Music

Empty Space Orchestra has, over the course of a couple of years of regional touring, invented a game. It's called P.T. Cruiser, the rules of which are unexpectedly complicated and apparently quite rigid.
Here's how it works: The four members of the band not driving the tour van (safety first) are to keep a watchful eye out for P.T. Cruisers, which for the less-than-automotive savvy is Chrysler's decade-long-minivan-meets-old-timey-sports-car mistake. They're rare, but not too rare, because as the band is riding down the freeway to Portland, Seattle, Eugene or wherever that weekend's schedule is taking them, a member of the quintet will see one of these vehicles. He or she will then declare “P.T. Cruiser!” and then is allowed to slap a band mate of their choosing in the face. It sounds like a classic game of “slug-bug,” but this has the potential to get more violent, and easily more hilarious, because if someone sees a Smart car, they're free to punch one of their fellow musicians.

While it might be hard for some not to hear the flannel shirts, soy lattes and overall bearded hipster nonsense that's associated with their music, Fleet Foxes aren't exactly poster boys for a new genre and don't even belong in the “indie” realm.
Their 2008 self-titled debut possessed honest four-man folk harmonies and Brian Wilson pop sensibilities. The songs felt strangely out of place in an age of digitized electronic swirls and pulsing beats. Even though folk ideals and guitar strummers with airy vocals have been “it” for sometime now, Fleet Foxes avoids this classification because their sound doesn't hover the corporate folk-rock/casual “indie” scene like Band of Horses or My Morning Jacket. Despite being oddly unique with arrangements that don't sell on paper, Robin Pecknold's ghost-tinged vocals are anything but a tough sell for radio listeners, apprehensive music buyers and Jack Johnson fans.