Spiffy website, wot wot?

Well, I did get to work on some pots this weekend. Never as much time as I could best use, but good time certainly. And several hours over the course of the evenings of this week. Bits here and there, trimming, slipping, carving. All time much appreciated.

In NON-clay related news, you may have noticed that I spent some time sprucing up the website (blog) this week. What do you think? Remember, I'm a potter not a programmer! But I'm rather proud of the minor adjustments here and there.  Most notably, a new banner across the top of the page and a couple new widgets. I should be shooting some photos from the last kiln opening to update my gallery.

Also new this week: I'm on Facebook! At least, as a potter. So please, LIKE me here! I'll try to keep things current, with daily updates from the studio and albums of work as it comes out of the kiln and stuff. In a slightly more accessible/organized format for those things than might work on this site. So check it out!

Back to the clay, here's what's up in the studio:

Arbor bowls. Realized that despite not doing so well last fall (leaving me with a full stock), these bowls have since done rather well this spring, leaving me in need of some more. Fun to get back into this style again.

Some carved bowls. Gave my slips the week off. Going for textural glaze effects. Trying out some new designs that may or may not be borrowed from my mentors.

Well, I didn't totally give ALL the blue slips the week off. I mean, how could I do that?

And we had a lovely weekend. Celebrated our anniversary spending some time outside, nice long run, some time along the river. The local "Oahe Days" civic festival was going on, so there was food and music and bumper cars. We thought the bumper cars were a pretty awesome way to celebrate our anniversary. 

Mighty Mo.

It was a welcome change. Last year our community suffered (nigh) catastrophic flooding, forcing families out of their homes for the better part of 6 months and flooding most (all) of the city/county/state's recreational facilities. Walking along the river, the parks look awfully nice considering that a year ago they were on their way to being inundated. The dead and rotten trees in the midst of the green growth were a fair reminder.

So we enjoyed being able to spend time along the river again and hopefully will get to do more and more of that as the summer goes on.

On a final note, this week I've been working my way through Sound Supply Drop #3. That's 10 albums for $15 for a limited time (still 5 days or so). Some quality music in there from the likes of Hellogoodbye and The Get Up Kids. Favorite of mine amongst the previously unknowns are a band called Young Statues. They sound a little something like this:

You can preview the rest of Drop #3 right here.

And no, I don't get anything from Sound Supply or the bands for mentioning it. I'm just enthusiastic about discovering new talents. So check it out.

Bowls and bowl and bowls.

Because today I don't feel much like dealing in words, here are lots of pictures. Because I used my camera this weekend. Lots of trimming, lots of decorating. Some plates. Some mugs. Some things didn't get photographed. But you should really take what you can get. Especially at this time of year when my basement (studio) is so cold that... it's pretty cold. So I took lots of pictures of the bowls I've been making and the decoration therein. Of course, once they're turned right-side-up they'll have a completely different balance and flow. Part of the magic and mystery, I think.

Bowls! Trimmed, footed, sgraffito-ed.

Two...

...by two...

by two, by two, dear Lord...

these things we clay!

A few of these - soon to be pretty blues. A friend of mine recommended I refer to the blue effect as "in your face cobalt." So there you go.

Minis - These will get the In Your Face Cobalt treatment, and a vase!

Mugs!

And one that's not a pot at all!!

That there above is a powered speaker dock for my iPod/wedding-ring-holder. It was a Christmas gift from my fabulous wife and it makes my studio quite cheerier. I had been playing my tunes through an old pair of computer speakers but it was constantly draining my iPod's battery to do so, and this little black box has fabulous sound, plus it (re)charges my iPod and keeps track of my ring while I'm potting so I don't have to remember where I put it. Potter problems, I guess. In any event, the little blue Nano has been keeping me grooving to my favorite tunes from 2011 (Fleet Foxes! Civil Wars! Foo Fighters! Who was my favorite for the year?) and even 2012 (A Requiem Mass from the David Crowder*Band - amazing! Off to a great start for the last year on the calendar and all that!). So that's been great and I wanted to give Krystal a shout-out for her great gifting. Also under the tree from Krystal: this amazing tome on Marguerite Wildenhain and the Bauhaus. Wildenhain's work and the Bauhaus tradition are of significant influence on my ceramic ancestry, if not my work and philosophy directly, so I'm very much looking forward to digging into the anthology.

Will I get to work in my studio some more this weekend? I sure hope so. Will I wait until next Friday before blogging again? Most likely.

