Dr. Snark - History

590 B.C.: Athenian legislator Draco is inadvertently smothered at the open-air theater in Aegina, when thousands of well-wishers in attendance at a testimonial in his honor shower him with their hats and coats.

874 (August): Vikings reach Iceland.

1813 (September): Oliver Perry defeats the British fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie.

1876: "The Hunting of the Snark", by Lewis Carroll, is published in England.

1908 (summer): At the Olympic Games in London, American Forrest Smithson wins the 110m hurdles race with a time of 15.0 seconds; during the race, he carries a Bible in his left hand for inspiration.

1910 (March): Harry Houdini makes the first controlled airplane flight in Australia.

1929: Surrealist artist René Magritte paints "La trahison des images" ("The Treachery of Images").

1986 (September): Paul Estin and James Kushner first meet, as undergraduates at the University of Chicago. In college, James is in various bands, including "Biohazard UK," noteworthy for the best-annunciated version of "Louie Louie" ever performed.

1990s: Paul and James occasionally make tape and CD mixes for each other, usually of odd, silly, weird, and/or eclectic music.

2000 (August): Paul and James first sing silly songs together as a duo, at a MassFilc meeting, near Boston.

2001 (February): Paul and James name their duo "Dr. Snark and the Mad Hatter". At Boskone 38, they perform "The Reanimator's Song (It's Not Life)" for a themed filk ("Beauty and the Beast").

2001 (April): Elizabeth Ryan joins the band, bringing some much-needed musicality to the whole enterprise.

2001 (May): Paul writes the first version of "Surreal Estate Broker". Later, when he learns to play guitar, he really wishes he hadn't written so hard-to-play a chord progression as the G-F#m-B7 in the chorus.

2001 (July): Fearing for his sanity, James moves as far away as he can afford, which turns out to be Sarasota, FL. Because he has taken his hat with him, "and the Mad Hatter" is dropped from the group's name.

2001 (August): Undaunted, Paul and Elizabeth soldier on.

2001 (November): Noticing a distinct lack of musical accompaniment now that James is gone, Paul buys a guitar and starts learning how to play it.

2002 (February 16): Paul and Elizabeth play their first concert, a 25-minute set at Boskone 39 in Framingham, MA. Click for setlist.

2002 (March 12): Paul and James play at an open mic in Sarasota, FL. Paul had only been playing guitar for four months at that point, and he had to perform amplified (for the first time ever), singing into a mic (for the first time ever), on a borrowed guitar (on which he had less than a minute to practice), and without enough light to see the lyrics very well. Despite all that, the set went pretty well. Click for setlist.

2002 (July): Paul considers playing at open mic nights solo, but decides that he first should get more practice playing in front of audiences in a more relaxed setting, so he starts Boston Area Song Swap.

2002 (August): Paul writes the most annoying stick-in-your-head song he's ever written, "Happy Song Virus".

2003 (February 15): Paul plays a solo concert set at Boskone 40 in Boston, MA. It goes pretty well. Click for setlist.