I Know I Didn't Care When I Was In That Coma Last Year, But It's Sure Nice To Have Friends

I've actually got a recording of what it sounds like outside my window, but when I had to retool my computer, I lost the software I needed to y'know, upload my recordings. I wasted a whole afternoon looking for it, but with no luck. I'll find a way though. I always do.
All the same, you can probably get an idea of what it sounds like outside my window.
As you can see, it's not raining today. That makes it a good day.
If you know my sister, call her and wish her a happy birthday!

I don't usually blog about US politics (and I tried not to blog about Canadian politics, but sometimes you just gotta say something), but this is interesting from a comedy/media POV. Wade over at Signal Response keeps up on US politics a little more, and he keeps up on cool design shit even more than that.

An album you should own is XI by the Howling Hex. I've been living with it for about a month now. As you know, I've devoted most of my musical attention to Roger Dean Young & the Tin Cup's new alb, Threshold (which continues to fascinate and enthrall me), so it's only been in the last week or so that I've really started to listen to XI with any sort of intensity. At first I was put off by the fact that Neil Michael Hagerty backs off quite a bit on this record. I don't know who any of the other players are, but there are at least two other featured vocalists (and presumably songwriters) here. So I kinda brought a bit of baggage to XI and I had to sort of look at it sideways before I could really get into it.
Now that I am into it, I'm really into it. Despite the variety of voices, it actually most reminds me of the Neil Michael Hagerty & the Howling Hex album (the one with all the triangles). It's a bit of a singer-songwriter (see: "Martyr Lectures Comedian") album with a lot of syncopation and country-rock boogie overtones (see: "Fifth Dimensional Johnny B. Goode").
It's kinda weird, sitting here reflecting, to note the differing routes Hagerty and former bandmate Jennifer Herrema have taken since the split (has been seven years already?)(it has!) of Royal Trux. RTX (Herrema's project) is making the kind of records I think a lot of people wanted Hagerty to make: noisy, macho crotch-rock swaggering. Hagerty, meanwhile, has consistently defied (maybe on purpose?) expectations. Just when you think you've figured out what he's doing, he does something else. And then he does something like Bill Callahan's recent Woke on a Whaleheart, which is a staggering work of production and arrangement.

MP3: "Ambulance Across the Street" by the Howling Hex (Drag City)