Ben Lee "Catch My Disease"

You know that old Chaos theory idea . . . a butterfly flaps its wings and starts off a chain reaction that ends up with a hurricane hitting the East Coast?

It's cool to see little things have a big effect.

I was familiar with Ben Lee from my modern rock show at my old station, where we played "I Wish I Was Him" and "Pop Queen."

When his "Awake Is The New Sleep" record arrived I was happy to see that he was on New West, a small but solid label, known for promoting quality artists.

New West has folks like Steve Earle and John Hiatt and The Old 97s---bands that will never sell a million records, but will always sell thousands.

But how would a less familiar name like Ben Lee fare? How could a smaller label have major promotional muscle?

Those thoughts crossed my mind in the flap of a butterfly's wing, Barbara played "Catch My Disease" on What's New For Lunch, and then I was on to thinking about something else.

Until a few days later when we got a call from the folks at New West for our support of Ben Lee.

Which was odd, because you don't usually get a call from a record company for just playing a song once.

But sometimes once is all that matters.

It seems that Vineyard frequenter David Letterman happened to be visiting the Island, and happened to be listening when "Catch My Disease" was on the air. The following Monday, he had his people book Ben on his show to play that song.

One play on mvyradio became a million eyeballs on Ben on CBS.

Sometimes it's fun to be the butterfly.