I now have a twitter…

http://twitter.com/samhaist

The Hold Steady’s Boys and Girls in America is only $1.99 on AmazonMp3!!!!!!!!

I love The Hold Steady.  I love this album.  It is one of the best albums of the decade (if not all time) and you should go buy it.  Why, you ask?  Well, because today it is only $1.99 on AmazonMP3!!!!  Craig Finn is one of the best songwriters out there, so you should give them a chance.  By the way, for those of you who go to Calvin, you should go see them at the Festival of Faith and Music.

Josh Ritter covers Springsteen’s “The River”

It’s great to see one of my favorite artists covering one of my favorite songs by my favorite artist.

SB ‘09 Reading

The Courage to be Protestant

Vintage Church

Check out The War on Drugs

No, not the government campaign or the Barenaked Ladies song.  They’re a really cool new band and I’ve been digging their album, Wagonwheel Blues.  Great stuff.  I’m excited to see them at the Festival of Faith and Music.  Here’s a video:

I love it when advertisements misspell important words.

For example:

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of “Kalamazo.”

According to Time Magazine, the new Calvinism is one of the 10 ideas changing the world.

In fact, they put it at number three on the list.  Themz my boyz.

Musically speaking, 2009 trumps 2008.

The folks at NPR: All Songs Considered said it, and I agree.  While there were definitely some great albums in 2008, on the whole, 2009 has it beat.  We’ve already had a ton of great releases and still more to come.  Here are some winners in the order they were released:

Andrew Bird – Noble Beast (1/20)

Antony & the Johnsons – The Crying Light (1/20)

Bruce Springsteen – Working on a Dream (1/27)

M. Ward – Hold Time (2/17)

Neko Case – Middle Cyclone (3/3)

U2 – No Line on the Horizon (3/3)

We still have the new album from the Decemberists later this month, a live cd/dvd documentary by The Hold Steady in early April, and a new Wilco album sometime later this year.  I’m sure there is much more that I’ve left off, but I think we can all agree that this is a great year for music.

By the way, U2 is on David Letterman every night this week.  The first two nights have been incredible, so I would watch the rest if I were you.