The healing power of music

Stupid flu. I had to go home early from school today, cancel my lessons and the worst part: Larry had to sell our Decemberists tickets because I'm too sick to go. We had tickets for tonight and tomorrow. I better get well by tomorrow because I am GOING to that show!

The only bright spot in this cloud of illness is my new harmonica. I'm teaching the kidlets about free-reed aerophones and it turns out the harmonica is a prime example (along with the accordion, which is too cost-prohibitive for casual experimentation), so I thought I'd give it a try. So far I've only succeeding in scaring the cats, but it's pretty awesome. Last night I figured out how to play "When The Saints Go Marching In," "Happy Birthday," and "Hey Jude," although Larry pretended he couldn't understand what I was playing on that last one. For 4 bucks it's a pretty good little instrument, and an excellent way to annoy your family/housemates/pets. Then again, at that price you can just buy one for everyone in the house and play together. I just had a vision of Zach and Nigel wearing conductor's caps, overalls and little steel-toed boots, playing the harmonica down by the train tracks. Maybe it's the cold medicine...but until that actually happens, here's a different musical cat to entertain you.




And one more classic, because I'm sick and Bugs Bunny always makes me feel better!

The Cops on NPR

Seattle band The Cops (with fellow Nebraskan Mike Jaworski on lead vocals) are in today's NPR "Song of the Day" feature! See the story here.

Fleet Foxes signed to Sub Pop!

Oh happy day! Fleet Foxes announced today that they've officially signed with Sub Pop. I can't think of another group that deserves it more - they work hard and sound amazing, and really, what more can you ask for in a band? Take my advice and visit their MySpace page for their upcoming tour schedule...you'll want to catch them this time around. Then when they become hugely popular you'll be able to reminisce about how you saw them back when, and how it was so much better than before they started playing the Paramount (or whatever large theater with terrible sound your city has), et cetera et cetera. Plus you will LOVE them as much as I do. Trust me!