Hello, friend.

A great read from Dan Sinker:

You can trace a very clear line from that summer of being scared and sad and loney and watching The Goonies over and over to punk. The underground that I discovered a few years later—probably four or five in actual years but it feels like far more separation than that—was exactly that: a place where you could exist separate from the conformity of the mainstream, where you could chart your own existence, where you could build possibilities that felt impossible and possible simultaneously, and where you could do it alongside others who had found themselves—their true selves—in the liner notes of 7"s and smudgy printing of zines and sticky floors of a Sunday afternoon show in a rock club that smelled of old beer and sweat. Down there, it was our time.

Underground and decentralized, always.

Lead track on his new album, The Mirror. So good.

Also test driving some new stuff out in the wild. #crucialtracks

It's been over 20 years since I last saw Stereolab (Seattle, 2004, with Tortoise)... so wasn't sure what to expect with Stereolab in Buffalo of all places. I was blown away, though, both by the band and the crowd. Buffalo LOVES Stereolab, apparently. Sold out crowd and good vibes that almost took Lætitia Sadier to tears. I absolutely love when bands experience the Buffalo that I love and see the city as a place worthy of attention.

There are a lot of quotable parts of this video, but this one sums it all up:

The extent to which these very powerful people feel no sense of responsibility to anything makes me feel like maybe they shouldn't have this much power. They shouldn't be in charge of the kind of thing that could literally, by their own admission, destroy humanity.

NewDad playing some songs off their new album, which was featured on a recent issue of Crucial Tracks. So good.