I came to a disturbing realization the other day.

For those of you just joining the ongoing saga of my scintillating existence in this west Tennessee town, I’m the education and features reporter for the State Gazette here in Dyersburg. This means that, by and large, I cover school events. So I was lining a bunch of third-graders up for a photo the other day when it struck me that since I started in this position (three months ago), I have yet to meet anyone my own age.

At first I thought it was just a side effect of my beat, since most of my time is spent in schools and at school functions. Then I started looking about this town, trying to discern the ages of the people milling about me, and remarkably, there just aren’t any twenty-somethings here at all. I’m not sure where they all go between the ages of 19 and 30, but it’s not Dyersburg.

Yeah, I know, not very interesting, but I had fabled first-line writer’s block this time, and I needed something to start with. There you go, and piss off if you don’t like it.

Some random notes to begin:

All you Portlandites have this info already, I’m sure, but I just found out, so I thought I’d spread the good news. Portland’s own Rustic Overtones have salvaged their major-label career by signing with Tommy Boy Records, the long-running purveyor of ground-breaking hip-hop. Tommy Boy is also famous for sticking with artists through thick and thin to watch them develop. Witness De La Soul, who hit huge with their debut and haven’t had a hit since. When the trio proposed the idea of a triple album, released in stages over a year and a half, Tommy Boy went for it. Most labels would have laughed in their faces.

All of which leads me to believe that the Rustic Overtones /Tommy Boy relationship will be a long and fruitful one. If you’re not from Portland, Rustic is a long-running (like 11 years) band that mashes several styles into a horn-driven stew. They’ve gone through several stylistic shifts, which culminated in a big contract with Arista in 1999. The proposed album, This Is Rock and Roll, died on the vine, which is okay because that awful title would have haunted them to the grave. They’ve regrouped and reassembled the new album, calling the finished product Viva Nueva, which means “new life.” That’s out sometime in June, or so says the Tommy Boy website. Congrats, guys, and may this second shot be the keeper.

There are a number of artists who are contenders for my Top 10 List every time they release something, just by dint of their past excellence. Two of them have new records this year, one week apart. I’ve already reported that Tori Amos will release Strange Little Girls on September 18. A week before that, Ben Folds will unveil his solo album, his first without the Five. He’s called it Rockin’ the Suburbs. Can’t wait…

On to the review:

I’ve heard it said that everyone should own one Mark Eitzel album. The reason for this is simple, at least to me: no one does sadness like Eitzel. He is perhaps the most honestly depressing songwriter currently working. Listening to his haunted vocals alone lends the impression that this guy has never had a good day in his life, and the lyrics and arrangements of his tunes do nothing to alter that notion. Eitzel’s music is soul-deadening, numbing, powerful stuff.

Whether or not it should be mandatory to own one of his long-players, everyone should at least hear “Saved,” the highlight (or lowlight, depending on your perspective) of Eitzel’s first solo album, 60-Watt Silver Lining. It was on this tune that he abandoned the indie-rock roots of his former band, American Music Club, for a richer, more jazz-oriented sound that perfectly complemented his sad-sack voice. “Saved” has lyrics and a melody that would have been almost uplifting if sung by anyone else. In Eitzel’s hands, it’s a melancholy wonder that plays like a dialogue between singer and instrumentalists, the vocals daring the music to cheer them up.

To his credit, Eitzel has wildly varied his approach each time out. West was a jangly pop collaboration with R.E.M.’s Peter Buck that transformed the dialogue to an all-out argument, and the stripped-down Caught in a Trap and I Can’t Back Out ‘Cause I Love You Too Much, Baby showed that Eitzel could be just as chillingly effective with little or no instrumentation at all. (That album, in fact, was the product of a very strange clause in his Warner Bros. contract that allowed him to do albums for other, smaller labels if those albums evidenced “no commercial appeal.”)

And now we have number four, The Invisible Man. It’s so titled because of a lyric in the gorgeous “Shine” that reads, “The only costume prize I’ll win is if I go as the invisible man,” a typical sentiment here. Eitzel has definitely not lost his touch, even though he’s spent the last two years reportedly working on the complex production of this album. What’s cool about The Invisible Man is that it’s still an Eitzel album underneath it all.

On the surface, though, Eitzel has expanded his sonic palette greatly here. He’s incorporated subtle electronic percussion, backwards loops, strange synth noises and an overarching sense of studio wizardry. Every track is layered several times over, and it’s very easy to imagine this album as a stunning disaster. That it isn’t is a testament to the skill with which Eitzel has assembled the sonic building blocks here, never losing sense of the songs he was augmenting or of the voice that leads the whole production.

