Makka West on Miles

I still have a guitar pick that Miles dropped while playing at the Duke Coffeehouse in Durham, North Carolina on February 17th, 2007. That show is forever etched in my memory as one of the best I've, ever seen. It was a highly transformative moment, and made such a huge impression on me, at an age when I was so raw, open and ravenous for music. That show taught me something new and important about the hysterically fun and funny nature of playing live music with other people. I've moved between many houses and different parts of the country several times since then, and the physical possessions that have survived all of those moves are very few. But for whatever reason, that guitar pick is still with me. It's currently living in the corner of a framed picture of Billie Holiday in my living room.

A few years later, I was beyond thrilled to be the host of the Ann Arbor, MI listening party for Shinju TNT. My friend Matt took a great photo of us destroying the disc afterwards. We burned it in the alley behind the T-shirt printing shop where we had listened to it. The photo was used in an Akron/Family newsletter email which made my year.

Love, love, love, always.

-Makka