Occasionally I’m scrolling through the music folder on my hard drive and I come across something that I just don’t recognize. It happens this morning as I’m loading up the ol’ Rio Carbon for the drive north to Santa Barbara. “Electric President?” WTF? Who the heck are they? I run a quick check on allmusic.com. Yep, they exist. But where did I get it? What made me grab it from work? I throw it onto the player in case I get a moment to check it out.

It’s not until on the way back home, after having a nice lunch with lovely, witty Nicole (whom I haven’t seen in a decade, and whom I didn’t realize how much I missed until today) and dinner at the Brewhouse with Christian and Briana and then a late coffee with my old boss Tom Hurd (who wants to start a website called itchyforearms.com — I’m all for it) that I finally track to the opening cut on the album and press PLAY. I expect to be mildly interested for a few tracks. I’m just pulling onto the 101 at the time. That means I don’t expect to be still listening past, say, La Conchita. But as I pull back off the 101 at Highland and glide down past the Bowl and into the bosom of Hollywoodland I’m still listening.

Electric President is an electro-acoustic wonderland. It’s what you might expect to hear if Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) met up with Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel) and birthed a little electric baby. Who…uh…then went on to win the primary and then the nomination and then…well, you get it.

I get home well after ten o’clock that night and check out their site. Seems they were on tour recently. Too bad I missed it. From the site:

The U.S. tour is now over with. Special thanks to everyone that came out, and sorry if the show sucked. We don’t play live very often anymore. And another thanks to Alias and Tarsier for putting up with us. You guys are sweethearts.

Alias & Tarsier. Ah, I remember now. I’m talking to Burgess at Amoeba. he hands me the Electric President CD and tells me to give it a shot. Burgess records under the name Healamonster with his girlfriend, Rona, who goes by the name Tarsier. And… are you seeing the connection? Burgess and Rona have recently returned from the road, where they performed with Alias on a number of dates across the country. Apparently, Electric President was part of that.

Mystery solved. And this what I’ve gained. Check out “Ten Thousand Lines,” a nice little track that actually makes me smile during its final moments (somewhere around La Conchita, actually).