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Hi everyone - good news! The Penance and The Patience & First Temple LPs have finally arrived and are shipping out this week. Thanks for your patience all this time Pink Lemonade is still a while away, the audio issues identified last year delayed things heaps and the current supply problem for vinyl has meant even longer delays Hopefully July but I'm not sure yet The new album is coming along really well, hopefully there is something ready to share with everyone before they go on tour with sleepmakeswaves in September/October

I've had a super tough time catching up on movies this year, buuuttt... I watched The Northman last night. Killer stuff. I'd put it right up there with the other 2 Eggers movies, which are a couple of my favorites of all time. Not horror, but I watched Everything Everywhere All At Once too, and holy shit!! What a fucking movie. I saw X last weekend and loved it. Planning to watch The Innocents and You Won't Be Alone over the next couple days. Also reeealllly want to see Men asap. Then I'll be caught up on my most anticipated movies of the year.

High, for sure. I think my favorite song on this record is "Waiting For Love." Like, who knew Cave In could still write suuuper-big pop hooks?

I'm stone cold sober right now and listening again, and yeah, my inebriated self was correct: This record truly is the fuckin' tits.

Got my Siamese Dream from Deep Discount and of course it is beat to hell. I think I will wait 12 years and then contact the record label about a replacement!

I mean, yeah. Hopefully you get what I actually meant though. Damn, I really do respect supporting labels, shops, and bands as best as I can… but it sounds like you’re far more receptive to new buys than I am. Not saying that my way is the best way to consume music, but I do have a specific glide path for an album to earn its spot on my shelf. (Especially as someone who values quality over quantity, and just shelf space in general.) I feel like it has treated me really well and kept me away from regrettable buys. I don’t know if it’d value you at all – and I’m hardly the only person who does this; not trying to say I’ve trademarked some perfect system to establish a record’s value or desire – but Curiosity to Purchase is a methodical journey that I follow pretty habitually. Not that you or anyone asked, but curious if anyone does something similar: (I’d throw all this shit in one of those spoiler tags to avoid a wall of text, if I could. But VC took those away for some reason. So, sorry.) [Scope] Someone will tell me to check out an artist or band. I’ll Google them to see if they’ve got a bandcamp. This lets me determine a few things right off the bat. Like if vinyl even is available to begin with (or sold out), or what the price of the digital download may be, if there is one. And most importantly, it lets me preview a couple of songs to make sure the album is within the realm of something I’ll even enjoy. [Stream] I’ve decided I could be into the album, so now it’s off to Spotify to give it an open-minded listen. Why not just start with a Spotify stream? When I don’t have time for a full album, I’ll opt to just “play my library” (shuffle). It works better when Spotify doesn’t remember all the junk I’ve decided is not for me. I’m sure there’s a way to go in and clear your history / plays – and maybe some folks get value from exploring aimlessly and keeping a log of everything they’ve played – but I personally don’t. Plus, if the stream treats me well, scoping out the bandcamp page helps me shift to… [Digital] I’ve decided that as a whole, this album is a banger. Or I think it is. Maybe. It could be. I’ll need another listen or two in a different setting, and so now it’s time to secure a copy digitally. There’s a number of reasons I do this, ranging from wanting to hear the record again – anything I download, I know I’ll be playing more than the initial Spotify stream – to wanting to hear it in a higher quality, like FLAC. If the digital copy is < $8, or free, I’ll chip in a few bucks on bandcamp to add it to my collection. You get permanent access to download it at any quality, and it supports the artist for the cost of an energy drink or two. But the icing on the cake here is that sometimes it scratches the itch of “owning” the album. Anyone else experience this, ever? Having it in the digital library is sometimes enough for me, especially if the entire album is not as consistent or doesn’t grow on me as much as I’d hope after 2-3 plays. If the album is not on bandcamp or the digital is $10+, I obtain it through less savory methods. Because at that point, if I revisit the album and it’s just not clicking, I’ll remove it from my library [no longer in possession of it, even digitally] or I’ll move to the final phase… [Purchase] Self-explanatory. The record has proven itself over repeat listens; the entire experience is a treat or there is a far larger portion of the album that is more enjoyable than not. This helps filter out albums with some really nice tracks that fall short as a whole experience for me. I won’t go into details on hunting down my preferred variant or researching to see what sounds best, but you get the idea. Sometimes this means paying $1-7 more if I’m unsure of the album, kinda’ like it - enough to buy digitally - and then ultimately feel confident in, only to loop back and buy it through bandcamp. (How rad would it be to receive a discount on vinyl buys through bandcamp, for the cost difference of the digital download, if you had previously purchased it digitally?) But that’s a rarity and honestly, double-dipping on bandcamp is not something I’m going to lose sleep over. I feel dumb for even writing all this out because who gives a shit? I’m sure someone will try to call it an unnecessary or elitist approach to consuming music but in a way, yeah… it touches exactly on what you called out. I don’t buy singles and I listen to albums front to back, so they’ve got to earn their spot on the shelf. I’m not in the business of buying stuff I’ll only play the first side of and then get bored with. This whole process has served me well for probably a decade or more. Just food for thought I guess. May be fun or interesting to consider how much that varies from the overwhelming “stream culture” we face today.

I always liked them, and have wanted that album on vinyl for decades. Their 2009 vinyl release of In the Black trades for over $100+ as well. They rock. 🤘🏻

Here's two albums I'd love to finally see get the vinyl treatment: Deadsy - Commencement Year Of The Rabbit - Year Of The Rabbit