If you're still gonna tell me that I'm set to drown, I'm gonna tell you that I'll be okay.

With great power comes great responsibility. Or, you know, something like that. The new job at TRACER that you may have heard about means the inevitable is coming and my time in Chicago is fairly limited.

It's very bittersweet and I'm sure in the coming months, I'll discuss my move more in depth but for now, my brain's been busy thinking of all the things I want to do before autumn sets in and I pack my bags for Cincinnati.

I wanna take my Jeff Tweedy loving dad down to Marina City and take a picture in front of the buildings that gained national fame on the cover of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, one of my favorite albums of all time. I want to have a picnic in Millennium Park with a Jimmy John's unwich and a charming fella even though I haven't met any of those around these parts yet and even though I did see a rat in Millennium Park one time. & I want to see Archie Powell and the Exports live.

Quickly becoming my favorite Chicago based band, Archie Powell and the Exports deliver a wonderful, catchy brand of poppy indie rock that's hard to resist and hey, the guys are dang cute. That's always a plus because, as we've discussed before, cute guys who make good music are basically the best kind of cute guys around.

I've found myself drawn to Archie Powell's vaguely alt-country, incredibly charming melodies and relatable lyrics because, hey, I'm dead broke and disillusioned in Chicago too! But even if you're not, Archie Powell will probably appeal to you. For instance, my former roommate is down in southern Illinois at college but she'll no doubt be drawn to Archie Powell if only for the O.C. reference he tosses out in "Mattson Is A Flake".

Something for everyone? Possibly. Check out the video for "Loose Change" and find out for yourself.



Even better than a video however is the fact that the Exports have graciously put up their entire Loose Change EP for free download.

The Hot Half Life is Stepping in the Right Direction!

It feels like I just made this announcement because, well, I kind of did but here it comes again, only this time on a much larger scale.

Once more the Hot Half show runner, Amber Valentine, has found herself making her way to a new music journalism hideout. This time, it's TRACER Magazine.

TRACER Magazine is a wonderful operation based out of Cincinnati, Ohio (Hometown of Hot Half favorites, Bad Veins!) that publishes interviews, album reviews, and really unique articles and now, I get to be a part of that!

For now that means I'm sticking around Chicago and working from here, continuing to do what I do, just bringing it to a much bigger outlet via TRACER. Eventually, that probably does mean relocating to Cincinnati, something I'm actually very excited about.

I will still be blogging here and occasionally over at the wonderful Radio Free Chicago as soon as I get my workload for TRACER sorted out and I make that transition but the bulk of what I do will be on TRACER with my first interview hitting the proverbial presses shortly (For those keeping track, it's either going to be my wonderful interview with Tim Kasher of Cursive or my conversation with the fellas of Eau Claire, Wisconsin's The Daredevil Christopher Wright) and the next few weeks will have me crossing paths with Roman Candle, Owen, Miniature Tigers, fun. and the oft-blogged about Bad Veins once more.

You can check out TRACER via their website and you can follow them on Twitter and while you're at it, you should follow me to hear about my the latest adventures of your favorite Midwest journalist pal!

Here's to the future!

The End of a Hot Half Summer.

My summer captured in a photograph: Myself, my oft-mentioned former roommate Sara and Hanz, a creepy rabbit statue.

It's strange to me that August is over because, well, it seems like only a few days ago I was preparing for the onslaught of madness that was Lollapalooza. In fact, it seems like only a few days ago I was preparing for my first interview in my room, across the hall from Sara as she watched repeats of the Real World on MTV while readying yet another post for The Hot Half Life. Now, I'm preparing for my dozenth interview, which will run at a much bigger outlet, and Sara is hundreds of miles away.

Transitioning from one life to another is never easy. As I'm sure I've noted before, my new lonely existence is a step in the right direction to making a career solely off of my writing. Does that make it any easier? No. The loneliness gets to me and I did what I always do to cope - I made a mix.


You Hate Your Pulse Because It Still Thinks Your Alive
A Hot Half End-of-Summer Mix


1. Kevin Devine - All of Everything Erased
2. Bad Veins - Found
3. Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - House Fire
4. David Bazan - Hard to Be
5. Langhorne Slim - Restless
6. fun. - Be Calm
7. Wilco - Misunderstood
8. Cursive - From the Hips
9. Kevin Devine - I Could Be With Anyone
10. The Daredevil Christopher Wright - War Stories
11. Cursive - What Have I Done?
12. Josh Ritter - Still Beating


Most of these artists (and even some of these songs) are familiar to readers of my blog - Kevin Devine, Bad Veins, Curisve, David Bazan. All old favorites. And this is the exact reason why they're old favorites. Their songs orchestrate integral parts of my life and every song on this mix was picked very dileberately. From the opening of All Of Everything, Erased to the sentiments of Josh Ritter's closing track, all of these songs have at least one line (or a complete theme) that I can relate to incredibly at this moment. The threads that connect these songs are freedom, loneliness and, to a lesser extent, survival.

fun., a band that's new to The Hot Half Life, says it best on "Be Calm", a song that talks perfectly about moving to a new city and feeling lost and alone, when in the chorus they say "I know you feel like you are breaking down, I know it gets hard sometimes, but be calm."

Everyone makes mistakes out of desperation - You feel scared and alone and isolated and sometimes you don't make the best of decisions but, to quote another song featured on my mix, if you're half dead, that just means you're half alive.

As different as this summer has been, it's been integral to my life and my career. At the start of it, I was just a girl with a blog. Now I'm a real live music journalist. But at the end of the day, I'm still just a kid who makes mixes to cope with change.

Happy Belated Birthday, Hot Half Life!

The worst part about Lollapalooza was something I didn't realize until I was on the way home from watching Shearwater play Millennium Park. I was listening to an Okkervil River mix I once made and a particular song came on and suddenly, I realized something - My blog turned one year old on July 31st and with all the early August prepping I was doing, I missed it.

I'm not sure how one celebrates a blog birthday. A computer shaped cake? A fancy dinner lit by my laptop's screen? I think the standard way to approach a blog's birthday is a post commemerating as such so that's what I decided to do.

When I started the Hot Half Life, it was a hobby. I was the annoying pretentious indie kid in my social circle that gave out tons of album recommendations whether people liked it or not and my friend Chad (who just resurrected his old blog, Everybody Cares) had been suggested I start a blog a few times, planting the seed in my brain years before I actually decided to stake my small claim in the blogosphere and finally, around my 24th birthday, I decided - Why not do this? I remember sitting at Starbuck's early last summer thinking up post ideas, songs I'd love to share with the world and being so ready to start my music blog - All that was missing was a name.

I settled on the Hot Half Life because of my love for Okkervil River. Their song Starry Stairs, a b-side to the Stage Names that saw the light of day on the Stand Ins, had lyrics that once again showed Will Sheff's knack for writing catchy songs about tragic female characters and this song in particular had one lyric that I found incredibly relatable - "Oh what a hot-half life I half-lived." Upon hearing it, I decided it would make the perfect epitaph and, I decided, it would be the perfect blog name as well.


Okkervil River - Starry Stairs


In the past year, The Hot Half Life has gone from being a hobby to a way of life. I started as a blogger, I ended up a journalist. You can find me just as (if not more) frequently over at my new home, Radio Free Chicago.

The most remarkable bits of my Hot Half Year...

- The Hot Half Life Presents... Genuises Volume 1. Elliott Smith. (A first in a series of blogs about artists I revere which never materialized. Apparently, this entry made a few people tear up. A great man who's missed.)
- The Hot Half Life Interviews... Kevin Devine. (My first interivew which later saw the light of day in a much shorter version at RFC.)
- The Hot Half Life Reviews... Bad Veins. (My discovery of the duo, thus beginning my love affair with Bad Veins' fantastic music.)
- The Hot Half Life Visits The Daytrotter Studios. (Getting to listen to David Bazan track 4 songs for a forthcoming Daytrotter session was easily one of the better - and more prolific - moments of my life thus far.)
- The Hot Half Life Is Movin' Up! (My RFC announcement.)

Now, with RFC housing my more in depth articles, Hot Hot Half is going back to being slightly more personal and impersonal all at once - I've started doing an indie news roundup every now and again but also, I expect I'll be posting more single tracks and talking about how they affect me, something I haven't done for quite some time. And of course, I've got more in depth reviews of my regulars work as I keep things rather brief over at RFC and let's face it - My regulars are my regulars because I can (and do) write novels about them.

So happy late birthday, little blog. Even though I'm working on bigger things than just you now, I still love you.

The Hot Half Life Rocks Out... To Kevin Devine! ROUND THREE.

I doubt the following statement will come as a surprise to anyone who's read anything I've ever written but I adore Kevin Devine. And I'm not basing this upon the fact that he's cute or charming or the nicest fella in the music industry although he is all of those things. I adored him before I got the chance to see him play live or interview him or even meet him in passing. The fact of the matter is that he's a talented guy who makes music that at once I find incredibly relatable and makes me want to be a better person which isn't an easy feat considering his subject matter relies heavily on coming to terms with his own flaws.

When Kevin announced a solo pre-Lolla show in DeKalb, Illinois at the House Cafe, it wasn't a question whether I was going or not. I was going to be there. Keviin's one of a handful of musicians that missing when they're in my proverbial hood is just not an option and in recent times, Kevin seems to be the one who comes around the most often. (And who comes around the least often? Okkervil River, I'm looking at you, slackers.) The House is by far the smallest venue I've ever seen a national act play in - Virtually a glorified coffee shop, the House can't pack them in like Schuba's, the Bottom Lounge or even the Abbey. I knew it could potentially be an interesting set and doubtlessly an intimate one from the moment I arrived. My favorite bits off of Kevin's Brother's Blood tour were the moments when the Goddamn Band left the stage, leaving Kevin to perform acoustic and as this gig was Kevin on his own, I was quite anxious.

Part of the interesting thing about this show is the fact that Kevin allowed fans to help choose the setlist via e-mail. Out of pre-set bordem, the best friend, Sara, and I wrote Kevin a roughly fifteen song set list featuring Champagne Supernova, Love Is A Battlefield, Dick in a Box and the Dawson's Creek theme song, I Don't Want to Wait. I got to give this to Kevin and the good news is that he appeared to find it quite humorous. The bad news is that I believe he severely doubts my sanity now and the next time I approach him for an interview, he'll probably conveniently have "other commitments".

Myself, Kevin and the oft-mentioned roommate Sara. Is Kevin pleased to be part of the world's most attractive person-sandwich or can he not wait until we leave, dreading the fact that he'll have to encounter us again in the very near future? You be the judge.

Kevin's set was peppered with older material and the nature of the show meant that alot of the acoustic tracks off of Split The Country, Split the Street made an appearance although my favorites were, as always, the songs off his latest release. I Could Be With Anyone was turned into a tongue in cheek, slow paced psuedo-love song and set opener Brother's Blood itself could not sound more different without the Goddamn Band's energy behind it.

Kevin Devine - I Could Be With Anyone (Demo)


Personally, I was particularly happy about the inclusion of A Billion Bees, a gorgeous ballad off of Put Your Ghost To Rest I'd never heard played live before, Carnival, a song I never really appreciated until I heard it played live but has since become one of my favorite K.D. songs, and No One Else's Problem, a fantastic, quick witted break up song that is severely underplayed at Kevin's shows. The favorite, as always, was You'll Only End Up Joining Them. It's a shame this song saw the light of day as an overproduced, alt-country tune on Put Your Ghost to Rest because the solo version, sans lap steel guitar, really lets the hard hitting lyrics and finely crafted melody shine through. Maybe I'm biased because I, as mentioned ad nausea, am quite fond of that Kevin Devine fellow. Or maybe I'm biased because that song hits all sorts of home for me. Regardless, it's a gorgeous song that talks of self-destruction and loss in a powerful way that few 4 minutes songs could ever manage.

I appreciate Kevin Devine as a person.

Kevin returns to Illinois is but a few short months when he'll be doing time as an opener for the Get Up Kids. They'll hit the Metro on October 21st and 22nd, making October almost as an exciting month, concert wise, as August, with shows from David Bazan, Brand New, Manchester Orchestra, Sea Wolf, Great Lake Swimmers and rounds 5 and 6 with Kevin Devine.

What happened to Kevin Devine round 4? Well, friends, that was Lollapalooza! And you can read all about that via my post at Radio Free Chicago.

The Hot Half Life Recovers.

If I had to sum up the past five days of my hot half-life in but one brief song lyric, I would quote the Hold Steady and say "Killer parties almost killed me."

