Here's one of the problems with being a music writer on more than just an "I only write about bands I really care about" schedule: sometimes you do your homework and do an interview and nothing works out -- you sit down to talk to someone and it just isn't happening. I just got off the phone with a member of the Asylum Street Spankers, who by all accounts--inlcluding my own, after watching some of their new DVD-- are a great band, a mixture of bluegrass and dixieland and gospel and general "southernness" --but the words just weren't coming out of my mouth. I was really tired and sticking to my strategy of "come up with a couple of half-formed questions and let the interviewee talk about their band," but he kept giving me these short answers that I couldn't find anything else to say. I just kept saying "uh, man, usually i'm better prepared than this" and "geez, sorry, i feel unprofessional." The low point was definitely when he said "so, is this for a school paper?" I got some quotes and everything, but that was freakin' awkward.