No Expectations 118: Bluebird of Happiness
A Taste Profile interview with Meg Duffy of Hand Habits. Plus, four more stellar albums for your week.
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Headline song: Hand Habits, “Bluebird of Happiness”
Thanks for being here. I love conducting Taste Profile interviews, where I ask artists to choose three formative things from their lives and three recent things that they’re into now. Whenever I do one, whoever I’m talking to always says how rewarding and occasionally disorienting it was to revisit the things they loved from their youth. I can relate. It’s weird to transport back to your childhood, when you’re first getting the creative spark, shaping your interests, and figuring out the kind of person you want to be. So much that felt life-altering then—an early favorite band, an especially memorable movie, or a book—may not age well or be as cool as it was to your past self, but that doesn’t make whatever it is any less important to your journey.
Before I discovered indie rock growing up, I was a classic rock kid and burgeoning metalhead. First came AC/DC, then it was Black Sabbath and Metallica, and a lot of nu-metal/alt-metal bands that now mostly make me cringe. I was a stereotypical teen boy with a subscription to Guitar World magazine growing up in suburban Michigan during the aughts. Early on, I saw Audioslave, Lamb of God, Three Doors Down, Breaking Benjamin, Avenged Sevenfold, and several other acts play shows. I was in the trenches, man. Thankfully, my tastes softened and expanded throughout high school. In adulthood, I rarely ever ventured back to the riff-heavy, mosh pit-inducing music of my youth. (If I did, it was always for more tasteful Chicago bands I loved like Oozing Wound, Russian Circles, Pelican, Bongripper, and others.)
When Ozzy Osbourne died last month, I felt the urge to dive back in and go full hesher. The first six Black Sabbath records are unassailable masterpieces, which led me down a rabbit hole of rediscovering Sleep, Saint Vitus, Electric Wizard, ISIS, High on Fire, and more recent bands like Yob, and SUMAC. It’s been a blast to succumb to pummeling, ear-shattering riffs and unselfconscious aggression again. While I no longer relate to the angsty, awkward teen I once was, I’m grateful I can channel that part of my life to find new ways of looking at music I mistakenly left behind. This week, put on one of your favorite albums from when you were 13 years old. Sure, you’re supposed to be a little embarrassed by what you loved as a kid, but it’s also nice to realize that maybe you were onto something all those years ago.
If you’re new to No Expectations, read this: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.
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Next week will feature several album recommendations from what’s bound to be one of 2025’s most-stacked New Music Fridays.
Taste Profile: Hand Habits’ Meg Duffy
I first came across Meg Duffy, the Los Angeles-based songwriter behind Hand Habits, nearly a decade ago when they were the touring guitarist for Kevin Morby. During a show at Schubas, I was floored by not only the lyrical virtuosity of their playing but the subtle flourishes that enlivened the songs I already loved. This almost precision-level attention to detail has been what separates Duffy as an artist for the past 10 years, whether it be their solo songs, full album collaborations, or their treasure trove of session work for acts like the War on Drugs, Perfume Genius, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Weyes Blood, Chris Cohen, Vagabon, and countless others.
If you’ve ever seen them live in any context, it’s obvious Duffy’s a shredder, but with their main songwriting project, Hand Habits, their focus has been on finding the powerful emotional resonance in quiet, sparse moments. Their 2017 debut, Wildly Idle, featured stunner songs like “All The While” and “Nite Life,” and in 2019, I wrote for VICE that its follow-up, Placeholder, “is so patient it practically floats.” With each successive release, like 2021’s Fun House and an instrumental 2023 LP with Gregory Uhlmann called Doubles, Duffy’s grown more confident and more assertive as a writer. Where Kevin Morby said in 2017 that Duffy’s debut felt like “a secret between them and the listener,” their latest Blue Reminder feels more like a conversation.
Out tomorrow, Duffy’s fourth album, is triumphantly self-assured and breezy. Even when its lyrics are at their most unflichingly self-excavating, there’s an ease and a generosity to it. On opener “More Today,” they sing powerful lines like “I know the love we lose / Informs who we become,” as well as “Honey, I think I love you / more today.” Each track comes fully-formed, with hooks so sturdy they’re immediate sing-alongs. “Wheel of Change” is nestled at the intersection of timeless and tasteful, feeling like a song I’ve heard my entire life, while “Bluebird of Happiness” sets sail with ebullient guitarmonies. It’s a gem of a record, one of the year’s best, which is why I’m so stoked to interview Meg about the three formative things from their life and the three things they’re into now.
Meg also runs a great Substack at
and while I didn’t mention it in our interview, it was a true highlight of my year to find out they were subscribed to and recommending No Expectations. Check out their picks below and read this excellent New York Times profile on them from Friend of the Newsletter Grayson Haver Currin.Formative movie: Garden State
No Expectations: I think Garden State might have been the first independent movie I ever watched. It was either that or Napoleon Dynamite. I was born in ‘91, so I was maybe 13 or 12 when I first saw that movie. It was very dear to me in my teens, but I haven't really revisited it in adulthood.
Meg Duffy: I was born in 1990, so I was around the same age. I was also a late bloomer with culture, art, and music. I wasn't really exposed to a lot of the stuff that would've stayed with me. In my 20s, I remember going on dates with people, or being at parties, and being asked, “What's your favorite movie?” and replying with Garden State. As I got older, a couple of people kind of made fun of me for it. When you sent over the prompt, I was like, "You know what, I'm not ashamed that this was really formative." But no, as a 35-year-old, I still haven’t visited because I’m worried my memory will be tainted.
Were you an Iron and Wine, the Shins, or a Simon and Garfunkel fan because of the soundtrack?
All three. I think at the time, I gravitated towards Iron and Wine. I was really, really into those first records. That Simon and Garfunkel song, which isn't one of their popular songs, was a big one too. It's a sleeper hit. I did have a moment with the Shins later.
Beyond the soundtrack and seeing an indie movie for the first time, one thing that stuck out to me as a kid was Natalie Portman’s character, who had epilepsy. I don’t talk about this much, but I had a seizure when I was 10, and I was worried that it’d be something I’d have to manage forever. It’s a little thing, and it’s been 20 years since that was a part of my life, but it mattered to see someone portrayed onscreen in a non-hopeless way, dealing with the same thing and finding a connection with another person.
Wow, that gave me chills. You’re like, “Wow, this super beautiful woman can have epilepsy?”
Yep, exactly. You mentioned in a note you sent before our chat that you had a different emotional connection to this movie.
This has happened to me later in life, reflecting on why this movie was really important to me. I later realized it's because the character's mom had passed away. My mom died when I was really young, when I was four. I didn't talk about it much growing up. Similar to what you shared, just seeing a character who was going through that, and while it was a different circumstance, it was so meaningful. With Zach Braff's character’s grief and how he found community back at the place where he grew up, but with people he didn't know when he was growing up, was so cool. There are all those amazing scenes where he's in LA, too. That might’ve been the first seed of me wanting to move to LA, even though the character hated it there. There’s also a catharsis to this movie that was really powerful to me. I want to rewatch it now.
Formative show: The L Word
The L Word is a pop culture blind spot. I was more of a Six Feet Under kid, but how was this show formative in your life?
When I watched that show, I saw all these awesome dykes, of every kind, living in LA, and one of them was in this band. I was like, "This is so sick. I want to do this." It gave me both a sense of a culture I could relate to and so much great music. The show had all these musical guests, like Tegan and Sarah, who performed on the show, and that was how I first discovered them. I was obsessed with them when I first heard them, and I've gotten to become friendly with them and open shows for them, which was so full circle. The 19-year-old in me was really losing my shit when that happened. There was more really great music on that show, too, like Lucinda Williams, Neko Case, Sleater-Kinney, Peaches, and so much more.
Have you revisited it recently?
When I was writing up picks before we spoke, I thought maybe I should put it on again because it's so LA, even though a lot of it was filmed in Vancouver. But I didn’t. Hilariously, my partner is from Vancouver, and she auditioned for it.
What about the reboot?
Yeah, it’s so bad. The original was of its time, which was a different time, but I think they overcorrected this go around. Everyone's she/they, and everyone has a cool haircut. Everyone was too hot. It wasn't for me.
Formative activity: Marching band
Here’s where we differ: I was a choir boy, not a band kid.
Okay, cool. Marching band was my earliest memory of feeling how a group of more than 10 people can make music together, and when you're all actually feeling it. I'm sure you experienced that in choir. It's really profound and spiritual, almost out of body. Those were the first times that I felt what that could feel like. It's all organic, too. There were no amplified acoustic instruments, which was really exciting. Also, I played the drums, which obviously was the coolest instrument in the marching band. I felt very much in the "in crowd," but outside of marching band, we were nerds.
There are always hierarchies within hierarchies.
Yes, high school is like a Russian Doll. Being in marching band solidified my taste for repetition and looping sounds. In the drum line that I was a part of, we had this cadence that I could still remember to this day. We would play it while we were in march, and that was the thing that kept us in sync. We would play it over and over again. I've probably played it more than 5000 times. With that repetition, I could feel something different while playing it. I think that really influenced me today in the way that I approach making music, too. I'll end up playing the same guitar part for like hours now. It was super fun. I had to wear the little uniform and everything, too.
How did marching band prime you for collaborations in your music career?
When there's another person involved, inherently, you're going to be surprised. And I love that. With marching band, every year you move to the next grade, so you lose the top grade and you gain the freshmen. Even though we would play the same material every year to a degree, the music can feel different because new people are playing it. It doesn't matter that we seniors have been doing it for four years; the new folks change the pieces and give it a different character.
For me, life is about sharing and receiving. When I'm making music by myself, it can be rewarding, and I write that way, but it can also be really lonely. I thrive in collaboration because I like to contribute and I like to be included. It feels good. Also, I like a challenge. I like figuring out how to fit into someone else's world and not take up too much space to enhance whatever's happening, play from the heart, and try to tap into what someone else is feeling. Playing music with other people is unlike anything else.
Recent activity: Baking
Let’s talk about your foray into baking banana bread.
Last week, there were so many birthdays happening in my life. I've also been very busy with record stuff, and I was traveling. I'm also not really a good gift-giver. I don't think people should get birthday presents. If you think of someone, you should give them a gift whenever.
A rolling gift schedule, not fixed to any date. I agree with that.
Yeah, I don’t want to buy you something just because it’s your birthday. So, we had all these mushy bananas, and I thought, "I'm gonna bake. I'm gonna make banana bread." Someone brought me banana bread in April when I was recovering from surgery, and it was so good. It was unbelievable. It's a classic dish. So yeah, I tried it. It was super easy. I used to be really intimidated by it. I love cooking, and when I cook other things, I don't usually follow recipes; I'll sort of eyeball everything. But with baking, you can't necessarily do that. That always scared me a little, but it's not that hard, and it's very rewarding.
Do you feel like this banana bread will be a gateway to more baking? If so, what else is on the docket?
Well, I'm stuck on this current recipe: the red miso banana bread that I made was really, really good.
Wow.
Get a bunch of red miso paste, and you melt it with all this butter and sugar, and then mix it into the batter. It was super buttery and gluten-free, which, these days, the gluten-free flour is so good that you don't even have to say it's gluten-free.
Recent activity: The Tascam 246 Portastudio
Alright, gear talk. Tell me about your history with the Tascam 246 Portastudio.
It's kind of embarrassing, just because of the Mk.gee craze: everybody's going crazy with a Portastudio. JHS Pedals announced a pedal version of the preamp, and now there are all these memes in the pedal world about how it's all been done before. But that's not why I wanted one. I wanted one because Greg Uhlmann and I made our record on the big brother version of the Tascam, which is the 388. Obviously, people have been using it for a long time, like Tame Impala. My old roommate Kyle Thomas, aka King Tuff, historically recorded only on his 388 for a really long time. When we borrowed it for the album that Greg and I made, I really loved it. It forced you to just perform the piece, and that's it. You're not going to go and comp this, or edit that. You can do that with computers, but looking at a screen and visually seeing music, sometimes it's a trip. It's like you're not listening anymore, you're listening with your eyes.
