a friend of mine recently turned me on to unbunny, who are a three-piece generally consisting of bassist james ess and drummer steve haruch backing up main non-bunny jarid del deo. the band originally started out in washington state, then moved to the champagne-urbana illinois area, and now del deo has moved back to his native new hampshire. they’ve got a nice, interactive site and are gracious enough to host a few mp3s from their last few releases:

unbunny – x (from the 2005 typist ep)

unbunny – i leave stones unturned (from the 2004 snow tires album)

unbunny – pink lemonade (also from snow tires)

unbunny – in a way (from 2002’s black strawberries album)

i’ve also become a huge fan of bands that host their own videos on their site, and unbunny has one for their song “casserole” from snow tires. the video pretty much has everything this band is about: a slow motion pan across unironic aviator sunglasses, cigarette flicking, taking cups outside and leaving them out there, a stringy haired blonde on a trampoline, wasting water out of a garden hose – all set in front of a trailer park. an urban trailer park.

it’s this kinda stuff that (almost) makes me miss missouri. actually, i don’t have the legs to be miss missouri . . . although one year’s winner was actually from my small hometown.