So I have a thing for musicians...

Or maybe just THIS musician. I always love watching Dirk perform, and have been going to see his shows for almost six years now. His bands have changed, his bass guitar has changed, but the feeling I get when he gets up there and sings in his James Morrison-esque voice has not changed.

Dirk started playing with a local band "Earthbound" about a year ago after taking a break from being a full-time musician with his former band "Looney Mill." Earthbound is an established Birmingham band with a very J.J. Cale/Grateful Dead sound. Needless to say, they have a built-in crowd around here. Joining a band that had been around for awhile meant that Dirk was not needed to be front and center since EB already has a lead singer and background vocals.

But a few weekends ago, the guys opened for the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, a group out of New Orleans that I have been going to see since back in my college days on the mountain when they would play frat parties in Sewanee. Now they open and sometimes play with huge names like Widespread Panic.

After Earthbound's set I excused myself to the ladies and was exiting the nasty gross stall when I heard a familiar sound. It was DIRK! And he was SINGING! A sound I hadn't realized I had missed so much in the past two and a half years since Looney Mill disintegrated. I started shrieking like a schoolgirl (literally shrieking like we used to do in first grade when we would wait at the side of the school building during middle recess to watch Colin Breyfogle walk up from the high school for lunch) and ran out to boogey. Dirk had somehow been able to talk some of the Dirty Dozen musicians into performing Bill Wither's song "Use Me" with him. SO much fun.



I can't really describe how proud I am of him when he's doing his thing. And as much as he grumbles and gripes about practice and the late nights (he's playing tonight and they won't START until midnight), I think it is SO important for him to have this creative outlet. And when he's up there and the girls are falling all over themselves because of his hotness and mad sex appeal, I think, "He's marrying ME, b!&%^3s!"