My new favorite band of the moment :The Decemberists. Any band that names itself after an ill-conceived 1825 democratic uprising by young members of the aristocracy in Czarist Russia inspired by the American Revoluion (gee, I knew that bit of knowledge from studying Russian history and literature in translation in college would come in handy for something some day), is guaranteed to at least get a listen from me, and these guys fall somewhere on the spectrum between the Polyphonic Spree and The Shins (or maybe the Weakerthans).

My instant favorite song is a track off their 2001 5 Songs EP, “Apology Song”–a song lamenting the theft of a bicycle named Madeline.