I write about random things a lot. I write a lot about random things. In practice, however, nothing has proven to be more random in all the years I've been paying attention than the music industry and its developing trends.

In 2010, there was real trouble brewing for live music; big concert tours were a slumping interest for audiences still reeling from financial worries due to the problematic North American economy, so artists from all genres of music were forced to cut back their ambitious tours.

For example, the touring Lilith Fair (Sarah McLachlan's recentlyreincarnated festival celebrating women in music) was in the news again and again, canceling dates and downgrading venues across Canada.

With ticket sales being so poor, it's refreshing to see that Edgefest is making a return to Downsview Park this summer — back from hiatus and stronger than ever with a lineup of sixteen of the hottest acts in music today. Further proof that rock is not dead, in case anyone was wondering...

One of the acts announced recently was Kitchener's Mockingbird Wish Me Luck, who I had the great privilege of meeting when they performed in London at Call The Office in December. The band consists of Amos Leblanc (guitar), Bishop Wierzbicki (bass, vocals), Kyle Krische (drums), and Mike Arnott (guitar, vocals), and get their name from a collection of stories by Charles Bukowski.

In 2010, Mockingbird Wish Me Luck caught the attention of Dine Alone Records and released their latest 7" — entitled Branches — in time to hit the road in December. The band are currently riding an increasing wave of popularity and working toward their debut fulllength release; though the band now has two EPs to their catalogue, they say it isn't a matter of strategy or timing, but just a way of expressing themselves in the meantime.

"We just wanted to get the music that we had written out on something tangible," Arnott said, though he added, "I can tell you that we're writing a bunch of new songs that we'll be playing live and eventually recording."

"When we recorded our first EP, more than anything else it was means," added Wierzbicki. "We probably had enough songs for an album but you go with what you can afford ... I think the format is beneficial in the fact that it's short and easy to digest. Coming in at like 15 minutes and eight minutes, something is always ending. Makes it harder to get sick of."

A very familiar theme with this band — there is next to no information available online about Mockingbird Wish Me Luck, an unfortunate fact once you've heard their music and become hungry for more.

"I guess it's somewhat conscious, I think we'd all rather be playing music than uploading pictures of ourselves onto the Internet," offered Arnott. "It has nothing to do with encouraging a mystique; that seems almost antithetical to how I'm approaching things. It's also a pretty funny concept, if you know any of us as people. We could probably use some mystique."

Are Mockingbird Wish Me Luck a good fit for your music library? Though sonically they fall somewhere between local heroes Attack In Black and Boys Night Out, they have a style and energy that is impossible to define — even their recordings to date don't seem to do their live show justice.

Want to see what I mean? You can listen to Branches, their most recent recording, at mockingbirdwishmeluck. bandcamp.com. To see them live, however, you may have to wait; though hopefully they'll return to London soon, the majority of the band are now back in study for the winter.

Follow the band on their blog at mbwml.blogspot.com or on Twitter mockingbirdwml. While you're at it, check out @FSU_Bobbyisms and the Music Recommendations thread in our FSU social network for all the latest in music news, views, streams and more. I'm out of words.