In typical Mark Eitzel fashion, The Invisible Man is undoubtedly his biggest album sonically, yet it still sounds small and intimate. Eitzel has a particular talent for making even the most optimistic songs into mournful elegies, and his lyrics are fantastic models of stream-of-consciousness observation and emotion. Take, for example, the entirety of “Christian Science Reading Room”:

“I was so high I stood for an hour outside the Christian Science Reading Room and suddenly I could not resist – I became a Christian Scientist – and I studied light and I studied sound and every question that I asked was suddenly profound – the holy martyrs of gravity, the absolute measure of being free. I was so high that I even scared the cat, and using the language of his tail he said he had a vision a thousand white flags circling around my hat and then he hid under the bed, and his eyes were as big as bells, and suddenly he could not resist and he became a Christian Scientist, and together we explored our world, and found it became more beautiful as its teeth were revealed.”

Eitzel’s worldview is represented in the words here. Everything would be funny, if it weren’t so depressing to actually laugh. He has spent a good chunk of his solo career mourning his sense of humor, and unlike most pseudo-depressives in pop music, he never dwells on death. Far worse, it seems to him, to remain alive and not be able to enjoy a single thing.

All of which makes the closing track, “Proclaim Your Joy,” such a strange revelation. It is, by far, the happiest and most irony-free piece of music to bear Eitzel’s name, and it finds him repeating in nearly giddy tones, “It is important throughout your life to proclaim your joy.” Even though the liner notes call this tune a joke, it’s impressively sincere-sounding, as if it’s taken Eitzel years to reach the point where he can make his voice dance. He simply revels in it, and from such an honest musician, it’s explosive in its pure emotional turnabout. That song alone is worth the price of admission for Eitzel fans.

If it’s true that everyone should own one Eitzel album, well, there are four of them now to choose from, and you really can’t go wrong with any of them. The Invisible Man is another idiosyncratic achievement from a true depressive, and it’s impressive both for the growth it exhibits as well as the glorious stagnation it represents. Mark Eitzel is truly one of a kind.

Next time, the long-awaited Radiohead album, the subject of more dread and anticipation than any other record this year.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’ve got two reviews this time, and I thought I might size my reviews to the respective lengths of the albums in question. Shall we?

I’m not sure how Weezer has sustained their popularity. They’ve been gone for five years, following a disastrously unpopular second album (Pinkerton) that, no matter what Rivers Cuomo might say, isn’t that bad. Their just-released third album had a lot of strikes against it for me. First, it’s an obvious attempt to regain past glory – it’s self-titled, the cover art is strikingly similar to that of the first album, and they called producer Ric Ocasek back to punch up the hit potential. Plus, the thing’s only 28 minutes long.

Surprise surprise, though, Weezer is great: ten short, sharp songs that come on stage, state their business and leave without wearing out their welcome. “Photograph” is terrific pop, “Crab” will stay in your head forever, and if “Island in the Sun” isn’t the hit of the summer, it won’t be the band’s fault. Weezer(also known as the Green Album) is an old-time pop record, perfect for short attention spans. It’s the best example of spending five years on 28 minutes and making them all count.

Tool has also been missing in action for five years, but their return album, Lateralus, is nearly three times as long as Weezer’s. It needs every second of it.

There is no band in the world that sounds quite like Tool. The quartet uses the Led Zeppelin lineup of guitar-bass-drums-vocals, and in fact Presence-era Zep might have been one of their primary influences. They write twisty, progressive epics that hardly ever clock in at under six minutes, and they have a pronounced disdain for radio-fodder choruses. Their albums take time to digest. In fact, the first listen will probably leave you a little bewildered.

If Lateralus is your first Tool album, I don’t envy you. The band has been pretty good about easing their audience into their vision. Even so, their last album, Aenima, gave me more trouble as a reviewer than almost anything else that year. Listening to the 78-minute Aenima straight is quite a bit like being run over by a steamroller in slow motion. Each song pummels you at an agonizing crawl, never varying from the same three or four notes. Aenima sounds like the missing link between Helmet and Dream Theater. I found that it was best in small doses, one or two songs at a time.

Lateralus is best all at once. That may be because I’ve heard and digested Aenima, though. Lateralus builds upon the sound they created on that album, and like skipping a grade in school, if you don’t have the basic foundation, you’ll probably have no idea what the band is going for. Even for those of us familiar with the group’s sound, Lateralus doesn’t offer easy answers.

For starters, the album contains exactly two instantly memorable hooks, one in “Schism” and one in “Ticks and Leeches.” While the rest will leave you in slack-jawed silence, it purposely won’t stick in your head. The songs all shift, move and mutate beyond their original riffs. The opener, “The Grudge,” weighs in at eight minutes, and exists in a state of perpetual motion. The dynamic shifts alone are breathtaking, and when vocalist Maynard James Keenan (the not-so-secret weapon of the band) opens up full throttle, even if only for a slipped-in two-beat measure, Tool achieves a power the guitar-rock bands they’re usually lumped in with can’t match.

In fact, one of the main reasons you won’t find universal praise for Lateralus is that very alt-rock environment they’re associated with. The members of Tool have, to their credit, done everything possible to avoid that very association. They never appear in their own videos, they hardly ever print pictures of themselves in their CD jackets, and they tend to perform incognito. The foursome could walk down virtually any street in America and not be recognized. The idea is that the focus should be on the music, not the people making it.

Unfortunately, the great majority of music critics don’t have any idea how to talk about the music, so they’re forced to comment on the social and cultural environment, the moody atmosphere of the lyrics, the theatrical masks – anything but the actual musical art. Yes, Tool came to prominence during the grunge-rock era of the early ‘90s, and yes, Keenan’s lyrics have an indecipherable gloom, but the band comes from an entirely different, much more musical place than Saint Cobain and his Not-So-Merry Men. They’ve gone to every effort to make timeless music, and to distance themselves from any cultural phase they may have existed alongside.

But here I am, commenting on something other than the music.

Lateralus plays like a single thought, a 79-minute suite that builds and recedes at perfect intervals. At times, it’s difficult to believe there are only four members, the mass of sound is so huge. Paradoxically, at times it’s difficult to believe the sound wasn’t created by a single organism, the band is so tight. There are no solos, no random moments. Each song has so many sections and turns that if you’re not paying attention, you’ll miss the transitions from song to song.

On top of all that, the 22-minute trilogy that closes the album (not counting the noise sculpture “Faaip de Oiad”) is unlike anything the band has done before. It takes their trademark buildup to new levels, unfolding at a snail’s pace, and adding strange textures. “Reflection,” the middle section, soars with a shakuhachi flute melody. Keenan’s contributions are atmospheric and subtle, and they provide the only concessions to traditional songcraft.

If I’ve made Lateralus sound daunting, well, it is. Not only do you have to devote 80 minutes of your time to digesting it, you’ll have to do it three or four times at least. Unlike Aenima, it can’t be taken in chunks. It has to be swallowed whole, another admirable stance in the face of the single-oriented alt-rock revolution. If you let it, though, Lateralus will blow your mind.

To sum up, then: Weezer’s Green Album is a satisfying snack, while Tool’s album is a filling seven-course feast. It depends on what you’re hungry for. Sometimes a box of Cracker Jack will do it for you, and sometimes you need a lasagna feast with a side of garlic bread.

And sometimes a metaphor should be put out of its misery before it causes irreparable harm.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Douglas Adams died on Friday of a sudden heart attack. He was only 49 years old.

I wanted to say a couple of words about Adams because he was one of three writers (Stephen King and Stan Lee being the other two) who inspired a slightly overimaginative grade school kid to start stringing sentences together. Before I discovered Steinbeck, Shakespeare, C.S. Lewis or Alan Moore, I believed Douglas Adams was the best writer in the world.

That’s not to say he wrote children’s books. In fact, his central work, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, gains more resonance for me as I age. While Adams was thought of primarily as a comedy writer, and the Hitchhiker’s Guide is certainly very funny, what Adams did best was to mirror the absurdity of modern life through a unique use of language. His only peer in this regard was Joseph Heller, and the similarities between the Hitchhiker’s Guide books and Catch-22 are many.

I started reading at an early age, and by fifth grade I was already somewhat bored with the books I was being given to read. Douglas Adams got me excited about the language again. His sentences were twisty, run-on affairs that had to be read twice to be fully understood. His characters and situations were original and deceptively thoughtful. Besides, if you can make a 12-year-old laugh on every page, you’ve pretty much got him hooked.

