It finally happened. Winter arrived. Snow fell and we woke up this past Sunday with about three inches of the stuff. I’m glad it didn’t arrive earlier, as Friday saw me at KSVR for a four hour stint of music.

They say, Oh, don’t call this group a supergroup! But I disagree, and there’s a distinct reason why. It’s because each member in The New Pornographers is, well, super. A.C. Newman adds his unique songwriting and vocal styling and he backs it with the phenomenal song-craft and vocals of Neko Case and Dan Bejar (Destroyer). Blaine Thurier is a film producer and lends keyboard expertise to the band, while John Collins, Todd Fancey, Kurt Dahle and Kathryn Calder round the songs out on various instruments, many …

Let me tell you a story. In 2007 some notable things happened. I attended the annual music festival SXSW (the image above is of myself and The Lovely Sparrows’ Shawn Jones, taken by Abandoned Love Records/Virgin Of The Birds’ Jon Rooney), I grew a mustache, and I met a beautiful girl named Andi at the Capitol Hill Block Party. We hit it off and ditched the after-party to get a sprite (her) and coffee (me) at Denny’s in Ballard (sadly no longer there) at 1:30am. I …

The summer of 2003 was a hot one in eastern Washington, and my concrete bunker of an apartment contained the heat like no other. Granted, the above image wasn’t shot by yours truly until 2004, but it sure seemed hot enough to ignite even the least combustible of items. I wrapped up my undergraduate that December, which was cold as Antarctica, and upon that milestone I moved to Seattle. It was a good year for the Northwest; many of my favorite albums came from Seattle labels like …