Now that the initial post is out of the way, it now feels appropriate - more so all right - to make a real life posting. So back story. I have dreaded making a blog since the word "blog" came to be. Something about it felt apropos to nothing, or perhaps to everything every other being was doing. So I resisted.
But here comes the explanation of my folding, giving in, collapse, or however you wish. I spent Monday night conversing with a dear friend, to which we talked of pop culture, music, jobs, life, Minneapolis, the world, Minneapolis again, a bit more counter intuitive bullshit, and then we stopped. Literally we stopped. He smiled and asked why I don't write this down. I had no real answer. And that brings us to here. Now when I think/talk of my daily ramblings, they will go down in history, or perhaps the black hole that is the internet.

And so we begin.

Over the past month or so, I have been reverting in habitual practice to a younger me. Really? You ask. Yes, I respond. Then you follow up with a, How so? And then I tell you. I started buying records again. I know. Nobody buys CDs or records anymore. Tell me about it. Well quite frankly I find it to be sad. I cannot recall what brought me into the Electric Fetus a month or so ago, but whatever it was hooked me, and I don't understand why I ever stopped. When I was seventeen I used to go to either Electric Fetus or Cheapo once a week. Then, I had no real expenditures, so I literally would walk in with at least one hundred dollars to spend at my leisure. And so I would. For a seventeen year old, I listened to so much music. And although I have listened to quite a bit of music still, I lost that outing, the thrill of walking through the aisles and flipping cd after cd often times in search of nothing.

Yo La Tengo. That is what brought me there. I had lost my copy of And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out and nothing else would do - I had to listen to You Can Have It All. That was what brought me back. Anyways.

I don't think I have a real point in talking about the Electric Fetus so much. Remember, today I love cold medicine.

Back to my love of record shopping. It makes me feel like a real creep. Maybe because I peer over at what others are buying. Or maybe, just maybe, because I get so socially uncomfortable only within the confines of a record store that I become a jerk. Really, I do. I don't know what happens to me. Perhaps I feel like I will be judged on my selection, just like I secretly watch everyone else. Who cares. I just remembered why I started this in the first place.

I bought Apostle of Hustle "National Anthem of Nowhere" [2007 a/c] on Tuesday. The record, for lack of better adjectives is great. Alongside I too bought Blitzen Trapper's "Furrr" [2008 SubPop]. When I listened to the records back-to-back, I realized I made projections about these bands merely two years ago. AoH was immediate in terms of time frame - it uses similar song progressions like Broken Social Scene (who they are most commonly linked with - shared members, Canadian, Arts and Crafts, you do the math...), yet they lack the intended complexity of a twelve member band that BSS is, while maintaining and surpassing the ingenuity that I think brought most people to like BSS in the first place.
As for Blitzen Trapper, I have only given the record one go around. It hits on my previous projections (which i have not mentioned until now: folk inspired pop that dares to transcend the lines of past genre norms.) I would say that later I would touch on this, but really, what's the point. Steve McPherson already wrote an accurate write up about them and the record in City Pages last week.

I am looking forward to the future. Especially the future in relation to music. Wilco has a new record coming out, as well as Andrew Bird and Grizzly Bear, to name a few. Really, it should be a good spring.

Soon to come, wilco stories. And oh, the lot of them.