As I grew older, though, I began to really get Adams’ joke. The Hitchhiker’s Guide is an utterly ridiculous, often frustratingly clever read in which things that seem to have no rational explanation are later explained in maddeningly rational detail. Adams’ universe is strange and complex, and yet every event or circumstance has behind it a web of improbable, yet wholly explainable reasoning. The world, I’ve discovered, is actually like this. Everything is frustrating and absurd and ridiculous, but it all makes an odd sort of sense. Even the anticlimactic conclusion to the bleak final book, Mostly Harmless, seems, like the anticlimactic conclusions to all of our lives, inevitable and strangely beautiful.

Adams’ work doesn’t exactly lend itself to somber reflection on its author’s life, so I just want to say this. Mr. Adams, the 12-year-old me will be eternally grateful for your stories, and more often than you’d think, the 26-year-old me still enjoys them. Even though it’s no doubt been overused by now, I can think of no better send-off than the one you penned yourself.

So long, Mr. Adams, and thanks for all the fish.

* * * * *

Glory be, people actually voted. I got the most votes for R.E.M. (and Wally Fenderson didn‘t even vote…), so that’s what I’m going to talk about, but I want to add that this week in music made me very, very happy. The Weezer album is short, sharp and perfect pop, the Cowboy Junkies issued another wondrous slab of somnambulant melancholia, and Tool, well, Lateralus blew my fucking mind. They’re all worthy of your hard-earned cash.

If you look at the R.E.M. catalog as a whole, you can see the ebb and flow of their inspiration. The band definitely goes in cycles, letting their muse lead them to green pastures, even if they have to go through dung-strewn minefields to get there. Over a 20-year career, they’ve never sat still long enough to get sedentary. Pick any three R.E.M. albums at random and you’re guaranteed three totally different listening experiences.

I believe the band has only made three truly great albums: Murmur, Lifes Rich Pageant and Automatic for the People. Diehards could, no doubt, make a substantial case for the worthiness of all of their 13 studio albums, and I’d agree to a point. While R.E.M. has never made an album that’s not, in some way, worth owning (even Monster), the three I’ve mentioned are the only flawless works in their canon. Amazingly, they sound nothing alike, to the point that one unfamiliar with the band might not believe the same musicians produced all three. Such are the rewards of being a constantly growing artist.

I’m coming around to the idea that Reveal, the group’s 13th album, is their fourth truly great record. It’s shorter and more focused than Up, their first album without drummer Bill Berry, and the songwriting borders on the sublime in more than a few cases. It’s certainly the group’s best work since Automatic for the People in 1992.

And again, if you played this disc immediately after any of their three other great albums, you’d never think it was the same band. Reveal is big-sounding, covered in layers of texture and color that only occasionally threaten to drown out the songs themselves. The songs win out, though, because Reveal is the most tune-centric R.E.M. album to date. The melodies are sweet and satisfying, and Stipe’s tendency to lyrically roam all around his enormous consciousness has thankfully been reined in. I’ve been struggling with how to describe the sound of this album, and I’ve settled on this: it’s Brian Wilson in space. If Wilson had recorded Pet Sounds in 1983 from orbit, it might sound a bit like Reveal.

The sheer mass of sound is achieved largely without the use of electric guitars. Only sporadically does Peter Buck whip out the amplifiers, and then only to send songs like “She Just Wants to Be” into the stratosphere with a soaring lead line. Acoustic guitars, piano, synthesizers and giant string sections make up the rest of the sonic pattern, and for the most part, they sit quietly next to each other, playing nice. Buck called this album “lush” in interviews, and that might be a super-sized understatement.

The star of the show is Stipe’s voice, mixed high and clear throughout. The vocal melodies sparkle and shine, and nowhere here is there an incomplete, unsatisfying song. (R.E.M. has given us those in the past: “Hairshirt,” “The Wake-Up Bomb,” “Airportman,” etc.) “The Lifting,” which opens the record, twists and turns in lovely ways, the bridge section being my favorite. “Summer Turns to High” is glorious, as is “Disappear.” Note for note, these might be the best songs to come out of the band in 10 years.

(It’s ironic to note that just as Stipe’s vocals became clearer and his lyrics less oblique, the band began printing those lyrics on the sleeve. Guys, what we really need is a lyric sheet to Fables of the Reconstruction…)

It’s that excellent songwriting, though, that causes my biggest reservations about the production style. “Saturn Return,” for example, is a beautiful piano-vocal number, but it’s coated in bizarre sonic blips and swirls that almost obscure the heartbreaking clarity of the melody. The same can be said of “I’ll Take the Rain” and “I’ve Been High.” The latter is forced to support synths, strings, electronic drums and all kinds of little noises.

