My Hotel Year was one of the many bands that Dan helped me fall in love with. When I heard that they were having a reunion show in Orlando, I knew we were going. Dan, Ellie, and I made the journey down and crashed with some of Ellie’s friends. Before the show, Dan and I familiarized ourselves with some local ad campaigns.
The show was great. The road trip was great. This is one of my favorite Dan memories.
I’ve always been intimidated by expensive guitars. Anything over $200 or so and I’d start to get a little reluctant. Dan, however, enjoyed the finer things in life. He worked at George’s Music at the time and wanted to check out their fancy guitars, which were in Orlando. He asked me if I wanted to go on a road trip. Of course I did, so we went. I heard Modest Mouse and Jimmy Eat World for the first time on the way down. When we arrived, we got a hotel and watched Princess Mononoke while ‘enjoying’ some Zimas. That was my first Studio Ghibli movie (and probably my last Zima). The next day we saw (and he played) the expensive guitars. They were sparkly and fancy and too rich for my blood. As we were checking out of the hotel, we saw a strange machine. It was an Internet terminal. Welcome to the future! I wanted a souvenir email, so Dan and I collaborated to write the following email:
