Card-Carrying Numpty

We managed to dodge house guest obligations and stroll down to the South Street Seaport for a free Ted show. Damn pleased we did, because Ted and his gangly crew were on really good form. He had a good set length, debuted a song, didn't play Ballad Of The Sin Eater, which was getting rather smug, and generally entertained the tourists and Wall Streeters. No one, to the best of our knowledge rocked out quite as hard as the tipsy management consultant at the scenester gig three weeks back, but he got pretty good reviews from our crew. One of whom was four. Nice.

The support act, Tigers and Monkeys started off well, a nice bunch of jaunty boucy Elastica clones (yep, Wire is totally coming back round). but they started to drag, and only copious quantities of Sam Adams Summer Ale could pacify us.

Anyhoo, we could have posted a super rare Ted song, but all of the good candidates are either all over the place ("Since You Been Gone" - which he did not play), or part of a celebrity mp3 blog-hoard, which we could not in good conscience pre-empt.

Instead, we'll just put up these indie trading cards that they were handing out. The idea baffles us - is a good part of indie music promotion the idea that bands are fungible, tangible and collectable? It would seem to reduce somewhat the specialness that a decent act tries to project. Presumably some venture capitalist gave Insound so much money they gave it to an awesomely trite ad agency. Fair play, but could they just maybe hire some bands like Amex did?

Here are the cards, in any case. Now wash your hands.