top end of his range, bounced around, and pumped his fist. Guitarist Scott
Hendrickson, who recently started a hedge fund, wore a white T-shirt
emblazoned with SOCIALIST. His brother, David, played keyboards and sax
and wore a CAPITALIST T-shirt. Their folks, Jim and Judy, cheered them on
from the front row. “Music,” Jim said later, “keeps them grounded.”

When the Subscribers’ other singer, Julie Hamilton, took over, two dancers joined the group onstage—curvy, dark-haired Kyra Johannesen and Jen James, a slinky blonde in a wifebeater bearing the word SUBSCRIB-ERETTE. As they grinded against each other, Hamilton, in a low-cut halter, belted out Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl.” Then James grabbed Hamilton and locked lips with her for several seconds. “Damn, I love that!” Wheeler said when he returned to the stage. With his proud parents looking on, Scott

Hendrickson grabbed the mic and declared, “I’m gonna need to take a 30-
minute bathroom break before the next song.”
dom guys you know playing in a band. It’s a nice venue, but beyond that,
it’s not like there’s champagne and tigers on display.”

Early in the night, people clap politely for Aged Inventory, who play songs by matchbox twenty and Elvis Costello. Volunteers mill about and gently hawk raffle tickets. As the night wears on in the darkened belly of the giant warship, the mood lightens. A couple lean against a picture of Marines in their barracks and start making out. The Boomer Esiason Foundation says it brought in about $60,000 from the event, more than projected, and it hopes to reach a goal of $100,000 at the Halloween-themed Refi Rock scheduled for October 29. September and October are traditionally high times for corporate rockers. Wings Over Wall Street, a fundraiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, was scheduled this year for September 24. Aged Inventory were booked to play it for the first time, a sign that organizers think they’ll draw well-to-do fans carrying checkbooks. Entries are slightly up this year for Fortune’s Battle of the Corporate Rock Bands, but for the first time in years, no major Wall Street players are in the finals. And on October 8, there’s the festival-like Hedge Fund Rocktoberfest benefiting disabled-children’s charity A Leg to Stand On.

Members of Aged Inventory admit that the June Refi Rock wasn’t their
best gig—fun, but a bit hurried. Mullarkey, who still sells high-risk loans for

Credit Suisse, says there’s a “hassle factor” when it comes to booking your
own gigs, but says he’ll “absolutely” arrange more Wall Street rock events.
Asked if they think Aged Inventory will survive the recession, the Type-A per-
sonalities ponder whether music might be their way through troubled times.
“In college, I had the decision: I was going to go into business or I was
going to go into music,” says guitarist Kaiman, who’s still at Credit Suisse. “I
thought, ‘I’m pretty good at guitar, but I’m not all that great. I better go into
banking.’ Turns out, I’m not that good at banking, either!” Everyone laughs.
“It was a better business for a while,” Marriott adds. “Not anymore.”
Guitarist Jack Cook, a married father of three who’s also still in fixed
income at Credit Suisse, adds, “Who would’ve known you’d find your music
career in the banking business?” (Additional reporting by David Marchese)
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DIAMOND LIFE David Lee Roth guests with Aged Inventory, 2006.

AVING SPENT MOST of their existence as company spokes- rockers, Aged Inventory are considering going indie, much like the Subscribers. “It’s a bit of a scramble for money,” Oppici says. “It’s going to cost $1,500 to $3,000 every time we play, just for the equipment.” An opening slot at June’s Refi Rock (as in “refinance”) turns out to be a great way for the band to test the market. It’s one of their biggest recent gigs booked without the mothership’s backing, and it’s the baby of trader Russell Middleton, who started this concert in 2004 as a fundraiser for former NFL star Boomer Esiason’s cystic fibrosis charity.

About 1,300 guests file into the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, an aircraft carrier docked on Manhattan’s west side. They pass a Douglas A-4B Skyhawk (like the one John McCain flew in Vietnam) and a six-seat helicopter. They sip drinks between portraits of noteworthy seaman and shimmy gently next to a giant globe to the sounds of Aged Inventory and fellow business bands: Yellowman Inc. and the No Request Band (headliner 2U, a U2 tribute act, has no apparent connection to Wall Street). Both Aged Inventory and Yellowman Inc. cover “Hard to Handle,” and the former’s version of U2’s “Vertigo” seems respectable—until 2U come on later with their Bono and Edge look-alikes and play the same song.

5.185" Live

A disproportionate number of the men in the audience wear untucked oxford shirts and sockless loafers. Securities trader Michael Baker says he’s here to network but is also surprised at how well the guys from work can play. Asked how this scene has changed since the market tanked, he says, “If you say you’re a mortgage-bond trader, people look at you like you’re a jerk-off.” Asked the same question, Morgan Stanley mortgage-bond trader Kyle Moore responds, “A few years ago when everything was collapsing, it was a weird experience, because everyone was kind of down. Now things are at least a little bit better.” Does he feel any guilt partying while the economy plummets? “It’s not a huge, over-the-top event,” Moore says. “You’re drinking Beck’s in a can and plastic Bud Lights. It’s a bunch of ran-

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