we’re moving to a neighborhood with houses that look like this.  it should be pretty great.  can you tell me whose bust that is?

we went back to ohio last weekend for my grandma’s 80th birthday. along the way, we saw baby otters in a river in indiana, which was pretty amazing. the photos above are from a park where i used to go all the time as a kid. it actually felt weird to be in such a quiet place at first, even though we grew up there, but it’s nice to go to the country.

look at this! these are for our japanese CD release on fastcut records… so fun.

my pal leo came to visit for the weekend. we did many enjoyable things including eating delicious falafel, seeing john vanderslice play three songs at an outdoor festival, going record shopping, and (the main event) learning how to update websites and use photoshop. i think he has gone home a very knowledgeable young man. he was kind enough to purchase this silver jews record for me whilst visiting. he saw records by suburban kids with biblical names in my collection and knew that their band name is a reference to a song on that album. i did not know that but had wondered about their name in the past. mystery solved. you can visit leo in his band or label. great stuff.

having missed menomena play an outdoor show on sunday, i went to see them play last night at the empty bottle here in chicago. (side note: for anyone who is confused by locations, this is charlie, and i live in chicago. the other bears are still in cleveland.) i arrived about 9:30 and was rewarded with a parking spot right in front of the club, a rare and much desired treat. well, it turns out the show was sold out and, silly me, i was unaware of this before leaving. but, luckily, i saw brent outside a few minutes later, and he worked a bit of magic and i was inside. i’ve known brent for about two years, but this was the first time we had actually met in person. our friends at the cleveland record store music saves gave menomena the first bears record when they were on tour a couple years ago. brent, having liked the record, then kindly got in touch with us to see what we were up to and whether or not he could help us out a little. and, for the next few months, i was generally blown away by his willingness to try to get our record into the hands of some indie-important people. it didn’t quite pan out, but that’s not so important… so, with that in mind, we met last night, and i am happy to say that he was as genuine and friendly as he seemed on email/phone. sometimes i feel like there aren’t enough people like that; genuine and unpretentious while being involved in independent music. great stuff. plus, there was birthday cake after the show, and you can’t go wrong with chocolate/chocolate/raspberry!