It was mostly sunny, with a high of 75. So far this summer, perfect days like these have been somewhat hard to come by; it's often either hott and melty, or overcast and muggy. So it was a pleasure to eat an apple outside the Thrill Jockey building when I arrived early, and just soak in the loveliness.
Aside from a weird and amusing discussion at one point about how Mike the Intern has a friend who was going to purchase some lion meat (WTF?!), it was a fairly uneventful day of assembling some fancy vinyl packaging. The highlight was probably when Bettina asked me if I could drive a stick-shift (yes I can - thanks Mom!), because she might need me to borrow her car to pick up an old drummer fellow to attend the Fred Anderson wake that evening. Turns out it wasn't to be, but it was fun to imagine my first Chicago driving experience being this interesting, somber assignment.
After my friend John mentioned he was digging the latest Pontiak album, last week I opted to review an early release of theirs for CHIRP (to appear in this space shortly). It's great, full of dark bluesy dirges, so for my payment this week, I picked the new 2010 album that John referred to, Living.
