I have no idea how they’re making any profit from this whatsoever, but it makes me pretty happy. This is from the weekly newsletter from my local independent record shop, Boo Boo Records, where I am a regular customer:

Occasionally a customer sighs and says “gee, I wish I could spend this big box gift card here, they never seem to have what I really want, and you always do”. Well, now you can use those unwanted gift cards from Aunt Betty, Grandma Moses, or whoever thought it was cool to hook you up with generic big box #7214. We will gladly accept gift cards from any major, non-independent store that sells entertainment media in our area. This includes, but is not limited to: Best Buy, Target, Circuit City, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Wal-Mart, and Starbucks. All you need to do is bring in your card and we’ll give you the full value on anything in our store.

Props to you, Boo Boo. Keep it up, and pass on some encouragement to the rest of the world’s independent record shops on how you’re pulling this off.

I’m almost a week late on this, but better late than never I suppose.

Explosions was, as expected, absolutely amazing. The songs they played, in no particular order (because I can’t remember) are:

• First Breath After Coma
• Your Hand In Mine
• A Poor Man’s Memory
• Yasmin The Light
• The Moon Is Down
• The Only Moment We Were Alone
• Six Days At The Bottom Of The Ocean
• With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept

There were also at least two songs that I didn’t recognize, which either means they’re new or from their Friday Night Lights Soundtrack.

If you are interested, there are a few pictures on my Flickr.

In other Explosions news, they recently announced their new album, All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone, will be released on February 20, 2007, after which they will begin touring again. The album art has also been released.

Update: Stream the new track: Welcome, Ghosts

I’m all over the place with shows these days, it seems. I made a weekend trip up to San Francisco to see mewithoutYou this last weekend (a few pictures on my Flickr account).

Next Monday I’ll be trekking down to Pomona to see Explosions In The Sky at The Glass House.

A few weeks later I’ll be making the same trip to see The Faint.

Expect pictures from those shows when the time comes.