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CONFLOPTION

My head is reeling right now. I’ve been sitting at work since 9am, and writing since about 10am. Three different high school golf teams had practices or try-outs today, so I was ambushed from all angles by people needing me to fill out invoices or find them extra tokens. Basically I had five coaches and sixty-five students jostling for my attention. Nevertheless, I persevere (aren’t I a martyr?) and have managed to work eight pages into the San Francisco chapter of the book. I absolutely love this Tarentel interview.

It’s delightful to read through it all and remember how hilarious Jim Redd and Jefre Cantu were as a tandem (sans tandem bicycle). There’s one section of text in particular–when the pair talk about the upcoming releases for 2006 (I swear, they mention about fifteen albums on four record labels)–I completely disappear from the scene, returning only momentarily to utter a lone, “My God,” between their trying to figure out which record label is putting out which album(s). It’s insane, hectic, and hilarious.

In related news one of my favorite Chicago bands, Pinebender, has offered fans this missive about their once questionable future. “We walked out of Electrical Audio Recording here in Chicago yesterday with rough mixes of what we think will be a great new Pinebender record. Eight songs running about fifty-four minutes. The tones are exactly what we wanted, brown as hell. The band would like to thank engineer Greg Norman for his fine work. In the coming months we’ll track vocals and mix the record with Greg at his Southside home studio. The as-yet-untitled record will be released by Lovitt Records. We’ll certainly let you know when we expect that to be … In other news, we have uncovered a lost recording of a cover of Low’s “Landlord,” also recorded by Greg Norman in his father’s kitchen and garage about seven years ago (we think). That is set to be tacked on to the fourth side of the upcoming reissue of Things Are About To Get Weird on double LP. That will be released later this year by Record Label.”

This is cause for celebration. I dropped them a line to see if anyone was going to be in Chicago while I’m there next month, hopefully I’ll finally get that interview that I’ve been trying to procure since MAY OF LAST YEAR. I don’t hold them responsible, they’ve got jobs and other bands and lives. I have none of those. They should hold me responsible.