So I found a Portastudio on tour. I'm always on Craigslist. That's my guilty pleasure, especially if I'm on the bus tour with Perfume Genius. I could bring stuff all the way back to LA so I can use Craigslist and get something anywhere. Using it, I feel inspired in a new way. I was thinking it would be nice to have some limitations in my process, and I like the limitations of this little cassette. I don't really know how to use it yet, so all these things happen where I'm like, "Whoops, I just lost that take," or it plays back slightly out of tune. I find it to be very organic in feeling and sound. I'm gonna finally make a solo guitar record on that.
Recent activity: Writing online
I can relate to this! I've been spending a lot less time on social media lately, and reading newsletters has been so much better for my mental health than seeing all the culture war bullshit and clickbait discourse that is on every social media website. Tell me about your newsletter writing journey so far.
I don't even know if I would call mine a newsletter. I guess it is one, but I try not to make it news every time I post. I was never a scrapbooker or anything, but I keep and collect things. If I write a note for my girlfriend, I'll keep that, and I feel like my Substack has been an extension of that impulse. It's a fun way to engage creatively with collecting photos, collecting memories, and sharing them. I found that when I first started, it made me pay more attention to what I was doing. Even with releasing a record, it's the first time I've put out music while having this Substack, and it's making that more fun too. I'm not good at front-facing camera stuff: I find it to be torture, honestly. Having this Substack to talk about my process and where I'm at feels so much more natural than cold promotion.
You get to own it in more ways than being told to make a TikTok or a reel. It’s something you’re doing in your free time, and it’s outside the press cycle.
Exactly. It doesn't really matter if a bunch of people read it. It feels like a good way of archiving, too.
Do you see writing your Substack being a regular thing in the future?
I've dabbled in writing personal essays and various forms. I've never really shared them that much. There was one point where I wanted to write a memoir, which Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast really inspired and encouraged that, actually. I started one, but then got kind of exhausted by it, but I feel like it's something that I will keep doing. I don't know how frequently. It's a nice challenge for me. I'm a journaler. I journal often, and I'll go through periods of journaling and not journaling. When I'm on the road, I try to journal a lot, because we experience such amazing things and these moments with people.
When I was first touring, I was a lot younger, and people would be drinking a lot. After growing up in a rural town, I was not well-versed in the ways of the world. So when I started touring, I was really living life, and not being super present all the time because of that. I'd forget things on tour from the blur of being in a different city every day. My memory is kind of bad, too, so journaling and keeping track of my experiences, especially as we age, is important. I'll want to remember some details and small special moments that happened. It's so easy for me to kind of spiral into despair, but it's a good way of reminding myself of the really nice times. The Substack is a way for me to engage with the joy I find in journaling and cataloging.
Blue Reminder is out 8/22 via Fat Possum Records.
What I listened to:
The No Expectations 118 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal
1. Greg Freeman, "Salesman"
2. Hand Habits, "Bluebird of Happiness"
3. Joyer, "Cure"
4. Lutalo, "Cracked Lip"
5. Twen, "Godlike"
6. Silver Synthetic, "Happy Ever After"
7. Trace Mountains, "The Dark Don’t Hide It"
8. Cass McCombs, "Priestess"
9. Wade Ryff, Luke Temple, "Stars Over Stockholm"
10. Water From Your Eyes, "Nights in Armor"
11. Bleary Eyed, "Smile"
12. Pile, "Deep Clay"
13. The New Eves, "Rivers Run Red"
14. Racing Mount Pleasant, "Tenspeed (Shallows)"
15. Prewn, "System"
Bleary Eyed, Easy
No contemporary shoegaze band has felt more playful, inventive, and vital than Philadelphia’s Bleary Eyed. Equally adept at glitchy and volatile studio experimentation as well as airtight pop songwriting, their album Easy is the most exciting thing the genre has to offer in 2025. Pops of squiggly and wailing synth envelop songs like the explosive “Susan,” while “Special” is anchored by a booming guitar riff. For all the gleeful and skittish studio flourishes that make these songs truly singular, it stays seamlessly cohesive, never overloading the palette with excessive randomness. Just listen to how flashes of samples, woozy guitars, and sparkling synths slowly coalesce into pop perfection on a song like “Jersey Shore.” With so many other bands content to retread what bands like Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine accomplished before they were born, it’s refreshing to hear something so wholly original.
