Scott Andrew - lo-fi acoustic pop superhero!

I’ve been away on a little vacation, exploring the eastern half of Washington state. I tried to stay offline as much as possible to give my finger joints a much-needed rest, but geez, free wifi is everywhere these days. Here’s my internal backlog:

• Jerin and I finished up a run of shows to celebrate her CD release, culminating in a really fantastic show at Egan’s in Seattle. It was one of those rare, perfect storm gigs where the house was packed, the audience was kickass, the sound guy was great to work with, the stage was just the right size, most of the jokes were on-target and I didn’t get zapped even once by a poorly-grounded mic. If you were there, thank you. You’re awesome.

• I went swimming for the first time in decades. I’ve discovered that post-Labor Day is the best time to enjoy hotel pools as vacation season is over and most business travellers don’t pack swim trunks. We mostly had the pools to ourselves, which rocked. Look! I can do a handstand under water!

• Amazon launched their copy-protection-free MP3 store while I was gone, finally giving some real competition to iTunes. My own MP3s are not on Amazon yet but I’m not really torn up about it.

• That said, I’ve been really enamored of Rhapsody these days since I’m too lazy to even bother downloading music. I just want to hear a song when I want and not think about it.

• Pre-orders for my new album have slowed, and I’m guessing it’s because I haven’t been around to get right up in your grill with the push marketing. We’re awfully close to the goal and there’s still time left to get your pre-order in. Let’s see if we can knock that Ninja Hoverbot off the front page.

• I definitely plan to write a “how I will spend your money” post in the near future.

• Heather Gold shares notes she took while hanging with Jonathan Coulton and Derek Powazek. Lots of interesting ideas about creativity, community, being an indie artist and entrepreneur, etc.

• Giant spiders have taken over my backyard in my absence.

• If you stop at Tad’s Chicken and Dumplings in Troutdale OR, be sure to get only one — ONE — order of the chicken and dumplings and split it with your dining companion. This is because the dumplings are the size of grapefruit.

• Thanks to everyone who suggested cover songs. Some great ideas in that thread I’ll be mulling over. For the record, I plan to release that sometime next year, and I plan to blog about all the licensing stuff I’ll have to go through to make it legal. Ugh.

• via Coolfer: The Active, Frugal U.S. Music Buyer. More people are buying music these days than ever, but they’re spending less.

• I had a birthday recently and am now qualified to flash the “OLD” sign: