Last night I got giddy over Martha Plimpton getting giddy over the Brewis brothers getting giddy over John Cale and realized that we all sometimes like to hand the reins to our inner fangirl.

(A proper review of the very awesome 45 minutes that was The Week That Was @ Mercury Lounge at Soundbites; more pictures here.)

"What were you listening to?"

I had taken out my earphones to order a banana nut muffin and (should I?) a latte. Friday morning treats from a fancy west side bakery.

"Field Music." This is an important question. What if I had been listening to John Denver? I would have blamed shuffle.

"The Field?"

It's flattering when a guy asks you what you're listening to. It means you look like you could be cool. Like your taste matters. It might even mean he thinks you're cute.

"No, Field Music."

The question has always mattered to me. It stems back to late high school when we'd spend afternoons in Spin Records, lingering at the counter and flipping through imported copies of NME and Melody Maker. Buying TeenBeat Records cassettes or Swirlies EPs in an attempt to impress the guys behind the cash register, the ones exotically imported from Dayton, guys who were in bands and knew Tim Taylor. I always wanted them to ask me what I was listening to. They never did. Sometimes they'd smile, make polite conversation. Drop hints that their band was playing Canal Street Tavern next Wednesday. Mostly they just stared into their magazines, barely glancing up as they took my crumpled ten dollar bill and handed me a receipt for my purchase.*

These days it's enough for the guy making my coffee to ask what's on my iPod.

"Not The Field, Field Music. They don't exist any more, but they're good." I talk too much, I think. I put my left hand up to scratch my nose as he hands me the coffee. Unconsciously. The wedding band hand, I think I do it so he knows. So he isn't offended when the conversation ends there. He smiles, I leave him a dollar tip, put the earphones back in my ears, and walk away, trying to look like I could still be cool.

* The "Birdman" 4-track EP on vinyl, if you're asking.

It is impossible to write about books when you are doing so little reading. I'm still interested, but books aren't helping. (To label my now-subsiding funk as depression would be exaggeration, but the timeliness of the link was apropos.)

I can continue to write about music, however. And the music just keeps getting better: Octopus, the new album by The Bees is out in the UK this week, and from what I have heard so far, it is so fantastically beautiful. Go to their audio page to hear four songs from the album. "Listening Man" is Sam Cooke brought to life. (And for all you lyric hunters who are ending up here, the lyrics in the subject line come from this song.)

Also, try to hunt down a copy here's a clip The Husband found (click on "discography", then first item) of "I'll Give It Five" by Janice Nicholls. It will have you twisting at midnight.

And do I have to mention Field Music again? Really? Because I will...

The floodgates opened yesterday with that REM song, and I have been in a conflicted, snotty, sobbing mood ever since. There is a gray cloud hanging over my head that I can't shake. I am Charlie Brown. I am the weeping willow. I am waking up from a not-so-nice dream over and over again. There's no identifiable source of this emotional malaise, but it is undeniably malaise. I didn't even get as excited about the PEN World Voices Festival line-up as I normally would. And I know there's something wrong with me when the only thing I am capable of reading is the New Yorker, cover to cover (Bill Buford's profile of Gordon Ramsay nearly made the sun break through, but Buford's misstatement that Ramsay's kids aided in the slaughter of the turkeys they raised kind of set me off again).

The absolute only thing right now that is keeping me from curling into a ball in the corner of the room and devolving into a weeping lump of uselessness until The Husband makes it home to pick me up off the floor is the new Field Music album, Tones of Town. It's the kind of music that seems to come from the buds erupting on trees, the first drops of warm rain, bathed in sunlight and backed by the chirping of birds. Music produced using the same mold Mother Nature used to give birth to the concepts of springtime and Ray Davies.

"Kingston" ("the weather's changed, but has your mind?") tells me it'll all be okay. "Closer At Hand" ("the questions we tend to ask are useless if time is too fast") almost makes me want to dance like a hippie. And even a foul mood can't ruin the feeling I get from the chorus of "In Context". It's been a while since an album has been able to hold my hand through something like this. It won't let me cry. It reminds me that life can be beautiful and overwhelming without being sad. I can slowly feel the happy coming back. (Though the fact that I just found out today that they played Bowery last night kind of makes me die a little inside.)

Get your own little musical chunk of springtime here. I'll see you on the other side of these dumps.