HANGING WITH

"Come on in," says G.E. Smith, climbing onto the bus idling outside the Eliot Hotel. "This is home."

The ponytailed guitarist has just arrived from Burlington, Vt., where his band Moon-alice, a hippie-inflected septet featuring the Jefferson Airplane's Jack Casady on bass, played the night before.

"You want a drink?" Smith asks, taking a seat on the leather couch. "We have water, tea, coffee, and soda."

At 56, Smith doesn't live nearly the rock n' roll lifestyle he did while touring with Hall & Oates in their heyday, or leading the "Saturday Night Live" band for 10 years, or traveling around the world with Bob Dylan. These days, he says, he and his bandmates return to the bus ...