I’d just been thinking recently that I hadn’t stumbled upon or bought any new music recently, and how that was a shame. It’s partly due to failing to set up any more than podcast downloads on a new laptop; it’s also partly due to no longer living near the friend who used to gift me with CDs on a fairly regular basis, which had the effect of making me lazy about seeking new stuff out on my own.

This morning on the way to work I heard a pretty acoustic tune on one of the local college radio stations and stopped my scan to listen to it. It was a dude with a guitar, and he was singing about dreams and manifestations, and ended with a chorus of “goodness gracious, good night.” (I promise I didn’t just like the song because I say “goodness gracious” a lot.)

I sat at a traffic light as the song ended, scribbling what lyrics I could remember on a gas station receipt so that I could look it up when I got to work. I wondered if it was some Josh Ritter or Ryan Adams I’d never heard, though I wasn’t convinced it was either of them.

After some searching, and a failed attempt at calling the college radio station, I discovered the song I’d heard was called “Goodness Gracious,” was off an album of the same name, and was by an outfit I’d never heard of called The Heligoats. That’s right: THE HELIGOATS. I had the requisite old-lady response of “What the hell kind of a name is that?”, then sought out some other samples of their music.

Dear fellow listeners, what I found I liked a lot. It’s lovely, alt-country-folky-poppy stuff, with kind of weird and great lyrics. I only listened insofar as the Amazon sampler allowed me, but I intend to investigate further.

What a nice treat for a Friday morning.

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