[Click here to see what this entry looked like on April 1, 2008.]

Hi. Welcome to the new and improved Said the Gramophone. If you're reading this in an RSS reader I recommend you come visit the site to see some of the small and to be honest pretty obvious changes that we've made. Give the day and age, it's not really going to surprise anyone. Thank you to the donors who have made the site possible thus far.

Fleet Foxes - "White Winter Hymnal". I read someone's description of the Fleet Foxes, calling them "Grizzly Bear crossed with the Shins", and this seems to me very apt. I don't like the Shins very much but of course I am very fond of Grizzly Bear, so all that this really means is that on the Fleet Foxes' best songs there's an unabashed warmth, not a heat but a warmth, a keep-cosy ski-lodge thing, the taste of mulled wine in your throat. And "White Winter Hymnal" is a beautiful sleigh-ride of a song, a mulberry jingle-bell snowflake of a song, a carol for first things. Like: "First things first, get out of bed." "First things first, put on your boots." "First things first, go on to work, go on, go on." The thing about first things, the thing that makes them okay, is that they lead to second things, and to third. And that ahead of every footstep there might be someone waiting.

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My second column for the National Post appears today. I write about Hologram, Mixylodian, the Dodos, Port O'Brien, Phosphorescent, and that funny Ivan Ives/Arcade Fire track. From now on I think it's the first Tuesday of every month.

Vincent Moon shot a Takeaway Show with REM. Just as they describe, the magic moment is the laughter at the end of "Living Well".

Seven-year-old Alice has written a song for Brenda Martin, a Canadian woman who has been held in Mexican jail for the past two years.