Yesterday would be my exhibit "A" in an argument over the reality of the phrase "a case of the Mondays". Waking from too little sleep I intended to get to work early but couldn't get out the door until just before 9:00. The large number of files I had set to import over the weekend had aborted, and I found myself too distracted by watching the World Cup on my laptop to get into putting together the video I'd been tasked with. Somehow the day managed to pass a little faster than molasses, and by the time 5:30 rolled around I knew I'd gone way beyond the point of diminishing returns as far as my abilities to edit were concerned.
When reviewing Halloween, Alaska's album a couple weeks ago, I learned that James Diers was in another band earlier in his career called Love-Cars. After searching for them on iTunes and listening to a sample of one song I decided I should just go ahead and buy a CD or two. A quick online search found a couple of their albums used from a place in New York for cheap, so I ordered them. They finally arrived yesterday, and I promptly went home to listen to them. I found it really hard to just sit and focus on the music, so after listening to their first album, Chump Lessons, I grabbed some headphones and a notepad and took a walk.
I'm Friends With All Stars accompanied me as I strolled around Ferndale high school and to a nearby park. While their first album had a very struggling-local-band feel to it, their second sounded exactly like I hoped it would: a bridge between the enthusiasm of their early material and the quiet power of Halloween, Alaska. I akinned it to Osker's Idle Will Kill, which similarly fit between the snotty punk rock of "Treatment 5 and Devon's solo work as Fingers Cut Megamachine.
After half an hour of meandering around I sat down on a swingset and leafed through my notebook of drawings. A young woman and her child came over and started playing on the swings next to me. Some teenagers were tossing a frisbee around and having a lot of fun. I walked home when it began to get dark out and the bugs started biting my legs.
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