Stay warm, folks. It's cold out there.

To the Northwoods and Back Again

I'm pleased to announce that in spite of spending 22 hours on the road this past weekend I have continued my streak of productivity. Friday saw us headed North by Northeast to Duluth, Minnesota, for the wedding of my dear friend, fellow artist, and sometime-brother, Alexander. It was a wonderful wedding, with much merriment and mirth and dancing and such. And you should click on his name there to check out his work. One of those folks that just oozes creativity. Kind of makes you sick, actually. But seriously, he does some phenomenal things in digital/illustration/mixed-media/printing/typography that are worth checking out.

So we spent some time driving through the Northland and accompanying Northwoods. Beautiful country, beautiful time of year to be there (as opposed to, say, January). If only we'd had time to stop and hunt for wild blueberries, it'd've been perfect. 

The woods. There are roughly 10,000 lakes somewhere in that picture. I think. Stunning view.

In the Northwoods, you can even look stunning while chatting it up with your mother-in-law. Well done, Krystal.

In an attempt to avoid the myriad stretches of construction on the interstate between there and here (and for a change in scenery on this drive we've been doing oh-so-often) we pulled off and took the back highways for the last couple hours home. It included Krystal's first visit to the world's only Corn Palace. I've been before, but Krystal needed to experience it. I think it also fits into the "stunning" category. And to think, after all these years, nobody else has even attempted to take the "world's only" qualifier away from the Mitchell Corn Palace. I mean, really?

I'd like to know just what it is we're voting "yes" to in the mosaic up there.

For those not in the know, yes, that building is covered in corn. Ears and shucks and tassels and all of it corn. I hear tell that the exterior mural is redone every year, which is why it isn't all rotted out. And of course everyone there was thrilled to meet Tempy. Because she's perfect.

But yes, this is supposed to be about pottery, right? So, despite all that driving I still got to do some throwing and other sundry pottery projects this weekend, last week, this week thus far. I'm working hard to stay productive and harness all that road-weary pent-up anxiety into something positive.

I made more slip. And put it in a nice big jug. And put a pretty blue label on it. Yeah!

Threw these big bowls Sunday night after 7 hours on the road. That's what makes me a go-getter, I guess.

These bowls are all dried. Not a particularly "active" process on my part, but it's shows what I  produced last week, I suppose. I'd like to note that I spent a few seconds trying to turn "productivity" into a verb before I settled on produced. It's been one of those days.

My little corner. It looks like a potter lives here. Also, this vantage point shows you exactly how tall I am. Bam!

And that doesn't even show the trimming of large bowls or throwing of additional large pots or recycling of 25 pounds of clay that have occurred. Take that! I had a picture of this little vase from a different angle, but I thought the overhead shot of my workspace had a better feel. Artists call this "view point" or "perspective" and it tells you something about the "agency" of subject and auteur, but unless you're really into art you really wouldn't know anything about that. No big deal.

All that to say that I've been staying busy and will continue to stay busy as long as allowed. Which might not be long. I'm getting tired of busy, to say the least.

So keep up the good work, and I'll see you here again soon-ish.

Studio Update: Sunday

Just for a brief spell, working in the studio on Sunday.  Not too much, though.  It's been a crazy couple of week(end)s with way too much car time.  It's not getting any better, either, at least not for the next couple of weeks.  *sigh*  So I have to take the potting in bits and pieces, when I can.

Actually, I spent the better part of my studio time committed to cleaning.  Not my favorite thing ever, but certainly rewarding.  Somewhere along the line I quit emptying my splash pans between trimming and throwing and trimming again.  And so the trimmings had begun to take over the corner, just a little bit.  Lots of trimmings on the wheel, on the floor... well, those are really the only two places that dry trimmings can end up.  In any event, we're due for a visit from the inlaws in a few weeks and as my studio borders the guest bath I thought I'd best get a headstart on doing a little spring cleaning in preparation.  So there was a little bit of sweep-sweep-sweep and a just a tad bit of sponge-sponge-sponge.  As we get closer to the visit, there will be more sweep-sweep with a substantial helping of mop-mop-mop and probably a bout of Hoover-Hoover-Hoover.  Well, for studio clean-up it's more like Black'n'Decker-Black'n'Decker but I think you get the point.  There's nothing like a valid reason to motivate you into cleaning and all that.

