In keeping with yesterday’s theme of the pillars of indie rock you might not have ever heard of, may I present The Mice.

What planet these boys came from I do not know. Mixing punk’s fury and power-pop’s harmonies (much like Hüsker Dü, but with a truly different end result), the Cleveland trio exploded on the scene in the mid-80s and disappeared just as fast, only managing one album and an EP during their brief existence. Collected on 2004’s For Almost Ever Scooter, these sixteen tracks are everything that has ever been right about the American alterna-rock scene, and are nothing less than essential for anyone who has ever claimed to love SST, Twin/Tone, or IRS records.

You may recognize the singer, Bill Fox, from either his also-brief solo career or last year’s Believer Music Issue , where Joe Hagan calls him one of the greatest contemporary American songwriters. And that’s not a label you go throwing around blindly, now is it?

Watching the above video for “Downtown” makes me think of my brother, as in, “I wish Bill Fox was my”. I can just imagine him giving me my first beer, playing me The Soft Boys for the first time, and, on that sad November day when he finally moves out, giving me a handshake and assuring me it all is going to get a little bit better. Not that I’m, you know, creepy or anything.