Well, this was supposed to be the first Tuesday Morning column in about six weeks that was actually delivered and posted on a date that resembles the one atop the column, but no such luck. This week I battled valiantly against a hacking, wheezing, snotty sort of illness that set up shop in my throat and proceeded to sell huge amounts of gooey green liquid to all takers within my skull. I went to work all mopey and leaky, hoping to spread my viral infection to the most deserving asswipe of an assistant editor ever visited upon the journalism industry, but otherwise stayed unconscious. We’ll see next week if it was all worth it, if Huggybear the Grim (as we’ve come to call him) collapses, his lungs aflame and his head dissolving to liquid. Such thoughts keep a smile on my face.

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I need to mention the Oscars for a second, simply because it will annoy Josh Rogers, and I haven’t heard from him in a while, and this should incite him to write me a hateful e-mail about stupid awards shows, which I will enjoy reading. So, the Oscars.

I’m overall happy with the selections this year, even though A Beautiful Mind is going to mercilessly sweep through the top awards – Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay are all but in the bag. It’s a shame, really, because two much more deserving films are nominated (In the Bedroom and Moulin Rouge), but that seems to be the case every year, and why should this one provide that glimmer of faint hope that would sustain millions of moviegoers’ faith in the Academy? Screw that, give it to Russell Crowe again.

But beyond that, I need to mention the most egregious snub of the lot (besides the single solitary major nomination for Memento, which deserved much more than Best Screenplay – I mean, jeez, not recognizing Guy Pearce, at least, is just silly). How can the voters nominate Moulin Rouge for Best Picture without recognizing Baz Luhrmann for Best Director? If any film this year stands as the very image of its director’s singular vision, it’s this one. No one else alive could have made this film, and granting nominations to Robert Altman for directing Masterpiece Theater…er, I mean, Gosford Park, and to David Lynch for coming up with yet another masturbatory chunk of obscure whimsy is simply insane. Luhrmann is one of a handful of modern directors willing to commit completely to a style, a scope and a worldview that is utterly his own. He already won the prize in my head, so to not see his name on the list was a surprise.

Enough of that. And don’t even get me started on the damn Grammys…

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How Portsmouth, New Hampshire’s Say Zuzu haven’t ridden the alt-country wave to a major label contract is beyond me. There are a number of fabulous bands in northern New England, but Say Zuzu comes in at pretty near the top of the heap. They’ve been around for a decade, perfecting and plying their brand of vaguely twangy rock ‘n’ roll to a depressingly small audience. In 1998 they released their masterpiece of a fourth album, the one they’d been building towards since their inception, and they called it Bull. It’s the kind of record that you put on to listen to alone, and instantly wish you had 500 friends who could come over and listen to it with you. In my Face Magazine column of that year, I called it “the best alt-country album released since the breakup of Uncle Tupelo,” and each time I listen to it, I decide that I wasn’t exaggerating.

Say Zuzu is fronted by a couple of top-notch singers and songwriters in Cliff Murphy and Jon Nolan, kind of the Lennon and McCartney of the band. Even though he signed my copy of Say Zuzu’s new album “Yours in rock,” I’ve always kind of preferred Nolan’s work, but over the years both have grown considerably. It’s sad, then, that very little of that growth is in evidence on Every Mile, their just-released fifth album. The songs and tones stay within pretty strict confines, and none of the wild experimentalism of Bull shows up for the party. It’s almost like listening to a different band.

And, in fact, that’s what’s happened. Murphy and Nolan remain the only original members, having welcomed bassist Jon Pistey and drummer Tim Nylander to the band. If Bull was the sound of one unit spreading its wings, Every Mile is the sound of four guys feeling each other out musically. The songs are straightforward, and the record hardly ever deviates from the guitars-bass-drums format.

Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it’s often fascinating to hear this new Say Zuzu coming to terms with itself, and Every Mile is a satisfyingly raw, messy album that documents the process nicely. It also contains some great tunes, the best of which surprisingly sprung from Murphy. “Good Girl” is a sad, slow wonder, and “Don’t Leave” makes its pleading case well. Nolan’s “Postcard” is quite good, and the closing acoustic number, “Still,” is also well done, if not haunting.

