"Think about all the time you wasted, thinking about and working on your bomb shelter." - The Halo Benders.

I was minding my own business this evening blowing through my monthly allotment of EMusic downloads when I came across something exciting. For years I have been bemoaning the lack of digital availability of 7 inches released on small indies in the '90s. Well, it appears that some labels are finally moving their releases over to digital. After bugging My Pal God Records' Jon Solomon off and on for about five years to make his label's 7 inches digitally available, it appears some of them are now available on EMusic.

There you can find titles including the absolutely stunning Hurl "Madison Earful/Dual Showman" release (sounds like it might have been ripped from the actual vinyl and cleaned up, instead of ripped from the master tapes, but what the hell, right?). DeSoto Records, run by the fine folks who were in Jawbox, have also put a Hurl 7 inch online, the also very good "Radishes/Positronic Ray" release, which I beleive was the first indie record I ever mail-ordered.

If I could get Simple Machines, Spin-Art and Slumberland to get all their 7 inches online for download, I would be ecstatic. And it looks like things are heading that way. It appears a large portion of the Self-Starter Foundation catalogue has made it to EMusic now, so you can now go download two excellent Haywood records there. And don't forget that EMusic has the Lilys' Spin-Art titles, which are all basically out of print and fetch high prices on the Ebay and whatnot.

I used the bulk of my monthly downloads to get digital copies of a lot of the K Records stuff I recorded to cassette in college, including The Halo Benders' superlative "Don't Tell Me Now," The Softies' "It's Love," and various compilation cuts from Seaweed, Courtney Love and others. I am so pleased to have the Halo Benders joint, and The Softies is also just gorgeous. So yay for K, and yay for me.

Bradley's Almanac has part one of Versus' live set from Teenbeat's 20th Anniversary, night three. The band played the entirety of their incredible The Stars Are Insane from front to back. I've been disappointed with the quality of BA's recordings, but they have been the only way I've been able to experience the Teenbeat anniversary stuff, so that makes them invaluable.

You will be pleased if you spend the time to watch the trailer for the forthcoming Wrens documentary. It's in Quicktime. Here's the link.

That is all.