hey let's dance but you've never ever danced before

Sometimes, you literally can not get in touch with someone - like you don't have their phone number (you wrote it in the book at home but you're at work or maybe you lost it or a high tech mishap occurred). White Pages and email don't work because you have no idea what their address is AND you don't even know enough about them (last name or where they work) to do some creative searching. Finessing contact out of some social networking is equally fruitless due to crazy screen names. Anyways, you know them pretty well, so groveling around the electronic landscape is a little bit embarrassing at this point. At a certain point you just have to cut loose, cross your fingers and hope that they're spontaneously going to go to the same show as you tonight.

Jason Anderson Presents the Weather Channel - Locals on the 8s

More importantly: The whole thing

More about the Truth

Just feel the extended chorus. Leave your whole life behind and focus on appreciating the funky clavi. Rock the super soft cowbell. Drive with the windows down for ONCE in your life.

Rupert Holmes - Answering Machine

||: I'm so sorry, you have just reached my answering machine/I'm not here at present, I'm sure you know this whole routine :||
(fade out)

"I honestly mean this"

Firstly, I would suffer a million awkward and uncomfortable shows with the house lights on and excessive eye contact for just this one song:

Dub Narcotic Sound System - Fuck Shit up

Julie Doiron is a beacon of light in the dirty despicable world. Allen shines pretty brightly too. Her current tour features guys from Shotgun and Jaybird, The Constantines and Woolly Leaves. It was more than enough to make me nostalgic for the epic summer of 2002: Steven Stephen Stefen, table hockey, "Pega, it's your mom!" and so many other great things (Peace to ACx2, LB, MT, KS and Marcus!).

Ok, so that was during the week. The weekend went like this:

[1] Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - on a Fender Rhodes.
[2] The Donkeys - Seventh Heaven - The Habitat House was packed and booze flowed freely. Sometime later, at a party, I put on my copy of Great Speckled Bird and people asked to turn it off. The world is full of conflict.
[3] Greenbelt Collective - Our Homes - The second of round of homesickness.
[4] ok, Vancouver, ok - Drums and singing!
[5] Punk show in the sewer! Rodney Dangerfield jokes! Pyrate Punx! The beginning of epic summer 2007! (Thanks to JF, DY, KM, NS, EL and PW Barclay + Co.!)

No Beach out of Reach

The Endless Bummer - Got Fries

AND a Himalyan Bear record...

I have never understood the Chet-----Hawaii connection. All possible explanations (childhood trips? love of blue water sport? relative Canadian geographic distance? birthplace?) seem to be eclipsed by something less romantic like 'thrift store record appreciation'. Can anyone explain? Regardless of the source, what a wonderful thing it is.

Himalayan Bear - I Swam with Turtles

Flight Against Darkness

How good would it feel to just hit your own stride? Like: NO MISGUIDED efforts - a total lack of dissatisfaction. Imagine endless confidence. The only reasonable way for a regular person (you and me) to reach such heights is through destructive means: kill a man, loot and steal, throw tv/watermelon/mini-fridge from a tall building. The problem is that those sorts of things tend to catch up with you. Now picture yourself feeling that far on top because of something you created? Sound fucking impossible? These guys did it:

Chet - Because I've Never Known Trouble

Notes About the Record, or If You're Already a Chet Fan:
Fast songs?!?!?!?
Cary Mercer guitar stylings on By Night into Paradise?!?!?!
Impassioned chanting parts?!?!?!????
Song without grain silo reverb guitar?!!!?!?!?!?!
'Secondary vocals' don't sound like shit compared to Ryan's golden pipes?!?!?!!??!?!
All this AND a Himalayan Bear record?!?!?!