Please excuse the mess... (and an awesome band review)

I am currently reconfiguring some things around here -- the demise of Haloscan has created the need for some serious housecleaning on this site, as well as reworking the comments. At the moment, I have all of the old comments saved in a file, but the new comment system I'm using, Disqus, does not currently support imports from Haloscan. Frustrating, but I've put in a request, and I'm hoping that they can add that feature to the site. In the meantime, please feel free to comment and play around with the new features in Disqus. It includes ways to add video commenting, linking up to your Facebook profile, and more. Sounds like fun!

(Side note: yes I do have a profile on Facebook, but I prefer to keep it private and only accept requests from "real life" friends -- it's the only place online where I can let my hair down a little and not worry so much about safety and such if I limit my "friends". So please don't be offended if I ignore a request from you -- it's not personal! I'll still be your friend online! Just not on FB.)

Since my head is currently crammed full of more HTML than I can shake a stick at, here's Greg, guest posting about a recent show that we attended in Austin:

Nico Vega!



Most people who've known me for more than three seconds know that I like to go to shows and that I have made it my life's mission to find out about new bands every single day (which, for the most part I accomplish with little effort). One such band I found sometime last year, and Faith and I had the pleasure of seeing live at Emo's last Saturday was Nico Vega. Now I've been to a LOT of shows in my life and seen a lot of really incredible bands, but it has been a long time since I've had my face rocked off as hard as I did while standing on the front row of a Nico Vega set. This three-piece, L.A.-based, female-fronted power house plays a unique style of rock that is a bit hard to describe. I definitely haven't heard anyone else doing quite what they do, but I guess if you put Sleater-Kinney, Joan Jett, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Janis Joplin, and a splash of Tina Turner all in a blender it'd come close to describing this genre-defining group. Front woman, Aja Volkman can bring her voice from a gentle whisper to a full-out rock snarl like she was born for it. Drummer, Dan Epand beats his skins like he literally wants to kill something. And guitarist, Rich Koehler has a set-up so complex he actually plays through three different amps at once to achieve their distinctive sound. Their lyrics, though occasionally leaning slightly toward the unwholesome, are nonetheless centered around love and a passion for social justice. And from a performance standpoint these three put on a show that should never be missed. It was unquestionably an experience that I will never forget.