So one of the major perks to my job is that various musicians come into the office during lunch hour and play a couple tunes. In the last year this has included Mike Doughty, Matisyahu, Ben Harper, Mates of State, and Gomez. So today was made “extra super fantastic” by the fact that John Roderick of The Long Winters came into the office to play. Playing solo on an acoustic guitar, John belted out Pushover, Honest, Cinnamon, Ultimatum, Scared Straight, and Commander Thinks Aloud. If you’ve ever seen John in concert on heard him on the radio, he’s a really entertaining guy. Today was no different. Not bad for a lunch hour.

I was also lucky enough to snag a copy of the new album from Barsuk’s owner Josh Rosenfeld, who only had a couple to spare. After running back to my office to grab a marker, I returned to where John played to see if I could get an autograph. He was still around and we started to chat. If you’re a regular reader of awardtour, you might remember that I reviewed the album about a month back. I followed up the post by pointing out that some fans on the Long Winters forum really didn’t appreciate my writing. This became even crazier when someone posted a comment saying they actually were John Roderick and said they actually enjoyed my review. So, as you can imagine, I just had to ask him about this…

Me: Any chance you read the forums on your band’s website?
John: Ya
Me: Any chance you commented on my blog that was getting trashed in the forum?
John: That was you! Yeah, I commented on your blog…

He then went on to comment about how sensitive people get about stuff like that and how he thought it was cool that I actually pointed out people bashing me. And I’m flying to San Francisco for the weekend. Not a bad day eh?