as well as pursue a relationship there with a woman. Scheduled for a January 2008 release, Popular was promoted with five months of concert performances by Hunt, press coverage, and the release of promotional copies, including the four-song EP The Popular Machine (2007) and advance CDs for the media and radio people. However, weeks before its scheduled release, the album was shelved by Blue Note, with whom Hunt had been experiencing differences, and they subsequently parted ways. Blue Note had felt that the album was not profitable enough to release. Hunt could not release Popular himself without repaying the project's costs back to EMI and obtaining rights to the album's master recordings. According to him, EMI requested twice the original costs, and in his opinion, the money for promoting Popular was not "strategically spent well" by the label. Hunt discussed the situation in an interview for Creative Loafing, saying that "They opted to not sell it to me at a price that I could afford. They've got it and I'm sure they'll come out with it when they deem it necessary and profitable." Of his decision to relocate to Los Angeles, he later quipped, "Here I am, and the relationship has done much better than the career." With his career on hold, Hunt continued recording new songs and demos, posting them on his MySpace page, while Popular gained exposure among listeners through online music sharing. In 2009, he released the compilation album Use in Case of Emergency as a free download through his website. It featured previously unreleased material recorded by Hunt prior to Popular. He also continued touring, worked on an autobiographical book of short stories, entitled Tales of Friction, and studied classical piano. Hunt also took up photography after his girlfriend purchased him a camera. He started out on the streets of Los Angeles, where he photographed subjects on street corners and discarded objects, including furniture and numerous couches he found abandoned on the streets. In an interview for PopMatters, he explained how his photographying of people there inspired him: "It's sad as you can quite imagine. It's also kind of welcoming to me. Sometimes I do get a chance to talk to them and hear a bit of their story. I'm not the only one out here who had an idea of trying to make it happen. Some of us are luckier than others. Some of us