One day all these bands will be broken up. Some will wonder if they ever really existed.
Their powers are vast. They can magically distract us from nonstop drinking. Rise above the din of the rowdiest celebrants. Get spat on and take it as a compliment.
The universe is changing shape. Not long ago there were heavens and firmaments, and mortals aspired to dwell there at the feet of gods, looking down at Earth and rocking it. Now, there is doubt and indignity, yet the bands still play. They still gather and serve.
These are their stories.

Our scene here is flat and easily navigable. There is a high-born breed who inhabit the College on the Hill. Down the slope are the people’s temples, with their distinct congregations:
D’Aulaire’s Famous Rock Club Cafe, the colorful mainstream mecca of dance, joy and expensive tickets. Altar for nationally touring bands uplifted by the collegiate economy.
Hamilton’s Tap Room, for glorification of mortals who cover the music of the gods and spread it to those gifted followers who can drink, dance and whoop simultaneously.
There are makeshift meeting-houses of musical appreciation found in basements and lodges and churches and school halls throughout the city. There are boiler rooms and lounges and attics on campus. There are bedrooms with recording equipment stashed under the bed, for private worship. There are diffuse local-band radio programs.
Then there is the Bullfinch. When the gods return to the planet, or create a new breed right here on land. When the outside world traverses the river and finds us and realizes that the gods have landed before them, the mangy location where the lightning strikes will be the Bullfinch.
That’s not why we hang there. But that’s what we believe.

Worship services this night: The Hyperboreans return to the College on the Hill where they formed so many years ago, for a reception and student-only concert. Then they play all night at D’ollaires… Sun Bright Deep and Golden Gardens at Hamilton’s; the latter has several Hyperborean covers in their repertoire… At the Bullfinch, dark dismal calm to counteract the party spirit elsewhere: Winds of the North, Becalmed in Sleep and the live debut Silent Conchs…