While I didn't go to a single party in the traditional sense, every day of my life for the past week has been consumed by music, one band after another, after another and that's like a party, right? It all went a little something like this:

- Hot Half favorite Kevin Devine started the madness off perfectly with an unofficial Lollapalooza preshow in DeKalb, Illinois. Round 3 with K.D. was understated, acoustic and gorgeous. Just the way I like it.
- The next day brought the Decemberists official Lolla-preshow at the Metro, a place I'm seeing more of these days than my own home.
- The celebration really got underway on the 7th in a very rainy, extremely muddy Grant Park with Day 1 of Lollapalooza.
- Day 2 of Lolla had me at the brink of insanity. Rest? What's rest?
- By the time my alarm buzzed me awake on Day 3, I was so deliriously exhausted that I could barely keep track of what bands I was seeing. Thank goodness for my trusty notebook.
- After a moment of relaxation which saw my return to the "day job" (or, as I affectionately refer to it as, "hell"), it was back for more music in Chicago parks and on the 10th, I got to see longtime favorites Shearwater live for the first time in Millennium Park.

Top 5 highlights of the whole ordeal?

- Kevin Devine. If the man needed my kidney, I'd probably give it to him. Heck, if he simply wanted my kidney just for fun, I'd seriously consider it. That probably makes me sound like a creep because it's out of context but in context... Well, it still might be creepy. A proper write up of K.D. Round 3 is en route to The Hot Half Life.
- Getting to finally experience the Decemberists live. I wasn't impressed by their Lollapalooza set, a conceptual start-to-finish delivery of The Hazards of Love but regardless, getting to see them in person twice in the span of two days was remarkable.
- Getting a fancy new musical obsession via Langhorne Slim. I have the same feverish desire for his music that I did upon first listen to M. Ward, quite a few years back and aside from Bad Veins, it's been a while since an act had me as excited as Slim does.
- Finally seeing what the big deal is about Andrew Bird. It's been said before but that doesn't make it any less true: That man is Chicago's finest whistler. It's damn hard to win someone over in a festival setting but Bird managed to snag my heart even after a too-long, too-rainy, too-tiring Day 1.
- Being dangerously close to former Okkervil River right hand man, current Shearwater
ringleader Jonathan Meiburg, whose voice is just as unearthly and impossibly beautiful in person as it is on record. Don't believe me? Check out a sample of what I got to experience this evening, via a live SXSW video.

A pathetic sidenote: That ridiculous nervousness I develop around Will Sheff? It seems to have spread to Jonathan Meiburg as well, exemplifying something I now refer to as "The Okkervil River affect". Those two gentlemen are remarkably similar in the way they carry themselves and something about extremely well kept men who are tall, well spoken and very kind makes me jittery. Sorry, Dallas Green, but Jonathan's taking your spot.

More Notable Occurances in Indie!

Summer, apparently, is the time for indie rock announcements.

- Flight of the Conchords have announced their second lp, including all the best tracks from season 2 of their HBO series (including my personal favorite 'Hurt Feelings'). Check out the fantastic artwork for the appropriately named 'I Told You I Was Freaky'.



- The film adaptation of Maurice Sendark's Where The Wild Things Are continues to look awesome and the just released featurette, featuring a bit of Karen O.'s film score, does what I thought was impossible: Makes me even more excited for the October release.



- Precious and creepy indie rockers Miniature Tigers have taken to posting unreleased b-sides on lead singer Charles Brand's twitter account. Check out these swell songs which didn't make the cut for the band's debut release Tell It To The Volcano -


Roaring Twenties


River of Blood


- Finally, David Bazan has put out the first track off his highly anticipated new album, Curse Your Branches. I first heard Bless This Mess at the Daytrotter studios a few months back and while this version is quite different, it's just as wonderful as anything David's done in the past. Check out Radio Free Chicago to download the track.

The Hot Half Life Rocks Out To... Bad Veins at the Abbey!

Friday July 31st was Round 2 with my favorite new band of 2009, Bad Veins. Instead of driving a vast distance to see them, this time they were on my home turf of Chicago at the Abbey with Now Now Every Children, who they're currently making the rounds with across a good portion of the US.