Still and all, though, one can’t help comparing this album to the Say Zuzu of old, and it comes up a bit short. The banjo part on the tentative “Sugarbowl” only brings to mind the superior (nay, stunning) “Maylee” on Bull, and rockers like “Doldrums,” fine as they are, recall older, less confident albums. Nolan and Murphy still sing like mud-splattered angels, and their guitar tone, though a bit thicker than on past releases, remains a fine mix of thud and twang. All the ingredients are there, we just need to let this mixture bake a bit longer.

Don’t get me wrong – Say Zuzu are still one of the best bands from the northeast, and Every Mile is worth your purchase. (You can get all their records at www.sayzuzu.com.) For fans who followed them from their early days into one of the best bands in their field, though, it’s kind of depressing that we may have to repeat that process. It’s the paradox of the modern music fan – we want this incarnation of the band to be just as good as the last one, if not better, and we want it right now. Given time, this new Say Zuzu will likely ascend to the heights of their predecessor. That they’re not there yet is cause for anticipation, not alarm.

Next week, too many options. Who can tell?

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Previously on Tuesday Morning 3 A.M.:

My computer remains broken, shattered, in several pieces and awaiting the assistance of a pot-addled man named Dave. However, despite all the trauma that these weekend columns have visited upon my life (yeah, trauma – wanna make something of it?), I still managed to give good reviews to Dream Theater and the Chemical Brothers. Check the archive, I’m not lying.

Also, my twin brother slept with my twin half-sister before chopping her into several pieces, feeding those pieces to her dog, and then tossing her dog down a deep well. Despite all this, my disgustingly rich uncle (who may also be my father, and who owns half the quaint seaside town we all live in) has hatched plans to kill her again should she somehow return, with a new face and a new name and a long-lost daughter we never knew existed. Meanwhile, I’m becoming increasingly suspicious that my half-brother has been spying on the sly dalliance I’ve been having with his mother, and may be plotting to use his occult knowledge to summon some form of vengeance from beyond. I should watch out for that.

So, just another day.

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On today’s episode of Tuesday Morning 3 A.M.:

I’ve always said that, if forced at gunpoint to have sex with a man of my choosing, I’d have sex with Chris Isaak. I mean, look at the guy. Who wouldn’t have sex with Chris Isaak?

Apparently, almost everyone, if you’re to believe the lyrics of his songs. Isaak has long been the master of the ’50s-inspired sad-sack heartthrob pose, the teen idol with the great hair that’s constantly getting his heart stomped on by one woman after another. I was half-hoping that, given the success of his Showtime series The Chris Isaak Show, he’d title his new album As Seen on TV, but upon further reflection, that sort of postmodern self-referentialism doesn’t suit Isaak at all. He’s a genuine throwback, a glimmer of an earlier time when a guitar and a heartbreak made a pop star irresistible.

The title he chose for his first album in four years is Always Got Tonight, and that fits right in with the rest of his collection. Isaak has never changed, thank God. He’s always been content to sing the same sad songs the same way, running over the same broken-heart cliches and making them sound like genuine pain. He’s an old-time crooner who just happens to have one of the finest sad-song voices ever granted to a model-handsome hunk. It’s no secret why his records don’t sell – he’s playing to Elvis Presley’s audience, and they’re all busy looking for their King in outlet malls and convenience stores.

Those that get Isaak, though, are in for more of the same with Always Got Tonight, and they should be quite pleased with it. The song titles say it all: “Let Me Down Easy,” “Worked it Out Wrong,” “Life Will Go On,” “Nothing to Say,” and on an on. You’d think he’d get tired of singing about love gone wrong, and more to the point, you’d think that after eight albums, his fans might get tired of it as well. Not gonna happen, for a whole bunch of reasons.

First, there’s that voice. Isaak bends his vocals around his ringing, melancholy guitars and your heart breaks right along with his. He sends it soaring into a flawless falsetto on “Worked It Out Wrong” (for one) and you can’t help the chills that run up and down your spine. He’s a wonderful vocalist, no matter what he’s singing (as his collection of acoustic beach songs, Baja Sessions, proved), but he’s stunningly effective when delivering what otherwise might be a hackneyed weeper.