All that to say, I cleaned up, and then I decided to do some throwing and mess things up a bit again.  C'est la vie.  Here's what I was up to on Sunday:

Still working on this vase.  Waiting for inspiration, or something. 
But see, I carved those rings around the top and bottom?

Bowl.  I need more "plain" bowls coming out of the kiln. 

This is going to be a thingy-bobber for holding all my trimming/carving tools and brushes and such, so that I can quit using the old Daisy sour cream cup that's constantly tipping over and spilling my tools all over the place.  I don't know why it's taken me seven years to finally make something that's designated for my tools.  I think I had one once in college, but somebody offered me twenty bucks for it at the end of the semester or something.  So I clearly don't have that any more.

Oh yeah, I'm also experimenting with adding more color to my slip palette.  Ta-dum!

Some more little bowls, thrown from the hump.  I have some unfinished business when it comes to glaze testing, and quick little things do that the best, for sure.

So that's my story.  Not much else to speak of at the moment.  Congrats on making it through another Monday, and good luck with the rest of the week.

Firing #2

Hello all!  It's another blizzardy weekend here in South Dakota, so I figured I'd better fire up the kiln and warm things up a bit!  I received my special delivery from Continental Clay this week that included, among other things, my box of pyrometric cones so that I could run my second test firing.  Using the cones will give me a clear idea of whether or not the kiln is firing as true as the computer thinks it is.  Due to life in general, I kept forgetting to prep my cones for firing which, in turn, left my firing delayed, but I finally got them up and going and fired last night.

My army of cone packs!

Pyrometric cones are designed to melt at a designated temperature - and by melt, I mean droop appropriately.  If your goal cone is melted completely away it means you have well overfired.  If the tip of the cone hasn't drooped at all, you're quite a bit under-fired.  It has to droop just right.  But before you can throw the cone in the kiln you have to get them set up on little clay bases.  Generally these are called cone packs: in a gas firing, for example, you generally will pair three cones per pack - the cone that you're trying to fire to as well as one cone lower and one cone higher (i.e., if you're trying to fire to Cone 10 (^10) the pack will include a ^9, ^10, and ^11.  You can then judge during the firing (by taking a peek through one of the peeps - ideally the cone pack will be line-of-sight with your peep) where you're at.  Obviously the ^9 will drop before ^10 so you can use that as a guide for how close to being done you are.  It's a little more complicated than that, but there's the jist of it. 

Because I'll be doing exclusively electric firing I don't have to use the cones as a guide for the firing process, but rather just as periodic ages of how accurately the kiln is firing.  So I threw a few cones in my kiln.  These are ^04 pyrometric cones, which is the range I'll be firing my bisque to - roughly 2000 degrees fahrenheit.  I spaced the kilns out around the kiln, shelved at three different levels, to find out if the kiln is firing evenly all around.  When the kiln has cooled off a bit I can check them out.  If they're over or underfiring there's probably some sort of calibrating that needs to be done.  In that case, I'll need to get on the phone to somebody who knows more about it than I do.  Here's hoping that all is well!

Cones in the kiln!

The firing went on a normal schedule; fired a medium (speed) firing to ^04 that completed in 7h38m.  Two hours post-firing we were down to 1300 degrees.  Two hours later, down to 800.  This is, I think, the combined result of being in the garage (average winter temperature: 32F/0C.  On average, I think.) and being an empty kiln - a kiln full of pottery that also fired to 2000 degrees will hold its heat much longer, as pottery retains heat much more tightly than air.  I think.  That's my hypothesis.  Anyone who may know better, just let me know. 

In the meantime, I did have to do some decorating and trimming in the studio at the end of last week. 

Here's a bowl.  I made it.

A couple pieces drying.  This my favorite stage in the process - the leather-hard clay is so soft and smooth, and the colors are so rich, the brown and blue.  I wish there was a way to capture the pots in this stage.

Keep reading for a musical digression:

I enjoyed, again, an interesting mix of music while in the studio by keeping my iTunes on album-shuffle.  Among the selections that came up was jazz/pop singer/pianist  Jamie Cullum's debut album, 2004's Twentysomething.  Cullum has a very unique sense of style with regard to pairing original songs with covers and standards.  All I'm saying is that I've never heard anybody else cover Radiohead and Jimi Hendrix only to give you "Singin' in the Rain" and "I Get a Kick Out of You" - and make it work.  Anyway, this is one worth checking out if that sounds interesting.  I wasn't horribly impressed by any of his follow-up work, but this one is solid. 

