A couple years ago, at a dinner party in the East Village, a friend told me he was looking for a bass player for his band, a Patsy Cline covers outfit with a German lead singer. They were hoping to pull together a line-up for Performa 05, a big performance art biennial that fall. They’d performed once before, several years ago, as The Patsys — playing a medley of songs loosely on the theme of insanity. It would take a couple nights’ rehearsal at most. Was I interested? The dinner party was the sort of dinner party where the host accidentally caught his pants on fire before the end of the night, so as you might imagine, I said sure.

Over the next few days more details rolled in. The show was going to be at the Bowery Ballroom, the closing event for the festival. The organizer had invited several other artsy local acts — David Byrne, Sonic Youth, Björk, Japanther — to be on the bill as well. And my future bandmates had colorful résumés: the guitarist was the painter Robert Longo, whom I’ve since come to describe as the Prom King of the 80s art world. His wife, the singer, was the actress Barbara Sukowa, most famous for her performance in the title role of Fassbinder’s Lola (1981). My friend, Jon Kessler, was a sculptor who chaired Columbia’s fine arts graduate program and had just mounted an enormous multi-media anti-war show at PS 1. We’d be getting together to practice in Robert and Barbara’s basement.

Suddenly the pressure started to rise. I hadn’t played bass since 1989, and even then I’d played string bass in orchestras. My flirtation with electric bass was simply that. I think I’d taken in a single school year in the jazz band and had played a rock set with some fellow jazz banders at the school talent show. The other kids didn’t share my musical taste, but hell, it was a set, and it was rock and roll, sort of, so I went with it: Huey Lewis (ouch), the Georgia Satellites (oof), a rousing rendition of “Wipeout” (oy!). It was just like punk rock, man.

But this — this was going to be the Bowery Ballroom, the best venue downtown. And on a star-studded bill! I asked a friend who’d played bass in a couple bands to judge the viability of the instrument I’d bought from my brother-in-law, which had sat in the closet for years. It was smallish, white. My friend shook his head and offered to let me borrow one of his. “Teach your girls to play on that one,” he said, turning away. When it came time to rehearse the band asked me to bring my own amp, so I headed up to Guitar Center and forked over a small chunk of change. You’re only young once.

And oh was it worth it — even all the trips out to single-family-house residential Brooklyn, occasionally with my kids in tow. Barbara and Robert’s house was an ideal creative space: a full music room in the basement, the kids upstairs supposedly doing their homework. There was something inspiring about a group of adults, none of whom performed music for a living, just getting a kooky idea and deciding to run with it. (I’m pretty sure that’s how Johnny Mnemonic came to be.) We spent several evenings plugging away at the medley they’d performed in their prior incarnation. Of course it included “Crazy” and took the title literally. The other songs I’d not really thought of as being about insanity either, but they sure worked that way: “Strange,” “I Got Your Picture,” a frenetic “Walking after Midnight,” and “Fall to Pieces,” only the first line, repeated over and over as the band moved toward top volume in something like a Hitler Youth march. Toward the end of rehearsal nights one of their sons would yell down the stairwell: “Is this about over or is it one of those things that might go on all night?”

The only downside to our performance, aside from the fact that most of the big-name acts who had been invited didn’t actually perform, was how fast it was over: sitting back stage in the green room until Cindy Sherman introduced us; coming out in the black cowboy hats Robert had bought us; tuning quickly, then ripping through the 20-minute medley. We had a false start when someone’s instrument wasn’t in the mix. Everyone was a little nervous. But overall I think we pulled it off. (TGW’s editor, who saw the show, wanted to start a label simply to release a Patsys record.) I hit my notes on the Lou Reed slide that made the transition into “Fall to Pieces,” so I was happy, anyway. We played one encore — not a Patsy Cline song, but close enough in effect: “Ring of Fire,” interlaced with a German children’s song. From the back of the stage I tipped my cowboy hat and smiled.

Last night I saw the band — now called the X-Patsys — headline their own show at Highline Ballroom, again part of the Performa festival. They played for over an hour, ranging beyond the Patsy Cline covers to come up with an evening of Weimar cabaret interlaced with Schumann, Shakespeare, fifteenth-century folk songs, and pop music, from Tom Waits to Rogers and Hart. From insanity, the theme had broadened as well: “Devouring Time,” the name of the show, “attempt[ed] to deal with the simple yet daunting subjects of death, love, night, loss and aging.” Perhaps these were the things that had driven Patsy’s narrators mad. I sure know they’ve done their work on me.

I didn’t play this time. Last summer Barbara and Robert were invited to participate in the Ruhr Triennale, in an abandoned industrial town tucked away in an idyllic German valley. This time David Byrne really was on the program — he’d be playing a week or so before the Patsys — but they had to come up with enough material for a whole night on their own. I rehearsed once or twice on some of the new songs, but I was heading to LA for the summer. Originally we thought I’d come back in the fall and learn the new set; Robert called a couple times while I was sitting in the Huntington Library’s parking lot and gave me notations on the Schumann and on a Joy Division song they were learning. But in the end they decided they needed to bring in some professional musicians, including a music director who’d play keyboards, a new drummer, and a bassist. My rock star days were over.

And I’m fine with that. It allowed me, for one thing, to sit in the audience at the Highline and take in an exquisite show. The band sounded great. Barbara, the consummate actress, was in top Lotte Lenya form, and the more the crowd gave her more the more she sailed toward the top. The Joy Division encore was a treat, but the real highlight was still the Patsy Cline. When Barbara started to fall to pieces, her audience went right along with her. The band followed the medley with one final number, Purcell’s “Laid in Earth.” It’s the circle of life, baby. One of these days we’re all gonna die. In the meantime, sing. Make things. Fiddle with your friends in the basement until the kids call down for their dinner.