Don't make the mistake. Just don't. Whatever you call Freeze and Fur Coat, a band I consider kind of like the poster-band for the Dear Records movement, just don't call them sad. Or melancholy. Or probably even, "the poster-band for the Dear Records movement." Aside from that last part, which is basically all BS I just made up on the fly, Freeze and Fur Coat's Brandon Hughes isn't buying it. "I hate being melancholy. And I don't really like being sad for that matter," Hughes once told me in regard to referring to Freeze and Fur Coat as downtrodden. "Nothing ever seems to happen when I get that way. I'm never in a creative place when I'm feeling sorry for myself. I have a bleak outlook on the things that I write about, though. There's no point in moping, but there's plenty to feel bad about. The music usually reflects that. But I wouldn't say that it's sad or melancholy, just bleak." Catch the happiness and frivolity of Freeze and Fur Coat Thursday at The New Frontier.

[The New Frontier Lounge, with Trip the Light Fantastic, Clyge Kurtis, 9 p.m., 301 E. 25th St., Tacoma, 253.572.4020]