John Ringhofer was on tour as Half-Handed Cloud with LAKE a few years ago. They were kind of each others backing band, as what tends to happen with tours with LAKE tours. After making a very recent to that time relocation to Bellingham, Washington, I found that LAKE was going to be playing there with some other acts I hadn’t heard of.

This to be one of the last shows at a coffee shop called Fantasia Coffee. It was on its way out and in a few months since business was apparently poor and Bellingham isn’t necessarily the best place to have a fledgling business either.

I hadn’t heard anything of Half-handed cloud before this show nor did I know who the band is. Apparently it was just John and LAKE for this particular show and the tour that the troupe had been on prior to this night. Every song wasn’t so repetitious in rhythm or similar in sound to one another. It was exciting to listen to rather than being pop music holding itself to a consistency sound that only slightly deviates. Within songs the style alternated so that either verse to verse or verse to chorus; there would be an auditory spotlight on one or two instruments playing… Then suddenly accompanied by rest of the band. It’s kind of like taking a highlighter pen to a textbook to tell the reader “Look at this, it’s important.”

Emphasis certain phrases, you could say.