Ray Raposa does not have Lyme Disease

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The following headline on a CMJ news item struck me as terrible but not too odd, given all the pulmonary embolisms and subsequent life-saving surgeries and mystery illnesses forcing the cancellation of European tours of late:

“Castanets Bitten By Deer Tick”

“Wow!” I thought. “Strained vocal cords? Extreme exhaustion? Rehab? Pshh! It’s about time some musician was felled by a teeny tiny disease-carrying bug! In fact, I can’t believe it hasn’t happened before!"*

Naturally, I expected the following news bit to detail Ray Raposa’s contraction of Lyme disease or something of the sort. Fortunately the reference wasn’t actually one to everybody’s (read: nobody’s) friend ixodes scapularis, but rather the garage-folky outfit that will go on tour next week as Castanet’s backing band.

Even a cursory MySpace visit reveals this Deer Tick to be far more pleasant than its namesake. True, it’s hard to be less pleasant than an actual deer tick, but the music is still definitely worth a listen.

For more information on Deer Tick’s upcoming jaunt across America via Castanet’s ankle, you can read Paste’s less-confusingly named news item here.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the photo. Apologies to all the entomophobes in the house.

* This is only a rough approximation of my actual thought process of the time, except that “I can’t believe it hasn’t happened before!” bit, because I actually did think that. Really, can you believe it hasn’t happened before? I guess indie rockers don’t spend all that much time out in the woods, but still.