The discovery of the fantastic music blog Little Hits, which features mp3s from long gone power pop and garage rock bands (and long out-of-print, mostly vinyl releases) led to a bit of a link-to-link discovery of information about Erik Voeks. Little Hits featured an mp3 from Voeks' fantastic debut (and lone long-playing release), Sandbox, "Oh My Darlin'," and comments on the posting mentioned that Voeks now lives in Kansas, operates a record shop and has a new band. That band, the Octopus Frontier (that's a Richard Brautigan reference), seems to be a knock-around group for guys with day jobs but who still want to rock now and again. From the mp3s available on the site, it would seem that Voeks is content to filter his pop smarts through more pedestrian bar band rock these days. A link on that site takes you to Voeks' My Space page, where this self-described "chronic home recordist" offers four streaming tracks. They're all fairly short, but fully fleshed out pop songs that seem to be more direct descendents of the great music he made a decade ago. It's great to see Voeks still making music. Sandbox is one of the great gems of the '90s, and it's promising to know there may someday be a follow-up.

As for Little Hits, it's a nice affirmation that there are more people out there who snapped up all of those old singles from Bus Stop, Summershine, Sarah and Parasol who lament the fact that the music they contained is locked within those hard-to-hear grooves. Here's hoping that blogger Jon Harrison's stated goal -- to contribute to interest that will eventually lead to legitimate re-issue of the works of the artists represented, or wider recognition of already available releases -- is realized.