Speaking of music, NPR has been one of my favorite places for finding "Best of 2010" lists this year.  I found my way over there after I started listening to NPR's All Songs Considered podcast which, I think, features probably the most eclectic and well rounded, collection of topics and musics.  Favorite episodes from this summer included "Best New Dance Music" (featured new music from Kylie Minogue and Outkast's Big Boi, plus a dozen obscure house, trance, and electronica DJ's.  And yes, there is, apparently, a difference between house, trance, and electronica - amazing!), "Odd Pairings" (Missy Elliot + Nelly Furtado = unlikely but delightful.  Bono + Frank Sinatra = what were they thinking?), and "Music to Get you Through Your Teens" (talk about transgenerational: Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, REM, and Nirvana all made this episode.  Kinda think they should've included one of their interns on the discussion for the opinion of someone who was a teen in the last 15 years!).

But back to the point, NPR has a whole lot of lists, including: NPR Music's 50 Favorite Albums of 2010 (multi-genre, and alphabetical vs. heirarchical for an interesting blend!), Intern Uprising: The Songs Our Bosses Missed (Have never heard of anyone on this list.  Begs the question, does obscurity make bands better, or am I a clueless popularist?  Jack Black in High Fidelity might have written this list.), and voted on by the listeners of All Songs Considered, Listener Picks for the Best Music of 2010 (This list is a pretty good finger on the pulse of popular alternative music ranging from rock to hip hop to atmospheric to dance.  And I still think Arcade Fire is overrated.).  You can check out all their lists here.  It's interesting reading, and most of them include full-length songs or videos to sample each album.

Anyhow, I enjoy keeping up with lists like this - sometimes because they reaffirm my own opinions, and then I feel special.  Often it's a great place to find something new to listen to - if you find that the majority of a list is music that you already enjoy, then there is a good chance those items on the list that are unfamiliar to you might be enjoyed too.  Other times it's just nice to find a critical review that doesn't think Kanye West released the best album of 2010 (really Time magazine?  Et tu, Rolling Stone?).  But mostly they're fodder for someone who can't get enough of the music, and keeps me thinking about my own tastes and why I do (or don't) listen to what I do (or don't).  Still soaking up some late-arriving music to round out our additions to 2010.  I may have opinions within the week.

In the meantime, if all went well in my firing, I may have a bisque load to fire this week!  That's all from the frigid north country - you stay classy!

Test Fire CPLT!

That there - "CPLT" - that's kiln-speak for "complete."  The premiere firing of my kiln went off without too many hitches.  And for what hitches there were, thankfully the kiln is smarter than I, and loaded with plenty of error messages and interpretive notes in the manual.  Namely with regard to the polarized lead cables on the thermocoupler not being clearly marked and, therefore, connected perhaps slightly in reversed position.  I mean, you know there's something wrong when you turn on the kiln and the temperature display drops into the negatives.  That can't be good.

But, as mentioned before, my little kiln is much easier to negotiate with than the Millenium Falcon - no Artoo unit required at all - and it was pretty short work to look up the proper error code and correct the problem.  All in all, a delay of about 15 minutes.  Loaded the kiln up with shelves yesterday afternoon and turned it on at about 10:00 PM (10:15 for the firing that actually took) to have it ready to swith off around the time I woke up.  It's quite recommended that, even with these automatic kilns, you be present at or near the time the kiln ought to shut off, just in case.  That way, I suppose, if it happens to  not shut off automatically you can power it down before it melts a hole in your foundation, I suppose.

Empty kiln, save for furniture.  Shelves, stilts, armoirs - the usual.

Anyway, all done.  Relatively foul smokey smell lingering (normal for the first firing, as you burn the protective coating off the elements so they can oxidize properly - that's what the Skutt manual says!), but it wasn't present in the house, so that's a plus.

Above you can see a capture of the three alternating displays on the kiln post-firing.  On the left, you see "CPLT" - this lets me know that the kiln reached the programmed cone range.  The center display is showing me the current temperature inside the kiln in degrees Farenheit.  This photo came about 4 hours after the kiln shut down, so it's alread cooled off quite a bit.  It would have been more impressive, I suppose, if I'd snapped the picture first thing in the morning when it was reading closer to 1600, but it was early, I was tired, and there was snow to be shoveled.  I wondered if I should be concerned that it cooled so quickly - normally it takes a good 12 hours, if not longer, to get a kiln into the range where you could consider unloading it (under 200 degrees for sure - closer to room temp, the better).  A firing that cools too quickly can spell trouble for your glazes and lead to unwanted cracking and pitting.  But, I note that it is an empty firing, and the pots that would normally be cooling inside will normally also be contributing to the kiln temperature.  I'm willing to assume that the cooling at this rate is the result, primarily, of being an empty kiln.  But I'll be looking for some information to back up that hypothesis. 