The production here makes Reveal one of those pure pop albums that’s instantly suspect. The consistent sunniness of the lyrics only adds to the impression that the band isn’t quite sincere. R.E.M. has never been a happy pop band (“Shiny Happy People” notwithstanding), and the frozen smile that faces outward at all times on Reveal feels like a lie. The preponderance of additional instruments makes sense if you’re trying to hide an inner sadness behind a sunny wall of sound. In many ways, that Brian Wilson analogy seems right on.

Suspicious intentions aside, though, Reveal is a great pop record, one that makes the last three transitional works worth it. This band has felt like a group of profoundly unhappy people for a long time now, with Monster and New Adventures in Hi-Fi opening wounds and Up salving them with melancholy. Reveal is a see-thru mask, a terrific exploration of one of pop music’s most confounding cliches – the tragic clown. There’s a lot of facepaint to wash off here, but Reveal hides itself so well that you can enjoy the show without digging deeper. If the members of R.E.M. were attempting to honor the spirit of Brian Wilson, they did it masterfully.

Next time, Tool. Uh-huh.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

The Black Crowes are the best rock ‘n’ roll band in the world.

As you’ve probably guessed, this is going to be one of those columns where I make a bold, blanket statement and then spend the rest of several thousand words defending it. The cool thing about doing it this way is that those that violently disagree with me have already stopped reading and are readying their vitriolic return e-mails. Bring ‘em on, I say. Spirited debate is the lifeblood of passionate, intelligent people, and I’m sure you all consider yourselves both of the above. One more time for the world:

The Black Crowes are the best rock ‘n’ roll band in the world.

How you feel about this statement probably depends largely on your definition of rock ‘n’ roll. A lot of bands purport to play rock ‘n’ roll simply because they have the guitars-bass-drums lineup. Of all the bands to appear in the last 10 years or so, only one has come forth to challenge the Crowes, and that’s Buckcherry. They’re a band whose roots go back farther than Nirvana, and whose whole attitude screams that almost indefinable spirit of rock.

Some fool with a magazine column said of Radiohead’s Kid A that the British quintet had “redefined the rock band.” Radiohead is not now, and has never been, a rock band. Rock as a style requires a near-bypassing of the cerebrum entirely. Real rock ‘n’ roll sounds as if it’s being made up on the spot, and fired with an energy that can’t be planned, thought out or faked in any way. Whether or not you like Buckcherry, you can’t deny their energy and sloppy passion.

But we’re not here to talk about Buckcherry. We’re here to talk about the Black Crowes, the best rock ‘n’ roll band in the world.

Admittedly, the Crowes have attained their title largely by default. I have a long-running argument with my old publisher, Bennie Green, who would scoff, “As long as the Rolling Stones are still playing, they’ll be the greatest rock band in the world.” I think that statement can only be made by ignoring the last quarter-century of sheer, monumental crap the Stones have consistently produced. At one time, yeah, they had it, but at this point the Stones have sucked for 25 years and no one’s had the heart to tell them.

Aerosmith is another contender, or they were before Diane Warren and a host of awful studio producers got their hands on them. They’ve alternated between glimmers of greatness and torrents of awfulness since re-forming in 1985, and they seem genuinely pleased to warble crap like “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” and share a stage with Britney and Nelly at the Super Bowl. The tragedy of Aerosmith is that when they’re on, they’re terrific.

Besides those two, though, who’s the competition? On sheer attitude and consistency, the Crowes have had the field to themselves ever since their 1990 debut. When you put on a Black Crowes album, you feel it. They’re a band that hearkens back to the grand resurgence of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1970s, drawing on influences like Creedence Clearwater Revival and Grand Funk Railroad and, yes, the Rolling Stones. To call them clones is to miss the point. They’re torch-bearers, and without them, the ‘90s would have been intolerably rock-free.

As something of an acknowledgement of their royal position, the Crowes have titled their sixth album Lions, after the king of the jungle. Like all of their works, this record could have been released in 1972 and no one would have bat an eye.

Lions most resembles the Crowes’ second album, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion. In fact, they seem to be going in a bit of a cycle. Their debut was a slick rock record, and they followed it up with Companion, a glorious mess. After the challenging double album that became Amorica and Three Snakes and One Charm, the boys returned to the sound of the debut with the powerhouse By Your Side in 1998. Lions, like Companion, follows up a slick rock record with a wondrous, sloppy mess that sounds spontaneously created.

