First of all, were any songs from this album on the O.C. (i'm lookin' at you, you know who!) ? They seem sort of perfect for the show. I listened to this album for the first time in a long time on my way to work today, and decided that it is good after all. I was really excited about it when it first came out, and then after a while, I just couldn't listen to it anymore. I thought - did I make a mistake? Is this album just to sugary? Too cheese ball? Should I be embarrassed? No dudes. No. These people are musicians and songwriters and they do what they do with a sweetness. It's not for everybody, but then again neither is Excepter, which leads me to this point --->

Some people I know choose to hate on bands like the New Pornographers, Broken Social Scene, Peter, Bjorn and John, and the like. "Totally boring yuppie bands man. So predictable. I'm totally not a yuppy. I'm totally better than that. Have you heard the new magik markers CDR, some totally interesting stuff going on?" Obviously no self-respecting snob would ever actually say that, but I know that's what they want to say. I just don't get why some people have to institute this polarization into their musical taste. Actually, wait, yeah I do. Indie music was once something that was just yours and your friends to be elitist about, then everyone else caught on - the internet pooped this stuff all over for the masses, the creative directors for the O.C. read about these bands on the internet, and then next thing you know you are standing next to the dude on your high school football team (that FUCKING JOCK FUCK!), or even worse, that old Phish head at a TV On The Radio show. What the fuck? Well FUCK THAT, they say, I dare them to like Mouthus. And look, i'm not saying this is the entirety of someone's decision to invest in a scene or even a band for that matter. I'm just saying it definitely influences a situation - I should know, I tried to like The Decemberists a while back. Anyway, just to bring this little rant full circle, err, half moon or some shit, Ghost Dad wrote on his blog a couple days ago about how I enjoy Excepter because of the "performance art aspect of the their live show", which is true, but it goes further than that. Excepter's first couple albums were very serious and creepy and brooding - then they got a little more playful. They started fucking with drum machines and John Fell Ryan became some Hunter S. Thompson on downers, fumbling through non-sequiturs in the middle of some screwed house beats. It was sort of their way of saying, 'come on people, are you serious?' Like, you really only listen to experimental new noise, old obscure blues records and ironic mainstream hiphop? But more so, do you really enjoy it? Live a little! Guess what? The dudes from Animal Collective really like Cat Stevens, Phoenix and the Grateful Dead. Conceptually, Excepter are clowning on the whole experimental scene and musically they are doing whatever the fuck they want, but most importantly THEY ARE HAVING FUN and quite frankly, they genuinely don't give a fuck (as much as anyone can) if you like them or not – especially Porkchop!

And by the way, I just decided that I no longer 'actually sort of like that new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album', I fucking LIKE IT, okay? And even though I think they all have pretty annoying public personas and I would probably despise Karen O in real life, I don’t give a shit at the moment, because all that matters to me right now is the music - and it sounds good. Word life.