The High Strung, Deviants, a 14 Year Old Boy and Other Tales from the Front

I was listening to the This American Life on NPR this morning and they had a story about a few libraries in the midwest where they started holding rock concerts. The concept was pretty cool, they had a regular band who was coming in and performing, then holding Question and Answer sessions with the kids. All of this was designed to change the image of the libraries from being fussy places where you go when you've got a paper due the next day, to being a miraculous place where you can learn and discover new things.

During the story, they featured some clips from the band who has been heavily involved in the project: The High Strung. I was pretty impressed with this litle band from what I heard, then I went to seek them out on the net. They've got a couple mp3's up for downloading, and an album I'll probably try to get once it comes out in September.

They remind me of this strasnge mix between the Flaming Lips, the B52's and Placebo. The lead singer kind of sounds like Placebo's and lyrically, they sound like they could have a couple things in common, such as "A Real Meal Ticket." They've also got that real homemade, guitar, drums, bass sound that the Lips had in their early days and the B52's never really got rid of. They sound like they are really having fun playing these songs. (That was also evident from live snippets they had on This American Life).

The more and more I listen to them; the more and more I want their CD to be out now and in my player.

Moving on, I should probably dig into the other portions of my subject line.

As we all know, I work in an unnamed music store in Miami. So a lot of strange things will come up. This first story isn't quite music related, but I think it should be shared. I was cleaning up some video games and this kid comes up to me with one of the soft porn DVDs. He asked if he could buy it. I looked at him, shaking my head, saying "no" in disbelief. Then I looked at him a little more and finally asked his age. "Fourteen," he said. I looked at him, ready to smack him upside the head. He walked away and I shared the story. Then we got close to he and his friend, making their trip through the story difficult. If they can't buy it, they might want to steal it instead is the logic. Also, we like kicking out kids who do stupid stuff like that.

Earlier in the day, I had a woman so concerned about the music that had could possibly be explicit. I had to dance around the whole issue that it was Aerosmith and that typically, you don't find Aerosmith releases with Parental Advisory stickers. Eventually, she didn't buy anything. I hate stupid parents.

And finally, the Pimp. If you visit out main page, you'll see a link for Prints by Dellessa. Other than being a wonderful girlfriend and booster for this little project of Meera's and mine, she's one hell of a photographer. She also has begun to offer some of her prints for sale, so if you're looking for wall art and like cats and flowers and things, check out her gallery.