Second, though the songs remain the same, the trappings often change from album to album, and this one’s no exception. Isaak started out playing minimalist, reverbed guitar-pop, moved to acoustic country-rock and has ended up in platinum-produced rockabilly land, without altering the basic appeal of his simple, direct songs. Always Got Tonight shines in the production department, with bendy electric guitars adding touches of melancholy to “Courthouse,” a string section on “Worked It Out Wrong” and a basic sheen that straddles the too-slick, too-raw line quite well.

Ah, but the music and the production are all just trappings for that voice, and that’s what people respond to. Isaak has always been able to wrap a pop music fan around his little finger with just a few well-placed notes, and the new album is further proof of that. No matter what efforts he makes to convince us that he’s just a regular “American Boy” (the title song to his show, included here), as long as he keeps using that voice, he’ll be anything but typical. Always Got Tonight is another collection of sad, sad songs from Isaak, and if you’ve fallen under his inexplicable spell before, you likely will again.

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Coming up on Tuesday Morning 3 A.M.:

February’s half over? How the hell did that happen?

Anyway, there are some interesting musical distractions coming your way in the next few months, and while none of them smack of Top 10 List quality, they should be worth a listen. Here’s what I’m looking forward to:

On February 26, Neil Finn makes his latest stateside gambit with the first of his one-two Nettwerk Records punch, the 17-track live album Seven Worlds Collide. Also, Alanis Morissette angsts her way back onto record store shelves with Under Rug Swept, featuring the worst single in her short history, “Hands Clean.” I mean, yikes. This is a bad song. Let’s hope the record transcends it, but from early reviews I’ve been reading, it sadly falls short.

March 12 is a big, big music week. First, there’s the new Eels, called Souljacker. These guys have made some of the coolest quirk-pop of the last few years, and the new album contains a song called “World of Shit,” so it can’t be all bad. Also, the Indigo Girls return with Become You, their eighth album. Bob Mould (formerly of Husker Du and Sugar) launches the first album in a trilogy with Modulate. Me’Shell NdegeoCello returns to her funky roots on Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape. The Corrs, who remain highly underrated, give us their first live album, and Jars of Clay release their first self-produced effort, The Eleventh Hour.

Coming in April are two new albums from Tom Waits, called Alice and The Red Drum. Apparently these mark a surprising shift in direction for America’s favorite crazed, growling, freaky genius. Phish puts out the next six volumes of their LivePhish series, and before they do, I promise to post my reviews of the first six. Elvis Costello gives us another cynical rocker (and about damn time) with When I Was Cruel, Wilco finally releases the “too musically adventurous” Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and Weezer gives us another half an hour of joy with Maladroit.

Obviously, no Say ZuZu this week – maybe next week? Tune in to find out.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

A quick computer update first.

So I finally get in touch with Dave, our friendly neighborhood computer technician, who always sounds like he’s just downed a big fat bag of weed. Dave isn’t much on interpersonal communication, but he knows his shit, or so I’ve been assured. Thus, with all the positive thinking I can muster, I hand Dave the broken old hard drive like a ritual sacrifice and say, “Do your thing.”

Hours later, Dave is still kneeled over the scattered carcass of my computer, muttering to himself. Occasionally I can make out phrases, none of them comforting: “I was afraid of that,” or, “This isn’t too good.” I start pacing like an expectant father, until finally, Dave looks up and, with a sad voice, proclaims the computer “broken.” Dave then proceeds to call technical support, which doesn’t fill me with all the confidence in the world.

Long story short, we’re going to try replacing the mother board and see if that works. Then we’re going to attack the old computer with a sledge hammer and just buy another one. Either way, it looks like Sunday columns for a while yet. Stifle your cries of dismay, faithful readers. Neither Dave nor I want to hear them.

