Oy, too excited about this! Capercaillie are kicking off their tour in Ohio, well within driving distance. I've been waiting for this and the local paper actually informed me of this major event. Astounding!
In other music news, Bright Eyes and Cursive will be returning to Pittsburgh. And I was ignoring modern music — no more! Now, I just need to see Radiohead on tour…
The thing is, music is generally everpresent and increasingly irrelevant. Everyone has his or her own special aural wallpaper to blot out the rest of the world. Hip? You don't need to listen to the words to be hip, generally speaking (though without any accuracy by definition). You only need to be at the right places and drop the right names.
But we still have a need for artists, people who recreate the world in their own image and display it to the others. As outsider, the artist can highlight with extreme prejudice so that some truth may be discerned from the result. I prefer humor to be companioned with truth, when possible.