Just a quickie here as I dust off the winter coat to prepare to depart from 80-degree Phoenix weather for frigid New York for the week.

Open Mike Eagle dropped Haircut when he was in Phoenix last month, and he’s given us a video in conjunction with the release of Art Rap After Party, an EP that Los Angeles Times blog Pop & Hiss has made available for a free download. I’ll be spending much of my time in the air listening to this and finishing reading Scott Tennent’s 33 1/3 book on Slint’s Spiderland whilst enjoying the expanded legroom JetBlue promises. We’ll see about that.

In the meantime, I’ve coerced/bribed/begged my pals Jason Woodbury and Stephen Chilton to look after this place while I’m away, so be nice to the substitute teachers. That said, if anyone has suggestions for New York record stores, I’m all ears.