There's nine of us, nine of us and piles of wires and musical instruments crammed into the fourth floor dorm room. It's late Thursday night, or maybe early Friday by now, and they're recording the cello part for their latest track.

Four of us have come up from the third floor to listen and to watch. Three of the girls fit onto the bottom bunk, and I'm on the floor next to a plastic storage bin he's pulled out from underneath the bed. He hooks up a mic and runs a few lines in and out of a four track, then straight into several jacks on the front the computer.

They arrange sheets of music on a stool for the cellist and adjust the mics so that he has plently of room to maneuver the bow across the strings. The warm up is some Megadeth. The two guitarists improvise along with him.

Then, they're ready to go: close the door, shut the window, turn of the fan and "shhhh".

In a few minutes [after "fuck, i keep fucking up"s], there's "got it" and everyone hovers around the computer as they hit play for the first time. Suddenly, its a mixed track, missing only the vocals and maybe a bit more instrumentation from random kids on the hall.

The boy with the oh-so-soft eyes is grinning like a little boy on Christmas morning, "beautiful, man" with his arm around the blond girl from my floor.