Cat Empire

Tonight we went to see a band that my old RA turned me onto, an Australian band called Cat Empire. She's actually the tour manager for their current US tour (she has a bit of experience booking bands and such). Anyway, she'd played some for me in the lab but I had no memory of what they sounded like. I dragged Graham anyway. We're both really glad, and now I'm sorry I didn't bring more people. The band is a fun and artistic mix of Latin, reggae, ska, turntables, and throat singing. And it's impossible not to dance to their music - Graham gets pretty nervous about dancing but by the end he dragged me onto the floor to boogie. Incredibly cool. We bought a CD. Since we're doing the midnight Woodman's run at cheapass Community Car rates, we stopped in the new coffee shop on Willy Street (brief review: okay drinks, good cookies, extremely friendly staff, fascinatingly huge multi-room setup) for some caffeine, and got into a conversation with the barista about the band we'd just seen and the CD we'd just bought. He put it on the coffee shop stereo and I think everyone in the place became a convert.

And while I'm channeling cynic51 and cosmusic, I might as well mention that later this month I'm going to see concerts by Ben Folds, Leo Kottke, the Decemberists, and Canadian Brass. Woot.

Also, not only did I miss Sigur Ros by 1 day in Madison, I'm going to miss them by 2 days in Helsinki. Boo.