good morning

while driving to work this morning, 'never there' by cake came on the radio. i turned up the volume, slid on the aviators and rocked out. yeah, cake gets a bad rap, whatever. i'll love them forever because i picked up a copy of fashion nugget in 7th grade and was suddenly the coolest kid on the block. that says a lot considering this was at the apex of my awkward phase. anyway, 'never there' is awesome. horns layered over a staccato bassline and some strategic vibraslappin' action...and are those maracas i hear in the background? or a cabasa? then there's john mccrea who doesn't really sing the vocals, he's a little too good for singing. he's into a drier, cockier delivery. smug syncopation. you tell me that you love me so, you tell me that you care, but when i need you, baby... come on, it rocks. admit it, you like it too.

i arrived at work and promptly checked my gmail to find that i'd won disorientation tickets in some fnx email contest i'd forgotten i had entered. sweet. i have this unique talent for winning things off the radio. just within the last year i've won tickets for ryan adams, devo (yes, devo), and tegan and sara. hey, there are definitely worse things to be good at!

so this disorientation tour is okay. just okay. two of the five bands are actually pretty terrible. but the kooks will be there, and boy do i love me some kooks! rogue wave will be good too. i'll leave before flogging molly to prevent my ears from bleeding, but the first half of the show should be worth the cross-city journey.