I live in the same city as Lungfish. Sometimes, I see Dan Higgs at the farmers' market or at a record store. I can't talk to him. This isn't the rule for me. Last month, I flew out to Portland to interview Sleater-Kinney, my favorite band in the world. I was nervous, but I could still look Corin Tucker in the eye and shake her hand. I've interviewed some of my favorite musicians (Ian MacKaye, Travis Morrison, Craig Finn) with no problem. Lungfish isn't my favorite band; I don't regularly play their records around the house or anything. But they make me nervous as all hell. Onstage at the Ottobar last night, Lungfish was pretty much incomparable. They basically have nothing in common with any band ever. They don't even seem like a band; they seem like ancient druids thawed out from a block of ice or something. Seeing them live for the first-time is like discovering a herd of winged unicorns still living in some remote corner of the Amazon rainforest; not only can you not believe a band like this still exists, you can't even believe it ever existed in the first place. Onstage, their music is like a whirlpool of boulders, a crashing wave of electricity, the hole at the middle of the universe. You walk out of a Lungfish show feeling like you have comets for eyes and blue whales for fingers. It doesn't even make sense to write about Lungfish. But Lungfish is touring right now, and Lungfish doesn't tour too often, so for God's sake go see them if you have half a chance.

The following is a conversation between me and the guy who I by mixtapes from.
Guy who I buy mixtapes from: Yo, you ever heard of Stylah?
Me: No.
Guy: Yo, you need to hear this! (messes with his radio for a minute; it doesn't work.) Well, I ain't lying, this dude is tight! He from the UK! Southwest London!
Me: Yeah, it's a lot of people coming out of the UK right now. There's this compilation, Run the Road, coming out next month of all UK rappers. It's great.
Guy: Yeah, I believe that. It seem like people from the UK, like Phil Collins, they do good work.
(He was right about Stylah. His freestyle at the end of Catch 22's It's a New Day 2 tape is no joke.)