Joey

Since I am married and expecting a baby, I feel quite safe in saying that I was utterly overcome with emotion when I found a picture of Joey Eppard on the internet.

Joey was the first boy I ever fell madly in love with. He was in love with someone else, just as hopelessly (well, except that they eventually got together), and we were close friends for years. His band, 3, remains to this day the band that I have seen live the most times. And today I found out that they are still together, though Joe is the only original member, and their albums are on Amazon.

Joey played the guitar like it was part of him. He could have been a one man band with just the guitar. He restrung a left-hand guitar right-handed, like Jimmi Hendrix but the other way round. Unless he was actually left-handed, which is possible. My memory isn't so great.

When I knew them, Joey's younger brother Josh played the drums and Chris Bittner played bass. I hope they are both doing well. They were terrific people. (Apparently Josh has a rap album out, which - and I hate to sound like an old hen, but he was 13 when I knew him - is just the cutest thing I have ever heard.)

OK - 3 is on MySpace, which I normally hate, but I will take anything I can get. And they have three songs available there. And when I heard Joe's voice I started to cry. And I know I could blame the pregnancy hormones, but I think this is some form of desperate nostalgia. He was just So Damn Important to me for so long, and to not know him at all anymore made a hole that I didn't even know about.

Obviously, the only thing for me to do is go stuff my face with Mexican food. (And that is the pregnancy talking.)