The Internet is a great thing. Besides being the world’s most efficient and profitable distribution mechanism for pornography, it allows people to connect with each other in all sorts of great ways.

Take for example an e-mail that I received recently from someone who reads my blog. He’s a software developer (the lead maintainer of a particular Linux distribution) out in the SF Bay area, and he found my blog because of a post in which I mentioned Trip Shakespeare, a band from the early 90s that I am a fan of.

So last week he sends me a message introducing himself, talking about his connection to TS (he knew them while in college in Moorhead, MN), and reminiscing about living in a climate that has actual seasons and winter with snow. He also had digitized some recording of live shows he made of the group, and made them available for me to download (although I won’t share them with anyone else without permission). The live shows are great, and were a wonderful accompaniment on my trip to NYC this weekend.

So thanks to Patrick for his generousity!

Trip Shakespeare released four albums during their active period on the late 80s and early 90s, after which they broke up to take time off or pursue other projects. John Munson and Dan Wilson of Trip Shakespeare went on to form Semisonic, and had a lot of success with the single “Closing Time” in 1998. I kept recognizing Dan’s (?) voice whenever I heard the song on the radio (it got a LOT of air play), and kept thinking “gee that sounds like the guy from Trip Shakespeare”. Turns out I was right.