That’s what I did Sunday night at LocalCut’s karaoke extravaganza (aptly titled the “LocalCut FutureStar Karaoke Explosion Event”). You shoulda been there, dude/dudette. Lots of our favorite folks (Dave Depper, Nick Jaina, Jared Mees, Alan Singley, Jason Simms, Emilie Strange, Sean McCormick from the Wherewithals and oooonnnn and onnn—even Britt Daniel, though we couldn’t persuade him to sing) showed up, and we all danced and sang like crazy. More on that late this week.

As you may know, it has been a rough couple of months here at LocalCut and in the Willamette Week music cave. To recap, we lost our beloved former music editor Amy McCullough in late July (I was assistant music editor, and have since been promoted). Then we spent over a month searching for an assistant music editor (among a handful of amazing candidates, it turns out he too was under our noses the whole time: today is Michael Mannheimer’s first day). Our superduper calendar editor, Lance Kramer, left last week after he discovered how much of a dick I was (ex-freelancer and Slabtown godhead Sam Soule is trying his hand on our calendar as I type this). And we haven’t had an intern for a month (a British guy named David Robinson—you can bet we’ll call him the Admiral—starts today as well). Throw on the extra Musicfest NW duties and we’ve barely had time to breathe around here, let alone run a website.

So you, my lovelies, have been neglected. But let’s never fight again. My new partner in music writing is a Portland-to-L.A. and back again whiz kid who’ll keep you updated and entertained. I’m not going anywhere either. Together we’re going to keep this site living up to its original promise, and we’re going to have more fun than you had ever imagined possible. That said, some things may change around here, both in print and online. I don’t know how to follow acts like Mark Baumgarten and Amy McCullough, WW’s last two music editors, but I plan on giving it a shot and having as much fun as possible in doing so.

I’m getting so off-track (hopefully that’s an endearing quality). My whole point here was to announce that, in order to celebrate this bold return to form of LocalCut, we’ve got some bigtime shit going on today. Like:

1. The official unveiling of the new LocalCut theme song, which will play ad nauseam every time you visit our site! That’s not true. But the song does rule. And it’s coming later today.

2. The much-awaited return of Arya Imig’s critically acclaimed and sorely missed LocalCut podcast, These Are the Days. In a special Musicfest NW edition, Arya unleashes not one, not two, but THREE surprises as well as breaking some news. And he rightly notes that this is an insane and glorious time in Portland music, with more high-profile Portland releases this September than I can ever remember coming out at once.

3. Other stuff. Show reviews, news and—if you’re good? A pony.

It feels good to be back. See, I had felt like this for quite a while:

And now I feel like this:

Keep it tuned to LocalCut, homiezzz.

p.s. sexy, mostly naked girls love to add LocalCut as their MySpace friends. You should, too.

That first girl IS wearing underwear, just to be clear.