Network Failures, How I Loathe Thee… (or, No, Really, Laura Veirs Rules!)

Dammit. I was all set to slap a just-in-time post up about this afternoon’s Radio Session with the very cool Laura Veirs & the Saltbreakers on KPFT (90.1FM) when, right as I was about to click “Post,” the network connection died. Completely. For nearly two freakin’ hours. As in, “I got zero done this afternoon, how nice.” Argh. The Internet, it seems, is currently not my friend.

So, unless you are more fortunate than I and knew about this deal beforehand, I’m sorry to say that you’ve missed Ms. Veirs & co. on the ray-dee-oh. It was “live,” so to speak, recorded over at SugarHill back when Veirs & her band came through town a short while back, and I was really looking forward to hearing it via the station’s Internet stream, ’cause they make some excellent music.

If you haven’t heard Veirs’ work, you’re seriously missing out (and now, even more so). While I haven’t heard anything yet off her most recent album, Saltbreakers, I like her earlier stuff quite a bit — “Galaxies,” in particular (off 2005’s Year of Meteors), is a gorgeous, sparkling little song, and all her songs have this bleak, beautifully distant quality to ’em, with lots of nicely done strings and desperate-yet-sweet melodies. Oh, and she’s also a geologist & one’a them ridiculously smart people with which I’m generally enamored and hangs with The Decemberists, and backing band the Saltbreakers includes NW musical luminaries Karl Blau (D+/The Microphones) & Tucker Martine (The Decemberists/Mount Analog/MS Vista’s bleeps & bloops). In case you were wondering.

Give her a listen; no MP3 links today, unfortunately, but you can listen to a few tracks on the ol’ Myspace.

While I’m at it, I’ve gotta say how cool this whole Radio Sessions thing is. I’ve been meaning to post about it for a while now, but (naturally) haven’t gotten my shit together. In past months they’ve had a bunch of really great people up at SugarHill, including Son Volt & M. Ward, and they’ve got Danny and the Nightmares slated for 11/30 and Aussie garage-rockers Radio Birdman on 12/28. Check here for the full schedule, and hopefully you’ll be more on-the-ball/blessed by Lady Luck than yours truly…