Bombarded by new music

I’ve been in a music rut for a while. Ever since the oh-so-impressive Tuesday that dropped albums by the Mountain Goats, Avett Brothers, and Relient K on me, I’ve been leaving those on repeat. Most people would be content with albums by their three favorite bands coming out on the same day. But no, I am fickle. I have listened thoroughly, declared favorite songs, and put the highlights on mixtapes. Those albums have already found their way into “standard rotation.”

In the last few days, however, I have been bombarded with material. I’m reviewing Switchfoot’s Hello Hurricane for Robot Bomb, and I got that package on Wednesday. I received the masters of my own album How We Lived (Woohoo!) yesterday. Also yesterday, I went to Guestroom Records with a gift certificate and emerged with Bishop Allen & the Broken String, Tilly and the Wall’s O, Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm, and Warner Bros.’ 2009 sampler. I picked up the sampler for free because The Cribs and Regina Spektor are on it. Interestingly, hometown heroes Stardeath and the White Dwarfs were on the sampler too. Even more interestingly, Pitchfork-beloved hometown heroes The Evangelicals parked their tour van next to my SUV while I was in Guestroom. It was pretty metal, in the words of B. Burns.

Then last night I had the distinct privilege of seeing the Katie Tracy Band, which did covers and originals. The talented Ms. Tracy covered Ingrid Michaelson’s “Breakable,” which I’ve heard several times covered but never in its original form. So I looked that up today; the music video for it is pretty awesome. Speaking of music videos, I recently discovered a video of Robbie Williams covering The Killers’ “Human” in a rockabilly style. It’s pretty amazing.

Then today I received a mysterious e-mail telling me that one of my friends had downloaded an Andy Davis EP, and that I could do the same for free. So I did. While I was researching my friend Nathan’s e-mail address to tell him of the find (because that’s part of the deal when you dl Davis’ EP New History), I discovered from his blog I Hope Your Ears Bleed that Vanguard Records gave out a free sampler as well. Considering that Vanguard manages the incredible talents of Josh Radin, Josh Ritter, Brandi Carlisle, Greg Laswell, Joe Purdy, Brett Dennen AND Needtobreathe, I immediately jumped all over this.

Add to that mix the reviews I’m writing for Independent Clauses on Anna Madorsky’s Incantation and Mittens on Strings’ Let’s Go to Baba’s, and that’s the amount of music I’ve come into in the last three days. Wild.