Indeed, it even kicks off with a false start, a feedback-drenched mistake that only cements the impression that Lions is a live recording. A little checking found that the basic tracks (guitars, bass, drums, keys and lead vocals) were laid down live, a rarity these days. Even Phish is assembling their studio albums rather than performing them. What you get with Lions is a great rock band being just that.

Even notorious over-producer Don Was couldn’t sink the vibe the live recording created. He occasionally piles the strings on, which almost ruins “Losing My Mind,” one of the weaker tracks to begin with. His production touches are appreciated in the closer, “Lay It All On Me,” though. Remember on those great Zeppelin records when Jimmy Page would let loose a wailing electric guitar solo in the midst of a flurry of orchestration, and the effect was monolithic? A similar effect is achieved here, and even though we’ve heard this sort of thing before, it still soars.

Don Was also learned well the lesson Paul McCartney taught on the second side of Abbey Road: a bunch of unrelated songs can be made to sound like a suite simply by segueing them. Every track on Lions flows directly into the next (except, of course, for the last one), and even though the songs mean nothing to each other, they seem inseparable. In this age of the three-minute single, it’s a defiant statement that Lions is meant to be heard as a whole.

Driving the whole train, however, is the awesome rock ‘n’ roll presence of the Crowes themselves. Guitarist Rich Robinson has perfected his deceptively messy style, and his tone here is harsh and distorted. A Hendrix parallel wouldn’t be too far off. His singing brother Chris is, God bless him, absolutely live here, just like he was on Companion. Remember “Sometime Salvation,” in which he sounded on the verge of snapping his vocal cords at any second? Remember how invigorating it was to hear a singer thrust that much of himself through the microphone and onto the disc? Robinson hits wrong notes, flubs rhythms and strains his little heart out to reach the high notes, and all the while he presents himself with unrestrained conviction. He is a born rock ‘n’ roll singer.

In an age of computer-adjusted pre-fab pop stars and safe-for-radio “modern rock,” whatever the hell that means, it’s a rare, refreshing treat to hear a great band just get down and play. That’s an opportunity that Lions affords you, and in all its unkempt imperfection, it’s a joy. If you can get through the whole thing without playing air guitar once, you may want to invest in that Steely Dan box set, ‘cause rock ‘n’ roll has passed you by.

End of review proper. Here’s a few scattered notes that couldn’t be squeezed in:

In keeping with what seems to be a ridiculous tradition these days, the album’s weakest track, “Lickin’,” is also the first single. I’m not sure why they did this, especially when the very next song, “Come On,” would have been a far superior choice.

The Crowes have long been supporters of the Internet as a music distribution outlet. Their live album with Jimmy Page first appeared as a download months before it hit stores. For a limited time, when you purchase Lions, you get a password that links you to a site chock full of Crowes live performances. You can stream whole shows, download highlights and even download one entire show, and the band endorses your next impulse, which would be to burn it onto a CD. For the price of one disc, you get a free live album out of the deal. That’s pretty cool, and it also shows this band’s devotion to the ‘net as the future of artist-fan relations.

That’s all for now. Next week is huge, with Tool, R.E.M., Weezer and the Cowboy Junkies. I’m not sure which I’ll choose, but if you have a preference, e-mail me and let me know. Thanks for reading.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I got an e-mail from Shane Kinney, drummer for the Portland band Broken Clown. Kinney’s one of the funniest people you’d ever hope to meet, as well as one of the nicest, and his band is one of the only Portland-area groups to remember what real rock ‘n’ roll is supposed to sound like. They’re loud, abrasive, distinctive, hilarious and terrific. If you don’t believe me, go to brokenclown.com and check them out.

I’m going to ask a favor on Shane’s behalf. Go to wcyy.com, website for Portland’s only “modern rock” station, and request Broken Clown’s tune “Feelgood Hit of the Summer.” The band’s trying to get the tune into rotation on the notoriously local-phobic station, and your votes could seriously help them out. The Portland music scene provided me with my first professional writing gig, and I’d take it as a personal favor if you’d help me give a bit back. Thanks.

Oh, and while I’m shamelessly plugging the boy, surf on over to shanekinney.com to read his columns and other funny bits. His second (and rapidly becoming first) career is as a stand-up comedian, and he’s a natural.