So, in Houston, unlike many places, we still have an actual local record shop or two. (We used to have two serious ones and a handful of smaller ones, but this year Cactus closed up shop after 30 years.) Because they’re a dying breed and because we prefer physical CDs to downloads, we tend to patronize them when we don’t just point our browser at Amazon, which is about half the time, give or take, and depending on what we want (something new and still on the charts is easy to buy locally; obscure back catalog stuff is almost impossible).

Yesterday, while Mrs Heathen was watching implausibly attractive doctors whine about fucking, we happened to be browsing through our podcast list when we found something cool from Morning Become Eclectic. An Austin-based band called The Black Angels made noises we enjoyed, so we figured we’d head over to Soundwaves and pick up the disc today. After all, Austin band, right? Amazon has it, and so does iTunes. Surely they’ve got a few copies.

Er, no. Not only that, the only record of theirs that Soundwaves can even get, it seems, is their eponymous EP, not the full-length LP released in April. And when we left the shop, Mrs Heathen’s car wouldn’t start. It’s about 95 degrees today, which is precisely the sort of weather you want to be push-starting a Hyundai in. Guess we’ll order it from Chez Bezos after all, since the only thing that sucks more than Houston weather in August is DRM.

Reckon we’ll have better luck buying a new battery for the Hyundai tomorrow? Let’s hope so.