Tom Svornich
	I don't know. The Admiral Tavern, I think, in West Seattle. We were doing a sit down blues gig, the kind of thing young musicians dream of - getting paid to play the blues in the same club four days a week. We were all in our mid-twenties, footloose and fancy free. Anyway, we were there for months and months, I can't remember how long, but Gary Cerutti was the band leader, and it was Cerutti who introduced us to this keyboard player, Steve Flynn. I guess what surprised me right from the start was that this guy, Steve Flynn, brought an electric piano all the way out to West Seattle, set it up, and sat in, all for free - obviously just for the love of playing music. I liked the guy right away. That love of playing music has always characterized Steve to me. In the three or four years following the Admiral Tavern gig in 1975, we played together a lot - and I loved every minute of our time together. We played with Jimmy Wallace and Elizabeth Guthrie in a goofy jazz band, we played with Brian Butler in a blues band, we played with Louie and Olderoid in a top-forty band, and we played with Bruce Hall in a hybrid band that was very satisfying musically. The thing was - it wasn't about style or how hip you were or how timely you were. It was just about music. Steve couldn't be categorized as a blues guy or a jazz guy or a rocker, or, well... he's a true musician, whatever the place, time, or situation (an aspiration of my own). I always liked that, a lot. Alaska So we had this gig in Juneau, Alaska one year. We were there for six weeks in May and June, playing six nights a week from I think 10:30 to 4:00 a.m. or some ungodly schedule like that. And you know, that time of year in Alaska, it doesn't get dark for more than a few hours... and we were playing during those hours, so, it's light out when you start playing and it's light out when you're done at 4 in the morning. It was very weird. The other thing about that gig was that we got to play whatever we wanted. We did an hour of jazz each evening, then filled out the night with dance music - of just about any kind. We experimented a lot. We played an original by Steve, I think it was called "Dancing by the Sea." I remember Steve had this funky cassette recorder that he'd keep on top of his keyboard on stage where he'd record us. I still have a copy of that tape---and it still gets played every now and then. It's good! I'm grateful he recorded it. We lived together in an apartment above the club for those six weeks. I'm grateful for that too. There was something very primal about Alaska. I remember the incredible blue Ice of Mendenhal Glacier, flying in a small plane over an icecap, arriving with no real accommodations and a sinking feeling that this is going to be the gig from hell, and then having it turn out to be a very fine gig indeed. Wild Alaska types, the final frontier, the essence of the "American character," raw, uncensored and alive in Alaska...most important, the magic of beholding it all, together in time and space, garbed as musicians, like two kindred souls enraptured by the sheer spectacle of being. I guess that's what I remember and feel most about my time with Steve - a feeling that endures, I might add. I always felt close and connected. He does that - something about his bright eyes and upright stance, his trusting and open demeanor - a posture towards the world that entreats, invites, connects, interacts, and is amused by the magic and the absurdity in all of it. Tom Svornich
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