Seattle, February 2004. Aubrey and Valbert Smart were living in a big empty room across from a hospital and a 24-hour grocery store. They were already hearing music all the time. The people's music: ambulance sirens, car horns, parking lot fist fights.

When you have lots of floor space, people want to give things to you. A friend moved away from Seattle, leaving her drum kit in their care. "Put it to good use," she said.

Valbert had an old knock-off guitar that his brother had given him the summer before. "Put it to good use," he said.

Aubrey sat down at the drum kit for the first time. Thirty minutes later she was playing "Boys Don't Cry" by the Cure.

Valbert told Aubrey, "I'll play guitar with no distortion, and just a little reverb for sustain. I'll fold my left hand forward instead of back. I can actually play real chords that way."

Aubrey said, "I'll wear my sunglasses."

Between the sirens, the horns and the fist fights, no one heard them practicing. Let me rephrase that. No one ever complained. Not Dottie, with the two-pack-a-day habit and faded slippers. Not Kendra, who fixed toilets and roughed people up for money. Not Mike Watt, who did like the Minutemen.

Later that Spring at a rock and roll show, Valbert and Aubrey saw yet another band slide through yet another set that was aimed straight at an SUV commercial. From their looks to their hooks to their naked ambition, the band gave everything away. Worst of all, they covered the same songs everyone always covers. Covers so boring that I’ve forgotten what they were.

"You know what nobody's ever done?" Aubrey asked. "Covers of Ambrosia. Bread. Dr. Hook. Loggins." (She always referred to him as simply "Loggins.")

"You're right," Valbert said. "No one's ever done that."

"And in the songs we write, we're not going to give everything away. Our music is for everyone, but there needs to be some mystery."

"We need to hold a little back for ourselves," Valbert said.

"Yah. We're the Withholders," Aubrey said.