1. how did you get into braid?
i'd always heard about them, but never heard them...then in the winter of 1999 i was working as an intern at DEN [the digital entertainment network...forever remembered as one of the biggest dot-com crash and burn stories in history] and was given an advance copy of "lucky to be alive" for review. the rest was history.

2. top 5/10 braid songs.
niagara / i keep a diary / urbana's too dark / movie clock star / forever got shorter / what a wonderful puddle / collect from clark kent / grand theft autumn / the consolation prizefighter / grace car

3. top 3/5 braid lyrics.
eek, don’t get me started... “these are the things that make us laugh, these are the things that make us cry, these are the things that make our knees shake for fear's sake, and make our hearts break…” / “windows down, the idiots yell at me, meek on the street, clueless as usual and unbelievably easily bruisable” / “when you can’t see anything, you feel everything” / “at least our car will go down with some grace” / “you can’t look at the sky without looking right through it” / “but once in your arms, we'll rise above the ground, you and me and the beautiful aerial view of sunrise city, i'm never coming down...”

4. favorite braid song lyrically:
collect from clark kent

5. favorite braid song musically:
what a wonderful puddle

6. favorite braid moment (shows, song, etc):
the climax around 4:30 into “i keep a diary” -- i only wish it were a little longer.

7. moment(s) that braid was the soundtrack for your life:
just about all of winter 1999 to the present. my tastes have evolved quite a bit in that time but i’ll always have a place in my heart for braid.

8. what braid song(s) take you back to a certain moment?
“the new nathan detroits” -- i just remember it flickering out of bad computer speakers one afternoon while i was working at DEN, and me just thinking “whoa.”
“collect from clark kent” -- the girl i’ve been going out with for the past eight months is one of the few people i’ve ever met in my time that appreciates braid’s music to the same degree that i do...the monday after sparks first flew for us, she played “collect from clark kent” on her college radio show and dedicated it to me -- it was quite heartwarming.
“a dozen roses” -- this song always reminds me of a trip that my dad and i took to austin, texas, for a writer’s conference in the fall of 2000. i just remember listening to it on the plane. i don’t think i brought anything but “frame and canvas” on that trip.

9. favorite braid member and why:
i suppose i’d have to take the easy route and say bob. he’s definitely one of my greatest influences as a songwriter, though i know i’ll never touch his vocabulary. i interviewed him for a zine that i never finished in 2000 on the first hey mercedes tour, and though i was nervous as shit he was really kind to me. it was a good time.

10. favorite non-braid band/project featuring braid member(s):
does cap’n jazz count? if not, i suppose i’ll have to say friction.

11. moment/habit that proves you are crazy about braid:
i don’t know...my favorite place to listen to braid [well, my favorite place to listen to anything, really] is in the car, and i always scream along and tap along on the steering wheel. i probably look ridiculous but it’s impossible not to do so.

12. most bizarre braid trivia you know:
it isn’t really trivia, isn’t directly braid-related, and isn’t really all that interesting, but i heard that when hey mercedes would go on tour, they took two vans and bob, todd and damon banished mark to what they dubbed “the smoking van,” where he was accompanied by the roadies and whoever else was on tour with them at the time. personally, i think it’s a little silly that they had that much of a problem with something of such little magnitude, and i really miss what mark brought to that band, but i’m sure there were other issues between them other than his habit of lighting up.

site

1. how did you get involved with cas?
i just stumbled across it, i suppose, and thought it was so great that a band that has been defunct for over three years still has such a wonderful following.

2. what would you like to do/see more on this site?
more media -- i.e. photography, video, live recordings [perhaps we could set up an FTP for this?]...maybe a special section where we discuss some of the many other really underrated bands of the same time period as bra!d.