There was a pretty great line-up a couple weeks back on a Thursday the 9th at the 930 — Ted Leo and the Pharmacists , Obits , and Screaming Females . I knew the Screaming Females only by reputation. I’d already seen Obits twice in the past year. And I have seen Ted Leo like a million times. So in a way I really wanted to see them in inverse order, but I had some social obligations and ended up missing Screaming Females, unfortunately. But I wasn’t about to miss Obits. What a kick-ass rock band! …

At a Wednesday-night happy hour with a couple friends, debating whether to do prosaic things like go to our respective homes and do laundry, I mentioned that I was mildly interested in going to the Black Cat to see Pinback and Obits . Thanks to one of those friend’s recent obsession with Hot Snakes (whose singer Rick Froberg now heads Obits) and the general sense that it was a good night to abandon prosaism, we headed over in time to catch most of Obits and all of Pinback. It was a good choice. …

I don’t know Obits too well yet, but I fell in love with Hot Snakes just in time to see them on their last tour. That was a great one, at the mainstage of the Black Cat about four years ago. The Sunday-night-at-the-backstage vibe was mellower and the Obits’ set was pretty short. I liked it but was wondering about how they put the songs together. One of the last ones was totally pop, it sounded like Imperial Teen or something. I’ll have to get their album… it’s sadly on Sub Pop which is not on em…