Chicago was the first date of their tour and it was great to see them on the opening night if only for the fact that, as I learned post-show, Chicago's gig featured an accidentally slightly different set list than the rest of their shows will feature. Bad Veins, as I said before, put on a pretty great live show, coupled with their interesting stage equipment (Irene!) and the guys themselves stage presence. Drummer Sebastien Schultz has the energy of about three average drummers and Benjamin Davis is quite charismatic - I was on the nose when I described his vocal stylings as lackidaysically seducitve. At their Indianapolis show, I overheard two possibly intoxicated ladies talking about how they'd never heard Bad Veins before, but they wanted to based upon the band's looks. So take note, aspiring musicians: Be pretty and get lady fans. Of course, good music helps as well and Bad Veins certainly do produce that. I can't wait for the day that these guys play the Metro because I would love to hear their sound in such a venue. It's not that they're too good for the Abbey, I'm just excited for the day when more people in my city catch on to them and they're playing to a much wider audience because they certainly deserve it. When they reach that level, I imagine that somebody, somewhere, will ask to take a picture not only with the guys but also with their reel to reel, Irene. I imagine that will be a monumental day at Bad Veins HQ (if it hasn't already happened in their hometown - From the 2,000 plus turn out to their Fountain Square record release party, I gather that Ohio natives love Bad Veins as much as, if not more than, this blogger).

When I recently saw Cursive play in DeKalb, I was so excited about the inclusion of a cover of the Cure's Lovecats on their setlist that I twittered "Is Cursive seriously playing Lovecats...?" and I got to repeat my mid-set twittering with Bad Veins when I got to hear them play the non-album cut Fake Baby, a song I'd previously only heard a stripped down version of via their first Daytrotter session.

While this is my second time seeing Bad Veins, I already feel like a pro at it, perhaps because I'm so intensely familiar with the source material and now that I know what to expect from their live show, I was less intent on watching the Benjamin and Sebastien and more interested in hearing the music. Every song reminded me of the first time I heard their record and certain tracks evoked strong memories of that experience, particularly Dry Out and Afraid, which were two of my favorite tracks upon first listen. Since those many, many weeks ago, I have gone through various phases when it comes to Bad Veins - For a while, I listened to Gold and Warm non stop, I also had a brief yet memorable love affair with Falling Tide and in recent days, I've taken quite a shine to Go Home but Afraid will always be my first love when it comes to Bad Veins self titled debut and getting to hear it live again was nothing short of goosebump-inducing because, well, it's just that kind of song.

The finale of The Lie was far better this time around and when I noted to Benjamin after the show that this set surpassed what I saw in Indianapolis, he disagreed but I elaborated that last time, The Lie wasn't quite up to par because his megaphone wasn't working. Chicago, however, saw the acquisition of Bad Veins fourth megaphone and hearing The Lie shouted through it, as originally intended, was a fitting and strong finale.


Bad Veins - Fake Baby (Live at Daytrotter)

Sebastien Schultz and I didn't coordinate his shirt and my laptop bag. It just sort of turned out that way.

Benjamin Davis and myself - Now featuring less blinking!

You might remember that when I saw Bad Veins in July at Radio Radio, I got the chance to interview them after the show at Steak and Shake. That was interesting to me because I'd never seen a Steak and Shake with red walls, nor had I ever done an interview there before. The interview went quite well and you can read the results over on my new home Radio Free Chicago!

Bad Veins return to Chicago once more on September 15th at Subterranean with label mates Division Day. Who will be there? This girl! And I certainly hope you can make it as well - Not that I'm one to resort to bribery but anyone who goes there, finds me and tells me they read my blog will get a drink on me. What can I say, I'm both charitable and in need of new friends.


Editor's Note: Perhaps, upon my sixth entry in the past two months about Bad Veins, you're thinking "Wow, Amber Valentine, get a new band to write about." If you're not thinking that now, you certainly will be after August 5th with Round 3 with Kevin Devine. Do I need new bands to write about? Well, maybe. But I'm quite fond of the same three, thanks. (Third, for those keeping track, is Okkervil River who might one day return to the midwest and then you can expect on onslaught of posts about how pretty Will Sheff is. Maybe one day the Hot Half Life's showrunner will get herself a boyfriend and she'll shut up about Will Sheff. But probably not.)

A Hot Half Weekly Roundup.

From Friday July 24th to Friday July 31st, I did the following things in order:

- I interviewed Ben and Sean of the folk punk duo Andrew Jackson Jihad at the Beat Kitchen in Chicago.
- I made my way to Dekalb, Illinois to sit down with one of the men who has shaped my musical upbringing, Tim Kasher of Cursive for an in depth one-on-one conversation that took place after a concert that might just be the best concert I've ever got the chance to be in the audience for.
- I then promptly headed to Iowa to barely survive the Daytrotter Barnstormer Tour 2009 featuring Mac Lethal, Snowblink, Local Natives and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin.
- I hit up Josh Ritter back on my home turf at the Metro.
- And to close it all out, I got to spend some time with my pals and favorite new act Bad Veins at the Abbey.


