Everything has a beginning, everything worth talking about anyway, and World Racketeering Squad began late one Friday night in 2007, when two old friends spontaneously decided to write and record a parody based on the ridiculousness of Senator Ted Stevens, as presented by the Daily Show, to the tune of “Tangled up in Blue.” To post a song on ye olde MySpace, they needed a band name, and somehow WRS made the most sense at the time.

After that, the tunes began to flow, starting with a tune about Reed’s alternately pathetic and frightening neighbor Sylvia. “Potential,” The Squad’s 1st song to explore the tensions between expectations and bitter reality, soon followed, as did “Hearbreaker,” highlighting Isaac’s wit and harder rock talents. Those three songs made up WRS’ first live performance, at a party in Reed’s apartment.

The Squad was experimenting to see what worked and what worked when performed live at the open mics they attended several times a week. “Can’t Keep Track” eventually became the bands warm-up song before every show. “Esoteric,” an homage to They Might Be Giants got performed when they brought the keyboard, fairly common early on. “Feel So Lost” was the first song based on Isaac’s music and ideas where Reed wrote the actual lyrics, a deeper collaboration that produced “Undercover” and “You are the Dream,” among others.

The rest made it onto More Needful Things or later onto What Is Nerdwave? but everything started here, with two old friends determined to figure out this rock star performing live thing. If you’re reading this, I guess you know how that worked out.