Part II: Falling Into Place...

Rob was replaced by David Evertson on bass by late 2001, who would stay with the band for nearly a year and help their grooves to expand immeasureably. This photo is from the band's first gig at The Flamingo Cantina.

DN late 2001 - mid 2002. (L-R) Chris Powell, Steve Sponseller, Kenny Grigar, David Evertson and Brooke Wilton.

The personnel of DN changed a great deal in 2002: adding and subtracting keyboard players and swapping out drummers on a regular basis for a while. DN even added a Chapman Stick player briefly. Despite the setbacks of changing lineup, they continued to forge ahead and temper their existing tunes, slowly accumulating new material and fine-tuning their improvisational abilities while playing out around Austin and developing a loyal following. During this period, new standards like Blues', Road's End, Martyrcise, and Short Circuit (Overload) were added to the ever increasing repertoire.

DN got it's first picture in the paper early in 2002 with this ad.

Click here to see full ad.

Dwarf Nebula (L-R David Evertson, Ric Furley, Brooke Wilton, and Chris Powell) play the Rolling Thunder Downhome Democracy Tour. Photo by John Anderson.

In March of 1999, at the King Crimson ProjeKct Three show at Antone's, Brooke met Ric Furley. Though he had no idea who he was or whether he played any instruments, he walked up and said "You will be our drummer some day. Oh Yes." -and then proceeded to regain consciousness. Ok, that's an exaggeration, but it is not too far off from the truth. Ric juggled two bands at the time, The Offended Homeless and Mundi Ensemble, David's first gig with Dwarf Nebula,(shown at the top of this page) had been in opening for The 'Homeless at a benefit at the Flamingo Cantina. Ironiically, a homeless man gave the band a dollar that night, so it was surely not DN who had offended them.

While the band shopped for drummers throughout 2002, Ric was the band's surrogate drummer and actually ended up playing more gigs with the band than any other that year. The photo above was snapped by Austin Chronicle Photographer John Anderson at Jim Hightower's Rolling Thunder Downhome Democracy Tour, where DN played before 7,000 people along with 10 other bands in a day long event interspersed between speakers like Michael Moore, Molly Ivins, and Jesse Jackson Jr. It was there that they debuted Red and White Blues, handing out lyrics sheets so folks could sing along.

Though the band had picked up a great deal of momentum by mid 2002, a series of bizarre circumstances then left Brooke and Chris once again without collaborators. "Band chemistry is a delicate thing" -comments group leader Brooke Wilton, "Once personnel that have played as a unit for a while loses one member, it can have a cascade effect on the others. I have always felt it was a great honor to have such talented musicians believing in this dream I started, so I have never taken it personally when people feel the need to move on."