Crooked Fingers News

Earlier this year, Eric Bachmann decamped for Taiwan , where he intended to take a break from music and spend a year teaching English.

You're surely not alone if you don't recognize the name Eric Bachmann, though you may be more familiar with him than you think if you rocked out to brash indie rockers Archers of Loaf in the '90s or have swayed a bit more gently to his current band, Crooked Fingers.

"People ask that question a lot: Why did you decide to put out your own records? But it's not like there was anyone else asking to put them out." So says Mac McCaughan in the oral history/scrapbook Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label that Got Big and Stayed Small .

Merge Records, a small independent label in Durham, is celebrating 20 years with concerts and parties - and maybe even a giant metronome.

Duke Gardens - We'd vowed to keep this section free of Merge Records, but if you're looking for affordable entertainment under the sky on this summer evening, there's no beating this gig : With his essential Amerindie act Archers of Loaf, Eric Bachmann recorded one charging seven-inch for Merge, "What Did You Expect?," in 1994.

An amazing version of Crooked Fingers' "Sleep All Summer" by The National with St.