FFO: Glitchy and inventive shoegaze.
Cass McCombs, Interior Live Oak
While he’s always been critically acclaimed, Cass McCombs has been so dependable for singular, knotty, and enthralling folk-rock that he somehow feels slept on. Think of him as either Spoon for people who religiously read Aquarium Drunkard or your favorite songwriter’s favorite songwriter. Interior Live Oak is his 11th proper LP and his best in nearly a decade. It’s a 74-minute double LP that never wastes a second, synthesizing his warm, ambling, and unhurried guitar rock with classic American musical traditions and touchstones. On the first song alone, he references Ella Fitzgerald, Lime Rickeys, tuna fish, and John Prine, anchored by the cozy fuzz of the main guitar riff. “Strawberry Moon” exudes timeless, from its waltzing, twilit arrangement to lyrics like “All the lights on the avenue / Have gone dark, nobody moves / Nobody hurts, they all just swoon / For the strawberry moon.” McCombs’ catalog is rich and rewarding, and if you need a first LP to dive into, this might be the perfect primer.
FFO: Considered and subtly twangy indie rock.
The New Eves, The New Eve is Rising
Ever hear a record and you’re kind of at a loss on how you can square it with what you’ve heard before? That’s basically my experience with the thrilling and unclassifiable debut LP from Brighton quartet The New Eves. On first listen, it’ll beguile and stun in a way that makes you want to keep immersing yourself in their world. Is it medieval Patti Smith or Velvet Underground and Nico? Is it if Fairport Convention was a no-wave band? Either way, this is primal and snarling folk music, unconcerned with trends, politeness, or easygoing vibes. Lead single “Rivers Run Red” might be the most straightforward of the bunch, but it opens with droning guitars and urgent flutes and cello before locking with a circling bass line. It’s hypnotic stuff that gets wholly enveloping as the chanting vocals find the hook. Elsewhere, “Cow Song” extends past the six-minute mark, a stomping tour de force of brooding, pastoral assertiveness with lines like “Here I go / Out on my own / Got no place / To call my own / Into the / Mountains I roam.” It’s the kind of record where it feels like anything is possible, yet it still surprises you.
FFO: Righteous and near-medieval no-wave folk-punk.
Racing Mount Pleasant, Racing Mount Pleasant
In college, I was struck by a wave of bands who were clearly inspired by the sprawling and earnest aughts indie collectives like Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene: Typhoon, Fanfarlo, San Fermin, and others. Their arrangements boasted cathartic horns, a tangible vibe of childhood nostalgia, and a bit of twee whimsy, too. Indie rock is anything but cyclical, and I’m seeing that same sort of energy manifested by newer acts like No Expectations’ favorite Tapir!, as well as caroline, and Black Country, New Road. While all those hail from the U.K., Racing Mount Pleasant are from Ann Arbor, Michigan, and tackle orchestral, open-hearted folk better than most of their peers on their sophomore self-titled LP. With members based in Ann Arbor, Detroit, and Chicago, they stuff all 58 minutes of this album with gorgeous, swelling, and unpredictable arrangements that burst with life and energy. Like so many bands in this amorphous genre, Racing Mount Pleasant thrive on big feelings and instrumental maximalism. On the song “Racing Mount Pleasant,” off the album Racing Mount Pleasant by the band Racing Mount Pleasant, it ventures into emo at its most anthemic with the screamed hook “I don't know the reason why / I can't meet your eyes” that cools off with swirling sax. While I first heard of this band when they were called Kingfisher, I only caught them play this January, opening up for Cameron Winter. They were without a drummer, but these songs still soared. Your mileage may vary with the ecstatic, heart-on-sleeve exuberance here, but even among their peers, no one is doing things quite like this.
