On an evening filled with less-than-stellar college admission results (i.e. deferred (i.e. college purgatory)), I’ve found a mood-fitting album. But midnight is fast approaching, and I’ve got very little motivation to write tonight, so please forgive me if this post is a little below the level of excellence that you’ve come to expect out of me.
What we have here is some pretty sweet folk rock—what else would a band called “The Wooden Sky” make? They’re Canadian, too. Once again, my claim that Canada has nothing to offer the rest of the world other than maple syrup and Terrance and Phillip has been refuted.
In a way, these guys remind me of The National. This is kind of an abstract connection if you’re basing it only on the sounds of the two bands, but hear me out. Both groups feature frontmen with very prominent voices, and very personal lyrics. Their voices aren’t even all that similar—Matt Berninger of the National is known for his really low voice, while The Wooden Sky’s Gavin Gardiner just kind of has a drawl—but the fact that both are featured prominently in their respective band’s mixes makes me associate them with each other.
How was that for a run-on sentence?
Also, like the music of The National, If I Don’t Come Home… is a very atmospheric record. There’s no way that I could listen to this at the beach during the middle of August. Although it probably would be good for the beach during the middle of November.
Swole Ear 
Don’t let them bring you down Mr. Ear. You know what Herman Melville wrote in Moby Dick: “A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.” Last time I checked, a lot of people think one of his books will be remembered for a long time.
For reasons probably as amorphous as your, Mr. Ear, this track reminds me of a guy who was popular for about two hours in the late seventies and who also blew a little harmonica: Steve Forbert http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5eFarMdsm4.
Don’t let the colleges get you down. You are not the college that accepts you. All will be well. Give it time. College admissions and job interviews are about the most demeaning procedures that you will ever be subjected to that do not involve a cavity search.
One more thing: I heard this band when they were guests on CBC radio with Jian Gomeshi and did this tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8frpY1ltJU&feature=relmfu . Gomeshi’s show, Q, features lots of bands that you like and you might find stuff you like on their website, http://www.cbc.ca/Q
I hear Q every now and then on public radio. I think Mr. Ear would like it. The last time I heard it he had a bumper that was Vampy Weeks improvising a funny little song. Vampy Weeks is dougie. And thank you for the Zappa links the other day. I probably listened to T & B about 2000 times during high school, but I hadn’t heard it in years.