Frightened Rabbit has me thinking about bunnies this week. Out running yesterday, a rabbit was hunched down in some thick grass by a bike path and as I approached, it tucked its ears back, parallel with its body, and crouched closer to the ground — perhaps thinking that I couldn’t see it anymore. It was frightened, but not frightened enough to just flee, to scram and get back to the burrow. Two records that have been sent to my door this week show rabbits in very different situations altogether. One is for an album by a Los Angeles band called Calamity Magnet, fronted by Rentals member Sara Radle. It shows a cool rabbit sniffing the nose of an airplane that looks to have made an unscheduled landing in a field. I picture the airplane coming to a skidding stop as the rabbit just confidently sat there and watched it come in, tearing up trees and a hillside as it did. The third rabbit in this montage is the one on the cover of Eef Barzelay’s latest great album Lose Big. The bunny in question is from a publication called “Der Struwwelpeter” by Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann and he’s seen taking the musket and seeing glasses of a sleeping hunter and later picking him off with a bullet, the hunter falling into the well as a second bunny dances triumphantly while wielding a wooden spoon. Who knows what we’re supposed to take from any of this. We can be sure that not all rabbits are frightened enough. Some are downright murderous in their confidence and lack of fear. Some hide it better. The Scottish band with the name that created all of this analysis and thought have written a sophomore album that is more like the first two rabbits. It’s skeptical of the world at-large, but it’s not anything to run away from. Lead singer Scott Hutchison sings, “Let’s get old-fashioned, back to how things used to be” and it’s general thought that many things are fucked up and we can wish, but we might not be able to fix them. We might just be rabbits.

What inspired me in the past seven days by lead singer Scott Hutchison:
One — My friend Jocky Venkataraman removed his shirt to play the final song in his wonderful set of songs on Monday. The song was quite good enough as it stood, but the emergence of his nipples caused quite a stir within my body.

Two — I had a tomato, olive and spinach pasta at King Tuts Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow on Saturday. The key to its success was that the olives were chopped up finely right there in the sauce. Usually such a title calls to mind a dish involving five whole olives tossed on the top as an afterthought. This was much more intense and pleasurable than that. Well done sirs and madams of King Tuts kitchen!

Three — Watched The Oxford Collapse play for the first time ever in York on Friday and they inspired me to sweat a little more when we played after their set. I couldn’t muster the same level of band-to-audience eyeballing however. The score as it currently stands… Oxford Collapse 1…Frightened Rabbit nil. To be continued ….

Four — I was sent an article by my friend Chris about grey squirrels, and looking into the subject more, found it was totally OK to kill a grey squirrel in the UK these days because they are wiping out the ‘less fat’ and therefore more attractive red squirrel. Though this did not inspire me to actually go out and shoot any ‘greys’, I shouted, ‘Fuck off and die fat cunt’ at a whole bunch of them in Kelvingrove Park on Sunday.

Five — Watched an episode of “Girlicious” on the telly. Totally changed my outlook on life. I think I’m doing just fine as I am.

Frightened Rabbit Official Site
Fat Cat Records