Eric bought a guitar just months after SIAF split up, and started to write music. And that is all he did for seventeen years. He wrote a lot of guitar bits, a dozen or so songs, but mostly he lived his life, had kids, moved a couple of times. Ended up back in Iowa.
Sunday of Labor Day weekend 2000 his now ex-wife told him to go to the local open mic. She knew he was miserable not playing. Eric hadn't, partly out of fear, but also because he had to be up at 5 in the morning for work. He didn't have to be up the next morning, so he had no excuse and he went. And it went well. Sunday night at Boheme Bistro became his rehearsal time for the next seven years. If he was in town, and hadn't been traveling that weekend, you would probably find him there. And he started to play more elsewhere.
In 2002 Eric went to the Mahtowa Folks Festival in Mahtowa MN for the first time. They were having some concerts, and a songwriting contest. It became his favorite weekend of music for seven years. He appears on three of the CDs, and was the only person to appear in the first seven years of the songwriting contest. He even won second place one year with a silly song about how he never won the contest. Then he got side tracked by a thing called Musecon.
Eric also stumbled into Filk around 2002. He had heard of Filk, but hadn't made it to any of the circles. He showed up at one, sat for a couple of hours, finally got up the nerve to play a song. Sat for another hour, and lost his nerve and went to bed. He did this at a couple Chicago cons. But he made friends who he still hangs with to this day, and heard some amazing music. And he played his first convention show at Duckon in 2003.
He played at most of the midwestern cons over the next eight years, including being a GOH at Archon in 2005. But in 2007 he foolishly told gundo about an idea he had for a band ...