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It is 2002 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin upstairs in a rented student house and Justin Vernon is in my arms weeping, saying, “I just want my band back.” Over a decade has passed and still, just today, I was on the phone with a writer from the New York Times who was doing a story on Wisconsin music, and really all anyone wants to talk about is the early aughts in Eau Claire. How many fucking times can my dear old friend Vern have his truly magical narrative incanted? How many times must his story be invoked by another, held up by an also-ran? One more time. This one. It’s the last one. You know that oblique, Grammy-winning line “That time you played me ‘Lip Parade’”? “Lip Parade” was a Josh Scott song. Josh Scott is a disruption. He is as reliable as the wind. He is an earthquake. He is a drought. He is a thirty-year flood. He is my best friend. That band Vern wanted back, DeYarmond Edison, shared members Brad and Phil Cook and Brian Moen with Josh’s band, Amateur Love. Vern and I were about to go see Josh’s band play. They were the better band and everyone knew it. The songs were better. The ideas were grander. The subject matter weirder. The narrators more honest and articulate. The frontman more compelling. The potential greater. Amateur Love were and remain the best band I have ever seen. Plans were hatching. Futures were congealing. And Josh got spooked like a deer. He abruptly ended Amateur Love and moved to Chicago, essentially gifting the members fully to Justin, allow