When Bob (Deckman) Nelson and I formed a duo way back in the mists of antiquity, we felt we needed some kind of name, and since we sang a lot of sea songs and hailed from the Pacific Northwest, we decided to call ourselves "The Nor'westers." We thought it was positively brilliant -- until we saw it on a poster for an upcoming concert. Suddenly it was almost embarrassing. We let it go and just didn't use it after the concert. Since we were singing together three nights a week and doing concerts from time to time, we were becoming fairly well-known around here. We let the whole idea of picking some eye-catching, ear-teasing moniker drop and just let people decide what they wanted to call us. It came out to be various permutations of "Don Firth and Bob Nelson" or "Bob Nelson and Don Firth," and eventually became "Don and Bob" or "Bob and Don." That seemed to work okay for us.

There was a duo around here that formed sometime after we did, composed of Mike Neun and Brian Bressler. Both of them had a ninety degree out, off-the-wall sense of humor and they did a lot of really hilarious comedy stuff. They billed themselves as "Mike and Brian: An Act as Exciting as Its Name." I always kind of liked that.

Brian joined the cast of "Laugh-In" in 1972, and I don't know where he is these days, but Mike is still out and around (I think he works out of Spokane, WA, but I'm not sure), doing occasional TV shows and concertizing: 12-string guitar, writes his own songs, and keeps his audiences rolling in the aisles with his gloriously insane humor (e.g.: "I think that people with multiple personalities should share them with those who don't have any.").

I'm just dithering. Don't know if any of this helps, but I think opting for simplicity is usually a pretty good idea.

Don Firth