So this is pretty good I guess. They seem to have toned things down a bit since Strange Geom­e­try, land­ing them some­where closer to The Vio­let Hour. But some­thing about Alasdair’s voice is get­ting really grat­ing. I don’t like that thing where the band opens with a few bars, and then he begins a verse with one pre­cious stac­cato syl­la­ble. But I do like typ­ing the name “Alas­dair.” The new ded­i­cated vio­lin­ist doesn’t get in the way too much. And I haven’t lis­tened to the lyrics closely enough to know why I should hate them yet. Oh who am I kid­ding, it’s no good. Shut up about the rain already. There just isn’t a lot of straight­for­ward pop that I like much at all lately, but I want to have something.

Any­way I’ve missed far too many shows lately for what are prob­a­bly insuf­fi­cient rea­sons. Blonde Red­head (sold out), The Books (sold out), Trans Am (lazy), Sun­set Rub­down (lazy, despite hav­ing won tick­ets), The Album Leaf (lazy, despite hav­ing won tick­ets), Elec­tre­lane (lazy), to only name a few. If you don’t see me at Frog Eyes this Sun­day and Light­ning Bolt/DMBQ in two Mon­days, get real mad at me.

I might go to New York tomor­row, I might not, although it’s gonna be soak­ing wet all weekend.

They planted a tiny tree out­side my bed­room window.