I could never steal you from another

Download: THE LOFT "Why Does The Rain?"
Download: THE CHILLS "Rain (Peel Session)"
Download: KAREN DALTON "Little Bit of Rain"
Download: STINA NORDENSTAM "Purple Rain"
Download: THE CLEAN "Safe in the Rain (Live)"
Download: ANN PEEBLES "I Can't Stand the Rain"
Download: JUNE BRIDES "In the Rain (Rescue Session)"
Download: DOG FACED HERMANS "The Rain It Raineth"
Download: LAURA CANTRELL "Rain Boy" (Peel Session)"
Download: BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON "The Rain Don't Fall On Me"

Today we've had a little bit of an ice storm in Portland with freezing rain lightly coating everything like magical fairy dust of ha-hah so no one's leaving their house unless you want to see a video of yourself falling right on your ass or your car smashing into a concrete embankment played over and over again on the local news, the 'casters with their '90s helmet hair trying not to laugh right at your sore ass. I am trying to get work done but mostly just beginning to catch up on emails a bit and getting acquainted, finally, with Rick Bishop's second album, which is of course perfect.

The Loft song is my own personal anthem. Seriously, it might be the best-ever mope-dork song known to our solar system. The Chills song is from their second Peel session. The Karen Dalton tune is one of several Fred Neil covers on the only CD by her you can find. The Stina Nordenstam song is from her album of covers that's so good it made Jim O'Rourke abandon a similar project he was working on at the time. The Clean song is from, ummm, I forget, but it's from the last few years for sure. The Ann Peebles 1974 tune, pretty much her only hit, is instantly recognizable as having "that Hi Records sound." The June Brides song was, I believe, done for a radio broadcast. You have to love the Dog Faced Hermans. WFMU DJ and recent Matador signeee Laura Cantrell's song was recorded for her fourth Peel session. And that's thought to be Blind Willie Johnson's wife singing along with him there.

PS: NASA has posted the sounds of the descent of the Huygens probe onto Saturn's moon Titan -- you can hear the alien winds as well as the radar echoing against the surface of the moon on these MP3s!