Days of Lore

“What this town needs is an enema” OK, maybe just a good record store. I went to Davis this past weekend to check out a cozy little house show with CN&R contributors Michael Kuker and Jack Bennett (a couple of music nerds in the truest sense) and ended up going to Armadillo Records there and The Beat in Sacramento to see how many ducats I could drop (damage: $43.12).

Armadillo? Meh. But The Beat always makes for a good time, and it made me pine for a record store of equal quality in Chico. Don’t get me wrong, Melody Records has a nice selection of vinyl, and Tower Records has a great location downtown (the Underground, however, is absolutely useless), but ever since Sundance went the way of the dodo in 2001, Chico has been lacking a record store with that certain je ne sais quoi.

But Chico’s record-store conundrum sort of falls in line with the fact that the radio stations around here (with the exception of a couple) are Plain Jane—a steady diet of Top 40 garbage, country and classic rock played over and over … and over … and over. But hey, I’m preaching to the choir, so I’ll stop now.

Tertiary butterflies The main reason for going to Davis wasn’t to dick around in music stores, but to see a couple of familiar faces perform: Sean Harrasser of Harvester/The Vertels/Disaster Scrapbook/Dearest, Crown fame and Jed Brewer (Thornucopia; Harvester; Carquinez Straits).

Brewer played it straight, sticking mainly with material from his latest project Carquinez Straits, while Harrasser played songs from Dearest, Crown as well as new material from his upcoming solo project, The Envelope Peasant LTD (deep sigh).

Of course, there was never a shortage of clever one-liners from Harrasser (they probably would have been funnier if I’d had a pocket dictionary with me).

Also performing that night was Sacramento’s Troy Mighty, a.k.a. Dead Western, who brought the dorky feel-good vibe to a screeching halt real quick. Dressed in a drab suit sans shoes and sporting a shaggy neck beard, Mighty proceeded to creep out the 20-or-so in attendance with his I-sleep-in-a-coffin stage presence.

Between swigs of Seagram’s 7, Mighty moaned his vocals over sparse guitar chords while his eyes rolled back in his head. I would occasionally look at the people sitting politely on the floor as they nervously glanced at one another. Good times. Check him out on MySpace.

Indie nerds, unite! Those familiar with Harrasser’s and Brewer’s band Harvester will be happy to hear that they plan on hitting the studio this year to record new material in Portland.

In other news that’s bound to have indie geeks quivering in their Chuck Taylors, Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel is also working on new material after years of silence. It will be his first musical output since 1998’s Airplane Over the Sea.

Noooooooooooooo!!! That’s how many of the e-mails and postings began as fans grieve over the news that, after 11 years, Sleater-Kinney is calling it quits. The band will play a handful of dates with it all ending Aug. 4 at Lollapalooza in Chicago.

And I’m spent <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"> </script>