The Northwest had been missing one of our eclectic K Records artists, but after some time in New York, Karl Blau has come back to his home in Anacortes, WA. Colin Meloy-anxiety-issues-related reasons for Decemberists' cancellations left Blau less a major planned tour, yet he still enjoyed the show scene in and around New York City.

Taking a spot learned from the TIG editors, I took Karl to Remedy Teas for a "welcome back!" interview, for your reading pleasure over at KEXP's blog.

"(All ages and community spaces are) just a necessity, people need to vent and experience community…I’m excited for the future when we’ve gone through punk music and we know that nothing is going to offend us, exactly. Some kid is going to throw a rock through the window, we don’t have to close the space down. We fix the window, and move on. Let’s have a conversation about it, have a dialogue. It’s silly, people are looking for excuses to close a place down. It’s weird."

Less than a week having returned, Karl's already back in stride here, playing to a cozily packed basement house show. Clyde Peterson, his fellow Your Heart Breaks bandmate, accompanied him on a subdued drumset. I don't suppose any TIG readers attended as well?