The final display, on the right, lets me know how long the firing took - in this case reading seven hours and twenty minutes.The firing time is present to alert you to any problems that you may have encountered - if your firing was supposed to take 8 hours and actually ran for 12, you obviously are having some issues.  Similarly, if you know your firing should run 12 hours, but the kiln reads that it was completed in 6, you might have a bad thermocouple that reads the kiln hot and your pots  probably aren't finished.

So that's firing one.  Uneventful once we got off the ground, so that's good.  The next test fire will come after Christmas and will involve evenly distributed cones around the kiln to make sure that it is in fact firing accurately in all areas, and not just right on top of the heat sync.  If that goes well, firing #3 will follow as a full bisque load, and firing #4 will, optimistically, be a full glaze test load. 

As for today, I will enjoy being snowed in on my last day of gainful unemployment.  I will, most likely, be making more pots, as well as taking care of some other general studio duties.  Take care, stay warm, and try to enjoy this Monday as best you can!

A very happy Saturday morning to all!  Not a whole lot to report, at least not as far as my camera can show for.  And I'm feeling a little too lazy to head into the basement to shoot what I've been throwing this week, so you'll just have to live with this photo, proof of my prepping the kiln shelves for firing. 

Shelves, washed.

For best results, shelves should be coated with kiln wash, which is brushed on.  In this case, the wash is a silica based solution that coats the shelves in a nice protective layer so as to prevent any pots/glaze from sticking to the shelves.  If glaze does drip or run, it can be easily removed from the shelf, taking the layer of wash with it, as opposed to an unwashed shelf where glaze drips and runs could only be removed by taking a layer of shelf with.  Layers of wash are much easier and cheaper to replace than layers of shelf, by the way. 

So that's it for now, I guess.  I have been throwing, and there will be more throwing, at least until the holiday break.  And after that the throwing will be less daily on account of a new job!  Thank you, Santa!  And, have a delightful weekend, preferably bundled up inside someplace warm!

Kiln!!

It is late, and I am want for sleep, but I did want to post a brief update to share that the electrician came out today to give us adequate power in our garage to plug in the kiln!  Hurrah!  

Kiln! I don't think you can see it, but the display screen is flashing "IDLE."  Well, it alternates between "IDLE" and displaying the temperature inside the kiln.  Which was 33 last time I looked.  It'll have to get a whole lot warmer than that to fire any pots, that's for sure.

After a little shimmying here and there, I even managed to fit our car back in the garage, too!  You can see that there is clearly room to spare on either end of the vehicle.  Good thing, too.  She was starting to get a little mouthy about sleeping outside every night.  I'll be glad when that finally blows over...

I've also been up to just a little bit of this.

  

And this.

And a couple more of these.

 Good night!

More bowls! + More Music Thoughts, I guess.

It's a brisk winter day hear in South Dakota, so that makes it a good day to stay in and take care of a bit of pottery and a bit of bloggery.  I've been back at it, so to speak, this week.  Took the weekend to let some things dry out and firm up a bit while I spent my days staying warm and eating too many Christmas-y treats.  I'd feel guilty, but completely un-committed weekends don't seem to come along that often around here.  So there you have it. Monday I got myself back into the basement to tackle the trimming and decorating of Friday's bowls.  All in all a painless process, and maybe even a bit of fun.  Shocklingly enough.

One of those blue bowls.  Slip was still a little wetter than maybe it should have been for such decorating, but I forged onward regardless.

The outside of the above bowl.  Ornamentation inside, outside, upside down!

Friday's bowls from the hump.  Working with the brown slip.  Still hard to tell if I have it mixed dark enough, or if it's going to be too similar in tint to the clay body.  I think I'm in the clear.

