It was the best of time it was the blurst of times.

I fell in love with The Shins years and years and years ago when I saw the film clip for their fantastic song New Slang on Rage late one night. I'd never heard of them or heard the song before but I thought it was amazing so I scribbled the name down and went to 78 Records the next day.

I bought the CD Oh Inverted World straight away and played the absolute shite out of New Slang. Constantly.

Years and years later I was so excited by the presence of The Shins music (and New Slang in particular) on the movie Garden State that I believe I hit Bec in the arm when we saw it together. Possibly quite hard.

Then suddenly The Shins seemed to be everybody's new favourite band or whatever and, I admit, I felt a bit pissed off. Where had all these people been years earlier when I was trying to force my friends to admit New Slang was the best song they'd ever heard or perusing music magazines for a glimpse into who the hell they were? Bastards. I sulked about, rolling my eyes when anyone tried to tell me how good they were, rolling out that classic indie music snob catchphrase: "Oh I prefer their earlier stuff."

Yes, yes it's very true that I am a music snob and a bitter jealous one at that but something good has come out of The Shins' apparently new-found popularity because they are coming to Perth in August. Yay. Tickets on sale next week.