Opening Day

Suddenly the Mets fans made perfect sense to me. What we were witnessing was precisely the opposite of the kind of rooting that goes on across the river. This was the losing cheer, the gallant yell for a good try -– antimatter to the sounds of Yankee Stadium. This was a new recognition that perfection is admirable but a trifle inhuman, and that a stumbling kind of semi-success can be much more warming. Most of all, perhaps, these exultant yells for the Mets were also yells for ourselves, and came from a wry, half-understood recognition that there is more Met than Yankee in every one of us. I knew for whom that foghorn blew; it blew for me.

Roger Angell, the Summer Game.

Dirty Beaches

He's my latest, so maybe that's why it's so exciting to me. I'm really into this fuzzy throwback sound, I am excited to hear more.

James Blake

My ears keep catching on James Blake. I think it's a new sound and apparently a lot of people like it, he's blowing up everywhere. This is an old old favorite of mine, and I love his take on it.

Middle Brother

I bought Deer Tick's The Black Dirt Sessions last year and enjoyed it, so that's all I knew about Middle Brother, that John McCauley III was in it. They're not really breaking new ground for me, but I think their sound is fun and tight.

The War on Drugs

The first song I heard from them and got obsessed with is The History of Plastic, it really rocks. I like the way they sound like a band I already know but I don't.

Damien Jurado

I'm late to hear about Damien Jurado, which happens all the time. He was on a few of the best of 2010 lists I read and I like his sound and want to hear more.

First Quarter Music

Blam, it's the end of March, the end of the first quarter of 2011! With the exception of the last few days, in which time has gone backwards it seems, time has flown. It's slowed down lately because the weather has gone back to Winter, boo!

I decided to post eight of the bands I've recently discovered and listened to this quarter. I think it will be interesting to see if I am still listening to them at the end of the year. Sometimes it's hard to stay with a band these days, because there's no radio play or whatever, so this will remind me to check on them throughout the year.