Slack, Hand, Turn Us On. Duff, Loggins, Do Not.

We always try to listen to Don Slack's Swingin' Doors show on KEXP. If we aren't in the car when it's live (6-9pm on Thursdays), we catch the replay on KEXP's streaming archive.

On last week's show, DJ Don played a fast Western-swing song with a great melody, "Banks of the Brazos" by James Hand. (You can hear it if you set the streaming archive to start at 6:45pm, or hear a snippet here). The opening lyric is superbly simple:

On the banks of the Brazos/ Now that's where love has us/ And that's where I'm goin'/ Just as soon as I can

We bought the song on iTunes, and it's now in heavy rotation on our "Party Shuffle" along with "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley (which doubles as our ring tone).

We're going to buy Hand's album, "The Truth Will Set You Free," if Sonic Boom has it when we drop by there on Wednesday. Don, thanks for turning us on to it.

We wonder--will James Hand be appearing in Seattle soon? No--Chicago is as close as he'll get.

What could be more country than a state fair? But Hand will not be at the Evergreen State Fair. Kenny Loggins will.

And Hand will not be at the Puyallup Fair. Hilary Duff will.

Bummer.