By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 15, 1997; Page A01

When Dwight Gibbs was 23 years old, his father told him he was throwing his life away. Gibbs had just turned down an offer of a good engineering job at American Management Systems Inc. in Fairfax to pursue his lifelong dream and his father's nightmare -- as a drummer in a rock band.

Today, his father is ecstatic. Gibbs, now 30, has successfully combined vocation with avocation. By day, he works as the chief technical officer at the Motley Fool, the Alexandria online financial service; by night, he plays drums in Waiting for Jane, one of the Washington area's up-and-coming "geek bands."

As the region's technology industry has boomed in recent years, it also has colored the local band scene. Geek bands are materializing at Pentium speed in bars, basements and at holiday parties, partly because their ranks appear to be increasing, but also because computer types, in this era of ramped-up geek esteem, are more readily identifying themselves as such.

"I would say that almost every band that plays here whose members are under 30 years old has a connection to the computer world," said Greg Cahill, owner of Whitlow's on Wilson Boulevard, an Arlington club.

While there isn't a single "geek sound," the music played by the bands ranges from modern rock to techno to oldies to grunge, with some folk and blues thrown in.

Beyond the club scene, many local technology companies boast -- or at least tolerate -- in-house geek bands. Several are performing at tech company holiday parties this month. Once banished to the basement with their pocket protectors, geeks are feeling good about themselves and are no longer afraid to perform in public.

"No matter where you are in the computer field, you can't spin a guitar without hitting a musician in the head," said Al Gross, 34, a software engineer at BTG Inc. in Fairfax, and a singer and guitar player in the band Spongeworthy. On Friday night, Gross played at BTG's annual holiday party at the McLean Hilton.

Nearby in Tysons Corner, drummer Dave Costa played at the holiday party for UUNet Technologies Inc., where he works as a technical support person. There, Costa planned to suck up to company CEO and guitar buff John Sidgmore by playing a few songs by the boss's idol, Jimi Hendrix.

Theories abound as to why techies form bands. The phenomenon even has a scientific basis, experts say. "There is a great deal of overlap with the intellectual aspects of math and music," said Mark Tramo, a brain scientist at Harvard Medical School who has studied the effects of music on human cognition.

In a more practical sense, Tramo adds, computers have become a critical part of musical production -- and knowing how to use the equipment is an advantage. Computers are used, for example, to mix instruments as well as sampling sounds for use in songs. Many band members also communicate by e-mail and often exchange song lyrics via computer.

By rough definition, geek bands are musical groups composed entirely -- or primarily -- of computer professionals. But some bands stake a claim to geek-band status even though they lack techie members. For example, Washington-based vocalist Jim Boyd insists his band, Boot, is a geek band even though only its guitar player Tim Ward, a software designer, works in technology. Three members of Boot are economists, but Boyd contends that economists are actually geekier than technologists, "because we use more math."

Others resist the label. Charlene Wheeless, a spokeswoman at DynCorp, a Reston-based information technology firm, said the company's in-house band, DynCorp Rocks, should not be classified as a geek band because not all of its members work in technical jobs. The group played the company's annual variety show in June.

"Whether or not they're good is a subjective matter," Wheeless said. For what it's worth, DynCorp has hired a deejay for its Christmas party this week.

Geek bands are hardly indigenous to the Washington area. Silicon Valley has a loose network of garage musicians and entrepreneurs, techies craving an after-hours release.

Unlike many of their companies, few of these band members ever gained notice beyond their garages, however. One cult exception is the band Severe Tire Damage, which was recently dubbed "the unofficial house band of cyberspace" and, according to the San Jose Mercury News, was the first rock band to broadcast live music and video on the Internet three years ago, beating the Rolling Stones by 20 minutes.

Like their Silicon Valley counterparts, members of local geek bands complain that their musical growth has been hindered by the grueling hours their jobs require. Waiting for Jane has been invited to play at five holiday parties this year, but it has had to refuse all the offers because so many of the band's members have been traveling on business.

"We are a band of techno-yuppies flying all over the world, and it can cramp our musical style," said Kevin Book, 25, Waiting for Jane's lead guitarist and songwriter. His real job is as a technical project manager at the Falls Church office of ArchitelSystems Corp, and he's now working on a project in the Caribbean. "The Who has broken up over less," he fretted.

But music can be a career asset as well, Book said. "The technology corporate world is peppered with frustrated musicians, and I've been able to land some high-level contracts with some of the contacts I've made."

Book says he spent his youth in a techie's isolation, including "an embarrassing summer at computer camp." Now he works 70 hours a week, writes songs "on a Pentium laptop instead of a tear-stained napkin" and says the trials of his career have inspired some of his best songwriting.

"Our songs are pearls made of irritation forged by the pressure of the technical lifestyle," Book said. "Computer people usually don't have the opportunity for creative expression in their daily lives, so we have this reservoir of creative angst. It all pours out in the musical forum."

Plus, he says, it beats poetry -- or heavy drinking.

Last Tuesday night, the remaining members of Waiting for Jane -- except lead singer Jane Adams, the band's only woman and non-geek, gathered for a rehearsal in the basement of Gibbs's Alexandria home. Before the set, the following matters of geek band relevance were briefly discussed:

Would the Beatles have broken up sooner if they had communicated by e-mail? (Gibbs theorized that the "immediacy of flaming" would have intensified the friction between Paul and John.)

Does listening to Mozart make you smarter? (Bass player Mark Merrick, who has a classical music background, thinks so.)

And, why does musical expression seem to flow so seamlessly from the brains of computer programmers?

That last question has inspired widespread rumination in geek-band circles. Many theorize that programming and playing music reward common mental talents -- the ability to think methodically, efficiently and tenaciously.

"You always hear that math and music ability go together," said Andy Rutherford, 37, a software engineer at BTG and a member of three Washington-area geek bands.

"Programming computers is creative repetition, and so is playing music," said Dave Sherman, a programmer and analyst for T. Carrol Associates Inc., an engineering consulting firm in Silver Spring and lead singer in the band Dave Sherman and the Night Crawlers. "Both of these are intuitive skills and require a good ear."

Durable hands also are a must. Sherman had surgery last summer for a severe carpal tunnel condition brought on by relentless computer keyboard punching and guitar playing. The operation, which he said loosened the cartilage in his hands, kept Sherman off stage for seven weeks.

Now 35 and the oldest member of Waiting for Jane, Merrick said the group provides a necessary counterbalance to his settled-down lifestyle and demanding job. He recently returned home from a business trip to Toronto just to attend a rehearsal.

"This band is our last outlet for being stupid," he said.

And, of course, being cool. Adams, Waiting for Jane's token non-techie -- he's a lobbyist -- recalls talking to Gibbs before playing a gig on Capitol Hill. He was flush with a bout of geek chauvinism.

"He kept complaining," Adams said. "He said, `Why do we have to play for all these dorks?'"