Except David Dondero. David Dondero is a Minnesotan singer-songwriter, one of the best alive, yet still pretty invisible. For some reason or another, I hadn't listened closely to Dondero in years. His song "Train Hop Flop" came up on shuffle the other day and I couldn't help but wonder where he's been, or why he slipped through the cracks.

I'm no Dondero expert, but the construction of his career seemed strange in my head. See, I found out about David Dondero because he was named as one of the direct, contemporary influences on Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes. In fact, I imagine that's how a lot of fans found his music. In fact, that fact gets repeated on every David Dondero album review on Pitchfork and I assume many other music review sites. That single fact was supposed to be a good rub, but the more it gets repeated, the more it seems like an inescapable ghost.