Out of State

Anna C. and I are in Chicago visiting family for the holiday. We miss Austin. We went to go see Passion Pit at the Taste of Chicago Sunday and the hipsters of Illinois aren't nearly as adorable as those of Central Texas. (Also, Passion Pit are terrible. There's nothing even remotely original about their music, their singer's voice is obnoxious, and the drummer is just a prop -- he's just miming along to a programmed beat. Lame.) We're flying back home tonight and it couldn't come any sooner.

So given all the bad music (and lousy baseball) in Chicago I'm particularly excited to study the show calendar back where we belong this week. We just missed Alejandro Escovedo at Taste; he plays at Waterloo Wednesday afternoon. I assume people in Austin already are aware of Escovedo but I feel like I've been taking his presence in town for granted; every time I saw him in San Francisco it was memorable.

Planets are playing Trailer Space with a bunch of others on Thursday. We went early to the Follow That Bird! show at Beerland last week so we could see them; their online classified ads for a female lead guitarist attracted Anna's attention. To be honest we were sort of looking forward to making fun of them. Their recordings are amusingly amateurish. But they were not bad at all live, and with practice could even be good. They're extremely snappy dressers, for what it's worth.

It might not be free (it's on the east side at some place I've never heard of, so it's surely not expensive), but you should know Bottle Service are playing at the Iron Gate Lounge on Saturday night. They're a sweaty good time and proof positive that good songwriting requires little to no instrumental proficiency.

See you at shows.