamilton’s… Rap hasbeens Steve Old School Beaver (OSB) and $6 Car Wash at D’Ollaire’s, barely holding onto their jewelry …