The best news of last week

Sleater-Kinney isn't the greatest band ever, but they are my favorite band ever. "Dig Me Out" took me from a music fan to a music junkie, and their two farewell shows over the summer were the most powerful performances I've ever seen (and worth every penny of airfare).

So in a week that included an Arcade Fire show, the best thing I saw was photos of Carrie Brownstein again holding a guitar. Carrie played a four-song solo set at a reception for a new book of writing about Portland. She played:

The Go Betweens - "Love Goes On!"
The Ramones - "Danny Says"
Sleater-Kinney - "Funeral Song"
Bruce Springsteen - "Dancing in the Dark"

Behold:




For a million reasons, this reminds me of the morning I turned on the TV and Michael Jordan was back, but wearing No. 45.


There's more details about the show over at Tiny Suns Infused With Sour, a really solid S-K news blog, especially for post-hiatus updates.

Sleater-Kinney — Funeral Song (MP3)

A couple of random S-K tidbits: After Thursday night's Arcade Fire show, I told a friend that, with Carrie Brownstein seemingly in retirement, Regine was my new indie crush. Twenty-four hours later, Carrie re-emerges. I was silly to stray.

Also, after the first night of the farewell weekend, some of us were in a bar talking about what we thought each member would do after S-K, and one guy said he thought Carrie would write for a while, find a group of musicians nobody has ever heard of but were immensely talented and put together the ... greatest ... rock ... band ... ever. After a 24-song set and a few beers, that sounded like heaven. Still does, actually.