Stephin Merritt - "Smile! No One Cares How You Feel"

Just got home from a Midtown/East Atlanta Village double-header -- How I Became the Bomb @ Smith's followed by The Preakness @ The EARL. Great to run into so many folks tonight at the venues. That said, I stopped off for a mocha between locations and I'm completely wired. Thus, a post.

I totally stole this off the Myspace page of Brandon from The Preakness, but as the Gothic Archies and Stephin Merritt (also of Magnetic Fields, The 6ths, Future Bible Heroes) were topics of conversation earlier today I have a notion to share. I imagine Merritt needs little introduction, although I'll note that this track is from The Tragic Treasury: Songs from a Series of Unfortunate Events (which was released last October).

For those who are unaware, that release is comprised of songs Merritt recorded under his Gothic Archies moniker for the audiobooks of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events series. A few months back Merritt appeared on local Atlanta TV to perform "Smile! No One Cares How You Feel" all by his lonesome with a ukulele. Here's the performance, and some bonus awkward banter with a morning news dude. Classic.

And here's the portable version:
Gothic Archies - Smile! No One Cares How You Feel

You can stream the album on the Nonesuch site, and buy the sucker from Amazon or your favorite indie retailer.