Ben and Sean of Andrew Jackson Jihad were a blast and if you're feeling so inclined, you can read all about what shenanigans transpired over at Radio Free Chicago.

One thing you won't read about over on RFC is the fact that the show was so rowdy by my indie kid standards that I sustained a few minor bruises - One of which I still have a week later - which has given me the priceless opportunity to coin the term "Battlescar Galactica" for any and all concert related bruises.

I have no clue what lead singer Sean Bonette and I were laughing about here but clearly, it was hilarious.

The guys pal from Phoenix took possession of my camera and snapped about a dozen pictures of Ben Gallaty and myself for the Chicago Andrew Jackson Jihad Photo Frenzy of 2009. I'm hoping to make it an annual occurance.

The day after Andrew Jackson Jihad was Cursive and as for that... I can say that being able to scream the Art is Hard lyric "Oh Cursive is so cool!" a mere three feet away from Tim himself was probably the best musical moment of my life so far. Cursive is the type of band I have intense, specific memories tied to - I got a close friend into Curisve back when The Ugly Organ was first released and remember having an long conversation with her about why "Oh Cursive is so cool!" is one of the best song lyrics of all time while sitting in Denny's after a Yeah Yeah Yeahs concert in Detroit. I'm not at all ashamed to admit that when I first heard Cursive at 15, I developed quite the crush on Mister Kasher and my hopes for meeting him were so incredibly high, it was near unbearable. I stood outside the green room as Cursive's tour manager got Tim for me and as I introduced myself, Tim told me he recognized me from earlier when we were hanging out while he was on stage. Sitting next to Tim, discussing his music, literature, moving to LA, writing screenplays and what music he listens to, I was incredibly charmed - Early on in the interview, Tim interrupted me to tell me he liked me shoes. Sweet, softspoken and a complete gentleman, Tim was everything I didn't expect and everything I wanted him to be. Most importantly to me, I got to interview someone I've had nothing but respect for for ten years successfully.

My interview with Tim will be up over at Radio Free Chicago shortly but I has set the bar for my next interview incredibly high.

Tim and myself. He's awesome and I'm pale.

Making the trek to Iowa for Daytrotter's Barnstormer tour was completely worth it. Normally, I probably wouldn't have been thrilled about a trip to Iowa of all places but the fact of the matter is that I'd go just about anywhere if Daytrotter was involved because it's such a special thing and I'm always happy to be a part of it. Sadly, my "crew" (or, if you prefer, "posse") and I had to jet back to Illinois before the evening's final set with Mac Lethal but you can read about what I thought of Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Snowblink and Local Natives over on the ol' RFC.

Shortly after coming back to Illinois, I headed over to the Metro. I walked in as a person with knowledge of Josh Ritter and walked out as a full fledged Josh Ritter fan. I've been spinning alot of his tracks since the set because, well, I don't know if I've ever seen a better frontman than Josh Ritter. He puts on a phenomonal show because he has alot of passion for what he does and his excitement is infectious. I'm really excited to do a proper review of it.

After his set, Josh Ritter and I fell in love. Clearly, you can see that in this picture. Have you ever seen two people more in love? Well... Perhaps myself and Will Sheff... Speaking of which, this is the exact alley next to the Metro that the legendary photo of Will and I talking was snapped at. This alley has seen some amazing times - Myself blurting out nonsensical words nervously at Will Sheff, smoking a cigarette with Josh's fantasticly mustached bandmate Zack Hickman (Who actually has his own brand of mustache wax! What a good man!) and now this.

As for the end of my week, I can't say enough positive things about Bad Veins and I plan on in the very near future giving their set at the Abbey last night with Now Now Every Children a proper write up soon enough. But until then, I shall leave you with this...

Benjamin Davis is smiling! I'm blinking so there's a "Take 2" in existence but regardless, look at him smile! I challange you to find another photograph of him smiling in existence.

Next week brings Kevin Devine, the Decemberists and the start of the insanity of Lollapalooza. As exciting as this week? We'll see. I'm not getting my hopes up because frankly, this past week is going to a hard one to top.