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Some upcoming items of interest:

New Hampshire’s best band, the superb Say ZuZu, has a new album out called Every Mile. With any luck, it will be the subject of next week’s review. If you’ve never heard this band, your first stop on www.sayzuzu.com should be to purchase their terrific fourth album, Bull. To my ears, it’s the best alternative country album since Uncle Tupelo broke up. If Every Mile is as good, I’ll be thrilled, and you’ll read it here first.

Speaking of alt-country, and of Uncle Tupelo, Jeff Tweedy’s band Wilco has finally secured a U.S. release date for their fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. As you may have heard, the album was rejected by Reprise Records for being “too musically adventurous,” whatever the hell that means. Advance reports are calling it alternately a masterpiece and a pile of cow puckey, with some pundits proclaiming that it will kill their career. For music fans that enjoy risky works, this news is thrilling beyond measure. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot will be out on Nonesuch Records on April 23.

Finally, Mark Eitzel, the saddest man in music, returns on April 9 with an album called Courage and Confidence. Before you start to think that he’s taken those patented Robert Smith happy pills, you should know that it’s a covers album. It’s so Mark Eitzel to only be able to find courage and confidence in other people’s songs. More on this soon.

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The Chemical Brothers are an odd case. They hit huge in 1996 with Dig Your Own Hole, and then rapidly proceeded to take their album title’s advice, producing work that veered sharply away from the club-happy beats of their first couple of albums. They’re known primarily as an electronica act, and if I can pause for one second, I’d express how much I vehemently despise that appellation. We’re so concerned with putting music in compact little boxes that we lump everyone who uses programmed synthesizers into one category. The sub-categories (jungle, house, trance, etc.) are not any better, either.

That’s why the Chemical Brothers are to be treasured. They have complete disdain for those little boxes, breaking them down as often as possible. Dig Your Own Hole was praised for its single-minded sonic warping, but also for its willingness to add live vocals, guitars and violins to an otherwise computerized mix. To my mind, the Chems are no more an electronica group than the Beastie Boys are a rap outfit. It’s all about tearing down myopic boundaries.

The sad fact is that the further the Brothers move away from the repetitive thudding of their roots, the fewer albums they sell. Case in point: In 1999, the Brothers released Surrender, the culmination of a bunch of melodic paths they’d been taking for years. It was the first ’60s-influenced psychedelic dance album, simply drowned in backwards soundscapes and heavenly guitar. It was a pulsating wonderland, and it sold for shit. The legions of fans who came aboard with “Block Rockin’ Beats” dove overboard and swam for shore as if there were sharks on their tails.

Undaunted, the Brothers (Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons, totally unrelated) have pressed on and released the second ’60s-influenced psychedelic dance album with Come With Us. God bless ’em, because this disc is more of the same ecstatic boundary-pushing that they’ve been doing all along, and it probably won’t make a blip on the sales charts.

That’s not important, though. What is important is that once you get through the opening trilogy (a somewhat loose assemblage of beats and samples that recalls their early work), the remainder of Come With Us is a mind-altering psychosphere of joy. Blissful synths sit alongside trumpets, guitars and enough backwards tape looping to drive John Lennon’s ghost mad, and it all works. Call it flower power trance dance absurdica, or whatever you like. No one in this field is making records quite like this.

Come With Us offers the Chems’ fourth collaboration with the amazing Beth Orton, on “The State We’re In,” a melancholy and atmospheric piece. They also close the record with “The Test,” a rambling, overjoyed set piece for The Verve’s Richard Ashcroft that has some fans up in arms. Those same fans, however, decried similar collaborations with Noel Gallagher (“Setting Sun”) and Johnny Marr (“Out of Control”), and have been resistant to any hint of change.

Well, the hell with them. The Chemical Brothers know that music has to change. They’re in the vanguard of artists that, for the majority of the ’90s, have been smashing the boundaries that marketing and demographic research has placed on music. Yeah, Come With Us can be seen as just another Chemical Brothers album, only building slightly on the last one, but in truth, they’re just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up to their expansive vision. They want you along for the ride, not watching from the side of the road. Why else would they have called the album Come With Us?

Next week, hopefully Say ZuZu.

See you in line Tuesday morning.