FISTFULAYEN

Thanks to Leonard for turning me on to Okkervil River’s “Black Sheep Boy” a couple years back. It quickly became a favorite for both Zoe and me. I hadn’t necessarily expected the new record, “The Stage Names”, to be even better, but it is. Touching, rocking, fun, sad, border-pushing, and traditional all at once.

Emusic has it as an MP3 download with an exclusive track, Insound is selling the MP3s, or you can listen to it right from OkkervilRiver.com. Another album with great artwork, worth purchasing the vinyl if you’re into such things (I am). Please reward them for being awesome and open and making their whole album playable on their Web site by buying one of the above formats of the record and going to see them live and buying t-shirts and sending them a thoughtful email about how much you like it.

If you haven’t seen it already, here’s a great video of one of the best songs from the previous LP, Black Sheep Boy.

In other news, I actually ordered some CDs this week, the Magnolia Electric Co box set. If you don’t hear from me for a while it’s likely due to a Jason Molina overdose.

ian

ps – if you want to embed videos on your page use this handy little search that Mick O made.