FFO: Orchestral, bighearted folk-rock.
Gig recap: Bonny Doon, Mass, Fran at Empty Bottle (8/16)
For basically the last decade, Bonny Doon has been my favorite band from my home state. The trio, led by songwriters Bill Lennox and Bobby Colombo, alongside drummer Jake Kmiecik, has made three unassailable records of breezy indie rock with gutting, all-too-relatable lyrics about early adulthood malaise. (Four, if you count their stint as backing band for Waxahatchee with St. Cloud). The Empty Bottle has long been the perfect Chicago venue for the band, and it was great to see them play songs throughout their catalog, including several numbers from their debut that I haven’t heard since the first time I saw them play the Bottle. When they hit “A Lotta Things” in the setlist, I got flashbacks to premiering that song at VICE in 2018. It’s been a real joy to see them evolve as musicians and people and to know new music is in the works. Big shoutout to the always excellent locals, Mass (Adam Schubert of Ulna and Bnny) and Fran, who warmed up the crowd with excellent solo sets.
What I watched:
Weapons (directed by Zach Cregger, in theaters)
With his breakthrough Barbarian and now Weapons, former Whitest Kids U'Know sketch comedian Zach Cregger has become an in-demand horror director whose movies you should see in theaters surrounded by people. He’s great at jarring shifts in perspective, tying together disparate threads, and adding welcome doses of humor into the moments of unbearable tension and dread. I really enjoyed Weapons, which was a romp but also ambiguous enough that you could Rorschach Test it a million ways to come up with a take on What It All Means. Small-town isolation? Communal distrust? Alcoholism? Grief? Loss of childhood innocence? When your dreams feature an AR-15 hovering above your house? I may not have loved it as much as some reviewers, but you will have fun if you see it with friends.
The Decline of Western Civilization Parts 1 and 2 (directed by Penelope Spheeris, on Criterion Channel)
I remember watching Penelope Spheeris’ The Decline of Western Civilization Part 2 in high school, but didn’t remember much other than the scenes where she interviews Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy Kilmeister. With the “Ozzy making breakfast” scene going viral in the wake of the iconic metal singer’s passing, I decided to revisit the first two installments of her trilogy documenting California’s underground rock, punk, and metal scenes in the late ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. While you’d expect scene hagiography here, Spheeris’ tolerance of bullshit, macho posturing, and pseudointellectual pablum is limited. By just letting her subjects talk, her camera allows them to legitimately make fools of themselves. In 1981’s Part 1, which follows the booming and chaotic Los Angeles punk rock scene, only X and some members of Black Flag come off totally sympathetic. Her follow-up in 1988 highlights the city’s hair metal scene, and holy shit, these bands are unequivocal losers. Only Ozzy and Lemmy, who serve as elder statesmen talking heads, come off well (despite an obviously staged orange juice flub). Of the newer bands featured, you know it’s a bad scene when Dave Mustaine is the most even-keeled and relatable person profiled. Essential viewing if you want to cringe and see an unvarnished look at past music communities.
What I read:
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (by Carson McCullers)
Carson McCullers’ debut novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, is one of the best pieces of American fiction set against the backdrop of the Great Depression. It’s a masterpiece, with heartwrenching prose that gets to the essence of isolation, loneliness, and struggling to come up with purpose in an unfeeling world. I’m embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t yet read this, and I realize now it would’ve been incredibly formative had I gotten around to it in high school. It was impossibly moving and infuriating, both in the bleak world her characters occupy and in the fact that McCullers was only 23 years old when she wrote it. If you’re one of the unlucky students who weren’t given this as a reading assignment in high school, like me, it’ll still hit now.
The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:
The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website now. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.
We were made to read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter in high school. Then the teacher had us watch the movie on VHS. I swore it starred Liza Minnelli but it was Sondra Locke. Also, very good.
Loving the FFO section - thanks!