Music Monday: Psychoviking edition.

Early last week, original Fields of the Nephilim bass player Tony Pettitt "liked" Fields of the Nephilim on Facebook, prompting fan speculation that he would be rejoining the band. (Neph fans get into reading the tea leaves. Sometimes years go by where we get nothing out of this band but tea leaves, so it's become a bit of a habit.)

Much to my astonishment, he did in fact appear playing bass for the band's show in Helsinki last Friday. Even more delightfully, based on both eye-witness accounts and YouTube video, the entire band appears to have sounded fantastic. (Alas, the sound quality on the YouTube videos is not great, but it's enough to let you imagine how it might have.)

As far as I know, nobody's made any statement about whether this is a one shot appearance or if Pettitt is back in the band long term. I kind of hope it's the latter. (If the stars align right, I might get a chance to see Fields of the Nephilim perform live during a trip to the U.K. I'm planning for next year. Would love to see them with this line up.)

Again, apologies for crappy sound, but here is the band playing "Psychonaut":

Meme: Age 23

How this works:
You comment, I give you an age (please tell me how old you currently are - I don't know all of your ages) and you fill out the meme questions.

wordweaverlynn gave me 23.

I lived in:
An apartment on Hearst Ave. in Berkeley with Daniel. My favorite thing about that apartment was that it was easy walking distance from both the U.C. Berkeley campus and Comic Relief and The Other Change of Hobbit. And that the living room window faced out on a large tree, and racoons would occasionally climb the tree and peer in the window at us while we ate dinner or sat on the couch and read.

I drove:
A dark blue Acura Vigor, handed down from my mother. I preferred to walk or take BART for most trips.

I was in a relationship with:
Daniel and I had just gotten married two weeks before my 23rd birthday.

I feared:
My graduate school qualifying exams. I knew that if I failed them it would throw a major wrench into my life plans, and yet I wasn't completely sure that I wanted to pass them either. (I did pass on my first try, though it was a near thing.)

I worked at:
I was in the Ph.D. program in chemistry at U.C. Berkeley. I think the year that I was 23 I was still taking coursework, working as a teaching assistant, and doing research towards my ostensible Ph.D. thesis.

I wanted to be:
At that point, I still wanted to teach and do research in chemistry at a university, although I was starting to have some doubts about whether academia was really a good fit for me.