William Shatner plays Bill, an ordinary man. Your typical music lover who takes in an evening performance by a band he believes to be American Paint. But as we all know, appearances can be deceiving. And Bob may never fully recover from what he's about to find out... because he's just crossed over into the Twilight Zone...

The scene is an unknown music club in an unknown location. It might be in San Francisco, it might be in Minneapolis. Hell, maybe even Tennessee. Enter Bill, a portly sort dressed in a skin- tight mustard pullover. A "$9.99" sale tag hangs down from the back of his perfectly groomed toupee. He takes a seat at the bar. "Stir me up a Romulan Viinerine." He turns to the man at the stool next to him. "So! I... hear that this band... American Paint... is... a... good alt-country... band."

"We're about to find out, Captain," replies his most unwilling conversation partner. Bill moves towards the stage with his drink (which looks suspiciously like a Blue Hawaii). The house lights dim, and on comes American Paint. They break into their first song, "Heddy."

Bill rubs his eyes and stares at the stage in disbelief. It's not American Paint he sees, but instead, the Gin Blossoms. It can't be. They broke up, he thinks to himself. Even Doug Hopkins is on stage, and he killed himself years ago! He takes a gulp of his drink and looks back at the stage. Suddenly, there's Bard Meier instead of Robin Wilson.

Attributing the hallucination to his drink, Bill gets into the music. American Paint breaks into another song, "Ghoat," and suddenly it's Uncle Tupelo on the stage! Bill breaks out into a sweat. "Excuse me, miss," he says, tugging at a barmaid's sleeve. "I... thought... I was here to... see... American Paint. But... but... tell me that's... not... Uncle Tupelo up there! Tell me that's... not... Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy!" He frantically buries his face in her apron.

"Oh no, sir. It's not," she offers in a reassuring voice. "That's most certainly Bard Meier, Darren Harff, David Schultz, and Sean Hoffman. And barring major legal issues over the name, they most certainly aren't Uncle Tupelo."

The evening progresses further and further, with Bill seeing alternate versions of Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, and the Gin Blossoms. He becomes steadily more frantic, sweat beading down the sale tag, his tight pull- over getting wrinkled and flustered. Finally, after a song titled "Can I Sleep in Your Arms," he screams out in a panic. "It is Uncle Tupelo! They've come back to take over the stage! And the world! They'll destroy us all! Ahhh!"

The last time we see Bill, even his toupee is in disarray. He's strapped to a gurney, being wheeled into an ambulance. A crowd of concerned and disturbed concert- goers gather around to watch him make the trip to the institution. He babbles to himself, "Uncle Tweedy American Gin Farrar Paint Tupelo Blossoms..."

"Poor sap, he's delirious," comments one of the paramedics as they close the door. "You'd think he'd know American Paint when he sees it." The ambulance speeds away, and we get a view of the tour buses that were obstructed. On the side of a road- weary Greyhound, in worn lettering, we can make out the words "Uncle Tupelo." And on another, with the destination sign reading Phoenix, we can see in red letters, "Gin Blossoms..."

Often times we experience a phenomenon known as deja vu. It's the eerie sensation that we've lived through something before. Often it's just that, a sensation. A sensation triggered by stimuli that mirror a past experience. In the case of Bill Shatner, a mild- mannered concert goer, it was more than a sensation. It became his reality. He could no longer distinguish between American Paint and many of the alt-country bands that had preceded it. They all melded into one, to where American Paint became some bizarre musical gremlin, wreaking havoc on the alt-country sound by ripping spare parts from other bands and sabotaging our ears.

For Mr. Shatner, this manifestation became a reality in an unknown club with a booking agent from... the Twilight Zone.

-Duane Ambroz