Bad News, Worse News, hope?

So first the good news that didn't seem to find its way into the title. I finally finished (for the most part) the song I have been trying to write for a couple of months now. To say that I am pretty excited would be a mild understatement. The bad news was that as I was playing to the first person (Dana) to hear it, in fact as I strummed the last triumphant variation of a D chord, the D string snapped. This means that, until I put new strings on the guitar, I can't record the song as either a demo to send to Greg or to post here. In fact I can't record anything to post here (yeah yeah excuses excuses). The worse news is that Greg in his wisdom did some research and it would appear that the booking agency I was so excited about is a scam so that's kinda the end of that.

In far more positive news I went on a bit of a buying spree at my local independent record store and picked up among other things the (comparatively) new album from Canadian Indie rockers The New Pornographers, Challengers. I was surprised to notice that apparently I had been ignoring my itunes labels and have been enjoying a track off of Challengers for quite some time now. For me at least, the song Mutiny, I Promise You is the standout of the track from the pipe organ hook at the beginning to the echo-y boy girl vocal build of the chorus and finally the chorus itself a simple two line affair that was what attracted me to the song in the first place. Other favorite tracks on the album include the call and answer Myriad Harbor and the opener My Rights Versus Yours. As far as the overall sound of album its the same catchy and melodically complex stuff as previous Pornographer's albums but it struck me that it seemed there was a bit more of a folk/country elements to a number of songs which I hadn't remembered from other work by them. Even when she wasn't singing, it reminded me a bit of singer Neko Case's solo work. In all an excellent use of my money I feel (and I so rarely feel that way).

A final note about formats. I bought the album on vinyl and since the band is on Matador records the vinyl comes with a free mp3 download of the songs. A couple other labels do this as well including my personal favorite Saddle Creek. It is without a doubt my favorite trend in music today. Singlehandedly it has made vinyl a reasonable format to purchase music in again. I guess the new mp3/usb turntables do too but I don't have one, so screw 'em.