I have an old friend named John Williams. Not old in the sense of being elderly, and not John Williams in the sense of being a famous film-score composer; old in the sense of I’ve known him a long time, and John Williams in the sense of being a guy in his mid-30s from Utah.

Anyway, this John Williams, like the other one, is a talented musician. When we were living in the same dorm at BYU, he was in a band called Anyone For Squash, which practiced in our basement and which some of us uncharitably called Anyone For Guitar Lessons. They went on to record a fine CD and do some shows around town and goodness knows what else, and then they all graduated from college and did other things.

John graduated from college a couple times, actually, and was an English teacher at Utah State University for a while before moving to Southern California, where it is my understanding that he continues to be both a college student and a college instructor of some kind. He’s super-smart,  and also a good singer and musician.

And now he’s in a new band! They are called Faded Paper Figures, their MySpace page is here, and you can download their album, “Dynamo,” from CD Baby. You can also listen to their stuff for free at both places, to see if you wanna download it.

Faded Paper Figures belongs to the genres of indie and electronica, or “indietronica” as some of the kids are apparently calling it. They remind me of The Postal Service: electronic but not techno, and indie but not emo.

I like the album a lot, and maybe you will too! At any rate, good luck to you, John. It was great to hear your work again in the new Indiana Jones movie.

You think “Dark Knight” fans are bad? You should have seen the fervor when Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” was released! That’s the shaky premise of this week’s “Snide Remarks” column, entitled “The Fanboys Respond to ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ 1595.” Enjoy and forsooth and stuff. Oh, and there’s not a podcast version because much of the effect is lost when it’s spoken rather than written.