I’ve been meaning for months to give some space to a great band called Rilo Kiley (also see here). Alright, here’s the deal:
I was going through a phase of downloading “unofficial” soundtracks a while back, and someone had put together the “Ultimate Buffy the Vampire Slayer” collection. One track to make it was, I have come to learn, heard briefly in the background of an episode from season 6: Pictures of Success by Rilo Kiley. It only took one listen of this song, but for whatever reason it really stood out and grabbed my attention. There’s just something about the composition and the lead singer’s voice that makes it linger.
So I did some research on the band and downloaded a bunch more of their material to try out. They’ve developed quite a devoted fan base, while still flying under the radar. I’ve seen a lot of descriptions of their sound, but I think the best classification is something along the lines of indie alt rock country. The best option is to just download songs for yourself and give a listen. Besides the wonderful Pictures of Success, other standouts are Glendora, The Frug, Papillon, and So Long.
On a Sunday a few weeks ago I’m merrily doing some homework while my playlist randomly cycled along. An RK song comes on and I think, “I should check out their website to see what’s new”. To my shock and dismay I find that in a couple of hours the band will be taking the stage at a club in Toronto! They’re from California and an earlier look at their tour dates didn’t hint that I could expect them in my neck of the woods, let alone anywhere in Canada, anytime soon. If I were impulsive, and more importantly had a car, I would have rounded up some folks and made my way to the show. But alas that wasn’t a feasible plan, and I spent the rest of the night pissed off at the missed opportunity … if only I had known earlier!
(On a separate note, Sven and Mandy had actually been at this club, The Horseshoe, two nights earlier as part of their Danny Michel stalking.)
About a week and a half later, two fantastic moments occurred on Gilmore Girls. The one most relevant to this little story is that a Rilo Kiley mention appeared on the show. There’s a song that Lane is going to play over the phone to Rory by the band. I just found that obscure, little throwaway line to be oh-so-cool. I was in total shock to hear the band’s name on one of my all-time favorite shows; the whole thing just seemed so random.
The other bit about the episode that I found completely hilarious was Kirk’s horrible statistical reasoning. In discussing Jackson’s standing in the polls with Sookie and Lorlei, it went something like this:
Kirk: I took it upon myself to poll the town and I think you’re going to be pretty happy with the results.
Sookie: We are?
Kirk: Jackson is solidly in the lead.
Lorlei: Already? We just started bugging people.
Kirk: Well, I modeled my poll after the Gallup poll. The Gallup poll uses a sample of 1005 voters to represent the 280 million people of the United States. Using that logic, the correct sampling size of the town of Star’s Hollow would be 0.002. Rounding that up means one person needs to be polled, so I picked me.
Lorlei: You polled yourself?
Kirk: I was right there; seemed like a perfect opportunity.
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