Those bands last night were surprisingly good for coming from such a small town, but on the absolute scale of aesthetic merit they weren't great. One band showcased a scrawny fifteen year old kid guitarist in hot rod shirt and leather pants who ran through Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimi Hendrix solos without stumbling, so I thought he was the one performer of the bunch who might make a living at music someday.

My attempts to find something fun to do outside of the house have not been that successful. I might be better off sitting at home enjoying the CDs, books, and DVDs I know I'll like. However, on the Tech website I saw that there will be an Indian classical music performance on Tuesday night. If I drove down there right after work I could just make it in time.

Being in a bad mood today, I went to the local Hastings and spent $50 on used CDs. They had a better selection than I would have expected, and were extremely cheap (most of them under $6). I picked up:

• Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. (They've been playing this a lot on Tech's alternative radio station.)
  
• Beck, Mellow Gold. (Not as good as Odelay, but "Loser" is still enjoyable.)
  
• Muddy Waters, Folk Singer. (With Willie Dixon!)
  
• Billy Bragg and Wilco, Mermaid Avenue. (Unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics set to original music.)
  
• Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon. (I have never seen a used copy of this for sale before now.)
  
• The Clash, The Singles. (Yes, yes, I said they were "massively overrated," but that doesn't mean they're bad.)
  
• Prefab Sprout, Jordan: The Comeback. (A critic called them "Steely Dan Lite" and this was only $4 so I thought it was worth a try.)
  

One of these days I'll have to bore the 3 people who read this with my theories as to why rock critics don't like Pink Floyd and other prog-rock artists.