Grizzly

from Grizzly Bear's newsletter:

I have the worst news.

Firstly, Daniel's father is very very ill and we had been debating for some time cutting the tour short so he could be with his family. But last night, the final straw happened, our Van was robbed and much of our gear and personal belongings were stolen while in Brussels.

It's with a very very very sad face that I have to announce we are cancelling our last 12 shows. We were really looking forward to them all so much. We will surely be back sometime in 2007, once we can replace all the stolen instruments and Daniel has had time to be with his father.

Now, this is a shame for a number of reasons. Firstly, this is the band that may have given us the 2006 album of the year with "Yellow House." Secondly, they are even more amazing live than they are on the record (which is hard to fathom, until they play in front of you, at which time you're thinking they're 100 times better live.) And thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, they're the nicest people ever. I had a compulsive urge to mash up their song "Knife" with "Heartbeats" by The Knife, so I e-mailed a simple request for a vocal track for their song to the info e-mail adress listed on their site, not thinking I would get a reply, and being okay with that. Two minutes later, I got a really excited e-mail back from lead singer Ed Droste, and for the next few days had an ongoing conversation with him while we tried to figure out how to get the tracks to me in between sound checks and gigs. This was all before the robbing, however, and I can only imagine how bummed they all are, so go out and buy "Yellow House," and support the band. Tell your friends. They'll be glad you did.