I spent most of Tuesday not on pottery, but instead tackling urgent matters of graphic design and layout.  I'm volunteering my time and services to produce a top-notch Annual Report for publication for Krystal's organization.  It's certainly fun, occasionally, to "do art" in a medium that doesn't require extensive clean-up afterwards.  Namely, this digital medium.  Actually, it may be the only medium that doesn't leave my fingers dirty.  Clay, paint, charcoal, pastels, cut paper, printing, sculpture.  Actually, I'm pretty sure it's the only clean art form.  Weird. 

Anyway, that's what I was on most of the morning, but I did get around to throwing a few more bowls.  I've now reached my goal of 30, but I'll probably add another batch in for good measure.  I have to make sure I have plenty of bowls for trying out my glazes.  I worked from the hump again yesterday and I think it may actually be my preferred method for attacking the small bowl question.  I think if I were pressed to make a matching set I would probably go back to throwing individual pieces, but for unmatched small, fun pieces, it's the way to go.

12 pounds of clay gave me 8 bowls...

...and a decent-sized vase.  I'm thinking there may be some mountains in this vase's future?

Next up on my agenda: a system of storage between drying and firing, because this (see below) is getting out of hand.  Once the greenware is completely dried, it's really wasting space on these shelves.  I may, at some point, simply need to put some storage in our garage (near the kiln, once it's set up) to hold pieces for/between firings.  In fact, that's probably the most likely thing to happen.  But until that time, this is the problem I will need to address.

All sorts of dried bowls - and more to come!

In the meantime, I must confess that I like my little studio.  It's a little cramped for space, and every once in a while I discover that there is a tool I should really like to have, but I don't.  But generally, I really like it.  And it's mine.  Here ends the pottery.  Keep going for non-pottery, namely music.  Thanks!

One of the things I've been enjoying about having the studio in-home is my ability to take advantage of our home wireless network and tap into our complete music library from the basement via our netbook.  Now, Krystal and I recently made the shift to iPod and, likewise, iTunes, as a media player.  Now, six months later, I'm willing to lay aside (what I perceive to be) the many faults that iTunes has and simply share the things about it that make me smile.  Well, at this point, basically the two things that have made me smile:

1. Home Sharing Made Easy: basically if you open iTunes on two computers on the same wireless network, you can share media libraries.  It's fast and brilliant.  There are features that would make it better, but it works pretty slick.
2.  Album Shuffle Mode: Some days I guess I do really want to listen to a steady stream of randomly selected songs, and that's when I pop open the library (or my list of top-rated songs) and shuffle them all.  Some days it's fun to get your Bob Dylan/Rage Against the Machine//Johnny Cash/Red Hot Chili Peppers on.  In that order.  But sometimes what I'm looking for is a little bit of consistency within the randomness.  That's where Album Shuffle comes in.  Rather than playing individual tracks in random order, it will play complete albums - in random order.  If I'm honestly not in the mood for whatever comes up next, I can get up and change it.  But, being a potter, I'd have to be pretty opposed to listening to something to get up, clean my hands, and change the track.  As such, I've been able to listen to some stuff that I probably wouldn't have chosen off the top of my head.  With that, I wanted to leave you with a brief smattering of some albums that have come up at random and turned out to be quite delightful.

   
   

   

   Get Behind Me Satan, The White Stripes: After opening track "Blue Orchid," Jack and Meg put away the crunchy guitars and discover piano, glockenspiel. Groovy in its own old-timey way. I don't often find myself in a White Stripes mood, but I'm rarely disappointed when they come up.

Get Born, Jet: I didn't even know we owned this album. Aside from their breakout hit "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" I've generally panned Jet as being pretty forgettable.  And, actually, they are.  But the 70's-style riffs and kick-heavy beats ept me satisfied the whole time it played. They probably even left me wanting more.  But I don't really remember that.

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Spoon: Like the White Stripes, I don't normally go looking for Spoon, but they're always worth it.  This is my favorite of their albums, and it's probably their most accessible too.  Groovy indie rock with frequent, and totally awesome, use of horns.  "Don't You Evah" and "You Got Your Cherry Bomb" are tracks worth checking out.

Stockholm Syndrom, Derek Webb:  Best known as founding member of Christian acoustic act Caedmon's Call, this recent offering from Webb is a departure into hip-hop-laced, synth-driven technofolk.  I think that's how I'd describe it, musically.  Lyrically, he stirred the waters quite a bit with an album that is sure to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.  Derek Webb helped launch, and is also regularly featured on, Noisetrade.com.  I highly recommend you check him out.

  That's all for now.  I'll be back, hopefully sooner rather than later!