Had a rad time at the M-Shop Sunday night. Big thanks to all of you that came out. One thing about the M-Shop, they run that place straight pro. They have you show up like 4 hours before the show and do a nice, meticulous, full-set-up soundcheck. And it shows. They treat musicians real nice too.

Bowerbirds sounded great. I remember finding it interesting that they play in Iowa so much. Then I thought the singer/guitarist looked familiar, but then I thought, bah, lots of skinny bearded plaid-wearing thirtysomethings who play in indie folk bands kinda look similar. Then to my surprise after their set he came up to me and said he thought he knew me from somewhere. Turns out he’s from Grinnell and I guess hung out at UNI some, played in a band called The Speed Of Sauce who I remember seeing and playing some shows with and have frequently wondered what happened to, and certain of our mutual friends are the ones through whom my wife and I got together. Or at least, it was at a party at their place that we started dating. It’s always cool when you discover a connection like that with people you meet and play with at gigs, makes you wish you could hang around and chat longer.

Anyway we’ve got a really exciting Des Moines gig coming up, and that’s the 5th annual Gross Domestic Product festival put on by the Des Moines Music Coalition. If I have to tell you one more time how much you need to be there…

Hi folks. Still ironing out the kinks on the mailing list, I think some folks got emails about me adding new venues to the show calendar. Sorry about that. Also the emails have this cheezy theme. It’s all getting worked out, though.

Some really great shows coming up! We’ll be opening up for Bowerbirds at the M-Shop (in Ames) Sunday March 14. It seems like Bowerbirds have been kind of a thing lately, and I’ve certainly been enjoying everything I’ve been hearing from them. Check out this video they just came out with like yesterday over at Stereogum and this Daytrotter session from a few months back. Good stuff. So this is a pretty exciting gig for us, really looking forward to it.

Despite its proximity on the calendar to the above, we couldn’t pass up the chance to come back to the Ames Progressive Office the preceding Wednesday, March 10, for the almighty psychedelic sounds of Light Pollution as they make their way to SXSW.

But before any of that, we’ve got an all-ages Sunday evening show, March 7 at 5 pm at Vaudeville Mews with Ely Falls and Fortnight. I have a feeling this will be a very cozy down-home show for us like similar Mews gigs we’ve had recently, and that’s a really cool vibe that I recommend coming out and getting into.

Also I’m told we’re going to be on Gross Domestic Product this year. Stay tuned for details.

And finally, I sent in our submission for this year’s 80/35 festival a few days ago. It would be beyond awesome if we got to play that, so if you don’t mind, do us a favor and head over to the 80/35 Facebook page and put in a good word for us!

Oh, come to think of it, one more thing: Get down to the Mews for the 5:30 all-ages early show this Friday! You probably don’t need me to convince you to see Squidboy or The Poison Control Center, institutions of central Iowa rock and roll awesomeness that they are, but I’m recommending you get down there early for this pretty stellar young up-and-coming outfit called The Seed Of Something. We don’t just say such nice things because we know the kids either, we’re honestly pretty impressed with how they’ve started out. Ask anyone who caught their first show last month.

Last month Dan had this fun idea for each of us to do our own “Top 10 albums of 2009″ list. Everybody does it. Laying aside for the moment the possibly fading relevancy of the album as a format; I’m not totally buying into it yet, and anyway we like albums. Well, we’ve been stalling on posting them because Will hasn’t got his in. Three weeks into the new year I think it’s time to let him off the hook.

Dan’s (in order):

1. Weinland “Breaks In The Sun”
2. The Black Heart Procession “Six”
3. Morrissey “Years Of Refusal”
4. Polvo “In Prism”
5. Sonic Youth “the Eternal”
6. Dinosaur Jr. “Farm”
7. Do Make Say Think “Other Truths”
8. Jason Lytle “Yours Truly, the Commuter”
9. Katatonia “Night Is The New Day”
10. Isis “Wavering Radiant”

Chuck’s (in no order):

• Sonic Youth “The Eternal”
• Dinosaur Jr “Farm”
• Kowloon Walled City “Gambling On The Richter Scale”
• Black Pyramid “Black Pyramid”
• Magnolia Electric Co. “Josephine”
• Morissey “Years Of Refusal”
• Zoroaster “Voice Of Saturn”
• The Disciplines “Smoking Kills”
• Boston Spaceships “The Planets Are Blasted”
• Mastodon “Crack The Skye”

Honorable mentions:

• Neko Case “Middle Cyclone”
• Wilco “The Album”
• Pelican “What We All Come To Need”
• Built To Spill “There Is No Enemy”
• Baroness “The Blue Album”
• Om “God Is Good”
• The Sundance Kids “The Excellent Sundance Kids”

Making a list like this is kind of funny because there are so many releases you’re aware of but never really got around to getting or listening to very much that you suspect might make the list, but it feels wrong to put on albums that you suspect you might like a lot, but don’t really know very well. I really don’t know how music critics do it, because they also have to think of a bunch of interesting stuff to say about each album. Even with the amount of music that Dan and I are able to listen to (we both tend to have jobs where we can pretty much listen to music all day while we work) it’s hard to get to everything that strikes you as interesting. Especially when you suffer lengthy bouts of unemployment that hamper your ability to buy tunes.

Hopefully you are working your way out of hibernation from this weather. We’ve got a hell of a show coming up on January 29 at Vaudeville Mews with North Of Grand and a really cool Minneapolis band called Story Of The Sea. Hope to see you.

Why Make Clocks is back at it. Saturday we went up to Omaha to play at O’Leaver’s. Bazooka Shootout sounded great, we went on second, then Nick from Little Black Stereo pulled double duty after that, playing piano in the Matt Cox Band before Little Black Stereo capped off the night. One thing is for sure, Nick can play the fuck out of a piano. It was a great show. The band selection was appreciably eclectic and all of them good, and a good turnout and fun all around.

Ian (of Thunder Power) offered us his place to crash at, but we experienced car trouble on the way to his place from O’Leavers. The “brake” warning light was on and the steering was really stiff and something smelled funny. So we didn’t know if we were going to end up stranded or what. In the morning Ian recommended the garage at the BP shop a few blocks away which besides having been good to him in the past had the distinction of being open on a Sunday. Turned out the idler pulley had gone out resulting in loss of the serpentine belt. On the drive back to Ian’s, he and Dan had the fortune of finding the belt itself in the street, and took it back over to the garage. So for not much more than a hundred bucks we were back in business and headed home by noon. Huge thanks are due to Ian and that garage. You guys are lifesavers.

Weekend after next we’ll be on the hometown scene with a show at the Mews on the 29th with North Of Grand and Story Of The Sea. Also plan on us at The Maintenance Shop in Ames with Bowerbirds in March.